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Knicks' Jalen Brunson claims 2024-25 Clutch Player of the Year award originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

Jalen Brunson is in the NBA record books.

The New York Knicks star guard was named the 2024-25 Clutch Player of the Year, the league announced Wednesday.

Brunson was up against Denver Nuggets star and multi-time MVP Nikola Jokic and Minnesota Timberwolves star guard Anthony Edwards.

The NBA considers “clutch time” as the final five minutes of either the fourth quarter or overtime of a five-point game.

In such scenarios this season, Brunson averaged a league-high 5.6 points. He also led the league in field goals made (52), ranked second in total points (156) and third in total assists (28).

The two-time All-Star shot 51.5% from the field and 84% from the foul line in clutch time. In the 28 clutch games he appeared in, the Knicks posted a 17-11 record.

De’Aaron Fox won the first ever edition of the award in 2022-23 as a Sacramento King, while Golden State Warriors star Steph Curry picked it up last season, making Brunson the first from the Eastern Conference to claim the award.

Brunson played 65 games this season and posted total averages of 26.0 points, 7.3 assists and 2.9 rebounds on a 49/38/82 shooting split.

New Kings GM Perry embraces challenge of building ‘sustainable winner' originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

SACRAMENTO – One week after their inauspicious 2024-25 NBA season ended, the Kings introduced their fifth general manager in 12 years Wednesday morning.

Scott Perry, a longtime NBA executive who spent time with the Detroit Pistons and New York Knicks, among other organizations, returned to Sacramento for a role he promised this time would last longer than three months.

He replaced Monte McNair, general manager for the last five years in Sacramento, who was fired just moments after the Kings’ season-ending play-in loss to the Dallas Mavericks last Wednesday.

Less than 48 hours after their loss, Kings players tried to put into words the six-month rollercoaster season they just endured while speaking at their end-of-the-season exit interviews. One collective sentiment shared was their desire for some organizational stability. The message was received by Perry, who hopes to help in that department. 

“To be successful, you have to have that consistency and stability,” Perry said during his introductory press conference Wednesday. “People that know me and know me well and know my experiences, know that I’m all about stability. Even in the short time that I was here in Sacramento eight years ago, we were starting to formulate some of that stability in terms of the people we were able to draft and what we were able to do with free agency, starting a culture. 

“So I’m extremely confident in not only my abilities, but the people that we’re going to have around us helping that, we all are going to be growing in the same direction in the boat. We can’t have silos, we can’t have individual agendas. Like I said, it’s all about the collective, and it’s about being the Kings. … I’m going to lead that. That’s what, to me, great leadership is, is being a servant leader, and I’m going to provide that here. 

“I’m going to be heavily engaged in a lot of things around here to help make this organization, this team, one everybody can be proud of.”

That starts with building a foundation of long-term winning and success, which is “the most important thing” to Perry amongst a long list of to-dos this offseason. 

He said team owner Vivek Ranadivé has empowered him to make the necessary decisions to create a sustainable winner while pledging his support and resources to help Perry see that vision through. 

Along the Kings’ rollercoaster season was the early February trade of franchise point guard De’Aaron Fox. In his seven-plus seasons as the face of the franchise, Fox pleaded for stability and improvement. He got neither consistently. 

With Fox’s departure, finalized by a three-team deal that brought sharpshooter Zach LaVine to Sacramento, the team was left without a true point guard for the final 34 games of the regular season. But that isn’t the only glaring issue with the roster.

“Look, I’m just learning this roster. I’ve watched them from afar,” Perry said. “There’s some talent here. There’s an obvious need, I think everybody in this room probably would agree to it, that there’s not a true point guard on the roster. Also, as I assess it from afar, I think we need to add more length and athleticism to this group to enhance some of the talent this year.

“So from that standpoint, that’s kind of what I’m looking at doing right now.”

The Kings haven’t added any significant pieces to help Keegan Murray along the wing, which has derailed Murray’s growth and progress, specifically offensively, since Sacramento drafted him No. 4 overall three years ago.

Murray has become a dramatically better defender since his rookie 2022 season and shown glimpses of his potential as a two-way NBA star, but even he admitted it’s not ideal for him to guard the five-position on a nightly basis.

