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      N.B.A. Finals: Boston Celtics Take On Golden State Warriors

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      Golden State has been to the finals six times in eight years. But the young stars of the Celtics may finally be ready for their big moment.It would be Stephen Curry’s fourth N.B.A. championship, or Jayson Tatum’s first. It would be a comeback story for the ages for Klay Thompson, or a fairy-tale ending to the debut of the first-time head coach Ime Udoka.Much is at stake in the 2022 N.B.A. finals for Golden State and the Boston Celtics, two teams with something to prove. For Golden State, it’s a chance to defy the odds against reviving a dynasty after two seasons away from the spotlight. For Boston and its lineup of rising stars, this is, as they say, when legends are made.Here is a look at what to expect in the N.B.A. finals, which begin Thursday in San Francisco.Third-seeded Golden State has home-court advantage over second-seeded Boston because of its better regular-season record.Experience may not be everything.Golden State during the parade for its most recent championship, in 2018.Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated PressAfter the Boston Celtics won Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals, their words about facing Golden State in the N.B.A. finals conveyed a blend of confidence and deference.“We know we’re going up against a great team with the Warriors. Great players, great organization,” Celtics guard Marcus Smart said. “They have the track record to prove it. They know exactly what it takes. They’ve been here. They’re vets. We know we’ve got a long road in front of us, but we’re up for the challenge.”These finals are marked by a gap in experience, with one team well seasoned in championship basketball and another filled with newcomers to this stage. Golden State has five players who have made multiple finals appearances — Stephen Curry, Draymond Green, Klay Thompson, Kevon Looney and Andre Iguodala. The Celtics have no players who have made it this far before now.Part of that is a function of age. Boston’s roster is filled with players in their 20s, while Golden State is a group of 30-somethings whose lives have changed since their first finals appearances.“Just being able to balance even just, like, family life,” Curry said after Game 5 of the Western Conference finals. “I’m blessed to have kids that are now 9, 6 and 3. Like, when I was back in ’14, ’15, chasing those playoffs, just a different vibe in terms of everything that’s going on in life.”Jayson Tatum, left, and Jaylen Brown, right are still finding themselves as the leaders of the Boston Celtics.Derick Hingle/Associated PressSmart was a 21-year-old rookie in 2015, the first time Curry, Green and Thompson won an N.B.A. championship. Jayson Tatum, who was named the Eastern Conference finals most valuable player this year, was in 11th grade. Their teammate Jaylen Brown had just finished high school and was headed to play college basketball at the University of California, Berkeley — just 11 miles from where Golden State played at the time.By the 2015 championship, with the exception of Looney, whom the Warriors drafted a few weeks after winning the title, Golden State’s return finals participants had all been through years of seasoning and early playoff exits.The 2021-22 Celtics have similarly spent the past few years learning how to win in the playoffs, and dealing with the bitterness of losing. Boston has been to the playoffs every year since 2015 and made it to the conference finals four times.But Golden State’s journey shows that finals experience isn’t everything.When the Warriors won the 2015 championship, they faced a Cleveland Cavaliers team led by LeBron James. James was making his fifth consecutive finals appearance and sixth overall. But he couldn’t stop Golden State from winning the series in six games.But James was also relatively new to that team. The depth of Golden State’s experience will help carry the team this month.Prediction: Golden State in six.Draymond Green is Golden State’s ‘emotional leader.’Draymond Green’s strength, and weakness, is his intensity.Ezra Shaw/Getty ImagesStephen Curry has famously drained more 3-pointers than anyone in history. Klay Thompson is still basking in his triumphant return from two cataclysmic injuries. And Jordan Poole, out of the morass of Golden State’s two seasons on dynastic hiatus, has emerged as one of the most dynamic young scorers in the league.As the Warriors return to the N.B.A. finals, several players have fueled their run. But is it possible amid all the team’s pyrotechnics that Draymond Green — the team’s highly opinionated, referee-tormenting spokesman — is somehow being overlooked? OK, maybe not. But in his 10th season, Green is making his sixth trip to the finals, and it is no coincidence. He is the defense-minded, pass-first force who binds his teammates in more ways than one.