LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) — The Los Angeles Lakers planned to get together Wednesday night to watch basketball, which is about all they've been able to do lately.Soon enough, they'll get to play it again.For now, their competition comes from video games. Their superstar player is also adept at those, as coach Frank Vogel revealed when asked what he's learned about LeBron James that surprised him most.“I would say how good he is at Madden football,” Vogel said. “I think they’ve been playing a lot of Madden football, our group has, and I hear he’s very good.” James won't be able to show his skills on the basketball court again until Friday, when the Lakers conclude a lengthy layoff in the bubble. The No. 1 seed in the Western Conference has been waiting for its second-round opponent. Houston and Oklahoma City were playing their Game 7 on Wednesday, with the Lakers set to watch it during a team dinner.Starting Thursday, the Lakers can start working on a game plan for either James Harden,... [More]

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla (AP) — Toronto guard Kyle Lowry knows the situation is bad.If there’s a silver lining, it’s this: He believes it could have been worse.Toronto would have ordinarily had home-court advantage in its Eastern Conference semifinal matchup against the Boston Celtics, and for the Raptors to fall into a 2-0 series hole — as they have here — that means they would have dropped two straight games at home and been forced to face a raucous crowd in Boston for Game 3.But in the bubble, home-court isn’t an issue and Lowry thinks that a win when the series resumes Thursday would be enough to get the Raptors back on track.“This is not a situation we’d like to be in,” Lowry said. “But it’s not the normal situation in the playoffs where we lost two home games. We just lost two games. We have a chance to get one game. That’s all we have to do, get one game. One game at a time. The Celtics, they’ve been playing extremely well. We have to find a way to get ourselves going.”The Celtics don’t... [More]

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) — Marcus Morris of the Los Angeles Clippers was fined $35,000 by the NBA on Wednesday for his flagrant foul on Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks, who was penalized $15,000 for throwing the ball at a referee.Both fines stemmed from actions in Game 6 of a first-round playoff series, which the Clippers won to eliminate the Mavericks.Morris swung his arm down hard and hit a driving Doncic in the neck area early in the second quarter. The forward was given a flagrant foul 2, an automatic ejection.The NBA said the amount of the fine for Morris — whose birthday was Wednesday — was based in part on the fact he has been disciplined several times in the past for physical altercations on the court. Doncic was called for an offensive foul later in the game and threw the ball into official Bill Kennedy's leg.___More AP NBA: https://apnews.com/NBA and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Jazz All-Star guard Donovan Mitchell was hypercritical of Utah's playoff losses to Denver: His eight-second violation in Game 1. Blowing a big lead in Game 5. Not matching Denver’s intensity in Game 6. Losing the ball late in a back-and-forth Game 7.It all added up to sixth-seeded Utah being on the wrong side of NBA history as the Nuggets became the 12th team in the annals of the league to overcome a 3-1 deficit to win a series. One thing Donovan won’t quibble with: The direction of the Jazz. He likes the trajectory they’re on with the team making the postseason for a fourth straight season. This was simply another lesson to be learned.“This won’t happen again,” said Mitchell, a third-year player out of Louisville. "I’m ready to go hoop again right now. We all are. This is just the beginning."Mitchell fell to the floor after Mike Conley’s 3-point attempt spun out at the buzzer in Game 7. His first emotion: Shock. “We worked so hard, as a unit, as a whole, to get to a point that we got to,... [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]

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]

Milwaukee Bucks players and the team's coach said Tuesday they were disappointed that the Wisconsin Legislature didn't take action on policing reform bills during a special session Monday called by Gov. Tony Evers.“Surely there are things to talk about right now, right?” Bucks guard Kyle Korver said at a Zoom session Tuesday from Lake Buena Vista, Florida, where the NBA playoffs are taking place. “Surely there are things our state needs leadership in. How can we be better?”He called the Legislature's inaction “disappointing.”Democrats urged Republicans who control the Legislature to take up the bills, but both the state Senate and Assembly met for less than 30 seconds each before ending the session. Republican leaders gave no indication when they may reconvene. Republican Speaker Robin Vos touted a task force he created, while Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald suggested there would be dozens of bills to consider in the months ahead.Evers called lawmakers into a special session to... [More]

