Just a day after Louisville ended its Tournament run with an Elite Eight loss to Michigan State, head coach Rick Pitino announced that the team's two leading scorers will be moving on this summer.
Pitino told reporters Monday that Montrezl Harrell and Terry Rozier will be entering their names in the 2015 NBA Draft.
"They're both leaving, yes, 100 percent," Pitino told reporters, . "And it's the right thing to do for both of them. You all may have some doubts about Terry, but I don't."
Harrell's jump to the NBA after this season was expected, but Rozier's future seemed less clear when Louisville entered the NCAA Tournament this season. Pitino explained Rozier's reasoning further.
"Terry looks at home and sees his mom working two jobs, and she's going 16, 17 hours a day," Pitino said, according to The Courier-Journal. "And he says, 'OK, maybe I wouldn't be drafted as high as I would be if I waited one more year, but I'd rather sacrifice that for my mom not having to work two jobs.'"
Both Harrell and Rozier had impressive regular seasons at Louisville, averaging 15.7 and 17.1 points per game, respectively. Harrell nearly averaged a double-double with 9.2 rebounds per contest.
While Rozier's stock may still be uncertain in the eyes of NBA evaluators, his Tournament performance — particularly in the rebounding department — could help his case. The sophomore averaged 16.8 points, 7.5 rebounds and 4.8 assists in four Tournament games.
If you see DeAndre Jordan looking up in the air, chances are there's a ball he's about to dunk.
The Clippers visited the Celtics, and I'm pretty sure they got there on Jordan's back. This guy soars so high. That was cheesy, but when you see this dunk you'll understand. All Chris Paul has to do is lob the ball somewhere higher than a human being is supposed to be able to jump, and out comes Jordan.
No interesting DeAndre dunk face afterward, but it's still awesome.
The Jazz spoiled Enes Kanter's return to Utah as they defeated the Oklahoma City Thunder 94-89 Saturday night.
Kanter made headlines when he criticizing the Jazz and saying that he is enjoying basketball for the first time with Oklahoma City. Those comments didn't sit well with current members of the Jazz, and Trevor Booker .
“Hey, he can say what he want to," Booker said on Jazz radio when asked about Kanter's comments. "We know what we got here, it’s a great organization, great team, we know what we have. Forget what he says, he got his stats, but, as always he took the L.”
Ouch. Kanter indeed got his stats, as he finished with 18 points and 11 rebounds, but it wasn't enough to get by his former team. Kanter's return story didn't stop there, however.
The crowd booed the Thunder center during pregame introductions, and Kanter embraced it.
Thunder coach Scott Brooks took issue with how Kanter handled himself.
Brooks on Kanter: "I didn't like the way he handled it when they introduced him. Something that will be addressed. We're better than that."
— Royce Young (@royceyoung)
Kanter came to Oklahoma City as part of a three-team trade earlier this year. He had asked the Jazz to trade him, which led to some hard feelings from his former teammates.
Is Andrew Wiggins Rookie of the Year? I think so. Rudy Gobert probably thinks so, too.
Gobert figured it out the hard way that you don't try to block Wiggins when he's streaking down the lane looking like he's about to tear the rim off. Just keep your feet planted and move out of the way. It took Gobert a while, but hopefully he learned his lesson.
During the Timberwolves game on Monday, the rookie got fouled by the Jazz's Rodney Hood, but took flight anyway to posterize Gobert for the sick and-1 dunk.
Obviously Gobert didn't get shamed enough on that first jam, because he jumped with Wiggins again on this almost identical monster slam.
While everyone was hoping for the best, Craig Sager has announced that his leukemia has returned.
The legendary broadcaster, known for his wacky suits and upbeat candor, posted that he was yet again preparing to battle cancer after doctors cleared him to .
We wanted to ensure he was taken care of & that we knew what the next steps were before we shared this
— Craig Sager II (@CraigSagerJr)
Sager, 63, has been with huge support from the community around him. He and now, it appears that doctors need him to stay put as they prepare to put him through rounds of treatment.
We're all hoping that he makes a speedy recovery yet again and can make it back to the court sooner than later.
Phil Jackson has a big decision to make in the 2015 NBA Draft, with the Knicks likely to end up with a very high pick.
And who will Jackson take with that pick? It won't be Kentucky's Karl-Anthony Towns, .
“They need a center with a big butt to hold space," says Charlie Rosen, who is one of Jackson's closest friends. “Towns is not a big-enough body."
So, in theory, Jackson is all about the junk in the trunk.
The full quote by Rosen is pretty insane considering Towns is just 19 years old and will fill out to NBA size over the next five years.
He’d never get that position in the NBA. He doesn’t have enough power or core strength. He wouldn’t be able to set up one dribble away from the basket. He’s not a kind of center you need in the triangle. He’s not physically that type of center, but he’s athletic and does other things. Look how far out (Lou) Amundson, (Jason) Smith and (Andrea) Bargnani get pushed out when they post up, well out of the box.
Rosen comparing Towns in a wraparound way to Amundson, Smith and Bargnani is ridiculous on its face.
In any case, what this is code for is that the Knicks will definitely take Jahlil Okafor -- noted butt-haver -- if they can get him with whatever pick they secure.
Pull up quick to get wit 'em, Phil.
The Knicks are worried about Karl Towns not having a big enough butt. Should have known all along:
Derrick Rose took a big step towards his latest return Monday as he participated in full-contact practice.
This is the first time the Bulls guard has had contact in practice since on his right knee. While the news is encouraging, he still has some obstacles to overcome.
“He was aggressive. As I said, the big thing was he was a little winded," Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau said, . "We expected that. But overall, I thought it was good. ... He said he feels good. Physically, he feels good. The big thing is going to be the wind, the conditioning. He’s been out a long time.”
Rose didn't speak to reporters after practice Monday, but he sounded earlier this month.
After Rose's surgery, the timetable was placed at four to six weeks. Friday will mark five weeks since he underwent the third knee surgery of his career.
“This is the next step,” Thibodeau said, per ESPN. “We’ll know more as he goes forward. Obviously he needs some practice time where he’s taking contact on.”
The Bulls haven't announced an exact target date for Rose to return to the floor.
Shaquille O'Neal knows how to play to a room, and he's always available to take shots at those from his past.
Those two things came together during Justin Bieber's celebrity roast, which aired Monday on Comedy Central. The Hall of Fame center used some of his time at the mic to smash Los Angeles.
"I haven't seen a more disappointing lineup since the last Lakers game," he said.
That's probably not true. The Bieber roast has been lauded as having some of the harshest jokes by some solid comics.