“Yeah, ideally I don’t want to be guarding the five-man,” Murray said last week during his exit interview. “It’s not the most fun thing in the world. If I have to do it, I have to do it, regardless of who’s on our team [or] who’s not. At the end of the day, team defense wins championships.”

Murray added that he isn’t disappointed with his Year 3 performance, noting his evolution as a one-to-five defender is something not many people in the league can do. He won’t make excuses for his overall growth as a former top-five draft pick, and neither will Perry.

Instead, Perry advised purchasing a mirror for every Kings player and staffer to hold each other accountable both on and off the floor. 

“Look, the one thing I want all the players here to do, I want to buy each player a mirror, because at first we’re going to look at ourselves, and that starts with me each and every day,” Perry said. “And so there’s going to be an accountability, first and foremost, that am I doing everything as an individual to make this team successful? And then whoever we have in here to coach, it’s going to be their job, and I’m going to be behind the scenes helping to make sure that we maximize what they can do on the court.

“So Keegan is still a young player. I’m very confident in what he can be. I’ve spoken to him like I’ve spoken to all the players already, because that was one of the most important things for me to do that. And I think he’ll be just fine. But he knows he’s got to come in here, work, earn everything he gets. And the teams that I’ve been a part of, and I spent a long time with the Detroit Pistons, and that team was built on accountability, was built on toughness, was built on defense, and was built on a team-first attitude. 

“So when players come in this building, and when staff come in this building, starting with me, when I get out of my car, and they get out of their cars, we’re leaving our personal agendas and egos inside those cars. When you come inside, it’s about the collective.”

Perry hopes that message resonates with all players. He plans to spend time with them this summer as both sides get to know one another a bit better.

Aside from the casual “Where are you from?” and “What do you like to do outside of basketball?” conversations, Perry anticipates diving deeper with each player to ensure they’re on the same page with this organization and the direction it’s headed.

He understands that players are frustrated with how the season ended, but said he’d be worried if they weren’t frustrated. That is the type of players he wants on his roster as he hopes to re-establish an identity of what it means to be a Sacramento Kings player.

“Any successful pro sports organization, or any company for that matter, has to have an identity,” Perry said. “And that’s one thing I don’t see here yet, but that’s what I’m all about, is establishing identity. What does it mean to be a Sacramento Kings player? To play here, we’re going to require toughness. We want a defensive orientation. We got to play extremely hard, and we got to play together on the offensive end. We go to be professional, we got to be disciplined and we got to have accountability. 

“And so if you fit that profile, you’ll see guys wearing that Kings jersey. If not, then we’ll figure out how to get guys in here that do. And a line that you may hear me say, you may have heard this before: I am looking for volunteers to that, not hostages.”

What gives Perry the confidence that he’ll be able to reach his goals and aspirations with an organization that has for so long been the NBA’s object of ridicule is his stature, his credibility and the respect from his peers league-wide.

Perry said people around the league – from players to top execs – immediately reached out to congratulate him on the new gig in Sacramento. Over his 25 years maneuvering around the NBA, Perry has built and maintained solid relationships that he and Ranadivé believe will help Perry succeed in this new role with the Kings, stating specifically by hoping to “attract good talent” to Sacramento, whether that be through the draft, free agency or trades.

He helped do it in Detroit, bringing winning basketball back to the Motor City 10 years after the Pistons’ “Bad Boys” days. As a member of Detroit’s executive team, Perry helped build a team that went to six Eastern Conference finals appearances (2003-08), two Eastern Conference finals (2004, 2005), and win a championship in 2004.

His NBA resume certainly speaks for itself, but Kings fans are tired of words. They have heard and seen it all. They want to see action, not hear false promises.

“I understand the frustration of the fan base, because you haven’t won that much in the past 16, 17 years,” Perry said. “With the right energy, with the right focus, with the right perseverance, I’ve seen things turn around. [I’ve] been a part of it. Back when I was in Detroit, obviously, the Bad Boys were good in the late 80s, great team, and then they went through a little bit of [struggle]. It might not have been as long as the one here in Sacramento, but we didn’t pay attention to the noise that you can’t build a sustainable winner in a small-market team, cold city like Detroit.

