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      Why Being a Knicks Fan Hurts So Good

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      Knicks fans used to disappointment are now reveling in a season of joy. “God forbid, if we win, we are going to burn this city down,” one famous fan said.Ashley Nicole Moss did not have much of a choice when she was growing up. Her father, Jeff, was a Knicks fan, which meant that she was a Knicks fan, too.For part of her childhood in Brooklyn and Queens, Moss, 27, found that rooting for the Knicks was not such a horrible thing. When she was especially young, the team often made the playoffs and even advanced to the N.B.A. finals in 1999, which she said was among her earliest memories as a fan. So she was completely unprepared for the subsequent two decades, which were largely a wilderness of losing and dysfunction, of failed hopes and shattered dreams.“It’s been a lot of disappointment and a lot of frustration,” said Moss, who is a co-host of “KnicksFanTV” on YouTube.All of which has made this season — this glorious season — so much more special for fans like Moss. The Knicks have engineered a comeback story, sending their long-suffering fans into a fervor. While the Nets, over in Brooklyn, are brimming with high-priced talent as a championship favorite, the Knicks have gone from punchline to playoff contender in the space of several thrilling months.“God forbid, if we win, we are going to burn this city down,” said Daniel Baker, an avowed Knicks fan more popularly known as Desus Nice on the late-night comedy show “Desus & Mero.” “Sorry, I’m just letting you all know.”The Knicks, with the second-lowest payroll in the league and a roster almost devoid of stars, will open their first-round series against the Atlanta Hawks on Sunday night at Madison Square Garden. The Knicks are seeded fourth in the Eastern Conference after finishing with a 41-31 record in the regular season.“It’s a team that people can relate to,” Moss said, “because of that true New York mentality: You grind from the bottom, and you work your way up.”The filmmaker Spike Lee, who has famously clashed with the team’s owner, James L. Dolan, said the past was history.“This is a new era,” he said. “A new day. And all I see are orange and blue skies.”Two stars in Madison Square Garden: Julius Randle and Spike Lee.Vincent Carchietta/USA Today Sports, via ReutersIt is not often that the Knicks can cast themselves as gritty underdogs, given their history of profligate spending. Yet they have won just one playoff series since 2001. They are two seasons removed from finishing with the league’s worst record. They also haven’t landed big free agents: Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving opted instead for the Nets.But after trying something new — fiscal prudence — the Knicks have built themselves in the image of their first-year coach, Tom Thibodeau, who barks instructions with the low growl of an outboard motor. The Knicks rank among the league leaders in blue-collar categories like opposing field-goal percentage and rebound rate. There is not a whole lot of flash. Instead, fans celebrate the unsung things that the players do so well: a hard screen, an intercepted outlet pass.And while the Nets seem to channel the Harlem Globetrotters by lobbing passes off the backboard for alley-oop dunks, the Knicks lean on the more earthbound labor provided by the likes of Julius Randle, a forward and first-time All-Star who led the league in the most roll-up-your-sleeves category imaginable: minutes played.Earlier this season, when the Knicks beat the Indiana Pacers to improve their record to 17-17, a video that went viral on social media captured some fans rejoicing outside the Garden as if the team were on the brink of a championship.“And that was real,” said Josh Safdie, a Knicks fan who was co-director of the film “Uncut Gems” with his brother, Benny. “The same thing was happening in my living room.”Even the N.B.A.’s top star, LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers, recognizes the importance of the team’s resurgence, saying on Twitter in April that “the league is simply better off when the Knicks are winning.”Knicks fans have experienced pockets of joy in recent seasons, of course. There was Jeremy Lin’s star turn in the off-Broadway production of “Linsanity.” And the early part of Carmelo Anthony’s tenure was often a lot of fun, with the team making three straight playoff appearances. But more common is fans investing in potential saviors — the former team president Phil Jackson, the former lottery pick Kristaps Porzingis — only to come away crushed.Knicks fans during Linsanity in 2012.Barton Silverman/The New York Times“As a Knicks fan, you’re signing up for basically insanity,” Baker said. “The beginning of the year, as a Knicks fan, you’re like, ‘Yo, we’re going to the finals.’ You have no rhyme or reason to say that. You have no player that’s going to take you to the finals, but you just go in with your gut.”Joel Martinez, Baker’s co-star on “Desus & Mero” who is better known as The Kid Mero, likened the Knicks to a “wild, volatile stock.”For Safdie, a formative moment came in 1994, when the Knicks, led by Patrick Ewing, faced the Houston Rockets in the N.B.A. finals. In Game 6, with a chance for his team to close out the series and win its first championship in two decades, the Knicks’ John Starks had his shot blocked at the buzzer, and the Rockets escaped with a narrow win.“Ewing was open,” Safdie said, his voice rising at the memory of it. “Ewing was wide open!”At the time, Safdie cried before heading to a nearby playground to shoot hoops. He consoled himself with the belief that the Knicks would win Game 7. They lost.“For the consummate Knicks fan, there’s a certain kind of masochism that comes with it,” Safdie said. “I’m a moody guy to begin with, but my moods and attitudes fluctuate so much based on the play of the Knicks.”For fans of a finer vintage, the present is often viewed through the lens of the team’s more illustrious past. Nostalgia, though, comes with a whiff of sadness, because the team’s only championships in 1970 and 1973 become more distant by the day.Lewis Dorf, 69, recalled working as one of the team’s ball boys for three seasons, from 1966 to 1969. During one of Dorf’s first nights on the job, the Knicks’ Willis Reed decked several Lakers, splattering blood on Dorf’s team-issue Converse sneakers. Some time later, Dorf had Reed over to his family’s home for dinner.Lewis Dorf in his lucky Knicks shirt.Kat Slootsky for The New York TimesA signed Willis Reed picture on Dorf’s wall along with his other Knicks memorabilia.Kat Slootsky for The New York Times“Those kinds of memories stick with you,” said Dorf, a high school sports referee who now lives in West Orange, N.J.Steve Finamore, 56, a longtime high school basketball coach in Michigan, grew up in Brooklyn mimicking Reed’s post moves, Earl Monroe’s spinning drives and Walt Frazier’s ball-handling wizardry. There was never any question, he said, about his fandom. The Nets were an afterthought in New Jersey, and the Knicks were a part of his identity as a New Yorker who loved basketball.“It’s something that grew on us,” he said, “the way plants grow in your backyard.”It was not until 2013 that Finamore had a crisis of conscience. Even though the Knicks were coming off a competitive season, Finamore was tiring of the drama that seemed to surround Dolan and some of the team’s stars. The Nets, meanwhile, had traded for Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce in a bold title bid. Feeling the tug of his Brooklyn roots, Finamore picked up a couple of pieces of Nets gear before his wife, Mary, intervened.“She said, ‘You’ve been a Knicks fan since 1973, and you’re going to leave them now?’” Finamore recalled. “My loyalty won out. I realized there was no way I could do it.”Daniel Wann, a professor of psychology at Murray State University who has specialized in studying sports fans, said people tend to tie their identities to larger groups. But many of the groups that people once used to form connections have been in decline, Wann said. Fewer people attend church, for example, and most no longer live within walking distance of their relatives.So following a sports team, he said, gives many an important sense of belonging. Suffering along with a losing team is often considered a badge of honor because it shines a light on their loyalty.“It’s really hard to say, ‘Well, I don’t care anymore,’ even in those times when you want to say that you don’t care anymore,” Wann said. “The reality is, it’s just too much a part of who you are to let it go.”Dennis Doyle, a 38-year-old lawyer from Queens, spent the 2014-15 season attending every Knicks game, home and away. It turned out to be the worst season in franchise history.Dennis Doyle attended every Knicks game in the 2014-15 season, when the team went 17-65.Barton Silverman/The New York Times“I’ve always looked at it like it’s not a choice,” Doyle said of being a Knicks fan. “It’s almost like having a disease. It’s just something you’re kind of stuck with, and there was always too strong of an emotional bond.”His reward for persevering has come this season.“It’s such a pleasure to watch them,” Doyle said. “They play hard, and they play defense. And even though their offense stinks sometimes, you can live with that. I’m just so proud.”Dorf, who has been a season-ticket holder for 52 years, scrambled over the past week to land good seats for the first round. He said it was the first time he had felt stressed about tickets since 1999, when the Knicks last went to the finals. (On Tuesday, when Dorf called his ticket representative, he wore his commemorative T-shirt from the 1998-99 season as a “good luck charm,” he said.)Safdie said he was hoping to attend Sunday’s series opener. If not, he said, he will probably do what he usually does: stream the MSG Network’s broadcast of the game on his tablet, positioning his face approximately “four inches from the screen.” More

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      In the NBA Playoffs, The Scariest Teams Are Lower Seeds

