Category: Basketball

BOSTON — With Jaylen Brown out against the Atlanta Hawks, someone needed to step up to shoulder the offensive load for the Celtics and Payton Pritchard answered the call.

Pritchard finished with a team-high 36 points along with 7 rebounds and 4 assists while shooting 13-23 from the field and 6-11 from three-point range. The biggest indicator of how much Pritchard dominated this game was that he ended as a +26 in a game the Celtics won by seven.

Pritchard was asked postgame about filling the Jaylen Brown role tonight and said nothing really changed on his end. “I don’t think my role changed,” he said. “Like any other night, just come out being aggressive, looking to make plays for my teammates or for myself, and just make the right reads.”

In 8 games without Jaylen Brown this season, Pritchard has stepped up with averages of 25.1 points, 4.9 rebounds, and 7.3 assists on 48% shooting from the field and 46% shooting from three.

Payton Pritchard vs the Hawks
36 Points
7 Rebounds
4 Assists
13-23 FG
6-11 3PM pic.twitter.com/XqUtJueGiE

— Ian Inangelo (@iinangelo) March 28, 2026

The Celtics offense was slow to start in this game, going down 25-9 with 3:39 left in the first quarter. Joe Mazzulla called his second timeout in a row, seemingly looking for any kind of a spark from someone. That was when Pritchard started to turn it on, scoring 7 points and assisting on another to cut the deficit to 3 points at the end of the first.

In classic Payton Pritchard fashion, he ended the quarter with an incredible buzzer beater, crossing over Dyson Daniels and finishing with a layup that kissed the banners in the TD Garden rafters before falling in.

When asked about his buzzer beater heroics, he talked about the science behind them, saying, “It’s a momentum play and the crowd feels it. Our team feels it. So I feel like it’s crucial because ending a quarter or a half and then going into the next possession you get that energy and the momentum swing.”

When asked about his situational awareness when it comes to taking these shots, Pritchard credited his high school coach for instilling it in him, saying, “I really don’t know… My high school coach, we used to do situations all the time of like end the game, and we would run through like, 8 to 10 situations every day of practice. And I just got really good at learning how to get my shot off in different ways and make a play.”

Pritchard didn’t slow down after swinging the momentum for Boston in the first quarter, riding his hot streak into the second quarter where he had 12 points on 5-7 shooting. He did a great job when it came to getting his shot off quickly and find ways to get to the basket aggressively.

Pritchard carried his impressive play into the third quarter with 13 points on 4-7 shooting. The Hawks tested out a new defensive style of not guarding Payton when he was wide open for three. This, as you could imagine, did not work out well for Atlanta.

Boston dominated the rebounding battle in this game, destroying Atlanta 52-35. Out of those rebounds, the Celtics had 13 offensive rebounds where Pritchard had 3 of them that made a huge difference in the second half. His rebounding led three different scoring plays, one a follow up basket for his own and the other two resulting in Jayson Tatum drawing fouls to shoot free throws.

Joe Mazzulla praised Pritchard’s ability to box out the defenders, calling out specifically the first one he had in the fourth quarter on Nickeil Alexander-Walker. Mazzulla said, “…the offensive rebound that he got looked like a defensive box out, but he got an offensive rebound in the foul [Tatum] drew. They were going out in transition and that could have changed the game a little bit.”

Talking about his offensive rebounds specifically, Pritchard just credited it to hard work and the want to win to win saying, “I want to win. You want to make a play and you see somebody shoot the ball, and I see it coming off the rim, I’m just fighting to try to get in, get an extra possession. Those little things like that can change the game and win a game. So, yeah, it’s just about the want and competitive spirit.”

When asked about the Celtics improvement on the boards as a whole Pritchard said it was all about “hard work, being about your work every day coming in. And, you know, trying to get better at the things that we need to improve at. That’s just a testament to the culture we built here.”

If Pritchard didn’t start for most of the season, it feels like he would be the runaway favorite for Sixth Man of the Year. Since moving to the bench on February 3rd, he has played in 22 games and has averaged 17.3 points, 5.1 assists, and 3.5 rebounds on 47% shooting from the field and 41% shooting from three.

Pritchard’s ability to come in and just cause chaos coming off the bench is a skill that no one in the league is better than him in. We have seen him be able to take over games and be a complete three-level scorer on the offensive end while being a great on defense for his size. He is a one-of-one type of player and his ability to out-work everyone on the court is an example of how he embodies the culture of playing in Boston.

While the coaches pacing the sideline in tailored suits or quarter-zips often get the most attention in men’s college basketball, it’s the players on the court who determine who makes the Final Four and wins the national championship.

The 2025-26 season has been one of the most star-studded in recent memory in the sport, with future NBA Draft lottery picks and wildly productive college players dominating the landscape nationally.

During the 2026 NCAA Tournament, some of the sport’s brightest stars have continued to propel their teams on deep runs. Though standouts like AJ Dybantsa, Darius Acuff Jr. and Darryn Peterson are watching the tournament from home, a number of All-American and all-conference performers are still chasing their dreams of cutting down the nets in Indianapolis on the first Monday night of April.

REQUIRED READING: A scoundrel returns: Will Wade's LSU comeback makes perfect sense

Among that distinguished group, who are the best players competing in the Elite Eight?

Here are the top eight players in the Elite Eight, with one player from each of the remaining eight squads:

Best players to watch in the Elite Eight

Players listed in alphabetical order

Cameron Boozer, Duke

The likely national player of the year has been everything the Blue Devils could have hoped for this season, averaging 22.4 points and 10.3 rebounds per game to make him one of just 14 Division I players averaging a double-double this season. The 6-foot-9 freshman, the son of former NBA All-Star Carlos Boozer, has kept up his outrageous production in the tournament, with a double-double in each of Duke’s first three wins, including 22 points and 10 rebounds in a narrow Sweet 16 win over St. John’s. He’s a projected top-three pick in the NBA Draft for a reason.

Brayden Burries, Arizona

Burries is one of several top-10 recruits from the 2025 class who have enjoyed stellar freshman seasons. On what might be the most well-rounded team in the country, Burries is the leading scorer at 16.2 points per game and has been efficient getting there, shooting 50.2% from the field and 39.5% from 3-point range. Though teammate Jaden Bradley earned Big 12 player of the year honors, Burries has been the Wildcats’ best player in the tournament thus far, averaging 19 points per game and shooting 64.3% (including 75% from 3).

Ja'Kobi Gillespie, Tennessee

He's not the best NBA prospect on his team (that would be star freshman forward Nate Ament), but no player has been more indispensable to the Volunteers than Gillespie, who entered the Sweet 16 averaging a team-high 18.4 points, 5.6 assists and 2.1 steals per game. The Maryland transfer has been a steady, consistent presence for a team that has struggled to score at various points during the season.

Trey Kaufman-Renn, Purdue

It wasn’t an accident that Kaufman-Renn was in position to score the winning basket in Purdue’s biggest win this season. The Sellersburg, Indiana native, the rare college player who’s in his fourth season with the program where he started his career, has come through in a big way during the Boilermakers’ run to the Elite Eight, averaging 21.3 points and 8.7 rebounds per game while shooting 63.6% from the field. Teammate Braden Smith, the Division I career assists leader, has had the better career and better season, but Kaufman-Renn has been Purdue’s best player so far in the tournament.

Yaxel Lendeborg, Michigan

Lendeborg was one of the best players outside the five power conferences last season, averaging a double-double for a 24-win UAB team. This season, he’s proven to be just as effective in arguably the best conference in the sport while being the star for a team that spent several weeks this season ranked No. 1 in the USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll. The 6-foot-9 consensus first-team All-American is averaging 15.3 points and 7.2 rebounds per game and in the NCAA tournament, he’s been on fire, making 19 of his 30 shots (63.3%) and eight of his 13 3s (61.5%).

