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      Curry’s 3-Point Bonanza Has Golden State Bouncing Back

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      A turnaround early this season has come with Stephen Curry reasserting why he is the best 3-point shooter in basketball history.Stephen Curry going for 40, the Golden State Warriors at the top of the league: We’re talking 2016 or so, right? No, try 2021.After many fans moved on from the Warriors era to ponder possible dynasties from LeBron James and the Lakers or Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Bucks, Golden State has come roaring back early this season behind the scoring of Curry.On Thursday night, Curry had nine 3-pointers and 40 points as the Warriors improved to a league best 13-2 with a 104-89 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Warriors entered the fourth quarter down 13. No problem for Curry, who had 20 points in the period, helping his team outscore Cleveland by 36-8 to win going away.Starting in around 2015 or ’16, Curry, already a great 3-point shooter, seemed to almost break the game with a torrent of 3s, many from very, very deep, leading his team to five straight finals, including its most recent championship in 2018.But Curry missed most of 2019-20 with a broken left hand. Although he bounced back last season, averaging 32 points a game, the team did not, missing the playoffs. Kevin Durant and Andre Iguodala had left in 2019, and injuries cost Klay Thompson more than two full seasons. The golden years at Golden State seemed to be over.Yet at 33, Curry has helped turn the team all the way around this year.The continued development of Jordan Poole (17 points a game, up 5 from last season); Draymond Green’s outstanding defense, rebounding (eight a game) and passing (eight assists per game); and another solid season from Andrew Wiggins (18 p.p.g.) are all a part of the resurgence. But Curry rightly deserves a huge amount of the credit.In his first 15 games, Curry already has three 40-point efforts and a 50-pointer against Atlanta last week. Thursday night was his fourth game with nine 3-pointers. At 29.5 points a game he leads the race for what would be his third scoring title.Curry is indisputably the best 3-point shooter in the game’s history. Though he has maxed out at nine this year, in his career he has 22 games with double-digit 3s made; the next best player is Thompson, with a mere five.Curry has not shied away from the shot. Early in his career, about a third of his shots came from beyond the arc. That increased to 50 percent and eventually 60 percent in his prime years. This season, fully 65 percent of his shots are from 3, which would be a career high. His 85 3-pointers made leads the league by 20.Oh, he also hits 96 percent of his free throws.Curry is also choosy about his shot, to the team’s benefit. He is careful to avoid the shot most dreaded by statisticians, the long 2, which has a low percentage but without the bonus point the 3 offers.After a few early seasons in which he took about 30 percent of his shots from longer than 16 feet in 2-point territory, Curry cut that figure down to about 10 percent of his shots in his peak years. Last season he took only 7 percent of his shots from that region, and this season he has nearly abandoned the long 2, taking it only 3.5 percent of the time.The sheer number of his 3s seems to compensate for a slightly lower percentage from long range; he is hitting at 42 percent this season, which would be the second lowest mark of his career in a full season and down from the 45 percent or so he shot at his peak.It’s also possible the figure is a little low because of the sample size. Should Curry sink a few more 3s, as it would seem he could, he could actually improve this season. And with Thompson finally practicing again after his injury nightmare, the team could soon be getting even better, too. More

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      For NBA Twitter's Josiah Johnson, It's All Jokes. Lots of Them.

