The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department is investigating the ball-throwing incident involving Milwaukee Bucks guard Patrick Beverley that occurred during Game 6 of the Bucks-Pacers first-round playoffs series May 2.

A case report was filed that night after an officer observed the interaction, and detectives are looking into the incident, a police spokesperson told The Athletic. They are working with Gainbridge Fieldhouse to review video footage and plan to speak with those involved. The result of the investigation will be presented to the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office, which will decide whether to bring charges.

With roughly two and a half minutes to play in the game, Beverley threw a basketball at a fan behind him from Milwaukee’s bench. He appeared to miss his target, a male Pacers fan, instead hitting a female Pacers fan in the side of the head before asking for the ball back.

The man collected the ball and tossed it back to Beverley, who immediately over-the-head, double-hand chucked it back at the fan. The fan deflected the ball as Bucks staff and security stepped in, but the fan and Beverley continued to exchange words.

According to one source who witnessed the incident and two others who were briefed on it, the exchange between Beverley and one of the fans…

Tensions seemed high near the end of the Bucks’ Game 6 matchup.

The Indiana Pacers thwarted Milwaukee 120-98 on Thursday at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, capturing the series 4-2 and ending the Bucks’ season. With roughly two and a half minutes to play and down 20, Bucks guard Patrick Beverley threw a basketball at a fan behind him from the team’s bench. He appeared to miss his target, a male Pacers fan, instead hitting a female Pacers fan in the side of the head before asking for the ball back.

The man collected the ball and tossed it back to Beverley, who immediately over-the-head, double-hand chucked it back at the fan. The fan deflected the ball as Bucks staff and security stepped in, but the fan and Beverley continued to exchange words.

When asked about the exchange postgame, Beverley said: “Nah, don’t worry about that. Nothing.”

Patrick Beverley threw the ball at a fan at the end of Game 6.

@StephNoh pic.twitter.com/6rIKEDbIJu

— The Athletic (@TheAthletic) May 3, 2024

Beverley — who averaged 8.6 points in the playoffs, peaking at 13 — scored six in Game 6, adding five assists and two rebounds.

The Pacers advanced to the second round and await the winner of the New York Knicks–Philadelphia 76ers series.

(Photo: Jeff Haynes / NBAE via Getty…

The first major domino has fallen in the coaching carousel. Kentucky announced Monday morning that Kyra Elzy was fired following her fourth season in Lexington. The Wildcats, who won the SEC tournament in 2022, had gone 6-26 in the last two seasons.

The move by Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart is interesting because it comes at a significant cost to the Wildcats. Elzy signed a contract extension after winning the 2022 SEC tournament that would keep her as head coach through the 2026-27 season. By removing Elzy now, Kentucky’s athletic department will be paying out the remainder of her contract — $2.475 million — unless both parties agree to different terms or she is hired elsewhere before the end of her contract in June 2027. Kentucky is also completing an $82 million renovation of Memorial Coliseum that is expected to be ready for the 2024-25 season — in time for a new women’s basketball era.

Barnhart isn’t messing around. He sees what’s going on in the women’s basketball world and doesn’t want his program to be left behind. Kentucky is paying significant money to get rid of Elzy, so expect the Wildcats to swing for the fences here to return to relevancy in a deepening SEC and national landscape.

Names to watch

Jeff Walz, Louisville head coach

Even if…

INDIANAPOLIS — There isn’t too much scoring in the NBA — 70-point games and record-breaking team offenses be damned.

The players don’t like to see what happened to Joel Embiid, or even Tyrese Haliburton, but they support the spirit of a league requirement for games played to determine eligibility for awards like MVP.

Clippers or Celtics? Joker, Embiid or even … LeBron? And who wants to be NBA commissioner Adam Silver for a day?

The Athletic again put on its collective hard hat, grabbed a lunch pail and jumped head first into All-Star media day, a savage, unruly affair in which players sit up on a dais, behind a gate, having questions shouted at them by YouTube influencers, goofballs on top of other goofballs’ shoulders, rappers, WNBA players and, yes, traditional reporters.

From the practice court at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, Joe Vardon, Sam Amick, David Aldridge and Mike Vorkunov spoke to 18 players, most of them All-Stars, a couple from the Skills Challenge, 3-Point or Slam Dunk contests, and one second gentleman, to canvas them on who’s the NBA’s best player, the best team and what about the league needs to change.

Not everyone polled answered every question, but they all had plenty of ideas:

Who is the best player in the league?

Nikola Jokić, Joel Embiid — 3
Luka…

Former NBA player Scot Pollard has been at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., since early February in need of a heart transplant. On Friday, his wife said he’ll finally get just that.

“Scot wanted me to let everyone know that the pre-heart transplant hair is gone, it’s go time!” Pollard’s wife Dawn posted on X. “Please keep the prayers coming for Scot, the surgeons, for the donor and his family who lost their loved one. This donor gave the most amazing gift of life and we are forever grateful.”

Scot wanted me to let everyone know that the pre-heart transplant hair is gone, it’s go time! Please keep the prayers coming for Scot, the surgeons, for the donor and his family who lost their loved one. This donor gave the most amazing gift of life and we are forever grateful pic.twitter.com/OQRGDma5e6

— Dawn Pollard (@DawnMPollard) February 16, 2024

The 6-foot-11, 260-pound Pollard was admitted to the intensive care unit after a genetic condition likely triggered by a virus he contracted in 2021 caused his heart to beat an extra 10,000 times per day, according to the Associated Press. Pollard’s father died at 54 years old, when Scot was 16, with the same condition.

