Basket

Subterms

    More stories

    • 100 Shares179 Views

      in Basket

      The Connecticut Sun’s Chemistry Goes Beyond W.N.B.A. Bonds

      by

      Four Sun players also played college basketball at Maryland, giving them a connection that is proving fruitful on and off the court.They started off 5-0, and even now, at 9-5 entering Sunday, are better than nine of the W.N.B.A.’s dozen teams. The Connecticut Sun also are, somewhat unexpectedly, atop the Eastern Conference standings. They made it to the league semifinals in the IMG Academy bubble last season, but weren’t projected to be a title-contending team in 2021.Part of their sudden success can be attributed to chemistry, some of which has been in the making long before several players arrived in Connecticut.“We played for years together,” the rookie forward Stephanie Jones said. “Like, me and Kaila Charles, we played for years, and then me and my sister for a year, and having the background there, we all know where each other comes from in Maryland.”Jones is in her first year in the league after a college career with Maryland, where she played for four seasons alongside Charles. Her older sister, Brionna Jones, has been with the Sun for five years after playing at Maryland with Stephanie for one season and another with the Suns’ veteran forward Alyssa Thomas.Thomas is out this season with an Achilles’ tendon tear, but she is one of the most notable Terps in the league when healthy. Her presence alone on the Suns’ bench has had an impact this year.“Having a background with A.T., even just her being on the sidelines, like she understands where me and Kaila come from and what we’re doing,” Stephanie Jones said. “She gets what we went through those four years. Her communication with us makes our chemistry great.”Stephanie Jones wasn’t drafted into the W.N.B.A. right after college, but the opportunity to play in the league this season allowed her to team up with her older sister, Brionna.Stew Milne/Associated PressJones didn’t find a roster spot right out of college and wasn’t in the W.N.B.A. last season. The Sun selected Charles in the second round of the 2020 draft with the No. 23 overall pick, and she made an impact right away, averaging 5.4 points and 2.6 rebounds over 17.9 minutes per game.At Maryland, Charles was one of six players in the school’s history to crack the top 10 in career points and rebounds. She started all her games at Maryland, tying Thomas’s record of starting 135 games. Charles hasn’t played as much yet this season, with returning players and a deeper roster, but Thomas has still taken notice of her fellow Terps’ development.“I haven’t been able to play with her yet, but watching her grow as a pro, seeing that in Florida, she’s done a good job,” Thomas said. “She’s having a good second year. There’s a lot more room to grow, but she’ll keep getting better each and every year.”While Charles was forging a pro career, Jones was still looking to make a roster, spending her 2020 season in Poland. She signed a training camp contract with the Sun in March and played her way onto the final roster. She has appeared in seven of the Sun’s first 14 games, averaging 2.3 points in seven minutes per game.Part of her comfort level has been playing with her sister.“It’s one thing playing together in college, but in the pros, that was always a dream,” Brionna Jones said. “To get to the league and then play with my sister, that’s really special. I’m always in her ear trying to help her along, do everything I can to make the experience good for her and make sure she’s catching all the little nuances I missed out on my rookie season.”Brionna Jones and Thomas also play overseas for the same team, USK Praha, so their connection has run through a few avenues.“We can’t get rid of each other,” Thomas said. “We love playing with each other. We know each other’s game so well each and every night.”She added: “I just love going out there and playing with her, and even off the court, we hang out all the time. We’ve had years getting to know each other.”Thomas is Maryland’s career leading scorer and rebounder, whose record is unmatched in both the women’s and men’s programs.Her impact on Maryland has almost certainly been one reason Coach Brenda Frese can recruit as well as she does, and Maryland has been a destination program in the last decade.Kaila Charles is still learning the rhythms of the W.N.B.A. in her second season, but she has the support of her fellow Terps, like Alyssa Thomas.Sean D. Elliot/The Day, via Associated PressCharles and Stephanie Jones felt that impact, too.“They’re always going to push you to be your best,” Charles said. “Like, Coach always talked about being comfortable being uncomfortable. And that’s one thing that really sets us up to play at the next level, because just to be able to develop your game, you have to not be comfortable and still be able to be successful.”The Sun have been playing without Jonquel Jones, who could be a candidate for the Most Valuable Player Award and has been competing in the FIBA Women’s EuroBasket 2021 for Bosnia and Herzegovina. She has missed four games but could return soon.The Sun’s first game without her and her 21.6 points per game was a loss to Seattle, the first Sun home loss of the season. Her absence leaves room for one of the young Terps, like Charles or Stephanie Jones, to step up.Last season, it was Brionna Jones who took charge with Jonquel Jones out of the lineup after opting out of the 2020 season. Brionna became one of the Sun’s most consistent players, which has carried over to this season with 13.9 points, 6.4 rebounds and 1.1 steals per game in more than 30 minutes per contest so far.At this point, the group is used to playing without some of its best talent. Last season, the Sun found ways to still succeed; Charles was a part of that, her rookie year, and said she was still learning.“This feels like year two of my rookie year,” she said. “Everything is kind of new still, playing in different arenas, adding the travel component to go with the game, having the fans back in the arena also makes things completely different than last year.”The Sun have already proved they can contend when it’s unexpected, and perhaps the Maryland bond of the Jones sisters, Thomas and Charles is helping.They certainly think so.“As a team we like each other so much, and we get along off the court, too,” Brionna Jones said. “So I think that allows us to have success on the court.”“It’s easy for us to talk to each other,” she continued, “to hold each other accountable, and I think that helped us a lot down the stretch last year. It allows us to be successful now. When you know people and care about them, you trust them. I think that makes it easier to succeed.” More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in Basket

