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Globe and Mail
4 hours ago
- Sport
- Globe and Mail
Dort, Mathurin families unite for Montreal North during Thunder-Pacers NBA Finals
Luguentz Dort and Bennedict Mathurin are going head-to-head on the court – but off it, their families are on the same team. While Dort's Oklahoma City Thunder battled Mathurin's Indiana Pacers in Game 2 of the NBA Finals on Sunday night, the players' mothers and sisters watched side by side in Montreal, coming together to celebrate two homegrown talents with deep ties. 'This is about unity,' said Berline Dort, Luguentz's sister. 'It's not about rivalry.' The Mathurin Family Foundation and the Maizon Dort Foundation collaborated for a charity watch party – one of many across the city – at Verdun Auditorium. Basketball moms Erline Mortel (Dort) and Elvie Jeune (Mathurin) sat together and posed for pictures in the arena's viewing area, not long after Dort swiped the ball from Mathurin's hands six minutes into Game 2. 'They came here for a better opportunity. They came here to offer their children a better life,' said Jennifer Mathurin, Bennedict's sister. 'Our families are sitting here, cheering family members in the NBA … it means the world. 'At the end of the day, we're all champions.' Born to Haitian immigrants, Dort and Mathurin grew up blocks away from each other in the rough-and-tumble Montreal North borough, home to one of Canada's largest Haitian populations. Having not one but two players from their neighbourhood on the sport's biggest stage is an inspiration for future hoopers in the community, Jennifer Mathurin said. 'A lot of Haitians play basketball because it's very inexpensive,' she said. 'It gives hope to the next generation. It inspires them to think that, 'Me too, I can get to the highest level.'' A former college baller for NC State, Jennifer Mathurin is now also Bennedict's manager. She flew to Montreal from Oklahoma City after Game 1 just to organize the community event, citing the Haitian motto 'union fait la force,' which translates to 'unity makes strength.' 'It was important for us to show up together, both families, both foundations,' she said. 'It was a no-brainer.' Jennifer Mathurin will be back on a plane Tuesday morning ahead of Wednesday's Game 3 in Indianapolis with the best-of-seven series tied 1-1. Dort and Mathurin – separated by three years – played youth basketball together on the Parc Ex Knights and each honed their craft in the Brookwood Elite AAU basketball program. As Mathurin followed Dort's footsteps through college to the NBA, they only became closer. 'They're very tight, they're proud of each other,' Berline Dort said. 'They just want to uplift each other, and it's like a brotherhood.' The way they impact the game, however, is different. Dort is known for his smothering on-ball defence and locking opponents up in his so-called 'Dorture Chamber.' The 26-year-old swingman – built like a brick wall at six feet four, 220 pounds – went from undrafted to becoming a key starter for the Thunder. Meanwhile, Mathurin was a top prospect in the 2022 NBA draft thanks to his scoring touch and explosive athleticism. When the Pacers selected the six-foot-five, 210-pound guard sixth overall – the highest-ever pick for a Montrealer — Dort was there to support him, despite his own draft nightmare of being passed over in 2019. 'Says a lot about the kind of character Lu is and the relationship he has with Benn,' said Joey McKitterick, who coached both at Brookwood Elite. 'He must have had PTSD from that night, so to go up there and relive it, it says a lot about his selflessness.' When Dort and Mathurin were young teenagers, McKitterick didn't imagine they'd one day meet in the NBA Finals. Only three players who call Montreal home have previously won an NBA title. Bill Wennington won three championships with the Chicago Bulls from 1996 to 1998, Joel Anthony claimed two rings with the Miami Heat in 2012 and 2013, and Chris Boucher captured the Larry O'Brien Trophy with the Toronto Raptors in 2019. Now, Montreal is guaranteed a fourth. 'It's amazing,' said Anthony, the co-owner and general manager of the Canadian Elite Basketball League's Montreal Alliance. 'They've been making everyone proud in the city. 'This is the matchup probably everyone in the city would have wanted.' Dort and Mathurin aren't the only Canadians in the NBA Finals. Hamilton's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander – this year's MVP – leads OKC, while Andrew Nembhard of Aurora, Ont., features for Indiana. 'Shows tremendous growth in our game, not just that they're on the teams that are in the Finals, but also the roles that they're playing,' said Rowan Barrett, the general manager for Canada's men's basketball team. In Depth: The making of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the NBA's most valuable player Barrett highlighted Dort's defensive task guarding Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton, while Mathurin – who's still developing – could help decide games with his scoring off the bench. The basketball talent in Montreal, Barrett said, goes back decades to 1988 Olympians Dwight Walton and Wayne Yearwood, among others. The difference now is that more players are finding a pathway to the NBA. 'There was always talent there. Always,' he said. 'This isn't new, but I do think that more and more of them have gotten into the stream and found the ways to grow their games and be able to make the cultural shift, maybe eventually leaving Montreal, going into the NCAA.' Anthony believes the talent level across the city is reaching new heights – and Dort and Mathurin are just two examples. 'Definitely seen a big boom,' he said. 'Everyone notices when those players are coming in at the highest levels in the NBA, but at lower levels, also at the collegiate level. 'A huge increase in the amount of talent.'
