Charlie Ward, 54, graduated from Florida State in 1994 and went on to have an 11-year NBA career, which included nine-plus seasons with the Knicks as well as stints with the Spurs and Rockets.
Caleb Foster announces return
Things were not easy for Caleb Foster in his sophomore season at Duke. “Growing up, it’s always been a dream of mine, chasing championships here at Duke,” Foster said on the latest episode of The Brotherhood Podcast, released Thursday morning. Foster started Duke’s first seven games of this past season and saw his role fluctuate and change over the course of the season.
Jimmy Butler channels Steph Curry by rocking custom Warriors jersey in workout
Jimmy Butler channels Steph Curry by rocking custom Warriors jersey in workout originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
Everyone wants to shoot like Steph Curry, including Warriors teammate Jimmy Butler III.
As Golden State prepares to face the Houston Rockets in their first-round NBA playoff series, Butler held a private workout and rocked a custom Warriors jersey featuring his name and Curry’s No. 30.
While media members and portions of Dub Nation might want Butler to shoot more 3-pointers, he’s fully aware of his strengths.
“I can shoot,” Butler told reporters after the Warriors’ NBA play-in game win over the Memphis Grizzlies on Tuesday. “I just choose not to shoot 3’s. I’d rather drive into the paint, get me a layup, a middy or pass the ball to somebody that’s probably a much better shooter than I am.
“I think you and everybody else wants me to shoot more 3’s but I like shooting some layups.”
Since joining the Warriors after the Feb. 6 NBA trade deadline, Butler is shooting just 27.9 percent from 3-point range, but he’s shooting 52.6 percent on 2-point field goals.
But the six-time NBA All-Star does know the impact of his occasional 3-pointers.
“I think it’s deflating whenever I hit a three because everybody thinks that I can’t shoot,” Butler told reporters Tuesday. “Love it. Keep backing off.”
If Butler takes — and makes — more 3-pointers during the Warriors’ NBA playoff run, channeling Curry’s superpowers might have been the magic touch.
Why Mikal Bridges is Knicks' X-factor in first round NBA playoff matchup with Pistons
The time is now for Mikal Bridges. Acquired from the Nets for five first-round picks, Bridges was brought in to be an integral piece of the Knicks’ (51-31) title contention hopes. Known as a two-way player, the idea was for Bridges to complement the star tandem of Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns.
Bridges experienced an uneven debut season, averaging 17.6 points, 3.2 rebounds, and 3.7 assists. The playoffs are where he can change the narrative. As the Knicks enter a first-round matchup with the Detroit Pistons (44-38), the main priority will be slowing down Pistons star Cade Cunningham.
Bridges should be the Knicks’ X-factor for the first round. Bridges defended Cunningham more than anyone else on the team during the regular season. It’s likely he takes on the Cunningham assignment when the series commences on Saturday night.
Detroit took three of four games against the Knicks in the regular season and Cunningham was at the center of the Pistons’ strong play. In four games against the Knicks, Cunningham was brilliant, averaging 30.8 points on 56 percent from the field and 8.3 assists.
Cunningham is a nightmare for all opponents. Standing 6-foot-8, the guard is a maestro in the pick-and-roll. Cunningham gets to his spots and has developed an array of floaters, hook shots, and an effective mid-range jumper when he’s unable to get all the way to the rim. He’s also a good enough three-point shooter to keep the defense honest. The Knicks defend the pick-and-roll in drop coverage where the defender of the screener drops back into the paint, which can allow Cunningham to get into his comfort zone.
Defending Cunningham isn’t a one man job. OG Anunoby, Josh Hart, and Miles McBride have all taken turns guarding the Pistons All-Star along with Bridges. Individual defensive stats can be noisy, but Cunningham shot 8-for-21 (38 percent) with Bridges defending him.
One weakness of Cunningham is turnovers. He was second in turnovers per 36 minutes (4.5). If the Knicks can be disruptive and bring occasional help, they could force a few turnovers and create easier scoring opportunities.
This has not been Bridges’ best defensive season. A former runner-up for Defensive Player of the Year in 2022, the Knicks looked to Bridges to be a great point of attack defender. That was not the case this season. Bridges got caught up on screens and couldn’t stay in front of guards as the likes of Trae Young, Tyrese Haliburton, and Jayson Tatum lit up the Knicks at various moments.
