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      It’s a New Series as the Injury Bug Returns to Bite the Nets

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      The Bucks tied their playoff series with the Nets, 2-2, as Kyrie Irving left with an injured ankle, joining James Harden on the Brooklyn sideline.MILWAUKEE — When the Nets settled into their hotel in the city’s Historic Third Ward last week, their 2-0 series cushion against the hometown Bucks looked especially cushy. A lead that reached as high as 49 points in the Nets’ Game 2 rout — without the injured James Harden — had the entire N.B.A. discouraged.By the time the Nets flew back home on Sunday night, after a second consecutive road defeat and the loss of another superstar, they were abruptly forced to contemplate the possibility that fielding a full-strength team is a luxury this season might never afford, no matter how lavishly the roster reads.Kyrie Irving’s right foot bent sharply in Sunday’s second quarter after he converted a layup and came down on Giannis Antetokounmpo’s right foot. Antetokounmpo had positioned himself for a rebound but left little landing space, and Irving was soon ruled out for the rest of the game with a sprained right ankle. It all meant that Kevin Durant would have to try to keep up with the emboldened Bucks alongside a rather limited supporting cast, while Harden stood throughout the game to shout instructions from the bench in street clothes.Nets guard Kyrie Irving grabbed his leg after being injured in the second quarter. Jeff Hanisch/USA Today Sports, via ReutersMilwaukee predictably pulled away for a 107-96 Game 4 victory that evened this best-of-seven, second-round series at two games apiece and which, coupled with the uncertainty of Irving’s status, erased any notion of comfort that the Nets once felt. Irving left Fiserv Forum on crutches and with his right foot in a walking boot after X-rays were negative, according to a person briefed on Irving’s status but unauthorized to discuss it publicly.“It was a big adjustment tonight to play without him and James,” Nets Coach Steve Nash said, referring to Irving and Harden. “But we’ve had that type of year.”Even by the standards of this injury-laden Nets season, in which Durant, Irving and Harden have scarcely been able to play together since Harden arrived in a four-team trade in mid-January, Sunday afternoon’s events had the jarring feel of a new low. That was the unavoidable takeaway without even factoring in the fire alarm after the final buzzer that forced all arena occupants, including both teams, to be evacuated for what the Bucks termed “precautionary reasons.”The Nets’ original aim for this Milwaukee trip was to win at least one game and set up Game 5 on Tuesday night at Barclays Center in Brooklyn as a closeout opportunity, enabling Harden to essentially take the series off after aggravating a right hamstring injury in the opening minute of Game 1. With the series now tied, in what was billed in many corners as a matchup that could well produce the N.B.A.’s next champion, Nash found himself fielding questions about the urge to restore Harden to the lineup on Tuesday.“I think it’s an independent case,” Nash said, swatting down the idea that Irving’s prognosis would influence Harden’s timetable. “I don’t want James to be rushed back.”The other factor, beyond Irving’s setback, that prompted such questions: Milwaukee had begun to cause problems even before Irving’s exit and looked a lot more like the team that swept the Miami Heat in the first round. Antetokounmpo had the standout box-score line with 34 points and 12 rebounds, but P.J. Tucker was the Bucks’ unquestioned spark, easing the pressure (at least temporarily) on the Bucks’ under-fire coach, Mike Budenholzer. After scoring just 9 points in the first three games of the series, Tucker sank three 3-pointers from the corner, his well-chronicled favorite spot, and finished with 13 points and 7 rebounds.He might have been even more effective at the other end, imposing his physicality on Durant in precisely the manner the Bucks envisioned when they acquired him from Houston in a March trade. Durant led the Nets with 28 points and 13 rebounds but needed 25 shots to reach his scoring total. When Tucker was the primary defender, Durant shot 3 for 12.Hounded by the Bucks’ P.J. Tucker, the Nets’ Kevin Durant led the Nets with 28 points but needed 25 shots to reach his total.Jeff Hanisch/USA Today Sports, via ReutersDuring a verbal confrontation between Tucker and Durant in Milwaukee’s narrow Game 3 victory, Antjuan Lambert, a personal security guard for Durant who was hired by the Nets when they signed him, came onto the court and shoved Tucker. The Nets were notified on Saturday that Lambert had been barred by the league office from any further on-court involvement in the series.Sunday actually brought a positive start for the Nets, with Jeff Green being cleared to make his series debut after missing the first three games with a left plantar fascia strain. Green immediately drew a charge upon entering the game late in the first quarter, putting Antetokounmpo in early foul trouble, but the Nets’ hopeful vibe was soon doused by the sight of Irving hobbling to the locker room after he spent several minutes on the floor recovering from the painful landing.When the Nets finally surrendered in the fourth quarter, pulling Durant with 4 minutes 28 seconds remaining and the hosts leading by 99-84, Milwaukee’s crowd, which included the Wisconsin native J.J. Watt of the Arizona Cardinals, broke into a “Bucks in six” chant.You’d have struggled to find anyone, with or without local ties, who believed that outcome would be possible after Milwaukee’s humbling 125-86 defeat at Barclays Center last Monday in Game 2. In these playoffs, though, injuries continue to wield the largest influence. Health woes for star players were unrelenting throughout the second half of a harried regular season conducted in pandemic conditions — and remain so.Remember the warning we got from Philadelphia 76ers Coach Doc Rivers at the start of the second round?“It’s going to be the battle of the fittest by the end of this thing,” Rivers said. He was unsure at the time how well his star center, Joel Embiid, would fare trying to play through a slight meniscus tear in his right knee in the 76ers’ second-round series against Atlanta.Embiid, for now, is thriving. For the Nets and especially Durant? Suddenly nothing is slight about their shortage of playmakers or the load he’ll have to carry. More

