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    Trae Young and Jaylen Brown Feel the Heat of NBA Stardom

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    Atlanta’s Trae Young, Boston’s Jaylen Brown and the Nets’ Mikal Bridges are learning to handle the praise and the pressure of rising stardom.The crowd at TD Garden in Boston was serenading the star Atlanta Hawks guard Trae Young with chants of “overrated!” It was late in Game 2 of Atlanta’s first-round playoff series against the Celtics, and the Hawks were down by double digits and well on their way to another loss in the series.It was a far cry from just two years ago, when Young was the up-and-coming N.B.A. darling who unexpectedly led the Hawks to the Eastern Conference finals after the team had missed the postseason three years in a row. This time, Young gave the Celtics fits — averaging 29.2 points and 10.2 assists over the series — but Boston dumped Young’s Hawks from the playoffs in six games.Now Young, who just finished his fifth season, is facing an existential challenge more daunting than any one playoff round: the Narrative. It once made him a star. It can also take that distinction away.“I understand there’s always the fiction in the narrative of, ‘That’s the superstar; that’s where he should be; and X, Y, Z,’” Hawks General Manager Landry Fields said in an interview before Game 4 against Boston. “And I understand that from the broader perspective. But for us internally, we see Trae, the human. Trae, the man. And how is he continuously taking his game 1 percent better, 2 percent better over time? So the expectation is really to grow.”In basketball, where individual players arguably have more impact on the game than in any other team sport, stars become lightning rods as they become more established, and playoff failures are magnified further. Every year, the Narrative adjusts its star player pecking order based on some amorphous combination of stats, team success and factors out of the player’s control, such as injuries. Narrative Setters — loosely defined as the news media, fans and league observers, like players, coaches and executives — shape the perception of a player’s evolution from rising star to star with expectations.Players like Young, 24, and Boston’s Jaylen Brown, 26 — top-five draft picks and two-time All-Stars — are undergoing this transition as so many other top-level players would expect. But others, like Nets forward Mikal Bridges, 26, have been thrust into the metamorphosis unexpectedly.Atlanta Hawks guard Trae Young, center, scored at least 30 points in four of the six games against Boston in their first-round playoff series.Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images“Consistency, your work ethic and your confidence puts you in that category,” said Gilbert Arenas, a former N.B.A. All-Star turned podcast host. “Now, what ends up happening is it’s outside influence that puts: ‘Oh, he needs to win a championship. He needs to do this.’ But reality will speak different. If my team is not a championship team, then that goal is unrealistic. So as a player, you don’t really put those pressures on you.”If a player fails, criticism often loudly follows. On ESPN’s TV panels. On Reddit. On Twitter. In living rooms. At bars. Through arena jeers and chants of “overrated.” On podcasts like the one Arenas hosts.By his mid-20s, Arenas, a second-round draft pick in 2001, had come out of nowhere to make three All-N.B.A. and three All-Star teams and was one of the most exciting young players in the league. But injuries dogged him for the rest of his career, and his decision to jokingly bring a gun into the Wizards locker room marred his reputation. With minimal playoff success for Arenas, the Narrative switched to questions about his maturity and his commitment to the game.Jeff Van Gundy, the ESPN analyst and former coach, said criticism and greater expectations usually came when a player signed a big contract or regressed after playoff success. He added that stars were also judged on their attitudes with coaches, teammates and referees.Young’s name surfaced in trade rumors on the eve of the playoffs, even though he is in the first year of a maximum contract extension. Young said in an interview on TNT that he “can’t control all the outside noise.”“I can only control what I can control, and that’s what I do on this court and for my teammates,” he continued, adding, “let everything else take care of itself.”He is on his third permanent head coach in the last three seasons, and while his regular-season offensive stats are stellar (26.2 points and 10.2 assists per game), teams often exploit him on defense. He was not named to the All-Star team this year.Young, of course, isn’t the only star with perpetually shifting perceptions. Some players are seen as ascending — like the Oklahoma City Thunder’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who carried his young team to the play-in tournament. Others players are on the dreaded descending side, like Dallas’s Luka Doncic, who failed to make the playoffs a year after going to the Western Conference finals.Gilgeous-Alexander, Doncic and Young are all the same age, but Doncic and Young receive far more criticism, despite their superior résumés. If that sounds illogical, welcome to sports fandom, said Paul Pierce, a Hall of Famer who hosts a podcast for Showtime.“This is what comes with this,” Pierce said. “Guys get paid millions of dollars, so we can voice our opinions.”In the 2000s, Pierce emerged as one of the best young players in the N.B.A. He was a 10-time All-Star, but short playoff runs prompted some to say he was overrated. He quieted most critics when he helped lead the Celtics to a championship in 2008 alongside Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen.“Most players who reached the star status were players who come up in the league,” Pierce said. “They were McDonald’s All-Americans. They were the top player in their high school. So they expect to be in that position. So for me, I was like, ‘Shoot, I’m going to get there eventually.’”Bridges, the Nets guard, stepped into the spotlight after Phoenix traded him to the Nets in February as part of a deal for Kevin Durant. He was a reliable starter in Phoenix, but in Brooklyn, the fifth-year guard was thrust into the role of No. 1 option. He averaged a career-best 26.1 points per game in 27 games with the Nets while remaining one of the best defensive guards in the league.But the Nets quickly fell into a 2-0 series hole in their first-round playoff matchup with the Philadelphia 76ers. In an interview before Game 3, Bridges said he couldn’t worry about outsiders’ opinions. “You can’t control what they feel and think about you all,” Bridges said. “All you control is how hard you work and what you do, and personally, I know I work hard.”Mikal Bridges, left, suddenly became the No. 1 scoring option for the Nets after the Phoenix Suns traded him to the team in February for Kevin Durant.Sarah Stier/Getty ImagesBridges played well during the series, but the Nets as a whole struggled to generate offense, and defenders keyed in on Bridges. The Sixers swept the Nets, the last victory coming in Brooklyn. Afterward, Bridges told reporters that he needed to get better and promised his team that he would. “I love my guys to death, and I told them that’s just on me,” he said. “I told them I’m sorry I couldn’t come through.”For Brown, the Celtics star, the disappointment came last year, when his team lost to Golden State in the N.B.A. finals. This season, his career highs in points and rebounds have made him a strong contender to make his first All-N.B.A. team. He has always been viewed as a dynamic wing, and the Celtics have never missed the playoffs during his seven-year career. Now the Celtics are the odds-on favorite to make the N.B.A. finals from the East — especially with Milwaukee’s having lost in the first round — and Brown has, at times, been their best player.“When I was younger in my career, I was the guy looking to make a name in the playoffs, looking to gain some notoriety,” Brown said.He has done that. But that means it’s no longer enough for him to be simply dynamic. He has to carry the franchise, alongside the four-time All-Star guard Jayson Tatum.“Part of his ascension is he’s really talented,” the Celtics’ president, Brad Stevens, said. “Part of it is he has got a great hunger. And part of it is he works regardless of if he had success or hit a rough spot.” He continued: “Then I think part of it is he’s been on good teams all the way through. And so, then you have a responsibility of, like, doing all that.”Players often say they don’t feel external pressure to meet outsiders’ expectations. But then there’s the pressure from their co-workers.“All of us want to be the best N.B.A. player ever,” said Darius Miles, a former N.B.A. forward. “All of us want to be Hall of Famers. All of us want to be All-Stars. And once you get in the league, you want all the accolades. So that’s enough pressure alone on yourself that you have.”Boston’s Jaylen Brown averaged a career-best 26.6 points per game this season, helping the Celtics secure the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference.Brynn Anderson/Associated PressThe Clippers drafted Miles No. 3 overall in 2000; 15 picks later, they also took Quentin Richardson. Together, they made the previously adrift franchise exciting and culturally relevant. But injuries derailed Miles’s career. Decades later, the two close friends, like Arenas and Pierce, are Narrative Setters themselves as co-hosts of a podcast.“I think going to the Clippers, being the worst team in the N.B.A., we wanted to be accepted by the rest of the N.B.A.,” said Miles, who hosts a Players’ Tribune podcast with Richardson. “We wanted to be accepted by our peers. We want to be accepted by the other players, to show that we were good enough players to play on that level.”Pierce said social media had added a different dimension to how stars are perceived.“I really feel like social media turned N.B.A. stardom and took a lot of competitive drive out of the game,” Pierce said. “Because people are more worried about how they look and their image and their brand and their business now. Before it was just about competing. It was about wanting to win a championship. Now everybody’s a business.”But social media can also provide a much-needed and visible boost to young stars in their best moments. In Game 5 against the Celtics, Young went off for 38 points and 13 assists, stretching the series for one more game. Sixers center Joel Embiid tweeted, “This is some good hoops!!!” and added the hashtag for Young’s nickname: #IceTrae. It was a glimpse of the kind of play that has made Young so popular: His jersey is a top seller, and he was invited to make a guest appearance at a W.W.E. event in 2021.Rising stars, Van Gundy said, are always going to have ups and downs as they develop.“If your expectations are never a dip in either individual or team success, yes, that’s a standard that is ripe to always be negative,” he said. But, he added, “if your expectations are that guys play when they’re healthy, they do it with a gratefulness, a genuine joy and a team-first attitude — no, I don’t think that’s too much to expect.” More

