France goes on 16-2 run to close game, hands USA first Olympic loss since 2004

By Kurt HelinJul 25, 2021, 11:05 AM EDT

Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images

The good news is Team USA has two more group games — against lesser teams — and should still be able to win and advance out of group play into the knockout round at the Tokyo Olympics. There is a lot of basketball yet to be played.

The bad news is Team USA has a lot of work to do if it’s going to advance in those knockout games and win a medal. Any medal.

France closed the game on a 16-2 run — with Evan Fournier and Nicolas Batum hitting clutch shots while Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, and the rest of Team USA went cold, or just passed up good looks — and came from behind late to beat the USA 83-76.

It was the USA’s first loss in the Olympics since 2004, snapping a 24-game win streak.

“They are better individually, but they can be beaten as a team,” Fournier said after the game.

That loss surprised some American fans, but not coach Gregg Popovich, who understands the rest of the world is catching up.

“When you lose a game, you’re not surprised. You’re disappointed,” Popovich said after the game. “I don’t understand the word ‘surprised.’ That sort of disses the French team, as if we’re supposed to beat them by 30. That’s a hell of a team.”

France earned the win. Fournier — a current NBA free agent who helped that cause on Sunday — scored 28 points to lead all scorers, including hitting a clutch three late. Rudy Gobert added 14 points and nine rebounds, plus had his usual solid defense in the paint.

The USA led by seven midway through the fourth quarter thanks to strong defense forcing misses and turnovers, plus a lot of Jrue Holiday — he almost single-handedly won this game for the Americans. Just days after playing heavy minutes in the NBA Finals, 48-hours after a champagne-soaked championship parade, followed by a long plane flight to Tokyo that landed less than 24 hours before the game, Holiday was somehow the most ready American. He had 11 of his 18 points in the fourth quarter and played strong defense all game.

That defense, from Holiday and Team USA as a whole to start the fourth, erased a six-point deficit and had the USA in control of the game, up by seven, midway through the fourth.

“We haven’t been together that long, but we’ve been together long enough to have that consistency. We have to defend better down the stretch,” Draymond Green said.

Down the stretch the American’s couldn’t buy a bucket, passing up good looks and not attacking the rim. The Americans settled, and nobody stepped up (outside of Holiday) and took charge late. France had a clear pecking order for clutch shots (starting with Fournier), the Americans looked like they were still trying to find theirs.

“We were just trying too hard to do the right thing,” Lillard said

As was the case in their exhibition losses to Nigeria and Australia, when the USA couldn’t generate offense in transition they struggled. The USA half-court offense looks like a group of players still trying to figure out their new roles and when to just shoot. In the NBA, every one of these players is a first or second scoring option with a permanent green light to shoot, but here both LaVine and Lillard passed up wide-open threes or driving lanes to the rim to try and set up teammates, and the results were turnovers or worse looks.

There were flashes of the USA squad that could win gold in this game. USA Basketball came out playing aggressive defense, then running off turnovers and misses, and that became a 16-4 first-quarter run that gave the Americans a comfortable lead early. While that lead went up and down through the second, the USA held the lead and got it up to eight at the half, 45-37. Bam Adebayo led the way with 10 points in the first half, Lillard added nine.

Defensively the USA switched everything, which led to France trying to force a guard to defend Rudy Gobert then get the 7’2″ Utah Jazz big man the ball inside. In the second half, the French upped that ante playing two bigs at the same time and daring the Americans to stop it. They couldn’t. France went on a 22-7 third-quarter run and led by six at the end of three. Kevin Durant saw his minutes limited up to that point, having constantly been in foul trouble.

Durant played the entire fourth quarter but couldn’t find his stroke. Adebayo scored just two points in the second half and finished with 12, Lillard had 11, and Durant 10. As a team the USA shot 36.2% overall and 31.3% from 3 (a line that is shorter than the NBA line).

The USA faces Iran next, followed by the Czech Republic. Both are very winnable games, do that and the USA will finish in the top two and advance out of Group A into knockout play.

By then, the Americans will need to find a consistent defense, a halfcourt offense, and a clutch shot pecking order, or this will not be the only loss for Team USA this Olympics.

Denver keeps executing under pressure, Gordon and Brown spark win to take command of series

By Kurt HelinJun 10, 2023, 12:01 AM EDT

MIAMI — The Nuggets just kept executing.

Nikola Jokić gets sent to the bench with five fouls — after Bam Adebayo earned an Oscar nomination drawing it — and it feels like the game and the series were about to turn. The crowd rocking and the Nuggets’ lead that was at 10 when he went out quickly was just five. But when Jokić returned after 5:16 of game time the Nuggets were still up nine. Without the two-time MVP, the Nuggets just kept executing their offense.

