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      Houston Rockets Introduce Coach Ime Udoka

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      The Celtics fired Udoka in February after he violated team policies. Udoka said at a news conference for his hiring as Houston’s coach that he had worked on himself and become a better person.The Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta asked fans to be forgiving on Wednesday as he introduced the team’s new head coach, Ime Udoka, who had been suspended and then fired by the Boston Celtics within the past year for violating unspecified team policies.Fertitta said any critic unwilling to give Udoka a second chance was “not a good Christian person.”The Celtics suspended Udoka for the 2022-23 N.B.A. season in September, then fired him in February, after he had a relationship with a female subordinate, according to a person with knowledge of the situation who was not authorized to discuss it publicly.At the introductory news conference in Houston, Udoka made his first public comments since leaving the Celtics, who have declined to specify which policies he violated. Udoka was flanked by Fertitta and Rockets General Manager Rafael Stone, who also declined to provide details on what they know, including whether they had seen the report from the Celtics’ investigation.“What I would say is that we got comfortable that it was an appropriate hire and that we were comfortable in the process,” Stone said. “But just the same way, I wouldn’t talk about exactly what we did with anybody else, I’m not going to talk about it with Ime. It’s just, in my view, it’s not appropriate.”Udoka said that he had been “working on myself in a lot of different ways,” including by undergoing counseling and sensitivity training, and that he would be a better person, leader, father and coach as a result.“I released a statement months ago when everything happened and, you know, apologized to a lot of people for the tough position I put them in,” Udoka said. “And I stand by that and I feel much more remorse even now towards that.”He added, “But the situation — the matter — has been resolved and I can’t really speak much about it.”Fertitta said that he was particularly comfortable with hiring Udoka after conversations with the N.B.A. “We’re a forgiving society and everybody makes mistakes and you know, some things, maybe we shouldn’t forgive people for,” he said. “But I think what happened and his personal situation is definitely something to be forgiven for.”In a meeting with sports editors on Tuesday, N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver said that he was OK with teams hiring Udoka, though he said he did not know if Houston officials had seen the investigation report.Asked if the Celtics made the right decision to discipline him, Udoka said, “My part in it was to take ownership and accountability.”“I served a suspension and I had to own it, honestly,” Udoka said. “So, same thing I’ll preach to the guys. I can’t sit here and not take accountability to myself. So it was their right to go about it however they wanted to. And that’s the choice they took.”Udoka played seven seasons in the N.B.A., mostly as a reserve, before becoming a respected assistant coach for nearly a decade. The Celtics hired him to be their head coach before the 2021-22 season. His first — and only — season with Boston was a success: He helped lead the Celtics to the N.B.A. finals, where they lost to Golden State. Now, he’ll be taking over a Rockets team that has been one of the league’s worst over the last three years. But Houston has significant salary cap space at its disposal, talented young players and high-value draft picks. More

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      Kevin Durant and Westbrook Are Finding Their Way Without Each Other

