Category: Sports News

The Wizards couldn’t keep Moussa Diabate from getting offensive rebounds or Brandon Miller from scoring from everywhere, so they lost to the Hornets in Charlotte despite solid games from Anthony Davis and Trae Young.

Diabate grabbed eight offensive boards in the first half and finished with 11 for the game — a new career high. After a few bad possessions early with Bilal Coulibaly on him, Miller torched the Wizards from all over the floor — at-rim, mid-range, and threes. He finished with 39 points — a new career high.

As for the Wizards, Davis was pretty good, notching 29 points and 10 rebounds on solid efficiency. He had trouble containing Diabate, and communicated effectively on defense.

Young was crafty and effective for the most part, though he turned down a few threes he’d normally take. His passing threat was significant — looking at a teammate had Charlotte defenders jumping out of his way and leaving him open for layups.

One highly annoying development: going for a rebound, Justin Champagnie landed on Naz Reid’s foot, and suffered what appeared to be a significant ankle or foot injury.

From the notebook

• It’s only four games, but I’m not sold on the Wizards shot selection.
• One play annoyed me — Davis turned down an open three with a late closeout. Instead of side-stepping into a truly wide open three (which is a fundamental in today’s game), Davis took a dribble and stepped in for a long two, which he missed.
• I have no data to back this up, but my impression from watching Bub Carrington for two full seasons and the start of his third is that he’s terrible at throwing lobs. He tried one to Coulibaly in the fourth quarter that would have been a simple turnover with any other teammate. Coulibaly skied to deflect the pass off the backboard, grabbed the carom, and threw it off a Charlotte player while falling out of bounds.
• The coaching staff’s decision to start doubling Miller in the final minutes of the game, helped stall Charlotte’s offensive attack and get Washington back in the game. The Hornets countered with Reid hitting an open three, and then countering by bring Grayson Allen one pass away. The Wizards couldn’t help off Allen (a superb three-point shooter), and Miller immediately scored.

Four Factors

Below are the four factors that decide wins and losses in basketball — shooting (efg), rebounding (offensive rebounds), ball handling (turnovers), fouling (free throws made).

The four factors are measured by:

• eFG% (effective field goal percentage, which accounts for the three-point shot)
• OREB% (offensive rebound percentage)
• TOV% (turnover percentage — turnovers divided by possessions)
• FTM/FGA (free throws made divided by field goal attempts)

Stats & Metrics

PPA is my overall production metric, which credits players for things they do that help a team win (scoring, rebounding, playmaking, defending) and dings them for things that hurt (missed shots, turnovers, bad defense, fouls).

PPA is a per possession metric designed for larger data sets. In small sample sizes, the numbers can get weird. In PPA, 100 is average, higher is better and replacement level is 45. For a single game, replacement level isn’t much use, and I reiterate the caution about small samples sometimes producing weird results.

POSS is the number of possessions each player was on the floor in this game.

ORTG = offensive rating, which is points produced per individual possessions x 100. League average so far this season is listed in the Four Factors table above. Points produced is not the same as points scored. It includes the value of assists and offensive rebounds, as well as sharing credit when receiving an assist.

USG = offensive usage rate. Average is 20%. Median so far this season is 17.7%.

ORTG and USG are versions of stats created by former Wizards assistant coach Dean Oliver and modified by me. ORTG is an efficiency measure that accounts for the value of shooting, offensive rebounds, assists and turnovers. USG includes shooting from the floor and free throw line, offensive rebounds, assists and turnovers.

+PTS = “Plus Points” is a measure of the points gained or lost by each player based on their efficiency in this game compared to league average efficiency on the same number of possessions. A player with an offensive rating (points produced per possession x 100) of 100 who uses 20 possessions would produce 20 points. If the league average efficiency is 115, the league — on average — would produced 23.0 points in the same 20 possessions. So, the player in this hypothetical would have a +PTS score of -3.0.

Players are sorted by total production in the game.

