Category: Sports News

The San Antonio Spurs were without Victor Wembanyama and Stephon Castle, and still controlled the game in the 112-101 win over the Portland Trail Blazers. They got contributions up and down the roster to fill in for two of their stars. The Spurs’ bench outscored Portland’s 48-10.

Keldon Johnson and Carter Bryant were brilliant off the bench in the win and earned some of the top player grades for the Spurs. As a quick reminder, these grades are based on each player’s on-court performance, going beyond just the stat sheet. A “B” grade represents the average performance for an individual. If a player logs fewer than 5 minutes or plays only in garbage time, their grade will be incomplete.

De’Aaron Fox

34 minutes, 25 points, 5 rebounds, 7 assists, 3 steals, 4 turnovers, 3 fouls, 10-for-20 shooting, 3-for-6 threes, -3

Fox kicked things off and closed them out for the Spurs. He scored 10 of his 25 points in the first four minutes of the game. He was a pest on the perimeter and scored easy buckets in transition to keep the Spurs in the game against Portland early. When it looked like the Blazers might make a comeback in the fourth quarter, Fox hit a clutch three to extend the lead to 9. The team never looked back from there.

This is the type of performance Fox has given all season when Wembanyama sits. He takes over the offense in stretches and is the team’s steadying hand late in the game. Some rough turnovers hold this back from being an A-performance, but it was just the pick-me-up Fox needed before heading into the playoffs.

Grade: B+

Dylan Harper

33 minutes, 13 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals, 2 blocks, 4 turnovers, 2 fouls, 6-for-14 shooting, 1-for-2 threes, +6

This may have been Harper’s most impactful defensive game this season. He was all over the court, walling off drives, grabbing steals, and blocking a couple of shots. He contested with the Blazers’ guards all night and made it tough for them to get into a real rhythm. It was the kind of game you’d expect more from Stephon Castle, who missed the game with a knee injury.

Harper continued to play well offensively by getting two feet into the paint, although he didn’t finish as often against Portland. He did, however, make one of the more impressive step-back threes I’ve seen from him this year.

Grade: B+

Julian Champagnie

27 minutes, 2 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 blocks, 1 foul, 1-for-6 shooting, 0-for-3 threes, +6

What Champagnie didn’t do offensively, he made up for defensively. It was a cold shooting night for Champagnie, whose only basket came on a fast-break dunk. He was impactful defensively, though. Champagnie was just solid on that end against the Blazers’ tough wings. His box score won’t make anyone look twice, but it felt like the Spurs played better when he was on the floor.

Grade: B-

Luke Kornet

26 minutes, 10 points, 5 rebounds, 6 assists, 2 steals, 1 block, 1 foul, 5-for-6 shooting, +5

It’s fair to say that Kornet owns the Trail Blazers. After scoring 20+ in his last game against them, he was a huge difference maker on Wednesday. His paint defense was among the best of the season, as he broke up lobs and contested drivers at the rim. He may have only gotten 5 rebounds, but he impacted the boards by tipping the ball back to the perimeter for his teammates to save the possession.

It wasn’t a Wembanyama-level defensive performance, but there is no way the Spurs win this game without Cool Hand Luke holding it down inside.

Grade:A

Devin Vassell

31 minutes, 14 points, 8 rebounds, 1 assist, 2 steals, 1 turnover, 2 fouls, 5-for-13 shooting, 2-for-7 threes, +/- 0

It wasn’t quite the offensive explosion that we have gotten accustomed to in games without Wembanyama, but Vassell was solid against Portland. He hit some difficult shots, including a tough mid-range jumper over the top of Donovan Clingan. Defensively, he chipped in with a few steals.

Grade: B

Harrison Barnes

27 minutes, 9 points, 2 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal, 3 turnovers, 2 fouls, 2-for-4 shooting, 0-for-2 threes, +13

Barnes has been quiet recently. He was a part of the Spurs’ small-ball lineup that crushed the Blazers, which is why his +/- numbers look so good (more on that later). San Antonio needs him to hit shots in the playoffs if he is going to play major minutes.

Grade: B

Keldon Johnson

29 minutes, 20 points, 8 rebounds, 1 assist, 2 steals, 1 block, 2 turnovers, 1 foul, 8-for-15 shooting, 0-for-3 threes, +13

Johnson was EVERYWHERE on Wednesday. In what could have been his best performance of the year, KJ got to the basket at will, dove after loose balls, and kept possessions alive with offensive rebounding. It was a great reminder of why he is currently the betting favorite (-900) to win Sixth Man of the Year on FanDuel.

I thought it was funny that Johnson seemed to go especially at his former teammates, Sidy Cissoko and Blake Wesley. When they were guarding him, KJ got straight to the rim and scored.

