Author: NBA Basketball News, Scores, Standings, Rumors, Fantasy Games

Former NBA players states Mobley, not Draymond, deserves DPOY originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

Former NBA player Chandler Parsons believes that Cleveland Cavaliers center Evan Mobley should win the 2024-25 Defensive Player of the Year over Draymond Green.

Parsons gave his thoughts in response to Mobley’s claim on a recent podcast that he should win the award given to the NBA’s best defensive player.

“I agree [on Mobley winning DPOY],” Parsons said to host Michelle Beadle and former NBA player Lou Williams on FanDuel TV’s “Run It Back” on Thursday. “I think Draymond Green is fantastic. I think he’s versatile. He provides so much for that defense, and I think they’re the seventh-ranked defense. I think Cleveland is the eighth-best defense.

“But you look at the whole landscape of what Evan Mobley does, how he alters shots, how he rebounds the basketball. The jump that he’s made [this season]. There’s also an argument for all of these guards who have had great years. Like [Oklahoma City Thunder guard Lugentz] Dort, like [Atlanta Hawks guard] Dyson Daniels, and they don’t get the attention that they should.”

Evan Mobley deserves DPOY over Draymond Green, says Chandler Parsons 🗣️

Lou Williams thinks Dyson Daniels should win the award 👀@MichelleDBeadle | @TeamLou23 | @ChandlerParsonspic.twitter.com/CqPFAOWMlL

— Run It Back (@RunItBackFDTV) April 10, 2025

While Green is the engine powering the Warriors’ resurgent defense this season, Mobley has been otherworldly for the Cavaliers. With a stunning blend of size and athleticism, the 23-year-old has become one of the league’s elite defenders.

Green is no slouch, but he has struggled with consistency throughout the season, particularly when he’s forced to guard larger players around the rim.

With Cleveland on cruise control, having locked up the Eastern Conference’s No. 1 seed, the final two games of the regular season could go a long way towards Green boosting his stock. The Warriors are in win-now mode, needing victories in their final pair of games to avoid dropping into the NBA Play-in Tournament.

So, you can expect that Green will have an extra chip on his shoulder heading into the final weekend of the regular season.

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Mazzulla gives injury update on Jaylen Brown: ‘He's doing well' originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

The Boston Celtics are playing at a high level going into the 2025 NBA playoffs, which is an encouraging sign for the team as it prepares to defend its title.

The Celtics are 12-2 in their last 14 games and wrap up the regular season schedule with a two-game homestand versus the Charlotte Hornets on Friday and Sunday.

The one concern involving the Celtics right now is the status of Jaylen Brown’s knee. The All-Star guard appears to be less than 100 percent healthy. He didn’t play in the fourth quarter or overtime of Tuesday’s win against the New York Knicks and sat out Thursday’s loss to the Orlando Magic.

It would make sense to not play Brown against the Hornets this weekend and give him more than a week of rest before Boston opens its first-round playoff series, even if that means he’d finish with fewer than 65 games played and not be eligible for an All-NBA team.

Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla joined 98.5 The Sports Hub’s Zolak & Bertrand show Thursday and gave the latest update on Brown’s knee.

“He’s doing well,” Mazzulla said, as seen in the video player above. “No one knows their body, no one knows how to push themselves, no one knows how to prepare themselves, body and mind, through the rigors of a season (like him).

“At the end of the day, the most important thing is just kind of trust in Jaylen, and trust in his work, trust in his process and also trust in the training staff and the sports science and the guys that put the time in all the time. … I trust that he’ll be ready to go when it matters most.”

Is it realistic to expect Brown to be 100 percent during the upcoming playoff run?

“I don’t think it’s realistic to think that anyone’s 100 percent during a long playoff run, and I think that’s where the mental side comes into it,” Mazzulla explained.

“That’s where the mindset of just pushing it — I think that over the course of the season or the course of, hopefully a potential playoff run, everybody’s dealing with something. So you gotta be able to take your mind and your body to a different level, and there’s not many people who are better at that than (Jaylen) is.”

Brown has still played pretty well despite a decreased workload of late. He’s averaging 19 points and 5.3 rebounds per game, while shooting 50.9 percent from the field and 43.8 percent from 3-point range over four games this month. That includes a 31-point performance in a win over the Phoenix Suns last week.

The Celtics have enough depth and high-end talent to win another championship if Brown is at less than 100 percent health. But to reach their apex, they need him as close to 100 percent as possible.

