News

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.

7:20 AM ET I first started hearing versions of it from rival executives at the end of the 2014-15 season, when the Miami Heat traded two first-round picks for Goran Dragic on an expiring contract — and finished 37-45, one game short of the playoffs: If it wasn’t the Heat, we’d all be laughing at

6:24 AM ET THE NINE MONTHS it took to schedule a dinner between Los Angeles Lakers owner Jeanie Buss and the franchise’s newest superstar, LeBron James, really wasn’t that long by Los Angeles standards. James lives in Beverly Hills; Buss lives in Playa Vista. Busy people, L.A. traffic, intense jobs — nine months is actually

9:47 PM ET LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — Having played JaVale McGee and Dwight Howard sparingly in the second round against the small ball-centric Houston Rockets, Los Angeles Lakers coach Frank Vogel acknowledged he’ll need to bring his bigs back into the fold against Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets in the NBA Western Conference

3:49 PM ET Tim BontempsESPN LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James made history Wednesday when he was named to a 16th All-NBA team in his 17-year career, which snapped a tie with Hall of Famers Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the most in NBA history. James was

7:02 AM ET Michael Malone and LeBron James experienced their first conference finals together 13 years ago: the Cleveland Cavaliers‘ stunning 2007 upset of the Detroit Pistons in which James was just 22 and Malone was an assistant coach. Their faces aren’t quite as smooth now and they have less hair, but their presence together

11:26 PM ET A balanced Miami Heat team came into Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals with the No. 4 offense and No. 4 defense in the postseason. In the final 12 seconds of an overtime thriller on Tuesday, they executed two phenomenal, game-winning plays: one an offensive gem by their closer, Jimmy Butler;

6:38 AM ET Three players in the history of the NBA have recorded 25 points, 10 rebounds and 5 assists in a Game 7 before the age of 25: Jerry West, Kobe Bryant and, as of last week, Jayson Tatum. The first guy is immortalized as the league logo, the second became one of the

7:20 AM ET As the Denver Nuggets flew back from Minnesota after losing a win-or-go-home regular-season finale to the Timberwolves for the West’s No. 8 seed in 2018, Nikola Jokic rose from his seat and strode from row to row. Jokic thanked every player, coach, and staff member for helping the Nuggets win 46 games

12:01 PM ET In a three-hour lunch meeting Friday in Milwaukee, Bucks co-owner and governor Marc Lasry made it clear to reigning MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo that the franchise is willing to spend into the luxury tax to deliver him a championship supporting cast, sources told ESPN. The Bucks’ payroll will be close to the proposed

7:22 AM ET The next chapter of the Boston Celtics–Miami Heat rivalry starts Tuesday — with new stars, new storylines and plenty of drama. Miami already knocked out reigning MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo and the NBA-best Milwaukee Bucks, while Boston overcame a seven-game fight with the defending champion Toronto Raptors. What’s in store with a trip

Sep 11, 2020 NBA Insiders The 2020 NBA playoffs pick up again Tuesday with the Eastern Conference finals, featuring a thrilling matchup of two teams that pulled upsets in the previous round: the Boston Celtics and the Miami Heat. (The East finals can be seen on ESPN and the ESPN App, including Game 1 on

6:46 PM ET Doc Rivers cannot play the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year as his sixth man. When trying to comprehend how the LA Clippers have squandered a 3-1 series advantage over the Denver Nuggets — and in spectacular fashion, by losing a double-digit second-half lead for the second straight game in Denver’s 111-98

2:04 PM ET LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — Houston Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni has informed the franchise that he’s becoming a coaching free agent and won’t return to the Rockets next season, D’Antoni told ESPN on Sunday. “It’s with tremendous sadness and gratitude that my wife Laurel and I announce that our incredible journey in

7:19 AM ET THEY WERE EMOTIONAL, tired and confused. The LA Clippers were gathered — all 15 players and head coach Doc Rivers — in the middle of the night on the eighth floor of Walt Disney World Resort’s Gran Destino Tower, trying to hold everything together. It was Aug. 26, and the NBA bubble

10:56 PM ET LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — A one-year break for LeBron James and a nine-year hiatus for his franchise came to an end on Saturday: James and the Los Angeles Lakers are back in the conference finals. James poured in 29 points to go along with 11 rebounds and 7 assists in the

7:00 AM ET IT’S A FIVE-POINT game in a 1-1 playoff series and the game clock ticks inside two minutes in the first half when LeBron James goes in his bag. The sequence begins when James snags a defensive rebound and advances the ball up the left side of the court. Once past the massive

1:51 AM ET Tim BontempsESPN LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — In Game 6 of the Eastern Conference semifinal series between the Toronto Raptors and Boston Celtics, Raptors guard Norman Powell had the ball on a fast break against Celtics guard Marcus Smart with less than a minute to go in double overtime and converted an

11:54 PM ET There are few people in the NBA who dislike each other more than Boston Celtics president Danny Ainge and Miami Heat president Pat Riley — and it has been this way going on four decades. They hated each other in the 1980s, when Ainge was a guard for the Celtics in the

7:00 AM ET NBA Insiders Let’s go to Game 7! For the third time in the 2020 NBA playoffs, a series is going the distance. Along the way, the Boston Celtics and Toronto Raptors have put on eye-popping shooting displays and defensive clinics, with star performances on the court and a coaching chess match on

12:47 AM ET LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — The Los Angeles Lakers might have missed out on convincing Kawhi Leonard to join LeBron James and Anthony Davis and form a “big three” last summer, but Lakers coach Frank Vogel says L.A.’s team defense is ending up having the same impact another All-NBA individual added to

12:44 AM ET There are some quotes that follow a coach his whole career, or at least long enough to become profoundly ironic. When Mike D’Antoni took over as coach of the Los Angeles Lakers in 2012 and was asked how he planned to use likely future Hall of Fame big men Pau Gasol and