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      What to Know About the WNBA Playoffs

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      The Chicago Sky will try to defend their championship, but Las Vegas and Connecticut are threats. So is Seattle, with the retiring Sue Bird.The Chicago Sky are set to begin their bid to become the first back-to-back W.N.B.A. champions since the Los Angeles Sparks in 2001 and 2002. But the regular season was close at the top, and several teams could easily lift the trophy this year.Here’s how the W.N.B.A. playoffs shape up.When do the playoffs start?Wednesday at 8 p.m. Eastern time, when the second-seeded Sky host the seventh-seeded Liberty. At 10 p.m., the top-seeded Las Vegas Aces host the eighth-seeded Phoenix Mercury.The other two series — No. 3 Connecticut Sun vs. No. 6 Dallas Wings and No. 4 Seattle Storm vs. No. 5 Washington Mystics — start Thursday.How do the playoffs work?The first round is best of three, with the higher-seeded team hosting the first two games. If a third game is necessary, it will be played at the home of the lower-seeded team.The semifinals and finals are best of five, following a traditional 2-2-1 format for home games.Besides the joy of making it to the end, the finals will bring the players another perk. For that round only, the league will pay for teams to fly by chartered plane.Where can I watch the games?ABC and the various ESPN channels will show the playoffs. Games can also be streamed via ESPN.When are the finals?They are scheduled to begin on Sept. 11 and run through Sept. 20 if all five games are needed.Who’s going to win?The big three are Las Vegas, Chicago and Connecticut, who all finished within a game of each other at the top. Seattle and Washington, which finished with identical records of 22-14, are the next tier down.Las Vegas Aces forward A’ja Wilson is a leading candidate for the Most Valuable Player Award. She’s aiming to win her first championship.Rebecca Slezak/The Dallas Morning News, via Associated PressIt is very hard to see any of the bottom three teams winning. Dallas was .500, and the Liberty and Phoenix both lost more than they won in the regular season.For the statistically minded, Las Vegas had the league’s most potent offense, scoring 109.6 points per 100 possessions. Washington had the stingiest defense, allowing just 96 points per 100 possessions.But in net rating, combining offense and defense, it was Connecticut at the top, scoring 9.5 points more than the opposition per 100 possessions. That could make the third-seeded Sun a sneaky favorite.Who are the players to watch?The top-seeded Aces have a powerful one-two punch. Forward A’ja Wilson is a favorite for the Most Valuable Player Award after finishing in the top five in points per game (19.5) and rebounds per game (9.4), and guard Kelsey Plum scored 20.2 points a game while leading the league in 3-pointers made.Seattle has another M.V.P. candidate in forward Breanna Stewart, who led the league in scoring with 21.8 points per game, and few will take their eyes off the legendary Sue Bird, 41, the W.N.B.A. career assists leader, who will retire after the playoffs.And it will be worth watching Sabrina Ionescu of the Liberty, who at this point still has just one career playoff game.What’s the history?Seattle has four W.N.B.A. titles, all of them — yes, even the one back in 2004 — with Bird. Phoenix has won three times; once each for Washington and Chicago. The Dallas Wings won three times when they were known as the Detroit Shock. The other three teams are seeking their first titles. It’s an especially sore point for the Liberty, who have been in the league since its first season in 1997.What teams and players are missing?Seven of the eight teams are the same as in last year’s playoffs. With Washington returning after a year away, the odd team out is the Minnesota Lynx, who finished 14-22 and snapped an 11-season playoff streak.That means no playoff showcase for Sylvia Fowles, who is retiring after a season in which she led the league in rebounds per game.The absence of the Los Angeles Sparks will cost fans a chance to see more of Nneka Ogwumike and the steals leader, Brittney Sykes.The Mercury will be without both the injured Diana Taurasi, the W.N.B.A.’s career leader in scoring, and Skylar Diggins-Smith, who led Phoenix in scoring this season but will miss the playoffs for personal reasons. But the team’s grimmest absence of all is Brittney Griner, who is appealing her conviction on drug-smuggling charges in Russia, where she has been imprisoned since February. More

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      A Chaotic Sprint to the Finish for the W.N.B.A. Season

