Category: Sports News

LOS ANGELES — Clara Massey stood behind her walker and methodically moved in front of Crypto.com Arena after trekking from her nearby apartment. She was wearing a purple Los Angeles Lakers jersey, a purple Lakers cap and sunglasses with yellow frames (or, as any self-respecting Lakers fans would point out, Lakers gold.)

“I just come down, walk around and get the good energy and give the good energy,’’ Massey told USA TODAY Sports.

That pregame energy was mostly pro-LeBron James with the Lakers on the verge of elimination from the playoffs on Monday, May 11 and Game 4 against the Oklahoma City Thunder potentially being James’ last with the Lakers, if not the NBA altogether.

As tipoff grew closer, the moment prompted the following question: Has James' time with the Lakers been a failure?

Despite the fact James led the Lakers to a championship – the 17^th in franchise history in 2020 that culminated in the NBA bubble in Walt Disney World in Florida. Despite the fact he became the NBA's all-time leading scorer in front of Lakers fans when he overtook Lakers great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Despite the dunks, the 3-pointers and, well, more than a few turnovers.

“I think he did a lot,’’ Massey said. “Won a championship. And he’s still contributing. He’s a pretty strong force.’’

Massey’s fondness for James goes beyond his on-court accomplishments in Los Angeles.

“I think he’s a great basketball player, a great figure in sports,’’ she said, reflecting on the time LeBron James and Bronny spent on the court together during the Lakers first-round series against the Houston Rockets.

“Did someone else do that for their child?’’ she said. “I bet if he could he would teach the world basketball.’’

Higher expectations

Four young men wearing Kobe Bryant jerseys and t-shirts surely would offer a tougher assessment.

“If LeBron can win another championship here, he deserves a statue,’’ Matthew Dominguez of Sylmar, California, said, of the statues outside Crypto.com Arena reserved for Laker greats like Kobe Bryant, Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. “I think he knew what we expected. But we’re so grateful. He doesn’t deserve all the hate.’’

In fact, Dominguez said he hopes the Lakers keep James. That James could be key to the team winning another NBA title, something the fans like Dominguez are craving.

“And if he doesn’t do it for us, do it for Bronny,’’ Dominguez.

'No small feat'

Aiden Rivas, wearing a No. 6 jersey with James on the back, was standing in line outside Crypto.com Arena more than an hour before the doors opened. Speaking of which, Lakers fans might not have been so open to James’ coming to the Lakers, according to Rivas.

They feared Los Angeles might just be another stop as he jumped from one team to another. They assumed he was here to live in Los Angeles more than play for the Lakers.

Those concerns receded, Rivas, 20, told USA TODAY Sports.

“He brought us a ring, and that’s no small feat,’’ Rivas said. “Overall, I think he did a great job of getting us to the playoffs almost every year. That’s huge.

“I remember the times we couldn’t make it to the playoffs and we had Jordan Clarkson.’’

Sorry, Jordan.

Siblings perspective

Jesse and Lizbeth Medina, siblings who live in Los Angeles, sat outside Crypto.com Arena.

Jesse Medina, 25, said of James, “I think LeBron was good for PR, good for fan engagement but Luka (Doncic) will transform the team.’’

Lizabeth Medina, wearing a Kobe Bryant jersey, said of James' time here, “I was expecting another championship.’’

But she sounded optimistic it’ll happen.

With Doncic, not James, leading the Lakers.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: LeBron James' Lakers tenure may be coming to an end. Was it a failure?

Playoff basketball rolls on without the Phoenix Suns. That doesn’t mean they aren’t watching. In some cases, they’re getting quite the view.

The Los Angeles Lakers hosted the Oklahoma City Thunder for Game 4 of the Western Conference Semifinals on Monday night, and a familiar face was sitting in the crowd. Thunder guards Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Luguentz Dort share something in common with Suns forward Dillon Brooks, as all three are members of Team Canada. So, in a game in which SGA and Dort could potentially clinch their second consecutive trip to the Western Conference Finals, it wasn’t surprising to see their national teammate Dillon Brooks sitting baseline at Crypto.com Arena taking in the game.

Dillon Brooks got front row seats to hate watch LeBron 😭😭 pic.twitter.com/UkadcrPwrH

— BrickCenter (@BrickCenter_) May 12, 2026

What made it even more entertaining is Brooks’ ongoing rivalry with LeBron James. The two have had plenty of run-ins over the years, some dating back to Brooks’ time with the Memphis Grizzlies, others happening this past season with Phoenix. When the Amazon Prime broadcast cut to Brooks sitting courtside, iced out in jewelry as LeBron stood at the free throw line, it felt very on brand.