The Lakers, meanwhile, are out here winning games, much to the dismay of their fans.
Gregg Popovich is famous for his lack of emotion, his cold, dead heart enveloping the light from sideline reporters and crushing their souls down to their very essence.
Now, it's payback time.
As Heat guard Mario Chalmers went for a half-court heave at the end of the second quarter on Tuesday, all Popovich could do was watch it sail in.
As if "Mario Kart 64" couldn't get any better, the Timberwolves have put an NBA-spin on the arcade classic.
In their loss to the Jazz on Monday, the Timberwolves treated the home crowd to "Rubio Kart" during a break in the action, and it was fantastic.
Crunch, the Wolves' mascot, and two avid video gamers raced around downtown Minnesota as Ricky Rubio, Andrew Wiggins and Nikola Pekovic. They hit each other with basketballs instead of coconuts, getting "fast break power" and the ultimate "backboard pass" power-up.
ICYMI, Rubio Kart is here!
Posted by on Tuesday, 31 March 2015
The best part of it all: Rubio couldn't help but laugh.
New adorableness record just set at Target Center as smiling watched his video game character win the RubioKart jumbotron race.
Much has been made of LeBron James' tenuous relationship with some of his Cavaliers teammates this season, particularly Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love.
In separate interviews this week, James and Irving spoke of the feeling-out process that has played out this season.
James said the seven-year age gap between he and Irving has been an obstacle, something to which he wasn't accustomed while in Miami with like-aged Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh. Irving admitted to a rocky start that he and James have since smoothed over, even getting to the point where they've been spotted hanging out at night clubs.
As for Love, who has said that he and James "are not best friends," James was frank about the reality of their relationship.
"People get so infatuated with the best of friends, things of that nature," James said, per the Northeast Ohio Media Group. "First of all, I've got three very good friends in this league, and that's Carmelo (Anthony), and that's C.P. (Chris Paul), and that's D-Wade. And after that I have a bunch of teammates. I have guys I ride for every day."
For what it's worth, after all the early-season struggles the three endured, they seem to have figured out a general working relationship, with Cleveland firmly holding down second place in the Eastern Conference. The Cavs have won eight of their last 10 games.
"In order for us to reach our potential, the Big Three has to be big," James said, according to the Northeast Ohio Media Group. "And it can't just be Kyrie one night, me one night, and Kev. We all have to be clicking at the same time in order for us to be successful.
"Friends or no friends, at the end of the day we're all here to do one thing, and that's to win."
In the movie “The Program,” Alvin Mack, a college linebacker played by the actor Duane Davis, appears destined for the N.F.L. That is, until a knee injury instantly rewrites his future. In a span of minutes, Mack goes from a potential first-round pick to a former player considering a future in coaching.
A similar situation seemed to play out in real life last week when Brady Aiken, the No. 1 pick in the 2014 baseball draft, announced that he had undergone Tommy John surgery to repair the ulnar collateral ligament in his pitching elbow. Having declined a lowball offer from the , Aiken was pitching at the IMG Baseball Academy in preparation for this year’s draft. The bet on himself, which reportedly involved turning down a last-minute offer for $5 million, appeared to have gone bust.
But in 2015, nothing is that simple. As observers scramble to declare the winners and the losers, the theme of the day should be this: patience for everyone.
Less than 10 months ago, Aiken sat on a conference call after being selected by the Astros and compared himself to Clayton Kershaw and David Price. It may have seemed boastful, but as a 17-year-old left-hander with a mid-90s fastball and command of three major league-quality pitches, he was probably not that far off the mark. The team seemed just as enthusiastic about the latest piece in its rebuilding project.
“I couldn’t be more excited for the Houston Astros and their future by adding this player to what already is a very strong system,” Jeff Luhnow, the team’s general manager, said in an introductory news release.
The team and the player agreed on a deal in which Aiken would receive a $6.5 million signing bonus, well short of the $7.9 million slotted for his draft position. Before the contract could be signed, the team requested a magnetic resonance imaging of Aiken’s elbow, and that was when things unraveled.
While the team has never directly addressed what it was told about Aiken’s pitching elbow, reports surfaced that his U.C.L. was unusually narrow and could make him susceptible to future injury. The Astros’ offer shrank to $3.1 million — the minimum required for the team to get draft-pick compensation should Aiken not sign — and a public relations battle started, with Aiken’s camp professing that the player was healthy and accusing the Astros of shenanigans, and with the Astros contending that they were just exercising their rights to protect their interests.
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The negotiation became even more complicated when it became apparent that Aiken’s fate would directly affect the team’s ability to honor its deals with two other draft picks, Jacob Nix and Mac Marshall, whom the Astros intended to pay above-slot rates based on the money they would save by not paying Aiken the maximum salary allowed under the collective bargaining agreement. If Aiken failed to sign, the team would forfeit the entire amount allotted to him, so at the last minute Houston reportedly increased its offer to $5 million, but Aiken chose to walk away.
Even after the operation, Aiken was still proclaiming his belief that he had made the right decision in not signing with Houston, while clearly implying that he had been wronged by the team.
“I can honestly say I don’t regret not signing,” Aiken said in , the website founded by Derek Jeter. “It was a very difficult decision, but it also was an informed decision based on circumstances only a few people know the truth about.”
Finding a middle ground between the team and the player on this issue can be difficult, but Jim Callis, a draft expert for who previously ran Baseball America, said people were making a mistake by trying to find a winner.
“I don’t think this was a case of one side was right and one side was wrong,” Callis said. “The Astros had the No. 1 pick in the draft and they took the best player at the time and they couldn’t sign him. This isn’t a win for anyone.”
Making things especially hard to evaluate at this point is the fact that both sides could end up happy. The Astros, having made what M.L.B. would consider a good-faith attempt to sign Aiken, will receive the No. 2 pick in this year’s draft as compensation for failing to get a deal done. And Aiken, despite being in the early stages of recovery from an operation that instills fear in the casual fan, is still very likely a first-round pick.
Callis cited numerous examples in recent years of players who had undergone U.C.L. repair and were still drafted at or near the position they would have gone before the surgery, including Jeff Hoffman, who went to the Toronto Blue Jays with the No. 9 pick in last year’s draft. Although Hoffman was still recovering from the operation, Toronto signed him to his full slotted salary of $3.1 million.
“If Hoffman went No. 9 in what was a better draft, why couldn’t Aiken go higher in a lesser draft?” Callis said.
In recent years, U.C.L. repair has become a common occurrence. In a number of recent studies, the rate of return for pitchers undergoing U.C.L. repair was over 80 percent.
