Sports
With eye on NBA Cup quarters, Knicks face lowly Pelicans
Nov 29, 2024; Charlotte, North Carolina, USA; New York Knicks guard Jalen Brunson (11) complains about a possible foul during the second half against the Charlotte Hornets at the Spectrum Center. Mandatory Credit: Sam Sharpe-Imagn Images The New York Knicks will get a chance to advance to the NBA Cup quarterfinals on Tuesday night.
Before that, though, the Knicks will look to continue progressing towards an even more important goal — establishing the consistency necessary to contend for the NBA title.
The Knicks will attempt to break a win-one-lose-one cycle Sunday night, when they host the New Orleans Pelicans in a nonconference matchup.
Both teams were off Saturday after playing road NBA Cup contests Friday. The Knicks overcame a six-point fourth quarter deficit to edge the Charlotte Hornets 99-98 in East Group A action while the struggling Pelicans fell to the Memphis Grizzlies 120-109 in a West Group C game.
With the win, the Knicks improved to 3-0 and set up a winner-take-all game for the East Group A’s automatic bid to the quarterfinals with the Orlando Magic, who are also unbeaten through three games following Friday’s 123-100 victory over the Brooklyn Nets.
The Knicks entered Saturday one of four Eastern Conference teams with at least 10 wins this season even though they’ve won back-to-back games just once outside of a four-game winning streak from Nov. 15-20.
For much of Friday afternoon, the Knicks appeared headed for their second two-game losing streak of the season. New York, which suffered a 129-114 loss Wednesday night to the Dallas Mavericks despite the latter being without superstar point guard Luka Doncic (right wrist), trailed the Hornets for more than 38 minutes Friday even though Charlotte star LaMelo Ball sat out with a left calf injury.
Jalen Brunson helped the Knicks avoid the upset over the final five minutes, when he scored 11 of his game-high 31 points. The victory allowed New York to finish 3-2 on a road trip that began with four games against Western Conference foes before the Black Friday noon tipoff in North Carolina.
“It’s a weird schedule,” Brunson said. “But there’s no complaints and you can’t change it, so we’ve got to go out and find a way. We came out really soft, made some runs and then they made some shots where it looked like they were just going to get away from us. We kept fighting and found a way to get a win.”
The search for a win has grown increasingly frustrating for the injury-wracked Pelicans, who suffered their seventh straight loss and fell to 1-13 in their last 14 games with Friday’s loss.
New Orleans, which is last in the Western Conference with a 4-16 record, has played just three games this season with its optimal starting lineup of Brandon Ingram, Herbert Jones, C.J. McCollum, Daniel Theis and Zion Williamson. The quintet has combined to miss 52 games. Ingram (right calf) is day-to-day after missing the last three games while Jones (right shoulder) and Williamson (left hamstring) are out indefinitely.
The Pelicans lost by 11 points or fewer for the sixth time in their last 13 defeats Friday when they missed opportunities to creep closer to the Grizzlies in the second half. New Orleans committed turnovers on consecutive trips while down 83-75 late in the third and went five straight possessions without scoring in a 101-89 game shortly before the midway point of the fourth.
“We had some chances there where we cut the lead to 10, cut it to eight,” Hornets coach Willie Green said. “A few miscues, a few missed shots, some 50/50 balls that we had to come up with that we didn’t. Our margin for error is extremely small right now, so you’ve got to capitalize on those opportunities.”
–Field Level Media
Sports
Knicks and Nuggets Blow Big Leads: What Went Wrong in Game 2?
Roughly 5,000 feet of elevation separate Denver and New York City.
Still, gravity works the same regardless of where one stands. Just ask the NBA teams in both towns.
“You get too high, and you get, I don’t want to say cocky, but feeling yourself,” Nuggets guard Tim Hardaway Jr. said.
That sensation went south on either side of the country Monday night.
After squandering sizable leads that would have cemented commanding 2-0 advantages in their respective first-round playoff series, the Nuggets and Knicks now find themselves bracing for a fight.
Should their opponents ultimately have their number, Denver and New York will look back with disdain on 19 and 14. Those were the Game 2 cushions the teams coughed up as the No. 3 seeds in the Eastern and Western Conference.
“It’s a game we should’ve won,” Knicks guard Josh Hart said. “In the playoffs, we can’t give away games.”
Be that as it may, the Knicks did just that against the Atlanta Hawks. They controlled the outcome for much of the night and took a 12-point edge into the fourth quarter after leading by as many as 14.
Then New York shot 5-for-22 from the floor in the final 12 minutes compared to 10-for-15 for Atlanta. Fighting through vulgar chants from the Madison Square Garden faithful, Hawks star CJ McCullom scored six straight points down the stretch during one key sequence on the way to a game-high 32.
“In that fourth quarter, you could tell [the Hawks] were playing with a level of desperation,” Knicks coach Mike Brown said. “There were four 50-50 balls, and they got three of the four. We always use that stat to gauge the level of aggression in a game. In that fourth quarter, their aggression stepped up.”
New York’s melted at the same time. How many late possessions saw the Knicks pass or hold the ball around the perimeter before settling for subpar looks from 3-point range? The Knicks went 3-for-11 from deep as part of their flop.