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      Durant’s Suns bested Westbrook’s Clippers in the first round of the playoffs, but the former teammates held their own.PHOENIX — Russell Westbrook sprinted to steal the ball from Kevin Durant, sending Durant flying to the floor on his backside.Durant winced in pain for a few moments before heading to the free-throw line at Phoenix’s Footprint Center as thousands of Suns fans in orange T-shirts held their breath. Westbrook quickly walked away from the scene, seemingly unconcerned, and waited for Durant to begin shooting.The sequence played out like two ardent foes battling in an elimination game — which, technically, it was. Westbrook’s Clippers were on their last chance to stay alive in the first-round playoff series. But it was also a matchup between two men who had spent nearly a decade together as teammates, making the N.B.A. finals in 2012 with Oklahoma City as fledgling 23-year-olds tasked with carrying a new franchise in a small city.“You know Russ is a fierce competitor, so when he sees K, it’s always about trying to play super hard,” said Suns guard Cameron Payne, who played with Westbrook and Durant on the Thunder.Payne added: “Maybe in the regular season, he’ll go help him up, but you never know with Russ. Like playing with him in OKC, he was big on how it’s 15 guys on a team, and I’m with my 15 guys, so that’s just that competing stuff I was talking about.”It was another puzzling moment in a jagged relationship.Durant and Westbrook made a thrilling run to the N.B.A. finals in 2012 but lost to LeBron James and the Miami Heat.Paul Buck/European Pressphoto AgencyDurant’s Suns won the decisive Game 5 on Tuesday, 136-130, holding off a late comeback attempt from the Clippers and advancing to the second round. Phoenix will play the top-seeded Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference semifinals beginning Saturday. Suns guard Devin Booker led all scorers with 47 points; Durant added 31, and Westbrook had 14.Eleven years ago, Durant and Westbrook led Oklahoma City past playoff teams fronted by the future Hall of Famers Dirk Nowitzki, Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan and headed into an N.B.A. finals matchup with LeBron James and the Miami Heat. The Heat beat the Thunder easily in five games, with Miami’s experience and star power proving too much for the upstart Thunder.As swift as the loss was, it seemed to indicate that Durant and Westbrook would be back and would win championships together; they appeared too talented not to.But they didn’t. Durant and Westbrook picked up individual accolades: Each has won a Most Valuable Player Award and many All-N.B.A. honors, but they never got to another finals together. Durant left for the Warriors in 2016 after the Thunder blew a three-games-to-one lead in the Western Conference finals against Golden State.In their second matchup against each other after Durant’s departure, Westbrook yelled at his teammates and instructed them not to talk to Durant. They avoided questions about each other. Even former teammates like James Harden, who played with them in Oklahoma City, said they were “grown men” who had to “figure it out themselves.”Since then, each has been on several teams. Durant won two championships with the Warriors and then headed to the Nets and now Phoenix. Westbrook has played on several teams that were supposed to have been title contenders — Rockets, Lakers, Clippers — but none has panned out. As Durant thrived, Westbrook began to be viewed as past his prime, no longer the player who could will teams to wins and average triple-doubles, and he has become the butt of jokes from fans when he struggles.But in this playoff series against the Suns, Westbrook proved he could still be a difference maker. Westbrook signed with the Clippers in February as a free agent after the Lakers had traded him to Utah, where he was released to, at best, be the third option for the Clippers behind the stars Paul George and Kawhi Leonard. But injuries to George and Leonard made Westbrook the first scoring option against the Suns, and he often served as the team’s best rebounder and defender.He finished the series averaging 23.6 points, 7.6 rebounds and 7.4 assists per game, looking like a version of his old self, and he had the game-sealing block on Booker in the Clippers’ Game 1 win.Westbrook proved he could still be a valuable contributor in the N.B.A. He had 37 points in Game 4.Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press“When he’s retired, people are going to really tell the truth about how they feel about his game,” Durant said after Game 4, when Westbrook had 37 points. “Right now, the fun thing to do is to make a joke out of Russ. But the way he’s been playing since he got with the Clippers is showing everybody who he really is.”After Game 5, Westbrook reflected on Durant’s comments, with an introspective answer that sounded as if it could also serve as a pitch to teams to sign him this summer.“I just think that I am a player that makes mistakes like anybody else,” Westbrook said. “I miss shots like anybody else. I turn the ball over like anybody else. But I also do a lot of things that a lot of people can’t do, and I’ve done a lot of things people haven’t done in this league.”For Durant, this series, and these playoffs, have a different meaning in some basketball fans’ eyes: proving that he can win a title without Golden State’s Stephen Curry and as a team’s best player. Durant, however, has said that he doesn’t feel that pressure because he has “nothing to prove.”The Boston Celtics embarrassed Durant and the Nets last season in the first round of the playoffs, sweeping them without much trouble. Boston’s star forward Jayson Tatum outplayed Durant, scoring a lot while also defending Durant.And then, in the N.B.A. finals, Curry and the Warriors beat that Boston team that had easily conquered Durant’s earlier in the postseason.In Tuesday’s win, Durant disappeared for much of the fourth quarter, going scoreless for nearly 10 minutes as Booker dominated the ball and the Clippers inched closer. As the postseason continues, how the Suns win — with Durant leading the way or with Booker, or someone else — will add fodder to the discussion about Durant’s place as one of the best players ever.That was clear on Tuesday, as Suns Coach Monty Williams made sure to acknowledge in his postgame news conference. But Williams also said that he was at fault for Durant’s lack of touches at the end of the game.“I’ve got to figure out ways to get him in space so he can catch the ball freely and be able to go,” Williams said.As the game ended, Westbrook had many long embraces with Suns players and coaches on the court, but he never made it to Durant. Instead, Westbrook left the floor alone, with one hand raised to fans as he exited, while Durant did a television interview on the other end of the court. More

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      Adam Silver Defends N.B.A.’s Miles Bridges Suspension

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      Miles Bridges, the former Hornets forward, was credited 20 games toward a suspension for domestic violence. Silver said he felt the move seemed fair since Bridges had not played this season.N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver on Tuesday defended the unusual disciplinary approach for forward Miles Bridges, who was suspended for 30 games for domestic violence but will miss just 10 games in which he is eligible to play.Bridges, 25, was a restricted free agent but did not sign with a team or play during the 2022-23 season after his arrest in California in June, when he was accused of hitting his girlfriend in front of their children. He pleaded no contest to a felony domestic violence charge in November, but it wasn’t until April 14, after a league investigation, that the N.B.A. announced his punishment: a 30-game suspension, with credit for 20 games because he did not play this season. Typically, players are credited for games only when they are eligible and available to play.On Tuesday, Silver said the league and Bridges had a “mutual agreement” that he would not play during the 2022-23 season — though Silver was careful to say that Bridges was not suspended. Silver said crediting Bridges for 20 games toward the penalty seemed like the right thing to do because he missed a year of income and N.B.A. play. The league also confirmed that Bridges would lose 30 games of pay, even though his suspension would keep him out of just 10 games if he signed a new contract.But if Bridges’s absence this season was supposed to be a form of punishment, it did not appear that way: In December, he joked around with players in Los Angeles at a game between the Lakers and Charlotte Hornets, whom he played for last season. And in February, he told The Associated Press that he might return to play in March. He was sentenced to a year of counseling, and community service. Representatives for Bridges did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Bridges’s punishment has been criticized by some reporters and by fans on social media.The fairness and accountability in the N.B.A.’s disciplinary process has been called into question this season after a series of incidents in which players received different punishments for similar offenses, or were punished more severely than they or their peers felt was fair. League officials said they weigh several factors in meting out penalties, including a person’s past behavior, which may lead to different outcomes. More

