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      Their Reputations Precede Them. And That’s the Problem.

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      When an athlete breaks the rules of the game, he or she may be judged on much more than that single act. Call it the Draymond Green Effect.Most times in basketball, a foul is just a foul. But sometimes, it can feel like so much more: a Rorschach test unearthing a person’s biases about the game, a window into a player’s thinking, a referendum on his entire career.Was that a malicious kick or an involuntary swing? When does an outstretched arm morph into a punch? Can an on-court act be judged on its own or must the actor be considered, too?A sequence of hard fouls across three different first-round N.B.A. playoff series — and the subsequent responses to them — has reinforced the extent to which the reputations of players, and the swirling narratives associated with them, seem to color the way the athletes, referees, league officials and fans process the action unfolding on the court.After each instance, the players’ reputations were called into action in some way — as corroborating evidence, as a shield, as a liability.It started on Monday of last week, when Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors stomped his size 15 sneaker into the sternum of the Sacramento Kings big man Domantas Sabonis after Sabonis had grabbed Green while lying on the court. Afterward, the league suspended Green for one game, invoking not only the on-court incident but his entire body of work.“The suspension was based in part on Green’s history of unsportsmanlike acts,” the N.B.A.’s statement read, evoking the veritable highlight reel of pugnacious gamesmanship in his career, but not referencing any specific previous infraction.After he was called for fouling Royce O’Neale of the Nets in a first-round playoff game, James Harden of the Philadelphia 76ers gave the universal signal for “Who, me?”Frank Franklin Ii/Associated PressA few nights later, James Harden of the Philadelphia 76ers was ejected for hitting Nets forward Royce O’Neale below the waist on a drive to the basket. In the locker room after the game, Harden pointed toward his own reputation as part of his defense, mentioning that he had never before been thrown out of a game.“I’m not labeled as a dirty player,” Harden said, alluding to the public’s perception of him. He should not be judged harshly, he implied, because he is, so to speak, not that guy. (Harden, of course, has often been labeled by critics as something else: a player willing to flop to draw a whistle and earn free throws.)Then, two nights after that, Dillon Brooks of the Memphis Grizzlies was ejected for hitting LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers around the groin area while trying to defend him. The next day, Brooks, too, nodded toward his reputation, speculating that it must have preceded him on the play and informed the referees’ quick-fire decision to toss him.“The media making me a villain, the fans making me a villain and then that just creates a whole different persona on me,” Brooks said. “So now you think I intended to hit LeBron James in the nuts.”In sports, reputations are quickly formed and particularly hard to shed. Athletes conduct their professional lives in high definition. Their every move is broken down ad nauseam, scrutinized in slow motion, refracted through the eyes of analysts and commentators.Heightening this dynamic is the fact that history looms large in the sports world, seeming to always be front of mind. Record books and bygone statistics are invoked every day. Fans keep big wins and heartbreaking losses etched onto their hearts.“The past,” William Faulkner wrote, “is never dead. It’s not even past.”On top of everything else, the impulse to create two-dimensional characterizations about a person’s behavior, to reduce their action to moral terms, is widespread in the sports world, where fans and news media members often apply a storybook framework to the action, experts say.“We create these schema, these cognitive shortcuts, to read the world, and we’re quick to label individuals as friend or foe,” said Arthur Raney, a professor of communication at Florida State who has researched how emotions shape the sports viewing experience. “We do that with folks on the street, and we do that with entertainment and sports and politics and everything else.”Raney added, “And once those frames, those schema, are set, they then serve as a lens for our expectations of the future.”There will always be tension, then, around questions of whether an athlete’s reputation is fully justified.Ndamukong Suh, a defensive tackle in the N.F.L. with a long history of major penalties, cautioned people not to pass judgment too quickly. Here, he attended the league’s boot camp for aspiring broadcasters.Kyusung Gong/Associated PressNdamukong Suh, a longtime defensive tackle in the N.F.L., developed a reputation as a dirty player after a seemingly countless log of bad hits, fines and suspensions. Suh has pushed back against this characterization at various points in his career — though it is questionable whether anyone might be convinced otherwise.“Before you pass judgment on somebody, always take the time to get to know them, meet them, have coffee with them, whatever it may be and then be able to go from there,” Suh said in 2019.Many might similarly scoff at the claims of innocence of Brooks, who led the N.B.A. with 18 technical fouls in the regular season and made headlines earlier in the playoffs for taunting James (“I don’t care. He’s old.”) — essentially casting himself as a villain without anyone’s help.Still, when humans are involved in adjudicating behavior in sports, there will always be unanswerable questions about how those decisions are made. Did a player’s bad reputation lead officials to call more penalties or fouls on borderline plays? How many more fines and suspensions does a player earn after developing a reputation as someone who deserves them?“Generally, officials at the highest level do not hold grudges, but in a preconscious, mythic way are influenced by narratives,” said Stephen Mosher, a retired professor of sports management at Ithaca College.Reputations can be suffocating. Dennis Rodman’s reputation as an erratic and unsportsmanlike competitor — developed with the Detroit Pistons and honed with the San Antonio Spurs and Chicago Bulls — overshadows his status as one of the greatest defensive players in N.B.A. history. Metta Sandiford-Artest, years after his involvement in the fan-player brawl known as the Malice at the Palace in 2004, when he was still known as Ron Artest, developed a reputation as a mellow veteran, but only after changing his name and publicly reckoning with his mental health.And reputations can feel problematic when they seem in any part derived from race. Raney said the potential for this was higher in sports that were “racialized” — that is, closely associated with one race. He mentioned the tennis star Serena Williams, who is Black, as an example of an athlete who may have developed an undue reputation at times because of the color of her skin in the context of her sport. A recent study in European soccer revealed the dramatic differences in the way television commentators spoke about white players (praising their smarts and work ethic) versus nonwhite players (highlighting physical traits like strength and speed) and how far-reaching the impact of these perceptions could be.“I’d look directly at the story tellers, announcers, color people, for why these perceptions carry such weight,” Mosher said.Sports leagues invite speculation about the role reputations play in competition because of the apparently subjective nature of officiating.Joel Embiid of the 76ers was neither ejected nor suspended for this very personal foul against the Nets’ Nic Claxton.Wendell Cruz/USA Today Sports Via Reuters ConEarlier in the game from which Harden was ejected, 76ers center Joel Embiid blatantly tried to kick the Nets’ Nic Claxton between the legs. Embiid, who has largely maintained a reputation as a clean player, was not ejected or suspended. Harden and Brooks were not suspended after their ejections, either. (The N.B.A., like other sports leagues, takes into account a player’s disciplinary history when doling out punishments.)In explaining the disparity of outcomes between Embiid and Harden, the N.B.A. has asserted that the motive mattered far less than the outcome, and that each incident, even if it felt similar to another, needed to be evaluated on its own terms. No two shots to the groin are alike, essentially.“You have to be responsible for your actions outside the realm of intent,” Monty McCutchen, the N.B.A.’s head of referee development, said in an interview on ESPN.But many people’s minds went to a similar place. What would have happened if someone else — say, Draymond Green? — had kicked out the same way Embiid had. More