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      Bucks Slow Down Nets to Trim Series Lead to 2-1

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      A grinding game of defense allowed Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton to shine in a 86-83 win over the Nets.To get a much needed win on Thursday, the Milwaukee Bucks did the opposite of what got the team so far in the playoffs: They slowed down their play.It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t terribly efficient. But it was enough to let their stars, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton, break through.In a throwback game that would have seemed at home in the 2000s, the Bucks squeezed out a victory Thursday night over the Nets, 86-83, and narrowed Brooklyn’s lead in the Eastern Conference semifinal series to two games to one.For the Bucks, it was an admirable recovery from their Game 2 performance, when the Nets thumped them by 39 points.This time, the Bucks crawled to victory.During the regular season, the Bucks were fast — second in pace only to the Washington Wizards. On Thursday night, the Bucks generated offense by giving the ball to Antetokounmpo and Middleton. They either isolated them one-on-one or created shots through grinding screen-and-rolls to get near the basket. Throughout the game, the Bucks had only seven fast break points. During the regular season, they averaged 14.5, good for fourth in the N.B.A.“Personally, I enjoy fast paced, finding my teammates for a lot of 3’s, high-scoring game, obviously. But at the end of the day, it was a very low-scoring game,” Antetokounmpo said.The slower pace allowed the team to get the ball to Antetokounmpo and Middleton, who have seven All Star appearances between them, and get out of the way. They combined to score 68 of Milwaukee’s 86 points. The duo played almost the entire game. Antetokounmpo shot 14 for 31 from the field (45.1 percent) and Middleton was 12 for 25 (48 percent).Most of their damage was done in the opening period, when the Bucks led by as many as 21 points, with the home arena at the Fiserv Forum at their backs. Antetokounmpo and Middleton scored all of the Bucks 30 points in the first period, and Milwaukee entered the second period leading, 30-11.“I think there was a little bit of setting the tone,” Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer said after the game. “Those two guys having a big first quarter, they’re our leaders. They’ve been here a long time. They’ve been through a lot together.”He added: “It doesn’t matter how you do it at this time of year. You just have to find a way to get it done.”Yet the Nets quickly recovered in the second quarter. The Nets even took the lead in the fourth period on a Kevin Durant 3-pointer with 1:23 left in regulation. But a Middleton layup stanched the bleeding, and his free throws with 2.1 seconds left didn’t leave much time for the Nets to get a quality shot to tie the game. (Durant’s desperation 3 still almost went in.)This was the kind of game where Antetokounmpo’s considerable strengths and weaknesses were on full display. In the first quarter, Antetokounmpo attacked the rim relentlessly, and was able to get himself multiple dunks in the way that has made him a star. He got his primary defender — Blake Griffin — into early foul trouble.But after the opening quarter, Antetokounmpo’s flaws began to manifest. The Nets left him wide open from the perimeter, and Antetokounmpo obliged the Nets by shooting lots of 3’s. He was 1 for 8 from deep, and those missed shots helped the Nets, who are still missing James Harden, climb back in the game. It was Antetokounmpo’s career high in 3-point shots in a postseason game.Giannis Antetokounmpo took eight 3-point shots, a career playoff high. He made just one.Stacy Revere/Getty ImagesAsked about his shooting, Antetokounmpo seemed to be taken by surprise at first: “I took eight 3’s tonight?”“They’re back. You’ve got to shoot it,” Antetokounmpo said, referring to how defenders play off him. “Not necessarily, you’ve got to shoot, but you’ve got to make the best decision.”Antetokounmpo further defended his willingness to take jumpers by saying that his instinct told him to do so and that basketball is a game based on instinct.“Like everybody, if you wake up in the morning and you think you’ve got to drink a cup of coffee, and that’s what you want to do — instinct is telling you, that’s what your soul is telling you — whatever the case might be, that’s what you do. It doesn’t even matter what happens next,” Antetokounmpo said.It is also possible that Antetokounmpo strayed to the perimeter to avoid the risk of initiating contact under the basket and getting fouled.He was only 4 for 9 from the free throw line, and also had a rarely called 10-second violation. Defensively, the Bucks held the Nets to 36.2 shooting from the field. Durant was only 11 for 28 from the field. Kyrie Irving was 9 for 22.One offensive liability the Nets have — a rare one — is that they are predominantly a jump shooting team. They’re based on finesse, rather than on attacking the basket in the way Antetokounmpo does. The Nets only went to the line eight times on Thursday, as opposed to the Bucks’ 19. Six of those free throws were shot by Durant, who missed many midrange shots he usually makes.This means the same looks that fell for the Nets in the first two games didn’t fall on Thursday. That happens sometimes with jump shooting teams. There is a high amount of variance and at some point, usually a regression to the mean.Joe Harris, one of the best 3-point shooters in the league, missed several wide open chances and finished 1 for 11 from the field. And if jump shots aren’t falling for the Nets, they have trouble scoring. (During the regular season, the Nets were second in the league in 3-point percentage at 39.2 percent. On Thursday night, they were 8 for 32 for 25 percent.)Which means a slow, low-scoring slugfest could benefit Milwaukee in the long-term. But it’s unclear Antetokounmpo wants that.“We could play better,” Antetokounmpo said. “We could play faster. We could play more together. We can move the ball better so we can get back to our scoring 110, 120 points like we usually do.” More

