My favorite story I wrote from the Celtics’ championship run was my feature on Jrue Holiday and how he learned to be a leader from his wife Lauren. “I think the only thing he cares about is how his teammates feel about him.” www.theathletic.com/5499499/2024...

Earlier in the playoffs, I spoke with Tyrese Haliburton about overcoming his mental health struggles to have the best season of his career. That was after a hamstring injury ruined the start of his season. Now he has to come back from a likely Achilles tear www.theathletic.com/6338707/2025...

SGA has 5 fouls and the Thunder have no timeouts. Pacers have a few gambits to play now by targeting SGA and also flooding the inbounder to try to force a 5 second call here. Lots of variables up in the air that give Indiana a chance at a miracle here.

Really curious to see if Carlisle keeps Sheppard out there for a few more minutes or goes back to McConnell. They're gonna need more offensive movement now that SGA is back out there, but Sheppard is holding down his spot in the defense pretty decently.

The Pacers defense worked when they were forcing the Thunder into step backs they weren’t making. But the Thunder are finally hitting their shots and they’re running away with the title. Sometimes it’s as simple as you pick your poison as a defense and live with the consequences.

The Thunder have switched but we haven't seen Siakam get any post ups in this game. The Pacers need to get him a switch in transition and feed it into him just to get some variety into the offense and take some pressure off the point guards.

Nembhard and Siakam can't sit on the bench for the rest of the game. Pacers have no chance without them.

Thunder are suddenly half court trapping and it's quickly taking McConnell out of the game. Great call by Daigneault there to spring that on Indiana while the second unit is out there.

That is two great reads by SGA from the mid post area as he starts to figure out how to pass through the Pacers’ help rotations. The Pacers have been so disciplined about forcing him into bad twos, but they are giving into temptation late in his drives and he is reading it perfectly.

Can't wait for the Thunder to win this game with a Caruso 3 at the buzzer and then hear "does the Thunder's title have an asterisk?" for the next 12 months. Either that or we spend next year debating if TJ McConnell is a max player.

Haliburton is making a statement early that he sees the Thunder's low pick up point on him and wants to drag them out by raining from 3. Watch the Thunder come out of this timeout pressing him harder at the half-court line even when he is off the ball.

🚨EMERGENCY POD🚨 We talked KD’s trade IMMEDIATELY after it happened at The NBA Daily. @davedufour.bsky.social @justesbaraheni.bsky.social If you missed it… www.youtube.com/live/10-rKyS...

To preview Game 7 of the NBA Finals on our @theathletic.bsky.social live blog, I wrote about the big Pascal Siakam defensive adjustment that won Game 6 for the Pacers and what the Thunder need to do to fix this problem: t.co/YrRkZRGm6h

For the latest edition of my NBA Finals film series, I dove inside how the Pacers pulled the chair on SGA by completely flipping the script on their defensive pressure. Breaking down how they tweaked their press and found a new way for Pascal Siakam to take over the game: t.co/itPJU5qz7A

Indiana doesn’t have an answer for OKC's defensewithout Tyrese Haliburton being an effective scorer, @jaredweissnba.bsky.social writes. What does this mean for the Pacers in Game 6? Details: www.nytimes.com/athletic/643...

Great adjustment by Daigneault to have J Dub in the slot opposite SGA. It means when the Pacers shift early into the lane to help on SGA, they have to rotate back to J Dub and get cooked.

Haliburton cutting while McConnell is Nash dribbling around the basket is a great action for the Pacers. Haliburton doing the classic give and go with the rim to set up the kickout three, maybe not sustainable.

This is a vintage Rick Carlisle win. The way he reconfigured Haliburton's pick & roll to kill the Hartenstein drop coverage was a chef's kiss Finals adjustment. Now they lead the NBA Finals 2-1. Here's my story on how they became a match made in heaven: www.nytimes.com/athletic/641...

Turns out Carlisle playing Haliburton and Mathurin through the end of the blowout in Game 2 so they can find a rhythm was a pretty genius idea.

Siakam is one of the best players in the league at going up for a verticality contest with his hands back but moving straight toward the shooter and then looking incredulous that they called a foul. Credit to him though, he is one of the best at keeping his hands up on a contest.

Wiggins can’t strip McConnell when he’s got him stuck in a trap in the paint. Drives me nuts when defenders do that. You have the guy completely locked up with nowhere to go because he picked up his dribble and you bail him out?!

Wrote about how the Pacers are trying to find ways to free up Tyrese Haliburton to get him to his floater game, and how the Thunder are shutting that down. Read on our @theathletic.bsky.social NBA Finals live blog: www.theathletic.com/live-blogs/u...

NEW STORY: Rick Carlisle struggled to mesh with his point guards for so long, but he & Tyrese Haliburton came together at the perfect time of their careers. This is how they learned to bring out the best of each other, pushing the Pacers toward a title: www.theathletic.com/6411547/2025...