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      Dallas Mavericks Fined $750,000 for ‘Desire to Lose’ a Game

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      The N.B.A. fined the team for resting players and making statements that indicated it did not want to win against the Chicago Bulls this month.The Dallas Mavericks were fined $750,000 by the N.B.A. on Friday for playing a weakened lineup in a game in an effort to miss the postseason and hang on to a first-round draft pick.The Mavericks sat out five of their best players for their second-to-last game of the season, against the Chicago Bulls on April 7. Kyrie Irving, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Maxi Kleber were reported to be injured, while Josh Green and Christian Wood were said to need rest. The team’s biggest star, Luka Doncic, played just 13 minutes at the beginning of the game.The remaining Mavericks lost the game, 115-112, and were eliminated from a chance to qualify for a play-in game.“It’s not so much waving the white flag,” Coach Jason Kidd told reporters after the game. “It’s decisions sometimes are hard in this business. We’re trying to build a championship team. With this decision, this is maybe a step back. But hopefully it leads to going forward.”By missing the play-in, the Mavericks qualified for the draft lottery, giving them a chance at a high draft pick, or even No. 1. In addition, the Mavericks have a first-round pick in the draft that they would have to surrender to the Knicks should it fall outside the top 10. By missing the postseason, they give themselves a good chance to hang on to it.Doncic was on the bench in street clothes during the second half of the April 7 game against the Bulls. Dallas lost by 3 points.Tony Gutierrez/Associated PressThe Mavericks “demonstrated through actions and public statements the organization’s desire to lose the game in order to improve the chances of keeping its first-round pick in the 2023 N.B.A. draft,” the league said in a statement on Friday.“The league did not find that the players who participated in the game were not playing to win,” the statement said. Doncic and other players had been vocal about wanting to keep playing and trying to win as long as there was a chance to make the postseason.The Mavericks’ actions “undermined the integrity of our sport,” said Joe Dumars, the league’s head of basketball operations. “The Mavericks’ actions failed our fans and our league.”Last season, the Mavericks had a 52-30 record and advanced to the Western Conference finals. This year, with the team just 28-26 in early February, hopes were raised by a trade for Irving from the Nets. Though Irving averaged 27 points in 20 games for the Mavs, the team got worse and finished just 38-44.In 2018, the Mavericks’ owner, Mark Cuban, was fined $600,000 for saying on a podcast that “losing is our best option” when the team was out of the playoff mix. More

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      Luka Doncic Makes Basketball Look Easy. It’s Not.

