Celtics-Knicks NBA playoffs preview: Can New York actually keep up with Boston?
Celtics-Knicks NBA playoffs preview: Can New York actually keep up with Boston?
Celtics radio analyst Cedric Maxwell joined Steve Burton on Sports Final to talk about the second-round matchup between the Celtics and Knicks.
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CNET
an hour ago
- CNET
Today's NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints, Answers for June 3 #253
Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today's Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles. Connections: Sports Edition might be tough today. The yellow and green aren't too difficult, but then you're faced with eight names, and you've got to determine their connections. Read on for hints and the answers. Connections: Sports Edition is out of beta now, making its debut on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 9. That's a sign that the game has earned enough loyal players that The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by the Times, will continue to publish it. It doesn't show up in the NYT Games app but now appears in The Athletic's own app. Or you can continue to play it free online. Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta Hints for today's Connections: Sports Edition groups Here are four hints for the groupings in today's Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group. Yellow group hint: Smart, skilled. Green group hint: Let's make a ... Blue group hint: Name similar to Mark. Purple group hint: First-year-hoopsters. Answers for today's Connections: Sports Edition groups Yellow group: Shrewd. Green group: Transaction. Blue group: Famous athletes named Marcus. Purple group: WNBA rookies. Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words What are today's Connections: Sports Edition answers? The completed NYT Connections Sports Edition puzzle for June 3, 2025, #253. NYT/Screenshot by CNET The yellow words in today's Connections The theme is shrewd. The four answers are canny, clever, crafty and savvy. The green words in today's Connections The theme is transaction. The four answers are deal, swap, trade and transfer. The blue words in today's Connections The theme is famous athletes named Marcus. The four answers are Allen, Rashford, Smart and Stroman. The purple words in today's Connections The theme is WNBA rookies. The four answers are Bueckers, Citron, Iriafen and Rivers.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Matt Vautour: Is Brad Stevens a genius? Celtics President about to put legacy on line
Brad Stevens' genius is about to be tested. Amidst the devastation from Jayson Tatum's injury and disappointment in how badly Boston played against the Knicks, the biggest cause for optimism around Boston is the unwavering belief in the Celtics President of Basketball Operations ability to make smart moves. Advertisement The way the once-promising 2024-25 season ended lessened the pressure on Stevens in the short term. If the Celtics had lived up to expectations and won their second straight NBA title, there would have been huge pressure to keep as much of the band together to attempt a three-peat. But Tatum's expected absence for much, if not all, of the 2025-26 season, combined with the embarrassing loss to New York, should allow Stevens to make decisions without the same fear of immediate backlash. But the grace period won't last long. Banner No. 19 will become a goal and then an expectation very quickly, especially with a new owner who doesn't have a ring of his own yet. Advertisement Stevens' challenge is tricky. Through trades, he'll need to at least get the team's salary commitments under the second apron for 2025-26 to avoid huge luxury tax penalties and roster restrictions in the future. At the same time, he'll try to create a roster that is younger, but still equipped to contend when Tatum returns. That's not an easy minefield to tiptoe through. The Celtics' dynastic history has been built on smart trades. In 1956, Red Auerbach traded Ed MacCauley to the St. Louis Hawks for the No. 2 pick in the draft, which they used to draft Bill Russell. That deal led to 11 Celtics titles, while St. Louis no longer has an NBA franchise. Auerbach struck again in 1980 when he traded the No. 1 overall pick to the Warriors, who coveted Joe Barry Carroll, for the rights to Robert Parish and a draft pick that became Kevin McHale. That led to three more Celtics titles and enshrinement for Parish and McHale, while Carroll needs to pay $25 (with a senior discount) to visit the Naismith Hall of Fame. Advertisement Danny Ainge made two huge trades in 2007 to get Ray Allen from Seattle and Kevin Garnett from Minnesota which directly led to the 2008 Championship. Ainge then traded Paul Pierce and Garnett to Brooklyn in a 2013 deal that brought the Celtics the draft choices that led to Jaylen Brown and Tatum. That deal and Stevens' trades to get Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis last year helped secure the 2024 title. But those successes shouldn't be an urgent indication to make moves. Last year's championship was also built on Ainge's good fortune that nobody took him on his 2015 attempt to trade four first-round picks to move up to get Justise Winslow, who was the third-leading scorer on the G-League's Wisconsin Herd last year. Stevens has to decide if his best path is trying to work the edges to keep this championship window open or being aggressive in hopes of opening the next window. Tatum doesn't turn 28 until March, making him young enough to be a pillar in either plan. Advertisement Still, both are risky and require Stevens to make a lot of educated guesses. If