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      Why One American Basketball Team Won’t Be at the Summer Olympics

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      The U.S. invented basketball but does not dominate one form, three-on-three, when it comes to Olympics qualifying. So, go … Latvia?When three-on-three basketball has its Olympics debut in Tokyo this summer, Latvia will be there. So will Poland. But a men’s team from the United States, birthplace of basketball and winner of 15 of 19 men’s gold medals in the traditional five-on-five game, will not.The Americans were eliminated from a qualifying tournament in Austria on Sunday, 21-16, by the Netherlands.How did this happen?One clue is the American men’s roster. It consisted of Dominique Jones, Robbie Hummel, Kareem Maddox and Joey King. All were capable college players. All have honed their games in three-on-three play for several years in preparation for the Games. But they hardly represent the best players the U.S. could offer.Several factors prevented the U.S. from rolling out a threesome like LeBron James, Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant. For one, the best N.B.A. players are currently in the middle of the playoffs.Still, even hustling together a group of stars from teams not in the playoffs would not have been possible. Hoping to promote its three-on-three tournaments around the world, the international federation, FIBA, mandated that Olympic hopefuls earn points in those events. Since they took place in the winter, all N.B.A. players and even most Americans playing for European teams were out.FIBA is aware of what it is doing. It hopes to build the game beyond merely the Olympics, so it demands participation in its other, lower-profile events. It also wants to have as many countries involved as possible. The U.S. men did not qualify for the 2018 World Cup either, though Andorra, population 77,000, did, in part merely for showing up.“Andorra has heavy participation every weekend,” an official explained at the time.The unforgiving nature of the qualifying tournament over the weekend didn’t help. The U.S. won its pool with a 3-1 record. But that only got them into the quarterfinals. The loss to the Netherlands eliminated them, since only the top three teams advanced to the eight-team Olympic tournament.Dominique Jones was on the U.S. three-on-three roster but it lacked the biggest names. Christian Ugarte/EPA, via ShutterstockIn the three-on-three game — or 3×3 as FIBA insists on calling it — baskets are worth 1 point. What would be a 3-point shot in the regular game is worth 2 points. The Dutch made four 2-pointers down the stretch to put the Americans away.“Obviously, it’s not the ending we wanted,” said Joe Lewandowski, who has the title of coach/adviser (coaching is not allowed during games). He is the head coach at Point Park University, an N.A.I.A. school in Pittsburgh. The traditional men’s five-on-five team has qualified and will be coached by Gregg Popovich of the San Antonio Spurs.Another American team in a very American sport will face its own challenge this week when men’s baseball sends minor leaguers to try to qualify for the Games.Kara Lawson of Duke coached the American women’s three-on-three team, which qualified for the Games with ease, finishing 4-0 in its pool, then beating Belarus, 21-10, and Spain 21-13. The winner is the first team to 21 points or the leader after 10 minutes. (Dawn Staley of South Carolina will coach the women’s five-on-five at the Games.)The women’s three-on-three roster has much more familiar names, all with W.N.B.A. experience: Allisha Gray of the Dallas Wings, Stefanie Dolson of the Chicago Sky, Katie Lou Samuelson of the Seattle Storm and Kelsey Plum of the Las Vegas Aces, a former No. 1 overall draft pick. Because the W.N.B.A. is a summer league, the opportunity was there to recruit some top players who were available to earn points at FIBA events in the winter.Those stars will now return to their W.N.B.A. teams. In contrast, the players on the men’s teams include a news producer and a development specialist.Though one spot is left in the men’s field at the Olympics, the U.S. is not eligible for it. In another quirky FIBA decision, that place is reserved only for nations that did not have a team in the 2012 or 2016 Olympic Games. So men from Mongolia, Hungary or Romania could be at the Games, while the nation of Wilt Chamberlain and Julius Erving watches from home. More

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      Chris Paul Won’t Be Kept Off the Court

