Good morning. We have that and more in Tuesday’s NBA newsletter.

Playoff basketball is back on Wednesday as the WNBA's postseason gets underway.

The first two rounds of the eight-team tournament are single elimination. (The top two seeds have byes to the semifinals.) The Lynx, behind Maya Moore, are the No. 1 seed for the fifth time in seven years. But Tina Charles and the New York Liberty are the hottest team on the planet. It should be a fun, fun bracket.

Markkanen has been lights-out shooting so far.

Finland’s Lauri Markkanen caught an inbound pass and hoisted up a three-point shot from the corner with seconds to go in a three-point game against Slovenia that missed. After swishing shot after shot for 80 minutes of play, including coming up in the clutch just three days before to beat France, that was a shock. Missing hasn’t been in his repertoire.

After signing a contract extension this summer, Harden’s employed through at least 2022.

James Harden tweeted that he’ll stay in Houston forever. As far as Twitter promises go, this one actually has some merit.

Add The Beard to the growing list of athletes donating to the victims of Hurricane Harvey.

Add James Harden to the list of athletes donating massive amount of cash to those impacted by Hurricane Harvey last week.

The Rockets’ superstar guard announced a $1 million donation to the city of Houston on Saturday in an effort to give back to the city he calls home.

Knicks rookie Frank Ntilikina told reporters at Yankee Stadium, including ESPN’s Andrew Marchand, that he’s worked out with Carmelo Anthony, Lance Thomas and several other Knicks as training camp approaches.

The struggling former light heavyweight champion Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev (30-2-1, 26 KOs) is rumored to be fighting on November 25 against an opponent still to be determined in New York on HBO, according to RingTV.

Kovalev’s career has hit a rough patch lately with him losing his last 2 fights against Andre “SOG” Ward. The first loss to Ward was a controversial one last November in Las Vegas, Nevada. Kovalev fought well enough to deserve a win in the first fight, but the judges gave Ward the win despite him being knocked down in round 2.

Ten-year NBA veteran Rodney Stuckey plans to visit several teams post-Labor Day. Stuckey has been fully healthy training this summer.

James’ return to Cleveland caused Cleveland to abandon its pursuit of Hayward.

The best moment of the entertaining Celtics introductory press conference for Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward came when Hayward suggested LeBron James “squashed” a potential Hayward-Irving duo in Cleveland three years ago. Quoth Hayward:

“I went to Cleveland on a visit when I was a restricted free agent [in 2014]. Kyrie came in and was saying how much fun it’d be if I was on the team, kind of recruiting me to go there. Then LeBron came and that kinda squashed that whole thing. It came full circle, and here we are now.”