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      ‘Yoga for Jocks’ Keeps Golden State’s Kevon Looney Grounded

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      SAN FRANCISCO — Early Sunday morning, Kevon Looney of the Golden State Warriors decamped to a quiet atrium on the fourth floor of Chase Center, where floor-to-ceiling windows offered an expansive view of San Francisco Bay. The sun was beginning to burn through a hazy sky as Looney propped his iPad against a small metal column, unrolled his black yoga mat and greeted one of the more important figures in his professional life.A voice emanated from the iPad. It belonged to Jana Webb, the creator of a self-styled brand of yoga known as Joga, which she originally conceived as yoga for athletes. Webb, 47, appeared on a video conference call from her home in Toronto wearing a backward baseball cap. She is in Looney’s phone as “Jana Joga.”“How’s the body feeling?” she asked.“Really good,” Looney said.Moses Moody, one of Looney’s teammates, was also on the call, dialing in from his apartment near the arena. It was 8:30 a.m., about four hours before Game 4 of Golden State’s first-round playoff series against the Sacramento Kings. Webb spent the next 40 minutes guiding both players through a series of movements designed to loosen their joints, activate their muscles and center their psyches.“Reach, reach, reach,” she said as Looney, who is 6-foot-9, stood on his toes and extended his arms, a small pool of sweat forming on the mat below. “Get that fascial tension like you’re reaching for the net. Awesome. Now, hold.”(Webb was referring to the fascia, which is connective tissue throughout the body — and not to the face, though Looney appeared to have some tension there, too.)Looney does a virtual session of Joga — described as “yoga for jocks” — before each of Golden State’s games.Clara Mokri for The New York TimesEarlier in his career, Looney could not seem to escape injury. But over the past two seasons, he has emerged as Golden State’s sturdiest player, appearing in every one of his team’s games. He practices Joga before every game, at home and on the road.After Sunday’s session, Looney delivered against the Kings, finishing with 8 points, 14 rebounds and 6 assists to help the Warriors win their second straight game at home and even the series at two games apiece. In Game 3 on Thursday, he finished with 4 points, 20 rebounds and 9 assists while helping compensate for Draymond Green’s absence because of a suspension.Game 5 is Wednesday in Sacramento.“He’s always locked into the game plan,” Golden State Coach Steve Kerr said of Looney. “He never makes mistakes. He rebounds like crazy. He makes the right decision. The game is much simpler when Loon is out there for our guys.”Looney, who has won three championships with the Warriors, said his work with Webb had helped him cope with the physical and mental rigors of the N.B.A. Those demands are only heightened in the postseason.“It’s pretty brutal,” Looney said. “Every possession is intense. After the game, you’re just drained.”Clara Mokri for The New York TimesClara Mokri for The New York TimesAt this late stage of the season, when players are tired and stressed, game-day routines take on added significance. Players are looking for whatever edge they can get, especially this year, when injuries to stars like Paul George, Kawhi Leonard and Giannis Antetokounmpo are a factor in so many series. Some players prioritize their naps. Others lace up their lucky sneakers. Looney does Joga.“I love to have 30 minutes to be in my body and see how I really feel,” he said.Looney got a head start in yoga as a high school senior in Milwaukee. Lou Chapman, who was one of his early basketball trainers, introduced him to Bikram Yoga — also known as hot yoga — when a new studio opened up. Looney recalled that he had barely survived his first class.“I did a lot of laying on the mat,” he said. “I felt like I was a top athlete, but they destroyed me.”The competitive side of Looney kept him coming back. Also, Chapman had gotten them discounted memberships, and he wanted to make sure that they took advantage of the deal.“I think we went 90 straight days,” Chapman, 42, said.During his lone season at U.C.L.A., Looney succumbed to a busy schedule and drifted away from yoga. After Golden State selected him as the 30th pick in the 2015 N.B.A. draft, he missed most of his rookie year with hip injuries — he had twin surgeries to repair right and left labrum tears — and later dealt with chronic nerve pain. He broke his collarbone during the 2019 N.B.A. finals and then had core muscle surgery in 2020. He returned for the 2020-21 season but felt disappointed by his play.Looney goes through his pregame ritual before Game 4 at the scorer’s table.Clara Mokri for The New York Times“I wasn’t moving as well as I had in the past,” he said. “I didn’t have that same burst or coordination.”Following the season, Looney approached Dr. Rick Celebrini, Golden State’s director of sports medicine and performance, with a specific request: Did he know any yoga teachers?In fact, Dr. Celebrini had someone in mind. He connected Looney with Webb, a fellow Canadian who had worked with other athletes for years. Their first virtual session was a doozy.“I can’t say I loved it,” Looney said, “mostly because I stunk at it.”Webb was unsparing in an initial assessment that she sent to Kyle Barbour, Golden State’s head performance coach, citing several areas where Looney’s mobility was limited. But she saw potential, and Looney experienced the sort of post-session soreness — in his glutes and his abdominal muscles, specifically — that signaled to him that he had room for improvement.“We don’t do a lot of long static holds,” Webb said. “It’s really about duplicating the biomechanics of movement in sport.”Looney worked with Webb several times a week that summer and then paused their sessions at the start of the 2021-22 season. At the time, Looney thought that Joga might just be a part of his off-season routine.Jana Webb directing a yoga session.Rick Madonik/Toronto Star, via Getty ImagesLooney started doing yoga in high school in Milwaukee.Clara Mokri for The New York Times“But after six or seven games, I felt like my body was going back to how it was before,” he said. “My back was hurting, and different things weren’t moving as well. So I reached back out: ‘Can we do this on game days?’”By the middle of last season, Looney had become such a believer that he organized a Joga session for anyone in basketball operations — players, coaches and staff members — who wanted to learn more. As usual, Webb led the class remotely. Even from thousands of miles away, she could sense varied levels of interest.“Draymond clipped his toenails during it,” she said, laughing. “I was like, is this actually happening?”Moody’s prevailing takeaway was confusion. As a teenager in Little Rock, Ark., he had dabbled in yoga by taking classes at his local LA Fitness. But Webb might as well have been speaking a foreign language.“She was talking so fast about all these muscles we were supposed to be activating,” Moody said. “And I’m next to Loon, so I’m just trying to keep up with him, and I don’t know what I’m doing.”But Moody was also intrigued. After spending the next couple of weeks peppering Looney with questions about Joga and human anatomy, Moody called Webb. “She gave me the rundown,” he said.Looney has played in all 82 regular-season games for Golden State in each of the past two seasons.Clara Mokri for The New York TimesLooney invited Moody to join him at his next pregame Joga session and then paid for all of his classes for the remainder of the season. They have been inseparable Joga buddies ever since. If the team has a shootaround scheduled for 11 a.m., Looney and Moody will typically meet with their mats on the team’s practice court at 8:30 a.m. for 40 minutes of stretching, lunging, twisting and breathing.“I can really tell the difference when I don’t do it,” Moody said. “You just feel more fluid in your movements. When that ball comes off the rim, you kind of feel like Spider-Man a little bit.”After more than 200 remote sessions with Looney, Webb finally met both players for the first time when the Warriors were in Toronto in December to play the Raptors. “That was so special,” Webb said.On Sunday, Webb started their session by having them do a series of breathing exercises.“Relax your jaw for four,” she said. “Soften the ribs for three. Start to squeeze the lower belly for two. And now completely pull the breath and empty it there. Notice what you’re thinking about.”Before long, Webb had them working through dynamic movements, one after another. She reminded Moody to keep his fingers spread when he was in a plank position. She urged Looney to lift his “pelvic floor.” She referred to their hip joints and femur bones, their side intercostals and adductors.At the end of it, Looney lay flat on his back, closed his eyes and exhaled.Clara Mokri for The New York Times More

