NEW YORK — The first three quarters were cute. The real Knicks stood up in the fourth.

The Detroit Pistons had the Knicks in the first half. They made things tough in New York with their combination of rough-housing centers (Jalen Duren and Isaiah Stewart), held Jalen Brunson in check through the first two quarters, and even took an eight-...Read more

DENVER — Playoff basketball in Denver started with a pickaxe fight.

The Nuggets chipped and chipped away at a 15-point deficit all afternoon until Game 1 suddenly came down to a single possession, and then five more minutes, because somehow this season, it always finds a way to.

The Nuggets emerged with a 112-110 Game 1 overtime win over the...Read more

ATLANTA — The Hawks aren’t going to the NBA playoffs after their play-In tournament loss to the Miami Heat on Friday night at State Farm Arena. There’s a case to be made that they had a successful season, anyway.

Injuries were a persistent problem. The Hawks relied on several young players, some of them with only a toe in the NBA. The ...Read more

Dallas Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison will not escape his YOLO deal that in ideal circumstances had a chance of succeeding in 2025 or 2026.

Year I of that plan officially, and mercifully, ended on Friday night. The Memphis Grizzlies ran up and down on the “defense wins championships” Mavericks, 120-106 in the final play-in game in ...Read more

HARTFORD, Conn. — Darius Adams has decommitted from the UConn men’s basketball program, he announced on social media Saturday.

Adams, a four-star recruit ranked 29th in the Class of 2025 by ESPN, was one of three UConn commits who played in the McDonald’s All American game on April 1.

The 6-foot-5 guard from Manasquan, N.J., and La ...Read more

BOSTON — After a lingering knee injury hindered him for the second half of the season and sidelined him for the final three games, the Celtics are expecting Jaylen Brown to be full-go when they open their first-round playoff series on Sunday.

Boston head coach Joe Mazzulla said Brown was a full participant in practice this week and will not ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — Daryl Morey is a man in search of an answer that does not exist. That’s the easiest way to make sense of what you saw and heard from the Sixers’ president earlier this week. There were moments during his year-end news conference when you could have sworn he was either lying to you or lying to himself. But there is a more ...Read more

CHICAGO — Something is deeply wrong with the Chicago Bulls.

The problem goes far beyond Wednesday’s demoralizing, disgraceful blowout loss to the Miami Heat. It goes beyond losing in the play-in tournament to the same team for three consecutive years. This team is broken. There’s no clear path forward. After a full decade without winning ...Read more

MIAMI — Al Michaels said it on air 45 years ago, and it has resonated and echoed across time ever since — five words that embody hope in sports and beyond.

“Do you believe in miracles?”

Do you, Miami? Do you, Heat fans?

“No!” says America. “No!” say the pragmatists, probably laughing at the notion. But these last two games by ...Read more

DENVER — For the Clippers' vaunted defense, the ultimate test undoubtedly will be dealing with Denver's incomparable center Nikola Jokic during what figures to be a competitive seven-game playoff series.

Jokic is a basketball savant, exceptional in every facet of the game, a player for whom the Clippers will gameplan like never before.

He's ...Read more

DENVER — Bubble Jamal? Or Trouble Jamal?

What’s it gonna be, 27? Because right now, Nuggets Nation isn’t quite sure which Jamal Murray they’re going to get in the 2025 NBA playoffs.

We know Nikola Jokic will paint the lane the way Michelangelo painted ceilings. We know Aaron Gordon will destroy rims for fun. We know Christian Braun ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Conspiracy theories got tossed out on social media approximately three seconds after the NBA’s playoff matchups were set.

The fix is in!

The Timberwolves will have to play five on eight!

There’s no way the NBA will let the Lakers lose!

That serves as the backdrop in what will be the biggest test of the Wolves’ emotional...Read more

NEW YORK — The blueprint is there. The margin for error isn’t.

The Knicks enter their first-round playoff series against the Detroit Pistons as the deeper, more experienced and more talented team on paper. But paper doesn’t win playoff games — execution does. And if New York wants to avoid an early exit, they’ll need to do more than ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Interim Kings coach Doug Christie said his work was not done following Wednesday’s season-ending loss to the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA play-in tournament.

Christie said the organization had offered him no assurances, but he made it clear he wanted to keep his job after the Kings suffered a 120-106 loss to the ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — The Lakers have given Rob Pelinka a contract extension and a new title: president of basketball operations. Terms of the deal were not announced Friday.

Pelinka, who has been the storied franchise’s general manager since 2017, had been vice president of basketball operations since 2020.

He pulled off the stunning deal to ...Read more

CHICAGO — From the first phone call, Hailey Van Lith felt that Chicago was the right fit.

There isn’t much time for predraft networking in the WNBA. The draft takes place eight days after the NCAA championship game, leaving the league without time to host a formal combine. The final stage of scouting typically happens over the course of ...Read more

LEXINGTON, Ky. — In an era when college sports boosters are being tapped to pay players via NIL deals that can reach multi-millions of dollars, conventional wisdom has been there would be fewer coaching changes.

The theory went that, with so much cash going to the players, there would be less booster money available to fund coaching contract ...Read more