HARDWOOD CLASSIC: NEWPORT TOOK EVERY PUNCH, THEN TOOK THE TITLE

HARDWOOD CLASSIC: NEWPORT TOOK EVERY PUNCH, THEN TOOK THE TITLE

New Jersey entered the Finals without a playoff loss.

Eight games. Eight wins.

The Devils had swept Atlantic City, swept Newark and turned Jalen Brunson into the defining scorer of their postseason. By the time they reached Newport, the question was no longer whether New Jersey had found itself. The Devils had already answered that.

Then Newport handed them their first loss immediately.

Game 1 set the tone for everything that followed.

The 100s opened with a 20-8 first quarter, pushed the lead as high as 15 and shot 60 percent from the field with 28 assists. It looked like Newport had found an easy way into the series.

Then Paul George went down with a sprained right shoulder.

The game changed. So did New Jersey.

Grayson Allen scored 18 and hit five threes. Cooper Flagg added 15 points and six assists. The Devils erased the deficit and finally took a late fourth-quarter lead.

Newport still had one answer left.

Karl-Anthony Towns buried the game-winning three, and the 100s escaped New Jersey with a 77-75 win.

Josh Giddey earned the Game Ball with 11 points and eight assists off the bench. Dennis Rodman earned DPOG after helping shut the door on Brunson late, including the block and pressure that turned New Jersey's final possessions into difficult ones.

The Devils had finally lost.

More important, Newport had shown it could absorb a major in-game injury, lose control of the scoreboard and still finish.

Game 2 asked the same question in a different way.

Brunson refused to let the Devils disappear. He scored 38 and hit a three at the regulation buzzer to force overtime, turning another Newport road game into a Hardwood Classic.

Then Luka Doncic took over the extra period.

Luka finished with 20 points, four rebounds, nine assists and two steals. Newport won overtime 14-9 and took the game 89-84.

Karl-Anthony Towns added 15 points and 10 rebounds. Kon Knueppel went a perfect 5-for-5 from the field for 12. Rodman added 11 points and two blocks and was again named DPOG.

Two games into the Finals, Newport was up 2-0.

Neither win had been comfortable.

That was becoming the point.

The 100s were not beating New Jersey by waiting for one star to carry the series. Different players kept becoming the answer at the exact moment the game demanded one.

Towns hit the dagger in Game 1.

Luka owned overtime in Game 2.

Then Game 3 belonged to Rodman.

Back home, Newport produced its cleanest offensive performance of the series to that point. The 100s shot 64 percent, scored 46 points in the paint and built a 21-point lead in a 78-71 win.

Towns scored 17 on a perfect 8-for-8 shooting night. Paul George returned from the one-game shoulder absence and scored 10.

Brunson still gave New Jersey 38.

It was not enough.

Rodman finished with 11 points, three rebounds, five assists, two steals and two blocks. The Commissioner gave him both the Game Ball and DPOG.

Newport led the Finals 3-0.

By then, Rodman's fingerprints were everywhere. He had been DPOG in each of Newport's first three Finals victories, and in Game 3 the defensive work came with enough offense and playmaking to make him the best player on the floor.

The sweep looked close.

New Jersey had one more answer.

Game 4 should have ended the series.

Newport built an 18-point lead at home and appeared ready to finish the job. Instead, Brunson produced the kind of half that had carried New Jersey through the postseason.

He scored 28 points in the second half and finished with 38.

The Devils kept coming until the final possession. Newport sent a triple team at Brunson in the closing seconds. Brunson made the read and found Zach LaVine open.

LaVine hit the game winner.

NJ 84, Newport 83.

The sweep was gone.

Zach Edey earned DPOG. Brunson took the Game Ball. New Jersey had survived, and Newport had to travel back to the Devils' floor with the series suddenly carrying one more piece of doubt.

Game 5 removed it.

There was no final-possession drama this time.

No overtime.

No comeback.

No argument.

Newport beat New Jersey 83-57.

The 100s shot 68 percent from the field, scored 52 points in the paint and led by as many as 26. They carried a 40-28 advantage into halftime, absorbed New Jersey's 25-point third quarter and then ended the season with a 22-4 fourth.

Four points.

That was all the Devils scored in the final quarter of their season.

Brunson finished with 17. Michael Porter Jr. had 12. LaVine added 11.

New Jersey never led.

And the player in the middle of Newport's clincher was the same one who had quietly become the center of the series.

Dennis Rodman scored 17 points, grabbed nine rebounds, handed out two assists and added two steals while shooting 8-for-10.

He received the Game Ball.

He received DPOG.

Then he received the award that explained the entire Finals.

2026 BDA Finals MVP.

Rodman did not win it because one box score was bigger than everybody else's. He won it because his impact survived every version of the series.

When Newport needed a fourth-quarter stop in Game 1, he was there.

When Game 2 went to overtime, he was still anchoring the defense.

When Newport came home for Game 3, he controlled both ends.

And when the 100s finally had the chance to close the series for good, he delivered his biggest scoring night of the Finals.

New Jersey made Newport work for this championship more than the final 4-1 score suggests.

The first game came down to a Towns three.

The second required overtime.

The fourth came down to LaVine's winner.

Brunson scored 38 twice and refused to let the series become routine.

But Newport kept finding another answer.

That was the championship story.

The 100s survived Afrika in seven games. They survived Bronx in six. Then they met an NJ team that had not lost all postseason and took the first three games anyway.

They absorbed George's shoulder injury.

They survived Brunson's shot-making.

They lost the sweep.

Then they came back to New Jersey and ended the season by 26.

Newport 100s, 2026 BDA champions.

Traditional Finals: 4-1.

Dennis Rodman, Finals MVP.

The later Undisputed BDA Championship Challenge belongs to a different chapter. It does not add another Finals game, change the series score or rewrite what happened on the court.

The Finals ended in New Jersey.

And when they ended, Newport had the title.

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