Three things to know: Kerr is honest about Warriors after blowout loss, 1-5 road trip

By Kurt HelinDec 22, 2022, 8:11 AM EST

Three Things is NBC’s five-days-a-week wrap-up of the night before in the NBA. Check out NBCSports.com every weekday morning to catch up on what you missed the night before plus the rumors, drama, and dunks that make the NBA must-watch.

1) Kerr is honest about Warriors after blowout loss, 1-5 road trip

The Golden State Warriors are not a good basketball team right now.

We all know Stephen Curry is out with a shoulder injury, and there have been flashes this season that reminds us these Warriors won the championship six months ago and can reach those heights again.

But that’s not who they are today, is it coach Steve Kerr?

“You are what your record says you are,” Kerr said in his postgame press conference, echoing a Bill Parcells line. “It was a bad road trip. We are 15-18, so we’re a below-.500 team, and we’ve got to find a way to reverse that.”
The Warriors

Kerr’s comments came after the Brooklyn Nets put up 91 points on the Warriors Wednesday night — in the first half.

The Nets dropped a franchise-record 91 points in the first half 😱 pic.twitter.com/Q5fZWRLqUJ

— NBA (@NBA) December 22, 2022

Is everyone excited about the Warriors playing on Christmas Day now?

The Nets didn’t set the record, that’s the third most points scored in half an NBA game in league history. As bad as the Warriors’ defensive effort was, everything went right for the Nets in those first 24 minutes: they shot 71.4% overall, 13-of-19 from 3, had 19 fast break points and 30 points in the paint.

The Nets fans were even on point Wednesday.

“Draymond punched you” chants while Jordan Poole is at the foul line. He made both of them. Unfazed in the face of adversity.

— Kristian Winfield (@Krisplashed) December 22, 2022

Kevin Durant scored 23 and led nine Nets in double figures as Brooklyn went on to win 143-113.

There are reasons for this uninspired Warriors outing: The last game of a road trip, one where they rested Klay Thompson in addition to Curry being out, plus there was a real “let’s just get through the week before Christmas” energy. On top of all that, the Warriors ran into a hot Nets team that is healthy and putting things together.

We keep giving the Warriors the benefit of the doubt — and with good reason, we saw what the core of the Warriors can do back in June. But this is not the same team. It lost some of its depth — Otto Porter, Gary Payton II, Juan Toscano-Anderson — and the Warriors’ younger generation has not been able to step up and fill those spots in the rotation. Beyond that, these Warriors have not taken the first third of the regular season seriously, they have not built good habits, and the team with the best defensive rating in the league last season is 24th this season.

Nobody is running away with the West this season, but the Warriors’ slow start — not likely to get better in the coming weeks with Curry still out — is going to leave the Warriors fighting for a middle-of-the-pack playoff spot if/when they do turn it around, and the path from there to the Finals is much more difficult. Nobody is counting the Warriors out, but they and their fans have to know their path to repeating gets tougher and tougher with every ugly loss.

2) Cavaliers take a step forward with win over Bucks

Like the Warriors mentioned above, when it gets to the playoffs we’re going to trust the Milwaukee Bucks. They have done it before and have a ring. They have Giannis Antetokounmpo. They have experience and are not using their top gears in December (but they may shift up one for Boston on Christmas Day).

The Cavaliers are good and young but have not yet earned that level of trust.

However, Cleveland took care of business against Milwaukee on Wednesday night and showed some maturity, looking like a team taking a step forward toward being a real postseason threat to the top two teams in the East. The Cavs built an early lead and then held off the Bucks’ second-half runs to pick up the 114-106 win behind 36 from Donovan Mitchell.

36 PTS
4 REB
6 AST

Spida led Cleveland to the W at home 🔥 pic.twitter.com/yPmxla3Hm5

— NBA (@NBA) December 22, 2022

There are no statement games in December and this win will be forgotten if the Bucks and Cavaliers meet in the playoffs, but this was a confidence-boosting win for a Cleveland team that looks more and more dangerous with each step forward. It’s a good sign.

That said, Antetokounmpo was the best player in this game and would be a serious problem in a playoff series.

Giannis dropped 40+ PTS and 10+ REB for the second game in a row 💪

45 PTS
14 REB
4 AST
63% FGM pic.twitter.com/B6KkagPPfe

— NBA (@NBA) December 22, 2022

3) NBA shows it does not care about tampering

This year there were 38 new contracts agreed to and seven contract extensions signed on the first day of NBA free agency — nearly half of them the first 90 minutes after the free agent window opened. That is a lot of tampering, using the NBA’s by-the-book definition.