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      WOODLAND HILLS, Calif. — Josiah Johnson crafts most of his jokes in a comfortable room tucked in the back of his Southern California home. There is no complex setup.The room’s décor includes an array of sports books, shoe boxes and a light blue University of California, Los Angeles basketball chair from when he played for the team. A plump brown couch takes up much of the space. Above it is a painting of LeBron James in a Los Angeles Lakers jersey by Rod Benson, a former college basketball player. A photo of the deceased rapper Nipsey Hussle hangs over a bed in a corner.This is Johnson’s makeshift office, where he posts most of the memes, funny images and videos he uses to satirize current events in sports and pop culture. His comedic efforts have made him one of the most popular personalities on Twitter, with the handle KingJosiah54.Johnson considers himself a modest one-man social media company, where much of the work of watching live sports and posting about them is done with his feet propped up, iPhone in hand, comfy T-shirt and shorts on.“I just want no frills in how I operate and move,” Johnson, 39, said. “At the end of the day, social is what the name implies — just being social. How would you talk to your friends normally? Would it be a whole elaborate setup? No. It’s just a phone wherever you’re at, and being able to use that technology to be able to communicate with the entire world.”Josiah Johnson said he has a couple thousand clips and images saved in an album to use for memes and jokes.Rozette Rago for The New York TimesAnyone involved in #NBATwitter — the community of hoops fans who celebrate, and argue about, basketball daily — has come across one of Johnson’s memes. He pokes fun with references from movies and TV shows, well-known and obscure. He has a keen ability to find humor in even the most serious situations, like the vaccination status of Nets guard Kyrie Irving or the fraught relationship between Ben Simmons and the Philadelphia 76ers.“I’m getting some satire off in a way that they may laugh, but it’ll make them think as well,” Johnson said.Johnson, who is Black, knows his jokes aren’t for everyone — and he doesn’t care. He often pulls from elements of Black culture that haven’t been appropriated, and thus may sail over the heads of non-Black sports fans. Many of his memes are nuanced references to shows specific to his own interests, like the drama series “The Wire” or the sports movie “White Men Can’t Jump” (his father, Marques Johnson, is in the movie).“I’ve just really built a devoted following with people that I’m super appreciative of that get the joke, too,” Josiah Johnson said. “I’m almost 40 years old, so I do a lot of stuff from my lane. And that could be problematic for kids who are looking at me as an old geezer. They don’t get a lot of the references, so they don’t understand why people are laughing at them.”Locker rooms and movie sets characterized Johnson’s early life.He was a forward at U.C.L.A. in the early 2000s on teams that included future N.B.A. players like Matt Barnes, Jason Kapono and Trevor Ariza.Johnson always had a unique sense of humor and a big, energetic personality, though he could be reserved and almost seem shy at times, said Steve Lavin, who coached Johnson at U.C.L.A. and is now a college basketball analyst. Lavin added that Johnson brought an authentic lightheartedness to a high-pressured environment where winning was expected.“He doesn’t have to say anything,” Lavin said. “It could be the expression on his face or knowing what he’s thinking. You could tell the mind was always at work.”Johnson said he was allowed to keep this U.C.L.A. chair from when he played basketball after he graduated.Rozette Rago for The New York TimesJohnson didn’t play much, but he spent four seasons on U.C.L.A.’s men’s basketball team in the early 2000s.Stephen Dunn/Getty ImagesJohnson’s father also played for U.C.L.A., under John Wooden in the 1970s, and spent over a decade in the N.B.A., mostly with the Bucks and Clippers. The Johnsons were close with the family of Marques Johnson’s Clippers teammate, Norm Nixon, and Nixon’s wife, the producer and choreographer Debbie Allen. So Johnson spent many afternoons on the set of the sitcom “A Different World,” which Allen produced. Johnson’s mother, Jocelyn, was an extra.Those experiences nurtured Johnson’s love for entertainment. He cocreated the Comedy Central animated sitcom “Legends of Chamberlain Heights,” which lasted two seasons. During the show, Johnson studied how programs like “South Park,” “Game of Thrones” and “Insecure” used social media to build fan loyalty and followed that formula to amass nearly 100,000 followers on the “Chamberlain Heights” social media page. That was the impetus for generating his own following of over 200,000 accounts across Twitter and Instagram.His content has caught the attention of everyone from athletes to filmmakers. LeBron James, whom Johnson has followed closely since learning that James sat in his U.C.L.A. chair during a 2003 high school tournament, may be one of Johnson’s biggest fans. He often retweets Johnson’s jokes and has referred to him using the goat emoji, a symbol of greatness. Johnson has one of James’s tweets to him printed out and placed on a shelf.In 2019, Johnson posted a meme representing the N.F.L. players Antonio Brown and Josh Gordon as two characters from the thriller “Get Out.” Jordan Peele, the film’s creator, saw the tweet and replied to it.“You win, Josiah,” Peele wrote in a tweet that Johnson has printed on a T-shirt hanging in his closet.“That really launched this thing to where it is,” Johnson said. Peele followed him on Twitter and the two communicated via direct messages. “I just thanked him so much for giving people like myself the opportunity to be successful,” Johnson said, adding later: “If I went to my agents and was like, ‘Get me a meeting with Jordan Peele,’ they’d laugh in my face. But if I put up a tweet that can get Jordan Peele’s attention. I can have him come to me. So that’s the thing that for social, that really kind of opened my eyes.”Johnson’s social media content has yielded numerous outside opportunities, including a podcast called “Outta Pocket” that he co-hosts on Wave.tv. He also has a writing role on the Netflix series “Colin in Black and White,” based on the life of the former N.F.L. quarterback Colin Kaepernick and produced by Kaepernick and the filmmaker Ava DuVernay.Johnson’s ascension coincides with a rise of content creators who post on social media and make money off nearly every aspect of their lives. He said he sees situations “in meme form.” When something happens in sports or pop culture, Johnson knows where to look in his photo album with of a couple thousand clips and images.“A lot of times, I’m like, ‘Damn, did I just see that?’” Johnson said. “And it’s like, ‘Yep, I did, so everybody else did too. So I’ve got to get it out as fast as possible.’”He has become known as much for his speed as his wit.“Josiah Johnson is one of those folks that legitimately stopped the timeline,” said TJ Adeshola, who leads the United States sports division at Twitter. “When Josiah has a tweet, it’s always timely. It’s always hilarious. It’s always at the perfect moment.”Twitter has paired Johnson with brands and pays him to make appearances on Twitter’s N.B.A. show called “NBA Twitter Live,” which the social media company hosts with Turner Sports.Johnson in his typical tweeting attire.Rozette Rago for The New York TimesThe N.B.A., with its bold personalities and resulting drama, is distinct among professional sports leagues in the way it has cultivated a fan culture that routinely births instant-classic comedic moments that are widely shared across social media.“There’s always going to be something funny to pick up on,” said Tyler Puryear, a close friend of Johnson’s and another popular social media personality. He is better known by his Twitter handle, DragonflyJonez, an homage to a character on the ’90s sitcom “Martin.”Like Johnson, Puryear gained notoriety by making fun of almost anything, or anyone, in the N.B.A. news cycle. That comedic element, Puryear said, puts the sport’s competitiveness in perspective.“You can’t ever lose sight of the fact that it’s just a game. It’s just a sport,” he said. “It’s a bunch of dudes in tank tops and shorts throwing a leather pouch at an aluminum ring.”That view has made room for Johnson’s success.“That’s where he’s masterful at this whole Twitter thing, is that he can reach a common ground and pull us in, and have us laugh there,” Puryear said. “And I think that’s the best possible way to use Twitter.” More

