Basket

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in Basket

      Why Payton Pritchard Isn’t Too Small for the Celtics’ Big Moments

      by

      The second-year Boston guard Payton Pritchard is just over six feet tall, which can be a problem on defense. But clutch shooting is his strength.It was one of the more amusing moments of the N.B.A. playoffs.During Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals, the Boston Celtics reserve guard Payton Pritchard drove into the paint against the Miami Heat’s Tyler Herro and hit a short jumper. Pritchard then put one hand near the floor, a common N.B.A. taunt to signify that a defender is too small to guard the taunter.Pritchard is barely over six feet tall and is, in almost all N.B.A. situations, the smallest player on the court. Herro is four inches taller than him.“The game is competitive, so, I mean there’s always going to be a little bickering here and there,” Pritchard deadpanned in a recent interview.Usually, Pritchard is on the receiving end of those gibes.“If you give it out, you’ve got to take it, too,” he said.Pritchard, a second-year guard, has often been considered too small, to the point that at the University of Oregon, he was sometimes mistaken for the team manager.“I go out there and hoop regardless. It doesn’t matter to me,” Pritchard said. “They’ll know my name after the game.”They certainly do now. Pritchard, 24, has had his moments as a scorer off the bench during the playoffs. During Game 1 of the N.B.A. finals against Golden State on Thursday, Pritchard helped spur Boston’s fourth-quarter comeback with 5 points and 4 rebounds in eight minutes. During those eight minutes, the Celtics outscored Golden State by 18 points.His best postseason success was against the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference finals. Pritchard reached double digits in scoring in three of the first four games. In Game 4, Pritchard scored 14 points, 11 of them in the fourth quarter, extinguishing any hope of a Heat comeback.Boston Coach Ime Udoka has used him sporadically, in part because Pritchard’s size makes him an easy target on defense. In the final three games of the Celtics’ series against the Heat, Pritchard played just 12 minutes combined and didn’t score.He also struggled against the Milwaukee Bucks in the Eastern Conference semifinals, but in the decisive Game 7, he chipped in 14 points and then delivered another viral moment. In the fourth quarter, Pritchard hit a 3-pointer that put the Celtics up 20. Pritchard turned to Boston’s bench and screamed, “That’s what I do!”Damon Stoudamire, a Celtics assistant coach, knows well what it’s like to be the smallest player on the court. His nickname during a 13-year N.B.A. career was Mighty Mouse because he was under 6 feet tall.“Those type of moments that you catch on camera, nobody really thinks about it,” he said of Pritchard’s 3-pointer against the Bucks. “But man, that’s a lot built up,” he said.He added: “That’s just him showing emotion there for the moment because he’s finally gotten his opportunity. I mean, people forget: He really didn’t play the first half of the season.”The Celtics selected Pritchard, who is from West Linn, Ore., with the 26th pick of the 2020 draft after his four-year college career at Oregon, where he was a first team all-American and helped the program get to the Final Four of the N.C.A.A. tournament.Incidentally, Pritchard was one of the best guards to come out of Oregon since Stoudamire, a Portland native whom Pritchard has known since he was a boy. Like Stoudamire, Pritchard was known for his scoring prowess, shooting ability and supreme confidence.“When I entered the N.B.A., I was the most N.B.A. ready at the time to go in and play right away,” Pritchard said.He had a good rookie year, despite having to play behind more established guards like Marcus Smart, Jeff Teague and Kemba Walker. In 66 games, Pritchard averaged 7.7 points per game and shot 41.1 percent from 3 in 19.2 minutes per game.But this season was bumpy. In the first half, Pritchard was once again buried on the depth chart. When he did play, he couldn’t hit shots. He appeared in 71 of 82 games this season. In the first 49, Pritchard shot just 37.8 percent from the field and was playing only 12.3 minutes a game, down from his rookie year.Some nights, he wouldn’t play at all. He said it was “very frustrating.”Stoudamire described it as “mentally taxing” on Pritchard.“His whole life, he’s been a focal point of most teams,” Stoudamire said. “Now, he can’t even get off the bench. He doesn’t really know why. As a staff, we tried to do our best to talk to him. Like I told him, it really doesn’t have anything to do with you. It’s really just the numbers.”This led to some difficult conversations between Udoka, also an Oregon native, and Pritchard. The two also had a relationship dating back to Pritchard’s youth.Pritchard, right, fights for a rebound during Game 1 of the N.B.A. finals against Golden State.Kyle Terada/USA Today Sports, via Reuters“I asked him at one point if he ever sees me playing here. Am I good enough to play?” Pritchard said. “I believed in myself. I was always good enough. But is this the right fit? He just reassured me, and the trade deadline happened. And then the opportunity came.”Among a flurry of moves at the deadline, the Celtics traded two veteran guards who had been playing ahead of Pritchard — Dennis Schröder and Josh Richardson — and brought back guard Derrick White from the San Antonio Spurs. Suddenly, things began to click for Pritchard.After the All-Star break, he had the best stretch of his career, averaging 9.6 points per game on 50.3 percent shooting in 22 games. He was one of the better 3-point shooters in the league in that period at 47.3 percent. He played well enough that in the playoffs, Udoka has at times trusted him to play crucial minutes in tight games, including against a talented Nets team in the first round and now against Golden State in the finals.If Pritchard is to succeed long term, he will need to find a way to overcome his defensive struggles. Particularly in the Bucks series, Pritchard sometimes found himself in a one-on-one situation with the 6-foot-11 Giannis Antetokounmpo. Improbably, Pritchard would occasionally hold his own. But for now, Pritchard’s shooting is what keeps him on the floor. The vast majority of his shots are 3s. In 19 postseason games, he’s shooting 46.5 percent from the field and 37.7 percent from 3.“Throughout these playoffs, his big games have always been games where we pulled away because of his momentum shots,” Stoudamire said.His emergence — or re-emergence as a shot maker — isn’t surprising to Pritchard. As he might say: It is, after all, what he does. More