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      A Decade After Sacramento Showed Up for the Kings, the Kings Return the Favor

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      The surprising Kings are pushing Golden State in their first-round N.B.A. playoff matchup. Sacramento fans have waited a long time for a team that matched their fervor.The long-term fate of the Sacramento Kings was still unclear. In 2013, Mayor Kevin Johnson of Sacramento and N.B.A. Commissioner David Stern persuaded a new owner to buy the team, a last-minute change that kept it from moving to Seattle.But the Kings’ home was still a dumpy suburban stadium that no longer fit the modern N.B.A. Without a new arena, leaving would always be in the cards.A year later I flew to Sacramento as the City Council convened for a tense vote on whether the city should pay roughly half the cost, $255 million, for construction of a new downtown arena now known as the Golden 1 Center.Kings fans showed up in force, as they always do, despite the team having just skidded to its eighth consecutive losing season. They held aloft placards imploring the Council to say yes. Angry critics were also on hand, dead set against spending taxpayer funds on a sports team’s arena.The Council voted to allocate the money. The Kings stayed put, with the new owner, Vivek Ranadive, promising fans that the team was in it for the long haul. “This is your team, and it is here to stay!” he said.Nine years later, and after a league-record 16 seasons without being in the playoffs, Sacramento’s team is finally making waves in the N.B.A. postseason. Who knew it would take this long?And who could have guessed that the young and suddenly transformed Kings would be going toe to toe against dynastic Golden State, which now calls its home San Francisco, a city that has always viewed Sacramento as a cow town.The Kings of 2023 brim with fast-break speed and precision that conjure memories of Steph Curry and Klay Thompson a decade ago, at the start of a run that brought Golden State four N.B.A. championships and six N.B.A. finals appearances.Of course, the Kings look like the Warriors’ doppelgängers: They have been molded by Mike Brown, who was Steve Kerr’s consigliere for years at Golden State, poached by Sacramento last May.After calling a timeout when there wasn’t one left in Game 4 on Sunday, Stephen Curry was consoled by Golden State Coach Steve Kerr.Darren Yamashita/USA Today Sports, via Reuters ConIn playing the Warriors to a 2-2 series standoff so far, Sacramento has been so competitive and irritating that it pushed Draymond Green into giving a retaliatory stomp to Domantas Sabonis’s chest in a Game 2 loss from which Green was ejected (and for which he was suspended from Game 3, which the Warriors won).Game 4 — a 126-125 Warriors victory on Sunday that the Kings could have won on their final possession — was so tight that Kerr left Curry in for 43 of the game’s 48 minutes, including the entire fourth quarter. When was the last time Curry was so pressed in the first round?Kings fans have showed up with a fervor that matched that of Sabonis, Malik Monk and De’Aaron Fox. They rushed to defend home court, purchasing nearly every available seat at Golden 1 Center, then set out to invade on the road. At Chase Center, in San Francisco, the Warriors barred Kings fans from bringing in the clanging cowbells that hark back to Sacramento’s agrarian roots and became a sanctified symbol of the Kings’ success in the early 2000s.As the series heads back to Sacramento, think about how long Kings fans have waited to show up in the playoffs. Much has been made of the franchise’s streak of 16 seasons without a playoff appearance. But it has been 19 since the Kings came out on top in a playoff series and 21 seasons, since early in the George Bush the Younger administration, when the team was a genuine playoff threat.Ask Kings die-hards about the loss to the Lakers in seven games in the 2002 Western Conference finals, and you will soon see the bugging of eyes and curses aimed at Robert Horry, who is to Sacramento what Bucky Dent is to Boston. The fans possess two qualities in spades: remarkable loyalty and plenty of pent-up frustration.The crazy cool part of this Kings season is how stunningly surprising it has been.In the long, hard seasons after Ranadive saved the team, Sacramento kept journeying into the dark corners of the N.B.A. wilderness.The team churned through coaches and was run by a revolving door of upper management, which seemingly had no clue. (The decision to draft Marvin Bagley III over Luka Doncic with the No. 2 overall draft pick in 2018 characterized the head-scratching moves.)Critics frothed against Ranadive, claiming he was a meddling owner in over his head. The N.B.A.’s best practice says you hire basketball executives and let them choose the coach. The Kings did it the other way around.Among all the hoopla about the upstarts from California’s capital city, remember this: It was just last year when the Kings won only 30 games while losing 52, yet another season of frustration, and one that prompted the city’s largest newspaper to run an article with a headline that blared:“Basketball Hell: How Vivek Ranadive Turned Sacramento Kings Into N.B.A.’s Biggest Losers.”Now, the series heads back to the Kings’ home arena for what promises to be a madhouse Game 5 on Wednesday night, the vision conjured at that City Council meeting all those years ago finally fulfilled.Now, the only hell connected to the Kings is the one they are giving the Warriors. More