Bridges has a 7-foot-1 wingspan and there’s a chance he can turn up the aggression on the defensive end and be a pest for Cunningham. But it won’t work if he doesn’t navigate screens better and get physical with the Pistons guard.
Offensive advantage
Though the main focus for Bridges will be on the defensive end, the Knicks will also need him to contribute on offense. He shot 35.4 percent from the three-point line, the lowest percentage of his career since his rookie season. Bridges gradually improved as a passer late in the season. He averaged 5.1 assists in his final 19 games, not including his season finale cameo.
Bridges excels in the midrange, but the Knicks also have to find ways to get him easy opportunities on timely cuts and corner threes. Though Detroit has a stout defense, there are some soft spots to pick at from the hard shell of a defense. The club plays smaller guards in former Knick Tim Hardaway Jr. and Malik Beasley. Though both players are capable of heating up from three, they are vulnerable on defense.
With the Pistons’ best perimeter defender Ausar Thompson locked in on Brunson, there’s opportunity for Bridges to feast. In the four games against Detroit, Bridges averaged 19.8 points on 56.6 percent from the field and 52 percent from behind the arc.
The Bridges that is aggressive on defense and constantly in motion and attacking on offense is just what the Knicks need in the first round.
Can Magic push Celtics? Four big questions entering first-round series
Can Magic push Celtics? Four big questions entering first-round series originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
The Celtics haven’t been shy about their quest to repeat and have openly discussed what it would mean to become the first Boston squad to win back-to-back titles since 1969.
But they also know they can’t skip any steps, and that any quest for Banner 19 must start with full attention on their first-round opponent: the Orlando Magic.
The Magic finished the 2024-25 season at an even .500 (41-41) and drew the Celtics by ousting the Atlanta Hawks in the No. 7 vs. No. 8 play-in matchup Tuesday night. And while Boston is heavily favored, there’s still plenty of intrigue around an Orlando group that features a stifling defense and a blossoming young star.
Here are four questions we have about the Magic ahead of Sunday’s Game 1 at TD Garden:
1. Can Orlando score enough to hang with Boston?
The Magic are undeniably talented on the defensive end, posting the second-best defensive rating in the NBA (109.1 points per 100 possessions) this season. And yet they were almost equally inefficient on the offensive side. The Magic ranked 27th in the NBA with a 108.9 offensive rating, leaving them at a -0.2 net rating overall.
Orlando made an NBA-worst 11.2 3-pointers per game while shooting a league-worst 31.8 percent beyond the arc. (Even the 29th-ranked Wizards were at 33.5 percent.) The raw numbers might be even more jarring. The Celtics, who set an NBA record for 3-pointers made in a season (1,457), connected on 536 more 3-pointers overall than Orlando.
The Magic were the best team in the NBA in limiting opponent 3-pointers. Their opponents shot just 31.4 attempts per game — three fewer than the next-best mark in the league (Houston, 34.5) — and made just 11.4 per game. The Celtics average 17.8 3-point makes on 48.2 attempts per game, and have been twisting teams in a “2s vs. 3s” math-problem pretzel all season long.
Orlando posted a 10-18 record against the top 10 offenses in the NBA this season. The team’s 106.9 offensive rating in those games ranked 29th in the league, though the defense held steady at second overall, allowing 112.7 points per 100 possessions.
Injury woes make the numbers a little murky, but even in the second half of the season with stars Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner both healthy after oblique issues, the Magic still only ranked 21st in the NBA in offensive rating.
2. Can Cole Anthony be a consistent X-factor in this series?
Celtics fans don’t need any reminders of the sort of jolt that Cole Anthony can deliver off the bench. And if they did, they saw it first-hand in Orlando’s win over Atlanta in the 7 vs. 8 play-in matchup, where Anthony helped stiff-arm the Hawks’ third-quarter charge.
WHAT A SEQUENCE, COLE ANTHONY 😤 pic.twitter.com/LoQBR0dxJQ
— NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) April 16, 2025
Teams lean more heavily on their cores in the playoffs, and yet Anthony feels vital to Orlando’s success. The Celtics will need solid bench contributions from soon-to-be Sixth Man of the Year Payton Pritchard, top-3 net rating leader Luke Kornet, and 3-point connoisseur Sam Hauser. But Anthony has a way of changing the tempo and tenor of a game in a way that his stat line might not suggest.