Tarris Reed Jr., UConn

Dan Hurley's team is remarkably balanced, with five players averaging between 10.6 and 14.2 points per game for a squad that's aiming to win its third national championship in the past four years. At the top of that group is Reed, a 6-foot-11 senior center who entered the Huskies' Sweet 16 win against Michigan State leading the team in scoring (14.2 points per game), rebounding (8.9 per game) and blocks (two per game). The Michigan transfer has followed up a strong regular season with an even better NCAA tournament, averaging 20.3 points and 15 rebounds per game. That run included one of the most ridiculous performances of the tournament, with 31 points and 27 rebounds in a first-round win over Furman.

Bennett Stirtz, Iowa

While Ben McCollum’s coaching acumen helped him rise from Division II head coach to Iowa’s first Elite Eight since 1987 in just two years, Stirtz’s on-court contributions didn’t hurt. The Hawkeyes guard has been with McCollum every step of the way the past four years, following the coach from Northwest Missouri State to Drake to Iowa, where he’s averaging a team-high 19.7 points and 4.4 assists per game this season. He’s carried the Hawkeyes offensively, as he’s the only Iowa player averaging more than 10.4 points per game.

Keaton Wagler, Illinois

In a star-studded freshman class, Wagler has been perhaps the most unexpected star. He was the No. 261 recruit nationally in the 2025 class, according to 247Sports’ composite rankings, but has been one of the best guards in the sport this season, averaging 17.7 points per game and shooting 41.1% from 3. He’s been the centerpiece for a dynamic Illinois team that’s No. 2 in adjusted offensive efficiency this season, according to KenPom.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: March Madness bracket breakdown: Best players to watch in Elite 8

HOUSTON — Rebounding has always come naturally to David Mirkovic. Before he committed to play college basketball at Illinois, the 6-foot-9 forward from Montenegro played two seasons of professional basketball in the Adriatic Basketball Association League, where he averaged 6.4 rebounds per game during the 2024-25 season.

When the ball bounced off the rim or backboard, Mirkovic corralled it, simple as that.

That changed when he got to Illinois last summer.

“It’s much different,” Mirkovic said. “(In Montenegro), I didn’t have coaches that tell me and remind me every day all day to crash the boards or get some of the defensive rebounds. But since I’m playing basketball, every time I was the best rebounder on my team. I would say just naturally, I had that feel for rebounds. So when that combines with the coach that’s put that much emphasis on rebounding, it’s just getting better.”  

Mirkovic is now the top rebounder on an Illinois team that is riding a rebounding wave into Saturday’s NCAA Tournament Elite Eight game against Iowa.

This season, the Illini are ranked 10^th in rebounds per game (41.1) and seventh in rebounding margin (10.1). It’s not a new strength; Illinois has been a top-10 rebounding team in the country in each of the last three seasons.

“I think the secret sauce is just, it’s something you emphasize every single day,” said Illinois assistant coach Tyler Underwood.

Underwood’s father, Illinois head coach Brad Underwood, was Kansas State’s director of operations during the 2006-07 season under head coach Bob Huggins, who is famous for his aggressive rebounding schemes. That left an imprint on Underwood, and in nine seasons at Illinois he’s made rebounding a pillar of his program.

The Illini track individual players’ “go rates” – what percentage of the time they crash the offensive glass – in practices and games. At halftime, coaches check "go rates" and remind players who are falling short to fulfill their offensive rebounding obligations. The message is clear: If you don’t go, your playing time stops.

The Illini are receiving key contributions on the boards from a pair of freshmen, Mirkovic and guard Keaton Wagler.

Through three NCAA Tournament games, Mirkovic is averaging a team-high 10.7 rebounds to go with 13.7 points. Wagler, the team's top scorer averaging 17.7 points, is right behind him averaging 8.0 rebounds.

In the Illini’s Sweet 16 win over Houston, Mirkovic broke the Illinois freshman total rebounding record set by Kofi Cockburn six seasons ago, while Wagler pulled down a career-best 12 rebounds. They became the first pair of freshman teammates to each have a double-double in the same NCAA Tournament game since freshmen became fully eligible in 1972-73. 

“His frame doesn’t scream 12 rebounds, but his toughness does,” Houston coach Kelvin Sampson said of Wagler.

Prior to Thursday’s game, Brad Underwood told Illini players that they would need a massive effort on the glass to win, especially from the guards. Wagler answered the call.

“He's a great listener,” Brad Underwood said. “We knew that (Chris) Cenac and (Joseph) Tugler, they back tap a lot of balls. They're elite at it. So our bigs were going to have to hit bodies, but our guards were going to have to come clean it up. So we needed a big, big rebounding game from our guards. I thought Keaton just takes everything to heart. He's had some big rebounding games this year, but to do this in this moment – you guys got to understand what a joy it is to coach him, and he doesn't worry about needing to score points.”

While Illinois’ bigs engage in physical battles under the basket to grab rebounds off the rim and box out their defenders, Wagler and the other guards stay alert and track down longer rebounds.

Tyler Underwood said that the Illini chart their misses and find that most occur on shots from the left corner of the court. When they miss from the left, the ball tends to carom to the right side of the basket, so Illinois tells players to flood “opposite and inside” to be in prime rebounding position.

Illinois typically has four players crash the boards after shots on offensive possessions, but last season the team slightly altered its rebounding philosophy. Instead of either the point guard or the shooting guard always being the player responsible for getting back on defense after a shot, the Illini decided that on 3-point shots, the shooter is the one who gets back – regardless of what position he plays.

That nuance has helped Illinois take advantage of their “twin towers,” brothers Tomislav and Zvonimir Ivisic, two 7-footers who each attempt more than half of their shots behind the 3-point line.

“With our pick-and-pop bigs, they end up shooting a lot of 3s, so that draws opponents’ bigs away from the rim, which puts them in uncomfortable sports, which allows guards to rebound,” Tyler Underwood said. “And our bigs end up being back in transition a lot, which is good because they’re our 7-footers.”

The strategy only works if players like Mirkovic and Wagler pick up the slack on the boards.

“I think rebounding, there’s an element of feel to it, an element of timing, an element of tracking the ball while it’s in the air,” Tyler Underwood said. “Both of those guys excel in that area because they have such a good feel for the game. And then they’re very disciplined and they put their teammates first. They’re willing to make winning plays.”

Both freshmen are do-it-all players who have developed a close relationship with each other on and off the court.

On the surface, the idea of a 6-foot-9 former professional player from Montenegro forming a bond with a skinny guard from Shawnee, Kansas, calls to mind videos of unlikely animal friendships. But the pair’s chemistry has blossomed through a mutual appreciation for hard work and competition, be it playing the “NBA 2K” video game or working out on the court.

“We have some similarities in our personality, like we are both Gen Z, I would say,” Mirkovic said. “The second thing, we had a lot of similarities, basketball-wise. Like we are pretty similar players despite different positions. … I would say our understanding and IQ of basketball and our unselfishness and skill level, that makes us unstoppable.”

Wagler said, “My first impression of him is that he’s a goofy guy who likes to mess around, but then in practices, he’s super competitive. He hates losing drills, no matter what it is. I knew we were gonna get along after that because I’m competitive. I don’t like to lose.”  

They’ve both learned to embrace the Illini’s rebounding ethos, too. Wagler said he and Mirkovic have gained confidence from watching each other succeed.

“I think we both learned that you don’t have to be the most athletic or fastest person on the court,” Wagler said. “You can play at your own pace and still be as good as anyone. We both do the right things and we both want to win. Doesn’t matter if we score however many points, you know – if we got to go in and pass, get assists, get rebounds, we’ll do that.”  