One of the few studies to raise a red flag was performed by a group of doctors at Columbia who produced a paper entitled “Performance, Return to Competition, and Reinjury After Tommy John Surgery in Major League Baseball Pitchers.”
Of 147 pitchers in the study, 80 percent returned to pitch, but only 67 percent reached the same level of performance, and 57 percent again landed on the disabled list. Their study found performance declined along several major metrics after the operation, but noted that the declines were largely present in age-matched control groups of players who had not had the operation.
Aiken, at 18, has youth on his side in his recovery and will go into this year’s draft as an intriguing case of a player with the upside of a No. 1 overall pick, but a huge question mark hanging over him in terms of his chances of a full recovery.
“The Cubs and Red Sox might be two teams prepared to take a gamble like that,” Callis said. “He could go pretty high. It’s a mediocre draft shaping up so far, where most of the college pitchers have either been hurt or inconsistent.”
The picture Aiken posted to Twitter of himself in a hospital bed was nothing like the fictional Mack, who was crying at his lost future. Aiken was smiling broadly and his essay was entirely upbeat. The potential for a soft landing with a marquee team, and the bonus slot of a top-10 pick, takes much of the sting out of the situation. At the same time, the Astros can move on by drafting a player with a less cloudy future.
Without throwing a pitch, though, Aiken may have had a large impact on the game. His predicament has reportedly spurred M.L.B. and the players union to consider the possibility of a draft combine to avoid situations like this. Whatever team ends up drafting him will have to hope that is not his only legacy.
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — It’s been a long road from the Bronx to Queens, measured not in miles, but in lifetimes.
Johnny Monell Jr. thought about that, about the journey his father began 34 years ago, when he left the Bronx to become a catching prospect in the organization — a baseball lifer who spent 17 years chasing a dream. Johnny Monell Sr. never made it to Queens, his career peaking instead in Virginia with the Class AAA Tidewater Tides. But now his son, with a week left in spring training, is clinging to the hope that he will be one of the 25 players who head north with the Mets.
“It gives me chills thinking about it,” Monell Jr. said.
A 29-year-old journeyman minor leaguer, known more for his left-handed power bat than for his glove, Monell has impressed the Mets this spring after signing with the club as an off-season free agent and arriving as a nonroster invitee. In Grapefruit League play, Monell had converted 42 at-bats into a .357 batting average and four home runs through Sunday. Only Michael Cuddyer, with five homers, has more this spring with the Mets.
“We’ve been very, very happy with what we’ve seen,” Mets Manager Terry Collins said of Monell. “Johnny has handled himself very well, and he’s going to get some more playing time this week.”
Monell is competing with Anthony Recker for the backup spot behind starting catcher Travis d’Arnaud. Recker, a.197 hitter in 375 major league at-bats, was batting .250 without a homer in 40 spring at-bats through Sunday. He is, however, a better defender and considered something of an incumbent, having played 108 games with the Mets in the last two seasons.
If Monell is anything, though, he is persistent. It is part of his DNA, after all. His father’s 17-year quest to make the major leagues did not just take him to Tidewater; it took him to Puerto Rico, Mexico, Italy and Taiwan. Often, young Johnny would tag along. His parents divorced when he was 7, and his mother, Vivian Rosado, often sent him to wherever his father was playing to spend his summer and winter vacations. For the boy, it was heaven.
“I grew up in clubhouses,” he said.
Like his father, Monell grew up in Bronx streets playing baseball. Pelham Park was across from the apartment complex where he lived, and one particular game he and his friends played there shaped his hitting style.
Stationed between two buildings, the boys would bat with a pitcher approximately 40 feet away, firing a tennis ball. If they hit the ball between the second and fourth floors of the apartments across the street, it was a single; between the fourth and sixth floors, a double; the sixth and eight floors, a triple; above the eighth floor, a home run; and on the roof, a grand slam.
The real trick, though, given how narrow the opening was between the buildings, was to keep from pulling the ball.
“You had to hit it up the middle,” said Monell, who graduated from Christopher Columbus High. “If you hit the buildings, it was an out. To this day, I’m an up-the-middle, gap hitter. I really think it comes from playing that game at Pelham Park.”
Baseball was a constant not only with his father, but with his mother’s family, too. All were Yankee fans. “I used to ride my bicycle to Yankee Stadium just to see Bucky Dent walk in,” Vivian Rosado said. “He was so handsome. I had a crush on him.”
Monell said his grandmother and great-grandmother were fans. “When I was little,” he said, “my Uncle José Rosado took me to my first game at Yankee Stadium and told me about one of the greatest left-handed hitting first basemen — Don Mattingly.”
Monell Sr. grew up a fan of the 1970s Yankees of Thurman Munson, Ron Guidry, Graig Nettles and Reggie Jackson, while his son latched on to Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte.
At the Pelham Park Little League, where a picture of him now hangs, Monell Jr. played shortstop, first base and the outfield. But that changed one day when he was 12 and with his father during winter ball in Puerto Rico. Hector Villanueva, a Chicago Cubs catcher at the time, gave the boy his gear when he saw him shagging balls near the bullpen.
“All of a sudden,” Monell Sr. said, “I’m hearing that my son is catching in the bullpen. I went and peeked in. Johnny couldn’t see me — his back was to me — but I could see he was holding his own. He was pretty good.”
A short while later, the boy, still wearing Villanueva’s outsize gear, the shin guards reaching halfway up his thighs, found his father in the clubhouse, and he was excited.
“Dad, I want to catch,” he said.
From that day forward, he did.
Even as a boy, Monell always furnished his own locker, filling it with equipment he would find lying around.
One day in Puerto Rico during winter ball, when Johnny was 7 or 8, Bernard Gilkey, the former Mets player, told Monell Sr. that Johnny was inside the clubhouse and needed help.
“I go in, and the lights are off, and I hear, ‘Dad, Dad’ ” Monell Sr. said. “They had put Johnny in a laundry bag and hung it on a hook. It was their way of telling him not to take everybody’s gear and stash it in his locker. I let him stay there for a while, and then I sent a clubbie in to rescue him. It was all in fun.”
These days, Monell Sr. runs the 220 Second to None baseball academy in Margate, N.J. He and his son talk every day. But it was the phone call that came on Sept. 4, 2013, that was most special. His boy, a former 30th-round pick in 2007, had gotten the call up from Class AAA Fresno to the San Francisco Giants. Monell Sr. could not get to the first game in San Diego fast enough, but he was there the next night in San Francisco, where he met his son when Johnny emerged from the Giants’ dugout pregame.