“Our emotional leader,” Coach Steve Kerr said.And Green has seldom, if ever, played better basketball than he has this postseason. In Golden State’s closeout win over the Dallas Mavericks in the Western Conference finals, he collected 17 points, 9 assists and 6 rebounds while shooting 6 of 7 from the field. He quarterbacked the offense. He was a menace on defense. He used up five of his six personal fouls.He also avoided partaking in many of the extracurriculars that had hampered him in the past — at least until after the game, when he spoke about facing the Celtics with a championship at stake. The problem was that the Celtics were still playing the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference finals. In fact, the Heat would force a Game 7 before falling short. But in Green’s mind, he was never wrong.“I thought they were the better team, and clearly I wasn’t far off,” Green said this week on San Francisco’s KGMZ-FM, Golden State’s radio broadcast partner.In his own way, Green was a source of stability for the organization as the team labored with injuries in recent seasons. He mentored his younger teammates. He was in uniform when Curry and Thompson were absent. He acknowledged that it wasn’t always easy: He was accustomed to competing for championships, and suddenly Golden State had the worst record in the league.Now, back alongside Curry and Thompson, Green has another title in sight.“I can’t say that I thought coming into this season, like, ‘Yo, we’re going to win a championship,’ or, ‘We’re going to be in the N.B.A. finals,’ ” Green said. “But I always believed with us three that we have a chance.”Prediction: More rested and more experienced, Golden State wins the series in six games.They’re both great on defense, but different on offense.Celtics Coach Ime Udoka, left, helped Boston become the N.B.A.’s best defensive team. Marcus Smart, right, won the Defensive Player of the Year Award.Andy Lyons/Getty ImagesThe connections between Celtics Coach Ime Udoka and Golden State Coach Steve Kerr — both former N.B.A. role players — are numerous. Both led their teams to the finals in their first seasons as a head coach, Kerr in 2014-15, when Golden State won the championship, and Udoka this year.They are also connected to San Antonio Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich. Udoka was an assistant on the Spurs from 2012 to 2019, which resulted in a championship in 2014. Udoka also played three seasons for the Spurs, while Kerr played four seasons in San Antonio and won two championships. Both also worked with Popovich on the U.S. men’s national basketball team.Popovich’s influence is clear. Udoka and Kerr have preached the value of a staunch defense. Boston and Golden State were the two best defensive teams in the N.B.A. during the regular season. And like Popovich, the coaches are willing to bluntly criticize players publicly.Where they diverge is offensively.Udoka has installed a methodical, slower offense. The Celtics frequently run isolations, ranking near the top of the N.B.A. during the regular season, while Golden State was near the bottom.In part, that comes down to personnel: Boston’s two best players, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, are adept at getting to the rim and breaking defenses down one-on-one but less so at passing. In addition, the Celtics start Marcus Smart at point guard, and he isn’t a traditional pass-first guard.Kerr, meanwhile, has long preached an egalitarian offense hinging on ball movement — so much so that Kevin Durant, after leaving Golden State for the Nets in 2019, complained that Kerr’s offense had been limiting. This season, Golden State led the N.B.A. in scoring off cuts to the basket, while the Celtics were just around league average. Golden State also was second in the league in total passes.There’s another difference, too. Kerr is more willing to experiment with lineups. He has given significant minutes to rookies such as Moses Moody and Jonathan Kuminga, shuffling them in and out of the rotation. In the playoffs, Kerr gave the 19-year-old Kuminga three starts in the semifinal series against the Memphis Grizzlies. Moody, 20, was in the rotation against the Dallas Mavericks in the conference finals.Udoka has preferred to keep his rotations fairly predictable, particularly in the playoffs, rarely reaching down the Celtics’ bench even in the case of foul trouble.Prediction: Celtics in six. Their defense is well designed to chase Stephen Curry around. More