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Elite 8: Illini get rebounding boost from freshmen Mirkovic, Wagler

Warriors' three-game win streak enters danger zone vs. NBA playoff contenders originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

SAN FRANCISCO – The Warriors often talk about building good habits and generating momentum while approaching the NBA play-in tournament, but Friday night was the latest instance in which their bad habits have been too stubborn to leave.

Having frittered away a 12-point halftime lead during a brutal third quarter, the Warriors went into the fourth down by two to the Washington Wizards, who had lost 16 of their last 17 games and, thankfully for the Warriors, are cool to the notion of slowing their rocket to the NBA draft lottery.

There they were, two teams missing their top two players, traipsing through the final 12 minutes before the war of the woeful was won by the team sure to play beyond the regular season.

Down by five (111-106) with 6:18 remaining, the Warriors went on an 16-2 run that spurred a 131-126 victory, their third in a row, before a sellout crowd too polite to boo moments that invited it but summoned rousing cheers down the stretch.

“First half, I saw focus offensively, simple decisions,” coach Steve Kerr said. “And then I thought we let our guard down defensively in the second quarter. A couple back-cut layups, some poor transition, missed communication on switches.

“There was good and bad tonight, but I like the way we closed the game and had a lot of good individual performances.”

The cleanest and most efficient of those performances came from Gui Santos, who scored 27 points on 8-of-12 shooting from the field, including 3 of 5 from deep while splashing 8 of 9 from the line. Kristaps Porziņģis continue to lurch toward impact status, producing a team-high 28 points on 9-of-17 shooting, including 5 of 11 from distance, while grabbing eight rebounds. Brandin Podziemski delivered 22 points, a team-high 10 rebounds and seven assists.

The Warriors’ three-game win streak was built on wins over teams waving white flags big enough to cover Chase Center. This was the Warriors’ second consecutive “clutch” game against an opponent with no incentive to win. Two nights after the lottery-bound Brooklyn Nets sat three starters in the fourth the quarter to welcome defeat, Washington followed the same script.

Oh, but here comes the heat, three consecutive opponents bound for the NBA playoffs, all fighting to gain favorable position.

The Warriors fly to Denver on Saturday to face the Nuggets on Sunday, return home to face the San Antonio Spurs on Wednesday and then greet the Cleveland Cavaliers on Thursday.

The only way Nikola Jokić or Jamal Murray or Victor Wembanyama or Donovan Mitchell are sitting in the fourth quarter is if they’ve already blown the Warriors off the floor – which is a distinct possibility if they donate more quarters like the third against the Wizards, who, aided by six Golden State turnovers, posted a 34-20 advantage.

“We just got to slow down,” Santos said. “We need to play fast, move the ball fast, but at the same time stay under control. When we drive, when we get into the into the paint, we’ve got to just stop with two feet.”

The Warriors showed signs of improvement in the first quarter, leading by as much as 16 points. They accomplished this by shooting 50 percent from the field, including 46.7 percent beyond the arc – and not committing a single turnover.

That had to be encouraging for Golden State, which had committed 97 turnovers in its previous four games.

But the Wizards (17-56) understood the assignment, which allowed the Warriors opportunities to overcome the worst of themselves.

Those bad habits will be their undoing if they aren’t broken. Their desire to climb above 10th place in the Western Conference surely will be sabotaged if they help teams that don’t need it.

“We’re getting there,” Podziemski said. “We’re showing flashes of good and bad. Fortunately, we got to do it against Brooklyn and Washington in these last two games.

“But we’ll see what we’ve got come Sunday.”

Stephen Curry won’t make it to Denver. He’ll stay in the Bay Area, working with medical/performance chief Rick Celebrini in hopes of being ready by Wednesday or Thursday.

Curry’s arrival won’t matter much by then unless the Warriors catch some of the good habits that they insist they are chasing.

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The Brooklyn Nets have not been a physically imposing team in a long time. That lack of phsyicality has been a common criticism of Sean Marks’ rosters in his decade-long tenure as GM, though there have been a couple notable exceptions. Andre Drummond and Day’Ron Sharpe aren’t just strong on paper; they’re two of the best offensive rebounders of the 21st century.

Those two are more exception than rule. Jarrett Allen, Nic Claxton, and Noah Clowney all have their individual strengths, but they are also prone to getting pushed around in the paint. This has irritated Nets fans to no end because the cycle repeats every couple years, feeling more like a stain on the front office rather than the individual players.

It’s not just big men, and it’s not just physicality. David Nwaba tore his achilles during the 2019-20 season, and Brooklyn did not then roster a wing with nearly as much burst until Drake Powell, whose quick-twitch ability is exciting partly because we have not seen it in so long.

Some of this is inherent in watching a bad team lose a bad game. Where they are long, they are not strong; where they are strong, they lack burst. If the Nets were full of plus-athletes, they’d probably be better.

But for all the panic over the Flatbush Five’s relative lack of athleticism and size, the tide is shifting, ever so slightly. Clowney has continually scaled down positions, playing the 5 for much of his rookie year with the Long Island Nets but manning the wings of late, where his lack of strength and vertical explosion is a bit less of an issue. I think the a-ha moment was a couple of Long Island matchups against the Mexico City Capitanes in Clowney’s rookie year, when a 34-year-old Kenneth Faried put him in a hydraulic press.

Brooklyn’s signing of Chaney Johnson to a two-way contract drew some surprise, but he has had a fun stint with the big league club despite a lack of traditional offensive skills. Johnson is a thick 6’8”, and has put that frame to good use, grabbing offensive boards, blocking shots, and dunking the ball seven times already while getting fouled on a couple other attempts…

CHANEY JOHNSON WITH AUTHORITY pic.twitter.com/2lz9SM0y0l

— Brooklyn Nets (@BrooklynNets) March 24, 2026

But that seems to be all a preface to Friday’s game (which didn’t finish till after midnight back on the East Coast) wherein Ziaire Williams and Josh Minott combined for 34 points. Those two have brought a new dynamic to Brooklyn’s wings. Their play and toughness over the last month has been a revelation.

Of the two, it’s tougher to make that argument for Williams, a skinny guy who doesn’t initiate a ton of contact on either end. Williams is listed at 6’9” and can jump, but has he dunked on anybody as a Net? These limitations will sometimes flare up when the 24-year-old puts the ball on the floor, which he’s done frequently in March.

That said, Williams has been a menace on the perimeter this season, particularly over the past month. Among the 313 NBA players who have appeared in 40+ games this season, he ranks 10th in deflections per minute. Opponents turn the ball over on 4.4% more of their possessions when Williams is on the court, a 98th percentile swing, per Cleaning the Glass. Certainly, the Nets have encouraged him to be aggressive in the passing lanes, particularly in the middle of the floor…

from a while ago, but a good example of Ziaire's freedom to play attacking defense: pic.twitter.com/tRL0smHVsR

— Lucas Kaplan (@LucasKaplan_) March 27, 2026

“Sometimes we gotta let Ziaire be Ziaire, right?” explains Jordi Fernández. “His energy is contagious, and a lot of times it’s not going to be perfect, but he just makes up with — you know, sometimes they’ll make mistakes, but he makes up with that extreme energy. But the guys know it; like, if you gamble, you better get it. That’s what I always tell them.”

Williams’ offense is uneasy, but it’s trending in the right direction — threes comprise over 60% of his shot diet, and he’s shooting 34.3% on 9.9 attempts per 100 possessions this season, all career-highs. He’s also cut most of the fat out of his two-point diet (notwithstanding this stretch of late-season experimentation) as a strong cutter with just a couple finishing tricks in the bag.

A couple years ago, the Nets and other teams might have imagined Williams as a stretch-4 of sorts. Not anymore. Williams played many minutes next to a Clowney/MPJ/center trio this season, both guarding the opponent’s lead ball-handler and being an attack dog in the passing lanes. For an off-guard, his length and energy is a plus, hardly a questionable athlete in this role.