Windhorst claims flawed Warriors entering ‘energy-zapping' stretch originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

Brian Windhorst believes the Warriors are ill-equipped to handle a long NBA playoff run due to their roster construction.

The ESPN analyst explained that Golden State is in a difficult position in the Western Conference playoff standings.

“I agree with you that the difference between the No. 2 and No. 8 seed in the [Western Conference] is negligible,” Windhorst said to Courtney Cronin, Monica McNutt and David Dennis Jr. on “First Take” on Thursday. “All of those teams believe they can beat each other, and all of those teams have flaws that will allow them to be beaten. Clearly, the Warriors are flawed, look what happened last night.”

"Clearly the Warriors are flawed, look what happened last night." 😬 @WindhorstESPN on how Golden State's 114-111 loss to the Spurs could affect their playoff fate in the West 👀 pic.twitter.com/AaeWXoOwzV

— First Take (@FirstTake) April 10, 2025

The Warriors blew last night’s game against the depleted San Antonio Spurs 114- 111, allowing Harrison Barnes to hit the game-winning 3-pointer as time expired. The shocking loss moved Golden State down in the standings to the No. 7 seed, dangerously close to ending up in the play-in tournament.

Windhorst then explained why the Warriors’ potential postseason lineup decisions might prove to be disastrous.

“The way the Warriors are going to try to pull this off [is] they’re going to try to play with a very small lineup,” Windhorst said. “And I just think what you’re going to ask this team to do to make a long playoff run, what you’re going to ask Draymond Green to do. Guard bigger players, play with a lot of energy. I think it’s going to be energy-zapping for them. So, I think they need to be doing the opposite, they need to be taking load off instead of adding load on.”

After trading for Jimmy Butler, Golden State has emphasized smaller lineups, with Green at center. While that approach has worked, it also strains Green to match up against larger players. Rookie center Quinten Post has looked solid coming off the bench, but it’s uncertain if he could handle more playing time in a hotly contested playoff series.

The Warriors have two regular-season games remaining against the Portland Trail Blazers (35-45) and the Los Angeles Clippers (48-32), and will need to win both contests to have a shot at a top-six seed and a guaranteed playoff berth. The separation between the No. 4 and No. 7 seeds in the conference is a minuscule one-and-a-half games, so Golden State cannot afford another misstep.

If they’re unable to win out and get some help, the Warriors would have a play-in game on Tuesday, an unenviable spot to be in for a team with deep playoff aspirations.

For now, the Warriors turn their attention toward Portland on Friday, a must-win game if they want to avoid the play-in.

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Why Post, GP2 severely were missed in catastrophic Warriors loss originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

SAN FRANCISCO – The two most important numbers from the Warriors’ 38-point obliteration of the Phoenix Suns on Tuesday night were 26 and 20 – the first representing how many minutes Steph Curry played, and the second being the playing time for Jimmy Butler and Draymond Green.

Both the Warriors and San Antonio Spurs were on the second night of a back-to-back when they played each other Wednesday night at Chase Center. The Warriors’ stars were rested from a blowout win, while the Spurs battled the LA Clippers the previous night and their top two players – Victor Wembanyama and De’Aaron Fox are out for the season.

Didn’t matter. The Warriors fumbled a 12-point fourth-quarter lead, losing 114-111 on a night where an inexcusable loss couldn’t be accepted.

The mood wasn’t doom but gloom after the disappointment, and to coach Steve Kerr the absence of two key role players was evident throughout the loss.

“I think we really missed Gary tonight,” Kerr said. “Missed QP. We’ve really developed a good group, rotation-wise, with those guys.”

Gary Payton II (right knee inflammation) and Quinten Post (illness) missed their second straight game. Their presence wasn’t needed against the Suns where the Warriors led from the nine-minute mark of the first quarter through the rest of the game. But this part of the season is all about fit and combinations going into the postseason, and these two players are puzzle pieces placed in unison for the Warriors.

Only two players had a positive plus/minus for the Warriors in their three-point loss. Steph Curry was a plus-14 in 36 minutes, and Post’s replacement, Trayce Jackson-Davis, was a plus-3 in three minutes off the bench.

The non-Steph minutes have turned from a close-your-eyes-and-look-away situation to a major positive since Butler’s arrival. When he sat against San Antonio, any positive momentum created was tossed to the toilet and flushed away.

“Huge,” Kerr said. “I thought that was the key to the game – top of the second, top of the fourth. We played two great quarters tonight, first quarter and third quarter. Both of those quarters, top second and top fourth, they blitzed us. … Those were the two key stretches in the game.”