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      ‘Aulcie’ Review: Love and Basketball, in Israel

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      This melodramatic documentary chronicles how Aulcie Perry, a basketball center from New Jersey, became a celebrity in Israel after he joined the Maccabi Tel Aviv team.You may not know the name Aulcie Perry, but in Israel, the former basketball center is a legend — like “Michael Jordan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar rolled into one,” as a sports journalist in the documentary “Aulcie” puts it. Through interviews, archival images and illustrated sequences, the movie, directed by Dani Menkin, offers a treacly biography of the overseas celebrity athlete whose career was ultimately derailed by an addiction to heroin.Born in Newark, N.J., the 6-foot-10 Perry always saw basketball as his calling. Hoop dreams propelled him to the N.B.A., but after he was promptly cut from the Knicks, Perry took a chance: He accepted a spot with Maccabi Tel Aviv. The team proved a solid fit, and Perry led Maccabi to European Champions Cup victories in 1977 and 1981, before drug addiction and a trafficking charge forced him to shelf his remarkable career.
      There is a contagious thrill to the movie’s portrait of its subject’s achievements, especially his whirlwind romance with the Israeli supermodel Tami Ben Ami. But when it comes to Perry’s moments of struggle, “Aulcie” trips up. Schmaltzy music and fuzzy pictures give a hard tug at the heartstrings, and footage of Perry missing shots on an empty court is frequently deployed as a superficial visual metaphor for hardship. The movie also declines to engage with Israel’s evolving politics or culture and where Perry fit in, opting instead for a melodramatic portrait of a star that fell too soon.AulcieNot rated. In English and Hebrew, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 15 minutes. In theaters and on virtual cinemas. More

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      Kevin Durant Can Score From Anywhere. Defenses Don’t Know What to Do.