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      SALT LAKE CITY — Luka Doncic couldn’t sleep after playing the game of his life. None of the N.B.A.’s one-name greats — Wilt, Kobe, Jordan, LeBron — had ever managed a night quite like his. He was exhausted, but tossed and turned in his bed for hours, then got up to channel his energy into playing the video game Overwatch until the sun rose.Everything had gone right that December night: 60 points, 21 rebounds, 10 assists, an overtime win for his Dallas Mavericks against the Knicks at home. He wows crowds without appearing to break a sweat.“It’s hard every game,” Doncic said recently in an interview at his hotel on the road. “People say that it looks easy, but it’s not easy, trust me.”He smiled. “Maybe it looks easy because I’m slow,” he said.Doncic, who is from Slovenia, came to the N.B.A. five years ago as both a known commodity and a mysterious figure, already a superstar in the EuroLeague but still a media-shy teenager trying to find his way.At 23 years old — “I’m 22, no, 23, about to be 24,” Doncic said — he embodies the N.B.A.’s decades-long effort to have global reach.“Luka plays at the highest level with joy, passion and creativity,” N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver said. “He’s an exemplar of this new wave of international stars who are influencing the game in their own unique way.”Mavericks Coach Jason Kidd said Doncic, above, has a “cheat code” for the game with his court vision.Tim Heitman/Getty ImagesDoncic received more than 5.5 million fan votes for the All-Star Game on Sunday night in Salt Lake City and will make his fourth consecutive appearance. His jersey ranks among the league’s top sellers. College teams and even some N.B.A. players play in his signature sneaker from Nike’s Jordan Brand line. And now, after Dallas traded with the Nets for Kyrie Irving this month, he may have the dynamic partner he has been missing as he has tried to lift the Mavericks to their first championship since 2011. He’s slowly stepping into the spotlight, opening up about how he got to this point — and where he wants to go.“I’d rather have the championship than M.V.P.,” he said, “but if you win an M.V.P., it’s amazing, too.”‘He didn’t have any fear’Doncic said he was nearly trembling when he became the youngest professional player to debut for Real Madrid in the Spanish basketball league at 16.He shot a 3-pointer in the closing moments of a game against Unicaja in 2015. “I don’t know how it went in,” Doncic said. “It was the 30th of April, my girlfriend’s birthday. So that’s a good day.”Doncic is now known for wanting the ball with the game on the line.“Some people are just put on the planet and they’re doing exactly what they’re supposed to do,” said Bill Duffy, Doncic’s agent, who has known him since he was 14.Those who recall Doncic’s early days in Slovenia describe his play as the merging of genetic gifts and tunnel-vision devotion. His father, Sasa Doncic, played professionally for years. He had “the greatest court vision,” said Damir Radenovic, who practiced with Sasa Doncic and is the marketing director for the Basketball Federation of Slovenia.Luka Doncic could always be found in his father’s shadow, begging to take shots during downtime or talking in the locker room. “He learned, maybe unconsciously, some of those veteran things,” said Marko Milic, a Mavericks assistant coach who was the first Slovene player drafted into the N.B.A., in 1997.Playing against children his own age was too easy for Doncic. Grega Brezovec coached an 8-year-old Doncic for about 13 minutes. “OK, Luka, this is not for you,” he recalled telling him before moving him up to a group of 12- to 14-year-olds.Doncic wanted to play so often that Jernej Smolnikar, another of his youth coaches, worried about how his prepubescent body would absorb some of the drills. He occasionally tried sending Doncic home, only for Doncic to plead with his parents to call Smolnikar to let him back on the court.At 13, Doncic left Slovenia, signing a five-year contract with Real Madrid.Doncic was a star for Real Madrid as a teenager. He was named the most valuable player of the Adidas Next Generation Tournament in 2015.Luca Sgamellotti/Euroleague Basketball, via Getty ImagesAlberto Angulo, a former Real Madrid player and director of the Real Madrid Academy, said in an interview in Spanish that Sasa Doncic saw it as a good development opportunity. Mirjam Poterbin, Luka’s mother, was more reluctant, he said.Doncic was wary of leaving the familiarity of his home and mulled the decision for months. “Then the last week came, I made a decision,” he said. “I just decided to.”Real Madrid had rules designed to build character in its young players — no hats in the dining room, finish your dinner, be on time. Doncic once overslept for a morning meeting. Coaches sat him the next game.“To punish a player, you take away what they love the most,” Angulo said.Doncic never overslept again. He wanted the chance to sharpen his game, Angulo said.“He didn’t have any fear — in fact the opposite — of bringing in a player that could be better than him or take minutes away from him,” Angulo said. “He thought, ‘No, no no, if he’s good, he’ll make me better.’”Doncic was named the most valuable player of the under-16 Spain championship. But Doncic said he missed his friends and being home.“So that’s one part I’m never going to get back, but I think it’s worked,” he said.He added: “If I had it to do again, I would do it.”‘That’s the cheat code’In every N.B.A. generation, a player or two can see the future. In the 1980s, it was Magic Johnson. In the 1990s, there were Jason Kidd and Steve Nash. Then LeBron James and Chris Paul came along. Now it’s Doncic who can see a play or two ahead.“It’s not all about speeding,” Doncic said. “Obviously, speeding would be even better. But it’s just the angles, the timings.”He isn’t fast like other top guards, but he said his legs give him an edge for getting into advantageous positions. “I was just born like this,” he said. “My father is like this. His legs are really strong. The trainers call them tree-trunk legs.”Dorian Finney-Smith, who signed with the Mavericks two years before Doncic was drafted, laughed as he recalled the origins of Doncic’s now trademark step-back shot. Doncic tried one in a game. Rick Carlisle, then Dallas’s coach, said it a was bad shot and told Doncic to put it where the sun doesn’t shine, Finney-Smith said.“Against the Sixers, he came out, made three in a row,” Finney-Smith said. “Nobody else said nothing else about that step-back.”Kidd, who took over as Mavericks coach last season, said he could tell Doncic viewed the game the way he did from their first game together.Doncic has one of the top-selling jerseys in the N.B.A.Jake Dockins for The New York TimesDoncic leads the N.B.A. in scoring, with 33.3 points per game.Jake Dockins for The New York TimesA defender had ducked under a screen. Kidd called a timeout, but before he spoke, Doncic told him that he had seen it and would take advantage of it.“That’s the cheat code, and some are born with it, some are not and some can take it to a different level,” Kidd said.Doncic plays dominoes with Kidd on team plane rides, and he loves chess. He plays on his phone so often that Chess.com recently partnered with him. “I always say basketball, you try to play like chess,” Doncic said. “We’re trying to anticipate opponents’ moves and read the game.”Kidd likes to push Doncic. He has jokingly asked him if he can pull a Klay Thompson and score 60 points on just 11 dribbles.“When you have a Picasso-like player, you got to challenge him in other ways to be successful because there could be boredom,” Kidd said. “Because he’s seen everything.”‘He markets himself’The Phoenix Suns trailed badly in Game 7 of the 2022 Western Conference semifinals. By halftime, Doncic had as many points as all of the Suns. As he leaned over in one moment, he looked up at Suns guard Devin Booker and grinned, creating a cutting and defining meme for the Dallas victory. He has racked up dozens of technical fouls in his career, but not this time. “I was like just: ‘Don’t blow this, please. Let’s not do this,’” Doncic said.Dallas lost to the Golden State Warriors, the eventual champions, in the conference finals.“It was really hard to win against them,” Doncic said. “We won only one game. But you can learn from them. You can learn from losses.”He also had a brief chance to learn from a Dallas legend: Dirk Nowitzki, 44, who retired from the Mavericks after Doncic’s rookie season. Nowitzki, who is from Germany, said he initially wondered if he belonged in the N.B.A. But he was a trendsetter for international players thriving in the league.“If you look at some of the M.V.P. candidates now with Jokic, Giannis and Luka in the mix now every year, that already tells you where European basketball is at the moment,” Nowitzki said, referring to Nikola Jokic of Serbia and Giannis Antetokounmpo of Greece. He added of Doncic: “He’s tons of fun to be around. He’s cheeky, he’s funny and he’s got a good heart.”Dirk Nowitzki, right, played for Dallas for 21 seasons. He set the stage for international players like Doncic, left, to thrive in the N.B.A.Tom Pennington/Getty ImagesDoncic is steering the N.B.A.’s future.“His play supersedes everything,” Mark Cuban, the owner of the Mavericks, wrote in an email. “We don’t really have to market him. He markets himself.”The rapper Bad Bunny frequently mentions Doncic in his music. “When you hear your name in a song from Bad Bunny, it’s amazing,” Doncic said.Doncic recently went viral after he came to a game in a doomsday-looking Apocalypse HellFire truck. He’d been wanting a six-wheeler like it for a long time. He used to stand in the street, marveling at the cars here; they’re much nicer than in Slovenia, he said.But he said his life is low-key.Doncic and his girlfriend, Anamaria Goltes, have known each other since they were children. They share three dogs, Hugo, Gia and Viki, who help Doncic escape from the game he has chased all his life.“They don’t know if you had good or bad game,” Doncic said. “They’re just happy to see you. So they bring a real joy to my life.”He already has his retirement planned out.Doncic wants to farm.“It’s slow,” he said.James Wagner More

