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The showdown of New York has the Brooklyn Nets (17-25) hosting the New York Knicks (26-17) on Tuesday. The Nets narrowly lead the all-time series 107-104. Despite that, New York has won three straight games over Brooklyn, and on Dec. 20, the Knicks outlasted the Nets 121-102. The Knicks average 115.2 points per game, while the Nets put up 114.2 points per game. Isaiah Hartenstein (Achilles) is questionable for the Knicks.

Tip-off is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. ET at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. The Knicks are a 3.5-point favorite in the latest Knicks vs. Nets odds, per SportsLine consensus, while the over/under for total points scored is 223. Before making any Nets vs. Knicks picks, you’ll want to see the NBA predictions and betting advice from the proven computer model at SportsLine.

The SportsLine Projection Model simulates every NBA game 10,000 times and has returned well over $10,000 in profit for $100 players on its top-rated NBA picks over the past five-plus seasons. The model enters Week 14 of the 2023-24 NBA season on a sizzling 48-25 roll on all top-rated NBA picks this season, returning over $2,200. Anyone following it has seen huge returns.

Now, the model has set its sights on Knicks vs. Nets and just locked in its picks and NBA predictions. You can head to SportsLine now to see the model’s picks. Here are several NBA odds and betting lines for Nets vs. Knicks:

Knicks vs. Nets spread: New York -3.5
Knicks vs. Nets over/under: 223 points
Knicks vs. Nets money line: New York -169, Brooklyn +141
NYK: The Knicks are 16-9 ATS as the favorite this season
BKN: The Nets are 12-6-2 ATS at home this season
Knicks vs. Nets picks: See picks at SportsLine
Why the Knicks can cover
Forward OG Anunoby has made a great impact on the Knicks. Since joining the team on Jan. 1, the Knicks have gone 9-2. Anunoby plays superb defense due to his length and size, constantly making things tough for ball handlers. The Indiana product averages 15.1 points, 4.3 rebounds, and 1.2 blocks per game. In his last contest, Anunoby logged 14 points, seven boards, and three blocks.

Guard Donte DiVincenzo plays with high energy, gets to the rim with no hesitation and thrives in transition due to his speed in open space. The Villanova product averages 11.3 points, 3.1 rebounds, and 2.2 assists per game. He’s supplied at least 15 points in three of his last four games. In Saturday’s win over the Raptors, DiVincenzo finished with 17 points and three boards. See which team to pick here.

Why the Nets can cover
Forward Mikal Bridges is an athletic playmaker in the frontcourt. Bridges can create his own shot with ease and use his length to be an active defender. The 27-year-old leads the team in points (21.4) to go along with 5.2 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game. He dropped 26 points, six rebounds, and five assists in the loss to the Clippers.

Guard Cam Thomas is an aggressive scoring threat for the Nets. Thomas can hit jumpers on the outside with ease and scores from all three levels. The 22-year-old logs 20.6 points, 2.4 assists, and shoots 35% from downtown. He’s dropped 20-plus points in four of his last five games. On Jan. 19 versus the Lakers, Thomas totaled 33 points and four assists. See which team to pick here.

The Milwaukee Bucks fired rookie head coach Adrian Griffin on Tuesday just 43 games into his tenure. You won’t often see a coach get canned with a 30-13 record, but it goes to show the level of stakes the Bucks have riding on this season.

They don’t have time to fool themselves with a regular-season record. When they traded for Damian Lillard, it became championship or bust. This is not a championship team right now. So they got proactive, making a move based on their heightened standards of performance rather than the general standards that a No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference would typically satisfy.

Give the Bucks credit for that. They could’ve taken what they obviously believe was a bad hire in the first place and made it worse by refusing to admit their mistake. But here’s the problem: If they fire one guy to just make another mistake on the next hire, nothing will have been accomplished.

Doc Rivers sounds like the leading candidate. Hmm. Have you seen how much different, for the better, the Philadelphia 76ers look this season under Nick Nurse? The fascination with big-name retread coaches will never go away, and to be fair, maybe all the Bucks need is someone who’s used to managing superstars — but Rivers isn’t exactly a creative offensive mind, and I would argue that’s what Milwaukee needs most.

Hear me out: While everyone is going to point to Milwaukee’s defensive decline — from fourth a season ago to 22nd this season, in which the Bucks are surrendering almost six more points per 100 possessions — as the reason Griffin is out of a job, to me, that was a conscious roster decision.

