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      He Saw. He Believed. Now He Can Be an N.B.A. Star.

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      MIAMI — The training drill is named after LeBron James. Most people would be better off if they just let him do it.Dribble a basketball while sprinting full court. Dunk it. Rebound. No time to catch your breath. Turn around and do it again.Ten times.Is that how to spend a morning in Miami?Mark Williams walked into a gym tucked beside the bustling Interstate 95 in the Overtown neighborhood of Miami on a recent Thursday. The glowing lights of the gym were a poor substitute for the sunny skies in South Beach, where he could have been instead. But when you’re trying to make it to the N.B.A., some things have to wait.He sat on the first row of bleachers inside the gym and exchanged his slides for splashy Nikes — a little blue, a burst of purple, a lot of neon orange. He wrangled the shoelaces and made his way to a video room, slipping his 7-foot-2 frame through the doorway. Williams, 20, is tall enough to touch a basketball rim just by shifting onto his toes.He joined a handful of N.B.A. hopefuls to watch video of a pre-draft workout by the Miami Heat star Bam Adebayo from several years ago. The message? While Adebayo, now an All-Star and all-defensive team member, did not sink every one of his shots, his energy never wavered.Williams got the message.Williams is best known for his rim protection skills, but he’s been working on his shooting.Mary Beth Koeth for The New York TimesBaseline, sprint, dunk. Baseline, sprint, dunk. His black T-shirt and black shorts didn’t show it, but his face couldn’t hide the sweat. The LeBron James drill seemed to exhaust him. But Williams had enough in his tank to display some of the jaw-dropping athleticism that has him pegged as a potential first-round draft pick. Standing at the baseline, he jumped, rotated the ball under his legs and slammed it into the hoop.N.B.A. prospects a generation ago were largely on their own after either declaring for the draft or exhausting their college eligibility. Their agents scheduled workouts with teams before the draft, and the players, often by themselves, flew out for the visit. They did not think of altering their diet or agonize about how to answer questions from N.B.A. personnel. They often trained for the auditions of their life by joining whatever pickup games they could find.But the best players in Williams’s generation have little downtime while dangling on the cliff between childhood and adulthood, amateurism and the N.B.A. Their Thursdays are spent training. Their Mondays and Fridays, too, are at the gym. The hopefuls who sign with the same agent — in Williams’s case, Jeff Schwartz at Excel Sports Management — can become a team of their own. They may live with one another, attending workouts, recovery sessions and media training all aimed at preparing them for those fateful auditions and the complicated life that awaits an N.B.A. star.It can be an anxious time, a monthslong Christmas Eve.“I think it’s just the uncertainty about where I’m going to be,” Williams said. “When I get there, got to find somewhere to live. I got to find a car. I’m going to have new teammates, so just building a relationship with them, coaches. Just not knowing what’s going to happen. I feel like I embrace the uncertainty. It’s not like I’m nervous, but I’d say that’s the biggest thing.“You don’t know what’s going to happen.”Williams thought about entering the N.B.A. draft after his freshman season at Duke, but “I just wanted to go back and really prove myself.”Mary Beth Koeth for The New York Times‘Places where people can’t see’Williams grew up in Norfolk, Va., the youngest of three children. His mother, Margaret, was a nurse, and his father, Alex, is a gastroenterologist. Mark went to golf camp as a child. He played tennis for a summer. He dominated flag football for a while. No sport held his imagination like basketball did.Mark was almost 10 years old and already nearing 6 feet tall when he started shadowing his older sister Elizabeth, who at 17 was a basketball star in Virginia. She trained with Nadine Domond, a former W.N.B.A. player, who is an assistant coach for Rutgers’ women’s basketball team. Domond indulged the curious younger brother by letting him box out and practice his footwork in the post.