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      The midrange game has largely fallen out of favor in the N.B.A., but not when Durant is on the court.Watching Kevin Durant play offense is a little bit like spending summers in the South. You know what to expect and you prepare for it, but you still find yourself saying to others, “Man, can you believe this heat?”Even the most casual N.B.A. fan knows that Durant is one of the best offensive players ever to take the floor. But this year, Durant is managing to outdo himself. Through 14 games, heading into Tuesday’s matchup with Golden State, Durant was on pace for one of the best seasons of his career. He had carried the Nets to a 10-4 record, despite not having Kyrie Irving as a playmaker next to him, and with James Harden off to a slower-than-expected start. Durant is making a serious run at a second Most Valuable Player Award.He is averaging 29.6 points a game to lead the N.B.A. — and doing so at what would be a career-best 58.6 percent field-goal percentage. Durant’s true shooting percentage — a measure of offensive efficiency that includes free throws and 3-point shooting — is .682, putting him among the league leaders.But beneath the hood, there is another eye-popping stat that makes this season different: Durant’s midrange game is humming at a ridiculous level unseen before from him.While midrange shots have generally fallen out of vogue in the N.B.A. over the last decade, Durant has long made them a calling card. The midrange is generally defined as the area outside of the free-throw lane but inside the 3-point line, which is a little less than 24 feet away from the basket and closer in the corners.Durant is shooting a whopping 70.3 percent between 16 feet away from the basket and the 3-point line. To put that in perspective, he has shot better than 50 percent from that range over a whole season just twice in his past 13 active seasons. About a fifth of his shots typically come from this distance, with another fifth coming from 10 to 16 feet away (some of these could have come from inside the free-throw lane).Teams have mostly gone away from creating offense in that area because modern analytics calculate the most efficient shots to be those at the basket or outside the 3-point line. But when you shoot as well as Durant does, those guidelines don’t apply to you. Occupying that in-between space on the court is a crucial part of Durant’s game — so much so that his typical warm-up routine features meticulous repetition of midrange shots.Durant’s most unstoppable weapon is the pull-up jumper, and given his height of 6-foot-10, it’s what allows him to be so dangerous from this range. Opposing defenders usually are not tall enough to properly challenge it, and the ones who are don’t have the foot speed to keep Durant from getting to his spot and rising up.On the Nets’ first offensive possession against Oklahoma City on Sunday, Durant grabbed the ball on the baseline and, in the blink of an eye, pulled up for an 18-foot jumper over the 6-foot-8 Thunder forward Darius Bazley. Players slower than Durant might have stepped back a few feet and shot a 3-pointer, and shorter players might have tried to drive. But Durant is quick enough to drive right or left and tall enough to shoot over Bazley or back him down in the post. Bazley was at a disadvantage the moment Durant caught the ball.Durant’s height and shooting skill make him difficult to guard, even for the best defensive players.Garett Fisbeck/Associated PressA secondary move Durant often turns to in the midrange is some variation of a fadeaway jumper, sometimes off one leg. One example: In the second quarter on Sunday, once again with Bazley matched up on him, Durant backed down his opponent in the post. The Thunder, realizing that Bazley was overmatched, sent a second defender to try to disrupt Durant. No dice. Durant simply turned around and went away from both defenders in the air and hit a jumper. Neither was tall enough to disrupt his view of the basket. In the third quarter, he hit a virtually identical shot.Defenders often try to gain advantages by anticipating the offense’s moves and being a split-second faster. But how can one prepare for Durant, who does all the usual things well, and is an eager threat from an area of the court defenders typically don’t have to worry about? And how does one properly contest a fadeaway when your opponent is already taller than you? Durant’s ability to dominate in an overlooked area opens up a world of options for the Nets, in that it forces defenses to game plan for guarding players all over the court, rather than just at the 3-point line or at the basket.Or as Durant put it in a post on Twitter in 2019: “I usually play off of feel though, if I’m hot from the 3 then I’m taking a lot of 3s, if my middy workin then that’s where I’m goin for dinner. If the lane open then I’m staying in the paint.”It’s unlikely that Durant will continue to shoot better than 70 percent from 16 feet out for the whole season. Chris Paul, the Suns guard who is one of the best midrange players in N.B.A. history, shot a career-best 55.7 percent from that range in 2017-18. The best for Tim Duncan, the San Antonio Spurs cornerstone known for his midrange abilities, was 49.4 percent in his second of 19 seasons.With the Nets having an only average offense so far this season, they may need every bit of Durant’s otherworldly production to maintain their status as a championship contender. More

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      Why Are the Knicks Struggling on Defense?

