LeBron and the Sixers Spoil the Knicks' Opening Night | The Story with Rachel Nichols

The NBA is back.

The Sixers take down the champs and everyone's got something to prove.

I'm Rachel Nichols, and this is the story.

Let's start with basketball because last night I was one of the thousands on hand at Madison Square Garden to watch the Knicks celebrate their first championship since 1973.

The whole ceremony was extremely well done.

Most of.

The '73 team was on the court and none other than Walt Frazier handed the players their rings in his usual suave style.

But while New York's moment felt very big and after more than 50 years, very earned, there was another pregame moment that also caught my attention.

You know how when they announce the starting lineups and the players come out of the tunnel, it's always a little bit of a big deal to see who comes out last.

Well, for the Sixers last night, it was LeBron James, and over the course of the evening, it was very obvious that was not just a sign of respect for the old man.

All through the Sixers 106-100 takedown of the.

Defending champs, LeBron was the backbone of Philadelphia's play.

When the Knicks led by double digits in the first half, he was a calming force with a been there, weathered that attitude.

And when in the third, Philadelphia surge, closing the quarter on an 11-0 run, he did exactly what we all expected since his surprise decision to join this team.

He directed the Sixers attack like a conductor and guided them defensively, like a man who has seen every single thing a team can throw at you, because by the way, he has.

The whole way through, he could be heard shouting instructions to his teammates.

As VJ Edgecombe told me after the game, it wasn't just that LeBron was telling them what was going to happen one step ahead of when New York was going to do something.

He was telling them two steps ahead.

And it was clear it was bothering the Knicks.

They finished the night shooting 37%.

Finals MVP Jalen Brunson finished 6 of 19 , with his last attempt, a possibly game swinging 3 coming up short.

Tyrese Maxey was the game's leading scorer with 28 points, 3 steals, and 3 blocks, and Jalen Brown added 19 in his debut.

He also had a 3-point buzzer beating banger of his own.

LeBron would end with 14 points, but he also had 9 rebounds and a team-high 7 assists against just 1 turnover.

Now, in the locker room after the game, he talked about how he spent his short time in Philly so far, quote, going out and doing the leap that I preach.

He said, I'm in there every day before everyone gets to the gym.

I'm one of the last ones to leave.

He added that he's invited even his youngest teammates to hold him accountable, noting, quote, I think that goes a long way.

You could see last night, it certainly does.

As for the fans, well, at one point in the 2nd quarter, a group courtside started chanting, We don't want you, a reference to LeBron saying this summer that he had initially wanted the Knicks to be the final stop of his career.

Now, I actually think those fans had the correct sentiment.

If I was in New York's front office, I absolutely wouldn't have disrupted the amazing chemistry the Knicks built last season by throwing a new starter in there, even if that starter was LeBron James.

But for the Sixers, that old man who came out of the tunnel last night, well, that is exactly who they needed.

The Knicks have the banner.

The Sixers have the guy who's already thinking about the next one.

Speaking of LeBron, anyone remember back in 2013 when he won his second title with the Heat?

You know, there was that game six where it looked like the Spurs were gonna lock the championship.

A bunch of Miami fans left the building.

Yeah, that was the one where the Heat stormed back and won it with that Ray Allen jumper, the yellow tape for what was supposed to be San Antonio's trophy ceremony flailing behind him.

In the months that followed, Gregg Popovich talked about just how much that moment ate at his whole team, which, by the way, never recovered in that finals.

They obviously also lost Game 7.

Pop's exact quote, I think about Game 6 every day.

Now, I was around the Spurs in training camp that next September, and yeah.

You could feel it, and you could feel that at the start of the season, and you could feel that at the beginning of the playoffs.

And you could certainly feel it when the Spurs surgically dissected the Heat in that next year's NBA Finals.

Through the entire run, those players were very clear.

They were mad, and they wanted Miami to hurt.

Fast forward more than a decade later, and last night that same Spurs franchise was on the other end of all those same type of feelings.

This time they were coming into the next season as the ones who had pulled off a stinger against Oklahoma City in last year's playoffs, beating the heavily favored Thunder in 7 games on the Thunder's own court to advance to the finals.

And once again, it was very obvious how the players who had gotten beaten spend their summer angry and wanting to make the other team hurt.

And well, last night, they pulled it off, grubbing San Antonio in a game that was occasionally close, but never really felt that way.

Afterwards, Shay Gildres Alexander came as close to a bulletin board as he's ever gonna get, saying that all training camp, it was obvious that, quote, this group is hungry, more so than in the past.

And we heard similarly measured but steely comments from several other OKC players too.

So now the question is, will the Thunder be like that old Spurs team running the table.

Through the season when the chips are down and ending up with the title themselves.

Or will Victor Webuyama and this Spurs team find a way to learn from last night and show a little more fight when the two teams meet again?

My guess is yes.

When San Antonio beat LeBron in the 2014 finals, LeBron may have already had 1 ft out the door.

It's just about three weeks later that he left for Cleveland.

Wemy is only getting started with his team, and we'll have to see going forward if he can cook up a little revenge of his own.

Giants coach John Harbaugh is stalling.

He keeps being asked who his starting quarterback is for this week's game in Houston, and he keeps responding with quotes like, Can't answer that now, and I'm honing in on a decision.

And I get why, because there is no good answer here.

If you're not caught up, last Sunday against the Saints, Jameis Winston threw his 2nd interception early in the 4th quarter, and with New York down 34 to 10, Harbaugh pulled him for JJ McCarthy.

In just over 11 minutes, JJ threw for 243 yards and led 3 scoring drives.