The Heat played their most physical, intense defense of the Finals, selling out to slow Jamal Murray in particular and not letting him score 30+ again. The Nuggets just executed their offense, and Murray finished with 12 assists without one turnover while others stepped up — led by Aaron Gordon with a game-high 27 and Bruce Brown with 21 points off the bench, including 11 in the fourth, highlighted by a critical step-back 3.

Jokic was fired up for Bruce Brown's 4th quarter takeover 🔥 pic.twitter.com/56rOHygKm1

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) June 10, 2023

“When he did a step-back three, I wanted to punch him, but when he made it, I was so happy,” Jokić said.

It was like that all game long. Whenever Miami would make a run — the kind of stretch that became an avalanche and overwhelmed Boston and Milwaukee — Denver would just get the ball to Jokić, or Murray would draw the defense and kick to an open shooter, and the Nuggets executed their offense and got a bucket. They calmed things down, they didn’t contribute to their own demise.

It was championship-level execution from the Nuggets as they closed the game on a 17-7 run. The Nuggets were doing to the Heat in Miami what the Heat had done to every other team they faced this postseason.

Denver won Game 4 108-92, sweeping the two games in Miami (both by double digits), and now have a commanding 3-1 NBA Finals lead.

Game 5 is Monday night in Denver and it may feel more like a coronation than a basketball game.

Miami played hard. The Heat came out with their plan, they attacked the rim and did get 46 points in the paint, outscoring the Nuggets there.

But facing Denver’s elite offense, Miami needs more points and the path to that is knocking down their 3s — Miami was 8-of-25, 32%. Denver was 14-of-28 (50%) from beyond the arc.

Early on this felt like it could be a Heat night. The game was a rock fight from the opening tip, with both teams playing intense defense and missing shots they have hit much of the series. However, Denver appeared comfortable in that style and pushed their lead out to seven. Then Jimmy Butler scored seven points in a 10-2 Heat run to end the quarter and it was 21-20 Miami after one.

The start of the second quarter would prove to be a foreshadowing of the critical stretch of the fourth quarter.

The Nuggets were +1 in non-Jokić minutes to start the second thanks to eight points from Gordon in that stretch. Gordon stretched that out to 16 in the quarter and helped the Nuggets lead by four at the half — 55-51 — in a game that continued to be played in the Heat’s preferred style. Jokić had 16 points at the half but just two assists.

Denver started the third playing maybe their best basketball of the series and looking to blow the game open, getting the lead up to 13. But then came a stretch of sloppy basketball that let the Heat get the lead down to six and hang around the game. Things were getting intense…

Then came a several-minute break to check a bent rim and backboard that were at an angle. They were pulled there by a Bam Adebayo missed dunk (he missed a lot of bunnies this game), a problem noticed by Kyle Lowry. Jokić tried to hang on the rim to fix it, but it took a guy in a suit going up a ladder with a level and some tools.

Soon after Jokić to the bench with 9:24 left in the game and it felt like the entire Finals were going to turn.

The Nuggets just kept executing. Nothing changed.

“Every time we felt like we got it to six or eight, they were able to push it to 12,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said of the night. “That was certainly a frustrating part of the game. Brown was a big part of — some of his random drives and plays in the middle of the paint when you’re expecting it to be Murray or somebody else.”

Those plays have the Nuggets one win away from the franchise’s first NBA title.

Nuggets reportedly trade draft picks with Thunder to help keep title window open

By Kurt HelinJun 9, 2023, 4:03 PM EDT

The Denver Nuggets are just two wins from the franchise’s first NBA championship.

While Nikola Jokić and Jamal Murray are trying to pick-and-roll their way to those wins, the Nuggets front office has made a trade to try and keep their title window open. The Nuggets are trading their 2029 first-round pick (protected) to the Oklahoma City Thunder for the No. 37 pick in this June’s NBA Draft and the worst of the Thunder’s 2024-first round picks, a story broken by Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.

The Nuggets now control the No. 37 and 40 picks in the 2023 NBA Draft, plus this additional 2024 pick. The Nuggets will try to use this 2024 first-round pick to move into the first round of this year’s draft, reports Mike Singer of the Denver Post. (Denver’s first-round pick at No. 27 belongs to Charlotte through a series of trades.)

A first-round pick and some high second-round picks allows Nuggets GM Calvin Booth to bring in several low-priced rookies who can potentially be part of the roster and rotation, freeing up money to keep an expensive core of Jokic, Murray, Michael Porter Jr. and the rest. The hope is to find another Christian Braun at the back of the first round who can contribute as a rookie.

