May 2025

There were 2,285 posts published in May 2025 (this is page 49 of 229).

Step aside, millennial NBA stars: Gen Z is taking over — and winning a title could be a young man’s game now

When LeBron James made his NBA debut in 2003, Anthony Edwards was merely a toddler, taking his first steps on Earth. When Kobe Bryant threw the iconic ‘oop to Shaquille O’Neal in the 2000 Western Conference finals, Tyrese Haliburton was just a few months old. Jalen Brunson is young enough to ask his father, Rick, what it was like to play against Cleveland LeBron. Oh, and when Michael Jordan hit the clinching shot over Utah in the 1998 NBA Finals? Shai Gilgeous-Alexander wasn’t even born yet.

Feeling old yet?

Millennials certainly do.

But nothing made this millennial feel older than the following fact:

Now that the Boston Celtics have left the party, it is guaranteed that the 2025 NBA Finals winner will be the first Gen Z champion in league history.

Welcome to the Zoomers’ NBA.

Headlining these conference finals are four youthful teams whose franchises haven’t won a title in decades, if ever — and whose average age makes them too young to qualify for the millennial cohort. The rotations of the Oklahoma City Thunder, Indiana Pacers, New York Knicks and Minnesota Timberwolves hardly have any 30-year-olds.

The playoffs used to be the domain of older, savvy vets deep into their thirties, but the league has gotten younger, and the best teams seem to be aging in that direction more rapidly.

Is contending for a title increasingly becoming a young man’s game?

(Amy Monks/Yahoo Sports Illustration)

While there is no official separating line between Gen Z and millennials, leading think tank Pew Research Center has defined 1996 as the last birth year for the millennial generation based on their demographic work looking at technological, economic and social shifts throughout the last century. For the first time in NBA history, all four conference finalists — based on minutes-weighted average age, which accounts for playing time — will fit into the Gen Z category.

This postseason, the Celtics’ minutes-weighted average age was 29.9 years old, a birth year of 1995, making them the last millennial team that was remaining in the playoff field. The much younger and healthier Knicks squad (27.7) ousted them in six games after Jayson Tatum tore his Achilles in Game 4. (For the research study, ages are derived from Basketball Reference’s historical pages using a player’s age on Feb. 1 of the season.) If current trends hold, the Celtics will be the last millennial team to ever win the championship.

The kids are doing more than alright. Led by 26-year-old Gilgeous-Alexander, the Thunder’s minutes-weighted average age clocks in at 24.6 years old. That gives the West’s No. 1 seed a “team” birth year of 2000, three years after the 1997 cutoff for Gen Z. The 25-year-old Haliburton represents the face of the speedy Pacers, who, at an average of 26.1 years old, blitzed past the slightly more senior Cleveland Cavaliers (26.5) and Milwaukee Bucks (28.1) in earlier rounds. The Timberwolves, spearheaded by 23-year-old phenom Edwards, have an average age of 27.7 — the same as the Knicks, whose oldest rotation player is Josh Hart, who just turned 30.

If you’ve been paying attention, the NBA’s elder statesmen have all been kicked to the curb this postseason. There is no LeBron James, no Stephen Curry, no Jimmy Butler left. No Kevin Durant, who didn’t even make the play-in tournament. Not even Jrue Holiday, who won a title with both the Celtics and Bucks; the 34-year-old might as well be known as Uncle Jrue around some of the remaining youngsters.

Up 2-0 in the Western Conference finals, the Thunder are redefining everything that older generations thought they knew about what championship contenders look like. If OKC were to hoist the Larry O’Brien Trophy this season, it would be the second-youngest NBA champion ever, trailing only the 1977 Portland Trail Blazers (24.2) led by a 24-year-old Bill Walton. A modern precedent to these Thunder doesn’t really exist if they pull it off. The youngest championship team of the 21st century was the 2015 Golden State Warriors, who were 26.3 years old, almost two full years older than the current OKC squad.

With the Thunder leading the way, the average age of the four conference finalists stands at 26.5 years old, which is the lowest on record. In 1999, that same figure was 30 years old.

This continues a surprising trend that has seen the NBA get younger and younger in its final stages of the season. A Gen Z champion was only a matter of time, but if late 1990s roster trends held firm, we’d be about 2-3 years away from reaching that point. With these four teams, we’re way ahead of schedule.

While it’s true the league, in general, has gotten younger across the decades, the final four used to be far older than the also-rans. Nowadays, the age gap is narrowing to the point where, especially this season, there doesn’t seem to be much of one at all.

Zooming out, this could be a function of injuries weeding out the old man. Last week, I pointed out the postseason is being riddled with injuries to star players more than ever. Heading into this postseason, the NBA averaged seven injured All-Stars over the previous five postseasons, a rate that has increased more than sevenfold since the late 1990s (0.8 per season).

Older stars like Stephen Curry (hamstring strain) and Damian Lillard (Achilles tear) were knocked out due to leg injuries while other veteran-led teams like the L.A. Clippers and L.A. Lakers only lasted a round.

Can millennial bodies still hold up and go the distance in today’s pace-and-space era? It’s a question that has gnawed at Steve Kerr.

