Inquirer.com – Zurich DR

Author: Marcus Hayes

  • Daryl Morey planned on the decline of Paul George and Joel Embiid with the Sixers as the Heat land Giannis

    Daryl Morey planned on the decline of Paul George and Joel Embiid with the Sixers as the Heat land Giannis

    At an early summer lunch just before free agency began two years ago, Daryl Morey mapped out the 76ers’ dream scenario.

    If the Sixers could somehow land free agent Paul George, a future Hall of Famer who then was 34, Morey told a trio of esteemed scribes that the Sixers would open a two-year window in which they could contend for the Eastern Conference title, if not an NBA championship. The East looked relatively toothless.

    To his credit, or perhaps not, the team’s former president of basketball operations was being realistic. George had just made his ninth All-Star team and played in 74 games, but he’d also missed about 35 games on average in the previous four seasons.

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    Further, Morey had modest expectations for Joel Embiid. Yes, Embiid had just made his seventh straight All-Star team; yes, he was only 30; and yes, he was one season removed from winning his MVP award. But Embiid underwent a second surgery on his left knee a few months before and was significantly hobbled when he returned. Nevertheless, doctors told Morey that, if Embiid was diligent with his conditioning and his rehab, with proper load management, he could resume his NBA career without significant regression.

    Doctors aside, Morey was no fool. He told the writers that if he got two more really good years from Embiid, that would be a good enough return on investment. Overpaying on the back ends of contracts are necessary evils in the sports industry.

    That’s why Morey signed them both to max contracts — George, a delightful surprise in July; Embiid, a necessary evil in September.

    The Sixers still owe Paul George and Joel Embiid almost $300 million.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer

    Disaster struck.

    Embiid played in the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, but, six weeks later, he reported to camp out of shape and so far behind in his rehab that he was unable to start the season. He needed further surgery in the spring of 2025. By the end of last season he’d finally recovered from the knee problem, but he suffered three more injuries: oblique, right ankle, and right hip. He has played in just 64 games in the last two seasons, including playoffs.

    Predictably, George endured a slew of injuries in his first season as a Sixer, then, in an effort to recover from injury, he was suspended 25 games last season for violating the NBA’s antidrug program. He has played a total of 89 games as a Sixer, including the playoffs.

    Which brings us to Monday.

    Blockbuster

    In perhaps the biggest transaction since LeBron James took his talents to South Beach 16 years ago, Giannis Antetokounmpo did the same.

    The Heat and Bucks on Monday reportedly authored a two-team, blockbuster trade. Miami saw blood in the water, jettisoned its ballast, and attacked. Pat Riley, now 81, mortgaged a Heat future in which he likely will play a diminishing a role to support the chances of second-tier star Bam Adebayo.

    Brilliant.

    There have been other big deals, such as the idiocy in Dallas of trading Luka Dončić in 2025 to the Lakers, but Giannis is a bigger deal. He has two MVPs, an NBA championship, and an acceptable BMI. Luka has none of those.

    With the Greek Freak on board, the East is ripe for Miami, and Riley, the Heat president for the past 31 seasons, knows it. After all, he orchestrated the last trade with this sort of effect, when he brought Shaquille O’Neal to Miami in 2004, then won a title with him in 2006. On Monday, Riley’s team immediately became a contender again in a vulnerable Eastern Conference.

    The principals

    Celtics? The patchwork Sixers upset the mighty Celtics in the first round of the playoffs.

    Knicks? The hodgepodge overachievers, the most fun team to watch since Larry Brown pushed the Pistons to the 2004 title, ran off 11 consecutive wins in the conference playoffs to reach the NBA Finals, in which they wore down an inexperienced team and its inexperienced coach.

    The Cavs? They collapsed due to the cold left hand of James Harden, who, to no one’s surprise, shot just 38.9% in the conference final against the Knicks.

    The Pistons? Two words: Tobias Harris.

    Pat Riley, 81, orchestrated the trade of another superstar to Miami in landing Giannis Antetokounmpo in a reported trade with the Bucks.Marta Lavandier

    The Pacers? Two words: Tyrese Haliburton. He pushed the Pacers to the NBA Finals in 2025 but blew out his Achilles in Game 7. With all due respect to Jalen Brunson, if Haliburton returns at 100%, then he’s the best player in the East. How good is he? The Pacers’ 19 wins were second-worst last season, but with Haliburton returning, their DraftKings odds to win the East are 12-1.

    Upon news of the trade, the Heat’s odds to win the conference on DraftKings improved from 12-1 to 6-1. That’s behind the Celtics, at 2.25-1, and the Knicks, who are at 3-1.

    The Sixers? They’re still seventh, at 19-1, behind the Cavs, who are 13-1, after Tuesday night’s draft. The Sixers used their 22nd overall pick on Labaron Philon Jr., a 6-foot-4 sophomore sniper out of Alabama whom they hope will compensate for Morey’s deadline trade of popular second-year shooter Jared McCain, who flourished in Oklahoma City.

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    Philon’s arrival did not move the DraftKings needle.

    Don’t expect those odds to get any better July 6, when free-agent deals and proposed trades like the Giannis deal can be ratified.

    All the Sixers will be able to do is watch.

    They’re still saddled with the crippling contract of Embiid, now 32 going on 52 and who is owed almost $188 million over the next three seasons.

    They’re still saddled with the last two years and almost $111 million owed George, who is 36. A second positive drug test would cost him 55 games. Maybe he needs them.

    He averaged just 14.5 points and shot 40.7% from the field when the Knicks swept the Sixers out of the second round — a sweep that, two days, later, cost Morey his job as president.

    These twin albatrosses will haunt the Sixers for at least two more years. This, remember, is by design.

  • When the Flyers were hopeless, Travis Konecny promised boss Dan Hilferty they’d make the playoffs

    When the Flyers were hopeless, Travis Konecny promised boss Dan Hilferty they’d make the playoffs

    Flyers chief Dan Hilferty and his wife, Joan, traveled to Italy during the Olympics to take in the Winter Games, especially the hockey games, since three Flyers and coach Rick Tocchet were involved. Star winger Travis Konecny did not make Team Canada, but he made the trip anyway. There, he ran into Hilferty.

    After a little small talk, as they ended their conversation, Konecny grabbed Hilferty by the arm. He looked him dead in the eye and, quietly, told his boss’s boss:

    “You better believe.” Pause. “You better believe.”

    At the time, the Flyers hadn’t made the playoffs in five years and, according to one prediction site, had just a 3.8% chance of making the postseason.

    Three months later, they had surged into the playoffs, then they had beaten their archrival, in overtime, at home. Yet neither of these was Hilferty’s favorite moment of the season.

    Hilferty stood on the heights of Citizens Bank Park, a spring wind ruffling the ever-immaculate lapels of his bespoke, dark-blue suit, strong and confident and, then, suddenly, verklempt at the memory of a moment shared with some of his favorite people, including his boss.

    He’d been asked for his most memorable moments of the season his Flyers had just completed. His response was unexpected: The moments just after the team lost its fourth straight game and was swept out of the Stanley Cup playoffs, an overtime defeat to the Carolina Hurricanes in front of the home crowd at Xfinity Mobile Arena.

    Flyers fans cheered their team’s effort even after the season had ended. Yong Kim / Staff Photographer

    This ignominious sweep, the first in 15 years — this was his finest moment?

    “Yes,” he said.

    Why?

    “I go to the locker room after every game, win or lose. So, boom, [the Hurricanes] score, and I get up, go to the elevator, get off the elevator on the event level,“ Hilferty said. ”And I just see a sea of fans. A sea of fans on their feet. And then they start chanting, ‘Let’s go, Flyers!’ And you could see the players, like — their reaction is unreal.”

