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      He Used to Post Up. Now He Throws Down.

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      BALTIMORE — Satnam Singh’s favorite wrestling move is the helicopter. Using biceps bigger than newborns and thighs as thick as fire hydrants, he lifts his opponents above his head, whirls them around and tosses them like rag dolls onto the mat.He described the move as he was preparing for work one night: a taping of “AEW: Dynamite,” the signature television show for All Elite Wrestling, an upstart competitor for World Wrestling Entertainment. That night, the audience at the Chesapeake Employers Insurance Arena would see him effortlessly withstand an elevated swan dive into his chest from Samuel Ratsch, who is better known by his wrestling moniker, Darby Allin.“I feel happy,” Singh said in a deep baritone as he stood near an elevator that would lead him backstage. Then he shook his fist and declared, “I feel angry, like I’m going to kick someone.”That’s a good thing, since it’s his job to get angry and kick people — or at least pretend to. At 7-foot-2, he has an imposing presence. His size is useful in wrestling, but challenging when he is shopping for his size 20 shoes or flying on airplanes. But for much of his life, his height was his key asset as he chased a singular goal: getting to the N.B.A.Before he joined A.E.W. last year, Singh was best known for being the first Indian-born player drafted into the N.B.A., in 2015 by the Dallas Mavericks. (The year before, Sim Bhullar, who grew up in Canada, became the first player of Indian descent to sign with a N.B.A. team. Bhullar appeared in three games during the 2014-15 season with the Sacramento Kings.) But Singh’s drafting was a seminal moment for the league’s fledgling efforts to grow the sport in India. It was also a big moment for Singh, 27, the second of his family’s three children in Ballo Ke, a village in the Indian state of Punjab. Suddenly, Singh had “so much weight on my shoulders,” he said, because he was “the only one in the world” drafted from his country.Residents of Ballo Ke, Singh’s home village, welcomed him and his father, Balbir Bhamara, after Singh was drafted into the N.B.A. in 2015.Shammi Mehra/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSeven years later, that burden is gone — though not totally by choice. All Singh had wanted out of life was to represent his country in the N.B.A. He wanted to grab rebounds like the 7-foot-1 star Shaquille O’Neal, one of his favorite players. But after Singh struggled to catch on in the N.B.A., his basketball career was derailed by a failed drug test that he said was a mistake. His search for an alternate path led him to a new dream, and a quest to once again represent India on the global stage.“He did very well in basketball, and now he is doing well in wrestling,” said his father, Balbir Bhamara. “By grace of God, he is making his name.”‘Had so many eyes on me’Bhamara introduced Singh to basketball as a young boy after a friend’s recommendation. (Singh goes by his middle name professionally.) Bhamara is a farmer, but like Singh he is around seven feet tall. He saw an opportunity to put his child’s height to good use in a way he hadn’t been able to do himself.“He will do great and make me proud,” Bhamara recalled thinking, in an interview from Ballo Ke through a Punjabi interpreter. In the family’s one-bedroom flat, a poster of Michael Jordan hangs on a bedroom wall. Bhamara said Singh put it there as he was learning how to play.Basketball was nowhere near as popular in India as cricket and soccer when Singh was growing up. When he met an N.B.A. executive in Punjab at the Ludhiana Basketball Academy in 2010, only an estimated 4.5 million people were playing basketball in India, a country of more than a billion. But Singh loved the N.B.A. stars O’Neal and Kobe Bryant and had already become a minor celebrity in his own right. As a young teenager, he was compared to Yao Ming, the influential 7-foot-6 Houston Rockets star from China.“From the Day 1, I realized he was a man like God sent him specially to us,” Teja Singh Dhaliwal, the general secretary of the Punjab Basketball Association, said in a 2016 Netflix documentary about Singh’s life titled “One in a Billion.”Troy Justice, the head of the N.B.A.’s international basketball development, was the executive who met Singh in 2010. As they became close, the N.B.A. was ramping up efforts to expand in India, opening its Mumbai office in 2011 and starting scouting programs and training academies. The league hosted two preseason games in Mumbai in 2019.Singh in 2011 in New Delhi. When he met an N.B.A. executive the year before, only an estimated 4.5 million people were playing basketball in India.Associated Press“My best friend there said, ‘Troy, do basketball and business like we do traffic in India,’” Justice said. “‘We don’t have lines. You just kind of find an open space and keep moving forward until you reach your destination.’”As the N.B.A. made inroads in India, Singh made his way to the United States. When he was 14, he enrolled at IMG Academy, a high school in Bradenton, Fla., known for developing elite basketball talent. Far from home and trying to learn English, Singh had a difficult time adjusting, said Sonny Gill, Singh’s childhood best friend.But Singh’s size made him an intriguing N.B.A. prospect. He declared for the draft in 2015 and worked out for several teams, including the Rockets. Singh was in high school for five years — a result of the language barrier — and was thus eligible for the draft. The Bollywood star Akshay Kumar called him “an inspiration.” But some saw him as a long shot because he was stiff and slow.“He was very easy to rule out just from the workout, which is risky and teams have been burned,” said Daryl Morey, who was the Rockets’ general manager at the time and now works for the 76ers. “But he definitely did not look like he belonged on an N.B.A. floor.”Many members of Singh’s village traveled to the local gurdwara, a Sikh place of worship, to pray for him to be drafted. On the night of the draft, Singh recalled, his feet and hands were shaking. Gill, now Singh’s manager, remembered watching his friend sweat and rub his hands together as each pick was announced at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. The first round went by. So did most of the second.“All of India who knew,” Singh said, “everyone had so many eyes on me.”But at pick No. 52 of 60, Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, decided to take a shot.