“I’d be messing around looking, and she would teach me little tips and tricks,” Mark said.Mark started to envision his own basketball future when he attended the McDonald’s All American Game for top high school players in Chicago in 2011. Elizabeth had been chosen for the girls’ team.Mark surveyed the tall, young players on the boys’ team and asked one of them — the future eight-time N.B.A. All-Star Anthony Davis — to sign his basketball. He considered the path players such as Davis were taking toward the N.B.A. That’s what he wanted to do, too.He enjoyed watching James, who was with the Big Three in Miami, and Kevin Durant, who was beginning to harness his talents as a deadly marksman in Oklahoma City. Both were dominant, multifaceted players who seemingly did everything possible on the court. But Williams had no local N.B.A. team to follow.He could expend most of his energy being Elizabeth’s biggest fan.Mark Williams blocked the shot of a Virginia Tech player during a game in March.Brad Penner/USA Today Sports, via ReutersElizabeth Williams blocked the shot of a Stony Brook player during a game in 2014.Andy Mead/YCJ/Icon Sportswire/Corbis via Getty ImagesElizabeth finished high school in Virginia and began her 2011-12 freshman season at Duke, where she became the program’s first four-time all-American. Mark was a vocal fixture at her games. “He was super loud,” Elizabeth said. “It didn’t bother me. I loved it.”Elizabeth had figured her brother would be tall. She is 6 feet 3 inches tall, and they have a couple of uncles who are around 6-foot-9. But Mark did not simply have a growth spurt — it really never stopped. “I like being tall,” Mark said. “It’s nice. You get to see over everything, places where people can’t see.”A rising basketball star needs that kind of vision, both physically and metaphorically. Williams became a McDonald’s all-American like his sister — although the coronavirus pandemic forced the cancellation of the game — and he chose to play basketball at Duke, too. Elizabeth’s No. 1 jersey was retired at Cameron Indoor Stadium after the Connecticut Sun took her with the fourth overall pick in the 2015 W.N.B.A. draft. She’s in her eighth W.N.B.A. season, her first with the Washington Mystics. Mark has his sights set on that kind of professional path as well. But others don’t always see what we see.Williams debated declaring for the N.B.A. draft after his freshman season, but returned when he was pegged as a borderline first-round selection.“I just wanted to go back and really prove myself and make it not up for debate anymore,” Wiliams said.Williams is learning how to navigate the increased recognition that comes with playing high-stakes basketball.Al Drago for The New York TimesHe flashed dominance as a rim protector and rebounder as a sophomore and grew more confident with each game. By the time North Carolina outlasted Duke in a memorable Final Four appearance in early April, he had known for a while that he would be off to the N.B.A. “Throughout the year, I really felt like I could be a pro,” Williams said.‘Setting a tone’The voices of Kanye West, Drake and DJ Khaled blared through the speakers of Core Fitness Miami, but Williams was tuned in to Andy Luaces.Luaces owns the gym on Northeast 25th Street in the Edgewater neighborhood of Miami. It’s near a juice bar and is lined with framed jerseys of some of the professional athletes Luaces has trained, including Terry Rozier and John Wall. The space has fake grass, rows of weights and no room for messing around.“If I let people start to get away with half-ass reps, then you’re setting a tone for your gym that quality here doesn’t matter,” Luaces said.Williams watches film with other N.B.A. hopefuls. One video showed a yearsold predraft workout of the Miami Heat’s Bam Adebayo.Mary Beth Koeth for The New York TimesFueled by a bagel sandwich and a smoothie, Williams was there with four other N.B.A. prospects for an afternoon workout after the morning drills at the Overtown gym several miles south.Williams tossed a football back and forth with Ousmane Dieng, a French prospect who last played for the New Zealand Breakers, a professional men’s team based in Auckland. Luaces gathered Williams, Dieng and three others for what he called a feel-good workout. For the next hour, the group cycled through exercises that targeted their hamstrings and glutes.They started working out with Luaces at his gym a couple of months earlier. At the time, most still had lingering aches and pains from their seasons in college or overseas. Luaces had hoped to help them become healthy, stronger and faster to make their bid for the N.B.A.Now, with team tryouts on the horizon, he steered the workouts toward preserving their progress.Luaces watched closely as Williams collapsed before finishing the final repetition on a Nordic hamstring exercise. He told Williams to do it again. Williams grimaced and complied, letting out a long exhale upon finishing.Getting ready for the N.B.A. involves plenty of weight lifting and basketball, but there is more. It’s about learning to find time for balance — Williams and the hopefuls took a trip to the beach — and deciding how to craft an image. Williams picked his draft-night suit earlier that week, debating how flashy he wanted to be and what accessories he wanted to wear. He went to an Eastern Conference finals game between the Boston Celtics and the Heat in downtown Miami the day before.