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NBA Rumors
The daily league-wide NBA rumors page
By InsideHoops.comUpdated Thursday, June 12, 2025 at 1:00 a.m. ET
Bennedict Mathurin scored 27 points off the bench, Tyrese Haliburton added 22 and the Indiana Pacers reclaimed the lead in the NBA Finals by beating the Oklahoma City Thunder 116-107 in Game 3 on Wednesday night. Haliburton also had 11 assists and nine rebounds for the Pacers, who got 21 points from Pascal Siakam and enjoyed a whopping 49-18 edge in bench points. The Pacers, who lost Game 2 in Oklahoma City, improved to 10-0 since mid-March in the game immediately following a loss. "We just had guys make plays after plays," Haliburton told ESPN after the game. "Our bench was amazing. ... It's a big win for us." - ESPN.com
Jalen Williams swished a tough pull-up 3-pointer at the third-quarter buzzer to give the Oklahoma City Thunder a five-point lead. Not much went right for them after that point. "We just had a lot of unforced errors," Williams said after Oklahoma City's 116-107 loss to the Indiana Pacers in Wednesday's pivotal Game 3 of the NBA Finals. "They capitalized on them because they're a good team." The Thunder were outscored 32-18 in the fourth quarter. It was the second time this season Indiana outscored Oklahoma City by a double-digit margin in the final frame. That is the difference in the series, as the Pacers rallied from behind in the fourth quarter in both of their wins. - ESPN.com
"We have a great opportunity here," said Oklahoma City center/power forward Chet Holmgren, who scored 20 points but struggled in the fourth quarter, when he was 1-of-5 from the floor and had his shot blocked by Pacers big man Myles Turner three times. "The great thing is we have another game coming up, Game 4. We can't be thinking about frustration or anything. No matter how good it's going, how bad it's going, the focus can't be on your emotions. It has to be on what we're trying to accomplish, the task at hand." - ESPN.com
Golden State Warriors point guard Brandin Podziemski underwent surgery to repair a core muscle injury, the team announced. The surgery took place Tuesday, and the Warriors expect Podziemski to be ready for the start of training camp. - ESPN.com
The Dallas Mavericks have become the latest to rebuff the New York Knicks in their search for a new head coach. On Wednesday morning, the Mavs firmly rejected the Knicks' request to speak with Jason Kidd, sources told ESPN. Kidd joins Houston Rockets coach Ime Udoka and Minnesota Timberwolves coach Chris Finch as those whose teams have denied permission to interview with New York, sources confirmed. - ESPN.com
Former New York Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau took out a full-page advertisement in The New York Times on Wednesday, thanking his players, coaches and the team's fans a little more than a week after being fired by the club. The black-and-white ad, which features a photo of Thibodeau standing on the sideline at Madison Square Garden looking down at his clipboard, begins, "To the best city in the world with the best fans in the world: Thank you." In the advertisement, which marks his first public sentiment since being fired, Thibodeau reiterated that coaching the Knicks, whom he cheered for as a child, was his dream job. He'd been an assistant with the club during the 1990s under Jeff Van Gundy, but was hired for the top job back in 2020 by team president Leon Rose. - ESPN.com
Thirteen players have received invitations to attend the 2025 NBA draft in New York and sit in the green room, sources told ESPN, headlined by projected No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg of Duke. Flagg, Dylan Harper, Ace Bailey, VJ Edgecombe, Tre Johnson, Khaman Maluach, Jeremiah Fears, Kon Knueppel, Kasparas Jakucionis, Egor Demin, Carter Bryant, Derik Queen and Asa Newell received the first batch of invites sent out Tuesday. Another 11 invitations are expected to be sent out in waves, a source told ESPN. - ESPN.com
The Atlanta Hawks and new general manager Onsi Saleh are finalizing deals to hire New Orleans Pelicans GM Bryson Graham as the team's senior vice president of basketball operations and Philadelphia 76ers executive Peter Dinwiddie as senior vice president of strategy and analytics, sources told ESPN on Monday. Graham and Dinwiddie will report to Saleh as part of the new front office structure, sources said. - ESPN.com