The Warriors head coach was almost 33 years old when he won the 1998 NBA Finals as a player with Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls.

That’s roughly the same age as T.J. McConnell, the elder statesman of the Pacers who turned 33 in March. On that veteran-laden Bulls team, McConnell would have been just one of the guys. Scottie Pippen was 32. Jordan and Ron Harper were 34. Dennis Rodman was 36. The babies on the team were Toni Kukoc and Luc Longley, who were both 29 years old — the same age as Knicks “veteran” big Karl-Anthony Towns is now. The Bulls’ average age on that team was 32.1 years old. There’s not a single 32-year-old or older player on the OKC roster.

Kerr has taken notice.

Steve Kerr wonders if the schedule impacted Stephen Curry. (Photo by Ellen Schmidt/Getty Images)
Ellen Schmidt via Getty Images

When I asked Kerr to compare the league back then to now, the nine-time champion immediately pointed to the pace — the number of trips up and down the floor in each game. In the 1998 playoffs, the game was played at a snail’s pace, just 85 possessions per 48 minutes. Today, with teams favoring an uptempo playing style, playoff teams average about 95.

Kerr then points out how the 3-point shot — “the pace and space” — has broadened the physical demands of today’s defenders. It’s not just the frenetic pace of today’s game; it’s the expanding dimensions of bodily activity and psychological attention. He’s not totally surprised Curry, Lillard, Tatum and others have fallen victim to injury in today’s environment.

“Who’s more likely to be able to withstand the rigors of the pace and space and the game-every-other-day schedule — the younger players or the older players?” Kerr said.

“The younger guys are.”

Pace is indeed up, and according to player-tracking research, players are putting about 9% more mileage on the court per 48 minutes compared to a decade ago. Throw in the fact the NBA has wedged an in-season tournament and a play-in tournament into the schedule, and it’s hard to see where top vets can find enough recovery time.

“The most important point of all of this,” Kerr says, “is the pace and space and how much more mileage that players are covering. You see all these injuries … I don’t think players get enough rest anymore.”

Kerr, whose Warriors were ousted in the Western Conference semifinals, brings up the 37-year-old Curry, who lasted only 13 minutes in Game 1 of the series against the Timberwolves before his hamstring gave out, the first time in his 16-year career he suffered a hamstring strain.

It’s of Kerr’s belief the schedule was a significant factor to blame. It was Curry’s third playoff game in five days, with travel in between all three games. With the season on the brink, Kerr leaned on the two-time MVP for 42 minutes in Game 6 in San Francisco and a game-high 46 minutes in Game 7 in Houston. And then they traveled again, jetting up to Minnesota.

It’s a condensed workload that maybe a 27-year-old Curry might have been able to handle, but 37? In the aftermath of Curry’s injury, Kerr consulted his team doctors and performance staff. He asked Rick Celebrini, the team’s longtime director of sports medicine and performance, about the circumstances surrounding Curry’s first-time injury.

“Do you think Steph pulling his hamstring has anything to do with playing 48 hours after logging 46 minutes of Game 7 in Houston?” he asked.

“One hundred percent,” Kerr remembers Celebrini telling him. “If he had an extra day or two … we can’t prove this, but I have no doubt based on our understanding of the scientific literature that the hamstring injury was the result of inadequate recovery and fatigue.”

Kerr relents that it’s impossible to know what would have happened if the two rounds were more spaced out. But he certainly nodded along when he heard millennial and former NBA champion Aaron Gordon speak on the issue following his own hamstring injury. After the Denver Nuggets lost to the Thunder in the conference semifinals, Gordon was critical of the schedule that also required his Nuggets to play a Game 7 and Game 1 in a 48-hour span.

“I would really, really appreciate it if there were a couple of days in between games in the playoffs instead of every other day,” Gordon told reporters. “The product of the game would be a lot better. You’ll see a high level of basketball. Probably less blowouts.”

Kerr hopes the league takes action and either spaces out the existing schedule by adding a week to the season calendar or cutting regular season games. But in his discussions with the league both publicly and privately, he hasn’t gotten very far.

I think all the complaints of the wear and tear, and the scheduling, are all valid. But they all fall on deaf ears because of the dollar sign.Warriors coach Steve Kerr

“I think all the complaints of the wear and tear, and the scheduling, are all valid,” Kerr says. “But they all fall on deaf ears because of the dollar sign. I don’t think the league’s constituents are willing to give up any money, that’s the problem. But we all know this is not healthy or sustainable if you want guys to survive out there and not have injuries.”

Teams around the league are studying the issue ahead of the draft and free agency. Said another longtime assistant coach: “Experience matters. So does strength. But with how the game is played, being able to move has skewed the importance more towards athleticism and youthful ability to recover more.”

Kerr hopes every stakeholder will look in the mirror — including coaches.

“We’ve got to try something,” Kerr says. “It’s going to take representatives from the players’ association, the coaches association, the owners, the league and the TV partners to actually acknowledge all of this.”

Kerr doesn’t want to take away from the terrific play — and superior health — of the remaining teams. He isn’t resistant to the idea of leaning on younger players — Golden State’s 22-year-old Brandin Podziemski was the youngest starter in the conference semifinal field. The Gen Z takeover is happening whether the millennials are ready or not.