Grade: A

Carter Bryant

25 minutes, 17 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 steal, 1 foul, 6-for-9 shooting, 5-for-6 threes, 1 turnover, 3 fouls, +6

Bryant scored a career-high 17 points in his best game of the season. He was confident on both ends, hitting threes and holding his position against bigger offensive players on defense. You could see something click with him around the second quarter of this game. He started to be more physical on screens and in the paint, and he took wide-open shots without hesitation. If this is a glimpse into who Bryant can be for years to come, the Spurs may have gotten a steal with the 14th overall pick.

Grade: A

Jordan McLaughlin

9 minutes, 2 points, 2 rebounds, 0-for-1 shooting, +9

McLaughlin is just solid. He came in and did his job for 9 minutes, playing pesky perimeter defense, taking care of the ball, and playing within the flow of the offense. He’s about all the Spurs could ask for in a fourth guard.

Grade: B

Monday’s Inactives: Victor Wembanyama, Stephon Castle, Harrison Ingram, David Jones-Garcia, Emanuel Miller

Observations after Sixers' big 4th-quarter comeback falls short in loss to Rockets  originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

The Sixers’ eventful Thursday did not brighten in the evening. 

After receiving the news that Joel Embiid is sidelined indefinitely by appendicitis, the Sixers fell to a 113-102 loss to the Rockets. 

Embiid underwent a successful appendectomy in Houston, the Sixers announced during the game. 

The Sixers made a serious comeback surge in the fourth quarter (more on that below), but ultimately dropped to 43-37. The Rockets improved to 51-29. 

In another relevant contest, the Raptors topped the Heat. The Sixers stayed eighth in the Eastern Conference standings and certainly look on track for the play-in tournament with two games left, although that outcome is not quite locked in yet.

The Sixers’ leading scorers were Tyrese Maxey (23 points) and VJ Edgecombe (21 points). Quentin Grimes added 20 points off the bench.

Rockets superstar Kevin Durant posted 29 points.

The Sixers will visit the Pacers on Friday night in their penultimate game of the season. They’ll host the Bucks on Sunday in their 82nd game.

Here are observations on their loss to the Rockets:

Tough assignment for Bona 

Adem Bona started in Embiid’s spot. He guarded Rockets All-Star center Alperen Sengun, his teammate with Turkey for international basketball.  

On the first play of the night, the Sixers turned a Paul George steal into a Kelly Oubre Jr. fast-break slam. Oubre also canned two three-pointers in the first quarter and scored 12 points on 5-for-6 shooting in the period. 

Houston soon built a lead. Sengun jammed in a dunk off of a pick-and-roll with Durant. Tari Eason buried a three to put the Rockets up 17-10. 

Bona had some good defensive possessions in isolation against Sengun, who posted just eight points on 4-for-14 shooting, 12 rebounds and four assists. Beyond the shot blocking, Bona’s a talented defender in terms of his ability to nimbly mirror opponents. 

Still, it’s obvious the Sixers would’ve preferred Embiid for the matchup with Sengun and missed a giant amount offensively. Bona posted two points and two rebounds in 15 minutes. Andre Drummond logged 30 minutes as his backup and had five points and 15 rebounds.

Maxey eventually finds scoring touch 

Last time out, Maxey went scoreless in the first half of the Sixers’ defeat to the Spurs.

He had similar struggles early in Houston. Maxey started 0 for 3 from the floor and had zero points in the first quarter. The Sixers’ star guard did get into a much better groove in the second quarter, tallying 15 points.

George never got rolling. For the game, he scored a mere seven points on 2-for-8 shooting.

Along with Maxey and George’s lack of scoring, turnovers were a major problem for the Sixers’ offense in the first half.

The Sixers committed 11 giveaways in the first half and the Rockets scored 20 points off those turnovers. Especially given that being a low-turnover team has been a key part of the Sixers’ identity under head coach Nick Nurse, they can’t afford possession-costing mistakes without Embiid.

Jabari Walker got his first action in the first half of a game since the Sixers’ win over the Jazz back on March 21. Adding Walker to the rotation made plenty of sense with Embiid out and the Sixers searching for anything positive. He played four second-quarter minutes and had a put-back layup.

Sixers show serious fight

After three straight Josh Okogie offensive rebounds, Amen Thompson threw down a wide-open dunk to give Houston an 81-57 advantage. Nurse called timeout.

Clearly, Nurse wants to see better energy and effort than that in important games. With that said, it’s exceedingly logical that the Sixers looked like a demoralized team. In addition to Embiid’s appendicitis making the Sixers a worse team on paper, it’s jarring news to handle at the tail end of a season.

