Locker Page 58 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

If only playoff hockey could just be playoff hockey and not these garbage hits
When hockey fans tell you, and they will tell you, that playoff hockey is the best thing in sports, what they’re imagining is that every game, every series, looks like Game 2 of the Avalanche and Knights. The thing is, of course, it doesn’t, and a lot of series are just noisy slogs as coaches really...

I enjoy whatever sport it is Damian Lillard plays
Back when I was in school in Boston in the pre-2004 days (yeah, I’m that fucking old and I don’t need you to remind me), I used to joke with the Red Sox fans in my circle that somehow the fact that the Sox lost the 1975 World Series had been erased from the record books thanks to Carlton Fisk’s home...

Now the Leafs have the calamity they’ve always wanted
Because everything is outsized with the Leafs, the idea that they’ve been coughing up genuine chances at the Stanley Cup year-after-year has grown at the rate and scale of The Blob. Being the Leafs, everything around them is audibly multiplied by at least 12, so the sheer volume that is emitted from...

Nature is healing; fans to return to that Fourth of July Hot Dog stuffing mess
What are your summer plans? Going to get back on a plane? Maybe catch a live game or concert? How about those restaurants you’ve been meaning to try? Or maybe you’re one of the thousands of folks who want to return to Coney Island for the Fourth of July hot dog eating contest?...

Does MLB even have a marketing department?
Last weekend, when writing about José Godoy becoming the 20,000th player in Major League Baseball history, I brought up the story of Bob Watson being the man who scored MLB’s one-millionth run, and all the hoopla around that in 1975....

Hats off to a great deal in Vegas
The Golden Knights traded a couple of draft choices to get Mattias Janmark from Chicago in April, and whatever those picks turn out to be, Vegas can rest easy that it was worth it....

This is the Jimmy Butler I remember
The Bucks-Heat series was supposed to be one of the most intriguing of the first round. Last year’s Eastern Conference champ, going up against a Bucks team that, if they were to spit it early for the second straight year, could be facing some kind of organizational overhaul. There was the added spic...

Please don’t let Joe West be the impetus for massive change
It was always going to be Joe West. ...

Here’s why Deshaun Watson shouldn’t play next year, but the NFL won’t care
To be fair, there are legit reasons that Deshaun Watson can’t play football in 2021. The fact that he’s being accused of being an absolute bridge ghoul, first and foremost. What has been alleged in court documents paints him a predator. That should be enough. But of course it isn’t....

Alabama lifts yoga ban in schools, but kids better not dare utter an ‘Om’
Roll... Yoga mats!...

Let’s try to translate from whatever language Aaron Rodgers is speaking to Kenny Mayne
Aaron Rodgers emerged from the soundstage he built in his home to practice for his Jeopardy! audition last night. He was part of Kenny Mayne’s last Sportscenter on the WWL, which also commemorated the end of ESPN having anyone with an identifiable personality on their flagship show....

We need to have a legitimate conversation about Cardiac Kemba
What is Kemba Walker now?...

Knicks lose playoff game at Madison Square Garden, water is wet
On Sunday, almost eight years to the day since the last time it happened — May 16, 2013 — the Knicks had a chance to win a playoff game inside Madison Square Garden. As usual, they didn’t. And shockingly enough, Knicks fans are dumbfounded about how this happened, as if this isn’t a franchise that h...

Basketball returns home
Even as just a casual basketball fan, I have not missed out on the schadenfreude of the New York Knicks the past decade. It’s always affirming when a place that considers itself essential to a sport, perhaps to the world through that sport, is rendered irrelevant. Watching the Knicks’ sense of self ...

Blazers-Nuggets briefly bumped to ESPN2, still a far cry from tape-delayed 1981 Finals
The start of Trail Blazers-Nuggets was bumped to ESPN2 as Jose Ramírez and Josh Taylor fought for the undisputed junior welterweight title on ESPN, which is barely fathomable in 2021. Taylor won by unanimous decision, and ESPN switched over to the action in Denver with 6:40 left in the first quarter...

God bless the Milwaukee Bucks, Miami Heat, Jimmy Butler and playoff basketball
Let’s all process this together, because that shit was a lot....

The Warriors would’ve won by 30 if Klay were healthy
Last night’s Memphis-Golden State Play-In game was epic. Not quite as epic as the Warriors-Lakers game that happened two days earlier, but still really fun. While it was winding down, I noticed a few things:...

Statement made: Ja Morant has arrived — and Steph Curry knows it, too
Ja Morant needed one of these, and it came at the exact time it was supposed to for a rising star of his projected caliber. ...

I dunno, maybe try a little harder to get the ball to the world’s best shooter?
Stephen Curry scored 39 points on Friday night, shooting 13-for-28 from the field with six three-pointers… and it wasn’t enough....

The biggest “snubs” from the NBA Awards finalists
Y’all are already mad over ‘Player X’ not appearing on at least one of these ballots, so we’re gathered here today to commemorate those unable to join their peers as NBA Award Finalists. ...