    • 113 Shares119 Views

      in Basket

      Celtics Strike First in Finals by Rallying Past Warriors

      by

      A fourth-quarter rally turned the tide in Game 1 against Golden State, but Boston isn’t celebrating anything just yet.SAN FRANCISCO — The Boston Celtics’ reaction to winning Game 1 of the N.B.A. finals on Thursday night was a marked contrast from the joyous celebration they had held after winning Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals earlier in the week. Instead of chest bumps at midcourt after the final buzzer, the Celtics walked stoically off the court on Thursday, each player stone-faced, some engrossed in conversations with coaches.This stage was supposed to be too big for these Celtics, a team, though not a franchise, that was new to the finals. There were supposed to be jitters once the series started for this band of mostly 20-somethings facing a veteran Golden State Warriors team that has been here plenty of times. Perhaps the Celtics would act as if they had never done this before — because, well, they hadn’t.Yet in their 120-108 victory in Game 1, the Celtics showed no indication that they would shy from the pressure and expectations that come with playing in the finals. They showed an ability to be hit first, and hard, only to recover and prevail anyway.“We’ve been counted out all year,” Celtics guard Marcus Smart said. “Rightfully so. We’ve had moments. But we continue to fight. That’s who we are.”Before Game 1, Celtics Coach Ime Udoka was asked if he thought finals experience was an overrated metric for predicting success in the series. In answering, he noted first that he and others on his staff did have experience in the finals, even if their players did not. But then he dismissed the premise that his team was at a disadvantage even before the series began.“Our young guys have had a lot of success so far getting to the Eastern Conference finals multiple times,” Udoka said. “So for us: Try to simplify it, not overcomplicate it. Business as usual. Basketball as usual. The things we did to be successful coming here, we’ll try to do more of the same.”It was more of the same in many ways.The Celtics endured plenty of dramatic swings during the regular season and, more narrowly, in these playoffs. They struggled at the start of the year, then became the hottest team in the N.B.A. They absorbed blowout losses in the past two rounds of the playoffs, against the Milwaukee Bucks and the Miami Heat, then recovered to deliver blowout wins. Both series went to seven games.So in Game 1, they were confident in their ability to recover from any problem. Udoka acknowledged noticing some early nerves but said he also saw them dissipate as the game progressed. Each time he looked at the score and saw it was close despite his team’s missteps, he took heart.Stephen Curry, for example, scored 21 points in the first quarter, making six of eight 3-point attempts, which set a record for 3-pointers in a quarter in the finals.“I think I found a lot of space obviously in the first quarter and just was trying to ride that wave as long as I could,” Curry said. But Boston made adjustments and Curry didn’t score in the second quarter. He finished with 34 points.Another Boston turnaround came in the second half.In the third quarter, the Warriors outscored the Celtics by 14 points, seeming to pull away and opening a 15-point lead at one point. Golden State is famous for its ability to dominate third quarters on its way to wins, but this time it didn’t work.Boston made defensive adjustments to respond to what they’d seen in the third quarter and held Golden State to just 16 points in the fourth. Their offense suddenly looked unstoppable. The Celtics scored 40 points in the fourth quarter, and, at one point, Boston made seven consecutive threes. Al Horford scored 11 fourth-quarter points and Jaylen Brown scored 10.Stephen Curry dominated the first quarter but the Celtics overturned a 12-point deficit in the fourth.Cary Edmondson/USA Today Sports, via Reuters“The message at the start of the fourth was, we’ve been here before,” Jayson Tatum said. “We know what it takes to overcome a deficit like that.”He added: “We had a lot of time left, right? It wasn’t time to hang your head or be done, it was time to figure it out.”Tatum himself proved an example of Boston’s ability to adapt and adjust in the face of struggles. He shot 3 for 17 in the game, but remained engaged, finishing with more assists (13) than points (12). In the fourth quarter, the Celtics outscored Golden State by 27 points when Tatum was on the court. Despite his poor shooting, he declared himself “ecstatic.”“I had a bad shooting night,” Tatum said. “I just tried to impact the game in other ways. We’re in the championship. We’re in the finals. All I was worried about was trying to get a win, and we did.”Jayson Tatum, left, defending Klay Thompson. Tatum shot 3 for 17 in Game 1 but said he was “ecstatic” after finding other ways to contribute.Darren Yamashita/USA Today Sports, via ReutersBoston swept the Nets in their first-round playoff series, but they were conscious of the fact that in both the conference semifinals against the Bucks and the conference finals against the Heat, they lost Game 1 before winning the series. After opening the finals with a win, they were keen to guard against falling victim to the reverse.Golden State will certainly adjust to what went wrong Thursday night. Their coach, Steve Kerr, has said the challenge of figuring out how to do that is his favorite part about being in the playoffs. A series affords the opportunity to strategize much more than a single game during the regular season.Tatum was playing the long game after Boston’s victory, too. He said the Celtics had shown a tendency in past series for easing their intensity after wins, something they cannot afford to do against Golden State.“This time of the season, you feel great after you win,” Tatum said. “You feel terrible after you lose. You got to just be able to stay mellow, stay balanced, especially this early.“It’s far from over, right? It’s just one game. And we got to be ready for them to respond as if we would if we lost the first game.” More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in Basket