“I saw A-Rod at the game last night,” Williams told Luaces, referring to the former Yankees star Alex Rodriguez.Some fans asked Williams for selfies at the game. His height has always made him noticeable, but he also has a quick smile. Now he stands out by name, especially after the Final Four run. Williams hopes he can stir some of the same inspiration in children that his 2011 run-in with Davis spurred in him.The best big men in the N.B.A. are able to dunk and shoot from outside.Mary Beth Koeth for The New York TimesHis oldest sister Victoria Oloyede has a 2-year-old son named Tristan. “He’s a lot of fun,” Williams said. “Being an uncle is fun.”Just before leaving the gym to spend an hour in physical therapy next door, Williams asked Luaces if he had a tape measure.Luaces found one in a drawer. Williams held out one long arm and asked Luaces to measure his wrist. He planned to buy a new bracelet soon.“I would go 8 ½ or 8 ¾,” Luaces said. “Are you a bracelet guy?”“He’s about to be,” Dieng chimed in.‘Something I never experienced’Williams returned to the Overtown gym for another hour of shooting to close the day’s sessions. The final workout was shorter and looser, designed to develop a shooting rhythm and confidence by seeing the ball repeatedly splash home.Andrew Moran, a skills coach who works with Williams, sees him as more than a dunker and rim protector and said that N.B.A. teams would be surprised by the fluidity and accuracy of his outside shot.Ten years ago, a 7-foot-2 center wouldn’t need to spend months working on 3-pointers. But the demands are different now. The best big men are shooters — Nikola Jokic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Karl-Anthony Towns — so prospects want that edge.And in this enlightened era of load management, they also want to rest sometimes.Williams has been projected to be drafted in the middle-to-late first round. The N.B.A. invited him to attend the draft in person.Mary Beth Koeth for The New York TimesAfter dunking and sprinting and activating his glutes, Williams planned to spend the rest of the day recuperating, possibly starting on a new show. He recently finished “Ozark” on Netflix.“It was crazy,” he said of the show’s final season.He thinks about how he would fit on various N.B.A. teams, the combinations cycling through his mind. He is projected to be drafted in the mid-to-late first round. Williams said he didn’t care where he went.Elizabeth will be at Barclays Center for the draft on Thursday after getting permission from the Mystics to miss a game to attend with her parents and sister.Mark is ready. He can already see it. “I’m looking good in my suit, and then when Adam Silver calls my name, it’ll just be surreal,” Williams said, referring to the N.B.A. commissioner. “It’ll be, I don’t know. I can’t even put into words that feeling. It’ll just be something I never experienced. A life-changing moment.”On most evenings, Williams asks himself if he had a good day before drifting to sleep. Soon, he will be living the dream. More

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      N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver misses Game 6 of the finals after testing positive.

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      If Golden State wins the N.B.A. championship on Thursday, the league’s commissioner, Adam Silver, will not be there to hand over the trophy. Silver is missing his second straight game because of the league’s coronavirus health and safety protocols.Silver tested positive for the coronavirus before Game 5 and has mild symptoms, according to a person familiar with the test result who was not authorized to publicly disclose the details.Golden State is facing the Boston Celtics in the N.B.A. finals, and just needs to win Game 6 in Boston on Thursday for the title. Silver, who has been the commissioner since 2014, normally would be expected to lead the championship trophy presentation. Instead, the ceremonial task will fall to the league’s deputy commissioner, Mark Tatum, if Golden State wins.If Boston wins, Game 7 will be Sunday in San Francisco.The league has loosened its virus protocols in recent months, limiting testing and shortening isolation periods for players who have tested positive, in accordance with guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Players are not required to be vaccinated.Boston’s Al Horford missed the first game of the Eastern Conference semifinals because of the league’s coronavirus health and safety protocols. More

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      The Celtics Got Lucky By Not Getting What They Wanted