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      Injuries and illness dragged down the records of several teams, including the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers. That could mean early postseason exits for the season’s best.The N.B.A.’s play-in tournament nearly fell flat with a series of blowout games until LeBron James and Stephen Curry rescued the postseason appetizer experiment with a dynamic one-off between the Los Angeles Lakers and Curry’s Golden State.Now, the real games are here, with the Knicks and the Nets both earning a seat at the table.The championship is up for grabs after a truncated off-season and a somewhat sluggish and injury-filled regular season.In the Western Conference, neither of the two top seeds — the Utah Jazz or the Phoenix Suns — is favored to escape the conference with the defending-champion Lakers and the Los Angeles Clippers lurking.In the Eastern Conference, the Nets are finally at full strength at the right time, Milwaukee and Philadelphia are revamped, looking to advance beyond past stumbles, and Jimmy Butler and his Heat — last season’s Eastern Conference champions — will try to prove that success last year was no fluke.Here’s a look at the matchups.Eastern ConferenceNo. 1 Philadelphia 76ersvs. No. 8 Washington WizardsPhiladelphia’s Joel Embiid is one of three finalists for the league’s Most Valuable Player Award.Matt Slocum/Associated PressThe Wizards have emerged as an Eastern Conference feel-good story to rival the Knicks. To seize the East’s final playoff berth, they rallied from a 17-32 start and a coronavirus outbreak that shut down the team for nearly two weeks.The problem: Washington’s reward is a first-round matchup with the best Philadelphia team since Allen Iverson led the 76ers to the N.B.A. finals in 2001. Joel Embiid is one of three finalists for the league’s Most Valuable Player Award, Ben Simmons ranks as one of the league’s most feared defenders and Coach Doc Rivers, in his first season with the Sixers, has this group primed to capitalize on an enticing playoff draw.The three teams best equipped to keep the Sixers out of the N.B.A. finals — Milwaukee, Miami and the Nets — are all on the other side of the bracket, meaning Philadelphia can face only one of them and not before the conference finals.The potency of Bradley Beal and the triple-double king Russell Westbrook in the Wizards’ backcourt might enable them to steal a game, but this is a series in which the Wizards could use Thomas Bryant, their rugged big man who sustained a season-ending knee injury in January. As good as Daniel Gafford has been since Washington acquired him from Chicago on trade deadline day in March, Gafford and a resurgent Robin Lopez will need help to cope with Embiid.No. 2 Brooklyn Netsvs. No. 7 Boston CelticsBoston’s challenge in facing the Nets is daunting, but Jayson Tatum gives the Celtics (some) hope.Bob Dechiara/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe Nets’ starters have not played together enough to be deemed invincible, but it will take a team at full strength to pose any serious challenge. The Celtics are not that team.Boston limped through the regular season with injuries to Kemba Walker, Marcus Smart and Evan Fournier, whom the Celtics traded for in March. Most significantly, Jaylen Brown and his 24.7 points and 6 rebounds per game are out for the season following his wrist surgery.Walker and the offensive virtuoso Jayson Tatum will have to play magnificently and carry the burden just to steal a game or two against a Nets defense that can be porous. The Nets finished with one of the most efficient offenses in N.B.A. history, scoring 117.3 points per 100 offensive possessions, and vied for the Eastern Conference’s top seed, despite piecing together rotations throughout the season.The most realistic result of this series is that the Nets will use the games as an opportunity to jell following a regular season in which Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving rarely all shared the court. Their real test won’t come until they meet healthier opponents down the playoff line.No. 3 Milwaukee Bucksvs. No. 6 Miami HeatJimmy Butler and the Miami Heat have a chance to show that their success last season was not a fluke.Bob Dechiara/USA Today Sports, via ReutersLast season, the Heat thumped the Bucks in the Eastern Conference semifinals, needing just five games to eliminate Giannis Antetokounmpo & Co. It was another disappointingly brief postseason appearance for Milwaukee, which has reoriented itself behind Antetokounmpo for another crack at its first trip to the N.B.A. finals since 1974 — and its first championship since 1971. Few contenders, if any, have gone about their business more quietly. Antetokounmpo went a long way toward ensuring a drama-free existence for the franchise by signing a huge contract extension before the start of the season, and the addition of Jrue Holiday has given the team some defensive-minded toughness.A season removed from an Eastern Conference championship (and a demolition of the Bucks in the process), the Heat have had their ups and downs. Jimmy Butler appeared in just 52 games because of injuries and illness, but he is a fearsome competitor — especially in the postseason. Duncan Robinson and Tyler Herro are constant perimeter threats, and the power forward Bam Adebayo is coming off the most productive regular season of his career. Slowing Antetokounmpo — who was limited by an ankle injury last season — will be the challenge.No. 4 New York Knicksvs. No. 5 Atlanta HawksTrae Young was Atlanta’s leading scorer this season, averaging 25.3 points per game.Brett Davis/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe Knicks and Hawks might be the most evenly matched teams in the first round. Each team has a marquee player who carried it to the postseason: Julius Randle for the Knicks, and Trae Young for the Hawks. Both teams played their best basketball in the second half of the season after an inconsistent first half. Both were among the slowest in terms of pace.All of that to say: This is a tossup. The Hawks do have a wild card in their favor: health. They’re getting some key players back, including Kris Dunn and De’Andre Hunter, who were out with injuries for most of the season. That could cause some headaches for the Knicks, who have mostly avoided the injury bug.The Knicks were elite defensively and have the weapons to contain Young. But offensively, the Knicks have had trouble finding consistent help for Randle. That being said, Randle played the best basketball of his season against the Atlanta. The Knicks won all three of their matchups.Western ConferenceNo. 1 Utah Jazzvs. No. 8 Memphis GrizzliesUtah’s Jordan Clarkson is one of three finalists for the league’s Sixth Man of the Year Award. He averaged a career-high 18.4 points per game.Neville E. Guard/USA Today Sports, via ReutersWhat to make of the Utah Jazz? They were the best team in the N.B.A. and did not have a single top candidate for the Most Valuable Player Award. Donovan Mitchell, their young star in the midst of a career year, missed the final 16 games of the season because of an ankle injury. The Jazz went 10-6 in those games. Utah led the league in point differential, meaning the average margin of victory for their games. The team was dominant, in large part because of Rudy Gobert’s anchoring of the defense, and because of players like Joe Ingles and Jordan Clarkson picking up the slack with Mitchell absent.It’s unclear whether Mitchell will be able to return for the first round. But the biggest issue is that we’ve seen great regular seasons from the Jazz in the past two years, only for them to get bounced in the first round. But this is the best regular-season Jazz team since 1998-99.They’ll face Ja Morant and the Memphis Grizzlies, who overpowered Golden State in a play-in game on Friday night for the eighth seed. Morant, who won the Rookie of the Year Award last season, was relentless on Friday with 35 points. The Grizzlies are young and inexperienced, but they’re also fearless. That mind-set will give them their best chance against the Jazz.No. 2 Phoenix Sunsvs. No. 7 Los Angeles LakersLeBron James’s game-winning 3-pointer against Golden State in the play-in game, which gave the Lakers the seventh seed, signaled that he’s ready for the playoffs.Mark J. Terrill/Associated PressThe Suns assembled their best regular season since 2006-7, motoring through a competitive conference to win their division. Just two seasons ago, they went 19-63 and were a laughingstock. But their talented young core, led by Devin Booker and Deandre Ayton, has begun to fulfill its potential, and the addition of Chris Paul in the off-season infused the team with leadership, desire and direction.The Suns’ reward for all their hard work? A first-round meeting with the defending champions. It doesn’t exactly seem fair that Phoenix has to christen its first trip to the postseason since 2010 by figuring out how to contend with LeBron James and Anthony Davis. (Welcome back to the playoffs!)The Lakers are an oddity as a No. 7 seed: Injuries to their stars hindered their season, and the roster was seldom whole. James, for example, appeared in just 45 games because of an ankle sprain. But if his game-sealing 3-pointer against Golden State in the play-in round is any indication, he could be rounding back into form — and the Suns could be in for a tough series.No. 3 Denver Nuggetsvs. No. 6 Portland Trail BlazersThe Trail Blazers are healthier than they were this time last season, but they will still need to rely on their All-Star guard Damian Lillard.Steve Dykes/Associated PressThe last time these teams met in the playoffs, the result was an epic seven-game clash that included a quadruple-overtime game before Portland exhaustingly outlasted Denver in the 2019 Western Conference semifinals.Both teams have sensational M.V.P. candidates — Denver’s Nikola Jokic and Portland’s Damian Lillard, stars looking to journey past the conference finals for the first time.Both also wavered through uneven stretches during the regular season. Denver was below .500 after the first 13 games of the season, and Portland often struggled while cycling through a series of injuries to key rotation players.But Portland will have the services of CJ McCollum and the former Nugget Jusuf Nurkic after each missed chunks of the regular season. The Nuggets will be without Jamal Murray, one of the breakout stars of last season’s playoffs, after he sustained a knee injury in April. Denver’s Monte Morris and Will Barton are also nursing recent injuries.Jokic should be able to find holes in Portland’s 29th-ranked defense. The Nuggets will look for Aaron Gordon, acquired in a March trade with Orlando, and Michael Porter Jr. to replace some of Murray’s scoring punch, and will need to pay attention to Lillard and McCollum on screens.No. 4 Los Angeles Clippersvs. No. 5 Dallas MavericksThe Clippers fell apart in last season’s playoffs, but they stand a good chance against the Dallas Mavericks this year.Mike Ehrmann/Getty ImagesWhen the Clippers lost their final two regular-season games to Houston and Oklahoma City, two of the league’s worst teams, it signaled to the rest of the N.B.A. that the Clippers wanted to get out of the Lakers’ side of the Western playoff bracket and delay a possible matchup until the conference finals. With the Clippers needing only a win over the Thunder to clinch the No. 3 seed, rest assured that they were equally motivated by the prospect of dropping to No. 4 and locking in a first-round series with Dallas.The state of the Clippers’ psyche remains a major curiosity after their second-round collapse against Denver last season, but no one questions their confidence in being able to beat the Mavericks for the second straight postseason. It’s a matchup they clearly relish; health is the greater uncertainty after they coped with myriad injuries this season.For all of the danger Dallas’ Luka Doncic poses, Clippers Coach Tyronn Lue has a variety of defensive options (Kawhi Leonard, Paul George and Marcus Morris for starters) to send at Doncic and make him work for his numbers. To have a chance, the Mavericks will need consistent production from Tim Hardaway Jr. and Jalen Brunson, and even more so from their big men who can stretch the floor with shooting — Maxi Kleber and Kristaps Porzingis. More

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      Scoot Henderson Has Options. He’s Choosing G League Ignite.