      Trae Young Plays Like He’s a Great Shooter. The Bucks Should Let Him.

      by

      Young, the Atlanta Hawks guard, isn’t the 3-point threat that you would think, considering how many deep shots he takes.When it comes to Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Milwaukee Bucks star, much of the discussion is about whether he takes too many 3-pointers at the expense of his true strengths, which include his dominance in the paint.It’s a worthy discussion, but after Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals, in which the Bucks convincingly equalized the best-of-seven series in a blowout, it’s also worth asking if that discussion should be directed toward Atlanta’s Trae Young, too.The Bucks put the game away in the first half with a 20-0 run en route to a 125-91 victory. How they won wasn’t exactly basketball rocket science. They made 3-pointers at a high clip. In the first half, Milwaukee shot 10 for 18 from deep and didn’t look back. Many of those shots were open and weren’t much different from the Bucks’ looks that didn’t fall in Game 1.As the perimeter opened up in Game 2, so did the lane for Antetokounmpo, who relentlessly attacked the rim, both in transition and in post-ups, and finished with 25 points, 9 rebounds and 6 assists in 29 minutes.The Bucks also disrupted Young by playing him more physically. In particular, Milwaukee used its length to cut off passing lanes, forcing Young into nine turnovers. Jrue Holiday, an elite perimeter defender, was more aggressive in containing Young, particularly coming off screens.“They just picked up their pressure, their intensity,” Hawks Coach Nate McMillan said after the game. “They played with more sense of urgency. I didn’t think Jrue did anything other than stay focused on Trae, containing the ball and just being right there.”Young didn’t hesitate to take the blame.“That’s all on me,” Young said. “I’ve got to be better at taking care of the ball and just do a better job of at least getting us a shot. Nine turnovers. I’ve got to do better, and I will do better next game.”There is another issue with Young that doesn’t seem to get as much attention beyond the turnovers, and here he may have something in common with Antetokounmpo.Antetokounmpo went 0 for 3 from outside the perimeter in Game 2. And with each missed shot, TNT’s Reggie Miller harangued Antetokounmpo on the broadcast for taking those wide-open shots, saying that he was bailing out the Hawks’ defense. It has been a theme throughout Antetokounmpo’s playoff runs. In this year’s second-round series against the Nets, every time Antetokounmpo had an open look at Barclays Center, the crowd would roar with anticipation, hoping he would take the shot.Miller and the Nets fans were onto something. Those are not great shots for Antetokounmpo, given his strength near the rim. But three long jump shots in a game isn’t much in today’s N.B.A.Young, who is supremely confident in his long-range shooting, is an example of that. His confidence is part of what makes him such a great player and why the Hawks have unexpectedly made it to the conference finals. But there is growing evidence that Young’s 3-point shooting is almost as problematic — if not more so — than Antetokounmpo’s, because he takes many more of them and hasn’t consistently knocked them down.Young and his teammates struggled from 3 in Game 2, finishing 9 for 36 from 3. Young went 1 for 8. The one make was a highlight-worthy quick release following a crossover against Holiday. That’s just it with Young: When he succeeds, he does it in a flashy way, making it easy to forget about the seven misses. It’s easy to chalk this up to a poor shooting night. But in Game 1, when Young masterfully poured in 48 points, what went less noticed was that he shot 4 for 13 from 3.OK, that’s two poor shooting nights — at least from 3. That happens. But when one zooms out and looks at Young’s history as a shooter, there are holes. Against the Philadelphia 76ers in the semifinals, Young shot poorly from 3 over seven games: 32.3 percent on almost nine attempts a game. In the opening round against the Knicks: 34.1 percent over five games.Over 204 career regular-season games, Young has shot only 34.3 percent from 3. For someone who has averaged more than seven 3-point attempts per game for his career, that’s not very good.Part of this is the difficulty in the 3s Young takes. As the primary ballhandler, Young is excellent at creating shots for others, but he rarely has shots created for him. That means many of his 3-point shots are coming off pull-ups or step-backs, and rarely off catch-and-shoots. They’re also frequently contested.In the regular season, 43.8 percent of Young’s shots came after he dribbled the ball more than seven times, according to the N.B.A.’s tracking numbers. For comparison, that same number for Kevin Durant of the Nets was 13.1 percent. Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors, a player Young has compared himself to, is at 24.3 percent.Young certainly looks the part of a great 3-point shooter: His form is similar to Curry’s. He is a great free-throw shooter (88.6 percent during the regular season). And he is often aggressively guarded as if he is a consistent threat as a shooter. But there’s isn’t evidence that he is much of one.During the regular season, when the closest defender was more than six feet away from Young, he only shot 39.6 percent from the field. During the playoffs, entering Friday, that number was slightly worse at 38.2 percent. (Curry, during the regular season, was at 48.9 percent. The Los Angeles Lakers’ LeBron James was at 45.2 percent, and Durant was at 56.3 percent.)This is an argument to occasionally guard Young in the same way that opposing teams guard Antetokounmpo: Goad him into taking more deep shots, particularly step-backs. Give him more space and put a defensive wall up around the rim. Young makes up for his shooting with his skillful ball-handling in the paint and by getting to the free-throw line. While Antetokounmpo bullies his way to the basket, Young uses finesse. One of Young’s best weapons is a floater, which he deploys often coming off a pick-and-roll and seeing a Bucks big man drop back in coverage. On Friday, Young was 5 for 8 inside the 3-point line.Simply put: The Bucks should encourage Young to take shots he doesn’t usually make and stop him from getting the ones he usually does. Giving him more space to operate on the outside might help neutralize his skill at breaking down defenses to get to the rim. The downside is that this leaves more space for Atlanta’s other shooters as well. But Young is adept at finding them anyway when he gets into the paint easily.Young is a better deep threat than Antetokounmpo, who shot 30.3 percent from 3 during the regular season. But to an extent, shooting has so far been a weakness in Young’s career — one that the Bucks should not be afraid to exploit as the series heads to Atlanta on Sunday.Young seems to think he’s a good long-range shooter. Don’t disabuse him of that notion. More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in Basket

