In his new movie, Hustle, Sandler’s NBA
Adam Sandler has found a surprising new niche: movies in which he acts alongside NBA power forwards featuring scenes at Celtics-Sixers games. In 2019, Sandler starred in Uncut Gems, an anxiety roller coaster that featured a scene-stealing performance from Kevin Garnett and revolved around a series of (ill-advised) bets on a Boston-Philly playoff series. In his new movie, Hustle, Sandler’s NBA costar is Jazz reserve Juancho Hernangómez, and the movie wraps with a scene at a Celtics-Sixers game that seems to be a season opener, or perhaps a preseason game. The stakes are lower this time around. Gems was greatly enhanced if you knew about Garnett, a Hall of Famer whose trademark was over-the-top intensity—a perfect fit in a movie designed to make viewers uncomfortable for two straight hours. But you don’t need to know anything about Hernangómez, who has averaged 5.4 points per game in his career and has been traded four times in the past 12 months. That relative anonymity also makes him