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      LeBron James Has First 20-20 Game in Lakers’ Game 4 Win Over Grizzlies

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      A 22-point, 20-rebound game by James led the Lakers in Game 4 against the Grizzlies, a win that put Ja Morant and Memphis on the brink of elimination.LOS ANGELES — There are still milestones left for LeBron James to reach, as improbable as that seems.In a 20-year career in which James has powered three franchises to championships and become the league’s all-time scoring leader, James had never grabbed 20 rebounds in a game. Not in the regular season. Not in the postseason.Not until Monday. Until his Los Angeles Lakers needed his muscle, his experience and his intuition. Until it needed James to push a brash young opponent, the Memphis Grizzlies, to the brink of a first-round playoff elimination.“These are the moments that I love,” James said. “I love the postseason.”The 117-111 overtime victory James helped deliver on Monday night led the Lakers, a team that started the season 2-10 and seemed lost heading into the trade deadline, to a 3-1 lead over the Grizzlies, who spent all season as one of the best teams in the Western Conference.The Lakers are in this commanding position because James found a way to push through his exhaustion in the final minutes of Game 4 and add to his lore. He grabbed rebounds, he took charges, he made a driving layup through contact with 29.1 seconds left in overtime and screamed into the crowd as he pounded on his chest.“He understands the timing, the timing of everything,” Lakers Coach Darvin Ham said. “The known of what happened yesterday and the unknown of tomorrow, it makes him even more entrenched in today, into the moment.“All of his travels. All of the phenomenal things he’s accomplished — he still has that passion, that grit to want to be on top and to want to put his team in position, the right way, to be successful. That’s what you saw.”With 22 points and 20 rebounds, James became the first Laker to reach 20 points and 20 rebounds in a playoff game since Shaquille O’Neal in 2004. At 38, he became the oldest player in N.B.A. history to have 20 points and 20 rebounds in a game, beating a playoff mark set by Wilt Chamberlain in 1973.James’s presence is part of the reason it has been clear from the start of the series that the Lakers are no ordinary seventh seed. Their record didn’t reflect who they were once Anthony Davis and James were available, if not fully healthy. They also improved significantly after remaking their roster at the trade deadline.Conversely, the Grizzlies came into the postseason hobbled. Their starting center, Steven Adams, has been out with a knee injury, and Brandon Clarke, another player who lent size to their lineup, also has been injured.Memphis lost Game 1 at home. But, famous for their bluster, that early defeat did not humble them. One Grizzlies player, Dillon Brooks, went directly at James on the court and off it.During Game 2, Brooks said James called him “dumb” for acquiring his fourth foul.“I don’t care — he’s old, you know what I mean?” Brooks responded.“I was waiting for that. I was expecting him to do that Game 4, Game 5. He wanted to say something when I got my fourth foul. He should have been saying that earlier on. But I poke bears. I don’t respect no one until they come and give me 40.”Creating a rivalry with James can be an easy way for another player to siphon some of his spotlight. James knew that and wanted no part of it.After a practice last week, James was asked several questions about Brooks’s comments and sidestepped each one. He then ended his news conference early, before he was tempted to say anything that might escalate the feud. He said he preferred to speak through his play.In the minutes before Game 3, though, James approached Brooks. There was no audio, but cameras caught the interaction and the video circulated on social media.“There was nothing private about it,” James said after the game, giving away that he wasn’t actually ignoring all that Brooks had said. “It was very, very public. I like it that way.”The Lakers led by 35-9 after the first quarter of that game, driving their fans into a delirious frenzy and making Memphis’s bravado seem foolish. The Grizzlies never recovered from their poor start even though Ja Morant scored 45 points. Brooks was ejected in the third quarter for a flagrant foul assessed when he struck James in the groin, putting an early end to whatever battle might have been brewing between the two of them.Ja Morant, who scored 45 points in a loss in Game 3, was held to 19 on Monday.Gary A. Vasquez/Usa Today Sports Via Reuters ConStill, not everything came easily for the Lakers on Monday.They had a 15-point lead in the second quarter, but Memphis closed the first half with a 14-1 run and the Lakers led by just 2 at halftime. To end the third quarter, Morant wove through the paint to dunk the ball as time expired and gave Memphis a 2-point lead.Late in the game, however, the Lakers got important contributions from several players. Davis, after a quiet game through three quarters, made important defensive plays late. D’Angelo Russell made three 3-pointers within a one-minute span during the fourth quarter to pull the Lakers out of a 7-point deficit.But James’s contributions, as he fought through fatigue in the closing minutes, meant the most.“You just dig deep and understand that you’ll be able to sleep at some point, just not right now,” James said, looking drained after the game. “This is not the time to rest or forget about an assignment. You’ll have plenty of time after a game and the next day to kind of rest and decompress as much as possible.”Rest is hard to come by in the playoffs. Though the Lakers and the Grizzlies had a kinder schedule than some teams got, with two days off between each of the first three games, they are now playing every other day with increasingly high stakes. The Lakers’ first chance to finish off the series will come in Game 5 on Wednesday in Memphis.“The closeout game is always the hardest game of the series,” James said. “It’s the most tiring one.” More

