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Observations after turnover struggles doom Sixers in loss to Raptors  originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

The Sixers couldn’t climb all the way back for another unlikely comeback Wednesday night.

Though the Sixers made the Raptors sweat down the stretch, they ultimately fell to a 121-112 loss at Xfinity Mobile Arena. 

The Sixers dropped to 8-6 and Toronto improved to 10-5. 

Tyrese Maxey scored 24 points. VJ Edgecombe and Quentin Grimes had 21 apiece.

Brandon Ingram and RJ Barrett each posted 22 for the Raptors.

On the first night of a back-to-back, the Sixers were down:

• Joel Embiid (right knee injury)
• Paul George (left knee injury recovery)
• Kelly Oubre Jr. (left knee LCL sprain)
• Adem Bona (right ankle sprain) 

The Sixers will fly to Milwaukee and play the Bucks on Thursday night. Here are observations on their loss to Toronto:

McCain on the scoreboard 

Justin Edwards got the start and guarded Ingram. The 21-year-old shared the floor with Maxey, Edgecombe, Dominick Barlow and Andre Drummond.

Maxey pressed his foot to the gas pedal from the opening tip. He scored eight of the Sixers’ first 10 points, including a slick step-back three on Immanuel Quickley. Maxey fired five long-range jumpers in the first quarter and made three. 

The Sixers used Grimes, Trendon Watford, Jabari Walker and Jared McCain off the bench. Instead of playing the full first quarter, Maxey checked out with 2:12 remaining and McCain subbed in. He soon had his first points of the season.

McCain drilled a mid-range jumper on his first shot. He’d gone 0 for 9 over his prior four outings and dealt with serious rust in his return from injury. Wednesday’s outing — five points in 14 minutes — was his best yet. 

McCain kicked off an 8-0 Sixers run early in the second quarter by canning a top-of-the-key three. Walker capped the spurt by draining a triple that gave the Sixers a 36-35 edge. 

Season-worst turnovers night 

Walker did solid work on the glass and the Sixers had a great rebounding start overall. In under 14 minutes, they recorded 10 offensive rebounds.

Despite that superiority on the boards, the Sixers didn’t have a massive advantage in the possession game because of their turnover struggles. 

Off-target passes and strange decisions were both prevalent problems. Every Sixers starter had at least two turnovers and the team finished with a season-high 21 giveaways.

Edgecombe had four of those turnovers and also missed his first six field goals. The rookie flipped a switch to finish the first half, though. Edgecombe threw down a big dunk, grabbed a steal and assisted a Maxey three. He scored a driving bucket with 6.8 seconds left in the second quarter to lift the Sixers to a 56-53 lead. 

No comeback miracles

For the third straight game, the Sixers changed their starting lineup in the second half. Grimes and Watford replaced Edwards and Barlow. 

The Sixers had a rough first few minutes of the third quarter, which included Watford fouling Ingram on a three-point attempt. Toronto pulled ahead with a 10-2 run and kept growing its lead. The Sixers fell behind by 16 points on a Ja’Kobe Walker three late in the third. 

The Sixers sure didn’t open the fourth quarter like they’d chalked the game up as a loss and were thinking about the second night of their back-to-back. They continued their comeback habit and made a high-paced, highlight-filled charge back into the contest.

Edgecombe hammered home a coast-to-coast jam. Drummond had a steal and a slam. Grimes caught fire. He sunk two consecutive threes to slice the Sixers’ deficit to 109-106.

Of course, the Sixers had a tiny margin for error. Maxey threw a pass that wound up out of bounds when he wasn’t on the same page as Grimes. Quickley cashed in on an Ingram kick-out feed, nailing a three. He hit a key pull-up jumper, too.

While the Sixers have earned their early-season comebacks, the reality is that teams lose the vast majority of games in which they face late double-digit deficits. Wednesday was one of those nights for the Sixers.

Doug Christie admits Kings players ‘frustrated' amid longest skid since 2021-22 originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

Despite showing signs of improvement, the Kings matched their longest losing streak since the 2021-2022 NBA season after falling 113-99 to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday at Paycom Center. 

Sacramento, without star big man Domantas Sabonis, extended its losing skid to seven games after a characteristic third-quarter collapse against the defending NBA champions.

With a 3-12 record, the Kings are off to their worst start through 15 games since going 2-13 to start the 1990-91 season. 