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      Golden State Warriors Win at Home, Which Is Part of Their Problem

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      Golden State beat Sacramento to earn its first win of the playoffs, but in doing so reinforced a troubling trend from the regular season.SAN FRANCISCO — Stephen Curry got up from the floor quickly after being fouled, looked toward the fans in the crowd — clad in yellow T-shirts with the words “gold blooded” written on them — and must have thought they were not as excited as they should have been.He waved his arms and yelled — then screamed twice more for good measure — and the white-knuckled Warriors crowd responded with a roar, accepting his direction unquestioningly, an orchestra following its conductor.Curry’s Golden State Warriors had entered Thursday night’s game, the third of their first-round playoff series against the Sacramento Kings, in an uncomfortable spot. They were facing their first 2-0 playoff deficit since Steve Kerr began coaching them in 2014. They were without Draymond Green, their defensive anchor and do-it-all forward, whom the N.B.A. had suspended for stepping on the chest of Kings forward-center Domantas Sabonis in Game 2 on Monday.But as they have all season, the Warriors figured it out on their home floor, holding the league’s highest-scoring offense under 100 points for only the fifth time this season in the 114-97 victory. The Kings still lead the series, 2-1. Game 4 is Sunday. But it, too, is at Golden State, and for that reason alone the Warriors were feeling the series was far from over.“We always play great at home,” Klay Thompson said. “We got to get one on the road; we understand. But we know what we’re capable of in this building. We won a championship here. We’re capable of anything.”Pick any of Curry’s baskets on Thursday night — the six 3-pointers, the various layups and jumpers that made up his game-high 36 points — and notice that shortly after each score he seemed to hold the crowd in his hands: posing, dancing, directing.It was a luxury Curry did not enjoy in the first two games of this series in Sacramento, when the Warriors had the look of a team in trouble. After the victory, Curry had pointed to the Warriors’ shortcomings on the road in the first answer of his news conference.“We’ve shown that despite our self-inflicted wounds with turnovers and giving up offensive rebounds, that we are capable of beating that team any night,” he said. “It’s just nice to have something to show for it now.”Whatever momentum the Warriors created may propel them to another win in Game 4. It remains puzzling, though, how that momentum seems to disappear as soon as they step off their home floor.The Warriors were 33-8 at San Francisco’s Chase Center in the regular season, a home record bettered this season only by the Denver Nuggets (34-7) and the Memphis Grizzlies (35-6), the top two teams in the Western Conference. On the road, however, Golden State was a dreadful 11-30.Struggles on the road are typically reserved for young and inexperienced teams. The fact that the Warriors’ championship-tested core — Thompson, Curry, Green and Kerr — has performed so poorly on the road might have been the season’s most curious contradiction.Golden State’s Kevon Looney, front, exploded for 20 rebounds in Game 3, more than he had in the first two games combined.Ezra Shaw/Getty ImagesThe statistics offer a clue: The Warriors simply don’t play good enough defense on the road, where they allowed more than 10 points a game (122.4) more than they did at home (111.7). No other team has more than a 6.9 differential. (Offensively, the Warriors don’t seem to miss a beat away from home, where their scoring averages on the road (119.7) and at home (118.2) are only fractionally different.)The issue is not a secret inside the Warriors’ locker room.“If you’re poor defensively, it’s really hard to win on the road,” Kerr said in November. “You need to be able to string together stops to get momentum and keep the home crowd out of it. If you’re trading baskets, the other team’s feeling good, it’s just really hard to win that way.”He returned to the point in March, saying of his team’s middling record, “We know that the answer to all this is in our defense.”On Thursday night, there were three prevailing chants inside of the Chase Center: “boos” for Sabonis; roars of “Looon” for forward Kevon Looney; and chants of “M-V-P!” each time Curry approached the free-throw line. Kerr said the design of the arena, which opened in 2019, makes for a more “intimate crowd.”“The roof is not sky high like a lot of the new arenas,” Kerr said, adding: “You can feel the crowd. They are right on top of you.”Eventually, though, the Warriors, the No. 6 seed in the West, are going to have to win a game on the road to progress in this postseason, including out of the first round. “Until someone wins a road game, everyone’s just holding serve,” Kerr said.Trading home wins is math just as unforgiving as the Warriors’ record. Kerr and his players will know they need to find a way to change it. Fast.Scott Cacciola More

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      Draymond Green’s Suspension Could Sink Golden State. Again.

