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  • 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.

    Don’t get it twisted: A.J. Brown, like Carson Wentz, betrayed Philadelphia and his Eagles teammates

    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.

    A ‘proud’ Jay Wright revels in the success of his former Villanova pupils with the ’Nova Knicks

    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.

    Mike Sielski: You can trace Jalen Brunson’s greatness and the Knicks’ NBA title right to Villanova

    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.

    Who could the Sixers draft at No. 22? Here’s our take on projected picks, and other players to watch

    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.

    Three offseason questions for the Sixers after the hiring of Mike Gansey

    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.

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

    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.

  • Some important context for the great shotgun debate and the Eagles moving forward under Sean Mannion

    Some important context for the great shotgun debate and the Eagles moving forward under Sean Mannion

    You could use the same four words to describe the Eagles offense in 2025 as you would Elmer Fudd.

    Uses shotgun, rarely well.

    So says the conventional wisdom, at least.

    During the Eagles’ recently completed mandatory minicamp, there was a lot of talk about new offensive coordinator Sean Mannion’s affinity for operating from under center and the adjustment it might require for those closest to the ball (namely, the quarterback). The topic of conversation was certainly valid. Throughout the Jalen Hurts/Nick Sirianni Era, shotgun has been the Eagles’ baseline look, more so than all but a small handful of NFL teams. I’m just not sure that the change under Mannion will be as radical as people hope/expect.

    What if I told you that Saquon Barkley has only had one fewer carry from under center than the Packers’ Josh Jacobs over the last two seasons, when Mannion was in Green Bay? Or that, in 2025, Hurts attempted more passes from under center than Joe Burrow and Patrick Mahomes, both of whom can make a case as the best in the game?

    All of this talk about scheme comes from a good place. But I think the term itself tends to get misapplied when we talk about what makes good teams good and bad teams bad. The perception of “scheme” is that it is some static, word-of-God recipe book that each coach draws up like a wizard and then carries with him from stop to stop. In reality, I think it’s closer to a core set of principles and best practices that guide the concrete aspects of coaching: teaching and game-planning. The actual output of all of those things — the plays — will look a lot different from roster to roster and opponent to opponent.

    Jalen Hurts attempted more passes from under center than Joe Burrow and Patrick Mahomes in 2025.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer

    “There’s things I believe in and there’s things that schematically I have a background in, but ultimately it’s going to be a blend and it’s constantly going to evolve,” Mannion said earlier this offseason. “It’s about maximizing things for the players. How do we make the Eagles the best team we can be, how we make the Eagles offense the best it can be and how do we put all of our players in a position to really, really succeed and maximize their strengths.”

    Don’t get me wrong. There will be change. As I wrote last week, it will be real change, more so than at any point in Sirianni’s time as head coach.

    Context is important, though.

    The Eagles have to get more daring on offense this season. Nick Sirianni has to let them.

    Reality is, the NFL has become a shotgun league over the last decade. That’s true regardless of coach or quarterback. Last season, Matthew Stafford and Sam Darnold were the only two quarterbacks to line up under center on more than half their snaps. Both quarterbacks threw the ball out of shotgun roughly twice as much as they did under center.

    The evidence hardly supports the idea that the Eagles’ heavy reliance on the shotgun in recent years is an ipso facto indictment of Hurts and/or the offensive scheme. At least, not if you accept as fact that Burrow and Mahomes are two of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. Mahomes attempted just 32 passes from under center in 2025, 12 fewer than Hurts’ 44.

    The big difference between teams like the Seahawks/Rams and the Eagles was their preference for running from under center. The Rams ran out of shotgun just 64 times in 2025, for instance.

    At the same time, the Eagles ran the ball from under center more than you might think. Two years ago, nearly half Barkley’s 2,005 rushing yards came from under center. His 6.1 yards-per-carry average was best in the NFL, and better than his 5.6 yards per carry out of shotgun.

