Bulldogs

MIAMI (AP) &mdash; Somewhere, Gregg Popovich must be pleased.
Ime Udoka and Steve Kerr played for Popovich with of the San Antonio Spurs, both served as assistant coaches under him, and neither makes any effort to hide the affinity they have for the NBA&rsquo;s career victory leader.
And now, Udoka and Kerr are about to go head-to-head &mdash; in the NBA Finals.
The title matchup is set: It&rsquo;ll be Udoka and the Eastern Conference champion Boston Celtics facing Kerr and the Western Conference champion Golden State Warriors, a series that begins Thursday night in San Francisco. The teams split their two regular-season meetings, each winning on the other&rsquo;s home floor.
The Warriors have been waiting for an opponent since this past Thursday after needing only five games to beat Dallas for the West title. The Celtics got there the hard way, winning Game 7 in Miami on Sunday night to capture the East.
&ldquo;We stayed with it. We believed in each other. We made a commitment on the defensive end," said Celtics forward Al Horford, who, after 141 playoff games, is headed to the NBA Finals for the first time. &ldquo;That was the biggest thing, defending."
For the Celtics, it&rsquo;s a chance at an 18th NBA championship &mdash; which would break the tie with the Los Angeles Lakers for the most in league history. For the Warriors, it&rsquo;s a chance at a seventh crown &mdash; which would break a tie with the Chicago Bulls for third-most in league history.
It&rsquo;s also a rematch of the 1964 finals, when Bill Russell and the Celtics topped the Warriors in five games.
&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve said it many times: You go to the finals, it&rsquo;s almost a two-month journey filled with stress and fatigue and everything else,&rdquo; said Kerr, who gave his team Friday and Saturday off before bringing them back to work Sunday. &ldquo;So, if you can get a little bit of a break, it&rsquo;s very meaningful. Hopefully, we can get healthy and have a few days of really good prep and be ready to go on Thursday.&rdquo;
Golden State won at Boston 111-107 on Dec. 17, behind 30 points from Stephen Curry. The Celtics rolled on Golden State&rsquo;s home floor in the rematch on March 16, winning 110-88 in the game in which Curry injured his foot &mdash; and that&rsquo;s where his regular season ended.
Curry was ready to go for the playoffs. So were the rest of the Warriors. They&rsquo;re 12-4 in the playoffs, getting through Denver, Memphis and Dallas to get to the title round.
&ldquo;It all starts with Steph,&rdquo; Kerr said.
Udoka has a chance to become the 10th coach to win a title in his first season. Eddie Gottlieb (1947 Philadelphia Warriors), Buddy Jeanette (1948 Baltimore Bullets), John Kundla (1949 Minneapolis Lakers), George Senesky (1956 Philadelphia Warriors), Paul Westhead (1980 Los Angeles Lakers), Pat Riley (1982 Los Angeles Lakers), Tyronn Lue (2016 Cleveland Cavaliers) and Nick Nurse (2019 Toronto Raptors) are eight of the coaches who have pulled off the feat.
The other name on that list is Kerr &mdash; who did it with Golden State in 2015, the start of this run of greatness from the Warriors. That was the beginning of six finals appearances in eight years, the two exceptions being when injuries and a roster reset kept them from the playoffs in 2020 and 2021.
&ldquo;You can&rsquo;t take it for granted,&rdquo; Curry said after the West title series. &ldquo;Nothing&rsquo;s ever guaranteed. We understand how hard it is to win. We&rsquo;ve said that until we&rsquo;re blue in the face the last two years. This is definitely special. Proud of everybody that is in that locker room, that came with it all year. Now we have an opportunity to go finish a job.&rdquo;
Udoka played for Popovich and later was a San Antonio assistant. Kerr played for the Spurs, then assisted Popovich with USA Basketball through last summer&rsquo;s Tokyo Olympics &mdash; when the Americans won a fourth consecutive gold medal.
The Warriors&rsquo; Draymond Green was on that Olympic team. So was Boston&rsquo;s Jayson Tatum. They celebrated winning gold together, and now they&rsquo;ll try to go through one another to get their fingerprints on the gold trophy that goes to the NBA champions &mdash; the Larry O&rsquo;Brien.
&ldquo;This is an opportunity that players dream of,&rdquo; Golden State's Andrew Wiggins said. &ldquo;To be put in a position to win it all.&rdquo;
And if nothing else, a Warriors-Celtics matchup made Green seem prophetic.
After the Warriors won the West, Green visited the TNT broadcast set after the game and was prodded by Shaquille O&rsquo;Neal to say which team from the then-undecided East title series that he would like to play.
Green began giving a diplomatic answer, saying that both the Heat and Celtics were tough. O&rsquo;Neal pressed him to be honest, and Green &mdash; never shy with words &mdash; gave in.
&ldquo;You&rsquo;re asking me who I want to play. I&rsquo;m gonna tell who I think we&rsquo;re going to play: We&rsquo;re going to play Boston,&rdquo; Green said Thursday night. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s who we&rsquo;re going to play.&rdquo;
He was right.
&nbsp;

The matchup is set: it will be the Boston Celtics facing the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals.

The Finals matchup: Celtics vs. Warriors for NBA title

It appears as though the New Orleans Pelicans are playing harder and more aggressively, and with a greater sense of urgency and more passion, than the Phoenix Suns are at this point of their playoff series.
Herb Jones is putting on a Superman cape to leap tall buildings in a single bound and block three-point attempts. The scrappy Jose Alvarado forced Chris Paul into an eight-second violation in the backcourt, something that very rarely happens to the veteran point guard. The bench is fired up for the entire game, and the team is playing with a passion that hasn&rsquo;t been seen in New Orleans for quite some time.
Nobody outside of that city could&rsquo;ve imagined that this series would be tied at two games apiece with the highly-favored, 62-win, defending-Western-Conference-champion Suns.&nbsp;
Having said that, there seems to be a feeling of disrespect from the national media for a team that has exceeded the expectations of so many in the sports world.&nbsp;
<div class="mceNonEditable"><spike>&nbsp;</spike></div>
I spoke with Pelicans color analyst Antonio Daniels about his assessment of the team and that national media disrespect toward New Orleans.
Etan Thomas: First, how great is it to see the Pelicans prove a lot of people wrong who didn't even give them a chance?
Antonio Daniels: "Oh, man. Well, for me, it's not even about it being great, proving people wrong. The great part is what I've seen this team accomplish. People are going to doubt no matter what. I don't care who you are, or what you've ever done, how good you are. People are always going to doubt. But you can't allow people's doubts to actually affect the way that you think about yourself. I have said this about this team from Day 1, and I actually have it bookmarked in my Twitter feed; Nov. 5, I said at this time, 'This team gets healthy, they're a playoff team. If they get healthy, they're a playoff team.' And I remember I was doing the pregame show and David Wesley, who's a good friend of mine, turned and faced my way and was almost like to say, 'Whatever.' You know what I mean?
Etan: Right.
Daniels: "Here's the thing, Etan. When you're talking about success in this league, it's not going to [happen] if you don't have a culture of overachievement. It doesn't happen. You have to have guys that overachieve, guys that are outplaying the expectation. You can go all the way back to the Golden State Warriors. What they did with Steph Curry and Draymond Green and Klay Thompson and those guys. They all overachieved. Did you think when Steph Curry and Klay Thompson were coming out that they would be the best shooting backcourt in history? Or when Draymond Green was coming out, at this point in his career, he would be a Hall-of-Famer? No. But they created a culture of overachievement.
"What you have here in New Orleans is, a lot was going on early on in the season, new pieces trying to fit in along with head coach Willie Green. And that's a lot to take on early; 1-12, 3-16 is what this team started. And now, at that time, the talk was, 'Let's tank. There's no Zion.' Fans all said they should just tank the season. Even when you acquired CJ McCollum. I remember Stephen A. Smith saying, 'Oh, I don't know what they're doing. Why would CJ McCollum want to go there? New Orlenas ain't going anywhere anyway.'
"The disrespect from the national media is, I think, what guys really pay attention to. And I think they do somewhat use that as motivation. But to be a part of this journey, Etan, from Day 1 of training camp, to Zion being hurt [and] not being available throughout the course of this team's season, being without your best player and seeing what this team has been able to accomplish, climbing out of that 3-16 start, it's been special."
Etan: Talk about the addition you mentioned of CJ McCollum and how much that has helped the entire team.
Daniels: "I'll say this first: What people forget about in that addition is that Larry Nance was in that [trade] as well, and people aren't talking about that. People are talking about CJ, and CJ's been fantastic. But I'll tell you what, I don't think that the Pelicans are at this point without Larry Nance Jr. He was the difference in the Play-In game against the Clippers because what he offers you is versatility at the 5 spot that you didn't have prior to him. Versatility and experience. When teams go small, like you see a lot of the NBA doing now, and they're basically playing five forwards like the Toronto Raptors, it&rsquo;s problematic for opposing teams. You need a big that is experienced, knowledged, but understands strengths and weaknesses [and] also has the skill set to compete. Larry Nance Jr was great. And people don't talk about him enough."
Etan: Great point.
Daniels: "But to get to CJ &mdash; CJ's playing the best basketball of his career. And from his words, he's a servant leader. And I love it because he's not very vocal, but he leads by example. He came in and he said, 'You know what, man? I want Brandon Ingram to be the best version of himself' on Day 1. Because if B.I.'s the best version of himself, that will allow me (meaning CJ McCollum) to be the best version of myself. And I remember asking CJ, when I sat down and I interviewed him, talking about, 'How do you develop chemistry between you and B.I.?' And he said, 'You know what? I'll do the same thing with him that me and Dame [Lillard] did. We sat down and we watched films together. I want to know where he wants to ball. I want him to be vocal with me. I want to know where his hotspot is, what plays he likes, when he needs me to back down and allow him to be the best version of himself.' The communication between those two from Day 1 was at an all-time level.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-theme="dark">
𝙋𝙀𝙇𝙎 𝙒𝙄𝙉 ⚜️ Brandon Ingram : 30 PTS, 4 REB, 5 AST ⚜️ Jonas Valanciunas : 26 PTS, 15 REB, 4 AST ⚜️ Cj McCollum : 18 PTS, 9 REB Les <a href="https://twitter.com/PelicansNBA?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@PelicansNBA</a> l'emportent 118-103 et reviennent &agrave; 2-2 face &agrave; Phoenix ! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WBD?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#WBD</a> <a href="https://t.co/zbghiMm2fU">pic.twitter.com/zbghiMm2fU</a>
&mdash; NBA France (@NBAFRANCE) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBAFRANCE/status/1518469593290919937?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 25, 2022</a></blockquote>

