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Mark Pope has openly joked about the group chat he shares with his 1996 national championship teammates, claiming they keep him grounded. But according to former Kentucky star Derek Anderson, that chat is a lot more intense than Pope has let on.

During a recent appearance on KSR, Anderson pulled back the curtain on the ongoing conversations between the guys who helped Kentucky cut down the nets. He revealed that the chat is still going strong, but teammates frequently type out messages only to delete them because the critiques of Pope’s coaching job may be too “brutal.”

As someone who works closely with NBA players and top-100 high school recruits, Anderson didn’t hold back his thoughts on why Pope’s third year at Kentucky is facing so many structural hurdles that have resulted in too many big losses.

Mark Pope has a “rah-rah” problem

Anderson’s primary concern isn’t Pope’s character; he knows he is an awesome guy. It is not the message he is sending to recruits on visits; he believes he can connect with anyone. For Anderson, the key to fixing Mark Pope’s issues in Lexington resides in Pope’s temperament.

Pope’s relentless optimism and “positive psychology” approach might have worked in Provo, but Anderson believes it is fundamentally mismatched with where Kentucky is as a program.

“He can relate to the guys because he’s a great guy,” Anderson explained. “When you’re at BYU, you get to kind of run and play, and it’s a different style when you’re in the SEC and Kentucky thing. We were coming for your throat, and that’s a different mentality. Is he teaching that mentality? Because he’s never been that rah-rah guy anyway.”

Anderson pointed out the stark contrast in how he and Pope differed when they were on the court together. “You saw when we played, I’m dancing when I dunk on you. He’s just like this, ‘Good play, DA. Go sit down.’ Like, that’s a great guy, but that’s not Kentucky. Like, I was taught to dominate players whenever I played, and that was a mentality.”

There has been a little bit of that killer instinct missing at times under Pope. And it could be that he values emotional balance so much that his guys never feel free to really go after it. That mentality all starts on the practice court for Anderson.

Flawed practice habits

That lack of edge apparently bleeds into how Pope constructs his practices and pregame speeches/routines. Anderson shared a specific anecdote about Pope’s free-throw drills that contrasts with where the two men stand.

Pope demands absolute silence in the gym when players are shooting free throws. Anderson strongly disagrees with the method.

“We wanted everybody loud,” Anderson said. “If I’m at the free throw line, I need to hear noise so I know it at the end of the game, when there’s crazy going on, I gotta concentrate… If you don’t teach that, and when it happens in a game, how am I prepared? I’m not.”

DA is totally right here. I love the Mark Pope moment of silence thing. I understand visualization is key. But I also believe you play the way you practice. And we need to see some more fire from these guys on gameday.

I really believe that is a huge part of why we see so many slow starts.

Anderson also sees a teaching issue.

A complete lack of basketball IQ

The most interesting critique from Anderson centered on the lack of teaching the basic fundamentals. He expressed shock at last year’s team’s inability to execute even the most basic basketball concepts. He believes that falls directly on Pope and the assistants, who have now mostly been replaced (Cody Fueger, Mark Fox, and Mikhail McLean are the holdovers, for now).

“We didn’t know how to play basketball. It was literally, we couldn’t throw a bounce pass,” Anderson said, referencing the recent struggles. He noted that players fail to use basic pump fakes against 2-3 zones, and criticized the assistant coaches for doing “nothing” and walking away while players shoot free throws instead of forcing them to hold their follow-throughs.

“It was not teaching,” Anderson stated firmly. “And I was always telling him, you’ve got to teach the IQ part and understanding of the game if you want players to be better. You can’t just let them go and say, well, they’ll figure it out.”

Again, DA is right on the money. I know Mark doesn’t want to spend a lot of practice time on teaching things guys should have learned in junior high, but the reality is the game has changed. Most of these kids play on AAU traveling teams that only care about 2 things: winning and money. No longer do they teach them drop steps; it is now the Euro step. No longer is it bounce pass drills; it’s all Steph Curry two-hand-two-ball drills.

You have to sometimes take a step back in order to take a step forward.

Can a coaching staff shakeup fix this?

Anderson’s comments shine a glaring spotlight on the current state of Kentucky’s bench. It is abundantly clear that Pope has significant work to do in terms of teaching the game, but he cannot do it alone.