And knowing Brooks, there were probably a few comments exchanged as he rooted for his friends to take down the Lakers.

Dillon Brooks is extension-eligible this upcoming offseason, and it’ll be interesting to see which direction the Phoenix Suns choose to go. Do they get ahead of it now and lock him up early? Or do they wait until next summer, when he becomes an unrestricted free agent and revisit it then?

He was a major part of the identity and culture shift Phoenix experienced this past season, and that carries real value. The question is how much value the organization places on it financially. Until then, it’s nice to see Brooks enjoying the offseason and continuing the Suns tradition of rooting against the Los Angeles Lakers.

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The Cleveland Cavaliers ran the Pistons back to Detroit, tying the series at 2-2 behind a huge second half.

Let’s go over today’s winners and losers.

WINNER – Third Quarter CAVALANCHE

An aspect of this era of Cavalier basketball is that no matter how a game is trending, one four-minute stretch can change everything. While that’s true for both the good and bad — the Cavalanche has earned its name for a reason.

Detroit rolled into halftime feeling pretty good. They had weathered an early storm and controlled the rest of the half behind their defense. They ended the second quarter with a 56-52 lead.

Four minutes into the third quarter, the Pistons still had 56 points, while the Cavs had jumped to 75. That’s a 23-0 run led by Donovan Mitchell, who scored 15 points during that sequence. Rocket Arena turned into a madhouse, and a full-throated ‘Jarrett Allen’ chant capped off the run.

It just takes a couple thousand people yelling Jarrett Allen’s name for him to dunk it. pic.twitter.com/zs3796KVfF

— Jackson Flickinger (@JacksFlickinger) May 12, 2026

This type of heavyweight punch is what makes it hard to count the Cavs out.

WINNER – First Quarter Harden

You can’t ask for a much better start than that.

Cleveland lost both games in Detroit largely because of their slow starts. James Harden made sure that no matter what happened tonight, the Cavs wouldn’t leave with that same feeling.

Harden opened the game on fire. He scored 11 points in the first four minutes, banging three-pointers and even racking up two steals during that stretch. The Cavs defense was successful early on, and Harden surprisingly played a key role in setting that tone.

Sadly, that hot start didn’t spread to the rest of the team (or the rest of the quarter). Cleveland went cold once Harden went to the bench, somehow shooting just 30% from the floor and ending the quarter down by three points.

LOSER – The Caris LeVert Wheel

Cavs fans will be familiar with this. But in case you’re not, the ‘LeVert Wheel’ refers to the idea that on any given night, LeVert will play like any number of former players. For instance, sometimes he’s Michael Jordan, other times he’s closer to Alonzo Gee.

The wheel landed on Jordan tonight.

LeVert had confidence early. His first few jumpers hardly even touched the net. Shot after shot went through the basket as LeVert worked his way to 17 points on 7-12 shooting in the first half. All the while, he gave Donovan Mitchell fits defensively and forced several turnovers on various Cavs drives, including one where he stripped the ball out of bounds off Evan Mobley’s knee.

That type of support from a role player can be enough to steal a game on the road.

WINNER – Donovan Mitchell

We’ve already talked a bit about Mitchell. But he took so many lumps throughout the first round, I think it’s worth focusing on him one more time.

This whole thing was built around Mitchell.

Maybe not originally. The Cavs probably thought that Mobley would have been their best player by now when they first traded for Mitchell. But as Mitchell blossomed into a legit First-Team All-NBA player, and Mobley’s development crawled at a slower pace than expected, it became clear who was the centerpiece of this team.

The Harden trade cemented that. No more two-timelines. Only one. And that would be Mitchell’s.

With all this in mind, it was alarming to see Mitchell struggle to start this postseason. No version of the Cavs competes for a title without a superstar leader in Mitchell. His inefficient scoring and questionable decision-making were a significant concern.

That’s starting to change.

Mitchell found life in Game 2. He carried that over for a monstrous 35 points in Game 3. Then, after a slow start to Game 4, he broke free for 21 points in the third quarter, matching LeBron James and Kyrie Irving for the highest scoring quarter in franchise history. Reminding us of why this team has the expectations it does, in the first place.

“To turn it around the way he did, I’m not sure I’ve seen something like that in the playoffs,” said Kenny Atkinson after the game.

A whopping 39 points in the second half tied an NBA record and brought Mitchell’s total to 43 for the night. It’s his eighth playoff game of 40+ points and his fourth as a Cavalier. His best performances give Cleveland a punch it can’t get anywhere else on the roster.

