Category: Basketball

Wiggins eager for Warriors reunion, has ‘love' for former team originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

• Programming Note: Watch “Warriors Now” with Dalton Johnson and Zena Keita at 1 p.m. PT today, streaming live on the NBC Sports app. Watch the show later on YouTube and Facebook.

MIAMI – The spotlight found Andrew Wiggins at a young age because of his supreme basketball talent. Everything that comes with that isn’t what Wiggins asked for. 

Wiggins is a man of few words. Not in a rude or standoffish way, but in a respectful manner. It’s who he is. Private and to himself, always extending his big smile Warriors fans fell in love with at the perfect time.

As Wiggins prepares to play the Warriors for the first time since being traded to the Miami Heat on Feb. 6 for Jimmy Butler, he doesn’t have a long answer of reflection. He knows how he feels about his five-plus seasons with the Warriors and vice versa. Wiggins didn’t want to leave the Warriors, and a line of people within the organization fought for him to stay. 

That’s how the business goes sometimes. That also doesn’t change the love Wiggins still has for the Warriors. Those feelings, as cliché as they sound, never will go away from either side.

“I had a great time there,” Wiggins said to NBC Sports Bay Area in an exclusive interview Tuesday morning, hours before the Heat play the Warriors at Kaseya Center. “I love and appreciate everybody. Great fans. My teammates were great, the coaching staff was great. The city, meeting new people and building new relationships. I had a great time.

“Great time. Great time with the organization.” 

He won Rookie of the Year in 2015. He has been an All-Star, and a key player to a championship team. The path first laid out for Wiggins after being the No. 1 pick in the 2014 NBA Draft also never was a straight line to success from the start. 

Twists and turns were placed upon him without his doing. Rumors swirled that his bags would be packed before even being selected with the first pick by the Cleveland Cavaliers after it was announced LeBron James was coming home. Wiggins couldn’t settle in and call Cleveland home. 

Minnesota became home two months later for the first five-plus years of Wiggins’ career. Then came the Warriors calling, making what at the time was seen as a risky move, and what wound up becoming a heist to the highest order. Finally, the Toronto native felt home.

Wiggins doesn’t remember many details from the trade that sent him to the Warriors on Feb. 6, 2020. Five years later, he’s happy with where he landed if he had to be sent packing once again. 

“Any trade in mid-season is tough,” Wiggins says. “You don’t want to get traded mid-season. But I’m happy I landed here. It’s a great spot. Great city, great organization, great organization all around.” 

Wiggins scored 25 points his final game as a Warrior, and then tallied a combined 24 points his first two games with the Heat before starting to get in a groove with his new team. Between a leg injury and an illness, Wiggins has missed eight of the 21 possible Heat games he could have played. 

But in the 13 games he has played, Wiggins is averaging 21 points for the Heat on 48 percent shooting and 36.3 percent on 3-pointers. His last two games have been his best, scoring 72 total points while going 26 of 34 from the field (76.5 percent), 8 of 12 from deep (66.7 percent) and 12 of 16 on free throws (75 percent). 

“They’re very detailed here,” Wiggins says. “Very detailed. And I feel situated, getting more and more comfortable on the court with every game. I feel like they just want to get the most out of me.” 

The last two coaches Wiggins has played for, Steve Kerr with the Warriors and now Erik Spoelstra for the Heat, are “legends in the world of basketball,” as he puts it. Kerr and Spoelstra deeply respect one another and surely exchanged messages about Butler and Wiggins after the trade. Among the contingent of people who vouched for Wiggins to not be involved in a trade, Kerr was at, or near, the top of the list. 

Kerr loved coaching Wiggins. A humanitarian first and a basketball coach second, Kerr has been waiting to see Wiggins’ smile in person Tuesday night. Well, as long as Wiggins doesn’t go off for 42 points against the Warriors like he did Sunday against the Charlotte Hornets to snap the Heat’s 10-game losing streak. 