      Clippers Beat Suns in Game 3, Continuing a Playoff Trend

      by

      For the third straight playoff series, Los Angeles spotted an opponent two wins and then roared back in Game 3. In each previous series, they kept winning and advanced.The Los Angeles Clippers are the first team in N.B.A. history to erase multiple 2-0 series deficits in the same postseason. Their players, so impressed by the adjustments that their coach, Tyronn Lue, has been making to facilitate those comebacks, have started calling him Bill Belichick.“Yeah, right,” Lue said late Thursday, laughing at the comparisons to Belichick, who has coached the New England Patriots to six Super Bowl titles.Lue knows the Clippers remain seven wins from the first N.B.A. championship in franchise history, but on Thursday they managed to add another entry to their improbable run of Game 3 recoveries — and this time they did it without their best player. With Kawhi Leonard reduced to spectator status, watching from a Staples Center suite as he nursed a worrisome right knee sprain, Los Angeles ground out a 106-92 victory over the Phoenix Suns to slice the Suns’ lead in the best-of-seven Western Conference finals to 2-1.While none of the Clippers got too carried away with one win, given the specter of Leonard’s uncertain availability for the rest of the series, the performance provided the feel of an actual trend that began with the Clippers’ momentous Game 3 win in Dallas and continued with a similar escape against the Utah Jazz in the next round.Paul George scored 27 points in Game 3.Robert Hanashiro/USA Today Sports, via ReutersIn the first round, Dallas had won the first two games as the road team and opened a 30-11 lead in Game 3 before the Clippers rallied for a win that probably saved their season.This week, after the Clippers dropped the first two games in Phoenix while the Suns’ Chris Paul was isolated from his team in the league’s health and safety protocols, Los Angeles needed a similar turning point. With Paul making his return Thursday night, the Suns, with Paul in and Leonard out, seemed set up perfectly to bring a halt to the Clippers’ Game 3 joy.Then Lue intervened, as he had in the Dallas series (when he made the 6-foot-8 Nicolas Batum his starting center) and then the Utah series (when he unleashed the reserve guard Terance Mann, with Leonard out, and Mann responded by scoring a career-high 39 points in a closeout victory in Game 6).On Thursday, Lue again started the 6-foot-5 Mann to send some size at the rusty Paul, but he also handed key roles to Patrick Beverley and Ivica Zubac (15 points and 16 rebounds) after pulling both from the starting lineup in the Dallas series. Assigning Mann to Paul and directing Beverley to hound the Suns’ Devin Booker helped a weary Paul George stay just fresh enough to register 27 points, 15 rebounds and 8 assists. It was an encouraging rebound for George, whose two late missed free throws in Game 2 in Phoenix created the opening for the Suns to steal a 104-103 victory on Deandre Ayton’s dunk in the final second. In Game 3, George’s half-court bank shot at the third-quarter buzzer freshened up his 9-for-26 shooting line considerably and crucially nudged the Clippers’ lead to 80-69, giving them the fourth-quarter edge that led to the Suns’ first loss since May 27.“I thought we did a great job of moving on,” George said. “I moved on. I know I have to be better.”That was a safe assumption with Paul returning from his 10-day isolation from the Suns. Before his sudden exile, Paul, 36, had played the best series of his career in a second-round sweep over the Denver Nuggets — clinching only the second trip to the conference finals in Paul’s 16-season career. He also surely wanted to make a showy return to Los Angeles, where he had spent six fruitless seasons with the Clippers before departing in 2017.Paul and the Suns still have an opportunity to lead their franchise into the N.B.A. finals for the first time since 1993. Leonard’s injury makes this the third straight round in which the Suns have faced a compromised opponent, after the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers (Anthony Davis) and then the Nuggets (Jamal Murray) were weakened by the loss of key players.Yet Paul and Booker combined to shoot 10 for 40 from the field in Game 3, with Booker forced to wear a plastic face shield after a Game 2 clash with Beverley left him with a broken nose. The Suns also lost Cameron Payne, who starred in Game 2 (29 points, 9 assists, 0 turnovers) while filling in for Paul, when he injured his left ankle in the first half. For once in a postseason marked by serious injury issues in both conferences, Phoenix looked a bit banged up heading into Saturday’s Game 4.Booker insisted that his nose was “fine, honestly” after doctors deemed it broken in three places, and he dismissed suggestions that the mask had affected his shooting. I checked in with one of Booker’s former Suns teammates, Jamal Crawford, after Crawford took to Twitter during Booker’s 5-for-21 shooting struggles to describe his own experience with a face shield as “the best defense” he had ever seen.Devin Booker wore a mask to protect his broken nose but refused to blame it for his 5-for-21 shooting performance.Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press“The mask challenge is real,” Crawford said. “First off, you can only see straight ahead, nothing on the sides. And even shooting, your depth perception is not quite right. A shot you shoot long may be short, and vice versa. It’s tough to get in a rhythm.”Crawford recalled ditching the mask after a quarter and taking his chances with an exposed nose because “the frustration of wearing it was too much.” The Suns coach, Monty Williams, not surprisingly, implored his players to blame the defeat on nothing apart from their failure to match what he termed the Clippers’ “desperation.”To hear Lue’s players tell it, that pluck stemmed as much from him as despair. Whether the Clippers can win Game 4 and give their third successive comeback attempt from a 2-0 deficit a significant jolt most likely depends on how well Paul and Booker can bounce back from their shaky reunion. But the Clippers said they were convinced Lue would have a plan for that.“I think it’s special, just the relationship I have with T-Lue, and the relationship T-Lue has with every individual on this team in general,” George said. He credited a late-night phone call with Lue shortly after the team landed in Los Angeles after the painful Game 2 defeat with helping him bounce back.But does that make him the next Belichick?“I’m nowhere near him,” Lue said.Was he bold enough to believe that the Clippers, after going 0-6 in Game 1s and Game 2s, can make it back to 2-2 again even without Leonard?“I don’t like it, I’ll tell you that,” Lue said of his team’s habit of digging early holes. “But we’ve been a resilient team all season long.” More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Basket