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      Miami Heat Force Game 7 Against Boston Celtics Behind Jimmy Butler

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      The Boston Celtics were one win away from the N.B.A. finals. After Butler’s 47-point Game 6 performance, the Miami Heat are, too.BOSTON — In a playoff series that had long ago lost any semblance of order or predictability, Jimmy Butler of the Miami Heat on Friday night emerged as a rare source of stability, and perhaps the only one.He rose over flat-footed defenders for 3-pointers. He negotiated rush-hour traffic for layups. He drew fouls and whipped passes to teammates and left the Celtics and their fans in a state of despondence.When so much else felt uncertain, Butler was a sure thing. It was the shared feeling among everyone in the building, for better or worse. By the time he cradled the basketball outside the 3-point line late in the fourth quarter, taking a half-beat to survey the landscape before him, he carried himself with a certain air of inevitability: Was there any doubt what would happen next?The Celtics, so celebrated for their defense, made it easy for him. They mishandled the assignment, leaving Butler with a clear path to the hoop, and he pounced, driving for a layup and absorbing contact for good measure. It was a winning play that broke a tie game, along with the Celtics’ resolve.“His competitive will is as high as anybody that has played this game,” Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra said.In steering the Heat to a 111-103 victory over the Celtics in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals, Butler ensured that the series would be pushed to its absolute limit: Game 7 is Sunday night in Miami.Boston Celtics guard Jayson Tatum averaged 23.8 points per game over the first five games of the Eastern Conference finals. He had 30 in Friday’s loss.Maddie Meyer/Getty ImagesButler collected 47 points, 9 rebounds and 8 assists while shooting 16 of 29 from the field and 4 of 8 from 3-point range. He did so on an ailing right knee after two of the roughest games of his career. He said he had been uplifted by a pregame phone call from Dwyane Wade, the former Heat guard.“D-Wade never hits me until his voice is really, really needed,” Butler said. “And it was.”Butler also had a one-sided conversation before the game with P.J. Tucker and Markieff Morris, two of his teammates. Tucker and Morris had a request for Butler: “Yo, we need 50.”“He looked at us, didn’t say a word,” Tucker recalled. “He just nodded his head, kept going. I was like, oh, yeah, he’s about to play. He’s locked in.”Spoelstra described “Game 7” as the two best words in professional sports, and he would not get an argument from the Golden State Warriors, who are awaiting the winner in the N.B.A. finals, starting Thursday in San Francisco. While Boston and Miami continue to bludgeon each other, Golden State needed just five games to eliminate the Dallas Mavericks in the Western Conference finals.“Rest, ice, massage — all of that good stuff,” Butler said when he was asked how he would tend to his knee ahead of Game 7. “The same thing every single day.”The Heat were coming off two straight disheartening performances. They had lost Game 4 by 20 while shooting 33.3 percent from the field. They had lost Game 5 by 13 points while shooting 31.9 percent — at home, no less, where their fans shuffled out of the arena wondering whether they would see the team again this season. After all, Butler had shot a combined 7 of 32 in those two duds while laboring with his injured knee.Butler shot poorly in Games 4 and 5, going 7 of 32 from the field. But he made up for that with a clutch performance on Friday.Kathryn Riley/Getty ImagesIn the immediate wake of Game 5, though, with the Heat facing elimination, Spoelstra did something interesting at his news conference: He channeled his inner Mister Rogers.“You’ve got to enjoy this,” he said. “You do. If you want to break through and punch a ticket to the finals, you’re going to have to do some ridiculously tough stuff.”He added: “We’re still alive. We have an opportunity to play in front of a great crowd, and an opportunity to make a memory that you’ll remember for a long time. That’s all we’re thinking about right now.”Spoelstra would know, having coached the Heat to two titles and five finals appearances. In his 14th season, he acutely understands the playoffs and the stakes and the pressures and the possibilities.If Spoelstra delivered the same message about opportunity to his players before Game 6, Butler must have absorbed every word of it before using it as fuel against the Celtics.“His aggression just opens everything up for everybody else,” Tucker said.In the first quarter alone, Butler shot 6 of 10 from the field and made both of his 3-point attempts while collecting 14 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists. As a team, the Heat made five 3-pointers in the first quarter, which was especially impressive considering they had gone 7 of 45 from 3-point range in Game 5.“I think we played with a little bit more confidence,” said Kyle Lowry, who had 18 points and 10 assists in the win. “We played with some oomph tonight, and it felt good to do it.”While Butler’s late-game layup gave Miami the lead for good, he sealed the win with less than a minute left when he took a spinning, turnaround jump shot from 20 feet with the shot clock set to expire.His performance as a whole evoked memories of 2012, when LeBron James scored 45 points to lead the visiting Heat to a Game 6 win over the Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals. The Heat proceeded to win Game 7 to advance to the finals, then won it all. Spoelstra declined to make any comparisons.“It’s a different era,” he said. “It’s a different team.”And Butler, still in search of his first championship, seems determined to make his own mark. At his news conference, he shared the dais with Lowry, who offered up a quizzical expression when Butler said he had played a “decent” game. Lowry was asked to elaborate on Butler’s game.“It’s incredible,” said Lowry, who supplemented his assessment with an expletive. “My bad. Don’t fine me, N.B.A. That was a mistake, I promise.”It was among the only mistakes the Heat made all night. More