This was a good find from NetsFilm on Twitter…

Ziaire is currently the second youngest player in the NBA with a STL% >2.5, BLK% >1.5 and TS% >56, only behind teammate Josh Minott pic.twitter.com/9aS7OJtuFG

— Nets Film Room (@NetsFilm) March 26, 2026

Williams has been a chaotic defender who makes enough of his shots to be a net positive and in March, he’s put up big numbers averaging 13.3 points on 52/51/90 shooting splits. That’s 13 games of very hot shooting, and Williams has been known to be inconsistent over his Nets tenure, but he is putting together a strong season by any definition.

So is Josh Minott. Minott is a sturdy 6’8” with a plus-wingspan, throwing down some big dunks since getting traded to the Nets midseason, but there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of self-creation.

Despite a couple nice drives here and there, he’s recorded nearly twice as many turnovers as assists in Brooklyn. You see in the first clip below that he misses a open corner pass on a drive. However, in that second clip, you see yet another impressive 3-pointer from the former Celtic…

Across the season, with both Brooklyn and Boston, Minott is shooting an absurd 44.1% from deep on nearly nine attempts per 100 possessions. Across four NBA andG League seasons, Minott is shooting 38.2% from deep on just under 400 total attempts as a pro. The shot looks a little funky, and he hasn’t really let it fly until this season, but that ball is going in.

If it continues, Minott is a bonafide NBA player who will bring more force to Brooklyn’s wings. This season, he ranks 17th in the league in deflections per minute, averaging nearly four stocks (steals + blocks) per 36. Jordi Fernández has openly challenged his mediocre rebounding numbers, but Minott plays with a clear blend of athleticism and calculated risk-tasking on D. This steal (initially called a foul but overturned via challenge) against the Golden State Warriors on Wednesday really showed off his hands…

You figure Fernández is going to love playing Williams and Minott next season (assuming Brooklyn picks up the team option they have on each guy — $6.3 million on Williams, $2.3 million on Minott). Brooklyn has forced turnovers at just above a league-average rate over Fernández’s stint as head coach, but it’s taken a concerted effort from the staff to get them there. The Nets trapped ball-screens relentlessly in ‘25, and though they’ve toned that down a bit in ‘26, they play aggressively in the gaps, demonstrated above by Williams.

Next season, can Brooklyn force even more turnovers and will that factor into their offseason decision-making? Furthermore, can they both force turnovers and shut off the rim ever so slightly? After all, Brooklyn’s opponents have taken 36.1% of their attempts directly at the rim, the highest mark in the league, per Cleaning the Glass.

Sean Marks and the Nets might be turning over a new leaf. Egor Dëmin isn’t going to win a dunk contest anytime soon, but that doesn’t mean the team isn’t getting more athletic, particularly when Ziaire Williams or Josh Minott is playing the 2.

Neither Williams nor Minott is a perfect player. On a competitive team, neither can handle the ball much, and for 3-and-D players, both have questions about their outside shot. But for a Nets team that has too often been bullied by their opponents, it’s been fun to watch Williams and Minott fly around on the wing.

In a game of runs, it was the Celtics that eventually finished out the final stretch to beat the visiting Hawks 109-102 behind 36 points off the bench from Payton Pritchard and a 26-12-5 line from Jayson Tatum. Without Jaylen Brown (and Nikola Vucevic), Boston was able weather a Hawks’ 25-9 opening kick and a 26-14 run bridging the second and third quarter to push their record to 49-24 and end Atlanta’s three-game winning streak and adding a loss to their 14-2 record since February 22nd.

After beating the Oklahoma City Thunder earlier in the week and a top-6 Eastern Conference team, the Celtics sit at +600 with our friends at FanDuel to win the 2026 Finals.

Jayson Tatum

36 minutes, 26 points (2-8 from 3, 8-10 from the free throw line, 8-24 from the field), 12 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 turnovers, +1

It wasn’t the most efficient night for Tatum, but you can see him slowly getting his legs and confidence back in Game #10. Where Tatum seems to be lacking is where you’d expect: finishing. Whether it’s getting lift on his pull-up 3s, rising around the rim, or changing direction on his drives, he doesn’t seem to have his twitchiness yet. To be honest, it might take another summer to get that back.

However, where he’s been consistent is in areas where he can use his size — Tatum seems a little stronger in his upper body, right? — and length to overpower defenders, rebound, and navigate the floor and find shooters with his passing.

“I mean, I thought I saw his defensive rebounding. I thought that was the most important thing.  Thought offensively, got into the paint, got to the, you know, was able to get to the free throw line, shoot ten free throws, just continuing to chip away at giving the game what it needs,” Joe Mazzulla said after the game. “He was aggressive in his drive, missed some easy layups there, but as long as he stays aggressive, as long he makes the right read, as long as he continues to rebound, he’s, you know, continuing to get better and better.”

The ball seemed a little sticky whenever JT got a matchup that he thought he could beat, but it’s important for him to get those reps in March before they really matter in April, May, and June.

Grade: B

Sam Hauser

29 minutes, 10 points (2-5 from 3, 4-7 from the field), 3 rebounds, 2 assists, one turnovers, -2

It’s been an odd couple of games for Hauser. When he’s been wide open, he’s uncharacteristically been missing those. In tight windows or off the dribble, he’s hit the more difficult looks.

Sam Hauser with the moves

Stream the game: https://t.co/qEd1lTnFA2pic.twitter.com/gkFmiqk1nG

— Celtics on NBC Sports Boston (@NBCSCeltics) March 28, 2026

Grade: B+

Neemias Queta

27 minutes, 5 points (1-2 from the free throw line, 2-2 from the field), 11 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 turnovers, 1 block, +5

The Hawks are a high-volume drive team, but for the most part, the Celtics were able to control the defensive glass and Atlanta’s halfcourt offense because of Queta’s presence in the paint. Neemi didn’t score much, but I’ll chalk that up to Brown not playing and Queta not getting those dunker spot opportunities.

Grade: B

Derrick White

34 minutes, 10 points (0-4 from 3, 4-5 from the free throw line, 3-13 from the field), 4 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 turnovers, -4

Over his last four games, DWhite has shot 6-15, 6-15, 3-11, and 3-13 last night against the Hawks. There’s no worry here even though he’s mired in a season-long slump.

Grade: C+

That was IMPRESSIVE, Derrick

Stream the game: https://t.co/qEd1lTnFA2pic.twitter.com/yQIs03pMCx

— Celtics on NBC Sports Boston (@NBCSCeltics) March 28, 2026

Baylor Scheierman

28 minutes, 3 points (1-3 from 3, 1-3 from the field), 6 rebounds, 2 assists, one turnover, -13

Scheierman replaced Jaylen Brown in the starting lineup and was largely invisible against Atlanta. He still played good defense whenever he got his licks against Jalen Johnson and Nickeil Alexander-Johnson and was a steady Baller Scheierman tonight rather than the Baylor Schowman that we saw against the Thunder on Wednesday.

Grade: C

Payton Pritchard

34 minutes, 36 points (6-11 from 3, 4-4 from the free throw line, 13-23 from the field), 7 rebounds, 4 assists, 5 turnovers, +26

Simply put, the Celtics don’t win this game without PP going nuclear. After making all three from behind the arc in the first half, another three straight triples in the third quarter put Boston up virtually up for good for the rest of the game. He hit the Hawks with a couple of drives and grabbed some timely offensive rebounds which made up for his five turnovers.

