10:06 PM ET Associated Press LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — It was exactly one year ago Sunday when Jimmy Butler walked into the Miami Heat practice gym, took a seat on a makeshift stage and said he wanted to be part of the team’s next title run. He’ll have that chance. The Heat are going
News
7:20 AM ET LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — In the NBA bubble, a quality cup of coffee is hard to come by. The sweets shop in the El Centro lobby on the way to the practice facility — which offered bitter dark roast — closed soon after players arrived in early July because it wasn’t
1:44 AM ET A year ago, the hardest thing in front of LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers was resurrecting a storied franchise that had missed the playoffs six consecutive seasons. And at the time, that seemed like a pretty steep hill to climb. There was no way to know what awful events lay
12:59 AM ET Tim BontempsESPN LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — After the Boston Celtics walked into the locker room at halftime of Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals against the Miami Heat, having produced a second straight lackluster first half in a series they trailed 3-1, they knew something had to change. So, before
7:00 AM ET All four teams are still afloat in the NBA’s conference finals — and things just keep getting spicier. The Boston Celtics kept their season going by beating the Miami Heat in Friday’s Game 5 121-108. The Denver Nuggets, meanwhile, are hoping to make yet another improbable comeback from a 3-1 series deficit,
11:13 PM ET For the Boston Celtics, the first half of Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals was a tractor pull. They shot 25 percent from the field in the first quarter. Coming off a simple pick-and-pop with Jayson Tatum, Kemba Walker sent the pass into the hands of assistant coach Scott Morrison on
6:43 PM ET LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — The Los Angeles Lakers are one win away from going to the NBA Finals for the first time since Kobe Bryant led them past the Boston Celtics a decade ago. So, it was apt when, in describing how the Lakers are tempering their emotions in the moment,
6:51 AM ET DWYANE WADE SPENT just one season playing alongside Jimmy Butler in Chicago, but that was all that was needed to form a deep — and familiar — impression. “He’s a Heat guy,” Wade later told Erik Spoelstra, the coach of Wade’s longtime franchise, the Miami Heat. Spoelstra probably didn’t need the future
2:44 AM ET LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — If Jamal Murray was going add yet another comeback victory to the Denver Nuggets’ dream postseason run, he was going to have to go through LeBron James to do so. With the Los Angeles Lakers clinging to a four-point lead with just more than five minutes remaining
8:50 PM ET LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — Dwight Howard will start at center for Game 4 of the Western Conference finals, the Los Angeles Lakers announced shortly before tipoff Thursday. Howard replaced JaVale McGee in the first unit to begin the second half of Game 3. L.A. leads the Denver Nuggets 2-1 in the
6:44 AM ET Eric WoodyardESPN THE NIGHT BEFORE the Denver Nuggets faced the LA Clippers in Game 7 of the Western Conference semifinals, backup guard Monte Morris had another Los Angeles team on his mind. He was on a FaceTime call with childhood friend Kyle Kuzma, whose Los Angeles Lakers had already punched their ticket
12:37 AM ET The 2020 playoffs have been a showcase of shocking comebacks, ungodly individual exploits and buzzer-beaters, and beautiful team performances. But not every postseason game can be a work of art. Those instant classics linger in our memory, but every team that advances to the NBA Finals trudges its way through a bog
1:46 PM ET ESPN News Services A Kentucky grand jury on Wednesday indicted one police officer for shooting into neighboring apartments but did not move forward with charges against any officers for their role in Breonna Taylor’s death. A grand jury in Louisville announced that Officer Brett Hankison was charged with three counts of wanton
6:49 AM ET A year ago, Jimmy Butler was changing teams for the third time in three years. He didn’t make the All-Star Game for the first time in four years, and he had developed a reputation as an irritant or a malcontent or a difficult teammate — or all three. These days, Joel Embiid
12:00 AM ET Just four minutes and thirty-eight seconds into the second quarter of Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals, Denver Nuggets star Nikola Jokic retreated to his team’s bench having committed his third foul of the game. That’s when the team knew their 7-foot passing savant was in trouble. Five-thousand miles away, Dejan
