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Tag: this season

  • Cedric Coward ailing as Grizzlies host Spurs

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    (Photo credit: Kiyoshi Mio-Imagn Images)

    During a season in which Memphis Grizzlies star guard Ja Morant has missed approximately half of the team’s 35 games due to injury, teammates seem to be joining him on the sidelines on a consistent basis.

    The latest to join the oft-injured Morant was rookie Cedric Coward, a bright spot for the Grizzlies this season and a player who had mostly escaped the injury bug. He had missed only one game this season because of heel soreness but he will sit out Tuesday’s game against the visiting San Antonio Spurs due to an ankle injury.

    In Sunday’s 120-114 road loss to the Los Angeles Lakers, Coward injured his left ankle in the first half and didn’t return as the Grizzlies dropped their fourth straight. Morant began the game on the sidelines in street clothes, a victim of a right calf contusion suffered two days earlier, also against the Lakers.

    Morant has played in just 18 games this season and is questionable for Tuesday due to a right calf contusion.

    Reserve guards Scotty Pippen Jr. (toe) and Ty Jerome (calf) have yet to play this season because of their injuries. Forward Brandon Clarke (calf) made a brief appearance last month after recovering from a knee issue, but was injured again. Starting big man Zach Edey has been out with a stress reaction in his surgically repaired left ankle.

    Reserve wing players John Konchar (thumb) and Vince Williams Jr. (knee), who has been pressed into emergency point guard duties on occasion, also are out with injuries.

    Coward had 16 points and eight rebounds before injuring his left ankle in the second quarter against the Lakers.

    ‘I thought he played a great game, but he only got to play 12-and-half minutes,’ Grizzlies coach Tuomas Iisalo said.

    His long-term loss would be impactful. Coward has played the fourth-most minutes for the Grizzlies this season, trailing only Jaren Jackson Jr., Santi Aldama and Jaylen Wells. Coward’s defensive rebounding percentage (16.1%) ranks third behind Edey (25%) and Santi Aldama (16.4%).

    The Grizzlies will attempt to recover during a stretch of seven home games in their next nine games. The two non-home games will be against the Orlando Magic in Berlin and London.

    Memphis entered the fourth quarter of Sunday’s game against the Lakers with a four-point advantage, but couldn’t maintain it. Luke Doncic and LeBron James took control of the game’s final 12 minutes to extend the Grizzlies’ misery. Cam Spencer, who started in place of Morant, had a rare off-shooting night missing nine of his 10 field goal attempts, including all five of his 3-point shots.

    San Antonio has been dealing with injury issues of its own. Victor Wembanyama, the Spurs’ NBA most valuable player candidate, missed Saturday’s 115-110 home loss to the Portland Trail Blazers with left knee soreness. Coach Mitch Johnson said Wembanyama, averaging 24.3 points and 11.7 rebounds with 61 blocks in 21 games, will make the trip to Memphis and could be available.

    The Spurs listed Wembanyama as questionable for the contest on Monday’s injury report.

    Even without Wembanyama, Johnson would have liked to have seen a better effort.

    ‘Guys were not playing with their instincts,’ Johnson said. ‘If we continue to guard like we guard at the start of games teams will continue to shoot like they have. There’s been enough of a sample size in the recent part of games that I don’t think it’s an outlier.’

    Luke Kornet had 23 points, eight rebounds and five blocked shots against Portland. Julian Champagnie added 20 points and 10 rebounds while De’Aaron Fox scored 19 points.

    The Spurs have won seven of their last 10.

    –Field Level Media

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  • Celtics sink free throws, keep Pistons from 14th straight win

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    (Photo credit: David Butler II-Imagn Images)

    Jaylen Brown had 33 points, 10 rebounds and five assists to help the host Boston Celtics end the Detroit Pistons’ 13-game winning streak with a 117-114 victory on Wednesday in an NBA Cup game.

    After Anfernee Simons extended Boston’s lead to 115-112 by making two free throws with 6.3 seconds on the clock, Cade Cunningham was fouled attempting a 3-pointer with 4.4 seconds remaining, but he missed the third free-throw attempt after he made the first two.

    Boston’s Payton Pritchard made two free throws with 2.4 seconds left and then the Celtics came up with a steal on Detroit’s final possession.

    Detroit would have set a franchise record by winning its 14th straight game.

    The Pistons also won 13 straight games in 1989-1990 and 2003-04. Detroit won the NBA title both seasons.

    Derrick White added 27 points and seven rebounds for Boston. Pritchard made four 3-pointers and finished with 16 points.