“We rolled up our sleeves, we ended up going to six straight conference finals and won the world championship while we were there. So anything is possible, anything is doable, and I am the eternal optimist, positive person. So, will there be bumps along the road to get there? I’m sure. That’s life, that’s adversity. But we’re not going to run away from the problems. We’re going to run to them.”

Clearly, there’s a lot for Perry to unpack. With an early offseason exit, there’s time to make the proper adjustments. It’ll be a busy summer for Perry and his staff, but a challenge the self-proclaimed problem-solving addict looks forward to.

That also includes finding a partner-in-crime as his assistant general manager since Wes Wilcox announced his departure just before the end of the regular season, in addition to either removing the “interim” title from Doug Christie’s job description or finding a new head coach altogether. As of Wednesday, Perry said he has not yet made a coaching decision but hopes to have that finalized by next week or so.

The Kings snapped a 16-season playoff drought two years ago. They missed the playoffs the following two years, making just one playoff appearance in 19 seasons.

Perry didn’t specify whether ownership gave him a timeline to turn things around, but the expectation is crystal clear.

“The expectation is to build a sustainable winner and do things necessary to create an environment that will breed that,” Perry said. “That’s the only mandate. I’m going to do what I see as best for that. Obviously, I’m someone who’s wired to win. So we’ll see what unfolds over the next coming months.

“But I’m going to do my very best to enhance what’s here right now and see where it takes us.”

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Draymond shares how fellow ‘alpha' Stackhouse made him a better leader originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

Draymond Green has become a better leader for the Warriors, largely because of assistant coach Jerry Stackhouse’s impact during the 2024-25 NBA season.

One day after explaining his heated interaction with Stackhouse in Golden State’s 95-85 Game 1 win over the Houston Rockets in the 2025 Western Conference first-round playoff series, Green detailed how the assistant coach – and former 18-year NBA veteran – has passed on his wisdom.

“Stackhouse has been huge for me – just the relatability,” Green told co-host Baron Davis on Monday’s episode of “The Draymond Green Show with Baron Davis.” “Then also, Stackhouse has a crazy presence. He’s an extreme alpha. You know, real alphas respect and appreciate other real alphas. He’s helped me so much because, in a sense, he was a lot like me. So he’s helping me grow from a 50-year-old standpoint, like, ‘I was him (Green).’ 

“There are times when I said something during the season, and he’ll come up to me and be like, ‘Yo, that was great. Now what you do is go and build them up.’ And I’m like, ‘Ahh.’”

The 6-foot-6 Stackhouse was a two-time NBA All-Star and averaged 16.9 points over 970 career games. Similar to Green, he was known to be an “alpha” leader rooted in toughness and communication on and off the court.

Stackhouse has carried his robust experience to his Bay Area employer of the last seven months. Game 1’s heated exchange was just the latest example of Green and his assistant coach’s dynamic relationship, and the four-time Golden State NBA champion couldn’t be more thankful for Stackhouse’s presence.

“He’s just helping me become a better leader, helping me see things,” Green said. “Stack doesn’t do much with our offense; he does a lot of defense. But he’s a great offensive mind. … The way he sees the game, I think Stackhouse is going to be an incredible head coach in the NBA, because he’s going to have the respect of players (and) he knows how to play the game.”

Green also hopes that Stackhouse will remain with the Warriors for the foreseeable future. However, he is well aware that other organizations love poaching Golden State’s top assistants, such as Kenny Atkinson, a current finalist for Coach of the Year with the Cleveland Cavaliers. 

“He’s been huge,” Green concluded about Stackhouse. “If some of these people are smart, they’re going to try to hire him. But I hope they don’t pull him away from us, because he’s great for us, man. Golly, I hope they don’t pull him away from us.”

Regardless, Green and the Warriors will lean on top minds like Stackhouse throughout the rest of the playoffs.

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After pulling off an enormous fourth quarter comeback in Game 1, the Knicks failed to repeat their performance on the Garden floor, dropping Game 2 to the Pistons and losing home court advantage in the series.

They now have two tries to turn the advantage around in Detroit, beginning Thursday with Game 3.

