LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) — Montrezl Harrell was close last year. This year, his grandmother told him, he was going to win the Sixth Man Award.The only disappointment was she didn't live to see it.“It just hurts that I can’t take it home to her,” Harrell said, with the trophy sitting beside him.He won it on Friday, keeping the honor for the league’s top reserve with the Los Angeles Clippers for the third straight season.Harrell ended the two-year run of teammate Lou Williams — who finished third — and gave the Clippers four winners in the last five years. Harrell and Williams helped the Clippers have the league’s highest-scoring bench for the second straight season.Harrell received 58 first-place votes from a panel of 100 writers and broadcasters, earning 397 points. Dennis Schroder of Oklahoma City was second with 35 first-place votes and 328 points, while Williams got the other seven first-place votes and 127 points.Voting took account only games through March 11 and none during the... [More]

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) — Montrezl Harrell won the NBA's Sixth Man Award on Friday, keeping the honor for the league’s top reserve with the Los Angeles Clippers for the third straight season.Harrell ended the two-year run of teammate Lou Williams — who finished third — and gave the Clippers four winners in the last five years. Harrell and Williams helped the Clippers have the league’s highest-scoring bench for the second straight season.Harrell received 58 first-place votes from a panel of 100 sports writers and broadcasters, earning 397 points. Dennis Schroder of Oklahoma City was second with 35 first-place votes and 328 points, while Williams got the other seven first-place votes and 127 points.The Clippers averaged 51.5 points from their bench, continuing to get strong play from their second unit. Before Williams' consecutive awards, Jamal Crawford won the last of his three awards in 2016.Harrell is a 6-foot-8 force of energy, outworking fellow big men on the boards and outracing them on fast breaks. He averaged a career-best 18.6 points in 63 games, including two starts, through March 11.Voting took account only games through that point and none during the restart. Harrell didn't play during that after leaving the team because of his grandmother's death, but returned to help the Clippers into the second round of the playoffs.

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) — Tyson Chandler figured sitting on the bench was better than sitting on the couch.He waited almost until the last minute before deciding he would join his Houston Rockets teammates for the restart. He was bored at home and wasn't going to feel any better if his team won a championship and he was watching it on TV.Then he came to Disney and got so sick he thought he had contracted the coronavirus he had spent all spring at home to avoid.“The first 48 hours, I was going like, ‘What the ... did you do?’” Chandler said. “I was like, ‘Come on, man.’”His health got better and eventually so did the experience. He's glad he came.But for players like Chandler, guys at the end of the bench, being inside the bubble is challenging on several levels. While stars like James Harden and LeBron James deal with the same mental fatigue being at Disney presents, they know when the game starts and the lights come on what time it is. Chandler has no idea if his number will even be... [More]

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) — Tyson Chandler figured sitting on the bench was better than sitting on the couch.He waited almost until the last minute before deciding he would join his Houston Rockets teammates for the restart. He was bored at home and wasn't going to feel any better if his team won a championship and he was watching it on TV.Then he came to Disney and got so sick he thought he had contracted the coronavirus he had spent all spring at home to avoid.“The first 48 hours, I was going like, ‘What the ... did you do?’” Chandler said. “I was like, ‘Come on, man.’”His health got better and eventually so did the experience. He's glad he came.But for players like Chandler, guys at the end of the bench, being inside the bubble is challenging on several levels. While stars like James Harden and LeBron James deal with the same mental fatigue being at Disney presents, they know when the game starts and the lights come on what time it is. Chandler has no idea if his number will even be... [More]

The law of averages says an Oklahoma City Thunder starter will make a 3-pointer relatively quickly on Monday night.Someone better, or else.Houston — which famously wasted a chance to reach the NBA Finals by missing 27 consecutive 3-pointers in Game 7 of the 2018 Western Conference finals — is a game away from the second round of these playoffs, after watching the Thunder suddenly forget how to shoot on Saturday night. The Rockets will take a 3-2 series lead into Game 6 against the Thunder in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, on Monday night.“We’ll go back to the drawing board, see what we did well, see what we didn’t do well,” Thunder guard Chris Paul said.Houston rolled in Game 5, winning 114-80 on a night where the Thunder missed 14 consecutive 3-pointers in one 19-minute stretch during which the Rockets outscored them 55-25 — basically the entire winning margin.Thunder starters combined to miss their last 17 attempts from 3-point range and combined for the full game, Oklahoma City’s first-stringers... [More]