“We’re all thrilled to see Wiggs,” Kerr said Monday after Warriors practice. “Wiggs is one of my favorite guys. I wish we still had Miami in the Bay, so that will have to wait until next year. Wiggs will get an enormous standing ovation when he returns to the Bay in front of our fans, both for his contributions and just for his humanity – who he is, what kind of person he is. He’s beloved in our locker room and throughout the Bay. 

“It’ll be great to him, and hopefully he doesn’t have 42 against us.”

The Warriors stood by Wiggins through highs and lows. They rewarded him with a new contract after the 2022 championship, which in retrospect was a very team-friendly deal and showed how both sides felt about each other. They gave him the space to make his decision regarding getting vaccinated during the COVID-19 pandemic. When he had to tend to family matters during two straight seasons because of his late father’s health, the Warriors didn’t blink in telling Wiggins to do what’s best for him. 

Countless friendships were formed, and they’re not going away. Wiggins says he still has stayed connected with some former Warriors teammates and coaches the best he can. The business part of sports is cruel and heartless. Navigating it all can be an obstacle course of friendly fire neither side wants. 

The Warriors, then, now and forever, will be a special part of Wiggins’ story and will hold a warm spot in his heart.

“It’ll be good to see those guys,” Wiggins said. “It’s all love. I love those guys. I had a great time over there. Great people, great organization. Obviously we have a competitive game to play, but I’m looking forward to it.”

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The Orlando Magic ended a six-game home losing streak by inflicting a third straight defeat on the Los Angeles Lakers.

Luka Doncic scored 32 points and LeBron James added 24 and eight assists for the Lakers, who led 60-58 at half-time.

However, Orlando outscored the visitors 34-18 in the third quarter and went on to wrap up a 118-106 victory.

Franz Wagner contributed 32 points and nine assists for the Magic, while Paolo Banchero added 30 points and seven rebounds.

"We look tired," said Lakers coach JJ Redick. "I don't know what contributes to that. We weren't able to sustain the level of intensity that we started the game with."

The Lakers, who have lost seven of their past 10 games are fourth in the Western Conference with 11 games of the regular season remaining. The top eight qualify for the play-offs and they have eight more wins than the ninth-placed Sacramento Kings.

The Magic occupy eighth spot in the Eastern Conference and have 10 games left.

Elsewhere on Monday, in a match featuring two sides unlikely to make the play-offs, the Dallas Mavericks welcomed Anthony Davis back from injury in a 120-101 victory over the Brooklyn Nets.

Davis scored 12 points in 26 minutes as he returned from six weeks out with an abductor injury - suffered in his first game for Dallas after his trade from the Lakers in exchange for Doncic.

Latest updates on Tatum's ankle injury from Celtics' win vs. Kings originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

The Boston Celtics extended their win streak to six games with a 113-95 victory over the Sacramento Kings on the road Monday night, but it came at a cost.

Superstar forward Jayson Tatum injured his left ankle with 3:35 left in the third quarter. He made a 3-pointer but landed on Kings forward Domantas Sabonis’ foot, which caused him to roll his ankle. Sabonis was called for a flagrant 1 foul for contesting the shot in Tatum’s landing area.

Tatum was helped to the bench but returned to the court to take his free throws. He then exited the game and didn’t return. He finished with a team-high 25 points.

The good news for the Celtics is that it appears Tatum has avoided a serious injury, per ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne.

The Boston Globe’s Adam Himmelsbach reported that Tatum “left the arena tonight with no crutches or boot, and just a very slight limp.”

“He seems to be doing OK,” Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla told reporters postgame.” He’s just icing it right now. I didn’t see the play, but they made the right call. It was a flagrant foul. Fortunate that he was able to shoot the free throws. [He’s] taking care of it right now.”

The Celtics have just 10 games remaining in the regular season. With the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference nearly secured, it’ll be interesting to see how the Celtics handle Tatum’s workload over the next couple weeks.

Giving him as much rest as possible before the playoffs is the best course of action.

The Celtics resume their Western Conference road trip Wednesday against the Phoenix Suns.

It felt like the end, again.