      He Created the Sports Theme Song You Didn’t Know You Knew

      by

      It’s a little bit “aggressive” and a little bit “light.” The theme song for TNT’s “Inside the N.B.A.” is as much a character as the show’s popular hosts.Even the most casual N.B.A. fans probably remember the classic theme song for games played on NBC during the golden era of 1990s basketball. They’ll almost assuredly recall that it was written by John Tesh, the former television host and composer. Some might even know that it’s called “Roundball Rock.” It has been memorialized in pop culture on “Saturday Night Live” and further enshrined with a video of Tesh explaining where the song came from: a voice mail message he left for himself.In the 21st century, another theme song has become familiar to N.B.A. fans, although most likely not as much as Tesh’s. It is the one that signals the start of one of the most influential studio shows in sports, “Inside the N.B.A.” on TNT. Here, the composer of the theme song is virtually unknown to the show’s viewers and even to its hosts. But he is a household name in some corners of music fandom and one of the industry’s most prolific composers.The composer is Trevor Rabin, the former guitarist of the progressive rock band Yes. The South African-born musician was the driving force behind the album “90125,” a comeback record for the band, and the song “Owner of a Lonely Heart,” the band’s only No. 1 hit. Rabin was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2017 with the band.“I wasn’t really even aware of that, to tell you the truth,” Ernie Johnson, one of the hosts of “Inside the N.B.A.” and a Yes fan, said in a phone call after finding out that Rabin was the composer. “But that’s very cool.”Rabin, who lives in Los Angeles, described himself as a rabid basketball fan, particularly of the Lakers. He said that he “religiously” watches games and uses that time to practice the guitar. But when it comes to this theme song, he has gone mostly unnoticed.“I remember Shaq saying once he liked the theme just in passing, but no one’s ever acknowledged me. Charles Barkley needs to acknowledge it and give a shout out. Otherwise I’m never going to support him again,” Rabin joked during a recent interview, referring to Shaquille O’Neal and Barkley, who host “Inside the N.B.A.” with Johnson and Kenny Smith.Rabin, 67, turned to film scoring in the 1990s. He had shown an interest in orchestration dating to his childhood in South Africa, growing up as the son of a classical pianist mother and a violin-playing father. As a member of Yes, Rabin said that he would often try to introduce orchestral components to the music.Rabin is perhaps best known for composing the theme song for the movie “Remember the Titans.”Mike Coppola/Getty Images“A lot of it has become kind of electronic and computerized, but writing for orchestra was always a love of mine,” Rabin said, referring to on-screen scores. “So I just decided I’m going to get into film, and I remember my manager saying: ‘Oh, it’s a big brick wall there. Just because you’ve had a notoriety with other areas, film’s going to be very difficult.’ But I decided, ‘No, I really want to do this.’”He quickly became a sought after composer in Hollywood. In 1998 alone, the films “Armageddon,” “Jack Frost” and “Enemy of the State” were released with Rabin’s scores. His most famous work is most likely the theme song for 2000’s “Remember the Titans.” That composition was played in November 2008 after Barack Obama delivered the acceptance speech for winning the presidency.It was the “Titans” theme that put Rabin on the radar of Craig Barry, now the Turner Sports executive who oversees the “Inside the N.B.A.” studio production. Barry, also a serious Yes fan, was doing some production work for NBC during the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City — and used the theme from the “Titans” soundtrack to close out the final broadcast. Barry then recruited Rabin to rework the TNT studio show’s theme song.“I went armed with literally a handful of his work,” Barry said, and added, “I was essentially telling him I want all of this together.”Part of what makes a theme song effective, Barry said, is that “you never get sick of hearing it.”Clearly, TNT has not. Usually, according to Rabin, the network will update graphics and other parts of the broadcast — except the hosts, of course — every three years or so. But the theme song has stayed the same for almost two decades. It has become a character of the show, much in the same way as Johnson, O’Neal, Barkley and Smith. (Like Tesh’s, this theme has appeared on “Saturday Night Live,” but as part of a larger sendup of “Inside the N.B.A.”)“To me, it’s kind of a signature,” Johnson said. “If somebody has their back turned, and they’re in the house doing something and have the television on for background noise and they’re waiting for something, when they hear that song, they go, ‘OK, the ‘N.B.A. on TNT’ is on. It’s like the stamp that says the N.B.A. is coming on.”The listener can hear certain mainstays of what made Yes successful, particularly the soaring lead guitar riffs and the heavy use of a synthesizer. But there is more that may not immediately meet the ear. The song is in the time signature 7/8, whereas most songs written for any medium in the last two centuries are more traditionally 4/4. (A time signature is generally a measure of a song’s rhythm.)The genesis of the theme song was an act of aggression. Rabin said that he was watching the 1984 N.B.A. finals between the rival Boston Celtics and his Lakers, when during Game 4, Kevin McHale, the Celtics power forward, clotheslined the Lakers’ Kurt Rambis. Rabin was scoring while watching the game and the clothesline inspired him to come up with the 7/8 meter, which he would then use for TNT.“I feel like anything I do, when I listened back to it, I always think: ‘Oh, God, why didn’t I do this? I should have done that,’” Rabin said.Allison Zaucha for The New York TimesAnother aspect distinguishing this song is its versatility, whether under highlights or as a main theme.“What’s unique about the ‘N.B.A. on TNT’ theme is that it can be used in various situations, and it can be really appropriate,” Barry said. “It has this primary theme and then it has this very aggressive rush section and then it has a light fanfare piece of it. It’s all kind of seamlessly melded together.”Rabin said the only N.B.A. figure he has discussed the theme with is Gary Payton, the Hall of Fame point guard who spent much of his career with the Seattle SuperSonics. Right after the theme made its debut, Payton visited the set of “Bad Boys II,” a film Rabin had scored. Rabin was chatting with the film’s lead, Will Smith, when Payton approached.“I said: ‘Oh, my goodness, you’re the Glove. How you doing? And can I shake the glove?’” Rabin said.He informed Payton that he had composed the “Inside the N.B.A.” theme song.“And then he was like, ‘Man, that’s cool.’ And I guess that’s the story,” Rabin said.Even though TNT has not made a move for a new theme song, the current one does have one prominent critic: Rabin.“It’s kind of a terrible affliction I have,” he said, adding that he’s also uncomfortable watching movies he has scored. “I feel like anything I do, when I listened back to it, I always think: ‘Oh, God, why didn’t I do this? I should have done that.’”But every time the song is played on the broadcast, Rabin collects a check, no matter how much he cringes at hearing it played.“I wish it was $15,000 at a time, but unfortunately I think it’s more like 15 cents,” Rabin said. More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in Basket