The Spurs are always out and about giving back to the community, and the latest example comes from Devin Vassell, who visited Harlandale High School yesterday to donate shoes to both the boys and girls basketball teams, specifically A’ja Wilsons for the girls and Devin Booker’s for the boys. He also included a $10,000 donation.

The kiddos were certainly excited to see one of their favorite Spurs! Afterwards, Vassell said, “The fans are amazing. The biggest thing is to be able to give back to them. It’s not just playing on the court and winning games. It’s them being able to see that we’re people just like them.”

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Pick your idiom. The Celtics took the Bulls by their horns. Boston was a bull in Chicago’s china shop. Jayson Tatum and Payton Pritchard bull-ied their visitors. Regardless, Boston enjoyed their first Gino Time win against Chicago on Monday night in a 134-99 running of the Bulls.

Why the Celtics won

Let’s be honest. Chicago is a rebuilding team trying to establish an identity under new head coach Tiago Splitter. With players like triple-double machine Josh Giddey and pogosticks rookie Caleb Wilson and Matas Buzelis, they want to fly up and down the court and get up a ton of shots. The Bulls press. The Bulls play zone defense and disrupt passing lanes. The more possessions, the more opportunities to see what they have with the sixth youngest roster.

Heading in last night’s game, the Bulls were first in pace and fourth in the league at three-point attempts at 41.3 a night at a 22.6% clip (worst in the NBA). Those are the telltale signs of a team in flux.

The Celtics, however, are the OG volume three-point shooting team and the rest of the league has now started to catch up.

Both teams got up the same number of triples in the blowout: 44. But as the 134-99 score suggests, the Celtics went old school with their possession maxxing. They grabbed more offensive rebounds (19-14) and turned 24 turnovers into a whopping 39 points, but it was Boston’s 27-point edge behind the arc that made the difference.

Nobody emulated that more than Payton Pritchard, the “coldest white boy,” against the Bulls. He scored 19 of 28 in the third quarter that included hitting 5-of-5 from three.

Numbers game: +34

Through the first two games of the season, Hugo Gonzalez only played fourteen minutes against the Pistons and Knicks, a disappointment development after, well, an offseason of promising development.

“I think he’s played well even in those two games, whether it’s two-and-a-half minutes or three minutes, he’s had a couple of offensive rebounds and done things that impacted winning,” Joe Mazzulla said of the young 20-year-old in this young season. “Tonight was louder. Tonight was the best version of him getting better, but those guys have a hard job, bringing it everyday. A lot of what they’re great at doesn’t show up on a score sheet, but tonight you did.”

After missing his only two shots and being a -17 to start, Gonzalez joined the rotation in a big way against the Bulls, posting 13 points, 5 rebounds, and two assists in nearly 24 minutes of play for a +34 on the night.

At halftime, Gonzalez told NBC Sports Boston’s Abby Chin that “everybody is ready. Everybody is meeting the challenge of the game.” That certainly applied to the second-year Spaniard who led his rookie class in plus-minus for the year.

Gonzalez was doing everything that has made him a fan favorite in his short time with the Celtics. Whether it’s grabbing offensive rebounds for an easy putback or driving the entire length of the floor for an and-1 layup, Hugo definitely made a case to Mazzulla for more minutes.

Must C’s

In a game muddled by 28 fouls apiece and 60 total free throws, there was little flow to the game, especially for two teams looking to ramp up activity on both sides of the ball.

But how’s that for a little flow? The Celtics outscored the Bulls 17-9 in fast break points that included that Derek White strip steal and coast-to-coast drive for a layup on the other end. Boston is a hair behind the Lakers for points off turnovers (26.3) and 4th at limiting them (15.3) — that’s an 11-point margin. Last season, it was only +1.2.

Who said what

“I don’t like it. He knows I don’t like it, but he’s got a little swagger with that. I also tried it the other day and it didn’t fit…that’s not for me. I’m not from Nebraska.” — Hugo Gonzalez on Baylor Scheierman’s headband

We’ll see Chicago again on Friday when the Bulls return for our first NBA Cup game. Tonight, the Celtics complete their first back-to-back hosting the visiting Brooklyn Nets at 7:30 pm EST. No word yet if it’s a headband night.