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      ‘Yoga for Jocks’ Keeps Golden State’s Kevon Looney Grounded

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      SAN FRANCISCO — Early Sunday morning, Kevon Looney of the Golden State Warriors decamped to a quiet atrium on the fourth floor of Chase Center, where floor-to-ceiling windows offered an expansive view of San Francisco Bay. The sun was beginning to burn through a hazy sky as Looney propped his iPad against a small metal column, unrolled his black yoga mat and greeted one of the more important figures in his professional life.A voice emanated from the iPad. It belonged to Jana Webb, the creator of a self-styled brand of yoga known as Joga, which she originally conceived as yoga for athletes. Webb, 47, appeared on a video conference call from her home in Toronto wearing a backward baseball cap. She is in Looney’s phone as “Jana Joga.”“How’s the body feeling?” she asked.“Really good,” Looney said.Moses Moody, one of Looney’s teammates, was also on the call, dialing in from his apartment near the arena. It was 8:30 a.m., about four hours before Game 4 of Golden State’s first-round playoff series against the Sacramento Kings. Webb spent the next 40 minutes guiding both players through a series of movements designed to loosen their joints, activate their muscles and center their psyches.“Reach, reach, reach,” she said as Looney, who is 6-foot-9, stood on his toes and extended his arms, a small pool of sweat forming on the mat below. “Get that fascial tension like you’re reaching for the net. Awesome. Now, hold.”(Webb was referring to the fascia, which is connective tissue throughout the body — and not to the face, though Looney appeared to have some tension there, too.)Looney does a virtual session of Joga — described as “yoga for jocks” — before each of Golden State’s games.Clara Mokri for The New York TimesEarlier in his career, Looney could not seem to escape injury. But over the past two seasons, he has emerged as Golden State’s sturdiest player, appearing in every one of his team’s games. He practices Joga before every game, at home and on the road.After Sunday’s session, Looney delivered against the Kings, finishing with 8 points, 14 rebounds and 6 assists to help the Warriors win their second straight game at home and even the series at two games apiece. In Game 3 on Thursday, he finished with 4 points, 20 rebounds and 9 assists while helping compensate for Draymond Green’s absence because of a suspension.Game 5 is Wednesday in Sacramento.“He’s always locked into the game plan,” Golden State Coach Steve Kerr said of Looney. “He never makes mistakes. He rebounds like crazy. He makes the right decision. The game is much simpler when Loon is out there for our guys.”Looney, who has won three championships with the Warriors, said his work with Webb had helped him cope with the physical and mental rigors of the N.B.A. Those demands are only heightened in the postseason.“It’s pretty brutal,” Looney said. “Every possession is intense. After the game, you’re just drained.”Clara Mokri for The New York TimesClara Mokri for The New York TimesAt this late stage of the season, when players are tired and stressed, game-day routines take on added significance. Players are looking for whatever edge they can get, especially this year, when injuries to stars like Paul George, Kawhi Leonard and Giannis Antetokounmpo are a factor in so many series. Some players prioritize their naps. Others lace up their lucky sneakers. Looney does Joga.“I love to have 30 minutes to be in my body and see how I really feel,” he said.Looney got a head start in yoga as a high school senior in Milwaukee. Lou Chapman, who was one of his early basketball trainers, introduced him to Bikram Yoga — also known as hot yoga — when a new studio opened up. Looney recalled that he had barely survived his first class.“I did a lot of laying on the mat,” he said. “I felt like I was a top athlete, but they destroyed me.”The competitive side of Looney kept him coming back. Also, Chapman had gotten them discounted memberships, and he wanted to make sure that they took advantage of the deal.“I think we went 90 straight days,” Chapman, 42, said.During his lone season at U.C.L.A., Looney succumbed to a busy schedule and drifted away from yoga. After Golden State selected him as the 30th pick in the 2015 N.B.A. draft, he missed most of his rookie year with hip injuries — he had twin surgeries to repair right and left labrum tears — and later dealt with chronic nerve pain. He broke his collarbone during the 2019 N.B.A. finals and then had core muscle surgery in 2020. He returned for the 2020-21 season but felt disappointed by his play.Looney goes through his pregame ritual before Game 4 at the scorer’s table.Clara Mokri for The New York Times“I wasn’t moving as well as I had in the past,” he said. “I didn’t have that same burst or coordination.”Following the season, Looney approached Dr. Rick Celebrini, Golden State’s director of sports medicine and performance, with a specific request: Did he know any yoga teachers?In fact, Dr. Celebrini had someone in mind. He connected Looney with Webb, a fellow Canadian who had worked with other athletes for years. Their first virtual session was a doozy.“I can’t say I loved it,” Looney said, “mostly because I stunk at it.”Webb was unsparing in an initial assessment that she sent to Kyle Barbour, Golden State’s head performance coach, citing several areas where Looney’s mobility was limited. But she saw potential, and Looney experienced the sort of post-session soreness — in his glutes and his abdominal muscles, specifically — that signaled to him that he had room for improvement.“We don’t do a lot of long static holds,” Webb said. “It’s really about duplicating the biomechanics of movement in sport.”Looney worked with Webb several times a week that summer and then paused their sessions at the start of the 2021-22 season. At the time, Looney thought that Joga might just be a part of his off-season routine.Jana Webb directing a yoga session.Rick Madonik/Toronto Star, via Getty ImagesLooney started doing yoga in high school in Milwaukee.Clara Mokri for The New York Times“But after six or seven games, I felt like my body was going back to how it was before,” he said. “My back was hurting, and different things weren’t moving as well. So I reached back out: ‘Can we do this on game days?’”By the middle of last season, Looney had become such a believer that he organized a Joga session for anyone in basketball operations — players, coaches and staff members — who wanted to learn more. As usual, Webb led the class remotely. Even from thousands of miles away, she could sense varied levels of interest.“Draymond clipped his toenails during it,” she said, laughing. “I was like, is this actually happening?”Moody’s prevailing takeaway was confusion. As a teenager in Little Rock, Ark., he had dabbled in yoga by taking classes at his local LA Fitness. But Webb might as well have been speaking a foreign language.“She was talking so fast about all these muscles we were supposed to be activating,” Moody said. “And I’m next to Loon, so I’m just trying to keep up with him, and I don’t know what I’m doing.”But Moody was also intrigued. After spending the next couple of weeks peppering Looney with questions about Joga and human anatomy, Moody called Webb. “She gave me the rundown,” he said.Looney has played in all 82 regular-season games for Golden State in each of the past two seasons.Clara Mokri for The New York TimesLooney invited Moody to join him at his next pregame Joga session and then paid for all of his classes for the remainder of the season. They have been inseparable Joga buddies ever since. If the team has a shootaround scheduled for 11 a.m., Looney and Moody will typically meet with their mats on the team’s practice court at 8:30 a.m. for 40 minutes of stretching, lunging, twisting and breathing.“I can really tell the difference when I don’t do it,” Moody said. “You just feel more fluid in your movements. When that ball comes off the rim, you kind of feel like Spider-Man a little bit.”After more than 200 remote sessions with Looney, Webb finally met both players for the first time when the Warriors were in Toronto in December to play the Raptors. “That was so special,” Webb said.On Sunday, Webb started their session by having them do a series of breathing exercises.“Relax your jaw for four,” she said. “Soften the ribs for three. Start to squeeze the lower belly for two. And now completely pull the breath and empty it there. Notice what you’re thinking about.”Before long, Webb had them working through dynamic movements, one after another. She reminded Moody to keep his fingers spread when he was in a plank position. She urged Looney to lift his “pelvic floor.” She referred to their hip joints and femur bones, their side intercostals and adductors.At the end of it, Looney lay flat on his back, closed his eyes and exhaled.Clara Mokri for The New York Times More

