Everybody wants Steph Curry’s shooting range. Far fewer would volunteer for the running that comes with it. Watch him after he gives up the ball. He cuts, changes direction, uses a screen, gets denied and moves again. A defender survives the first action, only to discover that Curry considers it the beginning of the possession. The ball might be somewhere else. The work is still happening. That is what gets lost when we describe his game as effortless. We notice the release because it is beautiful. We overlook the effort required to arrive at that shot with enough balance, coordination and control to make it. Try chasing someone through traffic, changing direction repeatedly and then doing something that demands extraordinary precision. Now imagine doing it while another professional athlete is determined to ruin the attempt. Curry’s conditioning lets him keep asking questions of a defense. Will you follow him? Switch? Send help? Can you communicate quickly enough when he turns around and comes back? Every extra action is another chance for somebody to hesitate. And Curry does not need a defender to quit. He needs the defender to be a fraction late. There is also a powerful example in that work. When the greatest shooter in the building keeps moving to create an opening, standing around becomes a difficult habit for everyone else to defend. The shot makes the highlight. The three direction changes that created it usually disappear from the conversation. Calling Curry gifted is accurate. Calling his game effortless gives the gift too much credit and the work far too little.

The Heat are 0-4, but the margins tell a different story: 25, then 17, then 5, then 4. That isn't a team falling apart. It's a team getting closer while still finding ways to lose late. Spoelstra has earned the benefit of the doubt on rotations. What he hasn't found yet is five guys he trusts in the last four minutes.

The most underrated performance in NBA Finals history belongs to a 20-year-old rookie playing out of position. Game 6, 1980, in Philadelphia. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the league MVP, had sprained his ankle in Game 5 and stayed back in Los Angeles. The Lakers led the series 3-2, and most people assumed it was headed back to the Forum. Magic Johnson jumped center. Then he played everywhere. He finished with 42 points, 15 rebounds and seven assists, made 14 of 23 shots and all 14 of his free throws, and the Lakers won 123-107 to close out the title on the road. He was named Finals MVP as a rookie. What strikes me now is how little that night resembles his legend. We remember Magic as the passer, the no-look conductor of Showtime. In the biggest game of his first season, he won by supplying whatever the team lacked, which that night meant scoring and rebounding like a big man. That is the best definition of a superstar I know. Not the player with the prettiest signature skill, but the one who can become the missing piece on demand. #Showtime #NBAHistory Is there a Finals game by a younger player that tops this one?

If you want the single season that best explains Michael Jordan, skip the title years and go to 1987-88. He averaged 35.0 points on 53.5 percent shooting. He also averaged 3.2 steals and 1.6 blocks a game, finishing with 259 steals and 131 blocks. That year he won both MVP and Defensive Player of the Year. Only two other players have ever won both awards in the same season: Hakeem Olajuwon in 1993-94 and Giannis Antetokounmpo in 2019-20. Both were big men whose defense lived at the rim. Jordan did it as a guard, chasing the other team's best perimeter player while carrying the heaviest scoring load in the league. That season destroys two lazy arguments at once. One is that Jordan was a scorer first and a defender when it suited him. The other is that his greatness was built on the supporting cast of the title years. In 1988 there was no dynasty yet, only a 24-year-old doing everything at both ends. The rings came later. The proof that he was the most complete player of his generation was already there. #MJ #NBAHistory Name a season by any guard that tops this one on both ends of the floor.