The law of averages says an Oklahoma City Thunder starter will make a 3-pointer relatively quickly on Monday night.Someone better, or else.Houston — which famously wasted a chance to reach the NBA Finals by missing 27 consecutive 3-pointers in Game 7 of the 2018 Western Conference finals — is a game away from the second round of these playoffs, after watching the Thunder suddenly forget how to shoot on Saturday night. The Rockets will take a 3-2 series lead into Game 6 against the Thunder in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, on Monday night.“We’ll go back to the drawing board, see what we did well, see what we didn’t do well,” Thunder guard Chris Paul said.Houston rolled in Game 5, winning 114-80 on a night where the Thunder missed 14 consecutive 3-pointers in one 19-minute stretch during which the Rockets outscored them 55-25 — basically the entire winning margin.Thunder starters combined to miss their last 17 attempts from 3-point range and combined for the full game, Oklahoma City’s first-stringers... [More]

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) — Houston’s P.J. Tucker and Oklahoma City's Dennis Schroder were ejected from Game 5 of their first-round playoff series Saturday night after a tussle following a hard pick that sent them both to the floor.Midway through the third quarter with Houston leading 67-49, Tucker set a pick on Schroder, who swung his right arm between Tucker’s legs, hitting him in the groin. When the two players stood back up, Tucker approached Schroder and head-butted him from behind.After checking the video, referee James Capers called a flagrant 2 foul on Schroder and ejected him. Tucker was given a technical foul with an ejection.Schroder was leading the Thunder with 19 points. Tucker had five points and six rebounds. The best-of-seven series was tied 2-2.___More AP sports: https://apnews.com/apf-sports and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) — The Lakers and Bucks exited practice Wednesday to palm trees around them and sunny skies overhead.The weather is good at Walt Disney World. The service is great. The setting seems ideal.For the best NBA teams, it's anything but.The top-four seeds in each conference should be playing in their arenas right now, with home-court advantage in the first two games of their playoff series. They'd have their fans screaming during the action and in many cases families waiting at home afterward.Boy, do some of them miss that at the moment.“If's definitely a difference. You can feel it,” Bucks All-Star Khris Middleton said. "There's times where we really depended on our crowd last year and during the season this year to kind of pull us out of our struggle or whatever it was. And here, there is none of that."We have to bring it every single night. We can't rely on our crowd, our fans to give us that energy. We have to bring it ourselves."Milwaukee and Los Angeles, the No.... [More]

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Chris Paul gets annoyed when the topic of the Thunder’s “surprising” success comes up.Expectations for Oklahoma City were low for many after an offseason during which the Thunder collected draft picks, traded Russell Westbrook to the Houston Rockets for Paul and sent Paul George to the Los Angeles Clippers for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Danilo Gallinari. Many weren’t sure if Oklahoma City’s new players would function well together — or if the group would stay together. It also wasn't clear if Paul could perform at an elite level at age 34, or if he could stay healthy. But Paul has embraced what appeared to be an undesirable situation and was named an All-Star for the 10th time. The Thunder not only stayed intact but come out of the All-Star break sixth in the Western Conference and firmly in the playoff race. Asked what skeptics might have missed when projecting Oklahoma City to be one of the worst teams in the league, Paul bluntly said, “That I was here.” Paul also... [More]

NEW YORK (AP) — Oklahoma City Thunder guard Dennis Schroder was fined $25,000 by the NBA on Saturday for intentionally making contact with a game official.Upset after a turnover he thought should have been a foul call on Cody Zeller late in the third quarter of the Thunder’s 104-102 overtime victory in Charlotte on Friday night, Schroder approached referee CJ Washington at mid-court when play was stopped and grabbed at the official's wrist to demonstrate what Zeller had done to him.Washington immediately gave Schroder a technical foul.Charlotte guard Terry Rozier also was fined $25,000 for throwing the game ball into the stands at the end of regulation. He was assessed a technical foul.