Like most Duke fans, we’re guessing, we’ve been excited to see how Cameron Boozer’s rookie season turns out.

Well, so far, so good.

Memphis is currently 4-0, which is even more impressive when you consider they’ve had to replace Ja Morant, and that Zach Edey is still on restricted minutes due to his ankle issue.

Somewhat surprisingly, Ty Jerome has emerged as an offensive force. In his first four games, he’s scored 45, 28, 31, and 15 points Monday night against the Utah Jazz.

This from a guy starting his eighth season and whose career scoring average is 9.7 points. Kind of wild.

But Boozer is a big part of the Grizzlies’ success. He’s being lauded by a lot of players as being advanced beyond his years, including Jerome. It’s probably not a coincidence that Jerome’s playing at an insane level. A journeyman guard, Jerome was leading the league in scoring at 34.7 points per game going into Monday night (his average is down to 29.8 now).

Boozer probably is making a lot of that possible since he’s drawing a lot of attention from defenses.

Against Utah, he finished with 13 points, 7 rebounds, and 4 assists. Most importantly, he finished with a win.

Again.

Among those who are impressed with Boozer is Golden State’s Draymond Green, who said this:

“So very impressed with Cam Boozer to start the season, but also just to go up against him for the first time, very strong, you know, doesn’t back down from a challenge. He talks out there on the floor. Like, I was very, very, very impressed with Cam Boozer. And so it’ll be interesting to see, you know, watch his progress as the season goes on to see how his career starts to play out, but I’m very impressed with Cam Boozer. Just, like I said, the thing that stood out most is he moves extremely well. He can handle the ball like he... that piece was shocking to me.”

“I thought he’d be a 20-10 guy anyway. I didn’t think it’d be like this though, like this type of 20-10, where it’s threes, it’s off the bounce, it’s off the post, offensive boards. Like I didn’t know it’d be all that. And so, yeah, very impressed with young Cam Boozer.”

• ‘That Piece Was Shocking to Me’: Draymond Green Did Not Have Answers for 19-Year-Old Rookie Who Gave Warriors an Embarrassing Loss
• ‘I had no clue’… Draymond Green shocked by how good Cam Boozer is after playing the Memphis Grizzlies
• Grizzlies’ Cameron Boozer is doing things as a rookie that haven’t been seen since Shaq, Elgin Baylor

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Warriors rookie Yaxel Lendeborg joins three Hall of Famers in exclusive NBA club originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

Yaxel Lendeborg’s NBA career is off to a historic start.

The Warriors rookie has been the team’s biggest bright spot early on in the 2026-27 NBA season, and he turned heads with a monster performance in Golden State’s 134-114 win over the Denver Nuggets on Monday at Ball Arena.

Lendeborg scored a career-high 31 points with 12 rebounds and six assists on 9-of-19 shooting from the field and 12 of 13 on free throws, becoming just the fourth player in NBA history (in the draft lottery era) to score 85-plus points with 35-plus rebounds in their first four games, per OptaSTATS, joining three Naismith Basketball Hall of Famers.

Lendeborg, through his first four games, also is outpacing Los Angeles Lakers superstar guard Luka Dončić through the first four games of his NBA career with the Dallas Mavericks.

Although the sample size is small, it’s clear the Warriors potentially have found something special in Lendeborg, who only will continue to make NBA history if he maintains his current trajectory.

His next test will be Wednesday night against the Minnesota Timberwolves at Target Center.

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On Monday morning, ESPN’s Hallie Grossman profiled Payton Pritchard in a piece entitled, “How Payton Pritchard became Boston’s unlikely iso king.” In the introduction, Grossman recounted a story during Pritchard’s 15-point performance in Game 3 of the Celtics first round playoff series against the Philadelphia 76ers. He turned to the sideline to see 76ers legend Allen Iverson sitting courtside where AI uttered a sentence that was not only a reaction to the moment, but maybe just a proclamation of the future.