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      In Jae Crowder, the Suns Have an Enforcer With Some Flair

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      Crowder does a little bit of everything for Phoenix. He’s a key defender, a 3-point specialist and if the need arises, a solid salsa dancer.The Phoenix Suns had a growing lead on Wednesday night when Aaron Gordon of the Denver Nuggets tried to move toward the 3-point line on an offensive possession. He definitely tried. The problem was Jae Crowder had blocked Gordon’s path with his 6-foot-6, 235-pound frame. There was shoving and arguing, then a flurry of whistles and a mild tussle appeared in danger of turning into a full-blown fracas.It was no surprise, of course, that Crowder, a forward who moonlights as the Suns’ resident enforcer, was in the middle of it. Crowder and Gordon were assessed technical fouls.“Honestly, it comes at me, I don’t seek it,” Crowder said of his extracurriculars. “Other teams just try to be physical with me, try to get me riled up. I don’t know if they know it, but I like that style of play. I like to trash talk. I like all of that because it definitely gets me going, and I think my team definitely feeds off it a little bit, the energy of it.”The Suns are roughing up the Nuggets — and Nikola Jokic, the N.B.A.’s freshly minted most valuable player — in their Western Conference semifinal series, cruising to a pair of lopsided wins ahead of Game 3 on Friday in Denver.And while the Suns are powered by their backcourt tandem of Devin Booker and Chris Paul, Crowder has added an extra layer of feistiness and playoff experience. Most of the time, he does his work in the game’s quiet corners: defending, rebounding, screening. But when the need arises, he will surface to hit a 3-pointer or get in the face of an opposing player. It was no accident that TNT stuck a microphone on him for its broadcast of the Suns’ 123-98 win in Game 2 in Phoenix.“Jae is never fazed by anything,” Paul said.Crowder does not lack for confidence and he has quickly made himself popular in Phoenix. Christian Petersen/Getty ImagesIn five straight playoff wins for the Suns, dating to the middle of their first-round series against the Los Angeles Lakers, Crowder has averaged 13.8 points and 5 rebounds a game while shooting 50 percent from the field and 46.2 percent from 3-point range. On Wednesday, he did not put up gaudy numbers — he scored 11 points — but picked his spots. He made the team’s first two field goals, then opened the second half with a 3-pointer that seemed to signal that a blowout was brewing.“That’s just how we try to play,” Crowder said. “We try to impose our will early.”The son of Corey Crowder, a former N.B.A. player for the Utah Jazz and the San Antonio Spurs, Crowder, 30, grew up outside of Atlanta (where he was a lightly recruited high school prospect). He attended two junior colleges before he landed at Marquette, where he was the Big East Player of the Year as a senior. His nomadic basketball life continued when the Cleveland Cavaliers traded him to the Dallas Mavericks shortly after they selected him with the 34th pick in the 2012 draft.Crowder has played for seven teams in nine seasons, though he may stick around in Phoenix for a while. He signed a three-year deal worth about $29 million as a free agent in November after leaving Miami, and his value is clear: He does a bit of everything, which includes defending multiple positions and stretching the floor as a 3-point threat. And for a young team with big goals, he provides a level of physicality that comes only with experience.Crowder struggled to keep his composure in the first three games against the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round. He recovered well to help his team win the series.Sean M. Haffey/Getty ImagesConsider the Suns’ series with the Lakers, which featured something of a telenovela starring Crowder and LeBron James. Through the first three games of the series, Crowder struggled with his jumper (which can happen), shooting 7 of 27 from the field, and James went straight at him in the latter stages of the Lakers’ Game 3 win as James’s teammates egged him on.Other players might have folded like origami. Instead, Crowder returned for Game 4 and scored 17 points — in front of a jeering crowd at Staples Center, no less — as the Suns evened the series.In the Suns’ closeout victory in Game 6, Crowder scored 18 points on 6 of 9 shooting from the 3-point line (he did not attempt any shots inside the arc). During a break in play with less than a minute remaining, Crowder salsa danced directly in front of James — a homage of sorts to a dance that James performs in a commercial for Mountain Dew — and was ejected. Crowder, who is seldom boring, sprinted to the locker room like Usain Bolt.Afterward, he posted a couple of photos of himself doing the salsa on his Instagram account (@Bossmann99), along with a caption: “AINT NO FUN WHEN THE RABBIT GOT THE GUN.” As if to make it abundantly clear that he had crafted the post himself, he signed it, “Big 99” — a reference to his uniform number.“I felt like we got disrespected a little bit in Game 3 or whatever,” Crowder said, “so I did what I had to do in the closing game.”While he pledged to do the salsa with fans in Phoenix if the Suns win the championship, Crowder said he was trying to exercise a bit more restraint with opposing players at this stage of the playoffs. He has already paid his share of fines.“I’ve got to be smart,” he said. “I can’t always bite the bait and keep giving money back to the league.”Against the Nuggets, the Suns are winning with balance. In both wins, all five starters have scored in double figures. They are passing the ball and operating as a collective whole, a high-speed machine with synchronized parts. Crowder is one among many, but important in his own way.“It makes the task that much more difficult for our opponent when everybody’s rolling,” Crowder said. More