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      Crystal Henderson remembers her youngest son, Scoot, running down the basketball court at 5 years old with a gigantic, toothless smile and eyes searching for the approval of his watching parents and siblings.Now, Scoot Henderson, who turned 17 in February, has reclassified to graduate high school a year early and will join the professional ranks with the G League Ignite.Listed on 247 Sports Composite as the third-ranked point guard of the 2022 class before his reclassification, he would become the first player to spend two years with the G League Ignite, a team designed to offer elite prospects an alternative to playing in college or overseas before becoming eligible for the N.B.A. draft. He played point guard as a freshman at Georgia’s Kell High School, while his brother C.J. manned shooting guard as a senior.“I’ve been around my brother who is three years older than me, and his friends are my friends,” Scoot told The New York Times, adding, “Being around older people, the vets on my team, it’ll play out perfectly just getting that knowledge from them too.”Few modern American basketball players have made the jump to professionalism at Henderson’s age or even had the ability to consider the possibility. The N.B.A. has mandated that players be at least 19 years old and one year removed from their high school graduation since disallowing high school players following the 2005 draft.The developmental leagues, where players can earn money right away, have made college a less attractive option for some players coming out of high school. Some states have moved to allow college athletes to earn money through endorsements, and the N.C.A.A. has said it wants to ease some restrictions, but at its core men’s college players only have their costs of attendance guaranteed. The Ignite team pays players as much as $500,000.“You know how every kid has their own path?” Henderson said. “My main goal was just to get to the N.B.A. and be there for a very long time. The fact that I have an opportunity to go there and I’m one step away from it, it’s just huge. And I took that opportunity.”Scoot Henderson training with his father, Chris. “I’m extremely happy for him, because I’m tough,” Chris said.Lynsey Weatherspoon for The New York TimesJeremy Tyler signed with Maccabi Haifa of the Israeli Super League after his junior year of high school in 2009. Eight years later, LaMelo Ball signed to play in the Lithuanian Basketball League following his sophomore year of high school.The debate over changing eligibility requirements to once again allow recent high school players who are at least 18 years old into the N.B.A. has resurfaced as elite prospects cycle through college for pit-stop solitary seasons or consider playing professionally overseas.In the meantime, the N.B.A. created the Ignite team, which has already drawn the ire of some college coaches. The team is headed by Brian Shaw, a former longtime N.B.A. player and Denver Nuggets head coach. Jonathan Kuminga was 17 when he signed to play with the Ignite during its truncated inaugural season. Because of his October birthday, Kuminga is draft eligible and is expected to be an early lottery selection.Henderson will remain a member of the Ignite longer than if he had gone to college for a season at Georgia or Auburn, his two finalists.“He can take his time a little bit,” said Shareef Abdur-Rahim, the G League’s president. “There’s no expectation that he has to get everything accomplished in a short amount of time. That takes a little bit of the whatever you want to call it — the anxiety, the pressure, the anticipation — of how he enters this. I think he can really enter it with a growth mind-set.”Shaw described Henderson’s attacking style of play as “kind of similar to like a Russell Westbrook,” who is one of Henderson’s favorite players, as is Kobe Bryant, one of Shaw’s former teammates.“I think that just gives him more time to develop and to prepare for his journey and his lifelong dream to play in the N.B.A.” Shaw said. “This is a new situation, and we’re evolving kind of with the teams and this unique situation.”The Ignite team is not a traditional G League member. Based in Walnut Creek, Calif., a city about 15 miles east of Oakland, the team plays against G League opponents and scrimmages against international teams. The players receive a scholarship to Arizona State University to enroll in online courses and are taught life skills like community involvement and how to handle taxes and interviews. Top prospects like Jaden Hardy, Michael Foster and Fanbo Zeng have already committed to this year’s team.Henderson’s father, Chris, and mother, Crystal, are familiar with shepherding young athletes.“So many kids go by and don’t get recognized for their hard work,” Crystal Henderson said. “Parents need to understand it’s a system. You need a great support system. You need to listen to other people. And I find that other sports do that. Tennis does that. Golf does that. Baseball does that. They have a community.”She continued: “I think it’s interesting that those kids get to go pro, but the basketball kids don’t get to go pro. And so I think it’s very important that we continue to educate and have programs like Ignite, and even Overtime Elite, where if that’s your kid’s path, that’s your kid’s path. And I’ll be an advocate for my son for whatever he wanted to do.”The family moved from Hempstead, N.Y., to Marietta, Ga., shortly before Scoot was born. He has six tightknit older siblings. Five played in college, including his sisters Onyx and China (Cal State Fullerton) and Diamond (Tennessee Tech and Syracuse). Their youngest sister, Moochie, is one of the top-ranked point guards in the class of 2023.Scoot Henderson, center, with his family. His mother, Crystal, is on his right, and his father, Chris, is on his left.Lynsey Weatherspoon for The New York Times“Our goal is to stick together,” Crystal said. “I tell them: ‘If you each have a dollar, you’re going to starve and die. But if you put your dollar together, you got $7 and you can eat and be very successful.”Chris has been a coach for years, receiving his basketball education on Long Island courts.“I’m extremely happy for him, because I’m tough,” he said of Scoot, with a smile. “I ain’t going to lie — I’m tough. I ain’t a walk in the park, and just for him to go through that, it’s been a lot.”Along the way, Chris went from waking up Scoot to play basketball to having Scoot asking to head to the court early. In November 2018, the Hendersons opened Next Play 360, a gym near their home with an emphasis on academic and athletic development.Last summer, Scoot began considering playing overseas, and in December, he started planning to reclassify to the Class of 2021 from the Class 2022 and finished high school with a grade-point average of 3.5.Abdur-Rahim said Henderson had been within the G League’s “overall ecosystem” for a while through his participation with U.S.A. Basketball and elite camps. The conversations began after Henderson reclassified.“We want to be an option,” Abdur-Rahim said, adding: “In his case, evaluating him from a maturity standpoint, overall structure and support standpoint and just his talent, we positioned him as good as anyone in the class ahead or a year ahead of him. So, it fit.”The Hendersons are still debating which, if any, of the family members will travel with Scoot to California.“Honestly, it hasn’t hit me just yet, but I feel like once I get my bags packed and we start going on a plane to go over there, it’ll hit me soon,” Scoot Henderson said. More

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      The Phoenix Suns Are Chris Paul’s Latest Project

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      There are nights when Chris Paul will drive for a layup, toss a no-look pass to a teammate for a 3-pointer and crash to the court trying to sell an offensive foul to the officials — all before the game is minutes old. And then when the game goes to its first commercial break, he will try to sell you some home, life or auto insurance, too.Paul has been inescapable for 16 N.B.A. seasons. One of the league’s great point guards and an 11-time All-Star, he has entered the renaissance phase of his career, guiding the Phoenix Suns to the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference playoffs. Phoenix, which is making its first playoff appearance since the 2010 season, will face the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round, starting Sunday.Paul’s impact on the Suns has been profound. So much leadership, according to his teammates. So much passion. So much “tough love,” as Mikal Bridges, a Suns forward, said in an interview.Of course, there has always been so much of everything when it comes to Paul, stretching back to his two college seasons at Wake Forest, through the high peaks and low valleys of his Lob City days with the Los Angeles Clippers. Now the Suns have flourished in his painstaking, perfection-demanding wake.Paul, 36, has spent years cluttering box scores, filling television screens and polarizing opponents, fans and sometimes colleagues. Is he a winner or a whiner? Is he entertaining or irritating?Ahead of the playoffs, six people who know him from different facets of his life — from the bargaining table to the basketball court — reflected on their experiences with a star whose drive, at least, has never been questioned.The FighterDavid AlexanderFitness coachPaul’s success with the Oklahoma City Thunder was a surprise to many because of his injury history.Pool photo by Kim KlementDavid Alexander, a strength and conditioning coach based in Miami, was introduced to Paul at the 2012 London Olympics by LeBron James, who was among Alexander’s high-profile clients at the time. Alexander and Paul quickly became friends — dinners, golf — but they didn’t work together until December 2018, when Paul, who was then playing for the Houston Rockets, injured his left hamstring in a game against the Miami Heat.Paul was nearly 34 at the time. He had chronic injuries in his hands and his legs. A strained right hamstring had sidelined him for the last two games of the previous season’s Western Conference finals and may have cost the Rockets a championship. The chorus was growing louder: Paul, who could not stay on the court, was on his way out. Alexander invited him to his facility.For a week in Miami, and then for several more in Houston, Alexander and his colleagues worked with Paul, identifying and correcting imbalances in his body. Alexander was struck by his determination. Paul returned to the Rockets’ lineup by the end of January.