TEAM-SPECIFIC
BOS: The Celtics won Game 5 with small adjustments and unselfish play
Gary Washburn, Boston Globe
BOS: Celtics' shot-making, defense come alive in the Knick of Time
Sherrod Blakely, Full Court Press
BOS: Luke Kornet is a Celtics folk hero. In Game 5, he was the hero who saved the season
Christopher Gasper, Boston Globe
BOS: What Tatum faces in recovery
Stephania Bell, ESPN
CLE: The Cavs’ latest second round loss in NBA Playoffs brings a new set of questions
Kelly Dwyer, SBNation
CLE: Donovan Mitchell can't believe Cavs' exit
Jamal Collier, ESPN
CLE: 19 Takeaways from Cavs season-ending loss
Jackson Flickinger, Fear The Sword
CLE: The Cavs Are Owning Their Postseason Failure
Danny Cunningham, The Inside Shot
DAL: Cooper Flagg isn’t on the same timeline as AD and Kyrie — 7 ways the Mavs can respond, including big trades
Jeremias Engelmann, 5X5
DEN: Nuggets show ‘why Calvin Booth is no longer GM’
Dan Coombs, NBA Analysis
GSW: Warriors’ season ends as Timberwolves hold off rally
Joseph Dycus, Mercury News
GSW: What’s next for Steph Curry and the Warriors after quiet elimination in Minnesota?
Anthony Slater/Marcus Thompson II, The Athletic
GSW: There's no shame in being eliminated by Timberwolves
Monte Poole, NBC Sports
IND: 5 takeaways as Indiana punches ticket to East Finals
Steve Aschburner, NBA.com
IND: Thomas Bryant 'gave us some of the greatest minutes you can ask of a backup center'
Dustin Dopirak, Indy Star
IND: Pacers back in East finals playing a style that can take them even further
Dustin Dopirak, Indy Star
MIA: Pat Riley has a message for those criticizing Heat way of operating: ‘I’m proud of the culture’
Anthony Chiang, Miami Herald
MIN: Timberwolves roll into Western Conference finals hungrier and healthier this time
Chris Hine, Star Tribune
MIN: Timberwolves eliminate Warriors
Chris Hine, Star Tribune
NYK: Knicks’ 3-point defense was disastrous in Game 5 loss to Celtics: Film breakdown
James Edwards III, The Athletic
OKC: 5 takeaways as OKC withstands 44 from Nikola Jokić in Game 5
Shaun Powell, NBA.com
OKC: Will Thunder's 3-point shooting travel to Denver? It hasn't so far in NBA Playoffs
Joe Mussatto, The Oklahoman
ORL: Magic Season Review: What Went Right - Making the Playoffs
Philip Rossman-Reich, World R Squared
SAC: Kings offseason analysis: Salary cap, draft, trades, free agency
Jason Anderson, Sacramento Bee
PRO HOOPS HISTORY
In this Basketball Digest story from 2001, Net guard Bill Melchionni recounts the last game ever played in the ABA (May 13, 1976) in which the Nets won the final ABA title with a thrilling come-from-behind win over the talented Denver Nuggets.
LEAGUEWIDE
Three stars from Wednesday's NBA playoff games
Andrew Wright, Yardbarker
The intensity system: "This league has become this" and the 64-win Cavaliers couldn't keep up
Henry Abbott, True Hoop
It can be confusing, trying to understand how the Pacers, a middling team in the regular season standings, keep making the conference finals. Last year, there was an urge to describe it as a fluke.
This year, though, the NBA’s coach of the year sees it as a model. The Pacers play with off-the-charts intensity. Cavaliers coach Kenny Atkinson held his hand way up high early in his post-game press conference. “They're up here, guys,” he explained. “I know what I know from the data and I know from watching film. They're up here, and they can sustain it. … I give them so much credit for being able to stay in that, to sustain that type of intensity for so long.”
This idea of mounting intensity that wears teams down doesn’t fit most of the broadcast narrative about how teams win–that tends to focus on star who score a lot like Donovan Mitchell. But the Pacers have a system of playing starters short minutes, while role players like Obi Toppin, Bennedict Mathurin, T.J. McConnell, Ben Sheppard, and Thomas Bryant fly all over the court, badgering the other team’s stars into fatigue.
Then the starters come back, fresh and ferocious, and seal the deal. It changes the math of basketball in ways that are somewhat new to the NBA. It’s a bet that a player like Donovan Mitchell is battling not just his defender, but the limits of his own body. It’s a bet that the league’s best players are close to cracking, if only you can tip them into exhaustion.
Boston forces a Game 6, Minnesota bounces Golden State to return to the Western Conference Finals, and more
Dustin Brewer, Hoops Daily
Will this season’s NBA champion be the healthiest (and last) team standing?
Zach Harper, The Athletic
Unfortunately, health becomes a major talking point of any NBA postseason. We’re not even through the second round of these playoffs, and we’ve lost Damian Lillard and Jayson Tatum to Achilles tears, seen the Cavaliers miss key starters for games before their elimination and lamented Steph Curry’s hamstring making us watch too many Brandin Podziemski jump shots. That’s the playoffs, though. Sometimes, it’s just about which team can maintain the most health to get to the finish line.
BI: Sometimes? Been that way, almost always, for as long as we can remember
NBA offseason 2025: Draft, free agency, trade targets for 30 teams
Bobby Marks, ESPN
Is Jayson Tatum’s Achilles injury the cost of the modern game and increasing physicality?
Tom Haberstroh, Yahoo Sports
NBA Trends, Part II: The Rise of Offensive Rebounding
Iztok Franko, digginbasketball
Tatum’s injury will transform the NBA, not just the Celtics
Jared Weiss, The Athletic
The stunning numbers behind the MVP's groupthink problem
Mike Shearer, Basketball Poetry
How a Hated CBA Rule Fixed the NBA Playoffs
Ian Stonebrook, Boardroom
Draft-related stories follow for paid subscribers