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      Nets Brush Aside the Bucks to Lead Series, 2-0

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      A 39-point drubbing sends the series back to Milwaukee, and the Bucks back to the drawing board.One can easily call the Milwaukee Bucks’ performance against the Nets on Monday night an embarrassment.It was, after all, a 39-point drubbing, and gave the Nets a commanding 2-0 lead in their Eastern Conference semifinal series. The 125-86 win was the largest in the Nets’ playoff history, and their biggest margin of victory all season.Kyrie Irving hit a 3-pointer to open the game. Soon, the Nets’ lead was 10 points. By the end of the first quarter, it was 17. And then the floodgates opened. At one point, the lead grew to 49.The Bucks had no answers. Their fans couldn’t even blame the referees for letting the game get out of hand: The Nets shot only seven free throws. They simply scored whenever they wanted.“We didn’t play very well overall,” Mike Budenholzer, the Bucks coach, said in a stone-faced understatement. “First quarter. The whole game. Yeah, so, I think we’ve got to play better from start to end.”Keeping the score closer might have been merely a cosmetic gesture, though. The Nets are the superior team, both in talent and in execution. And they have dominated both games of this series while missing James Harden, one of the best offensive players in the league. Unlike most teams the Nets play, the Bucks have a counterpoint for Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and Harden: a dominant former most valuable player of their own in Giannis Antetokounmpo. Antetokounmpo played well in the opening game of this series, scoring 34 points on 24 shots and grabbing 11 rebounds. The problem for Budenholzer and his team is that the Nets just brushed it off. It is not a great sign when a team’s star plays like a star, when the opposing team loses one of theirs to injury, and the games are still not competitive.Little went right for P.J. Tucker and the other Bucks.Elsa/Getty ImagesThe Bucks have been vexed by Durant in particular, their inability to stop him traced to one important advantage: Durant has no weak spots as an offensive player. Defenders can’t force him left or right for a more advantageous position because he can score from anywhere on the floor.P.J. Tucker is stronger than Durant. Antetokounmpo might be taller. Jrue Holiday is quicker. All three are excellent defensively, and all three have taken their turns trying to guard him. Durant had counters for all of them. When he is single-covered, he easily got around bigger defenders with his exceptional ball handling. Against smaller ones, he merely shot over them. When the Bucks double-teamed him, Durant slipped passes to teammates like Joe Harris or Irving.On Monday, Durant finished with 32 points and 6 assists in 33 minutes. He was mesmerizing. Unguardable.All is not lost for the Bucks. If there is one way for them to keep these games close, it could be by hitting their 3’s.The Bucks have been dismal from deep so far, shooting 24.5 percent combined in the first two games of the series — almost 15 points lower than their regular-season average.Meanwhile, the Nets shot a whopping 50 percent on 3-pointers on Monday night, after making 38.5 percent in Game 1.If Milwaukee can find something approximating its regular-season form, it will open up the paint for Antetokounmpo. This may require more minutes for Bobby Portis and Bryn Forbes, bench players who can shoot, and starting Antetokounmpo at center, to allow for more perimeter quickness.And the Bucks can take some lessons from the Nets’ only postseason loss so far: Game 3 of their first-round series against the Boston Celtics. The overmatched Celtics stole a win that night, even as Durant and Harden had strong games, because they shot 16 of 39 (41 percent) from behind the arc, which allowed them to keep pace late in the game.Of course, Jayson Tatum, the Celtics star, helped quite a bit by scoring 50 points. Milwaukee is going to need nights like that from Antetokounmpo, who had difficulty getting into an offensive rhythm on Monday. The Bucks are not going to win many games with Antetokounmpo, their best player, shooting only 15 times.“I’ve got to be more aggressive and get to my spots more,” Antetokounmpo acknowledged after the game. “That’s pretty much it.”James Harden, left, was missing, but Kevin Durant and the other Nets were more than enough.Elsa/Getty ImagesNot quite. It’s not necessarily only a question of aggression. There were far too many possessions Monday on which Antetokounmpo put his head down and tried to drive into a wall of defenders. Aggression without a Plan B leads to 39-point losses. Antetokounmpo needs to get the ball in different spots and not just bring it up as the team’s de facto point guard.But all the adjustments in the world won’t close the talent gap between the two teams. It’s not just that Durant and Irving are outclassing the Bucks’ top players. It’s that the rest of the Nets roster — even role players like Bruce Brown and Mike James — are playing some of their best basketball of their season at the right time. And to make matters worse for Milwaukee, the Nets might get the injured Harden and Jeff Green back for Game 3.Short of the Nets forgetting what time that game is on Thursday, the Bucks could be in for more of the same. More

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      N.B.A. Fans Wanted a Show. They’re Also Getting a Reckoning.