And they’re where Post and Payton come into play.

To start the second and fourth quarters, Kerr essentially has been replacing Curry with Post, a seven-footer who can let it fly from deep. The lineup of Podziemski-Moody-Butler-Green-Post has a 18.3 net rating with a 112.4 offensive rating and 94.1 defensive rating. Post gives Butler a shooter and gives the group both size and spacing.

He also is shooting 41 percent from three this season, which tops Curry’s 39.5 percent and leads the Warriors. His 3-point prowess was imperative on a night where Brandin Podziemski (1 of 5) and Moses Moody (1 of 7) went 2 of 12 from three. Post is shooting 41 percent from three in the second quarter (25 of 61) and 39 percent in the fourth quarter (16 of 41).

Kerr and the Warriors’ coaching staff have emphasized winning the first and last four minutes of quarters. Through the first four minutes of the second quarter, the Warriors were outscored 15-3. If you extend it to the first six minutes, the Spurs had a 20-3 advantage. Then to start the fourth quarter, the Spurs raced out to a 15-7 run through the first four minutes.

“Couldn’t get a stop,” Green said. “Couldn’t get into nothing offensively. Couldn’t get a stop.”

Is that Payton’s music you hear? He’s the ultimate wild card Kerr can call upon, making his long injury history and health going forward that much more important to the Warriors’ success.

Though the Warriors lost the previous game Payton played, falling 106-96 against the Houston Rockets, Payton was phenomenal. In 20-plus minutes off the bench, Payton had 16 points, five rebounds, two assists and three steals. Individually, Payton had a 128 offensive rating, 100 defensive rating and a 17.0 box plus/minus against the Rockets.

His point-of-attack defense was severely missed against San Antonio’s Rookie of the Year frontrunner Stephon Castle, who blew past Warriors defenders all night. The Spurs went 7 of 10 on threes in the fourth quarter, and three were from clear drive-and-kick situations.

When one or two bench links are missing from the chain, the Warriors can’t crumble. They did. Post has been great with Butler, and Payton’s chemistry alongside Curry can cure all. Are they the ultimate X-factors?

That question can be looked at differently in nearly every game. In this catastrophic loss, the answer was obvious, with hopes they’ll be back as soon as Friday against the Trail Blazers in Portland.

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The feelings Luka Doncic kept private during the past two months started pouring out.

Literally.

Moved to tears by a two-minute montage that played on the video scoreboard at American Airlines Center on Wednesday night, Doncic later recalled thinking, “There’s no way I’m playing this game.”

He didn’t have a choice.

Luka got emotional watching his tribute video from the Mavs 🥹 pic.twitter.com/ySim9PqNUg

— NBA TV (@NBATV) April 9, 2025

Doncic wiped his eyes with a towel, walked by a gauntlet of high-fiving reserves and joined the Lakers’ other starters on the floor.

What followed was a performance described by Lakers coach JJ Redick as “superhuman.” Not even Doncic could explain what happened.

More than two months after the Dallas Mavericks traded him to the Lakers, Doncic returned to the arena he called his home for more than six years.

His line in the Lakers’ 112-97 victory: 45 points, eight rebounds, six assists and four steals.

This was the kind of moment in which Shohei Ohtani would have blasted a ball into the upper deck, and that’s what Doncic did.

What Doncic did on Wednesday was the basketball equivalent of Ohtani homering last month in the Dodgers’ season-opening series in Tokyo or homering three times last year on the night he became the first 50/50 player in baseball history.

On the most high-profile stage he’s played on in a Lakers uniform, with the eyes of the entire basketball world on him, Doncic delivered.

“He’s teary-eyed still as we walk out on the court for the tip ball,” Redick said. “To have the emotional resolve to then go put on that kind of performance, it’s superhuman.”

Little wonder why Doncic remains beloved here.

He is beloved in Dallas for the same reasons Ohtani is now beloved in Los Angeles. Because he is fearless. Because he delivers. More specifically, because he delivers when he is expected to.

Never was a performance like this from Doncic as anticipated as it was on Wednesday night.

Doncic’s trade to the Lakers has remained a source of controversy because of how stupid it was, pretty much everyone outside of Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison wondering why anyone would part ways with a generational talent who is still only 26.

Doncic didn’t want to be traded, and Mavericks fans didn’t want him to be traded, creating a strange dynamic in the arena in which fans of both the home and visiting teams were on the same side: Doncic’s side.

