News

7:20 AM ET A lot of fans seem to hate watching James Harden play. I get it. There is a numbing effect to the thump-thump-thump of Harden dribbling 20 times while four teammates stand in places chosen by Harden. But I have a soft spot for the visual Harden experience. He inspires a chess match

11:44 PM ET Adrian Wojnarowski Close Senior NBA Insider Host of The Woj Pod Joined ESPN in 2017 Tim MacMahon Close ESPN Staff Writer Joined ESPNDallas.com in September 2009 Covers the Dallas Cowboys and Dallas Mavericks Appears regularly on ESPN Dallas 103.3 FM LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — Houston Rockets forward Danuel House Jr.‘s status

11:25 PM ET Tim BontempsESPN LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — For many reasons — primarily the loss of NBA Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard in free agency — the Toronto Raptors entered the 2019-20 season as the least-heralded league champion since the 2011 Dallas Mavericks. Bookmakers in Las Vegas set the line for Raptors wins at

7:25 AM ET You’ve heard the maxim before: The NBA is a make or miss league. But it’s never been more true than in these playoffs. As the best basketball league in the world leans further and further into 3-point shooting, success from beyond the arc is increasingly deciding who wins the highest-stakes games to

9:30 PM ET Tim BontempsESPN LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — The scream sliced through a largely empty arena and put a dagger in the Milwaukee Bucks‘ season. Giannis Antetokounmpo had been on a tear to begin Game 4 of the Bucks’ Eastern Conference semifinal series against the Miami Heat, scoring 19 points in 11 minutes,

9:03 PM ET Oklahoma City coach Billy Donovan won’t be returning to the Thunder next season, sources tell ESPN. Donovan’s contract expired at season’s end and the sides have decided against pursuing an extension. Discussions between OKC management and Donovan were described as collaborative and realistic. The reality of Oklahoma City’s eventual transition toward a

7:15 AM ET JAMES HARDEN CROUCHED, waiting for referee Ed Malloy to release the ball into the air. Dallas Mavericks forward Kristaps Porzingis stood three feet away across the center circle. The Houston Rockets‘ superstar is 6-foot-5. Porzingis is one of the tallest and longest players in the league, listed at 7-foot-3. Something didn’t add

12:00 AM ET Danny Ainge was no different than most other Boston Celtics fans in the waning seconds of Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals. With just 0.5 seconds until victory, his team poised to take a commanding 3-0 lead over the defending champion Toronto Raptors, Boston’s president of basketball operations hollered at his

10:13 PM ET Tim BontempsESPN LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — After the Boston Celtics dropped Game 4 of their Eastern Conference semifinals series against the Toronto Raptors, they said they had to play better, smarter and harder to regain control of the series in Game 5. The Celtics then proceeded to go out and do

6:56 AM ET Tim BontempsESPN LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — For many reasons — primarily the loss of NBA Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard in free agency — the Toronto Raptors entered the 2019-20 season as the least-heralded league champion since the 2011 Dallas Mavericks. Bookmakers in Las Vegas set the line for Raptors wins at

4:30 PM ET Eric WoodyardESPN LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — The Milwaukee Bucks staved off elimination on Sunday, beating the Miami Heat 118-115 in overtime despite losing superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo to a right ankle sprain in the second quarter. After being fouled by Heat forward Andre Iguodala on a drive into the paint at the

8:47 PM ET Miami Heat All-Star swingman Jimmy Butler acknowledged what anyone watching his team’s 118-115 Game 4 overtime loss to the Milwaukee Bucks could see in the moment. The Heat let their foot off the gas when reigning league MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo reinjured his right ankle early in the second quarter of Sunday’s game.

7:17 AM ET The Milwaukee Bucks of fall and winter were a thing of basketball beauty. Giannis Antetokounmpo was once again building his MVP résumé, while Khris Middleton was continuing to establish himself as one of the NBA’s most versatile scorers, reliable from anywhere on the floor. Watching a fast break conducted by Antetokounmpo was

1:07 AM ET Throughout the course of this long season, the LA Clippers were darlings of sharp bettors and league intelligentsia, even as so many fans and even a healthy percentage of the Clippers’ peers sometimes wondered why. They encouraged injured players to take plenty of time to recover, harped on the long view as

11:05 PM ET Tim BontempsESPN LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — After the Boston Celtics shot the Toronto Raptors back into their Eastern Conference semifinal series Saturday night, Celtics star Kemba Walker placed the blame on his shoulders. “I got to be more aggressive,” Walker said after finishing with 15 points on 4-for-9 shooting with eight