“I’m staying here until I get a heart,” Pollard told the the…

LAS VEGAS — This week, the NBA will descend upon Las Vegas in full force. Even for a city used to spectacle, it’s bringing something novel along with it. For the first time in decades, the league will hold real, live, actual — yes, they count — regular-season games in Sin City. It is a step into the breach unlike any other for the NBA.

Professional basketball has come to Vegas before. There have been exhibition games, the 2007 NBA All-Star Game, NBA Summer League, even a few Utah Jazz games in the 1980s, a playoff game between the Los Angeles Lakers and Portland Trail Blazers in 1992, the NBA G League Ignite franchise since 2020 and, for the last six seasons, WNBA games. But the NBA has never put a product on display quite like the one it will on Thursday afternoon when the NBA In-Season Tournament semifinals tip off at T-Mobile Arena.

While it is a seminal moment for the league and the city, it is also one open to much conjecture and forecasting. NBA commissioner Adam Silver has tiptoed around expansion in recent years, and Las Vegas has come up as a potential home for a new franchise. This week will likely do little to silence those rumblings.

In July, Silver called Vegas “our 31st franchise;” now, everyone is waiting to see if Vegas will actually be the league’s…

Ann Meyers Drysdale still remembers making her way to Hinkle Fieldhouse at Butler University. The car consisted of Drysdale and three male basketball players.

This wasn’t an ordinary car ride. Drysdale felt intimidated. This was new territory for the young American.

The Indiana Pacers were holding three-day tryouts to fill roster spots. Drysdale made history simply with her presence, as she was the first woman chosen to participate in tryouts for an NBA team. In 1979, she signed a $50,000, no-cut contract (an agreement that allows for opportunities within the organization for a specified period of time) with the Pacers — another first for a woman.

Drysdale believed she belonged, that she could make the team. When the Pacers informed Drysdale she didn’t make the final roster, she was upset.

As she reminisces more than 40 years later about what happened, Drysdale isn’t one to gloat about accomplishments. She doesn’t like the attention. Drysdale does, however, recognize her place in women’s basketball. She was the first player to make the U.S. national team while still in high school. She was a gold medalist at the 1975 Pan American Games and the 1979 FIBA World Championship, and she helped Team USA win silver at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. Drysdale attended UCLA and…

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We’re poised for an incredibly epic WNBA Finals, friends.

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Prepare For Aces-Liberty

Three questions with Sabreena Merchant

Yes, we’re waiting for the 2023-24 NBA season to start, but the WNBA Finals begin this Sunday. And this WNBA season will end with a bang. Two of the most dominant regular-season teams in WNBA history — the Las Vegas Aces and New York Liberty — will vie for the title.

The Liberty hadn’t made the Finals since 2002 and have the most wins in league history without a title (450). The Aces are defending champions with three Finals trips in the four years and are seeking to become the first repeat WNBA champs since the 2001-02 Los Angeles Sparks. I asked Sabreena Merchant three questions about this epic showdown.

Question: No surprise that we have Liberty and Aces in the Finals. Was there any real threat to either team not making it to this point?

Sabreena: The Connecticut Sun deserve credit for taking Game 1 in New York and putting a real scare in the Liberty in Game 2, but the Sun had no counter once New York switched up its defense. That was the problem for non-super teams this year — while they’ve had to…

FUENGIROLA, Spain – Josh Hart stared into the blue light of his computer screen at a desk in his hotel room.

He was on a training table at the Team USA hotel getting treatment before practice, with his wife Shannon watching him on FaceTime.

Where Hart is in the world right now, on the southern coast of Spain, in a resort community in the province of Malaga, with the Mediterranean Sea nearby and Morocco just 25 miles across the water, and with the Sierra La Blanca mountain range glistening in the sun behind the hotel, is easy on the eyes.

Even easier, the blinking cursor, over the blank line, on the DocuSign version of his four-year, $81 million contract extension with the New York Knicks.

One click on Thursday morning, and Hart and his wife would remember Malaga forever, even though she isn’t here and his reason for the trip is to get ready for the FIBA World Cup with Team USA.

“It was actually pretty cool, I was just laying down on the training table, getting some treatment, on FaceTime with her and signing the contract,” Hart said. “It meant a lot. I wasn’t highly touted coming out of high school, wasn’t highly regarded in the draft, went through free agency the first time and I was restricted, it was a terrible experience for me, so to be able to do this, it’s a…

If you have questions about the future of your team’s live games on your local cable, satellite or digital provider, particularly those on Bally Sports channels, we’re here to answer with what we know so far.

Diamond Sports Group, the Baltimore-based corporate parent of the 19 Bally Sports channels that air 47 NBA, MLB, NHL and WNBA teams, announced Feb. 15 that it would skip a $140 million debt payment due that day and use the month-long grace period as part of its effort to financially reorganize itself.

Many observers interpret the move as a precursor to a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, though that is not a certainty. Diamond has $8 billion-plus of debt, incurred as part of parent Sinclair’s 2019 purchase of the regional sports channels, and lost $1.2 billion in the most recent fiscal quarter.

“Certainly more likely that they will file bankruptcy because they did not make the payment,” said Schuyler Carroll, a bankruptcy attorney who is not connected to Diamond. “But not necessarily that they will file bankruptcy. They are still continuing discussions with their creditors to try and avoid bankruptcy. But those can often be difficult.”

Diamond in a Feb. 15 statement said it “intends to use the 30-day grace period to continue progressing its ongoing…