CLEVELAND — The Cleveland Cavaliers are back on even footing in their second-round series after Donovan Mitchell’s huge second half.

Mitchell tied an NBA playoff mark with 39 points in the final two quarters as he rallied the Cavaliers to a 112-103 victory Monday night.

“What a shift, right? Really struggled in the first half and then big-time, second-half performance by Don,” Cavaliers coach Kenny Atkinson said.

The home team has won all four games in the series, which shifts to Detroit for Game 5 Wednesday night.

Mitchell matched the mark of Eric “Sleepy” Floyd on a free throw with 27.6 seconds remaining. He had a chance to break the record, set in 1987 when the Golden State Warriors faced the Los Angeles Lakers, but missed his second foul shot.

“Everybody let me know that I missed a free throw to break the record, though,” said Mitchell, who finished with 43 points. “I will say that, but we’re two and two headed to Detroit. That was what we came home to do and that’s all that matters.”

James Harden had his 40th playoff double-double with 24 points and 11 assists. Evan Mobley had 17 points as Cleveland remained unbeaten at home in six playoff games.

Caris LeVert had a season-high 24 points for Detroit. Cade Cunningham scored 19, the first time he has been held under 20 in 11 playoff games this season, and Tobias Harris added 16.

Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff, who takes pride in the physical style his team plays, was not pleased with the free throw disparity. Mitchell had more trips to the foul line (15) than Detroit (12).

“There is no way one guy on their team should have more free throws than our team. We’re not a settling for jump shots team,” he said. “We didn’t do enough to help ourselves, but ever since we came to Cleveland, the whistle has changed.”

Even though Mitchell struggled in the first half and the Cavaliers shot 15 of 38, with most of their shots being 3-pointers, the Cavaliers felt pretty fortunate to be down 56-52 at halftime.

Atkinson’s message at halftime was to play with more pace and attack downhill, which opened things up.

Mitchell scored 15 during Cleveland’s 24-0 run that went from the last 12 seconds of the first half to the first six minutes of the third quarter. Cleveland trailed 56-52 at halftime before taking control.

The Cavs were 10 of 12 from the field and made three 3-pointers. They also converted five turnovers by the Pistons into nine points.

“When (Mitchell) sees a gap, he’s going to go. We’ve got to eliminate his touches and catches on the run,” Cunningham said. “That run, we just never caught our footing again. That was the first time they really got loose in the series.”

The 24-0 run was the longest in an NBA playoff game since since Minnesota also scored 24 straight in Game 6 of its Western Conference semifinal series against Denver in 2024. It was also the longest spurt by Cleveland in a postseason game since play-by-play stats were kept in 1997-98. The previous high was 19 in an Eastern semifinal series contest against Boston.

“We understood if we could just get some stops and get out in transition and get some easier looks, we’ll be in good shape. We were doing a solid job, we just weren’t scoring,” Mitchell said, “I think understanding that we were in a good spot and did a good job of weathering a storm.”

Mitchell and Harden accounted for 49 points apiece with their points scored and points off assists. Mobley was a force on both ends of the court with eight rebounds, five assists, three steals and five blocked shots.

“Don’s going to get all the flowers, but we should give a lot of flowers to Mobley for tonight’s performance,” Atkinson said.

This one wasn’t all that close.

Everything looked bad at the start of the game as Cleveland got out to a 13-5 run. With two quick fouls on Ausar Thompson, Caris LeVert checked in and started playing his best ball of the season. He helped Detroit reclaim the lead and they took a 24-21 lead at the end of the first quarter. It was a good turnaround after Cleveland led by 11 and had zero fouls called on them.

The off-ball defense from Detroit was poor all game as they lost Cavs shooters multiple times for open catch-and-shoot looks. It was all tied up 38-38 halfway through the quarter until a Tobias Harris three put him in double-digits and gave them a four-point lead a few possessions later. Detroit would take a 56-52 halftime lead.

The Pistons had 10 first half turnovers that let Cleveland stay close while shooting 55% from the field and holding the Cavs to 40%. LeVert, Harris, and Cunningham combined for 43 of Detroit’s 56 points. James Harden had 15 points and Evan Mobley added 11 points.

This game was over as soon as both teams came out of the locker rooms.

Despite shooting 1-for-8 in the first half, Donovan Mitchell came out on fire and never cooled off. Cleveland started the second half with an 8-0 run, all from Mitchell. After JB Bickerstaff called a timeout, the Cavs went on another 8-0 run into another JBB timeout. By the time unsung hero Paul Reed finally put an end to the bleeding, Cleveland went on a 22-0 run.