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      Nets Trading Kyrie Irving to Dallas Mavericks After His Request to Leave

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      Irving’s tenure with the Nets was marred by his refusal to be vaccinated for the coronavirus and his posting of a link to an antisemitic film. In Dallas, he will join the superstar Luka Doncic.Kyrie Irving is on his way out of Brooklyn after three and a half scandal-filled years in which the Nets fell way short of realizing their aspirations of seriously contending for an N.B.A. championship.The Nets reached an agreement on Sunday to trade Irving to the Dallas Mavericks, according to three people familiar with the situation. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the trade had not yet been announced and they were not authorized to speak publicly about it.The Nets were expected to receive Spencer Dinwiddie, 29, a guard who played five seasons with the Nets from 2016-21; forward Dorian-Finney Smith, 29; a first-round pick in 2029; and multiple second-round picks, two of the people said. The Mavericks will also receive the veteran forward Markieff Morris from the Nets, one of the people said.The deal could help the Mavericks (28-26) rise enough in the tightly contested Western Conference to contend for a championship this season.Irving, a dynamic point guard with a history of social activism, has also embraced controversy and conspiracy. He is in the final year of his contract with the Nets and had been hoping to work out a contract extension. With little progress on a deal, he asked the Nets to trade him last week, according to a person familiar with Irving’s request who was not authorized to speak publicly about it.On Jan. 26, Shetellia Riley Irving, his agent and stepmother, made public that his contract negotiations were not progressing.“I have reached out to the Nets regarding this,” she told Bleacher Report in January. “We have had no significant conversations to date. The desire is to make Brooklyn home, with the right type of extension, which means the ball is in the Nets’ court to communicate now if their desire is the same.”Irving and the star forward Kevin Durant signed with the Nets as free agents in 2019, hoping their talent could help lead the Nets to an N.B.A. championship. But Irving’s time with the Nets was tumultuous. He played in only 143 of the Nets’ 278 regular-season games while on their roster.When the two players signed with the Nets, Durant was still recovering from rupturing an Achilles’ tendon in the 2019 N.B.A. finals with Golden State. Durant then missed the entire 2019-20 season. After having an operation on his right shoulder, Irving missed the end of that season, which the N.B.A. ended in a so-called bubble on the Walt Disney World campus in Florida because of the coronavirus pandemic.The Nets lost a first-round series in the 2020 playoffs. In 2021, they lost an Eastern Conference semifinal series to the eventual champion Milwaukee Bucks in seven games.Last season, Irving played in only 29 of the Nets’ 82 games because he would not get vaccinated against the coronavirus despite New York City’s vaccine requirement for private sector employees. The Nets initially said they would not allow Irving to play for them at all while he was ineligible for home games. But in January 2021, they changed course and allowed him to join the team on the road..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source.Learn more about our process.Irving’s stance irritated a teammate, the star guard James Harden, who joked that he would vaccinate Irving himself, but then asked for a trade. Harden was traded to the Philadelphia 76ers in February 2022 for Ben Simmons, who did not play for the rest of that season because of his mental and physical health.The Nets were swept by the Boston Celtics, the eventual conference champions, in the first round of the 2022 playoffs.After that series, Irving and Durant flirted with leaving the organization. Irving was given the opportunity to find a trade partner, but ultimately he opted into the final year of his contract. Last June, Durant asked for a trade, but the Nets did not find a trade they thought suited them.Despite having Simmons, Durant and Irving all available for the start of this season, the Nets lost six of their first eight games.During that time, Irving posted a link to an antisemitic film on his social media accounts. A reporter from Rolling Stone wrote that the film’s message centered on antisemitic tropes, and Irving was in trouble again. Irving faced backlash from Jewish leaders and the Nets owner Joe Tsai, who said on Twitter that he was disappointed Irving had linked to the movie and wanted to sit down with him so that he understood the hurt he had caused.In a news conference in late October, Irving defended posting the film. The Nets kept Irving away from reporters for the next two games, and on Nov. 2 he released a statement with the Anti-Defamation League saying he would donate $500,000 to anti-hate causes.But the next day, Irving addressed reporters after a practice and refused to apologize for posting the film or to disavow antisemitism.The Nets suspended Irving later that day and said the suspension would last at least five games. He missed eight games and was allowed to return to the team after he apologized. Around that time, on Nov. 1, the Nets fired Steve Nash, who had been their head coach since September 2020, and hired Jacque Vaughn, who had been Nash’s assistant.When Irving has played, he has shown his value on the court. He has averaged 27.2 points per game since his return, and the Nets have gone 22-10 with him in the lineup since then. The Nets (32-20) are fourth in the Eastern Conference. Durant has missed the Nets’ past 12 games with a knee injury. The Nets have gone 5-7 without him.On Saturday, a day after Irving requested the trade, the Nets sat Irving with what they said was a calf injury. Still, the Nets notched a thrilling 125-123 victory over the Washington Wizards with 44 points from a reserve player, Cam Thomas.The Athletic was first to report Irving’s agreement with Dallas on Sunday. He is leaving one superstar in Durant to join another in the Mavericks’ Luka Doncic. A 6-foot-7 guard, Doncic, 23, has been named an N.B.A. All-Star four times and was the league’s rookie of the year in 2019.Doncic played better at the beginning of this season than he had at the start of any of his previous seasons. His 33.4 points per game average ranked second in the league behind Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid entering Sunday. Doncic has not yet averaged more than 30 points per game in a complete season.In December against the Knicks, Doncic became the first player in N.B.A. history to score 60 points with 20 rebounds and 10 assists in one game. Earlier this season, he averaged 40.2 points per game during a 10-game stretch.Despite Doncic’s play, the Mavericks have struggled. They lacked enough depth to contend with injuries to key players. Maxi Kleber, a forward and center, had surgery on his hamstring in December. Christian Wood, who is also a frontcourt player, has missed the Mavericks’ last eight games with a fractured thumb.Dallas has won four of its last 11 games. The Mavericks are in sixth place in the Western Conference, but had only one fewer win than the third-place Sacramento Kings entering Sunday. More