Luka Doncic was impressive in his playoff debut on an injured ankle. Kristaps Porzingis left the NBA bubble amid unsettling questions over whether his knees will allow him to be the trusty sidekick in Dallas.While the Mavericks appear on track to become championship contenders led by the young European stars, there are issues while they await the unknown start of next season — the 10th since their only title, and their last playoff series victory.“We’re on the climb,” coach Rick Carlisle said after the Mavericks were eliminated in Game 6 of a first-round series against the Los Angeles Clippers. “You never know the exact timing of things like that. That’s our passion. That’s our obsession.”Doncic averaged 31 points, 9.8 rebounds and 8.7 assists in the playoffs with the bubble's most spectacular moment so far: a step-back 3-pointer at the buzzer to beat the Clippers in overtime in Game 4 on a left ankle he sprained in Game 3.After making his first All-Star game and being named a finalist... [More]

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) — The last time the Houston Rockets played a Game 7, they didn’t have Chris Paul and they wound up losing.Paul wants to see history repeat itself.The former Houston guard simply has willed fifth-seeded Oklahoma City into a deciding game of its Western Conference first-round series against the fourth-seeded Rockets, with Game 7 — the last game of the opening round of this postseason — set to be played Wednesday night.“Ain’t nothing like it,” Paul said.The winner moves on to Game 1 of a West semifinal series against the top-seeded Los Angeles Lakers on Friday night. The loser leaves the NBA’s restart bubble at Walt Disney World and goes home, certain to be lamenting a chance that got away.Houston might already be dealing with some regret. The Rockets had a six-point lead with the ball with 4:01 left in Game 6, a perfect chance to close out the game and the series. They got outscored 12-2 the rest of the way, missing six of their last seven shots and turning the... [More]

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) — Fred VanVleet hadn't seen his family in more than two months.With his Toronto Raptors coming off a bad playoff loss, their long-awaited reunion was a great way to cheer him up. Players began reuniting with family members in the bubble Monday, giving them a feeling of home during a marathon road trip.“I think last time I saw them was Father’s Day, so it’s been a while. But it will be good to see everybody and right on time after getting our butts kicked yesterday. So, that’ll kind of take my mind off it a little bit today and I’ll get prepared and get locked in for the game tomorrow,” VanVleet said after practice, before meeting up with his family.NBA teams began arriving at Disney on July 7 but the Raptors have been on the road even longer. They came to Florida on June 22 to begin practicing at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers, rather than gather back in Toronto and have players who had been in the U.S. forced to quarantine.The Raptors had one of... [More]

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Pelicans forward Brandon Ingram has been named the NBA’s most improved player in a season that saw him bounce back from a life-altering blood clot and a trade from the team that drafted him second overall in 2016.Ingram, who came to New Orleans as part of a blockbuster trade that sent Anthony Davis to the Los Angeles Lakers, averaged a team-leading and career-best 23.8 points per game while hitting 46.3% of his shots. He also became an NBA All-Star for the first time.“It goes back to last March, me getting injured, and not being able to be back on the court until September," Ingram said on a Zoom call Monday with TNT after being informed by his parents he had won the award. “That's very little time to start preseason and to start the regular season, but I was ready for it. Since Day 1 ... I just wanted to put in my work every single day and just get the best out of it."Ingram credited former Pelicans coach Alvin Gentry for his success, saying the coach who was fired on... [More]

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) — Milwaukee guard Eric Bledsoe was ruled out of Game 1 of the Bucks' Eastern Conference semifinal series against the Miami Heat on Monday night with a strained right hamstring.Bledsoe was listed as questionable and tested the strain before the game, before the Bucks decided that he would not be in the starting lineup.George Hill took over as the first-string point guard for Bledsoe, who started all five of Milwaukee's first-round games against Orlando.Bledsoe averaged 11.6 points and a team-best 6.6 assists per game in that first-round series against the Magic. Hill started for just the third time in 65 regular-season and playoff appearances for Milwaukee this season.Game 2 of the series is Wednesday.___More AP NBA: https://apnews.com/NBA and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) — For Utah and Denver, Game 7 awaits.For Toronto, so may a Game 7 approach.The entertaining Western Conference first-round series between Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell and Nuggets guard Jamal Murray — the two leading scorers in the NBA playoffs, averaging a combined 72.7 points per game, a head-to-head show unlike any other in league postseason history — will come to an end Tuesday night, when Denver looks to become the 12th team in NBA history to successfully rally from a 3-1 series deficit.That game gets preceded by Game 2 of the Eastern Conference semifinals between Boston and Toronto, with the Celtics leading 1-0 there.“It’s more of the same for us. We welcome the challenge. We welcome the adversity,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said Monday. “And, as we talked about, only 11 teams have done this in NBA history. Why shouldn’t we be the 12th? That’s our attitude.”The last team to successfully rally from 3-1 down was Cleveland, which did it against Golden State... [More]