Coach Doug Christie pointed out marked corrections in terms of his team’s competitiveness but recognizes that the morale in his locker room remains relatively distressed.  

“What I would say is frustrated. That’s probably the term I would use,” Christie told reporters after the loss.

Yet again, the Kings managed to stay competitive throughout the first half before succumbing to a second-half swoon, giving up nine turnovers in the third quarter alone. 

Even though Christie is stressing high-level execution and focus during practice sessions, the Kings’ late-game product isn’t there. It’s headed in the right direction, but it’s not there just yet.

“The level of competition the guys brought I thought was really, really high level,” Christie added.

“That’s what we need to get ourselves out of where we’re at, and if we do that on a night-to-night basis, most nights in the NBA you give yourselves a chance to win. This was the world champs and there were eight, nine minutes left, and they found themselves right there.”

Sacramento’s leading scorer, Zach LaVine, was limited to eight points for a second consecutive game after shooting 4 of 10 from the floor and a paltry 0 of 4 from beyond the arc.  

Precious Achiuwa, starting amid Sabonis’ absence, tallied 15 points and nine rebounds, while Dennis Schröder added a team-high 21 points off the bench. 

The Kings’ fourth stop of a five-game road trip takes them to Memphis on Thursday, where they’ll look to put a historic start in the rearview against the Grizzlies.

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Stephen A. Smith is a very busy man.

He is the star of ESPN's "First Take."

He hosts two radio shows on SiriusXM.

He has his own production company.

Since 2021, Smith also has been an analyst on ESPN's "NBA Countdown" pregame and halftime studio show.

But he isn't anymore, at least not on a full-time basis.

This week, ESPN announced a new "NBA Countdown" broadcast team that features host Malika Andrews and analysts Brian Windhorst, Michael Malone and Kendrick Perkins, with frequent contributions from Shams Charania.

Read more:Stephen A. Smith would’ve ‘swung on’ LeBron James had he touched him. Lakers star trolls him

Smith said Tuesday on "The Stephen A. Smith Show" that he hadn't been demoted from his status as a show regular, as some outlets suggested. Instead, he said, the change was something he had asked for while negotiating his reported five-year, $100-million contract to remain with the network earlier this year.

Why? Smith said he simply no longer has the time.

"I didn't want to be on the show," Smith said. "I negotiated coming off of it. Now I love doing 'NBA Countdown,' but once the countdown show is over, I got other things to do than to be in studio, watching the doubleheader and coming on at halftimes. I got other stuff that I want to do, to prepare for 'First Take' the next day, the next morning, and to do an abundance of other things that I aspire to do."

Smith said his departure from "NBA Countdown" had been reported "months ago," and he is correct. In breaking the news of Smith's new deal with ESPN in March, The Athletic's Andrew Marchand wrote that Smith "will not be a regular on ESPN’s premiere NBA pregame show anymore."

Read more:Shae Cornette is named as Molly Qerim's replacement as host of ESPN's 'First Take'

ESPN did not immediately respond on Wednesday to a request for a comment.

Smith added that he will continue to make frequent guest appearances on several ESPN shows, and that includes "NBA Countdown."

"If they need me in L.A. for 'NBA Countdown,' I'll be there," Smith said. "Matter of fact, I have days in my contract to be there. I just don't have to be there full time."

Get the best, most interesting and strangest stories of the day from the L.A. sports scene and beyond from our newsletter The Sports Report.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

After months of rumors swirling around a possible relationship between All-Star Chicago Sky center Angel Reese and Orlando Magic center Wendell Carter Jr., the eight-year NBA veteran finally addressed it with the FanDuel TV “Run It Back” NBA crew of Lou Williams, Chandler Parsons and Michelle Beadle.

“That’s the homie for sure,” Carter said. “We locked in. Y’all gonna find out when y’all need to find out. We’ll just leave it at that. That’s my girl, though. We locked in for sure.”

Carter’s statement was committal, but also vague.

According to Jenna Lemoncelli of the New York Post, the two were first linked earlier in 2025, when Carter attended Reese’s 23rd birthday party in May. He was also at the WNBA All-Star Game in July, wearing a shirt with Reese’s picture on it.

Reese has yet to address the relationship rumors, but she’s dropped various hints on social media — whether through a recent photo of her in Orlando gear or by attending multiple of Carter’s games this season.