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      Luka Doncic Is Scoring More and Playing When He Doesn’t Have To

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      Even in pickup games, Doncic is showing a leap compared with last season, which ended with a disappointing exit in the Western Conference finals.LOS ANGELES — Jared Dudley, an assistant coach for the Dallas Mavericks, put together a pickup game earlier this month when his team had an official day off.He invited players who usually don’t see much time on the floor, including Jaden Hardy, Theo Pinson and Frank Ntilikina, as well as A.J. Lawson, who had been on the team for less than a month. The goal was to get them a few extra minutes to play, and to let Dudley and other coaches help them build up the informal dynamics of working together.As Dudley organized the game, Luka Doncic noticed. “I want to play,” he said.Dudley was stunned because, in his experience, star players rarely add on to their workload in this way.He wondered if it was a good idea because Doncic had played 43 minutes (and scored 43 points) the previous night in a loss to the Clippers. But the team’s medical staff approved, so he let Doncic play.“Just loves to hoop,” Dudley said.Doncic’s passion has shown in the games that count, too.It had been clear since Doncic was drafted into the N.B.A. in 2018 that he was a special player. But five seasons in, he seems to have taken a superstar leap. Entering Friday, Doncic led the league with 33.7 points per game and was fifth in assists per game with 8.8. By his own evaluation, he came into the season more prepared than he has in seasons past, perhaps motivated by losing to Golden State in the Western Conference finals last season.“Until you win the championship, I think it always has to push you,” Doncic said. “And it will for me for sure.”On Jan. 11, when Doncic insisted on playing in the unnecessary pickup game in Los Angeles, he was in the midst of an astounding stretch of basketball.The next day he scored 35 points against the Lakers, which put his average over a 10-game stretch to 40.2 points. During that span, he scored 60 points against the Knicks, put up 51 against the San Antonio Spurs and had 50 against the Houston Rockets.Doncic scored 51 against the Spurs in a Dec. 31 game.Ronald Cortes/Getty ImagesAgainst the Knicks, Doncic also had 21 rebounds and 10 assists, making him the first player in N.B.A. history to have 60 points, 20 rebounds and 10 assists in a game.“The history of the game is written by the players, and it was written again tonight,” Mavericks Coach Jason Kidd said after the Knicks game. “For a player, Luka, doing something that’s never been done before, it’s hard to do.”Kidd added: “Elgin Baylor, Wilt, he was in that class, and then he separated himself and made his own class.”The Mavericks needed every bit of his performance. They won that game by only 5 points in overtime. Doncic scored 18 in the fourth quarter, adding 7 in overtime, which outscored the Knicks entirely.“This kid doesn’t quit,” Kidd said.Doncic passed 50 points in a game for the first time last season, when he had a 51-point effort against the Clippers in February.This season, the Mavericks need him to score more. They lost the reliable scorer Jalen Brunson in free agency when he signed with the Knicks, and have had to weather injuries to other key players.Doncic also spent the summer playing with the Slovenian national team, then returned to Dallas prepared to take a big step.“I was way more ready than last year at the start, so that was really the most important thing,” Doncic said.Dudley saw that in numerous ways. Doncic was in better shape. He was more aggressive in early games. He leads the league in first-quarter scoring, averaging 11.4 points during that period.“He plays the whole first quarter now because we can play him at a higher rate,” Dudley said. “We believe defensively he can keep up with that. And shooting at such a high percentage. I think as confidence grows, he knows what he is as a player, he knows no one can stop him.”Dudley, who played the final stretch of his N.B.A. career with LeBron James on the Lakers, sometimes uses James as an example for Doncic. He knows Doncic will respect learning about James, because he was one of Doncic’s favorite players growing up. James and Doncic traded jerseys during Doncic’s rookie year, and Doncic has that jersey hanging in his house in Dallas.The maturity he shows in his play makes it sometimes jarring in moments when that lapses.“He’s way wiser than his age; he acts like he’s been here before,” Mavericks forward Dorian Finney-Smith, 29, said. “But, you know, sometimes you forget he’s only 23 years old. You forget until he does something crazy like kick the ball all the way up into the stands. Then you’re like, OK, all right. He’s 23.”Doncic and Dorian Finney-Smith have bonded over pickup games.LM Otero/Associated PressTo be fair, Doncic hasn’t been fined for kicking the ball into the stands since 2019. But he does have a quick temper on the court. He has been assessed 10 technical fouls this season, though one was rescinded.“Off the court, I’m not an angry person,” Doncic said with a smile.Finney-Smith has seen that up close.They became friends even though they came from very different places and started their N.B.A. careers in very different ways. Finney-Smith grew up in Portsmouth, Va., and joined the Mavericks as an undrafted free agent in 2016. Two years later, the Mavericks drafted Doncic, who had played professional basketball in Europe since he was 16, with the No. 3 overall pick.That off-season, Finney-Smith and Doncic spent a lot of time together and bonded over pickup games.“We worked out with each other a whole week straight, even on the weekends, and played ones all night, all day,” Finney-Smith said. “Played full court one-on-one.”Then, as now, Doncic just loved to hoop. More

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      Measuring Up to Wilt Chamberlain May Take More Than Stats