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      Other teams’ superstars kept getting traded, and the Celtics wanted in on the action. Boston (mostly) missed out, and is probably better off for it.Moments after Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals ended last month, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown embraced each other.“They said we couldn’t play together,” Tatum said with a wide smile.That had been the most pressing issue facing the Boston Celtics since Tatum, 24, and Brown, 25, were handed the reins to the team before the 2019-20 season. That year — Tatum’s third and Brown’s fourth in the N.B.A. — they led the team to within two wins of reaching the finals. Since then, they have faced questions about whether Boston could be a championship-caliber team built around them.Those questions were at their loudest earlier this year — dominating TV panels and podcasts — when the Celtics were 18-21 and on pace to miss the playoffs. Instead, a remarkable turnaround propelled the Celtics into the finals, against Golden State, for the first time since 2010.“We definitely thought about and had conversations about trading for a number of the great players that were sort of thought to be available over the past 10 years,” Wyc Grousbeck, the owner of the Celtics, said in an interview. “It’d be wrong to say we never engaged in trade talks with player X, Y or Z.”But, he added, “we valued our guys more than, apparently, the market did.”The trend in the N.B.A. over the last 15 years — though it didn’t originate then — has been to chase the creation of so-called superteams at the expense of developing continuity and nurturing young players. The 2007-8 Celtics, who brought in Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett to complement Paul Pierce through blockbuster trades and won a championship, were a prominent example of this.Since then, several teams have emptied their cupboards of draft picks and young players to acquire big-name stars — as the Celtics did — in a leaguewide arms race to compete for mercenary championships. This has coincided with the player empowerment movement, where top players have tried, often successfully, to be traded to teams with other stars.This has left the players’ new teams on edge, wondering if giving up all the picks and young players will be worth it.The Celtics tried to get in on the trend — they traded for Kyrie Irving and signed Gordon Hayward to a big free-agent deal just after drafting Tatum in 2017 — but today’s team is the result of yearslong investment in young players. The Celtics are on the doorstep of a championship with a foundation that goes against what has become conventional wisdom about team-building in the N.B.A. Whether as a result of luck or shrewd front office work, or both, the Celtics’ approach is paying off.In recent years, the All-Stars Jimmy Butler, Kawhi Leonard, Ben Simmons, James Harden, Anthony Davis and Paul George have been among those to engineer trades. Irving forced a trade out of Cleveland to land in Boston.Almost every time a star was rumored to want out of their situation, the Celtics would be linked to the trade talks. Few teams could offer young players as talented as Boston’s or as many draft picks, some of which Boston acquired in a heist of a deal with the Nets as they created their own superteam in 2013.Grousbeck declined to comment on what deals Boston came close to making. In at least one case, the star seemingly made the decision for the Celtics. Davis’s father, Anthony Davis Sr., publicly said that he didn’t want his son playing in Boston — a signal that even if Davis were traded to Boston, he wouldn’t re-sign once his contract expired, making it less worthwhile for the Celtics to part with their top players in a deal.Brown, left, and Tatum were drafted one year apart. Their growth over the past five years, especially this season, has made Boston a top contender in the Eastern Conference.Elsa/Getty Images“I think that what happens is you want to trade draft capital if you get the right deals and if you feel like you’re close enough to winning,” Danny Ainge, who was Boston’s president of basketball operations from 2003-21, told Sports Illustrated recently. “None of us know what would have happened in different circumstances.”In some cases, superteam gambles worked — at least in the short term. The Toronto Raptors won the championship in 2019, led by Leonard; the Lakers won a title in 2020 with Davis. But the Nets won just one playoff series with Harden before he forced a trade to the Philadelphia 76ers in February. To get Harden from Houston, the Nets had given up the 24-year-old center Jarrett Allen, who made his first All-Star team this year with Cleveland.The Nets’ one series win with Harden came against Boston in the first round of the 2021 playoffs, with Brown out injured. The Celtics, left behind in the superteam arms race, seemed adrift. Some of their recent first-round draft picks, like Romeo Langford (2019) and Aaron Nesmith (2020), looked like misses. Irving