“In four or five years, if he continues to progress as he has, he could be the face of basketball in India, easily,” Cuban said in the “One in a Billion” documentary about Singh. “I would expect that to happen. He’s got that much upside.”Singh driving to the basket against Golden State during a 2016 N.B.A. Summer League game in Las Vegas.David Dow/NBAE, via Getty ImagesMany players drafted that late never make the N.B.A., but Singh’s stardom at home reached new heights. Amitabh Bachchan, one of the biggest movie stars in India, congratulated him on Twitter, saying, “India goes to NBA .. now time for NBA to come to India ..!!” Bachchan’s, son, Abhishek, also a well-known actor, offered to play Singh in a movie.But Singh’s American basketball career fizzled. He never appeared in an N.B.A. game in the regular season, and rarely played for Dallas’s developmental team over two seasons. The N.B.A. was moving away from slow big men and toward a more athletic style of play. Singh opted to play in Canada and for the Indian men’s national team as he tried to make it back to the N.B.A.“He was heartbroken,” Gill said. “That’s all he talked about every day.”‘You can open so many people’s dreams’In late 2019, while Singh was preparing for the South Asian Games with the Indian national team, he failed a drug test and was provisionally suspended by the National Anti Doping Agency in India. Gill said Singh took an over-the-counter supplement that he did not realize contained a banned substance. A year later, India’s antidoping agency barred Singh from competition for two years, including the year he had been provisionally suspended.Asked about the ban now, Singh was reluctant to discuss it.“End of day, whatever happened happened,” Singh said. “I don’t want those bad things in my life again, but end of day, I just want to tell everyone to be careful.”Later, he brought the incident up on his own. When he received the ban, Singh said, he saw his free time as a newly cracked door. He thought to himself, “You can open so many people’s dreams to come true.”Singh before an All Elite Wrestling event at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County campus in November. He said he was focused on wrestling and hadn’t touched a basketball in a couple of years.Matt Roth for The New York TimesSingh had never been much of a wrestling fan, though he did enjoy Dwayne Johnson’s character, The Rock. Professional wrestling, like the N.B.A., had been trying to cultivate a fan base in India, and Singh — a giant like the popular Indian-born wrestler Dalip Singh Rana, known as The Great Khali — looked like he could help.In 2017, while Singh was with the Mavericks’ developmental team, W.W.E. invited him for a workout. He had fun, but he was still focused on trying to get to the N.B.A. That year, W.W.E. made Yuvraj Singh Dhesi — known as Jinder Mahal — the first W.W.E. champion of Indian descent. By 2021, with Singh’s basketball ambitions dulled, he was ready to give wrestling a try.His mother, Sukhwinder Kaur, was initially fearful.“She saw wrestling matches on television and everyone keeps getting thrown out of the ring,” Singh said. “My mom said, ‘I hope he isn’t hurt.’ I told Mom: ‘Don’t worry. Your son will be amazing.’”When Singh approached A.E.W., Tony Khan, who founded the company in 2019, saw an opportunity.“There are very few wrestlers from India or Pakistan in my life,” said Khan, 40, who is of Pakistani descent and the son of the Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shahid Khan. “Wrestlers of brown-skinned descent are often portrayed as villains or terrorists or some terrible atrocity.”He thought Singh could be different. In September 2021, a month after A.E.W. signed a broadcasting deal with Eurosport India, the company announced that it had signed Singh.Paul Wight, an A.E.W. wrestler best known by his W.W.E. name The Big Show, said Singh was an ideal fit for wrestling. “A basketball player and a tennis player will adapt to wrestling footwork faster than most athletes,” said Wight, who mentors Singh.The A.E.W. producer and manager Retesh Bhalla, known as Sonjay Dutt, left, and Singh performed ringside as “managers” for the longtime professional wrestler Jay Lethal.Matt Roth for The New York TimesMichael Cuellari, known as Q.T. Marshall in the ring, trains Singh at his Atlanta-area wrestling school, the Nightmare Factory. He said much of his job is “teaching him how not to injure somebody while looking like you’re trying to injure somebody.”“Because he’s so big and he’s so strong, obviously he’s going to be very stiff right out of the gate,” Cuellari said.‘Just be himself’Wrestling isn’t just about big muscles and smashing opponents. It is about charisma and connecting with the audience. It is about rip-roaring promos, blasting the opponent and getting audiences to roar, for better or worse.“It’s hard, right?” Cuellari said. “Because he’s got such a deep voice and such a different tone. And on top of that, like, English not being his first language. So we just try to make him feel as comfortable as possible and just be himself.”Singh made his debut in April in a group with the characters Jay Lethal and Sonjay Dutt. In June, Singh pulled off the helicopter move in his first match. He has been used sparingly as he trains: Take the occasional dive bomb; chuck a human like a shot put every now and then; glower at the camera. Off camera, he has a boisterous personality that has endeared him to his new co-workers.Singh, left, horsing around with his fellow A.E.W. wrestler Will “Powerhouse” Hobbs, middle, and Amanda Huber, A.E.W. community outreach, backstage.Matt Roth for The New York TimesThough there have been successful giants, like Andre the Giant, The Undertaker and The Big Show, fans have largely gravitated toward relatively smaller characters, like The Rock, Stone Cold Steve Austin and Rey Mysterio. In many ways, Singh faces the same challenge in wrestling that he did in basketball: Success is increasingly less about brawn than speed and athleticism.“The track record of giants in professional wrestling as quality in-ring technicians is not long,” said Retesh Bhalla, who plays Sonjay Dutt. Bhalla is also an A.E.W. creative executive.But Khan, the A.E.W. founder, is optimistic about Singh. “We’ve seen an increase in traffic when Satnam is involved in segments,” Khan said, adding, “A ton of our YouTube traffic comes from India, and he’s a driver.”Singh said the last time he picked up a basketball was in 2019, when he was suspended. Though his cellphone case has a picture of Bryant, the former Los Angeles Lakers star, Singh said his basketball career is over. He is still willing to mentor players in India, and he has coached at the N.B.A.’s Basketball Without Borders camps there.“He is and was and still will be an inspiration,” said Justice, the N.B.A. executive.Singh seems at peace with his new road — “I am so surprised, but I am so happy,” he said — more concerned with increasing his bench press max from 500 pounds than sharpening his jumpers. He wants to go into acting, the non-wrestling kind. One way or another, he’s once again aiming to be a bridge on behalf of India.Matt Roth for The New York Times More

