Category: Basketball

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.

In a moment when the crowd was quiet and the in-arena music stopped blaring, you could hear the Orlando Magic bench screaming out instructions to teammates on the floor, frantically pointing to places the Lakers were trying to attack.

The yelling was clearly heard from the other side of the court, and the Orlando defense responded, talking their way through switches.

That LeBron James still found a seam and made a tough shot didn’t matter. The Magic were connected. They were communicating. They looked, really, like the Lakers used to look, an energy that carried over to Orlando's offense in a 118-106 win over the Lakers.

Read more:LeBron James returns from injury, but Lakers look lost in blowout loss to Bulls

“Used to” might be a little harsh since the Lakers have only had a completely healthy team available for two games since Feb. 28. During that time, the team had to play for stretches without James, Rui Hachimura or Jaxson Hayes. It also has needed to rest Luka Doncic, Dorian Finney-Smith and Gabe Vincent and hold out Austin Reaves.

But the Lakers (43-28), for the second straight game, looked like a team trying to recapture its defensive identity.

“We're going through it a little bit,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said. “We gotta get back into the flow and the rhythm.”

Like they did against the Chicago Bulls on Saturday, the Lakers unquestionably spoke less than the Magic (34-38), their switching and scrambling defense just a little duller than it had been before injuries started to pile up.

“I think we just gotta look back at the way we played on that eight-game winning streak," Doncic said. "We're physical. We (have a) hell of a defense. I think we just got a little bit satisfied. We can't afford that right now."

The shots they have been willing to concede — the Magic are the worst three-point shooting team in the league — went in. And the edge they played with on the defensive side of the ball for nearly half the season simply hasn’t been as sharp this month.

“We just, we look tired,” Redick said. “And I don't know what contributes to that. That happens periodically throughout a season where the group gets tired. That's what it feels like right now. Again, we weren't able to sustain our level of intensity that we started the game with. And our guys, I thought started out really well.”

Since Hachimura’s injury knocked him out of the lineup for a dozen games, the Lakers’ identity has eroded, their rating sliding all the way down to 17th.

The team now has a losing record in March, dropping seven of 13 games.

Before the game, Redick said assistant coach Nate MacMillan summarized the situation best.

“You can't build trust on the court unless you're communicating,” he told the staff, “and we've gotta get back to communicating. We gotta get back to having a physical disposition with our opponent.”

The lack of talk has been a problem, no doubt. But the lack of individual stoppers has been problematic the last two games, the Lakers struggling to stop scorers when they get hot.

Read more:Bronny James credits focus on his game for career-best 17 points during loss to Bucks

Saturday, Coby White hurt the Lakers early and late, his rhythm never really disrupted. Against Orlando, Franz Wagner and Paolo Banchero, players with a combination of size, strength and skill, attacked the weak points in the defense and combined for 62 points.

The Lakers found some intensity late in the second quarter, building a nine-point lead. But Orlando scored seven straight as the Lakers' offense went cold, and the Magic continued to pull away in the third.

The Magic made half of their 10 threes in the third quarter as the Lakers sputtered, their bad offense causing bad defense and their bad defense preventing them from getting easy baskets in transition.

After trailing by 17 in the fourth quarter, the Lakers did rediscover a sliver of their defensive identity and cut the Magic lead to seven, but Wagner easily got past Doncic for a layup with no help at the rim.

The game was never in doubt again.

Read more:Former Lakers player says Bob Knight knew of Indiana team physician abuse allegations

Doncic finished with 32 points, seven rebounds and seven assists. James had 24 points, six rebounds and seven assists. Reaves scored 18 points and Finney-Smith added 14 points.

The Lakers play Wednesday in Indiana against the Pacers, the first leg of a back to back. The team has three back to backs in its final 11 games.

“We need the adversity. Especially being a new team, know we get to learn a lot about each other during tough times. You usually don't see things when you winning,” Finney-Smith said. “So we got the chance to grow. We're going to use this opportunity to grow.”

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.