<script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>

"But, Etan, what really helped this team was the All-Star break. Because if you look at what this team has done post-All-Star break, that was the chemistry between CJ and B.I. really starting to take off. We opened up in Phoenix. First game at the All-Star break, we opened up in Phoenix. And they talked at length about the dinner that they had in Phoenix the night before, where they just got an opportunity to connect to one another and to communicate with one another. This team has been rolling ever since when those two are on the floor together with a healthy starting five."
Etan: I want you to talk a little bit about Coach Willie Green. I actually posted and tweeted the clip of <a href="https://twitter.com/etanthomas36/status/1515310682945855488?s=20&amp;t=jxzjmwJgR9FJ3SYvF7c53w" target="_blank" rel="noopener">him motivating the guys</a>. It made me feel like I want to go out there and lace them back up and get ready to go play. Talk about how great he has been for this team.
Daniels: "Listen, Etan, I can't put it into words the respect that I have for Willie Green from Day 1. You know it's funny. Because when you're losing, people don't want to hear about it. People don't want to hear about the positives when you're losing. They only want to hear about the positives when you start playing well. And when this team was 1-12, and then, when they were 3-16... I'll tell you, Etan, we've both played on bad teams; you know what a shootaround is like walking into the gym when you're 3-16. This was not it. I have never seen more spirited shootarounds from, at the time, what seemed to be a bad basketball team. And that started with Willie Green. He never blinked. He never allowed this team to lose confidence. His faith in this team never wavered, and he stands on his faith as a whole.
"I'll give you a quick example. You know how many coaches have the open-door policy where you can come in and talk? I meet with Willie Green from time-to-time. We'll go into his office. We'll talk or sit or chat or go out to dinner. Etan, our meetings ended with prayer. How many coaches have you ever gone in to meet with and talk about the team or whatever it may be and, when it's all said and done, you guys are at his desk praying together? That speaks to the man that Willie Green is. He is one of those guys that is so inspiring because he makes you want to be a better version of yourself. I don't hoop no more, Etan. If that's how he makes me feel, I can imagine how he makes players feel. When you have guys like Jose Alvarado and Trey Murphy and Herb Jones, Jaxson Hayes &mdash; all these guys, when their number was called, they were ready to go. Because when they weren't playing, Willie Green was still speaking grace, life and confidence into them. And I had an opportunity to see it up close and personal. I am at every practice, at every shootaround. I've traveled with the team. I eat with the team. To see his communication with them, his ability to relate to them [is incredible].
"And I'm a proud believer, Etan, that the best coaches in this league are role players. You know why? Because they can relate to everybody from 1-to-15. If you're a star player, you can't relate to the guy who hasn't played in six games or the guy who's major inconsistent. Willie Green has started in this league, he's been a sixth man, he's been in situations where his minutes weren't guaranteed and he's also been in a situation where he hadn't played at all. Tell me who on that bench he cannot relate to! And there's nothing more important in today's NBA than a coach's ability to relate to his players. I don't care about your defensive schemes, I don't care about your X's and O's. If the players feel like you can't relate to them, they will not play as hard for you. But the moment that they feel like you care about them as men, as fathers, as husbands &mdash; they will run through a wall for you. And I'm telling you, Willie Green has that locker room so engaged, because of the way that he handles himself throughout adversity."
<div class="mceNonEditable"><spike>&nbsp;</spike></div>
Etan: Wow. That's great to hear, and I thought that about him already, just from knowing who he is. But it's great to hear you say that. Let me ask you one more thing. I know you don't worry about the haters and the noise and social media, all that stuff, but they keep bringing up the fact that because Devin Booker isn't there, that's the reason why the Pelicans are in this series. I was like, 'Well, wait a minute. Y'all forget that Zion isn't there either?' I'm like, y'all forgot about that part.
Daniels: "Here's the thing. Has there ever been an NBA champion where there's not a 'What if?' attached to it? Let's just go back to a year ago. Remember when Trae Young got hurt against Milwaukee? Remember when Kyrie Irving got hurt against Milwaukee? Remember James Harden had to come back as a shadow of himself with half of a hamstring versus Milwaukee? Remember a couple years back when Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson got hurt, and then Toronto won the championship? Look, ain't nobody tripping on that. This is the league full of injuries. You get certain things that are out of your control. So If people say, 'Oh man, the only reason that the Pelicans won is because (fill in the blank), well, okay.' But you are not going to find an NBA champion, a NFL champion where breaks don&rsquo;t go somebody's way.
"But I'll tell you this, there are two teams in the NBA who have yet to play with their best player. I'm talking about not even one practice. Not even one practice this year with their best player. It's the L.A. Clippers and the New Orleans Pelicans. Kawhi [Leonard] literally practiced one time. But let me tell you the difference. The difference is, Kawhi Leonard has practiced with Tyronn Lue before. He's practiced with him before, last year. Zion does not have one practice with Coach Willie Green. Not one. The last that Zion has been on the floor is when he was averaging 26 points per game and shooting 61% from the field under Coach Stan Van Gundy.
"So people can sit here and say, 'Oh, well, the only reason is, because...' So what? So what? Your job is to go out and your job is to play. Plain and simple. Look at the playoffs now. Khris Middleton is sidelined. Luka [Doncic] was sidelined. Kyle Lowry is sidelined. You get guys that are injured all the time. What are the Pelicans supposed to say? 'Ah, you know what man? Devin Booker's not there. Let's wait. Let's wait until they have help and then come back to finish this series.' No. Your job is to take advantage of the situation that's given."
Etan: That&rsquo;s absolutely correct.
Daniels: "And I'll tell you this, Etan, it goes along with the national narrative of the lack of respect that's given to the Pelicans. It goes right along with it. It doesn't matter. You know this better than anybody. It doesn't matter what people think about you. 'You ain't never believed in me as long as I believe in myself.' And this is a team, right now, that believes in themselves."
<img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="https://cdn.basketballnews.com/images/story/body/violalogo1_lg.png" alt="" width="690" height="345" />
Looking to go to the hottest concerts, sports, theater &amp; family shows near you? Get 100% guaranteed tickets to more than 125,000 live events from TicketSmarter, the official ticket marketplace of BasketballNews.com. <a href="https://www.ticketsmarter.com/?utm_source=basketballnewscom&amp;utm_medium=tsaff&amp;utm_campaign=referral" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Order online now</a>!

Etan Thomas speaks with former teammate and Pelicans color analyst Antonio Daniels about NOLA's playoff surge vs. Phoenix.

Antonio Daniels: Pelicans have been disrespected by national media

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Los Angeles Clippers got way too comfortable against the NBA-leading Phoenix Suns and it nearly cost them.
Leading by 39 points in the third quarter, the Clippers survived an offensive onslaught by Phoenix's bench in the fourth and hung on for a 113-109 victory on Wednesday night.
Norman Powell scored 24 points after being out two months and Paul George added 19 points in three quarters to go over 15,000 in his career for the Clippers.
“You can never relax in the NBA,” Clippers coach Tyronn Lue said. “The players are too good, the coaches are too good, and as soon as you let your guard down things like this can happen.”
With nothing at stake, Phoenix rested All-Star guards Devin Booker and Chris Paul and fellow starters Deandre Ayton and Jae Crowder on the second night of a back-to-back. The Suns had already set a franchise record for wins in a season with 63 by eliminating the Lakers from playoff contention Tuesday.
The Clippers beat up the Suns for three quarters. But Phoenix's reserves put together a 48-point fourth quarter and then ran out of time.
“It’s a great lesson for our team and any kid watching, you just play it out,” Suns coach Monty Williams said. “We just stayed with it and had that Suns grit.”
Cameron Payne came back in and hit a 3-pointer that drew the Suns within four with 10 seconds left. Amir Coffey got fouled and made both free throws to preserve the win. 
Ish Wainwright scored a career-high 20 points to lead Phoenix. Aaron Holiday added 16 points and Bismack Biyombo had 14 points and 12 rebounds. The only starter in double figures was Payne with 13 points. The Suns' bench outscored the Clippers' reserves 66-58.
“When you have games like this, you find out who that guy is that you may be able to throw into a big game,” Williams said. “You build that confidence in games like this.”
George and Powell were playing together for the first time this season, but they quickly got in sync to help the Clippers win their third in a row. They are locked into the eighth spot for the Western Conference play-in tournament next week.
George has played in five of six games since returning from a torn UCL. Powell is back after missing 21 games with a broken foot. He played in just three games with the team before getting hurt shortly after he was acquired in a trade from Portland.
“Playing with PG still didn’t seem real to me,” Powell said. “I looked up to him growing up. Early on in my career he gave me some words of encouragement that stuck with me.”
George scored 10 of his team’s first 14 points to start the game. Powell came in for the first time late in the first quarter and hit a jumper.
They started the second quarter together. Powell hit a 3-pointer and a jumper back-to-back, then George found him for another 3-pointer as part of a 22-0 run. 
“We just tried to play off one another,” George said. “The biggest thing for me was playing off the ball and letting Norm get comfortable. He’s a big-time playmaker and scorer off the ball.”
The Suns’ first points didn’t come until 6:49, when former Clipper Landry Shamet hit a 3-pointer.
The Clippers outscored the Suns 34-9 in the second to lead 60-31 going into halftime.
Ivica Zubac had 13 points and 11 rebounds for the Clippers.
TIP-INS
Suns: Their 31 points in the first half were the fewest allowed by the Clippers in a half this season. ... JaVale McGee led a rollicking, expletive-filled huddle in the tunnel before the Suns took the court to warm up. ... The Jenner sisters, Kylie and Kendall, who dates Booker, sat opposite the team bench.
Clippers: Split the season series, 2-2. ... A moment of silence was held for Gene Shue, a two-time NBA coach of the year who had two separate stints guiding the Clippers. He died earlier this week at age 90. ... Hall of Famer and Clippers executive Jerry West posed for a photo at halftime with Grammy nominee Saweetie, who sported bright pink hair. ... Hall of Famer Scottie Pippen sat courtside.
15K for PG
George reflected on becoming the 16th active player with at least 15,000 career points.
“I'm just a kid who came literally from the desert,” he said, referring to his high desert hometown of Palmdale north of Los Angeles. “Every time I touch the floor, especially because of the injuries, I’m always grateful for the opportunity.”
He added, “Hopefully, I crack the 20,000 milestone and the 30,000 milestone.”
UP NEXT
Suns: Visit Utah on Friday.
Clippers: Host Sacramento on Saturday in the first game of a back-to-back.
___
More AP NBA: https://apnews.com/NBA and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