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      The Golden State forward’s antics are a constant threat to his team’s championship hopes.This is the bargain the Golden State Warriors have made.They live with the threats Draymond Green sometimes poses to their championship aspirations because of the benefits they enjoy when he is at his best.His energy and determination can frustrate an opponent into big mistakes, and they can lift and embolden his teammates. But he also regularly barrels toward the line between playing hard and playing dirty, and the Warriors tolerate it because he can help them win titles. With his history of rough fouls and taunts, he doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt when his behavior is in a gray area, and that can cost the Warriors dearly.Now it has, again.On Thursday night, Golden State will face the Sacramento Kings in Game 3 of a first-round N.B.A. playoff series the Kings lead, 2-0. The Warriors will have to try to save themselves from falling into a nearly insurmountable 3-0 deficit without Green, whom the league suspended for Game 3 after he stepped on the chest of Kings center Domantas Sabonis in Game 2 on Monday. Green was assessed a flagrant-2 foul and ejected with 7 minutes 3 seconds left in the fourth quarter.The N.B.A. made it clear that the suspension was more about Green’s “history of unsportsmanlike acts” than what he did to Sabonis, who precipitated the events by grabbing Green’s ankle while lying on the ground. In an interview with ESPN, Joe Dumars, an N.B.A. executive vice president responsible for player discipline, said the way Green taunted the Sacramento crowd afterward also factored into the decision. As the officials reviewed the play, Green yelled to a crowd that was yelling at him, while clapping and gesturing for the fans to keep going.The N.B.A. said Green’s taunting of the Kings fans factored into the decision to suspend him for Game 3.Carlos Avila Gonzalez/San Francisco Chronicle, via Associated PressThe suspension might not seem fair, but it’s not an outcome that should surprise Golden State or Green.When the Warriors were in the middle of their second annual unstoppable romp to the N.B.A. finals seven years ago, Green might have cost them a championship.The league has a points system that triggers automatic suspensions related to flagrant fouls. Players are assessed two points for a flagrant-2 foul, and one point for a flagrant-1. If they exceed three points during the postseason, they are suspended for one game.In 2016, Green was assessed a flagrant-1 foul for striking a Cavaliers player — LeBron James — in the groin. Green already had three points for flagrant fouls, so he was suspended for Game 5.“We thrive off of Draymond’s competitiveness and his edge and it’s been very important for us this year,” Warriors Coach Steve Kerr said at the time. “And maybe that same quality has led him to this point — just his competitiveness and his passion. And that’s all part of it.”Green watched the game from a suite at the baseball stadium next door in Oakland, Calif. His team had a 3-1 series lead at the time, but lost the finals to Cleveland.It was Green’s only playoff suspension until Tuesday, but his conduct has drawn scrutiny many times.Last season, Green was ejected from Game 1 of the Warriors’ second-round series against the Memphis Grizzlies for committing a flagrant-2 foul.“I am never going to change the way I play basketball,” Green said later during that series. “It’s gotten me this far. It’s gotten me three championships, four All-Stars, defensive player of the year. I’m not going to change now.”During Game 2, in Memphis, he took an elbow to the face and had to leave to get stitches. Fans jeered at him, and Green showed his middle fingers to the crowd as he left the game.In last year’s finals against Boston, Green showed how his on-court intensity can help his team and frustrate his opponents.“He’ll do whatever it takes to win,” said Celtics guard Jaylen Brown, who called some of Green’s conduct “illegal.” “He’ll pull you, he’ll grab you, he’ll try to muck the game up because that’s what he does for their team. It’s nothing to be surprised about. Nothing I’m surprised about. He raised his physicality to try to stop us, and we’ve got to raise ours.”Golden State seems willing to live with the risks of having Green on the team as long as he helps bring home championships. He has won four, including last season.John G Mabanglo/EPA, via ShutterstockSaid Stephen Curry, Green’s teammate, during that series: “You feel him in his presence, and the other team feels his presence and his intensity. And that is contagious for all of us.”The Warriors thrive on that energy. Boston fans chanted an expletive at Green, which he admitted rattled him a bit. But after the Warriors won the championship in Game 6 in Boston, Green’s teammates serenaded him with the same chant in the postgame locker room. Their faith in Green had won out again.The problem comes when he goes too far.It has happened in games. It also happened last fall during a practice, when he punched his own teammate, Jordan Poole, in the face. Green took time away from the team and apologized. Poole reacted like someone who just wanted the whole incident to go away.It’s all part of what keeps Green under a disciplinary microscope.This week’s suspension didn’t follow the N.B.A.’s typical method for policing flagrant fouls. Green paid for his reputation.Another player might not have been suspended for what he did. The league might have considered that Sabonis grabbed Green’s leg, instigating the interaction, and felt that being ejected from the game was sufficient punishment. Golden State lost the game, after all. The N.B.A. might have given another player the benefit of the doubt, figured that he really didn’t mean to harm anyone, that he was simply looking for a place to land his foot, as Green insisted after the game.“That’s a possibility, yes,” Dumars said in an interview with ESPN.Instead, the league made a decision that imperiled Golden State’s season.“Each time he’s messed up, my hope is he learns from it and becomes better,” Bob Myers, Golden State’s general manager and president of basketball operations, told reporters on Wednesday.So far, though, the Warriors have accepted that this is who Green is. With their actions, they have accepted that they will sometimes have to suffer the consequences of his behavior because the good with Green has outweighed the bad for them. Perhaps that will start to change, if the bad begins to outweigh the good.This result was a risk the Warriors have lived with for years. More

