DENVER — Any debate about the most important player on the Miami Heat roster wound up being decided early in the eighth game of the season.

With Bam Adebayo sidelined with a foot injury in the first quarter, the Heat weren’t able to measure up Wednesday night in what turned into a 122-112 loss to the Denver Nuggets at Ball Arena.

Already ...Read more

And there it is. The Nets are no longer winless.

Brooklyn finally broke through Wednesday night inside Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. It wasn’t always pretty, things got tight late and they lost their leading scorer along the way, but Jordi Fernández’s group outlasted the Indiana Pacers for a 112-103 victory, their first of the ...Read more

BOSTON — For the first quarter of Monday night’s game at TD Garden, the Celtics’ offense consisted of Jaylen Brown, and not much else.

Brown poured in 16 first-quarter points, but Boston trailed cellar-dwelling Washington by 14 — an uninspiring start for a team that had just lost at home to the likely lottery-bound Utah Jazz two nights ...Read more

NEW YORK — The first quarter belonged to Julius Randle.

The second quarter belonged to Donte DiVincenzo.

But Wednesday night belonged to the New York Knicks, who rode a second-half explosion to a 137-114 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves in Randle and DiVincenzo’s latest return to Madison Square Garden.

The Knicks (5-3) scored 83 of ...Read more

DETROIT — The Detroit Pistons bounced back from a disappointing start to extend their winning streak to four games with a 114-103 victory over the Utah Jazz on Monday night at Little Caesars Arena. Cade Cunningham led the way with a game-high 31 points on 13-of-28 shooting.

Most of Cunningham's scoring occurred during the fourth quarter, in ...Read more

NEW YORK — The Knicks are staying out of politics.

The White House removed a social-media post that used an altered Knicks logo to mock Zohran Mamdani after the team reached out, according to Front Office Sports.

The logo had been edited to read “Trump Is Your President.”

“The Knicks remain neutral on political matters,” the Knicks ...Read more

RALEIGH, N.C. — In this era of college basketball more than any other, with rosters upended from top to bottom at all three Triangle schools and not just Duke for a change — the Blue Devils actually have more returning contributors (2) than either N.C. State (1) or North Carolina (1) — it’s hard to tell exactly what things are going to ...Read more

SAN FRANCISCO – The greatest player in Golden State Warriors franchise history sniffled, and then he coughed. Then he coughed again, and again, and again during a laborious five-minute postgame press conference on Tuesday night.

Obviously feeling the effects of a cold that has beset him for several days, Steph Curry did his best to convince ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Guard Austin Reaves will miss a second consecutive game because of right groin soreness, the Lakers announced Wednesday, since he will be sidelined for the game against the San Antonio Spurs.

Reaves started to feel discomfort in the first quarter of the team’s win over Miami on Sunday, coach JJ Redick said Monday, and sat out ...Read more

SAN FRANCISCO – The Warriors got back in the winners’ column, but will probably rue a squandered opportunity to rest their veterans in the fourth quarter of a surprisingly competitive matchup with Phoenix at Chase Center on Tuesday.

The Warriors led by 19 at halftime and seemed well on their way to an easy victory and light second-half ...Read more

ATLANTA — The Magic believed they had turned a corner with two wins in a row by leaning more into their defensive identity ahead of Tuesday’s return to NBC at Atlanta.

But Orlando, which fell, 127-112, to the Hawks at State Farm Arena, reverted back to looking more like the team that started the season 1-4.

Jamahl Mosley‘s squad couldn�...Read more

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — They came to Charlotte on Tuesday to help honor Dick Vitale, long one of the leading and certainly loudest voices of college basketball — the man called “Dickie V.”

Duke, ranked No. 6 in preseason, accepted the opportunity to open a new basketball season in the Dick Vitale Invitational at the Spectrum Center. So, too, ...Read more

ATLANTA — A former Atlanta Hawks executive took lavish trips across the globe, bought concert tickets and even purchased a Porsche using the team’s credit cards, federal prosecutors said.

Lester Jones Jr.’s fraudulent purchases allegedly amounted to $3.8 million over nearly a decade with the organization, court records allege.

Now the ...Read more

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Kentucky brought its offense to Rupp Arena on Tuesday night.

It just took the Wildcats an entire half of basketball to find it.

After an abysmal start to the regular-season opener, the No. 9-ranked Cats came out of the halftime locker room with a scoring flurry, ultimately defeating Nicholls, 77-51, in the first game of the ...Read more

STORRS, Conn. — Here was a case where the postgame handshake line was more than cordial, more than sportsmanlike. Dan Hurley had high praise for the coach who sort of spoiled his night, and he took it into the postgame interviews.

“New Haven, Coach did a great job,” Hurley said. “They obviously had some things swirling around their ...Read more

DENVER — He’s the lead singer who can’t always hit the high notes anymore, but keeps firing anyway. Russell Westbrook might be the most perfectly average player for whom, among fans, there’s almost no middle ground anymore.

When Russ is good, he’ll send you over the moon. When he’s bad, he’ll send you into the liquor cabinet.

“...Read more

PORTLAND, Ore. — With all three of their biggest stars out, the Lakers gutted out a 123-115 win over the Portland Trail Blazers on Monday at Moda Center, relying on two-way guard Nick Smith Jr. to spark their fourth consecutive win.

Smith, playing on a two-way contract with the South Bay Lakers, scored 25 points with six assists off the ...Read more