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    That’s where Hilferty’s voice breaks. He’s 69, and he’s been around, a Jersey Shore kid made good: CEO of two health benefits organizations, a midlevel cog in the Pennsylvania government, a candidate for governor in the 1994 Democratic primary, chief of the group that brought the World Cup to Philly, and, for the last three years, he’s held his dream job: governor of the Flyers.

    The new Ed Snider. Connected to the club. Living and dying with every shift. Desperate for his hires to work out. Eager to see validated his oft-questioned decisions, from team president to GM to coach.

    And so, just before 9 p.m. on May 9, Hilferty found validation with the only folks who mattered: Flyers fans. Folks like him.

    Dan Hilferty (right), with team president Keith Jones in September, is part of a decision-making group that has pushed the right buttons of late. Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer

    The scene was as unreal as it was un-Philadelphian. After the teams exchanged handshakes, Flyers players remained on the ice to skate around and wave their appreciation to whoever remained. Usually, it’s a couple of thousand. That night, it was 10 times that much.

    “I just felt — well, I never needed to feel vindicated,” Hilferty insisted. “But I was just so happy for the organization, so happy for the team, for Comcast Spectacor and Comcast.”

    Spectacor is the sports wing of Comcast, and Hilferty is CEO of Spectacor. Brian Roberts is the CEO of it all, and, that night, he was at Hilferty’s elbow. They live and die with the Flyers.

    “I mean, we talk every day,” Hilferty said. “He runs a huge company. He’s a huge fan.”

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    After six years of amorphous corporate management in the wake of Snider’s death in 2016, Hilferty’s hands-on approach during the past three seasons of a painful rebuild has borne fruit.

    When he hired an inexperienced GM, Danny Brière, and his nonexperienced president, Keith Jones, it felt like the Flyers were in line for another generation of the nearsighted nepotism that has so badly hindered it so often in the 50 years since its run to three straight Stanley Cup Finals. That sense only increased with the hiring of coach Rick Tocchet, who, like Brière and Jones, is a revered Flyers alum.

    Those decisions could hardly have looked worse as the Flyers entered the Olympic break in February. Tocchet and unmotivated second-year star Matvei Michkov had been feuding for months, and the team had won just three of its last 15 games.

    But, during the 20-day break, Michkov got into shape, Tocchet changed coaching tack, some veterans got healthy and started playing better, goalie Dan Vladař caught fire, and the club added rookie winger Porter Martone, fresh off helping Michigan State reach the NCAA tournament. Not only did the Flyers make the playoffs, they upset the rival Penguins with a six-game, first-round win, in overtime, the sudden-death score coming from Cam York but set up by Michkov.

    Flyers head coach Rick Tocchet (center) received up-and-down play from Matvei Michkov (right).Yong Kim / Staff Photographer

    And yet this was not Hilferty’s favorite moment. The love after the loss was.

    “I have to say, it was nice to have kind of a public showing of that positive feeling,” Hilferty said. “What I’ve learned, whether it was running a business or doing this now, is that nothing’s perfect, but when you put four people in the room and have a long-range vision of where you want to go — I feel validated in that we’re through a phase of this effort, and we feel like the pieces are starting to fall into place for a long-term sustainable period of excellence.”

    That begins with Tocchet, a hard-nosed coach obsessed with teaching and largely uninterested in your feelings.

    “I couldn’t be more thrilled about Rick Tocchet, the spirit he brings to it,” Hilferty said.

    Hallelujah! Traffic salvation arrives in the South Philly sports complex for common fans and the 1%.

    Even with Michkov?

    “Matvei needed a message,” Hilferty said. “Look, we’re behind him, but it takes two to tango. Everybody’s got to lean in. And although that was uncomfortable for Rick, and maybe uncomfortable for Matvei, I think it paid off in the end.”

    Is this a sea change for a young player?

    “My hope, and real belief, is that Matvei will come back as a different player next year,” Hilferty said.

    Brière recently traded backup goalie Sam Ersson, smallish defenseman Emil Andrae, and a third-round pick to the Maple Leafs for backup goalie Joseph Woll and biggish defenseman Simon Benoît. The draft comes this weekend.

    Since the Flyers’ decline, the Eagles have reached two Super Bowls, the Phillies have reached a World Series, and the Sixers consistently have made the playoffs with Hall of Fame-caliber players and coaches.

    Now, however, there is a buzz in Philadelphia about the Flyers that has been absent for nearly half a decade. Hilferty feels it.

    “We feel relevant again,” Hilferty said. “We feel really excited to be part of the winning ways of the city, but we’re not finished. I mean, our vision is to get to the top. I’m not going to hide from that.”

  • Is Nick Sirianni ‘legendary’? Is Jalen Hurts salty? Is Julian Lurie a worthy heir? Eagles revelations abound.

    Is Nick Sirianni ‘legendary’? Is Jalen Hurts salty? Is Julian Lurie a worthy heir? Eagles revelations abound.

    It’s rare that, in the same week in June, you see three separate stories that pull back the curtain on the most secretive team in town, the Philadelphia Eagles.

    That’s what’s happened over the past few days. They sent NFL junkies into paroxysms of delight. They turned radio waves all atwitter with fresh meat during a typical time of famine.

    The most significant and best done of the three pieces involved a look at Julian Lurie, who will one day ascend to the throne occupied by his father Jeffrey, who has owned the Eagles since 1993. Jeff McLane of The Inquirer gave us our first look at the sensitive 31-year-old who already lends his voice to the team’s biggest decisions, just as a crown prince should do.

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    Mike Silver was the most prolific and capable NFL profile writer when Sports Illustrated remained the industry standard 30 years ago, and he has not lost his fastball at the Athletic. Silver joined combustible coach Nick Sirianni at the Eagles’ annual playground construction project and walked away with superb detail regarding Sirianni‘s unlikely interview and subsequent hiring in 2021, all done from the beach, in flip-flops with a white board. But Silver also got an endorsement of Sirianni from superstar running back Saquon Barkley that sparked debate about how valuable and competent Sirianni is compared with his peers.

    Finally, our old friend (and sometimes colleague) Joe Santoliquito, a local freelancer who specializes in in-depth exposés and, apparently, in infuriating Eagles executives. He dropped a brief piece on the Bleeding Green Nation website about the most polarizing figure in the city. The story indicates that starting quarterback Jalen Hurts is upset that the Eagles seem willing to replace him if he struggles to produce better numbers for a third straight season.

    McLane‘s trademark thoroughness left little room for controversy or discussion despite the delicate nature of his subject, but that’s to be expected, since McLane is the best-sourced reporter in town.

    But Barkley’s contention to Silver that Sirianni is “legendary,“ and Santoliquito‘s revelation that Hurts is unhappy … well, those struck a nerve.

    Legendary?

    Only four coaches who have coached at least 60 games, including playoffs, have a better winning percentage than Sirianni. All of them — Guy Chamberlin, Vince Lombardi, John Madden, and George Allen — are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

    Sounds pretty legendary, right?

    Barkley thinks so, as he told Silver:

    “He doesn’t get enough credit at all, in my opinion. I don’t get why he doesn’t. Like, what he’s doing, in real time, is legendary.”

    Is it, though?

    A head coach’s primary job is to win games, to reach the playoffs, and to battle for a title. Sirianni has not missed the playoffs in any of his five seasons. He’s reached the Super Bowl twice. He’s won it once.

    Sirianni did all that winning while developing Hurts, a quarterback of limited skills but unlimited ambition — a mirror, in some ways, of Sirianni himself. But that’s a different topic for a different day. He won while handling malcontent receiver A.J. Brown. He won while handling distractions that Sirianni himself created, mainly jeering fans of both his opponents and his own team.