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      Golden State Falls to Denver for Another Road Loss

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      A loss to the Nuggets dropped the champions to 9-30 away from home.DENVER — As various members of the Golden State Warriors began to filter out of the visiting locker room at Ball Arena on Sunday night, Klay Thompson sat silently on a folding chair with his head bowed. He fiddled with a wristband. He was still wearing his game shorts.Thompson has coped with adversity, losing two seasons to injury. But the N.B.A. has a way of humbling even the most determined players. And in the glum aftermath of the Warriors’ 79th game of the season, Thompson was left to dwell on errant shots and missed opportunities. He was not alone.The Warriors are a tough team to figure out, and their 112-110 loss to the Nuggets on Sunday was another jumbled effort in a season full of them. They were thrilling and connected, then sloppy and disjointed. They led by as many as 15 points in the second quarter, then allowed all that good feeling to evaporate.“We stopped playing,” Coach Steve Kerr said. “We just lost our focus on both ends, gave up a ton of offensive rebounds, missed box outs. Offensively, we had several mindless possessions in a row, throwing the ball away, a bunch of shot turnovers — just bad shots.”Teams have wildly different agendas at this late stage of the season. The Nuggets, who are on the cusp of clinching the top seed in the Western Conference, have the luxury of prioritizing health. Nikola Jokic, the league’s back-to-back most valuable player, missed his third straight game with calf tightness.“There really is an injury there, and it’s just us being smart about it,” Michael Malone, Denver’s coach, said before Sunday’s game. “The type of injury he has, the worst-case scenario is he plays and it creates a much bigger issue where he’s out for an extended period of time. And I think we all realize that we’re only going to go so far when Nikola is such a big part of what we do.”The Warriors, on the other hand, are desperate to avoid the play-in bracket as the defending champions. With the top six seeds in each conference assured playoff berths, the Warriors (41-38) are now tied for fifth with the Clippers in the West after Sunday’s loss. Kerr likes the addition of the play-in — “It keeps things really interesting all the way down the stretch,” he said — but that does not mean he wants to be a part of it.The Warriors have three games remaining. After playing host to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Tuesday, they will go on the road to face the Sacramento Kings on Friday and the Portland Trail Blazers on Sunday.“We need to win out,” Golden State’s Stephen Curry said, adding: “It’s just understanding there’s a sense of urgency with these last three games, and not only the wins but the vibe you create going into a playoff series, because that does matter — finishing strong, finishing with a sense of purpose. You want to feel good about yourself when you turn the clock to the playoffs.”The real challenge is that the Warriors play two of their final three games on the road, where they have been awful this season. The disparity between their record at home (32-8) and their record on the road (9-30) is a mystery without an obvious explanation.“We’ve got to have faith in ourselves that we can figure it out,” Curry said.No solutions surfaced against the Nuggets, though it did look good for the Warriors, at least for a while. They assembled one of their familiar master classes in ball movement in the first quarter.There was Draymond Green tipping a pass to Donte DiVincenzo for an-up-and-under layup. There was Thompson drawing a cluster of defenders on a drive before dumping a pass to Anthony Lamb for an open dunk. The ball zipped from teammate to teammate. Green had five assists in the first quarter, and the Warriors assisted on 11 of their 13 field goals, committing only one turnover.But sustaining that sort of effort has been problematic for the Warriors this season, particularly on the road. They missed all eight of their 3-point shots in the second quarter and committed five turnovers.“It’s kind of been a vibe of how it’s been on the road for us all year,” Curry said. “There’s a four- or five-minute stretch and the wheels just fall off. And you not only give a team momentum, but you give them belief that they’re supposed to win that game. And that’s a dangerous position to be in with the amount of talent that’s in this league, no matter who you’re playing.”Curry and Thompson combined to shoot 17 of 56 from the field, and Golden State committed 15 turnovers. Add it up, and it was the game that the Warriors had “no business” winning, Curry said.The basketball gods concurred. After Thompson’s 3-point shot with 4.5 seconds left caromed off the back rim, he rebounded his own miss. But his desperation heave at the buzzer was swatted away by Jamal Murray, who had a terrific all-around game for the Nuggets with 26 points and 8 assists.“The season has been like this all year,” Kerr said. “It’s been stops and starts. Just when you think we’ve got some momentum, we give it back.”As the visiting locker room continued to empty out, Thompson finally rose from his chair and packed for the trip home. The team bus was idling outside.“We just have to keep pushing,” Kerr said. More

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      Celtics Beat Warriors, Despite Off Night From Jayson Tatum