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      One of the N.B.A.’s best defenses last season, the Knicks now are one of the worst at stopping 3-point shooters. Opposing guards are having career nights.Derrick Rose, the Knicks’ speedy reserve guard, poked loose what should have been a routine end-of-the-quarter possession by the Milwaukee Bucks, then dashed the other way with the ball for a last-second layup.Rose’s crafty defensive play cut the Milwaukee lead to 16 at the end of the third quarter on Wednesday, and spurred the Knicks’ bench to begin swarming the Bucks on every possession. Soon, the Knicks were in the midst of a rousing comeback, tying the game in the fourth quarter after being 24 points down in the third.Rose’s steal was emblematic of last year’s Knicks team: high-energy, displaying active hands and making nothing easy for the opposing team.Except the Knicks couldn’t stop the 3-point shooting of Bucks guard Pat Connaughton, who hit four 3-pointers in the final quarter to keep the Knicks at bay. It was emblematic of this year’s Knicks team: unable to sustain defensive effort and punished from the perimeter by a hot-shooting guard.The Knicks have made a habit of giving up big offensive nights to guards this season. On Wednesday, Connaughton hit seven 3s off the bench for 23 points, the most he’d scored in a game since Oct. 18, 2017. In the Knicks’ season opener last month, Jaylen Brown of the Boston Celtics went off for a career-high 46 points. The most surprising opponent performance of the year has been from Ricky Rubio, the backup point guard for the Cleveland Cavaliers, who scored 37 points off the bench on Sunday. Rubio hit eight of his nine 3s — this after being a poor shooter for most of his career. There was also the 36-point explosion from Toronto’s OG Anunoby earlier this month. Brown, Rubio and Anunoby’s performances were all career highs.Cleveland Cavaliers guard Ricky Rubio hit 8 of 9 3-pointers against the Knicks, despite averaging less than one make per game over his career.Noah K. Murray/Associated PressAfter a fast 5-1 start, the Knicks have come back down to earth, going 2-4 in their last six games. The slide has been primarily because of their defense. It’s the opposite problem of last year: They’ve scored at least 100 points in all but one game, and they are ranked fifth in the N.B.A. in offense. After Wednesday’s loss to the Bucks, the Knicks were the league’s 26th best team on defense — also known as its fifth worst. It’s a stark change from last year, when the Knicks were the fourth best defensive team.The biggest shift has been in guarding the 3-point shot. Last season, the Knicks led the league in opponent 3-point percentage, meaning there was no team against whom it was more difficult to score from outside the perimeter. Now the Knicks are 26th.The Knicks are also surrendering 41.7 deep shots a game — the most in the league. Last year, they were below league average, in the bottom 10. So the team is giving up more shots from 3 and has become worse at defending them, much to the chagrin of Coach Tom Thibodeau. The Bucks made 26 3-pointers against the Knicks, the most ever made against the team in franchise history.When asked Wednesday about the kinds of 3-point shots that opposing offenses are getting against his team, Thibodeau was brusque: “Well, we don’t want to give up any shots.”Thibodeau’s irritation is understandable. In a decades-long coaching career, Thibodeau’s defensive acumen has become his signature. During the 2007-8 season, he was the architect of the Celtics defense that won a championship. The defense was so good that Celtics power forward Kevin Garnett won the Defensive Player of the Year Award that season. In Thibodeau’s five seasons as head coach of the Chicago Bulls, the team led the league in defense twice and never finished lower than 11th. But in Minnesota, where Thibodeau spent two and a half seasons, the Timberwolves were one of the worst defensive teams in the league each season.What’s odd about this current defensive spell is that the Knicks brought back most of their players from last year, when they were strong defensively. Plus, Mitchell Robinson, one of the league’s best rim protectors, missed most of last season but is healthy and starting.The biggest change in the lineup has been the new starting backcourt of Kemba Walker and Evan Fournier, who are not known for their defense but have added some much-needed shooting punch.Opposing guards are finding it easier to get by the Knicks’ starting guards and into the paint, especially off screen-and-rolls. This forces the Knicks’ interior defenders, like Robinson and Julius Randle, or Knicks guards to rotate over and help, allowing for open shots on the perimeter. Rubio, in particular, took advantage of this. When help wouldn’t come fast enough, he would take an open 3. If it did come, he used his foot speed to get around the defense and find easy looks for others.Milwaukee’s Jrue Holiday and Giannis Antetokounmpo often were able to break down the Knicks’ perimeter defenses.“I really can’t put a finger it,” Rose said. “I think it came from us not making shots on the other end then them putting pressure on us by using Giannis and Jrue in pick-and-roll to swing the ball to the corners. I think they hit like three straight 3s in the corner. They were just trying to expose us in different ways to make us help or over-help and spray out for 3s.”In one sequence, RJ Barrett missed a layup and the Bucks immediately rebounded and ran the other way. Walker did not pick up Bucks guard Grayson Allen fast enough in transition. Allen didn’t have to work hard to get open and hit a 3 with Walker at least three feet away from him. Walker didn’t put a hand up.On the Bucks’ next score, Fournier was swallowed up by an Antetokounmpo screen, forcing Robinson to come help, leaving Bucks forward Bobby Portis open for 3.Toronto’s OG Anunoby went off against the Knicks for 36 points, hitting 48.1 percent of his shots, including four 3-pointers.Brad Penner/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThese aren’t aberrations. There are other defensive issues for the Knicks that go beyond giving up jumpers. They have been below league average in giving up fast-break points. Last year, they were second. This is particularly problematic because the Knicks are playing at a slightly faster pace than they were last year, creating more opportunities for opponents to get out and run.When the Celtics came to town, Brown routinely picked on Fournier, either in transition or when getting easily by him off screens. Often, Fournier would concede Brown’s shots rather than aggressively defend him, especially beyond the arc. Brown hit eight 3s in that game.To add to their woes, the Knicks are taking more 3s than last season, but hitting them at a lower percentage. Missed jumpers often lead to long rebounds and make it easier for teams to start fast breaks.The Knicks’ bench also has been defending better than the starters, generally, judging by defensive rating — a measure of how many points a team gives up per 100 possessions with those players on the court.The good news is that this is all reversible. A team doesn’t forget how to play defense over one off-season and 12 games aren’t much to go on. And as the Knicks showed in the fourth quarter on Wednesday night, the team is capable of playing the stifling defense that became its identity last year. The chief problems the team has to solve are how to handle screeners and how to more aggressively chase open shooters. More effort will help, as Thibodeau has said.But Thibodeau wants to solve the problem immediately, even if some may think the Knicks have played too few games to fret just yet.“When it’s 10 games, you say you need 20. And when you get to 20, you say 30. And then once you get to 30, you say 40. And then before you know it, the season’s over,” Thibodeau said, referring to the concept with an unprintable word. More