6:01 PM ET Billy Donovan has agreed to a deal to become the next coach of the Chicago Bulls, sources tell ESPN. Chicago Bulls executive VP of Basketball Operations Arturas Karnisovas aggressively pursued Donovan in the aftermath of Donovan’s leaving the Oklahoma City Thunder after five seasons, sources said, selling Donovan on a partnership and
6:57 AM ET Anthony Davis is used to individual success. The 2012 No. 1 overall pick is a seven-time All-Star and four-time All-NBA player. This season, he finished second in Defensive Player of the Year voting and sixth for MVP, while being named first-team All-NBA and first-team All-Defense. But the 2020 NBA playoffs in the
9:06 PM ET NASCAR driver Denny Hamlin and Michael Jordan announced Monday night that they will field a car for the 2021 Cup Series season. Their driver: Bubba Wallace. “Bubba has shown improvement since joining the Cup series, and we believe he’s ready to take his career to a higher level,” Hamlin wrote. Added Jordan:
3:37 AM ET LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — After his shot dropped to beat the buzzer, win the game and lift the Los Angeles Lakers to just two wins away from their first NBA Finals appearance since 2010, Anthony Davis shouted out one word that said it all: “Kobe!” Davis’ 3-pointer from the left wing
7:00 AM ET ON THE FIRST floor of a gray, block-like, four-story structure on the campus’ northwest corner, a dozen students shuttle into a three-hour class taught once a week on Monday mornings. It’s the early fall of 2015, and inside Tolman Hall, the longtime home of the University of California at Berkeley’s Graduate School
10:59 PM ET When the Los Angeles Lakers took a 16-point lead with 8:12 left in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals against the Denver Nuggets, it seemed like they would cruise to a victory, similar to Game 1. But the Nuggets kept playing, cutting the Los Angeles lead to 82-78 entering the fourth
12:57 AM ET Tim BontempsESPN LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — For the past two days, the world waited to see how the Boston Celtics would respond to both collapsing down the stretch for a second straight game to open the Eastern Conference finals and the emotional outbursts in the locker room that followed. But after
7:25 AM ET NBA Insiders The 2020 NBA playoffs have provided many with their first extended look at the unusual game of Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic. In the past week, Jokic has led the Nuggets to a startling upset of the LA Clippers, been named to his second All-NBA team and made his Western
12:24 AM ET NBA playoff basketball is an exercise in advanced problem-solving, and the Boston Celtics came into Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals with some serious problems. They blew double-digit second-half leads to the Miami Heat in consecutive losses, encountered far more trouble with the Heat’s zone defense than any top-five offense should
2:24 PM ET LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — Barring a setback in pregame warm-ups, there’s significant optimism within the Boston Celtics that forward Gordon Hayward will make a return to the lineup for Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals against the Miami Heat on Saturday night, sources told ESPN. Hayward has missed a month
7:51 AM ET Be careful writing off the Boston Celtics. Our memories get short. The Celtics just took a 2-0 lead over the Toronto Raptors and barely hung on in seven games. The Denver Nuggets have rallied from two 3-1 deficits. Boston had late leads in both Games 1 and 2 of the Eastern Conference
1:58 AM ET The last time we saw the Los Angeles Lakers, nearly a week ago when they were finishing off the small-ball Houston Rockets in the second round of the playoffs, centers Dwight Howard and JaVale McGee had been relegated to socially distant cheerleaders on the bench. An important role in a mostly-empty, fanless
7:05 AM ET THWACK!! Detroit Pistons defensive wizard Tayshaun Prince, all 215 pounds of him, smashed into an immovable, 7-foot-3, 260-pound object named Zydrunas Ilgauskas. The Cleveland Cavaliers big man planted himself adjacent to Prince with the explicit purpose of preventing him from tracking a precocious 21-year-old LeBron James. Splat!! This time the culprit was
10:57 AM ET Milwaukee Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo has won his second consecutive MVP award, sources told ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. Antetokounmpo joins Stephen Curry, LeBron James, Steve Nash, Tim Duncan, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Moses Malone, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell as back-to-back MVPs. Antetokounmpo joins Michael Jordan (1987-88 season) and
10:45 PM ET In the NBA postseason, there’s often a team that discovers its potential along the way. It learns who it is, banks on its strengths and builds confidence with each win. The Toronto Raptors accomplished that in the 2019 playoffs, and in the Year of the Bubble, the Miami Heat are that team.