The Golden State Warriors missed the playoffs in 2020 and 2021, but they stormed back from the abyss in 2022 to beat the Boston Celtics in the NBA finals. Steph Curry was 33 for most of that season. Draymond Green and Klay Thompson were 31. The Warriors’ return to the pinnacle of basketball had the whiff of a last hurrah, and indeed, their championship core faded for a second time after that: a second-round exit in 2023, a play-in tournament flatlining in 2024. Curry and his four-time championship-winning teammates continued to get older in the way athletes do.

Last year’s missed postseason was a crossroads. Thompson left in free agency for the Dallas Mavericks. Curry and Green returned for what would be their age-36 and age-34 seasons, but these Warriors, the ones that collected all those titles under Steve Kerr, were finally cooked. They had to be.

Or did they? Golden State are now the hottest team in basketball as the playoffs approach. They have 14 wins and three losses since 13 February. That stretch began one week after they made a blockbuster wing swap with the Miami Heat, trading Andrew Wiggins for Jimmy Butler. The move saw Golden State send away a key player of their second championship core, Wiggins, for a player who looks poised to be part of a third iteration under Curry and the still-trucking Steve Kerr. The Warriors were tied for 10th in the Western Conference on the day of the Butler trade, looking ticketed for the play-in again. Now they’re up to sixth and looking, at least for the moment, like an honest title contender.

Related: Nikola Jokić is putting up record numbers. So why is he unlikely to be NBA MVP?

The Butler trade is a convenient start point for the turnaround. Butler has not even found his jump shot yet; he has made 22.7% of his three-pointers as a Warrior and has struggled to make baskets from all over the floor. However, Butler has five all-defensive team honors to his name and is still a hellacious defender at 35. The Warriors have allowed 107.6 points per 100 possessions with him on the floor, a defensive rating that would make them roughly the best defensive team in the NBA if the team maintained those numbers all the time. (Without Butler, Golden State have allowed 113.1 points per 100 trips.)

Those numbers stand in stark contrast to those of Wiggins, who had arguably been a drag on the team by the end of his time in the Bay. This season, Golden State have posted a net rating 7.2 points better when he was off the floor than when he was on it. Butler has reversed that, with the Warriors doing 9.4 points better per 100 possessions when he’s on the floor than not.

Despite not finding his shooting form yet, Butler has not gummed up Golden State’s offense, which scores roughly the same amount when he’s off or on the court. Imagine his usefulness once the shots start falling more frequently.

But while Butler has been a swell addition, the thing that really makes Golden State tick has not changed. Curry remains a marvel and has arguably been carrying more of a load than ever this year. His 32 minutes per game are a bit below his career average, sensible for a player who turned 37 this month. But these are intense minutes, with Curry using up 30% of the Warriors’ offensive possessions, a higher rate than he did 10 years ago. Kerr gave him a night off last week and said his star point guard was “exhausted.”

Managing Curry going forward will make or break Golden State’s chances of making another deep playoff run. Curry took a hard fall on Thursday against Toronto and exited the game with what the team called a pelvic contusion. While it doesn’t sound like Curry will miss much time, there are no minor injuries for 37-year-olds who are trying to lead NBA teams to championships. The 11-time All-Star has been playing inspired ball in this second-to-last year of his contract (and maybe of his career, though that depends on whether Curry wants to quit before a major decline).

Though the Warriors have been on a great run, they won’t really contend for another finals appearance unless they get serious offensive contributions from someone other than Curry. Some regression to the mean with Butler’s shot-making will help, but the Warriors’ offensive cupboard is not well stocked. The only other rotation regular averaging more than 11.3 points per game is bench forward Jonathan Kuminga, who is having the least efficient shooting season of his four-year career. Other than Curry and Butler, there is a good argument that Golden State do not have even one above-average offensive player. There is a lot of promise, though, in free-throw magnets Butler and Kuminga spending eternity at the foul line.

To what extent can Golden State keep rolling like they have the past month and a half? The Warriors have something here. The fun of the past few weeks has been learning that the magic of the Curry-Kerr Warriors is not yet depleted, even with Thompson now playing in north Texas. Green isn’t the player he used to be, but he is still useful, and the Warriors are better when he’s playing than when he isn’t. When Green is the primary defender within two feet of a shooter, those shooters make 38.1% of their shots – less than they made against Green 10 years ago, when he was in his heyday.