he tries to keep as much of the current roster intact as possible while getting under the second apron, Tatum could return to a team that isn't good enough to contend and isn't bad enough to draft stars. That would look a lot like what the Milwaukee Bucks are currently facing. But if Tatum comes back in the middle of a slowly developing rebuild, that hasn't produced new stars, the Celtics would be similarly set back. Stevens has to guess the best answer to lots of questions, including the following big ones: Are the Celtics counting on/hoping for Jayson Tatum to be back for any meaningful contributions in 2025-26 or not? Do they keep Derrick White? He'd be their second-best player going into next season. A team centered around Brown and White is probably enough to at least contend for a playoff spot next year. But he'll turn 31 in July. That's not old-old, but his skills and trade value are both likely to decline — or at least start to — by the time Tatum is back. Will Jaylen Brown still be at his peak when Tatum comes back? Can the Celtics get someone—or a package of someones—who will be better than Brown will be whenever Tatum returns? If Stevens guesses right and leads the Celtics to Banner 19, he'll probably be headed to the Hall of Fame. Advertisement But the difference between being a genius and a scapegoat can be just one bad move. More Celtics content Read the original article on MassLive.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Matt Vautour: Fenway Franks and Moneyball - What a French sportswriter saw at his first Red Sox game
BOSTON — From his seat high in Fenway Park's right field bleachers, Azad Rosay leaned forward, focused on the action he was only beginning to understand as the ball sailed off Pete Alonso's bat in the top of the first inning. Jarren Duran barehanded the carom off the wall, whirled and threw a strike to David Hamilton at second, who slapped the tag on the runner. Advertisement Azad turned to me, looking excited. 'People said this was going to be boring,' he said. 'There's more going on than I thought there was going to be.' Coming to the park that night, we had related concerns. Azad had never seen a baseball game before. Not even on TV. He'd been warned that the game was going to be slow. I was worried he'd think that baseball was boring. We were both pleasantly surprised. Azad is a part-time basketball blogger and podcaster who lives in France. He writes about the Celtics in English for the CelticsBlog and podcasts about the entire NBA in French for The Dreamcast Show. The growing number of fans in both countries, who are interested in X-and-O breakdowns and analytics, like his work. Advertisement I'd never met him until April 23 when we were eating at the same table in the media room before Game 2 of the Celtics-Magic series. Sportswriters are usually curmudgeons, so his enthusiastic energy and his French accent stood out. A native of Grenoble in the French Alps, Azad was in Massachusetts, staying with relatives to cover the Celtics playoff run. Someone asked him what else he hoped to in Boston while he was here. He said he wanted to go to a Red Sox game at Fenway Park, but knew nothing about baseball. 'Since I'm a big sports fan, people said 'you should go watch a game.' The Red Sox are a historic franchise,' he said. 'It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity when you come from Europe. You never know when you could be back.' Advertisement I saw an opportunity, too. What would baseball and its unique and complicated rules look like to a sports fan who had never seen it? 'I'll take you to the game if you let me write about it,' I said. Azad liked the idea. We decided to pick a game based on how quickly the Celtics eliminated the Knicks (oops). The Celtics' collapse in six games meant Azad's trip was getting cut short. So with no Game 7 on Monday, May 19, we decided to go to Red Sox-Mets that night instead. You don't have to love baseball to enjoy a late spring night at Fenway Park when the weather is warm and the sun is setting behind third base. Those nights are like sitting at an outdoor bar. Advertisement But May 19 was cloudy, cold and windy, the type of night when the demand for hot chocolate at the Dunkin' under the right field grandstand is much greater than for the helmet sundaes just across the concourse. Baseball would have to sell itself, and that worried me a little. What if he hated it? What if he was bored? What if the popular criticisms of our former national pastime stood out? But as Azad walked up the ramp from the dark tunnel and was greeted by Fenway Park's sea of green, his pace slowed as his eyes surveyed the scene in front of him. He smiled, took out his phone and snapped a picture to capture the moment. Advertisement That was a good sign. I bought two standing room tickets. Anytime the game-time temperature is below 65 degrees, there are lots of open seats. My plan was to bounce around, sitting in different sections so he could see the game and Fenway Park from lots of different angles. If someone showed up for the seats we were sitting in, we'd find new ones. Azad was on board with the plan and we started with two seats in the loge boxes between home and first base during the pregame. The pregame plan was to discover if Azad had picked up anything about baseball in his first 29 years. American ex-pats brought the sport to France before even World War I, but it hasn't caught on. Advertisement I asked some basic questions. Azad knew what a home run was and that the MLB championship was decided by the World Series. He knew there was a pitcher, but wasn't sure who that was. 'I know there are some players who throw balls and some players who use a bat to tap the ball,' he said. 