Anthony was in the crowd at the Garden during Game 5 of the NBA Finals last year and got an up-close at Boston’s postseason dominance. The Magic are going to need a big series from him to compete, particularly in delivering an offensive jolt in a way that other defensive-minded role players like Jonathan Isaac and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope might not dent the box score.
3. Is Paolo Banchero ready for the spotlight?
It’s jarring that Banchero won’t turn 23 until next season. The former No. 1 pick has obvious star potential and showed that off during last year’s playoffs while averaging 27 points, 8.6 rebounds, 4 assists, and 1.1 steals over 37.4 minutes per game in the seven-game slugfest with Cleveland.
The question is, how will he perform on a playoff stage against the defending champs? We know there’s a Duke connection with Jayson Tatum which gives both players a little extra fuel. Tatum went so far as to remind everyone that there are “no friends out there” in the playoffs during his media session on Wednesday.
Tatum logged the most matchup time against Banchero of any Boston player during the regular season, limiting Banchero to 0-of-2 shooting in just four minutes of matchup time. The Celtics fed him a steady diet of different defenders otherwise.
Banchero needs to shoulder a hefty offensive burden if Orlando is going to make this a series, and it certainly feels like Tatum vs. Banchero could become an annual event in the NBA playoffs.
4. How do the Celtics react to what the Magic do well?
The Magic have endless size. They rebound. They defend. Only the Oklahoma City Thunder created more turnovers this season. Only the Los Angeles Lakers were more efficient at getting to the free throw line.
The Celtics thrived in many of the areas where the Magic compromised other teams. Boston ranked No. 1 in opponent free-throw rate and were second in the NBA in turnover rate. The Celtics’ offensive rebound rate surged in the second half of the season (thanks, Kornet!) and they were seventh in defensive rebound percentage for the season.
Still, matchups with Orlando featured two of Boston’s worst turnover percentages of the season (albeit both without Tatum). The Celtics’ offensive efficiency plummeted in both of those games.
The Celtics simply have to be ready for Orlando’s length and ability to disrupt the way that Boston prefers to play. Joe Mazzulla’s beloved margins appear vital to this series. And the Celtics will get pushed if they lose their focus.
Steve Ballmer’s Intuit Dome Wall Hits Target With Free Throw Misses
They’re called free throws for a reason. Opponents aren’t supposed to be able to affect them. But Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer devised a plan to make his team’s fans an obstacle at the charity stripe.
In their first regular season playing in the brand new $2 billion Intuit Dome, Clippers’ home opponents shot 74.8% from the free throw line, the second-lowest rate in any NBA arena, ahead of only the Houston Rockets’ Toyota Center (74.0%).
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One unique feature of the Clippers’ building is The Wall: an unusually steep section with 51 rows of seats behind the basket adjacent to the away team’s bench. Only certified Clipper fans are permitted to sit there, and cheering for another NBA team is forbidden. There are no suites, and there’s a Supporters Section reserved for diehards who are expected to stand throughout the game. Season passes are sold at an accessible price point.
Shooting against The Wall, specifically, visitors made just 73.4% of their foul shots, which would have ranked last in the NBA and is notably lower than the 76.1% they made on the other end of the floor.
“Yeah, it was crazy,” Phoenix Suns’ Kevin Durant said of The Wall in October after missing two fourth-quarter free throws facing in its direction. “I was just staring at it the whole time. You’re not used to that.”
The 3.3% disparity between opponent foul shooting at the Intuit Dome and the average NBA arena isn’t abnormal. A comparable or greater decline has been seen in at least one arena during each season since 2011.
The 4.7% dip versus The Wall, however, is an eye-opener. Comparing percentages on one end of a court with overall percentage isn’t apples to apples, but a larger drop in accuracy has only happened once in any home arena since 2000: when opponents visiting the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2014 made 69.8% of free throws from both ends combined, a wacky 5.8% below the league average.
The next season, though, in 2015, Oklahoma City’s foes completely reverted to the mean. In fact, over the past 20 years, there is nearly zero correlation between away teams’ free throw percentage in an arena and their percentage in that same arena the following season. This suggests that home teams don’t have control over how well visitors shoot from the stripe.