“There are certain people who work hard because they’re actually trying to improve themselves by 1 percent every day — if not 2, 3, 4 or 5 percent,” Alexander said. “They’re really trying to improve. They’re not just going through the motions.”A few months later, after an off-season trade sent Paul to the Oklahoma City Thunder from Houston, Paul was on a football field with Alexander, running sprints in the midsummer heat and repeating a mantra of sorts: Someone’s got to pay. Someone’s got to pay.“Keep that energy all season,” Alexander recalled telling him. “This is an opportunity to show the world that Chris Paul is very far from retiring.”With the Thunder last season, Paul was injury-free and an All-Star for the first time since 2015-16, leading an unsung team to the fifth-best record in the West.Alexander has continued to work with Paul, having him do some of the “most intricate biomechanical movements.”“And if Chris isn’t able to do it perfectly on the first set, he’ll study the video to understand what he was doing wrong,” Alexander said. “It’s almost like he approaches it scientifically.”The PitchmanKevin MilesActorPaul has been acting in State Farm Insurance commercials since 2012.Wenn Rights Ltd/AlamyKevin Miles, 30, is the red-shirt-wearing actor who portrays the character Jake in State Farm Insurance commercials alongside Paul. He recalled putting in three straight 12-hour days filming a series of spots when Paul, the part-time thespian, said he was heading back to the gym for another workout. Miles started to question himself.“You’re kind of like, ‘Well, what am I going to do now?’ ” he said. “ ‘Should I go read a script? Should I write something? Should I go work out?’ There’s something about being around him that makes you want to try even harder.”Paul, who has been appearing in commercials for State Farm since 2012 (occasionally as Cliff Paul, his policy-hawking twin brother), met Miles early last year when they did their first batch of ads together. Miles kept his cool.“I didn’t want my first day with him to be like: ‘Oh, my God! CP3! Lob City!’ ” Miles said.Paul, though, seemed genuinely curious about Miles’s career path, asking him how long he had been acting (since age 9) and about his move to Los Angeles from Chicago after college.“And I’m telling him how I lived in my car for a while when I first came out here,” Miles said, “and he’s looking over to his son, saying, ‘Are you listening to this?’ I think he respects people who push through and persevere.”When they worked together again in November, Paul greeted him like they were old friends. Miles introduced him to his father, also named Kevin, whom he had brought on set. “Is this Papa Kev?” Paul asked.The process never felt rushed to Miles. After a series of rolling takes, Paul and Miles joined the director in front of a bank of monitors to review the footage.“He sees the same thing that I see from our performance,” Miles said, “and we’ll go back and change it, and it’ll look the way we want it to look. We can give each other that eye that says, ‘Yeah, that was the one,’ or, ‘No, we’re redoing that.’ ”Paul wanted to make sure they got it right, and it didn’t matter if he was running late for a flight or if he was on a conference call with Adam Silver, the N.B.A. Commissioner, which he was, more than once.“He would do the scene and then go back to his call,” Miles said. “It was kind of amazing how he was able to lock in and compartmentalize everything else that was going on in his life.”The Union GuyMichele RobertsExecutive director of the National Basketball Players AssociationMichele Roberts, center, described Paul as a “serious guy” in his role as the president of the players’ union.Joe Murphy/NBAE, via Getty ImagesIt was the coldest day of Michele Roberts’s life. A lawyer, she had been interviewing in the early weeks of 2014 with board members of the National Basketball Players Association for a position as its executive director. By the time she arrived in Chicago on a blustery morning to meet with Paul, the union’s president since 2013, her nerves were frayed.“I had difficulty getting a car from the airport to the hotel, and I was frozen and then his practice was late, so I had to wait for 45 minutes,” she said.They were meeting in a small hotel conference room, and as soon as Paul showed up, he opened his notebook and started peppering Roberts with questions: What experience did she have in sports and with unions and with the league’s various stakeholders? What did she know about group licensing rights and intellectual property?The interview lasted more than an hour, Roberts said. She came away impressed. “He made me want the job even more,” she said.Roberts and Paul have worked closely since, steering the players’ union through a period of growing player empowerment — and numerous challenges. Roberts recalled the emotional meeting that players and coaches had last season after the police shot Jacob Blake, a Black man in Kenosha, Wis. The temperature in the room was rising, Roberts said, when Paul found a way to restore order.“I hope his children find him fun, because he’s a serious guy,” Roberts said.The AntagonistBob DelaneyRefereeBob Delaney, right, said some players like Paul use tension with referees to give them an edge during games.Patrick Semansky/Associated PressWhen Bob Delaney became an N.B.A. referee in the 1987-88 season, opposing players were rivals, he said.“You weren’t helping anybody up off the court if they weren’t wearing the same uniform as you were,” Delaney said.By the time Paul entered the league in 2005 with the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets, the dynamic among players had evolved, Delaney said. Many had been friends since high school, when they would travel in the same circles on elite summer circuits. As N.B.A. stars, they filmed commercials together, dined together and even vacationed together. (Banana boat, anyone?) The atmosphere for games tended to be less emotionally charged.“For lack of a better term, there’s a lot of love between N.B.A. players these days,” Delaney said. “So how do you get that edge for players who need that feeling? Well, it’s natural for some to find that edge through the referee.”To be clear: Paul has seldom appeared to be overly sociable with opposing players during games. (He will even spar with his own teammates.) But he seems to reserve a special brand of venom for officiating crews. He moans. He argues. He complains. He glares.“These guys are so competitive, and they see a referee’s call as getting in the way of a win,” said Delaney, who retired as a referee in 2011 and from the league office in 2017. “Their will to win is so strong. You can’t take it personally — it’s business.”Early in Paul’s career, Delaney bumped into Paul and his brother, C.J., at a summer fund-raiser for the 13th Avenue Community Center in Bradenton, Fla.“C.J. would be very vocal during games from his seat along the sideline,” Delaney said, laughing. “So, there’s this little awkwardness when you see each other in a different type of setting.”Delaney recalled having a quiet conversation with them about the community center. They steered clear of talking hoops — and that was probably by design. Delaney suspects that Paul wanted to compartmentalize that part of their relationship until the next time he needed to yell at him.“Each player,” Delaney said, “finds motivation in his own way.”The ProdigyTaron DowneyWake Forest teammatePaul spent two seasons at Wake Forest, not far from where he grew up in North Carolina.Ezra Shaw/Getty ImagesPaul was a junior at West Forsyth High School in Clemmons, N.C., when, in 2002, he made his official recruiting visit to Wake Forest. Taron Downey, a freshman guard, hosted him in his dorm room and showed him around, not that Paul was unfamiliar with the school, or that anyone at the school was unfamiliar with him. He was considered one of the top prospects in the country, and he had grown up about 10 miles away.“I remember there was this buzz around campus,” Downey said. “ ‘Chris Paul is coming!’ Yeah, it was a big deal.”Downey’s impression of Paul was that he loved to play basketball and talk about basketball and watch basketball and play basketball some more.“I just thought that this guy was the real deal,” Downey said, “because when you love basketball and you’re all about it, you can’t hide it.”And that translated into a hypercompetitive approach when Paul arrived as a freshman. He was demanding, with mixed responses from teammates. (Little, of course, has changed over the years.)