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      It’s a New Series as the Injury Bug Returns to Bite the Nets

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      The Bucks tied their playoff series with the Nets, 2-2, as Kyrie Irving left with an injured ankle, joining James Harden on the Brooklyn sideline.MILWAUKEE — When the Nets settled into their hotel in the city’s Historic Third Ward last week, their 2-0 series cushion against the hometown Bucks looked especially cushy. A lead that reached as high as 49 points in the Nets’ Game 2 rout — without the injured James Harden — had the entire N.B.A. discouraged.By the time the Nets flew back home on Sunday night, after a second consecutive road defeat and the loss of another superstar, they were abruptly forced to contemplate the possibility that fielding a full-strength team is a luxury this season might never afford, no matter how lavishly the roster reads.Kyrie Irving’s right foot bent sharply in Sunday’s second quarter after he converted a layup and came down on Giannis Antetokounmpo’s right foot. Antetokounmpo had positioned himself for a rebound but left little landing space, and Irving was soon ruled out for the rest of the game with a sprained right ankle. It all meant that Kevin Durant would have to try to keep up with the emboldened Bucks alongside a rather limited supporting cast, while Harden stood throughout the game to shout instructions from the bench in street clothes.Nets guard Kyrie Irving grabbed his leg after being injured in the second quarter. Jeff Hanisch/USA Today Sports, via ReutersMilwaukee predictably pulled away for a 107-96 Game 4 victory that evened this best-of-seven, second-round series at two games apiece and which, coupled with the uncertainty of Irving’s status, erased any notion of comfort that the Nets once felt. Irving left Fiserv Forum on crutches and with his right foot in a walking boot after X-rays were negative, according to a person briefed on Irving’s status but unauthorized to discuss it publicly.“It was a big adjustment tonight to play without him and James,” Nets Coach Steve Nash said, referring to Irving and Harden. “But we’ve had that type of year.”Even by the standards of this injury-laden Nets season, in which Durant, Irving and Harden have scarcely been able to play together since Harden arrived in a four-team trade in mid-January, Sunday afternoon’s events had the jarring feel of a new low. That was the unavoidable takeaway without even factoring in the fire alarm after the final buzzer that forced all arena occupants, including both teams, to be evacuated for what the Bucks termed “precautionary reasons.”The Nets’ original aim for this Milwaukee trip was to win at least one game and set up Game 5 on Tuesday night at Barclays Center in Brooklyn as a closeout opportunity, enabling Harden to essentially take the series off after aggravating a right hamstring injury in the opening minute of Game 1. With the series now tied, in what was billed in many corners as a matchup that could well produce the N.B.A.’s next champion, Nash found himself fielding questions about the urge to restore Harden to the lineup on Tuesday.“I think it’s an independent case,” Nash said, swatting down the idea that Irving’s prognosis would influence Harden’s timetable. “I don’t want James to be rushed back.”The other factor, beyond Irving’s setback, that prompted such questions: Milwaukee had begun to cause problems even before Irving’s exit and looked a lot more like the team that swept the Miami Heat in the first round. Antetokounmpo had the standout box-score line with 34 points and 12 rebounds, but P.J. Tucker was the Bucks’ unquestioned spark, easing the pressure (at least temporarily) on the Bucks’ under-fire coach, Mike Budenholzer. After scoring just 9 points in the first three games of the series, Tucker sank three 3-pointers from the corner, his well-chronicled favorite spot, and finished with 13 points and 7 rebounds.He might have been even more effective at the other end, imposing his physicality on Durant in precisely the manner the Bucks envisioned when they acquired him from Houston in a March trade. Durant led the Nets with 28 points and 13 rebounds but needed 25 shots to reach his scoring total. When Tucker was the primary defender, Durant shot 3 for 12.Hounded by the Bucks’ P.J. Tucker, the Nets’ Kevin Durant led the Nets with 28 points but needed 25 shots to reach his total.Jeff Hanisch/USA Today Sports, via ReutersDuring a verbal confrontation between Tucker and Durant in Milwaukee’s narrow Game 3 victory, Antjuan Lambert, a personal security guard for Durant who was hired by the Nets when they signed him, came onto the court and shoved Tucker. The Nets were notified on Saturday that Lambert had been barred by the league office from any further on-court involvement in the series.Sunday actually brought a positive start for the Nets, with Jeff Green being cleared to make his series debut after missing the first three games with a left plantar fascia strain. Green immediately drew a charge upon entering the game late in the first quarter, putting Antetokounmpo in early foul trouble, but the Nets’ hopeful vibe was soon doused by the sight of Irving hobbling to the locker room after he spent several minutes on the floor recovering from the painful landing.When the Nets finally surrendered in the fourth quarter, pulling Durant with 4 minutes 28 seconds remaining and the hosts leading by 99-84, Milwaukee’s crowd, which included the Wisconsin native J.J. Watt of the Arizona Cardinals, broke into a “Bucks in six” chant.You’d have struggled to find anyone, with or without local ties, who believed that outcome would be possible after Milwaukee’s humbling 125-86 defeat at Barclays Center last Monday in Game 2. In these playoffs, though, injuries continue to wield the largest influence. Health woes for star players were unrelenting throughout the second half of a harried regular season conducted in pandemic conditions — and remain so.Remember the warning we got from Philadelphia 76ers Coach Doc Rivers at the start of the second round?“It’s going to be the battle of the fittest by the end of this thing,” Rivers said. He was unsure at the time how well his star center, Joel Embiid, would fare trying to play through a slight meniscus tear in his right knee in the 76ers’ second-round series against Atlanta.Embiid, for now, is thriving. For the Nets and especially Durant? Suddenly nothing is slight about their shortage of playmakers or the load he’ll have to carry. More

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      ‘I Surely Can Stand in Front of Men and Lead Them’