Being on the road at all has a minimal impact, at best. A study by Mike Beuoy showed that home teams shot just 0.2% better on free throws than away teams over the 20-year period between 1995 and 2015.
A deeper dive into the numbers does reveal some patterns. Since Ball Arena opened in 1999, the Denver Nuggets’ home opponents have shot 1.1% below league average from the line, the biggest disparity of any team, over a massive sample of more than 20,000 attempts. This data point tracks with Sportico’s previous analysis regarding Denver’s outsized home court advantage due to opponents’ difficulty acclimating to the mile-high altitude. Beuoy also found other results that “appear to be more than just statistical fluctuation” indicating that certain arenas, such as the Toyota Center, may have an anti-shooter bias.
So it is possible that Ballmer has defied the odds and actually created an arena with a legitimate, built-in competitive edge. Potential alternative explanations—that the Clippers happened to face worse shooting teams, or that they selectively avoided fouling elite shooters—fall short upon scrutiny.
Furthermore, the Clippers’ edge extends beyond free throws. Road teams shot 33.5% on 3-pointers in the Intuit Dome this year, which also ranked second-lowest among all arenas. Once again, opponents shot worse when facing The Wall—a meager 32.9% from beyond the arc.
Overall, the Clippers had just the 11th-best net rating (i.e. pace-adjusted point differential) on the road (+0.4), but the third best at home (+9.4). That 9.0 boost in net rating at home, although not an outlier by any means, was the largest in the NBA this season.
Head coach Tyronn Lue feels that the team’s home court advantage is greater than in past years. “We have our own building. We don’t have to worry about other banners hanging up. We don’t share an arena. This is home,” Lue told reporters last week. “The Wall has been great. Our fans have been great.”
The idea for The Wall was born many years ago when folks from the Bundesliga soccer team Dortmund asked to meet with Clippers president of business operations Gillian Zucker and other executives. The Clippers became interested in the Yellow Wall, Dortmund’s standing fan section with a capacity of nearly 25,000. “They were picking our brains, and then we decided to pick theirs a little bit,” Zucker said.
The organization devoted a team to research fan sections across college sports, European leagues and around the world, which eventually led to the concept for The Wall.
Helping the team win was a primary motivator for the new arena project. “[Ballmer] went from believing that being a tenant in a building was a great asset to believing that the only way truly to field the most competitive team possible is to have your own arena,” Zucker said.
The Clippers believe other features of their venue provide additional advantages. The 44,000 square foot LED “Halo” scoreboard gives the franchise a huge canvas with which to engage fans. The ability to show multiple replay angles concurrently can also help the coaching staff decide whether or not to challenge calls.
Decibel readers in the rafters of the arena can measure the loudest seats in the building, and the Clippers reward those fans with prizes to incentivize more fervent cheering.
The facility as a whole is designed to keep fans in their seats during the action, from frictionless commerce to an abundance of restrooms to countdown clocks that tell people how much time they have to get back to the game.
Interestingly, the Clippers’ opponent in the first round of the playoffs is the one team with a well-documented exceptional home court advantage over multiple decades: the Nuggets. Denver has the league’s second-best home winning percentage this century as well as the largest differential between home and road net rating. And it’s not a fluke—Denver’s abnormally strong performance in Colorado extends to MLB and the NFL and NHL.
Time will tell if the Clippers’ advantage is real. One season is still a miniscule sample size. If opponents had made just seven more free throws against The Wall this season, their percentage on that basket would have risen above 75% and this story would probably have been moot.
With a few more years of data, we’ll have a better idea of whether the Intuit Dome is a precedent-setter for professional sports venues or simply Ballmer’s folly.
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Former Princeton point guard Xaivian Lee commits to national champion Florida
The 6-foot-4 Toronto native was considered one of the top guards in the transfer portal after averaging 16.9 points, 6.1 rebounds and 5.5 assists a game this season for the Tigers.
Mavericks CEO oddly likens Luka trade to Warriors' Ellis-for-Bogut move
Mavericks CEO oddly likens Luka trade to Warriors' Ellis-for-Bogut move originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
It’s never wise to compare apples to oranges. Or trades involving five-time All-NBA, franchise-altering superstars to trades involving, well, players of a much lesser pedigree.