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      NBA Season Preview: The Nets and the Lakers Are the Wild Cards

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      Even for a league used to drama and headlines, the N.B.A. had a dizzying off-season.There were trade requests (Kevin Durant) and trade rumors (Russell Westbrook); injuries (Chet Holmgren) and returns (Zion Williamson). The power structure of the Western Conference could be upended by the return of Kawhi Leonard with the Clippers; the power structure of the East is again unclear.And a series of scandals at Boston, Phoenix and Golden State could have lasting implications for the league.In short: A lot is going on.Headline More

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      Golden State Headed to NBA Finals After Beating Dallas Mavericks

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      Injuries helped end a streak of five straight finals runs, but Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green are back after beating the Dallas Mavericks in the West.SAN FRANCISCO — When the game ended and the celebration began, Klay Thompson’s emotions overtook him.He thought about the past three years of his life, the two serious leg injuries that required surgery, the days when he went to rehab even though he couldn’t bear it any longer. He thought about how this time last year he was just starting to jog again, and how his Warriors teammates sank to the worst record in the N.B.A. from the best in their conference while he couldn’t help. He thought about how lucky he was to have regained his explosiveness this season, how lucky he was to be able to play basketball for a living again.He thought about it all as he sat at the podium after the game, wearing a 2022 N.B.A. finals hat that bore Golden State’s logo and a T-shirt that said they were the Western Conference champions. He said it felt surreal.“I’m just grateful,” Thompson said.Golden State will return to the N.B.A. finals for the first time since 2019 after defeating the Dallas Mavericks, 120-110, in the Western Conference finals on Thursday.Golden State won the series with a victory in Game 5 behind 32 points from Thompson, and 10 points and 18 rebounds from Kevon Looney. They never trailed in the game, and staved off every Mavericks run.Klay Thompson missed two seasons with injuries, but had 32 points in Golden State’s Game 5 win over the Dallas Mavericks to advance to the N.B.A. finals.Cary Edmondson/USA Today Sports, via ReutersBecause of injuries, the Warriors had spent a couple of seasons wandering through the N.B.A. wilderness. But their celebrated core — Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green — is together again and playing some of its best basketball, no small achievement considering the team’s triumphant past.“We are all extremely proud of what it took to get back here,” Curry said. “Yeah, it’s definitely sweet based on what we went through.”Golden State won three championships and advanced to five straight finals from 2015 to 2019, before it all began to come unglued. While falling to the Toronto Raptors in the 2019 finals, Thompson tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee and Kevin Durant ruptured his right Achilles’ tendon.It would get worse. A few weeks later, Durant, who had helped Golden State win two championships, left for the Nets. Four games into the subsequent season, Curry broke his left hand. Golden State finished with the worst record in the league, a humbling blow for a franchise that had seemed on the cusp of establishing itself as a dynasty.Earlier this season, in a podcast interview with the former player JJ Redick, Green acknowledged his uncertainty about the future — both the team’s and his own — as Golden State labored through that listless 2019-20 season. Without Thompson, who spent much of his time rehabilitating away from the team, and Curry, who appeared in just five games, Green did little to hide his frustrations. He mentored some of the team’s younger players, but he also sulked and shot terribly.“I couldn’t get myself going,” Green told Redick. “It was never a point where I felt that my window was closing because of my skills or because of what I bring to the table. But if we’re going to suck like this every year, then my window is closed because I can’t get up for these meaningless games.”Thompson suffered another misfortune when he tore his right Achilles’ tendon in a private workout before the start of the 2020-21 season.“You go through one injury: ‘All right, cool. We’ll get our guy back. We’ll pick up where we left off,’” Green said. “Then you go through another one. When I say you go through another one, I mean, Klay. Then there it is, it’s two years off. You realize how fragile it is.”Draymond Green holding the Western Conference trophy. Green has won three championships with Golden State.Ezra Shaw/Getty ImagesBehind the scenes, though, Golden State’s decision makers were building toward a future — one they hoped would resemble the team’s not-so-distant past. In February 2020, General Manager Bob Myers traded for Andrew Wiggins, the No. 1 draft pick in 2014, who had never quite fulfilled his seemingly vast potential with the Minnesota Timberwolves.With Golden State, Wiggins would prove he could do a bit of everything: shoot, pass, rebound, defend. On Monday, Kerr described the trade for Wiggins as “the key to all of this.” Golden State’s depth at the wing position had evaporated after the 2019 finals. Thompson was injured. Shaun Livingston had retired. And Andre Iguodala had been traded to the Memphis Grizzlies.