“You’re the coldest white boy I’ve ever seen,” Iverson said, high praise coming from one of the best undersized guards in NBA history.

It feels like divine intervention that this incredible quote dropped before Boston’s game against the Bulls because Pritchard made AI look like Nostradamus with his play. The “coldest white boy” finished with 28 points, 4 assists, and two steals on 10-16 shooting from the field and 7-10 shooting from three.

When asked about Payton Pritchard’s “heat checks” when he has things rolling, Joe Mazzulla decided to highlight his all-around game instead. “I don’t really consider those heat checks for him because he’s that good of an offensive player,” Mazzulla said. “He’s another guy that impacts winning in different ways. Tonight, you saw the scoreboard…But he’s been making plays defensively, his assists, his ability to make plays on both ends of the floor, so even if he’s not scoring, he’s still impacting winning at a high level.”

Pritchard was asked about Mazzulla’s reactions to his “heat checks” by saying, “I work on those shots, so it doesn’t really feel like a bad shot, and obviously it’s not if it goes in.” We know Pritchard practices these shots based on his offseason training routine, where he starts his day at 6:45 am at a local high school gym in Cape Cod with no air conditioning.

“There’s just something about a humid gym,” Pritchard said, as he talked about the gym he used to work out in back in West Linn, Oregon that could reach up to 120 degrees in the summer. Pritchard said he loved the muck and that includes his competition. He recruited Division 2 and Division 3 college basketball players, international players, and hometown friends to play against. He would pay for them to drive down or fly across the country to the gym because he wants them to be hungry and give him their best one-on-one defense.

For two hours three times a week, Pritchard and his practice squad will go at it during the summer. Pritchard allows them to take breaks, but he doesn’t and will even buy them all Chipotle if he shoots under 60% on the day. That is the level of training that gets him ready to put up big-time performances like he did on Monday against the Bulls.

Pritchard’s third quarter was an electric sight to behold as he took over as the Celtics number one option after Jayson Tatum picked up his fourth foul of the game. At the 7:15 mark of the third quarter when Tatum checked out, Pritchard led the Celtics on a 31-11 scoring run over the Bulls to end the quarter. His biggest highlight was an isolation step-back three over Buddy Hield, who he crossed out of his shoes. The Bulls called a timeout, the Boston bench was going crazy, the TD Garden crowd was alive.

Payton Pritchard reminded everyone that he is that guy. Pritchard finished the third quarter with 19 points on 7-8 shooting from the field and 5-5 from three before subbing out for the rest of the game.

Pritchard’s big third quarter gave us a chance to see new free agent signing Mike Conley make his Celtics debut to start the fourth quarter. Ever since Media Day, it feels like Mike Conley and Payton Pritchard have been linked together at the hip. Pritchard has spoken in the past about what it was like working with Conley this offseason. In the ESPN article, Conley was asked about his thoughts on Pritchard who he called “a menace.”

“He’s an absolute crazy person when it comes to trying to improve his game,” Conley said.

In his first minutes in green, Conley finishing with 6 points and 2 steals on 2-2 shooting from three in 7 minutes of play. When asked about Conley postgame, Pritchard joked by saying, “I was telling him, like one of the back taps he had, I’m like he looked like a DB still. He’s just a freak.” He also praised Conley for being a great veteran presence, saying, “Such a good vet to be around, and somebody I am always pulling for regardless…for me to have somebody like that in my corner, it’s big.”

The ESPN article finished with a quote from Pritchard that is a testament to all of the hard work that he has put in, “I can’t wake up and be Wemby.” It’s a simple quote but it’s a real quote. Pritchard is listed at 6’1” and has had to deal with a lot of different circumstances with the Celtics over his seven years in Boston.

He has gone from a reserve guy, to asking for a trade out of Boston, to NBA Finals buzzer beaters, to winning Sixth Man of the Year and to having a career season in 2025. Pritchard’s ability to outwork everyone else on the court at his size has led him to becoming the elite player that he is today and he is in store for what could be the best season of his NBA career.