Here are three adjustments the Knicks should make...

Get Karl-Anthony Towns involved

New York traded two starters and a first-round pick to bring in one of the best big man shooters of all time.

After putting together a strong regular season, they made the playoffs and landed an ideal first-round matchup for him, and he questionably only attempted 11 shots in the Game 2 loss -- despite playing a huge role in the series-opening win.

That obviously can’t continue. Some of it falls on Towns to be more assertive in getting the ball and making something happen, but the coaching staff also needs to adjust the game plan to put him in more ideal positions.

Detroit has been putting Tobias Harris on Towns and letting their big man help off Josh Hart, clogging the paint and giving Towns an extra help man to worry about. New York hasn’t had much of an answer outside of posting Towns and continuing to run their picks and actions to poor halfcourt results.

Tom Thibodeau needs to get more creative in mixing specific sets for Towns and letting him loose from beyond the three-point arc, where he’s only attempted five shots in two games. Running more pick and pops and inverted pick and rolls are two low hanging fruit options to watch out for. 

Jalen Brunson also needs to take responsibility as the team’s captain and floor general to make sure Towns is more involved. After missing him on multiple open pop opportunities in Game 2, expect a mindset adjustment in Game 3 to look for him early and often.

Figure out the Josh Hart problem

Detroit’s help-off-Hart strategy has been effective in two games, as New York’s halfcourt offense hasn’t looked good outside of maybe two quarters. It’s surprising that the Knicks don’t have a clear counter after teams employed this look for months, slowing New York’s offense as the season progressed.

The usual responses of isolating Towns and spamming Brunson-Hart pick-and-rolls didn’t work much in Game 2. New York will need to dig deeper into its bag, perhaps pre-screening Hart to force a switch or letting him be more of a playmaker with the ball. 

If all else fails and this just isn’t Hart’s series, Thibodeau needs to be ready and willing to play him far fewer minutes and maybe pull him from the starting five. Mitchell Robinson in his place is the better defensive and rebounding look, or they can go with a true five-out by sliding in Miles McBride or Cameron Payne. 

Slow down Cade Cunningham

The Knicks blitzed Cunningham to open the playoffs, starting OG Anunoby on him, and only playing aggressive pick-and-roll coverages to constantly send two bodies his way and force a tough pass.

This worked well to slow him down in Game 1, but after making a few adjustments, Cunningham bounced back with a 33-point performance in Game 2.

The differences were that he got fewer ball screens in general, deciding to isolate his way to buckets one-on-one. Detroit also replaced static ball screens with more off-ball action that got him going downhill before the actual screen, forcing Anunoby to fight over them on the run while exploiting his lack of guard-level speed. 

Anunoby will simply have to be better one-on-one in those situations, bump Cunningham more aggressively and not let him get to his spots. On the screens, the Knicks will need to be better prepared, as whoever was supposed to hedge or trap was often late to the play. 

They could also be more willing to switch, but Cunningham has torched everyone but Anunoby and Mikal Bridges. Whatever the fix, the rest of this series may ride on Cunningham’s play, so the Knicks will need to figure out a solution. 

Magic players defiant amid criticism after KCP's hard foul on Tatum originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

It takes a lot to make Al Horford agitated. So, when the Boston Celtics veteran called out Orlando Magic guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope for a hard foul that injured Jayson Tatum’s wrist — “There was something extra,” Horford said of the play — eyebrows were raised.

The Magic, it appears, couldn’t care less.

“That stuff really means nothing to me,” Orlando guard Cole Anthony said Wednesday ahead of Game 2 at TD Garden when asked about Horford’s comments, via Jason Beede of the Orlando Sentinel. “At the end of the day, if anything, I look at it like a positive because now we’ve got them complaining.

“We’ve just got to keep our same level of physicality and at the same time know nobody’s trying to take anybody out and hurt anybody. We all play this game the right way.”

The Magic, who ranked 28th in the NBA in points scored this season but first in scoring defense, rely on physicality and defensive effort to win games. And while that physicality has drawn the ire of opponents — Atlanta’s Trae Young recently pointed out that two of his Hawks teammates got injured while playing Orlando — Anthony said his team isn’t changing its approach.