“Sometimes you have to be a bit of a — I don’t want to say ‘jerk,’ ” Downey said. “But you’ve got to be tough on people, and that can be hard to deal with. But when you’re a winner, that’s what it takes. You have to be ready to kick some guys in the butt.”Paul spent two seasons at Wake Forest before entering the N.B.A. as the fourth pick in the 2005 draft. Downey had a long pro career that included stops in France, Cyprus, Belgium and Poland.“The thing about Chris is that he doesn’t wow you with his athleticism,” Downey said. “But he has all the small things you want from a point guard times 10: the competitive edge, the savvy to keep defenders off balance, an I.Q. that’s through the roof.”The Tough-Love MentorMikal BridgesPhoenix Suns forwardThe third-year forward Mikal Bridges said younger players listen to Paul’s lessons about basketball and competing.Rick Scuteri/Associated PressSome players make distinct impressions. Paul, for example, does not go unnoticed. Mikal Bridges can remember matching up against Paul for the first time in February 2019, when Bridges was a first-year guard for the Suns and Paul was with the Rockets.“He was talking a lot,” Bridges said. “Him being him. Hilarious.”Last season, when Paul was playing for the Thunder, Bridges was defending him when Paul pulled one of his classic offensive moves — the old swipe-through before a shot to draw contact and a foul. That time was not so hilarious. “He got me benched,” Bridges said.Now one of Paul’s teammates, Bridges has gotten an education in reading the game, attacking pick-and-roll coverages and bracing for the unrelenting nature of competition. Bridges said that the team’s younger players were listening.“There’s always back and forth because we’re trying to win and improve,” Bridges said.The Suns went 34-39 last season and missed the playoffs, despite a strong showing at the N.B.A. bubble. There is no question, Bridges said, that Paul has elevated them into contention.In late April, the Suns were coming off back-to-back losses and facing the Knicks at the end of a five-game road trip. Phoenix was weary but in need of a morale-building win. Paul delivered in the game’s late stages with a series of long jump shots, one after another. “He lives for those big moments,” Bridges said.Paul has talked openly with his Suns teammates about winning a championship, Bridges said. He has not tried to hide his ambition or his high hopes, and his approach has affected the entire franchise. Why not the Suns? Why not now?“That’s our mind-set,” Bridges said. More

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      Knicks Are a Playoff Threat After Years on the Sideline

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      When it comes to the playoffs, many Knicks fans are just happy to be here. But they can hope for more — like a first-round series win — because of Julius Randle.If you picked the Knicks before the season to have home-court advantage in the first round of the N.B.A. playoffs, you should probably head straight to Las Vegas because, as Bobby Bacala might note, not even Quasimodo could have predicted all this.For the rest of us, there is another opportunity not to underestimate this year’s Knicks. In the first round, they will host the Atlanta Hawks in the Knicks’ first trip to the playoffs since the 2012-13 season. The Hawks haven’t made the postseason since the 2016-17 season.Drawing the Hawks was a best-case scenario for the Knicks. Thanks in part to a three-game winning streak to close the season, they locked down the No. 4 seed in the Eastern Conference, and avoided the Milwaukee Bucks, the Philadelphia 76ers and the Nets, the top tier of the conference. This is not to say the Hawks should be overlooked. They will enter the postseason as one of the hottest teams in the N.B.A. after winning seven of their last eight.But this is a winnable series for the Knicks, and it would be just their second postseason series win in this century. Both teams were 41-31, but the Knicks had the tiebreaker, giving them the higher seed.Here is a look at the two teams heading into the postseason.What you need to know:How the Hawks made the playoffsHow they’ve played against each otherWhose back is hurting from carrying his team?“We didn’t expect that” candidatesWhat kind of games will these be?Why the Knicks will win the seriesWhy the Hawks will win the seriesHow the Hawks made the playoffsAtlanta had high hopes after adding Rajon Rondo, Bogdan Bogdanovic, Danilo Gallinari and Kris Dunn in the off-season and trading for Clint Capela toward the end of last season. But a combination of injuries and a lack of cohesion, particularly on the defensive end, kept the Hawks from being a top-tier team. Like the Knicks, the Hawks were inconsistent in the first half of the regular season, which prompted the firing of their coach, Lloyd Pierce, in March. Rondo was later traded to the Los Angeles Clippers for Lou Williams.Nate McMillan took over for Pierce as the interim head coach, and the Hawks finished the season 27-11 — the third best team in the N.B.A. in that span. The Knicks were the ninth best team in the league in that same period.The Knicks were also a good draw for the Hawks, since both teams lack playoff experience and are evenly matched.How they’ve played against each otherBarrett dunking against the Hawks at Madison Square Garden last month. Wendell Cruz/USA Today Sports, via ReutersJan. 4: Knicks over Hawks, 113-108 (in Atlanta)Feb. 15: Knicks over Hawks, 123-112 (in New York)April 21: Knicks over Hawks, 137-127 (in New York; overtime)The Knicks had the Hawks’ number this season, beating them in all three of their matchups. There is no team that Julius Randle, the Knicks’ best player, was better against. He averaged 37.3 points in the three games — his highest average against any team this season — along with 12.3 rebounds and 6.7 assists.But the Hawks were missing key players in each game, such as Gallinari and Bogdanovic, and they were a much different team in the second half of the season, so it’s difficult to read too much into these results. With Pierce as coach, the Hawks were 12th offensively and 22nd defensively. Under McMillan, Atlanta was a top-10 offensive team and morphed into an above-average defensive one.Whose back is hurting from carrying his team?Julius Randle24.1 points/10.2 rebounds/6.0 assists/45.6 field-goal percentageRandle’s career year makes him a candidate for an All-N.B.A. team. He led the league in minutes and missed only one game. The Hawks will surely throw double teams at him early and often. And in theory, players like Capela, John Collins and De’Andre Hunter should be able to frustrate Randle, but Randle did just fine during the regular season. He is skilled at finding open shooters and evading double teams.The issue for the Knicks has been getting Randle consistent help on the offensive end, where they were 22nd in the league.Trae Young25.3 points/9.4 assists/3.9 rebounds/43.8 field-goal percentageYoung is one of the best scorers in the N.B.A. and the engine that spurs the Atlanta offense. Despite his small frame, he can create space and score whenever he needs to because of his ball-handling and shooting skills. He is also an exceptional passer, one of two players in the league averaging at least nine assists per game. (Russell Westbrook is the other.) Luckily for the Knicks, their defense is designed to stop a player who thrives in isolation in the way Young does. RJ Barrett is a solid defender, and the Knicks had one of the league’s best defenses.“We didn’t expect that” candidatesFrank Ntilikina, left, has become a key player for the Knicks on defense.Elsa/Getty ImagesDe’Andre Hunter gives the Hawks a scoring punch that could be tricky for the Knicks to counter.Dale Zanine/USA Today Sports, via ReutersKris Dunn and De’Andre Hunter (Hawks)Dunn made his debut for the Hawks in late April after signing as a free agent in the off-season. Because of a knee injury, he missed all but four games. Dunn is one of the best perimeter defenders in the league, and now that he’s healthy, he may cause problems for RJ Barrett, Derrick Rose and the rest of the Knicks’ guard rotation.In January, Hunter, a second-year forward, averaged 18.7 points and 4.9 rebounds in 14 games on 53.3 percent shooting. For the rest of the season, he played only five games because of a knee injury that required surgery. On Sunday, Hunter played 24 minutes. If he had stayed healthy all season, he might have been considered for an All-Star spot.Like Randle and Barrett, Hunter made a leap this season. If he is anywhere close to what he was in January, that spells trouble for the Knicks. The Hawks have been playing great basketball over the last month, and adding players as good as Dunn and Hunter at this stage of the season is a luxury most teams don’t have.Nerlens Noel and Frank Ntilikina (Knicks)Noel and Ntilikina aren’t flashy players. Noel has trouble catching the ball underneath the basket. Ntilikina barely gets on the floor. But Noel is one of the best rim protectors in the N.B.A., and Ntilikina is an excellent wing defender. The Hawks like to penetrate and create open looks or alley-oops. Having Noel at the rim may help limit opportunities for Young to connect with Capela and Collins, while Ntilikina may get more time on the floor to keep Young from getting into the paint, something Thibodeau said was a possibility on