They hugged.
“I can’t describe the feeling,” Monell Sr. said. “I had some tears. It was emotional.”
Monell later had pinch-hit at-bats at Citi Field and Yankee Stadium, the latter fulfilling a wish from his great-grandmother Francisca Sanchez, who had always said she did not want to die until she had seen Johnny play in Yankee Stadium. After that game, Monell Jr., his mother and grandmother, visited his great-grandmother at her nursing home.
“It was very emotional,” said Rosado, noting that the great-grandmother died a short time later.
It could get emotional again.
“It’s hard to imagine playing in Citi Field, and playing for the Mets, knowing my dad spent his entire career trying to get to the same place,” Monell said. “Growing up, it wasn’t that far away, just across the Whitestone Bridge.”
TAMPA, Fla. — Only Masahiro Tanaka knows whether the small tear in his elbow ligament that caused him to miss two months last season is providing any discomfort or is in some way responsible for a slight dip in his pitching velocity during spring training.
But each time Tanaka shows some sort of vulnerability or does not quite match the standards he set last season, when he was among the best pitchers in the American League, doubts creep in about his health.
So it has been this spring, which Tanaka concluded Tuesday with a not-good, not-bad performance against the Minnesota Twins, allowing three runs on seven hits over four and a third innings. He struck out one and did not walk a batter, tossing 76 pitches — the most he has thrown this spring.
“I feel good that I was able to come through camp healthy right now,” Tanaka told reporters in Fort Myers, Fla., where the lost, 3-1. “I think I’m a bit relieved.”
Tanaka had a lighter workload this spring, pitching about seven fewer innings than he did a year ago. He is not the only pitcher with whom the Yankees were treading carefully. C. C. Sabathia made only eight starts last year, his season ending for knee surgery. Like Tanaka, Michael Pineda was effective when he was healthy but missed nearly three months with a shoulder injury.
“You never know about pitchers today,” Manager Joe Girardi said in Fort Myers, mindful of last season, when Ivan Nova tore elbow ligaments in late April. He is expected to return by June.
Jacoby Ellsbury, who until Tuesday had been out since March 15 with an oblique strain, said he expected to be ready for Monday’s season opener against Toronto at Yankee Stadium. Ellsbury singled twice in five at-bats while playing center field for five innings in a minor league game.
“It’s not really a controlled environment,” said Ellsbury, who is likely to be in the lineup Wednesday when the Yankees play the Tampa Bay Rays. “You have swings and misses, check swings, all that stuff. So that’s the best test for it, game action.”
SALARIES SET RECORD The average salary when opening-day rosters are finalized Sunday will top $4 million for the first time, according to a study of all major league contracts by The Associated Press. Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw leads all players at $31 million, and his team projects to open the season with a record payroll of about $270 million. (AP)
WILL OF CUBS GREAT IS VALID A judge in Illinois determined that the will signed by the Chicago Cubs great Ernie Banks that gives all his assets to Regina Rice, his longtime caregiver, was valid. Banks’s family maintained that Rice coerced him into handing over his assets. (AP)
KISSIMMEE, Fla. — When Baltimore Orioles Manager Buck Showalter was asked his assessment of , who had homered against his team Saturday, he paused to think. He asked some questions of his own. He offered a quip.
Showalter moved on to other topics but then circled back a few minutes later to Rodriguez, whom he managed for a season in Texas, 2003, when Rodriguez won the first of his three American League Most Valuable Player awards.
“You know what’s slowed down?” Showalter asked. “The way he runs around the bases.”
With opening day a week away, it was an example of how Rodriguez, as he returns from a one-year suspension for using performance-enhancing drugs, figures to maintain his ability to get under the skin of others, this time with a home run trot that Showalter thought had carried even more preening than usual.
Fan reaction to Rodriguez has been mixed this spring, with a good helping of boos greeting his at-bats — even at Steinbrenner Field, where he has mostly been well received. Up close, the reception has been even more welcoming, as it was Sunday when Rodriguez paused to sign autographs for about five minutes during a break in batting practice before the ’ 7-0 victory against the Houston Astros.
Chants of “A-Rod! A-Rod!” emanated from the dozens of fans who crushed up against a railing near the dugout, craning over one another with baseballs, photos and pens. The chaotic scene contrasted with Rodriguez’s demeanor as he calmly plucked items out of the maw and signed them as he spit sunflower seeds.
A little earlier, as he sat in the dugout, Rodriguez deflected broader questions of acceptance, as he has all spring.
“I’m here to play baseball,” he said after a long pause. “I am extremely grateful to play baseball again.”
With few exceptions, Rodriguez has been on his best behavior this spring. The rancor and distrust between him and Yankees management, which was so public when he last played in 2013, has been absent. Though the Yankees would have benefited had Rodriguez taken an injury retirement, meaning that they would not be on the hook for a series of $6 million bonuses tied to home runs and that insurance would cover the remaining $61 million he is owed, they have been publicly welcoming.
General Manager Brian Cashman said early in training camp that Rodriguez’s spot on the roster was assured, defusing one early story line. He also added that he had no expectations for Rodriguez, removing a standard by which he would be judged throughout spring training.
“Obviously, for me, this is a different spring,” Rodriguez said. “Under a normal spring, the last thing you worry about is the game. You measure your day by what happens pregame and postgame. If you’re doing your job, you should be fully exhausted by the first pitch of the game.”
Rodriguez added that this spring “is different because I’m doing things for the first time.“
“I haven’t been on the field for a year and a half,” he said. “There’s many, many questions.”
Rodriguez, whom the Yankees would like to use as their primary designated hitter and as a backup third baseman and third-choice first baseman, has batted .324 this spring with three home runs, a team-leading seven walks and seven strikeouts. Scouts have generally given mildly positive reviews to the way Rodriguez is swinging the bat, given his age, 39, and his long absence. But they also note that he is far from where he once was.
“I know he can hit a left-handed 89-mile-per-hour fastball pretty good,” Showalter said of the pitch Rodriguez hit for a home run against Orioles pitcher Brian Matusz.
He added: “Spring is a great fooler, both good and bad. How’s a guy going to do? Well, that other team will answer for me. If I was a betting man, I’d bet on him. He’s always performed well on the type of stage he’s going to be on.”
On Sunday, Rodriguez found himself on a new stage — playing first base. He has not played the position before, and if the Yankees had their druthers, he would not have to this season, with Mark Teixeira healthy and Garrett Jones an experienced backup. But the Yankees had so many injuries last season that nine players were used at first base.