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      Six teams are fighting for the final three playoff spots with only one week left.The Chicago Sky, the reigning champions, are assured of one of the top two spots in the upcoming W.N.B.A. playoffs. The rebuilding Indiana Fever are the only team out of contention. Everything else is up for grabs.The final week of the W.N.B.A.’s regular season should be a showcase of the parity and chaos the league has seen all season. Six of the league’s 12 teams are battling for the final three playoff spots, and the teams that have already clinched are still jockeying for seeding.At the top of the standings, the Sky are 25-8 and hold a two-game lead in the race for the No. 1 seed. Chicago can fall no further than a No. 2 seed after a win Sunday over the Connecticut Sun, but it will still need to hold off the Las Vegas Aces, who spoiled Sue Bird’s final regular-season game at Climate Pledge Arena with a win over the Seattle Storm. Chicago and Las Vegas face off Thursday in their final regular-season meeting.The Sun are solidly in the third spot but could still overtake the Aces for the No. 2 seed. A bigger battle is brewing below them, though, as Seattle and the Washington Mystics fight for home-court advantage in what is nearly certain to be the playoff matchup between the No. 4 and No. 5 seeds. The Storm are at a scheduling disadvantage, with games on the road against Chicago and Las Vegas around a trip to Minneapolis. The Mystics, meanwhile, finish with two games against the last-place Fever and play their final regular-season game at home.The Chicago Sky have clinched one of the top two spots in the playoffs.Michael Reaves/Getty ImagesOf the teams hoping to clinch one of the final playoff spots, the Dallas Wings were in the best shape entering Monday, holding a 16-16 record with four games remaining — all against teams that sit below them in the standings. Marina Mabrey’s 31 points helped Dallas clinch a berth with an 86-77 win Monday night against the Liberty.Below the Wings, though, the race is wide open. With three games left for each, the Atlanta Dream and Phoenix Mercury are tied at 14-19, though the Dream own the head-to-head tiebreaker. The Liberty are now 13-20 with three games left, and the Minnesota Lynx and Los Angeles Sparks are also hanging on at 13-20.The Dream, the Mercury and the Liberty have all been without key players down the stretch. Atlanta guard Tiffany Hayes has missed three games with an ankle injury, while Phoenix announced Monday that Diana Taurasi would miss the rest of the regular season with a quad injury. For Saturday’s game with Phoenix, the Liberty had finally gotten healthy as Betnijah Laney returned to action two months after knee surgery, but forward Natasha Howard went down with an ankle injury.Those injuries could leave the door open for the ninth-place Lynx: They hold the season tiebreakers over Phoenix and the Liberty, and they play the Mercury in a must-win game Wednesday. But the rest of Minnesota’s schedule is daunting, with games at home against Seattle and on the road against Connecticut. In its favor is the comeback of Napheesa Collier, who returned Sunday less than three months after giving birth. (A motivating factor for her was the chance to play again with Sylvia Fowles, who is retiring at the end of the season.)Finally, the Sparks may face the most difficult path to a playoff berth, for reasons on and off the court. Los Angeles had been in position for the No. 6 seed after a July 21 win over the Dream. But with drama swirling as the four-time All-Star Liz Cambage left the team, the Sparks dropped six games in a row to fall to 11th place.A win Sunday against the Mystics kept their hopes alive. But they must play back-to-back games this week against the third-place Sun before finishing up against the surging Wings. And making matters worse, the Sparks were caught up in a travel nightmare while trying to leave Washington.Dallas Wings guard Arike Ogunbowale going against Natasha Cloud of the Washington Mystics.Rebecca Slezak/The Dallas Morning News, via Associated PressAfter their flight was delayed and then canceled, some members of the Sparks spent the night in the airport when there weren’t enough hotel rooms for all players. Nneka Ogwumike, a former league M.V.P., said in a video posted on Twitter, “It’s the first time in my 11 seasons that I’ve ever had to sleep in the airport.” More

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      Boston Celtics’ Jayson Tatum Could Have Had His Moment