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      The Celtics Are Starting to Get Their Act Together

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      After spiraling toward dysfunction, Boston has righted the ship for its new coach, Ime Udoka.BOSTON — The Celtics have spent recent years as a team of almost. Almost good enough to contend for an N.B.A. championship. Almost mature enough to reach their potential. Almost complete enough to play at a high level on a consistent basis.But a bunch of almosts would have been an improvement from all the questions and concerns the Celtics began collecting at the start of the season. It is never much fun when each game feels like a litmus test — of Ime Udoka’s first season as the team’s coach, of the chemistry experiment between Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, of the growth of the players around them.So when Marcus Smart, the team’s starting point guard, criticized Tatum and Brown for essentially hogging the ball after a loss to the Chicago Bulls on Nov. 1, Boston seemed in danger of spiraling toward premature dysfunction.Since then, though, something unusual has happened: The Celtics have won three of four games to position themselves among the best sub-.500 teams in the N.B.A. before their game against the defending champion Milwaukee Bucks on Friday night.“I think we’ve jelled to some extent,” Udoka said, adding, “We’re learning the intensity and effort it takes to win every night.”Dennis Schroder had 20 points in Wednesday’s win over Toronto. David Butler Ii/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe Celtics, who improved to 5-6 by defeating the Toronto Raptors, 104-88, on Wednesday, are suddenly defending, scoring, rebounding and winning. For someone like Udoka, who is new to his high-profile job, it could not have happened soon enough. Strange but true: The Celtics’ victory over the Raptors was their first home win of the season. The challenge now is to sustain that momentum.“I don’t think anybody in the locker room is getting antsy about the losses,” the reserve guard Josh Richardson said. “Just trying to progress. I think we’re all starting to find our footing.”There have been growing pains. In their home opener on Oct. 22, the Celtics stunk things up in a 32-point loss to the Raptors and were essentially booed off the court. It was a blowout that came at the hands of a young team that many have pegged as bound for the draft lottery. But Scottie Barnes, the Raptors’ first-year forward, has been a revelation, and he looked like the best player on the court. Udoka bemoaned his team’s lack of effort.Sadly for Boston, that game was not an anomaly. At the start of November, things seemed to bottom out when the Bulls, after trailing by as many as 19 points, outscored the Celtics by 39-11 in the fourth quarter of a 14-point win. Afterward, Smart called out Brown and Tatum in a news conference. It is no secret, Smart said at the time, that opponents are keying their defenses on those two players, especially in late-game situations. The problem?“They don’t want to pass the ball,” Smart said.Brown and Tatum were not thrilled that Brown went public with his observations. A players-only meeting ensued, which is seldom a good sign. Except the Celtics subsequently won two in a row before closing out a three-game road trip with a narrow loss to the Dallas Mavericks on Saturday — a game that Brown missed with a hamstring injury. Still, on Wednesday morning, Brown expressed a feeling that had been in short supply: optimism.Marcus Smart, right, had been critical of some of his teammates this season, but Boston has shown recent improvement. Wednesday was the team’s first home win of the season.David Butler II/USA Today Sports, via Reuters“The spirit of this team is different,” he said, “and we’re going to continue to just keep pushing. I can feel it. I think that things will turn around for sure.”Udoka, too, said before Wednesday’s game that his team was finding its identity, a bit of coach-speak that would have had a short shelf life with another uneven performance.But in their rematch with the Raptors, the Celtics ran out to a 16-point lead by halftime and cruised. They did it without Brown, who was sidelined again, and without a proficient shooting night from Tatum, who was 8 of 24 from the field but finished with 22 points, 12 rebounds and 7 assists. All five starters scored at least 10 points, and Richardson had 15 points off the bench.Robert Williams III, the team’s starting center, said Boston had been building more cohesion thanks to a flurry of team dinners organized by the veterans and a greater emphasis on communication at practice.“I feel like we’re bonding, finding stuff out about each other,” he said.The Celtics have made seven straight postseason appearances, including three trips to the Eastern Conference finals, most recently in 2020. But after the team scuffled to a 36-36 record last season and were swept in the first round of the playoffs, Brad Stevens vacated his coaching job to move to the front office and was replaced on the bench by Udoka.And while the Celtics have been a perennial playoff team, their roster has not exactly been static. They have, for example, cycled through a colorful cast of starting point guards: Isaiah Thomas, Kyrie Irving, Kemba Walker. This season, Smart has been manning the point, with Dennis Schroder — one of the team’s big off-season signings — also supplying heavy minutes.The Celtics’ rotations are a work in progress for Ime Udoka, who has been willing to make changes on the fly.Michael Dwyer/Associated PressThe team’s rotations remain a work in progress for Udoka, who must have known there would be growing pains but has been willing to make changes on the fly. Consider that he appeared determined, at least at the start of the season, to have his defenders switch on screens. He has since become more flexible depending on matchups.“We’re mixing up some coverages,” he said. “We found out what the guys do better than we did in the preseason, and I think, as coaches, we’ve learned as well.”As for Smart, he seemed to have little interest in rehashing his comments about Tatum and Brown after Wednesday’s win. When asked about the players-only meeting and what the past few days had been like for him, he said, “We had a great game.”He added, “We’ve been playing very well.”In the end, perhaps that is all that matters. More