'I know you can do a home run and keep running.' The only current major leaguer he knew was Shohei Ohtani. His knowledge of former players was only slightly larger — Billy Beane, Jason Giambi, Scott Hatteberg and David Ortiz. That list gives away that Azad had seen 'Moneyball.' At first, it seemed odd that he'd intentionally picked a movie about the inner machinations of a sport he knew nothing about. But for a guy who sees basketball, at least partially, through an analytical lens, 'Moneyball' wasn't advanced baseball, but a starting point. Azad not only saw the movie but liked it enough to have watched it several times, including the day before his Fenway trip as preparation. Advertisement From the film, he knew the Red Sox had gone a long time between championships and that when they eventually won, they did so with a team that used their version of Moneyball philosophies. 'Billy Beane ended the curse,' Azad said matter-of-factly, oversimplifying the epilogue text at the end of the movie. We spent part of the pregame in those first base seats and the rest atop the Green Monster for Mets batting practice. Before going up to the right field roof for a beer, the national anthem and the first pitch, we stopped in the bar/museum tucked one flight up behind the right field bleachers. Azad studied the locker replications and then was immediately drawn to the Fenway Park replica in the back. The intricate model that's about 24-by-24 inches around and nine inches high has players on the field, making it perfect for asking baseball questions. Advertisement The game immediately made way more sense to Azad as soon as he realized the batter and pitcher were adversaries. 'I didn't expect that getting on first base would be so difficult,' he said. 'It's not just about a guy sending the ball and another guy trying to hit it with a stick. There's a matchup between the pitcher and the hitter.' Calling the officials 'umpires' was a source of amusement. 'Umpire? That sounds like Star Wars,' he said, chuckling and later referred to the guy calling balls and strikes as 'Darth Vader.' After we each grabbed an obligatory Fenway Frank (he opted for mustard/I'm a barbecue sauce guy) in the big concourse, we took the stairs up to the right field roof and bought beers. Advertisement We spent an inning in the bleachers, one on the right field roof, two in the pavilion boxes next to the press box and the rest of the game in the second row of loge boxes on the third baseline. Azad leaned in and paid attention from the first pitch and reacted when Francisco Lindor hit the game's fifth pitch in the air for a lazy fly out. Alonso's ill-advised attempt to stretch his single to a double came two plays later. The Red Sox scored twice in the bottom of the first. After Duran doubled, Azad, a novice Billy Beane disciple, appreciated Rafael Devers' ability to 'get on base' with a walk. The early action continued as both players moved up on a wild pitch and eventually scored. Azad asked smart questions and caught on quickly. Basketball and 'Moneyball' were the tentpoles for his questions and many of my explanations. Advertisement I explained to Azad that the game's devotion to analytics had evolved from and in some ways away from Beane's core Moneyball principles. Home runs and all the factors that contribute to them (launch angle, exit velocity, etc.) have changed the approach of many hitters. 'Trying for home runs is like shooting a lot of 3-pointers in basketball,' he said. He took new pictures at each new spot, admiring the park. 'It's beautiful. I love that you can see the city and the sky,' he said, motioning toward the Prudential Tower lit up beyond right field. 'There's a vibe that you know you're somewhere special.' Advertisement He was surprised to learn that ballparks didn't have uniform dimensions. 'Home runs are not always the same?' But his appreciation of the evening went beyond the venue. He liked the strategy. 'I like how much power the defense has,' he said, noting that it doesn't really happen in sports where the offense has the ball. He asked about defensive positioning when Trevor Story lined up directly behind second base and then was impressed when a ball was hit right to him. I explained the idea of a double play and why the second baseman and shortstop were playing back in the sixth. He spent the rest of the game looking for them. Advertisement When we moved to our seats off of third base for the final innings, it gave us a great look at the pitcher and batter up close. Azad got into a rhythm of watching the pitch, then looking for the velocity on the scoreboard. He was perplexed at why a camera or a computer didn't determine balls and strikes. 'It surprises me that it is just evaluated by the umpire guy behind the catcher, who says if it's good or not,' he said. 'It's based so much on human decisions.' In the bottom of the eighth, I pointed out Aroldis Chapman warming up in the bullpen and I explained the concept of a closer. 'What a great job,' he said, admiring the nature of a guy whose job it was to come in, shut down the opponent and end a game. 'I close.' Advertisement Chapman did his job, earning the save in the 3-1 win. He loved that the home team doesn't bat in the bottom of the ninth if they're winning. 'It's like a mic drop.' As the traffic-beating fans departed in the eighth, thinning the Monday night crowd, Azad was surprised to see them go. He was in for all nine innings. 'If I was watching on TV, I don't think I would have been hooked, but I can see why people love baseball,' he said. 'Like they said in Moneyball: 'How can you not be romantic about baseball?'' Read the original article on MassLive.