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      Praying the Lakers Regain a Starring Role in the N.B.A. Playoffs

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      This postseason, the only reminders of the Los Angeles Lakers’ luster appear on a fictionalized cable series and streaming documentaries.Dear God of Sports,This prayer comes in the name of N.B.A. healing and restoration.The playoffs are happening now, blessed with tension and talent. What a spectacle. Thank you for the young among us, beginning with Ja Morant and Jordan Poole. Make safe the health of the great, grizzled Noah known as Chris Paul.The vigor you have again bestowed upon the Boston Celtics is beauty to behold.But something is missing: the Los Angeles Lakers. Any postseason without the Lakers feels like a breach of a cosmic bond.For all to be right in the Kingdom of Hoops, the Lakers must be a fixture in the playoff firmament; same as they were in all but five seasons from their birth in the late 1940s until 2014, when Kobe Bryant (may he and his beloved rest easy) began edging toward retirement.The Lakers are cherished and hated like no other team. They bestow extra attention, vibe and legitimacy upon the postseason. Nothing is the same without them in the mix.Great Spirit of Sports, the Lakers now wander in the desert. With this season’s epic collapse, they have failed to reach the postseason in seven of the last nine years. Yes, they reached the highest of heights in 2020. But that season’s N.B.A. championship finished inside a pandemic bubble. Two years ago now seems like 20. Today, the journey to that title is a parable few remember. Was it just a dream?Basketball fans have been forsaken. A generation walks in the wilderness, having never seen a powerful Lakers team challenge Steph Curry and Golden State with everything on the line.But you never let us down, God of Sports. Amid the playoffs, you have sprinkled reminders of Lakers luster for all to see — at least those of us who subscribe to HBO Max and Apple TV+.Two years removed from winning an N.B.A. championship, the Lakers missed the playoffs this season.Jayne Kamin-Oncea/USA Today Sports, via ReutersLast week came the unveiling on Apple TV+ of the documentary “They Call Me Magic.”Please allow for good reviews.Heal the hearts of the Lakers family, who now live in distress over another recent depiction, the HBO series “Winning Time.” It is classic Hollywood: a glitzy blend of fact, fiction and glammed-up dramatic license that focuses on the team’s 1980s Showtime era. All that off-court excess, all that soap opera intrigue, along with those five league titles.That series has caused hurt feelings and bruised pride to consume Lakersland.Jerry West demanded a retraction and an apology from HBO over the overheated, fictive way he is depicted.Kareem Abdul-Jabbar called the series a deliberately dishonest rendering, “with characters who are stick-figure representations that resemble real people the way Lego Han Solo resembles Harrison Ford.”Magic Johnson, the show’s centerpiece, the Showtime era’s North Star, said he had not seen the series and that it did not tell the truth. Confusing, I know.Lord of Hoops, Great Giver of the Three-Point Shot, far be it from me to tell these basketball legends that their anger is misplaced. But ease their troubles. Remind them that few will watch a series like “Winning Time” in these discordant days without being in on the joke.Help them see the irony: The Lakers’ iconic modern image was built in part on Hollywood smoke and mirrors. On the cloaking and twisting of reality. Indeed, on magic.The Lakers of the 1980s were more than just a team that won five championships in a decade. Their uniqueness came not just from those titles but from the power of make-believe — the Forum Club, the Lakers Girls, the age-defying movie stars in every other seat.Remind aggrieved Lakers of their team’s twists of narrative. Their storied rise in the 1980s was cast as villains to the Boston Celtics and drawn in simple strokes: the cool, Black team standing in the path of the stodgy, white one.Yes, Boston had Larry Bird and other white stars, but it also had Black Celtics like Dennis Johnson, Robert Parish and Cedric Maxwell — legends in their own right.And which team had a Black head coach? The Celtics, led by K.C. Jones for two of their three N.B.A. crowns that decade.In the longtime telling of this duel, the city of Boston has often been projected as mired in racism. But simple stories, as you well know, sometimes mask the complicated truth. Los Angeles has always had plenty of its own problems with race.Injustice exists everywhere. Greatness is a rarer thing. The greatness of 17 N.B.A. championships ground the Lakers, even though mythology has always been a part of their story.Oh mighty one, in the name of St. Elgin, lessen the burden of former Lakers who feel wronged.Then turn back to the hardwood.Restore LeBron James, his creaky knees and 37-year-old back.Remind him that all good things come in due time — so long as due time starts next season. The entertainment empire he is building in Los Angeles is something to behold. But being a movie mogul and community force flows first from the river of N.B.A. championships.Consider purgatory for the front office executives who signed Russell Westbrook, Carmelo Anthony and the other elder-Lakers before this season.When you finish replenishing Hollywood’s team, would you mind granting an even bigger miracle to another basketball calamity?God of Sports, remember the Knicks? More