    Which brings us to the crux of the matter. Fairly, or not, the narrative surrounding Sirianni is that the team often wins in spite of its coach.

    He has been heavily involved in the offense three times: 2021, 2023, and 2025. Each time, it foundered. The other two seasons, the Eagles went to the Super Bowl and the offensive coordinators were hired away as head coaches.

    An elite defense and a legendary season from Barkley sent the Eagles to their second Super Bowl. Sirianni has no involvement with the defense, which was run by first-year coordinator Vic Fangio, and Sirianni is considered a pass-first coach.

    The Eagles have made the playoffs in each of Nick Sirianni’s five seasons as coach.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer

    When Sirianni was hired in 2021, he was required to retain Jeff Stoutland, the assistant coach who ran the best overall offensive line in the NFL from 2013-2025. Stoutland, like Fangio, operated with almost complete autonomy, and he was the run-game coordinator to boot.

    Sirianni also took over a talent-heavy team from Doug Pederson, who was fired mainly because Carson Wentz didn’t want him around any more. Sirianni inherited a wealth of mature locker-room leaders with incredible pedigrees: elite tackles Lane Johnson and Jordan Mailata as well as center Jason Kelce; first-round receiver DeVonta Smith; defensive tackle Fletcher Cox; and defensive end Brandon Graham.

    Finally, general manager Howie Roseman has consistently replenished the talent pool — Jalen Carter, Quinyon Mitchell, Cooper DeJean, Jordan Davis, Zach Baun, Landon Dickerson, Cam Jurgens, and Brown — to the degree that it’s fair to wonder if any coach could have failed to win, and win big.

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    So now you have a portrait of a coach with a sterling record but without a tangible identity. Nobody questions the character of Vince Lombardi, John Madden, or George Allen, and they all coached for at least a decade.

    It’s hard to call anybody “legendary” five years into a career. Very good? Sure. Excellent? Maybe.

    Legendary?

    Let’s let that one breathe.

    After all, Sirianni has always had stability at quarterback. Is that about to change?

    The 2026 season is shaping up to be a big one for Jalen Hurts.Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer

    Hurt feelings?

    Like McLane, Santoliquito specializes in long-play reporting that coalesces into bombshell stories that cause a sensation. Such was the case in 2019, when his piece just after the disappointing 2018 season included Eagles sources who called Wentz “selfish,” “uncompromising,” and “egotistical,” with crippling insecurities. After the story ran, Santoliquito received death threats, had property vandalized, and was castigated by both the Eagles organization and by Wentz’s camp.

    I ripped him, too, for not giving the Eagles a fairer chance to respond. He admitted his error to me.

    Within weeks, however, Santoliquito’s reporting was largely confirmed … by Wentz himself.

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    Unlike the landmark Wentz story, the recent article about Hurts was an opinion piece. The headline read, “Philadelphia better watch itself, or it will lose another superstar,” and Santoliquito wrote, “The fear here is that Philadelphia may be pushing another superstar out of the door.”

    On that: No athlete since Phillies slugger Dick Allen was “pushed out” of Philadelphia by either the fans, the team, or the media. Not future Hall of Fame third baseman Scott Rolen, who was traded after contract negotiations collapsed; not ace Curt Schilling or stud Charles Barkley, who embraced trades after the Phillies and Sixers proved unable to build around them; and not even, as Santoliquito suggested, Wilt Chamberlain, who sought the brighter lights and cooler culture of Los Angeles as the Sixers underwent seismic changes after the 1967-68 season.

    In this instance, Santoliquito, who has long been close to people in Hurts’ camp, relays signals from those contacts that Hurts is displeased that:

    1. The Eagles, who wrote the book on saving money with early contract extensions, have not offered Hurts an extension; and,
    2. The Eagles did not support him well enough when an ESPN story on April 1, citing sources on the team, painted Hurts as stubborn, uncoachable, and reluctant. The fallout from the story created a narrative that these traits have the Eagles considering moving on from Hurts if he struggles with the more complex scheme of new coordinator Sean Mannion.

    Two things.

    First: So what? So what if 2026 is a prove-it year for Hurts? If he plays well, he gets paid. Trust me, he won’t turn down cash. If he doesn’t play well he might get traded.

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    Second: The Eagles were irate that, as in 2019, Santoliquito did not come to them for comment in a timely manner (or at all, in this instance). Broadly, that’s a fair point. However, it’s a strange complaint in this instance, since it’s irrelevant whether Eagles players, executives, and coaches actually sufficiently supported Hurts. They did have a few words of support to offer, but it was not overwhelming.

    What’s relevant is that Hurts, or his camp, feels that they didn’t support him enough.

    In Santoliquito’s opinion, that might cost the Eagles the services of Hurts at some point in the future.

  • U.S. Open: PGA Tour players have scuttled the rollback of the golf ball, for now and forever

    U.S. Open: PGA Tour players have scuttled the rollback of the golf ball, for now and forever

    Golf’s governing bodies, after consulting two weeks ago with the PGA Tour, declared Wednesday at the U.S. Open that the rollback of hyper-engineered golf balls would be rolled back itself. Any adjustment now will go into effect in 2030 instead of 2028.

    That was the official announcement, anyway.

    Unofficially?

    The rollback is dead. Pity golf superintendents the world over, who, within a generation, will be tasked with nurturing 8,000-yard courses, 25% longer than God and Old Tom Morris intended.

    Two weeks ago USGA CEO Mike Whan, who represents an organization entrusted with protecting the game, met with the PGA Tour’s Player Advisory Committee, which represents a group of independent millionaire contractors whose only concern is winning as much money as possible while shilling for equipment manufacturers. To do so, the aforementioned millionaires must retain their eligibility on tour, which means most of them can’t afford a slump.

    And slump they would. It would take players months to adjust to a new ball, which is the most important piece of the myriad pieces of equipment they use. No matter how much they practiced, they could not replicate tournament conditions, and so they would have to recalibrate their game in real time during tournaments that could make or break their careers.

    They will never agree to that.

    They never should have been asked.

    However, they’ve entered the chat, and they’ll never shut up. Now that the pros have a say, the rollback has gone the way of the feathery and the gutty.

    The players and the executives said Wednesday they still will consider mitigating distance, perhaps by deflating the balls, manipulating clubs, and re-engineering shafts. Whatever. Don’t expect anything that tangibly affects the game. Ever. The players will stymie whatever initiatives the suits suggest. It’s called self-preservation.

    Golf balls at the driving range are shown following a ribbon-cutting in April for the Lincoln Financial Center at Cobbs Creek Golf Course.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer

    Death of the rollback was always a possibility, and a delay seemed inevitable.

    Word spread during the Florida swing in March that there would be a two-year delay of the rollback project begun in 2018 that was supposed to be completed after a 10-year process.

    Why does it matter? Golf courses the world over — even places like Shinnecock Hills, the site of the U.S. Open; Merion Golf Club, the site of the 2030 U.S. Open; and Augusta National, the only static site of a major tournament — are running out of real estate and spending exorbitantly to feed, water, and mow so much grass. Shinny played 6,996 yards in 2004. It will play to 7,434 yards this week.

    Acushnet ruined everything.

    That’s the name of the parent company of Titleist, which introduced the Pro V1 in 2000, a golf ball that combined superior distance and durability with soft feel. Balls across brands have only gotten better since.

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    Granted, the ball isn’t everything. Clubs have gotten bigger and easier to hit. Golfers have gotten fitter, more dedicated, and more numerous. But nothing affected the game like the souped-up ball that went higher and farther and straighter than Bobby Jones and Ben Hogan ever could have imagined.