      Boston Celtics Stun Golden State in N.B.A. Finals Game 1

      by

      SAN FRANCISCO — After a long and eventful road to the N.B.A. finals, Golden State was grateful for a full week to rest and recover before facing the Boston Celtics in Game 1 on Thursday night.Golden State’s modest break came to an abrupt end. Boston made sure of it, stunning Golden State, 120-108, to take the opening game of the best-of-seven series at Chase Center.The Celtics leaned on their depth to erase a 15-point deficit in the second half. Al Horford scored a team-high 26 points, while Jaylen Brown added 24 and Derrick White scored 21 off the bench.Jayson Tatum scored just 12 points in the win while shooting 3 of 17 from the field, but he had a game-high 13 assists. The Celtics also managed to overcome a turbocharged effort from Golden State’s Stephen Curry, who scored 34 points.Game 2 is Sunday night in San Francisco.In remarks before the game, N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver noted how the finals was pitting two of the league’s original franchises — a fitting series for the N.B.A., which has been celebrating its 75th anniversary this season. The Philadelphia Warriors won the league’s first championship, all the way back in 1947, when they took care of the Chicago Stags in five games. The Celtics are chasing their 18th title, and their first since 2008.The finals, of course, are familiar turf for Golden State’s celebrated stars. Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green are making their sixth finals appearance in the past eight seasons. And the Warriors had looked familiarly dominant in needing just five games to eliminate the Dallas Mavericks in the Western Conference finals.The Celtics, on the other hand, were coming off a bruising seven-game series with the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference finals. Ahead of Game 1 against Golden State, Marcus Smart and Robert Williams III were still recovering from injuries. And Tatum and Brown, the Celtics’ two young stars, had been supplying huge minutes throughout the playoffs.Golden State looked primed to jump all over Boston in the early going. In the first quarter alone, Curry sank six 3-pointers — a finals record for 3-pointers in a quarter — and scored 21 points as Golden State led by as many as 10. Even Andre Iguodala got into the act, supplying his first minutes since the first round after missing most of the postseason with back trouble.But the Celtics are not in the finals by accident. They produced the league’s top-rated defense in the regular season, and they ramped up the pressure on Curry as the game wore on. Consider a single possession of the second quarter, as Curry tried to work himself free by coming off a series of screens. White defended him, then Tatum, then Smart, the league’s defensive player of the year. Surprise: Curry could not find an opening.Jordan Poole closed the first half for Golden State by bricking a 3-point attempt off the top of the backboard, and the Celtics led, 56-54. A gold-clad crowd that had roared for much of the half seemed to be in a collective stupor. Adult refreshments awaited many fans on the concourse.Golden State is famous for its explosive third quarters, though, and Thursday’s version of it was no different. By the time Curry threw in an acrobatic layup, Golden State was back up by 9.But fueled by unsung players like White and Payton Pritchard, the Celtics mounted a huge run in the fourth quarter, taking a 109-103 lead when Horford sank back-to-back 3-pointers.Fans began to file toward the exits in the final minute. More

    • 163 Shares99 Views

      in Basket

      ESPN’s Jeff Van Gundy and Mike Breen Will Miss First NBA Finals Game

      by

      Mike Breen and Jeff Van Gundy, two longtime staples of ESPN’s broadcast team for the N.B.A. finals, will miss the opening game of the championship series between Golden State and the Boston Celtics. An ESPN spokesman said that both broadcasters had tested positive for the coronavirus in recent days, but Van Gundy said in an interview that he had not.The N.B.A. finals begin Thursday in San Francisco and would be the 14th championship series featuring Breen on play-by-play alongside Van Gundy and Mark Jackson, two former N.B.A. head coaches. Instead, Game 1 will be called by Jackson and Mark Jones, with Lisa Salters as the sideline reporter.Breen missed Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals series between Miami and Boston on Sunday after testing positive for the virus. Van Gundy and Jackson, who had called games with Breen over the prior week, continued on with the game, with Jones filling in for Breen.Van Gundy said in an interview Thursday that he had not been tested for the virus before Sunday’s game because he was asymptomatic, although his voice was noticeably hoarse during the Game 7 broadcast. The N.B.A. did not institute a testing mandate for members of the television and news media for this year’s playoffs, as it did last postseason.Van Gundy said that on Monday, upon flying home to Houston, he started to feel slight symptoms. The next day, he took a home test, which he said was inconclusive. ESPN then sent Van Gundy two other rapid tests, which he said came out negative. Van Gundy also said he wasn’t sure why he had been pulled from broadcasting Game 1, and that he hoped to be back for Game 2 Sunday in San Francisco.Van Gundy added that he was no longer experiencing symptoms.Adrian Wojnarowski and Kendra Andrews, reporters who frequently appear on air for ESPN, have also tested positive for the coronavirus, and will miss the series opener. Andrews is a beat writer covering Golden State, and Wojnarowski is the network’s top N.B.A. reporter. More