Toronto Star
11 hours ago
- Sport
- Toronto Star
Dort, Mathurin families unite for Montreal North community during NBA Finals
MONTREAL - Luguentz Dort and Bennedict Mathurin are going head-to-head on the court — but off it, their families are on the same team. While Dort's Oklahoma City Thunder battled Mathurin's Indiana Pacers in Game 2 of the NBA Finals on Sunday night, the players' mothers and sisters watched side by side in Montreal, coming together to celebrate two homegrown talents with deep ties.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
The unsinkable Pacers don't need the lead. They just need the last word
Tyrese Haliburton of the Indiana Pacers is defended by Luguentz Dort of the Oklahoma City Thunder during the second quarter of Thursday's Game 1 of the NBA finals. Tyrese Haliburton of the Indiana Pacers is defended by Luguentz Dort of the Oklahoma City Thunder during the second quarter of Thursday's Game 1 of the NBA finals. Photograph:This is why you play the games, as the old adage goes. In recent years, the later rounds of the NBA playoffs – and the finals in particular – have felt rote. They've gone chalk. The drama was minimal, even under the brightest lights of the league's biggest stage. This year has been different: a playoffs filled with suspense, tension and plot twists galore. But at the start of the finals, the scene was set for a regression to the intrigue-less mean. Every roundtable pundit, basketball expert, and barbershop patron outside of Indiana state lines had Oklahoma City – basketball's best team from wire to wire – winning the series easily. But Tyrese Haliburton, the instigator of several of this postseason's most jaw-dropping twists, knows a thing or two about drama. It oozes out of his pores. And he and his Indiana Pacers had other plans. Advertisement Schedule Best-of-seven-games series. All times US eastern time (EDT). Thu 5 Jun Game 1: Pacers 111, Thunder 110 Sun 8 Jun Game 2: Pacers at Thunder, 8pm Wed 11 Jun Game 3: Thunder at Pacers, 8.30pm Fri 13 Jun Game 4: Thunder at Pacers, 8.30pm Mon 16 Jun Game 5: Pacers at Thunder, 8.30pm* Thu 19 Jun Game 6: Thunder at Pacers, 8.30pm* Sun 22 Jun Game 7: Pacers at Thunder, 8pm* *-if necessary How to watch In the US, all games will air on ABC. Streaming options include or the ABC app (with a participating TV provider login), as well as Hulu + Live TV, YouTube TV, fuboTV, DIRECTV STREAM, and Sling TV (via ESPN3 for ABC games). NBA League Pass offers replays, but live finals games are subject to blackout restrictions in the US. Advertisement In the UK, the games will be available on TNT Sports and Discovery+. As for streaming, NBA League Pass will provide live and on-demand access to all Finals games without blackout restrictions. In Australia, the games will broadcast live on ESPN Australia. Kayo Sports and Foxtel Now will stream the games live, while NBA League Pass will offer live and on-demand access without blackout restrictions. The Pacers did not lead for 47 minutes and 59.7 seconds of Game 1 on Thursday in Oklahoma City. On a night when Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the regular-season MVP, scored 38 points and no Indiana player topped 19, it should have been a wrap. The Thunder's suffocating defense, among the league's best, forced a famously ball-conscious Indiana team – one that averages just 12 turnovers a game – into coughing it up 19 times in the first half alone. That's hardly a recipe for success. Yet somehow, the Pacers came out victorious, against the odds, against the physics, against conventional basketball logic. Because that's what they do. You can't beat the Pacers by playing 47 minutes and 59.7 seconds of winning basketball. They demand all 48. Related: NBA finals: Indiana Pacers stun Oklahoma City Thunder in final second to win Game 1 thriller Advertisement This was the fifth comeback victory of 15 or more points for the Pacers this postseason alone, the most by any NBA team in the play-by-play era. Haliburton has hit a game-winning shot in all four rounds of these playoffs, each feeling more improbable than the last: his Pacers have been underdogs in each of those series and never more so than they were when they entered the Paycom Center on Thursday. For all the talk heading into the series about how Indiana had never seen a defense like the Oklahoma City's, we seem to have forgotten, as a general basketball viewing populace, about another key factor: Oklahoma City have never seen a team like Indiana in the last two minutes of the fourth quarter. 'They have a lot of belief,' Oklahoma City head coach Mark Daignault said, after his team's dispiriting loss, of his ballsy Indiana opponent. 