and Hayward were gone. Kemba Walker, a former All-Star whom the Celtics had signed to a maximum contract to replace Irving, had been injured and playing poorly. Suddenly, Boston looked like a team that had, unlike the Raptors and Lakers title teams, held on to its young players for too long.The day after the Celtics were eliminated from last year’s playoffs, Boston simultaneously announced that Ainge was stepping down as team president and that Brad Stevens would replace him. Stevens had been the team’s head coach for eight seasons, but he had no front office experience.Grousbeck said he pitched Stevens on replacing Ainge, citing Stevens’s tenure with the team and a “personal bond” that he had with ownership. At the news conference announcing the move last June, Stevens said he had discussed the possibility of taking over the position with both Ainge and Grousbeck, and that he told Grousbeck: “I love the Celtics. I want to do what’s best for the Celtics.”One of Stevens’s first moves was to hire Ime Udoka as coach, Udoka’s first leading role after nine years as an assistant. Grousbeck said he wasn’t worried about the inexperience of Stevens and Udoka in their new jobs.“I went to Ime and Brad before the season started and specifically said in person, ‘I’m not stressed about how this season starts,’” Grousbeck said.There are countless examples of professional sports owners preaching patience but not practicing it. As the season progressed, the Celtics mostly kept the faith that they could win with Tatum and Brown as their centerpieces.“Now, did I start worrying in the first half? Yes, I did. But I kept it to myself,” Grousbeck said.Marcus Smart, left, has been a vocal leader for the Celtics and critical as a defender. He was named the defensive player of the year this season, the first guard to win the award since Gary Payton in the 1990s.Winslow Townson/Getty ImagesAfter their 18-21 start, the Celtics went 33-10 and earned the No. 3 seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs. Most of the players in their finals rotation were drafted by the Celtics and are 25 and younger, including Tatum (24), Brown (25), Robert Williams III (24), Grant Williams (23) and Payton Pritchard (24). Marcus Smart, 28, was drafted by the Celtics in 2014 and named the defensive player of the year this season.This would appear to leave the Celtics in strong shape for years to come. They’re in the finals and many of their players haven’t hit their primes. But championship windows can be slim. After this year, the N.B.A. will have crowned at least five different teams as champion in seven years. The Celtics might end up regretting not trading for Davis or another big name if they don’t win a title this year. After all, just one year ago, when the Celtics looked to be locked into mediocrity, the Phoenix Suns came within two wins of a championship, only to slink out in the second round of this postseason despite being the West’s No. 1 seed.But if Boston wins, perhaps the next team will think twice before striking a deal when the next Harden or Simmons tries to force a trade. The Celtics aren’t quite the model of patience — a stroke of luck, it seems, felled their superstar trade negotiations — but what they have appears to be working just fine.Not that Grousbeck is interested in taking a victory lap.“I don’t think anybody needs any advice from us about building a team,” Grousbeck said. More

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      Celtics Gain NBA Finals Edge on Golden State With Physical Play

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      The Celtics lead the N.B.A. finals, two games to one, in a series that has been defined by size and rebounds more than finesse and flash.BOSTON — After Game 3 of the N.B.A. finals, Boston Celtics center Robert Williams attended his postgame news conference dressed in a T-shirt with the face of the bruising, Hall of Fame player Dennis Rodman printed on it.It was fitting attire after a game in which the Celtics had banged into the Golden State Warriors and sent them skittering across the court, in which they wrested rebounds and loose balls away from them. At times, Golden State looked disheveled and tired when its players smacked into the bigger, more athletic, younger Celtics.“We want to try to impose our will and size in this series,” Celtics Coach Ime Udoka said.Game 3, on Wednesday night, was the first finals game in Boston since 2010, and the Celtics made a statement, playing with edge to earn a 2-1 series lead over Golden State with a 116-100 win. Boston will also host Game 4 on Friday night.It has been a series marked by toughness: The team able to exhibit more of it has been able to win each of the first three games.