    Saquon Barkley is looking forward to running Sean Mannion’s system.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer

    Again, to be clear, we should expect to see a significant difference. One takeaway from the Eagles’ pre-camp workouts is that Mannion’s run game philosophy is closer to the Shanahan/McVay/Kubiak tree than Sirianni’s.

    “It’s no secret what this system is about,” Barkley said earlier this offseason. “I look forward to doing that. It’ll probably be the most I’ve ever done it under center and outside zone and all that good stuff. It’s a challenge I’m looking forward to work on and getting better at and trying to be the best at it.”

    As for the passing game, one suspects we’ll still see plenty of shotgun. Jordan Love attempted roughly 30% of his passes from under center in 2025 when Mannion was with the Packers. That’s more than three times as often as Hurts did.

    We could be talking about an additional 5-7 passes per game from under center. That’s not nothing. But we’re probably not going to see something that looks completely foreign. As tight end Dallas Goedert said last week, “You can only do so much [different] on offense.”

  • 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.

  • You can trace Jalen Brunson’s greatness and the Knicks’ NBA title right to Villanova

    You can trace Jalen Brunson’s greatness and the Knicks’ NBA title right to Villanova

    In a Rock Hill, S.C., restaurant last Wednesday night, during a recruiting road trip to the Nike 100 Camp, Ashley Howard locked his eyes on a television above the bar, enthralled by the most dramatic comeback in NBA Finals history, his mind recalling a more modest rally from nine years earlier.

    Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart, Mikal Bridges, and the New York Knicks kept chopping into that 29-point San Antonio Spurs lead. Madison Square Garden kept getting louder. And as Game 4 slowly shifted from a series-tying rout to the surest sign that three former Villanova stars would soon bring about the end of a 53-year championship drought, Howard remembered a college basketball game from January 2017, from the season between ’Nova’s ‘16 and ‘18 national championships.

    An assistant under Jay Wright then, an assistant under Kevin Willard now, Howard reminisced with the friend sitting next to him — former Villanova head coach Kyle Neptune, now an assistant with the Charlotte Hornets — about a 61-59 Wildcats victory over Virginia. Villanova had trailed that day by 12 points with less than 10 minutes to go, an imposing deficit given how Tony Bennett’s Cavaliers teams could slow a game to a crawl. But Hart and Brunson had pulled ‘Nova back from the brink, and Donte DiVincenzo had tipped in an off-target Hart layup at the buzzer, and Howard saw the residue of that win in OG Anunoby’s soaring-eagle tip-in and the Knicks’ 107-106 stunner in Game 4. In Brunson’s 45-point masterpiece Saturday night in the clinching Game 5. In the title run of a team that was smarter, tougher, and tighter than every other in the NBA playoffs.

    Jalen Brunson pours in 45 points as Knicks close out Spurs for first NBA title since 1973

    “After winning the first national championship, every game these guys played together in ‘17 was the biggest game for whoever they played,” Howard said in a phone interview. “They have everything to lose, and their opponent doesn’t. There’s a different type of mental toughness and mental fortitude you have to have to not only play under that pressure but answer the call in those moments.

    “Now they’re all back together, and it’s almost like déjà vu where that Villanova connection is back. The other pieces are different. The coaches are different. But when you look at that Knicks team, you say, ‘Yo, those dudes are playing Villanova basketball.’ It’s really all about how they play hard. They compete for the entire game. They never, never quit. They play unselfishly, and you can tell that they love each other. That just makes my chest stick out as wide as all outside.”

    Josh Hart (right) won the 2016 national title with the Wildcats.Charles Fox / Staff Photographer

    Howard was at the nexus of the origin of the ‘Nova Knicks, and the irony of his role in that story is that he, with such deep Philadelphia hoops roots, had left town when he made his first connections with Brunson, Hart, and Bridges. A standout guard at Monsignor Bonner and Drexel, he was climbing the college coaching ladder — first four years at La Salle, then four back at Drexel — when in 2013 he accepted the chance to assist Chris Mack at Xavier. It was a more highly regarded mid-major, a better shot to jump to a bigger program, and in that one year he spent in Cincinnati, Howard recruited that trio before reuniting with them again at Villanova.