When James attempted free throws just four seconds into the game, “Fire Nico” chants started. The chants were heard throughout the game.

As obviously shaken as Doncic was by the emotionally-charged environment before the game, he looked entirely unaffected during it.

“You call that an out-of-body experience,” James said.

Doncic shot and shot and shot.

By the end of the first quarter, Doncic had 14 points. By halftime, he had 31. The 30-point half was his first with the Lakers and the 14th of his career.

“I thought he was gonna get 50,” Redick said, jokingly adding, “I was disappointed.”

Doncic finished the game 16-of-28 shooting, including seven of 10 on three-pointers. He acknowledged he was drained by the experience.

Asked what he was thinking when he checked out of the game and received a standing ovation from what used to be his home crowd, he replied, “Honestly, I don't really know. I wasn't even thinking.”

Doncic said he encountered trouble sleeping on Tuesday night, even though the Lakers had played earlier in the day in Oklahoma City. He said he woke up exhausted on Wednesday. Walking into the arena, Doncic said he was “a little bit of both, happy and angry.”

Nonetheless, he delivered.

Read more:'Everybody had my back.' Lakers forge tighter bond supporting Luka Doncic in Dallas

James explained what this could mean for the Lakers in the postseason.

“I mean, he’s battle tested,” James said. “He’s been in big moments, he’s played in big moments throughout his career. Literally less than a year removed from the NBA finals, so he knows what to expect. He’s special with it.”

Doncic was already an established star when he moved to Los Angeles, just as Ohtani was last year. Now, Doncic will have the chance to do what Ohtani did, to become a champion, to become a civic hero.

He just has to deliver again.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Tom Thibodeau just became the fourth-winningest coach in New York Knicks history, passing Pat Riley on Saturday as his team notched their 49th win of the season. But as has often been the case with Thibodeau’s coaching milestones, the moment wasn’t met with pure celebration. Instead, familiar questions around a controversial overtone of his NBA coaching career loomed – namely, Thibs Minutes Syndrome.

Thibodeau has long carried a reputation for running his starters into the ground, a narrative built on his unwavering reliance on his first unit and reluctance to tap into his bench. This year, Knicks starters lead the NBA in total minutes played by more than 500 minutes. And the concern isn’t new: last year, as New York’s best chance to make the NBA finals in decades unraveled amid a cascade of injuries, criticism of Thibodeau’s substitution patterns resurfaced with a vengeance.

Recently, the conversation was reignited when one of Thibodeau’s stars, small forward Mikal Bridges – one of the league’s most durable players – was uncharacteristically candid on the subject in an interview with the New York Post. “Sometimes it’s not fun on the body,” he told Stefan Bondy in March. “I think [Thibodeau] just gets in his ways and gets locked in. He just wants to keep the [starting player] out there.” Bridges followed that with a pointed call to give the bench more run: “We’ve got a lot of good guys on this team that can take away minutes. Which helps the defense, helps the offense, helps tired bodies being out there and giving up all these points. It helps just keeping fresh bodies out there.”

Thibodeau, for his part, has long dismissed the discourse. “I think sometimes people get caught up in the wrong stuff,” he said during a 2018 radio appearance in Minneapolis. “The most important thing is the winning.”

That philosophy has followed him for years – and so has the criticism. His reputation as a career-shortener is now accepted as near-gospel, a perception rooted in part in Derrick Rose’s devastating knee injury under Thibodeau’s watch in Chicago. But that perception, renewed by Bridges’ comments, prompted a deeper question: is there actual, empirical evidence that Thibodeau’s players are more prone to injury?

The short answer? Not really.

NBA injury data is, by nature, frustratingly opaque – injuries are often categorized alongside “rest” or “illness”, making it difficult to isolate meaningful trends. That’s why, in trying to answer the question of whether Thibodeau’s players are actually more prone to injury, we had to go deeper. That led us to Jeff Stotts of InStreetClothes – a longtime independent researcher who’s spent over a decade meticulously building his own proprietary injury database. The data isn’t public, and to our knowledge, it’s never been shared in this form before. Stotts was able to extract and isolate the specific data we needed, and after a month of obsessive digging, what we found was – while perhaps anticlimactic – illuminating: there’s no clear or consistent pattern showing Thibodeau-coached players are more likely to get hurt than anyone else.