Bball Paul was the lone bright spot for Detroit in the third quarter. He made all six of his shots for 13 points in the quarter. Mitchell ended up with 21 points in the third, equivalent to the number of points the Pistons scored in the quarter as well.

The final score makes the game look closer than it was. Cleveland was up by 17 with less than three minutes left and a late push by Reed and the third stringers forced the Cavs starters back in late. Detroit would lose 112-103.

This will be a game to forget, and one where the film won’t be pretty. LeVert finished with 24 points, Cade added 19 points, Harris had 16 points, and Reed had 15. Duncan Robinson played 29 minutes to score four points on only two field goal attempts. Ausar Thompson played 12 minutes in the first half and seven minutes in the second while Donovan Mitchell tied an NBA record with 39 second half points.

Jalen Duren was not good. He looked bad from the start of the game and finished with eight points on eight shots while only grabbing two rebounds in 27 minutes. Isaiah Stewart only played seven minutes but grabbed one more rebound. Both bigs were outplayed by third stringer Reed who had 15 points, four rebounds, two assists, and a steal in only 14 minutes.

I dunno, man. We played 11 guys if you don’t include Sasser’s garbage time minutes while Ausar played 19 and Stew played seven. Daniss played 21 minutes and missed all four of his field goal attempts. Leaving Ausar on the bench for six combined points out of Duncan and Daniss is an issue when Mitchell is having an NBA record-tying performance.

It is what it is – it didn’t go well tonight, but the Pistons have homecourt advantage and will look to use that on Wednesday night in Little Caesars Arena. They’ll need to come out with a better performance that tonight if they want to win this series.

Go Stones.

Uhhhhhh.

Andrej might not be coming back.

The Illini wing put on a show Monday night at the NBA Draft Combine in Chicago. A good week for Stojakovic in the Windy City could push him to stay in the NBA Draft rather than return for his second year at Illinois (and his fourth overall in college).

In the maximum vertical jump, Stojakovic finished atop the leaderboard at 41.5 inches.

Max vert pic.twitter.com/SiKQtuAOt9

— Tyler Rucker (@tyler_rucker) May 12, 2026

Andrej Stojakovic 41.5” Max Vert @NoCeilingsNBApic.twitter.com/oMEdhkrd4J

— ALBERT GHIM (@albertoeghim) May 11, 2026

While he won’t participate in the 5-on-5 scrimmages at the combine, Stojakovic is making a name for himself with his athleticism, which he flashed at times last year off the bench during Illinois’ Final Four run.

It’d be great to have him back in orange and blue next year, but you can’t blame him if he’s able to assure that he’s a high second-round pick and has a real chance at the NBA.

The Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Detroit Pistons 112-103 in Game 4, riding Donovan Mitchell’s 43 points to a tied series back to Motown.

Cleveland started this game hot. They jumped out to a 14-5 lead in the opening minutes as James Harden poured in 11 of those points all on his own. He nabbed two steals and banged home a pair of triples as the Cavs had their best start to a game this series.

That didn’t last long.

The lead was quickly reversed once Harden went to the bench and the Cavs offense went frigid. Some timely shot-making from Tobias Harris and Caris LeVert allowed the Pistons to change momentum and end the first quarter with an advantage. LeVert started the game with 17 points on 7-12 shooting.

LeVert changed the dynamic of this game. Before his run, the Pistons’ offense was having a difficult time finding support for Cade Cunningham. LeVert not only provided aid but practically took the wheel and started driving this thing himself.

Then the third quarter came, and the Cavaliers gave us another example of how quickly playoff basketball can change.

A dominant 23-o run put the Cavs back in front. Donovan Mitchell erupted for 15 points during that sequence, breaking free from a hellish first half where he only scored 4 points. Mitchell’s scoring was complemented by an elite stretch of defense, with Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley shutting down the paint.

The Cavalanche is a real phenomenon and it’s maybe what makes them the most terrifying. Just an ability to absolutely pour it on.

An insane 23-0 run to start the 3rd quarter.

— Esfandiar Baraheni (@JustEsBaraheni) May 12, 2026

Detroit made a run to keep it within range through the third quarter. But Mitchell continued to apply pressure until the dam finally broke. He ended the night with 43 points to complement Harden’s double-double.

We have to take a moment to shout out both Allen and Mobley, who seem totally unbothered by Jalen Duren. The Cavs bigs have flipped the script by dominating Duren in the paint, combining for 26 points and 13 rebounds while holding Duren to just 8 points and 2 rebounds.

Still, the story of the night is Mitchell erupting for 39 points in the second half. This team is built around the idea of him being an All-NBA superstar. That looked pretty good tonight.

Game 5 is Wednesday in Detroit.