In today’s Dub Hub:

• Steve Kerr addresses the Warriors “pattern” of third-quarter struggles after 116–93 loss to Nuggets.
• Moses Moody posts after undergoing successful patella tendon surgery over the weekend.
• Lakers’ Luka Doncic suspended one game after receiving 16th technical foul on Friday vs. Nets.

The Golden State Warriors walked into halftime with a seven-point lead over the Denver Nuggets on Sunday night, putting together another strong first half against one of the league’s top teams. But in what has become a familiar script during this portion of the season, that momentum didn’t carry over. The third quarter flipped everything. Denver erupted for 41 points while Golden State managed just 20, ultimately turning a competitive game into a 116–93 blowout loss.

The third-quarter struggles have become an unfortunate pattern for the Warriors. Whether it’s poor offensive execution, defensive lapses, or simply running out of gas, Golden State has repeatedly lost its footing coming out of halftime. And against the elite teams in the NBA, that has been the difference between winning and losing. 

Head coach Steve Kerr addressed the Warriors’ third quarter issue, acknowledging it’s become a recurring theme for the team.

Brandin Podziemski was one of the few bright spots offensively, finishing with 23 points on 8-of-14 shooting from the field and 5-of-8 from three, while committing zero turnovers. Still, even his efficient night couldn’t make up for the team’s mistakes.

In total, the Warriors committed 13 turnovers — just two more than Denver — but the impact told a different story. Golden State managed only 13 points off Nuggets turnovers, while Denver turned theirs into 22 points.

After the game, Podziemski pointed to a key stretch of turnovers late in the second quarter that helped shift the momentum and gave Denver confidence heading into the second half.

Sunday was another reminder that the Warriors can compete with most teams but sustaining that level throughout the course of the game has been the challenge — especially when playing short-handed and relying on a limited rotation. Until they solve that, games like this will continue to slip away with time running out before the April 14th Play-in Tournament.

For more on this and other news around the NBA, here is our latest news round-up for Monday, March 30th:

Warriors News:

What we learned as Warriors fall flat in fourth quarter during loss to Nuggets | NBC Sports Bay Area

In 10 games now with the Warriors, Porziņģis has a 30-point game and a 28-point game, and both were against the Wizards. His 22-point game came against the lowly Mavericks, and he needed overtime to reach 20 points against the Minnesota Timberwolves. 

Playing Jokić and the Nuggets was a new test for Porziņģis. The biggest one yet, perhaps. It’s safe to say the big man stepped up yet again. Yes, Jokić got his. But so did Porziņģis. 

He started the game strong and made two threes in the first quarter to give the Warriors an early lead. Porziņģis then scored eight points in the second quarter to bring him 14 first-half points as a plus-6 in a battle with the three-time NBA MVP. The Warriors fell flat in the third quarter, but Porziņģis still scored nine of their 20 points. 

Sunday Best: My latest around-the-league NBA Intel | The Stein Line

The Warriors made what has been described as a determined trade run at the Clippers’ Kawhi Leonard in the final hour before the Feb. 5 trade buzzer sounded under the belief that Leonard might be unexpectedly unavailable after LA agreed to ship Ivica Zubac to Indiana. The Clippers ultimately balked then, but it is reasonable to presume that Golden State will investigate that possibility once again.

The Warriors are likewise routinely described by rival teams as one of the few credible destinations for LeBron James’ 24th NBA campaign if James and the Lakers indeed part ways after eight seasons together. “It has some legs,” one league source said of the LeBron link to the Warriors.

Moses Moody’s first post after undergoing successful patellar tendon surgery over the weekend

NBA News:

Lakers’ Luka Doncic hit with 1-game suspension for 16th tech | ESPN

Los Angeles Lakers star Luka Doncic has been suspended one game for receiving his 16th technical foul in Friday’s win over the Brooklyn Nets, the NBA announced on Saturday.

Doncic will serve the suspension during Monday’s game against the Washington Wizards.

Doncic and Nets forward Ziaire Williams were assessed double techs with 5:12 remaining in the third quarter of Friday’s game after jostling with each other following an offensive foul called on Doncic.

Raptors go on a historic 31-0 run against the Magic

In case you missed it at Golden State of Mind:

Final Score: Nuggets win 116-93 over Warriors, Jokic scores 25 points

For a half, a shorthanded Warriors team (no Steph Curry, Jimmy Butler, or Moses Moody among others) — was outplaying a legitimate title contender on their home floor.

Then Jokic took over as he’s done so many time as Denver flipped the script completely. The Nuggets finished shooting 50% from the field and 47% from three-point range, going 19-for-40 beyond the arc for the game. Jokic ended with 25 points, 15 rebounds, and 8 assists, doing it all with that infuriating casual efficiency that makes you want to both applaud and flip a table.

Follow @unstoppablebaby on X for all the latest news on the Golden State Warriors.

Correction: A previous version of this story misidentified Craig Smith as the current coach of Utah.

Utah State announced the hiring of longtime Northern Iowa coach Ben Jacobson on Monday, March 30, poaching the five-time NCAA Tournament attendee to replace Jerrod Calhoun.