“We’re going to keep mucking it up,” Anthony added. “You’re just giving us good feedback.”

Magic guard Cory Joseph also came to Caldwell-Pope’s defense, insisting there was no truth to Horford’s comments that there KCP delivered “something extra” to Tatum.

“It just seemed like a playoff foul to me,” Joseph told reporters, via Sports Illustrated’s Mason Williams. “He went for the ball, missed the ball, Jayson was pretty high up, got his arm. He didn’t come across his face or anything. I don’t think he did anything extra.”

Joseph then downplayed any notion that Orlando has been more physical than other teams competing in the playoffs.

“I’m watching all the games; I think all the games are pretty physical,” Joseph said. “I don’t think ours was any different last time, and I don’t expect it to be any different.

“Nobody’s out there trying to hurt anybody. Nobody wants anybody to be hurt. We’re all just playing hard, physical basketball.”

Caldwell-Pope offered a similar reaction Wednesday when asked about his foul on Tatum.

“Just a foul. Playoff basketball. That’s all I gotta say on it,” Caldwell-Pope told CLNS Media’s Bobby Manning. “I didn’t hear any comments (from Horford). I’m not worried about any comments. At the end of the day, this is how I play, this is how I’ve been playing in playoff basketball.

“A hard foul is a hard foul. I really don’t care what anybody says. I’m still gonna play how I play, how I’m supposed to play for my team at the end of the day.”

The result of that hard foul was a wrist injury to Tatum that could sideline Boston’s star player for Game 2 on Wednesday night. (The Celtics listed Tatum as doubtful on Tuesday.) And while the Celtics are a far more talented team that should win the series regardless of Tatum’s availability, the bigger concern for Boston against a physical club like Orlando is avoiding injuries to key players.

Based on comments from Anthony and his teammates, the Magic certainly don’t plan to tone down their physicality, which might be their only hope of making this a series. So, the Celtics should be prepared for more of Orlando “mucking it up” going forward.

Tip-off at TD Garden is set for 7 p.m. ET on Wednesday, with NBC Sports Boston’s coverage beginning at 6 p.m. ET with Celtics Pregame Live.

There, there. All better.

The Lakers recovered from a knee scrape of a playoff opener Tuesday to leap up and kick the stunned Minnesota Timberwolves in the teeth.

Now, now. That wasn’t so hard, was it?

In turning a dread-filled Crypto.com Arena into a place of joyous healing, the wounded Lakers survived a first cut, tied an opening series and saved an entire season with a 94-85 victory over Minnesota in Game 2 of the first round of the NBA playoffs.

What a difference an elbow makes.

One game after being wadded up and tossed aside like a hot dog wrapper by a Timberwolves team that was just hungrier, the Lakers pushed and shoved and fought their way into personifying a must win.

It involves a must jab. A must hook. A must knockout.

Read more:Lakers win a physically demanding Game 2 to even series with Timberwolves

It’s LeBron James running over people, Austin Reaves bouncing off people, Gabe Vincent slugging through people.

“We were physical,” said Lakers coach JJ Redick, who pleaded for this type of play after the Game 1 beatdown. “The playoffs require a different level.”

It took them two games, but they’ve reached that level, as epitomized Tuesday by Rui Hachimura battling into a face injury that initially required a mask, until he threw the mask aside and kept fighting, no room for a must injury on this mustiest of nights.

Hachimura only made four shots, but his 34 minutes set the tone for a game in which Luka Doncic’s 31 points seemed like an afterthought.

“[Hachimura] played like a warrior tonight, I'm sure that he is probably in the X-ray room right now,” Redick said. “But he did a lot of really good things. … There were a few plays that he made just getting deflections and disrupting plays … some plays at the rim that don't show up in the box score, but he was awesome.”

Only 7% of NBA teams that have fallen behind two-games-to-none have won that seven-game series, and the Lakers played like that stat, battering Minnesota in almost the exact opposite of the nightmare that was three days earlier.

On Saturday the Timberwolves had shockingly won the playoff opener by 22 points. On Tuesday the Lakers outscored them by 22 in the first 16 minutes and were rarely seriously challenged again

On Saturday Minnesota’s Naz Reid had six treys and 23 points. On Tuesday he didn’t make a basket until the fourth quarter and finished with nine points.

