Day: May 13, 2024

The NBA playoffs’ conference semifinals are underway. Expect plenty of drama after a thrilling start to the postseason.

The Boston Celtics, the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference and top overall seed, battle the No. 4 seed Cleveland Cavaliers. In the other East series, the No. 2 seed New York Knicks renew their old rivalry with the No. 6 seed Indiana Pacers.

In the West, the No. 1 seed Oklahoma City Thunder take on the No. 5 seed Dallas Mavericks. The other West clash pits the No. 2 seed and defending NBA Finals champion Denver Nuggets against the No. 3 seed Minnesota Timberwolves.

The four teams from each conference face off in a best-of-7 series to advance. All four rounds of the NBA playoffs are best-of-7, and teams are not reseeded after each round. The team with the better regular-season record in each series will have home court advantage for that series. All series are played in a 2-2-1-1-1 format, with the team with the better record hosting Games 1, 2, 5 and 7 (if necessary).

We’ll have complete coverage of the NBA playoffs all the way through the 2024 NBA Finals, which tip off on June 6 on ABC and the ESPN app.

MORE: First-round news and scores |Offseason guides

EASTERN CONFERENCE

Game 1: Celtics 120, Cavaliers 95Game 2: Cavaliers 118, Celtics 94Game 3: Celtics 106, Cavaliers 93Game 4: Monday, May 13 at Cleveland (7:00 p.m. ET, TNT)Game 5: Wednesday, May 15 at Boston (7:00 p.m. ET, TNT)Game 6 (if necessary): Friday, May 17 at Cleveland (8:30 p.m. ET, ESPN)Game 7 (if necessary): Sunday, May 19 at Boston

Cavaliers’ Donovan Mitchell (calf) questionable for Game 4

Celtics ‘bounce back’ with Game 3 road win over Cavaliers

Cavs ride Mitchell’s 29 to Game 2 win over Celtics to tie series

Sources: Celtics assistant Charles Lee to become Hornets coach

Herring: One strength (and a flaw) for the Celtics, other playoff teams

Game 1: Knicks 121, Pacers 117Game 2: Knicks 130, Pacers 121Game 3: Pacers 111, Knicks 106Game 4: Pacers 121, Knicks 89Game 5: Tuesday, May 14 at New York (8:00 p.m. ET, TNT)Game 6: Friday, May 17 at Indiana (ESPN)Game 7 (if necessary): Sunday, May 19 at New York (3:30 p.m. ET, ABC)

Indiana Pacers cruise past New York Knicks, tie series

Knicks rule OG Anunoby (hamstring) out for Game 4 vs. Pacers

Windhorst: The growing Tyrese Haliburton-Jalen Brunson rivalry

Herring: The eight moves that fueled this Knicks resurrection

Hockensmith: The birth of the Nova Knicks

WESTERN CONFERENCE

Game 1: Thunder 117, Mavericks 95Game 2: Mavericks 119, Thunder 110Game 3: Mavericks 105, Thunder 101Game 4: Monday, May 13 at Dallas (9:30 p.m. ET, TNT)Game 5: Wednesday, May 15 at Oklahoma City (9:30 p.m. ET, TNT)Game 6 (if necessary): Saturday, May 18 at Dallas (8:30 p.m. ET, ESPN)Game 7 (if necessary): Monday, May 20 at Oklahoma City (8:30 p.m. ET, TNT)

Luka Doncic battles knee, Kyrie Irving closes strong in Game 3 win

MacMahon: Two under-the-radar trades turned the Mavs into a real threat

Pelton: Why OKC’s championship window is wide open for years to come

Shelburne: Inside Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s improbable rise

Game 1: Timberwolves 106, Nuggets 99Game 2: Timberwolves 106, Nuggets 80Game 3: Nuggets 117, Timberwolves 90Game 4: Nuggets 115, Timberwolves 107Game 5: Tuesday, May 14 at Denver (10:30 p.m. ET, TNT)Game 6: Thursday, May 16 at Minnesota (8:30 p.m. ET, ESPN)Game 7 (if necessary): Sunday, May 19 at Denver

Anthony Edwards tells Jamal Murray: ‘We love that; keep talking’

Denver Nuggets even series with Minnesota Timberwolves 2-2

Nuggets’ Nikola Jokic wins NBA MVP for 3rd time in 4 seasons

Lowe: How Anthony Edwards’ rise has led to the redemption of Karl-Anthony Towns

Holmes: The forgotten Serbian legend who paved the way for Jokic and other stars

CLEVELAND — Cavaliers star guard Donovan Mitchell is questionable for Game 4 of Cleveland’s Eastern Conference semifinal against the Boston Celtics on Monday night due to a left calf strain.

Mitchell had 33 points in 43 minutes in Game 3 but appeared to be limping in the fourth quarter of Cleveland’s 106-93 loss to Boston on Saturday night.