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      Tatum, the 24-year-old Boston Celtics forward, learned the hard way during the N.B.A. finals just how much it takes to be a championship-level leader.BOSTON — With a little more than a minute left in Game 6 of the N.B.A. finals, Celtics Coach Ime Udoka pulled his starters. That meant Jayson Tatum had a minute to sit by himself and feel the weight of disappointment that came with losing.“It hurts,” Tatum said. “Being with this group, the things we’ve overcome throughout the season, getting to this point. Just knowing how bad we wanted it, coming up short. It’s a terrible feeling.”He lowered his head as he spoke, staring at the table he sat behind.A few minutes before, Tatum had to endure the indignity of watching another team, Golden State, celebrate winning a championship on his home court. He politely congratulated his opponents, then walked off with a blank look on his face. When a fan reached down from the stands and grabbed the towel off his shoulders, Tatum didn’t even react.He had not been at his best during the finals, often guarded by Golden State’s Andrew Wiggins. In the clinching game, Tatum scored only 13 points with 7 assists and 3 rebounds, while committing 5 turnovers. It capped a difficult series in which he struggled to find a rhythm offensively. At 24, he is a foundational piece of Boston’s young core, and this could have been his moment.Celtics Coach Ime Udoka pulled his starters with about a minute go in Game 6. Tatum, center, bent his head down as he sat on the bench.Adam Glanzman/Getty ImagesOn June 1, the day before the finals began, Tatum spoke to the media and said he wanted to be honest.“There have been times where I questioned, am I the right kind of person to kind of lead a group like this,” he said. “You know, never, like, doubted myself, but just moments after some of those losses and the tougher parts of the season. That’s human nature to kind of question yourself.”He said it was important to “always stick to what you believe in and trust in the work that you’ve put in.”Then he went on.“You know, it can’t rain forever.”The Celtics had opened the season off-kilter, losing their first two games and, by early January, 19 more. They were 18-21 and appeared to be destined for an early off-season. But led by Tatum, they turned things around. They roared through the second half of the season and claimed the second seed in the East.The postseason looked to be a formidable challenge, but Tatum’s Celtics, the hottest team in the league, could have risen to the occasion. In the end, they didn’t get there.“One thing that he’s always done throughout the season was seeing multiple different coverages and figured it out,” Udoka said. “He did that throughout the first few series. This one was a rough one. Very consistent team that did some things to limit him and make others pay.“For him, it’s just continuing to grow and understand you’re going to see this the rest of your career. This is just a start.”Tatum already has a notable résumé. He has been named an N.B.A. All-Star for the past three seasons. This year, he was also named to the first-team All-N.B.A. For his performance against the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference finals, Tatum was given the Eastern Conference finals’ Most Valuable Player Award.He averaged 26.9 points per game during the regular season and only 2.9 turnovers per game. His turnover numbers were lower than most of the players with better scoring averages than he had.When asked what the Celtics needed to improve, Tatum said: “I think just our level of poise at times throughout this series and previous series, myself included. Taking care of the ball, things like that.”For the Celtics as a whole, turnovers were a problem during the finals. Boston lost the final three games of the series, committing 15 turnovers in Game 4, another 18 in Game 5 and a painful 22 in Game 6. Golden State had its careless moments as well but responded with enough poise to recover.Golden State’s defenders, especially Andrew Wiggins, kept Tatum from scoring at will like he’s used to. He had just 13 points in Game 6.Elsa/Getty Images“It’s easy to look back and see all the things you could have done better,” Tatum said. “We tried. I know that for a fact.”To single out Tatum’s offense would be to miss some context in a series that had a defensive bent to it. Boston couldn’t score 100 points after Game 3. The Celtics held Golden State to 104.8 points per game, below its regular-season average of 111 points per game.Tatum also was able to affect the game without scoring early in the series. The Celtics scored 120 points in Game 1, their highest scoring game of the finals. Tatum added just 12 points. Golden State defenders kept Tatum uncomfortable, whether he tried to drive to the basket or shoot from outside. He began to look for his teammates instead and had 13 assists.But as the series progressed, Golden State began to take away his other options and make Boston pay for its mistakes.From Games 2 through 5, Tatum averaged 26 points per game but struggled to make a significant impact, particularly as the stakes rose.It was a departure from earlier in the playoffs. When the Celtics faced elimination in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference semifinals against the Milwaukee Bucks, Tatum scored 46 points with 9 rebounds and 4 assists. He shot 53.1 percent from the field that game.It was a feat that he couldn’t come close to matching against Golden State. There were even times during the finals when Tatum seemed hesitant to take a shot if it was there for him, opting to look for teammates instead. He also struggled to finish at the rim.