On Saturday Minnesota’s Jaden McDaniels had 25 points. On Tuesday he had three baskets.

On Saturday it appeared the Timberwolves could win this series, or at least push it deep into six or seven games. On Tuesday, not so much, the Lakers showing their clear dominance in every area backed by a legendarily springtime loud home crowd that annually shakes, rattles and rolls.

The series travels to Minnesota for games Friday and Sunday, at which point the guess here is that the Lakers will be fully in control.

Fans were waving souvenir white towels late Tuesday night, but it was clear that the Timberwolves were the ones in full surrender.

“I thought we looked at what we didn’t do so well, which was a lot of things in Game 1,” James said. “We took that to heart, we hold each other accountable, we make the adjustments and we had a better outing tonight. And now we have to be even better on Friday.”

There was one other notable difference between Game 1 and Game 2, and it involved the color on Redick’s face.

On Saturday the Lakers rookie head coach had been publicly challenged after the opening loss by none other than Magic Johnson, who tweeted, “Coach JJ Redick did a great job all season but he didn’t do a good job for Game 1. The Lakers stood around on offense, played too much one-on-one basketball, and he didn’t make any necessary adjustments.”

On Tuesday, Redick’s mettle was directly tested during the only two times the outcome felt even remotely in doubt.

The first was midway through the third quarter, when the Timberwolves took advantage of the Lakers confusion to pull to within 11. A screaming Redick called a timeout and launched into a profane rant captured by the wonders of national television.

Yeah, he was mad, in a rage that turned his face beet red.

“Yeah, I've done that in a game a handful of times in six preseason games, 82 regular season,” said Redick.”It's not something that I'd want to do. It's not something I'm more than comfortable doing. But I think tonight it was just more about getting that urgency button switched back on.”

The Lakers could have collapsed under the internal pressure. But it turns out, the reddened Redick only made them tougher.

After the timeout they ramped up their defense and sharpened their offense. Doncic hit a bank shot, Dorian Finney-Smith hit a three-pointer, James banked in a follow shot and Doncic hit two three throws to quickly push the lead back to 20.

They were briefly challenged again in the fourth quarter when their offense again got sloppy — two straight shot-clock violations — and the Timberwolves pushed to within single digits, leading Redick to call another get-in-their-faces timeout with 6:16 left.

Once again, a big shot for the rookie. And once again, he connected. Redick talked, his team responded, James scoring on a layup off a nifty pass from Reaves, James drawing a charge, Reaves fighting for a layup, James with a steal and a layup, the Lakers leading by 11 in the final minutes, the entire arena standing and screaming, threat thwarted, game over.

Next up, Game 3, featuring the outmanned Timberwolves against an emerging Laker team that is finally realizing its own strength.

“Going into Minnesota is gonna be a war,” Doncic said.

One for which the Lakers are now ready.

Or, in the words of Tuesday’s pregame midcourt cheerleader Ric Flair.

“WOOOO!”

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Why Warriors must heed Riley's warning to win series vs. Rockets originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

Once again, it’s Jimmy Butler III vs. Pat Riley. Except in this battle, the Golden State Warriors are in the fight with Butler.

Two generations ago, when Riley was coaching the “Showtime” version of the Los Angeles Lakers, he frequently uttered four words of warning to his teams as they chased NBA championships: “No rebounds, no rings.”

More than 40 years later, Butler and the Warriors are formulating a rebuttal. They’re trying to win in deference to rebounding. They won Game 1 of their first-round Western Conference playoff series against the Houston Rockets on Sunday despite being outrebounded 52-36.

Trying that in Game 2 on Wednesday would invite a Rockets resurgence.

“We will be better on the glass tomorrow, for sure,” coach Steve Kerr said Tuesday, speaking to reporters in Houston. “But it’s definitely something we have to be vigilant about throughout the series.”

Golden State surely would like to narrow that 16-rebound deficit, but there isn’t much to inspire belief. This is no one-game anomaly. It’s an emerging and ominous trend.