Sure, Griffin changed up Mike Budenholzer’s big-drop strategy in the early going, and of late Giannis Antetokounmpo has pointed to a lack of a defensive plan. But by and large, when you flip out Jrue Holiday for Lillard, and start a Lillard-Malik Beasley backcourt, you are going to struggle defensively. If Milwaukee’s front office expected anything different, they set Griffin up to fail.

More likely, the expectation was that the offense would more than make up for that defensive decline, which, in theory, would leave the Bucks on the plus side of such a philosophical shift. It’s true, Milwaukee is scoring basically the same six points more per 100 that they are losing defensively from a year ago, making it look like a wash on paper, but a wash is not what they were after. And besides, numbers can only tell you so much.

Anyone who has watched this team will tell you the Bucks are not getting anything close to the best version of Lillard. That was Griffin’s main job. Maximize Lillard and Giannis, and the rest might not even matter. But Giannis isn’t as natural as everyone hoped he would be as a short-roller, and Lillard has openly admitted he has struggled to play with his typical rhythm without the ball in his hands as much he’s used to.

It’s a tight fit, and Griffin never quite found it. Lillard is shooting 42% from the field and 35% from 3. He’s averaging 25 points per game. Those are acceptable numbers, but nowhere close to the production that most people were expecting. Lillard was supposed to be feasting on defenses that could no longer focus entirely on him. His 51.5 eFG% ranks 26th among point guards, in the vicinity of Russell Westbrook, per Cleaning the Glass.

That’s what needs to change, because the tradeoff the Bucks bet on is simple: Lillard’s offense has to be worth more than Holiday’s defense, especially because Holiday’s offense, while not elite, is far better than Lillard’s defense, which I laid out as a disaster less than a month into the season.

Throw in the fact that Holiday has now taken the Celtics, the Bucks’ chief Eastern rival, to an even higher level, and it only puts even more pressure on Milwaukee to raise their offensive level behind Lillard. That’s the position they willingly, happily, put themselves in from a roster standpoint. It’s not about numbers. It’s about what we’re truly seeing on the court.

This team needs to start humming, not barely getting by against the likes of the Pistons and the Warriors playing without Stephen Curry and Draymond Green. Not scoring 95 points in a 40-point loss to the Cavs with Lillard and Khris Middleton combining to shoot 8 for 30. Not losing to the Rockets by managing to score a measly 108 points despite Giannis going for 48.

Lillard was 5 for 16 in that Houston game, including 1 of 8 from 3. He’s shooting 27% from 3 for the month of January.

This just isn’t going to cut it against the backdrop of what should’ve been a predictable defensive decline. Perhaps the defense shouldn’t have fallen off this much, but I’d be careful thinking a new coach is going to fix that side of the ball. The Bucks made their deal with the basketball devil. They’re all in on offense. Have been from the moment they acquired Lillard. Whoever gets this job has to get that part more than right; they have to get it damn near perfect. Because the Bucks’ defense, which, again, I would put more on the front office than the coach, doesn’t allow for any error.

It’s a tough gig. Griffin wasn’t the guy for it. We’ll see if the next person is.

USA Basketball is gearing up for the 2024 Summer Olympics. It announced a 41-man player pool on Tuesday composed of potential members of the final roster, which will be revealed at a later date. Team USA is fired up after an underwhelming performance at the 2023 FIBA World Cup, so the competition could be the fiercest it’s been in a while.

LeBron James and Stephen Curry were among the big-time players who didn’t participate in the last Olympics, but both were included on the list and have voiced interest in suiting up. Other notable names that didn’t play in Tokyo, Japan but could in 2024 include Anthony Davis, James Harden, Jimmy Butler, Kyrie Irving, Chris Paul, Paul George, and Kawhi Leonard.

Then there are the newcomers. Among them is Joel Embiid, who announced his decision to choose America over his native country Cameroon, and France in October. The Philadelphia 76ers star and reigning MVP could help fix Team USA’s glaring weakness in the post, as many of the league’s best centers are now international players. Several younger stars could make their first Olympic USA Basketball appearance with him.

Tyrese Haliburton, Trae Young, Anthony Edwards, De’Aaron Fox, Jaylen Brown, and Brandon Ingram are just a few of the top players with a chance to knock off some of the seasoned veterans. They’ve all notched at least one All-Star appearance, but Team USA is more selective.

