Tag: nytimes.com

The Bounce Newsletter  | This is The Athletic’s daily NBA newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Bounce directly in your inbox. During Tuesday’s loss to the Warriors, the Kings intentionally fouled career 86.4 percent free-throw shooter Seth Curry while leading with just over three minutes left. Draymond Green called it an egregious tanking strategy. The Kings claimed…

By Sunday night, each NBA team will have played 82 regular-season games. Finality, without round numbers. Who saw the Detroit Pistons at No. 1 in the East? Who saw the San Antonio Spurs topping 60 wins? Did anyone of sound mind foresee this Charlotte Hornets swarm? There is still weight around the weekend’s closing slate.…

HOUSTON — Almost individually, the Philadelphia 76ers filed out of their Toyota Center locker room on Thursday night. There was some small talk and conversation as they headed toward the buses that would take them to their charter flight to Indiana, where they face the Pacers on Friday. However, for the most part, the night…

The Pulse Newsletter 📣 | This is The Athletic’s daily sports newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Pulse directly in your inbox. Good morning! Watch out for the shopping bag today. Coming up:  🏌️ Rory’s back 🏆 NBA players solve MVP 🏒 A Frozen Four classic Tee Times, Pt. II: Rory’s easy excellence Hector…

Stars are playing like role players. And a role player is performing like a star. Let’s open the notebook to run through three NBA trends that have caught my eye this week. The Jokić defense The greatest swing skill for the NBA playoffs resides in Colorado. Will Nikola Jokić’s defense sink as low as it…

There’s accepting your role, and then there’s accepting that it will always be your role. Take the Atlanta Hawks’ Nickeil Alexander-Walker, for example. Former teammates and coaches say he blossomed with the Minnesota Timberwolves partly because he accepted his role as a secondary weapon rather than trying to be a high-usage scorer, something he struggled…

For the first 25 Most Valuable Player awards in NBA history, it was the league’s players, not the media, who determined the winner. All that changed with the 1980-81 season, when “a panel of 69 writers and broadcasters” selected Julius Erving as MVP and a system was installed that has been in place ever since.…

The NBA cleared Doug Christie of tanking accusations levied at the Sacramento Kings coach after he instructed his team to intentionally foul Seth Curry in the fourth quarter of the Kings’ loss to the Golden State Warriors on Tuesday night. The coaching decision — in which Christie directed Kings guard Doug McDermott to foul Curry…

Philadelphia 76ers star Joel Embiid has been diagnosed with appendicitis and will undergo surgery this afternoon in Houston, the team announced Thursday. Embiid reported feeling ill earlier in the day, per league sources, and the Sixers ruled him out for the game against the Houston Rockets. While the team said further updates will be provided…

The Bounce Newsletter  | This is The Athletic’s daily NBA newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Bounce directly in your inbox. On this date in 2019, both Dirk Nowitzki and Dwyane Wade played in front of their respective home crowds for the last time. Each player scored 30 points. There was one more incredible feat that happened…