“So the Wiggins trade allowed us to start to rebuild that wing defense,” Kerr said, “and Wiggs has just been so good. He’s gotten so much better over the last couple of years. He’s a perfect fit next to our guys.”Thompson said he told Wiggins after Thursday’s game how grateful he was to have him on the team.This season, Wiggins was a first-time All-Star as Golden State went 53-29, good for the third-best record in the West. There were other meaningful moments along the way. Curry broke the league record for career 3-pointers. Thompson, after 941 days away, made his long-anticipated return from injury, scoring 17 points — and even dunking — in a win against the Cleveland Cavaliers.But Golden State did not exactly race into the playoffs. It took time for Thompson to regain his familiar feel for the game, and Curry missed the final 12 games of the regular season with a sprained foot. Over one particularly lean stretch at the end of March, the Warriors lost seven of eight games. It was far from assured that they were capable of making a deep run in the playoffs.They needed just five games to eliminate the sixth-seeded Denver Nuggets in the first round, then six to take care of the second-seeded Grizzlies in the conference semifinals.The Mavericks, despite the best efforts of Luka Doncic, were little more than a speed bump.Dallas stole Game 4 of the series behind 30 points from Doncic, then Golden State returned home on Thursday to close out the series.“It’s a beautiful story,” Wiggins said.Andrew Wiggins’s defense on Luka Doncic throughout the series was a key factor in Golden State’s victories.Kelley L Cox/USA Today Sports, via ReutersKevon Looney, center, had 18 rebounds for Golden State in Game 5.Cary Edmondson/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe celebration began with about a minute and a half left in the game. Golden State took its starters out so the crowd could shower them with love. Curry sat on the bench looking almost like he couldn’t believe it, then the buzzer sounded and he jumped up and down waving a towel in the air.As streamers fell from the rafters, the Western Conference championship trophy was brought onto the court, along with the new Western Conference finals’ most valuable player trophy, which is named after Magic Johnson and was awarded to Curry. Thompson went around giving powerful hugs to his teammates. Green rushed into the stands with a stack of N.B.A. finals hats to give them to members of his family.After the trophy presentation on the court, Green walked toward the Warriors’ locker room yelling, “We back!”The core’s first playoff appearance together came in 2013, when they beat the Denver Nuggets in the first round before falling to the San Antonio Spurs in the second. They played in Oracle Arena in Oakland back then — all five of their prior finals series happened there.“It’s like kind of time stopped there where you kind of understand what real basketball is like in the playoffs,” Curry said. “We were pups at the time, but definitely great memories of playing in Oracle, the Warrior chants 25 minutes before a tipoff, the haze in the building, if you know what I mean.“To know where we’ve come from that year, everything that’s happened since — I can pretty much drop myself into any series and know what it felt like because we rely on those experiences so much.”Thompson remembers the 2013 playoffs well, too.“We were so young. We took an experienced and dynastic San Antonio team to a hard-fought series,” Thompson said. “After that I was like, gosh, we’re going toe-to-toe with Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili. If we build on this, we could have a great future.”If someone had told him then that he would spend more than a decade with this team and that they would make six finals appearances together?“I would have never believed you,” Thompson said.Now, he wants more. More

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      Dallas Mavericks Save Season With Win Over Golden State

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      Dallas staved off elimination by Golden State behind Luka Doncic’s near triple-double. But the mass shooting in Uvalde loomed over the game.DALLAS — After a second-quarter stoppage in play, Luka Doncic of the Mavericks rose from one leg and tossed up a meaningless shot from beyond the 3-point line whose sole purpose seemed to be to entertain Doncic himself. It was a skyscraper, the ball hurtling toward the rafters before plummeting to Earth. It took one hard bounce off the court and then rattled through the hoop.As they waded into Tuesday’s playoff game against the Golden State Warriors, the Mavericks had to be wondering whether they could make shots with any consistency. Their season depended on it.While Doncic’s circus shot didn’t count, the degree of difficulty was outrageous. (Welcome to Luka’s World.) The crowd roared. And for a team on the ropes, it was a sign of good things to come.A major comeback can only begin with a modest first step, and Dallas is banking on the hope — however remote — that its 119-109 win over Golden State on Tuesday night in Game 4 of the Western Conference finals is a building block for a miracle.“We’re going to believe until the end,” said Doncic, who made several more conventional shots as the game moved along, finishing with 30 points, 14 rebounds and 9 assists. “We got more to do, you know. This is nothing.”You may have heard this before, but no team has overcome a three-games-to-none deficit in N.B.A. history. After avoiding elimination, Dallas, which now trails in the series, 3-1, wants to become the first. Game 5 is on Thursday in San Francisco.Stephen Curry led Golden State with 20 points but sat for most of the fourth quarter, with the game seemingly out of reach.Jerome Miron/USA Today Sports, via Reuters“We want to do something special,” the Mavericks’ Dorian Finney-Smith said. “It’s going to be very hard, but we can do it. We just got to stick together.”If nothing else, Tuesday’s win was a credit to the Mavericks and their resilient young core. They could have folded up for the season after polluting Game 3 with a buffet of ugly jump shots. In the loss, they went 13 of 45 from 3-point range. Reggie Bullock missed all 10 of his field-goal attempts.On Tuesday, the Mavericks shot 20 of 43 from 3-point range, assisted on 30 of their 41 field goals and unboxed a new-and-improved version of Bullock, who made 6 of his 10 3-point attempts.“It was almost like an ego win,” Golden State’s Stephen Curry said, referring to the Mavericks. “You come out and you really have nothing to lose, so that confidence started early. We didn’t really do nothing to slow it down, and that’s when the avalanche starts. So it’s a good lesson learned. You tip your hat to them because they made a lot of shots.”After scuffling through a couple of injury-marred, playoff-free seasons, Golden State remains one win from its first conference championship since 2019. But throughout the postseason, the team has faltered — at least momentarily — when it has come to eliminating its opponents.In the first round, the Denver Nuggets avoided a sweep by defeating Golden State in Game 4. In the conference semifinals, the Memphis Grizzlies prolonged their series with a 39-point win. For both the Nuggets and the Grizzlies, the reprieve was temporary: Golden State closed out each series in the subsequent game.The Mavericks present a different type of challenge. For long stretches of Tuesday’s game, Golden State went to a zone defense, which Dallas Coach Jason Kidd took as a compliment.