“We all could have done things better,” Tatum said. “I feel like I could have done a lot of things better.”Tatum injured his right shoulder during the Eastern Conference finals but wouldn’t attribute his struggles to that injury. He was asked if he would need surgery and said he didn’t think he would.Rather, dejected after coming so close to winning his first championship, Tatum spoke only generally about the need for improvement and how difficult the night was.Celtics Coach Ime Udoka expressed support for Tatum, saying that he would “learn from this and figure it out.”Bob Dechiara/USA Today Sports, via ReutersHis teammates offered support.“Just gave him a hug, man,” Boston’s Jaylen Brown said. “I know it was a tough last game. I know, obviously, it was a game we felt like we could have won.”His coach had encouraging words, too.“The growth he showed as a playmaker this year and in certain areas, I think this is the next step for him,” Udoka said. “Figuring that out, getting to where some of the veterans are that have seen everything and took their lumps early in their careers.”He added: “High I.Q., intelligent guy that will learn from this and figure it out. I think it will propel him to go forward, definitely motivate him.” More

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      Stephen Curry Left His Critics With Nothing Else to Say

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      Four N.B.A. championships. Two Most Valuable Player Awards. And yes, a finals M.V.P. Golden State’s Curry has nothing else to prove.BOSTON — A few seconds remained in Stephen Curry’s N.B.A. season when he spotted his father, Dell, sitting along one of the baselines. He went over to embrace him, then fell to the court in tears.“Surreal,” Curry said. “I just wanted to take in the moment because it was that special.”Over six games of the N.B.A. finals, Curry had supplied Golden State with a narrow range of feats that ranged from the extraordinary to the sublime. He squeezed past walls of defenders for up-and-under layups, and backpedaled for fadeaway jumpers. He enthralled some fans while demoralizing others. He sought the spotlight, then delivered.He effectively turned the court into his personal theater and the Celtics into his helpless foils, delivering performance after performance in a two-week run whose only flaw was that nearly everyone could begin to anticipate the ending — with Curry exiting the stage as a champion again.After Golden State defeated Boston, 103-90, on Thursday to clinch its fourth title in eight seasons, Curry, 34, reflected on the long journey back to the top: the injuries and the lopsided losses, the doubters and the uncertainty. He also recalled the exact moment he started preparing for the start of this season — 371 days ago.“These last two months of the playoffs, these last three years, these last 48 hours — every bit of it has been an emotional roller coaster on and off the floor,” Curry said, “and you’re carrying all of that on a daily basis to try to realize a dream and a goal like we did tonight.”“You imagine what the emotions are going to be like, but it hits different,” Curry said of winning his fourth championship. Two seasons ago, Golden State had the worst record in the N.B.A.Paul Rutherford/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe numbers tell one story, and they are worth emphasizing. For the series, Curry averaged 31.2 points, 6 rebounds and 5 assists while shooting 48.2 percent from the field and 43.7 percent from 3-point range. He was the unanimous selection as the finals’ most valuable player.“He carried us,” Golden State’s Draymond Green said, “and we’re here as champions.”But there was an artistry to Curry’s work in the series, too, and it was a profound reminder of everything he has done to reshape the way fans — and even fellow players — think about the game. The way he stretches the court with his interplanetary shooting. The way he uses post players to create space with pick-and-rolls. The way he has boosted the self-esteem of smaller players everywhere.“When I go back home to Milwaukee and watch my A.A.U. team play and practice, everybody wants to be Steph,” Golden State’s Kevon Looney said. “Everybody wants to shoot 3s, and I’m like: ‘Man, you got to work a little harder to shoot like him. I see him every day.’ ”For two seasons, of course, in the wake of the Golden State’s catastrophic, injury-marred trip to the 2019 finals, some of that joy was missing. The Warriors scuffled through a slow rebuild.