Interactive

Injury spikes during his Bulls tenure can largely be attributed to Rose and a lengthy absence from Richard Hamilton. But aside from those exceptions, there’s no continuous or notable trend. While it’s fair to wonder whether heavy minutes might have subtle or long-term effects – and while Thibodeau’s approach may still be out of step with evolving sports science – the data doesn’t support a definitive link between his coaching style and injury risk.

Still, the process of looking into Thibodeau’s record revealed a broader, perhaps more unsettling trend: injuries have been rising across the NBA for more than a decade, regardless of coaching style, playing time or load management.

Interactive

CJ McCollum, NBPA president and guard for the injury-depleted Pelicans, sees it firsthand. He talked to the Guardian last week in Los Angeles about the somewhat alarming trend and whether he had any ideas as to what could be causing it. “I think guys are playing a lot more basketball before they get to the NBA: grassroots, high school, college,” he said. “Just a lot of basketball being played. So at 22, 24, their bodies have been through a little more than [players] in previous years.”

It’s a hypothesis others share. In a 2019 feature for ESPN, Baxter Holmes dove into the theory of how early single-sport specialization and the year-round youth hoops circuit have pushed young players’ bodies to the brink before they even reach the league. “These kids are ticking time bombs,” one expert said in the piece.

McCollum also pointed to changes in team routines. “Earlier in my career, we practiced a lot more. Training camp was longer, there were more preseason games,” he said. “Now, with efforts to reduce back-to-backs, we have more single-off-day breaks and fewer practices. Guys are coming in in shape because they’re playing year-round, but there’s not as much ramp-up. Sometimes it’s too much information. Paralysis by analysis.”

There’s also, of course, the unpredictable: luck. “Sometimes injuries just happen,” McCollum said. “You can do everything right and still get hurt.”

His head coach, Willie Green, echoed that uncertainty. “I do not have a good guess on what the reason is,” Green said. “But I think the best thing we can do is have depth – a deep roster to withstand injuries. That’s what we’ve done in the past. This year, we just didn’t have enough guys available to fill in when our main players went down.”

And that’s where the Thibodeau debate still has legs. Even if his players aren’t getting hurt more than others, the broader trend of rising injuries – especially among starters logging heavy minutes – suggests every team may need to embrace depth more proactively. High-end talent isn’t going to become less important in the NBA landscape any time soon, but Green is likely onto something: depth may just be the way of the future for teams looking to weather an increasingly inevitable injury storm.

An emotional Luka Doncic helped the Los Angeles Lakers clinch a seeded play-off spot as he hit 45 points during a 112-97 win against former side Dallas Mavericks.

The Slovenian completed a mid-season trade to the Lakers from the Mavericks in February in one of the most surprising moves in NBA history.

T-shirts with the message "Hvala za vse", which is Slovenian for "Thank you for everything", were given to fans in the American Airlines Center in recognition of Doncic's six and a half seasons in Texas.

Doncic was reduced to tears as the Mavericks played a pre-game video tribute to the 26-year-old, while his every touch was cheered by the home fans during the opening minutes of the contest.

He quickly put sentiment aside, putting up 13 points in the first quarter and 31 by half-time.

He finished with eight rebounds, six assists and four steals in his 38 minutes on court.

"Everybody saw me, the way I reacted to the video," Doncic told ESPN.

"All these fans, I really appreciate it, man. All the team-mates I had, everybody had my back. I'm just happy.

"I love these fans, I love this city, but it's time to move on."

LeBron James, 40, hit 27 points, including 13 in the final quarter.

The win means the Lakers are guaranteed a top-six seed in the Western Conference play-offs, and they can seal the third-seed spot with a win in either of their two remaining matches.

For any other road game, Luka Doncic would’ve arrived at the arena on the team bus. For this on, he pulled up in an Apocalypse Hellfire, a six-wheeled mini-tank.

See for Doncic, this wasn’t really a road game. It wasn’t really a home game either. It was just a 26-year-old star stuck in this strange in-between world after he was traded from a team and city he loved to the Lakers, his life upended in a single phone call that left no time to empty his garage.

So instead of riding the bus, he drove the tank.

Doncic pulling into Wednesday’s game in Dallas by himself was fitting.

The anticipation for the moment had been building since the blockbuster trade on Feb. 1, his return to a fan base that has openly mourned and protested his departure with a mixture of sadness, anger and abandonment of the Mavericks. Outside the arena, a bar served shots for $7.77 in honor of No. 77 while a runner took 77 laps around the American Airlines Center to raise money for Doncic’s foundation.