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      Bill Fitch, Who Coached Celtics to the ’81 Title, Is Dead at 89

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      Hailed for reviving sagging teams, he was voted one of the top 10 coaches in the N.B.A.’s first half century and was twice named coach of the year.Bill Fitch, who gained a reputation for reviving the fortunes of dismal N.B.A. teams and took the Boston Celtics to the 1981 league championship in a pro coaching career spanning 25 seasons, died on Wednesday in Lake Conroe, Texas, north of Houston. He was 89.His death was announced by Rick Carlisle, the coach of the Indiana Pacers and president of the N.B.A. Coaches Association, who said he had been contacted by Fitch’s daughter Marcy Ann Coville. No other details were provided.A strong-willed figure who preached unselfish play, Fitch ran demanding workouts and did not spare the feelings of even his best players.“I believe in discipline and I think it’s the cornerstone of world championship teams,” Fitch once said.He was an innovator in taping games and practices to analyze his players and their opponents, shrugging off a nickname circulating around the league in its pre-high-tech years: Captain Video.Fitch was a two-time N.B.A. coach of the year and chosen as one of the top 10 coaches in league history in 1996-97 balloting that marked the N.B.A.’s 50th anniversary.He received in 2013 the National Basketball Coaches Association’s Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award, named for the coach who won two league championships with the Detroit Pistons.When Kevin McHale coached the Houston Rockets in 2012, he recalled the lessons he had absorbed as a Celtic rookie during Fitch’s sometimes intimidating reign.“Coming out of college, I had never been around a coach that talked the way Bill did to you,’’ McHale told The Houston Chronicle, “but he really pushed you hard, and I thought Bill did a great job.”Fitch on the Celtics bench during a game in Philadelphia in December 1982. From left were the forward Larry Bird and the center Rick Robey. Fitch resigned after four seasons with Boston. Peter Morgan/Associated PressLarry Bird, who joined with McHale and Robert Parish on Fitch’s championship Celtic team, told Sports Illustrated in 1997 that Fitch “was the best in terms of motivation, getting you to really lay it on the line for each other.”Bird thought, however, that Fitch, who resigned as the Celtic coach after four seasons, moved on to other teams so often because “he really got under the skin of some guys after a while.”Fitch made his N.B.A. coaching debut in Cleveland, watching his 1970 expansion-team Cavaliers lose their first 15 games.But in his sixth season, the Cavaliers won the Central Division title, going 49-33, and made it to the second round of the playoffs, bringing Fitch his first Coach of the Year Award.Fitch was hired as the Celtics’ coach in 1979 after they had missed the playoffs for two consecutive seasons. He received his second Coach of the Year Award in 1980, when the Celtics, in Bird’s rookie season, went 61-21 and reached the playoffs’ second round.Fitch’s Celtics won the N.B.A. title the following season, defeating the Houston Rockets in a six-game playoff final, the deciding victory coming in Houston. It was Boston’s 14th National Basketball Association championship and their first since 1976.Taking the Rockets’ coaching post in 1983 after they had fallen on hard times, Fitch developed the Twin Towers, Hakeem Olajuwon and Ralph Sampson, as the core of a team that he coached to the 1986 N.B.A. finals, where the Rockets lost to the Celtics in six games.Fitch got the New Jersey Nets’ coaching post in August 1989, succeeding Willis Reed, who became a team vice president after a 26-56 season.The Nets won only 43 games in Fitch’s first two seasons in New Jersey, but he coached them to the 1992 playoffs, their first postseason appearance in six years, though they were eliminated in the first