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      With women being mentioned for open head coaching vacancies, the N.B.A. seems primed to break one glass ceiling in sports.It’s about time.The N.B.A. sits poised to be the first American men’s professional sports league to hire a woman as a head coach.The bond is there, boosted by the league’s growing group of assistants who are women and its siblinglike connection to the W.N.B.A.The N.B.A.’s players have shown a clear willingness to be led by women. Just ask Michele Roberts, the head of their powerful union.Job openings are plentiful. There are head coach postings in Orlando, Indiana, Portland and Boston.This time around, there are women among the candidates, and that’s a sea change not just for the N.B.A. but for all of sport.It’s bound to happen. If not this year, then hopefully in the next few.Will a woman running an N.B.A. team from the bench shatter the glass ceiling? Not quite. Not until women are regularly hired for such positions.More than that, true advancement will come only if trailblazing in the men’s game is just one of many opportunities for women to coach at any level — including college basketball and the W.N.B.A.Still, think of the powerful message that would be sent by that first N.B.A. hire: The leadership of a billion-dollar franchise and some of the most famous male athletes on the planet entrusted to a woman.“It would be huge,” Dawn Staley said. “We just need the right situation.”She has the bona fides to speak up.Enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame after a stellar playing career, Staley, 51, is now the head coach of the U.S. women’s Olympic team and the University of South Carolina women’s basketball team, a perennial power. She is also one of the most prominent Black women in coaching.“There are a lot of women good enough” to lead an N.B.A. team, Staley said.Kara Lawson was an assistant coach with the Boston Celtics during the 2019-20 season before departing to become head coach of the Duke women’s basketball team.Michael Dwyer/Associated PressBecky Hammon is one. She’s got insider credentials, having spent several years as Gregg Popovich’s assistant in San Antonio. In the N.B.A., that’s like being at the right hand of God.Duke’s Kara Lawson is another. She was a favorite of Brad Stevens, the former coach of the Celtics and their current president of basketball operations, during her stint as an assistant in Boston, and is reportedly on the team’s radar.What about Staley herself? A bold tactician and motivator, she is more than capable of making the leap. That’s why I sought her wisdom.When we spoke, she made it clear she wasn’t campaigning for an N.B.A. job. She treasures her team at South Carolina, which she has led to three Final Fours since 2015 and a national title in 2017.“I come with a lot of credentials,” she said. “I surely have the confidence. I surely can stand in front of men and lead them. First-team All-Stars. M.V.P.s. I’m OK with that.”More than OK, given the firm tone in her voice as she said that.What about the absence of N.B.A. experience?“I haven’t coached in the league,” Staley said, forthright. “But you know what? I’m a quick learn. I’m a quick learn.”It’s a frequent jab when talk of great female coaches helming men’s teams gets too serious — as if there haven’t been plenty of men who have led N.B.A. teams without spending time in the league. (Case in point: Stevens, who took over the Celtics after a coaching career spent entirely in college.)That common criticism prompted me to wonder what other red herrings could be thrown in the path of a female hire. What will it be like, I asked Staley, for the first woman to break through in the N.B.A.?The first woman will no doubt have plenty of supporters, she said. But there will also be knuckle-draggers who still believe that no matter what the sport, a woman cannot effectively lead male stars.“A lot of people would be out there, just waiting for you to make a mistake, waiting for you to be wrong,” she said. “There’s a whole dynamic that men, white or Black, just don’t have to think about. It’s a female thing. The expectation will be so much greater than the male coach. So much greater.”Female coaches at every level and in every sport are used to unfair scrutiny of everything from their looks to the way they speak to their strategies. The trailblazing coach will face obstacles that bring to mind those of other “firsts” who broke down barriers in sports.The city and fan base will also need to be prepared to embrace change — particularly, given the tangle of racism and sexism in America, if the coach is a Black woman.Being the first has a deep resonance that can spread far and wide, but there’s nuance to the battle for equality that women are fighting on all fronts.We can take a cue from Staley, who in our conversation noted repeatedly how happy she is at South Carolina. She sees herself in women’s college basketball for the long haul, teaching, cajoling and “getting young women ready to go to the W.N.B.A., so our W.N.B.A. can be around for another 25 years.”And a cue from the recently retired Muffet McGraw, the other Hall of Famer I spoke with last week.Muffet McGraw, center right, said women leading N.B.A. teams is “not something I even care about.” Late in her 33-year career at Notre Dame, she decided to hire only assistants who were women.Jessica Hill/Associated PressWomen leading N.B.A. teams, she said, is “not something I even care about.”“I want women coaching women,” she added. When it comes to men’s pro basketball, “I want to see those women going off to the N.B.A. and being great assistants and then coming back and taking over women’s jobs in college and the pros.”Her candor was no surprise.In her 33 years of coaching women’s basketball at Notre Dame, McGraw won a pair of national championships and turned her team into a venerable power. She also gained a reputation for speaking out about the need to have women in positions of leadership and for backing it up: As her career evolved, she decided to hire female assistants only.McGraw pointed out how much work remained to be done. In 1972, at the dawn of Title IX, the landmark law that created a pathway for gender equality on college campuses, 90 percent of the head coaches in women’s college sports were female. Then, slowly but surely, as the fame in women’s sports increased, along with the pay, men began taking over.By 2019, the numbers had dipped to around 40 percent in the highest division of college sports overall — and around 60 percent in Division I women’s basketball.It’s hardly better in the W.N.B.A. Despite its reputation as a bastion of empowerment, the 12-team league has only five female head coaches.There are too few female coaches at all levels and all sports, from elementary age through high school and beyond. “Why is it,” McGraw wondered, “that when your kid goes out to play soccer and they are age 5 and 6, it’s so rare to see someone’s mom coaching the team? And then you get older, it’s almost always a guy. So it’s no wonder that there’s a stereotype in there. You’re led to believe that when you think of a leader you think of a man.“That has to change.”Glass ceilings are everywhere for women. Shattering them in men’s professional basketball would be an important start in shattering them all. More

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      Bucks Slow Down Nets to Trim Series Lead to 2-1

