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With three Game 6s taking place on Thursday, two teams advanced to the second round. The New York Knicks emphatically did so with a scoreline that should be reserved for horror movies. The Minnesota Timberwolves, or what is left of them, also advanced with an upset win against the Denver Nuggets. We will get at…

Portland Trail Blazers general manager Joe Cronin took the blame for the team’s controversial decision not to allow its players on two-way contracts to travel with the rest of the team for its first two road games of a first-round playoff series against the San Antonio Spurs. “That one’s on me,” Cronin told reporters Thursday.…

The two best words in sports — Game 7 — are officially set. The Philadelphia 76ers kept their season alive with a 106-93 win over the Boston Celtics on Thursday at Xfinity Mobile Arena, forcing a winner-take-all finale on Saturday. After falling behind 3-1 in the series, Philadelphia has battled all the way back, powered…

PHOENIX — Despite getting swept in the Western Conference’s first round of the playoffs, the Phoenix Suns find themselves in new territory. For the first time under owner Mat Ishbia, they do not enter the offseason in transition, an organization looking for a new head coach. In Year 1 on Ishbia’s watch, he replaced Monty…

We saw NBA playoff history Thursday as the New York Knicks obliterated the Atlanta Hawks, 140-89, to slam the door on their Eastern Conference opening-round series. The Knicks rode a 47-point lead into halftime, breaking the record for the largest halftime margin in a playoff game. They fell just three points shy of the largest…

The Atlanta Hawks arrived for a must-win Game 6 against the New York Knicks on Thursday in their home State Farm Arena. They ran out to a 9-5 lead through about three minutes of play. That was the last shred of competitiveness in the half. The Knicks blitzed the Hawks off the opening tip, racing…

MINNEAPOLIS — Ayo Dosunmu was scratched from Game 6 against Denver on Thursday night, the latest crushing loss to a depleted Minnesota Timberwolves roster. Dosunmu is out with a right calf injury, an issue that has plagued him off and on for several weeks. He joins Anthony Edwards (knee), Donte DiVincenzo (Achilles) and Kyle Anderson…

Five-time NBA All-Star John Wall has agreed to become the president of basketball operations at Howard, one of the top-ranked historically Black universities in the country, the program announced Thursday. Wall, the No. 1 pick in the 2010 NBA Draft, returns to Washington — where Howard is located — after starring for the Wizards for…

The Bounce Newsletter  | This is The Athletic’s daily NBA newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Bounce directly in your inbox. How do you trade for two Hall of Famers, win a title with them — and still lose the trade? On this day in 1956, the St. Louis Hawks acquired Ed Macauley and Cliff Hagan from…

LOS ANGELES — After the Houston Rockets suffered one of their worst losses of the season last Friday — one many viewed as the final nail in their coffin — coach Ime Udoka delivered a message to his group summed up in two words. “Grow up,” Udoka said angrily after the Rockets’ historic collapse against…