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      Houston Rockets to Hire Ime Udoka After Suspension by Boston Celtics

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      Udoka took the Celtics to the N.B.A. finals last season, but he was abruptly suspended in September for violating team policies.The Houston Rockets plan to hire Ime Udoka, the former Boston Celtics coach who was suspended for workplace misconduct, according to a person who was familiar with the discussions but not authorized to discuss them publicly.The news was first reported by ESPN.The Celtics abruptly suspended Udoka for the 2022-23 N.B.A. season in late September after an investigation into his conduct by an independent law firm. According to two people with knowledge of the situation, Udoka had a relationship with a female subordinate. The Celtics have declined to release details about Udoka’s conduct, other than to say that he had violated “multiple” team policies. In February, the Celtics fired Udoka, one of the people said.Udoka had taken the Celtics to the N.B.A. finals last season in his first year as a head coach, after spending nine years as an assistant.Since his suspension, Udoka has been linked with several teams for potential head coach openings. In particular, reports that Udoka was a front-runner for the Nets job surfaced within hours of Steve Nash’s dismissal in November. Udoka had been a Nets assistant in the 2020-21 season. Instead, the Nets hired Jacque Vaughn, one of Nash’s assistants, as their coach.Udoka would succeed Stephen Silas, who went 59-177 in Houston.Darren Abate/Associated PressWith the Celtics, Udoka developed a reputation for being willing to hold players accountable. His approach gained him the respect of the team, and some of the top players continued to publicly support him after his suspension. Forward Jayson Tatum told reporters in February that Udoka was “probably like my most favorite coach I’ve had and that’s not a knock on anybody.” Guard Jaylen Brown told The Ringer in an interview published in March that he was “a little bit shocked” by Udoka’s suspension.“So, whether you stood on this side or this side, they was going to find wrong from a coach that I advocated to bring here to Boston,” Brown said. “I wanted to see him back on his feet here, no matter what it was. I don’t think that’s the wrong thing to feel.”The Celtics replaced Udoka with one of his assistants, Joe Mazzulla, and finished the regular season with the second-best record in the league. The team leads the Atlanta Hawks, 3-1, in their first-round playoff series.The Rockets were one of the worst teams in the N.B.A. this season at 22-60. They ranked near the bottom of the league in both offense and defense. In three seasons as Houston’s head coach, Stephen Silas went 59-177. On April 10, the Rockets declined his option for next season.The Rockets have several talented young players, including Kevin Porter Jr. and Jalen Green. In addition, the Rockets are projected to have enough salary cap space to sign at least one star to a maximum contract this summer, and they have a bevy of future draft picks. Houston, Detroit and San Antonio each have a 14 percent chance to land the No. 1 pick in June’s N.B.A. draft. Victor Wembanyama, the highly rated French prospect, is widely expected to be picked first overall. More

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      The Lakers, Clippers and Kings, and an L.A. Court in Constant Motion