Teams shrug. That’s how the game is played. Every GM in this league would give up a future second-round pick to land an All-Star level player.

That’s the price the NBA set when it slapped the Knicks on the wrist for tampering. The NBA’s nearly five-month investigation into the Knicks’ recruitment of Jalen Brunson concluded that New York “violated league rules governing the timing of this season’s free agency discussions.” Meaning the Knicks tampered with Brunson.

The price: The Knicks lose their 2025 second-round pick.

The Knicks will gladly pay it. Brunson is averaging 20.8 points and 6.2 assists a game, has been the steady floor general the Knicks need and has played like an All-Star.

Rarely will there be cases with such blatant evidence of tampering — there were multiple reports the sides had agreed to terms before free agency officially opened. Also, the Knicks hired Brunson’s father, Rick Brunson, as an assistant coach (although he has been on Tom Thibodeau’s staff before). Then there was Knicks executives William “World Wide Wes” Wesley and Allan Houston, as well as forward Julius Randle, sitting courtside for a Mavericks-Jazz playoff game in Dallas (to be seen by Brunson). And the list goes on and on.

The recruitment worked and Brunson agreed to sign with the New York Knicks for four years, $104 million early in free agency.

There is an easy fix here: Allow free agents to be to talk to teams once their season ends. To use Brunson as an example, why shouldn’t the Knicks or other teams have been able to contact him once the Mavericks’ season ended? We all get why the NBA wants to stop teams from tampering with players still under contract — reaching out to Kevin Durant or Luka Doncic, for example — but for a free agent to be in the lame duck last month of their deal? Who cares.

BONUS THING TO KNOW: Bulls’ Ayo Dosunmu with the putback game-winner

The Bulls and Hawks were tied 108-108 with :04 left, the Bulls were inbounding the ball and got it to DeMar DeRozan, who faked left and then spun back toward the baseline for a fadeaway. Four Hawks were around the basket to get a rebound but none of them put a body on the Bulls’ Dosunmu, who slid past all of them to get the rebound and hit the putback game-winner for Chicago.

AYO DOSUNMU BEATS THE BUZZER IN ATLANTA 🚨 pic.twitter.com/FWIVfQn4Lk

— Bulls Talk (@NBCSBulls) December 22, 2022

Heat players talk bouncing back, making history with Finals comeback

By Kurt HelinJun 10, 2023, 2:16 PM EDT

Robby Illanes/NBAE via Getty Images

MIAMI — Kevin Love has been here before, down 3-1 in the NBA Finals and staring up at a seemingly invincible foe. Yet there he was, a couple of improbable games later, dancing with Stephen Curry out at the arc and contesting a shot that missed and sealed the Cavaliers’ historic comeback and title in 2016.

“We know that anything can happen. It has been done before, in a Conference Final and Final, I have been part of it before,” Love said after a Heat Game 4 loss on their home court that felt like a punch to the gut. “You really just have to take it one possession at a time. Forget the game. It’s just one possession, one quarter, half to half. Just get it done by any means necessary and figure the rest out.”

The Heat locker room was quiet after Game 4. With good reason. The Heat just had dropped two games at home, and in the second one of those they held Nikola Jokić and Jamal Murray in relative check — with Jokić spending 5:15 of the heart of the fourth quarter on the bench due to foul trouble – and it didn’t matter. It felt like a game Miami had to have, but Aaron Gordon and Bruce Brown grabbed it for Denver. Miami looked like a team in trouble.

“I told the guys, feel whatever you want to feel tonight. It’s fine,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “You probably shouldn’t sleep tonight any amount of time. I don’t think anybody will. We have an incredibly competitive group. We’ve done everything the hard way, and that’s the way it’s going to have to be done right now, again.

“All we are going to focus on is getting this thing back to the 305. Get this thing back to Miami. And things can shift very quickly. It’s going to be a gnarly game in Denver that is built for the competitors that we have in our locker room.”

Resilience and relentlessness have been the Heat hallmarks this postseason, but those qualities are about to be tested like never before.

“We’ve seen a team come back from 3-0 firsthand,” Bam Adebayo said, referencing the Celtics near comeback on the Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals (Miami won Game 7 in Boston). “So we just have to believe, and one game at a time.”

There was a 3-1 comeback in the 2016 NBA Finals, when the Cavaliers stormed back on Curry’s Warriors. However, that comeback required a cocktail of events to be shaken together: Draymond Green‘s suspension for Game 5 after kicking LeBron James in the groin, Golden State center and defensive anchor Andrew Bogut getting injured and missing the final games, LeBron playing at his absolute peak, and a legendary Kyrie Irving bucket.