When Rodriguez did not use his new first baseman’s glove and carried a degree of nonchalance when he worked out there at the beginning of training camp, it raised questions of how willing he was to play the new position. But he has begun to do extra work at first base, as he did for about 30 minutes Saturday with the infield coach Joe Espada, getting more familiar with it and his first baseman’s glove, which is smaller than most.
“There was probably more intrigue around him from all of us and probably from himself,” Manager Joe Girardi said. “I’m sure he had confidence in what he could do, but when you sit out a year and you don’t play a lot for two years, you’re probably curious about what it’s going to feel like.”
Rodriguez looked mostly at ease Sunday, even while fielding a difficult slow bouncer to his right, which he charged, bobbled on the short hop but recovered and made an across-the-body, on-target throw to pitcher Nathan Eovaldi covering first.
“That one was challenging,” said Rodriguez, who had no other hiccups on his three chances. “I felt like a quarterback hitting my tight end on the run.”
Girardi said Rodriguez, who was removed after three innings, would very likely get another crack at playing first base, perhaps Thursday when the Yankees have split-squad games. As if to underscore the Yankees’ need for options, Teixeira left a minor league game in Tampa after getting hit with a pitch on his right knee. Girardi said Teixeira would probably be on the field Wednesday, the next time the team plays at home.
Afterward, Rodriguez stuck to his usual talking points: He is thankful to be playing a game he loves again, and he would be a team player.
“Anytime Joe calls my number, I’m just going to be ready,” Rodriguez said. “Whatever the team wants me to do, I’ll do.”
In a week, the real games begin and the results will matter. The more weighty assessments will begin then. As it always seems to be for Rodriguez, he will not be measured as much by his words as by his actions.
Inside Pitch
The Yankees reduced their roster to 35. Pitcher BRYAN MITCHELL and outfielder RAMON FLORES were optioned to Class-AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Pitchers KYLE DAVIES, JACOB LINDGREN and NICK RUMBELOW; catchers FRANCISCO ARCIA and KYLE HIGASHIOKA; infielders COLE FIGUERA and JONATHAN GALVEZ; and outfielder SLADE HEATHCOTT have been assigned to minor league camp. Pitcher SCOTT BAKER was released.
The are in transition again — the tricky transition of replacing a revered player. Bob Sheppard’s recorded voice will not intone, “Num-bah 2, Der-ek Jee-tah, Num-bah 2” this season. Didi Gregorius, obtained in an off-season trade, is the new shortstop. But because the Yankees have had so many revered players in winning a record 27 World Series, they have had to manage this transition every so often.
Over the years, the Yankees have needed to “replace” , , Bill Dickey, Joe DiMaggio, , Yogi Berra, Phil Rizzuto, Roger Maris, Whitey Ford, Thurman Munson, Reggie Jackson, Don Mattingly, and now Jeter.
Some new names performed better than others. Some emerged from the Yankees’ farm system; some were acquired in trades or as free agents; some were backups like George Selkirk, suddenly the right fielder in 1935 after the aging Ruth had been released by the owner Jacob Ruppert so he could join the Boston Braves.
“Selkirk was under heavy pressure that first year, but he came through brilliantly,” Joe McCarthy, his Yankees manager, once said. “No player ever had a tougher assignment.”
That first year, Selkirk hit .312 with 94 runs batted in. In his nine seasons, he batted over .300 five times and was an All-Star in 1936 and the right fielder on five World Series winners. In his first Series at-bat, in 1936, he hit a home run at the Polo Grounds off Carl Hubbell, the New York Giants’ ace left-hander.
After serving in the Navy during World War II, Selkirk was a baseball lifer. He returned to the Yankees as a scout and minor league manager. He later was the Washington Senators’ general manager who hired Gil Hodges as manager in 1963 and let him go after the 1967 season to be the Mets’ manager.
When Lou Gehrig, weakened by what would be diagnosed as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, benched himself in Detroit on May 2, 1939, after 2,130 consecutive games, 493 home runs and a .340 lifetime average, Ellsworth Dahlgren, known as Babe, was the new first baseman. The Yankees had purchased him from the Red Sox in 1937. After replacing Gehrig, he hit .235 with 15 homers and 89 R.B.I. as the Yankees won a fourth consecutive World Series. After batting .264 with 12 homers in 1940, he was dealt to the Boston Braves early in 1941, a few months before Gehrig’s death at 37.
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Bill Dickey, tall and imposing, was arguably the best catcher in baseball as the Yankees won seven World Series from 1932 to 1943. Returning from the Navy in 1946, he was named the manager when McCarthy suddenly resigned. Late that season, when the club president Larry MacPhail hired Bucky Harris as the likely manager in 1947, Dickey resigned. Less than a week later, the Yankees recalled a young catcher-outfielder who was batting .315 at Newark: Lawrence Peter Berra.
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Aaron Robinson remained the Yankees’ primary catcher in 1947 while Berra hit .280 with 54 R.B.I. and 11 homers. The next year, Gus Niarhos was the primary catcher, but Berra contributed 98 R.B.I. with a .305 average and 14 home runs. By then Dickey had returned as a coach, prompting Berra to say, “He’s learning me all his experience.”
Berra learned it well, earning three American League Most Valuable Player Awards and a record 10 World Series rings. When Berra became a full-time outfielder, Elston Howard, the Yankees’ first African-American player, emerged as a nine-time All-Star catcher and the A.L.’s most valuable player in 1963.
Not long after Joe DiMaggio hit a home run to help the Yankees win the 1951 World Series, he retired, saying, “I’m not Joe DiMaggio anymore” — certainly not the Joe DiMaggio who hit in 56 consecutive games in 1941, who led the Yankees to 10 American League pennants and nine Series championships in his 13 seasons, who in center field made hard catches look easy.
Of all the Yankees’ transitions, this was the quickest and the best. Mickey Mantle simply moved to center field in 1952 after having been a rookie right fielder who had injured his knee in the 1951 World Series against the Giants. At age 20, Mantle hit .311 in 1952 with 23 homers. His 18 homers as the Yankees won seven of 12 World Series endure as a Series record.
Moved to first base in 1967, Mantle retired after the 1968 season, saying, “I can’t hit anymore.” In the 1969 transition, Joe Pepitone, an outfielder when Mantle was at first base, returned to first base, and young Bobby Murcer was the center fielder. Murcer developed into a four-time Yankees All-Star. Including two seasons with the San Francisco Giants and three with the Chicago Cubs, his career numbers were .277, 1,043 R.B.I. and 252 homers.