The Clippers survived an offensive onslaught by Phoenix's bench in the fourth and hung on for a 113-109 victory

Powell returns, Clippers beat Suns for 3rd straight win

Since I decided to take my talents into the media world, I have a newfound appreciation for the craft. But one of the questions I get asked most often is whether my attitude toward the media has changed at all because of it, and it certainly has. Truth be told, most NBA players don&rsquo;t trust many members of the media, and I can&rsquo;t blame them.&nbsp;
Back in 2007, I'd just landed in Boston, and with the roster that was assembled over there, <a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/stories/nba-james-posey-championship-expectations-boston-celtics-doc-rivers-kevin-garnett-paul-pierce-ray-allen-cleveland-cavaliers-lebron-james-tyronn-lue-miami-heat-pat-riley-shaquille-o-neal" target="_blank" rel="noopener">expectations were really high</a>. One day after practice, Doc Rivers called a team meeting and singled me out. I was the only player on the squad who had won a championship.&nbsp;
Doc knew that I knew what it felt like being under the microscope, and he asked me to share some of my insight about distractions and about what it takes to win.&nbsp;
In Miami, we had Dwyane Wade, Shaquille O&rsquo;Neal, Gary Payton and Alonzo Mourning, and we were coached by Pat Riley. Anywhere any of us went, people were trying to ask us questions and stick microphones in our faces. Shaq had a well-publicized feud with Kobe Bryant, and D-Wade was coming into his own as a young superstar. There was a lot to talk about.
So in Boston, basically, my message to the team was to be careful about what you say, because for the most part, drama is what sells. That&rsquo;s not unique to sports, but it sure applies in that world.
Think about it: When you open up a newspaper or turn on the news at night, so much of what is talked about is about negativity and drama. The unfortunate reality is that the NBA media has become so much about that too. Some people think that it&rsquo;s worse today than ever before. Today, most of the conversations and stories are less about the game and more about free agency, contracts, trades or people getting fired.&nbsp;
As a whole, we just seem to spend much less time talking about and loving the game than we do talking about the dramatic storylines that the game creates.
So that was my message to those guys in Boston when Doc kind of put me on the spot. That&rsquo;s what I said. Part of that perspective came from an experience I had as a young second-year player in Denver. There, I found myself in the middle of a huge controversy because a reporter twisted my words and misrepresented my message.
Lesson learned.
<div class="mceNonEditable"><spike>&nbsp;</spike></div>
I was drafted by Denver in 1999, and Dan Issel was my first coach. Coach Issel had worked for Denver for a while and was the coach of the 1994 Nuggets squad that became the first eighth-seeded team to beat the No. 1 seed in the first round. Nobody talks about it, but that team actually took Utah to seven games in the second round before losing, so they overachieved for sure.
At this time, I was a young player coming into the league, trying to establish myself and figuring out how to stick. I had some good vets in my corner and developed some relationships that I cherish to this day, but I learned the hard way to be careful not only about what I said, but how I said it.&nbsp;
Sometimes, things can be misinterpreted, and truth be told, some guys in the media would rather take something you said and put a controversial twist to it than to double-check with you to make sure you meant what you said.
In some ways, it&rsquo;s like they&rsquo;re out to get you.
<img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="https://cdn.basketballnews.com/images/story/body/poseyheader_lg.jpg" alt="" width="650" height="464" />
So, the Nuggets made the playoffs in 1994 (where they scored the upset over Seattle) and then in 1995. They missed the playoffs the next four years, and then, <a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/stories/the-night-my-life-changed-reflecting-on-my-1999-nba-draft-selection" target="_blank" rel="noopener">I was drafted</a>. Coach Issel came back to the bench that same year. We missed the playoffs my rookie year, so the franchise was trying to get back there as soon as we could.
We had some proud veterans and guys who were competitors on the team, and those kind of guys don&rsquo;t really have the patience for rebuilding. As an older veteran, if you spend a few years on a non-playoff team, the next thing you know, you might be out of the league.
My second year in the league was the 2000-01 season, and we started 10-8, but we went out east on a road trip and lost all four games. Nobody was happy.
Suddenly, we were 10-12 and, coincidentally, were going back home to play the Miami Heat.
Typically, after a long road trip, a coach would give the players a day off, even if they had a bad trip. At the end of the day, guys need time to regroup, rest and collect their thoughts, but Coach Issel had other ideas.
Coach made some comments in the media that were critical of some of our vets, and it rubbed some guys the wrong way. But bigger than that was the fact that, as a team, we were fatigued.&nbsp;
Today, we&rsquo;re so much smarter about sports science and helping athletes take care of their bodies. The league has reduced back-to-back games, for example. When I was in the league, we often had to play four games in five nights, and during the lockout season, every team had at least one situation where they had to play three games in three nights.
In Denver that season, we played 16 games in November, which means on average, we played more than one game every two nights. We played three games the first four nights of the season and the trend continued. We were exhausted by the time we left for our first long Eastern road trip of the season, and to make matters even worse, we were playing all four games in five nights. We had a back-to-back in Miami and Orlando, a day off, then another back-to-back in New York and Boston.
So when Coach Issel scheduled practice the day after we returned to Denver, some of the veterans on the team suggested that we take a stand and tell coach we needed some rest &mdash; we weren&rsquo;t going to be able to break the losing streak if we were too tired to perform come game time.
Now, we&rsquo;re going back 20 years, so I can&rsquo;t directly quote what I said to the reporter who asked a few questions before our first game back after the road trip. But I know for sure that, in context, I never said that we, as the players, were going to boycott that first game and refused to play. I never meant to suggest that we, as the players, were turning our backs on Coach Issel.
First of all, I&rsquo;d never do that, and second, I was a second-year player! Who was I to be the voice of the team?
Regardless, that&rsquo;s exactly what was written in the paper that will remain nameless.
<div class="mceNonEditable"><spike>&nbsp;</spike></div>
Next thing I know, I&rsquo;m the center of attention. All over the mainstream news across the country, people were talking about the Nuggets players and how we&rsquo;re planning to boycott games and all kind of crazy stuff. And to make matters even worse, I&rsquo;m the one that everyone is looking to with their questions, because I was the &ldquo;money quote&rdquo; in the story that ended up becoming a national headline.
Obviously, our veteran players had my back and spoke to the media themselves and clarified the team&rsquo;s position, but I&rsquo;ll tell you, as a second-year player, that was a lesson learned.
Now, to be fair, I&rsquo;ll say that &mdash; especially back in those days &mdash; a lot of us players didn&rsquo;t really have the same kind of education and savvy when it came to how to approach certain questions and how to choose our words wisely. What was worse back then, too, was the fact that there was no social media and no way for players to control their own messaging and get their own words out.&nbsp;
In a way, we had to rely on the media to get our thoughts and messages out to fans, and that just wasn&rsquo;t ideal, because we didn&rsquo;t necessarily have the same goals as those who were spreading our message.
So in a nutshell, I&rsquo;d say that&rsquo;s the answer to the question. A lot of players (and coaches, too) don&rsquo;t like speaking in public because we feel that a lot of news organizations are more concerned with making headlines than reporting accurate facts.
At least today, with social media and the internet, teams can control their own messages, and players can, too. But for a lot of players, me included back in my day, there was a distrust for reporters that still exists today.
That was the experience I shared with Doc and my Celtics teammates, and I carried that entire experience in Denver with me for the rest of my career. I wasn&rsquo;t treated fairly, and I think reporters who I interacted with at each of my other stops &mdash; including in Boston, New Orleans and Indiana &mdash; paid some of the price for that.
It&rsquo;s ironic now that I work in the media, but having been on both sides of the equation, I think I&rsquo;m smarter for it.
When I look back on my time in Boston, as I&rsquo;ve written before, I wish it could&rsquo;ve lasted longer. But I have some fond memories, and even more so, a hilarious observation.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-theme="dark">
It's not easy entering an NBA season as the favorite to win it all. James Posey wrote this piece for <a href="https://twitter.com/basketbllnews?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@basketbllnews</a> about the pressure and challenges that come with championship expectations. He details his experience on the 2008 Celtics and 2016 Cavs: <a href="https://t.co/GV0uemEpfK">https://t.co/GV0uemEpfK</a>
&mdash; Alex Kennedy (@AlexKennedyNBA) <a href="https://twitter.com/AlexKennedyNBA/status/1342216272910692354?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 24, 2020</a></blockquote>

<script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>

On the 2008 team, we didn&rsquo;t really trust reporters or any of the media, to be honest. We didn&rsquo;t really care too much for making headlines or getting any attention. We just wanted to come together, focus and play the game at a high level.
But when you look back at the roster, so many of us went on to work for media companies.&nbsp;
Big Kendrick Perkins is doing his thing at ESPN, and he&rsquo;s become one of their biggest basketball voices. Paul Pierce did some great work there for a while too.&nbsp;
I think everyone who watches TNT remembers that Kevin Garnett had &ldquo;Area 21&rdquo; on Inside the NBA, and Glen &ldquo;Big Baby&rdquo; Davis was a regular on his segment.
Brian Scalabrine is doing color commentary for the Celtics, and even Scot Pollard has found a home in front of the camera. He&rsquo;s done everything from sports television work to radio play-by-play. He was even a contestant on Survivor a few years ago.
And me? I&rsquo;m <a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/stories/posey-joining-tina-thompson-at-university-of-virginia-was-20-years-in-the-making" target="_blank" rel="noopener">enjoying life at an assistant coach on Tina Thompson&rsquo;s staff</a> at the University of Virginia. But I&rsquo;m obviously enjoying working in the media, as well.
Funny how life can sometimes come full circle. I&rsquo;m enjoying the view from this side of the fence, but when current and former players express negative attitudes toward the media and reporters, I can certainly understand why.
Maybe I can be a part of the solution, because one thing is for sure: I can understand why today&rsquo;s players feel the way they feel. I lived through a helluva experience in Denver.

James Posey gets why players distrust the media. He details an experience with the Nuggets from his second year in the NBA.