That’s what Dallas Mavericks CEO Rick Welts did in his and general manager Nico Harrison’s private media “roundtable” on Tuesday.
Welts, who previously served as Warriors president from 2011-2021, discussed Dallas’ stunning trade involving guard Luka Dončić earlier this season and was asked how the organization plans to rebuild trust with its fans after the shocking move angered a large portion of them. To put it lightly.
In doing so, Welts compared Dallas’ move to Golden State shipping guard Monta Ellis to the Milwaukee Bucks for Andrew Bogut and Stephen Jackson midway through the 2011-12 NBA season.
“At Golden State. When I got there, we had one marketable player that our fans love. His name was Monta Ellis. We traded Monta Ellis to the Milwaukee Bucks for an injured Andrew Bogut, who wasn’t going to play that season,” Welts told reporters. “Ten days later, our new owner, Joe Lacob, was booed off the court trying to retire Chris Mullin’s uniform to bring him back into the fold of the Warriors. Booed off the court.
“The ball came out of Monta Ellis’s hands, was put in this young guard named Steph Curry. Four championships later, that worked out pretty well.
“So, I would just say that this story is unfinished. We understand the pain, we’re listening. We hear every day the pain that people are feeling. But I think you have to judge us, from this day forward on, whether or not we’re going to conduct ourselves as an organization and as a basketball team in a way that that fans can embrace.”
Mavericks, Warriors and NBA fans alike, understandably, were bewildered by Welts’ comparison given Dončić widely has been regarded as one of the top-five players, at least, in the NBA since his debut in 2018 and was believed to be one of the very rare “untouchable” superstars before he stunningly was dealt to the Los Angeles Lakers on Feb. 2, while Ellis, albeit a star player for the Warriors from 2005-2012, simply does not compare to a player like Dončić.
Mavericks CEO Rick Welts compared the Mavericks trading Luka to the Warriors trading Monta Ellis 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
They are the most clueless out of touch front office in the history of sports
— Jeffrey Cooperstein (@Jeff_Coop27) April 15, 2025
Tell me they didn't compare Luka to Golden State trading away Monta Ellis. At least tell me that part is made up.
— Bob Sturm (@SportsSturm) April 15, 2025
rick welts comparing the luka doncic trade to when the warriors traded monta ellis is insane.
and then go follow it up to say “the warriors had steph curry and he made the fanbase fall in love with him.”
luka is steph, not monte in this analogy what are we talking about???
— Jasmyn Wimbish (@JasmynWimbish) April 15, 2025
The problem with Welts’ comparison, as one of the social media users above points out, is that Dončić is Curry in this scenario and Dallas does not have a potential superstar waiting in the wings like Curry was behind Ellis in 2009.
Fortunately for the Warriors, their trade was followed by four NBA championships. While it still is too soon to tell, for some, if the Mavericks’ trade will pan out as they hope it will, most seem to agree that it certainly will not.
NBA play-in history: Has a No. 10 seed ever made it through to the playoffs?
NBA play-in history: Has a No. 10 seed ever made it through to the playoffs? originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
The NBA Play-In Tournament is relatively new, but there’s been an obvious trend since its inception in 2021.
Over the past four years, none of the teams that entered as the No. 10 seed have ever won both play-in games to make the postseason.
This year, in the fifth edition of the play-in, the Miami Heat and Dallas Mavericks will both try to make history by advancing to the playoffs as the No. 10 seed.
Here’s a look back at the history of the lowest seeds in the play-in:
Has the No. 10 seed ever made it through the play-in?
No.
All eight No. 10 seeds (East and West) from 2021 to 2024 failed to make it to the playoffs.
What’s the best that a No. 10 seed has done in the play-in?
Of the previous eight No. 10 seeds, only two defeated the No. 9 seed to make it to the deciding game.
The Heat and Mavericks added two more wins to that total, so No. 10 seeds are now 4-6 in initial play-in games since 2021.
The first two No. 10 seeds to win the initial play-in game were both in 2023 with the Chicago Bulls and Oklahoma City Thunder. Both teams lost their next game (by double digits) to miss out on the playoffs.