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      A grinding game of defense allowed Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton to shine in a 86-83 win over the Nets.To get a much needed win on Thursday, the Milwaukee Bucks did the opposite of what got the team so far in the playoffs: They slowed down their play.It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t terribly efficient. But it was enough to let their stars, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton, break through.In a throwback game that would have seemed at home in the 2000s, the Bucks squeezed out a victory Thursday night over the Nets, 86-83, and narrowed Brooklyn’s lead in the Eastern Conference semifinal series to two games to one.For the Bucks, it was an admirable recovery from their Game 2 performance, when the Nets thumped them by 39 points.This time, the Bucks crawled to victory.During the regular season, the Bucks were fast — second in pace only to the Washington Wizards. On Thursday night, the Bucks generated offense by giving the ball to Antetokounmpo and Middleton. They either isolated them one-on-one or created shots through grinding screen-and-rolls to get near the basket. Throughout the game, the Bucks had only seven fast break points. During the regular season, they averaged 14.5, good for fourth in the N.B.A.“Personally, I enjoy fast paced, finding my teammates for a lot of 3’s, high-scoring game, obviously. But at the end of the day, it was a very low-scoring game,” Antetokounmpo said.The slower pace allowed the team to get the ball to Antetokounmpo and Middleton, who have seven All Star appearances between them, and get out of the way. They combined to score 68 of Milwaukee’s 86 points. The duo played almost the entire game. Antetokounmpo shot 14 for 31 from the field (45.1 percent) and Middleton was 12 for 25 (48 percent).Most of their damage was done in the opening period, when the Bucks led by as many as 21 points, with the home arena at the Fiserv Forum at their backs. Antetokounmpo and Middleton scored all of the Bucks 30 points in the first period, and Milwaukee entered the second period leading, 30-11.“I think there was a little bit of setting the tone,” Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer said after the game. “Those two guys having a big first quarter, they’re our leaders. They’ve been here a long time. They’ve been through a lot together.”He added: “It doesn’t matter how you do it at this time of year. You just have to find a way to get it done.”Yet the Nets quickly recovered in the second quarter. The Nets even took the lead in the fourth period on a Kevin Durant 3-pointer with 1:23 left in regulation. But a Middleton layup stanched the bleeding, and his free throws with 2.1 seconds left didn’t leave much time for the Nets to get a quality shot to tie the game. (Durant’s desperation 3 still almost went in.)This was the kind of game where Antetokounmpo’s considerable strengths and weaknesses were on full display. In the first quarter, Antetokounmpo attacked the rim relentlessly, and was able to get himself multiple dunks in the way that has made him a star. He got his primary defender — Blake Griffin — into early foul trouble.But after the opening quarter, Antetokounmpo’s flaws began to manifest. The Nets left him wide open from the perimeter, and Antetokounmpo obliged the Nets by shooting lots of 3’s. He was 1 for 8 from deep, and those missed shots helped the Nets, who are still missing James Harden, climb back in the game. It was Antetokounmpo’s career high in 3-point shots in a postseason game.Giannis Antetokounmpo took eight 3-point shots, a career playoff high. He made just one.Stacy Revere/Getty ImagesAsked about his shooting, Antetokounmpo seemed to be taken by surprise at first: “I took eight 3’s tonight?”“They’re back. You’ve got to shoot it,” Antetokounmpo said, referring to how defenders play off him. “Not necessarily, you’ve got to shoot, but you’ve got to make the best decision.”Antetokounmpo further defended his willingness to take jumpers by saying that his instinct told him to do so and that basketball is a game based on instinct.“Like everybody, if you wake up in the morning and you think you’ve got to drink a cup of coffee, and that’s what you want to do — instinct is telling you, that’s what your soul is telling you — whatever the case might be, that’s what you do. It doesn’t even matter what happens next,” Antetokounmpo said.It is also possible that Antetokounmpo strayed to the perimeter to avoid the risk of initiating contact under the basket and getting fouled.He was only 4 for 9 from the free throw line, and also had a rarely called 10-second violation. Defensively, the Bucks held the Nets to 36.2 shooting from the field. Durant was only 11 for 28 from the field. Kyrie Irving was 9 for 22.One offensive liability the Nets have — a rare one — is that they are predominantly a jump shooting team. They’re based on finesse, rather than on attacking the basket in the way Antetokounmpo does. The Nets only went to the line eight times on Thursday, as opposed to the Bucks’ 19. Six of those free throws were shot by Durant, who missed many midrange shots he usually makes.This means the same looks that fell for the Nets in the first two games didn’t fall on Thursday. That happens sometimes with jump shooting teams. There is a high amount of variance and at some point, usually a regression to the mean.Joe Harris, one of the best 3-point shooters in the league, missed several wide open chances and finished 1 for 11 from the field. And if jump shots aren’t falling for the Nets, they have trouble scoring. (During the regular season, the Nets were second in the league in 3-point percentage at 39.2 percent. On Thursday night, they were 8 for 32 for 25 percent.)Which means a slow, low-scoring slugfest could benefit Milwaukee in the long-term. But it’s unclear Antetokounmpo wants that.“We could play better,” Antetokounmpo said. “We could play faster. We could play more together. We can move the ball better so we can get back to our scoring 110, 120 points like we usually do.” More

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      In Jae Crowder, the Suns Have an Enforcer With Some Flair