Many NBA players don’t trust the media today, and I can’t blame them

The <a class="c-link" tabindex="-1" href="https://www.basketballnetwork.net/sam-cassell-shares-why-hakeem-never-took-preseason-games-seriously-son-preseason-dont-count-the-popcorn-is-popping-now/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-stringify-link="https://www.basketballnetwork.net/giannis-antetokounmpo-shares-why-he-doesnt-associate-or-practice-with-other-nba-players-in-the-offseason/" data-sk="tooltip_parent" data-remove-tab-index="true">following article</a>&nbsp;first appeared on&nbsp;<a class="c-link" tabindex="-1" href="http://basketballnetwork.net/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-stringify-link="http://BasketballNetwork.net" data-sk="tooltip_parent" data-remove-tab-index="true">BasketballNetwork.net</a>:
&ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t a point guard. I was a killer.&rdquo;
Allen Iverson spoke those words on the day he was inducted to the Basketball Hall of Fame over five years ago. Now, we don&rsquo;t usually acknowledge those who self-assign a certain title to their name. After all, as said by Tywin Lannister in Game of Thrones: "Any man who must say, 'I am the king' is no true king."
But this is "The Answer" we're talking about. AI wasn&rsquo;t just a point guard. He was, in fact, the ultimate killer.
Come to think of it... is he the last of his kind? Because other than the late, great Kobe Bryant, between Iverson&rsquo;s contemporaries, as well as his successors, there isn&rsquo;t an obvious standout worthy of carrying that title.
According to the Hall-of-Famer himself, however, there&rsquo;s nothing to worry about. On the contrary, with everyone complaining about the lack of true killers in today&rsquo;s NBA, Iverson believes there are many to choose from. And during <a href="https://youtu.be/C5-2LQwwJ38" target="_blank" rel="noopener">his interview with Bleacher Report's Taylor Rooks</a>, he listed his top five.
"Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, James Harden and Bradley Beal," Iverson told B/R.
After naming the first four, Iverson seemingly had trouble coming up with one last name to put on the list. Then, he smiled and remembered the guy most people would agree should top that list. And it seems AI feels the same way.
"Dame! Certified! He&rsquo;s a monster with it," Iverson <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5-2LQwwJ38" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>. "Steph is bad as hell, but Dame is just a rude motherf****r. He&rsquo;s just rude, he&rsquo;s just disrespectful. He does anything. He passes half-court and let it fly, buzzer-beaters. No fear."
<iframe title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/C5-2LQwwJ38" width="100%" height="325" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
That&rsquo;s what it means to be a killer &mdash; having a fearless mentality on the basketball court and always being locked in on doing whatever it takes to come out victorious. And there&rsquo;s no doubt Lillard is one guy from today&rsquo;s NBA who best epitomizes all of that. But the rest of the guys from Iverson&rsquo;s list have had their fair share of "killer" moments as well.
There&rsquo;s a reason <a href="https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/c/curryst01.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">one of Curry&rsquo;s nicknames</a> is Baby-Faced Assassin. KD and Harden are some of the greatest offensive weapons in the history of the game. And Beal, as great and clutch as he is individually, still hasn&rsquo;t requested a trade from the Wizards. (It doesn&rsquo;t get more fearless than that, right?)
But more importantly, they are all recognized by the ultimate killer. That&rsquo;s all the validation every basketball player striving to become a killer on the court needs.
Check out more articles from BasketballNetwork.net <a href="https://www.basketballnetwork.net/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.

With some complaining about the lack of true killers in today’s NBA, Allen Iverson believes there are many to choose from.

Allen Iverson names his top-5 killers in today's NBA

It&rsquo;s not personal... It&rsquo;s just business.
We&rsquo;ve all heard that phrase millions of times, and anyone who&rsquo;s ever played in the NBA &mdash; at one point or another &mdash; has probably heard those words coming from the other end of a phone.
In the name of winning, guys get cut, don&rsquo;t get their options picked up and get traded against their will.
It&rsquo;s the nature of the business.
With the influx of capital that the NBA got with its new TV deals and the stiff luxury tax penalties in the new collective bargaining agreement, we&rsquo;ve all become so much smarter about the business of basketball.
At the end of the day, it&rsquo;s important to remember that this is exactly what the NBA is&hellip; a business.&nbsp;
<div class="mceNonEditable"><spike>&nbsp;</spike></div>
This summer, we got great reminders of that fact when guys like Steph Curry, Luka Doncic and Joel Embiid signed huge contracts to stay with their teams.
But on the other end of the spectrum, most players &mdash; especially the players who aren&rsquo;t superstars &mdash; have those difficult moments where the business of basketball ends up pushing them towards situations that weren&rsquo;t necessarily their preferred outcome.
For me, that moment came after we won the championship in Boston in 2008.&nbsp;
Even today, when people are reminded that I was only a Celtic for one season, they seem surprised. It just seemed like I was there longer. And for me, it feels that way, too. Unfortunately, as you probably guessed, business got in the way.
In the summer of 2005, Memphis traded me to Miami along with Jason Williams and Andre Emmett. Pat Riley<a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/stories/nba-james-posey-championship-expectations-boston-celtics-doc-rivers-kevin-garnett-paul-pierce-ray-allen-cleveland-cavaliers-lebron-james-tyronn-lue-miami-heat-pat-riley-shaquille-o-neal" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> put together a decent squad around Shaq and D-Wade</a>, and we ended up beating Dallas in the 2006 Finals.
The next season, though, for some reason, we never really got it going. We got swept by Chicago in the first round, and it just seemed to me like I needed a change. I was still in my prime and was only one year removed from helping Miami win the championship. By this time, I had a reputation for being a good &ldquo;3-and-D&rdquo; guy, so I thought I would have an easy time finding a situation as a better fit.
By that time, Boston traded for KG and Ray Allen, and the team was looking for some tough role players and experienced specialists to round out the squad. I had a couple options, but I thought that was the best opportunity for me to win, and that&rsquo;s exactly what we went out and did.
<iframe title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0YHDJItsGgQ" width="100%" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
I&rsquo;ll never forget what it felt like to play against the Lakers in the Finals as a member of the Celtics.
Truth be told, I left more money on the table in Miami and took a bit of a pay cut to play for Boston. Even worse? The Celtics' front office only offered me a one-year contract. At this point, I&rsquo;d just turned 30 years old, and even though I felt good enough to play a few more years, once you hit 30, you start to think about your post-playing career.&nbsp;
As a player, especially when you&rsquo;re young and you&rsquo;re having some success, you don&rsquo;t really want to think about what life will be like once your playing days are over. So you kind of start mentally preparing yourself as you get older. So by the time you hit 30 years old, you start to value long-term security and multi-year deals a little more than when you were in your 20s.
Despite all that, I was confident in myself and decided to take the one-year deal to play in Boston. I assumed that if I proved that I could be a productive member of the team, the organization would reward me with a multi-year deal closer to my market value.
I ended up being wrong.
We won the championship, lit the cigars and had the ticker tape parade and all that.&nbsp;
And when it was all said and done &mdash; you guessed it &mdash; I was offered another one-year deal.&nbsp;
There&rsquo;s no other way to put it: I was really disappointed. I helped deliver a championship and felt like I proved myself. In my mind, there was no reason why we wouldn&rsquo;t have been able to win at least one or two more if the squad, including me, was brought back.&nbsp;
But if there's one thing I learned during my years in the league, it&rsquo;s this...
It&rsquo;s a business.
At the end of the day, everyone wants to win, but winning in the NBA costs money. When most teams win a championship, they start thinking about how they can win by spending less money. And it&rsquo;s usually players like me who end up getting pinched.
So yeah, I wanted to go back to Boston, but when New Orleans stepped up and offered me a four-year deal, my agent felt it was a no-brainer. I&rsquo;d had good relationships with both Chris Paul and David West, and they were coming off a 56-win season with CP finishing second in MVP voting to Kobe. I&rsquo;d won championships in Miami and Boston, so I thought I could help get New Orleans over the hump.&nbsp;
I was happy as hell with the situation, but not as happy as I would&rsquo;ve been to stay in Boston and help my team defend our championship. It just didn&rsquo;t work out that way.
For every Steph Curry, there are 100 James Poseys... and 100 P.J. Tuckers.&nbsp;
Curry is obviously one of the greatest players of all-time, but without guys like Tucker, teams don&rsquo;t win. Without Tucker this past season, Giannis doesn&rsquo;t win.
And now, P.J. is in Miami.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-theme="dark">
P.J. Tucker just posted on his IG. &ldquo;Wow. I&rsquo;m still a little lost for words to be honest. Still in shock, but it is what it is. Today took a hard turn on the road of my car career, but like my grandma used to tell me...all you can control is what you can control.&rdquo; Full message: <a href="https://t.co/DbYJIBHoAe">pic.twitter.com/DbYJIBHoAe</a>
&mdash; Eric Nehm (@eric_nehm) <a href="https://twitter.com/eric_nehm/status/1422383880242352128?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 3, 2021</a></blockquote>

<script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>

Now, I can&rsquo;t say I know the particulars of P.J.&rsquo;s situation. But I&rsquo;m not surprised to see a role player on a championship team end up finding himself in a different situation, because it happens all the time.
Having been in that situation, I just can&rsquo;t help but to notice it. I also can&rsquo;t help but to notice the double-standard that exists with players who want to maximize their earning potential and owners who want to maximize their bottom line.
When front offices find ways to save money and reduce payroll, they&rsquo;re looked at as smart. When players opt for greener pastures, we&rsquo;re looked at as being greedy. For most role players, you&rsquo;re lucky to get one or two multi-year contracts in your career. There is nothing wrong with trying to maximize your earning potential, and that needs to be said more often.
After all, it&rsquo;s business, right?
It was business when Mikhail Prokhorov bought the Brooklyn Nets for $200 million and sold the team for $3.3 billion.&nbsp;
It was business when Leslie Alexander bought the Houston Rockets for $85 million and sold for $2.2 billion.&nbsp;
And it was business when the late, great Larry Miller bought the Utah Jazz for $14 million and sold for $1.6 billion.&nbsp;
Let&rsquo;s just also remember that there&rsquo;s nothing wrong with players deciding they want to do what&rsquo;s best for them when they have the opportunity to become a free agent.
Particularly, the proven winners who have worked their entire careers for an opportunity to earn a nice payday.
After all, fair is fair.

James Posey shares why he only played one year with the Celtics after an NBA title win and how it compares to P.J. Tucker's situation.