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      The entertainment of the playoffs has been coupled with a pressing message from players that fans have disrespected them for too long.Isaiah Thomas finally felt a conversation was in order.Thomas, a member of the Washington Wizards in 2019-20, was playing in Philadelphia against the 76ers. A fan had been cursing at him, while holding outstretched middle fingers from both of his hands.After it happened a third time, Thomas walked into the stands — calmly, he said — to talk to the fan.“I’m not going to go in there by myself, trying to raise havoc,” Thomas said. “But in my situation, I needed to say something to that man and let him know that that was not right.”The fan, Thomas said, quickly apologized, saying he was upset that a free throw Thomas had made prevented him from cashing in on a promotion for a free Frosty.“That means you don’t respect me as a human being,” Thomas said. “I think that’s why players are so upset now. It’s like: ‘Are you looking at us like human beings? As people? Or just somebody you’re coming to watch?’”The N.B.A., moving into the second round of the playoffs, has given fans plenty to watch, from the stunning play of Phoenix’s Devin Booker, the quick exit of the Los Angeles Lakers, and the aligning of the Nets’ stars to the battles of one-upmanship between Denver’s Nikola Jokic and Portland’s Damian Lillard.But the playoffs have also been defined by unruly fan behavior as N.B.A. arenas started opening to near capacity in time for the playoffs. The last time there were this many fans in arenas, it was before the N.B.A. was at the center of the protests for social justice and equality that roiled the country in the fall. Fans are returning to watch many of the same players — but the players are not the same. The message from athletes, especially those who are Black, is that they want to be respected.In New York, a fan spat on Atlanta Hawks guard Trae Young. In Utah, the family of Memphis Grizzlies guard Ja Morant was targeted with racist and lewd remarks while watching in the stands. In Boston, Nets guard Kyrie Irving had a water bottle hurled in his direction. In Philadelphia, a fan dumped popcorn on Washington’s Russell Westbrook as he left the floor after an injury.Knicks fans cheered before Game 1 in the first round of the 2021 N.B.A. playoffs against the Atlanta Hawks.Seth Wenig/USA Today Sports, via Reuters“What if he would’ve ran into the stands and put his hands on that fan?” Thomas said. “Everybody would’ve said he was wrong. But in any other setting in life, if I’m walking down the street and somebody pours popcorn on me, what do you think is going to happen?”In some ways, raucous behavior is another indicator of a return to prepandemic life. Sports is often a bellwether for society, and to a point, extreme behavior is ingrained in fandom — hence the term fanatic. As the country reopens, airlines are experiencing boisterous conduct and people are fighting in stands at baseball stadiums.In basketball, fans are stimulated by the charged atmosphere of the playoffs and some are spurred by liquid courage. The intimacy of the sport allows fans to be in proximity to players, and while players are in postseason form, security forces are not yet back in the rhythm of hosting this many fans for the first time in more than a year.“The fans are emboldened and lessen the value of these athletes as human beings when they engage with them in this way,” said David West, a retired forward who won two championships with Golden State.Emerging from the pandemic may have created a reckoning between N.B.A. fans and players. Some fans may have pent-up frustration from being isolated for so long. Kevin Durant, Irving’s Nets teammate, said pandemic quarantining had “got a lot of people on edge.” The incidents involve only a minuscule fraction of the thousands of fans who have returned to N.B.A. arenas. The egregiousness of the behaviors cannot be defined under a singular classification.But some travel beyond the traditional heckling of, say, Spike Lee at Madison Square Garden taunting an opposing player. They involve subtle and overt racism — “underlying racism and just treating people like they’re in a human zoo,” Irving said. And while the interactions are not new, the infractions are being documented through social media and arena cameras, and players seem more willing to speak out against them.“In general, it seems like this is what happens when people haven’t been outside for a year and a half,” said Louis Moore, an associate history professor at Grand Valley State University in Michigan. “Specifically, it’s part of who we are as fans. It’s fandom. It’s rowdyism. And then it’s even more specific when it looks like these N.B.A. incidents are targeted at Black athletes. That’s part of American sports.”Before Irving, a former Celtic, returned to Boston, he asked fans not to be belligerent or racist. Black athletes in multiple sports, including the Celtics legend Bill Russell, who once had someone break into his home and defecate on his bed, have spoken about the racism they’ve experienced in Boston. The treatment dates all the way back to George Dixon, who was the first Black man to win a boxing world title and fought in the United States during the post-Civil War era.The police in Boston arrested Cole Buckley, a 21-year-old from Braintree, Mass., on suspicion of throwing the water bottle toward Irving. Buckley pleaded not guilty to a charge of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.Buckley being arrested after the game.Elise Amendola/Associated Press“I’ve had situations so often throughout my career where we don’t really talk about it, because we want to be mentally tough,” Irving said after the incident. “We want to be tough-minded. We don’t want to be called soft or we’re not man enough to deal with boos.”As in Boston, opposing players have also spoken out against the treatment they’ve received in Utah. In 2019, two fans at Vivint Smart Home Arena were barred for using racist language toward Westbrook.“You felt this sense of angst that exists with some of the fans,” West said of playing in Utah, adding, “I just never let it affect me, but it also never got physical with me.”The fans involved in the first-round incidents were barred indefinitely from the arenas.“There is zero tolerance for inappropriate and disrespectful fan behavior at our games,” Commissioner Adam Silver of the N.B.A. said in an interview. “Fans engaging in acts like that in our arenas will be caught and banned from attending. The safety of players, officials and all attendees is our top priority, which is why we have worked diligently with our teams and law enforcement to increase security presence at our arenas throughout the remainder of the playoffs and will pursue all legal remedies against anyone who violates our fan code of conduct.”In Utah, the Jazz owner Ryan Smith provided Morant’s family with courtside seats for Game 5. Tee Morant, Ja’s father, praised the organization and Jazz players for their response, although his wife, Jamie, decided against returning to Salt Lake City.“It was a nice gesture from the Jazz,” Tee Morant told ESPN. “It was unfortunate. It was just a few fans — most of them were great and cheering right alongside with us.”Durant told reporters after the Irving incident that fans needed to “grow up” and treat players with respect. “These men are human,” he said, adding that players are not “animals” and “not in a circus.”In 2019, Thomas received a two-game suspension after the Frosty incident, and two fans — the one who had held up his middle fingers toward Thomas and another heckler — were barred from Wells Fargo Arena for a year.“The consequences, I don’t know what it should be,” Thomas said, “but I think it should be a little bit more so fans would think twice about what they do before they do it or what they say before they say it. But I don’t think the arena ban is scaring anybody off.”He continued: “I don’t have the answer to what they could possibly do. I know the N.B.A. is on top of everything for the players, but something’s got to change for sure.” More