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      Crowder does a little bit of everything for Phoenix. He’s a key defender, a 3-point specialist and if the need arises, a solid salsa dancer.The Phoenix Suns had a growing lead on Wednesday night when Aaron Gordon of the Denver Nuggets tried to move toward the 3-point line on an offensive possession. He definitely tried. The problem was Jae Crowder had blocked Gordon’s path with his 6-foot-6, 235-pound frame. There was shoving and arguing, then a flurry of whistles and a mild tussle appeared in danger of turning into a full-blown fracas.It was no surprise, of course, that Crowder, a forward who moonlights as the Suns’ resident enforcer, was in the middle of it. Crowder and Gordon were assessed technical fouls.“Honestly, it comes at me, I don’t seek it,” Crowder said of his extracurriculars. “Other teams just try to be physical with me, try to get me riled up. I don’t know if they know it, but I like that style of play. I like to trash talk. I like all of that because it definitely gets me going, and I think my team definitely feeds off it a little bit, the energy of it.”The Suns are roughing up the Nuggets — and Nikola Jokic, the N.B.A.’s freshly minted most valuable player — in their Western Conference semifinal series, cruising to a pair of lopsided wins ahead of Game 3 on Friday in Denver.And while the Suns are powered by their backcourt tandem of Devin Booker and Chris Paul, Crowder has added an extra layer of feistiness and playoff experience. Most of the time, he does his work in the game’s quiet corners: defending, rebounding, screening. But when the need arises, he will surface to hit a 3-pointer or get in the face of an opposing player. It was no accident that TNT stuck a microphone on him for its broadcast of the Suns’ 123-98 win in Game 2 in Phoenix.“Jae is never fazed by anything,” Paul said.Crowder does not lack for confidence and he has quickly made himself popular in Phoenix. Christian Petersen/Getty ImagesIn five straight playoff wins for the Suns, dating to the middle of their first-round series against the Los Angeles Lakers, Crowder has averaged 13.8 points and 5 rebounds a game while shooting 50 percent from the field and 46.2 percent from 3-point range. On Wednesday, he did not put up gaudy numbers — he scored 11 points — but picked his spots. He made the team’s first two field goals, then opened the second half with a 3-pointer that seemed to signal that a blowout was brewing.“That’s just how we try to play,” Crowder said. “We try to impose our will early.”The son of Corey Crowder, a former N.B.A. player for the Utah Jazz and the San Antonio Spurs, Crowder, 30, grew up outside of Atlanta (where he was a lightly recruited high school prospect). He attended two junior colleges before he landed at Marquette, where he was the Big East Player of the Year as a senior. His nomadic basketball life continued when the Cleveland Cavaliers traded him to the Dallas Mavericks shortly after they selected him with the 34th pick in the 2012 draft.Crowder has played for seven teams in nine seasons, though he may stick around in Phoenix for a while. He signed a three-year deal worth about $29 million as a free agent in November after leaving Miami, and his value is clear: He does a bit of everything, which includes defending multiple positions and stretching the floor as a 3-point threat. And for a young team with big goals, he provides a level of physicality that comes only with experience.Crowder struggled to keep his composure in the first three games against the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round. He recovered well to help his team win the series.Sean M. Haffey/Getty ImagesConsider the Suns’ series with the Lakers, which featured something of a telenovela starring Crowder and LeBron James. Through the first three games of the series, Crowder struggled with his jumper (which can happen), shooting 7 of 27 from the field, and James went straight at him in the latter stages of the Lakers’ Game 3 win as James’s teammates egged him on.Other players might have folded like origami. Instead, Crowder returned for Game 4 and scored 17 points — in front of a jeering crowd at Staples Center, no less — as the Suns evened the series.In the Suns’ closeout victory in Game 6, Crowder scored 18 points on 6 of 9 shooting from the 3-point line (he did not attempt any shots inside the arc). During a break in play with less than a minute remaining, Crowder salsa danced directly in front of James — a homage of sorts to a dance that James performs in a commercial for Mountain Dew — and was ejected. Crowder, who is seldom boring, sprinted to the locker room like Usain Bolt.Afterward, he posted a couple of photos of himself doing the salsa on his Instagram account (@Bossmann99), along with a caption: “AINT NO FUN WHEN THE RABBIT GOT THE GUN.” As if to make it abundantly clear that he had crafted the post himself, he signed it, “Big 99” — a reference to his uniform number.“I felt like we got disrespected a little bit in Game 3 or whatever,” Crowder said, “so I did what I had to do in the closing game.”While he pledged to do the salsa with fans in Phoenix if the Suns win the championship, Crowder said he was trying to exercise a bit more restraint with opposing players at this stage of the playoffs. He has already paid his share of fines.“I’ve got to be smart,” he said. “I can’t always bite the bait and keep giving money back to the league.”Against the Nuggets, the Suns are winning with balance. In both wins, all five starters have scored in double figures. They are passing the ball and operating as a collective whole, a high-speed machine with synchronized parts. Crowder is one among many, but important in his own way.“It makes the task that much more difficult for our opponent when everybody’s rolling,” Crowder said. More

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      Rudy Gobert Wins Third Defensive Player of the Year Award

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      Gobert, the Utah Jazz center, won the honor for the third time in four years after leading the N.B.A. in total blocks.Rudy Gobert, the Utah Jazz center, won yet another Defensive Player of the Year Award, the N.B.A. announced Wednesday. It was Gobert’s third time winning the award in four years. He is the fourth player in league history to win the honor three times after the four-time winners Dikembe Mutombo and Ben Wallace and the three-time winner Dwight Howard.The award was announced, appropriately enough, a day after the Jazz won the opening game of their semifinal series against the Los Angeles Clippers, in part because of a game-saving block by Gobert at the end of regulation.“I think it takes team effort,” Gobert said in an interview with TNT’s “Inside The N.B.A.,” moments after he was announced as the recipient. “It takes obviously toughness, mental toughness. It’s just hard work, dedication. It’s every single day, you’ve got to come in with that mind-set to try to make your team as good as it can be on that end.”Gobert, 28, anchored the Jazz, who had third-best defense in the league and its best record. He received 84 first-place votes and 464 total points. Philadelphia’s Ben Simmons, the runner-up, had 287 points and 15 first-place votes. A hundred members of the news media vote on the award, but The New York Times does not participate.As a tall center who does not shoot or pass well, Gobert is a bit of an anomaly in today’s N.B.A. His game is centered around protecting the rim and dunking. Even so, Gobert, a two-time All-Star, is one of the most impactful players in the league. He was fourth in the N.B.A. in win shares per 48 minutes — essentially a stat estimating how many wins a player contributes to his team. His 13.5 rebounds per game was second in the league behind Atlanta’s Clint Capela. According to league tracking numbers, Gobert defended the most field goal attempts at the rim (549) and was among the N.B.A.’s best in effectively contesting those shots.When Donovan Mitchell, the Jazz’s star guard, missed much of the second half of the season because of an injury, Gobert’s defense helped keep the Jazz afloat. Last year, there was friction between Mitchell and Gobert after Gobert tested positive for the coronavirus, days after appearing to mock it. Gobert’s test set off the season’s postponement, followed by several other leagues doing the same.Gobert’s ascent in the league is a surprising one. He was drafted with the 27th pick of the 2013 draft by the Denver Nuggets out of France, and then was immediately traded to the Jazz, where he has surpassed the expectations of those typically drafted at the end of the first round. More

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      For Four Key Teams, the Off-Season Begins Early