Whether USA Basketball can rebound from finishing without a medal at the FIBA World Cup remains to be seen, but the player pool for 2024 appears to be loaded with talent and capable of a return to dominance.

The Milwaukee Bucks are firing head coach Adrian Griffin, the team announced Tuesday. The stunning move comes a mere 43 games into Griffin’s coaching career. The former Toronto Raptors assistant was hired by Milwaukee this offseason after the team’s upset loss to the Miami Heat in the first round of the 2023 NBA playoffs cost Mike Budenholzer his job.

Griffin had the blessing of star forward Giannis Antetokounmpo and got off to a 30-13 record in Milwaukee (.698 winning percentage), but several incidents throughout the year suggested things weren’t going according to plan.

“This was a difficult decision to make during the season,” Bucks general manager Jon Horst said in a press release. “We are working immediately toward hiring our next head coach. We thank Coach Griffin for his hard work and contributions to the team.”

The Bucks are reportedly considering a small group of veteran former head coaches as possible replacements for Griffin, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. That includes former Philadelphia 76ers head coach Doc Rivers, who is currently broadcasting games for ESPN, as well as top assistant Joe Prunty, who will serve as the interim coach.

There was a pre-season shake-up on Griffin’s staff as top assistant Terry Stotts resigned in October following an incident at shootaround in which Griffin yelled at him to join a coaching huddle rather than speak with Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard. There was another reported incident during Milwaukee’s In-Season Tournament elimination loss to the Pacers in which Bobby Portis reportedly challenged him in the locker room. Griffin tried to implement a more aggressive defensive scheme early in the season, but admitted that Milwaukee’s players had convinced him to change it after early struggles.

It is unclear what other candidates they are considering, but there are a number of accomplished former head coaches currently without jobs. Among them are Mike D’Antoni, Dave Joerger and, ironically, Budenholzer. Stotts would seem to be a possible fit given his long history of coaching Lillard, but it is unclear if either side would be interested in a reunion after their split in October.

There is no real precedent for a team firing a rookie head coach 43 games into a season in which he has the NBA’s second-best record. There have been shorter overall tenures, like Jerry Tarkanian’s 20-game stint in San Antonio and Bob Weiss’ 30-game stretch with the Sonics, but both coaches were below .500 when they were fired. To find a fired coach who won as much as Griffin has, you’d have to turn to former Cleveland Cavaliers coach David Blatt, who reached the Finals in his first season in 2015 and was then fired 41 games into his second season with a 30-11 record.

The Bucks, who currently have the third-shortest odds to win the 2024 NBA title at +480, have such a talented roster that some degree of regular-season success was almost inevitable. But there were visible issues under the surface in Milwaukee, and after the Bucks traded away all of its remaining draft capital to land Lillard over the summer, there was a clear mandate across the entire organization to win the championship right now. The front office seemingly decided that Griffin wasn’t up to the task and let him go with enough time left to try to find a suitable replacement before the playoffs.

Tuesday’s five-game NBA slate will begin at 7 p.m. and end with a rivalry game between the Los Angeles Clippers and Los Angeles Lakers. Injuries could play a huge part in who the best fantasy options are, so be sure to stay up to date on injury reports ahead of tip-off.

Are you looking for strong returns? Here’s who you should keep an eye on as you look to build optimal lineups on DraftKings and FanDuel:

Markannen missed out on his third consecutive double-double by one rebound his last time out but can bounce back with another strong performance against the New Orleans Pelicans. The Utah Jazz forward racked up 24 points, 10 rebounds, five assists, and a steal the last time he faced the Pels and is amid his most productive and efficient month of the season so far. Markkanen is averaging 25.1 points, 9.3 rebounds, and 2.4 assists per game in January while shooting 51.8% from the field and 44.9% from deep.

Russell’s return to the starting lineup has worked wonders for his numbers. He’s averaged 27.1 points and 6.4 assists over his previous five games and logged at least 24 minutes in each contest. He is flourishing as his time with the team could be nearing a close. He’s tallied at least 20 points, three rebounds, and three assists in his previous five starts against James Harden.