The NBA is a big business, and players should be allowed to act like it

Calm. Cool. Collected.
Those are three of the first words that come to mind for me when someone asks about Tyronn Lue. Whether it was the NBA Finals against the Golden State Warriors, or a game where much less was on the line, Ty never lost his cool. It&rsquo;s one of his best qualities, and even though his Los Angeles Clippers ended up losing to the Phoenix Suns in the Western Conference Finals, he deserves a round of applause for the job he did this past season.
Ty took over a team that had championship aspirations, and he had to earn the trust of his players. Even with the challenges of this condensed season and the Clippers' injury issues, he was able to lead the team to its first-ever Western Conference Finals. They fell down 0-2 to the Dallas Mavericks and Utah Jazz and still managed to win those series, despite being without Kawhi Leonard for the last two games against Utah.
Maximum respect.
I consider myself fortunate to have had the opportunity to coach under Ty in Cleveland, and helping bring a championship to my hometown is an accomplishment I&rsquo;ll always cherish.
It&rsquo;s funny how we ended up together. After my playing career ended, David Griffin got wind of me wanting to coach. Griff reached out to me to see if I&rsquo;d be interested in an assistant coaching opportunity with the Cavs&rsquo; D-League affiliate, the Canton Charge. I&rsquo;d just had my youngest son, though, and I really wanted to be around him at that time. But I told Griff that if the same opportunity existed the following year, I would be in.
Knowing what I know now, I realize how lucky I was. There are a lot of guys out there who are looking for an opportunity, and most of them would&rsquo;ve jumped at that chance when Griff presented it. But my family is very important to me and the timing just wasn&rsquo;t right. I turned it down, even though some guys wouldn&rsquo;t have.
Fortunately, Griff called me back the next year! And this time, I was happy to take on the challenge of beginning my coaching career. So, I took my talents to the D-League.
<img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="https://cdn.basketballnews.com/images/story/body/usatsi_9122751_lg.jpg" alt="" width="636" height="434" />
Ty, on the other hand, had already been an assistant coach in the league for a few years. He started out in Boston with Doc Rivers, then followed Doc to the Clippers. By the time I got involved with the Cavs, Ty had been hired as David Blatt&rsquo;s associate head coach in Cleveland. I eventually got called up from the D-League to join Blatt&rsquo;s staff along with Larry Drew, Jim Boylan, Phil Handy and Vitaly Potapenko. That&rsquo;s where it all started, and things worked out for the two of us while we were together there. So it was all thanks to Griff, to be honest.
I think most people assume that me and Ty were friends going back to our playing days, and it makes sense. He came into the league one year before me and we were contemporaries, but we weren&rsquo;t close at all. I mean, I knew who he was and I respected the hell out of him. We were similar in that we were role players, played tough defense and seemed to have similar values, but it wasn&rsquo;t until Griff brought us together that we really became friends. Our friendship developed naturally because I respected Ty and everything he brought to the table.
As a coach, he&rsquo;s extremely knowledgeable. He&rsquo;s well-prepared, he&rsquo;s creative and he just has a level of understanding for the game and how to make things work on the basketball court. As a player who played for great coaches, it&rsquo;s easy for me to recognize that Ty was coached by amazing basketball minds, including Phil Jackson. I think what most people appreciate about him, though, is the fact that he is someone who never, ever loses his cool. Even in 2016, when we were down 3-1 to the Warriors in the NBA Finals, we all knew that no team had ever come back from that deficit to win the championship, but Ty didn&rsquo;t change anything about his preparation or about his delivery.
Of course, we made some minor adjustments, but there was zero panic in this man. It&rsquo;s fair to say that he just exuded so much confidence that our plan would work that it was contagious.
I&rsquo;ll never forget, after Game 4, when Ty was doing his press conference with the media, he repeated to the press what he said to the team right after we lost the game: &ldquo;If you don&rsquo;t think we can win, don&rsquo;t get on the plane.&rdquo;
<iframe title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SAbREQuU0WA" width="100%" height="325" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
Before you knew it, LeBron James was saying the same thing. Tristan Thompson was saying the same thing. It became a rallying cry.
Ty basically said, &ldquo;Hey look, we gotta go to Oakland to play a game. Then, whether we win or lose, we all gotta come back to Cleveland, right? So if we&rsquo;re going to Oakland to play a game and then coming back to Cleveland, we might as well play a game in Cleveland, too.&rdquo;
It might sound silly, but Ty being such a calm and collected person was what helped the team through, I think. That and, of course, LeBron and Kyrie Irving.
So I wasn't surprised at all to see the Clippers climb out of the 0-2 hole they found themselves in against Dallas and Utah, and even when they fell down 3-1 to Phoenix, I didn't count them out.
We all hear people talk about how much a player&rsquo;s confidence affects their ability to perform on the court (and yes, it is true)&hellip; I can tell you from experience that players who believe in their coach also play harder and play better. If they don&rsquo;t think you know what you&rsquo;re talking about, or if they don&rsquo;t think you&rsquo;re prepared, they&rsquo;re just not going to go out there and give you 100% effort.
But if they do? They&rsquo;ll run through a wall for you. That&rsquo;s why I&rsquo;m not surprised by what the Clippers were able to do this postseason, even without Kawhi Leonard. And I definitely wasn't surprised that they were able to go into Phoenix and win Game 5 of that series.
I&rsquo;ll also tell you this: Ty is a realist. He doesn&rsquo;t try to sell you B.S. or give you any false advertisements. He&rsquo;ll admit to you when your opponent made some big plays and did a few things that exploited some of his own weaknesses or his own team&rsquo;s weaknesses, and I think players respect that accountability.
But let me tell you this: By the time Ty comes to talk to you to tell you he recognizes an area where he or the team fell short, he already has a solution to the problem and a counter-solution to however he thinks the other coach is going to respond. At the same time, he doesn&rsquo;t walk around with his chest puffed out acting like he&rsquo;s the smartest guy in the room, or making others feel like he doesn&rsquo;t respect them or their opinions. He gives everybody a voice, even though he knows that at the end of the day, the route his team takes is going to be his decision.
Some coaches are good at making speeches and doing all the &ldquo;rah-rah&rdquo; stuff with the storytelling and the fables and the morals and all that; that&rsquo;s not Ty.
Ty never tried to be Pat Riley or Doc or any of those coaches. His thing has always been planning and showing guys the result of great preparation. He&rsquo;s always been about practicing hard, studying in film sessions and preparing his team for success by getting them on the same page and getting them to believe in a game plan. He&rsquo;s definitely more like Hubie Brown and Byron Scott in that regard, and he's always done things his way.
Being a former player, especially one who&rsquo;s experienced the highest level of success, Ty has been in those shoes before. He knows what pressure feels like, he&rsquo;s been in some tough locker rooms, he&rsquo;s been rattled and has overcome it all. There&rsquo;s nothing he hasn&rsquo;t already seen.
Unfortunately for the Clippers, Chris Paul just refused to be denied when it came down to it. He's been waiting 16 years to get to the Finals, and without Kawhi, Ty and the Clippers just didn't have enough. Even with that being the case, I&rsquo;m happy that Ty finally seems to be getting his just due.
<div class="mceNonEditable"><spike>&nbsp;</spike></div>
LeBron made it to the Finals 10 times and with five different coaches. He&rsquo;s won with three of them. A lot of people might have looked at Ty&rsquo;s success with the Cavs as a given because everyone has won with LeBron. They may have thought that we were able to overcome that 3-1 deficit against the Warriors in spite of him, and not necessarily because of him. After seeing what the Clippers did this past season, though, I think everyone now knows a little better.
Ty Lue is a master of preparation, and he has developed into one of the best coaches in the game. Although it ended in disappointment, this past season is definitely an example of that. I was by his side for five years, though, so I already knew.
But now, the secret is out, and it&rsquo;s about time we all put some respect on Ty Lue&rsquo;s name.

Even without Kawhi Leonard, Ty Lue led the Clippers to their first Western Conference Finals. Respect is due, writes James Posey.

It’s time we all put a little more respect on Tyronn Lue’s name

Paul George had just wrapped up his brilliant night, scoring 41 points to keep the Los Angeles Clippers&rsquo; season alive. He shared some hugs and fist bumps with teammates and assistant coaches before he finally got to head coach Tyronn Lue.
There were some words of encouragement. They were also apparently too hot for TV.
&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t share that,&rdquo; George said with a grin, recalling the conversation. &ldquo;Bleep this and bleep that.&rdquo;
George set his playoff-career-high in scoring, Reggie Jackson added 23 and the feisty Clippers staved off elimination by beating the Phoenix Suns 116-102 on Monday night in Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-theme="dark">
An ELECTRIFYING performance from Paul George lifts the <a href="https://twitter.com/LAClippers?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@LAClippers</a> to a Game 5 victory! ⚡️ 41 PTS 15-20 FGM 13 REB 6 AST 3 STL 68.6 FPTS ( Playoff high) <a href="https://t.co/VNu8oSewJ9">pic.twitter.com/VNu8oSewJ9</a>
&mdash; NBA Fantasy (@NBAFantasy) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBAFantasy/status/1409718616564641793?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 29, 2021</a></blockquote>

<script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>

The Clippers have been counted out multiple times in this postseason. That continues to be a mistake.
&ldquo;The group of guys we&rsquo;ve got, I love those guys. They compete every single night no matter who is on the floor,&rdquo; Lue said. &ldquo;The work&rsquo;s not done, but we came into a hostile environment and got a gritty win.
&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got to do it again two more times.&rdquo;
The series moves back to LA with the Suns holding a 3-2 advantage. Game 6 is Wednesday.
The short-handed Clippers were playing without two-time NBA Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard and center Ivica Zubac, who missed his first game of the season with an MCL sprain in his right knee. They&rsquo;ve already fought through two grueling series wins in these playoffs, coming back from 2-0 deficits to beat both the Dallas Mavericks and Utah Jazz.
Now they&rsquo;re trying to claw back against the Suns. Game 5 was a good start.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-theme="dark">
Reggie Jackson is COOKING late ♨️ <a href="https://t.co/XHPZGUOsZH">pic.twitter.com/XHPZGUOsZH</a>
&mdash; NBA TV (@NBATV) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBATV/status/1409714356376330245?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 29, 2021</a></blockquote>