With the Thunder being the odds-on favorite to win it all at BetMGM, it does seem like a generational shift is occurring before our very eyes. If younger teams are indeed outpacing their older foes, it holds important implications on long-term planning projections around the league.

That’s especially true for the teams hailing from the state of Texas. The Houston Rockets, whose 52-win core relied heavily on players barely of drinking age, may have reservations about giving up the farm for Durant, who turns 37 in September and has one year remaining on his contract with the Phoenix Suns. How much should they read into Butler’s fast decline in the postseason with the Warriors?

Up the road in San Antonio, the Spurs have already signaled they see Victor Wembanyama’s title window as appearing sooner than initially assumed. At the trade deadline, the team acquired 2022-23 All-NBA guard De’Aaron Fox to upgrade from the 40-year-old Chris Paul, who provided a steady hand as the team’s point guard. With Paul set to become a free agent, Harrison Barnes, 32, remains the team’s only player older than 27.

It’ll be fascinating to see how the Spurs complement Wemby, who missed half the season with deep-vein thrombosis. Do they put Stephon Castle and/or their No. 2 pick in the 2025 draft in a potential package for Giannis Antetokounmpo, who will be 33 years old by the time his contract expires in 2027-28?

And then there’s Dallas, which could make Golden State’s two-timeline experiment look timid by comparison. Does it make sense for Dallas to add an 18-year-old Cooper Flagg to a team anchored by a trio approaching their mid-30s in Kyrie Irving, Klay Thompson and Anthony Davis? Or does Dallas cut bait on the millennial core?

Despite Kerr’s misgivings about the rigors of the NBA season, it doesn’t seem like reform is on the way. Looking at the remaining teams in the postseason, it does seem like it’s a young man’s game now. Kerr feels conflicted in going that far.

“I wouldn’t put a blanket comment saying, ‘It’s a young man’s game,’ because in some ways that’s always been true,” Kerr says.

He gives it another thought.

“Maybe now,” he says, “they’re going to be taking over the league a little bit earlier than they were 10, 20 years ago.”

Pirates GM Ben Cherington shuts down Paul Skenes trade rumors: ‘It’s not part of the conversation at all’

Want to know how the Pittsburgh Pirates are doing in 2025? It’s not even June and the conversation has already turned to whether the team should trade away its 22-year-old superstar pitcher for future assets.

Since he was promoted to the majors, Paul Skenes has performed like one of the best pitchers in the majors. In 33 career starts, Skenes has a 2.12 ERA, with 232 strikeouts over 195 2/3 innings. He’s the type of player most franchises would dream of building around, but the Pirates aren’t most franchises.

With the club once again struggling — the team is 17-34 entering Friday — some have speculated the Pirates would be better off trading Skenes for a bevy of prospects that will help the team in the future. 

On the surface, it seemed like a ridiculous notion. Why would the Pirates trade the team’s first legitimate, homegrown superstar since Andrew McCutchen? And why would the team make that move so soon in Skenes’ career?

That chatter grew so loud, however, that the team’s general manager, Ben Cherington, was asked about the possibility. Cherington shut down any idea the Pirates would trade Skenes, saying, “It’s not part of the conversation at all,” per ESPN.

That’s probably the smart move. Skenes is already one of the best young players in the game, and is under team control through the 2029 MLB season. Trading a player of that caliber so long before free agency would be a clear sign the Pirates are waving the white flag for both 2025 and the short-term future. After enduring some excruciating seasons recently, Pirates fans would likely revolt after seeing one of the team’s only bright spots shipped out. 

Given how poorly the team has performed in recent seasons — the Pirates have finished no higher than fourth in the National League Central since 2017 — there are legitimate questions over whether the Pirates will be able to contend while Skenes is under team control. 

While the major-league roster needs a lot of work, help is on the way. Pitching prospect Bubba Chandler is expected to be called up any day now. Chandler entered the 2025 season as a top-20 prospect on most lists, and could combine with Skenes to give the Pirates a formidable duo at the top of the rotation. The Pirates have more holes on the roster than Chandler can fill, but at least he gives Pirates fans something to dream on. 

Even in a best-case scenario — where Chandler develops into a top-20 starter — the Pirates will still need to find other ways to improve their roster. The easiest of which involves the team spending money on the free-agent market, something ownership has refused to do over roughly the last decade. The team’s estimated $91.3 million payroll in 2025 ranks 26th in the majors. The rank is fairly typical for the Pirates, who aren’t known for running high payrolls under owner Bob Nutting. 

That’s really the main issue facing the franchise. If the team wants to contend, it’s going to need to spend money. If it isn’t going to do that when it already has one of the best pitchers in baseball, what guarantee do fans have that the Pirates will spend once the players acquired in a hypothetical Skenes trade reach the majors?

If the Pirates want to contend — with or without Skenes — organizational changes need to be made. The Pirates already tried to shake things up by firing manager Derek Shelton. Things haven’t improved since then, which should put even more pressure on Cherington to right the ship.

Cherington hasn’t proven up to that task to this point. And the fact he already has to entertain questions about whether he should trade his young ace doesn’t exactly speak well of Cherington’s reputation or track record since he took over as the team’s general manager.