“If we were going to come out here and play, the last thing when we left that court we didn’t want to say we weren’t physical enough,” Celtics guard Marcus Smart said. “It worked out for us.”Statistically, that physicality manifested itself in several ways Wednesday night.It showed in the rebounding — Boston grabbed 16 more rebounds than Golden State. Williams had 10, as well as four of the Celtics’ seven blocks.“There’s a play early in the fourth, I got by Grant Williams and thought I had daylight to get a shot up, and you underestimate how athletic he was and how much he could bother that shot,” Golden State guard Stephen Curry said.Williams has been inconsistent this series because of a knee injury that has bothered him throughout the playoffs. Williams had surgery on his left knee in March, but aggravated it during the Celtics’ Eastern Conference semifinal series against the Milwaukee Bucks. On Wednesday, he felt good enough to give Boston a lift.“They’ve been killing us on the glass this whole series,” Williams said. “Wanted to just put an emphasis on it.”Golden State guard Stephen Curry, left, was caught under the Celtics’ Al Horford in the fourth quarter of Game 3 of the N.B.A. finals on Wednesday night.Scott Strazzante/San Francisco Chronicle, via Associated PressThe Celtics’ physicality also showed in their ability to score inside. They outscored Golden State, 52-26, in the paint.“It was just us being us, just continuing to drive the ball and try to find a great shot for our teammates and ourselves,” Smart said. “This Warrior team does a very good job of helping each other out on their defensive end. They’re going to make you have to make the right play every single time, and if you don’t, they’re going to make you pay.”Although Golden State is known for an offense that can be mesmerizing to watch, it was impressive defensively during its dynastic run from 2015 to 2019. That returned this season — the only team with a better defensive rating than Golden State has been Boston.In the finals, the Celtics have used their size to widen the gap between the two teams.The Celtics won Game 1, 120-108, and showed Golden State’s players they would need to be more physical if they meant to compete.Golden State trailed early in Game 2 as well, and that was the crux of the halftime conversation. The players knew that the only way to match Boston was to match its intensity, despite being smaller at most positions. With that in mind, Golden State outscored Boston, 41-14, in that third quarter and won, 107-88.“There wasn’t a whole lot of strategic change,” Golden State Coach Steve Kerr said after Game 2. “You know, a couple tweaks here and there. The preparation was mostly about our intensity and physicality.”In Game 3, the Celtics reclaimed that edge.“We had to,” Smart said of the physicality with which Boston dominated Golden State. “Game 2, they brought the heat to us. For us, that left a bad taste in our mouth because what we hang our hat on is effort on the defensive end and being a physical team.”Golden State was not able to match it, not for long enough anyway.Golden State has outscored Boston by 43 points in the third quarter this series, and took a lead in Game 3, 83-82, on a 3-pointer by Curry. That basket had followed a quick stretch of 7 points without Boston gaining possession. Curry was fouled shooting a 3-pointer, and since the foul was flagrant, Golden State got the ball back and scored another 3.But as the quarter closed, Golden State’s grip on the game slipped.“Take the hits, keep fighting,” Williams said was the message in the huddle after the third quarter. “Obviously, they’re a great team that goes on runs, a lot of runs, but just withstanding the hit.”Golden State couldn’t get through the defense, nor could it stop the Celtics from grabbing second chances. Hustle plays typically went to Boston.At one point in the fourth quarter, several players tangled over a loose ball, and Smart came up with it before Draymond Green pushed him. It was Green’s sixth foul, and the crowd jeered at him after having spent the evening chanting curses at him.Golden State’s Klay Thompson complained about fans swearing with “children in the crowd.”“Real classy. Good job, Boston,” he said.Green said the chants didn’t bother him. What bothered him more, he said, was that he played “soft.” He was a catalyst for Golden State’s more physical play in Game 2, but he was ineffective in Game 3.He said his final foul came when he was trying to get players off Curry, whom he heard screaming at the bottom of a pile. Curry stayed in the game but said afterward that he had pain in one of his feet.It is among the many bruises Golden State will have to manage after a Game 3 loss that challenged its toughness. The Celtics shoved over Golden State’s beautiful brand of basketball, leaving Curry and his teammates searching for ways to get back up. More

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      Klay Thompson’s Fix for His Shooting Woes? Unearthing His Alter Ego.