<script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>

George was fantastic after a tough shooting night in Game 4, pouring in 20 points in the third quarter. He finished 15 of 20 from the field, including 3 of 6 from 3-point range and added 13 rebounds and six assists.
&ldquo;If they were going to finish this series, they were going to have to work for it,&rdquo; George said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s just the mentality we had. We weren&rsquo;t going to back down. We weren&rsquo;t going to throw in the towel. The fact of the matter is they&rsquo;ve got to beat us.&rdquo;
<div class="mceNonEditable"><spike>&nbsp;</spike></div>
Marcus Morris Sr., who played for Phoenix earlier in his career, added 22 points on 9-of-16 shooting.
The Suns trailed by as many as 15 points during the first half but took their first advantage in the third when Chris Paul knocked down a 16-foot jumper for a 62-61 lead. The Clippers responded with the next 10 points and then started sinking 3-pointers. George hit back-to-back 3s and Patrick Beverley added one to push LA ahead 82-70, gesturing to the Suns crowd as he jogged back down the court.
It was the common theme of the night: Every time the Suns got some momentum, the Clippers were there to squash it in a hurry.
The Clippers took a 91-78 lead into the fourth. The Suns pulled within 98-94 with 6:58 left but LA responded with a 10-2 run and pulled away for the win.
Devin Booker led the Suns with 31 points. Paul &mdash; who is trying to go to the NBA Finals for the first time in his 16-year career &mdash; added 22 points and eight assists. Deandre Ayton had 10 points and 11 rebounds.
&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got to be better,&rdquo; Paul said. &rdquo;They came out and they were the aggressors. They looked like us in Game 4. They hit us, they were too comfortable and we&rsquo;ve got to be better.&rdquo;
The Clippers played inspired basketball in the first half, jumping out to an 20-5 lead by halfway through the first quarter. Jackson threw down a huge one-handed jam during the run and LA hit nine of its first 11 shots.
&ldquo;It is just unacceptable the way we started the game,&rdquo; Suns coach Monty Williams said. &ldquo;It was a big hole for us. It is pretty obvious that we can&rsquo;t play with the show-up mentality. We showed up in the first quarter and they played with desperation.&rdquo;
<div class="mceNonEditable"><spike>&nbsp;</spike></div>
Morris was 6 of 7 in the first and Jackson made a layup at the buzzer to give the Clippers a 36-26 advantage going into the second.
The Suns cut the advantage to 44-42 midway through the second but the Clippers rallied again to push ahead by 10. Booker hit a 3-pointer at the halftime buzzer to cut the Clippers&rsquo; advantage 59-52.
Morris had 20 points in the first half.
The Suns are trying to make their first NBA Finals since 1993. The Clippers have never been this far in the postseason.
TIP-INS
Clippers: DeMarcus Cousins had 10 points in just six minutes in the first half. He made 5 of 9 shots, putting a shot on the rim once every 40 seconds on average. ... Leonard missed his seventh straight game. ... This was the Clippers&rsquo; sixth double-digit win when trailing in a series this postseason. That is the most such wins in a single postseason in NBA history.
Suns: F Abdel Nader played in his second straight game after missing several weeks with a knee injury. He scored two points. ... Phoenix announced a sellout crowd of 16,664.
<div class="mceNonEditable"><spike>&nbsp;</spike></div>
MISSING ZUBAC
The 7-foot Zubac has been an ironman for Los Angeles and this was the first game he&rsquo;s missed for two years. Coach Tyronn Lue admitted the Clippers were down during morning shootaround after hearing that Zubac wouldn&rsquo;t play.
Zubac moved into a more prominent role in these Western Conference finals, averaging 12.8 points and 11 rebounds in the first four games. He&rsquo;s also been important on defense as a rim protector.
The Clippers went small to replace Zubac in the starting lineup, going with the 6-foot-5 Terance Mann.

Paul George scored 41 points, Reggie Jackson added 23 and the resilient Clippers staved off elimination by beating the Suns.

Paul George, gritty Clippers stave off elimination, beat Suns 116-102

It's not simply the Los Angeles Clippers vs. the Phoenix Suns in the Western Conference Finals. The Clippers are fighting their own fraught playoff history.
It's a rutted road of blown leads, blowout losses, and early dismissals. The burden has lingered far longer than any of the current players have been on the roster.
Merely by reaching the conference finals for the first time, the Clippers have altered their playoff history. That they did it by overcoming 0-2 deficits to win series against Dallas and Utah is even more compelling.
And because they play in Hollywood, why not up the drama? They're back home trailing the Suns 0-2.
Game 3 is Thursday night at Staples Center. The Clippers are a 1-point favorite, according to <a href="https://sportsbook.fanduel.com/sports/navigation/830.1/10107.3">FanDuel Sportsbook.</a>
Five-time All-Star Kawhi Leonard remains out with a right knee injury, the Clippers tweeted Wednesday. He was hurt in Game 4 against Utah. Leonard stayed back in LA to rehab while the team lost in Phoenix.
Chris Paul is listed as probable in the league's injury report to play for the Suns after being sidelined for the first two games of the series while in the league's health and safety protocols.
&ldquo;It's going to be that much tougher," Paul George said about Paul's impending return.
Paul would like nothing better than to win on his former team's home court, where he, along with Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan, rehabilitated the Clippers' reputation from woebegone franchise to exciting contender. Paul was MVP of the 2013 All-Star Game. His alley-oop passes to Griffin and Jordan for dunks established the team's Lob City moniker.
The trio was part of an epic collapse in 2015. The Clippers led James Harden and the Houston Rockets 3-1 in the second round, but they dropped the final three games to lose 4-3.
After six seasons, in which the Clippers never got past the second round, Paul exited. Griffin and Jordan followed him out of LA.
The playoff shortcomings didn't end there.
With George and Leonard in their first season together, the Clippers led Denver 3-1 in the bubble last year. They appeared headed toward their first appearance in the conference finals.
Instead, they blew a 15-point lead to lose Game 5, blew a 19-point lead in losing Game 6 and collapsed in the fourth quarter to lose Game 7. Coach Doc Rivers ended up getting fired.
In his first year guiding the Clippers, coach Tyronn Lue has made a series of tweaks in each round. His latest involved starting 7-foot Ivica Zubac and Patrick Beverley in Game 2, in place of the small-ball combo of Terence Mann and Nicolas Batum.
&ldquo;We called T-Lue Bill Belichick, all the adjustments he makes,&rdquo; guard Reggie Jackson said. &ldquo;He's definitely going to find a way, and we're going to find a way, also, like we always do.&rdquo;
BOOGIE'S T
Clippers center DeMarcus Cousins was issued a postgame technical by the league on Wednesday for his &ldquo;actions at the conclusion of the game" in Phoenix.
Cousins exchanged words with Suns guard Cameron Payne before pushing him. Cousins then bumped into Devin Booker and shoved him. Both incidents occurred in the chaos after Deandre Ayton's game-winning dunk &mdash; dubbed <a href="https://www.nba.com/watch/video/phantom-cam-deandre-aytons-game-winning-slam-and-walkoff?plsrc=nba&amp;collection=must-see-highlights"> &ldquo;The Valley Oop" </a> in Phoenix &mdash; with 0.7 seconds to go, when the Suns were celebrating and the Clippers were asking officials to review the play.
BOOKER'S NOSE
Booker might be wearing a mask for Game 3 after he and Beverley bumped heads hard enough to draw blood. Booker's nose needed a few stitches and he had his right nostril plugged after the game. Beverley sported a Band-Aid on his forehead.
PLAYOFF P
George has been streaky in the playoffs during his career, first with the Indiana Pacers and then the Oklahoma City Thunder. With Leonard sidelined, the spotlight and burden is squarely on him.
He's averaging 40.7 minutes this postseason, similar to his averages with the Pacers (40.8) in 2018-19 and the Thunder (43.0) in 2016-17.
"Whenever he's taking a lot of jump shots and not really attacking, you can tell he's tired,&rdquo; Lue said after Game 2, when George led the team with 26 points. But he missed two huge free throws with 0.9 seconds after making big plays down the stretch to give LA the lead.
George insisted, &ldquo;I got stronger as the game went on."
The 31-year-old forward hasn't been this deep in the playoffs since 2013-14, when the Pacers lost to LeBron James and the Miami in the Eastern Conference finals for the second year in a row.
After being the centerpiece in Indiana, George moved to Oklahoma City and partnered with Russell Westbrook for two seasons. The Thunder lost in the first round both times.
George had surgery to repair tears in both shoulders in two years ago. He missed training camp and the first 11 games of his initial season in LA. In the playoff bubble, he averaged 20.2 points. It was his lowest output since 2012-13, when he averaged 19.2 with the Pacers.
George has scored 20 or more points in all 15 playoff games so far.
&ldquo;If I have to do more, I&rsquo;ll do that,&rdquo; he said.
FEELING THE PAYNE
The Clippers felt the Payne. Cameron Payne, that is.
He <a href="https://www.nba.com/watch/video/20210622nn?plsrc=nba&amp;collection=top-trending-videos">had a career night </a> subbing for Paul, scoring 29 points in just his second career postseason start. Payne's offense proved crucial, with Booker going 5 of 16 from the floor following his 40-point, triple-double in Game 1. Payne had nine assists, two steals and no turnovers in 37 minutes. He had just one turnover in Game 1.
&ldquo;Cameron Payne has done an unbelievable job of filling in for CP,&rdquo; George said.
Payne has traveled a start-and-stop path since leaving Murray State two years early for the draft.
He played his first few seasons with Oklahoma City and Chicago. He was with Cleveland on a pair of 10-day contracts and then got released by Toronto in October 2019. Payne briefly turned up playing in China before landing in the NBA's G-League early in 2020.
Last June, he signed with the Suns and had his highest scoring and rebounding averages while coming off the bench in the bubble.
___
More AP NBA: https://apnews.com/NBA and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

It's not simply the Clippers vs. the Suns in the Western Conference Finals. The Clippers are fighting their own fraught playoff history.

