Boston, MA
Warriors make a statement in Boston, but Stephen Curry says there's 'a long way to go'
BOSTON — The Golden State Warriors will close out a five-game road trip this week against the Boston Celtics, Cleveland Cavaliers and Oklahoma City Thunder, the NBA’s three top teams through three weeks.
“We’ll know if they’re for real after that,” a Celtics executive conceded before the first of those games.
Consider the first test passed. Behind Stephen Curry’s excellence, a pair of Kevon Looney put-backs and a Buddy Hield dagger, the Warriors closed out a fourth quarter that featured four lead changes. The Warriors’ 118-112 victory improved their record to 7-1, half a game better than the defending champions.
“It’s a statement,” said Hield, whose wide-open 3-pointer on a feed from Curry gave Golden State a 111-104 advantage with 47.2 seconds remaining. “If we don’t win this game, everybody’s like, ‘Oh, they didn’t play nobody.’ So you’ve gotta come make a statement on the road, right? That’s how the basketball world talks. They say if you haven’t played nobody yet, you get battle-tested, and you have to see if it’s real.”
Much of the hype around Wednesday’s game pit Jayson Tatum opposite Steve Kerr, as if the Celtics star might send a message to the Warriors coach. Kerr benched Tatum for two games at the Paris Olympics. You would not have known it — at least after the TD Garden crowd booed Kerr’s pregame introduction.
“From the beginning, the whole thing was, ‘We’re in this together. We’ve got 12 Hall of Famers, and we’re committed to winning,’” said Kerr. “And we won the gold medal, so I don’t give it a whole lot of thought.”
Otherwise, the 2022 NBA finalists went to work in a brilliant basketball game. One point separated them to start the fourth quarter. Derrick White’s seventh 3 of the night gave the Celtics a 95-88 edge midway through the final frame, and then what Hield described as “championship habits” took over. The Warriors scored on their next seven possessions, including all 10 of Curry’s fourth-quarter points, to seal the deal.
“Normal Steph,” joked Looney.
It is too early — and maybe too far-fetched — to consider the Warriors a serious title contender again. Curry is 36 years old. Draymond Green is 34. Klay Thompson is gone, and in his place is a collection of talented players, none of whom is a future Hall of Famer, most of whom Kerr is still trying to sort out.
Even Curry is not shooting for his fifth championship at this moment. After failing to make the playoffs last season for the third time in five years, he and the Warriors are first in search of relevancy again.
“We haven’t done anything yet,” he said. “A good team, or a relevant team, wins the games they’re supposed to win, steals a couple on the road against good teams and protects home-court. We’ve done those things so far, but we have two more games on this road trip — two tough tests. …
“I like where we are, obviously, but a long way to go.”
What gave Curry pause in that response was Golden State’s deep rotation, something he described as uncomfortable. He does not know who will be contributing on a nightly basis; he just knows they have to.
“Until proven otherwise, that’s how we have to play,” said Curry. “Coach has talked about it until he’s blue in the face already. Every practice, every film session, every pregame talk, it’s the same message. It’s who we are right now; it’s who we have to be. You obviously know as the season goes on rotations get tighter.”
It is working, though, especially on defense. The Warriors held Boston to a season-low 40 first-half points, sending waves of defenders at the Celtics. Gary Payton II likened Kerr’s 11-man rotation to a line change in hockey. “A lot of fresh legs,” he said, most of which were directed at Tatum. The Celtics star saw two defenders for most of the night, finishing with 32 points but just two assists to four turnovers. It did not help that Boston was without his co-star, Jaylen Brown, whose hip injury has listed him as day-to-day.
“Obviously Boston was without Jaylen Brown and [Kristaps] Porzingis, so this is not the best version of their team,” conceded Kerr, “but they’re still damn good. It’s a hell of a win in a tough environment.”
Golden State’s defense is now rated second in the NBA behind the Thunder, allowing 103.5 points per 100 possessions. That recipe — stout defense, full of energy, surrounding one Stephen Curry — is one that should win a lot of regular-season games. It has won five straight. Cleveland and Oklahoma City await.
“It was a great test,” Curry said from Boston. “We haven’t done a damn thing, but it felt good.”
Boston, MA
FIFA releases Boston World Cup 2026 national teams and schedule for matches at Gillette Stadium – The Boston Globe
Saturday, June 13, 9 p.m.: Haiti vs. Scotland, Group C.
Tuesday, June 16, 6 p.m.: Norway vs. whoever emerges from the qualifying playoff tourney between Iraq, Bolivia, and Suriname, Group I.
Friday, June 19, 6 p.m.: Scotland vs. Morocco, Group C.
Tuesday, June 23, 4 p.m.: No. 5 England vs. Ghana, Group L.
Friday, June 26, 3 p.m.: Norway vs. No. 3 France, Group I.
The June 26 matchup will feature arguably the two top strikers in the world, Norway’s Erling Haaland and France’s Kylian Mbappe.