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      The Lakers have to figure out how to regroup, the Mavericks need to support Luka Doncic. The Celtics are shaking things up and Portland is looking for a coach.No playoff team seeded seventh has won an N.B.A. championship. That did not stop oddsmakers from listing the Los Angeles Lakers behind only the Nets as title favorites when the playoffs began. Nor did it stop the second-seeded Phoenix Suns from ousting the Lakers immediately.The Atlanta Hawks’ five-game dismissal of the Knicks was the only surprise, based on seedings, among the eight series in the opening round of the playoffs, but you have probably heard my stance by now, via traditional or social media: Round 1 was bonkers even without results that could be classified as upsets.The rapid demise of the defending champion Lakers was merely one source of chaos. After detailing many of them in Sunday’s column, let’s zoom in on four teams that have already been ushered into the off-season.The first first-round exit of LeBron James’s 18-year career was an aberration on many levels.The Lakers slipped so far in the standings largely because James (27) and Anthony Davis (36) combined to miss 63 games. James had never previously faced a first-round matchup against the 82-game equivalent of a 58-win team.Losing early does come with a silver lining. With Davis ailing and little hope of a deep run, the Lakers were better off bowing out so their stars could have the longest recuperation period possible. To ensure that last season’s title at the Walt Disney World bubble is not the only one they win together, James and Davis clearly need the extra time to recover after the way they responded to the shortest turnaround from one season to the next (71 days) in N.B.A. history.The Lakers’ larger problem is that James, who turns 37 in December, and Davis, whose durability has never been questioned louder, are not assured of being surrounded by more reliable teammates next season. We detailed in early April how the ballyhooed off-season acquisitions of Dennis Schroder, Montrezl Harrell, Marc Gasol and Wes Matthews had not panned out. It got only worse after that for the Lakers’ role players; and the March acquisition of Andre Drummond proved even more ill-fitting.The Lakers promised Drummond a starting role to secure his commitment in free agency, according to two people familiar with the situation who were not authorized to discuss it publicly. By Game 6, Drummond was rooted to the bench, receiving zero minutes in an elimination game. Worse, with such limited salary-cap flexibility to make changes, the Lakers likely must pay Schroder more than they’d like to in free agency — after Schroder turned down a four-year extension offer worth more than $80 million during the season — or lose him without the means to sign a suitable replacement.The refusal to surrender Talen Horton-Tucker in trade talks for Kyle Lowry will likewise linger as another source of regret if Horton-Tucker, 20, doesn’t blossom next season or figure in a helpful trade. He earned only 48 minutes of playing time across four games against the Suns.The Mavericks heard the best news they possibly could on the day after their first-round unraveling against the Clippers.Luka Doncic all but announced on Monday that he would sign a five-year contract extension in August.There was no grave concern in Dallas that Doncic wouldn’t sign a deal expected to exceed $200 million, which would be the richest rookie extension in league history, but the public reassurance won’t hurt given the daunting challenges the Mavericks face to put a better team around him.They owe Kristaps Porzingis, a former Knick, nearly $102 million over the next three seasons, which makes him incredibly difficult to trade after a postseason in which he had a marginal impact offensively and, of greater concern, was punished defensively. The Mavericks surrendered two future first-round picks to the Knicks and signed Porzingis to a five-year, $158 million contract before he ever logged a second for them in the belief he would mesh well with Doncic and provide elite rim protection. Neither is happening after Porzingis sustained the second serious knee injury of his career (a right lateral meniscus tear) in last season’s bubble.With limited flexibility to upgrade the roster, the Dallas Mavericks need Kristaps Porzingis to develop into the sidekick for Luka Doncic that they had envisioned. Kevin Jairaj/USA Today Sports, via ReutersTim Hardaway Jr. unexpectedly emerged as Dallas’s more dependable former Knick, prompting cynics in Dallas and beyond to increasingly mock it as “the Tim Hardaway Jr. trade.” I reported on May 27 that there was confidence within the Mavericks’ organization that they could re-sign Hardaway in free agency, but doing so would leave them without any wiggle room to make another splashy signing.Mark Cuban, the team’s owner, made it clear he had no intention of making a coaching change despite Rick Carlisle’s sixth successive first-round exit since Dallas’s championship in 2011. As a result, there is a strong likelihood that the key figures in Doncic’s orbit next season will be mostly the same. Doncic’s conditioning and fourth-quarter freshness can certainly be nitpicked, but he averaged 35.7 points, 7.9 rebounds and 10.3 assists while being frequently hounded by the Clippers’ two-way menace, Kawhi Leonard. Can Dallas really ask for more?Short-term improvement for the Mavericks thus could hinge on whether they can salvage Porzingis, who, at 25, at least seems to understand that he has to adapt to what Doncic needs.“The game’s evolving,” Porzingis said. “The way I was playing in New York, a lot of post-ups, barely any teams do those kinds of things anymore, so my game has to evolve and I have to find ways I can be effective.”Danny Ainge coached the Phoenix Suns for three-plus seasons before returning to the team he was most associated with as a player and becoming one of the game’s most successful executives with the Celtics.Brad Stevens coached the Celtics for eight seasons and will now try to make the same transition Ainge did.The move makes sense only because Celtics management is known to love Stevens and dread change. Ainge had a successful N.B.A. career as a player, coach and broadcaster before he took over Boston’s front office in May 2003. Stevens has only ever been a coach at the highest levels and will have to overcome even more skepticism about his preparedness for the job than he did when he left Butler University for the N.B.A. in July 2013.Whispers in the past week that the N.B.A. coaching grind had begun to wear on Stevens, 44, are the most concerning aspect about the Celtics’ abrupt power shift. The front-office grind can be even more withering.It should help Stevens that the well-regarded assistant general manager Mike Zarren is expected to expand his responsibility and lend considerable guidance. Besides hiring his own replacement on the bench, Stevens has to overcome limited flexibility to improve a roster around Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown that Ainge said in a February radio interview was “not good.”I wondered at the time why Ainge was willing to put public pressure on himself to make in-season upgrades that he was ultimately unable to deliver. Chances are Ainge already knew, deep down, he would be stepping down at season’s end.Trail Blazers General Manager Neil Olshey said on Monday that he planned to evaluate “20 to 25 candidates” to replace Terry Stotts as coach.The expectation in league coaching circles nonetheless persists that Olshey already knows he wants to hire the former N.B.A. finals M.V.P. Chauncey Billups, an assistant to Tyronn Lue with the Los Angeles Clippers, to take over.Other opportunities could materialize for the in-demand Billups, but his path to the Portland job opened up considerably when Jason Kidd, an assistant coach to Frank Vogel with the Lakers and Damian Lillard’s preferred choice to succeed Stotts, withdrew from consideration before the search really started. Kidd wanted no part of Lillard pushing him on a resistant G.M.The onus, though, is on Olshey to mollify a frustrated Lillard, who is rapidly gaining on Washington’s Bradley Beal as the star some rival front offices want to believe they have a chance of pilfering. Referring to Lillard (or Beal) as a disgruntled star might be a step too far, but he appears to have begun questioning his well-chronicled loyalty to the franchise that drafted him out of Weber State. After Portland’s first-round exit to Denver, Lillard captioned a photo with a “How long should I stay dedicated?” reference borrowed from the rapper and activist Nipsey Hussle, who was fatally shot in 2019.Lillard averaged 34.3 points and 10.2 assists per game against Denver. It’s hard to imagine him delivering more — or the tension fading fast after Olshey insisted that the Blazers’ early exit and regular-season defensive rating of 29th were not “a product of the roster.” Olshey’s unwillingness to take any blame for Portland’s fourth first-round exit in five seasons had people buzzing leaguewide about his blame-free stance.The Scoop @TheSteinLineJune 7Luka Doncic on signing the looming $200 million contract extension he will be offered this summer: “I think you know the answer.”Early estimates have the rookie extension this off-season for Luka Doncic crossing the $200 million threshold over five years and the Mavericks, league sources say, naturally intend to offer it to Doncic once free agency begins in August.June 5The Magic have interest in former Trail Blazers coach Terry Stotts, league sources say, after Orlando and Steve Clifford parted ways today.Stotts is also said to be drawing interest from Indiana as the Pacers decide whether to retain or replace Nate Bjorkgren after Year 1. Stotts coached Portland to eight straight playoff berths and one conference finals, exiting after a disappointing first-round loss to Denver.Corner ThreeLuka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks had a painful collapse against Paul George and the Los Angeles Clippers. How painful is a matter of opinion.Ashley Landis/Associated PressYou ask; I answer. Every week in this space, I’ll field three questions posed via email at marcstein-newsletter@nytimes.com. Please include your first and last name, as well as the city you’re writing in from, and make sure “Corner Three” is in the subject line.