The shirts draped on the seats said Hvala za vse — “Thanks for everything” in Slovenian.

It was going to be all about him.

But something else happened Wednesday as the Lakers won 112-97 to clinch a top-six seed and playoff spot.

Doncic’s moment? It became about the Lakers as a whole, the group crying the same tears, fighting off the same emotions and celebrating with an exhale that can propel them into the playoffs.

Read more:Lakers star Luka Doncic scores 45 in emotional, winning return to Dallas

That feeling bubbled throughout the night, from the pregame tribute video to the final horn, and it was cemented after Doncic’s final basket, a flat-footed three-foot push shot that might’ve been the easiest two points of his 45.

As he walked to the bench after Dallas called time out to surrender, Rui Hachimura met him with a huge smile. Austin Reaves howled and bumped chests with Doncic. Dorian Finney-Smith and Doncic did their choreographed handshake.

And, finally, LeBron James met him with the biggest hug he could deliver.

“I've been in a lot of moments in my career. I've played against some former teammates. I've played against former teams. I've been booed, I've been cheered, I've been whatever. Everything. I've seen it all,” James told The Times. “And one thing you can't ever undermine is just the emotion behind a human. And, as much emotion that was going on tonight, as much hoopla was going on and how much the game of basketball wrapped around it, the human side kicked in.

“Not only for Luka, but for our ballclub and for me.”

It was no longer a Doncic moment; it was a Lakers moment.

That embrace had been building since the moments just prior to the game when the Mavericks played a two-minute tribute video on the scoreboard before they announced him as a visiting player for the first time.

Luka got emotional watching his tribute video from the Mavs 🥹 pic.twitter.com/ySim9PqNUg

— NBA TV (@NBATV) April 9, 2025

Doncic sat alone on the bench, looking from the video screen to the towel he used to hide his face. And while he watched, Lakers coaches and players watched Doncic, drawn into nakedly exposed emotions.

“Coach said after the game when he saw Luka crying, he started crying,” Reaves told The Times. “[Assistant coach Greg St. Jean] started crying. And to be honest, I didn't wanna look at him because I was over there looking up and I was getting chills. So I was like, ‘If I look at this man and I see the emotion, like I'm probably going to get upset.'

“So I think everybody in the locker room had the same feeling.”

James was there for a pregame embrace after Doncic was announced, another moment for him to share with his new teammate.

And then he brought apocalyptic hellfire, scoring 31 points in the first half.

“It's a beautiful moment,” coach JJ Redick said. “I thought the video was great, but I think just his ability to then go perform...

"Lights turn on. He's teary-eyed still as we walk out on the court for the tip ball. To have the emotional resolve to then go put on that kind of performance, it's superhuman.”

In their push for prime playoff position, the Lakers (49-31) have shown great moments of on-court connection, particularly in blowout wins in Denver and Oklahoma City. Those bonds seemed to only tighten Wednesday as they rode the emotional roller coaster with Doncic instead of leaving him to face it alone.

“Everybody had my back, from coaches to players,” Doncic said. “And we’re trying to build something special here and that was really, really, really nice to see.”

He had to have felt it after walking off the court in the fourth quarter, the crowd and his teammates all chanting his name as the Lakers’ huddle bounced with excitement. Redick said he and St. Jean noticed that embrace with James first.

Read more:'Imagine how I felt': Luka Doncic surprised he was traded to Lakers

“It can bring you together. It can bring you closer. You never know. NBA is a fickle thing. Greg and I were talking as that moment was happening, both kind of fighting back some emotions. And Greg said to me, 'This is gonna be awesome for our group to go through this with him, and for him to go through this with them.'

“Does that mean we're gonna win an NBA championship or get to the conference finals? I don't know. But it was an awesome moment for everyone.”

“I think it just, it shows in a short period of time, it shows how much that we care about one another,” Reaves said.

It wasn’t just a night for Doncic; it was one for his team days away from beginning a playoff chase for a championship. And it was a night for James and Doncic as they strengthen their partnership heading into their first postseason.

“For him to have the game he had,” James said, “for me to be a part of it, for me to be a part of helping him win the game — 'cause I know how important that was even more than anything — it was just another step in our journey.”

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

It didn’t matter to the Clippers that the Houston Rockets were resting their core players. It didn’t matter to the Clippers that they were playing the second game on back-to-back nights. It didn’t matter that they are starting to feel some wear and tear from a long NBA season that’s winding down.

What mattered was “being professional” Wednesday in their approach to their final regular-season game at the Intuit Dome.

