THE CONFERENCE FINALS
Can the Celtics or Lakers make NBA history by coming back from down 0-3?
Alex Kennedy, Basketball News
Stop caring about ratings and start caring about basketball
Jared Dubin, Last Night In Basketball
“…if I hear one more complaint about the potential ratings for this series or how the NBA is going to be unhappy or whatever I am going to lose my mind. WHO GIVES A SHIT? First of all, ESPN/ABC has absolutely already sold its ad inventory. Second of all, why do you care how much money they make on ads during the Finals? Third of all, if you think the ratings for one series are going to affect the negotiations of the next TV deal, I have a bridge to sell you. And finally, WHO GIVES A SHIT?
Is a Nuggets-Heat Finals, Lakers-Celtics? No. It’s fucking better. Lakers-Celtics is boring and all we’d hear about is the past. This NBA Finals will actually be about what’s happening now, and the road these two teams took to get here
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EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS
MIA 128, BOS 102
5 Takeaways
Anthony Chiang, Miami Herald
Heat show they are more than Jimmy Butler and the importance of unsung heroes
William Guillory, The Athletic
The Heat is messing up everyone’s plans. Especially the Celtics’
Candace Buckner, Washington Post
After Miami blowout pushes Celtics’ season to brink, everyone is taking blame
Jared Weiss, The Athletic
5 Takeaways
Steve Aschburner, NBA.com
Celtics face elimination because defense goes missing in Miami
Jay King, The Athletic
Heat bury Celtics in Game 3, on verge of making NBA Finals
Wes Goldberg, All U Can Heat
The EC finals are more about dominant Miami than collapsing Boston
Brad Botkin, CBS Sports
Caleb Martin is the Miami Heat's third-best player
Mike Shearer, Basketball Poetry
WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS
DEN-LAL
Nikola Jokic Has Mastered the Art of Slowness
Kurt Streeter, NY Times
…with the Lakers briefly taking an 85-84 lead early in the fourth quarter and James beginning to recall his younger self, a switch went on inside Jokic.
Suddenly, there it was, the whole arsenal. Deflections, rebounds and orbital jump shots. Scooping, angling passes. Jokic dribbled up the court, a commanding, surveying point guard. He methodically backed down a Lakers defender. Time seemed to grind to something near a standstill. Then Jokic spun, twirled, and sped briefly to the basket to knock in a soft layup as if it were a one-inch putt.
This was Zen: Wait patiently, clear the mind, calm the body, see the opening, strike. That’s Jokic.
getting in shape and being well coached can’t be the whole story. If so, there would be 1,000 players like Jokic.
Is there something about how he is wired?
“The way he tracks information around him, knowing where everybody is on the court, making perfectly timed passes all the time to open teammates, takes a special mental ability,” said Greg Appelbaum, director of the Human Performance Optimization Lab at U.C. San Diego, where scientists study athletes’ cognition.
“Prospective inference” Appelbaum called Jokic’s capacity to stay one, two, and sometimes three steps ahead of the action on a 94-by-50-foot hardwood swath
…it’s the skill to predict the future movements of opponents and teammates, said Appelbaum, shortly after watching Denver’s Game 3 win.
Nuggets, like Heat, refreshing reminder titles can be won by collectives
Marcus Thompson II, The Athletic
The Lakers’ party is winding down and a big bill is about to come due
Ben Golliver, Washington Post
Lessons from past failures evident in Nuggets run to precipice of NBA Finals
Nick Kosmider, The Athletic
Nuggets Seize the Moment in Game 3 Win
Chris Herring, Sports Illustrated
How Darvin Ham is dealing with the Lakers’ D’Angelo Russell dilemma and making adjustments
Sam Amick, The Athletic
Game 4 Preview
Matt Brooks, Nuggets.com
THE DRAFT
Amari Bailey: Scouting Report
Adam Spinella, The Box And One
Draft Combine Recap
Maxwell Baumbach, No Ceilings
Scoot Henderson's Ready For The NBA
Ben Taylor, Thinking Basketball
Stock Up, Stock Down: How the Combine Changed Our Mock Draft
Jonathan Wasserman, Bleacher Report
TEAM-SPECIFIC STORIES
MEM: Season review: the Grizzlies’ 2022 rookie class
Parker Fleming, SubTsak
MIN: Jaden McDaniels' Catch-And-Go Prowess
Jake Paynting, Howls And Growls
PHI: A look at Daryl Morey’s past coaching hires, and what they might reveal about the Sixers’ search
Gina Mizell, The Inquirer
SAC: Jordi Fernández on Real Madrid’s triumph and Sasha Vezenkov
Alex Molina, Eurohoops
Fernandez’ presence in Kaunas was not only due to his passion for European basketball, as there was someone very special in the Final Four for him and the Kings.
The Sacramento team owns the rights to the Euroleague MVP, who shone as always in the final but was unable to win the title.
“I watched Vezenkov closely. Throughout the Final Four and the playoffs, he has had a great performance. He is a player who produces score very easily, he makes everything look very easy. He plays very well without the ball, cuts very well, he can shoot, is always well-positioned, and rebounds well… His productivity yesterday was beastly, he needed to finish off the game. With the zone defense, especially in the last quarter, he did not have as many shots. He tied the all-time best performance in a final with 29 points, it was a very good match, a pity they didn’t win”.
At this point, the question was more than obvious. Was yesterday Vezenkov’s last game in the Euroleague?
“I can’t answer this because I don’t make contracts or take care of it. The only thing I can tell you is that we have his rights and I came here to see him. Mike Brown went to see him in the playoffs, Jay Triano went to the Greek Cup finals, and I have come to the Final Four… Following him up because it is part of our job, but we are very far from the matter of contracts. He is a player who intrigues us and interests us, but now it is important that he does his job, that they win the Greek league, and that he continues to compete.”
SAC: How Brown's 'tough' coaching on Fox helped build Kings' culture
Angelina Martin, NBC Sports
SAS: 'Patience': The word nobody wants to hear right now
Matthew Tynan, Corporate Knowledge
General Manager Brian Wright preached patience during his post-lottery media availability. As excited as he and the team were, they are dead-set on the idea of longevity, and have been throughout this entire process. They want to build something that will last, and avoid the fate that befalls the greedy. The Spurs don’t want to be the Dallas Mavericks — or even the Memphis Grizzlies to a degree — and jump the gun on assembling a roster the second a transcendent player enters the building. They want to be the version of themselves that ran the league for nearly 20 years, operating on not just great talent, but unending flexibility.
“The reality is, our team is very young. The core of our group — we had 11 players under 23 years old. And so, we’re still learning about them,” Wright said. “We’re still learning about how they fit together and how they’re going to grow. The players they are today, that’s not going to be the player they’ll be in Year 2, Year 3, Year 4, Year 5, Year 6, and so we have to have some patience to understand what that looks like.
“But obviously, with this pick, we have the opportunity to add another foundational piece. Hopefully we’ll put the right pieces around them that helps them to continue to grow as an individual, and allow the team to grow as a group.”
The beauty of the situation is, there are no complications when it comes to building around Wembanyama, no players blocking his path or predetermined faces of the franchise at this point. Not only are things wide-open, but the supporting cast has already been under construction with the idea of versatility in mind.