The Celtics lead the series 2-1.

Mitchell has averaged 29.6 points, 5.4 rebounds and 4.7 assists across 10 postseason games for Cleveland, including scoring at least 25 points in six straight — something only LeBron James had done in Cavaliers history.

In addition to Mitchell, Cavaliers starting center Jarrett Allen remains questionable because of a bruised rib, an injury that has kept him out for the past six playoff contests, dating back to Game 5 of the Cavaliers’ first-round series against the Orlando Magic.

Jalen Brunson vs. Tyrese Haliburton, two players already famous for being slighted, is a matchup ready for prime time that’s currently in prime time. And naturally for the two of them, it still might be getting overlooked.

The unfolding drama in this New York Knicks–Indiana Pacers second-round series, which resumes with Sunday’s Game 4 and the Knicks ahead 2-1, has many shiny objects, including history, competing for attention.

There have been three high-intensity fourth quarters in which the winning team has made a comeback; a stream of injuries; nightly officiating complaints; and the playoff heroics of role players such as Josh Hart, Donte DiVincenzo and Andrew Nembhard that have turned these games into immediate classics.

Of course, Brunson and Haliburton also have had their fingerprints all over the series. But what they’re actually doing, engaging in an All-Star boxing match, has been getting lost in the rest of the noise. And it could be a preamble for a multiyear Eastern Conference battle: two lead guards on rising teams with a history longer than each of them has been alive.

“I don’t think it’s as much about me versus him as much as it is our teams versus each other,” Haliburton said after the Pacers pulled out a 111-106 victory in Game 3’s final minute on Friday. “He’s doing what he has to do for his team to win games, and I got to do that, as well, to give my team the best chance to win. So, it’s less about matchup and who’s scoring or who’s doing what. That’s for [fans] to talk about. We’re just trying to win games.”

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Despite dealing with a right foot injury that has forced him to come off the floor in both Games 2 and 3, Brunson is averaging 32.7 points and 5.7 assists on 50% shooting.

The foot injury disrupted Brunson’s historic four-game run of 40-pointers in Game 2. But in Game 3, even with his mobility limited, Brunson made a clutch 3-pointer with 40 seconds left that tied the score.

Haliburton, for his part, came into the series battling back spasms and had an absent Game 1, scoring just six points. Playing in the postseason for the first time, he vowed to bounce back — and has. In Game 2, he scored 34 points with 9 assists, 6 rebounds and 3 steals. In Game 3, he put up 35 points with 7 assists and 2 steals.

Haliburton got banged up twice Friday night, colliding on a drive to the basket with Knicks guard Miles McBride and slamming his tailbone on the court. Then on a transition drive in the fourth quarter, Haliburton rolled his right ankle. He was limping around after the contest, needing both railings to descend the two steps off the postgame lectern and moving gingerly in the locker room as though he had indeed been in a boxing match.

“Overall, my body right now is hurting but, I mean, they got guys hurting too,” Haliburton said. “So, we got to understand everybody’s hurting right now.”

It’s not a prototypical head-to-head rivalry. Brunson and Haliburton typically don’t guard each other. They play different styles: Brunson is more methodical and comfortable in dribble-heavy isolation, while Haliburton is a fleet-footed passing specialist who prefers to play at speed. Haliburton smiles throughout the game. Brunson might smile in July. Haliburton is loquacious in media settings. Brunson is low-key, carefully answering without much fanfare.

“I have all the respect in the world for him and the way he plays the game,” Brunson said of Haliburton, right on brand. “He goes out there and plays the right way and does what he needs to do.”

Pacers coach Rick Carlisle, who coached Brunson for two seasons with the Dallas Mavericks, said of the matchup, “It’s pretty clear that doubters are something they both welcome. And when people doubt them, they dig in harder.”

Jalen Brunson, left, and Tyrese Haliburton were on the Team USA roster for the 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup. Photo by Joe Murphy/NBAE via Getty Images

But there’s also something else to the Brunson-Haliburton story that sits below the surface.

In April, Team USA announced its roster for the Paris Olympics. The spots were highly coveted and one of the reasons Haliburton and Brunson invested their summers with Team USA at the FIBA Basketball World Cup in 2023. Brunson even rescheduled his wedding at nearly the last minute to join the team.

But it was Haliburton — not Brunson — who got the Paris invitation. It stunned Knicks fans, among others, as Brunson had an explosive season that saw him finish fifth in Most Valuable Player voting, higher than any player on the Team USA roster.

“I’m just focused on the playoffs,” Brunson said flatly when the team was announced. “I didn’t even look at the list.”

USA basketball showed interest in Brunson early on — both in 2015, when he was selected to represent the country at the under-17 World Cup in an event he ended up dominating, and in the 2023 World Cup cycle.