Isaiah Hartenstein will miss the New York Knicks’ matchup with the Brooklyn Nets on Tuesday. While Jericho Sims will likely start, Precious Achiuwa will probably carry a heavier workload off the bench. The Knicks big man racked up 18 points, 11 rebounds, and a block in 25 minutes in his last game while Sims logged three minutes. Nic Claxton could make things tough for Sims, so fantasy managers should look to take advantage of how cheap Achiuwa is here.

The Milwaukee Bucks have reached out to Doc Rivers and are engaging in conversations with him about possibly becoming their next head coach, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. The Bucks are searching for a replacement for Adrian Griffin, their first-year head coach whom they fired Tuesday despite a 30-13 start. The Athletic’s Shams Charania reported Tuesday that Rivers had served as an informal consultant to Griffin at the organization’s behest earlier in the season. Now, he has a chance to potentially replace him.

Rivers is one of the most experienced coaches in recent NBA history. He has coached a total of 24 seasons for the Orlando Magic, Boston Celtics, Los Angeles Clippers and Philadelphia 76ers, and he won a championship for the Celtics in 2008. He won the 1999-2000 NBA Coach of the Year award in Orlando and has reached the postseason 19 times.

Yet Rivers’ postseason shortcomings are responsible for his current availability. He was fired by the Clippers after blowing a 3-1 lead in the 2020 playoffs to the Denver Nuggets, and his three-year stint in Philadelphia included an upset second-round loss at the hands of the Atlanta Hawks and a blown 3-2 lead to the Boston Celtics last season. Seven teams have lost series in which they led 3-1 this century, and Rivers coached three of them.

Rivers is currently broadcasting for ESPN, but he was always going to draw interest in the coaching market again eventually. The Bucks tried to compete for a championship with a rookie at the helm and ultimately came up short. If Rivers is indeed their choice to replace Griffin, they will be replacing one of the league’s least experienced head coaches with one of its most experienced moving forward.

Rey Mysterio is the first inductee announced for the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2023. Mysterio’s inclusion was announced on Friday’s episode of WWE SmackDown.

Mysterio’s impending induction marks a rare instance where a superstar will enter the Hall of Fame as a regularly active performer. Mysterio has been a frequent presence on SmackDown and wrestled as recently as the Feb. 24 episode of the blue brand. News of his induction served as a foil for the ongoing storyline feud between Rey Mysterio and his son, Dominik Mysterio.

BREAKING NEWS: @reymysterio is the 1st inductee for the 2023 #WWEHOF! pic.twitter.com/hvT9xARFa4

— WWE (@WWE) March 11, 2023
Dominik Mysterio, flanked by Judgement Day, accused Rey Mysterio of being an absent father while adding up the accolades of his soon-to-be Hall of Fame career. Santos Escobar and his Legado del Fantasma faction came to the defense of Rey Mysterio, leading to a six-man tag team match against Dominik Mysterio, Damian Priest and Finn Balor.

Mysterio is arguably the most popular luchador alive and certainly the biggest representative of Mexico’s rich wrestling culture on the North American stage. Mysterio is often credited for paving the way in professional wrestling for both smaller wrestlers and masked performers, popularizing the cruiserweight division and the lucha libre style in promotions like WWE, WCW and ECW.

Mysterio has captured 15 championships in the WWE, including one reign as WWE champion and two as world heavyweight champion. He also won the Royal Rumble in 2006 and is the 21st Grand Slam and Triple Crown champion in WWE history.

Charlotte Flair is the most accomplished women’s superstar in WWE history and could statistically eclipse every superstar in WWE history before it’s said and done. Flair enters WrestleMania 39 as a 14-time women’s champion — two short of the 16-time men’s world title reign record shared by her father Ric Flair and John Cena — but she is not complacent.

Flair returned to WWE programming in December following a seven-month layoff. She pinned Ronda Rousey, the last person to beat her, in Flair’s first match back to start another reign as SmackDown women’s champion. It was the latest milestone in a career full of them. The second-generation superstar’s unmatched 14 stints as women’s champion are compromised of seven SmackDown women’s titles and six Raw women’s titles, of which she is also the inaugural titleholder, plus a reign as the final WWE Diva’s champion. Flair is also one of only two superstars in history to have two separate reigns as WWE NXT champion.

Such a high degree of success can sometimes generate apathy among the fanbase. It’s happened to many surefire WWE Hall of Famers, from Cena to Roman Reigns. Flair’s last few title reigns have not set the world on fire, but she is more motivated than ever to elevate the title she proudly carries. The new creative direction of WWE, spearheaded by Paul Levesque (Triple H), has the gears turning in Flair’s head about how to make reign No. 14 stand out from the rest.