Fantasy Baseball Pickups: Race to the waiver wire for Matt Shaw

OK, folks, if I am gonna reach my quarterly transaction quota around here, I am gonna need everyone to commit to this week’s fantasy baseball pickups. Corporate is all over me. No excuses this week, people. Just please add these widely available (and quite useful) players as soon as possible…

Shaw has been terrific since he returned from exile in Iowa. He just went 5-for-11 with 2 runs, 2 RBI and 2 steals in the Miami series, and his late-inning stolen base on Wednesday was basically the game-winning play. There should be a spot for Shaw on someone’s roster in pretty much any league. If the power/speed potential doesn’t do it for you, the multi-position eligibility should. He was raking at Triple-A before he was recalled and he’s sustained that level of play so far in the big leagues.

[Smarter waivers, better trades, optimized lineups — Yahoo Fantasy Plus unlocks it all]

Meidroth is something like the south side version of Shaw, except A) he’s batting at the top of the lineup and B) he doesn’t offer the same power upside. He’s hit safely in nine straight games for the Sox and he’s swiped five bags in his last six. This is some serious professional hitting right here, on a tough pitch:

Meidroth was part of the prospect haul sent to Chicago in the Garrett Crochet deal and he’s been plenty impressive to this point, batting .301 and getting himself on-base at a .381 clip. The 23-year-old was a career .285/.425/.414 hitter in the minors, so his OBP skills were already well-established.

It’s pretty wild that Scott remains eligible for the pickups feature, unattached in roughly two-thirds of Yahoo leagues. He’s hitting a respectable .275 with an OBP of .349 and he’s a clear contender to lead the National League in steals this season. Scott has top-of-the-charts sprint speed; he’s stolen 13 bags in 14 attempts so far, and he swiped 94 bases in the minors back in 2023. This is a potential category leader just hanging out in the free-agent pool. Let’s correct this situation.

Beck is basically having the season you might have reasonably expected from Brenton Doyle, claiming the leadoff spot in Colorado’s lineup. He has eight homers this season among his 18 extra-base hits and he’s stolen six bases. Beck has previously demonstrated 20/20 ability in the minors, so there’s reason to believe the 24-year-old’s breakout is legit. He’s worth a test-drive this weekend, with the Rockies at home in Coors Field.

Sheets raced out to a scorching start for San Diego and never really faded. He’s coming off a two-homer, five-RBI game on Thursday, which gives him eight bombs for the year. He was a buzzy name in the spring (6 HR, 1.077 OPS) and he’s carried that level of performance into the regular season. Sheets has made significant gains in bat speed and exit velo, improvements that have clearly boosted his fantasy profile. If you’re searching the free-agent pool for power, this is your guy. 

Warren has struck out 34 batters over his last four starts (22.2 IP), walking just six and earning a pair of wins. He’s worth adding simply for his bat-missing ability. Dalton Del Don made the full case for Warren earlier this week, so I will simply function as his cosigner. When a young pitcher with an appealing profile on a good team begins producing K totals like this, we need to act. Warren’s next start is on Sunday against Colorado, the team that currently leads the majors in strikeouts while ranking near the bottom in run-scoring.

Here’s one for those who stream starting pitchers. Leiter, 25, is still a work in progress with a promising arsenal, including elite velocity. He’s coming off a pair of excellent starts against the Astros and Rockies (13.0 IP, 5 H, 4 R, 5 BB, 9 K), taking a no-hitter into the seventh against Houston last weekend. On Saturday, Leiter is on track to face the White Sox, a team that’s already 20 games below .500. You know what to do.

If we’re being completely honest here, I’m not fully committed to this pickup. Palencia earned the most recent save for the Cubs, closing out Wednesday’s one-run win with a 1-2-3 inning. All three outs were hammered to the warning track, however. Palencia routinely hits 101 on the radar gun, but he doesn’t actually have any other tricks — it’s all gas, all the time. We would have loved this guy 30 years ago, but, today, it might not be enough.

Still, Palencia is the man getting save chances in this flawed bullpen, so he’s an auto-add in fantasy.

How do the Knicks bounce back from their historic collapse? Inside New York’s state of mind and strategy for Game 2

The first question — the one that dominated brainwaves and airwaves, tabloid back pages and possibly therapists’ billable hours all across the Tri-State area on Thursday — is obvious: How the hell did the Pacers just do that?

The second question — the one dominating Knicks fans’ every waking hour until tipoff of Game 2 on Friday night — might be even tougher to parse:

How the hell does New York get over it?

“I think that’s the playoffs — that’s the challenge, and that’s why you always have to reset,” head coach Tom Thibodeau told reporters at the Knicks’ Thursday practice session. “There’s going to be a lot of emotional highs and lows, and you’ve got to be able to take a punch, and you’ve got to be able to bounce back.”

Given the punch New York just took, that seems like an awfully tall order.

How do you get over losing a game that you led by 14 points with 2:51 remaining in the fourth quarter, and by nine with 58.8 seconds to go? How do you get past coming up short when All-Stars Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns combined for 78 points on 42 shots — the first time in franchise history that two Knicks have each scored 35 or more in a playoff affair, and the first pair of teammates ever to do it in an Eastern Conference finals game, according to Justin Kubatko of Statitudes?