Joined Brandon London in the @nypost.com studios today to preview Game 6 of Knicks-Celtics. We broke down what the Celtics need to do to extend the series without Jayson Tatum, the Thibs vs. Mazzulla coaching battle, and more: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND6n...

Payton Pritchard said he and the Celtics talked to Jayson Tatum at the team hotel when they returned to NY: “We didn’t talk about basketball. That stuff is bigger than basketball now. … The basketball side, we’ll handle that. Just wanted to check in as a friend.”

Payton Pritchard said he’s “ready to go to war tonight.” “There’s nothing worse than having to go home and not be able to play basketball.”

NEW STORY: Sam Hauser saw the blood everywhere, but then he saw something even scarier: Luke Kornet “It’s funny, you put a sleeve on Luke Kornet, he turns into Bill Russell.” The story of the Luke Kornet legacy game that saved the Celtics season: t.co/642Tsxxlog?s...

It's unshockingly shocking how much better the Celtics got once they put Kornet in the game with the starting unit. Everything just looks connected on both ends now for the first time in a while. 23-8 run and they have a 14-point lead and some real answers for the Knicks.

That play had bodies all over the place. Brown seems fine on the bench now after holding his hand in pain, it looked like Kornet had a cut on his elbow that got treated and wrapped up, and Hart looks like a welterweight in the 9th round with blood all over the place.

Some of these Porziņģis misses in this series have been inexplicable. Mazzulla brings in Kornet right after that missed layup, who at least has brought more energy in the paint.

The top two seeds in the Eastern Conference lost semifinals games this month in which they led by 20, 20, 20, 14, and 19 points.

Joe Mazzulla laughed at the idea that the Celtics were in a bad place heading into Saturday. Sure, they had two difficult losses to a team they were widely predicted to beat. But Mazzulla doesn’t do despondency. @jaredweissnba.bsky.social has more: www.nytimes.com/athletic/634...

Joe Mazzulla said the last few days was a period of darkness, but in a good way. “You just gotta to tap into your darkness.”

Kristaps Porziņģis is struggling out there, just unable to exert much physicality and really struggling to put the ball on the floor. They have to get him pick and pops or nail post ups ASAP because they can't waste minutes with him out there, especially with Robinson playing so well.

The main adjustment I talked about after Game 2 is how the Celtics will need to accept they won't get post cross matches against this starting lineup and just go for it. We saw them go at Hart and Bridges to no avail in the opening minutes, but expect more of it as the game goes on.

Jayson Tatum said at practice today that he takes full ownership of how he has played in this series. But something is off with this Celtics team and it's led to an identity crisis. www.nytimes.com/athletic/634...

Kristaps Porziņģis is available (illness) but Sam Hauser is out with a right ankle sprain, per Celtics

Take care of your mental health. It's so important. Tyrese Haliburton did it. He was spiraling into a bad place. He was struggling to look at himself in the mirror. Now, he tells @jaredweissnba.bsky.social how bad things got — and how he worked on himself. www.nytimes.com/athletic/633...

The Knicks finally found a way to take down the Celtics: Switch up their entire defensive identity. Story with @jaredweissnba.bsky.social on one massive change that helped New York to a Game 1 victory: www.nytimes.com/athletic/633...

Kristaps Porziņģis has been listed as probable (illness) for Game 2, while Sam Hauser is doubtful with a right ankle sprain he suffered last night, per Celtics.

The Knicks have been banging down the door and they finally have the lead. They've now hit one more 3 than the Celtics, even though Boston has attempted 22 more. Boston is already at 53 attempts with 4 minutes left in the game. They're 5 short of the Rockets' record against OKC in 2020.

With Porziņģis out, Horford is stepping up huge in this Kat matchup to lock him up in the post. The man will just never age will he

more like OMG Anunoby

Knicks are smart to put Jaylen in tricky switch situations. One of his defensive weak points has always been that as a play drags on and he isn't at point of attack, he'll get lost between two assignments and allow an opening to crack.

Hauser is questionable to return with a right ankle sprain, per Celtics. He and Poziongis are both in the locker room still.

Sam Hauser is limping back to the locker room after tweaking his ankle landing on OG Anunoby's foot contesting a 3.

Kristaps Porziņģis is questionable with illness now, according to the Celtics. He's not out on the bench coming out of halftime.

Celtics have been on point mismatch hunting tonight. When Brunson is on Brown, the offense is geared toward getting him deep position to attack. When Tatum has a big switching onto him, they get him pull-up 3-point looks.

Tatum has been great in transition, both with his kick aheads and his leak outs. He just looks a lot more locked into the game than usual.

Celtics made their gameplan pretty apparent here early on. High PnR to get Kat switched onto Tatum and then try to get fouls. Now Kat is out the game 5 minutes in. That was a little too easy.