With Jokić, Murray, Porter Jr. and Aaron Gordon all locked in on big deals for the next two seasons after this, the challenge for the Nuggets is keeping quality rotation players around them to help them compete for a title without going deeper into the tax than ownership wants. Jeff Green is a free agent this summer and Bruce Brown has a $6.8 million player option that he will certainly opt out of (he will get an offer for more than $10 million a season). The Nuggets already are $7 million into the luxury tax (via Spotrac) and are looking for a way to keep below the second tax apron, making bringing those key players back a challenge.

Hence the trade, as the Nuggets look for ways to fill out their rotation with quality, but affordable, players. Good drafting — like Braun — is a way.

What does OKC get out of this? They have more first-round draft picks than they can use in the coming few years, this spreads a pick out to 2029, which they can use then or trade, depending on their needs at the time.

Heat’s Tyler Herro remains out for Game 4. Will he play in Finals?

By Kurt HelinJun 9, 2023, 12:38 PM EDT

MIAMI — With Tyler Herro not cleared to play in Game 3 of the NBA Finals and Game 4 just 48 hours later, it should be no surprise that we won’t see Herro on Friday night.

Herro is officially listed as out for Game 4. He has been out since April 16 with a severe hand fracture suffered in the first game against the Milwaukee Bucks.

Herro went through a brief part of the public practice/shootaround in front of the media Thursday but didn’t speak to the press. Spoelstra said Herro has not yet been cleared for a game.

“This is just part of the process,” Erik Spoelstra said. “You have to go through stages. First part of it was just shooting, then movement, then contact versus coaches, and then the next level of contact in practice. He has not been cleared for a game, and he is still not cleared yet.”

Even if Herro were cleared for later in the series — and the Heat players and coaches say to a man he is putting in the work — how much of a role could he play at this point? While on paper he provides shooting and shot creation Miami needs this series (although he would be a target on defense), he hasn’t played in a game for nearly two months and Spoelstra can’t just throw him into the highest level of basketball in the world mid-series. Maybe he could get in a few non-Jokić minutes off the bench, but it’s a big ask for anything more than that. And maybe it’s too big an ask for even that.

Listening to Spoelstra’s tone, I wouldn’t expect to see Herro in this series.

And this summer, don’t be surprised when Herro’s name comes up in a lot of trade rumors.

Rumor: Suns could make run at James Harden this summer

By Kurt HelinJun 9, 2023, 11:55 AM EDT

James Harden is widely expected to opt out of the $35.6 million he is owed for next season because, even if you acknowledge he is not MVP-level Harden anymore, he’s worth more than that in the NBA marketplace. At least $10 million more a season. Harden is reportedly “torn” between returning to Philadelphia or going back home to Houston (the sources NBC Sports talks to around the league have Houston as the frontrunner).

Maybe Phoenix can enter the conversation. There had been talk the Suns might make another big swing this offseason, then came this from ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne appearing on ESPNLA Radio (hat tip Hoopshype):

“I want you to keep your eye on James Harden [going to Phoenix]. I don’t want to report anything, but that was in the wind for the past month or so. Everybody thinks it’s Philly or Houston, but I don’t know, there have been discussions in the wind.”

Interesting. The smart money should still be bet on Houston. Phoenix is a crazy longshot because the Suns don’t have the cap space to sign Harden outright at market value.

The only way the Suns could make a direct trade work is to convince Harden to do an opt-in and trade, where he picks up that $35.6 million and the Suns extend him off that, because if he opts out — as expected — then any sign-and-trade hardcaps the Suns. With Harden, Kevin Durant and Devin Booker on the books, a hard-capped Suns team would have to round out the roster with minimum contract guys. They would have no depth.

Also, who are the Suns sending back to Philadelphia in that deal? The 76ers have no interest in Deandre Ayton, Philly is pretty set at center with the MVP. That means getting a third team involved, one that wants Ayton, and will send players back to the 76ers they want. It gets very complicated very fast. Or, can Phoenix pick up Chris Paul‘s $30.8 million for this season and do a Harden for CP3 swap? Good luck selling that.

No doubt the Suns, with aggressive new owner Mat Ishbia, want to make another bold move or two this summer, but pulling off a James Harden deal would be challenging. To put it politely.

And Harden probably wants to go home to Houston anyway.

Here's more hoops from the Tokyo Games

Here's more on the Nuggets

Here is more on the Nuggets

Check out more on the Heat

Check out more on the Suns