The Game 1 totals represent the fourth consecutive game the Warriors have lost the rebounding war, and each game was consequential. They were minus-11 in the play-in tournament game against the Memphis Grizzlies – and won. They were minus-17 in the regular-season finale against the Los Angeles Clippers – and lost by five. They were minus-7 in the penultimate regular-season game against the Portland Trail Blazers – and won.

Four significant games, three victories, a .750 winning percentage. Maintaining such a pace in the postseason would ensure the 16 wins Golden State would need for champagne showers in June.

Is it realistic to consistently lose the rebounding battle and still win 75 percent of your postseason games? No. Which is why Riley stressed that facet to his teams as a coach and still does now as the team president of the Miami Heat, where Butler undoubtedly heard or saw his cautionary words.

“We’ve got to be better,” Kevon Looney told reporters after practice in Houston. “We’ve been a pretty great rebounding team all season, so I think they kind of beat us on the 50/50 balls. They’ve got a lot of guys, a lot of big guys. They missed a lot of shots too.”

The Warriors overcame the rebounding deficit in Game 1 because the Rockets shot as if blindfolded, managing only 22 points off 22 offensive rebounds. For context, Golden State scored 12 points off six offensive rebounds. Houston attempted 11 more field goals and made two fewer. Its guards, Fred VanVleet and Jalen Green shot a combined 7 of 34 (20.6 percent) from the field, including 2 of 17 (11.8 percent) from distance.

No matter how well the Warriors defend, and they were terrific in Game 1, they know it’s illogical to expect the Rockets to shoot so woefully in Game 2 and beyond.

“They missed some shots that they’ll probably make tomorrow,” Kerr conceded.

“They got a lot of open looks, which I’m sure they probably felt like they should have made,” Stephen Curry said after the 95-85 victory in Game 1. “A lot of them came off offensive rebounds. Our point-of-attack defense was great, (but) you can’t assume that they’re going to miss open looks if you’re giving them second, third and fourth opportunities.

“That’s going to be a big challenge for us if we want to win again on Wednesday. We expect them to play better, but you got to make it as difficult as possible.”

Riley’s mantra was formed through experience. As a Lakers assistant coach in the 1980 NBA Finals, he saw the team post a 308-223 rebounding advantage to beat the Philadelphia 76ers in six games. Two years later, as head coach, the Lakers again topped Philly in six behind a 284-250 rebounding advantage, 

The following season, with the Sixers adding legendary rebounder Moses Malone, Riley’s Lakers were swept. They were outrebounded 192-171. Malone, who grabbed twice the rebounds of any Laker, earned the Finals MVP award.

Can the Warriors overcome their relative lack of size and athleticism against Houston and, should they advance, any opponents that follow?

It’s going to take all hands, beginning with starting “big men” Draymond Green and Butler, neither of whom is taller than 6-foot-7. They’ll need Looney, a 6-foot-9 rebounding specialist, to be exactly that. Quinten Post, a 7-footer who floats around the perimeter on offense, also must use his frame in the paint. Moses Moody, at 6-foot-5, sometimes is listed at “power forward,” but lives mostly on the perimeter as the primary point-of-attack defender.

Golden State’s leading rebounder in Game 1 was Brandin Podziemski, a 6-foot-4 guard, who snagged eight. Their leading rebounder in the play-in tournament game was Curry, who used his 6-foot-3 frame to grab eight. Podziemski was the leading rebounder, with eight, in the loss to the Clippers, and he tied with Green at seven in the win at Portland.
That speaks to the tenacity and fearlessness of Podziemski and Curry, and it’s something any undersized team must bring to give itself a chance to earn extra possessions.

“We know they’re going to rebound,” Kerr said of the Rockets, who in the regular season led the NBA in that category. “They’re going to get some offensive boards. We’ve got to do a better job in that area. But all in all, it’s about being poised, executing and keeping them from the easy stuff.”

Rebounding alone guarantees nothing, certainly not rings, no matter what Riley says. But winning without them requires appreciable superiority elsewhere, and the Warriors know that won’t be a given for the duration of their postseason.

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The only thing that moved slower than the Lakers was the clock.