Wednesday. And really, Ntilikina should probably eat into some of Elfrid Payton’s minutes.What kind of games will these be?Slow and probably low-scoring. Both teams were near the bottom of the league in pace, and playoff games typically have fewer possessions as defenses lock down.There will also be fans! It will not be the same atmosphere the Garden had in the 1990s playoff runs, but about 13,000 fans will be allowed at Knicks’ home games. Vaccinated fans will have their own section, where social distancing won’t be required. Others who show negative results for an antigen or coronavirus test can sit in socially distanced sections.Why the Knicks will win the seriesImmanuel Quickley scored 5 points in a Knicks victory over the Hawks last month.Pool photo by Wendell CruzRandle will continue his dominance of the Hawks. The Knicks’ suboptimal offense will get help from Atlanta’s suboptimal defense. Doubling Randle will frustrate the Hawks because of his ability to create open looks for perimeter shooters. Also, the Knicks are an elite 3-point-shooting team.On top of all this, Knicks Coach Tom Thibodeau is a master at developing schemes to slow players like Young. As great a coach as McMillan is in the regular season, he has had minimal success in the playoffs. In nine trips to the postseason, he has coached only one team to a series win (the 2004-5 Seattle SuperSonics).Why the Hawks will win the seriesYoung will establish himself as a top-level star by carving up the Knicks’ defense. A Hawks team that is almost entirely healthy for the first time all season will finally show the potential that many analysts saw before the season. The player who unexpectedly hurts the Knicks the most will be Bogdanovic, who doubled his scoring output after the All-Star break under McMillan, giving Young a dynamic backcourt partner.And Williams, the streaky scoring guard, will win one game almost single-handedly for Atlanta. More

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      Even the Celtics Think the Nets Will Probably Win

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      The Nets would be heavily favored in the first-round playoff matchup even without Boston’s injury woes. “As a fan of the N.B.A., it’s hard to see those guys losing,” Celtics Coach Brad Stevens said.Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving spent about as much time on the court together with the Nets this season as it takes to watch a Martin Scorsese movie.The lack of reps is likely to have little impact as the No. 2 Nets face the No. 7 Boston Celtics, winners of Tuesday’s play-in game over the Washington Wizards, in the first round of the N.B.A. playoffs in the Eastern Conference.The Nets are assembled for the singular purpose of stacking 16 postseason wins, which add up to a championship. They enter the playoffs with all three stars available after Harden returned from a hamstring strain before resting the regular-season finale, which didn’t matter for the team’s playoff seeding.The threesome has the combined credentials for a special postseason. Durant is a two-time champion and won a finals Most Valuable Player Award with Golden State. Irving was a vital member of Cleveland’s 2016 championship. And Harden, a scoring champion and former M.V.P., once played in the finals with Durant in Oklahoma City.But for all their accolades, they were mostly absent from last year’s postseason. Durant was still recovering from his ruptured Achilles’ tendon. Irving dealt with a shoulder injury. And Harden’s Houston Rockets whimpered out of the playoffs, eventually triggering the seismic deal that landed him with the Nets.Individually, they do not have much on the basketball court to prove. Collectively, a successful postseason from the Nets could show that years of planning and plotting by other franchises can all be for nothing. The N.B.A. is a star-driven league and the Nets flex a stacked deck.Here’s what you need to know about their first-round series against the Celtics.The three biggest Nets stars, Irving, James Harden and Kevin Durant, spent only 202 minutes together on the court during the regular season because of injuries, coronavirus protocols and personal absences.Adam Hunger/Associated PressHow many games have Durant, Harden and Irving played in together?Eight games for a total of 202 minutes.Really?Yes, just four more quarters than a playoff series stretched to its max. Durant missed games because of coronavirus health and safety protocols and a hamstring injury. Irving missed time for personal reasons and for a facial contusion near the end of the season. And Harden, traded to the Nets from the Rockets in January, missed much of the end of the regular season with a right hamstring injury.How did the Nets still finish with the second-best record in the East?They can do video-game highlight plays, like Durant’s recent finishing with an alley-oop pass off the backboard.The Nets are not just any team with a rookie coach and an unsteady lineup. There is a reason Coach Steve Nash hasn’t sweated much this season. While Durant, Irving and Durant did not share the court often, Nash has often had a combination of the three at his disposal and they’ve all been sensational. Impressively, Harden did not need much time to familiarize himself with the Nets’ personnel.Irving capped one of the finest seasons of his career in becoming just the ninth player in N.B.A. history to shoot at least 90 percent from the free-throw line, 50 percent from the floor and 40 percent from behind-the-arc. He joined Durant and Nash in rarefied territory.Enough about those three. What about the rest of the roster?A team is stacked when the league’s leading 3-point shooter isn’t mentioned until this point. The sharpshooter Joe Harris paced the league by making 47.5 percent of his shots from deep, and he should be available after missing the final three games of the regular season with a gluteal strain.The Nets tried to upend the buyout market by obtaining former stars — Blake Griffin and LaMarcus Aldridge — hoping they still had a little mileage left in the tank. Griffin has showed the occasional spring in his step and had 20 points in a win over the Denver Nuggets. An irregular heartbeat abruptly forced Aldridge’s retirement from the N.B.A. in April at the age of 35.Jeff Green, a veteran with plenty of playoff experience and a member of the Durant-Harden Oklahoma City teams, has been a decent addition. Bruce Brown wiggled his way into the rotation following the Harden trade and never relinquished his opportunity. The Nets shouldn’t lack for scoring, but they will be without Spencer Dinwiddie, the capable guard, who is recovering from a knee injury.Harden’s trade to the Nets in January from Houston shifted the power dynamic in the N.B.A.Adam Hunger/Associated PressWhat’s an interesting Nets subplot?As a head coach, Mike D’Antoni revolutionized the league’s offense, ushering it into modernity by prioritizing space and 3-point shooting. His two main conduits for breathing life into the vision in his stops in Phoenix and Houston? Nash and Harden.For all of D’Antoni’s influence, he never won an N.B.A. championship. With the Nets, he is an assistant to Nash and working with Harden, who is also still vying for his first title.Anything juicier?How about Irving against his former coach, Brad Stevens, teammates and organization? In 2018, Irving told the die-hard Celtics fan base, “If you guys will have me back, I plan on re-signing here.” Then in July 2019, he signed with the Nets.How did Boston make the playoffs?Barely. Like the Nets, Boston (36-36) meandered through the regular-season, hindered by injuries and virus protocols. The Celtics needed the play-in game and Jayson Tatum’s 50 points against the Wizards to arrive at this matchup. They spent much of the season not looking like a franchise that had journeyed to the Eastern Conference finals three of the last four seasons.Unlike the Nets, Boston will not be at full strength at the right time. The All-Star Jaylen Brown is out after wrist surgery for a torn ligament. Center Robert Williams is uncertain after he aggravated a turf toe injury during the play-in game.“We’ll do our best to get ready for Brooklyn,” a realistic Stevens told reporters after defeating the Wizards. “They’re the best of the best. As a fan of the N.B.A., it’s hard to see those guys losing. We’re going to have to play great and play great together.”What’s a key matchup to watch?Durant and Tatum are two of the most prolific and innovative scorers on the planet. This will be Durant’s first postseason since he suffered his Achilles’ tendon injury in Game 5 of the 2019 N.B.A. finals with Golden State. As much of an offensive talent as Durant is, Nash has labeled him his team’s best defender and Durant will likely check Tatum often in the series.Jayson Tatum is Boston’s best hope for upsetting the Nets.Brad Penner/USA Today Sports, via ReutersHow did the Nets and Celtics fare against each another during the regular season?The Nets swept the three games from the Celtics, despite having to mix and match their lineups.Why will the Nets win?See the above.Why will the Celtics win?Tatum and this recent photo of Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York dressed up in random Nets gear. De Blasio was posing to bring attention to the Barclays Center pop-up vaccination site, but it is not exactly a look that strikes fear in an opponent. More

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      N.B.A. Awards Picks: Why Stephen Curry Could Win M.V.P.

