NEW YORK — The Lynx spent the the first quarter and a half of Thursday’s game at Barclays Center digging, digging, digging.

An 18-point deficit at one point, 17 midway through the second. They were down 11 to the New York Liberty with less than four minutes left to go in regulation.

But all that did was set the stage for one of the most ...Read more

NEW YORK — The 2024 WNBA Finals will go down in history.

Not because the series features the league’s two top teams in the Liberty and the Minnesota Lynx, but because it will be the last Finals played in a best-of-five format.

The Finals will expand to a best-of-seven format in 2025, commissioner Cathy Engelbert announced before Game 1 at ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — LeBron James wasn't on the court for one of the most significant games for him last season.

It wasn't a Lakers game or even an NBA game.

It was the Dec. 10 matchup between USC and Long Beach State, during which his oldest son, Bronny James, made his collegiate debut with the Trojans less than five months after suffering sudden ...Read more

DES MOINES, Iowa — Paul George is set to make his 76ers debut against the Minnesota Timberwolves Friday night at Wells Fargo Arena. Meanwhile, the team is without Joel Embiid as they prepare to play in the home arena of the Iowa Wolves, the Timberwolves' G League affiliate.

The Sixers then will face the Boston Celtics on Saturday and the ...Read more

The Valkyries hired Natalie Nakase to be their first head coach, fleshing out more of their identity as an expansion franchise.

Nakase, 44, is believed to be the first Asian American head coach in WNBA history. She spent the past three years as the lead assistant for the Las Vegas Aces, helping them to back-to-back championships. Before that, ...Read more

LEXINGTON, Ky. — We like new things. New is fresh. New is clean. New is fun. Better yet, new can provide the possibility of something different, something better. New can give us hope.

For all its embedded history and timeless traditions, Kentucky basketball feels brand new all over again.

That’s true for both men’s and women’s ...Read more

RALEIGH, N.C. — Toward the end of each of the past three men’s college basketball seasons, the ACC has experienced something of a collective catharsis. It has become routine over the past few years, a budding tradition in a sport that has found itself fighting for sustained relevancy in a college athletics world more and more driven by ...Read more

NEW YORK — The 2-0 preseason record may look good for the Knicks, but their path to victory still leaves plenty to work on.

The Knicks secured a 117-94 victory over the Washington Wizards in a preseason matchup on Wednesday, but the slow start and inconsistent shooting signaled the need for growth ahead of their regular-season opener against ...Read more

ATLANTA — Within the first 90 seconds of his first exhibition game, Zaccharie Risacher showed that, at the very least, he knew what he was doing on the floor.

The player whom the Hawks made the first overall pick of this June’s NBA draft didn’t do anything extraordinary in those first moments of the team’s first exhibition game, Tuesday...Read more

MIAMI — The debut of the Netflix series “Starting 5,” with all 10 episodes released Wednesday, offered greater insight into the time Miami Heat forward Jimmy Butler missed last season and some of the heartbreaking background behind those absences.

The series chronicles the 2023-24 seasons of Butler, Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum, ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — A little more than three months ago, Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve pulled point guard Courtney Williams aside after a performance that apparently pleased neither.

“It was a moment after the Commissioner’s Cup game and we played Dallas and I was terrible,” Williams said. “And she said, ‘Court, I feel like you gave into hard.�...Read more

CHICAGO — Chicago Sky leadership wanted to focus on the long term Wednesday as the team broke ground on construction of a new training facility in Bedford Park.

The facility will cost more than $30 million, the Sky’s latest investment in staying competitive in a new era of the WNBA. And it’s a major victory for a franchise aiming to break...Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. — Hurricane Milton has forced an adjustment to the Magic‘s preseason schedule.

The NBA on Wednesday announced that Friday’s exhibition between Orlando the New Orleans Pelicans at Kia Center has been canceled because of the approaching storm.

The game will not be rescheduled, the league said.

Single-game ticket purchasers ...Read more

AVON, Conn. — Dan Hurley takes pride in the fact that he was able to return four players from last year’s “Fab Five” recruiting class, which was headlined by the fourth overall pick in the NBA draft, Stephon Castle. Of course, there is pride in sending players like Castle to the draft, but the retention is what separates UConn from other...Read more

SAN FRANCISCO — On media day last week, both Steve Kerr and Mike Dunleavy Jr. outlined their high hopes for veteran wing Andrew Wiggins.

He’s highly motivated, they said. He came into camp in great shape. He’s primed to get back to his level of play from a couple years ago, when he was an All-Star. He’s still at his physical peak and ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Almost two hours before the game Tuesday, Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve, basically, made a promise:

This time the defense would be better.

Reeve was better than her word. The Lynx brought defense. They brought offense. They brought toughness, an edge.

They brought a victory.

In a do-or-die Game 5 of the WNBA semifinals, the Lynx ...Read more

The Connecticut Sun couldn’t overcome a disastrous first-half performance in Game 5 of their WNBA playoff series against the Minnesota Lynx on Tuesday in Minneapolis, suffering an 88-77 loss that ended the team’s season in the semifinals for a second consecutive season.

Former UConn star Napheesa Collier became the first player in WNBA ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — As coach JJ Redick began to extol the virtues of Austin Reaves' game and how the Lakers have asked for a little more out of the guard, Redick also mentioned the word defense.

No, Reaves is not a lock-down defender, but he has shown Redick during training camp and the first two preseason games that he knows how to guard.

"I ...Read more

Over the first three years of his NBA career, Ayo Dosunmu developed into an active example of the sports mantra that progress isn’t linear.

The fourth-year Chicago Bulls guard has bobbed in and out of the rotation for his hometown team, from a stopgap starting point guard as a rookie to one of the last players off the bench the next season. ...Read more

NEW YORK — Though the Knicks’ starters showed promise in their 15 minutes of play during Sunday’s preseason opener against the Charlotte Hornets, head coach Tom Thibodeau made it clear that the team has much to improve upon if they want to fully tap into their potential.

“You’re striving to be a 48-minute team, and so we’re nowhere ...Read more