It wasn't enough for New York to get the win.

Let's not go crazy here.

They are an NFC East team.

But the Giants did have a chance to tie up the score in the final seconds, which is at least something.

So normally you'd ride the hot hand, right?

Except the Giants are about to face that monster of a pass rush known as the Texans, who would have a whole week to game plan for the guy that succeeded in part by surprising New Orleans.

There's also the issue of New York's starting tackles who are both fighting injuries and may not play on Sunday.

Let's remember too that the Giants only acquired the 23-year-old McCarthy from Minnesota last month.

So throwing him in for all that for his first start with the Giants, it's a lot.

Well, and then there's James.

We know he's the NFL's best smelling quarterback.

You don't think we forgot about this video, did you?

Yeah, no.

They were dirty runs, 34 yards, 5 yards, um, but we got the job.

Done.

They worked their ass off all night and, uh, you know, when the game came down to it, what we started in the 1st drive ended in the 2nd.

But we also know that James was unbeaten in 3 starts before Sunday, and that while he was outplayed by McCarthy this past Sunday, even Harbaugh acknowledged that McCarthy wasn't exactly playing under the same conditions James was.

I mean, Harbaugh didn't use the words garbage time.

He called it desperation time, but his point still stood.

Still, if you're Harbaugh, it's hard to bench a guy in the 4th quarter, watch the backup nearly win, and then walk into the locker room like none of it happened.

So one solution might be to look at the calendar.

After Houston, the Giants have their bye, which Harbaugh has already acknowledged it is a factor here.

There's a thought that New York may give Ja one more start, then hand JJ the ball with 2 full weeks to get ready for the Eagles.

Even that move would be a little risky if you move from the small sample size of Sunday's game to the bigger sample size of JJ's last season in Minnesota.

Not great, Bob.

JJ threw more interceptions than touchdowns.

Still, the strongest case for McCarthy may not be about his arm at all.

The Giants built this offense for Jackson Dart with zone reads and the quarterback on the move, then pulled most of that out for Ja when Dart got hurt.

The team had mobility from other places, that might not be as big a deal, but New York's run game has been a disaster so far this season.

On Sunday, the Giants dressed 4 running backs, and they combined for 34 yards.

Their leading rusher was actually McCarthy, who remembered, played just one quarter.

Then yesterday they cut Najji Harris 2 days after starting him.

The good news for Harbaugh in all this is that he can afford to take his time because as I may have.

Mentioned, the NFC East is a mess.

This was one of the toughest divisions in football for most of my childhood.

Now it's the first division since the 1970 merger to go completely winless in two straight weeks that all four teams played it.

And it doesn't look like it's going to get a lot better for a lot of those teams.

The Eagles have lost Jalen Hurts for the season.

And yesterday, the commanders found out that Terry McLaurin is done for the year too.

As for the Cowboys, Let's just not get started there.

So really, Harbaugh can stall all he wants.

In this division, even the wrong answer might still leave him in first place.

Let's get back to basketball here with the W because for most of her pro career, Angel Reese has been told what she can't do.

Sure, she's always been a great rebounder, but the book on her from scouts was a lot more harsh.

No jump shot, they said, no range, they said, and it wasn't unfair criticism.

As a rookie in Chicago, Reese shot 39% from the field and made just 47% of her shots in the restricted area right under the basket.

In two seasons there, she made 7 3-pointers, total.

Chicago Sky and looked at those numbers, plus Reese's track record of telling it like it is about, well, everything, including the franchise itself, and traded her to Atlanta for two future first round picks.

That was 6 months ago.

Fast forward to tonight's Finals game 3 with the Dream and the Valkyries all tied up at 1 apiece, and we can officially file that trade under very bad decisions, because Angel has been a force in carrying the dream all season.

This was a franchise that hadn't been to the final.

Finals since 2013 and had never won a single finals game before Monday night.

That would be when Angel put up 30 points and 16 rebounds in Atlanta's Game two win, making her only the third player to ever have 30 and 15 in a finals game, and the youngest in history to do it in any playoff game.

Now part of Angel's success is due to her willingness to let dream coach Carl Smesko rebuild her jumper, a leap of faith since the two of them had never worked together before.

Payoff?

Well, it came in the form of 11 threes this regular season, more than in her two Chicago seasons combined.

And in the playoffs, she's 40% from deep.

She's also the league's Defensive Player of the Year , the first in dream history, and number one for the season in rebounds, 3rd in the WNBA in steals.

In Chicago, well, without her, this guy went 16 and 28, no playoffs for a third straight year.

Their new practice facility that was supposed to be ready before this past season still isn't open.

Sky's CEO later called the original target aspirational.

Skyler Diggins was more blunt, saying, quote, No shade, but you know we need resources.

Obviously, we're leading the league in injuries.

It's not coincidental.

Angel said something of the same thing in September of last year, telling the Chicago Tribune, quote, We have to get good players.

We have to get great players.

The Sky's answer bizarrely was to suspend her for half a game over that interview.

He never played for them again.

She's.

Hardly the first star Chicago couldn't keep.

In 2015, Sylvia Fowles sat out half a season until the Sky traded her.

In 2017, former MVP Elena Delle Donne considered sitting out a whole season, and the Sky traded her too.

In 2024, Marina Mabry asked for a trade.

She got one.

Now you can add Angel Reese to that list.

Chicago decided she was worth two draft picks.

Atlanta's finding out she's worth a whole lot more, and no matter how these finals end.

That's a story worth telling because here at Sports Illustrated, the games may end, but the stories don't.

I'm Rachel Nichols.

Thanks for watching this story.

See you next time.