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      Nikola Jokic Ejected After Shoving Markieff Morris

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      Jokic, the Denver Nuggets star who is the reigning league MVP, was responding to a hard foul by Morris, who was also ejected.Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets, the reigning N.B.A. most valuable player, was ejected from a game against the Miami Heat on Monday night after shoving Markieff Morris to the floor. Morris was also ejected for precipitating the incident with a hard foul of his own.The fouls are the kind that often invite suspensions from the league but no action has been taken. With less than two minutes to go in a 113-96 victory for the Nuggets in Denver, Morris barged firmly into Jokic as he was making a pass.Jokic responded by giving Morris a forearm to the back, sending him to the floor. The incident prompted the gathering of a scrum of disputatious players and team personnel at center court that eventually broke up without serious incident.Morris remained down for several minutes, and a stretcher was brought out, but he left the floor under his own power. The team said he had a neck injury.“He’s moving around in the locker room right now,” Heat Coach Eric Spoelstra said after the game. “We’ll do the necessary tests and do what we need to do make sure he’s OK.”With both players were ejected, Jimmy Butler of the Heat got a technical foul after shouting at Jokic on the Denver bench.“It’s a stupid play,” Jokic told reporters after the game. “I feel bad. I am not supposed to react that way, but I need to protect myself.”Morris was unavailable for comment after the game. “That was a very dangerous and dirty play,” Spoelstra told reporters of Jokic’s shove. “That’s just absolutely uncalled for.”Jokic had 25 points, 15 rebounds and 10 assists in the game for his first triple double of the season. He is in the top 20 in all three categories this season as well as steals, and is an early candidate to repeat as MVP.Jokic has made his share of aggressive, and over-aggressive, plays in his career. In Game 4 of last season’s conference semifinals against the Suns, he smacked Cameron Payne across the face when going for the ball. He was ejected, and the Nuggets went on to lose to the Suns, who completed a four-game sweep. Jokic had 10 technical fouls last season, ranking him 11th in the league.The Nuggets improved to 6-4 on Monday night. The Heat, with Butler continuing his late-career renaissance at 25 points per game, are 7-3. More

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      Why the ‘Scariest’ Night Didn’t Keep LaMarcus Aldridge Out of the N.B.A.