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Kevin Pritchard swallowed hard when the Indiana Pacers endured yet another season-ending first-round sweep last week.Then the Indiana Pacers president of basketball operations tried to wash away the sour taste.Five days after firing coach and longtime friend Nate McMillan, Pritchard has embarked on a search for a replacement who can communicate better with today's players, someone with a more updated playing style and someone who can win in the playoffs.“I think it shows you by the actions of the last few days our ownership expects more," Pritchard said Monday. “It’s up to me to step up to the plate and find the right person to lead the locker room, be creative and find a new age coach. We’ve been in the playoffs, we keep getting into the playoffs, we come up with fourth-best record in the East and that’s something we’re proud of. But we want to play well in the playoffs."That wasn't the case under McMillan, who reached the postseason in all four seasons as the Pacers... [More]

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) — Fred VanVleet hasn't seen his family in more than two months.With his Toronto Raptors coming off a bad playoff loss, their long-awaited reunion was a great way to cheer him up. Players began reuniting with family members in the bubble Monday, giving them a feeling of home during a marathon road trip.“I think last time I saw them was Father’s Day, so it’s been a while,” VanVleet said. “But it will be good to see everybody and right on time after getting our butts kicked yesterday. So, that’ll kind of take my mind off it a little bit today and I’ll get prepared and get locked in for the game tomorrow.”NBA teams began arriving at Disney on July 7 but the Raptors have been on the road even longer. They came to Florida on June 22 to begin practicing at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers, rather than gather back in Toronto and have players who had been in the U.S. forced to quarantine.The Raptors had one of the low moments of the trip Sunday when the Boston... [More]

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) — Orlando coach Steve Clifford proudly displayed a pair of personalized Mickey Mouse ears inside his home office Monday, saying they would be one of the gifts from this season that he would cherish the most.It’s safe to say they weren’t on his wish list when this season started.The world has been turned upside down by the coronavirus pandemic, which forced the NBA into a bubble at Walt Disney World to resume the season — and now that the Magic are out of the bubble, they have no real idea what comes next.So, for now, there’s no concrete plans to be made for the 2020-21 season. That’ll come in time, but Clifford intends to spend the immediate future going over what went right and wrong after a season in which Orlando made the playoffs for a second consecutive year but couldn’t get past the first round.“I think what it does is it makes us more relevant again,” Clifford said. “First of all, making the playoffs is never an easy thing. You can’t take it for granted.... [More]

The Portland Trail Blazers dealt with injuries all season, and the the loss of their biggest star topped it off in the playoffs.While the year was unusual for all of sports because of coronavirus, the Trail Blazers made it to the NBA playoffs for the seventh straight season. Upstart Portland was knocked out of the first round by the top-seeded Los Angeles Lakers in five games. “It was an interesting season with a lot of different obstacles that we faced. We signed Hall of Famer (Carmelo Anthony), we had coronavirus hit, so many things going on around the world with social injustice, protesting, all those things," guard CJ McCollum said. "We had some games postponed, came back, more injuries. But all in all I think we fought and gave ourselves a chance."All-Star guard Damian Lillard had already departed the so-called bubble in Florida with a right knee injury when Portland took the floor for the elimination game Sunday night. While the Blazers mounted a scrappy effort against the Lakers,... [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) — Los Angeles Clippers forward Marcus Morris was ejected after a hard foul against Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks in the first quarter of their playoff game Sunday.Doncic was trying to get to the basket against Morris and had inched past him as their arms started to tangle. Morris swung his arm down forcefully, appearing to hit Doncic in the head or neck area and knocking to him to the court.Mavericks coaches quickly raced onto the floor after seeing the play, which happened right in front of their bench. Doncic got up and tried to charge at Morris but was held back by teammate Boban Marjanovic.Referees reviewed the play and determined it was a flagrant 2 foul, triggering an automatic ejection.Earlier in the series, Morris denied trying to hurt Doncic, who has battled a sprained left ankle, when he stepped on his foot.___More AP NBA: https://apnews.com/NBA and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

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]