(Questions may be lightly edited or condensed for clarity.)Q: This Dallas fan finds the 2007 first-round loss by the top-seeded Mavericks to No. 8 Golden State much more painful than the loss to Miami in the 2006 finals. How many upsets have we seen where No. 8 beats No. 1? — Mark CunninghamStein: I expected some Mavericks fans to quibble with my recent assertions, both in story form and on Twitter, that Dallas’s collapse(s) in its first-round series against the Clippers would land in the same ZIP code as the Mavericks’ fold in the 2006 finals against Miami after winning the first two games.You’ve surprised me, though. I haven’t received any other messages (to my knowledge) that dredged up the Mavericks’ first-round pratfall in 2007 against the We Believe Warriors — which put Dirk Nowitzki in the uncomfortable position of having to accept the league’s Most Valuable Player Award after Dallas had been eliminated from the playoffs — as their low point.It’s a good reminder that these sorts of sporting heartbreaks can hit everybody differently.I noted in the piece I wrote after the Mavericks lost Games 3 and 4 at home to the Clippers, probably better than I did in a subsequent tweet, that the pain inflicted by any first-round series outcome can’t really compare with a defeat in the N.B.A. finals. Yet I am holding firm on my contention that the leads Dallas just squandered against the Clippers amount to another all-timer collapse, no matter what round they occurred in, because it wasn’t just a 2-0 series lead that slipped.The Mavericks won the first two games of the series on the road, then took a 30-11 lead at home in Game 3 that had the Clippers’ Nicolas Batum feeling as though Los Angeles was “one or two plays away to almost get swept.” Then the Mavericks responded to their two home losses by winning Game 5 at Staples Center to set up a chance to close the series out at home with just one more win.For all the shortcomings of Luka Doncic’s supporting cast, which have become a frequent talking point given the Mavericks’ inability to capitalize on Doncic’s historic production in the series, Dallas should have been able to advance to the second round if it was capable of winning three games on the Clippers’ floor. It will go down as a slice of ignominy that I suspect will endure, even if Doncic goes on to reach the same sort of championship heights Nowitzki did.On the historical front: Golden State’s upset of Dallas in 2007 was the first upset for a No. 8 seed against the top seed since the N.B.A. instituted a best-of-seven format for the first round in the 2002-3 season. Memphis did it to San Antonio in 2011 and Philadelphia repeated the feat in 2012 against Chicago — but only after the Bulls lost Derrick Rose to a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee in Game 1. Q: Don’t show interest in Terry Stotts unless you’ve let Nate Bjorkgren go. — Wes Johnson (Indianapolis)Stein: This Pacers fan responded with dismay to the reports over the weekend, including one from me, that Indiana had interest in Stotts after he was ousted by the Portland Trail Blazers — but before Indiana actually had an opening. I totally get the dismay, too. It can be a cold, cold league sometimes, and this is definitely one of those times.Bjorkgren has been in limbo since reports of friction in his first season as Pacers coach surfaced in early May. It was difficult to imagine then how Bjorkgren, as a rookie coach whose most notable prior head coaching experience came in the G League, could survive such open discussion of behind-the-scenes tumult.Kevin Pritchard, Indiana’s president of basketball operations, only added to the uncertainty in a virtual news conference on May 24 when he said he was “not committing either way” about bringing Bjorkgren back for Year 2. The working assumption in league circles since that statement was that the Pacers were trying to determine through back channels if they had a shot at hiring a proven coach, like Stotts, before determining Bjorkgren’s fate.The Pacers clearly don’t want to let Bjorkgren go and then strike out on top targets, which would only add to their drama while Nate McMillan, abruptly ousted by Indiana after last season, has the Atlanta Hawks unexpectedly competing for a spot in the Eastern Conference finals. It is not inconceivable that Bjorkgren could end up staying, perhaps with a reshuffled staff, but the optics are undeniably unseemly.Q: Cheers to all the N.B.A. intelligentsia who fooled us into thinking Nets-Bucks was going to be a series. — @yagofidani from TwitterStein: Count me among the guilty. I thought Milwaukee took a significant step forward by sweeping Miami in Round 1. I thought the Bucks, with the additions of Jrue Holiday and P.J. Tucker, were as well suited to guard the Nets as anyone. I certainly thought that losing James Harden to a hamstring injury in the opening minute of Game 1 would hurt the Nets more than it has.It’s too soon to write off the Bucks as the series shifts to Milwaukee for Game 3 on Thursday, but the prospect of the Nets losing four of five games — to anyone — is difficult to imagine when they are moving the ball the way they are. Ditto when Blake Griffin looks reborn as a role player and defender, and when the unheralded Bruce Brown and Mike James have been so solid.The lingering nature of hamstring injuries is such that the Nets have to brace for the idea that Harden could miss the rest of the series, or longer, but they are functioning as well as possible without him. I will leave it to someone else to predict that a loud home crowd is enough to inspire the Bucks to disrupt that.Numbers GameJaVale McGee, center, is tied with Danny Green for the most championship rings among current players still alive in this year’s playoffs. Ezra Shaw/Getty Images0None of the eight franchises remaining in the N.B.A. playoffs have won a championship since the league’s 16-team playoff format was instituted in 1983-84. Seventeen of the N.B.A.’s last 22 championships have been won by the Los Angeles Lakers, San Antonio, Golden State and Miami, as neatly noted here by my former N.B.A. bubble neighbor Ben Golliver of The Washington Post.8Only eight players left in the playoffs have won an N.B.A. championship ring, according to my pal Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press, but none with their current team. Philadelphia’s Danny Green and Denver’s JaVale McGee have won three rings each. The Nets’ Kevin Durant and Kawhi Leonard and Rajon Rondo of the Los Angeles Clippers have two rings apiece. The Nets’ Kyrie Irving, Philadelphia’s Dwight Howard and the Clippers’ Serge Ibaka are one-time champions.3The first round of this season’s playoffs was just the third time since the N.B.A. expanded to four playoff rounds in 1975 that both teams from the previous N.B.A. finals failed to reach the second round. It also happened in 2007 (Miami and Dallas) and 2015 (Miami and San Antonio), according to the Elias Sports Bureau.4-0Coach Tyronn Lue improved to 4-0 in Game 7s after the Los Angeles Clippers beat Dallas in Sunday’s series decider. The Clippers are just the fifth team in league history, in 31 tries, to win a best-of-seven series after losing the first two games at home, and Lue’s willingness to make major adjustments was a key factor. Lue essentially removed his starting point guard, Patrick Beverley, from the rotation after the first two games, and went small by installing 6-foot-8 Nicolas Batum as his starting center in Game 4. Lue also restricted his original starting center, Ivica Zubac, to three minutes in Game 7 after Zubac had been repeatedly torched on defensive switches throughout the series by the Mavericks’ Luka Doncic.10,982The Clippers, who operated with the league’s smallest building capacity of the 16 teams that reached the first round of the playoffs, hosted a crowd of just 7,342 fans for their Game 7 win over Dallas. The Mavericks hosted the league’s biggest crowd of Round 1 for their Game 6 defeat on Friday night with a chance to close out the series: 18,324 fans (10,982 more than the Clippers).355The N.B.A. has announced that 355 players have applied for early entry into the N.B.A. draft. Only 60 players will be drafted on July 29.Hit me up anytime on Twitter (@TheSteinLine) or Facebook (@MarcSteinNBA) or Instagram (@thesteinline). Send any other feedback to marcstein-newsletter@nytimes.com. More