“Just the timing seems difficult,” Nurse told reporters in Houston pregame. “We had an unbelievable day as a team yesterday. We had a great practice, a great film session, we were getting up and down the court. And he was a part of all that. So that’s what hits you a little bit in the stomach when you get that news, but it’s where we are. 

“We have our thoughts and prayers with him, that he gets through this surgery as healthy as possible and it goes (smoothly), no complications. And then you shift over to our job side of it. We’ve got to dig in and get to work.”

The Sixers trailed by as many as 28 points in the third quarter. To their credit, they played a tremendous fourth quarter and even made the Rockets sweat down the stretch.

The second unit’s scrappiness played a central part in the Sixers’ extended run. Dominick Barlow chipped in a put-back dunk. Barlow and Justin Edwards trapped Thompson at half court and forced a turnover. Edwards finished the ensuing fast break off with a second-chance lay-in that cut the Rockets’ lead to 101-94.

Edgecombe was great in the fourth quarter, too. He made a strong baseline drive and converted a layup through considerable contact. Edgecombe hit a mid-range jumper over Durant, slicing the Sixers’ deficit down to five points.

Durant replied with a timely three-ball and Houston had no further problems.

For the Sixers, the competitive spirit on display in the fourth quarter is something they’ll need to maintain moving forward without Embiid.

The Knicks may have clearer weaknesses than any other team that considers themselves a contender. Their best player is an undersized negative defender, the offense can be stagnant despite posting strong numbers, the outside shooting can abandon them at times, and the starting lineup often digs themselves into deep holes to start out games. But the Knicks also do a lot of things really well. Despite how the season started, their defense has statistically been amongst the best in 2026, they have two extremely talented offensive players with Jalen Brunson being one of the best postseason players in the league, and know how to win dirty.

One area of their game that doesn’t get talked about enough though, is just how dominant they have been in the fourth quarter. As of April 9th, the Knicks are seventh in fourth quarter offensive rating, first in fourth quarter defensive rating by a significant margin, and they are first in the league in fourth quarter net rating at a whopping 11.6. They are also fourth in the league in offensive rebounding percentage, second in the league in defensive rebounding percentage, and first in overall rebounding percentage during the final quarter.

And since the Knicks suffered an embarrassing home loss to the Mavericks on January 19th, they are seventh in the league in offensive rating during what NBA.com defines as clutch minutes, and are also sixth in clutch offensive rating, and fourth in clutch net rating while playing the sixth most clutch minutes. During those minutes, the Knicks posted the lowest turnover percentage (some of this can be attributed to the heliocentric, and stagnant offense they tend to run late in games), and were also fifth in the league in rebounding percentage.

We’ve seen this play out multiple times in varying ways. The strong fourth quarter against the Cavaliers on Christmas day, the big comeback against the Rockets, the back-to-back comebacks against the Celtics last year, and the close wins against the Pistons in the first-round last season, they’ve been there and done that when it comes to eking out wins with the exception of game one in the Eastern Conference Finals last year.

While not everything during the regular season translates the post season, fans can, and likely should feel confident about the fact that this battle-tested group performed exceptionally well when it mattered most. It would be nice to see the Knicks start off games better, and not have to rely on a fourth quarter run or a late-game surge. But this should be one of the core strengths of this team come playoff time.

SAN FRANCISCO — Throughout the last two seasons, JJ Redick has referenced a popular Jay-Z bar to illustrate the ups and downs of an NBA season. 

“It was all good just a week ago,” Redick has said a couple of times during his two seasons as Lakers coach, referencing Jay-Z’s “A Week Ago” from his six-time platinum-selling album, “Vol. 2… Hard Knock Life.”

Even though Redick hasn’t made the reference since April started, the sentiment applies now. 

A week ago, the Lakers were one of the league’s hottest teams entering a marquee road game against the Thunder. 

They had won 16 of their previous 18 games, clinching back-to-back 50-win seasons and a playoff berth March 31, and were in firm control of their postseason seeding fate. 

Funny what seven days can change.  

From there was the blowout loss to the Thunder at Paycom Center, with Luka Doncic (Grade 2 left hamstring strain) and Austin Reaves (Grade 2 left oblique strain) suffering regular-season-ending injuries. 

And then two more losses to the Mavericks and the Thunder, all while the teams closest to them in the standings soared, with the Nuggets on a 10-game winning streak and the Rockets winning seven straight entering Thursday. 

All of a sudden, the Lakers went from third place in the Western Conference standings, with a multiple-game cushion on the teams below them, to uncertainty about whether they’d host their first-round playoff series. 

When the Lakers found out about Doncic’s status for the remainder of the season April 3, Redick reassured that the team’s mission was to clinch the No. 3 seed and win a first-round playoff series. 

But when Reaves’ diagnosis was revealed and the losses piled up, the goal understandably changed and became more granular. 