      Nets Assistant Ime Udoka Nears Deal to Coach the Celtics

      by

      Udoka, who has been with the Nets for one season, will be hired by Brad Stevens, his predecessor. Stevens recently was promoted to president of basketball operations.Ime Udoka, who was an assistant for the Nets this season, is nearing an agreement to become the next head coach of the Boston Celtics, a person familiar with the discussions but not authorized to discuss them publicly said on Wednesday.Udoka spent seven years as an assistant with the San Antonio Spurs under Gregg Popovich and one season as an assistant in Philadelphia before coming to the Nets. He also played in the N.B.A. as a reserve for seven years, including spurts with the Knicks and the Los Angeles Lakers and three seasons with the Spurs.The news of the impending hiring was first reported by ESPN.This will be the second high-profile move made by the new Celtics team president, Brad Stevens, who was unexpectedly thrust into the role this month. His predecessor, Danny Ainge, stepped down after the Nets knocked the Celtics out of the playoffs in the first round.Stevens had coached the team for the last eight years, but this season had been a particularly tumultuous one for the Celtics, who were besieged by injuries and an ill-fitting roster that lacked depth. Boston’s best player, the All-Star Jayson Tatum, also dealt with lingering effects from Covid-19. After making the Eastern Conference finals in 2019-20, the Celtics had to fight just to get into the playoffs and finished the season at 36-36.Udoka, 43, will inherit a team centered on two All-Star wings, Tatum and Jaylen Brown. In his first major move as team president, Stevens last week traded Kemba Walker, who was the team’s starting point guard, and Boston’s 2021 first-round pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder for Al Horford and Moses Brown, an up-and-coming center. The move increased the Celtics’ financial flexibility.At the news conference announcing his promotion, Stevens said of the coaching search: “I think that the good news about whoever we hire, they don’t have to fill Doc Rivers’s shoes like I did, and they don’t have to fill Danny Ainge’s shoes now like I do. The good news is they have to figure out a way to be better than the last guy.”Udoka, who is Nigerian American, will become the sixth Black coach in the history of the franchise. The others were Rivers (2004-13), M.L. Carr (1995-97), K.C. Jones (1983-88), Tom Sanders (1978) and Bill Russell (1966-69).In a league that has been criticized for predominantly hiring white coaches, even though more than 70 percent of players are Black, Udoka will be one of nine nonwhite head coaches. (This does not include Nate McMillan, who is Black and the interim head coach of the Atlanta Hawks.) Udoka will be coaching in a city that was once again in the spotlight for its treatment of Black athletes, during this year’s playoffs. Kyrie Irving, who played for the Celtics from 2017 to 2019, suggested that he had heard racist comments from fans during his time in Boston and said that he hoped he wouldn’t hear them as a member of the Nets.There are six other head coaching vacancies across the league, in Portland, Orlando, Indiana, New Orleans, Washington and Dallas. More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Basket