NEW YORK (AP) — Oklahoma City Thunder guard Dennis Schroder was fined $25,000 by the NBA on Saturday for intentionally making contact with a game official.Upset after a turnover he thought should have been a foul call on Cody Zeller late in the third quarter of the Thunder’s 104-102 overtime victory in Charlotte on Friday night, Schroder approached referee CJ Washington at mid-court when play was stopped and grabbed at the official's wrist to demonstrate what Zeller had done to him.Washington immediately gave Schroder a technical foul.

NEW YORK (AP) — Los Angeles Lakers guard Rajon Rondo has been fined $35,000 by the NBA after he was ejected in the fourth quarter of a victory at Oklahoma City.The league announced the punishment on Saturday. It said Rondo made “unsportsmanlike physical contact” with Thunder guard Dennis Schroder, verbally abused an official and didn’t leave the court in a timely manner after he was thrown out.Rondo was ejected after he kicked Schroder in the groin area. The veteran guard had eight points and four assists in Los Angeles’ 130-127 win Friday night.___More AP NBA: https://apnews.com/NBA and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Chris Paul is happy to be back where his professional career began.Paul started his career in Oklahoma City with the Hornets when they relocated after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. He was rookie of the year during the 2005-06 season, the first of two years he spent in Oklahoma City.Now he's 34, a nine-time All-Star who came back to where it all started by way of a trade that sent Thunder cornerstone Russell Westbrook to the Houston Rockets in exchange.Paul still has fond memories of the community that welcomed him to the NBA."The people here, the fans here, make this city what it is," he said. "It's crazy. Our life comes full circle. Now I have two kids. To bring them out here — they came out here this weekend to see me, them and my wife — it's cool to give them perspective because it changes."Paul, who averaged 15.6 points and 8.2 assists last season, said he holds no resentment toward the Rockets for trading him. He still feels he has plenty left to offer, and he looks... [More]

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Thunder general manager Sam Presti took on a new look during the summer, just like the team he runs.The normally clean-shaven Presti returned from a summer trip with a neatly groomed beard."I went to Vermont and let it go for a little bit, and then when I got back, nobody seemed to have a problem with it," he said. "So I just kind of let it roll for a little while. I can't tell you this is something that's going to be around that much longer, but that is really the story behind it. So thanks, Vermont."If only the changes for the Thunder were as simple.Paul George's surprise trade request accelerated the end of an era. The Thunder sent George to the Los Angeles Clippers, then traded former MVP and scoring champion Russell Westbrook to Houston and rising star Jerami Grant to Denver. Now, for the first time, the Thunder enter a season with no players who were part of the team that debuted in Oklahoma City in 2008.The Thunder got a slew of draft picks in the deals and some... [More]

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — If Damian Lillard's series-clinching walkoff 3-pointer against the Thunder looked vaguely familiar, it's because he's done it before.His buzzer-beating 3 sent Houston packing back in 2014.It may have been from a different spot and against a different team, but it was the same Lillard — cool and confident. As a result, the Trail Blazers are into the second round of the playoffs for the first time in three seasons."That's Dame," teammate Zach Collins said afterward. "Besides the shot, that was one of the greatest performances I have ever seen. ... I think it will go down in the history books as that."Lillard finished with 50 points, including 10 3-pointers — capped by the legend-making 3 — in Portland's 118-115 victory over Oklahoma City on Tuesday night that ended the series in five games.Portland advances to the Western Conference semifinals to face the winner of the series between the Nuggets and San Antonio. Denver won 108-90 earlier Tuesday to take a 3-2 lead in... [More]