So, history says the Heat and Mavericks shouldn’t even be competitive on Friday. Time will tell.
When is the NBA Play-In Tournament game?
The final two games of the 2025 Play-In Tournament will be held on Friday, April 18, to finalize the playoff field.
- Miami Heat (10) at Atlanta Hawks (8), 7 p.m. ET, TNT
- Dallas Mavericks (10) at Memphis Grizzlies (8), 9:30 p.m. ET, ESPN
NBA play-in history: Has a No. 10 seed ever made it through to the playoffs?
NBA play-in history: Has a No. 10 seed ever made it through to the playoffs? originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
The NBA Play-In Tournament is relatively new, but there’s been an obvious trend since its inception in 2021.
Over the past four years, none of the teams that entered as the No. 10 seed have ever won both play-in games to make the postseason.
This year, in the fifth edition of the play-in, the Miami Heat and Dallas Mavericks will both try to make history by advancing to the playoffs as the No. 10 seed.
Here’s a look back at the history of the lowest seeds in the play-in:
Has the No. 10 seed ever made it through the play-in?
No.
All eight No. 10 seeds (East and West) from 2021 to 2024 failed to make it to the playoffs.
What’s the best that a No. 10 seed has done in the play-in?
Of the previous eight No. 10 seeds, only two defeated the No. 9 seed to make it to the deciding game.
The Heat and Mavericks added two more wins to that total, so No. 10 seeds are now 4-6 in initial play-in games since 2021.
The first two No. 10 seeds to win the initial play-in game were both in 2023 with the Chicago Bulls and Oklahoma City Thunder. Both teams lost their next game (by double digits) to miss out on the playoffs.
So, history says the Heat and Mavericks shouldn’t even be competitive on Friday. Time will tell.
When is the NBA Play-In Tournament game?
The final two games of the 2025 Play-In Tournament will be held on Friday, April 18, to finalize the playoff field.
- Miami Heat (10) at Atlanta Hawks (8), 7 p.m. ET, TNT
- Dallas Mavericks (10) at Memphis Grizzlies (8), 9:30 p.m. ET, ESPN
Warriors winning on margins essential to Rockets series, playoff run
Warriors winning on margins essential to Rockets series, playoff run originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
SAN FRANCISCO – Few sights in the NBA alarm a defender as much as Ja Morant with the ball and the shot-clock turned off. He’s a blow-by threat. He can dribble and feint you onto your rump. He can pull up and drop a soft midrange jumper.
Crouching between the league’s most electrifying player and the basket, Moses Moody cycled though those options and never flinched. Morant did, dribbling to nowhere and flinging a feeble shot that Moody easily swatted away at the halftime buzzer.
“He moves real slick and quick, and he’s also aggressive,” Moody told NBC Sports Bay Area. “He attacks with his feet, but you can pick up on tendencies. When he’s sizing you up like that, he’s not going to do just any move and just try to go around you. So, if he does a big fake to the right, I’m sure it’s coming back. So, I’ll just sit there and wait for it. And I got a hand on it.”
It was one play, but Moody’s squelching of Morant was among an assortment of quietly significant plays that helped the Warriors ground out a 121-116 play-in tournament victory over the Memphis Grizzlies on Tuesday night at Chase Center.
Stephen Curry and Jimmy Butler III, who combined for 75 points against the Grizzlies, are prolific scorers built to generate offense in the playoffs. Check their resumés. Count on them to carry that load.
What lurks beneath Curry and Butler, though, will have no less of an impact on Golden State’s postseason aspirations. Their supporting cast will need to contribute on both ends not only by measurable statistics but, perhaps more importantly, also by the kind of not-on-the-stat-sheet moments that buttressed the winning effort Tuesday night.
Moody’s block allowed the Warriors to go into intermission with momentum and a 12-point lead – and it prevented the kind of late-quarter surge the Grizzlies mounted when closing the first quarter on a 7-0 run.
The play typified the work of the Warriors who don’t typically produce big numbers, whether it’s Draymond Green, Gary Payton II, Brandin Podziemski, Buddy Hield, Moody, or anyone else not named Butler or Curry.
“Every player who’s in there, whether they’re in for one minute or 40, they can all contribute,” coach Steve Kerr told NBC Sports Bay Area. “And that’s the beauty of this level basketball. That’s why I believe we can do something special.”