“Because they can’t play us one-on-one,” he said.It was an odd game, both somber and then celebratory in its own muted way. It was played hours after at least 19 children and two adults were killed by a gunman at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, about 350 miles southwest of Dallas. At his pregame news conference, Golden State Coach Steve Kerr made an emotional plea for gun control legislation, while Kidd declined to answer questions about basketball.“We’re going to try to play the game,” Kidd said. “We have no choice.”Afterward, Kerr struggled to put the night into any sort of palatable context.“It’s too much to fathom, too much to comprehend,” he said. “We move on and we hope that someone actually decides to value our citizens’ lives more than they value money and power.”On a rainy evening, the start of the second half was delayed by leaks in the roof. By then, the Mavericks had a 15-point lead and were looking to build their momentum.It was not going to be easy: Golden State has a well-deserved reputation for pulverizing teams coming out of halftime. In fact, through the first three games of the series, the Warriors had outscored the Mavericks by a total of 31 points in the third quarter. Kidd was not overly concerned.“This group doesn’t let anything faze them,” he said.Sure enough, Dallas shot 8 of 13 from 3-point range in the third quarter to extend its lead to 29. Golden State made a late run with its reserves, but fell short.It is an obvious observation, but Doncic cannot do it alone — not against Golden State. He certainly tried to do his part in Game 2, when he scored 42, and in Game 3, when he scored 40. The Mavericks lost both.On Tuesday, he got help from lesser lights like Bullock and Finney-Smith, and even from Maxi Kleber, who came off the bench to snap his series-long nightmare by shooting 5 of 6 from the field.“If they make shots,” Doncic said, “I think it’s tough to beat us.”The Mavericks just need to do more of the same three more times. No circus shots required. More

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      The Dallas Mavericks Just May Not Be Good Enough Yet

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      With Golden State one win from the N.B.A. finals, Dallas is already talking about the off-season. Luka Doncic said he was “still learning.”DALLAS — Jason Kidd, the coach of the Mavericks, had a concise message for his players before Game 3 of the N.B.A.’s Western Conference finals on Sunday night.Open shots, he reminded them in the locker room, are easier to make than contested shots, so get into the paint and draw Golden State defenders. Do that, and space will open up on the perimeter.“Attack, attack, attack,” said Kidd, his voice betraying no small amount of urgency. “Make them work.”It was a smart strategy, and sure enough, it worked. The Mavericks generated a respectable number of clean looks at 3-pointers. The problem? They couldn’t make many of them. Luka Doncic, the team’s star point guard, offered a synopsis.“Sometimes you feel like you’re open and everybody knows you can make a shot, and then just miss,” he said. “It gets you quite a little bit down.”It was the latest installment of a series-long nightmare for the Mavericks, whose 109-100 loss put them on the brink of elimination. Golden State can complete a four-game sweep on Tuesday, and if that isn’t dire enough for Dallas, there is also this heavily recited piece of trivia: No team in league history has come back from the three-games-to-none series deficit the Mavericks are facing.“It’s not over yet,” Doncic said, “but it’s not going to be easy.”Not against an opponent that Kidd described as a “dynasty.” Not against the likes of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green, together again after wading through two injury-ravaged seasons to lead the Warriors to the cusp of their first N.B.A. finals appearance since 2019.But Golden State is also a potent blend of new and old. For a stretch of the third quarter, the Warriors went with a box-and-1 defense as Moses Moody, the first-year guard, defended Doncic after receiving guidance from Green. In the fourth quarter, Andrew Wiggins, who has been playing his finest basketball since joining the team in 2020, nearly dunked Doncic into oblivion.“That was impressive,” Doncic said, “I’m not going to lie.”And Jordan Poole, the third-year guard who took advantage of the team’s lean seasons to develop into an explosive playmaker, sealed the win with a late-game 3-pointer.“They just stay connected throughout the entire game, whether they’re down 20 or up 20,” the Mavericks’ Jalen Brunson said. “You can see that. It’s just very evident.”Jalen Brunson, center, has been one of Dallas’s best performers in the playoffs. He had 20 points on 7 of 12 shooting on Sunday.Tom Pennington/Getty ImagesIt must be small consolation for them right now, but the Mavericks are learning some valuable lessons — many of the same lessons that the Memphis Grizzlies learned in the last round when they succumbed to Golden State’s experience and wisdom and all-around cohesive play. While Kidd stopped short of conceding the series, he acknowledged as much.“As we reflect this summer, whenever that starts, we’ll understand what we did and how we can get better,” he said. “We’re going to keep fighting, but we’re also going to get better from this experience.”Give the Mavericks credit for trying to adjust their approach after blowing a 19-point lead in Game 2.That adjustment was on display early in the second quarter of Game 3, as the Mavericks — once, twice, three times — penetrated into the paint, continually sending passes to the perimeter in search of a quality shot. It was only when they dribbled into the teeth of the defense for a fourth time that Dorian Finney-Smith spotted Brunson behind the 3-point line. He drained the shot.Later in the quarter, Brunson repaid the favor when he picked up his dribble near the left elbow. As a slew of Golden State defenders converged on him, Brunson whipped the ball to Finney-Smith for another 3-pointer, which pushed Dallas’s lead to 6.But that was as good as it got for the Mavericks, who were otherwise woeful from the 3-point line, shooting 13 of 45. Reggie Bullock missed all seven of his 3-point attempts. Maxi Kleber was 0 for 5.