    That’s why the folks at the USGA, the R&A in Scotland, and the mysterious, powerful cabal that operates out of Augusta, Ga., under advisement of such experts as Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, and Gary Player, have spent the last decade trying to figure out how to put this genie back in its bottle.

    The explanations and arguments following the announcement before the 126th edition of the competition were as wild and as entertaining as the golf to be played on the wind-swept Southampton, N.Y., grasslands over the following four days.

    Pros said that if the golf ball changed, they would find a way to still hit it just as far … physics be damned, I guess.

    As proof, some pointed at the 375-yard drive hit by Cam Young on the 72nd hole of The Players Championship, the longest drive ever recorded on that hole. Last year, Young began playing a Titleist Pro V1x Double Dot, which would conform to the proposed parameters of a rolled-back ball. Wait: All of a sudden, the data-driven analytics crowd is all about the anecdotal?

    One argument seemed particularly fatuous.

    Golf Channel fixture Brandel Chamblee, the smartest and hardest-working analyst in sports history, is a staunch opponent of a rollback. He is a wonderful writer and a gifted orator with a head of hair that makes shampoo manufacturers drool, but his truest genius lies in his ability to unearth, synthesize, and manipulate numbers. On Wednesday, in asserting that the world’s best players rely on more than distance to succeed — which is true — he also said this:

    “If you look at the top 15 players on the PGA Tour right now in driving distance, there is not a single one of them in the top 10 in the world rankings. They average 83rd in the world rankings.”

    Which also is true … and wildly misleading, considering it excludes three of the top four golfers on the planet, at least.

    World No. 2 Rory McIlroy, the two-time reigning Masters champion, has not yet hit enough drives on the PGA Tour to qualify in the driving distance category. He’s averaging 326.8 yards.

    Jon Rahm is ranked No. 8, but he plays on the LIV Tour, so he doesn’t qualify, either. Neither does LIV golfer Bryson DeChambeau, ranked No. 32.

    If this trio qualified, Rahm and DeChambeau would be tied for No. 1, at 330.4 yards. McIlroy would be fourth.

    Chamblee’s “top 10″ qualification also excludes Chris Gotterup, who is ranked 11th in the world and fourth in driving distance.

    Finally, only five of the world’s top 17 golfers would rank below the Tour average of 304.1 yards per drive. Clearly, power matters.

    Another thing about driving distance: Some of the biggest hitters rank lower in distance off the tee because they don’t have to hit their driver to eat as much ground as less powerful hitters. Also, they hit their irons farther.

    So, for instance, World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler (tied for 30th in driving distance) could choose to opt for accuracy and hit a 3-wood maybe five yards short of another player’s best driver and still might have to 9-iron into the green, while the player who hit driver has to hit an 8-iron.

    Other arguments against a rollback are just as disingenuous. Would it disproportionately penalize shorter hitters? Not really. They’d have the same issues they have now.

    At any rate, in this discussion, the golfers themselves are irrelevant.

    This is about saving money and saving golf courses.

    It’s not about keeping Matt Kuchar on tour for a 29th season.

  • Maybe Jalen Brunson should wear his Jalen Hurts jersey in the Knicks’ parade. They’ve traveled the same road

    Maybe Jalen Brunson should wear his Jalen Hurts jersey in the Knicks’ parade. They’ve traveled the same road

    At 10 a.m. Thursday, Knicks superstar Jalen Brunson will ride up Broadway through Manhattan’s “Canyon of Heroes,” showered with the same sort of ticker tape that fell upon Teddy Roosevelt, John Glenn, and Queen Elizabeth II.

    If Brunson has any sense of loyalty, he’ll wear his Jalen Hurts jersey. He’s done it before.

    Why not? After all, Brunson and Hurts are essentially the same guy. Soft-spoken leaders. Tireless workers. Kind-hearted humans.

    Would Daryl Morey still be here if the Sixers had slowed the Knicks’ runaway train? At least one NBA source thinks so.

    And, after the Knicks’ five-game series win over the Spurs in the NBA Finals on Saturday, they are both unlikely champions.

    On Jan. 18, 2023, three nights before the Eagles hosted the Giants in a wild-card playoff game, Brunson entered Madison Square Garden wearing a midnight green Eagles jersey with the No. “1″ on the front.

    It read, “Hurts” on the back.

    The athlete whose mirror image Brunson has become.

    As they left college and began their pro careers, experts measured everything about them — everything, that is, except grit, determination, work ethic, and heart. That didn’t seem to matter.

    What mattered was that Brunson was too short, too slow, didn’t shoot well enough, couldn’t defend. What mattered was that Hurts was too short, his arm was too weak, he couldn’t run a prostyle offense, he’d never won the Big Game.

    Sure, they won as amateurs. But on the pro stage? Bah. These guys weren’t going to win anything.

    Now, they can compare rings.

    Roots

    Brunson went to high school about an hour north of Chicago, but he spent his preteen years in South Jersey. Naturally, he developed a passion for the Eagles.

    When he wore the Hurts jersey to MSG three years ago he was trolling the New York fans as much as he was supporting the Birds. Brunson, a social media virtuoso with a mischievous personality, delights in this sort of subtle jousting.

    Brunson also is an unlikely NBA success story, in the manner and mold of Hurts.

    Both were viewed as athletes who likely had reached their peak in college. Neither was considered a viable option to lead a team to a title.

    Jalen Brunson said that Jalen Hurts (1) motivated him after beating the Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX: “He just wants to win. So I commend him for that.”Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer

    Who could know that, 3½ weeks after Brunson wore his jersey, Hurts would fall just three points short of winning Super Bowl LVII? Who could know that, two years later, Hurts would win Super Bowl LIX and the game’s Most Valuable Player award?

    Did that inspire Brunson?

    “Absolutely,” he told the New York Post after the Eagles beat the Chiefs for the Lombardi Trophy in Super Bowl LIX. “Obviously, all the criticism about Jalen Hurts and him not being a champ. And he’s said the whole time that he doesn’t care about anything individual. He just wants to win. So I commend him for that.”

    Who could know that, 3½ years after Brunson wore Hurts’ jersey, that Brunson would lead the Knicks to their first NBA championship in 53 years? Who could know that he would score 45 points in a Finals closeout game, tied with Michael Jordan for third-most all time?

    Nobody. That’s who. That’s why their parallel ascent to the top of their games thrills and warms your heart.

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    Winner, Part 1

    Brunson was a two-time NCAA Tournament champion at Villanova who, as a junior, swept player of the year awards in 2018, after which he declared for the draft. Mistake? He wasn’t drafted until the second round, the 33rd overall pick, by the Mavericks, who, in 2022, let him escape to the Knicks via free agency. (Don’t give the Knicks a pass: In 2018, they drafted Kentucky bust Kevin Knox 24 slots ahead of Brunson).

    The 2018 draft was remarkably fruitful. It produced two-time reigning NBA MVP Shai-Gilgeous Alexander, who also won an NBA title last year. It produced six-time All-Star and two-time scoring champion Luka Dončić, for whom the Mavericks traded Trae Young and a first-round pick on draft night (then, insanely, traded again, to the Lakers, last year).

    Luka went third in the draft. SGA went 11th.

    However, eight years later, Brunson carries the greatest value of anyone in that draft. For that matter, Brunson is the greatest 33rd pick in league history.

    Hurts might be the best 53rd pick in NFL history.

    Jalen Hurts poses with the MVP and Lombardi trophies the day after winning Super Bowl LIX in 2025.David Maialetti / Staff Photographer

    Winner, Part 2

    Like Brunson, Hurts wins like he breathes.