“We’ve got to prepare our team, our group that we’re going to have available to play in the playoffs series,” Redick said. “Finding who’s gonna be able to play in the playoffs for us. The seeding part probably went out the window after the OKC game.”

If the Nuggets, who entered Thursday at No. 3 in the West, win their final two regular-season games against the Thunder and Spurs, they’ll clinch third regardless of how the Lakers finish. 

The Lakers would need the Nuggets, who won the regular-season series to secure the tiebreaker for postseason seeding, to drop at least one of their last two games to have a shot at reclaiming third place. And more realistically, the Nuggets would need to lose both of their final games for the Lakers to enter the playoffs as the third seed.

It’s why the Lakers are likely headed toward a No. 4 vs. No. 5 first-round playoff series against the Rockets.

It’s all just a matter of who’ll finish fourth and have homecourt advantage for the series. 

Neither the Lakers nor Rockets can fall below fifth, with the Timberwolves, whom the Rockets will host Friday, already locked in at No. 6. 

The Lakers have the tiebreaker over the Rockets, so if they finish with the same record, the Lakers would be the higher seed and host their first-round series. 

The Nuggets also hold the tiebreaker over the Rockets. 

The Lakers playing the Rockets or Timberwolves in the first round has been the likeliest outcome for weeks.

And with the Rockets being the likelier matchup, we’re on a collision course for the fourth playoff series between teams led by LeBron James and Kevin Durant, who last played each other in the playoffs during the 2018 NBA Finals when Durant’s Warriors swept James’ Cavaliers. 

But last week, with the Lakers falling and the Rockets soaring, changed the complexion of the expected series. 

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Tonight was supposed to mean something more.

We’re talking the Los Angeles Lakers vs the Golden State Warriors at Chase Center. Stephen Curry and LeBron James, the two most important players in the last two decades of NBA basketball, sharing the same floor one more time. Except they won’t tonight, folks. Steph Curry is out tonight on the front side of a back-to-back, and just like that, the basketball gods closed the window on the one matchup that still moves the needle for casual fans and die-hards alike.

Zero Steph vs. LeBron games this season!

Look at what we missed. During their long rivalry they’ve traded highlights and crazy box scores. Per Basketball Reference, in the regular season head-to-head data LeBron is averaging 30.2 points on 20.9 field goal attempts across 27 games. Steph is answering with 24.9 points and 6.5 assists across those same 27 matchups. That’s two legends still going to work every single time they see each other. And this season, we didn’t get one chapter of it.

The playoff numbers are even more absurd. LeBron at 31.3 points, 10.9 rebounds, 8.5 assists per game across 28 playoff matchups between these two. Steph at 25.6 points and 6.5 assists. Four championships worth of pressure, four Finals between these franchises, and a Western Conference playoff battle too boot.

That history is the whole reason tonight stings.

The Warriors are sitting 10th in the West at 37-42, trying to survie their way into the Play-In. The Lakers are 4th at 50-29. But strip away the standings and what you really had scheduled for tonight was probably one of the last (if not the last) meetings between these two legends who carried the torch for their sport. LeBron is 41 and Steph turned 38 in March. The runway on seeing these two go head-to-head with genuine stakes attached is not getting longer.

And the Warriors lost to the Lakers twice already this season, 105-99 in February and 129-101 in late February. Golden State took the first meeting back in October, 119-109, with Jimmy Butler dropping 31. That was the game where the season felt full of possibility before the injuries started stacking up like unpaid bills.

Now Steph is managing his workload on a back-to-back and we’re all sitting here doing the math on what’s left of this era.

The answer is not much. And tonight just reminded us how fast it’s actually going.

WNBA expansion in Philadelphia, Cleveland and Detroit officially approved originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

Three new franchises are on the way in the WNBA.

The WNBA and NBA Board of Governors on Thursday formally approved new expansion teams coming to Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia.

The initial announcement of expanding to those cities, totaling to 18 teams, came on June 30, 2025. The movement was subject to the approval, which is now formal.

Cleveland will begin play first in the 2028 season, with Detroit following in 2029. Philadelphia will be last in 2030.

All three cities have NBA teams in the Cavaliers, Pistons and 76ers, respectively.

The league will have two expansion teams beginning in the upcoming 2026 season: the Portland Fire and Toronto Tempo. Both cities also are home to NBA teams in the Trail Blazers and Raptors, and the new teams participated in an expansion draft to set up their respective rosters.

The NBA has also been exploring expansion moves for the future, with the most recent news involving Las Vegas and Seattle.

Those cities are awaiting formal approval, which would take the NBA to 32 teams. The league would likely realign the teams in the Western and Eastern Conferences, too, to fit two new cities out West.

More details on this trio of WNBA expansion franchises will come at later dates.