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      Even LeBron James Isn’t Eternal

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      At 36, with his team’s future in doubt, James faces basketball mortality.His season was not finished — not yet, anyway — when LeBron James grabbed a seat at the far end of the Los Angeles Lakers’ bench on Tuesday night in Phoenix. He would occasionally approach a teammate or an assistant so that he could lean in close for a one-sided conversation. But he otherwise seemed resigned to the reality of the situation.The Lakers were getting routed by the Suns in Game 6 of their first-round playoff series, and James — such an indomitable force throughout his 18-year-old career, but now facing an early summer — was oddly powerless to stop it.Perhaps there was hope, in some distant corner of Lakerland, that he could muster more of his familiar magic to help the team avoid elimination two days later in Los Angeles. Instead, the Lakers were bound for more of the same: more offensive fireworks from the Suns, more disappointment, more questions about their future.The surprise was not so much that the second-seeded Suns won the best-of-seven series, clinching a trip to the Western Conference semifinals with their 113-100 victory in Game 6 on Thursday night. Rather, it was the way in which they did it — by winning the final two games of the series against the defending N.B.A. champions so convincingly.For the Lakers, it was a gloomy coda to their brief reign atop the league.“It’s been draining,” James said, referring to the past 18 months. “Mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally draining.”Devin Booker of the Suns is one of the younger players threatening James’s throne.Harry How/Getty ImagesBy any objective measure, the Lakers faced their share of obstacles. Their run to last season’s championship came in the middle of a pandemic and stretched into October. The 2020-21 season started about two months later. Despite the short break, the Lakers got off to a strong start, going 21-6 before injuries slowed them down. They eventually slipped into the playoffs as a No. 7 seed, and only after playing their way in.“I just think the whole thing was a challenge, to play all the way into October and start the season as quickly as we did,” Coach Frank Vogel said. “It was going to be an uphill battle.”There is a big “what if,” of course: What if Anthony Davis, the Lakers’ All-Star power forward, had remained healthy against the Suns? The Lakers had a 2-1 series lead when Davis strained his groin in Game 4. Sensing weakness, the Suns pounced to even the series. Davis was in street clothes for Game 5, which the Suns won by 30 points, and then spent only 5 minutes 25 seconds on the court in Game 6 before he left in pain, done for the night and for the season.Davis is extraordinarily talented and helped fuel the Lakers’ championship, but nobody is accusing him of being the sturdiest player in the league. Prone to injuries for much of his career, he missed about two months this season with a calf strain, and his problems in the playoffs cost the Lakers at the worst time.“We had the pieces,” Davis said. “We just couldn’t stay healthy. A lot of that is on me.”James, 36, was not immune to injury, either. He sprained his right ankle in March and missed a total of 26 games before the playoffs. On Thursday, he tried to tow the Lakers back from a 29-point deficit, helping cut it to 10 in the fourth quarter. He finished with 29 points, 9 rebounds and 7 assists, but acknowledged that his ankle was still bothering him. He said he was looking forward to a full off-season.“It’s going to work wonders for me,” he said, indicating that he would not play in the Olympics.The brightest star in the series was the Suns’ Devin Booker, who, at 24, has officially arrived as one of the league’s premier players. On Thursday, he scored 47 points and shot 8 of 10 from beyond the 3-point line. When James made his first trip to the playoffs, with the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2006, Booker was 9 years old. After Thursday’s game, James autographed his jersey and gave it to him.“I love everything about D-Book,” James said. “He continues to make the jump.”While the Suns go about preparing for the Denver Nuggets in the next round, the Lakers will begin the hard work of addressing where they go from here.Just five players — James, Davis, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Kyle Kuzma and Marc Gasol — are under contract for next season, and Montrezl Harrell has a player option. (In a contractual quirk, the Lakers also owe Luol Deng, who last played for the Lakers in 2017, $5 million.) The big earners, though, are James, Davis and Caldwell-Pope, who, combined, are due nearly $90 million — a sum that, because of salary-cap restrictions, will limit the Lakers’ ability to make significant moves in free agency. The Lakers are unlikely to undergo any extreme makeovers. And they could wind up paying a hefty luxury tax if they re-sign some of their own free agents.James said he had faith in Rob Pelinka, the team’s general manager.“I will have some input,” James said, “but he always asks my input.”No one is about to feel sorry for the Lakers. Davis forced his way to Los Angeles. James is starring in a major motion picture this summer. And the Lakers, with all the inherent advantages as a big-market franchise, won it all last fall. So spare the tears.But the road does seem a bit uncertain for them, and for James in particular. One of the game’s great competitors, he was the sixth-oldest player in the league this season. (Worth noting: The two oldest players, Udonis Haslem and Anderson Varejao, combined to appear in six games and score 17 points.) In two of the last three seasons, James sustained serious injuries after avoiding them for most of his career. No athlete is immortal.Now James is fighting the inevitable effects of age while trying to ward off a group of up-and-comers like Booker — “Young guns,” James called them — who are determined to seize their rightful share of the stage. Perhaps they already have. James was asked whether their presence would motivate him to come back stronger.“I don’t need motivation from anybody in this league,” he said. “I motivate myself.” More