“You imagine what the emotions are going to be like,” Curry said of winning his fourth championship, “but it hits different.”Kyle Terada/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe team reassembled the pieces this season, but there were no guarantees. Curry missed the final 12 games of the regular season with a sprained left foot, then aggravated the injury in Game 3 of the finals. All he did in Game 4 was score 43 points to help Golden State even the series at two games apiece.He showed that he was mortal in Game 5, missing all nine of his 3-point attempts, but his supporting cast filled the void. Among them: Andrew Wiggins and Jordan Poole, who developed their games during Golden State’s playoff-free hiatus and were indispensable this postseason.“Our young guys carried the belief that we could get back to this stage and win,” Curry said. “And even if it didn’t make sense to anybody when we said it, all that stuff matters.”For Game 6 on Thursday, Curry broke out the full buffet. He used a pump fake to send the Celtics’ Al Horford flying toward an expensive row of seats. He baited defenders into traps and zipped passes to cutting teammates. And after a big flurry in the third quarter, he glared at the crowd and pointed at his ring finger. (Translation: He was ready for more jewelry.)Curry began to get emotional when Boston Coach Ime Udoka summoned his reserves from the bench with just over a minute remaining, conceding the series and the championship. Standing alone at midcourt, Curry seemed to be laughing and crying at the same time, a euphoric mix of feelings.“You imagine what the emotions are going to be like, but it hits different,” he said.After missing all nine of his 3-point attempts in the previous game, Curry was 6 of 11 from deep in Game 6. He scored 34 points.Elsa/Getty ImagesIn a sports world consumed by debate shows, uninformed opinions and hot takes on social media, two asterisks — unfair ones — seemed to trail Curry like fumes. The first was that he had neither helped his team win a title without Kevin Durant nor defeated a finals opponent who was at full strength. The second was that he had not been named a finals M.V.P.Whether he cared or not, Curry effectively quashed both of those narratives against the Celtics, a team that had all of its young stars in uniform and even had Marcus Smart, the league’s defensive player of the year, spending good portions of the series with his arms tucked inside Curry’s jersey.For his part, Golden State Coach Steve Kerr said there was only one achievement missing from Curry’s résumé: an Olympic gold medal. (It should be noted that Kerr coaches the U.S. men’s national team.)“Sorry, I couldn’t resist,” Kerr said, deadpan. “Honestly, the whole finals M.V.P. thing? I guess his career has been so impeccable, and that’s the only thing we can actually find. So it’s great to check that box for him. But it’s really hard for me to think that’s actually been held against him.”After the game, as Golden State’s players and coaches began to gather on a stage for the trophy presentation, Curry hugged each of them, one by one.“Back on top, 30!” Looney said, referring to Curry’s uniform number.Afterward, as Curry made his way toward a courtside tunnel, lingering fans clamored to get closer to the court, closer to Curry, before he was disappeared from view. He chomped on a victory cigar as he held his finals M.V.P. trophy aloft, pushing it skyward once, twice, three times.No one could miss it. More

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      The Boston Celtics Have Faced Elimination, but Not Like This

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      The Celtics have drawn confidence from previous season-saving wins. But watching a championship trophy drift away is another challenge altogether.SAN FRANCISCO — Jayson Tatum offered a resigned chuckle when he was asked about the Boston Celtics’ confidence level after losing Game 5 of the N.B.A. finals.If any nihilistic thoughts tormented him after a game in which he scored 27 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in a losing effort against Golden State, he suppressed them.“You better be confident, right?” Tatum said. “We ain’t got to win two in one day. We just got to win one game on Thursday. We’ve been in this situation before. So it’s not over. Got to win on Thursday.”The idea that Boston knows what to do when cornered in a playoff series has been repeated by the Celtics many times this postseason. They did it again Monday night after falling to a 3-2 series deficit in the N.B.A. finals, and now they face elimination on Thursday in Boston. But the assuredness with which they spoke in previous series was missing.For many reasons, the situation they find themselves in now is new territory and has left the Celtics searching for answers for how to recover in time for Game 6.