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      His coach had been inclined to sideline him as he deals with a shoulder injury. But he talked his way into the lineup and helped Phoenix tie its series with the Lakers.LOS ANGELES — A little over a week ago, Chris Paul christened the Phoenix Suns’ first trip to the postseason since the 2009-10 season with a bit of style. Paul, who is 6 feet tall, does not dunk often, but he rose to the occasion during warm-ups for the opening game of the Suns’ first-round series with the Lakers, leaping for an alley-oop as his teammates — and thousands of fans in Phoenix — celebrated in unison. It felt like a party. The city brimmed with hope.Why not? Rather than merely being back in the playoffs, the Suns had returned as the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference. Now, anything seemed possible: a deep run, a chance at a championship. And Paul, of course, had been central to the team’s identity, adding leadership and a dose of feistiness to a young roster.Since Paul’s pregame dunk, the series has taken on the feel of a more earthbound slog: sprains and strains, trash talk and errant shots. More than a few possessions have bordered on skirmishes. After injuring his right shoulder in Game 1, Paul has personified the series in some ways. He has played with a grimace.But after being a nonfactor in back-to-back losses, Paul resurfaced for Game 4 on Sunday in vintage form. He scored and scowled. He had running conversations with defenders and courtside fans at Staples Center in Los Angeles. He played a huge role in the Suns’ 100-92 win, which evened the best-of-seven series at two games apiece, and amazingly he nearly played no role at all.Suns Coach Monty Williams said he had essentially decided before the game to pull Paul from the lineup. Paul had been ineffective in Game 3, and Williams said he was concerned — concerned about Paul’s health and concerned that his presence could actually hinder the team. It was not a decision that Williams had taken lightly.“It was something I’d been thinking about for the past 48 hours,” Williams said.So, a few minutes before the Suns gathered as a team, Williams met with Paul and James Jones, the Suns’ general manager, and shared how he felt. Paul pushed back and argued that Williams should let him start: If it was clear in the early minutes that he was not himself, then Williams could sit him and the team could go in a different direction.“This is one of those situations where I had to trust the player, trust our relationship from over the years,” Williams said, adding: “He’s trained to be in these moments, and my final thought was: I don’t want to be the one who takes that away from him.”It was one of several conversations that Paul had before the game. He said he called his brother, C.J., and conferred with the other members of his inner circle. He also talked to teammates Jae Crowder and Devin Booker, conveying an important message to both players.“If you all feel like I’m out here looking like some trash, just tell me and I’ll get out,” Paul recalled telling them. “I had to see what I could do.”For his part, Williams said he was reassured when Paul went through a pregame workout with an assistant coach and showed improved mobility in his shoulder. It was the first time Paul had touched a basketball since the Suns’ 14-point loss in Game 3 on Thursday. The team’s training staff had recommended rest.“They say that’s the only way to treat what I have going on,” said Paul, whose injury is listed as a contusion.Paul made his first shot — a pull-up jumper from 11 feet — and was assertive in the second quarter after the Lakers had built a double-digit lead.“I’m never doubting myself,” Paul said, “but I’m like, ‘Man, it’s on me. It’s on me.’ ”He left even more of an imprint at the start of the third quarter, when Lakers center Anthony Davis remained in the locker room with a strained groin. There was Paul, racing upcourt on a fast break before dumping a pass to Deandre Ayton for a layup. There was Paul, darting through the lane for a short jumper. And there was Paul again, firing an 18-foot fadeaway to give the Suns a 14-point lead. Davis left a void, and Paul pounced on the opportunity.“Once I got a couple shots to fall and we started to play with pace, we felt like we had it,” he said.Paul, who finished with 18 points, 9 assists and 3 steals, was not totally himself by any stretch. He was still favoring his right shoulder and dribbling with his left hand whenever possible. But he was productive — more so than he had been all series — and his teammates fed off his hallmark frowny-face energy.“The game’s a lot easier when he’s out there,” Suns guard Cameron Payne said.It has been that way all season for the Suns, who have leaned heavily on Paul. His impact has gone far beyond creating open looks for teammates. “A lot of guys have changed how they work out, how they eat, just by being around Chris,” Williams said.Now in his 16th season and playing for his fifth team, Paul is still trying to reach his first N.B.A. finals. It is a hole on his otherwise crowded résumé. Helping guide the Suns there in his first season in Phoenix would be an enormous achievement. Only a couple of days ago, that dream seemed in danger of prematurely crumbling into desert dust.Now, the Lakers look vulnerable, especially with Davis’s uncertain status for Game 5 on Tuesday in Phoenix.The playoffs, Williams said, tend to push players to their absolute limit. Paul, for example, is facing another test in a career full of them.“It was a good feeling,” Paul said, “just to be out there and compete.” More

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      Seattle Storm Coach Dan Hughes Retires Midseason