Last year, national team coach Steve Kerr not only made Brunson a top selection for the senior FIBA World Cup roster but basically handed over the keys to him as the team leader and starting point guard before there was a single practice.

Kerr and his partners, USA Basketball managing director Grant Hill and national team director Sean Ford, had their reasons for not extending Brunson the invitation in April. They explained them to Brunson when they called with their decision before the teams were announced. And they weren’t unreasonable.

Brunson played fine but didn’t excel at the World Cup, the thinking went, averaging 11 points and four assists on 50% shooting. But Kerr ended up playing Haliburton, who came off the bench, more often at the end of games.

The international game seems to favor Haliburton’s style more than Brunson’s. Haliburton is three inches taller too, a trait Team USA prioritizes in international competition. It also is possible Brunson could be added to the roster this summer, as several players on the team are managing injuries.

The two have become friends since landing on Team USA last year, with Haliburton, who played at Iowa State, joking that while competing on the national squad with former Villanova teammates Brunson, Josh Hart and Mikal Bridges, he was a “substitute Donte” — referring to DiVincenzo, the Villanova product who wasn’t on the team. When Haliburton and the Pacers clinched the playoffs last month, the first call he received was congratulations from Brunson.

So, the national team aspect of their rivalry will probably stay out of the spotlight, even if it won’t be forgotten, especially by Brunson.

But this entire arc, Haliburton vs. Brunson, could just be getting started.

“I think we would both probably tell you that we have familiarity with each other by now,” Haliburton said. “We know what we can do.”

CHICAGO — The Atlanta Hawks rocketed up the board to grab the No. 1 pick in this year’s NBA draft, winning the lottery for the first time in franchise history.

The Hawks, 36-46 this season for a 10th-place finish in the Eastern Conference, had just a 3% chance to win the lottery, the fifth-lowest odds by a team to win the No. 1 pick since the lottery began in 1985.

The Washington Wizards, Houston Rockets and San Antonio Spurs rounded out the top four. The Detroit Pistons, owners of the league’s worst record this year, fell to No. 5. It’s the second consecutive season the Pistons have had the worst record but fell to the fifth pick.

The Rockets, 41-41 this season, moved up six spots to get into the top three. Washington and Detroit had the best chances to land the top pick at 14%.

The draft is June 26-27 in Brooklyn.

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Atlanta jumped from the No. 10 position before the draft to the top overall selection, beating improbable odds. It’s the first time since 1975 the Hawks will select No. 1 overall.

“It was a shock,” Hawks GM Landry Fields said following the lottery Sunday. “You look at the percentages, but when I first saw it wasn’t us between 10 and 12 that launched us into the top 4, so I was like, all right we got a real shot at this thing. Bit of a surprise, but a lot of excitement.”

The Hawks haven’t won a postseason series since a surprising run to the Eastern Conference finals in 2021. They got knocked out in the first round in 2022 and 2023 and didn’t advance past the play-in tournament this season.

Atlanta has some big decisions to make this offseason, including whether to break up its backcourt of Trae Young and Dejounte Murray. Now Fields will have to decide how to utilize the No. 1 overall pick.

“It’s a nice tool for us to continue to build out what we’re doing,” Fields said Sunday. “It’s exciting.”

French big man Alex Sarr is projected to go No. 1 to Atlanta in ESPN’s latest mock draft. However, it’s far from a certainty as this year’s class has been defined thus far by its lack of a consensus No. 1 pick. Fellow French prospect Zaccharie Risacher as well as Kentucky’s Reed Sheppard and Rob Dillingham are also expected to be off the board within the first few selections.

1993 Magic1.52%2014 Cavaliers1.7%2008 Bulls1.7%2011 Cavaliers2.8%2024 Hawks3.0%

“There’s a lot of guys and I think it’s a lot of fun too,” said Fields, who did not reveal how many players the Hawks would consider with the top overall pick. “So many different types of guys, so many different variations. We’ll look at it, dive deep and see what comes in June.”

The Charlotte Hornets and Portland Trail Blazers had the third- and fourth-best odds for the No. 1 pick but ended up sixth and seventh, respectively. The Spurs have another pick at No. 8, which they acquired from the Toronto Raptors in the Jakob Poeltl trade. The Memphis Grizzlies, hoping to bounce back next year with a fully healthy roster, have the No. 9 pick.

The Utah Jazz at No. 10, the Chicago Bulls at No. 11, the Oklahoma City Thunder at No. 12, the Sacramento Kings at No. 13 and the Blazers at No. 14 round out the lottery.

This year marks the sixth straight season in which the team with the worst record did not select first overall — coinciding with the new lottery format, which began in 2019.

Despite the uncertainty at the top of this year’s draft — a far cry from last year’s prize in Victor Wembanyama — Fields shot down the notion that this class could be considered “weak” because of the lack of consensus in the top talent.