Kerr has been adept at finding good role players to round out a roster whose salary cap is eaten up rapidly by Curry and his aging buddies. This year has been no different, with the Warriors getting lots of useful bench minutes out of players that a lot of basketball fans have barely heard of. The team has stayed above water when giving minutes to bench power forward Gui Santos, the 55th overall pick in 2022, who spent two years averaging 14 points per game in the G-League. Guards Moses Moody and Brandin Podziemski, first-round picks in 2021 and 2023, have become significant reserve contributors the past two years. That backcourt youth movement has been more helpful this year than Buddy Hield, the veteran shooting guard whose salary dwarfs theirs but whose production has not.

The Warriors who won the title in 2022 did so by managing to bridge the gap between Curry and their future. Golden State are trying to repeat that trick now, and they may have just enough in the tank to make it happen again. Curry will be the straw that stirs the franchise’s drink until the moment he retires, but the past few years, Golden State lacked enough ingredients to create anything interesting. But now that Butler has walked through the door, the Warriors – for the first time in three years – are impossible to ignore as we go deeper into the spring. As usual, there’s an unshakeable feeling that we’re watching this happen for the last time. But with Curry, Butler, and Green all under team control next year, too, perhaps it’s time to stop assuming that the laws of gravity apply to Golden State.

Analyzing Butler's impact on Warriors across first 20 games originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

• Programming Note: Watch “Warriors Now” with Dalton Johnson and Zena Keita at 1 p.m. PT today, streaming live on the NBC Sports app. Watch the show later on YouTube and Facebook.

The first question I asked Jimmy Butler III inside the Warriors’ locker room at Chase Center was almost as simple as his response.

“How do you manage to always stay cool no matter the chaos around you?”

“I’ve been doing this s—t a long time. Ain’t nothing gon’ faze me.”

It shows. Warriors coach Steve Kerr separates the season into four quarters, roughly 20 games each, believing it’s a sufficient sample to assess the quality of a team. Butler has been part of the team for 20 games, 16 of which ended in victory. His production has been satisfactory, but his composure has made an even greater impact, giving serenity to coaches, to decorated veterans like Stephen Curry and Draymond Green, and to youngsters finding their way in the NBA.

“He’s a been very good for us,” says assistant coach Ron Adams, in his 32nd season coaching in the NBA. “He settles everybody down, and that’s something we needed, especially when closing games. He’s made Steph and Draymond better. He understands the game, and the other guys respect his presence.”

The Warriors were one game below .500 (25-26) when they took the court at United Center in Chicago for Butler’s debut after being acquired from the Miami Heat at the Feb. 6 trade deadline. They tended to squander leads, even against opponents with inferior rosters and records.

When general manager Mike Dunleavy and CEO Joe Lacob traded for Butler – parting with Andrew Wiggins, who was terrific in the 2022 NBA Finals victory – Golden State was trending not toward the playoffs but fighting for a berth in the play-in tournament.

Less than two weeks later, after winning three of four games with Butler on the roster, Green was predicting a championship. Considering the Warriors were 28-27 and in ninth place in the Western Conference, it was an outlandish proclamation.

The Warriors since have posted the second-best record (13-3) in the West, behind only the conference-leading Oklahoma City Thunder (15-2). Golden State takes a 41-30 record into Kaseya Center in Miami on Tuesday night when Butler will face his former team.

The bullet train to the postseason slowed a bit last week, however, as the Warriors posted a mediocre 2-2 record. Still, Butler played quality hoops. He was essential to their 117-114 victory over the Toronto Raptors last Thursday, posting a triple-double and making two crucial defensive plays in the fourth quarter, including a block with 20.9 seconds remaining.

“He just understands the situation, and he wants the ball, and he asks for it,” Kerr was saying after that game. “Different areas and attacks. He did a fantastic job. His shot wasn’t going but he was creating everything for us. Triple-double. The defensive play of the game with the blocked shot at the rim. It’s the beauty of guys like Jimmy and Draymond, that they can impact the game at such a high level regardless of what’s happening with their offensive games.”