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      Hughes, tied for the third most wins in league history, handed control to Noelle Quinn, who won a title with Seattle as a player.SEATTLE — Seattle Storm Coach Dan Hughes abruptly announced his retirement on Sunday, six games into the season, saying the rigors of being a head coach in the W.N.B.A. has taken a toll.Hughes, 66, said he would continue to serve as an assistant coach for the United States at the Tokyo Olympics, but he handed over the duties of leading the Storm (5-1) to assistant coach Noelle Quinn.“After over 40 years of coaching basketball, I want to finish my career with the focus and determination with which I started,” Hughes said in a statement. “The Seattle Storm is in amazing shape, after two championships and a terrific playoff run in 2019, I would like to announce my retirement from the W.N.B.A. I believe now is the right time because the team is performing well, but the rigors of being a head coach in the WNBA have taken their toll on me. I look forward to coaching with U.S.A. Basketball at the 2021 Olympics, then leveraging my experience to give back to the game in other ways.”Hughes has coached in the W.N.B.A. for 20 years with stops with the defunct Charlotte and Cleveland franchises, San Antonio and Seattle. He has coached the second-most games in league history (598) and is tied for third in victories with 286.Noelle Quinn, middle, playing in the 2018 W.N.B.A. finals.Elaine Thompson/Associated PressHughes arrived in Seattle in 2018 and helped lead the Storm to their third W.N.B.A. title in his first season. He missed part of the 2019 season after having surgery and being treated for a cancerous tumor in his digestive tract, and he was not cleared to be with the Storm in the W.N.B.A. bubble in Bradenton, Fla., during the truncated 2020 season that ended with Seattle’s fourth title.Hughes twice won the W.N.B.A. coach of the year award, in 2001 with Cleveland and in 2007 with San Antonio.“It is rare when a leader has the foresight to make changes at the pinnacle of their career,” Lisa Brummel, a co-owner of the Storm, said. “Under Dan’s leadership, the Storm have won two championships and he has built a great coaching staff here in Seattle. His dedication to his craft is second to none and his legacy is perfectly exemplified by his unselfish nature and ability to see all that lies ahead.”Quinn, 36, joined Seattle’s coaching staff in 2019 after winning the first title of her playing career with the Storm in 2018. She handled head coaching duties earlier this week in a 90-87 win over Connecticut while Hughes was attending his son’s graduation.“I am excited to hand the reins to Noelle,” Hughes said. “She is well positioned to do this job and I am proud to have mentored her during my time here. I look forward to her and the team’s ongoing success.”Assistant coaches Gary Kloppenburg, Ryan Webb and Perry Huang will remain on the team’s staff and work with Quinn. Kloppenburg was the head coach last season in the bubble. More

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      Mark Eaton, Shot-Blocking Star for the Utah Jazz, Dies at 64

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      At 7-foot-4, Eaton was a two-time N.B.A. defensive player of the year, and his career shot-blocking average was the best in league history.Mark Eaton, the 7-foot-4 shot-blocking king who twice was the N.B.A.’s defensive player of the year during a career spent entirely with the Utah Jazz, died on Friday night in a bicycle accident near his home in Summit County, Utah. He was 64.The team said he had left his home for a bike ride, and shortly thereafter someone called 911 to report seeing him lying on a roadway and unconscious. He died at the hospital.The county sheriff’s office said, “It appears the man was riding a bicycle and crashed,” adding that there was no reason to believe a vehicle was involved.Eaton led the league in blocks per game four times, and his average of 5.6 per contest in 1984-85 remains the highest average since the N.B.A. started officially tracking that statistic. Eaton’s career blocks average of 3.51 per game is the best in league history, and his career happened almost by accident.Eaton blocking a shot by Otis Thorpe of the Houston Rockets. He credited Wilt Chamberlain with inspiring him to focus on defending the basket.Getty ImagesHe was working as an auto mechanic in 1977 when a community college basketball coach persuaded him to enroll. From there, he went to U.C.L.A., and his stint with the Jazz followed.“I had an unusual background,” Eaton said for a story published two years ago on the Jazz’s website. “It’s an unlikely story to be sure. I basically came into the N.B.A. with two years of junior college experience and sat on the bench at U.C.L.A. for two years. And Frank Layden gave me a chance and the team was in a space where they could afford to let me make some mistakes out there and get my feet underneath me. It worked out well for both of us.”The Jazz described him in a statement as an “enduring figure in our franchise history.”Eaton had been, among other things, a restaurateur and motivational speaker in his retirement.Mark Eaton was born on Jan. 24, 1957, in Inglewood, Calif. Information on survivors was not immediately available.In recent years, he served as a mentor to Jazz center Rudy Gobert — the only other player in the team’s history to win the defensive player of the year award.His 11 playing seasons with the Jazz are third most in team history, behind the longtime Utah cornerstones Karl Malone and John Stockton. Eaton’s durability was noteworthy, with him once appearing in 338 consecutive games. He finished with career averages of 6.0 points and 7.9 rebounds.Eaton shooting against Nate Johnston of the Portland Trailblazers. He spent his entire N.B.A. career with the Utah Jazz.Getty ImagesBut his best skill was defending the rim, and he once told a story about how Wilt Chamberlain offered him advice about his career. He shared the tale during a motivational speech, telling others that Rule No. 1 for success is to “know your job.”“Wilt grabbed me by the arm, took me out on the floor, positioned me right in front of the basket,” Eaton said. “He said, ‘You see this basket? Your job is to stop players from getting there. Your job is to make them miss their shot, get the rebound, throw it up to the guard, let them go down the other end and score, and your job is to cruise up to half-court and see what’s going on.’”“When Wilt shared that with me, everything changed,” he said. “I understood what I needed to do. I understood what I could be great at. Wilt showed me what my job was, and how doing what I did would benefit my team.”Eaton’s No. 53 was one of the first jerseys retired by the Jazz.He was the defensive player of the year in 1984-85 and 1988-89, was a five-time All-Defensive team selection — three first-team nods, two second-team picks — and was an All-Star in 1989. He retired in September 1994. More