    In Hart, Howard saw a relentless and tenacious guard who pulled down as many as 25 rebounds in games at Sidwell Friends in Washington and for his AAU club, Team Takeover. He also met a low-maintenance kid who, when Howard coaxed him to Xavier for an on-campus, didn’t need a fancy dinner at an exclusive restaurant. No, when Howard offered to buy him lunch, Hart instead was desperate for a sack of double-cheese sliders from White Castle. “Shows what a freak of nature he is,” Howard said.

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

    Bridges’ and Brunson’s recruitments were more personal for Howard, starting at Xavier and continuing after he joined Wright’s staff at ’Nova. Howard was friendly with Bridges’ cousin Bernard Tyler, who forwarded him a video of the kid’s highlights from Great Valley High School and Team Final, one clip after another of Bridges cutting to the basket and creating shots within Great Valley’s motion offense, with an enticing text: This is the next one. Make sure you get this dude. And Howard could only chuckle when Mack called him one day after attending a high school holiday tournament in Chicago and asked him, Hey, Ash, do you know Rick Brunson? His kid is really good.

    “Reached out to Rick,” Howard said. “We caught up, and I jumped on Jalen from that point on.”

    There’s a chicken-or-egg aspect to the greatness that Wright’s program achieved during that stretch in the mid-2010s and to the qualities that Brunson, Bridges, and Hart developed there and still carry with them. Would these players, because of their inherent strengths, have thrived in other programs? Or did they need to learn under Wright and his staff and his culture? A dash of both, of course, and the conditions and choices that led to their flourishing at Villanova — and to those two national championships — aren’t likely to be duplicated in college basketball’s current era of status seeking and coin chasing.

    Mikal Bridges was on both the 2016 and 2018 Villanova championship teams.Yong Kim / Staff Photographer

    Bridges went to Wright and Howard and suggested that he redshirt as a freshman, that he sit out an entire season for the sake of his growth as a player and person. Hart started just three games over his freshman and sophomore seasons, could have transferred out of frustration and a search for more playing time, and didn’t. Brunson as a freshman took a secondary role alongside Ryan Arcidiacono, then ran the Wildcats’ show for two years before entering the NBA draft. Good luck being so patient in developing players and building a program now.

    “It was a period of time where you could build off your failure and mistakes and learn from them collectively,” Howard said. “You could develop young people over a course of time and nurture and appreciate the process. … All these guys in their own way trusted us and allowed us to push them to limits. Parts of their experience at Villanova, man, it was tough, but they allowed us to make them uncomfortable.”

    It was the perfect preparation for these playoffs, for these NBA Finals, for a remarkable run capped when Brunson took control of Game 5, when the sub-6-foot guard with the impeccable footwork, with the endless array of head fakes and midrange shots, with the glorious old man’s game was once again the coolest customer on the court.

    “You could see the Spurs getting tight,” Howard said, “and you could see Jalen saying, ‘Yo, get me the ball. I’m gonna make these plays.’ Me being around J, it’s like, ‘Here he comes. It’s on.’ When the stakes get high, that dude is coming.”

    It had been 53 years, long enough for any franchise and its fans to wait for that kind of ride, and all it took was something Ashley Howard and everyone at Villanova had seen a million times before. All it took was Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart, and Mikal Bridges doing what they’ve always done.

  • The Eagles have to get more daring on offense this season. Nick Sirianni has to let them.

    The Eagles have to get more daring on offense this season. Nick Sirianni has to let them.

    OK, here’s a hypothetical scenario.

    It’s Week 5 of the Eagles’ season. They’re 2-2, but their record is not the concerning thing, not really. They have lost their most recent game, at home to the Los Angeles Rams, but that loss, in and of itself, is not the concerning thing, not really. The Rams are favored to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl, after all, and any team would struggle to hold Myles Garrett at bay, and the Eagles could not.