They had poured their energy into fighting for everything while building a lead that stretched to 22 in the first half and lived at 20 deep into the second half. They had grabbed and clawed and got clawed and got grabbed and it was still there, a big lead, the Minnesota Timberwolves and the clock left to beat to even the series at 1-1 and save a split on their home court.

But Minnesota got stronger, faster and smarter.

And the Lakers, mentally and physically, got slower.

Two big mistakes from Jaxson Hayes led to five fast Minnesota points. Luka Doncic, who had been fully engaged on the defensive side of the ball, was flat-footed as Anthony Edwards rammed into the paint. Wide-open threes rimmed out.

And the kind of two-on-one fast break with Austin Reaves and LeBron James that usually would be an alley-oop became an alley-oops when Reaves threw the ball too high and James missed the layup.

But the clock kept ticking. And the Lakers kept fighting, drawing enough charges, grabbing enough rebounds, scoring enough (barely) to beat Minnesota, 94-85 on Tuesday night at Crypto.com Arena.

There was the timeout in the middle of the third quarter after Minnesota cut the Lakers’ lead to 11, with Lakers coach JJ Redick rage-walking and f-bombing away from and back to his team’s bench.

“It's not something that I'd want to do. It's not something I'm more than comfortable doing,” Redick said. “But I think tonight it was just more about getting that that urgency button switched back on.”

The switch flipped back on and the Lakers scored the next nine points.

Later in the fourth quarter, again, as the Lakers wore down and the Timberwolves chopped at their lead, Redick’s teams did just enough. Reaves scooted past Rudy Gobert for a big lay-in. James stripped Edwards, flipping a Minnesota transition chance into a bucket for the Lakers. Reaves sealed it by stopping another fast break by taking a charge, the Lakers finding ways to win even as they scored just 13 points in the final quarter.

According to StatMuse, the 13 points are the third fewest scored by a team in the fourth quarter of a playoff win since at least 2015.

Game 3 is Friday in Minneapolis.

“We could still be better offensively. I thought at times we were very sharp. But at times, we weren’t,” James said. “I think we could do a better job on the offensive end, but we’re going to continue to get better, continue to watch the film, see ways we can kinda break down the defense and continue to get good looks. I thought we had some great looks tonight. I know a lot of my shots in the fourth quarter were great looks that just didn’t go. If we can continue to get great looks like that, I think we believe in our percentages. But we gotta continue to work the habits.”

If Game 1 showed that the Lakers’ standing as heavy favorites in the series was wrong, Game 2 showed that whatever comes next might leave scars.

After Redick challenged his team to meet Minnesota’s intensity and physicality, the teams ripped and reached and held and hammered while they played like each possession would determine who wins and who loses.

The all-capital, bolded-letter story from the first quarter of the Lakers’ playoff opener Saturday was Luka Doncic showing why he’s one of the NBA’s most gifted difference-makers. He can be a one-man show, too hard for any player to stop, too skilled to be denied.

But it was singular.

The Lakers’ excellence in this series? It needed to be plural.

The playoffs would demand more than Doncic getting buckets. They would require James cutting sharply into the paint to create extra space. The Lakers would need Reaves to fight like hell for every step on the defensive end of the court.

It doesn’t work when it’s just the other way. It didn’t work when it was that way in Game 1.

So Tuesday night, facing the first unofficial “must-win” of the playoffs, the Lakers played in unison early on, even if Doncic was the only one really hitting shots.

“We did the same game plan. We didn't really change much,” Doncic said. “It was just a question of if we were gonna be more physical or not. And I think we showed that. And we were there for 48 minutes. We got up big in the first quarter. We learned from the last game. And we just stuck to it.”

And while Doncic was able to create the kind of mismatch advantages he’ll be able to utilize against anyone, the Lakers suddenly found themselves stifled by Minnesota’s defense.

Doncic finished with 31 points, James had 21 and Reaves scored 16, but the Lakers shot just 20.7% from three-point range. Luckily, Minnesota wasn’t any better, getting 42 combined points from Julius Randle and Edwards but not more than nine from anyone else.

It was the Lakers’ defense, intensity and effort that built their big lead, and ultimately allowed them to beat the clock to hang on to it.

“We were physical,” Redick said. “The playoffs require a different level.”

The Lakers got there — and stayed there long enough.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.