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      N.B.A. Playoffs: Anthony Davis Leads Lakers Past the Suns

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      In Los Angeles, a star absorbs a few blows as he delivers shot after shot, leading the Lakers past the Suns.LOS ANGELES — It was not an especially pleasant night of basketball for Anthony Davis. Productive? Yes. Pleasant? No.The Lakers on Thursday were playing in front of a home playoff crowd for the first time since 2013, and Davis christened the festivities by picking up his first foul 15 seconds into the game. A few minutes later, his face got in the way of one of Deandre Ayton’s elbows.In the second quarter, Davis sprinted the length of the court to chase down Devin Booker and swat away his layup — only to wrench his left knee. Davis would later describe it as “hyperextended.” Whatever the official diagnosis, he used a heat wrap at halftime and then removed it so that he could continue with his now-familiar business of torching the Phoenix Suns.Davis, the Lakers’ All-Star power forward, has not been immune to injury. He missed about two months this season with a calf strain, and the Lakers have little chance of defending their N.B.A. championship without him. On Thursday, he was hobbling throughout the second half of the Lakers’ 109-95 win over the Suns in Game 3 of their first-round series, and Frank Vogel, the Lakers’ coach, kept turning to the members of his medical staff: Were they sure this was such a good idea?Davis after he took an elbow to the face from Deandre Ayton.Sean M. Haffey/Getty ImagesHis troubles mounted when he tried to block a Devin Booker shot.Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images“Maybe we should get him out,” Vogel recalled telling them. “And they’re saying, ‘He’s good to go. He’s safe. It’s just about playing through pain.’”Davis wound up collecting 34 points and 11 rebounds to help the Lakers take a 2-1 series lead over Phoenix ahead of Game 4 on Sunday afternoon, and the Suns — who earned the No. 2 seed with an enormously successful regular season — seem in danger of coming unglued. Chris Paul’s shoulder injury has rendered him a sad shadow of himself. His teammates are being thwarted by the Lakers’ defense, and their frustration is starting to show.Players from both teams spent the late stages of Thursday’s game barking at each other.“That’s playoff basketball,” Davis said. “Guys are going to chirp. Guys are going to talk.”But while the Lakers seemed to consume all the theatrics as fuel — Dennis Schröder, for example, did a series of push-ups after Booker knocked him to the court in the final minute — the Suns lost their composure. Booker was ejected for his flagrant foul on Schröder — Davis called it a “dirty play” — and the Suns’ Jae Crowder soon got tossed, too.The Lakers, of course, are only seven months removed from last season’s title run in the bubble, and few pundits were dismissing them ahead of their series with the Suns. Sure, they might have limped into the playoffs as the No. 7 seed after a disjointed season that was marred by injuries. But they still employ two of the best players on the planet. So what if LeBron James missed 26 games down the stretch because of a sprained ankle? So what if their lineup was seldom whole? So what if they lost 9 of 15 games in April?The doubts, murmurs and questions crept in, though, after their Game 1 loss in Phoenix. Davis, after being outplayed by Ayton, took the blame and vowed to be better. Before Game 2, he seemed uniquely determined to his teammates: quiet in a fearsome way. He delivered, scoring 34 points to help tie the series.On Thursday, the Lakers were leading by 3 at halftime when Davis (and James) went to work. After James scored the first two baskets of the third quarter by attacking creases in the lane, he fed Davis for a dunk. The Suns immediately called a timeout, but the Lakers’ run had the feel of storm clouds forming on the horizon.“Those two guys really reversed the whole course of the game,” Vogel said of Davis and James.Coming out of the timeout, Davis kept calling for the ball, and scoring, and limping, and rebounding, and scoring some more. He corralled a lob for another dunk. He faced up against Ayton and lofted a leaner over him. Davis scored 18 points in the third quarter alone, and some close observers of the Lakers were calling it the team’s best stretch of basketball of the season.“He’s just ultra-aggressive right now,” James said of Davis, adding: “When he’s aggressive, we’re all aggressive.”Jae Crowder and the Suns lost their cool, and LeBron James and the Lakers left with a 2-1 lead in the series.Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated PressEven Davis’s mistakes came with thunderous flair. After cutting through the lane and catching a pass from James, Davis rose for an attempted dunk that caromed off the back of the rim with such force that the ball nearly grazed the video screen hanging above center court. Later, he lost one of his sneakers while drawing a foul. He otherwise remained intact.“Just a gutsy, tough performance from a great player,” Vogel said, “and we needed it.”Before joining the Lakers last season, Davis had been to the playoffs only twice, without ever taking his team past the second round. He was a great player — dominant, even — but he was not necessarily known as a winner, and his exit from New Orleans was a messy one.Davis went a long way toward repairing his reputation in the bubble, winning a championship with James while making important shots along the way. Now, he appears to be savoring the chance to make another title run, this time in arenas that are beginning to fill with fans.“We’re finding our groove at the right time,” he said. More