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      Denver’s Nikola Jokic separated himself early with historic play. Then Curry, who has won two Most Valuable Player Awards with Golden State, went on a historic run of his own.The N.B.A.’s 75th season began on Dec. 22 — and the chatter about individual award races began soon after. Some things, even in pandemic times, never change in this league.The New York Times does not participate in balloting for such awards in any sport, but breaking down each of the six major races and who I would have chosen is always a good way to take stock of what we just saw.Most Valuable PlayerDenver’s Nikola Jokic increased his scoring average by nearly 7 points per game from last season.David Zalubowski/Associated PressNikola Jokic, Denver NuggetsRest of the ballot: 2. Stephen Curry (Golden State); 3. Chris Paul (Phoenix); 4. Joel Embiid (Philadelphia); 5. Giannis Antetokounmpo (Milwaukee).Preseason prediction: Luka Doncic (Dallas)Jokic averaged 26.4 points, 10.8 rebounds, 8.3 assists per game and shot 38.8 percent on 3-pointers to deliver dreamlike statistical diversity for a big man, and rightfully ranked as the M.V.P. favorite for some time. He was also one of just 11 players this season to appear in all 72 games, dodging the injury hex and coronavirus intrusions that affected so many fellow stars, including the Nuggets’ Jamal Murray, in a season rife with postponements and challenges.With Embiid missing 21 games, and Paul having a dramatic impact on a team that had missed the playoffs for 10 consecutive seasons but without the accompaniment of gaudy statistics, Jokic appeared well positioned to become the lowest-drafted (No. 41 overall in 2014) M.V.P. in league history.Then, in the season’s final days, I and many others got swept up in Curry’s remarkable ride to a scoring title (32 points per game) that made him the oldest player, at 33, to win one since Michael Jordan at 35 in 1997-98. Without the injured Klay Thompson on an otherwise offensively challenged team, Curry was swarmed by defenses like never before but still managed to sink a league-best 337 3-pointers and lead the Warriors to a 37-26 record (equal to a 48-win pace in a typical 82-game season) when in uniform.If he prevails in the real-life M.V.P. race, Curry would be just the second player since Moses Malone in 1981-82 to win the award on a team that fell shy of 50 wins (or the shortened-season equivalent). Russell Westbrook was the last to do it in 2016-17, when he averaged a triple-double for the first time for 47-win Oklahoma City. Chances are Curry won’t finish higher than second because of Golden State’s struggles, but this race is as complex and layered as the season itself.The list of worthy candidates is so long that Doncic, Portland’s Damian Lillard, the Los Angeles Clippers’ Kawhi Leonard, Miami’s Jimmy Butler, Utah’s Rudy Gobert and the Knicks’ Julius Randle are bound to be left off many ballots since there are only five openings.Coach of the YearTom Thibodeau turned the Knicks into a defensive force in his first season as coach.Gerald Herbert/Associated PressTom Thibodeau, KnicksRest of the ballot: 2. Monty Williams (Phoenix); 3. Quin Snyder (Utah)Preseason prediction: Steve Nash, NetsPhiladelphia was the East’s No. 6 seed last season. The 76ers hired Doc Rivers as their head coach and, with a few notable roster tweaks, posted the best record in the conference for the first time since the Allen Iverson-led Sixers did so in 2000-1.Rivers isn’t the only one responsible for Philadelphia’s rise, but the utter lack of buzz he is generating in this season’s coach of the year race shows the depth of the field. Thibodeau, Williams and Snyder all have tremendous cases, with Williams named on Monday as the National Basketball Coaches Association coach of the year in balloting by his peers.I expect Thibodeau to (narrowly) beat Williams in the news media vote after achieving one of the hardest things in coaching in Year 1 at Madison Square Garden — changing the Knicks’ culture with his relentless drive and attention to defensive detail. Thibodeau backers like to amplify their support by pointing out how much the Knicks overachieved with such a star-shy roster, finishing fourth in the East, but Williams’ bid shouldn’t be downgraded, as some say, because he could lean so hard on Chris Paul. I contend that it strengthens Williams’s bid that his presence helped persuade Paul to push to be traded to Phoenix from Oklahoma City, rather than to the Knicks, so that he could reunite with Williams, who coached him in New Orleans.There isn’t even room on the three-spot ballot to recognize the jobs done by Rivers, Memphis’s Taylor Jenkins, Atlanta’s Nate McMillan and Nash, who had his three best Nets (Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving) together on the floor for a whopping 202 minutes in his first year.Rookie of the YearLaMelo Ball helped solidify his case for the Rookie of the Year Award when he returned for the final 10 games of the season after breaking his wrist.Jared C. Tilton/Getty ImagesLaMelo Ball, Charlotte HornetsRest of the ballot: 2. Anthony Edwards (Minnesota); 3. Tyrese Haliburton (Sacramento)Preseason prediction: Deni Avdija (Washington)Ball’s all-around play, for a team that unexpectedly contended for a top-six spot in the Eastern Conference until losing Gordon Hayward to injury, was the clincher. He averaged 15.7 points, 5.9 rebounds and 6.1 assists per game and, amid great skepticism regarding his shooting stroke, proved passable from the field (43.6 percent) and 3-point range (35.2 percent).Ball then addressed the biggest hole in his résumé by returning from fracturing his right wrist on March 20 to play in Charlotte’s last 10 games, ultimately taking part in 71 percent of the Hornets’ season. Had he not returned, Ball would have played in only 57 percent of Charlotte’s games, which would have been the lowest availability rate ever for a rookie of the year. Patrick Ewing’s 60 percent (50 out of 82 games) for the Knicks in the 1985-86 season is the lowest.The extra games can only help Ball in his bid to hold off Edwards. In the second half of the season, when the Timberwolves went 16-20 after a dreadful a 7-29 start, Edwards averaged 23.8 points per game and shot 45.4 percent from the field, inspiring loud support from fans who felt Ball was prematurely anointed the winner.Most Improved PlayerJulius Randle became a solid 3-point shooter in his seventh season.Pool photo by ElsaJulius Randle, KnicksRest of the ballot: 2. Michael Porter Jr. (Denver); 3. Jerami Grant (Detroit)Preseason prediction: Christian Wood (Houston)This is our one layup. Randle is unlikely to receive enough All-N.B.A. or M.V.P. votes to satiate rabid fans who suddenly see him as Knicks royalty, but he should be a runaway M.I.P. selection. He and Jokic were the only players to amass at least 1,600 points, 700 rebounds and 400 assists this season.As covered in our recent piece on Randle, his jump to 41.1 percent on 3-pointers this season from 27.7 percent in 2019-20 — in his seventh pro season — has no N.B.A. precedent. Randle has likewise flourished as a playmaker whose decision-making and versatility have lifted those around him and enabled the Knicks to be just functional enough offensively to make the most of their fourth-ranked defense.Porter Jr., Grant, Wood and Dallas’s Jalen Brunson made telling leaps, too, but the Knicks could have not have become as unexpectedly viable as they did if Randle didn’t first transform himself so dramatically.Sixth Man AwardJoe Ingles gets the edge in an unexpectedly tight, and packed, race for the Sixth Man of the Year Award.Randall Benton/Associated PressJoe Ingles, Utah JazzRest of the ballot: 2. Jordan Clarkson (Utah); 3. Derrick Rose (Knicks)Preseason prediction: Caris LeVert (Indiana; began the season as a Nets reserve)In yet another anomaly in a season oozing with oddities, Utah (Clarkson and Ingles) and Dallas (Tim Hardaway Jr. and Jalen Brunson) each have two top reserves — possibly the four best reserves beyond Rose — to make settling on a top three trickier than usual.Clarkson averaged a heady 18.4 points per game, but Ingles nudged into my top spot because of his combination of excellent shooting (48.9 percent from the field and 45.1 percent on 3-pointers), offensive versatility and success as a fill-in starter when Utah faced injuries.Rather than trying to choose between the two Mavericks for one remaining spot, I went with Rose at No. 3 in a nod to the Knicks’ 24-11 record with Rose in uniform after acquiring him from Detroit. That also gave him the edge over the Los Angeles Lakers’ Kyle Kuzma, Chicago’s Thaddeus Young and Indiana’s T.J. McConnell.Defensive Player of the YearThe Jazz needed Rudy Gobert’s defense this year to offset the reduced firepower in the offense because of injuries.George Frey/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesRudy Gobert (Utah)Rest of the ballot: 2. Draymond Green (Golden State); 3. Ben Simmons (Philadelphia)Preseason prediction: Anthony Davis (Los Angeles Lakers)Perhaps I am falling prey to recency bias, but I can’t remember a season when even the D.P.O.Y. ballot was teeming with this many options. Maybe it’s a function of how much attention league observers and curators of advanced statistics are paying to defensive matters these days, judging by the lobbying in recent weeks for Green, Simmons, Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid, Miami’s Bam Adebayo, Atlanta’s Clint Capela and Milwaukee’s Jrue Holiday.Yet this, once again, is Gobert’s domain; look for him to be named D.P.O.Y. for the third time in four seasons. While Coach Quin Snyder was revamping the Jazz’s offense to commit more to 3-point shooting, Gobert kept them in the league’s top three in defensive efficiency.He also missed only one game in a season in which Utah, because of long stretches without Donovan Mitchell and Mike Conley, needed his durability to finish with the best record in the league for the first time.The Scoop @TheSteinLineThis newsletter is OUR newsletter. So please weigh in with what you’d like to see here. To get your hoops-loving friends and family involved, please forward this email to them so they can jump in the conversation. If you’re not a subscriber, you can sign up here.Corner ThreeRobert Horry hit a clutch 3-pointer for the Spurs against the Pistons in Game 5 of the 2005 N.B.A. finals.Ronald Martinez/Getty ImagesYou 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 condensed or lightly edited for clarity.)Q: Good player, many clutch moments, seems like an awesome guy — and incredibly fortunate to have played with great players and for great coaches. All that can be true, while still recognizing that Robert Horry is not a Hall of Fame player. — @MikeMcCullochAZ from TwitterStein: During his Hall of Fame induction on Saturday night, the longtime Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich lobbied for Robert Horry’s enshrinement. I posted Rudy T’s plea on Twitter and there was no shortage of resistance to the idea, because Horry averaged just 7 points and 4.8 rebounds per game in his 16 N.B.A. seasons.Horry’s case, though, cannot be so readily