    No, here’s what’s concerning: Jalen Hurts is doing the one thing that he generally does not do. He’s turning the ball over. He’s throwing interceptions, and it’s clear that those interceptions are born of his acclimation to the Eagles’ new offensive system under their new offensive coordinator, Sean Mannion. The Eagles would be at least 3-1, perhaps 4-0, if not for Hurts tossing the ball to their opponents too many times.

    It looks — and sounds — like the Eagles knew what they were doing with Sean Mannion, Jeff Stoutland, and A.J. Brown

    So … what does Nick Sirianni do in this scenario?

    The question cuts to the core not only of the Eagles’ fortunes this season but their long-term future. And Hurts’ future. And Sirianni’s. Spend just a few minutes watching one of the Eagles’ recent minicamp workouts or listening to Hurts and Lane Johnson speak about Mannion’s offense, and you understand how big a change this will be and how committed the Eagles are to making it. Hurts will be under center more. The offensive line’s blocking techniques and schemes will be different. Oh, and A.J. Brown isn’t here anymore.

    Put simply, this transition may take some time, and it may be rough at the start. If it is, it promises to force Sirianni to choose between riding out Hurts’ rite of passage in Mannion’s system and falling back on one of his primary coaching principles: Above all else, protect the football.

    “As long as I’m the head coach here, we’re going to be very diligent about winning that turnover battle and winning the explosive-play battle,” Sirianni said Wednesday. “I know it’s like, ‘OK, that sounds simple,’ but there’s an art to it because you’ve got to be able to create explosives in different ways and sometimes that puts the ball at risk. But at the end of the day, that ball is still the most important thing.

    “We’ll know how to create explosives in that time, but taking care of the ball is the most important thing, and we talk about this all the time: Can we come out of a game with every drive ending in a kick? Whether that’s an extra point, hopefully, whether that’s a field goal, or whether that’s a punt.”

    Will Jalen Hurts be given the bandwidth to struggle in his early moments within the Sean Mannion offense?Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer

    A quick review of the last two seasons provides plenty of evidence that Sirianni is pastor of The Church of Do No Harm. In 2024, Hurts threw the ball at least 30 times in each of the Eagles’ first four games and was intercepted four times as the Eagles went 2-2. Over the remaining 13 regular-season games, he surpassed 30 pass attempts in a game once, and he threw just one interception, and the Eagles rode Saquon Barkley, their O-line, and their defense to a Super Bowl victory.

    In 2025, Hurts’ most daring passing performance — and, in Sirianni’s eyes, his most destructive — came in Week 14 against the Los Angeles Chargers. Hurts made some dazzling downfield throws that night … and tossed four picks, including one in overtime that ended the Eagles’ hopes of winning. His subsequent four games were a case study in cautiousness. He attempted just 15 passes in a rout of the (awful) Las Vegas Raiders. He had 185 passing yards on 30 attempts against the Washington Commanders, then threw for a piddling 110 yards (in freezing and windy weather, granted) against the Buffalo Bills, then managed just 168 yards on 35 attempts in that maddening wild-card loss to the San Francisco 49ers.

    Riq Woolen was a standout during OTAs and minicamp. Can he help the Eagles have the ‘best secondary?’

    The Eagles wouldn’t have hired Mannion if they believed such an approach were sustainable. The combined greatness of Barkley and their offensive line was responsible for the offense’s quick-strike and big-play capabilities in 2024, and it had the added bonus of cutting down the occasions when Hurts or anyone else had to put possession of the football at risk. But those circumstances and conditions were ideal and difficult, if not impossible, to replicate, and the Eagles couldn’t and didn’t in 2025.