For a Round of 32 game Monday, June 29, the winner of Group E will play one of the third-place finishers from Groups A, B, C, D, or F. Should the US national team perform below expectations in a Group D it is favored by most to win, there is a chance it could play at Boston Stadium in that June 29 match.
A July 9 quarterfinal match will be played at 4 pm.
While Brazil is one of the teams that will not be playing at Gillette, local organizers are still pleased with how everything shook out, both from a high-caliber soccer perspective and seeing a robust group of international fans visit greater Boston and pump dollars into its economy.
“We got two highlight matches, which is amazing,” said Brian Bilello, Boston 26 board chair and president of the Revolution. “We’ve got France-Norway, where you wind up with two of the top five players in the world in Mbappe and Haaland playing against each other, that match is going to be a pretty special one.
“And the other top Pot 1 team is England, which is always a popular team and that should be a fun match against Ghana.”
For fifth-ranked Brazil not to play in Boston will come as a disappointment to many, especially in Framingham with its large Brazilian population. But Bilello, without elaborating, fueled widely available rumors that Brazil will play France in a friendly at Gillette on March 28.
“We know our Brazilian fans are going to be somewhat disappointed but hopefully we have a way of making them happy this spring with something else,” said Bilello.
Besides Brazil, the final draw eliminated these teams from visiting Boston: Group I’s Senegal, and Croatia and Panama from Group L.
There are 16 host cities, 11 in the United States, three in Mexico, and two in Canada.
Martha Sheridan, a Boston 26 honorary board member and president/CEO of Meet Boston, said she was “generally very pleased” with the draw results.
“We’re getting folks from Norway and England and France, who tend to travel well for their matches,” said Sheridan. “And I also love the fact that we have Morocco and Haiti, which from a local perspective is just lovely. The community can have some pride in their teams because we do have a considerably high Haitian (in Boston) and Moroccan population (in East Boston and Revere).”
With approximately 32,000 hotel rooms available in Boston, Sheridan does not expect any challenges in accommodating visitors.
One unknown is if fans from Haiti will be allowed to visit. Haiti is on a list of countries that the Trump administration has banned its citizens from traveling to the United States for terrorism and national security concerns.
“My hope is that the federal government is wanting to have a very successful World Cup here in the US, so maybe they will look differently at those bans in light of the fact that Haiti does have a team coming here,” said Sheridan.
FIFA spent Friday night and into Saturday morning figuring out the final pieces of the logistical puzzle of placing the 48 teams in those venues, balancing travel, time zones, recovery, and preparation factors.
The Revolution’s training center near Gillette will be used by national teams in the days before each match.
Bryant University in Smithfield, R.I., will be paired with one team playing in Foxborough as a base camp for the duration of its tournament survival. Other Boston area locations may yet be announced. (FIFA controls the process.)
With Scotland and Norway each playing two matches in Boston, chances increase they will want to set up a base camp in the area.
“Now that we know who’s coming, the excitement is just going to continue to build,” said Sheridan. “It will be here before we know it and we cannot wait to welcome the world to Boston.”
Michael Silverman can be reached at michael.silverman@globe.com.
But the Celtics willingly and methodically disposed of the roster that was placed in front of them, roaring to a 29-point first-half lead before cruising to a 126-105 win, their fourth in a row.
“I thought we were the harder-playing team right from the jump,” Sam Hauser said. “Obviously we got off to a great start and maintained that.”
Jaylen Brown had 30 points, 8 rebounds, and 8 assists to lead the Celtics, who buried Los Angeles with another flammable shooting night. Boston made 46 of 84 shots overall, and 24 of 45 3-pointers (53.3 percent).
The Celtics failed to reach the 40-percent mark from the 3-point line in their first 12 games of the season, and their 5-7 record was a direct result of that. During that grisly shooting stretch, coach Joe Mazzulla insisted that the poor numbers were more due to shooting misfortune than shoddy execution.
On Friday, he acknowledged that the shooting luck might have tilted in the opposite direction. He was still pleased with the overall approach.
“I thought we had great execution,” he said. “I liked the shots we got.”
The Celtics are averaging 121.9 points per 100 possessions, tied for the second-best offensive rating in the NBA. Following all of the notable departures this summer as well as Jayson Tatum’s absence because of his Achilles injury, this level of production would have seemed unfathomable at the start of the year.
Despite these gaudy numbers, guard Payton Pritchard does not think the offense has reached its peak. He said it’ll “be exciting” to continue the ascension.
“If everybody’s just focused on, ‘How can I just get a little bit better each day, each game, no matter win or loss?,’ ” Pritchard said, “then eventually we’ll become the team we want to become.”
Jordan Walsh followed his strong game Thursday against the Wizards by making 6 of 7 shots and scoring 17 points Friday. He is 18 for 19 from the field over the last three games, and his rise since joining the starting lineup has been Boston’s most encouraging development.