    • 163 Shares179 Views

      in Basket

      Boston Celtics Beat Miami Heat in Game 7 for Trip to N.B.A. Finals

      by

      The Celtics led by 15 after the first quarter. Miami’s Jimmy Butler fueled the Heat’s comeback attempt, but it wasn’t enough.Follow our live coverage of the 2022 N.B.A. Finals between Golden State and the Boston Celtics.MIAMI — For the Boston Celtics, winning the Eastern Conference finals is nothing new. Making it to the N.B.A. finals, which the franchise has now done 22 times, is nothing to celebrate much. The Celtics don’t hang those banners, they like to say. There isn’t room among the 17 in the rafters for winning N.B.A. championships.But it was new for the players who made this Eastern Conference championship happen.A pair of stars in their mid-20s, Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum, had each made it to the conference finals multiple times, but no further until Sunday. The Celtics beat the Miami Heat, 100-96, in Game 7 to win the East and will face Golden State in the N.B.A. finals starting Thursday in San Francisco. A 15-year N.B.A. veteran in Al Horford will make his first finals appearance, with Boston. Marcus Smart, a 28-year-old defensive stalwart, is in his eighth season with the Celtics. They bounced around, bumped chests, hugged each other and screamed.“Obviously, we know we want to win a championship, right,” Tatum said, “but to get over this hump in the fashion that we did it, obviously, we took the toughest route possible. And then to win a Game 7 to go to a championship on the road is special.”More than four months into a remarkable turnaround, the Celtics seem determined to keep it going. Behind Tatum and Brown, Boston defeated the Heat on Sunday for a 4-3 series victory. Tatum was named the most valuable player of the Eastern Conference finals, a new honor this season. The trophy is named for the Celtics icon Larry Bird.The Warriors, who are trying to resuscitate a dynasty that had been on hiatus, are pursuing their fourth championship in eight seasons. Golden State, the third seed in the Western Conference, will have home-court advantage over Boston, a second seed, because it had a better regular-season record, winning 53 games to Boston’s 51.The Celtics won their last title in 2008, back when many of the best players on this year’s roster were elementary school students.Under Ime Udoka, their first-year coach, the Celtics have already engineered a comeback story to remember. It was not until late January that they figured out how to defend, share the ball and win with any semblance of consistency.In the postseason, the Celtics have eliminated a smorgasbord of N.B.A. luminaries and would-be contenders: the Nets, led by Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant, in the first round; the reigning champions, the Milwaukee Bucks, in the conference semifinals; and, now, the top-seeded Heat, who, in Game 7, could not match the desperation with which they played Game 6 when they first faced elimination.All this after the Celtics had filled the first couple of months of the regular season with some of the most unappetizing basketball on the East Coast. Forget about contending for a championship: Could they even make the playoffs? They appeared in rigorous pursuit of rock bottom.Miami’s Jimmy Butler had 35 points and 9 rebounds in Game 7. He played all 48 minutes.Eric Espada/Getty ImagesThe Celtics began to plumb the depths early, in November, when a loss to the Chicago Bulls dropped their record to 2-5 and Smart used his platform after the game to rip Tatum and Brown for hogging the ball.“We were tested,” Brown said Sunday night. “We’ve been through a lot. We’ve learned a lot over the years, and now the stage is at its brightest. We’ve got to apply everything that we’ve learned into these moments.”By mid-January, a loss to Philadelphia had the Celtics at 21-22, and Joel Embiid, the 76ers’ star center, described Boston as an “iso-heavy team” that was easy to defend.Even some of Udoka’s oldest friends were questioning whether he could unlock the team’s potential. Kendrick Williams, a youth coach who helped Udoka launch an Amateur Athletic Union team in 2006, when Udoka was still patrolling N.B.A. courts as a power forward, recalled reaching out to him via text message when the Celtics were struggling.