    Now they have Mannion, who is regarded as a sharp, up-and-coming mind in the NFL. And they have Hurts, who for the sake of his own improvement and his team’s fate has to master a system unlike any he has played in before. And they have Sirianni, whose instinct has been to minimize any possibility of a big mistake. Something might have to give, and the season just might come down to the head coach and his ability to resolve a fundamental conflict within himself.

  • It looks — and sounds — like the Eagles knew what they were doing with Sean Mannion, Jeff Stoutland, and A.J. Brown

    It looks — and sounds — like the Eagles knew what they were doing with Sean Mannion, Jeff Stoutland, and A.J. Brown

    One of the Eagles’ great strengths as an organization is they understand the implications of the NFL’s competitive Darwinism. You evolve, or you die. It is a league full of maniacs who will not sleep until they figure out what your team is doing and how to stop it. The margins are slim, so fortune can flip fast. The Eagles saw it with Chip Kelly in Year 1 vs. Years 2 and 3. Anybody who can’t adapt to what comes next will quickly be out of the league.

    The Eagles were on the field for only a few days this week, but their mandatory minicamp was long enough to give you a real sense of why the offseason went the way it did. It was a startling thing to behold, both on the practice field and inside the building. Over five seasons, almost nothing had changed with regard to the fundamentals of the Eagles offense. Sure, coordinators came and went, but the identity remained the same. It served them well, with two Super Bowl appearances in three years, one of them a title from which they were less than a year removed when the offseason began. Yet they clearly sensed that an inflection point was coming, if it hadn’t already arrived.

    That sense was most evident in the words and tone of one Lane Johnson, the eldest statesman of the offense and the keystone around which the Eagles have built everything over the last decade and a half. Earlier this week, the veteran tackle spoke publicly for the first time since before a foot injury sidelined him for the last eight games of the season. A lot had changed in the interim. Gone was Jeff Stoutland, the legendary offensive line coach who inspired a fierce loyalty in his former players. In his place was a new blocking scheme, with new terminology, and a new philosophy, all under the command of a 34-year-old first-time playcaller whose playing career ended less than three years ago.

    Eagles practice observations: Jalen Hurts and offense strike back; rookie setbacks; Riq Woolen excels again

    Yet here was Johnson, barely a year removed from anchoring one of the greatest single-season offensive line performances of all time, and having done so under the tutelage of one of the greatest offensive line coaches of all time, en route to one of the most dominant Super Bowl victories of all time, and dadgummit if he didn’t sound positively refreshed.

    “I think with this offense, we’ll be able to stretch the field and really work our zone game and get the defense running and work things off of that,” Johnson said. “I’m really excited for what it can do, not just for tackles. I think it will open up a lot in our game.”

    The two keywords there are “this offense.” As opposed to that offense. You know, the one the Eagles used to run. It may sound like a small thing, but only if you didn’t listen closely during the four previous changes at playcaller. I don’t think that phrase was ever used. At least, not like Johnson and the rest of the Eagles who spoke publicly have been using it. As a signifier of real, legitimate change. It didn’t sound like this when Nick Sirianni gave way to Shane Steichen, nor when Steichen gave way to Brian Johnson, nor Johnson to Kellen Moore or Moore to Kevin Patullo. The operative question always centered on who would have final say over the plays rather than what those plays would look like from a broad schematic standpoint.

    Not so this time around.

    The change is real. That was the biggest takeaway from this week’s preamble to training camp. The hiring of Mannion, the jettisoning of Stoutland, the trading of A.J. Brown, the subtle challenges to Jalen Hurts … this was not the same window-dressing offseason of years past. These were purpose-driven moves rooted in the realization that 2025 would not be a one-year blip if the Eagles fooled themselves into thinking that the things that worked in previous seasons would one day work again.

    It remains to be seen what the scheme will actually look like. You’d have to work just to get an NFL coach to admit he will have precisely 11 players on the field. But Johnson referred to Mannion’s scheme as a Kubiak/Shanahan system, the archetype being the 1990s Broncos teams that utilized heavy amounts of outside zone/stretch runs from under center and the resulting play action looks that offered quarterbacks ample passing lanes and plenty of distance between them and the line.