The stat sheet correctly lists Green with six rebounds, but there is no mention of Green, conceding his 10-inch height deficit, tapping at least five rebounds from the grasp of 7-foot-4 Memphis center Zach Edey and into the hands of teammates.
The stat sheet correctly lists Buddy Hield with two points on 1-of-4 shooting, including 0 of 3 from deep, and one assist – a low-impact night – but can’t capture the magnitude of the first-quarter assist. Scurrying toward the rim in transition, Hield bypassed a contested layup and zipped an impeccable 25-foot pass to Quentin Post, who from the top of the arc splashed a walk-in 3-pointer, the first of his three triples in a six-minute span.
Such creativity rarely is associated with Hield, whose signature is shooting. He’s such a streaky shooter that he will have to do more to stay on the floor.
“I thought at first that he’d probably want me to pass it back to him,” Post, laughing, told NBC Sports Bay Area.
“I do crazy s—t sometimes,” Hield told NBC Sports Bay Area, adding a wink. “I saw Edey running back and I knew QP would be trailing couldn’t catch up to where I was. So, I just sucked the defense in and threw it back to him. I made the right play.
“I move the ball. That’s one of the reasons I’m out there. The ball doesn’t stick in my hand. I’m a scorer, but it’s mostly catch-and-shoot. But if it’s not there, I go ‘one Mississippi, two Mississippi’ and move it to the playmakers.”
It’s a subtle thing, but it’s the kind of thinking that helped the Warriors win a game in which they were outshot (48.8 percent to 45.9 overall, 46.2-34.9 from beyond the arc) and outrebounded (50-39).
The Warriors won the hustle game on Tuesday and will have to do the same against Houston and, should they advance, any opponent that follows. They ranked in the top five in every significant “hustle” stat, from deflections to loose-ball recovery, contested shots and beyond. It’s essential for a relatively undersized roster to have any chance of success.
It’s Payton, at 6-foot-3, rising to block a shot by Edey at the end of the third quarter. It’s Brandin Podziemski timing a late chase-down block of Scotty Pippen Jr., incorrectly ruled a foul but judged Wednesday as “clean” in the Last Two Minutes report. It’s Moody making two more plays – a soaring put-back with 8:31 remaining and an offensive rebound 59 seconds later that led to a pair of free throws by Butler.
“If you end up getting six, seven extra possessions, whatever it is, that’s the difference in the game,” Kerr said. “That’s the way you have to beat a team like Houston.”
Excelling in the margins, as described by Kerr and his assistants, is the best way for the Warriors to accompany Curry and Butler. Sometimes is as dirty, a matter of will and pride, as was the feeling in Moody’s gut when staring down Morant.
“It’s me and him, like we’re on the playground,” Moody said. “Just that. No ball screen, no sets. You just got to guard. And that’s how I grew up playing. It’s fun.”
Report: Kings to hire Knicks' Perry as new general manager
Report: Kings to hire Knicks' Perry as new general manager originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
Well, that was quick.
Less than 24 hours after mutually agreeing to part ways with general manager Monte McNair, the Kings appear to have found his replacement.
Sacramento is finalizing a deal to hire longtime NBA executive and current New York Knicks general manager Scott Perry as the organization’s next general manager, ESPN’s Shams Charania reported Thursday, citing sources.
The Sacramento Kings are finalizing a deal to hire longtime NBA executive Scott Perry as their new general manager, sources tell ESPN. Perry spent three months with the Kings in 2017 before leaving for the Knicks. Perry started his exec career in 2000 with Detroit. pic.twitter.com/vlQUOeo55y
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) April 17, 2025
Perry previously was the Kings president of basketball operations for three months in 2017 before taking the Knicks GM job. Throughout his tenure with New York, the Knicks posted a 293-337 record across eight seasons with four playoff appearances in 2021, 2023, 2024 and 2025.
Now he returns to Sacramento.
This story will be updated …
Report: Kings to hire former Knicks exec Perry as new general manager
Report: Kings to hire former Knicks exec Perry as new general manager originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
Well, that was quick.
Less than 24 hours after mutually agreeing to part ways with general manager Monte McNair, the Kings appear to have found his replacement.