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      The Golden State guard has turned to highlights of himself at his peak — in the mode of “Game 6 Klay” — to help emerge from a shooting slump in the N.B.A. finals.BOSTON — Klay Thompson might as well have spent Game 2 of the N.B.A. finals on Sunday launching the ball straight into swirling winds. His field-goal attempts veered left and right, fell short and carried long.Afterward, knowing Golden State would need him to be more productive as its series with the Celtics continued, Thompson sought to remind himself that he was good at basketball. So he fired up a laptop and watched old clips of a familiar figure: himself.“I remember being in college,” he said, “and when you’d go through a shooting slump, the video guys would pull up a great game when everything seemed in unison, and your body was working so well that the ball was just flowing off your fingertips.”All Thompson needed to do, he said, was search for “Game 6 Klay” on YouTube, and various high-profile reminders of his long-range acumen were readily available to him. Most recently, he scored 30 points and made 8 of 14 3-point attempts in Golden State’s Game 6 win over the Memphis Grizzlies last month to close out their Western Conference semifinal series. He also famously scored 41 points, in a performance that included making 11 of his 18 3-pointers, in 2016 in Game 6 of the Western Conference finals against the Oklahoma City Thunder.“There were some very high-pressurized situations I was in, and I ended up shooting the ball well,” he said. “When you can do it when your back is against the wall, you can do it at any given moment. It’s just about keeping that mental strong.”Thompson was just 1 of 8 from 3-point range during Game 2 of the N.B.A. finals. His career regular-season 3-point percentage is 41.7.Ezra Shaw/Getty ImagesIf nothing else, Thompson is familiar with keeping, as he put it, that mental strong. His celebrated comeback after missing two full seasons because of injuries has culminated in another trip to the finals, his sixth with Golden State. But he was clearly disappointed with his effort in Game 2 against Boston, as he shot 4 of 19 from the field and finished with 11 points. On the bright side, he said, the Warriors drubbed the Celtics to tie the series ahead of Game 3 on Wednesday night in Boston.“It feels good going 4 for 19 and winning by 20,” said Thompson, referring to Golden State’s 107-88 win. “I’d rather do that than go 13 for 19 and lose by 10. Been there, and that’s never fun.”On Tuesday, Thompson arrived for his news conference wearing one sneaker while he worked to fit the other with an insole. He was, in his own way, a work in progress, and that has been the case since January, when he was finally back in uniform after a 941-day absence. In 32 regular-season games, he shot a career-low 38.5 percent from 3-point range, but he offered flashes of his familiar greatness, and his mere presence on the perimeter helped create more space for teammates like Stephen Curry.It has been more of the same for Thompson in the playoffs: some good, some great, some bad. His inconsistency should not be surprising given how long he was gone. His left knee and his right Achilles’ tendon are surgically repaired, so there were always going to be ups and downs as he sought to regain his rhythm and his conditioning. His teammates do not seem concerned.“If you saw him now, you’d think he’s averaging 50 in this series,” Curry said. “He’s got a very confident look about him. That’s the best thing about him. It’s all about the work you put in. It’s about the mind-set.”On Sunday, Thompson had a bit of a different look. He missed 9 of his first 10 field-goal attempts before he made a 3-pointer early in the third quarter that put Golden State ahead, 59-52. He pumped his fists, but was soon muttering to himself and shaking his head.“When I watched the film, I probably seemed a little rushed,” he said. “I wasn’t underneath my shot.”Even as the score grew more lopsided, Golden State Coach Steve Kerr left Thompson in the game against Boston’s reserves. But rather than unearth some confidence, Thompson missed his final four shots.“I think he’s just pressing a little bit,” Kerr said. “He just wants so badly to do well that he’s taking some bad ones. I’m not particularly concerned about it because this isn’t the first time it’s happened. Klay has a way of responding to mini-slumps or whatever you want to call them.”Thompson thought back to this year’s Western Conference finals against the Dallas Mavericks. Over the first four games of the series, he shot just 29.2 percent from 3-point range. In Game 5, he scored 32 points and shot 8 of 16 from 3-point range to help eliminate Dallas.“I stuck to the process,” he said, “and eventually I blew the lid off.”Ahead of Wednesday’s game against Boston, Kerr said a point of emphasis would be to make sure that Thompson got some good looks early that were in rhythm.As for Thompson’s film study — which he apparently tries to be discreet about — Golden State’s Draymond Green said he had not caught Thompson watching old clips of himself on YouTube.“The reality is, if I did, we’d probably make fun of him,” Green said. “So it’s probably good that I haven’t.”To be fair, Thompson does not have much trouble staying grounded on his own. On Tuesday, he recalled where he was about a year ago: working out in an empty arena with Rick Celebrini, the team’s director of sports medicine and performance.“To be back here on this stage,” Thompson said, “you’ve just got to remind yourself to keep working because it’s a blessing and really an honor to be here.” More

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      Boston Celtics Stun Golden State in N.B.A. Finals Game 1

