2 Page 258 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

If Kelly Oubre Jr. Is Suspended, It Will Be Because He Was Honest
First of all, as a basketball euphemism, physical play is bullshit. Everything that happens on a basketball court is physical play. A bounce-pass is a physical play. When broadcast crews and halftime pundits and bloggers say that one team is playing more physical than the other, particularly in the ...

Nike Wants To Own The Sub-Two-Hour Marathon
Nike’s Breaking2 project—an attempt to lower the marathon world record by almost three minutes, to under two hours—makes its debut this weekend. Lelisa Desisa, Eliud Kipchoge, Zersenay Tadese, and an army of pacers will take a little over 17.5 laps around the Autodromo Nazionale Formula One race tra...

The Wizards Got Out To A Huge Lead And, For Once, Kept It
The Wizards dominated in the first quarter of tonight’s Game 3, going on a 20-0 run and heading to the second with a 39-17 lead over the Celtics. But you’ve heard that one before, and it hasn’t ended well for Washington lately. Tonight was different....

Nate Diaz Talks Outrageous Shit, Shows Off His Bongs And Very Cool Dog
Deadspin hero Nate Diaz spent an hour with Ariel Helwani this afternoon on a special edition of The MMA Hour. It did not disappoint. Let’s run through the highlights....

Some Basketball Stuff Bradley Beal Did Last Night
The Boston Celtics won a game in which they trailed for pretty much all but a few moments of regulation, to take a 2-0 lead in their best-of-seven Eastern Conference semifinal series against the Washington Wizards. Celtics guard Isaiah Thomas was unstoppable in the fourth quarter and overtime, scori...

Let This Be The End Of The Clippers<em></em>
The Los Angeles Clippers got eliminated on their home court by the Utah Jazz yesterday, in Game 7. The Jazz were the lower-seeded team, so nominally this qualifies as an upset—though of course it wasn’t really, in the dual sense that, A) even before the Clippers lost Blake Griffin to a season-ending...

Why Should Any Top Draft Prospect Play A Meaningless Bowl Game Again?
Leonard Fournette and Christian McCaffrey made history last week. The Jaguars drafted Fournette fourth overall, while the Panthers took McCaffrey at No. 8. Both were outstanding prospects who were expected to be selected in the Top 10. What’s significant is that both had skipped their meaningless, n...

The U.S. Gymnastics System Wanted More Medals, And Created A Culture Of Abuse To Get Them
Seventeen years ago, the U.S. women’s gymnastics team placed fourth at the Sydney Olympics, finishing behind Romania, Russia, and China. Coming four years after the gold medal from the Magnificent Seven, this placement was seen—both inside and outside the sport, by the press and by coaches like the ...

What In The Damn Hell Were The Hawks Doing?
With a little less than a minute left in last night’s Game 5 between Washington and Atlanta, John Wall dribbled into some open space behind a Marcin Gortat screen and calmly sank a 21-foot jumpshot, giving the Wizards a four-point lead with 47 seconds left to play....

The Wizards Have The Saddest Problem
The Washington Wizards have, in John Wall, the best player—by a mile!—in their playoff series against the Atlanta Hawks. At pretty much any given moment, they have the better player at three of the five positions on the court. They have home-court advantage. And they’re in grave trouble, at least i...

Mark Emmert Admits NCAA Accepted The "Absolute Minimum" In Its Return To North Carolina<em></em>
In speaking with the Associated Press sports editors at their annual meeting with commissioners on Thursday night, NCAA president Emmert acknowledged that HB 142 was “the absolute minimum” the North Carolina legislature could have done to earn back the NCAA men’s basketball tournament and other post...

Unlike The NCAA, Some States And Cities Didn't Bite On North Carolina's Weak HB2 Repeal
The NCAA released the sites of its upcoming postseason events through 2022 Tuesday afternoon, and as was expected, the governing body of college sports made its return to North Carolina official, announcing the Tar Heel state will host 36 men’s and women’s tournaments and postseason competitions. In...

A Very Timely And Comprehensive 2017 NBA Playoffs, Uh, "Preview," Part 2
Good afternoon, basketball viewers! It’s time for the second part of our very on-time and definitely not late at all 2017 NBA playoffs preview blog post. Here’s what you need to know about the first-round series that are scheduled to begin today, presented in the order the games will start....

A Very Timely And Comprehensive 2017 NBA Playoffs, Uh, "Preview," Part 1
Hello fellow sports enthusiasts! It’s that time again: World Art Day. But also, the NBA playoffs, the best* postseason tournament of all, begin today. Another thing that began today: My work on this playoff preview blog! Let’s run down the first-round series that are starting this afternoon: the sto...

Craven North Carolina Legislators Threaten ACC Over Future Boycotts
After North Carolina kinda-sorta-not-really repealed HB2 last month under pressure from a handful of powerful sports bodies, the NBA and NCAA let the state back into their good graces. Despite the fact that the repeal kept many of HB2’s heinous facets in place, NBA czar Adam Silver said that Charlot...

The Miami Heat Are Probably Screwed, And That Sucks
Tonight, the last night of the NBA’s regular season, will settle the Eastern Conference’s seventh and eighth playoff seeds, the last two unsettled spots in the postseason. The Miami Heat, currently sitting in ninth thanks to tiebreakers, can claim one of those spots, technically, but almost certainl...

CONCACAF Wants No-Bid Deal To Host World Cup
The joint* USA/Mexico/Canada Cup bid is the favorite to land the expanded 2026 World Cup, but the organizers would like to take no chances: They’re planning to ask FIFA to speed up the awarding process by three years, and to accept no other bids for the tournament....

Confusion Still Reigns After UFC 210 Fight Ends In Bizarre TKO<em></em>
Last Saturday, Buffalo hosted its first UFC event since 1995, and Long Island’s very own middleweight contender, Chris Weidman, got to fight Gegard Mousasi in a co-main event bout. Mousasi was introduced by Bruce Buffer to a light smattering of boos, while Weidman was hailed with deafening chants o...

Daniel Cormier Miraculously Sheds 1.2 Pounds In Minutes To Make Weight
The main event of tomorrow’s UFC 210 card in Buffalo is a light heavyweight title fight match between Daniel Cormier and Anthony “Rumble” Johnson. Cormier won the first fight, but the rematch almost didn’t happen after Cormier initially missed weight this morning....

Report: The U.S., Mexico, And Canada Plan To Submit Joint Bid To Host 2026 World Cup
The Guardian spoke with CONCACAF president Victor Montagliani, who confirmed what has long been speculated: the U.S., Mexico, and Canada plan on submitting a joint bid to host the 2026 World Cup....