Austin Reaves had 36 points to lead Los Angeles, but the Celtics mostly bottled him up during the first half, when he was just 2 for 7 from the field and his team stumbled into a deep hole.
Surprisingly, some of the night’s loudest cheers were reserved for James’s son, Bronny, the second-year guard. Following scattered “we want Bronny” chants during the second half, he checked in to some applause midway through the fourth. The crowd erupted when Bronny had a one-handed dunk and a 3-pointer, although the lopsided score probably factored into the warm reaction.
Celtics guard Derrick White started 3 for 4 from the 3-point line, and his pull-up from the top of the key with 6:18 left gave Boston a 19-7 lead. Its advantage remained in double digits the final 39 and a half minutes.
Brown was a distributor for most of the opening quarter. He passed up a few challenging shots to find teammates closer to the rim, but he scored 7 points in the final three minutes — all inside the arc — helping the Celtics extend their lead to 39-17.
The shooting cooled slightly in the second quarter, but the big lead left room for that. A 3-pointer by Hauser with 10:06 left stretched the advantage to 49-21 and provided another example of Boston’s balance. Nearly midway through the quarter, no Celtic had attempted more than five shots.
Boston’s defense let up in the third quarter — five turnovers added extra stress — and Reaves found a second wind following his slow start.
He poured in 16 points in the period, and the Lakers shot 63.2 percent from the field, helping them pull within 97-82 after three quarters. But the Celtics started the fourth with a 9-0 run.
“These last two games, we kind of just put our foot on the gas and took care of business,” Pritchard said.
Adam Himmelsbach can be reached at adam.himmelsbach@globe.com. Follow him @adamhimmelsbach.
Boston, MA
The groups are set for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, and we’re a step closer to knowing which teams will play in Foxborough – The Boston Globe
The group stage games in Foxborough will feature Group C (June 13 and 19), Group I (June 16 and 26) and Group L (June 23). The winner of Group E will play its Round of 32 elimination stage game at Foxborough on June 29 against the third-place finisher in group A, B, C, D, or F.
Group C, which has two games at Gillette, is headlined by Brazil and also includes Morocco, Scotland, and Haiti.
Group I will also stage two games at Gillette, with 2018 champion France joined by Senegal, Norway, and one team yet to be determined by a qualifying playoff (either Iraq, Bolivia, or Suriname).
The other group-stage match in Foxborough will involved Group L, which features England, Croatia, Ghana, and Panama.
While the groups for the Gillette Stadium games are set, the specific matchups won’t be released until Saturday.
The only matchups set are the opening games among the groups including the host nations: Mexico in Group A, Canada in Group B, and the United States in Group D.
Mexico will host South Africa at Mexico City’s Estadio Azteca on June 11. Canada will play Toronto’s BMO Field on the June 12 against one of the remaining qualifiers from the European playoffs, which could be either Northern Ireland, Italy, Wales, or Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The United States will kick off Group D on June 12 against Paraguay at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles.
Of the 48 spots, 42 nations have punched their tickets leaving six spots up for grabs. Twenty-two countries have paths to qualify, with competitions to determine the spots set for March.
The tournament, which will be co-hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico, kicks off June 11.
Gillette Stadium, which FIFA will call “Boston Stadium” for the World Cup, will host seven matches. Five will be group stage games, taking place from June 13-26. Foxborough will then host two knockout stage games: A Round of 32 match on June 29 and a quarterfinal on July 9.
Here are all the groups for the 2026 FIFA World Cup:
Group A: Mexico, South Korea, South Africa, Winner of Playoff D (Denmark, North Macedonia, Ireland, or Czechia)
Group B: Canada, Switzerland, Qatar, Winner of Playoff A (Northern Ireland, Italy, Wales, or Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Group C: Brazil, Morocco, Scotland, Haiti
Group D: United States, Australia, Paraguay, Winner of Playoff C (Turkiye, Romania, Slovakia, or Kosovo)
Group E: Germany, Ecuador, Ivory Coast, Curacao
Group F: Netherlands, Japan, Tunisia, Winner of Playoff B (Ukraine, Sweden, Poland, or Albania)
Group G: Belgium, Iran, Egypt, New Zealand
Group H: Spain, Uruguay, Saudi Arabia, Cabo Verde
Group I: France, Senegal, Norway, Winner of Playoff 2 (Iraq, Bolivia, or Suriname)
Group J: Argentina, Austria, Algeria, Jordan
Group K: Portugal, Colombia, Uzbekistan, Winner of Playoff 1 (Congo DR, Jamaica, or New Caledonia)
Group L: England, Croatia, Panama, Ghana
Emma Healy can be reached at emma.healy@globe.com or on X @ByEmmaHealy. Hayden Bird can be reached at hayden.bird@globe.com. Amin Touri can be reached at amin.touri@globe.com.
FIFA releases Boston World Cup 2026 national teams and schedule for matches at Gillette Stadium – The Boston Globe
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