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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

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      It’s Been a Busy Few Days for One Arena

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      It’s Been a Busy Few Days for One ArenaTalya MinsbergReporting from Brooklyn 🏀Brittainy Newman for The New York TimesAfter the turnaround, the N.B.A. playoffs returned to Barclays Center on Tuesday night for Game 2 of the Nets’ first-round series with the Boston Celtics. The Nets won, 130-108, and took a 2-0 lead in the series. More

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      Knicks’ Julius Randle Wins N.B.A.’s Most Improved Player Award

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      Randle led the Knicks in scoring and fueled their run to the No. 4 seed in the Eastern Conference.Julius Randle can claim another accolade after his unexpected leap to stardom this season. He is the winner of the N.B.A.’s Most Improved Player Award.He is the first Knick to win the award. Randle’s winning was not much of a surprise, given that the 26-year-old posted career highs in several categories, including points per game, 3-point percentage and assists per game. His strong play garnered him his first career All-Star selection and he is also a candidate to make an All-N.B.A. team for the first time. If he makes the All N.B.A. team, he will be the first Knick to do so since Carmelo Anthony in 2013.In an interview with TNT’s “Inside The N.B.A.” on Tuesday evening, Randle said that the award “embodies who I am as a person.”“When the summertime comes, that is really where I have the most fun because I enjoy the process of getting better,” Randle said. “So all of a sudden you look at the trajectory of my career, every year, I’ve taken steps forward to get better and improve my game and that’s really what I’m proud of. I never want to feel like I’m staying in the same spot or I’m not getting better.”Randle was the Knicks’ best player all season, and he was as durable as he was reliable — leading the N.B.A. in minutes played. On a team without many playmakers, Randle, a 6-foot-8, 250-pound forward, shouldered much of the offensive burden each night, and he became a fan favorite in the process.His versatility put the Knicks squarely in a playoff race for the first time since 2013. And now, Randle is leading the Knicks as a No. 4 seed in a first-round playoff series against the fifth-seeded Atlanta Hawks. The Knicks lost the first game in a nail-biter, 107-105. Game 2 is Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden.Recent winners of the award include Randle’s former teammate Brandon Ingram of the New Orleans Pelicans (2020), Pascal Siakam of the Toronto Raptors (2019) and Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks (2017), who went on to win back-to-back Most Valuable Player Awards.Randle, who is in his second year with the Knicks, has only one year left on his contract. The Knicks can extend him this summer and likely will try after his strong season and their yearslong struggle to attract big-name free agents. But if they cannot come to an agreement, Randle can bet on himself and test the free-agent market in the summer of 2022. Or if the Knicks decide that Randle cannot be one of the best players on a championship team or don’t want to risk losing him for nothing, they can use him as the centerpiece in a trade for another superstar.For his part, Randle told The New York Times earlier this year that he would like to remain with the Knicks long-term. More

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      The Lakers Weren’t Ready for the Moment. Devin Booker Was.