      Vanessa Bryant and Families of Crash Victims Settle With Helicopter Company

      by

      Bryant, the widow of the N.B.A. star Kobe Bryant, had filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the company that operated the vehicle that crashed last year, killing nine.Vanessa Bryant, the widow of the basketball star Kobe Bryant, and the family members of the other victims in a deadly helicopter crash in January 2020 reached a settlement with the charter company that operated the helicopter.Terms of the settlement were confidential and it is awaiting court approval.Vanessa Bryant had filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Island Express Helicopters and its owner, Island Express Holding Corporation, arguing that the company had not properly trained the helicopter’s pilot, Ara Zobayan, and that he had shown negligence in his flying.In response to the lawsuit, Island Express Helicopters had denied responsibility for the crash, labeling it “an act of God.” The company countersued two Federal Aviation Administration air traffic controllers, stating their “series of erroneous acts and/or omissions” had caused the crash.Kobe Bryant, a longtime member of the Los Angeles Lakers who was recently posthumously inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame, his daughter Gianna, and seven other people on board were killed in the crash. They had been traveling to a youth basketball game at Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks, Calif., when the helicopter slammed into a hill near Calabasas, Calif.In February, the National Transportation Safety Board announced that the crash had most likely been caused by Zobayan’s flying into clouds, in a violation of federal rules. The conditions blinded him and caused him to become disoriented, believing the helicopter was climbing when it was actually descending, they found.Zobayan had been a longtime pilot for Kobe Bryant and his family. He was likely eager to make the trip for Bryant, despite the fog-shrouded conditions, but there was no indication that Bryant had pressured Zobayan into flying, the yearlong investigation concluded.Vanessa Bryant and other family members of the crash’s victims also filed a lawsuit against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, four deputies, the county and its fire department for invasion of privacy and negligence after deputies took and shared unauthorized photos of the victims and the crash site.That lawsuit is ongoing.Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs More

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Basket

      Doubters. Haters. Trae Young Has Them. He Doesn’t Care.

      by

      Young, the Atlanta Hawks guard, has embraced the booing, cursing crowds and his opponents’ defensive pressure. What he hasn’t embraced? Low expectations.Nate McMillan, more than most, knows the unpredictable nature of a point guard equipped with unflinching confidence.As a member of the Seattle SuperSonics, McMillan shared a backcourt with Gary Payton. The brash Payton scored on nearly everyone and backed down from absolutely no one, Michael Jordan included.So McMillan, now the interim coach of the fifth-seeded Atlanta Hawks, did not panic when the shot of his star guard, Trae Young, was off throughout much of his team’s deciding Game 7 in the N.B.A.’s Eastern Conference semifinals on Sunday night against the top-seeded Philadelphia 76ers.“I can’t believe how calm I was throughout this game, and I think it just came from the fact that I knew these guys were going to give me everything they had,” McMillan said, adding of Young: “He’s fearless, so the opponents, they have to guard for that. He will take a shot if he’s open, regardless of how many shots he has missed. He really stretches the defense.”And Young missed a great many shots on Sunday. But his greatest strength is his confidence, maximized by the unpredictability of his repertoire.Will he spot up from 30 feet or whip a line-drive pass through a small crease into the hands of John Collins? Will he zig and zag into the lane for a floater or lob an alley-oop pass to Clint Capela? Will he pull back for a midrange attempt or lure help defenders into the lane before kicking the ball out to Danilo Gallinari, Bogdan Bogdanovic or Kevin Huerter?The options appear plentiful on every offensive possession, with Young choosing the route dictated by the defense. On Sunday, Young, dealing with a right shoulder injury, missed 17 of his first 19 shots, as Huerter assumed the offensive burden while amassing a playoff career-high 27 points.Young, center, has leaned into the intensity of the playoffs, rewarding home crowds, pictured, with his effort and shrugging off the jeers on the road.Kevin C. Cox/Getty ImagesThe threat of Young pulling up from deep lengthened Philadelphia’s defense, and his many forays into the lane resulted in several finishes for Capela as Atlanta kept the game close.“I know I just had to find a way,” Young said afterward. “My shot was off tonight. My right hand and my shoulder — I was still trying to fight through it and push through it and shots weren’t going tonight, but my teammates showed up and made plays. Me, I just tried to find them.”In the closing moments, Young found his shot and Atlanta claimed the series with a 103-96 victory, earning its first conference finals trip since 2015. The Hawks will face the No. 3-seeded Milwaukee Bucks. Atlanta never trailed after Young’s midrange floater put the Hawks up, 86-84, and his long 3-point shot and free throws cemented the outcome.“They were making plays for me throughout the whole game,” Young said. “Just wanted to come through in the end and help them out a little bit. I know I didn’t shoot the ball great today, but they definitely made plays, and it was a total team effort tonight.”This season is coming to a close without the mainstays of recent playoffs, partly because of a rash of high-profile injuries. LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers bowed out in the first round. Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and James Harden lost in the second with the Nets. Stephen Curry’s only postseason appearances came while watching his brother, Seth, play for Philadelphia.Instead, these playoffs are providing a stage for players like Young and Phoenix’s Devin Booker to come of age. Both have been accused of putting up empty calorie stats for losing teams.Young took what defenses allowed as he learned the league during his first two seasons. He just didn’t have the caliber of teammates that he is now surrounded with in his third.Atlanta did not cross the 30-win threshold in either of the two previous seasons and was not one of the 22 teams invited into the Walt Disney World bubble last season when the N.B.A. resumed the pandemic-paused season.The organization quickly and smartly retooled itself by adding Bogdanovic and Gallinari through free agency and Capela and Lou Williams through trades to go along with the developing core of Young, Collins and Huerter. (De’Andre Hunter and Cam Reddish, two other young players, have been injured.)The Hawks began the season with the hopes of qualifying for the playoffs, but that goal seemed quickly out of reach. Atlanta started 14-20 before firing Coach Lloyd Pierce and promoting McMillan, who had been an assistant. The Hawks rebounded at the time Bogdanovic returned from an injury that had limited him, finishing the season 27-11 to earn the conference’s fifth seed.“It’s been a tough journey,” Young said. “It took a lot of losses to get here. For us, I think the guys who have been here since the rebuild, this feeling is a lot better than what it’s been. We know it’s our first year in the playoffs together, and it’s only the beginning, too. That’s the best part about this whole thing.”Young was at the forefront of both the rebuild and the rally and is averaging 29.1 points and 10.4 assists per game during the playoffs. He can be a frustrating player to watch. He entices fouls in a Harden-esque way, stopping randomly and purposefully in the lane so a defender can brush into him. He is getting results.So far this postseason, Young has bowed at Madison Square Garden while finishing off the Knicks in five games, and he performed push-ups on the court at Wells Fargo Center while outlasting the 76ers. The Hawks have claimed five road playoff games in New York and Philadelphia with Young relishing his role as a villain, smiling as crowds have booed and cursed at him.The last time the Hawks made it this deep into the playoffs, they were led by Mike Budenholzer, now the coach of the Bucks. Milwaukee flexes Giannis Antetokounmpo, a former defensive player of the year, and Jrue Holiday, who is regarded as one of the league’s premier perimeter on-ball defenders. The Bucks are paying Holiday handsomely — he signed a four-year, $135 million extension in April — to make an impact on a series just like the approaching one.The Bucks pose another serious challenge in a postseason in which Young and the Hawks have continually silenced their skeptics.No one expected Atlanta to qualify for the conference finals. The Hawks play like a team unaware people think it’s supposed to have a ceiling.Perhaps Young’s unflinching confidence is contagious.“The confidence is still there,” Young said. “The confidence is going to remain the same. We’re happy we made it to the Eastern Conference finals, but we’re not satisfied. So it’s great that we’re here, but we’ve still got some games to win.” More

