For photographer Coyia Malone, getting access to the NBA Finals was something of a dream and a reminder of the importance of having someone drop your name when you’re not in the room.
Malone, a photographer and videographer from Cleburne, Texas, had been practicing photography for about a decade when she was invited to photograph a few Dallas Mavericks games. That led to shooting the NBA Playoffs.
The experience became the basis for Malone’s first solo exhibition, “Shooter's Shoot,” at Tubman Gallery. The exhibition features roughly a dozen photographs from the 2026 NBA Playoffs, offering an intimate look at some of basketball’s biggest stars and the spectacle surrounding the game.
For Malone, sports photography is more than simply freezing an athlete in motion. It’s the culmination of a lifelong relationship with basketball.
“I grew up playing basketball and was supposed to play in college,” she said. “I've just always been around the game.”
Malone says she picked up photography while traveling. She wanted a way to preserve the places and experiences she encountered, eventually buying a camera for about $1,200.
“I sat there for months because I didn't even know how to use it,” she said. “And finally, one day I was just like, I gotta learn how to do this thing.”
About 11 years later, Malone found herself photographing some of the most recognizable athletes in professional basketball.
Matthew Nelson, the founder of Tubman Gallery, has watched Malone’s evolution. He’s known her for more than a decade and says he remembers her early days with a camera.
“I've seen her go from not knowing how to use a camera to that,” Nelson said.
Nelson says Malone's technical ability is a major part of what makes her work distinctive. Her photographs aren't limited to traditional action shots. Many have the intimacy and visual language of portraits.
“They're almost like a keepsake for a family, but the person just happens to be inside of an NBA game,” Nelson said.
That ability to move between portraits and sports photography is part of what drew Nelson to the work.
In a conventional portrait session, a photographer might have several seconds to capture a subject's expression and presence. At an NBA game, Nelson says, that window can shrink to a fraction of a second.
“That's like getting that nine seconds down to one second,” he said.
One photograph that particularly caught Nelson's attention is titled “Father and Son,” which depicts New York Knicks guard Jalen Brunson with his father, Rick Brunson, before a game. Rather than focusing on the action on the court, Malone captures a quieter moment, Brunson's father leaning toward him, apparently speaking into his ear.
For Nelson, images like that demonstrate why Malone's work belongs on a gallery wall.
Another subject who appears repeatedly in the exhibition is LeBron James.
Malone says one of her favorite photographs is of James screaming after scoring an impressive shot. Instead of capturing the move itself, she photographed what came immediately afterward. The photograph carries additional significance because the 2026 playoffs marked the end of James' Lakers era, according to Nelson.
For him, Malone's photographs preserve a particular moment in basketball history before the season changes, players move, and another champion is crowned.
“It's like a whole other thing,” Nelson said. “But this is kind of capturing that contemporary energy of summer of 2026 and the 2026 playoffs and what that kind of looked like.”
For Malone, seeing those images outside the arena is a milestone in a career. It’s a marker of how far she’s come since first picking up a camera 11 years ago.