    He helped win a national title at Alabama as a sophomore starter but lost his starting job. After a final season with the Crimson Tide and early graduation, Hurts transferred to Oklahoma, where he led the Sooners to the four-team College Football Playoff and finished second in Heisman Trophy voting. Still, like Brunson, Hurts didn’t fit the NFL quarterback mold and fell to the Eagles in the second round, a team that announced they considered him a long-term solution as Carson Wentz’s backup. By the end of his rookie season, Hurts had stolen Wentz’s job.

    Hurts might not be the best second-round player in NFL in history, considering Brett Favre and Larry Allen were second-rounders. In this moment, he might not be the best 53rd overall pick; wideout Davante Adams went 53rd in 2014.

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    But Hurts is, inarguably, the best value in the 2020 draft. That included Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert, CeeDee Lamb, and Justin Jefferson.

    Those guys have two things in common:

    They all were drafted at least 31 picks ahead of Hurts.

    And none of those guys have rings.

    Winner, Part 3

    Brunson articulated the core trait that drives both of the Jalens when he said Hurts “just wants to win.”

    Indeed, Hurts’ most consistent motto, often recited after ugly wins in which the Eagles’ passing game sputters, is: “Keep the main thing the main thing.”

    This is how badly Brunson wants to win:

    He left more than $100 million on the table when he signed a contract extension in 2024 instead of 2025, money that allowed the Knicks to pursue starters OG Anunoby and Karl-Anthony Towns, Brunson’s chief wingmen in the Finals against the Spurs.

    Brunson can recoup some of that money in his next deal, but he risked injury for two years on a lesser contract, all so he could win.

    Mission accomplished.

    Reality check

    No matter how deep his love for Philly’s football team, and no matter how strong his admiration for Hurts, there’s no chance that Brunson on Thursday will recognize the kinship with the man who shares his name. After all, Brunson’s Knicks and their fans swept the Sixers out of the playoffs and swept team president Daryl Morey out of his job.

    But no matter what Brunson wears Thursday morning as he rides down Broadway, he and Hurts will forever be linked as storybook athletes who bucked the measurables, ignored the analytics, and, in their quiet, determined way, put two big-shoulder cities on their own broad shoulders, quieted their critics, and walked away as ultimate winners.

  • Would Daryl Morey still be here if the Sixers had slowed the Knicks’ runaway train? At least one NBA source thinks so.

    Would Daryl Morey still be here if the Sixers had slowed the Knicks’ runaway train? At least one NBA source thinks so.

    The question has lingered.

    Would Sixers owner Josh Harris have fired president Daryl Morey if the Knicks hadn’t rolled the Sixers?

    Working big sporting events can be an exercise in frustration. The Olympics, the World Cup, the Super Bowl, the World Series are objects of spectacle and celebration for a sports fan but can be vehicles of exclusion and futility for a sports writer.

    They also can be veins of golden intel. Such was the case last week in New York.

    Thanks to the vanity of the New Yorker in Chief, entering the arena last week was a protracted challenge. An NBA source with ties to the 76ers told me in the hours before Game 3, as we waited for President Trump to arrive:

    “You know, if the Sixers had won a couple of games against the Knicks, no way Morey gets fired.”

    That piqued my interest. The Knicks had swept the Sixers in the second round of the playoffs. Morey was fired two days later, news that shocked the NBA world.

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    Did the Knicks’ storybook run to the hoop-crazed city’s first title in 53 years make Morey’s career an unlikely casualty? Did the sweep cost Morey his job? Was it at least the final straw?

    Apparently so.

    The Knicks weren’t considered elite when they rolled the Sixers. By Game 3 of the Finals, however, they were playing great.

    Folks were talking: Was Morey’s firing less warranted than it seemed at the time?

    I was eager to leave Madison Square Garden and try to track down Morey himself, see what he’d say. He’s going to continue to live in Philadelphia, but, since he got fired, he’s been hanging out in New York, feeding his Broadway addiction and waiting for the unemployment checks to come in.

    Then, a few hours later, the Knicks had lost Game 3, the Spurs seemed to have turned a corner, and the assertion lost its legs.

    But only briefly.

    Daryl Morey did some things well, but the Sixers were also hamstrung by some of his decisions. Matt Rourke

    Genius dismissed

    A computer scientist with an MBA from MIT, Morey’s moves might draw criticism but his intellect never has been in question. Twenty-one years ago he co-founded the annual analytics nerd-fest at MIT, the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, a stats-based Davos gathering of the smartest suits in the sports industry, designed to render obsolete knuckle-draggers like Doc Rivers and me.

    Despite having never won a title, Morey is front-office royalty. As such, the NBA was rocked by Morey’s dismissal, especially coming, as it did, on the heels of such a dizzying postseason high.

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    The week before the sweep, the Sixers beat the arch rival Celtics in seven games to win their first-round series. Boston had held a 15-7 record in the teams’ playoff series and had won the last six; the last time the Sixers won was 1982. It was their first Game 7 win in 25 years. It was their first Game 7 road win in 44 years (the aforementioned 1982 series). It was the first time the Sixers won a series when trailing 3-1 in their last 18 tries, and the Celtics had won 32 times in a row when leading a series 3-1.

    Euphoria barely describes the mood around the franchise after Tyrese Maxey dropped 30 points and pulled down 11 rebounds in that Game 7. Maxey was Morey’s first draft pick when he arrived in 2020.

    Humiliation barely describes the mood around the franchise 10 days later. The Knicks won Game 1 in New York by 39 points. They won Game 4 in Philadelphia by 30 and, at one point, they led by 44. That wasn’t the worst of it. Xfinity Mobile Arena was inundated with Knicks fans for Game 3 and was predominantly pro-Knicks in Game 4.

    Harris, a New Yorker for most of his adult life, was galled. More than anything else, according to the source, it was those two home losses and the Knicks fans’ takeover that cost Morey.

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    It didn‘t help, of course, that Morey traded popular shooter Jared McCain in February, after which McCain thrived in Oklahoma City. It also didn‘t help that, two years ago, Morey max-extended the contract of Joel Embiid and max-signed Paul George. Both have been injured and suspended since.

    Both were bigger stars than anyone on New York’s team. Neither played well against the Knicks.

    As it turned out, nobody would play well against the Knicks.

    Jalen Brunson and the Knicks rolled the Sixers in a way that was humiliating for the team and the fan base. Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer

    Juggernaut

    The Knicks’ sweep of the Sixers included wins three through six of 13 playoff wins in a row, the second-best streak in NBA history and just two fewer than the Warriors in 2017. Those Warriors had Steph Curry and Kevin Durant, Hall of Fame scorers who’d been to 12 All-Star Games between them.

    Again, at the time of the Sixers series, nobody considered any of the Knicks on par with Steph or KD.

    Then, the Knicks swept the Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Finals.

    Then, they won Games 1 and 2 in San Antonio.

    Then, after losing Game 3 at home, they executed a Finals-record 29-point comeback in Game 4.

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    Then, on Saturday, they won Game 5 and the title in San Antonio. Jalen Brunson proved himself the biggest star in the playoffs, capping his Finals average of 32.6 points with 45 in the closeout game, a record for a Knick in the Finals, tied with Michael Jordan for the third-most in a Finals closeout game.

    The Knicks finished the playoffs with a point differential of plus-283, the biggest in NBA history. Of course, the Sixers contributed 89 of those positive points, and the Knicks played only one team from the superior Western Conference, but those arguments are thin gruel.

    The 2025-26 Knicks were a powerhouse team: deep, talented, hungry, well-coached, and led by a bona fide, if unlikely, superstar.

    That’s who beat the Sixers.

    That’s who, according to an NBA source, ultimately cost Morey his job.

    It’s new president of basketball operations Mike Gansey’s show now in Philly. Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer

    So what?