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      Boston beat Golden State and has the N.B.A.’s best record. But the Celtics aren’t perfect, and neither is their star.BOSTON — Jayson Tatum has had some brilliant nights this season. Nights when he drops in parabolic 3-pointers and slings crosscourt passes and guides his Boston Celtics to lopsided wins. Nights when no one can impede his 6-foot-8, 210-pound frame on his drives to the hoop. Nights when he plays pristine basketball, boosting his candidacy for his first N.B.A. Most Valuable Player Award.Thursday? Thursday was not one of those nights.Facing the Golden State Warriors in their much-anticipated return to Boston, Tatum tossed passes into the hands of defenders. He launched jump shots that drifted wide and carried long, as if pushed around by a swirling breeze. And he coughed up his dribble — including once to Golden State’s Stephen Curry, who capitalized on the mistake by casually draining a 50-footer at the halftime buzzer.It was not Tatum’s best game. The good news for the Celtics is that they did not need it to be.“Those are the most rewarding wins that you can have,” Tatum said.Jaylen Brown and the Celtics got the best of Jordan Poole and the Warriors for a change.David Butler Ii/USA Today Sports, via ReutersNothing about Boston’s 121-118 overtime victory over Golden State was artistic. The Celtics, renowned for their offense this season, shot 39.8 percent from the field. And Tatum committed seven turnovers, including two in the final 74 seconds of regulation that would have gotten him booted from noontime hoops at the South Shore Y.M.C.A.But Joe Mazzulla, the Celtics’ interim coach, describes himself as someone who likes to see if his team can “operate in the chaos” — especially against an accomplished opponent like the Warriors.On Thursday, there was plenty of chaos. But Jaylen Brown compensated for Tatum’s late-game blunders by sending the game to overtime with a 3-pointer, and Al Horford and Tatum then sealed the win with back-to-back 3-pointers of their own.“You need games like this,” Tatum said, adding: “I think that just shows the depth of our team, on a below-average night for us, that we can still find a way to win.”The Celtics, who improved their league-best record to 34-12, have not been perfect this season. In mid-December, they lost five of six games, a skid that included back-to-back losses to the lottery-bound Orlando Magic. Tatum missed one of those losses so that he could attend his son Deuce’s 5th birthday party, which was probably not the best look for him at the time. “Social media was mad,” he said.In any case, it was a stretch of lackluster basketball that was alarming enough for fans and pundits to question if Mazzulla had the necessary experience (as a first-time N.B.A. head coach) or gravitas (at age 34) to lead a team with championship hopes.That stretch turned out to be a blip. Boston has won eight in a row. Before Thursday’s game, Tatum was coming off a tour de force against the Charlotte Hornets, when he scored a season-high 51 points and shot 15 of 23 from the field.Tatum was not going to sniff 50 points against Golden State — not after scoring 2 points in the first quarter, and not after shooting 3 of 11 from the field in the first half. Andrew Wiggins, one of the league’s craftiest defenders, might as well have attached himself to Tatum using duct tape, and Tatum could have been forgiven for feeling as if it was all a bit too familiar.It was the Warriors’ first trip to TD Garden since last June, when the team clinched its fourth title in eight seasons by defeating the Celtics in Game 6 of the N.B.A. finals. That night was a triumph for Golden State, which celebrated in a club section of the arena until 5 a.m. before boarding a flight to California with another championship trophy in its possession.Stephen Curry outplayed Jayson Tatum in winning the N.B.A. championship last season, but Tatum said he learned from it.Maddie Meyer/Getty ImagesIn many ways, the finals had been billed as a referendum on youth versus experience, pitting Boston’s ascendant stars against Golden State’s title-tested core. Two players in particular personified the matchup, and it turned out to be a bit of a mismatch: There was Curry, who reasserted his supremacy by averaging 31.2 points for the series. And, of course, there was Tatum, who shot the ball poorly (often while being defended by Wiggins) and appeared gassed by the end.Tatum has since spoken about how that series affected him, about how he had trouble leaving his house for several days in its immediate aftermath, and about how he ultimately looked at it as a learning experience. He had thought he understood that the playoffs were a grind, he said then, but now he really knew.Still, the ghosts from the finals seemed to linger when Boston visited Golden State on Dec. 10 in their first of two meetings this season. In hindsight, Tatum said, the Celtics were too excited, too eager for some form of revenge: Tatum struggled, and the Celtics lost by 16.“Everybody wanted to win so bad,” he said.Before Thursday’s game, the Celtics tried to maintain a more balanced perspective. The gist of their conversations this week, Tatum said, was that one game was not going to erase what happened last season.“The fact of the matter is, we lost — we lost the championship,” he said. “We can’t go back in time and change that. So we didn’t look at this as a rematch of the finals. It’s just one game against a great team, great players and obviously a great coach. But it’s just one game.”Tatum kept repeating that phrase — that it was just one game — as if he were trying to convince himself that it was true. Some of his actions on Thursday indicated otherwise. Consider: He played 48 minutes. Mazzulla said he had a brief conversation with Tatum about whether to leave him in the game early in the fourth quarter.“I looked at him, he looked at me, we kind of said, ‘Yeah,’ and that was it,” Mazzulla said.Perhaps fatigue played a role in a few of Tatum’s mistakes. He shot only 9 of 27 from the field, though he made up for it in other ways, collecting 34 points, 19 rebounds and 6 assists — a stat line that would have made other players proud.Tatum, though, has higher standards now, and bigger goals. On Thursday, his teammates backed him up, another sign of growth for a young group that continues to move forward. Sure, it was only one game. But even Tatum acknowledged a deeper meaning.“Just trying to put the past behind us,” he said. More

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      In the Shadow of Superstars, Golden State’s Young Players Try to Bloom

