Category: Basketball

Adrian Wojnarowski, Senior NBA InsiderJun 2, 2023, 11:40 AM ET

CloseHost of The Woj Pod Joined ESPN in 2017

The Utah Jazz‘s G League affiliate, the Salt Lake City Stars, is hiring former Marquette coach Steve Wojciechowski as head coach, sources told ESPN on Friday.

Wojciechowski, who has been living in the Salt Lake City area since departing Marquette in 2021, has been eager to make the leap into pro coaching and now lands with a franchise replete with young players and three first-round picks in the 2023 NBA draft.

He had spent time around the Jazz organization over the past two years, especially in the 2021-22 season because of his longtime relationship with former Jazz coach Quin Snyder. Wojciechowski spent time this past season attending some Jazz practices and building a relationship with coach Will Hardy.

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Wojciechowski joins Snyder as one of several college coaches who have made the transition to the NBA

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Aaron Gordon is among the the lowest-maintenance players in the NBA. The Denver Nuggets almost never run plays for him, and that can lead to some very misleading box scores. The Los Angeles Lakers, for instance, hardly guarded Gordon during the Western Conference Finals, using Anthony Davis as a help-defender off of Gordon for the sake of extra rim-protection. 

He scored just 29 points in the first three games of that series, and while he bounced back in Game 4, there was a case to be made for the Heat to adopt a similar strategy in the NBA Finals using Kevin Love on Nikola Jokic and top defender Bam Adebayo as a rover off of Gordon. Denver’s offense is so loaded that opposing defenses typically use Gordon—the only poor shooter in an otherwise

Game 1 of the NBA Finals saw Nikola Jokić and the Denver Nuggets cruise to a victory over Jimmy Butler and the Miami Heat, causing Craig Carton to ask Tim Hardaway Sr… should the Heat be worried? Watch as they share their biggest takeaways from the game, and decide if the Heat will be able to come up with an answer for The Joker, and avoid a sweep.

21 MINS AGO・the carton show・3:41

Ohm Youngmisuk, ESPN Staff WriterMay 31, 2023, 08:00 AM ET

CloseOhm Youngmisuk has covered the Giants, Jets and the NFL since 2006. Prior to that, he covered the Nets, Knicks and the NBA for nearly a decade. He joined ESPNNewYork.com after working at the New York Daily News for almost 12 years and is a graduate of Michigan State University.
Follow him on Twitter »  Ohm’s chat archive »

WITH THE LIGHTS dimmed for the introduction of the starting lineups, Ball Arena directs everyone’s attention to the big screen for an urgent message.

“ATTENTION, WARNING TO VISITORS.”

Denver Nuggets public address announcer Kyle Speller proceeds to deliver a grim caution to the Los Angeles Lakers and their fans before the start of the Western Conference finals.

“All visitors to the Mile High City be warned,” Speller says in an ominous voice. “High levels of exertion at this altitude may cause hypoxia with symptoms of fatigue, difficulty

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NBA commissioner Adam Silver addressed the media on Thursday prior to Game 1 of the 2023 NBA Finals between the Denver Nuggets and Miami Heat, and among the many topics he covered was the Ja Morant situation. While Silver was somewhat vague, his comments make it seem like the Memphis Grizzlies guard will face significant punishment.

Nothing will be announced until after the NBA Finals have concluded, however. 

“We’ve uncovered a fair amount of additional information since I was last asked about the situation,” Silver said. “We probably could have brought it to a head now, but we made the decision — and I believe the Players Association agrees with us — that it would be unfair to these players and these teams in the middle of this series to announce the results of

Jun 1, 2023, 08:41 AM ET

As this year’s Finals take place with the Miami Heat facing the Denver Nuggets, we’re looking back at legendary performances from superstars such as LeBron James, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Michael Jordan, with the help of Basketball-Reference.com’s game score archive.

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Game score, pioneered by John Hollinger, is a measure of a player’s single-game value factoring in all elements of the box score from scoring efficiency to playmaking to rebounding and defensive impact. Although imperfect, it quickly captures a player’s baseline performance and allows us to compare conference finals games going back to 1978 — the first year the NBA tracked individual turnovers.

Over that span of 45 years of NBA Finals, we’ve highlighted the top 25 individual performances, 16 of which came in victories for their team. How did each player succeed and what did their heroics mean for the series and the NBA playoffs as

Jun 1, 2023, 06:45 PM ET

Miami Heat guard Tyler Herro will continue to test his surgically repaired right hand, and a return to the lineup for Game 2 of the NBA Finals against the Denver Nuggets looms as a possibility, sources told ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski on Thursday.

Herro, who had surgery to fix the third and fourth metacarpal on his right hand on April 21, will continue ramping up his workouts and try to get a sense of how the hand responds to contact before making a decision, sources told ESPN.

If he’s unable to return for Game 2 on Sunday (8 p.m. ET, ABC), there’s confidence that Herro will be available for Game 3 on Wednesday ( 8:30 p.m. ET, ABC), sources told ESPN.

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Herro suffered the injury during Game 1 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals against the Milwaukee Bucks on April 16.

Heat coach Erik Spoelstra on Wednesday said that

Ramona Shelburne, ESPN Senior WriterJun 2, 2023, 02:05 AM ET

CloseSenior writer for ESPN.comSpent seven years at the Los Angeles Daily News

DENVER — Every once in a while, when things look good but feel a little bit off, Denver Nuggets coach Michael Malone will turn around in the middle of a game and ask a team staffer how many shots Nikola Jokic has taken.

Like everyone on the Nuggets’ staff, Malone has learned to trust Jokic to read the game, what the defense is giving him and when it’s time for him to start attacking. But sometimes it’s still hard to wait.

Take Game 1 of these NBA Finals when Jokic took just one shot in the first quarter and three shots in the first half of Denver’s 104-93 win against the Miami Heat on Thursday night at Ball Arena.

Jokic was still in complete command of the game with 10 assists in the

Tim Bontemps, ESPNJun 1, 2023, 05:11 PM ET

CAMDEN, N.J. — New Philadelphia 76ers coach Nick Nurse was asked about the status of pending free agent James Harden and how he’d sell the star guard on playing for him next season.

“Winning has to be the sell, right?” Nurse said Thursday during his introductory news conference at the team’s practice facility. “Can we be good enough to win it all? That’s got to be a goal of his.

“And if it is, then he should stay here and play for us, because I think there’s a possibility of that.”

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Nurse, who was hired by the Sixers just a few weeks after his successful five-year run with the Toronto Raptors ended, said he already has talked to Harden and plans to meet with him as well as every other player on the roster, including Joel Embiid, with whom he sat down during the

Nick Friedell, ESPN Staff WriterJun 2, 2023, 01:32 AM ET

CloseNick Friedell is the Chicago Bulls beat reporter for ESPN Chicago. Friedell is a graduate of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University and joined ESPNChicago.com for its launch in April 2009.

DENVER — The Miami Heat set an NBA postseason record for fewest free throw attempts in a game, going to the foul line just twice during a 104-93 loss to the Denver Nuggets in Game 1 of the NBA Finals on Thursday night.

Afterward, Heat star Jimmy Butler vowed to attack the basket more heading into Game 2 on Sunday night. He didn’t hesitate when asked why the offense struggled so much to find its rhythm.

“Probably because we shot a lot of jump shots, myself probably leading that pack, instead of putting pressure on the rim,” Butler said after scoring just 13 points. “Getting lay-ups, getting to the