“We just didn’t shoot the ball well,” Kidd said. “We’re getting good looks, and they’re just not dropping.”There were other problems. One of them was named Stephen Curry, who collected 31 points and 11 assists while shooting 5 of 10 from 3-point range. The Mavericks also gave up too many offensive rebounds, and they wasted another valiant effort from Doncic. After scoring 42 points on Friday, he went for 40 on Sunday. The Mavericks lost both games.“I’m still learning,” he said.Stephen Curry had 31 points — including five 3-pointers — in Golden State’s win.Tom Pennington/Getty ImagesIf nothing else, the Mavericks are going to win or lose by being themselves — and unapologetically so. There is no greater illustration of this phenomenon than the behavior of their players on the bench, who have been treading a fine line between enthusiastic and obnoxious. They cheer. They dance. But they also stand precariously close to the court, which has caused issues.On Friday, for example, Curry threw a pass to an open player who was calling for the ball. The problem was that the open player was Theo Pinson, an inactive player for the Mavericks. Curry had mistaken Pinson’s white shirt for a Golden State jersey.“It was a good pass,” Golden State Coach Steve Kerr said, deadpan. “He was open.”The league subsequently fined the Mavericks $100,000 for continuing to violate league rules regarding “team bench decorum.” On multiple occasions, the league said in a statement, players and at least one member of the coaching staff had encroached on the playing surface. It was the third time the league had fined the Mavericks in the postseason for the extracurriculars of their bench.“We’re not going to sit,” Kidd said before Game 3. “We’re going to cheer.”By the end of night, Golden State had rendered them silent. More

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      Kevon Looney Leads Golden State in Comeback Win Over Dallas Mavericks

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      Looney had the best night of his career to fuel his team’s comeback from 19 points down to the Dallas Mavericks in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals.SAN FRANCISCO — The day before Kevon Looney produced the best game of his professional career, he sat in a hallway at Chase Center in San Francisco, thinking about the way his role had changed since Golden State drafted him in 2015.This was a team known for its smaller lineups; that’s how it had won a championship that year. At 6-foot-9, and despite a wingspan of more than seven feet, Looney was considered undersized.Looney chuckled at the thought, then he considered it a little bit more.“The league’s kind of changed, and now I’m more the traditional center now in the N.B.A.,” Looney said, as he thought about the way people sometimes talk about Golden State. “So it kind of is weird to me. Sometimes it feels like a slap in the face when they’re like, ‘They don’t have any size.”Looney typically is not the most talked-about member of the Warriors. He was drafted less than two weeks after Golden State won its first championship with Steve Kerr as coach, and was part of the team for four consecutive appearances in the N.B.A. finals and two championships. After overcoming early injury woes, he became a critical part of Golden State’s roster, and this year was one of only five players leaguewide to play in all 82 regular-season games.In the playoffs this year, Golden State has been able to count on him. He didn’t start in Games 1 through 5 of their Western Conference semifinal series against the Memphis Grizzlies, then started and grabbed 22 rebounds in the Game 6 win that clinched the series.Golden State turned to Looney in Game 6 of its series against the Grizzlies, and his play was crucial. He grabbed 22 rebounds in the win.Ezra Shaw/Getty ImagesOn Friday night in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals series against the Dallas Mavericks, Looney scored 21 points with 12 rebounds in the 126-117 comeback win. It was the first time since his only season at U.C.L.A. that he had scored more than 20 points in a game. It was also the first time a Warriors center had scored 20 points with at least 10 rebounds in the playoffs since 1977.“We see the work that he’s put in to make that a reality,” Golden State guard Stephen Curry said. “Now, in the playoffs, just taking that next step. He brings a lot of joy to what we do in the locker room. I’ll call him, like, the muse in the locker room. He kind of just has a great demeanor about him. He’s the bridge between the vets and the young guys. Pretty awesome to see him adapt to that role.”Kerr called Looney “everybody’s favorite guy.”Forward Draymond Green called him a master of professionalism.“The same professional he is today, he was when he came in the league,” Green said.Looney may have projected professionalism and levelheadedness to Green, but the truth was that when Looney was drafted, he was a wide-eyed 19-year-old just trying not to break anything.This team was riding high after its championship, and his job was to fit in, not to stand out. As the only rookie, he didn’t have anyone with common experiences to talk to about what that was like and what he should do.“Definitely was intimidating,” Looney said.That July, he was in Las Vegas after playing in the N.B.A.’s Summer League tournament, where teams field rosters of their young players and N.B.A. hopefuls. The veterans on his team were in Las Vegas for a players’ union awards show, and one night Andre Iguodala texted, asking him to bring over some doughnuts.“It’s like 1 in the morning,” Looney said, laughing. “I didn’t even know if he was serious. First day, I’m already scared. I don’t want to mess up on my first day.”He attended the awards show, but when the team went up onstage together, he said he was too shy to join them. That shyness persisted during the early part of the season as the team went 24-0 on its way to an N.B.A.-record 73 wins.“They used to joke that I didn’t talk for the first six months,” Looney said.In addition to requesting doughnut deliveries at 1 a.m., Iguodala took Looney under his wing and helped him adapt. Green would invite Looney to spend time with him just to make him feel more comfortable in this new setting.That helped in the locker room, but Looney would experience other challenges. He had hip surgery before his rookie year began. Then he had another hip injury in his second season.Looney had never missed a game in college or high school, and called the injuries “devastating.”