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      Moses Moody would be wrapped in his blankets, protected from the morning chill, when his alarm went off at 5 a.m. Nothing about the situation appealed to him. What teenager wants to drag himself out of bed before dawn?But as a seventh-grader in Little Rock, Ark., Moody was beginning to sense his promise as a basketball player. And he knew, even then, that if he wanted to go places, he would need to work at his game — and then work at it some more.His father, Kareem Moody, had made a deal with him: He would help Moses train each morning before school, but only if Moses got up on his own. It was both a test and an early lesson in self-reliance: How badly did he want to improve?“So, if I wanted to work out, I had to wake him up, go get dressed, and then go wake him up again,” Moses Moody recalled in an interview. “And then he’d know I was for real.”Their early mornings at LA Fitness soon became routine. Moses also had the keys to the gym at Absolute Athlete, a nearby training facility. He was always looking for the next workout, the next pickup game, the next challenge.“You want to have challenges, and you have to have obstacles,” Moody said. “Because if you’re bad at something, that just means you have more room to grow.”As a second-year guard with Golden State, Moody, 20, has a new challenge: cracking the rotation and playing consistent minutes. He can commiserate with two other former first-round draft picks — James Wiseman, 21, and Jonathan Kuminga, 20 — who are trying to become contributors on a team without much time to waste.For Golden State, in Boston on Thursday for a rematch of last season’s N.B.A. finals against the Celtics, there is tension between defending its championship and developing its young players. Ideally, it would be able to do both. But it is a complicated puzzle, especially for a team with outsize expectations.Kuminga, a second-year forward, has spoken of upholding the “legacy” established by his teammates Stephen Curry, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson. Wiseman, a third-year center whose career has been slowed by injuries, has cited his sporadic minutes as chances for him to “grow and learn.” And Moody has straddled a fine line between patience and impatience.“It’s hard to keep the right head space,” he said. “But I also don’t want to hide those emotions from myself, saying that I’m OK with staying on the bench. I don’t want to be OK with it because I’m not OK with it. I want to play. I always want to play.”Moody is just three years removed from high school, and his playing time in the N.B.A. has been limited as Golden State leans on its veterans for a championship push.Kelsey McClellan for The New York TimesMoody, Kuminga and Wiseman have all spent time in the G League, where each has gotten ample minutes to score and, in most cases, create as the best player on the court. (Moody said his five games with Santa Cruz last season were “sufficient.”) Coach Steve Kerr has also tried to augment their development via “the golden hour” — a period of extra work before the start of practice.“But there’s no substitute for game reps,” Kerr said.In late November, when Golden State visited the New Orleans Pelicans, Kerr rested a bunch of his banged-up starters. As a result, Moody and Kuminga were among the young players who supplied big minutes. Golden State lost by 45.Afterward, Kerr had dinner with Curry and Green. He asked them a question that happened to be on his mind that night: When did they feel confident that they could win games — really win games — as N.B.A. players?“Draymond said it was his third year, and Steph said it was his fourth year,” Kerr recalled. “And you’re talking about two guys who had a lot of college experience, who played deep into the N.C.A.A. tournament and played games that mattered.”Kerr crunched the numbers. Curry spent three seasons at Davidson, while Green played four seasons at Michigan State. So, from the time they left high school, it took both about seven years before they understood the ins and outs of the N.B.A., seven years before they were experienced enough to win when it mattered.Moody, who spent one college season at Arkansas, is three years removed from high school. Wiseman appeared in just three games at the University of Memphis before Golden State made him the No. 2 overall pick in the 2020 N.B.A. draft. And Kuminga, who is from the Democratic Republic of Congo, went straight from high school to the G League Ignite, playing in a handful of games before he went to Golden State as the seventh pick of the 2021 draft — seven spots ahead of Moody.“You would think their growth would be a little more accelerated because you’re already in the N.B.A. and you’re picking things up that you wouldn’t pick up in college,” Kerr said. “But the point is, grown-ups win in the N.B.A. It’s very rare to see kids winning titles.”Golden State Coach Steve Kerr said it’s hard to give the youngest players more minutes since the team is so reliant on its superstars as it makes a playoff push.Kelsey McClellan for The New York TimesThompson recalled his own growing pains. Early in his second season, with a chance to seal a win against the Denver Nuggets, he missed two free throws. The game went to double overtime and Golden State lost. Thompson was so despondent that he left the arena in his uniform.“We all go through those lapses,” he said.But Golden State has less leeway for mistakes now, with its championship window narrowing as its stars age.“We can’t give these young guys the freedom that they need to learn through their mistakes,” Kerr said, adding that there is pressure from being on national TV so often and playing behind such accomplished stars.A handful of blowout losses have presented opportunities for Moody, Kuminga and Wiseman to play longer stretches. In a 30-point loss to the Nets on Dec. 21, Wiseman scored a career-high 30 points in 28 minutes.“I was able to play through my mistakes,” Wiseman said.Moody, meanwhile, figured to have a bigger role this season given some of the team’s free-agency losses last summer. But development is seldom linear, and Moody, who was averaging 5.2 points in 14.8 minutes a game entering Thursday, has occasionally dropped off the back end of the rotation. He wants his defense to become more instinctive. Kerr wants him to take better care of the ball.Moody was averaging 5.2 points in 14.8 minutes a game entering Thursday.Kelley L Cox/USA Today Sports, via Reuters“Stuff doesn’t always go your way,” Moody said, “but you’ve got to grow up. There’s also a sense of comfort knowing I’ve been in similar situations before, and it’s worked out.”As a high school sophomore, Moody led North Little Rock to a state championship, then transferred to Montverde Academy, a basketball powerhouse outside of Orlando, Fla. He wanted to be pushed by teammates like Cade Cunningham, who would become the No. 1 overall pick in the 2021 N.B.A. draft, and Scottie Barnes, last season’s rookie of the year with the Toronto Raptors.At his predraft workout for Golden State, Moody spotted a celebrity sitting courtside: Stephen Curry. Afterward, Moody made sure to “chop it up” with him, he said. Who knew when he would have that chance again? He figured he should pick up a few pointers.As it turned out, Moody had no reason to worry. He has spent the past two seasons absorbing regular lessons from Curry and the team’s other veterans. Moody described Golden State as an “elite basketball academy.” Green might be the self-appointed dean.“With Dray, you don’t have to listen to him,” Moody said. “But since he’s constantly talking and constantly giving out game, I try to take in as much as I can.”Not so long ago, the team had a reprieve from the pressures of chasing another championship. Golden State entered the 2019-20 season fresh off a fifth straight trip to the N.B.A. finals, then swiftly morphed into the worst team in the league. The season was an injury-induced oddity that landed the team in the draft lottery while accelerating the growth of Jordan Poole, then a rookie guard, who played more than he would have if the team had been at full strength. Poole has since established himself as one of the team’s leading scorers.The team doesn’t have that luxury this season — the luxury of losing. Golden State is fighting for a playoff spot.Moody obviously would prefer to be playing big minutes. But in many ways, he said, he feels fortunate. If he were playing for a lousy team, he might be developing bad habits that he never corrects. With Golden State, there is no margin for error.“You’ve got to be perfect,” Moody said. “So if I can figure out a way to play perfect basketball right now, that’ll set me up for the rest of my career.” More