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      Lakers Eliminated from Playoffs With Game 6 Loss to Suns

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      The Los Angeles Lakers, the defending N.B.A. champions led by LeBron James, struggled with injuries all season.The Los Angeles Lakers’ brief reign is over.The Phoenix Suns eliminated the Lakers from the N.B.A. playoffs on Thursday night with a 113-100 victory in Game 6 of their first-round series, ending LeBron James’s hopes of hauling the Lakers to back-to-back championships.It is the first time that James, 36, has exited the playoffs in the first round — and it was a young, up-and-coming team that hastened his departure.The second-seeded Suns, who are making their first postseason appearance since 2010, leaned on the inside-outside combination of Devin Booker, 24, and Deandre Ayton, 22, throughout the series.“I just know they wanted to be in these types of games,” Monty Williams, the Suns’ coach, said before Thursday’s game. “And I think they haven’t run from the moment, run from situations.”Both players, Williams said, got a taste of the spotlight last season, when the Suns won eight straight games in the league’s bubble — a run that left Phoenix short of qualifying for the postseason but made the team’s young core eager to achieve more.The Suns will now face the Denver Nuggets in the conference semifinals. The Nuggets eliminated the Portland Trail Blazers on Thursday.Devin Booker led the suns with 47 points.Kirby Lee/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe Lakers, who were hindered by injuries throughout the regular season, seemed to come unglued against the Suns after Anthony Davis, their All-Star power forward, strained his groin before halftime of Game 4. The Suns went on to win that game and then crushed the Lakers on Tuesday in Game 5 to seize momentum.Frank Vogel, the Lakers’ coach, said before Thursday’s game that Davis “very much” wanted to play. Davis tried: He was in the starting lineup but was running gingerly from the tip and appeared to aggravate his injury while trying to block one of Booker’s layups early in the first quarter. Davis promptly went to the bench and never returned to the game.The Suns, meanwhile, were volcanic, shooting 10 of 13 from beyond the 3-point line in the first quarter en route to a 22-point lead heading into the second. Booker finished with 47 points and shot 8 of 10 from 3-point range.Since joining the Lakers before the start of the 2018-19 season, James has experienced highs and lows. His first season with the team unraveled when he injured his groin on Christmas Day, and the Lakers missed the playoffs. Last season, he engineered a resurgence, joining Davis to lead the Lakers to their 17th championship. For James, the run was a crowning achievement: his first title with the Lakers, and his fourth overall with three teams.As expected, the Lakers entered this season with big goals but struggled. After a strong start that seemed to position him as a candidate to win his fifth N.B.A. Most Valuable Player Award (and his first since 2013), James missed a total of 26 games after he sprained his ankle in March. And Davis, who has been hobbled by injuries throughout his career, was sidelined for about two months with a calf strain.The result was that the Lakers, who had been considered among the preseason favorites to win another title, were seldom whole, and they limped into the playoffs as the No. 7 seed in the West.Still, the Lakers were not an ideal first-round matchup for the Suns — and the task became even more challenging for Phoenix when Chris Paul, the team’s starting point guard and veteran leader, injured his right shoulder in the first game of the series. Paul played through the pain, though, and was terrific in Phoenix’s Game 4 win, a turning point for a franchise on the rise. More

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      The Nets Aren’t Unbeatable, but It’s OK to Be Impressed