Clippers traveling a rutted playoff road, again

Devin Booker had 40 points, 13 rebounds and 11 assists for his first career triple-double and the Phoenix Suns overcame Chris Paul's absence to beat the Los Angeles Clippers 120-114 on Sunday in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals.
Paul sat out because of COVID-19 health and safety protocols. Clippers star Kawhi Leonard missed his third straight game because of a sprained right knee.
Tied at 93 to start the fourth, the Suns went on a 12-2 run and pulled ahead 105-95 on Cam Johnson's dunk with 8:08 remaining. The Clippers wouldn't go away, though, cutting a 10-point deficit in the final two minutes to 116-114 when Terance Mann hit a 3-pointer with 22 seconds left.
Booker scored on a dunk on the next possession to seal Phoenix's seventh straight victory, getting a free lane to the basket on the blown defensive coverage.
Game 2 is on Tuesday night in Phoenix.
Booker was productive and efficient in one of his best games of his career. He shot 15 of 29 from the field, carving apart a defense that had to play just 36 hours after closing out the Utah Jazz on Friday night.
The third quarter featured a stellar scoring duel between Booker and L.A.'s Paul George, who finished with 34 points. Booker scored 18 points in the quarter, and George had 15, including a 3-pointer that tied it at 93 heading to the fourth.
The Suns led 76-68 midway through the third but George scored eight straight points &mdash; including six points on two long 3-pointers &mdash; to tie it up. It was the start of a 16-2 run that helped Los Angeles take an 84-78 lead.
Booker and the Suns responded quickly. Booker scored 12 points &mdash; mostly on mid-range jumpers &mdash; in the final 3:09 of the third to get Phoenix back on track.
Deandre Ayton had 20 points and nine rebounds for the Suns. Cameron Payne started for Paul and had 11 points and nine assists.
Reggie Jackson added 24 points for the Clippers.
The game was a rare stage for both franchises: The Clippers are in the Western Conference finals for the first time in franchise history, while the Suns haven&rsquo;t been this far in 11 years and have never won an NBA title.
BIG-TIME BOOGIE
The Clippers got a boost from veteran big man DeMarcus Cousins in the second quarter. He came into the game and almost immediately threw down a monster dunk over Dario Saric. He scored 11 points on 4-of-6 shooting in his first five minutes on the court.
The talented but oft-injured Cousins has only played in two playoff games this season. The four-time All-Star averaged 7.8 points in 16 regular season games with the Clippers this season.
AWARD-WINNING GM
Suns general manager James Jones was named the NBA's Executive of the Year on Sunday. Team President Robert Sarver surprised Jones with the announcement in a short ceremony at midcourt a few minutes before tipoff.
Jones came to the team two years ago and has helped build the Valley's best team in 11 seasons. His big move was adding Paul during the offeseason but he's also made other key moves, like adding Payne, Torrey Craig and drafting Cameron Johnson.
He got a big ovation from the sellout crowd of 16,583.
The low-key Jones was a man of few words when handed the microphone by Sarver, thanking the crowd and then adding one sentence.
&ldquo;All I can say is &rdquo;Go Suns, let's win," Jones said.
TIP-INS
Clippers: Leonard and forward Serge Ibaka (back surgery) didn't play. Clippers coach Tyronn Lue said on Saturday that Leonard was getting treatment on his knee in Los Angeles and wasn't sure about his availability in Game 2.
Suns: Paul and forward Abdel Nader (right knee arthroscopy) didn't play. Suns coach Monty Williams said Paul's situation is &ldquo;day-to-day.&rdquo;
___
More AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Devin Booker had 40 points, 13 rebounds and 11 assists for his first career triple-double and the Suns overcame Chris Paul's absence to beat the Clippers.

Devin Booker gets first playoff triple-double, Suns beat Clippers 120-114

Ja Morant has arrived, and on the heels of a valiant 47-point effort, his upstart Memphis Grizzles have given us all the reason in the world to believe that they&rsquo;re a team on the rise.
Of course, the entire Western Conference is paying attention to what the Grizzlies are doing, but perhaps the team that needs to consider how Memphis will impact their immediate future most is the one that the Grizzlies dispatched en route to punching their ticket to the NBA&rsquo;s version of the big dance.
My, how the mighty have fallen.
Morant sent Gregg Popovich&rsquo;s team home for the summer before putting Stephen Curry and his Golden State Warriors on ice. And based on what we&rsquo;ve seen from both he and Luka Doncic, it stands to reason that we&rsquo;ll be watching those two 20-somethings make noise in the postseason for many years to come.
So what exactly does that mean for Golden State?
It&rsquo;s not absurd to believe that &mdash; despite what Draymond Green tells you &mdash; that the franchise&rsquo;s best days are behind it.
Whatever Bob Myers is being paid, he deserves a raise, because things aren&rsquo;t getting any easier out West. And despite having some tools at his disposal, getting Golden State back toward the top of the Western Conference won&rsquo;t be an easy feat, not with the team's three core players advancing in age and its supporting cast becoming less talented over the years.
It&rsquo;s crazy to think that Curry will be 34 years old by the time 2022 NBA Playoffs begin, and &mdash; who would&rsquo;ve guessed it? &mdash; by that time, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson will each be 32 years old. It&rsquo;s easy to overlook their advanced ages (they&rsquo;re &ldquo;advanced&rdquo; at least in terms of basketball years) because each of the three began their careers relatively late &mdash; Curry and Thompson, both of whom spent three years in college, were both 21-year-old rookies. Green, who played four years at Michigan State, didn&rsquo;t make his NBA debut until he was 22.
By the time they started winning, they were more-or-less in their mid-20s and that was six whole years ago. It&rsquo;ll be at least seven by the time we see them in the postseason again.
<div class="mceNonEditable"><spike>&nbsp;</spike></div>
Time sure flies, because it certainly doesn&rsquo;t seem like it&rsquo;s been five years since the Dubs won 73 games in 2016 or three years since they won a championship. Thompson&rsquo;s unfortunate ACL injury during the 2019 NBA Finals left everyone believing that the team would be back once he returned. But then he suffered another catastrophic injury (a torn Achilles tendon), which caused him to miss two full seasons in a row. And although Kevin Durant&rsquo;s recovery from a torn Achilles provides hope for a full recovery, by the time we see Thompson suit up in a playoff game again, it will have been about three calendar years.
Boy oh boy, 2018 was a long time ago.
Since the Warriors hoisted the Larry O&rsquo;Brien trophy that last time, its back-to-back NBA Finals MVP dumped the Golden Gate Bridge for Brooklyn. Gone are the likes of Andre Iguodala, Shaun Livingston, JaVale McGee and David West. Aside from the trio, Kevon Looney is the only other championship player who remains with the team. And even he could opt for free agency this summer and take his talents elsewhere.
Under our noses, the Warriors&rsquo; championship team has systematically been replaced by newer, younger, less experienced pieces.
When Morant and his Grizzlies sent the Warriors home for good, the team&rsquo;s game plan was obvious &mdash; force anyone not named &ldquo;Curry&rdquo; to beat them. It worked (for Memphis).
<img src="https://cdn.basketballnews.com/images/story/body/usatsi_16125642_lg.jpg" alt="" width="718" height="479" />
So in it all, we&rsquo;re forced to come to terms with a second-consecutive postseason without the electrifying Steph Curry and without his Warriors. As has become a theme over the past couple years, we will collectively look toward next year to see if they can take back the throne out West. But all things considered, that would seem to be not only a far-fetched assumption, but an irresponsible one.
Since the Warriors won their first championship with their core in 2015, the Western Conference hasn&rsquo;t exactly become any less competitive or any less talented. Morant. Doncic. LeBron James&rsquo; relocation to Los Angeles. Anthony Davis. Chris Paul&rsquo;s Suns. The becoming of Devin Booker. Donovan Mitchell&rsquo;s rising. Nikola Jokic becoming the MVP. Kawhi and PG&rsquo;s Clippers. Holy cow, look at New Orleans.
And Curry and Thompson are older than Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum.
In short, the Warriors have their work cut out for them. If nothing else, the Boston Celtics have taught us that a collection of talent is only as good as its ability to coexist. As Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown attempt to lead Team Green back to the heights of the East, they weren&rsquo;t able to get it done with Kyrie Irving, Terry Rozier, Al Horford, Marcus Morris and Gordon Hayward.
Translation: nothing is promised. The Oklahoma City Thunder can tell you that, twice over.
On the bright side? Golden State has some tools in its toolbox. Wisely (and perhaps clairvoyantly), Myers has refrained from sending out first-round picks in pursuit of talent. That discipline led to James Wiseman and will also yield two more lottery picks this summer &mdash; the Warriors own their own pick and will land the Minnesota Timberwolves&rsquo; first-round pick in this year&rsquo;s draft if it falls outside of the top-three. If the Wolves&rsquo; pick ends up top-three, it becomes unprotected for the Warriors in 2022. Thus, a very valuable trade chip.
<div class="mceNonEditable"><spike>&nbsp;</spike></div>
Perhaps ironically, the only trade the Dubs have recently made that cost them a first-round pick was the one they executed to get rid of Iguodala, once considered the fourth member of the &ldquo;Core Four.&rdquo; He was sent to Memphis along with the Warriors&rsquo; (top-four protected) 2024 first-round pick.
In other words, in the form of Wiseman, Andrew Wiggins, its own 2021 first-round pick and the pick due from the Timberwolves, Golden State is a rarity in the NBA &mdash; a team with both young and contending-level veteran talent that also has draft capital that it can use to build out its rotation.
But make no mistake about it: Build they must, because a core featuring three players who will all be at least 32 years old when the 2022 NBA Playoffs begin should never be considered a shoe-in.
Father Time, after all, remains undefeated. Even in San Francisco.

When the 2022 NBA Playoffs begin, Steph Curry will be 34 years old, while Draymond Green and Klay Thompson will be 32.