“Our faith got to be at an all-time high,” Celtics guard Jaylen Brown said. “Our faith got to continue to be there. We got to play as a team, as a unit. All season long it’s kind of been like us versus everybody. I look at it as no different now.”Center Robert Williams said: “We have to look each other in the eye now. Our backs are up against the wall.”What’s familiar is that the Celtics are in an elimination game.They have played in three during this season’s playoffs and advanced by winning all of them.They were down 3-2 to the Milwaukee Bucks in the Eastern Conference semifinals, then won the next two games to reach the conference finals. There, the Miami Heat forced a Game 7, which Boston won, 100-96.Often it seemed the Celtics were making their own path harder than it needed to be, giving into lulls when they played in games that were not must-wins. They had an opportunity to finish their series against the Heat at home in six games but couldn’t. They gave up 47 points to Miami’s Jimmy Butler that night. They have been blown out by the same teams they have beat convincingly, suggesting a lack of focus.Their disregard has manifested through missteps like careless turnovers — the Celtics have given up 16.8 turnovers per game in each of their losses during the playoffs and only 12.8 in wins this postseason. They gave up 18 turnovers on Monday night.Their offense has gone stale at times, but their defense has helped save them.Before Game 5, Boston Coach Ime Udoka said the Celtics would have been 3-1 in the series if their offense had simply played better. Then they started Game 5 by missing their first 12 3-pointers.What’s changed now is that Golden State seems to have decoded the Celtics. Boston’s physicality no longer scares them. Shut down Stephen Curry? Golden State still won.The Celtics spent a lot of time complaining about fouls, called and uncalled, during Game 5.Ezra Shaw/Getty ImagesFor most of the playoffs, each time Boston lost a game, it recovered in the next. Game 5 was the first time this postseason that the Celtics had lost twice in a row — the result of a disparity in poise and adaptability, with the young Boston team on the lower end.As the series has progressed, Golden State has seemed more and more ready to pounce on the Celtics’ weaknesses.Celtics forward Al Horford said he felt that his team was “almost playing into their hands, some of the things they want us to do, which is taking contested midrange shots and probably play a little faster than we want at times. I feel like that’s part of the reason our offense hasn’t been clicking like it needs to be.”In Game 5, the Celtics also fell victim to their frustrations with the officiating, which compounded their offensive struggles. The team complained and argued for most of the night.“Probably something we shouldn’t do as much, and we all did too much,” Udoka said.What’s also unfamiliar for the Celtics as they face elimination this time is the pressure that comes with this stage of the season.After Boston took a 2-1 lead in the series, all the talk of Golden State’s advantage in championship experience seemed nonsensical. It seemed, at the time, that the Celtics lost that one game only because they lost focus, as they sometimes do. It seemed, at that time, that Boston was too big, strong, athletic and young for Golden State’s experience to make much of a difference.But now the series has reached a point that these Celtics have never seen before.“We understand what we need to do,” Curry said. “It’s just about going out and executing, trying to bottle up your emotions, knowing how hard a closeout game is.”As Boston searches for answers, Golden State smells blood.Said Klay Thompson: “I’ve never been so excited to go to Boston, I’ll tell you that.” More

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      The Celtics Broadcaster Mike Gorman Hopes He Cheered a Championship Run

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      Mike Gorman, who has done local play-by-play in Boston for more than 40 years, considered retiring. Staying on may have made him the soundtrack to a title team.To generations of Celtics fans, Mike Gorman is just as revered as many of the beloved Hall of Fame players who have taken the floor in Boston.Gorman has been the play-by-play broadcaster for the team since 1981, a steady and reliable voice documenting some of the team’s most memorable moments, from the rivalry with the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1980s to the team’s resurrection in the late-2000s. He was there for the lean times, such as the Rick Pitino era of the 1990s and the death of Reggie Lewis in 1993. For almost 40 years, right beside him was Tommy Heinsohn, the Hall of Fame player and coach.Heinsohn and Gorman could not have been more different as voices. Heinsohn, as the color commentator, was a gregarious personality known for his vociferous criticism of referees who dared to make calls against the Celtics. Gorman is more reserved, raising his voice only for big shots with his catchphrases “Takes it. Makes it!” or “Got it!”After Heinsohn died in 2020, Gorman, a former Navy pilot from Dorchester, Mass., considered stepping away without the other half of “Mike and Tommy.” But Gorman stayed, in large part to see if he could be a part of another championship run.He may have gotten his wish. The Celtics have made an improbable run to the N.B.A. finals, where they are facing Golden State. Boston is down in the series, 3-2, and faces elimination in Game 6 on Thursday.Gorman, alongside Heinsohn’s successor, Brian Scalabrine, called games through the first round of the playoffs. (Under the N.B.A.’s television deals, only national networks broadcast playoff games after the first round.)In an interview with The New York Times about his career, Gorman, 74, said he most likely has two years left as the voice of the Celtics.