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      Ugly N.B.A. Fan Behavior Is Back With Popcorn Toss and Spitting Incident

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      Inappropriate behavior by fans toward Washington’s Russell Westbrook and Atlanta’s Trae Young has highlighted a pitfall in the return to packed arenas for the playoffs.After months of basketballs echoing in nearly empty venues because of the coronavirus pandemic, Barclays Center is rocking, Madison Square Garden is electric and fans packing into N.B.A. arenas across the country are adding a dimension of excitement to playoff games that was sorely lacking in last postseason’s bubble.But the easing of restrictions, which has allowed fans to return in droves, has brought to the forefront another dimension that the pandemic had covered: the sometimes ugly behavior of unruly fans in proximity to players and players’ families.On Wednesday night alone: A fan in Philadelphia poured popcorn on the head of Washington Wizards guard Russell Westbrook as he departed the court at Wells Fargo Center with an ankle injury. In New York, a fan spat on Atlanta Hawks guard Trae Young at Madison Square Garden. In Utah, three fans were ejected from Vivint Arena. The fans had directed comments at the family of Memphis Grizzlies guard Ja Morant, according to a person with knowledge of the details who was not authorized to publicly discuss them.Morant later responded to a tweet about the Jazz ejecting and indefinitely barring the fans, saying, “as they should.” His family, he added, should be able to cheer for him and his team without being verbally abused.“There are certain things that cross the line,” Westbrook told reporters after his game in Philadelphia. “In these arenas, you got to start protecting the players. We’ll see what the N.B.A. does.”The fans from Wednesday’s incidents have all been barred indefinitely from those arenas, and the 76ers announced that the popcorn-throwing fan, who was ejected, would have his season tickets revoked. But the punishments and subsequent apologies from teams will likely do little to alleviate growing concern among the players that fan behavior has grown unseemly, with players having little option but to take the abuse.“We apologize to Trae and the entire Atlanta Hawks organization for this fan’s behavior,” the Knicks said in a statement. “This was completely unacceptable and will not be tolerated in our venue. We have turned the information over to the appropriate authorities.”Young has quickly drawn the scorn of Knicks fans at the Garden during the first two games of their first-round series. Fans raucously cursed at him during Game 1 on Sunday, which the Hawks won largely because of Young. He put a finger over his mouth afterward to signal his silencing of a Garden crowd that had waited since 2013 to see the Knicks play N.B.A. playoff basketball.Throughout Wednesday’s game, fans again serenaded him with an expletive and mocked his hair. Young tweeted a video of the spitting incident on Thursday, asking the rapper 50 Cent, who sat on the sideline between Young and the fan, if he was OK.“We saw video of that, and unfortunately, I think we’re just living in a society where really people just don’t have respect anymore,” Hawks Coach Nate McMillan said. “In no way should that be allowed or should that happen at a sporting event or really any event where you are coming to watch a game and you do something like that.”Russell Westbrook of the Washington Wizards was headed to the locker room after an injury when a fan poured popcorn on him.Matt Slocum/Associated PressPlayers across the league voiced frustration over the incidents. “By the way WE AS THE PLAYERS wanna see who threw that popcorn on Russ while he was leaving the game tonight with a injury!!” Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James tweeted. “There’s cameras all over arenas so there’s no excuse!”The players’ union released a statement on Thursday, putting the first word, “true,” in bold and in italics for emphasis: “True fans of this game honor and respect the dignity of our players. No true fan would seek to harm them or violate their personal space. Those who do have no place in our arenas.”The union added that bad fan behavior would be “appropriately evaluated by law enforcement just as if it occurred on a public street.”In February, security ejected fans from their courtside seats after they argued with James in Atlanta, when the Hawks were one of only nine N.B.A. franchises allowing fans in attendance.