“And he was like: ‘Man, you know I’m not panicking. You know we’re going to get it right,’” Williams said. “He was so confident, it put me at ease.”From the start of training camp — and even during his introductory news conference last summer — Udoka emphasized the importance of ball movement. It remained one of the staples of his film sessions as the Celtics labored with growing pains, and it was a message that eventually took root.Tatum was Boston’s leading scorer in Game 7.Eric Espada/Getty Images“You start to realize how hard it is to win,” Tatum said. “You start to question yourself: Are you good enough to be that guy? But I think you just trust in yourself, trust in the work that you put in to get to this point and continue to work, and it can’t rain forever. Good days were coming.”Before the Celtics faced the 76ers again in the middle of February, Udoka reminded his players of Embiid’s remarks. The Celtics went out and beat Philadelphia by 48 points for their ninth straight win.But that was only one part of the Celtics’ winning formula. Led by Smart, who won the N.B.A.’s Defensive Player of the Year Award, the Celtics emerged as a ferocious group of defenders, their lineup bolstered by a pair of midseason acquisitions: Derrick White, a guard from the San Antonio Spurs, and Daniel Theis, a defense-minded center from the Houston Rockets who had started his career in Boston.After winning 28 of their final 35 games to close out the regular season, the Celtics pulverized the Nets with a four-game sweep in the first round of the playoffs. Even before the series ended, Irving was telling reporters that the Celtics’ window was “now.” After the sweep was complete, Durant predicted that Boston had a chance “to do some big things.”Boston and Miami traded wins over the first four games of the conference finals, then the Celtics became the first to string together two victories. Miami shot 33.3 percent in Game 4, then 31.9 percent in Game 5 — both lopsided defeats.Jaylen Brown had 24 points, 6 rebounds and 6 assists in Game 7. Andy Lyons/Getty ImagesAt that point at least one Golden State player believed he knew how the Eastern Conference finals would end. After Golden State beat Dallas in the Western Conference finals on Thursday, forward Draymond Green said during an appearance on TNT’s postgame show that he expected to play the Celtics in the N.B.A. finals.Instead, the Heat, and Butler in particular, refused to concede.With their season on the line in Game 6, Butler scored 47 points on the road in Boston, forcing a winner-takes-all Game 7 in Miami.Boston opened Game 7 on a 9-1 run, and Miami spent the rest of the game trying to catch up.After one quarter, the Celtics led by 15 points, and had held Miami to 17 points, 6 of them by Butler. When the Heat pushed back, it was largely because of him. He scored 18 points in the second quarter and helped the Heat cut their deficit to just 6 at halftime.They got even closer at the start of the fourth, when two quick Heat baskets made the score 82-79. But then Boston’s defense forced Miami to go nearly five minutes of playing time without scoring.Butler played in every second of the decisive game and gave the Heat one final chance. With 16.6 seconds remaining in the game, and Boston up by 2, Butler pulled up for a 3-pointer. Having fallen victim to Butler’s heroics in the past, the Celtics held their breath.“I was like, ‘Man, what the hell,’” Brown said.“Not again,” Smart said he thought in that moment.Butler’s shot didn’t fall. He finished the game with 35 points.Had the Heat won, it would have been the second time in the three years since Butler came to Miami that the Heat had made the N.B.A. finals. Butler said after the game that he didn’t know he had played all 48 minutes.“I feel like with every second I did play, I should have done more, could’ve done better to turn this into a win,” he said.Tatum holds up the trophy for being named the most valuable player of the Eastern Conference finals. Eric Espada/Getty ImagesBoston’s Al Horford and teammates celebrate after beating the Heat in Game 7. Horford has not played in the N.B.A. finals in his 15-year career.Jim Rassol/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe Celtics’ players and coaches ran toward each other as the final buzzer sounded, then swirled around the middle of the court jubilantly.Horford fell to his knees and hit the ground with his hands.“I didn’t know how to act,” he said later, then turned to Brown, 10 years his junior, and giggled.The Celtics fans who remained in the crowd made their way to the lower bowl for the muted conference championship celebration that always comes when a team wins it on the road. Chants of “let’s go Celtics” rang out in the emptying arena, sometimes with players on the court acting like orchestra conductors directing the chorus.Tatum cradled his Larry Bird trophy and lifted it in the air as he walked toward the tunnel off the court, while fans reached to try to touch it.“You can’t help but smile and enjoy the moment out there on the court,” Udoka said. “It’s kind of forced upon you, seeing the joy with the players. And it’s all about those guys.”He had already started thinking about what awaited them in San Francisco. More