Sacramento is finalizing a deal to hire longtime NBA executive Scott Perry as the organization’s next general manager, ESPN’s Shams Charania reported Thursday, citing sources.
The Sacramento Kings are finalizing a deal to hire longtime NBA executive Scott Perry as their new general manager, sources tell ESPN. Perry spent three months with the Kings in 2017 before leaving for the Knicks. Perry started his exec career in 2000 with Detroit. pic.twitter.com/vlQUOeo55y
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) April 17, 2025
Perry previously was the Kings’ president of basketball operations for three months in 2017 before taking the Knicks GM job. Throughout his tenure with New York, the Knicks posted a 192-274 record across six seasons with two playoff appearances in 2021 and 2023 before the team parted ways with him after the 2022-23 NBA season.
Now he returns to Sacramento, where he inherits a team fresh off a disappointing 2024-25 season that ended in a 120-106 NBA play-in tournament loss to the Dallas Mavericks on Wednesday at Golden 1 Center.
NBA play-in history: Has a No. 10 seed ever made it through to the playoffs?
NBA play-in history: Has a No. 10 seed ever made it through to the playoffs? originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
The NBA Play-In Tournament is relatively new, but there’s been an obvious trend since its inception in 2021.
Over the past four years, none of the teams that entered as the No. 10 seed have ever won both play-in games to make the postseason.
This year, in the fifth edition of the play-in, the Miami Heat and Dallas Mavericks will both try to make history by advancing to the playoffs as the No. 10 seed.
Here’s a look back at the history of the lowest seeds in the play-in:
Has the No. 10 seed ever made it through the play-in?
No.
All eight No. 10 seeds (East and West) from 2021 to 2024 failed to make it to the playoffs.
What’s the best that a No. 10 seed has done in the play-in?
Of the previous eight No. 10 seeds, only two defeated the No. 9 seed to make it to the deciding game.
The Heat and Mavericks added two more wins to that total, so No. 10 seeds are now 4-6 in initial play-in games since 2021.
The first two No. 10 seeds to win the initial play-in game were both in 2023 with the Chicago Bulls and Oklahoma City Thunder. Both teams lost their next game (by double digits) to miss out on the playoffs.
So, history says the Heat and Mavericks shouldn’t even be competitive on Friday. Time will tell.
When is the NBA Play-In Tournament game?
The final two games of the 2025 Play-In Tournament will be held on Friday, April 18, to finalize the playoff field.
- Miami Heat (10) at Atlanta Hawks (8), 7 p.m. ET, TNT
- Dallas Mavericks (10) at Memphis Grizzlies (8), 9:30 p.m. ET, ESPN
Report: Knicks' Perry frontrunner for Kings' open GM position
Report: Knicks' Perry frontrunner for Kings' open GM position originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
The Kings appear to be zeroing in on potential general manager targets less than 24 hours after mutually parting ways with Monte McNair.
Sacramento and McNair agreed to part ways immediately after the Kings’ 120-106 NBA play-in tournament loss to the Dallas Mavericks on Wednesday at Golden 1 Center.
And with the search for a new general manager underway, former Kings vice president of basketball operations and current New York Knicks general manager Scott Perry is expected to receive strong interest for the position in Sacramento and is considered a frontrunner, The Athletic’s Sam Amick and Anthony Slater reported late Wednesday night, citing league sources.
Amick and Slater also reported, citing league sources, that former Denver Nuggets general manager Calvin Booth also is expected to be given consideration.
Perry previously served as Kings vice president of basketball operations for three months in 2017 before he was hired as New York’s general manager. Throughout his tenure with New York, the Knicks have posted a 293-337 record across eight seasons with four playoff appearances in 2021, 2023, 2024 and 2025.
Booth, who was fired by Denver alongside championship-winning coach Mike Malone on April 8, previously interviewed with Sacramento for its general manager job in 2020 before the team hired McNair.
Whomever the Kings choose as their next general manager will have influence on the team’s search for its next coach, although current interim coach Doug Christie is well-positioned to keep the job, Amick and Slater reported, citing team sources.
Amick and Slater also reported, citing league sources, that McNair now could return to a front-office role with the Houston Rockets, where he spent 13 years before joining the Kings.