dismissed. He amassed seven N.B.A. championship rings, with three franchises, as one of the finest role players in league history. Those who played with and coached him, like Tomjanovich, insist that he delivered so much more than the two mammoth 3-pointers he is best known for, which essentially made two of those titles possible: a buzzer-beater for the Lakers in Game 4 of the 2002 Western Conference finals against the Sacramento Kings that kept Los Angeles from a presumably fatal 3-1 series deficit; and a 3-pointer for the San Antonio Spurs in overtime of Game 5 of the 2005 N.B.A. finals to seal a series-turning victory against Detroit.After that masterpiece against the Pistons, I wrote a column proclaiming Horry to be the No. 1 role player in league history. He hadn’t scored in the first half but finished with 21 points, mitigating the damage from the six consecutive free throws that Tim Duncan, who just entered the Hall of Fame alongside Tomjanovich, clanked in the fourth quarter.Almost every year, there’s a discussion about how Rajon Rondo becomes Playoff Rondo after sleepy regular seasons. Although he has his own catchy moniker, Big Shot Rob, Horry was Playoff Rondo years before anyone was clever enough to use a nickname to spotlight the tendency. In 1994-95, he averaged 10.2 points per game during the regular season but 17.8 points and 10 rebounds per game in Houston’s four-game finals sweep of Shaquille O’Neal’s Orlando Magic.Ben Wallace, announced on Sunday as a member of the Hall’s 2021 class, won the Defensive Player of the Year Award four times but was passed over for induction until his fifth year of eligibility, likely because of his minuscule career scoring average of 5.7 points per game. Apart from a spot on the 1992-93 all-rookie team, Horry’s Basketball Reference page is far more barren than Wallace’s when it comes to individual honors. Perhaps he will never overcome the pedestrian nature of his career statistics to get that Hall of Fame call, but know this: Tomjanovich is far from the only one of Horry’s former colleagues who thinks he belongs in Springfield.Q: If more than one team finishes the season with the same record, do they have the same odds in the draft lottery? For example: If four teams tied with the league’s worst record, would they all have the same odds to land the No. 1 overall pick? — Chezky Krasner (Jerusalem, Israel)Stein: No. The league conducts tiebreakers, via a drawing overseen by a representative from Ernst & Young, when teams finish with identical records. The winner of the tiebreaker gets the higher draft pick or the higher placement in the lottery standings. The draft is July 29.There are several ties that the league will need to break in this manner, most crucially between Cleveland (22-50) and Oklahoma City (22-50) to see which team will have the fourth- and fifth-highest odds in the June 22 draft lottery. The Cavaliers and the Thunder will each get 115 number combinations, with one chosen at random to break the tie.Also to be decided in tiebreakers that are scheduled for May 25:Chicago (which owes its first-round pick to Orlando as part of the Nikola Vucevic trade) finished in a three-way tie for the No. 8 overall selection with New Orleans and Sacramento at 31-41.Charlotte and San Antonio (33-39) will have a tiebreaker draw if both teams lose this week in the play-in tournament.The Knicks and Atlanta (41-31) will need a tiebreaker to determine the Nos. 19 and 20 picks.There is a three-way tie for the No. 21 draft slot between the Los Angeles Lakers, Portland (which owes its first-round pick to Houston as part of the Robert Covington trade) and Dallas (which owes its first-rounder to the Knicks as part of the Kristaps Porzingis trade).Denver and the Los Angeles Clippers (47-25) will need a tiebreaker to determine the Nos. 25 and 26.Q: Your recent commentary on the play-in round almost persuaded me, but I can’t help but be very sympathetic to No. 7 teams whose records are quite a bit better than the other teams in the play-in round. Your point about how No. 7 seeds don’t win N.B.A. championships doesn’t change the fact that fans of those teams deserve to see their teams in the playoffs even if they have minimal hope of winning it all. — Simon Rosenblum (Toronto)Stein: This is a common retort to those, like me, who love the play-in concept. It’s an eye-of-the-beholder thing, but I just don’t see the No. 7 seed in either conference as some sacred thing we have to protect.The No. 7 seed, even in a scenario like you describe with a record far superior to Nos. 8 to 10, gets two chances to win one play-in game to claim a playoff spot. The system still skews heavily in No. 7’s favor, while also making the regular season infinitely more interesting and competitive as teams strain to finish no lower than No. 6.As for this season, injuries are the only reason that the defending champion Lakers slipped to No. 7. Anthony Davis missed 36 games, and LeBron James missed 27 after the shortest off-season (71 days) in N.B.A. history. I expect no one outside of Phoenix will pick the Suns, one of just two 50-win teams in this 72-game season, to beat the Lakers in the first round if the Lakers beat Golden State on Wednesday to get the seventh seed.Judging by what the oddsmakers in Las Vegas are saying, they will be the scariest No. 7 seed in N.B.A. history, rather than a team at risk for an unjust early exit this week. Only the Nets have shorter championship odds.Numbers GameHaving fewer fans may have contributed to home teams’ increased losses this season.Christian Petersen/Getty Images54.4Home teams won 54.4 percent of the time this season, going 293-247 (.543) in the East and 294-246 (.544) in the West. It’s the lowest success rate for home teams in league history, dipping below last season’s 55.1 percent.8This was the eighth consecutive season in which home teams won less than 60 percent of the time, according to Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press.84The empty arenas and reduced crowds mandated by league health and safety restrictions have been regularly cited as contributing factors in the further erosion of home-court advantage this season. But as the season progressed, home teams gradually got better at dealing with the baseball-style series in which teams hosted the same opponent in two consecutive games to reduce travel.Home teams won both games 27 times in 84 such series, lost both games 16 times and settled for a split 41 times, according to Ben Falk of Cleaning the Glass. Of the 41 splits, home teams won the first game and lost the second 17 times, and won the second game after losing the first 24 times. Additional time in one city and the increased familiarity resulting from two consecutive games against the same foe were expected to greatly help visiting teams in this scenario.2Two teams posted a losing record at home and a winning record on the road: Indiana (13-23 at home; 21-15 on the road) and San Antonio (14-22 at home; 19-17 on the road). Memphis nearly joined them but rallied to win its last four games at FedEx Forum to finish 18-18 at home compared to 20-16 on the road. The Toronto Raptors, in their temporary home in Tampa, Fla., because of Canada’s pandemic restrictions, were in a category by themselves. They were 16-20 in Tampa, and 11-25 on the road.27-11Phoenix fell one game shy of the league’s best record, going 51-21 to Utah’s 52-20, but the Suns went 27-11 against .500-or-better opposition to lead the league. Seven other teams had winning records against .500-or-better foes: Utah (24-14), the Nets (23-13), Dallas (22-16), Denver (21-17), the Los Angeles Clippers (21-17), Philadelphia (19-17) and Milwaukee (19-17).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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      Sabrina Ionescu's First Triple-Double Leads Liberty Over Lynx

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      The Liberty star’s big night was a rarity in the W.N.B.A., but it was par for the course for her.Sabrina Ionescu was hailed as a savior for the moribund Liberty when New York’s W.N.B.A. team drafted her No. 1 overall last year. And why not? At the time, Ionescu was the college player of the year, the record-setting star of one of the best teams in the country.That made her a strong candidate to resurrect the Liberty, who were coming off two straight losing seasons and still chasing — more than two decades after becoming a founding member of the league — their first W.N.B.A. title.But Ionescu’s transition from college stardom to professional basketball was anything but smooth. Her career at Oregon ended in disappointment when the N.C.A.A. tournament was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic, and then her rookie year with the Liberty ended in her third game when she injured her ankle.Now she is making up for lost time. In her third game of the new season on Tuesday night, Ionescu put up her first career triple-double: 26 points, 10 rebounds and 12 assists in a win over the Minnesota Lynx.In the N.B.A., triple-doubles have become increasingly common. There were 142 this season alone, 38 of them by Washington’s Russell Westbrook. But in the W.N.B.A., they remain a rarity. There have only been nine, in fact, in the league’s 25-year history.Ionescu’s was only the second that included 20 points. In 2004, Lisa Leslie of the Los Angeles Sparks had 29 points in a triple-double that included 15 rebounds and 10 blocks.Ionescu, 23, also became the youngest player and the first Liberty player with a W.N.B.A. triple-double, but the feeling was hardly new. She had 26 triple-doubles in college, an N.C.A.A. record.“Obviously getting a triple-double in a win is important,” she said after Tuesday’s game. “It’s definitely pretty cool.”Should Ionescu do it again — and why wouldn’t she? — she would set the record for regular season W.N.B.A. triple-doubles, with two, although Sheryl Swoopes once had one in the regular season and another in the playoffs in the same year.Ionescu’s season is just three games old, but she is already matching or exceeding the hype that marked the start of her career. Going into Wednesday night’s games, she leads the league in assists, with 9.0 per game, and ranks fifth in scoring at 21 points. As a 5-foot-11 point guard, she even ranks third in defensive rebounds.Outside of the triple-double stats, Ionescu also leads the league with 10 3-pointers, and is making them at a .526 clip. She ranks first in both free throws and attempts, hitting 19 of 21 so far.And one could argue that Tuesday’s game was only her second most memorable night of the season. Last week, she hit a game-winning 3-pointer to beat the Indiana Fever in the Liberty’s season opener.When a team is as bad as the Ionescu-less Liberty was last year — they finished a league-worst 2-20 — improvement is expected. It doesn’t always come so fast. But now the Liberty are off to a 3-0 start for the first time in 14 years, and it is not absurd to see a healthy Ionescu lead the team to the playoffs.She isn’t afraid of the rising expectations.“The expectations I have for myself are always higher than anyone else’s,” she said last fall, “regardless of what level I’m playing at.” More