Phil Rizzuto had been the Yankees’ shortstop on seven World Series winners and the American League’s most valuable player in 1950, but the Yankees unceremoniously released him on their most ceremonious occasion, Old-Timers’ Day, in 1956. That year, Gil McDougald, who had played third base and second base, moved to shortstop, hit .311 and stayed there until Tony Kubek arrived.
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Roger Maris slugged 61 home runs in 1961 to surpass Babe Ruth’s 60 in 1927. In 1960 and 1961, he was the A.L.’s most valuable player, but in 1966 his numbers dwindled to 13 homers, 43 R.B.I. and a .233 average. After his trade to the Cardinals for third baseman Charley Smith, the opening-day right fielder in 1967 was the rookie Bill Robinson as the Yankees skidded to ninth place in a 10-team American League.
Over his three Yankees seasons, Robinson struggled to bat .196, .240 and .171. He later developed into a .300 hitter with the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Over his 16 seasons, Whitey Ford had a Yankees-record 236 wins, a 2.75 career E.R.A., a career .690 winning percentage and 10 World Series wins, but when he struggled to a 2-4 start in 1967, he was released. By then, Mel Stottlemyre had emerged as the Yankees’ ace. Half a century later, the Yankees have had celebrated aces — Catfish Hunter, Ron Guidry, Tommy John, Jimmy Key, David Cone, David Wells, Andy Pettitte, Roger Clemens, Mike Mussina, C. C. Sabathia — but they have yet to find a starter so good for so long as the left-hander known as the Chairman of the Board.
The Yankees were in shock. Thurman Munson, the captain and catcher who had been the American League’s most valuable player in 1976, died Aug. 2, 1979, in the crash of his twin-engine jet at the Akron-Canton airport. His backups, Jerry Narron and Brad Gulden, finished the season, but neither batted .200. Needing a catcher for the 1980 season, the Yankees quickly obtained Rick Cerone in a trade with the Toronto Blue Jays.
Cerone hit .277 with 85 R.B.I. and 14 home runs as the Yankees won the A.L. East with 103 wins. But he is remembered best for loudly “cussing out” the owner George Steinbrenner in a team meeting after a loss in the 1981 postseason. “We didn’t need him yelling at us,” Cerone explained. In his 18 major league seasons, he had three stints with the Yankees.
When Reggie Jackson hit three home runs in Game 6 to help the Yankees win the 1977 World Series, he was assured a place in team history. But when he hit only 15 homers and drove in only 54 runs in 1981, Steinbrenner decided to let Mr. October depart as a free agent. To replace Jackson in 1982, the Yankees signed the free-agent outfielder Ken Griffey Sr., who batted .277 with 54 R.B.I. and 12 homers. Jackson joined the California Angels, hit 39 homers and drove in 101 runs. “Biggest mistake I ever made,” Steinbrenner said later.
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Don Mattingly had been the A.L.’s most valuable player in 1985, its 1984 batting champion (.343) and its hits leader twice (207 in 1984 and 238 in 1986), but his power (35 homers in 1985) had been drained by an aching back. After the 1995 division series loss to Seattle, he retired. Needing a first baseman, Bob Watson, the Yankees’ general manager, pounced on Tino Martinez in a trade with the Mariners.
Over the next six seasons, as the Yankees won four World Series and five A.L. pennants, Martinez hit 25, 44, 28, 28, 16 and 34 homers while driving in 117, 141, 123, 105, 91 and 113 runs. In the 1998 World Series sweep of the San Diego Padres, he smashed a grand slam at Yankee Stadium.
As the Yankees celebrated four World Series in five years from 1996 to 2000 and another in 2009 while winning six A.L. pennants and 12 East Division titles, Mariano Rivera assembled a relief pitcher’s irreplaceable résumé: a record 652 regular-season saves with a career 2.21 E.R.A., a record 0.70 postseason E.R.A. with a record 42 postseason saves (11 in the World Series).
After Rivera retired, David Robertson inherited the closer role in 2014 and did well: 39 saves, only five blown saves, a 3.08 E.R.A., but he departed as a free agent to the Chicago White Sox for a four-year $46 million contract.
Among all the replacements for revered Yankees, only two Hall of Famers succeeded a Hall of Famer at the same position: Berra after Dickey, Mantle after DiMaggio. Several were All-Stars: Selkirk, Martinez, Howard, McDougald, Murcer, Stottlemyre, Robertson. Some were solid: Cerone, Griffey. Some could have been better: Dahlgren, Robinson.
So the new shortstop, Didi Gregorius, should relax. Unless he gets 3,465 hits, he will never be expected to “replace” .
DeAndre Jordan raised his field-goal percentage, the ’s best, above 71 percent by making all seven of his shots from the field and scoring 14 points, and the visiting routed the , 111-80, on Wednesday night.
Jordan raised his field-goal percentage this season to .713, which would be second only to Wilt Chamberlain’s .727 in the 1972-73 season.
The rookie Cleanthony Early scored 18 points off the bench for the Knicks, who lost their fifth straight and moved a loss away from matching the franchise’s worst single-season record.
The Knicks are 14-58, two seasons after they won 54 games and reached the second round of the playoffs under Mike Woodson. Woodson was fired after last season and is now an assistant with the Clippers.
“Two years ago was a great run for our ball club, but a lot of things have changed since then, and hey, all I can say is, I wish them nothing but the best,” Woodson said.
Woodson’s new team outclassed his old one from the start. Chris Paul had nine assists in the first quarter, and a Jordan dunk with 3.6 seconds left in the first half made the score 63-33. The Clippers led at one point by 40.
Brook Lopez had 34 points and 10 rebounds as the Nets handed host Charlotte its fifth loss in six games. Lopez entered the game on a roll, having scored at least 26 points in each of his last three games. Deron Williams had 10 points and 14 assists for the Nets, who have won five of seven.
Nets forward Thaddeus Young left the game in the third quarter with a hyperextended knee and did not return. Team officials said that X-rays were negative.
Kyrie Irving had 24 points, Kevin Love had 22 points and 10 rebounds, and Cleveland rolled to a win at Memphis. LeBron James had 20 points to help Cleveland win its fourth straight and its eighth in nine.
Tony Parker had 21 points and 6 assists as San Antonio crushed visiting Oklahoma City. Russell Westbrook had 16 points and 7 assists for the Thunder.
James Harden had 25 points and 10 assists, Dwight Howard had seven rebounds in his return from a two-month absence, and Houston handed host New Orleans its fourth straight loss. Anthony Davis had 24 points and 14 rebounds for the Pelicans but missed eight free throws.