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      The Boston Celtics tried in their first-round series but were too depleted to compete. The Nets’ next opponent, the Milwaukee Bucks, may have a better shot.The game and the series were never in serious doubt.The depleted Boston Celtics maintained a sliver of hope of emerging with a victory over the Nets on Tuesday by initially keeping the score close in Game 5 of the best-of-seven series. But, in quick and devastating succession, the Nets crushed any ambition the Celtics had left. That’s what can happen when you have stars like these:Kevin Durant opened the salvos with a 3-point shot midway through the fourth quarter.Kyrie Irving buried one on the Nets’ following possession.Next, James Harden followed with one of his own.In less than a minute, an 8-point Celtics deficit ballooned to 15 and a first-round series win for the Nets.For the Nets, the sequence showcased their roster as envisioned months ago, the stars aligning to alternate taking turns at the helm in piloting the Nets toward a championship.Yes, that lineup had few opportunities to coalesce throughout a rickety regular season. The Nets entered the postseason with questions about the chemistry of their three best players. They had played just eight games together while limited with injuries and coronavirus health and safety protocols.Durant, Irving and Harden are basketball geniuses.So what if they didn’t play much together?Throw one of them the ball in isolation and watch the buckets pour in.“We don’t want to take any of this for granted,” Irving said after the Game 5 victory. “We know this doesn’t happen too often in our culture, in our history, where three of the best scorers to ever play the game and then you have a collection of guys that have done unbelievable things as well in this league, either coming off the bench or starting with us.”The Nets faced a shorthanded Celtics team. Boston entered without the services of the All-Star Jaylen Brown (wrist) and lost key components as the series wore on in guard Kemba Walker (knee) and center Robert Williams (ankle). But the Celtics still mustered a fight and forced the Nets to break a sweat in dispatching them.“We’ve made strides in just a short period of time,” Irving said.Here are some other key takeaways following the Nets’ first-round victory over Boston.Kyrie Irving is ready for the moment.Irving balled out against the Celtics.He, of course, had experienced previous postseason success. He hit the crucial shot that propelled Cleveland to a championship over Golden State in 2016. But he did not have the subsequent breakthrough after he was traded to Boston in 2017 — as Celtics fans will certainly attest — and spent most of the 2019-20 season, his first with the Nets, out while rehabbing an injury.He is among friends now.More than anything, the Nets’ three stars sound like admirers of one another, appreciative of their individual skill sets.Here’s Durant discussing Irving following the Boston series: “His mind is so different that stuff that he brings out is just unexpected — one legger, off the right leg, shooting off the glass, left-hand finishes, right-hand finishes, ball handling.”“He’s a joy to watch and play with,” Durant added.Irving had a spectacular regular season. Against Boston, he was dynamic.He punctuated his first-round performance by pouring in 39 points in a Game 4 blowout win.“I’m grateful for the opportunity that I had in Boston,” Irving said, adding that “there was a lot going on personally while I was there in Boston that people don’t know about.”Now, he said, he’s moving on: “So just grateful that we have a chance to be together in the trenches, me and my teammates, and we just get to move on from this.”James Harden had the Nets’ first playoff triple double since the days of Jason Kidd.Adam Hunger/Associated PressJames Harden is willing to sacrifice.Harden, in the first-round series, showed he was willing to use any of the tools in his bag to win.Often, he blows past his primary defender and surveys the remaining defense. He scores if the lane is open, but is only too happy to pass the ball if an easy scoring opportunity presents itself.In Game 5, Harden amassed a triple-double — 34 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists, becoming the first Net to do so in the playoffs since Jason Kidd in 2007.“He comes into the gym every day and it’s just excitement to play basketball,” Durant said. “With somebody who loves to play so much, the energy is just infectious and you can tell everybody was drawn to James since the day he got here and his presence was just key for us.”Harden is the lone member of the Nets’ Big Three without a championship. This may be his best shot.Kevin Durant’s defense will be key.Durant is an amazing scorer. That is not debatable.But the Nets have that area covered. Durant’s defense may be one of their best weapons for their second-round series against the Milwaukee Bucks.Milwaukee breezed past Miami in a first-round sweep, atoning for last year’s playoff loss to the Heat and reinserting themselves as an Eastern Conference contender.No one on this planet can fully contain the offensive juggernaut that is Durant, Harden and Irving. Milwaukee, at least, has the ingredients to possibly slow them down. Jrue Holiday, acquired in an off-season trade, is arguably the league’s top perimeter defender. P.J. Tucker and Khris Middleton don’t mind mixing it up in the trenches. Giannis Antetokounmpo is last season’s defensive player of the year.“He’s long, athletic,” Durant said of Antetokounmpo. “He plays hard. He cares about his teammates. He cares about winning. Put that combination together, you make a tough player.”But Durant may as well have been describing himself. Against Boston, he swooped in from the weakside to have the backs of defeated primary defenders. His defensive acumen will probably be a key if the Nets are to advance to the conference finals.Second-round injury watch?Both the Nets and the Bucks are largely healthy but not at full strength. Milwaukee’s Donte DiVincenzo is out for the remainder of the playoffs with an ankle injury.Jeff Green, the Nets’ versatile defender, missed the last three games of the Boston series with a strained plantar fascia. More