    Head coach Nick Sirianni and the Eagles have seemingly embraced an offensive scheme change this offseason.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer

    “I’ve always envied wanting to be a part of it,” Johnson said. “So here I am, after all these years, getting that chance. Not to say we’re going to be better because there’s a lot to learn. I think we have the ability to be a lot more than what we were last year.”

    The Eagles did the right thing in treating last year as a sign of the times rather than awarding themselves a mulligan. Their strength as an organization has long been their willingness and ability to execute a hard pivot. Dating back to Joe Banner’s reign as club president, the Eagles front office has built its decision-making processes on a cold philosophical calculus. A team is better off being a year early than a year late on its consequential decisions.

    It is true at all levels of football management, from awarding contract extensions to the evaluation of veteran players to the identification of leaguewide trends. There is considerable risk in being early, which is why a lot of teams end up being late. It isn’t easy to let a franchise icon leave town, or to spend a second-round pick on a quarterback when one already has a starter. Vindication occurs in a separate time horizon from a fan base’s patience. It is good to be proved right. It is better to be employed.

    Jalen Hurts pushes back on ESPN report suggesting his resistance to change: ‘I’m always open to growth’

    What Jeffrey Lurie and Howie Roseman both realize is that the last teams to arrive for dinner often become the dinner. Barely a year after winning their second ever Super Bowl title, the Eagles decided that they’d arrived at one of those inflection points that plenty of teams would ignore in the interest of convenience or ego protection.

    Will the offense actually look different? Like, materially? The players sure seem to think it will. In which case, the big question is this:

    Will it work?

  • 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.

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

    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.

  • The Sixers need to reconnect with the region. Jameer Nelson is their best hope.

    The Sixers need to reconnect with the region. Jameer Nelson is their best hope.

    Jameer Nelson took care to draw a distinction that was important to him and should be important to the franchise that has promoted him.

    “Growing up in this area — everybody keeps saying Philly — I’m a Chester native,” he said Monday. “Philly adopted me.”

    There’s a difference between the two, as anyone who has lived and followed basketball in the Philadelphia area long enough can tell you. Chester is a small, forever struggling city with its own glorious hoops history, with a high school program that has won eight PIAA boys basketball championships, with its own heroes and legends, the 76ers’ executive vice president of basketball operations among them.

    Jameer Nelson wants to be ‘part of the solution’ for the Sixers. His promotion provides an opportunity to do that ‘at home.’

    When Nelson mentioned his favorite players as a kid, he name-dropped Charles Barkley and Allen Iverson. Any Chester aficionado would have chided him for leaving John Linehan and Zain Shaw off his list, and he laughed in acknowledgment of the omission.

    That contrast might not seem to mean much. But it said everything about Nelson’s potential value to the Sixers, to his ability to provide at least some of the institutional memory and understanding of the market that the organization has lacked for so long. “No one more capable,” Phil Martelli, Nelson’s coach at St. Joseph’s, said in a text message Monday.

    He knows Philadelphia and Chester and knows they aren’t quite the same. He knows what it was like here in 2001, when Iverson led the Sixers to the NBA Finals, and he knows what it was like in early 2004, when Nelson himself led the Hawks in that magical unbeaten regular season and that run to the Elite Eight.

    Jameer Nelson Sr. was a 2,000-point scorer for St. Josephs. He ignited the Hawks to the NCAA Tournament Elite Eight in 2004.George Reynolds / Staff Photographer

    He knows what will play here and what won’t, who can play here and who can’t.

    “Understanding the landscape and understanding what this team means to the city, I can bring that,” said Nelson, who had a 14-year playing career in the NBA. “I can help everybody in the building understand that because I understand it. Growing up, I was one of the people who are doing what people are doing now.”