Denver led the Minnesota Timberwolves by 19 points early in the second quarter before crumbling. The Nuggets still were ahead by three points to start the fourth quarter but a combined 2-for-12 shooting effort from pillars Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray in the final 12 minutes took a toll.
“I feel like we had the game in hand, and then we just didn’t make our shots,” Murray said.
As with the Knicks and Hawks, the reversal of fortunes stemmed both from the hosts’ miscues and an outstanding effort from a visiting player, as Minnesota’s Anthony Edwards had 30 points.
“Great leadership, positive,” Timberwolves coach Chris Finch said. “He recognized he needed to get into attack mode and get downhill a little bit more. He did that.”
The Knicks and Nuggets no doubt sensed the need to amp up their own urgency as things started slipping away Monday.
That neither could act upon it didn’t signal the end for either New York or Denver, of course. But now there’s unnecessary added weight for the climb back to the top.
Sports
Pistons seek return to identity vs. Magic after Game 1 shocker
Apr 19, 2026; Detroit, Michigan, USA; Detroit Pistons forward Tobias Harris (12) is defended by Orlando Magic guard Desmond Bane (3) in the second half during the 2026 NBA Playoffs at Little Caesars Arena. Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-Imagn Images After an exceptional regular season, this wasn’t the start to the NBA playoffs that the Detroit Pistons envisioned.
Reeling from a stunning Game 1 loss in which only two players reached double figures, the Eastern Conference’s top seed heads into Game 2 Wednesday against the visiting Orlando Magic facing early pressure to reset the best-of-seven series.
The eighth-seeded Magic controlled the opener from the start, never trailing and leaning on a balanced offensive attack. Paolo Banchero led the way with 23 points while Franz Wagner scored 11 of his 19 in the fourth quarter to help close out the 112-101 win.
For Detroit, the issue wasn’t just the loss — it was how it happened. The Pistons never established their defensive identity and struggled to find consistent offense beyond star guard Cade Cunningham, two areas that will be central entering Game 2.
“It starts, always, with us defensively,” said Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff. “When you go back and watch the film of that (game), we weren’t ourselves defensively. The telling tale is typically when we play them, they go to the free-throw line a ton.
“… We went 38 (times) but they went 19. So that means we weren’t playing our brand of basketball, being physical, being handsy, being aggressive. That kind of sets the tone for us.”
Offensively, the Pistons leaned on Cunningham, who scored 39 points, but got little other support — scoring their fewest points in nearly three months, since a loss to the Phoenix Suns on Jan. 29. Detroit will need more help from All-Star center Jalen Duren, who was held to just eight points and seven rebounds in Game 1.
“They came out ready from the jump,” Duren said. “We didn’t really meet their intensity. They’ve been playing with their backs against the walls the last few weeks, so they were already kind of already rolling. I think we just got to do a better job meeting that intensity.”
Duren said the Pistons remain confident despite the loss, which extended their home playoff losing streak to 11 games, the longest in NBA history.
“We know the type of team we are,” Duren said. “We feel like we’re the better team. We know that we’ve just got to make adjustments and come out smarter, come out playing harder.”
Orlando coach Jamahl Mosley said he has talked to his team about not becoming too overconfident coming off Sunday’s win.
“It’s one game at a time,” Mosley said of his message to the team. “It’s the reality that, yeah, you did get the Game 1 win, but now you have to go and figure out how to get a Game 2 (win). There’s going to be, obviously, the positive talk about what you’ve done, and thinking there’s reasons to celebrate, but at the end of the day, it’s one game, and that’s the most important piece that we’ve talked about: just taking it one game at a time.”
Banchero said the team has received the message, and he believes the key for the Magic is to play defense like they did in the opener.
“I thought we were on a string, just communicating, talking out coverages,” Banchero said. “I think it’s just going to continue to take that, being aggressive, being the aggressors on defense and just not trying to give them much. Obviously they’re going to make shots, but just not trying to give them any free looks.”
–Field Level Media
Sports
Lynx star Napheesa Collier (ankle) targets June for on-court work
Mar 2, 2026; Brooklyn, NY, USA; Unrivaled Co-founder Napheesa Collier at Barclay’s Center. Mandatory Credit: Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images The Minnesota Lynx said Tuesday that star forward Napheesa Collier’s rehab from left ankle surgery is “progressing as expected,” and she could resume on-court activities in early June.
The team plans to release updates on Collier’s progress when available.
The timeline means Collier will miss, at minimum, the first month of the WNBA season, which begins May 10 for the Lynx.
Collier underwent surgery on her ankle on March 24 after sustaining a severe injury during the 2025 playoffs. Per reports at the time, she sustained a Grade 2 tear of three ligaments in the ankle and a muscle in her left shin on a collision during Game 3 of the playoff semifinal series vs. Phoenix.
Collier, 29, averaged a career-high 22.9 points and shot 40.3% from 3-point range to go with 7.3 rebounds, 3.2 assists, 1.6 steals and 1.5 blocks per game last year. The back-to-back WNBA Most Valuable Player runner-up, Collier is a five-time All-Star and earned MVP honors in the 2024 Commissioner’s Cup final and the 2025 All-Star Game.
–Field Level Media
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