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      SAN FRANCISCO — After a long and eventful road to the N.B.A. finals, Golden State was grateful for a full week to rest and recover before facing the Boston Celtics in Game 1 on Thursday night.Golden State’s modest break came to an abrupt end. Boston made sure of it, stunning Golden State, 120-108, to take the opening game of the best-of-seven series at Chase Center.The Celtics leaned on their depth to erase a 15-point deficit in the second half. Al Horford scored a team-high 26 points, while Jaylen Brown added 24 and Derrick White scored 21 off the bench.Jayson Tatum scored just 12 points in the win while shooting 3 of 17 from the field, but he had a game-high 13 assists. The Celtics also managed to overcome a turbocharged effort from Golden State’s Stephen Curry, who scored 34 points.Game 2 is Sunday night in San Francisco.In remarks before the game, N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver noted how the finals was pitting two of the league’s original franchises — a fitting series for the N.B.A., which has been celebrating its 75th anniversary this season. The Philadelphia Warriors won the league’s first championship, all the way back in 1947, when they took care of the Chicago Stags in five games. The Celtics are chasing their 18th title, and their first since 2008.The finals, of course, are familiar turf for Golden State’s celebrated stars. Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green are making their sixth finals appearance in the past eight seasons. And the Warriors had looked familiarly dominant in needing just five games to eliminate the Dallas Mavericks in the Western Conference finals.The Celtics, on the other hand, were coming off a bruising seven-game series with the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference finals. Ahead of Game 1 against Golden State, Marcus Smart and Robert Williams III were still recovering from injuries. And Tatum and Brown, the Celtics’ two young stars, had been supplying huge minutes throughout the playoffs.Golden State looked primed to jump all over Boston in the early going. In the first quarter alone, Curry sank six 3-pointers — a finals record for 3-pointers in a quarter — and scored 21 points as Golden State led by as many as 10. Even Andre Iguodala got into the act, supplying his first minutes since the first round after missing most of the postseason with back trouble.But the Celtics are not in the finals by accident. They produced the league’s top-rated defense in the regular season, and they ramped up the pressure on Curry as the game wore on. Consider a single possession of the second quarter, as Curry tried to work himself free by coming off a series of screens. White defended him, then Tatum, then Smart, the league’s defensive player of the year. Surprise: Curry could not find an opening.Jordan Poole closed the first half for Golden State by bricking a 3-point attempt off the top of the backboard, and the Celtics led, 56-54. A gold-clad crowd that had roared for much of the half seemed to be in a collective stupor. Adult refreshments awaited many fans on the concourse.Golden State is famous for its explosive third quarters, though, and Thursday’s version of it was no different. By the time Curry threw in an acrobatic layup, Golden State was back up by 9.But fueled by unsung players like White and Payton Pritchard, the Celtics mounted a huge run in the fourth quarter, taking a 109-103 lead when Horford sank back-to-back 3-pointers.Fans began to file toward the exits in the final minute. More

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      ESPN’s Jeff Van Gundy and Mike Breen Will Miss First NBA Finals Game

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      Mike Breen and Jeff Van Gundy, two longtime staples of ESPN’s broadcast team for the N.B.A. finals, will miss the opening game of the championship series between Golden State and the Boston Celtics. An ESPN spokesman said that both broadcasters had tested positive for the coronavirus in recent days, but Van Gundy said in an interview that he had not.The N.B.A. finals begin Thursday in San Francisco and would be the 14th championship series featuring Breen on play-by-play alongside Van Gundy and Mark Jackson, two former N.B.A. head coaches. Instead, Game 1 will be called by Jackson and Mark Jones, with Lisa Salters as the sideline reporter.Breen missed Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals series between Miami and Boston on Sunday after testing positive for the virus. Van Gundy and Jackson, who had called games with Breen over the prior week, continued on with the game, with Jones filling in for Breen.Van Gundy said in an interview Thursday that he had not been tested for the virus before Sunday’s game because he was asymptomatic, although his voice was noticeably hoarse during the Game 7 broadcast. The N.B.A. did not institute a testing mandate for members of the television and news media for this year’s playoffs, as it did last postseason.Van Gundy said that on Monday, upon flying home to Houston, he started to feel slight symptoms. The next day, he took a home test, which he said was inconclusive. ESPN then sent Van Gundy two other rapid tests, which he said came out negative. Van Gundy also said he wasn’t sure why he had been pulled from broadcasting Game 1, and that he hoped to be back for Game 2 Sunday in San Francisco.Van Gundy added that he was no longer experiencing symptoms.Adrian Wojnarowski and Kendra Andrews, reporters who frequently appear on air for ESPN, have also tested positive for the coronavirus, and will miss the series opener. Andrews is a beat writer covering Golden State, and Wojnarowski is the network’s top N.B.A. reporter. More