    I’ve always believed Morey to be a bit overrated as a team builder but I’ve always admired his innovation, his transparency, and intellectual capacity. These, I believe, burnished an image that was more impressive than the reality. He was, nevertheless, a very good basketball president.

    Still, when a team with high expectations repeatedly fails to meet them, change is almost always good. Embiid just ate his way into wasting two more seasons. Paul George popped for PEDs. Both happened on Morey’s watch. Will it happen again under his replacement, Mike Gansey, who helped resurrect the Cavaliers after the LeBron James Era, Part 2? Will Gansey and his overseer, Bob Myers, the former Warriors president who runs all of Harris’ numerous sports franchises, keep the old guys from stealing more money?

    Maybe.

    Mike Gansey ran the Cavaliers’ draft. Now, he must infuse that expertise with the Sixers.

    Maybe a new sheriff in town who has no connection to either Embiid or George will serve as a catalyst for them to deliver more value for the combined $112 million they will make in the next season alone.

    But maybe, had Harris known how humiliated his peers in Cleveland and San Antonio were going to be a month later, he wouldn’t have let go the man he’d introduced six years prior as “extraordinary,” an “innovator,” and a “visionary.”

    Then again, maybe he would have.

  • Philadelphia was the star in its men’s World Cup debut

    Philadelphia was the star in its men’s World Cup debut

    It took 96 years, but the most sacred version of the beautiful game came to Philadelphia.

    Both the city and the match met the moment.

    Extra public transportation, hydration stations, and modest traffic framed an evening of graceful and powerful football, the kind every other nation reveres except ours.

    Amid the spectacle of team jerseys, flags, and team benches covered by vibrant roofs identifying the sides in national colors, the grass was the star. The stadium’s normal turf is a ragged Bermuda thatched with 5% plastic to withstand the cleated NFL rhinoceroses who usually play there. For the World Cup, it was transformed into a flawless pitch, golf-course quality ryegrass and bluegrass, the sort of surface you on which could imagine Jason Kelce lying on his back and making snow angels.

    Ecuador goalkeeper Hernán Galíndez watches as the ball crosses the goal line on a shot by Ivory Coast’s Amad Diallo late in the second half of Sunday’s game.Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer

    Viewed through an international lens, even a soccer game this insignificant still was the most significant sporting event in the history of the city. A town that has seen two World Series titles and a Stanley Cup won within its borders has never hosted anything that riveted folks on six of the continents.

    What comes close? Maybe Rocky Marciano, when he knocked out Jersey Joe Walcott in 1952, and won the heavyweight championship. Maybe not.

    ‘They fought, we won’: Ivory Coast’s World Cup win against Ecuador kicks off FIFA in Philly

    More moments will come, since the group-stage match between Ivory Coast and Ecuador is just the first of five such games. On July 4, Philadelphia will host an elimination game in the Round of 16, and then that will become the most significant sporting event in the history of the city.

    The difference was deserving of the night’s significance. At the top of the box, Amad Diallo, who plays for Manchester United, redirected a simple cross from Wilfried Singo with his left foot in the 90th and final minute of regular play. Given eight minutes of stoppage time, Ecuador could not break through.

    Three crucial points to Les Elephants, following the 1-0 final.

    After three days of pre-tournament watch parties and fan fests (the Cup began in Mexico City on Thursday), Philly’s hot, sticky, 90-degree moment finally arrived.

    The city, four weeks removed from the PGA Championship at Aronimink and four weeks from hosting the Major League Baseball All-Star Game at Citizens Bank Park, finally seemed to grasp the magnitude of the world’s biggest single-sport sporting event landing at its doorstep.

    The catalyst: How about the 4-1 thunderbolt win the United States laid on Paraguay in Los Angeles on Friday night.

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    Ecuador hit the crossbar twice in a first half and nearly scored on a blast from Flamengo’s Gonzalo Plata just before the water break in the second half. Ivory Coast hit the crossbar six minutes into the second half. All of those shots drew gasps, but gasps of different timbre; either delight denied or disaster averted, because the gasps were almost completely Ecuadorian.

    Ecuador is nearly 3,000 miles from Philadelphia, but, for two hours, the stadium served as an Ecuadorian colony, its fans wearing yellow, accounting for 90% of the 68,247 fans in the seats. If they’d issued 60,000 pairs of goggles, they’d have had 60,000 Minions.

    Little wonder. About half of the approximately 850,000 people in the United States who claim a connection with Ecuador live in either New York or New Jersey. Most estimates of Ivorians in the U.S. don’t even reach 10,000.

    After the 5 p.m. SEPTA Broad Street Line express was taken out of service at Race-Vine because a door wouldn’t close, the 5:15 local train was inundated with Ecuador enthusiasts when it hit the City Hall stop.

    The cars were full to bursting by the time they hit Walnut-Locust, yellow jerseys shoulder to shoulder and chest to chest, men and women alike. As the train pulled out a song arose, full throat and deafening in the hot, cramped subway car:

    “¡Vamos, vamos ecuatorianos, esta noche tenemos que ganar!”

    Or:

    “Let’s go, let’s go, Ecuadorians, tonight we have to win!”

    As the throng exited up the stairs of NRG Station, their hearts and voices swelled again. The song rang out again and again during the match.

    Unfortunately, the Ecuadorians were not singing on the subway ride home.

    Fans wait outside SEPTA’s NRG Station near the stadium following Ivory Coast’s victory over Ecuador Sunday night.Michelle Myers

    Only the Olympics does a better job than FIFA capitalizing on nationalistic spectacle, and Sunday night was no exception. The stunning FIFA World Cup 2026 emblem tapestry laid on the ground covered the midfield circle. Replicas of the flags of Ecuador and the Ivory Coast took up most of the rest of the pitch in front of the goals, crescents cut in the extra fabric to frame the FIFA logo tapestry at midfield. The teams stood on their respective sides of the circle, facing the south stands, as the anthems played.

    The match occurred where the Eagles play, at Lincoln Financial Field, which must be referred to as Philadelphia Stadium during World Cup games. FIFA has a strict policy that prohibits references to sponsors who don’t give FIFA money.

    That said, Sunday’s affair was nothing like an Eagles game. It was far more elegant.

    When Ivory Coast dawdled, La Tri — a nickname for Ecuador’s fans, who wear the tricolor yellow, blue, and red of the flag — booed and whistled. It was not unlike the response of Eagles fans whenever the Cowboys score.

    Fans of the American version of football might balk at the contention that soccer is a bigger deal, and lovers of the Olympics might contend that the ever-shifting collection of summer and competitions matters more. They are wrong.

    Ivory Coast’s Wilfried Singo, right, defends against Ecuador’s Jean Michaël Seri during the second half of a FIFA World Cup Group E match on Sunday.Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer

    The World Cup is a different animal than the Olympic Games, concentrated and egalitarian. You don’t have to own a horse or skis to prepare to compete in the World Cup, just a ball.

    The only thing in America that reflects a World Cup is an NFL season. Consider the first 17 games, the regular season, the group stage. Consider the playoffs the knockout Round of 16.

    The NFL season in its entirety and intensity is the one comparison that might allow most Americans to understand the depth of investment and emotion other nations harbor for soccer.

    And, when you factor in the fact that virtually every man, woman, and child in many of these countries have played the sport, then you can better comprehend why soccer is, for so many people on earth, as much religion as it is diversion, and how sacred evenings like Sunday can be for anyone connected with the Ivory Coast or Ecuador.

    The folks who organized it all understood the gravity of the moment.

    Meg Kane, CEO of Philadelphia Soccer 2026, had measures of both delight and relief in her voice as she sat in the stadium parking lot Sunday night.

    “It’s been an exciting four days,“ she began, noting that there were 36 more to go. “I think everything we hoped this would be has been borne out.”