CHICAGO (AP) — Carmelo Anthony has been waived by the Chicago Bulls, making the 10-time All-Star forward a free agent.The Bulls acquired Anthony from Houston on Jan. 21 with the intention of trading him prior to the Feb. 7 deadline or letting him go. He averaged 13.4 points in 10 games with the Rockets and has not played since Nov. 8.Anthony was traded by Oklahoma City to Atlanta in July, a move that preceded the Hawks releasing him to sign with the Rockets. The Bulls, technically, were his fourth franchise in seven months.Anthony has averaged 24 points in 16 seasons.Chicago also traded a protected second-round pick in the 2020 draft to Oklahoma City for guard/forward Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot and cash on Friday. Luwawu-Cabarrot appeared in 21 games this season, including one start, and averaged 1.7 points and 0.9 rebounds in 5.8 minutes per game.Oklahoma City acquired Luwawu-Cabarrot from the Philadelphia 76ers last July in a three-team trade in which the Thunder also acquired Dennis Schroder.___More AP NBA: https://apnews.com/tag/NBAbasketball and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports___More AP NBA: https://apnews.com/tag/NBA and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The Oklahoma City Thunder have sent guard/forward Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot and cash considerations to the Chicago Bulls in exchange for a protected 2020 second-round draft pick.The Thunder made the announcement Friday.Luwawu-Cabarrot appeared in 21 games this season, including one start, and averaged 1.7 points and 0.9 rebounds in 5.8 minutes per game.Oklahoma City acquired Luwawu-Cabarrot from the Philadelphia 76ers last July in a three-team trade in which the Thunder also acquired Dennis Schroder.___More AP NBA: https://apnews.com/tag/NBAbasketball and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Saying he respects the gay and lesbian community, Minnesota forward Andrew Wiggins tried Wednesday to clarify comments he made about Oklahoma City Thunder guard Dennis Schroder's behavior during a heated game.Thunder center Nerlens Noel was taken off the court on a stretcher in the third quarter after Wiggins collided with Noel on a dunk attempt Tuesday night. Schroder, unhappy about the play and other incidents, eventually was given a technical foul for an altercation with Timberwolves guard Jeff Teague.After the game, Wiggins said Schroder's actions were unwarranted. According to audio from the locker room, Wiggins appeared to say: "He was just gay. He was acting crazy for no reason."A few hours later, Wiggins went on Twitter and tried to explain what he said ."I'd like to clarify what I said tonight during my post game media session. I said: 'I don't know what's wrong with him he was just getting... acting crazy for no reason,'" he tweeted.In his next post , Wiggins... [More]

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The Thunder's Nerlens Noel has been placed in the NBA's concussion protocol after he collided with Andrew Wiggins and hit the floor Tuesday night during Oklahoma City's game with the Minnesota Timberwolves.The team announced that Noel was held overnight at the University of Oklahoma's hospital for tests and observations and was released Wednesday. There is no timetable for Noel to complete the protocol process.Noel took an elbow in the face as Wiggins drove to the basket, and Noel's head hit the ground hard . The team said Noel lost consciousness while being knocked to the floor. A defensive foul was called on Noel. The play was reviewed, and no additional fouls were accessed. Noel was down for several minutes before being taken from the court on a stretcher. Players from both teams exchanged words while Noel was on the ground.Noel has been a critical reserve for the Thunder this season, averaging 5.1 points, 4.6 rebounds and 1.4 blocks in 14 minutes per contest.Wiggins... [More]

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Minnesota forward Andrew Wiggins attempted to clarify comments Wednesday that he used the word gay to describe Oklahoma City Thunder guard Dennis Schroder's behavior during their game.Thunder center Nerlens Noel was taken off the court on a stretcher in the third quarter after Wiggins collided with Noel on a dunk attempt Tuesday night. Schroder, unhappy about the play and other incidents in what was a testy game, eventually was given a technical foul for an altercation with Timberwolves guard Jeff Teague.Wiggins thought Schroder's actions were unwarranted."He was just gay," Wiggins said afterward. "He was acting crazy for no reason."A few hours later, Wiggins tried on social media to clarify his comments ."Id like to clarify what I said tonight during my post game media session. I said: "I don't know what's wrong with him he was just getting... acting crazy for no reason," he said on Twitter.In his next post , Wiggins did not use the word apology, but said: "I have... [More]