Dynastic demise: Warriors have far to go to become contender again

&ldquo;The media&rsquo;s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that&rsquo;s power. Because they control the minds of the masses. The press is so powerful in its image-making role." - Malcolm X
I didn&rsquo;t want to touch on any of this. I even tweeted that I was going to <a href="https://twitter.com/etanthomas36/status/1395020436392529927?s=21" target="_blank" rel="noopener">mind my business</a> on this.
However, since Kwame Brown posted that first video on his <a href="https://www.instagram.com/kwan_low" target="_blank" rel="noopener">IG account</a> (plus additional videos on IG Live and his <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcCzh-DGFFkhDsMDvQgpvCg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">YouTube page "Bust Life")</a>, there have been multiple media outlets that have reached out to me to inquire if I would come on their show. They wanted me to get in the middle of what was going on with Kwame and Stephen Jackson and Matt Barnes, and my answer has consistently been an adamant, "No." I told them that they were not going to use me to fan the flames of this beef. When I first caught wind of it, I immediately tweeted that I hated seeing good Brothas beef to this level over something that could&rsquo;ve (and should&rsquo;ve) been fixed with a phone call, and I still stand by that.
I also have a lot of respect for all of them. I am still amazed at all of the work that Stephen Jackson has done around the world after George Floyd was murdered. I&rsquo;ve interviewed both Stak and Matt for my show, "<a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/podcasts/the-rematch" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Rematch</a>," and for my new book on white supremacy and police brutality that I&rsquo;m currently putting the finishing touches on (shout out to Haymarket Books). Kwame and I have been friends since we were teammates with the Washington Wizards for four seasons, so I have always been in his corner. I immediately ordered some shirts from <a href="https://bustlife.creator-spring.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">his clothing line</a> for me and my son. (We got "Momma&rsquo;s Cooking" and "My Momma&rsquo;s Son" shirts).
<img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="https://cdn.basketballnews.com/images/story/body/ett1_lg.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="282" />
I support all of these Brothas. I do believe they will eventually reach peace in their own time and show all of the world how Brothas can resolve differences peacefully, and then, maybe even work together and achieve something that Pac and Biggie never got the chance to do. Again, I fully believe that will happen in time. And when they do squash the beef and make peace, I want to hear all of the media who have been fanning these flames to be just as loud as they are now... but I doubt we will hear a peep out of the media about that. They love to promote drama and infighting, especially with Black people. It gets ratings and that&rsquo;s why I emphatically told them all, "No." I&rsquo;m not coming on any of your shows to join you in fanning these flames.&nbsp;
In addition to the media, a lot of NBA executives and former Wizards executives started reaching out to me, saying, "Hey, we know you and Kwame were always friends. You should talk to him." My answer to all of them was, "And say what, exactly? Kwame is a grown man, and y&rsquo;all are just worried that he&rsquo;s coming for y&rsquo;all next. So, no, I am not interested in speaking to Kwame on your behalf."
Kwame has a long list of people in the media who have consistently degraded his image, his family and his reputation. They have attacked him as a man for two decades and he has finally had enough.&nbsp;
It&rsquo;s like the movie "Kill Bill" when Uma Thurman had the list of all the people who tried to kill her and was crossing them off one-by-one. Well, that&rsquo;s what Kwame is doing right now. So Stephen A. Smith, Skip Bayless and all those other media people who have assassinated his character for literally 20 years are now feeling the wrath of Kwame Brown.&nbsp;
Many people have asked why I keep bringing up the media and why I'm so anti-media. They say it&rsquo;s the media&rsquo;s job to report, and Kwame, Stak and Matt are doing all of this themselves on their own platforms. People say to me, "What about sticks and stones?" and, "Kwame is being too sensitive," and, "The media criticizes all athletes," etc.
Yes, the media&rsquo;s job is to critique athletes' play. So for instance, if they report that a player isn&rsquo;t rebounding the ball the way they should or that their defense is lacking or their shot is off or they aren&rsquo;t playing up to their potential, that&rsquo;s all fair game.
But when the media attacks someone personally and creates a false narrative about a person&rsquo;s character and manhood, that&rsquo;s an entirely different subject. It is done far too often now that media personalities are treated like celebrities and paid salaries comparable to professional athletes. It seems the louder they are and the more negative they are, the more they are rewarded.
<div class="mceNonEditable"><spike>&nbsp;</spike></div>
With Kwame, it was so much deeper than the media simply &ldquo;talking bad" about him. The public degradation and the false narratives perpetuated by the media actually hurt Kwame financially, as NBA teams listened to those narratives regardless of whether they were factual or unsubstantiated.
In fact, false narratives kept Carmelo Anthony out of the league for more than a year. NBA teams were scared to touch him. So, yes, Kwame has a valid reason to be upset with the media because they took money out of his pocket with the way those false narratives destroyed his character.&nbsp;
The media could&rsquo;ve told the story of how he persevered through an impossible situation in DC with Michael Jordan and Doug Collins, and how he fought through unbelievable adversity at 18 years old. They could&rsquo;ve covered how he never broke despite Collins and Jordan's attempts to break him. Instead, they began broadcasting a false narrative that was detrimental to Kwame when it came time for teams to sign him. It lowered his market value. They remembered what was said. It didn't matter that there were no facts or proof; the rumors that were created by the media impacted these decision-makers.&nbsp;
In one of Kwame&rsquo;s videos, he briefly mentioned how he was treated in DC and how the situation was set up for him to fail. He also said, "Ask Etan Thomas, he&rsquo;ll verify everything I&rsquo;m saying." This led to my phone being flooded with even more calls, so I decided to reach out to a few other former Wizards so we could all verify Kwame's remarks. I brought Jahidi White, Tyrone Nesby and Chris Whitney on my show, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-rematch-with-etan-thomas/id1536352949" target="_blank" rel="noopener">"The Rematch,"</a> to discuss what we collectively saw. And just for the record: Kwame didn&rsquo;t exaggerate one bit about how he was treated in DC. In fact, we also recalled a few horror stories that Kwame left out.&nbsp;
<iframe title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/myKa-RVwMmw" width="100%" height="325" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
But the media didn't tell those factual stories. All they had to do was ask someone who was actually there. I was there and I still asked others for their account. Do some actual investigative work!
But that&rsquo;s not what they did. And one of the biggest culprits was Stephen A. Smith. There are countless videos -- and I will include a compilation so nobody thinks I&rsquo;m exaggerating -- of Stephen A. Smith bashing Kwame. He said, &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a scrub, he can&rsquo;t play the game of basketball, he has small hands, he can&rsquo;t catch the ball, he's got bad feet, he can't really move... he doesn&rsquo;t really know what he&rsquo;s doing, he doesn&rsquo;t have a post move that he can commit to memory, he has no game whatsoever, he plays no defense, he doesn&rsquo;t have the heart, the passion, or anything that comes with it." He called him a "bust" and constantly called out Kwame's work ethic; for example, he said, "He didn&rsquo;t work hard in 10 years," and, "[He] never worked and put forth his due diligence." Stephen A. refused to pronounce Kwame's name correctly. He called Kwame &ldquo;nothing&rdquo; and actively campaigned for the Knicks not to sign him.
<iframe title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CIKnFZp6guo" width="100%" height="325" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
At the end of this compilation, you'll see that there's actual footage of Stephen A. Smith going on a speaking tour to colleges, high schools, and middle schools to continue his public degradation of Kwame. He exploited every opportunity to further these false narratives. He shouted fabrications that were simply baseless. The footage shows him telling college students that Kwame was immature and not ready mentally, emotionally or psychologically.&nbsp;
Now, I&rsquo;m no lawyer, but I would think that Kwame Brown has a slander case that he could bring against Stephen A. Smith (and a lot of media members) considering how he was defamed, as long as there's no statute of limitations. He would likely win because&nbsp;the proof is readily available.&nbsp;
<div class="mceNonEditable"><spike>&nbsp;</spike></div>
I remember seeing articles about Kwame not knowing how to order food in a restaurant, which I knew was a lie because me and Kwame went out to eat on the road and he ordered food just fine. There were stories about how he didn&rsquo;t know how to use dry cleaners. People wrote that he was depressed. Not to mention the pieces about how he was garbage and a bust and shouldn&rsquo;t be in the NBA. They used words like "worthless" and a "waste." None of that was true or accurate, but that&rsquo;s the narrative that was constantly repeated over and over and over again until everyone just believed it.&nbsp;
When you repeat something a million times, there will be people who believe it and act accordingly. It shifts their opinion. It&rsquo;s like brainwashing. And that&rsquo;s exactly what the media did with Kwame. Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless, in particular, did this and there are many others who joined in (and I&rsquo;m sure Kwame has them on his list). That&rsquo;s why I told any media member who reached out to me that I had zero interest in talking to Kwame on their behalf.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-theme="dark">
Media, Former Wizards &amp; NBA Executives: I know you two were friends, you should talk to Kwame Me: And say what ? This is y&rsquo;all problem. Looks like he has a long memory &amp; y&rsquo;all just worried he&rsquo;s comin for y&rsquo;all next. Kwame Brown is a grown man. I&rsquo;mma mind my business on this one
&mdash; Etan Thomas (@etanthomas36) <a href="https://twitter.com/etanthomas36/status/1395501100841807880?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 20, 2021</a></blockquote>

<script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>

That narrative the media created was used in more ways than a lot of people know. For a large part of my NBA career, I was on the executive board for the Players' Union. I was also part of the negotiating team. I was one of the people whom Billy Hunter consistently included when we sat across from David Stern and the NBA Board of Governors to negotiate the collective bargaining agreement. I remember Stern using Kwame Brown and that same narrative that was broadcasted by Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless and others as a justification as to why we needed to create an age-limit rule. They said that teenagers aren&rsquo;t mature enough and that Kwame didn&rsquo;t even know how to order from a restaurant and how much of a &ldquo;disaster&rdquo; it was to have young high-school players thrown into the throes of the NBA. He actually quoted the same narrative Stephen A. and others were constantly repeating, and I heard that with my own ears.&nbsp;
Of course, Stern didn&rsquo;t use the examples of Kobe Bryant, Jermaine O'Neal, Kevin Garnett or LeBron James to show that high-school athletes can successfully make the jump to the NBA. And yes, this position was loaded with hypocrisy. To have no issue with sending an 18-year-old overseas to war but adamantly objecting to them playing in the NBA because they don't have the mental, physical and emotional capacity to handle it is almost laughable. Also, there was no objection for European players turning pro at 13 years old over in Europe (and I never once heard David Stern or anyone else use Darko Milicic&rsquo;s failures to justify why there should be an age limit for Europeans). They welcomed them with open arms. Stern wanted to expand the NBA worldwide so he wouldn&rsquo;t say anything against that expansion, but he had no problem using Kwame Brown as the poster child for the age limit.&nbsp;
People always ask me: If you have such an issue with the media, why did you become a member of the media? The reason is because I want to do things differently. One of the main reasons I created <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-rematch-with-etan-thomas/id1536352949" target="_blank" rel="noopener">"The Rematch"</a> was to give athletes a platform to retell their story. I wanted to give each individual an opportunity to reclaim their image from these false narratives created and spread by the media. My hope is that this makes the media as a whole rethink they way they cover athletes in general moving forward.&nbsp;
To all the media who joined in with Stephen A. Smith, Skip Bayless and others to assassinate the character of Kwame Brown over the last 20 years: Before you say something about him now, you really should think it through -- or the next video he makes might just be about you.

For 20 years, the media spread false narratives about Kwame Brown. His former teammate, Etan Thomas, witnessed this firsthand.

After 20 years of public degradation, Kwame Brown is fed up

Paul George, who has not played in the Los Angeles Clippers' previous two games, could miss more time because of a bone edema in his right toe. What was originally described as a "sore" right foot has now been given an official diagnosis from team doctors. 
Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue provided very little details about the injury and how long he expects George to be out. 
Lue said he wasn't "really sure" when George started feeling the injury and when asked about PG's potential return, he responded, "I don't know... We're going to miss him. We wish him a speedy recovery."
Obviously, those aren't the most encouraging words from Lue, as it sounds like George could miss extended time with the right toe injury. The Clippers, who are 1-3 without George on the court, will need to get more production out of their supporting cast with the star forward sidelined. 
George has been outstanding this season, averaging 24.4 points, 6.2 rebounds, 5.5 assists, 3.8 threes, 1.2 steals and .5 blocks while shooting 50.8 percent from the field, 47.8 percent from three-point range and 90.5 percent from the free-throw line. 
The Clippers have the third-best record in the Western Conference at 17-8.
&nbsp;

Clippers head coach Ty Lue says he 'does not know' when Paul George (foot) will return from injury.