Former NBA All-Star forward Carmelo Anthony announced his retirement from basketball. 

“Now the time has come for me to say goodbye to the court where I made my name, to the game that gave me purpose and pride,” Anthony said.

“With this bittersweet goodbye to the NBA, I am excited about what the future holds for me.” 

Anthony, 39, a former national champion at Syracuse, was selected No. 3 overall by the Denver Nuggets in the 2003 NBA Draft and spent his first eight seasons with the franchise before being traded to the New York Knicks midway through the 2010-11 season, where he played for seven seasons. The Brooklyn native had later stints with the Oklahoma City Thunder, Houston Rockets, Portland Trail Blazers and Los Angeles Lakers.

Anthony retires ninth on the NBA all-time scoring list with 28,289 career points during his career. The former Syracuse standout was a 10-time All-Star, a scoring champion in 2013 and a member of the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.

The Miami Heat are marching on to the NBA Finals, where they will face the Denver Nuggets, after a 103-84 victory over the Boston Celtics in Game  7 of the Eastern Conference finals. 

With the win, Miami avoids the dubious distinction of being the first team in NBA history to blow a 3-0 lead in a playoff series. Teams that go up 3-0 are now 151-0 all-time. It wasn’t easy. It didn’t look good after the way Game 6 was ripped from their hands with a miraculous Derrick White buzzer-beating tip-in. But Miami got it done. 

“I think a lot of people can relate to this team,” Miami coach Erik Spoelstra said. “Sometimes you have to suffer for the things you really want.”

Credit the Celtics for fighting back to force a Game 7. They are just the fourth of those 151 teams to even do that much after going down 3-0, but they couldn’t get over the hump as Jayson Tatum rolled his ankle early and clearly wasn’t right the whole night, Jaylen Brown (eight turnovers, 8-of-23 shooting) was awful, and Boston’s 3-point shooting (21%), yet again, was atrocious. 

The Florida Panthers had the opportunity to make history Wednesday night against the Carolina Hurricanes. They did not squander it.

The Panthers, a team which made the playoffs by a single point, are headed to the Stanley Cup Final for only the second time in franchise history after beating the Hurricanes 4-3 at FLA Live Arena in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals.

Matthew Tkachuk — the hero of this postseason not named ‘Bobrovsky’ — scored with 4.9 seconds left for the game-winner.

It was his second goal of the night and third game-winning goal of this four-game sweep.

Florida, which has not been to the Cup Final since the 1996 campaign, will play either the Vegas Golden Knights or Dallas Stars.