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Basket

      N.B.A. Finals: Boston Celtics Take On Golden State Warriors

      by

      Golden State has been to the finals six times in eight years. But the young stars of the Celtics may finally be ready for their big moment.It would be Stephen Curry’s fourth N.B.A. championship, or Jayson Tatum’s first. It would be a comeback story for the ages for Klay Thompson, or a fairy-tale ending to the debut of the first-time head coach Ime Udoka.Much is at stake in the 2022 N.B.A. finals for Golden State and the Boston Celtics, two teams with something to prove. For Golden State, it’s a chance to defy the odds against reviving a dynasty after two seasons away from the spotlight. For Boston and its lineup of rising stars, this is, as they say, when legends are made.Here is a look at what to expect in the N.B.A. finals, which begin Thursday in San Francisco.Third-seeded Golden State has home-court advantage over second-seeded Boston because of its better regular-season record.Experience may not be everything.Golden State during the parade for its most recent championship, in 2018.Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated PressAfter the Boston Celtics won Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals, their words about facing Golden State in the N.B.A. finals conveyed a blend of confidence and deference.“We know we’re going up against a great team with the Warriors. Great players, great organization,” Celtics guard Marcus Smart said. “They have the track record to prove it. They know exactly what it takes. They’ve been here. They’re vets. We know we’ve got a long road in front of us, but we’re up for the challenge.”These finals are marked by a gap in experience, with one team well seasoned in championship basketball and another filled with newcomers to this stage. Golden State has five players who have made multiple finals appearances — Stephen Curry, Draymond Green, Klay Thompson, Kevon Looney and Andre Iguodala. The Celtics have no players who have made it this far before now.Part of that is a function of age. Boston’s roster is filled with players in their 20s, while Golden State is a group of 30-somethings whose lives have changed since their first finals appearances.“Just being able to balance even just, like, family life,” Curry said after Game 5 of the Western Conference finals. “I’m blessed to have kids that are now 9, 6 and 3. Like, when I was back in ’14, ’15, chasing those playoffs, just a different vibe in terms of everything that’s going on in life.”Jayson Tatum, left, and Jaylen Brown, right are still finding themselves as the leaders of the Boston Celtics.Derick Hingle/Associated PressSmart was a 21-year-old rookie in 2015, the first time Curry, Green and Thompson won an N.B.A. championship. Jayson Tatum, who was named the Eastern Conference finals most valuable player this year, was in 11th grade. Their teammate Jaylen Brown had just finished high school and was headed to play college basketball at the University of California, Berkeley — just 11 miles from where Golden State played at the time.By the 2015 championship, with the exception of Looney, whom the Warriors drafted a few weeks after winning the title, Golden State’s return finals participants had all been through years of seasoning and early playoff exits.The 2021-22 Celtics have similarly spent the past few years learning how to win in the playoffs, and dealing with the bitterness of losing. Boston has been to the playoffs every year since 2015 and made it to the conference finals four times.But Golden State’s journey shows that finals experience isn’t everything.When the Warriors won the 2015 championship, they faced a Cleveland Cavaliers team led by LeBron James. James was making his fifth consecutive finals appearance and sixth overall. But he couldn’t stop Golden State from winning the series in six games.But James was also relatively new to that team. The depth of Golden State’s experience will help carry the team this month.Prediction: Golden State in six.Draymond Green is Golden State’s ‘emotional leader.’Draymond Green’s strength, and weakness, is his intensity.Ezra Shaw/Getty ImagesStephen Curry has famously drained more 3-pointers than anyone in history. Klay Thompson is still basking in his triumphant return from two cataclysmic injuries. And Jordan Poole, out of the morass of Golden State’s two seasons on dynastic hiatus, has emerged as one of the most dynamic young scorers in the league.As the Warriors return to the N.B.A. finals, several players have fueled their run. But is it possible amid all the team’s pyrotechnics that Draymond Green — the team’s highly opinionated, referee-tormenting spokesman — is somehow being overlooked? OK, maybe not. But in his 10th season, Green is making his sixth trip to the finals, and it is no coincidence. He is the defense-minded, pass-first force who binds his teammates in more ways than one.“Our emotional leader,” Coach Steve Kerr said.And Green has seldom, if ever, played better basketball than he has this postseason. In Golden State’s closeout win over the Dallas Mavericks in the Western Conference finals, he collected 17 points, 9 assists and 6 rebounds while shooting 6 of 7 from the field. He quarterbacked the offense. He was a menace on defense. He used up five of his six personal fouls.He also avoided partaking in many of the extracurriculars that had hampered him in the past — at least until after the game, when he spoke about facing the Celtics with a championship at stake. The problem was that the Celtics were still playing the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference finals. In fact, the Heat would force a Game 7 before falling short. But in Green’s mind, he was never wrong.“I thought they were the better team, and clearly I wasn’t far off,” Green said this week on San Francisco’s KGMZ-FM, Golden State’s radio broadcast partner.In his own way, Green was a source of stability for the organization as the team labored with injuries in recent seasons. He mentored his younger teammates. He was in uniform when Curry and Thompson were absent. He acknowledged that it wasn’t always easy: He was accustomed to competing for championships, and suddenly Golden State had the worst record in the league.Now, back alongside Curry and Thompson, Green has another title in sight.“I can’t say that I thought coming into this season, like, ‘Yo, we’re going to win a championship,’ or, ‘We’re going to be in the N.B.A. finals,’ ” Green said. “But I always believed with us three that we have a chance.”Prediction: More rested and more experienced, Golden State wins the series in six games.They’re both great on defense, but different on offense.Celtics Coach Ime Udoka, left, helped Boston become the N.B.A.’s best defensive team. Marcus Smart, right, won the Defensive Player of the Year Award.Andy Lyons/Getty ImagesThe connections between Celtics Coach Ime Udoka and Golden State Coach Steve Kerr — both former N.B.A. role players — are numerous. Both led their teams to the finals in their first seasons as a head coach, Kerr in 2014-15, when Golden State won the championship, and Udoka this year.They are also connected to San Antonio Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich. Udoka was an assistant on the Spurs from 2012 to 2019, which resulted in a championship in 2014. Udoka also played three seasons for the Spurs, while Kerr played four seasons in San Antonio and won two championships. Both also worked with Popovich on the U.S. men’s national basketball team.Popovich’s influence is clear. Udoka and Kerr have preached the value of a staunch defense. Boston and Golden State were the two best defensive teams in the N.B.A. during the regular season. And like Popovich, the coaches are willing to bluntly criticize players publicly.Where they diverge is offensively.Udoka has installed a methodical, slower offense. The Celtics frequently run isolations, ranking near the top of the N.B.A. during the regular season, while Golden State was near the bottom.In part, that comes down to personnel: Boston’s two best players, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, are adept at getting to the rim and breaking defenses down one-on-one but less so at passing. In addition, the Celtics start Marcus Smart at point guard, and he isn’t a traditional pass-first guard.Kerr, meanwhile, has long preached an egalitarian offense hinging on ball movement — so much so that Kevin Durant, after leaving Golden State for the Nets in 2019, complained that Kerr’s offense had been limiting. This season, Golden State led the N.B.A. in scoring off cuts to the basket, while the Celtics were just around league average. Golden State also was second in the league in total passes.There’s another difference, too. Kerr is more willing to experiment with lineups. He has given significant minutes to rookies such as Moses Moody and Jonathan Kuminga, shuffling them in and out of the rotation. In the playoffs, Kerr gave the 19-year-old Kuminga three starts in the semifinal series against the Memphis Grizzlies. Moody, 20, was in the rotation against the Dallas Mavericks in the conference finals.Udoka has preferred to keep his rotations fairly predictable, particularly in the playoffs, rarely reaching down the Celtics’ bench even in the case of foul trouble.Prediction: Celtics in six. Their defense is well designed to chase Stephen Curry around. More