Can Miami replicate that?

“It’s one game at a time. Now we are in a must-win situation every single game, which we’re capable of,” Jimmy Butler said. “Some correctible things we’ve got to do, but it’s not impossible. We’ve got to go out there and do it. We’ve got three to get.”

Celtics’ Grant Williams undergoes hand surgery as he enters pivotal offseason

Associated PressJun 10, 2023, 8:37 AM EDT

Jim Davis/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

BOSTON (AP) — Celtics forward Grant Williams had surgery Friday to repair a torn ligament in his left hand and is expected to be sidelined from basketball activities for the next two months.

The team said that Williams, 24, will need 6-8 weeks to recover following the procedure.

Williams averaged career highs in minutes (25.9), points (8.1) and rebounds (4.6) during the regular season. But each of those numbers fell during the playoffs as he slipped in and out of the rotation.

He is a restricted free agent this summer with interest from teams around the league.

Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens said last week that he thinks Williams got caught in a numbers’ situation regarding his reduced playing time this season.

“He is a good player who was on a really deep team,” Stevens said. “With the addition of (Malcolm) Brogdon last year it was going to require that guys that had gotten a little more opportunity weren’t going to get as much. That obviously hit a few of our players. … But everybody around the league knows Grant can add value to any team.”

Three reasons Denver has a commanding 3-1 Finals lead over Miami

By Kurt HelinJun 10, 2023, 8:27 AM EDT

MIAMI — The Heat are on the NBA Finals stage because they are relentless. They never quit when things got hard in the postseason, they would just up their intensity and pressure their opponent.

When they cranked up that pressure on the teams with the two best regular season records in the NBA — the Bucks and Celtics — those teams melted. Miami was left standing.

Denver will not melt. They will not beat themselves.

If anything, the Nuggets are putting the pressure back on the Heat, which is why they are up 3-1 and in command of these NBA Finals after an impressive Game 4 win. The best example was when the Nuggets withstood more than five minutes in the fourth quarter without their two-time MVP (due to foul trouble) and didn’t miss a beat.

It feels like Game 5 in Denver could be a coronation of Jokić and the Nuggets. Here are the three reasons we got to this point, with the Nuggets one win away from the franchise’s first title.

1) Miami can’t score enough to hang with Denver

The Heat were always going to have to put up a lot of points to keep pace in this series — the Nuggets had a top-five offense in the league this season led by a two-time MVP. They were not going to be shut down by anyone and had just come off having an impressive 118 offensive rating against the best defense in the NBA after the All-Star break in the Lakers. Maybe Maimi could slow Denver some, but the Heat were going to have to put up offensive numbers like they did against the Celtics.

Through four Finals games, the Miami Heat have a 109.5 offensive rating. That is 3.8 behind their unimpressive regular season offense (25th in the league) and 9.2 below what they did against Boston. Or, look at it this way: The Heat had a 129.1 in its Game 2 victory, but 102.2 in the other three games, all losses (stat via John Schuhmann at NBA.com)

The Nuggets’ length across the board is clearly bothering Heat shooters inside the paint and out at the arc.

Outside of the fourth quarter of Game 2, nothing has worked the way the Heat wanted on offense. In Game 4, the emphasis was on playing downhill and getting to the rim, maybe getting Jokić in foul trouble.

“[Coach Spoelstra] definitely made it an emphasis to attack the rim, to really get to the rim, me and Jimmy, everybody included, really get downhill and make things happen,” Bam Adebayo said of his team’s Game 4 strategy.

Miami did as its coach asked and shot 14-of-18 in the restricted area. But look at the rest of the shot chart.

That’s a lot of red.

Jimmy Butler and Adebayo have put up numbers throughout the Finals but haven’t been efficient. Game 4 was the perfect example, the Heat All-Star duo combined to score 45 points, but they shot below 50%, 17-of-36, to get there. They have not been the force they have been in other series. Butler will never blame his sore ankle, re-aggravated in Game 7 against the Celtics, but he’s not showing the same lift or explosion he did last series.

Neither of the Heat’s stars are expected to space the floor, that shooting falls to the role players, but the Heat were 8-of-25 from 3 in Game 4. Gabe Vincent and Max Strus combined to go 0-of-7 from deep.