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      Several N.B.A. players have had Chamberlain-like performances this season. But to some, he will always be untouchable.From a courtside folding chair at Fiserv Forum, where Dick Garrett has assisted fans as a Milwaukee Bucks employee for more than two decades, he recently watched Giannis Antetokounmpo toy with the Washington Wizards, levitating above the rim as if he were frolicking in a slam-dunk contest.“Fifty-five points and he was doing it so easily, like no one could even challenge him,” Garrett said. “I’m thinking, ‘Geez, he’s a man playing against boys.’ ”Not unlike what he witnessed, but with an even better view, more than a half-century ago.Such physical dominance took Garrett back to his rookie N.B.A. season, 1969-70, with the Los Angeles Lakers. In a postseason run to a Game 7 finals loss to the Knicks, he lobbed passes into the post from his backcourt position to the man best known as Wilt, in that familiar one-name tribute to fame.This season, Antetokounmpo, among others, has been drawing enough statistical comparisons to Wilt Chamberlain — who scored a record 100 points in a game and averaged a mind-boggling 50 per game for a season — to wonder if the sport has ascended to its most exceptional athletic plane.Or, if its video-game mimicry is as much or more the result of competitive engineering.Take a significantly expanded area of attack due to rampant 3-point shooting; open up driving lanes to the physically blessed and skilled likes of Antetokounmpo to score or find open teammates on the perimeter. What you get is an array of eye-opening individual stat lines in a league where team scoring has soared by roughly 15 points from where it was a decade ago.On Dec. 30, Garrett watched Antetokounmpo manhandle the Minnesota Timberwolves for 43 points and 20 rebounds, two nights after notching 45 points and 22 rebounds against the Bulls in Chicago. Antetokounmpo’s seven assists in Chicago and five against Minnesota made him the first player to record at least 40 points, 20 rebounds and 5 assists in consecutive games since, well, Wilt.Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo is one of several players who have put up Wilt-like stat lines this season.Michael Reaves/Getty ImagesAntetokounmpo, with his seven-foot frame and elastic wingspan that can optically delude one into thinking he scratches the ceiling, is indeed what Garrett called the ringleader of a “big man revolution.”It hasn’t just been the tallest of the league’s elite — Antetokounmpo, Nikola Jokic in Denver, Joel Embiid in Philadelphia — whose statistical bingeing has reintroduced Chamberlain, who died in 1999, into the N.B.A. discourse.When Luka Doncic, Dallas’s 6-foot-7 do-everything Slovenian import, strafed the Knicks for 60 points, 21 rebounds and 10 assists in a comeback overtime victory late last month, commentators breathlessly noted that no one, not even Wilt, had ever posted such a line.Walt Frazier, the Hall of Fame guard who broadcasts Knicks games and once shared a backcourt with Garrett at Southern Illinois, has an idea why.“What you mostly see now are guys running up and down, dunking on people,” he said in a telephone interview. “Only a few teams buckle down on defense. They don’t double-team when someone goes off. When someone came in and dropped 40 on me, it was always, ‘Clyde got destroyed.’ Now Doncic scores 60 and no one even says who was guarding him.”Frazier, 77, was echoing recent laments on the state of the sport from the old-school coaches Gregg Popovich and Steve Kerr. It’s no surprise that appreciation, or lack thereof, for the contemporary N.B.A. would break down along generational lines. For those who played with or against Chamberlain, he is basketball’s Babe Ruth, the game’s all-time goliath. Everyone has a tale, perhaps on the tall side, to tell.Billy Cunningham, 79, a Hall of Famer and Chamberlain’s teammate with the Philadelphia 76ers, cited the night Gus Johnson, a very strong forward for the Baltimore Bullets, went at Wilt with every intention of dunking over him as he’d done earlier in the game.Chamberlain didn’t just block the shot, Cunningham said: “He actually caught the ball, and while Gus went to the floor, he just stood there holding it over his head.”However grainy the video, however dorky the short shorts, do not try to convince Cunningham and company that what Chamberlain achieved was the result of an ancient, inferior era. They will remind you that he averaged 45.8 minutes per game for his career and seldom sat one out, in stark contrast to the more coddled modern star — who, in fairness, represents a far greater financial investment to protect.But when a knee injury limited Chamberlain to 12 regular-season games in 1969-70, he returned for all 18 playoff games to average 22.1 points, 22.2 rebounds and 47.3 minutes per game. And this, Garrett reminded, was Chamberlain at 33, several years removed from when he could run like the track-and-field star he had been at the University of Kansas — as freakish an athlete as the Greek version, Antetokounmpo.Chamberlain and the Lakers lost to the Knicks in the N.B.A. finals in 1970 but beat them two years later, giving Chamberlain his second championship.Walter Iooss Jr./Sports Illustrated, via Getty ImagesIt is foolish to think that professional athletes aren’t physically enhanced from a half-century ago, if only for their weight training and nutrition. As Garrett said: “You look at the size of Giannis — who’s not as strong as Wilt or even Shaquille O’Neal. But he and a few of these other big guys, they’re athletic enough to play like smaller guys, and that’s what’s changed.”Having played with Elgin Baylor on the Lakers, and watched from up close the modern-day smaller and midsize players, Garrett said: “I honestly think the wing players and guards are pretty similar in what they do.”But, he added, in comparison with Wilt’s time: “The way Giannis and some others are scoring, the level of resistance is not the same. I don’t know if that’s for the better or not.”Now the league eagerly awaits the arrival of the latest in a parade of big men from abroad who have, along with the likes of Kevin Durant, dramatically altered positional perception. France’s Victor Wembanyama may be the next greatest thing or at least Kristaps Porzingis 2.0. But for every progression in size, skills and worldwide production of talent, the old guard will judiciously argue that their game was fundamentally sounder, tactically superior, defensively stouter.They will remind you that when Wilt averaged 50.4 points per game for the Philadelphia Warriors in 1961-62, team scoring was at 118.8 points per game — or five points per game higher than this season. And that was when there was hand-checking, hard fouls and other generous interpretations of traveling rules.Wilt established four of the top five season-scoring averages while clanking half his free throws and, as Cunningham noted, “when there were only eight or nine teams and he had to play against Bill Russell 10 times a year.”Conversely, in Wilt’s time, the flow of African American talent into the N.B.A. was limited by a de facto quota system, which no doubt affected the league’s overall quality.Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics posts up against Chamberlain during a game in 1968.Dick Raphael/NBAE, via Getty ImagesCunningham conceded that comparisons are, beyond futile, “almost unfair because everything is so different. The game in all sports now is about entertainment.”The bottom line: The more cash that pours into sports, the more tinkering there will be to satisfy contemporary highlight tastes, especially those of younger fans who drive internet clicks, fantasy leagues, merchandise sales and the newest revenue deity: online gambling. In a league where regular-season relevance has been dampened by injuries and load-management caution, and further diluted by recent postseason expansion, why so many games have taken on the eye candy nature of all-star games is no great mystery, just calculated marketing.For Frazier, who quarterbacked the acclaimed 1970 and 1973 championship Knicks, the playoffs are when the bridge between old and new is rebuilt. “That’s when the continuity and defense that we older guys love does return,” he said.Only then, perhaps, can we gain a meaningful perspective on the historical numbers game currently in play, and on how to more accurately measure the young wannabes against Wilt. More