So far this offseason, Kentucky has only hired Mo Williams to the staff. With Mark Fox operating on an expiring contract and an open coaching vacancy still waiting to be filled, Pope has a crucial opportunity to change the dynamic. If he is going to be the “nice guy” head coach, he desperately needs to hire assistants who are willing to teach the fundamentals, enforce the “throat-stepping” mentality, and demand accountability in practice.

I know he loves this place, and I think everyone wants him to succeed here, but if he fails to address what DA has brought up, I don’t see him staying past year 3.

Do you agree or disagree with Anderson’s take on Pope?

1. Playoff Jayson Tatum Is Back

The last time Jayson Tatum played in the playoffs was May 12th 2025. He dropped 42 points, 8 rebounds and 4 assists before he suffered what is known as one of the worst injuries a basketball player could sustain in a Torn Achilles. It was only 342 days later where Tatum was back playing in a playoff game and it looks like he hasn’t skipped a beat, finishing with 25 points, 11 rebounds, 7 assists, and 2 steals on 9-17 shooting.

Jayson Tatum is now 5th in Eastern Conference history in 25-point playoff games with only LeBron James, Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, and Dwayne Wade having more. Tatum joined Jimmy Butler in 2022 and Russell Westbrook in 2017 as the third player in NBA Playoff History with 21+ Points, 8+ Rebounds, 4+ Assists, and 2+ Steals in the first half of a playoff game in the last 30 years.

Tatum played most of his best basketball in the first half of this game, finishing with 21 points, 8 rebounds, and 4 assists on 7-11 shooting. Tatum had 10 of those points in the first quarter, where he exploited the fact the 76ers didn’t have a wing defender that could guard him. He was able to slice through Philly’s defense like a cheese steak to get to easy buckets in the midrange and some aggressive finishes at the basket.

Tatum did a great job of getting to the line in the second quarter, finishing 6-6 at the charity stripe. Philadelphia did not have any answers for him and you can tell they were frustrated. He was 1-7 from three in this game but that one he hit made him pass Kobe Bryant for 11th place on the all-time playoff three-pointers made list. Tatum put an exclamation point on his incredible first half performance with an emphatic slam off a Sam Hauser steal.

Tatum only played in 12 minutes the rest of the game but his first half performance stamped his impact on this win. He was serenaded with a standing ovation from the TD Garden crowd in the fourth quarter, being shown the respect he deserved for his great game.

2. Jaylen Brown Big 3Q

Jaylen Brown started game this game a little slow with only 10 points on 4-12 shooting in the first half but really stepped up his game in the third quarter. Brown played the entire third quarter and finished with 16 points on 7-9 shooting from the field and 2-2 from three. The play that really ignited his fire in the quarter came at the 6:24 mark where he deflected an errant pass by Andre Drummond and turned it into a wide open three pointer.

This three sparked a 10-0 run by the Celtics that took any possible chance the 76ers had of coming back in this game. Brown shot 5-6 after his steal, twisting the knife even deeper into Philadelphia’s defense. No matter who Philly threw out there to defend him, Brown was able break them down and finish in his spots.

This game was the 50th time that both Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum scored 20+ points in the same playoff game, the second most in Celtics history only behind Larry Bird and Kevin McHale who did it 58 times. It is the 19th time that Brown and Tatum have both scored 25+ in the same playoff game. If Game 1 was any indication of how these playoffs are going to go, we could see the Jays breaking that record this season.

3. Sam Hauser Dialed In

For the first time in his NBA Career, Sam Hauser shot under 40% from three in a season, finishing at 39.3% with the Celtics this season. He seemed to take that personally going into Game 1 where finished with 12 points and 7 rebounds on 4-6 shooting from behind the arc. He started the game off hot, hitting back-to-back threes in the first quarter and set the tone for the Celtics offense.

He hit two more threes in the fourth quarter but what really impressive from Hauser was his defensive effort in this game. Via Taylor Snow on X, Sam Hauser played 1,934 minutes in the regular season and drew 0 charges but 2 minutes into the playoffs he drew a charge on Adem Bona who barreled right through him. When asked about taking the charge, Hauser laughed and said, “I was scared” but he was just trying to make a play.