    • 175 Shares119 Views

      in Basket

      ‘It Hurts’: Season Is Over Before Nets See How Good Big Three Can Be

      by

      Injuries kept the Nets from knowing what they could really look like once their stars — Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and James Harden — were playing well together.Whether Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving could collaborate, share the basketball and play good enough defense to bring a championship to New York’s less heralded N.B.A. franchise were unknowns that nagged at the entire league.Now, after being eliminated by the Milwaukee Bucks on Saturday night in Game 7 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series, the Nets cannot hush their skeptics until next year. After a 48-24 season and playoff ride that lasted only two rounds, the biggest questions about their three stars remain unanswered.Injuries overrode potential basketball issues and neutralized the Nets’ status among Las Vegas oddsmakers as title favorites. Durant, Harden and Irving shared the floor for only 43 seconds in the Bucks series. In Game 7, with only Durant as a dependable offensive option and Irving in street clothes, Milwaukee outlasted the Nets, 115-111, in overtime at Barclays Center, which inflicted a searing pain of its own.“It hurts,” Coach Steve Nash said, lauding the efforts of Durant, who scored 48 points in 53 minutes in Game 7, and Harden, who also played all 53 minutes, despite a hamstring strain. “I hurt for them more than anything.”The N.B.A.’s 75th season will be remembered for its Covid-19 protocols, game postponements and empty arenas for months. But the Nets became the league’s biggest on-court story after their acquisition in January of Harden from the Houston Rockets. Five years after General Manager Sean Marks was hired to rescue a franchise devoid of elite talent and draft picks, Marks built a legitimate contender by assembling one of the most impressive offensive threesomes in league history.The trouble for the Nets was not their defensive shortcomings, the depth they sacrificed to make the trade with the Rockets, the lack of available practice time during the coronavirus pandemic or Nash’s inexperience as a first-year coach. It was this: In the regular season, Durant, Harden and Irving were healthy enough to play together for only 202 minutes across eight games. Their 130 minutes together in a five-game dismissal of the Boston Celtics in the first round proved to be their only burst of continuity as a unit. Milwaukee won three of the final four games of the series after Irving’s nasty right ankle sprain in the first half of Game 4.These playoffs were supposed to be the Nets’ chance to shift a slice or two of cultural relevance to Brooklyn from Manhattan in a city teeming with Knicks fans. In the end, neither Marks nor Nash really came away knowing what the Nets could really look like when whole.Some key moments that brought the Nets to this point:Durant and Irving Sign OnEntering the 2019-20 season, there was much speculation about where Durant and Irving would end up. Earlier in the previous season, Irving had committed to staying with Boston long-term, while Durant seemed to be on his way to another title with Golden State. As the world found out after their seasons unraveled — Durant’s through an Achilles’ tear in the 2019 N.B.A. finals — they wanted to play together.The Nets had enough salary cap flexibility to sign them, as well as their friend DeAndre Jordan. The Knicks had the same wherewithal, but Durant and Irving chose the Nets and took Jordan, who finished the 2018-19 season with the Knicks, with them.Nets officials made the moves knowing Durant would probably miss his entire first season as a Net while recovering from the Achilles’ injury. Irving wound up playing only 20 games in his first season in Brooklyn because of shoulder problems. Both are now halfway through four-year deals.Nash’s HiringSteve Nash had a 48-24 record and was the Eastern Conference’s coach of the month in February in his first season as a Nets and N.B.A. coach.Elsa/Getty ImagesThe Nets shook the N.B.A. again by hiring Nash as coach in September 2020. He had no coaching experience, even at the assistant level, but he won two Most Valuable Player Awards and was one of the best point guards in league history.He was essentially chosen by Marks, his former Phoenix Suns teammate, who felt he had the gravitas and communication skills to manage the Nets’ two mercurial stars. Harden would not arrive until a few weeks into Nash’s first season on the bench. The Nets also brought in Mike D’Antoni, Nash’s former coach in Phoenix, to lend veteran guidance.“I wasn’t hired to come in and be a tactical wizard,” Nash said on a podcast hosted by the N.B.A. sharpshooter JJ Redick.Hiring Nash, who is white, nonetheless elicited criticism, given the dearth of Black coaches in the N.B.A., whose player pool is estimated to be nearly 80 percent Black. Nash’s hiring came after Jacque Vaughn, who completed the 2019-20 season as the team’s interim coach and had the Nets playing unexpectedly well without Durant and Irving in the N.B.A.’s so-called bubble in Florida. Vaughn, who is Black, stayed on as an assistant alongside D’Antoni and Ime Udoka. On ESPN, Stephen A. Smith called Nash’s hiring “white privilege.”