Can the Knicks get over Game 1? (Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images)
Sarah Stier via Getty Images

How do you move on from dropping a game that had been New York’s best offensive outing of the 2025 NBA playoffs — a 135.2 offensive rating with 2:51 to go, miles ahead of what the Knicks had mustered against Detroit or Boston? How do you get over seeing Brunson leave the floor after picking up his fifth foul with 10:05 to go, ripping off 14 consecutive points without the Clutch Player of the Year on the court … and that still not being enough?

“In the playoffs, when you win, it’s the best thing ever,” Brunson said after Game 1. “When you lose, it’s the worst thing ever.”

Step one in moving on, according to Thibodeau: not moving on. Not until you’ve relived it, and taken accountability for it.

“You go through the game, you go through end-of-game — you go through it all,” Thibodeau said Thursday. “And then, what did you learn from it? And what can we commit to?”

For the Knicks, reviewing the film from Game 1 — especially the final 2:51 of regulation and five-minute overtime session, during which Indiana outscored the hosts 33-16 — probably felt like subjecting themselves to the Ludovico technique. On the other side of the masochism, though, lay a message: More than the missed shots and turnovers, it was their defense that let them down.

“We scored 135 points,” Thibodeau said. “That should be more than enough.”

It wasn’t, because Indiana scored 31 points on its final 13 possessions of regulation, according to NBA.com’s John Schuhmann — many of them coming with Knicks defenders too far out of guarding position to make an impact:

“We fouled in the penalty, so we stopped the clock,” Thibodeau said. “We gave them open 3s. We missed free throws. We gave them second shots … you have to play for all 48 minutes, and you have to challenge shots, and you have to have awareness as to what’s going on in the game.”

What was going on in those tell-tale final few minutes, according to forward Josh Hart, was that the Knicks “let off the gas.” After about 30 minutes of sound defense, holding Indiana to 62 points on 22-for-60 shooting from the start of the second quarter through the midpoint of the fourth, New York seemed content to rest on its double-digit lead … and the Pacers live to make you pay for easing up.

“The intensity, the physicality wasn’t there,” Hart said.

The comeback started in earnest when Pacers coach Rick Carlisle put the Knicks’ two dodgiest defenders under the microscope, having Aaron Nesmith set an early screen for Tyrese Haliburton to bring Brunson into the action before sending Nesmith out behind a flare screen by Towns’ man, backup center Thomas Bryant. With Brunson caught on Bryant’s flare and Towns dropping back to protect the paint, Nesmith had plenty of room to receive Haliburton’s pass, rise, fire and knock down the first of what would be six fourth-quarter 3-pointers.

“We’ve got to get to their bodies, stay connected,” Brunson said. “They play at a fast pace. They play a space game. So when they’re driving the lanes, it’s easy to collapse, and then we’re in rotation, and then they’re lining up open 3s. We’ve just got to rotate better and get to bodies better. Just making sure we’re connected.”

Just over a minute later, the Pacers again targeted Towns — this time on a baseline out-of-bounds play that began with a pass to Obi Toppin, who’d checked in for Bryant.

Toppin initially sought to hand the ball off to a curling Haliburton, but Knicks wing OG Anunoby chased Haliburton hard over the top of the screen, prompting Toppin to pull the ball out; instead, he flowed into a two-man action with Nesmith, screening and then re-screening on the wing. The way Mikal Bridges didn’t really try to fight through Toppin’s screen suggested that he thought the Knicks were switching that action. The way Towns had already started retreating toward the paint suggested he thought they were in drop coverage. Whichever one of them was right, they both turned out wrong: Nesmith once again had acres of space to raise up and splash in another triple.

“I think it comes from just relaxing a little bit, you know?” Bridges said at the Knicks’ Thursday practice, where he said the team’s energy was high and its overall vibes were good. “Just relax for a second, and then you’re a step late, or maybe forget, ‘Oh, I’ve got to switch here,’ or ‘I’ve got to rotate here.’ It’s just maintaining that throughout the whole game. … It’s on us to be locked in on our scout and not be random. We’ve got to follow what we’ve got to do — all five guys. Because if one guy branches off, it can mess the next guy up.”

The Pacers went after New York’s stars again a minute later. After Brunson missed a stepback 3 that would’ve pushed the lead to 16, Haliburton again sprinted up the floor, getting an early offense, step-up screen from reserve wing Ben Sheppard — whose contributions during a seven-minute fourth quarter stint Carlisle praised effusively after the game — to again force the Knicks point guard into the action.

Hart stepped up to contain Sheppard’s roll to the rim, but with both Bridges and Brunson still on Haliburton, that left two Knicks to guard three Pacers on the opposite side of the floor. One of those two Knicks was Towns, who leaned toward Toppin, his assignment … which left Nesmith, again, wide open for a catch-and-shoot launch over the top of a late contest by Brunson.