Hauser made another great defensive play in the second quarter, picking off an inbounds pass and finding Jayson Tatum the other way for a wide open dunk. After struggling for most of the season, this was a great start what hopefully is a big playoff run for Hauser this season.

4. Jordan Walsh Energy Minutes

Jordan Walsh played some big minutes for the Celtics down the stretch of the regular season and got his first chance to show out in the playoffs, finishing with 5 points, 2 rebounds, and 2 assists on 2-5 shooting. He was thrown in at the 3:49 mark of the third quarter and was immediately tasked to stop Tyrese Maxey. Walsh stepped up by playing some great defense that resulted in him getting a fast-break layup off a nice pass from Jayson Tatum at the end of the first quarter.

Walsh checked back in at the 3:36 mark of the third quarter, where he once again brought the energy on the defensive end that the Celtics were looking for. After Brown missed a midrange jumper, Walsh grabbed a big offensive rebound in traffic, drawing a foul and hyping up the crowd. This is a great example of why Walsh is so important to the Celtics with the instant energy he provides on the defensive side of the ball.

5. Neemias Queta X-Factor

Neemias Queta had an up-and-down game against the 76ers in his first career playoff start. The good was that he finished with 13 points and 1 block on 5-5 shooting but the bad was that he committed 5 fouls in only 15 minutes of play. Some of the fouls were bad but when he was out there, Queta dominated the 76ers inside, just like he did on March 1st when he dropped a career 27 points with 17 rebounds.

Much like most of the games at the end of the regular season when Queta went off, he was a monster in the pick-and-roll against Philadelphia. If he wasn’t in foul trouble I believe the Celtics would have spammed the same play over and over again until the 76ers could stop him. The 76ers looked like they wanted no business in guarding him and if that is the case, Queta will be a big X-factor for the Celtics in this series if he can stay out of foul trouble.

6. Nikola Vucevic Adventure

With Queta in foul trouble, Nikola Vucevic got a lot more minutes off the bench, finishing with 18 in total. If I had to describe his performance it would be: an adventure. Much like Queta, Vucevic also was in foul trouble, finishing with 4 fouls. On the positive side he finished with 3 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists, and a +13. We saw Vucevic have a rough game early on, getting dunked on by Kelly Oubre Jr and air-balling a wide open shot at the basket.

However he was also able to be a real positive for Boston on the glass, doing a great job of sealing off Bona and Drummond to secure defensive rebounds to start the Celtics offense. He was even able to turn one of these rebounds into a transition three. It was cool to see TD Garden yell “VOOCH” as the shot went up and the subsequent cheers after it went in. Joe Mazzulla praised his ability to keep the 76ers big men off the glass in his post game press conference, so although it might not look the prettiest, Vucevic is an important part of this rotation.

7. Garza/Scheierman Step Up In Spot Minutes

With both Queta and Vucevic in foul trouble at points in this game, Luka Garza got a chance to play 14 minutes off the bench and finished with 7 points and 2 rebounds. Garza started the second quarter for the Celtics and immediately grabbed a big offensive rebound to get free throws. He followed that up with a three pointer and even though he only played 5:27, in the second quarter, the Celtics were able to open up their lead to 15 points. Garza played a little bit of spot minutes in the second half as well and although he didn’t put up a ton of numbers on the stat sheet, he was able to keep Philadelphia’s big men under wraps.

Baylor Scheierman also started the second quarter alongside Garza, and had one sequence where he made an impact. He finished a nice floater late in the shot clock on offense and then blocked Paul George on defense the next possession. Seeing Garza and Scheierman excel in spot minutes is huge for the Celtics and is a testament to everyone being ready for when their number is called.

8. Three-point Disparity

When asked about limiting the Celtics three-point shooting pregame, 76ers head coach Nick Nurse said that he wanted his team to cut the number of three point attempts down in this series by “4-5.” Safe to say, that game plan did not work out well. Boston was 16-44 (36%) from three which isn’t great but was substantially better than Philadelphia who finished 4-23 (17%).