The Clippers still are playing for something and that was enough motivation during a 134-117 win over the Rockets behind another masterful game from center Ivica Zubac.

Zubac registered his first triple-double of 20 points, 11 rebounds and a career-high 10 assists. He became just the third Clippers center to post a triple-double.

He almost didn’t get that opportunity, because coach Tyronn Lue considered taking Zubac out with 1:06 remaining. But Norman Powell and Nicolas Batum kept telling Lue to leave Zubac in, so he did.

Then with 1:02 left, Zubac found Bogdan Bogdanovic (16 points) for a 28-foot three-pointer that gave the 7-footer his first triple-double.

“I wanted it,” Zubac said, laughing. “T. Lue wanted to sub me out, then everyone was like, ‘No, no, no.’ He asked me and I was like, ‘I’ll stay.’ I wanted it. I told Bogie 'I’ll get it to you and you got to shoot it no matter what,' and he did. Bogie is a big-time shot maker. So, I told him he’s never paying for dinner again. I’m glad he made that shot.”

The victory was the Clippers’ sixth straight and left them as the fifth-place team in the loaded Western Conference.

The Clippers have the same record as the fourth-place Denver Nuggets at 48-32. Though they split the season series (2-2), the Nuggets have the tiebreaker with a better conference record (30-20 to the Clippers’ 27-23) .

The Clippers have one more win than sixth-place Memphis and seventh-place Golden State with two regular-season games left — at Sacramento on Friday and at Golden State on Sunday. The Clippers can put themselves in position to get an automatic playoff berth and avoid the play-in tournament.

“We got to keep getting better,” said Kawhi Leonard, who had 22 points, 10 rebounds and four assists.

James Harden had 35 points and 10 assists and Batum had 15 points, all in the first half. Batum was four for five from three-point range but didn’t play in the second half because of right groin soreness.

Powell missed the game because of right shoulder soreness, but the Clippers overcame his absence. Perhaps most impressive was that they didn’t let up despite the Rockets sitting starters Alperen Sengun, Dillon Brooks, Fred VanVleet and Amen Thompson and sixth man Jabari Smith Jr. The Rockets have clinched the No. 2 seed in the West and essentially had nothing to play for.

The Clippers, however, had far more at stake.

“I’m the kind of guy that [says] win every game that’s in front of us and see what happens,” Zubac said. “There’s nothing to be smart about. We got to win games. Whatever happens, happens.”

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

The Lakers fans and the Mavericks fans cheered. Because they were Luka Doncic fans.

The uniforms were Lakers purple and gold. They were Dallas navy and Mavericks retro green. They were from the Slovenian national team and a Spanish club.

All had the same name across the back.

They cheered when he touched the ball and erupted when he made his first shot. They booed when he traveled and stood and applauded when he checked out.

Even though he was now a visitor, the Mavericks crowd reminded Doncic at every opportunity that they felt this still should be home.

They showed it before Wednesday's game, lining the court to watch him go through his routine an hour before tipoff. They showed it during introductions, roaring as he was introduced as a Laker for the first time in Dallas after a two-minute tribute video.

And they showed it each time the Lakers went to the free-throw line early in the game by chanting “Fire Nico,” the words that have come to define the Mavericks' season after general manager Nico Harrison dealed Doncic to the Lakers for Anthony Davis, Max Christie and a first-round pick.

Doncic repaid the fans with the kind of show they’d seen countless times, scoring 31 of his 45 points in the first half of the Lakers’ 112-97 win. The victory assures the Lakers of a top-six seed in the Western Conference playoffs.

After his final basket, Dallas called time out and Doncic embraced his new teammates, falling into LeBron James’ arms for the biggest hug. The fans chanted “Luka” while Lakers players urged them on.

It was the manifestation of what coach JJ Redick said the Lakers hoped to show Doncic, that they “got his back.”

Before the game fans held their phones up at American Airlines Center's giant scoreboard as the lights dimmed for a video of Doncic’s best moments with the Mavericks — a mix of big shots, magical passes and boyish charisma that enchanted the franchise’s fans. Doncic’s lip quivered as tears pooled in his eyes.

“I was, like, ‘There’s no way I’m playing this game,’” Doncic recalled thinking. “It was so many emotions and I just went out there and just played basketball.”