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      LOS ANGELES — Jorge Mendez waited impatiently as the Los Angeles Kings’ fate hung in the balance late Friday night.Their N.H.L. first-round playoff game against the Edmonton Oilers had already gone into overtime, robbing Mendez’s crew of several precious minutes they would need to get Crypto.com Arena ready for the Clippers’ N.B.A. playoff game on Saturday afternoon. And now there was another delay. Officials were trying to determine whether a would-be game-winning goal by Kings forward Trevor Moore should count.Mendez, the venue’s assistant conversion manager, had a crew of about 20 people waiting to transform the chilly arena. They would be working all night and had to finish by 7 a.m. Saturday. They had never missed a deadline, and weren’t about to start now.“With the referees we don’t know,” Mendez said. “They could say they deny that one and it goes longer. And the more longer they go, they’re going to take more time from me.”The Kings had a playoff game Friday night, and the Clippers and Lakers hosted postseason games Saturday, creating an eventful weekend for arena workers.The goal stood and the Kings won. Fans celebrated and left the building, then Mendez’s crew got to work: The nets and glass surrounding the ice rink came down; the penalty boxes and benches were disassembled and moved; the ice was cleaned and covered by insulation so it wouldn’t melt during the next day’s basketball games; and the modules containing seats were shifted into new configurations.They finished well before 7 a.m. and Mendez drove home at 6:30 a.m. At that time of day there is little traffic, so it took him just 10 minutes. When he works overnight, he sleeps during the day, and his wife tries to stop his 9-year-old daughter from bursting into his room to ask if he wants to bike with her. But Mendez’s weekend was long from over.Like dozens of others, Mendez worked tirelessly to make sure the arena could handle its frenetic week. The busiest time came in the 36 hours after the Kings game Friday, when the building turned over from the Kings to the Clippers to the Lakers and back to the Kings. All three teams have called the arena home since 1999, when it opened as Staples Center.“My favorite part of this is when they’re done,” said Lee Zeidman, the president of Crypto.com Arena; the nearby Microsoft Theater; and the surrounding entertainment district, L.A. Live. “It’s like a puzzle. These men and women they’re the best in the business.”Mendez was back at 1 p.m., ready to flip the arena from the Clippers’ array of red, blue, black and silver to the Lakers’ purple and gold.Joe Keeler usually drives the Zamboni that maintains the ice during Kings games, but he sometimes helps transition the arena to basketball.The ice gets cleaned and covered with insulation so it does not melt during basketball games. Then the court and basketball hoops get changed in accordance with which team is playing.‘Organized chaos’Between Thursday and Monday night, Crypto.com Arena will have hosted four basketball playoff games and two hockey playoff games.“It’s chaos,” said Darryl Jackson, an event operations assistant manager for the arena. “But it’s organized. Organized chaos.” He began his career working on conversions, but now helps to make sure the baskets during basketball games and the glass during hockey games stay in good condition.Minutes after Game 4 of the first-round series between the Clippers and the Phoenix Suns finished Saturday, Loreto Verdugo backed a forklift down an aisle between the court and the first row of grandstand seats. He had just a couple of inches of space on either side of him. After years of doing this task, he wasn’t nearly as nervous as he was the first time he did it.“You don’t want to hit the floor because the floor’s the most important thing out there,” Verdugo said. “But you don’t want to hit anybody else either.”He had quietly left his home in North Hollywood at 4 a.m. (“I’m like a mouse,” he said) to be at the arena in time to begin supervising maintenance work.As soon as the Clippers’ game ended, just before 3 p.m., and all of the people had been cleared from the court, a bustle of expertly choreographed activity began. By the time the Clippers’ players began their postgame interviews, workers had bagged fans’ trash, and the player and logo banners the Clippers hang in the rafters had been rolled up to reveal the gold-colored championship banners for the Lakers and the W.N.B.A.’s Los Angeles Sparks, who have also shared the arena for much of the past two decades.The Kings won in overtime Friday against the Edmonton Oilers before the Clippers lost to the Phoenix Suns and the Lakers beat the Memphis Grizzlies.The Clippers’ court was already being uprooted from the floor, piece by interlocking piece, and loaded onto pallets that Verdugo and two other forklift drivers would pick up and deposit in a storage area that doubles as a news conference room.It was the 251st midday conversion in the history of Crypto.com Arena.About an hour after the Clippers’ game ended, their court had been replaced by the Lakers’ floor.Joe Keeler, who normally drives the Zamboni that cleans and builds the ice during hockey games, joined a group of people folding the baskets with white stanchions that the Clippers use and rolling them out to the storage area. They replaced them with the yellow-stanchioned baskets the Lakers use.