With New York up nine in the final minute, Indiana targeted Brunson again, with Pascal Siakam pitching the ball to Nesmith and screening Brunson out of the play. Anunoby, like Towns before him, wasn’t nearly quick enough to close the gap against a shooter who’d already seen three go down and had entered the kind of zone where, as Nesmith said after the game, “that basket feels like an ocean, and anything you toss up, you feel like it’s going to go in.”

Even, say, 31-footers off the catch — especially when they’re completely uncontested, because Towns has died on a Siakam screen and is pointing for Anunoby to get up to switch, only Anunoby is all the way below the top of the key when Nesmith starts his shooting motion — or 28-foot, one-dribble pull-ups launched off a dead sprint around a pindown going right.

“I think we just let off a little bit, and then we stopped talking to each other,” Bridges said. “Just a little miscommunication, and they got some rhythm 3s.”

The rhythm they caught late, and the fire shooting out of Nesmith’s fingertips, gave Haliburton the chance to make late-game magic yet again … which, for a Pacers team in the midst of one of the great team 3-point shooting runs in NBA playoff history, is precisely what he did.

“Once you relax that little bit, they take full advantage,” Bridges said.

Indiana pressed that advantage in overtime, repeatedly making the Knicks pay for not getting matched up in transition, falling asleep off the ball, failing to box out when a shot went up and — on a critical sideline out-of-bounds play — getting so scrambled on an empty-corner side pick-and-roll that Toppin rumbled nearly unmolested to the rim for a game-sealing dunk:

“It looked like we were playing not to lose,” Hart said. “We’ve got to make sure we don’t make that mistake again.”

From the six-minute mark of the fourth quarter through the final buzzer of overtime, the Pacers scored an obscene 1.83 points per possession, according to NBA Advanced Stats — virtually a guaranteed bucket, every trip down the court. Thursday’s film session forced the Knicks to confront that, to digest the reasons behind it … and also to be reminded of the fact that, at the midway point of the fourth, they’d held Indiana to just 1.14 points per possession, well below its regular- and postseason offensive efficiency marks.

“We didn’t start the game well defensively, but then there was a long stretch where we did a really good job,” Thibodeau said.

They did well elsewhere, too. They repeatedly got Brunson matched up on Pacers defenders he felt comfortable attacking, scoring 43 points on 15-for-25 shooting — his eighth 40-point playoff game as a Knick, passing Bernard King for the all-time franchise record — and forcing Indiana to eventually start bringing double-teams that could be ripe for exploitation. They took advantage of Carlisle’s decision to guard Towns with centers, allowing him to go off for a career playoff-high 35 points.

They rebounded a whopping 42.3% of their misses, a mark that would lead the league by a mile every season, with reserve center Mitchell Robinson making his presence felt — and with lineups featuring the two-big Towns-Robinson look outscoring Indiana by 12 points in seven minutes. And when Brunson sat down after committing his fifth foul with 10:05 to go in regulation, they came through with a concerted, collective effort that produced a 17-2 run — and a lead that should’ve held up.

New York will enter Friday focusing on those silver linings rather than the grim gray cloud they encircle. Take whatever from Game 1 serves you, and leave the rest; continue executing on offense while extending the defensive discipline for the full 48 minutes, and you’re level heading to Indianapolis for Game 3 on Sunday. Anything else … well, that might just be too much to get over.

“I think we’re all good,” Bridges said. “You definitely can’t let one game … it’s not the end of the world, you know?”

LeBron James’ agent Rich Paul on whether Lakers superstar will return for another NBA season: ‘I have no idea’

Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James has a big decision to make this offseason. Should the 40-year-old run it back for one more year, or is he finally ready to hang up his sneakers? James hasn’t answered that question yet, and even his agent is unsure what the Lakers’ superstar will decide.

Rich Paul was asked about James’ future on “The Rich Eisen Show” on Thursday. Paul — who’s been James’ agent since 2012 — said he is unsure if James wants to play another year in the NBA. 

“I have no idea,” Paul said. “Zero.”

When pressed on the issue, Paul indicated this is how the process normally works with James. At some point, James and Paul will discuss the issue and James will make a decision about his NBA future.

“Normally, our process is you kinda weight everything and see how he’s feeling and all those type of things,” Paul said. “Same process it’s been for the last I don’t know how many years.

“He’ll come around to what he’s thinking at some point and we’ll kinda go over some things and go from there.”

If James does decide to return, he’ll also need to figure out if he wants to stay with the Lakers. James has a $52 million player option for the 2025-26 NBA season. If he opts in to that deal, he’ll remain with the Lakers. If he opts out, James would become a free agent. 

While it’s assumed James will remain in Los Angeles, Paul didn’t want to speculate on that during his appearance on Eisen’s show, saying, “I wish I had the answer.”

That shouldn’t necessarily come as a surprise. It’s early in the offseason and James is dealing with a knee injury. He has plenty of time to reflect on things and see how his rehab goes before making a decision about his future.

On that front, Paul said he goes into every offseason assuming James will continue playing. When asked how much longer James will continue his career, Paul said he believes James could play a couple more years physically. 

It certainly looked that way during the regular season. James still performed at a high level despite his age, averaging 24.4 points, 8.2 assists and 7.8 rebounds per game. At an age where nearly every NBA player is in steep decline, James has found a way to keep Father Time at bay. 