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      NBA Has Sharp Rise in 50-Point Games

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      Donovan Mitchell’s 71 points in a game this week was the top mark since 2006, but a rise in offense (and a lack of defense) has made high-scoring games a routine affair.We don’t know who will do it, and we don’t know exactly when it will happen. But we do know that somebody sometime soon will score 50 points in an N.B.A. game. And then it will happen again. And again and again and again.The headlines have started to sound familiar. Giannis Antetokounmpo scored 55 on Jan. 3. Klay Thompson scored 54 and Donovan Mitchell scored 71 on Jan. 2. Luka Doncic scored 50 and 60 and 51. Pascal Siakam and Darius Garland have 50-point games this season. Lauri Markkanen just missed, with a 49-point game on Thursday. Who’s next? Kevon Looney?An event that was a rarity as little as a decade ago is now becoming commonplace, and this season in particular, players are going off for 50 or more regularly.Ten years ago, in 2012-13, only three players had 50-point games. Going back through the ’90s, ’80s and ’70s, the number of 50-point games per season was almost uniformly in the single digits.But lately, 50-point games have taken off, with an average of nearly 20 over the previous four seasons. So far this year, with a little less than half of the season complete, there have been 14.So what’s going on?To start with, teams as a whole are scoring more. The average N.B.A. team has scored 113.8 points a game this year, the highest total since 1970. Ten years ago the average was 98.1. The pace of games has also sped up, with teams averaging nearly 100 possessions every 48 minutes over the past five seasons, which had not been done since the 1980s. More possession, more shots, more points for everyone.Luka Doncic’s dominant performance against the Knicks last week included 60 points, 21 rebounds and 10 assists.Tim Heitman/Getty ImagesA lot of that offense has been driven by a drastic increase in 3-pointers. In the late 1990s, teams made an average of four to six 3s per game. Ten years ago, they made 7.2. In 2017-18, the total passed 10 for the first time, and this season the average is 12.2, off 34.3 attempts.In eight of the 14 50-point games this season, the player made at least six 3s, with Thompson and Garland sinking 10 each. (Shout-out to Antetokounmpo for scoring 55 while shooting 0-for-3 from 3.)Golden State Coach Steve Kerr this week pointed to 3-point shooting and pace as key factors in the surge of 50-point performances. He also blamed defense.“Transition defense is at an all-time low in this league,” he said. “Every single night on League Pass, you see five guys standing there, somebody shoots, somebody runs long, and everybody goes: ‘Oh, the guy’s laying it up down there.’“We do it, every team does it. I think the game has gotten really loose and the players are so talented, it’s made for a lot of big scoring nights.”Saddiq Bey, a third-year player for the Detroit Pistons, has averaged 14.2 points a game in his career thus far, but he had 51 in a win over the Orlando Magic last season.Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated PressThe 14 games this season were accomplished by 10 different players, and the trend over the past few years has wrapped in players with far smaller profiles than that of Antetokounmpo or Doncic. Detroit’s Saddiq Bey had 51 points last March. Fred VanVleet of the Raptors did it in 2021, and T.J. Warren had 53 points in a game for Indiana in 2020.In the past, 50-point games were typically the reserve of the greats. Wilt Chamberlain had 118 of them (one of them, of course, reaching 100 points). Next are Michael Jordan with 31 and Kobe Bryant with 25.Though some less expected names are popping for 50 these days, the big names are actually doing it less often than the Chamberlains and Jordans and Bryants. Among active players, James Harden has 23, LeBron James has 14 and Damian Lillard has 12. Of the players who scored 50 this season, Stephen Curry is tops with 11 career 50-point games.As you might expect, with 50-point games up so much, so are games in the 40-to-49-point range. Ten years ago, there were only 33 such games. In recent seasons there have typically been about 100. But this season there are already 76.A single player scoring 40 points in an N.B.A. game? Ho-hum. More

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      Luka Doncic Has 60 Points, 21 Rebounds and 10 Assists

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      The Mavericks rallied to beat the Knicks in overtime as Doncic rewrote the N.B.A. record books with a 60-point triple-double.No player since the 1960s had tallied 50 points, 20 rebounds and 10 assists in an N.B.A. game. On Tuesday night, Luka Doncic reached that total and kept right on going to 60 points.Doncic’s 60-21-10 line in the Mavericks’ 126-121 overtime victory against the Knicks in Dallas was the first in N.B.A. history. The other highest point totals with 20 rebounds and 10 assists all came more than 50 years ago: Wilt Chamberlain’s 53-32-14 in 1968, Elgin Baylor’s 52-25-10 in 1961 and Chamberlain’s 51-29-11 in 1963.In the 21st century, only DeMarcus Cousins (44-23-10) in 2018 and Nikola Jokic (40-27-10) this month had as many as 40 points along with 20 rebounds and 10 assists.Cut the rebound requirement to 10 from 20 and Doncic’s game is still tied for the highest scoring ever, alongside James Harden’s 60-10-11 game in 2018.Doncic shot 21-for-31 on Tuesday night. It was the first 60-point game in Mavericks history, surpassing a 53-point game by Dirk Nowitzki in 2004. Basketball Reference gave the performance a “game score” of 56.3, the best in the league since Harden’s game and the fifth best of the 3-point era.Many of Doncic’s buckets came in classic Luka style: The 6-foot-7 player repeatedly handled the ball near the 3-point arc, then drove in for a layup or an assist. His teammates made 23 baskets in total, and Doncic assisted on 10 of them.The Knicks led the game by 9 points with 42 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter, but Doncic helped lead a Mavericks comeback that forced overtime. With one second to go and the Mavericks trailing by 2, he intentionally missed a free throw, got the rebound after several players from both teams touched the ball and made the shot as time expired.“It was just kind of lucky,” Doncic said of the game-tying shot. “I’m tired as hell. I need a recovery beer.”Doncic scored 27 of his points off pick-and-roll plays. “I love the pick-and-roll,” he said. “I think everybody knows that. So just keep rolling the pick-and-roll.”Three of the four 50-20-10 games in N.B.A. history went to overtime, but Doncic did not benefit enormously from the extra time: He played a total of 47 minutes, less than Chamberlain and Baylor did in their games.It was the first 60-point game of the N.B.A. season, surpassing Joel Embiid’s 59 for the Philadelphia 76ers in November. Doncic exceeded his previous career high, 50, which he had set Friday against the Houston Rockets. His 21 rebounds were also a career high.The Mavericks, who lost in the conference finals to the Golden State Warriors last season, have won four in a row and climbed to sixth place in the West.At 23 and in just his fifth N.B.A. season, Doncic figures to improve. Partway through the season, his field-goal percentage is over .500 for the first time in his career, despite his shooting more than ever before, and his 33.6-point average is also a career high.But it will be tough to conjure a performance that would top Tuesday night’s. More