The three-pointer is the great equalizer when it comes to the NBA. It can both win you and lose you games based on how good the team shooting is. Safe to say the 76ers might want to try a little harder to force the Celtics off the three-point line a little more, given they lost by 32 points and Boston didn’t even it shoot it well. I wonder what the score would look like if the Celtics made even 40% of their threes.

9. Maxey Non-Factor

Tyrese Maxey is the engine that makes the Philadelphia 76ers offense go but he is also playing through a right finger tendon injury that he suffered on his pinky. When he isn’t able to have a big game, the 76ers have a hard time generating offense and we saw it in this game where Maxey finished with only 21 points on 8-20 shooting. The primary defenders on Maxey in this game were Derrick White, Jayson Tatum and Jordan Walsh and all of them did a great job of forcing him into tough shots. Maxey is still going to get his and might have a big game in this series at some point, but I liked what I saw out of the Celtics defense.

10. TD Garden Crowd

The best part about the Celtics being back in the Playoffs is that we get to hear the roar of the TD Garden crowd. I was there covering the game for CelticsBlog as a media member for the first time in a playoff game and sitting in the press box it was amazing to hear how loud the crowd got in big moments. The crowd was engaged from the jump ball and I thought even sounded loud on TV.

The highlight of the night was during the fourth quarter when in garbage time, the TD Garden broke out in a “We Want Boston” chant. This was a response to the Philadelphia 76ers crowd chanting it at the end of their Play-In Tournament victory against the Orlando Magic on Wednesday April 15th. We saw Gino Time, the wave, and a Celtics victory, it doesn’t get much better than that.

Warriors reportedly want Steve Kerr to sign multiyear contract if he returns originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

If Steve Kerr does decide he wants to continue coaching the Warriors, the upcoming 2026-27 NBA season might not be his last dance with the organization.

Golden State’s coach, whose contract expires this offseason after the team’s 2025-26 season officially came to a close with a loss to the Phoenix Suns on Friday night in the NBA play-in-tournament, is going to take some time over the next week or two to decide if he wants to continue coaching the Warriors next season.

Kerr recently told ESPN that he felt it was around 50-50 whether he woud remain as Warriors coach or depart, and in a story published Monday, the outlet’s senior NBA writers Ramona Shelburne and Anthony Slater reported that if Kerr decides to return, owner Joe Lacob wants him to express a certain level of hunger, and that the organization’s management would like to lock him into a multiyear contract.

“More than anything, team sources said, Lacob will want to hear Kerr express a hunger to continue executing the nitty-gritty details of the daily job, not a reluctant acceptance that he should continue coaching purely out of loyalty to [Draymond] Green and [Steph] Curry and the sentimentality of riding out this era,” Shelburne and Slater wrote.

“That’s why, if Kerr decides he wants to return, there’s a desire from management for him to sign a multiyear deal, team sources said, instead of setting up a last dance farewell tour that would feel more about emotion and nostalgia than wins.”

Kerr, even throughout Golden State’s turbulent season, has been vocal about how much he still enjoys coaching the Warriors, despite stars such as Curry and Jimmy Butler both missing significant time with injuries.

However, the 60-year-old Kerr, a nine-time NBA champion as a player and coach, has had a long, decorated NBA career, and understandaby, could decide now is time to call it quits.

Or, based on how the organization plans to re-tool its roster around Curry this offseason, decide he wants to return for another season — or two — to pursue his fifth championship with as Warriors coach.

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LeBron James must be so sick of this. If he wanted to experience being the best player on an otherwise thin team, he could simply remember the Cleveland Cavaliers’ run to the NBA finals in 2007. Or the 2015 NBA finals when his best teammates, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love, suffered injuries. Or the 2018 season, which convinced SNL to make a spoof of James’ support staff. “I’m 53 years old,” one of LeBron’s “teammates” says in the clip. “I have seven kids, and two of them are also on the Cavs.” It’s 2026, James is a Los Angeles Laker, his two best teammates are hurt, and one of his kids actually is on the team.