“We didn’t know what we had,” Kerr said, noting that the team did not pick up Looney’s contract option for a fourth season because he had not played much. He continued: “And then his third year he has a great year, it’s like, uh oh, we might lose this guy.”Looney is relishing the chance to have an impact during the playoffs. He had 10 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists in Game 1 against Dallas, also a Golden State victory.Kyle Terada/USA Today Sports, via ReutersLooney was keenly aware of the questions the organization had about him, but he took solace in the support from his teammates.“Always got the respect from my teammates, and that made me keep going, that made me feel good about myself and know that I’m doing the right thing,” Looney said. “Even if the fans — you might have a bad game, the fans might say you’re not good enough, somebody might say you’re not good enough — but when you’ve got your teammates saying, like, ‘Man I don’t care what the stat lines say, I want to be out there with Loon,’ it’s a great honor.”Looney was inactive throughout the playoffs for his first two seasons. But in his third season, he began to have a significant role for the Warriors and contributed to their 2017-18 championship run. He often defended the best players.Now 26, he’s a veteran on a team that has incorporated young guys who are experiencing their first playoff runs. Looney knows what that felt like and tries to help guide them through the process.And if Golden State wins another championship this year, it will feel a little bit more special, given his contributions.“To make an impact, and start a lot of these games, playoff games, be there for the team, have some big roles in playoff moments, this’ll mean a lot to me,” Looney said. “It’ll just be kind of like the cherry on top to be able to close it out and win and be there for my team.” More

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      Golden State’s Andrew Wiggins Isn’t the Bust You Thought He Was

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      Wiggins, the No. 1 overall draft pick in 2014, had developed a reputation as a bust. Coming to Golden State has helped him finally tap his potential.SAN FRANCISCO — Reputations tend to stick if they ring true and, for a while, Andrew Wiggins’s reputation in the N.B.A. was that he was a bust.For years, the word on Wiggins, a former No. 1 pick, was that he was inconsistent. That he was bad at defense. That he didn’t care.The Cleveland Cavaliers had drafted him first overall in 2014 but traded him to the Minnesota Timberwolves less than two months later. More than five seasons in Minnesota bore little fruit, and after the Timberwolves went to the playoffs only once during that period they sent Wiggins to Golden State.His latest stop, though, has changed things for Wiggins. Wednesday night offered one more example of his progression.Golden State made a statement in the opening game of the Western Conference finals, leading the Dallas Mavericks by 30 points in the fourth quarter and winning, 112-87. Golden State’s point total wasn’t exceptionally high, but its defense propelled its victory.Wiggins was a big part of that. The Warriors asked Wiggins to be their primary defender on the All-Star guard Luka Doncic, and Wiggins made sure Doncic didn’t hurt Golden State in the way he had hurt the Mavericks’ previous playoff opponents.“That’s why he was the No. 1 pick,” Golden State’s Klay Thompson said of Wiggins. “You can’t teach that athleticism. You can’t teach that length. You can’t teach his timing. I’m just happy the world is getting to see who he really is.”Wiggins 8 of 17 from the field on Wednesday, including three 3-pointers.Thearon W. Henderson/Getty ImagesDoncic finished the game with 20 points, only one more than Wiggins and only 2 of them after the first half. He also committed seven turnovers and had only four assists. Doncic suggested after the game that an achy shoulder had played a role in his performance, saying it was causing him pain when he shot the ball, but added that he would be fine with some treatment.But part of Golden State’s plan was to wear him out, and it was Wiggins’s job to do it.“He took the challenge, and Luka’s tough,” Warriors guard Stephen Curry said. “He still finds a way to control possessions. You’ve got to assume he’ll shoot a little bit better, but Wiggs was relentless. Every possession, he was out there on him. That’s all we really want. Even if Luka has his numbers, you just want to, at the end of the day, feel like he had to work for everything he got.”On Most possessions, Wiggins would start guarding Doncic in the backcourt, not allowing him to easily bring the ball up the court. Asked after the game if that all-court effort had tired him out, Wiggins shrugged and offered a half smile.“I feel like I’m still young,” said Wiggins, who is 27. “I don’t really get too tired. I’m locked in. I’m motivated. And when you see it work or I feel like it’s helping us play better, it just motivates me to do it more.”Said Thompson: “He just doesn’t seem to get tired.”Thompson appreciated the effort more than most: the way Wiggins has been playing, he said, took some pressure off him.“I don’t have to check the best player every night again,” said Thompson, who was known for his defense before missing the past two seasons with leg injuries. “Especially after what I’ve been through, it’s a nice change of pace.”The 87 points the Mavericks scored were the lowest opponent total against Golden State this postseason. The Warriors have held opponents below 100 points three other times during the playoffs this year; each time, they have won.The Mavericks had great success from 3-point range in earlier rounds, but made only 3 of 19 3-pointers in the first quarter Wednesday, and finished the game 11 for 48 from behind the arc. Those misses came from throughout their roster — it wasn’t only Doncic who struggled offensively. But Doncic is the player who drives the Mavericks, so his struggles loom larger.After the final buzzer, Doncic let out a long exhale as he walked through the tunnel toward the visiting locker room at Chase Center. He wore a T-shirt over his uniform because he hadn’t played the final five minutes; by then, the game was too far out of hand for playing him to be worth the risk. His face was marked by an inadvertent red scratch from Wiggins, several inches long, from the right side of his nose down his cheek.The Mavericks have a habit of losing big and recovering. They lost to the Phoenix Suns by 30 points in Game 5 of the Western Conference semifinals before beating them by 27 in Game 6 and by 33 in Game 7. Several Mavericks players on Wednesday spoke after the game about expecting a much better performance from Doncic during Game 2 on Friday.