“Every draft class has great players in it,” Fields said. “Our group has been fantastic. There’s been a whole lot of trust, they put in the work. So we’ll lean into our process and take it from there.”

The Associated Press and ESPN Stats & Information research contributed to this story.

INDIANAPOLIS — Blowing out a visiting team in a playoff game is commonplace. What mattered more in the wake of the Indiana Pacers‘ 121-89 lopsided defeat of the New York Knicks in Sunday’s game is whether it was an aberration or a tipping point.

The Pacers’ game plan has become clear over their weekend sweep to even the second-round series 2-2: Do everything in their power to wear out the wounded and weary Knicks with giant emphasis on Jalen Brunson.

That has meant pressuring him as soon as he gets the ball, no matter where it is on the court. It has meant putting a bigger and more rugged defender, Aaron Nesmith, on him and challenging the referees by playing Brunson with much more physically. And it has meant using their depth advantage to play at speed, trying to run the Knicks to exhaustion.

A lot of things contributed to Sunday’s result. The Pacers shot the ball brilliantly, making 57% of their shots and knocking down 14 3-pointers. The Knicks looked sluggish and a step slow. Especially guards Donte DiVincenzo, who shot just 3-of-17 over his past five quarters as his hot streak ended, and Josh Hart, who finally admitted Sunday that he’s feeling fatigued after playing the first 10 quarters of the series without a break.

“I’m supposed to be the energy guy of the team and I didn’t do anything,” said Hart, who had just two points and three rebounds. “I gave nothing. I put that on my shoulders.”

But it’s Brunson who is the bellwether for the Knicks, and the Pacers know it. This series appears like it might hinge on whether Brunson, who has established a reputation for rising to the occasion especially when he’s doubted, can do it yet again with the series now being essentially a best-of-three.

“His ascension to what he’s become as a player, not many people have made a jump quite like him and I think we just need to make him work as much as possible and try to exert as much energy [as you can],” said Pacers guard T.J. McConnell, who is part of the effort. “He’s obviously a great player, and we just got to keep picking him up 94 feet and try to make things tough on him.”

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Over the past two games, Brunson is shooting 9-of-27 against Nesmith. There’s evidence of fatigue in Brunson’s game, not to mention his sore right foot that popped up during Game 2. Over the two games in Indiana, Brunson missed 10 jumpers short. Also, per Second Spectrum tracking, Brunson was jumping about 2.5 inches lower on his shots than his season-long average.

He scored 18 points Sunday but shot just 6-of-17. He was just 16-of-42 overall in Games 3 and 4 against the Pacers’ new aggressive, energy-zapping look.

Brunson, as is his style and the Knicks’ creed, rejected the premise.

“We can talk about fresher legs and you can give us all the pity that we want,” Brunson said. “Yeah, we’re shorthanded, but that doesn’t matter right now. We have what we have and we need to go forward with that. … There is no excuse. There’s no excuse whatsoever. If we lose, we lose. That’s what that was.”

Losing Mitchell Robinson, now out for the season because of an ankle injury, and OG Anunoby, out the past two games and likely Game 5 because of a hamstring injury suffered in Game 2, the Knicks are starting to show signs of wear.

The Pacers were especially looking to take advantage of this as the afternoon start meant there was less than 48 hours between Games 3 and 4. The Pacers led 34-14 after one quarter with Tyrese Haliburton jump-starting the team with a pair of 3-pointers out of the gate on his way to 20 points.

Indiana eventually pushed the lead to as much as 30 points before halftime with Pascal Siakam and Myles Turner combining to go 9-of-10 shooting as they led a parade to the basket with the Knicks unable to stay in front of their man on defense.

“We’re disappointed,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said. “And the thing is we can’t have a hangover, we have to fix it and we have to come with a will and a determination to respond to what happened. And this team has responded all year, so that’s what we’re expecting to do. We got to put the work into it and be ready to go.”

Thibodeau pulled the plug late in the third quarter, trying to at least give the Knicks’ front line some rest ahead of Tuesday’s Game 5. After the coach talked to the team following the merciful final buzzer, Knicks guard Miles McBride said some of the team leaders spoke to the room about the need to bounce back in Game 5.

“We’ve already talked about how we’re going to fix this,” said McBride, who broke out of a slump to score 16 points. “So, we’ll bounce back a lot better.”

The Pacers haven’t lost at home since March 18, a streak of 10 games, including 5-0 in the playoffs. The Knicks, who are now just 13-16 when Anunoby doesn’t play this season, are placing more urgency on Tuesday’s game at Madison Square Garden.

“New York is a team that has shown that it has an indomitable will to compete and rise above anything people say they can’t do,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said. “And we’ve seen it throughout the season. We’ve seen it in this series. We’re believers in that, and so we got to focus on us. … Everything is going to be a situation where you’ve got your hands completely full.”