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      Booker, the Phoenix Suns’ All-Star guard, is already showing the poise and determination of a playoff regular in his first postseason.The roots of everything that the Suns are now — a winning team, a franchise with championship hopes — date to 2015, when Phoenix made Devin Booker the 13th overall pick of the N.B.A. draft. For his first couple of seasons in Phoenix, he played in relative anonymity. The Suns were a terrible team. The closest Booker got to the playoffs was watching other players celebrate big wins on television.Still, he kept refining his craft as change swirled around him. The franchise kept tinkering and building. By the start of last season, none of the teammates he had as a rookie remained on the roster. He made his first All-Star team, then helped the Suns close out their season a few months later with eight straight wins in the bubble environment at Walt Disney World — a run that cemented their identity as a young, tough-minded team but was not enough to make the playoffs.Booker had to wait a little longer for his first trip to the postseason. On Sunday afternoon, the Suns opened the doors of their arena to nearly 12,000 fans for Game 1 of their first-round series against the Los Angeles Lakers. The Suns were among the teams that were able to increase their arena capacity for the start of the playoffs, and Coach Monty Williams said he found it jarring in the best way possible.“When I came out and saw that many people and heard the noise, I was like, ‘Holy smokes, this is pretty cool,’ ” he said. “I had to get myself under control emotionally because I hadn’t been in that environment in a long time.”If everything about the experience was new to Booker, he did a good job of hiding it in the Suns’ 99-90 win. He was dominant in an almost effortless way, outshining the title-tested luminaries with whom he shared the court. Booker has been on the cusp of emerging as one of the league’s brightest young stars for several years, but perhaps he needed to lead the Suns to a playoff win — against the Lakers, no less — to solidify his arrival.“Honestly,” he said, “it’s a little different. The intensity is different. The physicality is different.”It was only one game, of course, and it is worth remembering that the Lakers lost a pair of playoff series openers — to the Trail Blazers in the first round and to the Rockets in the conference semifinals — before crushing both Portland and Houston on their march to last season’s finals victory.But the big stage did not seem to affect the 24-year-old Booker. If anything, he embraced it.In the game’s early stages, he quickly passed out of a double-team, a decision that led to an open shot for a teammate. It was a small but significant moment: Booker seemed determined not to force much of anything. Instead, he was going to trust his teammates and bank on the slow, methodical process that had put the Suns in this position in the first place, as the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference.Suns Coach Monty Williams, middle, talked with Booker and forward Jae Crowder during the second half.Christian Petersen/Getty Images“Book has this reputation as a scorer, but he’s an unbelievably good passer,” Williams said, adding: “When he sees the double-team, he gets out of it. That’s who he is, and he probably doesn’t get enough credit for his willingness to pass.”Make no mistake: Booker scored, too. He spun through small crowds of defenders. He pulled up from the 3-point line. He finished with a game-high 34 points while shooting 13 of 26 from the field. He also had 8 assists and 7 rebounds, stamping the playoffs with his presence.The only player who may have been more impressive was his teammate, Deandre Ayton, the third-year center and 2018 No. 1 overall pick. He had 21 points and 16 rebounds while defending (and outplaying) the Lakers’ Anthony Davis, who was limited to 13 points and 7 rebounds. Davis took the blame for the Lakers’ loss. Booker described the 22-year-old Ayton’s performance as “next level.”“You could see it in his face pregame, that he was ready to go,” Booker said.There is an enormous disparity in experience in this best-of-seven series, and for one game, at least, it did not matter. While it was postseason game No. 1 for Booker and Ayton, it was postseason game No. 261 for the Lakers’ LeBron James, who first went to the playoffs when Booker was in the fourth grade.James, who sprained his ankle in March and wound up missing 26 games, had a muted opener against the Suns, scoring 18 points and attempting just 13 field goals. As a team, the Lakers shot poorly from the 3-point line and were outrebounded.It was an afternoon that, in some ways, typified their season. Because of injuries, the Lakers have seldom been whole. The defending champions, they limped into the playoffs as the conference’s No. 7 seed. Still, their struggles did not seem to matter to the oddsmakers who, before the start of the series, were favoring them to eliminate the Suns. Respect is hard won.Lebron James had 18 points in the loss.Ross D. Franklin/Associated PressOn Sunday, bodies collided and tempers flared. The Suns’ Chris Paul, one of the few players on the team with plentiful postseason experience, injured his right shoulder but played through apparent pain. (Paul is expected to play in Game 2 on Tuesday night.) Cameron Payne, his teammate, was ejected for throwing an elbow — and the ball — at the Lakers’ Alex Caruso.Aside from that kerfuffle, however, the Suns kept their composure. They never trailed in the second half, a surprisingly mature effort. Williams often tells his players that there are moments when “preparation meets opportunity,” and Booker seized his own. In fact, he had been preparing for Sunday’s game for years.He could have cited the summer mornings when he was a teenager and he would run sprints while wearing a weighted vest under the watchful and demanding eye of his father, Melvin, a former N.B.A. player. Or the YouTube videos of stars that he would parse. Or his first few seasons in Phoenix, which were not much fun. The past, though, was prelude. Booker said he could sense “something inside” of him before Sunday’s game. It was hard to define.“I was ready for it,” he said. More

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      W.N.B.A. Suspends Coach for Body-Shaming Liz Cambage

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      Cambage, the Las Vegas Aces center, said Connecticut Sun Coach Curt Miller had made disrespectful comments about her weight during a game on Sunday.The W.N.B.A. suspended and fined Curt Miller, the head coach of the Connecticut Sun, after he was called out by Las Vegas Aces center Liz Cambage for body-shaming her during a game on Sunday.The fine is $10,000, and the one-game suspension will keep Miller out of Connecticut’s matchup with the Seattle Storm on Tuesday.“If there is one thing about me, it’s that I will never let a man disrespect me,” Cambage said in an Instagram video on Sunday. “Ever. Ever. Ever.”Though Cambage did not refer to Miller by name — “Little sir man, I do not know your name,” she said — in the video she said “the coach of Connecticut” had tried to appeal for the referees to call a foul by saying, “Come on, she 300 pounds,” in a reference to her.Cambage, who is listed at 6-foot-8 and 216 pounds on the Aces’ roster, said in the video that she is 235 pounds and “very proud” of her body.Connecticut Sun Coach Curt Miller said he “made an inappropriate and offensive” comment about Cambage that he regretted.Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated PressMiller apologized Monday morning in a statement from the Sun. His suspension was announced in the evening. “During last night’s game, while arguing a call with an official, I made an inappropriate and offensive comment in reference to Liz Cambage’s height and weight,” Miller said. “I regret what I said in the heat of the moment and want to sincerely apologize to Liz and the entire Aces organization. I understand the gravity of my words and have learned from this.”In her call-out of Miller, Cambage spoke about how the uneven power dynamic between players and coaches made the situation difficult for her. She described Miller’s comments as “protected abuse — because we can’t do nothing back.”This is Miller’s sixth year coaching the Sun, who are undefeated in five games this season and have the best record in the W.N.B.A.Cambage is a three-time All-Star in her fifth W.N.B.A. season and second with the Aces. The Tulsa Shock, now the Dallas Wings, selected her with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2011 draft. She’s averaging 13.8 points and 7.5 rebounds per game this season for the Aces, who lost last year’s finals to Seattle. Cambage opted out the 2020 season for health reasons. More