“Everybody helps where they can,” said Keeler, who also helped pick up the Clippers’ floor and lay down the Lakers’.Red Clippers drapery was replaced by purple, and a purple carpet had been rolled out in the tunnel the Lakers use to go onto the court.It is a little easier when the conversion is from one basketball court to another. Doubleheaders involving the Kings are more challenging. When the building first opened, Zeidman gathered the vendors for the basketball courts, the seats and the plexiglass for hockey games and asked them how long they thought it would take to convert the hockey arena into a basketball arena. They told him at least four hours.“Unacceptable,” Zeidman said.Robbin Dedeaux, a seasoned usher, worked his section during the Clippers’ game before the changeover. The court and banners, like the Lakers and Sparks’ championship banners, are adjusted accordingly.‘How can I work here?’The first conversion for a doubleheader was an event in itself. Fans were allowed to watch from a designated area. Arena workers watched from a break room upstairs.“It was amazing,” said Juanita Williams, 57, an usher who has worked right behind the home benches during basketball games since the building opened. “To see it for the first time, we were like there’s no way they’re going to change this over in two and a half hours. It happened.”Williams started as an usher 25 years ago at the Forum in Inglewood, Calif., where the Lakers and the Kings played from 1967 to 1999. She called to find out how much Lakers season tickets cost.“I said: ‘OK, I cannot afford those tickets. So how can I work here then?’” she said.In the daytime she works from home as a buyer for a washer and dryer company that she has been with for 34 years. Her daughter briefly took a job as an usher, too, while going to cosmetology school.By Monday night, Williams will have worked in all six playoff games since Thursday.The merchandise available on arena concourses must be refreshed, too.Robbin Dedeaux, 65, will have too. He works at the top of the lower bowl in aisle 14, checking tickets and greeting customers. He is stationed right next to where the Lakers’ radio broadcasters sit.Dedeaux also started this work as a second job to get out of the list of chores his wife, Ricca Dedeaux, was always asking him to do. He started with ticket-taking in 1999 and then became an usher. He has been asked if he’d like to work down on the floor, but he thinks he might get sleepy if he got to sit down.“The fans are the best part of the job,” Dedeaux said. “You get to see them from all over the world. They come in from Italy, they come in from France, they come in from Germany. You have fun with them.”He added: “When the fans that come here from different arenas, I have fun with them. I tell them to get out.”He laughed.Dedeaux and his wife have been married for 40 years. He said she misses him during basketball and hockey season when he is working so many hours.“That’s just marriage,” Dedeaux said. “She knows I love her, she knows I love what I do. She tolerates it.”He added, “Then I make up for it.”After the Lakers game, Darryl Jackson and his crew convert the arena back into an NHL venue.‘It has to be done’Ignacio Guerra’s first job in the events world came in the early 1990s. He was a high school chemistry and biology teacher and coach, and he would park cars at the Hollywood Bowl in the summers. When Staples Center opened, Guerra worked for the contractor parking cars there, before finding a job working for the arena. Saturday was his 21st anniversary with the arena.In 2019, he took over as the head of the arena’s operations department. He is now the senior vice president of operations and engineering. He has worked hundreds of events and has two large frames in his office displaying credentials for everything from Taylor Swift concerts to N.B.A. All-Star Games.He shepherded the building through coronavirus shutdowns and the return of fans. During the shutdown, many of his workers took other jobs and didn’t come back, which meant starting over with new people at some positions.Kings and Lakers fans celebrated victories while the Clippers fell further behind in their playoff series.At least a handful of the remaining people have worked at the arena since the beginning, including the man who builds the penalty boxes for hockey games. Guerra often stands in the middle of the floor supervising all of the activity.“They’re the heart and soul of this,” Guerra said of the operations staff.He said the crew has never missed a conversion.“You can’t wait up at 7 in the morning and say, ‘Hey, sorry we couldn’t get the Laker floor down.’” Guerra said. “It has to be down, and there’s a no-fail mentality.”The Lakers played at 7 p.m. Saturday. By 10 p.m. another conversion had begun. More