    Too few people among the Sixers’ previous power players have had that background, and no member of the current leadership has it. Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment president Bob Myers lives in California. Mike Gansey, the Sixers’ new president of basketball operations, reminded people at the team’s headquarters in Camden that he “just got here” after growing up in the Cleveland area and working for the Cavaliers for 15 years. And managing partner Josh Harris splits his time between Miami and his $28 million mansion in the Georgetown section of Washington, parachuting into town for home games and the latest hiring/firing news conference.

    Nelson still is third in the pecking order at best within the Sixers’ basketball hierarchy, behind Myers and Gansey. But at least his new title might afford him a louder, stronger voice when it comes time to draft, sign, or trade for players the Sixers hope to have here for a while. Myers said aloud Monday what anyone who has followed this team already knew to be true: “We’ve got to find an identity. We just don’t have one.” That assertion goes beyond the Sixers’ style of play.

    It gets to the character and attitude of the players, the coaches, everyone in the organization. It gets to the Sixers’ giving themselves a better chance of making better decisions. For every time they’ve recognized that Tyrese Maxey or VJ Edgecombe had the mental and emotional makeup to cut it here, they’ve failed to see that Ben Simmons and Markelle Fultz didn’t, that James Harden and Paul George and mercenaries like them, stars who require a softer setting, were unlikely to thrive or to be embraced.

    “Anytime you can put somebody in a leadership role who understands and embraces it and is reared here, it’s an advantage,” Myers said. “I don’t know to say it was a negative last year or in years past, but I do think most people would agree this is a uniquely spirited community, and having someone who knows that and grows up and feels that — and the responsibility that comes with it — I love that Jameer is in the place he’s in.”

    The Mike Gansey era has begun. Where do the Sixers go from here? | David Murphy

    The Sixers under Harris need Nelson’s instincts and experience and all the additional help they can get in that regard. A longtime NBA executive noted recently that in professional sports, you often can trace a franchise’s excellence or stability to the geographical proximity and familiarity of its owner. Does the person in charge live where the team is based? Did they grow up there? Do they truly understand the city and its fan base?

    Spurs managing partner Peter Holt has deep familial ties to San Antonio. The Heat’s Micky Arison has lived most of his life in Miami. Joe Lacob was a Warriors season ticket-holder for nearly 10 years before he bought the team in 2010. Jeffrey Lurie relocated from Boston and took the time to learn what Philadelphia was all about. Ed Snider and John Middleton were already here to know.

    New Sixers executive vice president of basketball operations Jameer Nelson (left) talks with Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment CEO Tad Brown (right) after Mike Gansey’s introduction press conference on Monday.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer

    James Dolan is a surveillance-happy nepo-Boomer who, after a quarter-century of mismanaging the Knicks, finally stumbled into ecstasy thanks to Leon Rose, William “Worldwide Wes” Wesley, and Jalen Brunson. But Dolan’s also a native Long Islander who felt the heat in New York — the city where rebuilding isn’t allowed — every time one of his cockamamie attempts to quick-fix his franchise went awry.

    The NBA thinks it solved its tanking problem. But some La Salle researchers might have a better fix.

    Too often since Harris took control of them in 2011, the Sixers have acted as if they’re content to be interesting, to settle for the sugar rush of another roster shake-up and a sold-out arena instead of putting in the demanding, patient work that leads to genuine and lasting success. “You can’t buy championships,” said Myers, who won four of them as the Warriors’ general manager. “You have to go through it to get them.”

    Whether it’s the pain of Sam Hinkie’s Process or the cost of exceeding the league’s luxury-tax threshold, Harris’ Sixers have shown a reluctance to make such sacrifices, and their status in the city and their performance come the second round of each year’s playoffs have sunk because of it. If nothing else, in Jameer Nelson, out of Chester and adopted by Philadelphia, they have someone who can remind them that the hard way is what this region prizes and rewards, the only way that works.

  • 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.

    The Mike Gansey era has begun. Where do the Sixers go from here?

    “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.