“I’m happy fans are back in the building,” James told reporters after the incident. “I missed that interaction. I need that interaction. We as players need that interaction. I don’t feel like it was warranted to be kicked out.”He added, “They could’ve probably kept it going and the game wouldn’t have been about the game anymore, so the referees did what they had to do.”The unruly fan behavior is not limited to the N.B.A. Baseball stadiums have hosted a number of fights between fans since beginning its season this spring.Samuel R. Sommers, an associate professor of psychology at Tufts University and an expert on the psychology of fans, said that sports bring people together in both unifying and combative ways.“Take your pick, whether we’re talking a return to normalcy or whether we’re talking about people getting the pent-up energy out of their system,” Sommers said. “Things like this happen when you get groups of people like this together and when you add the excitement, the adrenaline, the energy of sports.”This week’s episodes resurfaced a trend of troubling fan interactions at N.B.A. arenas that the pandemic had paused. In 2019, the N.B.A. toughened its fan conduct code after lobbying from players amid high-profile incidents, including the Toronto Raptors’ Kyle Lowry being shoved by Mark Stevens, a Golden State Warriors minority owner, during a finals game.Players like Westbrook and Young have largely showed restraint when receiving vitriol from fans.“Obviously I’m doing something right if you hate me that much,” said Young, who cursed back at fans after his playoff debut against the Knicks. “At the end of the day, we’ll get the last laugh if we do that.”Westbrook said that he had learned to look the other way during most cases but that the situation was worsening. Three years ago, the Jazz barred a fan in Utah for, the team said, “excessive and derogatory verbal abuse directed at a player.” Westbrook, who is Black, said that fan, who appeared to be white, made “disrespectful” and “racial” comments.Three fans were ejected in Utah after a “verbal altercation” with the family of Memphis Grizzlies guard Ja Morant, center.Alex Goodlett/Getty ImagesThe Jazz on Thursday said they had also indefinitely barred the fans from Wednesday’s incident involving Morant’s family. “The Utah Jazz have zero tolerance for offensive or disruptive behavior,” the team said in a statement, adding, “We apologize to all who were impacted by this unfortunate incident and condemn unacceptable fan behavior.”Morant’s father, Tee, who is Black, told ESPN that one of the fans made a “sexually explicit remark to his wife.” Another, he said, told him, “I’ll put a nickel in your back and watch you dance, boy.”This week, Nets guard Kyrie Irving, in comments to reporters, appeared to be trying to pre-empt any personal or racial attacks before playing against his former team, the Boston Celtics, in Game 3 of their series at TD Garden on Friday.Black athletes from different sports have long described being taunted with racial attacks in Boston. Torii Hunter, a former M.L.B. outfielder, told ESPN that he had a no-trade clause to the Red Sox written into his contract because of the racial slurs he heard when he played in Boston.“I am just looking forward to competing with my teammates,” Irving said, “and hopefully, we can just keep it strictly basketball; there’s no belligerence or racism going on — subtle racism.”On Thursday, Celtics guard Marcus Smart told reporters that he’d heard the types of comments in Boston that Irving was referring to.“I’ve heard a couple of them,” he said. “It’s kind of sad and sickening, because even though it’s an opposing team, we have guys on your home team that you’re saying these racial slurs and you expect us to go out here and play for you. It’s tough.”The N.B.A., in a statement on Thursday, said that its fan code of conduct would be “vigorously enforced.”“The return of more N.B.A. fans to our arenas has brought great excitement and energy to the start of the playoffs, but it is critical that we all show respect for players, officials and our fellow fans,” the N.B.A. said.Marc Stein More

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      Betnijah Laney Is the Scoring Threat the Liberty Needed