Reese is currently in the offseason after her second WNBA campaign. She made the All-Star Game for the second straight season, averaging 14.7 points and 12.6 rebounds. Over her short career, she’s totaled 46 double-doubles — the most by any player in their first two seasons.

Carter, drafted by the Chicago Bulls at No. 7 in 2018, spent two and a half seasons in Chicago before being traded to the Magic in March 2021, where he’s played ever since. This season, he’s averaged 12.7 points and 7.7 rebounds, while shooting 44 percent on nearly three three-point attempts per game.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

Orlando Magic, Chicago Sky, NBA, WNBA

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Key threat to Warriors' season hopes on display again late in loss to Heat originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

It’s rare that an NBA team missing three starters can compete on the road with a team nearly invincible at home when it spends much of the game shooting as if blindfolded, ponderously dribbling into traffic and throwing up air balls.

Yet the undermanned and profoundly defective Warriors were giving the Miami Heat all the smoke they could handle Wednesday, taking a 74-72 lead into the fourth quarter.

Then came a disastrous turnover spree that beckoned a richly deserved 110-96 loss.

Perhaps the most instructive element for the Warriors was that Jimmy Butler III, Stephen Curry, Draymond Green and Al Horford – veterans too often prone to distressing turnovers – all watched the fourth-quarter meltdown from the bench. They got an up-close look at a potential upset win spiral into a double-digit loss.

The Warriors gave the Heat 34 points off 23 turnovers, with 16 of those points coming off nine giveaways in the fourth quarter.

“I’m very, very confident that we will get that turned around,” coach Steve Kerr told reporters at Kaseya Center. “We got it turned around last year after we got Jimmy, cut our turnovers way back. That’s going to be the focus when we get home.”

The Warriors (9-8), who return to Chase Center on Friday and open a five-game homestand against the Portland Trail Blazers, closed their six-game road trip with a 3-3 record that under the circumstances leaves them somewhat satisfied but less than content.

No matter who is on the floor for the Warriors, though, turnovers continue to undo much of their best work. The math blatantly tells them that is the biggest of their problems. They’re undefeated (8-0) when they win or tie the turnover war, 1-8 when the lose it.

“We have to do a better job of this as coaches of giving the guys better spacing and cutting and teaching it better so that the decisions become easier,” Kerr said. “And then they’ve got to do a better job of just making simple decisions.”

Golden State had to be much smarter to overcome an offense in which only two players – Quinten Post (8 of 13 from the field, including 3 of 7 from deep) and Trayce Jackson-Davis (2 of 2) – shot better than 35 percent from the field. Buddy Hield was 7 of 20, 4 of 15 from distance. Brandin Podziemski was 6 of 19, 2 of 7 beyond the arc. Moses Moody was 3 of 12 from deep, while Gui Santos was 1 of 7, 1 of 6 from deep.

And, somehow, the Warriors still were in position to steal a victory. They played ferocious defense. They rebounded. They displayed enough grit and perseverance to offset their atrocious shooting, 36.2 percent from the field, including 26.5 percent beyond the arc. 

But that formula trends sharply toward losing when giving your opponent 34 points off 23 turnovers. The Warriors were outscored by, hmm, 16 (38-22) in the fourth quarter.

Key threat to Warriors’ season hopes on display again late in loss to Heat“Turnovers got [the Heat] going,” conceded Pat Spencer, who came off the bench to contribute 11 points, a career-high 13 assists and only two turnovers.

After all these years, and what seems like relentless dialogue about Golden State’s tendency to play fast and loose with the basketball, fast and loose continues to drag them down more than anything else.

The Warriors dropped to 29th in the NBA in turnovers committed, averaging 17.1 per game. They bless their opponents with more gifts than the Washington Wizards or the Utah Jazz or the Charlotte Hornets. 

At what point will the Warriors – from Curry, Butler and Green to the men on the far end of the bench – address this problem with the sincerity required to curb what plagues them?

The Warriors’ early season travel schedule has been the toughest in the NBA, 17 games over 29 days, with a league-high five back-to-back sets. It’s about to get easier, with eight of their next 12 games at Chase Center.

Maybe they’ll find a rhythm once they return home. But with the issue being as vexing as it typically is, seeing improvement is the only real fix.

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