Grade: A+

Jordan Walsh

27 minutes, 5 points (1-1 from 3, 2-3 from the field), 3 rebounds, one assist, 3 blocks, +3

After six straight DNP-CDs, Walsh ate up the minutes vacated by Jaylen Brown and did well in his return to the rotation. For Walsh to be successful, he has to find ways to impact the game without the ball. When he was starting earlier in the year, that met being a plus defender on the opposing team’s best player and hitting catch-and-shoot opportunities. In other words, getting in where he was fitting in. A block here, a block there, a back door cut here, a kick out 3 there on a night when the Celtics needed to gut out a win earns high marks for JW.

Grade: A

Luka Garza

15 minutes, 11 points (1-2 from 3, 2-2 from the free throw line, 4-5 from the field), 4 rebounds, 2 assists, +10

Garza has become reliable at all the things you can’t count on. In every game, you just know he’s going to grab an offensive rebound or two and get a handful of second chance points. If he picks and pops for an open three, there’s a good chance that it’s going down. Last night, he had a pair of decel drives that I didn’t see coming, but like I said, he’s reliably surprised me all year long.

Grade: A-

Hugo Gonzalez

7 minutes, 3 points (1-1 from 3, 1-1 from the field), 2 rebounds, 7 assists, +10

In the box score, it’ll never look like much, but the kid just adds juice to the game when it needs it. When Gonzalez, Walsh, Garza, and Pritchard came in at the 6-minute mark of the first quarter, Boston was down 17-9. Going into the second, they flipped the script and were only down 3. It wasn’t all because of Hugo, but he added a little pickup to the game after the Celtics went down early.

Grade: B

DNP-CD: Ron Harper Jr., Amari Williams, Max Shulga, Charles Bassey

Inactive: Nikola Vucevic, Jaylen Brown

SAN JOSE, CA — The harsh Arizona deserts are no stranger to droughts. One has lasted quite a while in Tucson, except it has nothing to do with rainfall.

It’s that Final Four drought.

For more than two decades, Tucson residents have been trying to turn on the faucet of basketball success, and while enough falls out to keep the grass from turning brown, it’s waiting for a steady stream to end the dehydration and nourish the garden of winning.

Arizona hasn’t been to the Final Four since 2001, and the city is very aware of the crisis.

“You hear rumblings of it all the time,” Wildcats forward Tobe Awaka told USA TODAY Sports.

Luckily, the forecast is showing a possible end to the dry spell. A chance of heavy showers of victory could be raining down Saturday, March 28 with Arizona facing Purdue in the Elite Eight. But the Wildcats have been here several times before. An opportunity to break the spell turns into more heat. 

“The collective joy it would give our community, it would be more special than just the win by itself,” said Wildcats coach Tommy Lloyd.

No coach has stacked up wins in their first five seasons like Lloyd, with 147 victories already on his resume. It’s been an impressive start to his tenure, bringing Arizona back into the national picture and perfectly weaving into a stacked Big 12.

All of that, yet this will be the first time Lloyd has the Wildcats in the Elite Eight, a microcosm of all of the March struggles this program has had since 2001.

Since 2010, Arizona has the fourth-most wins in Division I, in the top five with Gonzaga, Duke, Kansas and Kentucky. However, the Wildcats are the only one from that group to have not made the Final Four in that time span. Even worse, the all in that group have made multiple Final Four trips.

This year will be the sixth Elite Eight appearance for the Wildcats since their last Final Four appearance. Two of those times, it was a No. 1 seed, and it lost to the No. 2 seed, including the 2014 overtime thriller against Wisconsin. In 2026, it’s a No. 1 seed again facing the No. 2 seed.

Arizona has had all the right pieces to have multiple Final Four trips, with NBA talent on all of those Elite Eight squads, but it just can’t get over that hump.

“These games from here on out are not guaranteed,” said guard Jaden Bradley.

Unlucky? A curse? There really isn’t an answer for why Arizona can’t get the job done. If history is any indication, the Wildcats won’t be able to take down Purdue, and the Boilermakers will be the ones going to Indianapolis.

But this isn’t the same Arizona.

At 35-2, the Wildcats have a case to be the best team in the country. It’s a talented, deep roster with so many players that can end opponents, and they’ve proven so. 

Arizona knows how to score and prevent you from doing so. It’s why they’re in the top five of scoring margin. What’s impressive is that includes 12 ranked victories this season, showing it handles even elite squads.

“One of the best teams in the country, if not the best team in the country,” said Purdue coach Matt Painter. 

The last thing standing in the way of Arizona breaking through is a contrasting Purdue team. While Arizona is led by freshmen with a mix of veteran presence, the Boilermakers are as experienced as it comes, with three players that have played in a national championship game and a starting unit with a combined 559 career starts.

On paper, Arizona has more talent than Purdue. But it knows better than anyone these games are played on the court, where all of that gets thrown out the window, and anything can happen in 40 minutes.

In fact, Painter knows all about the burden of being at a premier program with a long Final Four drought, with the Boilermakers making the 2024 edition after last appearing in 1980. While Lloyd said Arizona’s recent struggles in the NCAA Tournament don’t bother him, Painter acknowledges the burden.

“There's relief there. It gets talked about a lot,” he said. “You don't have to wait for the morning paper to hear what people say about you anymore. You hear it all day long.”

Lloyd and Arizona have a chance to finally silence all the talk about it in the Elite Eight. The Wildcats have shown they were on a warpath to this destination ever since it beat defending champion Florida in the season opener.

Now it’s time to put all of the past behind, and officially declare Arizona basketball drought-free.

“I'm not surprised we're sitting here. Not at all,” Lloyd said. “We're exactly where we should be. Now we've got to go put in the work – and probably have some good fortune on our side as well – to hopefully take the next step.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: When was Arizona last in Final Four? It's been a while. Like 25 years

Oh, how quickly empires fall.

For the longest time, I would try to carve out an opening in my writing schedule for at least one or two games against the Bucks. Even when the Spurs were at their worst, I wanted to see what would happen.

The Bucks served as a measuring stick for me; a team with the right mixture of talent and discipline to tell me exactly what the Spurs were (and were not) capable of.

I envied their draft heist in the form of Giannis Antetokounmpo, feeling less than optimistic about San Antonio’s chances of lucking into another franchise-altering big man. I admired the aggression and shrewdness of the acquisition that had given them arguably the NBA best all-around guard in Jrue Holiday, a player I’d wanted on the Spurs since his days at UCLA.

I watched them play basketball in the vaguely Spurs-ish way that Popovich protege Mike Budenholzer employed at every stop along the way, and tried to summon visions of a Spurs team that would play that well (or better) in the near future.

I cannot blame my imagination for having failed me at the time. It was a grim time to be writing about the Spurs. I saw franchise favorites flipped for assets. I witnessed losing streaks never before seen in the history of the franchise. I cannot say that it was fun, though I did my best to make it so.

And yet, I was always watching for that moment when things might fall into place. Those moments that the Spurs would exceed the sum of their very humble parts, and take advantage of the strangeness of a long NBA season.

The one thing about losing seasons is that you’re surprised by certain victories in a way that you can’t be about a contender. I clung to those minor miracles, and they got me through it.

Now the returns to Milwaukee remind me of the fickleness of fortune.

We like to believe that the NBA is a meritocracy, but sometimes it’s just not. Seemingly abandoned by the fates of a previous half-decade, Bucks management is paralyzed regarding what feels like an unresolvable exit trajectory for their aging superstar player, torn between the promising mystique of future assets and the hope that one stroke of luck can restore them to their former glory — a consolation devoutly to be wished.

The Spurs, on the other hand, are at full health, and so deep that it hardly seems to matter. They’ve found their rhythm, sitting just shy of a net rating identical to that of the 2014 roster, and are led by an ascendant wunderkind intent on bringing home as much hardware as humanly possible.

Wemby’s averaging 26/11/3.5/3.5/1.5 on 51% shooting over the last 10 games. The Spurs are 1st in Offensive Rating and Net Rating, and 2nd in scoring over that same stretch.