It's a splash hire at the mid-major level, especially with how long Jacobson spent at Northern Iowa. He has four NCAA Tournament wins in his career, including a second-round upset over No. 1 seed Kansas in 2010.

Utah State is one of the best non-Power program jobs in college basketball, and Jacobson will lead the program into the rebuilt Pac-12 next season. There, he'll be conference foes with Colorado State and coach Ali Farokhmanesh, his former player and March Madness hero from 2010.

REQUIRED READING: How Ali Farokhmanesh went from March Madness icon to Division I head coach

The Aggies have made six of the last seven NCAA Tournaments, and its coaches have gone on to earn high-profile jobs shortly after their tenure. Calhoun took the opening at Cincinnati after Danny Sprinkle left for Washington, and Sprinkle's predecessor, Ryan Odom, is now at Virginia. Craig Smith was the Aggies coach before Odom and took the Utah job. He was coach of the Utes for four seasons before being fired in 2025.

"I'm thankful for the opportunity to join Utah State as it enters its next chapter in the Pac-12," Jacobson said. "I'm grateful to Cameron Walker for trusting me to lead such a historic program and to continue its tradition as one of the top men's basketball programs in the West. I look forward to getting to know Aggie Nation and the HURD, and for my family to become part of the Cache Valley and Logan community."

Jacobson leads the Missouri Valley Conference in all-time wins (220) and conference tournament wins (24), but the allure of the new Pac-12 was likely too enticing to pass up, as the league will be anchored by powerhouse programs Gonzaga, San Diego State and Utah State, to a lesser degree.

Numerous college basketball coaches commented on the hire in Utah State's announcement, including Purdue's Matt Painter and Nebraska's Fred Hoiberg.

"Ben is not only an exceptional coach but also a truly remarkable person," Painter said. "He has achieved tremendous success at Northern Iowa, and this opportunity at Utah State gives him the chance to build on that success both on the court and within the community. I'm excited for him and his family as they embark on this exciting new chapter in their lives.

Hoiberg added: "Ben Jacobson is one of the great coaches in our sport, and Utah State is fortunate to land a coach of his caliber.  He built Northern Iowa into one of the top programs in the Missouri Valley Conference for the past two decades. 

"When I was at Iowa State, we played his UNI teams several times over the years, and you always knew you would be in for a battle.  I have so much respect for the job he has done over the years."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Utah State poaches Ben Jacobson from Northern Iowa for coaching job

It’s hard to be a good team without being a good clutch team. Of the 12 teams currently in a playoff spot (plus Philly, who’s on the cusp of it), 10 of them are in the top 11 in clutch net rating (the other team is Milwaukee, somehow). The others are Minnesota (15th), Denver (20th), and Houston (24th). Good teams are good because they can grit their teeth and come out on top in clutch scenarios.

The Knicks are among the best of the best in the clutch. Even after Sunday night’s meltdown against OKC, the Knicks are 19-13 with a plus-17.3 clutch net rating, only behind the Lakers, Thunder, and Sixers. Their defense is third-best, their offense is fourth-best, and their turnover rate is fourth-lowest. It’s overall pretty good.

But it’s not perfect. Now, perfection is an impossibility, but you should always strive to get as close to perfect as humanly possible. The limitations of the Knicks in crunchtime were shown on Sunday, albeit against maybe the most unstoppable force in the NBA in a fully healthy Thunder squad.

The Knicks’ clutch offense revolves around Jalen Brunson, as it should. As you may expect, he’s taken by far the most shots (73), has the most minutes (109), and the most points (99) in clutch scenarios this season among Knicks. No other Knick has even attempted 30 shots. He’s also been efficient, registering 46.6/42.3/76.9 splits. The reigning Clutch Player of the Year is absolutely the right man to assume this responsibility.

But there will be games that teams will sell out to shut his water off. That’s when you usually see guys like OG Anunoby and Landry Shamet get funneled the ball in the corner (Anunoby is 13-26 and 6-12 from 3 in the clutch this season, but what happens when they get the ball out of Brunson’s hands before he can make that read?

Brunson’s 19 assists are also by far the most in the clutch, with Josh Hart second with 8. Speaking of Hart, he’s the black sheep of the starters in crunchtime, only being a plus-2 in 50 minutes, while seven players currently sit at plus-15 or higher. There’s not much ball movement, but that makes sense considering that it’s almost always a Brunson-focused isolation down the stretch. The captain has an exceptionally high 37.2 usage rate in clutch scenarios.

There’s one thing in particular that the Knicks probably should’ve been working on all season, but could still stand to try out to diversify the late offense, and that’s getting Karl-Anthony Towns involved. He’s only attempted 23 shots in clutch scenarios this season and has a paltry 18.8 usage rate. He’s usually reduced to the occasional pick-and-pop and being forced to get his touches on the glass. There are games like last night in OKC where Towns got going with post-ups on smaller defenders and then it just… stopped.

The first, second, and third options should always be Brunson making decisions with the ball in his hands, but Towns is an All-NBA talent in his own right. You didn’t just get him for the other 43 minutes of the game, we saw what he can do when he saved the season by himself in Detroit last April.