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      Denver’s Nikola Jokic Wins N.B.A.’s Most Valuable Player Award

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      Jokic set career highs in points, rebounds and assists, and kept the Nuggets afloat after Jamal Murray, their second-leading scorer, went down with a knee injury.Nikola Jokic was an afterthought in 2014. A pudgy center from Serbia, he was a role player for a club in the Adriatic League when the Denver Nuggets took a low-risk gamble in the second round of the N.B.A. draft and selected him with the 41st pick — then promptly stashed him in Europe for another season. There was no guarantee that he would ever appear in an N.B.A. uniform.On Tuesday, Jokic reached the pinnacle of individual achievement by winning the N.B.A.’s Most Valuable Player Award.Basketball is a global game, and Jokic, 26, who had an exceptional season for the Nuggets, became the second straight foreign-born player to win the award after Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo, who is from Greece, won the last two.Jokic, whose Nuggets trail the Phoenix Suns 1-0 in a Western Conference semifinals series, set career-bests in the regular season by averaging 26.4 points, 10.8 rebounds and 8.3 assists per game.In an interview with TNT, Jokic said he “didn’t even think I would be in the N.B.A.” after he had begun to play the sport in his native Serbia. He credited his rise to “a lot of luck” and the trust he received from various coaches and the Nuggets as he developed. “And I put some work, too,” Jokic said.“I think this was my best season of my life and the cherry on the top is probably the trophy that I got,” Jokic said.Despite his industrial-size bulk at 6 feet 11 inches tall and 284 pounds, Jokic is a nimble, multidimensional player who can shoot from the outside, bang in the paint and pass with flair. His ability to operate at the high post and one-handedly sling passes to cutting teammates opens the floor and causes mayhem for defenders. During the regular season, he shot 56.6 percent from the field and 38.8 percent from 3-point range.“He’s what basketball players should look like in the future,” Ognjen Stojakovic, the Nuggets’ director of player development, said in a recent interview. “‘If I need to shoot it, shoot it. If I need to dribble, dribble. If I need to post up, I will post up because I am capable of doing everything.’ That is modern basketball.”Jokic received 91 of the 101 first-place votes and had 971 total points, with 10 points awarded for each first-place vote. Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid, who is from Cameroon, finished second in the voting with 586 points after averaging 28.5 points and 10.6 rebounds per game for the East-leading 76ers.Golden State’s Stephen Curry, who won back-to-back M.V.P. awards in 2015 and 2016, finished third in the voting. Curry, who led the league in scoring and dragged a depleted team to the brink of a playoff berth, had the second-most first-place votes with five. Antetokounmpo finished fourth. Members of the news media vote for the award, but The New York Times does not participate.The race was, in some ways, a battle of attrition in a disjointed season that was marred by a host of injuries and coronavirus-related absences. LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers was a front-runner to win the award for a fifth time — and for the first time since 2013 — before he sprained his ankle in March and missed 26 games. Embiid was also sidelined for about three weeks with a bone bruise in his left knee.Jokic, on the other hand, was an ironman, appearing in all 72 of his team’s games, and he kept the Nuggets afloat after Jamal Murray, their starting point guard and second-leading scorer, tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee in April. Without Murray, the Nuggets closed the season as the No. 3 seed in the West by winning 13 of 18 games as Jokic shouldered even more responsibility.When Jokic joined the Nuggets as a rookie ahead of the 2015-16 season, he was fresh off his first M.V.P. campaign — in the Adriatic League. It did not take long for his coaches in Denver to recognize his versatility. They encouraged him to do what he does best, which is a bit of everything.“If you have a chef and you put him in McDonald’s flipping burgers, he will feel terrible,” Stojakovic said. “But if you give him a chance to be a chef and create, he can do his magic.”Calvin Booth, the team’s general manager, recalled joining the Nuggets’ front office before the start of the 2017-18 season. Jokic was beginning to establish himself as a young player full of promise, and Booth had seen clips and highlights of his handiwork. But Booth found that being around Jokic every day was a different experience altogether.“I knew he was good,” Booth said, “but I didn’t know he was that good.”Among his peers this season, Jokic was deemed the very best.Marc Stein More