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      NBA Christmas Day Games 2022: What to Know

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      The N.B.A. brings out its stars on Christmas. This year, there will be some new rivalries, too.The N.B.A. showcases its stars on Christmas Day, and this year there will be some big names to watch, like LeBron James, Jayson Tatum and Joel Embiid.There will also be a new face in the mix (Memphis Grizzlies guard Ja Morant is playing on the holiday for the first time) and a familiar one missing (Golden State’s Stephen Curry is out injured).In each of the five games, there is something to look forward to, from young players trying to make their mark to older foes avenging playoff losses.Here’s what you need to know.All times are Eastern, and all games will air on ABC and ESPN. The statistics were current entering Friday night’s games.Philadelphia 76ers at Knicks, noonJames Harden missed several games for the Sixers with an injury, but he’s back and helping them stack up wins.Matt Slocum/Associated PressAfter rocky starts, these teams are finally clicking. The Knicks surged up the Eastern Conference standings on the strength of a recent winning streak, while Philadelphia was compiling a streak of its own.They met on Nov. 4, with the Knicks winning, but Philadelphia didn’t have its two best players: center Joel Embiid and guard James Harden. That makes Sunday’s game the teams’ first true matchup. The Knicks have played on Christmas more often than any other team, but this is the first time they will have Jalen Brunson, their big free-agent signing of the off-season.Brunson, a guard who spent his first four seasons in Dallas, leads the Knicks in assists and is the team’s second-best scorer, behind forward Julius Randle. For the first quarter of the season, the Knicks struggled to string together wins. But then December hit, and they found their stride.That’s when fortunes improved for the Sixers, too. Harden had missed more than a dozen games with a foot injury but returned this month to produce several impressive games with double-digit assist totals. The Knicks will, of course, have to watch out for Embiid as well. Last month, in a game against the Utah Jazz, he had this wild stat line: 59 points, 11 rebounds, 8 assists and 7 blocks.Los Angeles Lakers at Dallas Mavericks, 2:30 p.m.Dallas Mavericks guard Luka Doncic is in his fifth N.B.A. season but has already been named to the All-Star team three times.Emil Lippe/Associated PressFans can seemingly always count on seeing the Lakers on Christmas — this is the 24th year in a row — but nothing else about the team has been that consistent.Even as LeBron James, who will turn 38 on Friday, continues to defy reason with his youthful play, minor injuries keep tugging him to the bench. Then there’s the major injury to center Anthony Davis, who is out indefinitely with a sore right foot. Other ailments have rippled through the roster, and the Lakers’ sub-.500 record reflects that. But it also reflects an aging team that got off to a terrible start (0-5) and hasn’t settled into a high-performing rhythm since then.All of that is to say: The Lakers have been a little bit all over the place.Dallas has been, too. Luka Doncic is playing and scoring more than last season, but the Mavericks are losing to bad teams right after beating good ones. The Lakers could fall into either category on Sunday. At the very least, it should be a fun game, with Doncic and James battling to see who can put on the best show. They are both capable of making even the earliest risers hold off on a midday nap.Milwaukee Bucks at Boston Celtics, 5 p.m.Jayson Tatum led the Celtics to the N.B.A. finals last season and has followed that up with high-scoring play this season.David Butler II/USA Today Sports, via ReutersBoston’s Jayson Tatum has responded to his disappointing appearance in the N.B.A. finals last season in the best way: by playing better than ever before. He’s leading the league in minutes per game (37.2), and he’s putting them to good use, averaging a career-best 30.6 points per game by making about half of his shots.The Celtics will face a Bucks team with a not-so-shabby star of its own in Giannis Antetokounmpo. Last season ended in playoff disappointment for him, too, with Milwaukee falling to Boston in seven games in the second round of the Eastern Conference playoffs. Sunday will be his first chance for a little revenge.The Bucks and the Celtics are jockeying for first place in the East, though they are fighting with different strengths. Boston has the league’s second-best offense, while Milwaukee has the third-best defense. The postseason is still a ways off, but it would be a surprise not to see one of these teams in the N.B.A. finals. Their Christmas matchup should help each team see what it needs to work on to make sure it’s the one playing for a title.Memphis Grizzlies at Golden State, 8 p.m.Ja Morant has made the Grizzlies one of the most exciting teams to watch in recent years. Brandon Dill/Associated PressNo one can argue that the Grizzlies haven’t earned this, their Christmas debut.Point guard Ja Morant is the speedy, soaring, confident heart of the team, but Memphis is more than its brightest star — and Morant would be the first to say so. He’s averaging a career-best 7.8 assists per game as he and his teammates keep the Grizzlies near the top of a tightly contested Western Conference.They finished last season as the No. 2 seed in the West and could have made a run to the conference finals if Golden State (and injuries) hadn’t gotten in their way in the second round. Sunday will be the teams’ first meeting since then.Both teams have dealt with their share of injuries this season, but Golden State has an especially big one: Stephen Curry has been out since he hurt his shoulder against Indiana on Dec. 14, and it’s not clear when he will return.Golden State is currently ranked in the bottom half of the West, but the intensity of last season’s playoff series with Memphis should carry over and make Sunday’s game a good contest nonetheless.Phoenix Suns at Denver Nuggets, 10:30 p.m.Denver’s Nikola Jokic won the Most Valuable Player Award the past two seasons.Kevin C. Cox/Getty ImagesThe last game on a long day of basketball is easy to overlook. But Denver’s Nikola Jokic is sure to make at least one pass that will make staying up late worth it. That’s kind of his thing: One minute he has the ball, and then the next his teammate on the other side of the court does, and no one is quite sure how it happened. The Suns are a top-10 defensive team, but some things just can’t be stopped.Phoenix is also the league’s best on offense, which could be a challenge for the Nuggets, who are among the N.B.A.’s worst on defense. Suns guard Chris Paul is one of the best ever at getting the ball to his teammates. Paul led the league in assists last season, his fifth time doing so, and is averaging about nine per game this season.If this game’s late start isn’t a deal-breaker, it should be a nice chance to see some excellent passing and skilled shooters making good on the assist. More