'They never think they're out of it. So they play with great belief, even when their backs are against the wall.' That belief – unwavering, unshakable – is Indiana's secret sauce. And with every impossible comeback, it compounds on itself. The more they pull off, the less impossible it all feels. After Thursday's win, Haliburton reflected on where that belief started: last year's humiliating sweep in the Eastern Conference finals. 'After you have a run like last year but end up getting swept – and all the conversation is about how you didn't belong there, how you lucked out, how it was a fluke – guys are gonna spend the summer pissed off,' he said. 'Then you come into this year, and after an unsuccessful first couple of months, it's easy for everybody to clown you. I think, as a group, we take everything personal.' On the character of his team, which has left opposing crowds stunned at every turn this postseason, he sums it up simply: 'We don't give up until it's zero on the clock.' Advertisement Haliburton says being the underdog, proving people wrong, has become part of the team's identity. 'It's fun,' he says, to win when you're not supposed to. And this win, like all of Indiana's wins have been , was a true team effort – even if Haliburton's flair for the dramatic grabs most of the headlines. It was a true win by committee, whether it was Aaron Nesmith muscling his way to a critical rebound on a bad ankle, Andrew Nembhard coming up with late-game heroics on both ends (including a huge stop on Gilgeous-Alexander), or Obi Toppin scoring 11 of his 17 points in the second half off the bench. All five Pacers starters scored in double figures – so did Toppin – but none cracked 20. It's probably not the platonic ideal for a basketball team to rely on procuring its biggest wins in such white-knuckle fashion, but the Pacers sure are good at it, and it makes for a hell of an entertainment product. And in the highly competitive and intense NBA postseason, where wins become harder and harder to come by, teams will take them however they can, messy and chaotic as they may be. After Thursday's instant classic, Haliburton summed up the Indiana ethos succinctly: 'Come May and June, it doesn't matter how you get 'em. Just get 'em.'
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Pacers commit 19 first-half turnovers in Game 1 of NBA Finals against Thunder
Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (2) defends against Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton (0) during the first half of Game 1 of the NBA Finals basketball series Thursday, June 5, 2025, in Oklahoma City. (AP Photo/Nate Billings) Oklahoma City Thunder guard Luguentz Dort (5) celebrates after making a 3-pointer during the first half of Game 1 of the NBA Finals basketball series against the Indiana Pacers Thursday, June 5, 2025, in Oklahoma City. (AP Photo/Nate Billings) Oklahoma City Thunder guard Luguentz Dort (5) celebrates after making a 3-pointer during the first half of Game 1 of the NBA Finals basketball series against the Indiana Pacers Thursday, June 5, 2025, in Oklahoma City. (AP Photo/Nate Billings) Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (2) defends against Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton (0) during the first half of Game 1 of the NBA Finals basketball series Thursday, June 5, 2025, in Oklahoma City. (AP Photo/Nate Billings) Oklahoma City Thunder guard Luguentz Dort (5) celebrates after making a 3-pointer during the first half of Game 1 of the NBA Finals basketball series against the Indiana Pacers Thursday, June 5, 2025, in Oklahoma City. (AP Photo/Nate Billings) OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The Indiana Pacers started the NBA Finals by making the wrong type of history. The Pacers committed 19 turnovers in the first half of Game 1 against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Thursday night. It was the highest number of turnovers by a team before halftime of a postseason game during the league's digital play-by-play era, which goes back to the 1997 playoffs. Advertisement There has not been a 20-turnover first half in any NBA game since Nov. 17, 2007, when the New Jersey Nets — the franchise that now plays in Brooklyn — had that many in the first two quarters of what became a 91-87 loss to the Miami Heat. The Pacers had nine turnovers in the first quarter, 10 more in the second. But they were only down 57-45 at the half, in part because Oklahoma City had turned the 19 Indiana giveaways into only nine points. Oklahoma City led the NBA this season in turnovers forced, averaging 17.0 per game in the regular season. ___ AP NBA:
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
2 Montrealers are facing off in the NBA Finals. But only 1 will be a champion
Two players hailing from the same Montreal borough, Luguentz Dort of the Oklahoma City Thunder and Benedict Mathurin of the Indiana Pacers, are among four Canadians participating in the NBA Finals.