“Well, I did skip the line, frankly,” Nash said at his introductory news conference. “But at the same time, I think leading an N.B.A. team for almost two decades is pretty unique.”The Harden BlockbusterHarden entered this season as a disgruntled member of the Rockets. He wanted out after D’Antoni and Daryl Morey left the team without an established coach and its top front-office executive, and Harden pushed for a trade to the Nets to reunite with Durant, his former Oklahoma City Thunder teammate. It was an audacious move for someone with three years left on his contract — and it cemented the Nets as league villains when it worked.Harden reported late to training camp to apply pressure on the Rockets to trade him. Appearing to be in less than optimal shape made his disinterest palpable during the eight regular-season games he played. The Nets, off to a 6-6 start, ignored Harden’s checkered playoff résumé and the rampant skepticism that one ball would not be enough to satisfy three high-volume scorers, and proceeded with trade talks.In January, the Nets acquired James Harden, pictured shooting over Giannis Antetokounmpo, but he strained a hamstring and missed more time than he had in any previous season.Wendell Cruz/USA Today Sports, via ReutersIn a four-team trade, Marks agreed to surrender control of the Nets’ top draft pick through 2027 to the Rockets and deal two young fan favorites, Caris LeVert (to Indiana) and Jarrett Allen (to Cleveland), to land Harden. As a bonus, the trade kept Harden from landing alongside center Joel Embiid in Philadelphia, after the 76ers offered the Rockets a deal involving Ben Simmons.The deal remains a gamble for the Nets. Every year without a championship will increase the scrutiny and pressure. Management must decide whether to pursue contract extensions with Durant, Harden and Irving that would cost hundreds of millions in salary and luxury tax or risk seeing any of the three opt for free agency after next season under their current contracts.“This is just the start of our journey,” Joe Tsai, the Nets’ owner, said on Twitter after the Game 7 loss. Known as one of the league’s wealthiest owners alongside the Los Angeles Clippers’ Steve Ballmer, Tsai certainly has the financial might to keep the core together.Irving’s AbsencesDuring the pursuit of Harden and after his arrival, Irving missed seven games in January for personal reasons. Marks said Irving’s sudden unavailability and the acquisition were “completely separate.” Yet the Nets felt it was urgent to maximize Durant’s championship window and made the trade with that in mind, according to two people familiar with the club’s thinking who were not authorized to discuss it publicly.Kyrie Irving, left, who was out since Game 4 with a right ankle sprain, supported his Nets teammates from the bench in Game 7 against the Bucks on Saturday night.Elsa/Getty ImagesThe Nets knew they wouldn’t have a training camp to try to assimilate Harden into the team, but figured that by bringing in a durable player, they would almost always have two elite players on the floor. It also became clear, soon after Harden’s arrival, that he was best suited to be the team’s playmaker, according to one of the people. Clear, even, to Irving.“We established that maybe four days ago now,” Irving said in February. “I just looked at him and I said, ‘You’re the point guard and I’m going to play shooting guard.’ That was as simple as that.”Cries that Harden was a luxury item for the Nets faded fast. The team went 29-8 in the regular season in games that Harden played and 12-11 without him.InjuriesHealth woes began almost immediately; Spencer Dinwiddie was lost to a season-ending knee tear just three games in. Dinwiddie averaged a career-high 20.6 points per game the season before, and he was expected to be yet another scoring threat on a team full of them.Durant overcame his Achilles’ tear in a big way, ending his season with 49 points against Milwaukee in Game 5 and 48 points in Game 7. But he wound up playing in only 35 of the Nets’ 72 regular-season games because of a hamstring injury. Harden, who was dealing with his own hamstring injury, missed more time in the regular season (21 of the final 23 games) and playoffs than he had in any previous season.The Nets were rocked in April when LaMarcus Aldridge, a former All-Star they had signed after he negotiated a buyout with the San Antonio Spurs, retired at age 35 because of a longstanding heart condition. Nash used a franchise-record 38 starting lineups in those 72 games and four separate ones in the Bucks series, leaning upon the well-traveled Jeff Green; Blake Griffin, a former All-Star who joined the team in April; and Griffin’s former Detroit Pistons teammate Bruce Brown.For the playoffs, the Nets finally seemed healthy — for one round. Harden missed all but the opening minute of the first four games of the Milwaukee series and lacked explosion or lift in his legs when he volunteered to return for Game 5 after Irving’s ankle sprain. Green’s plantar fascia strain kept him out of the first three games with the Bucks.“It’s been a really difficult year,” Nash said. “We’ve had a lot thrown at us.”Even with the injuries and Milwaukee’s stars healthy, the Nets came within an inch of advancing to the next round. With one second left in regulation in Game 7 and the Nets down by 2 points, Durant made a contested shot from the right wing that appeared to be a 3-pointer for the win. But his toe was on the 3-point line, and it counted as a long 2, sending the Nets to overtime instead of to the Eastern Conference finals.“My big ass foot stepped on the line,” Durant said. “I was just seeing a little screenshot how close I was to ending their season on that shot. But it wasn’t in God’s plan, and we move on.” More