Since coming to Golden State, Butler has played 19 games, with only two negative plus/minus totals. He’s averaging 17.3 points, 6.5 assists, 6.1 rebounds and 1.3 steals. He has attempted 151 free throws and made 84.8 percent of them. His frequent trips to the line, and conversions once there, have filtered through the roster. The Warriors were last in the league free-throw percentage before Butler and second since he arrived.

Turnovers are down, and efficiency is up. The offense that posted a 111.8 rating (18th in the NBA) before Butler is at 118.2 (ninth) with him. Curry’s efficiency, which was trending downward, has soared.

“He sees the whole floor,” Curry says of Butler’s impact on pick-and-roll actions. “He can take up space. They have to make a decision whether they’re going to switch or whether they’re going to go under or show and get back to me. There’s like four different ways you can guard it.

“But he’s very good at just staying under control, making the right play. You can tell he hadn’t really looked to score as much right now just because he’s reading the defense and taking what they’re giving him. But having the ball in his hands is usually a good thing.”

Kerr’s decision to have Butler on the floor whenever Curry gets a breather was a logical move that generally has been successful. Kerr tried to sneak in a few minutes with both on the bench, and the Warriors almost fumbled away the game. Never again.

The immediate response to Golden State’s acquisition of Butler was mixed. Some thought he prove beneficial, while others were skeptical – partly because of the contentious breakup with the Heat after five years, including two trips to the Finals. By all accounts, even beyond the 16-4 record, he has been exceedingly valuable as an individual and a teammate.

“Phenomenal,” Kerr says. “I mean, just the way he looks after our young guys, playing 1-on-1 with them after practice, pulling them aside during games, talking. He’s been an amazing leader.”

Through 20 games, Butler looks like the most beneficial Golden State trade since January 2007, when the Warriors acquired Stephen Jackson and Al Harrington from Indiana in exchange for Troy Murphy and, ahem, Dunleavy.

After losing the first two games after the deal, with their record falling to 19-23, the Warriors pulled it together and finished the season with a five-game win streak – spawning the “We Believe” rally cry – that put them in the playoffs for the first time in 13 years.

These Warriors believe in the power of Jimmy.

“It’s been amazing,” Kerr told reporters in Miami on Monday. “He’s one of the best players in the league and he’s instantly transformed our team.”

How far can the post-Jimmy Warriors go? That is to be determined in the coming weeks. What’s certain is that they’ll go a lot farther than they would go without him.

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NEW YORK (AP) — Naji Marshall scored 22 points off the bench to lead the Dallas Mavericks to a 120-101 rout of the Brooklyn Nets on Monday night.

P.J. Washington and Spencer Dinwiddie finished with 16 each, Brandon Williams scored 15 and Kai Jones added 13. Anthony Davis, in his first game back after missing six weeks with a groin injury, had 12 points in 27 minutes.

Brooklyn dropped to 23-49 with its fourth straight loss. Nic Claxton led the Nets with 19 points.

Takeaways

Mavericks: For a team that is in a neck-and-neck race with Phoenix for the final Western Conference play-in spot, Dallas believes that the reinsertion of Davis — among others — can provide a boost. “We understand what’s at stake here,” coach Jason Kidd said before the game. “We got to figure out how to win.”

Nets: With three weeks remaining, coach Jordi Fernandez wants his team to use the final 11 games of the season to work on in-game execution. “We have to control (in order) to (have) one more possession,” Fernandez said before the game. “I think winning teams take care of those possessions.”

Key moment

Dallas guard Spencer Dinwiddie knocked down a left corner three, and then assisted on buckets by Marshall and Jones in a 26-second span midway through the third quarter that allowed the Mavericks to extend their lead to 75-56.

Key stat

Brooklyn entered the game ninth in the NBA in three-pointers attempted per game (39.1) and 29th in three-pointers made per game (34.5). Against the Mavericks, the Nets made 11 of their 33 attempts from beyond the arc.

Up next

The Mavericks play the Knicks on Tuesday night.

Brooklyn hosts Toronto on Wednesday.