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      Laney has scored at least 20 points in the first six games of the season, the first Liberty player ever to do so. She was the team’s leading scorer in four of its five victories.Athletes generally improve on fairly predictable trajectories. A role player at age 24 may have some upside, but probably isn’t going to suddenly become a superstar at 26.So what happened with Betnijah Laney of the Liberty?After a good college career at Rutgers, Laney, a 6-foot guard, was taken in the second round of the 2015 W.N.B.A. draft by the Chicago Sky and soon settled into a role as a defensive specialist off the bench. Her second season was derailed by an anterior cruciate ligament injury. She had a season on the bench for the Connecticut Sun and then a season as a 5-points-a-game starter for the Indiana Fever.She seemed to have established herself as a useful journeywoman, but hardly a franchise player.There were hints that the offensive talent was there. In a spell with the Perth Lynx in Australia, she averaged 15.2 points a game. With Elitzur Holon in Israel, she averaged 19.4 points a game. But it was easy to write off the numbers given the lower level of talent in those leagues.Then she arrived in Atlanta.Certainly, no one was expecting an offensive difference maker. “She will give us size and versatility at the defensive end of the floor,” Nicki Collen, the coach at the time, told the team website. “She will also help create pace and extra possessions on offense, as she is relentless on the glass.”The offensive explosion she brought to the Dream in 2020 was flabbergasting. She began to shoot more than twice as often as she had, which would be a recipe for disaster for most players. But instead, she drastically improved. While not letting up defensively, she showed a newfound ability to create her own shot, and sink it. Her shooting percentages increased, to .507 from .388 on 2-pointers, to .405 from .303 on 3-pointers and to .827 from .581 on free throws.“I was just kind of talking to her after workouts and I said: ‘You know the scouting report on you is that you can’t shoot, right? You do know that’s in everyone’s scout?’” Collen told The Athletic.Some of the upgrade simply came from opportunity as the Dream unleashed the suddenly productive Laney. But opportunity alone doesn’t bring such shooting improvement or automatically lead to winning the league’s Most Improved Player Award, which she did that season.Laney was a free agent at the conclusion of 2020, and the Liberty won the race to sign her. There was a danger, of course, that her season with Atlanta would prove to be a fluke and that the Liberty would make the mistake of buying at the top of the market.Instead, Laney, 27, seems to have become even better.Through six games, her 2- and 3-point-shooting percentages have risen again, even as she is shooting still more often. Her usage percentage — the percent of plays in which she is the main offensive actor, which in her previous incarnation was around 15 — rose to 23.5 in Atlanta and 28.3 this year. That makes her an even bigger part of the Liberty offense than the much-heralded rookie Sabrina Ionescu.Laney has scored 20 or more points in her team’s first six games, the first Liberty player to achieve that. (The W.N.B.A. record for such a start to a season is nine games, held by Cynthia Cooper of the 1999 Houston Comets.) Defensively, she is a key reason the Liberty have cut their opponents’ points per 100 possessions to 99.2, from 105.9 last season.Combine that stellar play with the return of Ionescu, who missed almost all of her rookie season with an injury, and the Liberty are tied with the Connecticut Sun at a league-best 5-1, on their way to their best season in at least four years. No matter what happens, they have already surpassed last year’s horrible 2-20 record, the second-worst season in league history.Laney almost always deflects talk about her stunning improvement, turning the focus to her teammates and coaches. “It’s always the win first for me,” she said after a 26-point effort in the Liberty’s 88-81 win over the Dallas Wings in Brooklyn on Monday. “Obviously, I’m a part of the scoring threat, but I don’t ever go out and say, OK, I need to get this amount of points.”Be that as it may, there is every reason to think the points, and the Liberty wins, will keep coming, through the regular season and beyond. More

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      Derrick Rose Leads Knicks Past Hawks in Game 2