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in Basket

      The WNBA Has Too Few Spots for Too Many Talented Players

      by

      Making it to the pros is always hard. But with only 12 teams with 12 players each, the W.N.B.A. makes it seemingly impossible for too many women’s college basketball stars.Raina Perez is used to staring down obstacles. It’s not just her sport, women’s basketball, which seems forever in the shadow of the men’s game. It’s not just her height, 5 feet 4 inches — diminutive, even for a point guard. It’s not just that she is Mexican American, and that there are few Mexican American stars in the world of hoops.“When you look at me, you don’t automatically think ‘basketball player,’” she told me. “I don’t catch the eye like that.”It’s all of these things, and another — the biggest obstacle of them all. After starring in college and nearly guiding North Carolina State to this year’s Final Four, Perez hopes to make it into the W.N.B.A.And that’s not easy in the slightest.Even as the league’s popularity has surged — last season it drew its highest viewership since 2008 — making the full-time roster on a W.N.B.A. team remains one of the most challenging tasks in American sports, especially for young players who need seasoning. Each of the league’s 12 teams can carry only 12 players, and most teams play with 11 because of salary cap restrictions.Said Breanna Stewart, the former league most valuable player, who anchors the Seattle Storm: “There are too many teams like ours: no rookies.”That means the chances are slim for players trying to start a meaningful career in the best league in the world. They’re even slimmer for undrafted talents like Perez.Breanna Stewart of the Seattle Storm was impressed with Perez’s play. “Women’s basketball needs to find a way to bridge the gap between college and pro,” she said.Steph Chambers/Getty Images“I’ve dreamed of playing in the league since I was a young girl,” said Perez, 23, who grew up rooting for her hometown team, the Phoenix Mercury. “I found out this year just how hard that is. No matter how good you are, you’ve got to find a situation that is just right.”Perez was part of a powerful core that made North Carolina State a top-five Division I college team last season and a contender for the national title. One of her teammates, Elissa Cunane, was drafted with the 17th pick by the Storm. The Minnesota Lynx used the 22nd pick to take another teammate, Kayla Jones.Perez wasn’t selected in the three-round draft, but Storm Coach Noelle Quinn sought to sign her as a free agent. Quinn had been following Perez’s unusual journey for years.Known as a clutch shooter with a soothsayer’s knack for reading the action before it fully developed, Perez finished high school as one of the best players in Arizona. Still, there were doubts about whether she was good enough to make it in big-time Division I basketball.She went to Northern Arizona and immediately flourished. Then she transferred to Cal State Fullerton and flourished again. Finally, seeking to prove her ability against the best college competition, Perez switched to North Carolina State, where she became a star.Perez left college on a roll. Her game-winning jumper sealed North Carolina State’s Atlantic Coast Conference tournament championship. Then she led her team to the N.C.A.A. tournament round of 8 with a last-minute steal and layup to beat Notre Dame in the Sweet 16.On April 14, when she signed a training camp contract with the Storm, she felt buoyed by confidence from those performances.On April 23, she played a preseason game against the Los Angeles Sparks, scoring 9 points and recording three rebounds, two steals and an assist.Quinn was impressed. So was Stewart. “Raina is someone who just gets it, who just knows how to play,” Stewart told me. “She’s a flat-out hooper.”On May 2, shortly before the regular season began, Perez was cut from the team. Around the same time, Cunane and Jones were cut, too.The roller coaster kept on.Perez headed back to Phoenix, eyes set on training for the women’s professional leagues in Europe, which begin their seasons in the fall.Then her cellphone rang. “How quickly can you rejoin us?” a Storm official asked. Seattle’s Epiphanny Prince had tested positive for the coronavirus. The Storm needed a quick replacement.So it was that Perez made it onto a roster for a regular-season game: two minutes against the Mercury, long enough to dish out a pair of assists. She suited up for another game. And then, once again, she was let go.Perez helped lead North Carolina State to the round of 8 in this year’s N.C.A.A. tournament.William Howard/USA Today Sports, via ReutersIt shouldn’t be this way, Stewart said. “Women’s basketball needs to find a way to bridge the gap between college and pro.”My thoughts exactly, especially since the W.N.B.A. is still working to gain traction with American fans besotted mainly with men’s sports.Stewart is among a chorus of veteran stars speaking openly about the need to keep more players like Perez, who gain sizable followings in college only to seemingly disappear after graduation.“They need to be kept in the fold so they can keep learning and then take bigger roles,” Stewart said, before citing possible solutions: a more flexible salary cap; a developmental league modeled after the N.B.A.’s G League; taxi squads that allow fringe players to remain with teams for practice.W.N.B.A. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert has acknowledged the problem and says growing the league beyond 12 teams is likely the best solution. That sounds great, but expansion will probably take years.Waiting too long for a solution could take a toll on the league’s future. Suppose the W.N.B.A. keeps making it this hard to develop a viable career. How much time must pass before the younger generation decides that the W.N.B.A. is too much of a long shot to aim for?Perez now suits up in a newly minted league for Fuerza Regia in Monterrey, Mexico. On Sunday, before 1,800 home fans in Fuerza Regia’s 100-79 victory over Abejas de León, she scored 9 points and had 8 assists.It’s hardly the biggest stage, and the season will last no longer than mid-July, but it’s professional. The team provides her with an apartment. The crowds are small but boisterous, and they love cheering for an American with Mexican roots.Perez knows the future is uncertain. She’s still planning on eventually playing in Europe. But more players are looking for fewer jobs overseas. Because of the war in Ukraine, Americans aren’t playing in Russia anymore. Enthusiasm for playing in China has dimmed because of its politics. And yet, like so many others in her position, Perez vows not to give up.“I’m a basketball lifer,” she said, voice firm as she prepared for another practice with her new team in a new country. “I’m going to stay with this as long as I possibly can.” More