    The delight was easy to source: She had just seen a really good soccer game in a grand stadium with two excellent teams, snuck in just minutes before a thunderstorm, with little or no complication.

    The relief was probably based on the reception most of the millions of residents had given these unusual visitors.

    “People in Philadelphia are excited to be hosting something like this,” Kane said. “Philadelphians love when people choose to spend their time here.“

    The best news: Philadelphia gets to do this five more times.

  • Jalen Brunson and ‘Nova Knicks overcome NBA Finals record 29-point deficit to take 3-1 lead over Spurs

    NEW YORK — The legend of Jalen Brunson grows.

    The ‘Nova Knicks, all heart and grit and chilling composure, completed the greatest comeback in NBA Finals history, erasing a 29-point second-quarter deficit to take a one-point lead on a floater by — who else — indomitable point guard Brunson with 1 minute, 22 seconds left to play. With 1.2 seconds remaining, trailing by one, OG Anunoby tipped in Brunson’s missed three-pointer.

    It was Brunson’s 36th point. It was Anunoby’s 33rd.

    It was a 107-106 win over the Spurs, forever enshrined as the NBA’s biggest chokers. The Knicks know all about that.

    However, they now stand 48 minutes away from ending a 53-year drought. Only one NBA team has blown a 3-1 lead in the Finals, and those 2016 Golden State Warriors faced prime Kyrie Irving and LeBron James in his prodigal return to Cleveland.

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    This was a momentum win. A historic win. A fairy tale win that carved the hearts out of a team with far better players but with far less backbone.

    It was a last-second, never-say-die win in the Mecca of basketball, Madison Square Garden, accomplished in front of stars ranging from Jerry Seinfeld to Jay-Z to Taylor Swift to Timothée Chalamet.

    A win delivered by divine intervention, perhaps; after all, a nun blessed the Garden with holy water after the Game 3 loss, and Villanova is a Catholic university, after all.

    OK, it might not have been miraculous, or even sacral, but it’s probably the best win in the history of the franchise. The kind of win that 19,812 attended but 1.9 million will claim to have witnessed in the flesh.

    It was that epic.

    It was the sort of statement game that gets a number retired, hung from the rafters in the Garden alongside Walt Frazier and Bill Bradley and Patrick Ewing and Willis Reed. A number like the No. 11 that Brunson wears. He carried the Knicks all season, all playoffs, and all night.

    He was drafted 33rd in 2018 having won two NCAA titles at Villanova, both with Knicks teammate Mikal Bridges, one with Knicks teammate Josh Hart. Asked recently what the NBA teams missed that draft, Brunson replied:

    “Everything.” He looked down. “Humph.”

    Bridges was largely absent Wednesday, and Hart actually missed a dunk and failed to box out on a play that gave the Spurs their last lead, but that’s hoop. They just hoop.

    All three have overachieved, but no one has overachieved in the NBA like Brunson in decades.

    Maybe ever.

    He’s 6-foot-1-ish. He can’t jump. He’s not super fast.

    But he is everything that New York loves about itself, and everything Villanova was in the Jay Wright era.

    The Coach was there, by the way. Brunson, towel over his shoulders, found him on the court after the game. They hugged.

    As they were in Finneran Pavilion and what’s now called Xfinity Mobile Arena and all those NCAA tourney sites, the ‘Nova Knicks were indefatigable. Relentless. Resilient.

    The opposite of San Antonio.

    The Spurs were probably the most talented team in the NBA this season, and for 24 minutes, the played like it. They also are the second-youngest team in NBA Finals history, and, for the final 24 minutes of Game 4, they played like it.

    What was the game like? It was like the Patriots, nine years ago, in Super Bowl LI, when Tom Brady erased a 25-point deficit. That’s the only thing that comes close.

    Jalen Brunson.

    Tom Brady.

    Seriously.

    If Brady had done it in Foxborough, Mass., in front of a home crowd that hadn’t won a title since Richard Nixon was president.

    Just before his game-winning putback, Anunoby blocked a layup that, with 11 seconds to play and a one-point lead, De’Aaron Fox inexplicably and inexcusably took, so he will get more shone today. Fine. Let him have his moment.

    This is Brunson’s team. These are the ‘Nova Knicks.

    The ‘Nova Knicks lead the best-of-seven series, 3-1.

    It feels like 5-1.

    “One word that captures that all is just ‘believe,’” Brunson told ESPN afterward. “Just believing in each other. Believing in the process.”

    It felt impossible early, especially considering the officiating in the series, and the signature play so far, which, of course, involved Brunson.

    The play happened in the first quarter of Game 3 on Monday, which the Knicks lost by four points, and it was seismic at the time and it is seismic today. It was a no-call on Victor Wembanyama that the NBA reviewed to determine if it was flagrant. It was not.

    Had the foul been deemed a Flagrant 2, it would have been Wembanyama’s second of the playoffs. Flagrant 2 fouls carry two flagrant points. Four total flagrant points carry an automatic one-game suspension.

    The NBA simply could not have that. Wemby’s just too important.

    Why does that matter now, several days later?

    Because in Game 4 on Wednesday, Wembanyama was assessed a Flagrant 1 when he cracked Karl-Anthony Towns in the jaw with an elbow.

    That gave him three flagrant points. Which means had the foul Monday been deemed a Flagrant 1, Wembanyama would have been disqualified for Game 5 on Saturday.

    Again: He’s too important.

    Towns? Not so much.

    Within the first 62 seconds on Wednesday, KAT, who carried the Knicks in Games 1 and 2, was on the bench with two questionable fouls. Less than two minutes later, the Knicks trailed, 12-2.

    It changed the complexion of the game, the series … everything.

    Philly’s Mikal Bridges is in his second NBA Finals. His grit comes from his mom, who raised him as a single parent.

    The series is pulling crazy ratings thanks in part to the Big Apple’s Big Three, but Brunson, Hart, and Bridges operate on a thin margin for error. To beat a team like the Spurs, who won nine more regular-season games than the Knicks, they need Towns on the court and on his game.

    He picked up his third foul less than five minutes into the second quarter, another phantom infraction considering the physicality of these Finals.

    The Wemby Show, the NBA’s most wholesome narrative since Steph Curry, continues, even though he missed two late throws.

    Wembanyama finished third in MVP voting in his just his third season. An elegant Frenchman of Congolese descent with the comportment and habits of a Renaissance man — he plays competitive chess and sketches in the park — Wembanyama is the NBA’s best vehicle for basketball globalization since Joel Embiid. That one hasn’t really worked out.

    At the time of Wemby-Gate, the Knicks led the series, 2-0. A bit later, at halftime of Game 3, the Knicks led the game by seven.

    And then … the Spurs were awarded 16 more free throws than were the Knicks in the second half of Game 3. Afterward, when asked about the altercation, Brunson replied, “Whatever you saw is what you saw.”

    The refs saw nothing in real time. The NBA saw a catastrophe if Wembanyama missed Game 4. He’d scored 32 in Game 3, and even with all that free-throw help, the Spurs still barely won.

    He missed two free throws late Wednesday. Karma.

    Then, that horrid first half for the home team. If it seemed like everything was going against the Knicks, well, it was.

    And, then, it wasn’t.

  • Trump attends ’Nova Knicks game and they end a 13-game playoff winning streak. Coincidence?

    NEW YORK — The ’Nova Knicks finally lost.

    All it took was Donald Trump.

    The least-loved New Yorker since Boss Tweed, the Donald on Monday took it upon himself to ruin pregame plans and pleasures of thousands by becoming the first sitting president to attend an NBA Finals game.

    It tracks: Trump always seeks to steal the shine from winners, and the Knicks, fueled by NCAA champs Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart, and Mikal Bridges, were winning like nobody’s business. They had won 13 consecutive playoff games and held a two-games-to-none lead over San Antonio when they took the court at Madison Square Garden.