“Yes it does,” Flair told CBS Sports ahead of the March 26 A&E premiere of her “Biography: WWE Legends” episode. “I consciously think of how to make this better or how to make having the title mean more.”

Check out the full interview with Charlotte Flair below.

Flair has an appropriate dance partner in 2023 Royal Rumble winner Rhea Ripley. The foes will face off at WrestleMania 39, the biggest annual event in professional wrestling, on the first weekend of April. Flair enters the grand showcase motivated but unincumbered by the nervousness that sometimes overwhelmed her in the past.

“It’s not what I feel like I need to prove [anymore]. I’m just being Charlotte,” Flair said. “Whether that’s good or bad, whether you like me, don’t like me, whether you just respect me. I’m here for them. Now getting that opportunity to high-five every single kid in the front row and not focus on being old school and walking into the arena as the bad guy and leaving as the bad guy. It’s just it’s been extremely rewarding.”

Trish Stratus wrapped the perfect bow on her Hall of Fame career in 2019, but the opportunity to celebrate nearly a quarter-century in the ring at WrestleMania is too good to pass up. Stratus teams with WWE women’s tag team champions Becky Lynch and Lita to battle Damage CTRL (Bayley, Dakota Kai and Iyo Sky) at WrestleMania 39 in Los Angeles.

Stratus overcame her own doubts and put forward a strong showing against Charlotte Flair at WWE SummerSlam in 2019. It was her first singles match in eight years and took place in front of a hometown crowd in Toronto, Ontario. Fast-forward four years and Stratus, 47, finds herself in an all-star game on the industry’s biggest stage.

“I’ve always said, ‘Why would I come out of retirement?’ I had a perfect post-retirement moment with Charlotte at SummerSlam. It was a great match and for me, it was a generational face-off that was cool. It was like the best of her times against arguably the best of my times,” Stratus told CBS Sports ahead of the March 19 premiere of “WWE Rivals: Trish Stratus vs. Lita” on A&E.

“To have us face-off was really special and unique and just really the timing of it being in Toronto was just perfect. I had that opportunity to really have the two of us go and showcase that. That pretty much could have been the perfect ending. I always said it would really take something super special [to get me out of retirement]. It’s got to be fun, it’s got to be challenging, but it has to be something special. It has to somehow impact the next generation. It really has to have the fans interested. Maybe we’re bringing in the older fans and integrating them into the new fans.”

Check out the full interview with Trish Stratus below.

The combination of past and present is exactly what compelled Stratus to renege on her previous retirement. WWE Hall of Famers Stratus and Lita are the old guards; meanwhile, Lynch and Bayley are the current status quo. Kai and Sky are fresher faces, only being introduced to the wider WWE audience last year despite their comparable age and experience levels to Bayley and Lynch.

“There’s just so much happening and so much is being offered with this pairing that it’s very special,” Stratus said. “It’s everything I could ask for in a return and why I could return. Also, just to pair up with Lita, we’re like, ‘Oh my God, we’re at WrestleMania, but we’re on the same side.’ That’s so special. And knowing I can work with her and rub elbows with the new girls and then the soon-to-be-coming-up girls are really great. That’s what wrestling is all about. Wrestling is really generational. There’s always that older wrestler being the lead wrestler or the ring general, so to speak. So we’re kind of doing that.

“If I can take anything that I’ve learned in my 20 years of wrestling and pass it on — because it’s more than just about they’re great wrestlers. I might not be known as the best wrestler, but there was definitely a je ne sais quoi about what I did and it’s these little things. It’s the psychology, it’s the little intricate details that make you resonate with the fans or just make those moments. So if I can bring that to the new girls, I’m hoping I could do that. And that would mean so much to me and hopefully to them as well.”

Stratus and Lita are trendsetters whose careers have been intertwined from the very beginning. Both women joined WWE in the late ’90s/early 2000s as supporting acts to male superstars during the Attitude Era. In time, they became decorated women’s champions and the first women to headline an episode of Monday Night Raw. It isn’t unusual these days for women to headline WrestleMania, the biggest annual showcase in professional wrestling.

“Lita and I going back, did we revolutionize the industry? Perhaps. We just knew at the time we started we were accessories, we were the sideshow,” Stratus said. “We were just going out there to enhance the men’s matches and things like that.”

