NBA

8:58 PM ET ESPN News Services The Minnesota Timberwolves won the NBA draft lottery Thursday night. The Timberwolves had a 14% chance at the No. 1 overall pick and a 40.1% chance to land in the top three. The Golden State Warriors hold the No. 2 pick, the Charlotte Hornets got the No. 3 pick

1:48 AM ET Luka Doncic described it as “an amazing feeling” to get his first NBA playoff win after the Dallas Mavericks‘ 127-114 victory over the LA Clippers in Wednesday’s Game 2, and it’s a sensation he expects to experience again soon. “We’ve just got three left,” Doncic said, referring to how many more wins

12:41 AM ET With about eight minutes to go in the third quarter Wednesday night, Philadelphia 76ers guard Josh Richardson tried to throw an entry pass to teammate Joel Embiid, who had established post position in the middle of the lane. The pass was awful. Richardson jumped to throw it and it was loopy and

7:45 PM ET The LA Clippers ruled Patrick Beverley out for Game 2 due to a lingering left calf strain. Coach Doc Rivers said the team’s starting point guard was not moving well in the morning shootaround. He was added to the afternoon injury report as questionable before the team downgraded him to out. Beverley

11:19 PM ET A countersuit filed by Toronto Raptors president of basketball operations Masai Ujiri includes new video footage that shows the San Francisco Bay Area police officer with whom he had an altercation in the moments after the Raptors won Game 7 of the 2019 NBA Finals was the aggressor. The suit was filed

11:06 PM ET NBA Insiders Should we be concerned about the Milwaukee Bucks and the Los Angeles Lakers after Game 1? The first round of the NBA playoffs has officially kicked off with all 16 teams in contention having a game under their belts in the Florida bubble. As a result, injuries, trends and difficult

1:30 PM ET Boston Celtics forward Gordon Hayward will miss around four weeks due to a Grade III sprain of his right ankle suffered in Monday’s win over the Philadelphia 76ers. Hayward, who scored 12 points on 5-for-13 shooting with 4 rebounds, 3 assists and 4 steals in 34 minutes, was trying to box out

6:30 AM ET NBA Insiders In early July, a couple of days before the Los Angeles Lakers boarded a plane for Orlando, Florida, hoping their trip would extend to the NBA Finals in October, Jared Dudley made a prescient remark. “[LeBron James] is ready for this moment, you can tell,” Dudley said. “You can see

2:00 AM ET NBA Insiders Playoff basketball is the NBA’s reason for being. It’s where players build their legends, various stakeholders cash in on revenue potential and fans record memories. It’s why the NBA went to extremes to deliver the postseason, investing more than $150 million in a bubble. The road there wasn’t without its

6:09 PM ET Tim BontempsESPN LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — Donovan Mitchell scored a career-high 57 points for the Utah Jazz, but it was his 8-second violation with 1:46 remaining in the fourth quarter that helped the Denver Nuggets escape from Game 1 of the first-round playoff series with a 135-125 overtime victory Monday. “It’s

6:48 AM ET SECONDS BEFORE ENTERING the Serbian gym, Mike D’Antoni casually mentioned to Steve Kerr that this stop on their European scouting trip was essentially pointless. It was the spring of 2004, just after Kerr joined the Phoenix Suns as a front-office consultant. D’Antoni was entering his first full season as head coach and

Aug 14, 2020 After 66 scrimmages, 88 seeding games, one Play-In — and plenty of fishing — the matchups for the 2020 NBA playoffs are finally set. And in an unprecedented atmosphere that could negate the benefits of home-court advantage, we could be in for another wild two months inside Disney’s ESPN Wide World of

12:35 PM ET Jimmy Butler is apparently a budding barista. And by the looks of it, the Miami Heat star might have a successful business on his hands inside the NBA bubble. According to the menu outside his Walt Disney World hotel room, Butler’s offerings include a latte, a cappuccino, a macchiato and more. A

7:15 AM ET The good news for the Los Angeles Lakers is they are the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference playoffs, the first time they’ve earned pole position in a decade and an honorable accomplishment after a traumatic season. The bad news is they appear to have won the least valuable No. 1

6:03 PM ET Attention is the utmost compliment in public life, and Damian Lillard has received plenty of it over the past week. In his Portland Trail Blazers‘ win-or-go-home squeaker on Thursday night, the Brooklyn Nets threw two bodies at Lillard before he even crossed half court. It seemed the most sensible strategy after Lillard

5:27 PM ET Tim BontempsESPN LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — Less than two hours after announcing to the world that his grandmother had passed away from COVID-19 on Saturday, Portland Trail Blazers center Jusuf Nurkic walked to center court, rubbed his face and loudly clapped his hands together. Then he went out and carried Portland

6:38 PM ET Vlade Divac has stepped down as general manager of the Sacramento Kings and Joe Dumars has assumed the role of the team’s interim executive vice president of basketball operations, the team announced Friday. Divac’s exit came a day after the Kings concluded bubble play with a 136-122 win against the Lakers. They

11:29 PM ET NBA Insiders Saturday’s play-in game (2:30 p.m. ET, ABC) between the Portland Trail Blazers and Memphis Grizzlies is the rare NBA win-or-go-home contest, at least for the Grizzlies. If Memphis wins on Saturday, the rematch is Sunday (4:30 p.m. ET, ESPN), with the winner advancing to the NBA playoffs to face the