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      Aldridge, the veteran Nets center, briefly retired after 15 seasons because of a heart issue. He was depressed — then determined to return.In April, Nets center LaMarcus Aldridge was staring into the abyss. He stunned the basketball world by announcing his retirement from the N.B.A. after experiencing an irregular heartbeat during a game. Aldridge had learned during his rookie season in 2006-7 that he had Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which causes a rapid heartbeat, but that night in April, he said, was “one of the scariest” in his life.By his own telling, he was depressed about having his career cut short. Except it turned out that he had more basketball left in him. In the off-season, Aldridge, 36, was medically cleared to return to the N.B.A., which was almost as surprising as his retirement. He came back to the Nets.“I wanted to fight through and come back and show that I still can play this game,” he said in a recent interview, adding that he wanted to win a championship and “be a part of something special.”The early returns have been strong. He has been one of the team’s most productive players, averaging 11.6 points and 5 rebounds on 62.9 percent shooting over nine games off the bench through the Nets’ 116-103 win over the Raptors on Sunday. He recently scored his 20,000th point, making him one of seven active players to reach the milestone. Despite a basketball résumé with seven All-Star and five All-N.B.A. selections, Aldridge has never received the attention of the others in the 20,000-point club, like his teammates Kevin Durant and James Harden.In part, it is because Aldridge has largely eschewed some of the perks that come with N.B.A. stardom and has avoided the media spotlight. His best years came in Portland, where he spent the first nine years of his career. There, playing with teammates such as Brandon Roy, Greg Oden and Damian Lillard, Aldridge has said that he felt uncertain of his place in the pecking order, despite being near the top of the franchise’s career leaderboards in most categories.He surprised many by leaving Portland before the 2015-16 season for San Antonio, where he helped lead the Spurs to the Western Conference finals in 2017.In a recent interview at the Nets’ practice facility, Aldridge discussed his retirement that wasn’t, his future plans and his new lease on basketball.This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.You told The Athletic after the announcement that you were depressed after retiring. Describe to me the feelings you have now. Is there fear?No. I feel excitement, joy, to be back doing what I love to do. And to have what happened and have it taken away so quickly, and to now be back in it, I feel joy. I’m thankful. I’m enjoying every minute of it as I’m out there. No fear. I went through enough testing where fear is no factor.What was that first day of training camp like, where you’re running up and down the floor?It was exciting to be back with the group that I knew the previous year. It was exciting to show that I still can play this game. I wasn’t gone long, but I feel like people feel like I was gone for, like, a whole year, and it was like five months. I feel like everyone was like questioning, “Can he still play after retiring?”Do you remember what the first day of retirement was like?The first day didn’t feel real. The first day felt like I had an off day. And then your second day, you feel like it’s a game day, so you’re just at home. And after like a week or two, you’re like: “Man, I’m not at the gym. I’m not with the fellas. I’m not traveling, not playing.” Like two weeks in, I was like: “Man, this is what it is. I have to find my new interest, shift my focus to something else.” That’s when it hit me, like, “Man, what’s next?”You said a couple years ago you’re probably one of the most misunderstood players in the league. Do you still feel that way?Not here, no. I think as people get to know me, they realize I’m not about any drama. I’m not about any friction. I just want to be appreciated for what I do, and let’s go win. That’s all. I feel like clickbait and television, it was things that were made up over the years to make me out to be some type of person, but I’m not that person.Once I’m on your team, I’m on your side. I’m down the whole way. I’ve got your back, no matter what. And I feel like, as people have gotten to know me, they’ve seen that, so I’m not worried about that anymore. I’m the guy that would give you the shirt off my back if you needed it, and I was being painted as this selfish guy, which I’m not nowhere near that.I’ve seen you describe yourself as an introvert. I’ve seen other people describe you as quiet and reserved. But I don’t actually see that. I see you pretty chatty with teammates. Have you become more outgoing over time?This is my comfort zone. This is my safe space. We go to war together. We’re in the trenches together. We’re battling together. So then you get that extra chemistry. You get that extra connection with them. But no, they would definitely tell you, other than that, I’m pretty quiet. On the bus, I don’t really talk.You’ve talked about feeling overlooked in the past, in spite of your sterling basketball résumé, because you don’t do as much media. You don’t do the red carpet stuff. You’re not doing commercials and interviews.Introvert! [LAUGHTER]Exactly. Is there a part of you that wishes you did more of that?No. I am who I am, and I don’t have any regrets of the things I’ve done with my career as far as more cameos. When I was in “Portlandia,” that was fun. I did, like, little things that I thought would be fun for me. But no, I don’t regret that, because that’s not really my brand. I’m more about hard hat and just go to work.Chris Bosh, after he retired early, talked about how, in retirement, one of the hardest things to come to grips with is not having a full schedule anymore. And not being around teammates or cheered by fans. And the guys that were texting you every day and aren’t texting you as much because you’re not part of the crew anymore. How did you deal with that?I’m to myself more than most, so the guys not texting me didn’t affect me. I don’t really text with guys now. But the whole traveling and your schedule, you have to figure out how to do it, how to fill that void. Because if you don’t, you end up feeling lost and kind of like, “What’s next?” That was very, very tough.Your first week or two is tough, because you go from busy, busy, busy to just — your phone’s quiet. Not even just from teammates. Just like, “Be at practice” or “Be at shootaround.” It goes from that to just this tranquil quietness that you could enjoy, but you’re also uncomfortable with, because you never had it.You’ve said you’ve talked to Damian Lillard about finishing your career in Portland. That seems to suggest to me that there may be some more years left after this one. Is that fair to say?I’m going year to year, but I definitely, how I feel now, how I’m moving now, I definitely have some more years in me. I feel rejuvenated, refreshed and just ready to go. More