Cleveland Cavaliers All-Star guard Darius Garland had surgery Monday to repair the left big toe injury that troubled him during the playoffs and is expected to miss four to five months. The Cavs said in a statement that they expect Garland to "make a full recovery and resume basketball activities by the start of training camp" in October. But Garland is likely to miss time to start the regular season, sources told ESPN. - ESPN.com
After getting off to slow start in the first half for a second consecutive game, the Indiana Pacers and Tyrese Haliburton were not able to pull off another comeback Sunday night, dropping Game 2 of the NBA Finals 123-107 to the Oklahoma City Thunder. Haliburton finished with 17 points and 6 assists but was limited to 3 points and 3 assists on 1-of-5 shooting in the first half as Indiana fell behind 59-41. It matched Indiana's lowest first-half point total of the playoffs, as the Pacers shot just 35% as a team in the opening frame. - ESPN.com
While Haliburton gave credit to Oklahoma City's swarming defense -- he had five turnovers, his most in any game this season (regular season or postseason) -- he also acknowledged he needed to find ways to be more impactful from the opening tip. "This is who they are defensively," said Haliburton, who walked with a noticeable limp when exiting his postgame news conference. "They got a lot of different guys who can guard the ball, fly around. ... I just got to figure out how to be better earlier in games. Kudos to them, they're a great defensive team. But [I will] watch the film, see where I can get better." - ESPN.com
Gilgeous-Alexander was 11-of-21 from the floor and 11-of-12 from the foul line in Game 2, consistently carving up the Pacers' defense off the dribble in scoring all but one of his buckets in the paint or from midrange. "I'm being myself," said Gilgeous-Alexander, whose 72 points in the series are the most by a player in his first two Finals games, surpassing Hall of Famer Allen Iverson in 2001 by a point. "I don't think I tried to reinvent the wheel or step up to the plate with a different mindset. Just try to attack the game the right way. I think I've done a pretty good job of that so far." - ESPN.com
The New York Knicks are conducting active due diligence on Dallas Mavericks coach Jason Kidd among other head coaching candidates in their search to replace Tom Thibodeau, sources told ESPN. The Knicks have yet to request permission to speak to Kidd, who has two years remaining on the contract extension he signed during the Mavs' 2024 run to the NBA Finals, sources said. Dallas general manager Nico Harrison and governor Patrick Dumont have not yet discussed whether the franchise would be willing to grant permission for Kidd to speak to the Knicks, sources said. - ESPN.com
For better or worse, the Oklahoma City Thunder had an eerily familiar feeling when the final buzzer sounded Thursday night. The Indiana Pacers had captured Game 1 of the NBA Finals, taking their first lead of the night on Tyrese Haliburton's 21-foot pull-up jumper with 0.3 seconds remaining. The Thunder blew a 15-point lead in the fourth quarter of their 111-110 home loss. It was only Oklahoma City's second home loss of this postseason, and it unfolded in very similar fashion to the Thunder's previous defeat at the Paycom Center. In that instance, the Denver Nuggets rallied from a 13-point deficit midway through the fourth quarter to win the Western Conference semifinals series opener, taking the lead on Aaron Gordon's 3-pointer with 2.8 seconds remaining. "Well, it sucks," Thunder forward Jalen Williams said, summarizing the sting of letting the Finals opener slip away. "But we have been here before." - ESPN.com
The NBA's talks with FIBA and other entities about the process of adding a new league in Europe are continuing, commissioner Adam Silver said, though he noted that it might take at least a couple more years to turn the ideas into reality. Silver spoke at a league event to unveil a refurbished Boys & Girls Club in Oklahoma City on Friday -- an off day for the NBA Finals -- and said it's difficult to put a specific timeline on the Europe plans. "I will say it's measured in years, not months," Silver said. "So, we're at least a couple years away from launching. It would be an enormous undertaking. And while we want to move forward at a deliberate pace, we also want to make sure that we're consulting with all the appropriate stakeholders, meaning the existing league, its teams, European players, media companies, marketing partners. There's a lot of work to be done." - AP via ESPN.com
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