“I want to go see the world,” Gorman said. “I want to go and do a lot of things that my wife and I made sacrifices to not do because of a basketball game conflict.”This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.What was it like to call this season, which may result in a championship, without Tommy next to you?I want to say there was a real void, because there was a real void. Scal had nothing to do with that. Scal couldn’t change that. Nobody could change that. Nobody was going to fill Tommy’s shoes and be able to instantly get the chemistry that Tommy and I had.The Boston Celtics broadcasters Tommy Heinsohn, left, and Gorman in 2011 as they celebrated 30 years on air together.Elise Amendola/Associated PressCalling all of these games without Tommy, No. 1 was I thought a lot about once he had passed away that maybe I should just quit, too, and just let the legacy be the two of us and not be anything else. But I could see promise with this team, and I think this team is ahead of schedule right now. But they have a chance to win one or two titles if they can keep this group together for an extended period of time.Why did you stick around?I could see this team had potential. It’s great to do a good team because when you do a good team, everyone thinks you’re a good broadcaster. When you’re a bad team, everyone thinks you’re a terrible broadcaster.What was it like being around the team in the first half of the season compared with the second half?Very different to be around the team, period, because of all the restrictions with Covid. And that really hurt, because what we had is when Brad [Stevens] left, a majority of his assistants left with him.So all of a sudden, there were a lot of guys out there that I have no relationship with. I had no relationship with Ime [Udoka]. I had no relationship with any of his assistant coaches. So it was very hard to get any kind of relationship. I would say there wasn’t much of, really, necessarily trying hard to befriend the players, but over the period of years, you have some guys you become friendly with. But you become friendly with them in hotel lobbies. That’s where relationships are made. So when I stopped doing the away games, as I did this past year because of the virus more than anything else, I didn’t see players at all.The season gets off to a difficult start. Was there any part of you that said, “I don’t want to do this anymore?”I started to have those thoughts when we had such a terrible start.Last year, you did something I’ve never seen you do, which was you publicly criticized the Celtics in a radio interview, particularly Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown for playing too much as individuals instead of as a team. You said the team was “really sad to watch.” Now that they’re in the finals, how do you reflect on those comments now?I did them a favor, to be honest with you. Because I took the pressure off some of the other people who felt the same way within the organization that weren’t going to say anything.And then Marcus Smart comes out, and he says the same thing I did. And then to somebody in the hierarchy — I’ll just say, of the Celtics — I said: “Why are you guys so mad at me for what I said? It’s true.” And he said: “Oh, we know it’s true. We just wish that you hadn’t said it right now.” I could understand that. But I love the Celtics. The Celtics have been my life. However, I don’t work for the Celtics. I work for NBC.Gorman said he had made a lot of sacrifices to be available to call basketball games. Now he wants to see the world.Allison Dinner for The New York TimesWhat’s been your favorite Celtics season to call?2008. The one with [Paul] Pierce, [Ray] Allen and [Kevin] Garnett.Least favorite?A decade. Probably the ’90s, where we didn’t make the playoffs a whole bunch of years.What do you think Tommy Heinsohn would say about this year’s Celtics team?I think he’d be very proud of what they have done and how they turned things around. I think he would have been yelling at them before I was about not moving the ball and not doing some of the things that would make them a better team.I would see a player bring the ball across halfcourt and stop, and then all of a sudden, nobody is moving at all. Put on any game in November or December and look at five minutes. Now, put on a game from last week, and all of a sudden, the same players are crossing halfcourt with the ball, and guys are cutting. Guys are moving. Guys are setting screens. Everybody is in motion all the time. It’s just a completely different game. It’s day and night. More