Spoelstra has to try something in Game 5, maybe start Duncan Robinson (5-of-7 on the night, shooting 3s and attacking closeouts) over Strus. There are other tweaks he can make. But at this point it’s really as simple as the Heat need to start finishing their chances, contested or not.

“All we are going to focus on is getting this thing back to the 305,” Spoelstra said. “Get this thing back to Miami. And things can shift very quickly,” Spoelstra said. “It’s going to be a gnarly game in Denver that is built for the competitors that we have in our locker room. By the time we are getting on that plane, all we’re thinking about is get this thing back to Miami.”

2) Miami can’t stop Denver from scoring

Through four games, Miami has a 119.6 offensive rating (and a +10.1 net rating in the series). That is an offensive rating close to Sacramento’s league-best throughout this season.

What makes the Nuggets so hard for the Heat or anyone else to stop is it’s not just one thing.

However, it starts with the Jokic and Jamal Murray two-man game.

In Game 3, that duo ran 32 pick-and-rolls and the two stars each had 30+ point triple-doubles on the night. Miami learned its lesson, and in Game 4, the Heat were determined not to let Murray get rolling and beat them. The Nuggets defense focused on Murray, blitzing him with the ball when he came off picks, pressuring even the inbounds after baskets, bringing double-teams on drives and doing whatever it took to get the ball out of his hands.

It worked on a superficial level, Murray had 15 points on 5-of-17 shooting in Game 3.

He also had 12 assists and no turnovers. His teammates stepped up and made plays.

“Jamal, regardless of what’s going on, he’s going to step up. He’s going to find a way to impact the game,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said. “The most impressive thing for me was he had 15 points tonight, and he was 5-of-17 from the field. But 12 assists and zero turnovers, and just kind of, all right, they’re putting two on me, let me make the right play. He did not get bored with making the right play. He did not say, I’m going to save us and try to carry the team. He just read the defense, made the right play, and trusted. That’s a big part of our culture is trusting one another.”

Murray’s teammates are the other key to this series.

3) Denver’s role players outplaying Heat role players. It’s not close.

Miami had a game plan and executed it. They completely sold out to stop Murray, while Bam Adebayo continued to battle and challenge Jokić. The two Nuggets’ All-Stars combined to shoot just 13-of-36 on the night.

But Aaron Gordon stepped up with 27. Bruce Brown scored 21, including 11 in the fourth quarter, taking over the offense in the clutch.

On the other side, Heat starters Max Strus and Gabe Vincent combined to shoot 1-of-10. Caleb Martin was better in Game 4, with 11 points on 5-of-12 shooting, but he’s not looked anything near the player who nearly won the Eastern Conference Finals MVP. The list just goes on.

“Every time we felt like we got it to six or eight, they were able to push it to 12,” Spoelstra said after Game 4. “That was certainly a frustrating part of the game…

“For the most part, I thought that that part of the game [Miami’s defense on Jokić and Murray] was okay. It’s the Gordon dunks or cuts; [Michael] Porter had a couple cuts; and then Brown, when Jokic was out, those drives and plays that were kind of just random plays, attacking plays, which he is fully capable of doing. Those were probably the most costly things.”

Malone had enough trust in Brown to give him the keys to the offense in the second half of the fourth quarter of Game 4.

“Bruce Brown in the fourth quarter was amazing,” Malone said. “He had I think 21 points, 11 of those were in the fourth quarter. They were giving Jamal so much attention that [we decided] let’s get Jamal off the ball, let Bruce make some plays. He was aggressive, got to the basket, made shots, and tonight was an impressive performance.”

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.

Brown had a chance to step up because Gordon had been making plays and finishing all night long. He ended the night with a game-high 27. But it was the team aspect of the Nuggets, the variety of ways they can beat you — and the execution of those players under pressure — that has proven too much for the Heat.

“I thought Aaron Gordon was huge all night long,” Malone said. “He brought his hard hat tonight and was just a warrior on both ends for us. Nikola, he had another great game. And one of the best stats of the night was Jamal Murray had 12 assists, no turnovers. In a game where he was getting blitzed and bodies thrown at him all night long, did not have one turnover, and that’s just remarkable.

And the Nuggets are now, remarkably, within one win of an NBA title.

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.

1) Kerr is honest about Warriors after blowout loss, 1-5 road trip

2) Cavaliers take a step forward with win over Bucks

3) NBA shows it does not care about tampering

Check out more on the Heat

Check out more on the Celtics

1) Miami can’t score enough to hang with Denver

2) Miami can’t stop Denver from scoring

3) Denver’s role players outplaying Heat role players. It’s not close.

Check out more on the Nuggets

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