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      The Knicks head to Atlanta tied with the Hawks, 1-1, thanks to a halftime switch and 26 points from Derrick Rose.Knicks Coach Tom Thibodeau, known for his rigidity, had to change something.The Knicks’ starters had been listless in the first half of Game 2 of their first-round N.B.A. playoff series against the Atlanta Hawks on Wednesday. The starting five had combined to hit only four field goals in the first two quarters. Thibodeau had benched his point guard, but the Knicks still trailed by 13 points at halftime. Madison Square Garden, packed with fans again, was restless.So Thibodeau pulled out a surprise, something he is typically hesitant to do. He opened the second half with two lineup changes, sending out Derrick Rose and Taj Gibson, both of whom had kept the Knicks in the game to that point.The move changed everything: The Knicks went from 13 points behind to holding a 1-point lead entering the fourth quarter. The crowd was revived. So was the team, which pulled away to beat the Hawks, 101-92.The victory was the Knicks’ first playoff win since 2013, and tied the series at 1-1. Game 3 of the best-of-seven series is Friday night in Atlanta.“We just felt like we were flat and needed a jolt of energy,” Thibodeau said after the game. “We wanted to change it up and we got going. It started with the defense, then we started sharing the ball.”The Garden was full for Game 2.Elsa/USA Today Sports, via ReutersWhat was notable about Thibodeau’s turning to Rose and Gibson was that they are the two players with whom Thibodeau has the most experience, making Wednesday’s midgame switch less an adjustment than a revival. Rose, 32, and Gibson, 35, have played for Thibodeau on three different teams he has coached: the Chicago Bulls, the Minnesota Timberwolves and now, the Knicks.Rose and Gibson were key parts of Thibodeau’s most successful team: the 2010-11 Chicago Bulls, who went to the Eastern Conference finals. Each player has a different, lesser role on Thibodeau’s current team, but his trust in them has never faltered.The five players he sent out for the second half on Wednesday night — RJ Barrett, Julius Randle, Rose, Gibson and Reggie Bullock — were not a makeshift group; they were, in fact, the Knicks’ fifth-most-used lineup during the regular season, according to the N.B.A.’s tracking numbers. They were extremely successful in 109 total minutes, with a net rating of 14.4 (a measure of how much a team is outscoring the other team or being outscored).“Regardless of who was out there, I think us, as a team, we came out with a different intensity level and focus and we were able to make them uncomfortable,” Randle said.Randle finished with 15 points on 5-of-16 shooting, adding 12 rebounds and four assists. But in the first half, the Hawks once again flummoxed him with double teams, a repeat of Game 1, and he could not hit his jumpers. Randle’s teammates did not make shots off his passes, either, allowing Atlanta to make its double teams even more aggressive. In the game-changing third quarter, with Rose on the floor as another playmaker, Randle had more room to operate: He scored 11 points, including two 3-pointers, which helped turn the tide.Rose finished with 26 points in 39 minutes, while Gibson had 6 points and 7 rebounds in 30 minutes. But it was Gibson’s defense in the paint that helped limit the effectiveness of the Hawks star Trae Young, who had hit the game-winning shot in Game 1 and hushed the Garden crowd.That is not to say Young didn’t give the Knicks fits again. He finished with 30 points on 20 shots, often leaving his primary defender, Rose, in the dust. But this time it was Rose, and the Knicks, who got the last word. As the final seconds ticked off, Rose dropped the basketball and aggressively clapped his hands.“To get that far and play the way that we played, to come back and get the lead, and not only that, but to win, it shows a lot,” Rose said. “It shows fight.”Inserting Gibson and Rose into the lineup after halftime was not Thibodeau’s only tweak. Elfrid Payton, a starting guard, played only the first five minutes of the game and, after being replaced by Rose, did not return. For months, Payton had been a prime example of Thibodeau’s unwillingness to bend: He has largely been ineffective as a player since March, but he never received less than 12 minutes the entire regular season, and averaged 24 minutes overall. Now, he might be out of the rotation altogether.Thibodeau also gave his bench, which has been a pleasant surprise, more leeway on the court than he typically does. The Knicks began the fourth quarter with Obi Toppin, Nerlens Noel, Immanuel Quickley, Alec Burks and Bullock on the floor. And at a crucial juncture in the game, with minimal playmaking on the floor, that group extended the Knicks’ lead to 10.And Barrett, who averaged 34.9 minutes a game during the regular season, sat out the entire fourth quarter. Instead, Thibodeau’s final adjustment was his closing lineup of Rose, Burks, Bullock, Randle and Gibson, a five the Knicks had not tried all season. It worked, particularly defensively, as they forced the ball out of Young’s hands.Trae Young, left, with Reggie Bullock. Young scored 30 points but took 20 shots.Elsa/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe game was tied with about five minutes left. Atlanta did not score another field goal the rest of the game. Instead, the Hawks looked like the Knicks had in the first half, tentative and unable to make shots. Young was able to get off only one shot in that stretch, to the delight of a Garden crowd that had booed every mistake of their new archenemy.Now the series will move to Atlanta for Games 3 and 4. The Knicks were 16-20 on the road during the regular season. Thibodeau and his team can take solace in the fact that, despite their best players putting up poor performances, they barely lost Game 1 and rallied to tie the series on Wednesday. Whatever questions they have, the Knicks certainly have the confidence of Thibodeau.“Look, I love this team,” Thibodeau said, high praise from the typically impassive coach. “There’s a great will and determination to them.” More