    Cunningham scored a game-high 42 points and collected eight rebounds and five assists. He made 14 of 16 foul shots in the loss.

    Jalen Duren added 12 points and 16 rebounds for Detroit, which also received a 12-point performance from Tobias Harris.

    The loss dropped Detroit’s road record to 7-2.

    The Celtics played without center Neemias Queta, who exited Sunday’s game against Orlando in the first quarter with a left ankle sprain and did not return. Queta is averaging career-highs in points per game (9.3) and rebounds per game (7.9) this season.

    The Pistons led 30-24 after one quarter and 58-57 at halftime, but Boston had an 86-83 lead entering the final quarter.

    It was the second time Boston and Detroit have played this season. The Pistons defeated the Celtics 119-113 in Detroit on Oct. 26. Brown scored a game-high 41 points in the loss. Cunningham led the Pistons with 25.

    Detroit is 2-1 in East Group B. Boston is 2-2.

    –Field Level Media

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  • Lynx, minus star player and head coach, in survival mode against Mercury

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    (Photo credit: Rick Scuteri-Imagn Images)

    The Minnesota Lynx are playing to save their season against the Phoenix Mercury in Game 4 of their contentious WNBA semifinal playoff series Sunday, and they will do so without star forward Napheesa Collier and coach Cheryl Reeve.

    Collier was declared out because of a left ankle injury, and Reeve was suspended for her conduct after the play that caused it.

    Collier rolled her left ankle when Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas swooped in to steal her dribble and turn it into an uncontested layup, the decisive basket with 21.8 seconds remaining in 84-76 win Friday that gave the host Mercury a 2-1 edge in the best-of-five series.

    Reeve ran onto the court and confronted referees. She was restrained by members of her staff and unleashed an expletive-laced critique of the officiating in the postgame press conference.

    The Lynx’s climb to their second straight appearance in the WNBA Finals has become exponentially steeper.

    ‘You leave it where it’s at, right?’ Lynx guard Courtney Williams said after Game 3, ‘and you stay locked in.

    ‘We’re still here, and we’re still a great team. Man, when it comes to the playoffs or any game, you can’t get too high. You can’t get too low. We still got a game we have to win.’

    The Lynx, who won a franchise-record 34 games this season, played 11 games without Collier, who missed most of that time with a right ankle injury. They were 27-6 and averaged 88.2 points per game with Collier this season were 7-4 while averaging 79.5 without her.

    Minnesota has lost the last two games of the series. It has not lost three in a row this season.

    Collier, the runner-up in the MVP voting this season, was the first player in league history to shoot at least 50 percent from the floor, 40 percent from 3-point range and 90 percent from the free-throw line while averaging 20 points per game.

    She averaged 22.9 points and 7.3 rebounds per game in the regular season and has 49 points and five threes in this series. She did not score in the fourth quarter of Game 3 when the Mercury outscored the Lynx 21-9.

    Williams (19.0 points, 6.2 assists) and Kayla McBride (18.0 points) are the Lynx’s other double-digit scores in this series. Guard Natisha Hiedeman had 19 points off the bench in Game 3.

    ‘We just won one game,’ Mercury coach Nate Tibbetts said after taking the series lead. ‘But the one thing that we are is … we are tough, and we’ll fight and compete.’

    The Mercury are attempting to reach their first WNBA Finals since 2021, when they fell to Kahleah Copper and the Chicago Sky. Game 5 of this series would be in Minneapolis on Sunday.

    Copper, now with the Mercury, has been one of the Mercury’s bright lights in this series, which included the Mercury’s record-breaking comeback from a 20-point deficit in an 89-83 overtime victory in Game 2. The Mercury scored the final nine points in Game 3.

    Thomas neared her second playoff triple-double with 21 points, nine rebounds and eight assists Friday. Satou Sabally had 23 points and Copper had 21, her second 20-point game in the series while working against a smaller Lynx backcourt.

    The Mercury, re-made in the offseason when they added Thomas and Sabally, have rallied around an identity as a disrespected underdog. It began when they were not ranked highly in the preseason

    ‘ESPN, all of them, they ranked us really low,’ Sabally said. ‘To me, it’s a disrespect toward those two (Thomas and Copper). That just fuels us. We’re the underdogs. We have something to prove to ourselves more than to others, and I think this is really what bonds us.’

    The Lynx, who led the league in field-goal percentage at 47.2 in the regular season, are shooting 43.9 against the Mercury and are 22 of 81 (27 percent) from distance.

    –Field Level Media

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