Goran Dragic had 22 points and 7 assists, and Miami edged host Boston.
Jimmy Butler had 23 points, Pau Gasol had 18, and visiting Chicago earned its fifth consecutive win over Toronto.
Paul Millsap had 25 points and 11 rebounds, and Atlanta ended a three-game skid with a victory at Orlando. Jeff Teague added 16 points despite spraining his left ankle in the first quarter.
Damian Lillard had 23 points and 12 assists as Portland rallied to beat host Utah and end a five-game losing streak. LaMarcus Aldridge added 19 points and 9 rebounds.
A driving layup by George Hill with 2.7 seconds left lifted visiting Indiana over Washington. Hill finished with 29 points. John Wall had a season-high 34 points for the Wizards.
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Four teams in the N.B.A.’s Western Conference have clinched playoff spots, two from the Southwest Division and two from the Pacific.
The Los Angeles Clippers, who have clinched, are in fifth place in the standings, behind the , who have not. That is because the Blazers, as the Northwest Division leaders, are guaranteed one of the top four spots if they clinch the division, which they are very likely to do.
The Clippers, of the Pacific Division, could leap into the top four if they are able to pass the Memphis Grizzlies, a Southwest team, in the standings. But if the order stays as it is, the Clippers will face the Blazers in the first round, making Wednesday night’s matchup between the two squads a potential first-round preview.
Last year, Portland faced Houston in the first round and won in six games in one of the most exciting series of the postseason. The series appeared to have exhausted the Blazers, and the Spurs quickly ousted them in the second round.
The key contributors on the Blazers’ roster have not changed much from then. Given that instructive experience and the maturing of key players like Damian Lillard, Portland should have been able to look forward to furthering its success this year. Unfortunately, the team’s starting shooting guard, Wesley Matthews, ruptured his Achilles’ tendon early this month, and his departure has dashed the hopes of Blazers fans.
Without Matthews, the team will be hard-pressed to equal last year’s results. It has gone 6-6 in his absence, winning some good games (including a tough one against Houston) but also losing to inferior teams such as Minnesota, Miami and Orlando.
Lillard and LaMarcus Aldridge are under far more pressure to score now that a finely balanced offensive ecosystem has been thrown off-kilter. Aldridge has responded well, but Lillard, who relied heavily on Matthews on offense, has seen his output suffer. He had already been underperforming since the All-Star break, and his numbers have dropped still further.
Matthews was also one of the team’s better defenders; with him in the lineup, the Blazers had the third-most efficient defense in the league. The decline of their defense since he has been out has been astonishing to behold: The Blazers now field the league’s fourth-most inefficient defense.
Portland’s most significant acquisition of the season was Arron Afflalo, who was and would have continued to be an excellent backup to Matthews. Afflalo is a competent two-way player, but being thrust into a starting role has given him less time to adjust to the Blazers’ playbook.
Portland played in two sets of back-to-back games last week, and while it might seem that such a crushing schedule would exhaust an already depleted team, the Blazers played well, winning three of the four contests. Aldridge and Afflalo were particularly impressive in Saturday’s game against the Nuggets, looking determined to wrap up the division. After the team’s struggles through March, though, it is difficult to imagine it sneaking past the Clippers in the first round.
Los Angeles is on a seven-game winning streak and has won nine of its last 11 games. Since Feb. 9, the Clippers have the second-best record in the league, after the Warriors. But their more recent wins may be deceptive; most of them have been against lesser teams, and the Clippers have lost four of their last five games against the top eight teams in the West.
Still, the Clippers have a formidable offense and a strong defense that has improved significantly since the All-Star break. Their core of Chris Paul, Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan remains solid. In fact, almost all of what the team does well can be traced to the specific skill sets of those three players. That is partly because the Clippers’ bench remains shaky at best and woefully ineffective at worst and has been depleted further by the loss of Jamal Crawford, who has been out for the past three weeks (although he expects to return soon).
Because the Clippers have a weak second unit, the Blazers, a reasonably deep team, may be able to compensate for a lackluster defense if the two benches are matched up against each other in the playoffs. But given their newly abysmal defense, the Blazers would have to consistently outscore the Clippers to have a chance in a first-round series, and that just does not seem likely.
scored 20 points, Kyrie Irving added 17 and the hung on for an 87-86 victory over the visiting on Sunday.
The Cavaliers earned their 16th straight home win despite being held scoreless in the final 4 minutes 4 seconds of the game.
Trailing by a point, the 76ers called timeout with 8.5 seconds left. Nerlens Noel missed a shot in the lane, and Tristan Thompson was fouled while grabbing the rebound. Cleveland called timeout to inbound the ball at midcourt. The pass was tipped away as time ran out.
Robert Covington scored 19 points to lead Philadelphia, but he missed two free throws with 1:07 left that could have put the 76ers ahead.
The victory moved the Cavaliers to two and a half games ahead of Chicago for second place in the Eastern Conference.
The Cavaliers, coming off a stretch of 14 of 19 games on the road, struggled to put away the team with the third-worst record in the league (18-56).
J. J. Redick scored 27 points, Chris Paul had 21 points and 10 assists, and visiting Los Angeles won its seventh straight.
Blake Griffin had 21 points and 9 rebounds for Los Angeles, which led by 68-47 at halftime.
Boston dropped a half-game behind the Nets for the Eastern Conference’s eighth and final playoff spot. The Nets beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 107-99, earlier Sunday.
Isaiah Thomas led the Celtics with 19 points.
Kawhi Leonard had 25 points and 10 rebounds as host San Antonio cruised to a victory.
San Antonio never trailed and won for the 13th time in 16 games to remain sixth in the Western Conference.
Zach Randolph had 20 points and 13 rebounds and Jeff Green had 19 points for Memphis, which dropped into a tie with Houston for second in the West.
Dwyane Wade scored 40 points one day after having fluid removed from his balky left knee, Udonis Haslem set season highs with 18 points and 13 rebounds, and Miami beat visiting Detroit.
The Heat won their fifth straight at home and strengthened their hold on the No. 7 spot in the Eastern Conference standings.
Anthony Davis had 28 points and 9 rebounds as host New Orleans defeated Minnesota.
Omer Asik had 15 points for New Orleans, which won its second straight and is two and a half games behind Oklahoma City for the Western Conference’s final playoff spot.
Andrew Wiggins had 20 points and Zach LaVine 17 for the Timberwolves.
One game after clinching a playoff berth, the Rockets delayed the Wizards’ bid to secure their own spot, beating visiting Washington behind James Harden’s 24 points.