6:46 AM ET NBA Insiders The NBA playoffs move in cycles. Sometimes you’re up, sometimes you’re down. And sometimes it’s tough to tell what’s real and what’s not. On Friday night, the Houston Rockets walloped the Los Angeles Lakers, and might have exposed a bigger issue for LeBron James‘ team. And the Miami Heat continued

2:19 AM ET To those who have done battle with the Houston Rockets the past few seasons as they morphed into the purest form of positionless, small-ball basketball the NBA has ever seen, Friday’s 112-97 dismantling of the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 1 of their Western Conference semifinals series does not come as a

5:02 PM ET LA Clippers power forward Montrezl Harrell has won the 2019-20 Sixth Man of the Year award, a source confirmed to ESPN. For the third consecutive year, the Clippers have the league’s top sixth man after Lou Williams won the award the previous two seasons. The Clippers now have had the Sixth Man

7:20 AM ET Close your eyes and try to picture it: When was James Harden‘s last capital “M” playoff moment before his flying block on Luguentz Dort to help seal the Houston Rockets‘ Game 7 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder? Unless you include the bad ones — we’ll get to those — you might

1:37 AM ET It’s difficult to doubt the LA Clippers‘ personnel and its potential. Yet coming into this conference semifinals series against the Denver Nuggets, we still hadn’t seen the fully-intact, healthy Clippers play championship-quality basketball for a sustained stretch of time longer than 10 days after the All-Star break and before the March suspension.

6:48 PM ET The Grizzlies‘ Ja Morant has been named the NBA Rookie of the Year. The league announced Morant as the winner Thursday night, saying he received 99 first-place votes and 498 total points in polling of 100 sportswriters and broadcasters. Heat guard Kendrick Nunn finished second with 204 points. The Pelicans’ Zion Williamson,

2:20 AM ET After two thrilling first-round Game 7s, the NBA’s conference semifinals are finally set. The Houston Rockets edged the Oklahoma City Thunder to set up a meeting with the top-seeded Los Angeles Lakers, while the Denver Nuggets outdueled the Utah Jazz to clinch a matchup with the LA Clippers. The Eastern Conference semis

12:41 AM ET FOR A MOMENT, there was a question if Chris Paul would ever play a game in an Oklahoma City Thunder uniform. He arrived last summer after two franchise-altering trades, one sending out All-Star Paul George for young prospects and long-term assets and the other acquiring Paul (and more picks) for team icon

6:18 PM ET Michael Porter Jr. said the LA Clippers passed on him twice in the 2018 NBA draft because their team doctor “thought that I would never play basketball again.” The Clippers had back-to-back first-round picks at 12 and 13 and traded the 12th pick for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander before selecting shooting guard Jerome Robinson.

6:42 AM ET ERIK SPOELSTRA COULD have winged it. If anyone was qualified to give a talk on how to deal with a case of imposter syndrome, it was the former video coordinator who worked his way up to become head coach of the Miami Heat. But Spoelstra had come to know his young sharpshooter,

12:50 AM ET Tim BontempsESPN LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — Only minutes after Donovan Mitchell was lying face down on the court inside AdventHealth Arena, he plopped himself down in front of a video camera, his eyes still red from tears he shed after his Utah Jazz saw their season end with a heartbreaking 80-78

5:24 PM ET Eric WoodyardESPN Disappointment has begun to mount among Milwaukee Bucks players inside the NBA bubble and it doesn’t have anything to do with basketball or falling behind 1-0 to the Miami Heat. The Bucks suffered a 115-104 loss to the Heat on Monday, but on the same day in Wisconsin, there was

7:12 AM ET Through six volcanic NBA playoff games against the Utah Jazz, Jamal Murray has: Averaged 34 points. Put up 50, 42, then 50 again — the last two in season-saving wins, as the Denver Nuggets look to become the first team since the 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers to rally from a 3-1 deficit. (Do

11:41 PM ET In his first moment in the spotlight as a member of the Miami Heat last fall, Jimmy Butler failed. It was the rigorous conditioning test the Heat put players through before training camp that is legend within the league. Some athletic trainers claim it’s the most demanding such test in all of

Former Nets coach Kenny Atkinson, assistants still in postseason among candidates for Bulls’ vacancy, sources say In addition to interviewing former Nets coach Kenny Atkinson for their vacant job, the rebuilding Bulls are interested in assistants involved in the playoffs, including Milwaukee’s Darvin Ham, Denver’s Wes Unseld Jr., and Miami’s Dan Craig, sources say.