“We’re under no illusion we’ve figured anything out,” Golden State Coach Steve Kerr said.What they have figured out, and are glad others are seeing now, is that Wiggins has tapped into a part of his potential that might have been dormant, or at least less obvious in previous seasons.Thompson said being with Golden State has allowed Wiggins to be himself. Curry said he’s learning how to win.Wiggins said the winning culture of Golden State cultivated by players like Stephen Curry, center, has helped him “see a different side of the game.”Harry How/Getty Images“Wiggs is understanding the nuances of what winning basketball is and just how to key in on the little things in terms of consistent effort from the defense, taking those one-on-one challenges, being aggressive on the offensive end, using his athletic ability to get to the rim if he needs to, confidence shooting the 3; being comfortable in our offense,” Curry said. “So there’s a lot of different things that he’s understanding that this time, in terms of a playoff run, requires to win games and the joy that comes with it.”Wiggins passed the credit for that right back to Curry, Thompson and Draymond Green, who all won three championships and went to five straight N.B.A. finals together.“It helps me see a different side of the game,” Wiggins said. “Being here, the culture, the people, organization, most importantly, just being around winners.”A winner was not a label attached to Wiggins much at the start of his career, but during these playoffs he has showed more and more that it fits. 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      Dallas Mavericks Stun the Phoenix Suns in Game 7 Upset

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      The Suns had the best record in the N.B.A. in the regular season, and went to the finals last year. This time, they couldn’t make it out of the second round of the playoffs.A Game 7 in the N.B.A. playoffs is supposed to be the most thrilling, intense type of game, where the high stakes bring out the best in both teams.It doesn’t always work out that way, but rarely does a team crumble as thoroughly as the Phoenix Suns did Sunday night.By halftime, Suns fans sat slumped in their seats, the Suns’ players wore blank looks as they sat on the bench and the Mavericks’ Luka Doncic could not stop laughing.Phoenix’s catastrophe was well underway.The top-seeded Suns lost to No. 4-seeded Dallas, 123-90, in Game 7 of their Western Conference semifinals series in Phoenix. Dallas, which led by 46 points in the second half and never trailed, will face Golden State on Wednesday in San Francisco in Game 1 of the conference finals.The Suns dominated the regular season and set a franchise record for wins with one goal in mind: return to the N.B.A. finals for a second straight year — and win the championship this time.Now, they won’t even get a chance to try.“I know they didn’t want to play that way,” Suns Coach Monty Williams said. “We basically played the worst game of the season tonight. That group has a lot of character and integrity. I know how bad they wanted it.”He added: “Dallas played their tails off from start to finish.”Doncic scored 35 points with 10 rebounds and 4 assists, without playing at all in the fourth quarter. Spencer Dinwiddie added 30 points for Dallas, and Jalen Brunson scored 24.“I can’t get this smile off my face right now,” Doncic said after the game. “I’m just really happy.”Game 7 between the Suns and Mavericks was the first time the road team won in the series. The Suns had beaten the Mavericks by an average of 19 points per game in the previous three games in Phoenix.On Sunday, though, being at home offered no boost for Phoenix.By halftime, the Suns had eight assists and seven turnovers. Their entire team had scored 27 points — just as many as Doncic had during the first half. Devin Booker and Chris Paul, their offensive leaders, had made none of their 11 field goal attempts.“Some of the pressure was probably on them early because they missed some shots that they normally make,” Mavericks Coach Jason Kidd said.Booker finished with 11 points and Paul with 10. Center Deandre Ayton played only 17 minutes 27 seconds, and scored 5 points.For Phoenix, the loss ended a season that began ominously when the N.B.A. started investigating Robert Sarver, the owner of the Suns and the W.N.B.A.’s Phoenix Mercury, after current and former employees accused him of racist, sexist and otherwise inappropriate behavior. The results of the investigation have not been announced.On the court, it was the Suns’ most promising season in 12 years. They were nearly unbeatable, going 64-18 during the regular season.They lost three out of their first four games, but then went on an 18-game winning streak that included two wins over the Mavericks and one over Golden State. The Suns set the franchise single-season wins record with their 63rd victory, which came against the Los Angeles Lakers in a game that knocked the Lakers out of playoff contention.The Suns were led by two All-Star guards: the 25-year-old Booker, and the 37-year-old Paul, in his 17th N.B.A. season. Last season marked the first time Paul had ever been to the N.B.A. finals.Suns wing Mikal Bridges finished second in voting for the league’s Defensive Player of the Year Award, and Williams was named coach of the year.Dallas’ Luka Doncic, left, scored 27 points in the first half. So did the Phoenix Suns.Christian Petersen/Getty ImagesAs the playoffs approached, Williams worked to balance his desire to rest players, heading into what they expected to be a long playoff run, with a need to keep them playing for momentum heading into the postseason.They lost four of their last six games, but still entered the playoffs as heavy favorites as the No. 1 seed.Right from the start their path was rockier than expected. They took six games to beat the New Orleans Pelicans, who had sneaked into the playoffs through the play-in tournament after having the ninth-best record in the West.The Suns have the most wins and finals appearances of any N.B.A. team that has not won a championship.Last season, Phoenix made its third trip to the finals and fell to the Milwaukee Bucks, losing four consecutive times after winning the first two games.The Bucks also were eliminated from the playoffs on Sunday, losing a Game 7 to the Boston Celtics, who will face the top-seeded Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference finals starting Tuesday. More