Corey Brewer scored 15 for Houston, pairing with Pablo Prigioni for consecutive 3-pointers that pushed the lead back up to 85-75 with eight minutes left after Washington had pulled to within 4 points.
Houston’s Dwight Howard had 11 points and 10 rebounds in 19 minutes in his third game back from an injury.
C. J. Miles scored 28 points and made a key 3-pointer with a minute left to help host Indiana beat Dallas.
The Pacers won for the second time in nine games to pull even with Boston for ninth place in the Eastern Conference, a half-game behind the Nets for the final playoff spot.
Russell Westbrook had 33 points, 9 rebounds and 7 assists as visiting Oklahoma City rallied from 20 points down to beat Phoenix.
Oklahoma City pulled away with a dominant fourth quarter and strengthened its hold on the eighth and final playoff spot in the West.
Westbrook was 10 of 29 from the field and 12 of 14 from the foul line while playing 38 minutes.
Markieff Morris scored 24 points for the Suns, who dropped to four games behind Oklahoma City.
Kevin Durant, the N.B.A.’s reigning most valuable player, has played his final game of an injury-marred season. Durant is scheduled to undergo a bone graft next week on his ailing right foot, the team announced Friday, and is not expected to resume basketball-related activities for four to six months.
It will be the third surgical procedure on Durant’s right foot this season, a worrisome development for one of the league’s most dynamic scorers — and for the Thunder, who are vying for a playoff spot in the Western Conference. The Thunder, who are 41-31 and increasingly reliant on Russell Westbrook, are in eighth place, which would set up a first-round meeting with the Golden State Warriors, who currently lead the conference.
Durant, 26, appeared in just 27 games this season, averaging 25.4 points, 6.6 rebounds and 4.1 assists.
Durant initially had surgery after breaking a bone in his right foot in the preseason. Last month, he had an additional procedure to replace a screw that was causing discomfort in his foot. At the time, Coach Scott Brooks expressed optimism that Durant would return to the lineup.
But as a result of what the team described as persistent soreness, Durant and team personnel consulted two specialists in the past week: Dr. Martin O’Malley in New York and Dr. James Nunley at Duke University. It was determined, General Manager Sam Presti said in a news release, that the fracture of Durant’s fifth metatarsal was “demonstrating signs of regression” and that additional surgery was necessary.
A bone graft is standard procedure in the rare instances when these types of fracture operations are unsuccessful, Presti said. O’Malley will perform the procedure.
“While everyone is disappointed that Kevin falls into that group, we are encouraged that the bone graft procedure has historically demonstrated long-term health and stability,” Presti said in the release.
Steve Kerr, the coach of the Warriors, said the news came as a blow.
“I always hate hearing when anybody gets injured and is out, especially someone like Kevin, who is so good for the league and gracious and such an incredible example for the league,” Kerr said. ““
Durant’s contract with the Thunder runs through next season.
Isaiah Thomas scored 18 points, and Jae Crowder had 17 points and 9 rebounds as Boston held off a late rally by the host Knicks.
Brandon Bass scored 16 points, Evan Turner had 15 and Avery Bradley finished with 10 for Boston.
Andrea Bargnani tied a season high with 25 points for the Knicks.
The Celtics led by as many as 11 points in the fourth quarter, but Langston Galloway’s 3-pointer with 25 seconds left cut the Knicks’ deficit to 92-88.
Jason Smith hit a 3-pointer with just over a second to go to make the score 95-92, but Bradley made a clinching free throw.
DeMarre Carroll scored 24 points as Atlanta clinched the top seed for the Eastern Conference playoffs with a victory over visiting Miami. The Hawks wrapped up the No. 1 seed and home-court advantage in the conference playoffs when the Nets beat Cleveland, 106-98.
Paul Millsap had 21 points and Al Horford had 15 for Atlanta, which never trailed despite playing without the injured guard Jeff Teague.
Toronto clinched its second straight Atlantic Division title, beating visiting Los Angeles with 18 points from Lou Williams and 19 from Jonas Valanciunas.
James Johnson had 17 points, Amir Johnson had 11 and Terrence Ross added 10 as the Raptors ended a two-game losing streak and beat the Lakers for the first time since Dec. 8, 2013.
met the , one of the worst teams in the N.B.A., at on Sunday and had somewhat more trouble than they would have liked on their way to a 107-99 victory. But as they approach their final 10 games, tussling for one of the last playoff spots in the Eastern Conference, they will take every victory they can get, pretty or not.
“We got another win, and that’s all that matters right now,” said Deron Williams, who had 13 points and 9 assists.
The victory moved the Nets (32-40) into the conference’s eighth and final postseason berth, a half-game ahead of the , who lost later Sunday, and the Indiana Pacers, who won.
The Nets, who have won three in a row, were coming off Friday night’s big victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers. After a game Tuesday against the Pacers and one Wednesday against the Knicks, they will play seven consecutive games against teams that appear bound for the playoffs.
So Sunday afternoon’s game was, in theory, supposed to be one of the easy ones. The Lakers (19-53) are next to last in the Western Conference and have been one of the teams unabashedly angling for draft lottery position. Nick Young has not played since Feb. 22 because of an injury to his left knee. Jeremy Lin was ill and not available; he walked through the Lakers’ locker room before the game, his voice raspy, sipping tea.
The Lakers never had a lead over the Nets, but they stayed close, getting strong play from Jordan Hill, who had 22 points and 16 rebounds off the bench. The Nets relied again on Brook Lopez, who used his size advantage to score 30 points, grab 11 rebounds and block four shots.
“We knew they were going to keep fighting,” said Lopez, who has averaged 28.8 points over his last four games. “They’re all N.B.A. players here.”
Alan Anderson hit a corner 3-pointer to start the fourth quarter and push the Nets’ lead to 14, but Hill sank a 10-foot jump shot with 3 minutes 47 seconds remaining to cut the advantage to 3 points, spurring a “Let’s go, Lakers!” chant.
The Nets looked at ease only after Ryan Kelly missed a jumper with 40.7 seconds left that would have cut the difference to 5. Joe Johnson grabbed the rebound and passed to the rookie guard Markel Brown, who was fouled while dribbling down the sideline. Anderson yelled to him that he should have dunked it anyway, and the two laughed before Brown, who had a career-high 17 points, made his two free throws.
Anderson had the ball later near midcourt as the final seconds ticked off the clock. He kept pump-faking, threatening to attempt a halfcourt shot. Lopez, standing near him, pretended to swat at the ball, until the final buzzer sounded.
The levity was a long time coming, but the Nets were celebrating a win, and that was enough.