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      Golden State Beat Celtics in Game 5, Moving 1 Win From N.B.A. Title

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      Andrew Wiggins powered Golden State’s victory on an off night for Stephen Curry, who went 0 for 9 from 3-point range.SAN FRANCISCO — Golden State had been mucking up its offense for nearly the entire third quarter on Monday night when Andrew Wiggins pushed the ball ahead to Jordan Poole, a young guard with enormous confidence. Just before time expired, Poole launched a 3-pointer from 33 feet that banked off the glass before rattling through the hoop.The heave was a buzzer-beating breath of life for Golden State in Game 5 of the N.B.A. finals — and for the team’s white-knuckled fans, who rode waves of highs and lows before the Warriors pulled away for a 104-94 victory that put them on the cusp of another championship.Golden State, which took a 3-2 lead in the series, can clinch its fourth title in eight seasons, and its first since 2018, when the team goes on the road to face Boston in Game 6 on Thursday night.Wiggins led Golden State with 26 points, and Klay Thompson added 21. Jayson Tatum had a game-high 27 points for the Celtics in the loss.After a solid start, Golden State was leading by 12, but four Jaylen Brown free throws and back-to-back 3-pointers by Tatum gave the Celtics the first 10 points of the second half, a surprising turn of events given Golden State’s famously torrid third quarters. The Celtics soon took the lead when Marcus Smart and Al Horford connected on consecutive 3-pointers of their own, part of a 19-4 run.Golden State missed its first eight 3-point attempts of the second half before Thompson finally made a couple, a much-needed boost for Golden State — and for Thompson, who had been having his share of struggles in the series.After Poole punctuated the third quarter with his deep 3-pointer, a shot that had the home crowd at Chase Center in a state of near-delirium, his teammates seemed to ride that crest of emotion. By the time Thompson shed Smart to make another 3-pointer, Golden State was back up by 8 points.After scoring 43 points in Golden State’s Game 4 win, Stephen Curry had a muted effort in Game 5, finishing with just 16 points and shooting 0 of 9 from 3-point range. But his teammates delivered. Golden State appeared locked in from the start, passing the ball from side to side, from corner to corner, in constant pursuit of the best possible shot. Not that the team was always able to connect, shooting 3 of 17 from 3-point range in the first half.Still, Golden State went ahead by as many as 16 late in the first quarter before Boston began to chip away with Curry resting on the bench. Smart sank a 10-foot jumper. Robert Williams forced his way inside for a layup.Golden State recalibrated as Curry secured a 51-39 lead at halftime with an up-and-under layup.Draymond Green fouled out in the fourth quarter, but his energy on offense and defense was significant in Golden State’s victory.Cary Edmondson/USA Today Sports, via ReutersIn the first half, Golden State was buoyed by Wiggins, who had 16 points and 7 rebounds, and by Draymond Green, who assembled one of his more assertive stretches of the finals. In the first four games of the series, he scored a total of 17 points. By halftime of Game 5, he had 8 points and was flying around the court.Tatum, after laboring with his shot for much of the series, was doing what he could to keep the Celtics close, collecting 13 points and 8 rebounds in the first half.Before the game, Celtics Coach Ime Udoka expressed concern that Tatum had been preoccupied with hunting for fouls rather than taking good shots. Udoka wanted him to be “more physical” on his drives.“A lot of times he’s kind of floating, going off one leg, when he can plant and go off two, finish a little stronger,” Udoka said, adding: “We’re just telling him to be decisive. He’s done it all year, seen every coverage, and for the most part has kind of picked those apart.”For Golden State Coach Steve Kerr, Monday was the 25th anniversary of a poignant moment from his playing career. It was Kerr’s jump shot in Game 6 of the 1997 finals that clinched another championship for the Chicago Bulls — their fifth of the Michael Jordan era — against the Utah Jazz.“Something every young basketball player dreams of,” he said, adding: “The finals are the finals, whether you’re playing or coaching. It’s the ultimate competition in the world of basketball.” 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