round.Fitch had nearly failed to survive that season. A Nets minority owner wanted to hire Jim Valvano, the former North Carolina State coach, in December 1991. Though it didn’t happen, Fitch had other problems, having clashed with several of his players.He resigned after that season, then became coach of the floundering Los Angeles Clippers in 1994. He never produced a winning team with the Clippers but got them to the playoffs in his third season with them.Fitch was born on May 19, 1932, in Davenport, Iowa, and grew up in Cedar Rapids. His father, a former Marine drill sergeant, was a disciplinarian, shaping a trait his son would bring to the basketball court.“I was 14 years old before I found out I wasn’t in the Marine Corps because I lived like a Marine,” Fitch told The Los Angeles Times in 1994. “I had nobody to share that razor strap with. I was an only child.”Fitch played basketball at Coe College in Cedar Rapids and got his first head-coaching post there in 1958. He later coached at North Dakota, where Phil Jackson was one of his players, and then at Bowling Green and Minnesota before getting the Cavaliers’ head-coaching post.He retired from pro coaching after the 1997-98 season with 944 victories and 1,106 losses. He was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., in 2019.Fitch during his enshrinement in the Basketball Hall of Fame in September 2019. Annette Grant/NBAE via Getty ImagesIn addition to his daughter Marcy Ann, his survivors include two other daughters, Tammy Fitch and Lisa Fitch.Fitch retained his zest for basketball gamesmanship long after he retired from coaching.“I never really thought being known as Captain Video was a bad deal,” he told the N.B.A.’s website in 2013. “Other people could laugh and tease all they wanted. The truth is I was glad that nobody else was doing it because I thought it always gave our teams a big advantage.”“If you could see my closet today,” he said, “it’s crammed full from floor to ceiling with old tapes and now with DVDs, and I’m still doing film for different people. I still love the competition and the strategy.” More

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      Brilliance, and Heartbreak: The Story of Chris Paul’s Career

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      Paul, the veteran Phoenix Suns point guard, ends this N.B.A. season the same way he has 15 times before: without a championship. The question is whether that should define him.In defeat, Devin Booker said that the youthful Phoenix Suns had hoped to skip many of the brutal roadblocks that can quickly vanquish a team with championship aspirations. More

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      The Milwaukee Bucks Win the N.B.A. Championship

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      The Bucks defeated the Phoenix Suns in the N.B.A. finals in six games for their first title in 50 years. It’s the first championship for Giannis Antetokounmpo.MILWAUKEE — A half-century ago, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar — a young goliath then known as Lew Alcindor — led the Milwaukee Bucks to their first championship. For decades, it was the only time the franchise had reached that height. More

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      A Free-Throw Expert’s Advice for Giannis: Just Shoot It

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      Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Milwaukee Bucks star, has frustrated fans and opponents with his drawn-out free-throw routine that often ends with a miss.Philip Flory, a college basketball player from Wisconsin Rapids, Wis., is a huge fan of the Milwaukee Bucks. He is rooting for them in the N.B.A. finals against the Phoenix Suns, though Flory has found himself cringing whenever Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Bucks’ do-everything forward and one of his favorite players, tries to do one of the few things that make him look vulnerable: shoot free throws. More