They’re 1st in rebounding and effective field goal percentage, and 2nd in three pointers made and assist-to-turnover ratio. They don’t make mistakes. They rain hellfire.

The scales between these two teams have definitively flipped. The Bucks will be without 3 of their top 5 scorers (and possibly 5 out of their top 6), leaving a Giannis-shaped hole in the roster of a team that is almost certainly trying to better their draft odds.

And yet, I think back to those years in the wastelands, and I know I’ll be looking for that same flicker from Milwaukee. The NBA season is lengthy and bizarre, and the Spurs are on an extended win streak.

What a fantastic time for the basketball gods to indulge their prevailing senses of humor.

One of the long-standing tests of the grecian deities was that of hubris. This Spurs team has almost everything they need to bring home another championship. But do they have the humility?

The memory of struggle has allowed me to enjoy this season more than so many of the successful ones I’ve been witness to, and I’m looking forward to an easy win as much as anyone, but I’m also hoping for the kind of graciousness that those who’ve experienced attrition are best suited to deliver.

That, and a whole lot of dunks. (I have an Icarus tattoo. It reminds me that my capacity for humility is limited.)

San Antonio Spurs (55-18) vs Milwaukee Bucks (29-43)

March 28th, 2026 | 2:00 PM CT

Watch: NBA on Amazon Prime/FanDuel Southwest| Listen: WOAI (1200 AM)

Spurs Injuries: None

Bucks Injuries: Myles Turner: Day-to-Day (Calf), Bobby Portis: Day-to-Day (Wrist), Kyle Kuzma: Out (Achilles Tightness), Gary Harris: Out (Groin), Kevin Porter Jr: Out (Knee), Giannis Antetokounmpo: Out (PRitis)

LOS ANGELES — It wasn’t a pretty win for the Lakers against the Nets on Friday night. Despite Brooklyn having every incentive to lose and dropping nine games entering this contest, they trailed by just one entering the final quarter.

The Lakers, desperately trying to avoid an embarrassing loss, needed to get a boost from somewhere. LeBron James was having a quiet night with just 11 points, and Luka Dončić was already doing everything he could to help the team win, scoring 36.

So, the Lakers went to their other top scorer, Austin Reaves, for some offensive production. In the clutch, Reaves delivered, playing all 12 minutes and scoring 15 in the fourth to ensure the Lakers would walk away victorious.

“I think AR just being mentally tough and playing through everything that was happening in the game and just eventually found his rhythm, head coach JJ Redick said postgame. “I think that started with getting to the free throw line. It started with touching the paint and scoring on some of those non-rim paint twos.”

Reaves’ fourth-quarter dominance felt like it came out of nowhere.

This was the first Lakers home game after a six-game road trip where Reaves struggled from beyond the arc, going 9-39.

He entered the final frame, struggling from the field overall, shooting 3-8, and passed up on a couple of open looks from beyond the arc. Still, Reaves did what many great players do and worked through his slow start and played his best when it mattered most.

Reaves’ offensive onslaught in the fourth started mildly with a free throw technical. But like an avalanche, it was the movement he needed to build up his momentum.

With the Lakers down by one with less than nine minutes to go, Reaves responded by knocking down a pair of threes. He continued to attack the paint, drawing contact and getting to the line. After hitting a pair from the charity stripe, he followed that up with another from downtown.

The subdued crowd erupted as the make gave the Lakers a 13-point edge with less than three minutes left to play.

Defense to offense 💪 pic.twitter.com/NSkvEanepG

— Los Angeles Lakers (@Lakers) March 28, 2026

LA never gave up control and Reaves scored the final points of the night with a late 3-pointer in the closing seconds of the contest.

It was an ugly win, but it counts just as much as all their quality victories. And with the Western Conference playoff race being as tight as it is, winning is all that matters and Reaves knows that better than most.

“Just continuing to play hard and play the right way,” Reaves said. “Yeah, it’s a tough game, but you got to go to work and be successful.”

The Lakers will only go as far as Dončić and Reaves will take them. As the stakes of these Lakers games increase, Reaves will have to elevate his game. So watching him do just that, even on a night when it looked like he couldn’t reach that level, was encouraging.

You can follow Edwin on Twitter at @ECreates88 or on Bluesky at @ecreates88.bsky.social.

Credit to the fearless Brooklyn Nets fans who pushed through another late night, staying up into the early hours of Saturday to watch a team grind through the final game of a rough West Coast road trip. Unfortunately, it was for naught.

On Friday, the Nets dropped their 10th straight, despite a valiant effort, falling 116-99 to the red-hot Los Angeles Lakers. With the loss, Brooklyn’s position in the race to the bottom didn’t change. They remain in second place in the Tankathon rankings, but they’re now only a single game out of the top seed.

Brooklyn got off to a rough start off the opening tip, and LA took full advantage of it. Brooklyn opened the game by missing their first five attempts from beyond the arc, while the Lakers opened the game on a 15-4 run.

By the end of the first quarter, though, the Nets had settled in, trimming the deficit to five at 35-30. Josh Minott led the charge with eight points off the bench while knocking down two of his three attempts from 3-point range.

He ultimately finished the night with 18 points in 26 minutes, shooting50% from the field and 44% from beyond the 3-point stripe. Since being acquired from the Boston Celtics in exchange for $110,000 in cash —the minimum required to complete a trade— and given an extended look, Minott has thrived in Brooklyn.

Josh Minott with an insane and-one over Jaxson Hayes. pic.twitter.com/lo0qVaIBRS

— Erik Slater (@erikslater_) March 28, 2026

Prior to tonight, the 6’8” 23-year-old had averaged 13.6 points, three rebounds, 1.6 assists, and 1.6 steals in 24.2 minutes throughout his last five outings. He shot 51% from the field over that span while knocking down 15 of his 29 attempts from 3-point territory (51.7%).

Entering halftime, the Nets were trailing by just two, 61-59.

Nic Claxton finished the half as the team’s leading scorer with 12 points on 86% shooting, adding five rebounds and a block while controlling the interior. Brooklyn closed the half with a jolt as first-round rookie Nolan Taoré drilled a 27-footer at the buzzer after an errant pass from Noah Clowney.

Nolan called BANK at the buzzer!!! pic.twitter.com/26CeYhpkFT

— Brooklyn Nets (@BrooklynNets) March 28, 2026

Clear the runway for takeoff! 🛫

Watch LIVE: https://t.co/sWMqNZ0hcipic.twitter.com/AKTx8MKaH2

— YES Network (@YESNetwork) March 28, 2026

Traoré had nine points at the break, though it came on inefficient shooting (4-of-12 from the field, 1-of-4 from three). By the end of the night, he had contributed seven assists and four steals, though he struggled with turnovers, committing six.

Off the bench, fellow rookie Ben Saraf provided a strong spark, finishing the half with six points in eight minutes on 3-of-5 shooting from the field, along with two rebounds and two assists.

It continues to be an impressive stretch for the Johannesburg, South Africa native. In the team’s last outing against the Golden State Warriors, the rookie tallied 14 points on 5-of-9 shooting (2-of-3 from three), while adding seven assists, four rebounds, and two steals, which followed his career-high 22 points against the Sacramento Kings with five assists to boot.

Overall, in the second quarter, Brooklyn outscored Los Angeles 29-26 to trim their deficit. It was a very strong offensive half for the Lakers, converting on 56.1% of their field goal attempts while committing just six turnovers. Defensively, though, they struggled, falling to make second efforts with rotations and particularly box-outs down low.

The primary reason Los Angeles still held the lead at the break was Luke Dončić, who poured in 24 first-half points before finishing the night with 41 points over 39 minutes.