It’s unclear how much longer that can continue. James will be 41 at the start of the 2025-26 NBA season and has crossed every accolade off his list. The end is almost certainly coming soon, but James showed last season he still has plenty left in the tank if he wants to run it back.

Timberwolves searching for answers after falling down 2-0 to the Thunder: ‘We gotta find our way’

OKLAHOMA CITY — The frustration is beginning to bubble to the surface, the reality of what’s facing the Minnesota Timberwolves is creeping in, even as they head home for two games in these Western Conference finals.

You could see it when Jaden McDaniels finally had enough of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s arm-hooking and pushed him to the floor for a flagrant-1 foul.

“I just wanted to foul him for real. I wasn’t even mad,” McDaniels said. “I had fouls to use.”

The Timberwolves are more than annoyed by the officiating. They’ll hint at it without fully going into “fine me” territory, but they’re definitely distracted in their quest to find answers in this series against the Oklahoma City Thunder.

They played zone, the zone was shredded. Anthony Edwards got the ball in different places, it only mattered so much.

The adjustments could be physical, but it certainly feels like the mission to stay on task for 24 seconds at a time is too difficult against this team, as the Thunder again ran away from the Timberwolves in the third quarter and took a 2-0 lead with a 118-103 win at Paycom Center Thursday night.

Anthony Edwards and the Timberwolves have a tall task ahead of them. (AP Photo/Nate Billings)
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A year ago, the Timberwolves were equally happy to be in the NBA’s final four but also beating themselves up for dropping two games at home to Luka Dončić and the Dallas Mavericks. As unlikely as it was for them to turn that series around on the road, it feels even more of a tall task this time around.

Just because the Thunder are that damn good.

It feels like these two squads are in different weight classes, almost like if Sugar Ray Leonard took on Mike Tyson in his prime. Leonard is one of the greats, but he couldn’t beat a heavyweight because it would take just one devastating punch to send a historic boxer flying to the canvas.

In the first, second and fourth quarters of Game 2, the Timberwolves were only outscored by the Thunder 83-82, but that third quarter is the bugaboo to end all bugaboos — another disastrous 12 minutes after halftime. This go-round, it was the Thunder outscoring the Wolves 35-21.

“It’s a five-minute stretch of a game that they take over. They go up 12, 15 and the game gets out of hand,” Timberwolves guard Mike Conley told Yahoo Sports. “But for the majority of it, the first two quarters, it’s a five-, six-point game. Three-point game, they’re up, we’re up. We just gotta find a way to match or exceed the intensity that they come with in those moments in spurts.”

The spurts feel like a predictable avalanche.

The turnovers (five in the third quarter) came in bunches for the Wolves, and they couldn’t hit anything from the 3-point line. Gilgeous-Alexander scored 11 of his 38 in the period, in front of a crowd that chanted “MVP” every time he went to the free-throw line.

It’s not that the Thunder have played a perfect game. They’ve been anemic from the 3-point line, just like the Timberwolves (27% for Oklahoma City, 28% for Minnesota). The Thunder just play a cleaner game, while the Timberwolves can’t get in front of the game long enough to exert control.

“Little things are what they’re doing. They’re being physical. It’s a dogfight. Bad calls, good calls, whatever,” Conley said. “Can we look past that and go get the defensive rebound? Can we do the hustle stuff that they’re doing? We gotta find our way and push our way through that.”

Conley’s the only starter with a positive plus-minus, and the second he leaves the game, usually midway through the first and third, the floodgates open.

Like a self-fulfilling prophecy, Julius Randle came back down to earth after several stellar games, playing just 10 minutes in the second half as the Timberwolves tried to go smaller to match up with the Thunder’s overall speed.

“Myself as a player, I gotta take responsibility and see how the flow of the game is going,” Randle said. “Get myself in some type of action, whether it’s screening or cutting or rebounding. But I’ll figure it out.”

Randle wouldn’t wade into the waters of anything controversial, only saying the Thunder play with a “different kind of physicality.” He declined to elaborate, only giving a wry smile when prodded further.

All agree the Thunder stay connected, particularly on defense, which keys those third-quarter runs. It’s deflating to look up after a solid half and see the slightest thing turn a competitive game into one that trends toward the danger zone.

“We put ourselves on such a razor’s edge in the third,” Timberwolves coach Chris Finch said. “We only had six turnovers at halftime, a few more in the third, missed some shots, didn’t finish, led to a bunch of stuff for them.”

The Thunder drive you right to the edge. They drive you insane with their execution. That’s why it’s so puzzling for the Wolves, because they don’t feel 20 points worse than this team, not right now.

But get in line.

If it’s a close game for OKC, it’s a rarity. The Thunder outscore their opponents by nearly 13 points a game, and if the last series against the Denver Nuggets was their hump to get over, keep in mind their two “gotta have it” wins came in the form of a 43-point win and a 32-point win — the latter being in Game 7.

It’s not impossible to envision Anthony Edwards breaking the streak of non-American players winning Most Valuable Player, on the night commissioner Adam Silver delivered the Michael Jordan trophy to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

Jaden McDaniels received votes for All-Defense, although not as many as Jalen Williams and Lu Dort.