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      Nets Brush Aside the Bucks to Lead Series, 2-0

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      A 39-point drubbing sends the series back to Milwaukee, and the Bucks back to the drawing board.One can easily call the Milwaukee Bucks’ performance against the Nets on Monday night an embarrassment.It was, after all, a 39-point drubbing, and gave the Nets a commanding 2-0 lead in their Eastern Conference semifinal series. The 125-86 win was the largest in the Nets’ playoff history, and their biggest margin of victory all season.Kyrie Irving hit a 3-pointer to open the game. Soon, the Nets’ lead was 10 points. By the end of the first quarter, it was 17. And then the floodgates opened. At one point, the lead grew to 49.The Bucks had no answers. Their fans couldn’t even blame the referees for letting the game get out of hand: The Nets shot only seven free throws. They simply scored whenever they wanted.“We didn’t play very well overall,” Mike Budenholzer, the Bucks coach, said in a stone-faced understatement. “First quarter. The whole game. Yeah, so, I think we’ve got to play better from start to end.”Keeping the score closer might have been merely a cosmetic gesture, though. The Nets are the superior team, both in talent and in execution. And they have dominated both games of this series while missing James Harden, one of the best offensive players in the league. Unlike most teams the Nets play, the Bucks have a counterpoint for Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and Harden: a dominant former most valuable player of their own in Giannis Antetokounmpo. Antetokounmpo played well in the opening game of this series, scoring 34 points on 24 shots and grabbing 11 rebounds. The problem for Budenholzer and his team is that the Nets just brushed it off. It is not a great sign when a team’s star plays like a star, when the opposing team loses one of theirs to injury, and the games are still not competitive.Little went right for P.J. Tucker and the other Bucks.Elsa/Getty ImagesThe Bucks have been vexed by Durant in particular, their inability to stop him traced to one important advantage: Durant has no weak spots as an offensive player. Defenders can’t force him left or right for a more advantageous position because he can score from anywhere on the floor.P.J. Tucker is stronger than Durant. Antetokounmpo might be taller. Jrue Holiday is quicker. All three are excellent defensively, and all three have taken their turns trying to guard him. Durant had counters for all of them. When he is single-covered, he easily got around bigger defenders with his exceptional ball handling. Against smaller ones, he merely shot over them. When the Bucks double-teamed him, Durant slipped passes to teammates like Joe Harris or Irving.On Monday, Durant finished with 32 points and 6 assists in 33 minutes. He was mesmerizing. Unguardable.All is not lost for the Bucks. If there is one way for them to keep these games close, it could be by hitting their 3’s.The Bucks have been dismal from deep so far, shooting 24.5 percent combined in the first two games of the series — almost 15 points lower than their regular-season average.Meanwhile, the Nets shot a whopping 50 percent on 3-pointers on Monday night, after making 38.5 percent in Game 1.If Milwaukee can find something approximating its regular-season form, it will open up the paint for Antetokounmpo. This may require more minutes for Bobby Portis and Bryn Forbes, bench players who can shoot, and starting Antetokounmpo at center, to allow for more perimeter quickness.And the Bucks can take some lessons from the Nets’ only postseason loss so far: Game 3 of their first-round series against the Boston Celtics. The overmatched Celtics stole a win that night, even as Durant and Harden had strong games, because they shot 16 of 39 (41 percent) from behind the arc, which allowed them to keep pace late in the game.Of course, Jayson Tatum, the Celtics star, helped quite a bit by scoring 50 points. Milwaukee is going to need nights like that from Antetokounmpo, who had difficulty getting into an offensive rhythm on Monday. The Bucks are not going to win many games with Antetokounmpo, their best player, shooting only 15 times.“I’ve got to be more aggressive and get to my spots more,” Antetokounmpo acknowledged after the game. “That’s pretty much it.”James Harden, left, was missing, but Kevin Durant and the other Nets were more than enough.Elsa/Getty ImagesNot quite. It’s not necessarily only a question of aggression. There were far too many possessions Monday on which Antetokounmpo put his head down and tried to drive into a wall of defenders. Aggression without a Plan B leads to 39-point losses. Antetokounmpo needs to get the ball in different spots and not just bring it up as the team’s de facto point guard.But all the adjustments in the world won’t close the talent gap between the two teams. It’s not just that Durant and Irving are outclassing the Bucks’ top players. It’s that the rest of the Nets roster — even role players like Bruce Brown and Mike James — are playing some of their best basketball of their season at the right time. And to make matters worse for Milwaukee, the Nets might get the injured Harden and Jeff Green back for Game 3.Short of the Nets forgetting what time that game is on Thursday, the Bucks could be in for more of the same. More