“Don’t be discouraged, because you may play a great possession and he [Dončić] will still make the shot,” said Jordi Fernández when speaking to reporters before the game. “I think the best defenders in the world move on to the next possession, and that is extremely important. You’ve got to show him different looks, you’ve got to be very aggressive.”

Ziaire Williams also continued his strong run of play, finishing with 16 points in 25 minutes on 43% shooting from the field while adding two rebounds, two assists, and three steals, while showcasing maximum effort on the defensive end of the floor against Dončić.

Dončić was assessed a technical foul in the third quarter after things got chippy between him and Williams. If uphelp, it would be his 16th of the season, automatically triggering a one-game suspension for the six-time All-Star.

"Just (being) competitive. I'm always (going to) compete no matter who it is," Ziaire Williams said postgame of his run-in with Luka Dončić. "So I guess he didn't like the physicality or whatever it was. But no hard feelings on this end."

— Dan Woike (@DanWoikeSports) March 28, 2026

Entering the final frame, Brooklyn trailed just 85-84 as Los Angeles struggled to pull ahead of the league’s youngest team, while the Nets kept competing at a high level. The team outscored the Lakers in the quarter once again, 25-24.

Down the stretch, Terance Mann made several clutch defensive plays, including a stellar block against Jared Vanderbilt with 6:04 to play while Brooklyn trailed, 98-92.

However, a quick 10-2 burst by Los Angeles near the first mark created just enough separation for Brooklyn to trail for the rest of the night before officially falling, 116-99.

Bottom line: the Lakers Big Three responded when needed. As noted, Doncic finished with 41 points, Austin Reaves had 26, 15 in the final quarter, and LeBron James 14. The King also made history when he found his son, Bronny, for a 3-pointer in the second quarter and was credited with the first father-to-son assist in NBA history.

Overall, it was a performance that fans could appreciate. The team went punch-for-punch with one of the league’s best, and when the tank matters more than ever, the loss also helped them there too.

Final: Los Angeles Lakers 116, Brooklyn Nets 99

Milestone Watch

• Ziaire Williams logged 16 points vs. LAL to extend his career-long streak to five straight games with 15+ points. He also has three steals, extending his career-long streak to 14 straight games with a steal. It is the longest by a Net since D’Angelo Russell (16) in 2019.

Next Up

The Nets return home on Sunday against the Sacramento Kings, with the focus solely on the tank.

Sacramento enters the weekend at 17-55 with the team’s next matchup being on Saturday evening against the Atlanta Hawks. Brooklyn, meanwhile, sits at 17-57, one game behind the 16-58 Indiana Pacers in the race for the best lottery odds, who lost 114-113 to the Los Angeles Clippers on Friday night.

• Boxscore: Los Angeles Lakers 116, Brooklyn Nets 99 – NBA
• Game Highlights: Los Angeles Lakers 116, Brooklyn Nets 99 (Video) – NBA
• Jordi Fernandez PostGame Comments (Video) – NBA
• Terance Mann PostGame Comments (Video) – NBA
• Ziaire Williams PostGame Comments (Video) – NBA
• Noah Clowney PostGame Comments (Video) – NBA
• Luka Doncic scores 41 points and gets his 16th technical foul in Lakers’ 116-99 win over Nets – Greg Beacham – AP
• Nets lose to Lakers 116-99 despite Josh Minott’s 18 points – Sharif Phillips-Keaton – USA TODAY

BOSTON — For months, whether Jayson Tatum was going to return to the court was one of the biggest questions in basketball.

We saw glimpses of his on-court workouts and heard nothing but positive things about how he looked to his teammates, but the door was left open — and discourse intensified — when he went on the Pivot Podcast in January and expressed reluctance about whether he should come back.

Tatum pointed to the Celtics’ success without him — they held the Eastern Conference’s second seed for most of the year — and candidly reflected on the fact that a return wouldn’t be seamless.

“There is a thought in my head, like, how does that work? Or how does that look with me integrating myself off the injury … 50, 60 games into a season? There obviously could be some challenges. And it is a thought: Do I come back? Should I wait? It’s something that I honestly, recently, in the last two weeks or so just kind of contemplate every single day.”

By now, we all know where Tatum landed: he ultimately decided to come back, less than 10 months after rupturing his Achilles. In three weeks since his return, he’s played in all but one game, averaging 19.8 points, 9.5 rebounds, and 3.8 assists per game.

Of late, the minutes restriction has seemingly lifted — Tatum logged 37 minutes on Friday night against the Hawks — and his rebounding has shown no drop-off.

Still, as he’s routinely told reporters, he’s rusty and still trying to regain his rhythm and flow on the court. Even his handle has felt off at times, an aspect of his game that is unrelated to his Achilles injury.

Earlier this week, I penned a column about how I believed fans should think about Jayson Tatum’s return. Much of the discourse centered on his shooting woes rather than on his improbable on-court impact.

(Tatum is shooting 38.3% from the field and 30.3% from three in 10 games this season).

In effect, I concluded, that mere weeks after his debut, we had already lost sight of the big picture.

The big picture is this: Tatum tore his Achilles tendon last May and returned to the floor less than 10 months after suffering the injury. He’s been back on the court for less than three weeks. The choice to re-acclimate (and, unavoidably, struggle) in the public eye was a brave one, and, though it’s not unheard of to do so, it’s also very uncommon for a player of his caliber to return as quickly as he did.

Take a look at three other former NBA All-Stars who suffered the same injury in 2025: Dejounte Murray (injured in January), Damian Lillard (injured in April), and Tyrese Haliburton (injured in June). Lillard and Haliburton were immediately ruled out of the 2025-2026 season, while Murray rehabbed for 13 months — nearly four more than Tatum — before returning to the floor.

Tatum did not give himself that same grace; he opted to work tirelessly to lace up for the Celtics this season, knowing that a playoff run was ahead. 

One of the many fun aspects of being a reporter is that you’re able to ask players (and coaches) to weigh in on any proposition you’ve formed in your head.

So, after the Celtics’ 109-102 win over the Atlanta Hawks, I asked Tatum if the idea of getting to fully shake off the rust and take another 4-to-5 months to rehab in private was ever tempting.

It was a decision, after all, that most of his NBA peers made, and one that would have taken lots of the pressure off — every misstep could have occurred in private, at the Celtics’ practice facility, rather than on national television. There’s a world where he returned to NBA action after months and months of full-speed 5-on-5 scrimmages, rather than weeks.

“That’s a loaded response,” Tatum said, with a smile. “It was a range of emotions, of things I was dealing with and contemplating and thinking about.”

Then, he addressed a reality he’d rarely touched upon since his return: this Celtics team was a championship contender.

Could he really pass up the opportunity to be a part of that?

“A lot of it had to do with where the team was at, and never wanting to take moments in a season for granted, just thinking like, ‘Oh, we’ll be good next year,’” Tatum said. “It’s like, I’ve been in the league [a long time], I’ve been fortunate to be on a lot of really good teams. And, you never want to take for granted the opportunity to be on the team that’s contending for a championship.”

Asked Jayson Tatum if it was ever tempting to wait until next season, knowing that he could shake off the rust behind closed doors rather than in public.

Thought his answer was super thoughtful:

"It was a range of emotions, of things I was dealing with and contemplating and… pic.twitter.com/UXbCRL9SIU

— Noa Dalzell 🏀 (@NoaDalzell) March 28, 2026

The Celtics, however you want to slice it, are championship contenders. They have the East’s second-best record at 49-24 (and the fourth-best overall record, trailing only the Detroit Pistons, Oklahoma City Thunder, and San Antonio Spurs). They have the league’s second-best offense and fourth-best defense. They’re the favorite to come out of the East despite the Pistons’ excellent regular season, and Tatum quickly recognized that reality.

This week alone, they’ve beaten a Thunder team that had won 15 of their last 16 games, and a Hawks team that had won 15 of their last 17.