It’s not that they profile similarly, they just have players who can function similarly — even Edwards can match Gilgeous-Alexander shot-for-shot when things are perfect.

But Edwards is seeing every type of defender the Thunder have to offer and his teammates feel he’s not getting the calls Gilgeous-Alexander is receiving on the other end. Edwards was much more aggressive, taking 26 shots after just 13 in Game 1 to score 32, but he was 1 for 9 from the 3-point line.

The newly crowned MVP saw fewer limbs and bodies on his way to another efficient night, and added eight assists and went to the foul line 15 times.

There’s a difference in where these teams are now, and where they can be in the future. Williams showed that when he’s a capable second scorer, the Thunder are impossible to beat. Not difficult.

Impossible.

“He’s getting to his left hand way too much and we gotta do a better job of cutting that off,” Finch said succinctly.

That sounds simple, just as so many other potential adjustments. But it isn’t, and it feels like it’s a matter of time before it’s fully acknowledged by all.

Thunder vs. Timberwolves score, recap: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s 38-point night leads OKC to Game 2 win

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander accepted the NBA MVP award on Thursday, then looked like one in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals.

The Oklahoma City Thunder star posted 38 points and eight assists in a 118-103 win to take a 2-0 lead over the Minnesota Timberwolves, who now have the unenviable task of needing to take four out of five from the league’s top team by record to reach the NBA Finals. 

Two more Thunder wins, and they’re on to their first Finals since 2012.

A close game turned into a Thunder rout in the third quarter, when a 23-5 run put the game out of reach for Minnesota. The Timberwolves managed to cut the lead to 10 points later in the fourth quarter, but it was too late to pull off an Indiana Pacers-style comeback.

Instead, frustration boiled over for Timberwolves wing Jaden McDaniels, who gave Gilgeous-Alexander a shove from behind on a drive in the fourth quarter. When asked about the play after the game, McDaniels said, “I just wanted to foul him.”

Behind an overwhelming night from Gilegous-Alexander (which, yes, included 15 free-throw attempts), the Thunder’s supporting cast did its job. Jalen Williams had one of his good games in an up-and-down postseason, posting 25 points, 10 rebounds and 5 assists. Chet Holmgren was the only other Thunder player to score in double figures, including a thunderous alley-oop as OKC took control.

Meanwhile, the defense held Minnesota to 41.4% shooting with 14 turnovers.

Last year’s Thunder team bowed out in the playoffs against a Dallas Mavericks team hitting its stride behind an incandescent Luka Dončić. The Timberwolves could have presented a similar challenge with Anthony Edwards (32 points, 9 rebounds, 5 assists), but OKC instead played a complete game. 

Even in Game 1, when the Timberwolves had an early advantage, the Thunder never lost poise and also pounced in the third quarter of a 114-88 win. After facing a significant challenge last round against the Denver Nuggets, it’s looking a lot easier for OKC. And it will be on Minnesota to simply make this a series.

Game 3 is scheduled for Saturday in Minnesota (8:30 p.m. ET, ABC).

Ex-MLB player Darin Ruf sues Reds, claims their uncovered tarp caused his career-ending injury

Former MLB player Darin Ruf is suing the Cincinnati Reds over a tarp he claims caused his career-ending injury two years ago, according to the Associated Press.

The lawsuit was reportedly filed Thursday in the Hamilton County (Ohio) Court of Common Pleas. It reportedly accuses the Reds of negligence for failing to maintain safe field conditions, specifically noting the risks presented by an unpadded metal tarp roller at Great American Ball Park.

Ruf encountered that tarp while playing first base for the Milwaukee Brewers on June 2, 2023. He tracked a foul ball toward the first-base stands and hit the tarp hard, leaving him with a deep laceration in his right knee and a non-displaced patella fracture. 

His lawsuit reportedly describes the damage as “permanent and substantial deformities to his knee.”

Ruf attempted to return later that season, hitting .120 in seven games on a rehab assignment with the Triple-A Nashville Sounds, but never played in another MLB game. He did not sign with a team after becoming a free agent that winter.

He now blames the Reds for leaving a large metal object in the field of play, via the AP:

“This didn’t need to happen,” Ruf said in a statement. “I wish it didn’t happen. Players shouldn’t have to worry about hidden hazards like that on a major league field.”

His lawyer said the same:

“This was an obvious and avoidable risk,” Tad Thomas, Ruf’s attorney, said in a release announcing the lawsuit. “There are basic safety protocols every MLB team should follow. Leaving an unpadded metal roller on the edge of the field is inexcusable.”

Ruf played a total of nine seasons in his MLB career. He began his career mostly as a bench bat at the corners for the Philadelphia Phillies before moving to South Korea’s KBO and finding immense success with the Samsung Lions.

That success continued upon Ruf’s return to MLB, as he enjoyed the two best seasons of his career with the San Francisco Giants in 2021 and 2022. He was one of many over-performing bats that powered the Giants to a 107-win season that unseated the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL West.

Ruf struggled after that, in stints with the Giants, Brewers and New York Mets across 2022 and 2023. It was unclear how much further he could have gone while hitting .224 in his age-36 season, but no player wants to end his career like he did.