Jaylen Brown isn’t the best player on a Boston Celtics team featuring two All-Stars in Jayson Tatum and Kemba Walker, but he may be the most important. The Boston Celtics advancing to the Eastern Conference Finals should come as no surprise, even within the volatile bubble that saw favorites like the Clippers and Bucks bow
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
LeBron James, #23, Los Angeles Lakers, (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images) Ronald Acuña isn’t remotely satisfied with winning the NL East again by Mark Powell LeBron James caught an errant elbow from Jamal Murray, drawing a crucial second-half flagrant foul. The Lakers came into Game 3 looking to take a commanding series lead but the
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
It doesn’t sound possible, but did you know that the crazy NBA summer of 2019 was, in fact, over a year ago? Wildly, in any normal, non-pandemic season, it all would have been over three months ago and, usually, media days would be right around the corner, but not this time. The 2019-20 NBA season
Enes Kanter wants you to know the Celtics locker room is just fine. Screams were exchanged and objects were thrown in the Celtics locker room after their loss to the Heat on Thursday night. Boston big man Enes Kanter went on Twitter to assure fans and media alike that “no one can split our family
Getting back Gordon Hayward is a welcome development for the Boston Celtics, but teammate Jaylen Brown still feels the need to poke fun at his mustache. The Boston Celtics topped the Miami Heat in Saturday night’s Game 3, avoiding a 3-0 deficit and breathing life back into the team’s pursuit of its first NBA Finals
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
Michael Jordan is starting a NASCAR team with Bubba Wallace as his driver. Over the last year, Bubba Wallace has become one of the bigger names in NASCAR as a vocal advocate for social justice and the only Black driver in the sport. Now, he’s about to join one of the biggest NBA names of
Josh Smith is still on the Detroit Pistons’ payroll. Near the end of Detroit Pistons legend Joe Dumars’ tenure as GM in 2013, he made one last desperate swing for the fences by acquiring Josh Smith from the Atlanta Hawks. While Smith was coming off of a season in which he averaged 17.5 points per
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:
The NBA bubble has provided some memorable moments for basketball fans, and while four games have ended at the buzzer, some were better than others. The NBA bubble had already given fans an enjoyable ride through the postseason prior to Sunday night, but Anthony Davis’s Game 2 buzzer-beater to lift the Los Angeles Lakers over
Photo by Kim Klement-Pool/Getty Images Unlikely quarterback making impression at Seahawks camp by Leigh Oleszczak Slow-motion clip shows Mike Breeden’s leg might be broken (Video) by Zain Bando Donovan Mitchell’s fourth quarter dunk was a clear posterization Mitchell’s been one of the stories of the postseason, scoring 50 points twice in the Jazz’s first-round series
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
The Whiteboard is The Step Back’s daily basketball newsletter, covering the NBA, WNBA and more. Subscribe here to get it delivered to you via email each morning. Until his Game 2, game-winning buzzer-beater, Anthony Davis had been having a fairly quiet postseason. Certainly not in the box score, where he’s averaged 28.7 points, 10.7 rebounds,
The Toronto Raptors stole Game 3 from the Boston Celtics to avoid a 3-0 deficit. What. A. Game. If you didn’t watch the first two games of this series, you wouldn’t have known that the Toronto Raptors were down 2-0. The defending champs put up a fight from start to finish, forging points in ways
LAKE BUENA VISTA, FLORIDA – AUGUST 05: Serge Ibaka #9 of the Toronto Raptors celebrates scoring with Kyle Lowry #7 during action against the Orlando Magic in the second half at Visa Athletic Center at ESPN Wide World Of Sports Complex on August 5, 2020 in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. NOTE TO USER: User expressly
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
WASHINGTON, DC – MARCH 01: Michael Jordan #23 of the Washington Wizards plays against the Chicago Bulls on March 1, 2003 at the MCI Center in Washington, DC. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty
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
The Miami Heat culture has always been about adaptation. With Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo they’ve become a smirking, energetic powerhouse. Nobody has been more fun to watch in these playoffs than the Miami Heat. They play cohesive team ball on a scale that’s genuinely rare in the NBA, but more than that, they possess
Colby Covington calls out LeBron James, other “woke” athletes following win Colby Covington has not been shy about his support for incumbent U.S. President Donald Trump, especially ahead of the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. And following his win at UFC Vegas 11, Covington took aim at an athlete who is completely on the other side
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
The Charlotte Hornets are doing their part for Election Day, providing rides and childcare for voters who need it in November. The Charlotte Hornets are following the example of other professional teams around the country, helping out with polling and giving rides and childcare services to voters who need them, per The Charlotte Observer, as the
WASHINGTON, DC – MARCH 07: Head coach Jay Wright of the Villanova Wildcats looks on during a college basketball game against the Georgetown Hoyas at the Capital One Arena on March 7, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mitchell Layton/Getty Images) Alvin Kamara returns to Saints practice after positive talk with Sean Payton by Braulio
Even as a rookie, Matisse Thybulle looked like a special wing defender. But can the shooting-starved 76ers justify keeping him on the floor? The NBA Bubble has brought quite a variety of players into the media’s spotlight. The rookie Matisse Thybulle became a Youtube sensation as he recorded his time in The Bubble. Despite the
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