    Trump’s presence created traffic snarls and ingress nightmares, and he was buried by boos during the singing of the national anthem, but nobody in the joint paid him much mind after that. He’d wanted to sit with Spike Lee and Larry David courtside, but the Secret Service (and perhaps his more sane advisers) persuaded him to retreat to a suite. There, in the shadows, he rested as the streak ended, a 115-111 downer in Game 3.

    Then, he fell asleep.

    You can’t make it up.

    Later, Trump blamed Karl-Anthony Towns. He wasn’t wrong.

    Look, it wasn’t all Trump’s fault, or KAT’s fault. It wasn’t anybody’s fault, really.

    Well, maybe it was the refs’ fault. That’s what Knicks coach Mike Brown claimed.

    “They outshot us 14-3 [from the line] in the third quarter. Maybe we did foul. But they fouled, too,” Brown said. “If they do this, 24-8 [in the second half], in Game 4, it’s going to be tough to win.”

    It will be interesting to see the league’s reaction to Brown’s comments, since he was fined twice in 2024 for interactions with officials before he was fired by the Kings.

    His players had no axe to grind.

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    “That didn’t cost us the game,” said Towns, who finished with just 11 points. “We turned the ball over. We didn’t execute. We didn’t do the things that got us 13 straight wins in a row.”

    It was a very non-’Nova-Knicks night, the sort they cannot afford against an assemblage like San Antonio’s.

    The Spurs won nine more regular-season games than the Knicks. Third-year center Victor Wembanyama finished third in MVP voting this year and was Defensive Player of the Year, De’Aaron Fox was an All-Star this season, Keldon Johnson was this season’s Sixth Man of the Year, and guard Stephon Castle won Rookie of the Year last season.

    Wemby had 32 points, eight rebounds, six assists, and three blocks. Castle has 23 points. Fox had the dagger and eight assists.

    They are a very, very good team.

    The Knicks trailed by five with 9 minutes, 18 seconds to play when Brunson, who leads the Knicks like he led the Wildcats, returned to the game. That set the scene for another comeback, like Game 1 in the Eastern Conference finals against the Cavaliers or Game 2 on Friday in San Antonio, Texas. Those comeback wins branded these Knicks the same way the gritty, deep Villanova teams were branded when the won NCAA titles in 2016 and 2018 under Jay Wright.

    Alas.

    The Knicks got 32 points from Brunson. They got 16 points and nine rebounds from Josh Hart. But they got just two points from Bridges, the hero of Game 2 just three nights before.

    Alack.

    Whether it was the 13-game run, the 53-year drought, or the presence of the president, Brunson & Co. were making no excuses.

    “There are going to be a lot of distractions, positive and negative,” Brunson said. “Most important is how we compose ourselves as a team, and we have to make sure we have accountability as a team.”

    Mikal Bridges is in his second NBA Finals. His grit comes from his mom.

    To be fair, it was thrilling to the end.

    Brunson hit a putback-and-one, a jumper as the shot clock expired, and a three-pointer with 33.7 seconds to play that cut the lead to three points, but Fox’s jumper with 12.2 seconds and two late free throws from Castle were just enough.

    You felt early that not even the steely pedigree forged on the Main Line almost a decade ago would be enough Monday.

    Wembanyama had nine points and a blocked shot in the first five minutes. Bridges committed two fouls and a turnover and had his shot blocked in the first four minutes.

    That’s how the Spurs built a double-digit lead. A constellation of stars of stage and screen looked on, hoping for a sweep, the sweetest possible end of a 53-year title drought. From Lee to David to Ben Stiller, they all felt it. The Knicks seemed … affected. Tight. Flat.

    Mostly, anyway.

    The Knicks took their first lead when Brunson — who else — canned a 25-foot three-pointer with just over four minutes left before halftime. He hit it over Wembanyama, reluctant to extend his defense too far, lest Brunson burn him to the basket again.

    About a minute later, with the Knicks down by four, Castle bulldozed Brunson while pursuing an offensive rebound. Hart scored on the ensuing possession and tied it at 54. Hart’s trey gave the Knicks the lead again, and Brunson dropped another 25-footer on Wemby. Brunson’s feed with 9.6 seconds soon sent Towns to the line, where he made both free throws, the end of a 14-3 run, and the Knicks’ halftime lead was 64-57 after they dominated the second quarter, 42-24.

    But the Spurs won the third quarter by eight, scored the first six points of the fourth, and held off the valiant ’Nova Knicks.

    They resume the series Wednesday, but don’t expect Trump to be back.

    Knicks fans might burn down the city.

  • Trump crashes the NBA Finals and creates chaos at Madison Square Garden

    NEW YORK — There were 66 New York Police Department vehicles and two garbage trucks acting as barriers parked around the corner of 33rd Street and 8th Avenue. Forty-three of the vehicles, including 35 motorcycles, were lined up on 33rd alone.

    Both streets were locked down, and it wasn’t because John Turturro was inside Madison Square Garden.

    Trump was coming.

    President Donald Trump on Monday became the first sitting president to attend an NBA Finals game. He did so in the worst possible setting: the middle of the biggest, most congested city in the United States.

    Trump, a native New Yorker, said he was invited by Knicks owner James Dolan. He choppered into the city and took a limo to the arena, but did not sit courtside as planned.

    With the best seats auctioning off for more than $500,000 and the worst seats going for more than $6,000, maybe he couldn’t afford it.

    During the national anthem, he was shown in a suite, saluting.

    The boos were absolutely monumental, long and sustained, drowning out the hearty singer, Avery Wilson, and whatever cheers there might have been.

    Knicks guard Josh Hart expressed regret that ticket prices were so high that many long-suffering Knicks fans, whose team last won a title 53 years ago, would have to watch on TV.

    “I kind of wish ticket prices weren’t as crazy as they are. I feel like a lot of people have been waiting for this moment for a very long time,” Hart said. “Unfortunately, they’re not able to get into the building with the cheapest ticket $7,000 or $8,000. That’s ridiculous.”

    You wondered what, then, Hart thought of Trump and his entourage taking up so much space in the World’s Most Famous Arena. Hart has been a frequent critic of Trump’s, celebrating on X, then known as Twitter, when Trump lost the 2020 election.

    Hart has not issued any comment on Trump attending Monday night.

    Trump’s presence only amplified what you knew would be a frenetic, eclectic, and electric atmosphere.

    There was Spike Lee mugging courtside in a signed Pope Leo jersey. Signed.

    Comedian Larry David and Patriots owner Robert Kraft were hugging and texting courtside.

    Ben Stiller arrived four hours early, game face on, and was rubbing elbows with Pat McAfee, Stephen A. Smith, and what seemed like the rest of the ESPN staff that isn’t covering the College World Series.

    Jeremy Lin was in a leather Knicks jacket, and, for some reason, was stretching his Achilles tendons backstage. He looked fit. Secret weapon?

    Long before tipoff, thousands of folks outside were being misdirected by confused cops for an hour, then standing in lines another 90 minutes to get through security. There didn’t seem to be an empty seat by game time.

    New Yorkers knew what was up. They’re used to Trump messing up Manhattan traffic.

    ESPN studio host Ernie Johnson, his bow tie undone, was getting wanded by Secret Service as he entered the arena 4½ hours early, then waited among a herd of press types for 20 minutes to be let in 30 minutes early, then waited 15 minutes for the only accessible elevator before they turned on the escalators around the corner.

    Spurs center Victor Wembanyama went through the same process two hours later.

    Both coaches said Trump’s presence and the resulting complications affected neither them nor their teams.

    We’ll see.