Luka got emotional watching his tribute video from the Mavs 🥹 pic.twitter.com/ySim9PqNUg

— NBA TV (@NBATV) April 9, 2025

After featuring him as their primary offensive option for two quarters, the Lakers turned to defense and transition offense to take control in the third quarter. And while Dallas briefly took the lead in the fourth quarter, a Christie two-handed slam nudging the Mavericks ahead, Doncic and the Lakers closed them out by playing their best all-around basketball while another round of “Fire Nico” chants bounced through the arena.

As he checked out, Doncic got one last standing ovation, turning to show his appreciation to the crowd. For the night, everyone had gotten what they wanted.

Tomorrow he will be focused only on the Lakers.

“It's over,” Doncic recalled telling himself after he checked out. “We won and I had a great time.”

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Warriors' haunting loss to Spurs recalls shades of pre-Butler days originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

SAN FRANCISCO – The issue most responsible for the Warriors’ midseason mediocrity, patched masterfully for two months after the arrival of Jimmy Butler III, sustained its first tear Wednesday night.

For the first time since Butler arrived, the Warriors fumbled a double-digit lead in the fourth quarter when San Antonio’s Harrison Barnes drained a game-winning 3-pointer that sent the Warriors trudging into the locker room with a 114-111 loss to the Spurs that could haunt them the rest of the season.

The loss, the Warriors’ second in three games, dropped them from sixth place to seventh in the Western Conference standings with a 47-33 record. They are squarely in the pit they hoped to avoid: NBA play-in tournament quicksand.

“We know where we at,” Stephen Curry said. “We know that every game is important. It’s been important about the last two weeks, and we’ve done a lot to give ourselves a chance to climb pretty high considering where we were before trade deadline. And [losing] these last two home games sucks, like for different reasons.”

It quickly became apparent that another obstacle to victory that Butler had nullified suddenly resurfaced. When Curry sat, leads evaporated. It happened in the second quarter, when a nine-point lead disappeared in three minutes. It happened again in the fourth, when that 12-point lead was trimmed to four in less than three minutes.

“Couldn’t get a stop,” Draymond Green said. “Couldn’t get into nothing good offensively, couldn’t get a stop.”

Curry sat for six minutes in the first half and five minutes in the second half, and San Antonio was plus-16 over those 11 minutes.

“That was key to the game, top of the second, top of the fourth,” coach Steve Kerr said. “We played two great quarters, first quarter and third quarter. And then both of those quarters, top second, top four, they blitzed us.”

The Spurs in the fourth quarter torched Golden State’s defense for 38 points, on 72.2-percent shooting from the field, including 70 percent beyond the arc. Three turnovers in the final 2:11 gave San Antonio enough opportunity to close it out.

“It didn’t happen in the fourth quarter,” said Green, who committed two of the late turnovers. “It happened in the second quarter. End of the first quarter, second quarter we just started giving up straight-line drives. They found a rhythm; that’s what happened. We found a way to get the lead back but we never … don’t mess around with games.”

Curry finished with a game-high 30 points, with Butler right behind him with 28 points – his highest total as a Warrior – with 13 coming in the fourth quarter. Golden State’s offense was satisfactory enough, but its defense did not hold up.

This was a particularly painful setback, as it came against a 13th-place Spurs team relegated to playing spoiler after losing eight of its last nine games. Moreover, the Warriors took a 12-point lead into the fourth quarter before being clobbered 38-23 over the final 12 minutes.

The last time the Warriors kicked away a similar lead was on Feb. 5 – three days before Butler’s debut – when they lost an 11-point lead to the Jazz in less than three minutes in Utah. Both losses can be attributed to Golden State’s defensive shortcomings.

Mind you, the Warriors have been the league’s best defense since Butler came aboard.

“When you’re up 12 on to the fourth, your defense is really going to be the difference in maintaining that separation,” Curry said. “Who cares if you make or miss shots? You just can’t give a team life and give up 38 points.”

The Warriors still can lock up a top-six seed in the West by winning their final two games. If Minnesota wins at Memphis on Thursday, the Warriors move back into sixth place. If the Grizzlies win, Golden State is one game back of Memphis but holding the head-to-head tiebreaker.

The Grizzlies then go to Denver to face the Nuggets on Friday on Part II of a back-to-back set.

Beating the Portland Trail Blazers on Friday and the Los Angeles Clippers would allow the Warriors to finish the season at 49-33. They would finish ahead of the Timberwolves, who already have 34 losses, and they would jump Memphis if its drops one of its last three games.

The Warriors no longer have full control of their destiny. They put themselves right where they don’t want to be, hoping someone above them tumbles back below.

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