But that’s only one thing that could be improved upon in these scenarios. There are two areas where the Knicks are normally quite good, but are mediocre-to-bad in the clutch. The first sorta makes sense, OREB%. Mitchell Robinson has played just 23 total clutch minutes this year for a variety of reasons, and he’s the biggest reason why the Knicks are as monstrous on the boards as they usually are. I’d imagine that more minutes for Big Mitch would increase that rate, and we’ll see it at times in the playoffs, but it’s certainly interesting.

The one that’s more baffling is free-throw percentage. The Knicks, who currently rank 12th in FT% at 79.1% (if you include Mitch, it’s 81.6%), are catastrophically bad in the clutch, ranking 28th at 70.5%. As I said earlier, Mitch barely plays in the clutch and has only attempted four of the team’s 88 clutch free throws. While OG Anunoby and Deuce McBride are shooting fine, others are shooting much worse than their season averages:

Landry Shamet: 6-for-12 (season: 72.6%)
Karl-Anthony Towns: 9-for-14 (season: 85.8%)
Jalen Brunson: 20-for-26 (76.9%, season: 84.3%)

There are many reasons why the Knicks lost Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals to the Pacers, but the biggest one might have been an inability to cash in at the line in the final minute. It’s just not tenable to leave points on the line in games that matter. You might get away with it in Brooklyn, but you won’t in Boston.

Mike Krzyzewski may not be the head coach for Duke men's basketball anymore, but the Elite Eight loss for the Blue Devils was still heartbreaking.

The No. 1 overall seed Blue Devils were knocked out of the NCAA Men's Tournament when Braylon Mullins knocked down a 40-foot buzzer beater following a turnover by Duke on Sunday, March 29. That gave UConn the 73-72 win to advance to the Final Four this weekend in Indianapolis.

REQUIRED READING: Did Dan Hurley deserve a technical after game-winning shot for going face-to-face with ref?

Meanwhile, the Blue Devils lost in brutal fashion for the second straight year.

Krzyzewski joined the Pat McAfee Show on Monday, March 30, to talk about the loss.

"It was heartbreaking," Coach K said. "I am telling you. Even though I haven't coached for four years now. It was a great, great basketball game. Not a good one. It was a great game."

"It was heartbreaking and it was a great basketball game..

I haven't coached for four years and I couldn't fall asleep last night..

I have such great empathy for our guys"

Coach K #PMSLivepic.twitter.com/r9tXN5x9C8

— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) March 30, 2026

Krzyzewski led the Blue Devils to five national titles between 1980 and 2022, before he retired. While he did win national titles with Duke, he suffered many heartbreaking losses in the single-elimination tournament, with 13 total Final Four appearances.

Even while not coaching actively, the loss still stings for Krzyzewski.

"I could not fall asleep last night," Krzyzewski said. "I felt like I was a part of that. And then you're thinking of all these individual kids and how you are going to take care of them. You have such great empathy for our guys. Obviously, I am a Duke guy and have concerns for them. It's a tough one to get over."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Mike Krzyzewski says he lost sleep over Duke's Elite 8 loss to UConn

LSU re-introduced basketball coach Will Wade on Monday, March 30, and the one-year NC State coach brought jokes back to Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Wade, who coached LSU from 2017-22, was fired by the program for recruiting violations. He was also suspended in 2019 after an FBI wiretap uncovered him conversing with a recruit about a potential monetary offer.

REQUIRED READING: Will Wade introduced as new LSU basketball coach. Highlights press conference

Wade made light of how he left his LSU career during his re-introduction, saying one way or another, he's going to make history with the Tigers this time around.

"We're gonna make history one way or the other," he said. "We're coming back to try to hang a banner and win a national championship, or I'm gonna be the first coach fired from the same school twice. One way or another, we're gonna make history."

Will Wade (re)introduced at LSU:

"We're gonna make history one way or the other. We're coming back to try to hang a banner and win a national championship, or I'm gonna be the first coach fired from the same school twice. One way or another, we're gonna make history!" 😂 pic.twitter.com/jZOZP9SObN

— The Field of 68 (@TheFieldOf68) March 30, 2026

Wade led McNeese to an NCAA Tournament win over Clemson in 2024, before leaving for NC State, where he coached one season. He left the Wolfpack in controversial manner, leaving NC State fans in frenzy over the situation.

It isn't the first joke Wade has made since the LSU news has come to light.

"They're gonna kill me if I start answering questions. I'm trying to follow more rules this time," Wade said to a group of reporters who saw him arriving in Baton Rouge.

LSU never formally announced Matt McMahon's firing in a separate announcement, rather burying the news in an announcement noting Wade's return to LSU.

Wade won games for the Tigers, though, and led the program to an SEC regular season title and Sweet 16 in 2019. He took LSU to the NCAA Tournament in three of his five seasons. He made the NIT before COVID-19 wiped out March Madness in his other season at the helm.

Wade will now look toward rebuilding an LSU team that finished 15-17 last season and has missed the NCAA Tournament in every season since Wade left the program. Perhaps his jokes will also work on the next cycle of recruits for the Tigers.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Will Wade jokes he'll make history 'one way or the other' at LSU