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in Basket

      Brittney Griner’s Supporters Have a New Strategy to Free Her: Make Noise

      by

      Those close to Griner pursued a strategy of silence after her detention in Russia in February, hoping to avoid politicizing her case. Now they are amping up public pressure, with some of it aimed at President Biden.Her face is on hoodies. Her name is in hashtags. Her “B.G.” and number are on fans’ jerseys and W.N.B.A. courts.As the Phoenix Mercury star Brittney Griner waits in Russia, detained since Feb. 17 on drug charges, symbols of support for her are all around. They come from people who don’t know her at all and people who know and love her — from teammates, sympathizers and former coaches.Dawn Staley, who coached Griner and her U.S. teammates to a gold medal in the Tokyo Olympics last year, said she thinks about her every day.“I know Brittney, I’ve been around her, know her heart. I know what she’s about,” Staley said. “And if she’s being wrongfully detained or not, I would be advocating for her release because nobody should be in a foreign country locked up abroad.”Staley has posted messages on Twitter about Griner every day since early May. “Can you please free our friend,” she wrote on Tuesday, tagging the official account for the White House. She added, “All of her loved ones would sleep a little easier.”It has been more than three months since Griner was detained, accused of having hashish oil in her luggage at an airport near Moscow. But only in the last few weeks has there been a coordinated public campaign by W.N.B.A. players and by Griner’s wife, family, friends and agent, Lindsay Kagawa Colas, to push for her release. That’s where the hoodies — worn by many different players — and the initials — displayed on W.N.B.A. courts — come in. The #WeAreBG hashtag seen on warm-up shirts and social media is also part of the campaign.On Saturday, the W.N.B.A. players’ union posted messaging on social media marking the 100th day of Griner’s detention.Decals with Griner’s No. 42 and initials are on each court in the W.N.B.A.Jennifer Buchanan/The Seattle Times, via Associated PressThe delay in starting the campaign was strategic: Griner’s camp was worried that publicity could make the situation worse because of tensions between Russia and the United States, including the war in Ukraine. But the delay has also been a source of frustration for women’s basketball players known for their social justice advocacy. Their approach has changed since the State Department said on May 3 that it had determined that Griner had been “wrongfully detained.”“Griner’s reclassification as wrongfully detained by the U.S. government cued our shift to the more public activist elements of our strategy,” Kagawa Colas said, adding that she could not elaborate out of respect for the sensitivity of the situation.Supporters have quickly joined in the new approach.“We’re more public,” said Terri Jackson, the executive director of the W.N.B.A. players’ union. One reason, she said, was the State Department’s determination, and another was the guidance of Griner’s wife, Cherelle Griner.“She’s lead on this,” Jackson said. “She signaled through her team that she needed us, and that’s all we needed to hear.”Cherelle Griner appeared on “Good Morning America” on Wednesday and appealed to President Biden to intervene.“I just keep hearing that he has the power,” Cherelle Griner said. “She’s a political pawn. If they’re holding her because they want you to do something, then I want you to do it.”The State Department’s announcement this month said that Biden’s special envoy for hostage affairs would lead an interagency team to secure Griner’s release. But since then, Griner’s detention has been extended until June 18, and the Biden administration has said little about its maneuvering. Cherelle Griner said during the television interview that her only communication with her wife had been through occasional letters. She said she had been told that her wife’s release was a top priority, but she expressed skepticism.Representative Colin Allred, Democrat of Texas, has been speaking publicly about Brittney Griner’s detention and working with her representatives. He said Griner, who is from Houston, has had access to her attorney in Russia but has not been able to speak with her family. That violated international norms, he said.“The Russians need to be aware that we know what they’re doing, we know why they’re doing it and there will be consequences if anything should happen to her,” Allred said.Griner’s family and friends have sought to pressure Russia and Biden while also pleading for more support and news coverage in the United States.“There’s not enough conversations being had about Brittney and her release and just any talks of it,” said Staley, the women’s basketball coach at the University of South Carolina. “And I know there’s a process. I get that.”She added later: “There’s so many people that really know Brittney that aren’t doing anything, that aren’t sympathizing with the situation. I just want people to feel like it’s their loved one. And when you feel like it’s your loved one you would do anything to help. Everybody’s got to live their life, I get that, but come on. Empathize.”Fans have waged their own public campaign for Griner, even when those closest to her used a strategy of silence.Darryl Webb/Associated PressSeveral players in the W.N.B.A., and a few in the N.B.A., have begun publicly advocating Griner’s release; in the first two and a half months after Griner’s detention most had said only that they loved and missed her.Seattle Storm forward Breanna Stewart, who was named the league’s most valuable player in 2018, posts daily on Twitter about Griner. DeWanna Bonner, who plays for the Connecticut Sun and was Griner’s teammate in Phoenix from 2013 to 2019, brought up Griner during a recent news conference.“One more thing,” she said. “Free B.G. We are B.G. We love B.G. Free her.”In mid-May, the W.N.B.A. players’ union became an official partner on a Change.org petition addressed to the White House, which urged Biden to do “whatever is necessary” to bring Griner home safely. The petition was started in March by Tamryn Spruill, a freelance journalist who has written for several media outlets, including The New York Times, about the W.N.B.A. Griner’s representatives at Wasserman promoted the petition to news outlets.In an interview with ESPN on May 17, N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver was asked what role the league should play in Griner’s situation. The N.B.A. owns 42.1 percent of the W.N.B.A.What to Know About Brittney Griner’s Detention in RussiaCard 1 of 5What happened? More