“I think it’ll be fun for people to just see the journey and realize that it wasn’t always like this. I think we take it for granted that there are women in main event matches all the time. There’s more than one match sometimes. They’re headlining WrestleMania at times. That is an amazing milestone. That is an amazing place to be for women because it sure wasn’t like that back in the day. I think they’ll gain a greater appreciation for what the women are doing now, knowing what we had to do. All the obstacles and the uphill battles that we had to fight in order to get to where we are.”

MILWAUKEE — Just before the second half got underway on Thursday night at the Fiserv Forum, the Boston Celtics broke their huddle and Payton Pritchard and Sam Hauser along with the rest of the bench strode out onto the floor. Such was the nature of the Milwaukee Bucks’ performance in the first half that Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla waved the proverbial white flag early.

“I’ve never seen it,” Damian Lillard said. “But it’s a long game, so we still gotta do what we gotta do. This game was about us to begin with. Even when they didn’t send their guys out to start the third, our message was: This is about us. We gotta continue to build good habits.”

That memo was still ringing around the Bucks’ locker room well after their thorough 135-102 walloping over the league-leading Celtics. Yes, the result was great, but Milwaukee’s effort, physicality and attention to detail right from the opening tip were far more important.

This team is still trying to find itself, and the search had been turning up more questions than answers since the turn of the calendar. Not only were they 1-4, but they had been embarrassed at multiple turns, to the point that Giannis Antetokounmpo was wondering if they had any pride. After Thursday’s showing, it’s clear they do.

“I love the way we responded,” head coach Adrian Griffin said. “We responded like champions today.”

The Bucks came flying out of the gates and never trailed on the night. After a 3-pointer from Bobby Portis, who finished with a team-high 28 points and 12 rebounds, pushed their advantage to 11 with 1:50 left in the first quarter, they led by double digits the rest of the way. At one point in the third quarter, they were up by as much as 43.

“Obviously we had this game marked on our calendars for a while,” Malik Beasley said. “I think the timing of it was even better because of the recent games that we had. As a top contending team, we had to prove a point tonight.”

Milwaukee was the better team across the board and thoroughly deserved the victory. At the same time, the Celtics were playing their fifth game in seven days and were on the second night of a back-to-back. They contended with horrible shooting luck and packed it in early to get their stars some rest, all of which contributed to the uncompetitive nature of the contest as a whole.

Some nights, the deck is going to be stacked one way or the other. That doesn’t take away from the Bucks’ performance, but it does emphasize why they were so proud of how they went about their business.

“When we do our jobs and we communicate and we take pride in doing our jobs, we’ve shown in stretches what we’re capable of,” Lillard explained. “Tonight, against the best team in the league, we did it and it didn’t take anything special. We played with good pace offensively, we got into the ball, we communicated, we rebounded. We just checked all the boxes.”

The Bucks know every game isn’t going to be this easy, nor are they going to win every night. But for a championship-level team, there should be a baseline expectation that everyone is on the same page and you show up each night ready to compete on both ends of the floor. For one reason or another, that hasn’t always been the case this season, especially in recent weeks.

Perhaps it shouldn’t take getting booed at home against the Jazz, or, in the words of Antetokounmpo, a “respect slash fear factor” from playing the best team in the league for everyone to show more urgency. Whatever the motivation, the Bucks reminded themselves, as well as the rest of the league, just how good they can be.

Their work on defense was the most encouraging aspect. They’ve been a disaster on that side of the ball at times this season, but, on Thursday, they held one of the league’s best offenses to 32% shooting in the first half, including 1-of-16 from the 3-point line.

Their physicality – “we hit first instead of getting hit,” Beasley said – was a major factor.

“When a team has to work for everything offensively, those shots aren’t as comfortable,” Lillard said. “Even if it’s a shot that they normally shoot, if they’re getting bumped and chased off the line and ridden over screens and they gotta work for it, they’re a little more tired and a little more uncomfortable taking those shots.”

The challenge for the Bucks now is to ensure this wasn’t a one-off statement. Can they play like this, even when their backs aren’t against the wall?

“I feel like the team after this win, I feel like the team came together,” Antetokounmpo said. “I feel like our chemistry is better now. I feel like we needed this. I think we believe in one another now. Hopefully, it can carry over.”