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      A Decade After Sacramento Showed Up for the Kings, the Kings Return the Favor

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      The surprising Kings are pushing Golden State in their first-round N.B.A. playoff matchup. Sacramento fans have waited a long time for a team that matched their fervor.The long-term fate of the Sacramento Kings was still unclear. In 2013, Mayor Kevin Johnson of Sacramento and N.B.A. Commissioner David Stern persuaded a new owner to buy the team, a last-minute change that kept it from moving to Seattle.But the Kings’ home was still a dumpy suburban stadium that no longer fit the modern N.B.A. Without a new arena, leaving would always be in the cards.A year later I flew to Sacramento as the City Council convened for a tense vote on whether the city should pay roughly half the cost, $255 million, for construction of a new downtown arena now known as the Golden 1 Center.Kings fans showed up in force, as they always do, despite the team having just skidded to its eighth consecutive losing season. They held aloft placards imploring the Council to say yes. Angry critics were also on hand, dead set against spending taxpayer funds on a sports team’s arena.The Council voted to allocate the money. The Kings stayed put, with the new owner, Vivek Ranadive, promising fans that the team was in it for the long haul. “This is your team, and it is here to stay!” he said.Nine years later, and after a league-record 16 seasons without being in the playoffs, Sacramento’s team is finally making waves in the N.B.A. postseason. Who knew it would take this long?And who could have guessed that the young and suddenly transformed Kings would be going toe to toe against dynastic Golden State, which now calls its home San Francisco, a city that has always viewed Sacramento as a cow town.The Kings of 2023 brim with fast-break speed and precision that conjure memories of Steph Curry and Klay Thompson a decade ago, at the start of a run that brought Golden State four N.B.A. championships and six N.B.A. finals appearances.Of course, the Kings look like the Warriors’ doppelgängers: They have been molded by Mike Brown, who was Steve Kerr’s consigliere for years at Golden State, poached by Sacramento last May.After calling a timeout when there wasn’t one left in Game 4 on Sunday, Stephen Curry was consoled by Golden State Coach Steve Kerr.Darren Yamashita/USA Today Sports, via Reuters ConIn playing the Warriors to a 2-2 series standoff so far, Sacramento has been so competitive and irritating that it pushed Draymond Green into giving a retaliatory stomp to Domantas Sabonis’s chest in a Game 2 loss from which Green was ejected (and for which he was suspended from Game 3, which the Warriors won).Game 4 — a 126-125 Warriors victory on Sunday that the Kings could have won on their final possession — was so tight that Kerr left Curry in for 43 of the game’s 48 minutes, including the entire fourth quarter. When was the last time Curry was so pressed in the first round?Kings fans have showed up with a fervor that matched that of Sabonis, Malik Monk and De’Aaron Fox. They rushed to defend home court, purchasing nearly every available seat at Golden 1 Center, then set out to invade on the road. At Chase Center, in San Francisco, the Warriors barred Kings fans from bringing in the clanging cowbells that hark back to Sacramento’s agrarian roots and became a sanctified symbol of the Kings’ success in the early 2000s.As the series heads back to Sacramento, think about how long Kings fans have waited to show up in the playoffs. Much has been made of the franchise’s streak of 16 seasons without a playoff appearance. But it has been 19 since the Kings came out on top in a playoff series and 21 seasons, since early in the George Bush the Younger administration, when the team was a genuine playoff threat.Ask Kings die-hards about the loss to the Lakers in seven games in the 2002 Western Conference finals, and you will soon see the bugging of eyes and curses aimed at Robert Horry, who is to Sacramento what Bucky Dent is to Boston. The fans possess two qualities in spades: remarkable loyalty and plenty of pent-up frustration.The crazy cool part of this Kings season is how stunningly surprising it has been.In the long, hard seasons after Ranadive saved the team, Sacramento kept journeying into the dark corners of the N.B.A. wilderness.The team churned through coaches and was run by a revolving door of upper management, which seemingly had no clue. (The decision to draft Marvin Bagley III over Luka Doncic with the No. 2 overall draft pick in 2018 characterized the head-scratching moves.)Critics frothed against Ranadive, claiming he was a meddling owner in over his head. The N.B.A.’s best practice says you hire basketball executives and let them choose the coach. The Kings did it the other way around.Among all the hoopla about the upstarts from California’s capital city, remember this: It was just last year when the Kings won only 30 games while losing 52, yet another season of frustration, and one that prompted the city’s largest newspaper to run an article with a headline that blared:“Basketball Hell: How Vivek Ranadive Turned Sacramento Kings Into N.B.A.’s Biggest Losers.”Now, the series heads back to the Kings’ home arena for what promises to be a madhouse Game 5 on Wednesday night, the vision conjured at that City Council meeting all those years ago finally fulfilled.Now, the only hell connected to the Kings is the one they are giving the Warriors. More