NBA

6:09 PM ET LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — Like a parent being asked to rank their favorite children, Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James wanted no part in assigning special value to a 2020 NBA championship, should he win it against his former team, the Miami Heat. “It’s no extra meaning to winning a championship,

7:00 AM ET The 2020 NBA Finals feature one of the league’s most iconic players matching up against the franchise that helped carve his amazing legacy. But these Finals aren’t just about LeBron James versus Pat Riley and Erik Spoelstra. They’re about two red-hot basketball teams facing off for a historic championship in an unprecedented

6:45 AM ET An hour before the 2019 NBA Finals tipped off in Toronto — the first time the league’s showcase event had been played outside the United States — commissioner Adam Silver reminded those watching that basketball’s founder, James Naismith, was a Christian missionary who brought the game to China and Europe in the

7:50 PM ET The risk profile on next season, already trending toward the red, just got hotter for the LA Clippers. After a devastating postseason collapse along with the crashing realization that both Kawhi Leonard and Paul George can become free agents next summer, parting with Doc Rivers Monday has only increased the stakes. This

5:18 PM ET Doc Rivers is out as head coach of the LA Clippers, sources told ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, following a season that fell well short of championship expectations after the team landed All-Stars Kawhi Leonard and Paul George last summer. Against the Denver Nuggets, the Clippers squandered a 3-1 lead in the Western Conference

10:06 PM ET Associated Press LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — It was exactly one year ago Sunday when Jimmy Butler walked into the Miami Heat practice gym, took a seat on a makeshift stage and said he wanted to be part of the team’s next title run. He’ll have that chance. The Heat are going

10:12 PM ET There aren’t many days that go by during the NBA season when LeBron James doesn’t use lessons he learned during his four years with the Miami Heat. One has proven to be the most important: Keep the main thing the main thing. It is one of the core tenets that Heat president

7:20 AM ET LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — In the NBA bubble, a quality cup of coffee is hard to come by. The sweets shop in the El Centro lobby on the way to the practice facility — which offered bitter dark roast — closed soon after players arrived in early July because it wasn’t

1:44 AM ET A year ago, the hardest thing in front of LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers was resurrecting a storied franchise that had missed the playoffs six consecutive seasons. And at the time, that seemed like a pretty steep hill to climb. There was no way to know what awful events lay

7:00 AM ET All four teams are still afloat in the NBA’s conference finals — and things just keep getting spicier. The Boston Celtics kept their season going by beating the Miami Heat in Friday’s Game 5 121-108. The Denver Nuggets, meanwhile, are hoping to make yet another improbable comeback from a 3-1 series deficit,

1:21 AM ET Miami Heat All-Star big man Bam Adebayo took the blame for his team’s 121-108 loss to the Boston Celtics in Game 5 of the NBA’s Eastern Conference finals on Friday night. “I played like s—,” Adebayo said after the game in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. “Bottom line. I put that game on

12:59 AM ET Tim BontempsESPN LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — After the Boston Celtics walked into the locker room at halftime of Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals against the Miami Heat, having produced a second straight lackluster first half in a series they trailed 3-1, they knew something had to change. So, before

11:13 PM ET For the Boston Celtics, the first half of Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals was a tractor pull. They shot 25 percent from the field in the first quarter. Coming off a simple pick-and-pop with Jayson Tatum, Kemba Walker sent the pass into the hands of assistant coach Scott Morrison on

6:51 AM ET DWYANE WADE SPENT just one season playing alongside Jimmy Butler in Chicago, but that was all that was needed to form a deep — and familiar — impression. “He’s a Heat guy,” Wade later told Erik Spoelstra, the coach of Wade’s longtime franchise, the Miami Heat. Spoelstra probably didn’t need the future

2:44 AM ET LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — If Jamal Murray was going add yet another comeback victory to the Denver Nuggets’ dream postseason run, he was going to have to go through LeBron James to do so. With the Los Angeles Lakers clinging to a four-point lead with just more than five minutes remaining

8:50 PM ET LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — Dwight Howard will start at center for Game 4 of the Western Conference finals, the Los Angeles Lakers announced shortly before tipoff Thursday. Howard replaced JaVale McGee in the first unit to begin the second half of Game 3. L.A. leads the Denver Nuggets 2-1 in the

7:20 AM ET The Denver Nuggets can rally from the depths in an NBA playoff series because Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic methodically problem-solve opposing defenses. Your preferred coverage of the Murray-Jokic pick-and-roll might set them on their heels for the first half of Game 1, but they soon adjust. They poke and prod, downloading

12:37 AM ET The 2020 playoffs have been a showcase of shocking comebacks, ungodly individual exploits and buzzer-beaters, and beautiful team performances. But not every postseason game can be a work of art. Those instant classics linger in our memory, but every team that advances to the NBA Finals trudges its way through a bog