How on earth did we get here, again? James is 41. The story of his season was his labored yet successful pivot into the Lakers’ third option, behind Luka Dončić (who was having one of the best stretches of his career before tweaking his hamstring in a humiliating loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder) and Austin Reaves (who strained his oblique in the same game). Both men are in their primes. James, on the other hand, has been plagued with what some observers may call old guy injuries: he missed the start of the season due to sciatica; he’s sat out a couple games since thanks to arthritis in his left foot. So how – how – is it that Dončić and Reaves were the ones felled by injuries and James is the iron man? Aren’t the rules that athletes in their 20s get to enjoy energy and health, while those in their 40s have to retire and become mediocre pundits?

Related: ‘Last year is over’: Oklahoma City launch title defense as NBA’s parity era faces test

Surreal as James reprising his role from a decade ago is, there’s nobody more used to the gig. Asked recently what his team now needs from him, James said, “everything, so nothing changes for me. Just back to the old ways.” Dončić and Reaves are out indefinitely. If James can prolong the Lakers’ run, that pair may have time to come back and restore the team to its best possible form, but there are no guarantees.

James has at least one thing going for him, aside from the small matter of being arguably the greatest player of all time: the Lakers are playing the dysfunctional Houston Rockets in the first round of the playoffs. This version of the Rockets, without vital contributors in Fred VanVleet and Steven Adams, are capable of blowing a 13-point lead in overtime. There’s simply no other group in the NBA who have it in them, even those teams who spent most of the season trying to lose. On top of that, Kevin Durant recently hurt his knee in practice, forcing him out of Saturday night’s series opener, which the Lakers won 107-98. The Rockets’ offense is poor at the best of times, but removing KD is like taking the bacon and bread off a BLT.

And look, James did not carry the Lakers in Saturday’s win, though the Rockets offered so little resistance that he never had to try. Luke Kennard had 27 points. James had 19, and so did Deandre Ayton. (Guess Ayton drank his crunk juice.) But it was the King who commanded the pace and flow of the game. James had 13 assists to what felt like every single one of his teammates, many of them leading to wide-open shots. He either created or assisted on 15 of the Lakers’ first 19 points. He hit a long three in the fourth quarter, then a ridiculous fadeaway over Amen Thompson, the Rockets’ best defender. He snagged an errant pass in the first quarter; while tumbling out of bounds, he managed to leap in the air and drill the ball off Thompson’s legs to maintain Lakers possession. James played 38 minutes. He finished with a +11 on-off rating, the best on either team.

Saturday was no anomaly. James’ on-court play has been notable this year not just in its continued quality (again: he is 41), but in its effort and intentionality. In December, he sacrificed his run of 1,297 consecutive regular season games in which he’d scored 10 or more points to dish the ball to Rui Hachimura for a game-winner. In the closing minutes of a March thriller against the Denver Nuggets, James dove for a loose ball as if he was a teenager again; the Lakers wound up winning in overtime. Before Dončić and Reaves went down, James had morphed into an uber-efficient role player, producing restrained masterpieces in a radically different style to his do-it-all finals heroics in the 2010s.

It’s been clear since before this season even started that the Lakers won’t win the title this season. Even if they get past the Rockets, the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder will almost certainly grind them into a fine sand in the next round. James must know it.

But maybe he’s just not fazed by any of it, or having to play without Dončić and Reaves. “I’ve been in every situation you can ever imagine as a basketball player,” he said after Game 1. And he has. The bar for his career being set at “surpass Michael Jordan” when he was still in high school didn’t deter him. The venom aimed at him after the Decision, as if he’d committed a serious crime by cheesily announcing his move to the Miami Heat, didn’t do long-term damage. He responded as well as was possible to the disaster that was the 2011 finals. A meaningful portion of NBA fans’ aggressive certainty that basketball is actually an individual sport hasn’t bullied him into becoming a ball hog at the cost of team success. Maybe sharing a starting lineup with Kennard, Ayton, Hachimura, and Marcus Smart instead of taking part in a superteam hardly registers as a challenge at this point.

Perhaps, with time, playing on so many less-than-ideal teams may even end up benefiting James’s legacy – in some calmer world, when we can soberly agree that most of those finals losses weren’t on him alone. James would probably have won more rings on better teams (or if he got to play against worse teams in finals). We might also not have gotten to see the outer reaches of his skill. The way things turned out, he faced enough adversity that he had to show us every extraordinary version of himself.