Jayson Tatum could have watched that all pay out from the sidelines, or he could have chosen to be a part of it.

He, unsurprisingly, chose the ladder.

And he did so knowing that it might — at times — be ugly.

“It was a lot of people I talked to to make the decision, knowing that I wasn’t going to be perfect when I first came on the floor,” Tatum said. “But, showing my teammates that I was willing to fight through it, and give it my all, even though I wouldn’t be as in-rhythm or in-condition at first. I knew it was going to take some time, but I wanted to be out there with them. I was gonna do whatever it took.”

LOS ANGELES — Luka Doncic had 41 points and eight rebounds while also picking up his suspension-triggering 16th technical foul during the Los Angeles Lakers ‘ 116-99 victory over the Brooklyn Nets on Friday night.

Austin Reaves scored 15 of his 26 points in the fourth quarter while the Lakers finally pulled away from the young Nets to secure their 11th victory in 12 games.

LeBron James added 14 points and eight assists for the Lakers in their return from a 5-1 road trip that has put them in third in the Western Conference standings.

Josh Minott had 18 points and six rebounds in Brooklyn’s 10th consecutive loss.

Nic Claxton and Ziaire Williams scored 16 points apiece while leading the Nets’ lively effort, but both starters were kept on the bench for the entire fourth quarter along with Noah Clowney.

The young Nets still hung with the road-weary Lakers until the final minutes, erasing an early double-digit deficit and leading in the fourth quarter of their 20th loss in 22 games overall.

Doncic hit five 3-pointers during his 15th 40-point game of the season, but the Slovenian superstar found trouble when he and Williams were whistled for double technical fouls in the third quarter.

Williams was celebrating an offensive foul called against Doncic by gleefully screaming in Doncic’s personal space.

When Doncic reached out to shove Williams’ arm, Williams responded with a backhand swipe across Doncic’s face.

Unless Doncic’s technical is rescinded, he will be suspended for a game.

He already had a technical rescinded last week after he was whistled for a verbal altercation with Orlando’s Goga Bitadze.

Bronny James played alongside his famous father for the second straight game, with LeBron getting the first father-son assist in NBA history on Bronny’s 3-pointer in the second quarter.

Bronny has been limited largely to mop-up action in his first two NBA seasons, but he has earned rotation minutes this week in the injury absence of Marcus Smart.

Bronny and Williams played together in high school at Sierra Canyon School in suburban Los Angeles.

The Dallas Mavericks picked up a rousing 100-93 win against the Portland Trail Blazers. Cooper Flagg and Marvin Bagley had monster games for the Mavericks, while Portland had one of the worst offensive games of a team in the last decade. Not overexaggerating!

This was a rock fight from the start, although Dallas did extend to a double-digit lead in the second quarter. Portland got things close in the third, and from there till the final buzzer both teams traded haymakers and mistakes. This was not a pretty game, but the Mavericks got it done.

Here are the stats to know.

26: Marvin Bagley points

Marvin Bagley had a season-high 26 points on a terrific 11-of-14 shooting, including 3-of-5 from three. It was a terrific game, not only his best as a Maverick, but one of the best this season and maybe his career.

What was really notable about Bagley’s performance is how fast he was. He made Portland center Donovan Clingan look like he was wearing cement shoes, routinely getting the ball up to the rim and jumping for a rebound before Clingan could even leave his feat. Bagley dominated Clingan to an almost alarming degree.

7-of-11: Cooper Flagg’s paint shooting

Portland prides itself on the defensive end, and lord knows they have to considering how much their offense stinks. Clingan is a good rim protector, and the Blazers deploy multiple length, physical wings to deter perimeter scorers. Oh and they still have Jrue Holiday, who is still a pest even at his current age.

So this is a team tailor built to stop someone like Flagg from exposing them in the paint. Yet Flagg did that routinely against Portland, shooting an efficient 7-of-11 in the paint. Flagg was able to get inside despite physical defense and did a good job finishing and making the right reads.

6-of-11: Mavericks shooting on corner 3s

Dallas’ offense might be rudderless most nights, but they do have a passion for attacking the paint without fear or hesitation. The Mavericks are a top-10 paint points team on the season, doing everything they can to compensate for their lousy three point shooting.

Against the Blazers tonight, Dallas got a ton of good corner threes, and knocked down six of them. The 11 attempts are the noteworthy part, and show how well the Mavericks were able to take the Blazers off the dribble and get into the paint. Those paint attacks opened up the corners and despite the Mavericks not having a great overall three point shooting night, they made the ones they absolutely needed.

There were two different motivations for the teams in this game, one in need of a win for playoff positioning and one … not wanting a win. But if you weren’t familiar with the two teams in this game, you might have guessed the Jazz were the ones looking for the win and the Nuggets were not interested in taking this game. Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets defense was as bad as it gets. Nikola Jokic couldn’t have shown less interest in defending the rim and the Jazz took advantage all night long driving to the basket and scoring at will.

This is a truly atrocious defensive performance by Denver. They've given up a 128 drtg to Utah despite the Jazz shooting 7/27 from 3. Jazz are at 71% from 2, and have 23 assists–just on shots at the rim!

— Nate Duncan (@NateDuncanNBA) March 28, 2026

That said, the Nuggets were able to gut this one out with Utah sitting a few players to end the game and having Bez Mbeng play the entire 4th quarter (he was a -16). With all that, Denver squeaked out a win 135-129.

If you’re a Nuggets fan, you can’t feel good about what you’re seeing. That defense is 1st round sweep bad. Maybe they turn it around in the playoffs, but that’s hard to do. If you’re a Jazz fan, you have to be really excited about what you’re seeing from the young core of players, especially from Cody Williams and Ace Bailey. Williams had arguably the best game of his career with 24 points, 7 assists, and 2 steals. He’s playing with so much more confidence than in the past and has become a real asset across multiple facets of his game. Utah has created a roster with two-way talent across the board, and Cody fits into that in a big way. Ace Bailey didn’t have a great night shooting the three, but he continues to show why he’s got such a bright future. His defense is as exciting as his offense and helps him make an impact when his scoring isn’t there. Bailey dealt with foul trouble tonight, which is why he only played 27 minutes. But these minutes he’s getting are invaluable for Bailey’s growth and will pay dividends in the future because he’s getting a taste of certain things sooner rather than later.

With this loss, Utah is now three games up on Dallas in the lottery standings and is in great position to keep their pick and it will be a very successful season if they do. If Utah jumps in the lottery, it’ll be a season for the ages.

Luka Doncic led the Los Angeles Lakers in the 116-99 victory over the Brooklyn Nets at Crypto.com Arena on March 27.

Doncic had 41 points, eight rebounds, three assists and three steals in 39 minutes played for the Lakers.

The guard also received his 16th technical foul of the season, meaning he is likely to face a one-game suspension.

“I’m sure we will appeal it,” Lakers coach JJ Redick told reporters after the game. “I didn’t see what happened.”

Doncic was seen pushing Nets forward Ziaire Williams, who then retaliated by swinging his arm back and hitting Doncic in the face.

“He was in my face three times,” Doncic told reporters after the game. “I just wanted to get out of there. They said I pushed (Williams).”

pic.twitter.com/EqF9UISJjc

— @MindOfBron (@FunKneeBone) March 28, 2026

Doncic was previously called for a technical foul during a game against the Orlando Magic on Saturday, March 21. It would have been his 16th technical foul, but the NBA decided to rescind it. The decision allowed Doncic to avoid a suspension and play in the game against the Detroit Pistons on Monday, March 23.

When do Lakers play next?

The Lakers will host the Washington Wizards on Monday, March 30 at 10 p.m. ET.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Lakers' Luka Doncic called for 16th technical foul in win vs. Nets