2018-nba-playoffs Page 8 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Is Joel Embiid's Mask More Superhero Or Supervillain?
After missing a few weeks with a concussion and an orbital fracture, Joel Embiid is finally back on the floor for tonight’s Game 3 against the Heat—with a pretty sick mask, goggles included. Constructing the thing was apparently quite the project......
The Thunder Are Being Shady About Steven Adams's Possibly Injured Arm
To refresh your memory, Steven Adams rammed in an alley-oop in Game 1 of the Thunder’s playoff series against the Jazz that made a satisfying thunk, but also rendered his right arm unusable. It just sort of hung there for awhile....
Someone Else On The Cavaliers Needs To Score, Too
If you caught LeBron James in just the right light during that first quarter, you could have seen the steam wisping off his damn bald spot. Playoff LeBron is here but probably much, much earlier than he’d intended on arriving, and as cranky as those circumstances would suggest....
Even A Hobbled Donovan Mitchell Won't Go Down Easily
After bruising his foot in Game 1, Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell insisted that he’d suit up for Game 2, despite having to play through a personally unprecedented amount of pain to do so. He didn’t seem very limited in his second-ever playoff game when he got a steal and scored on the first possession ...
Seriously, What The Hell Are The Minnesota Timberwolves Doing?
In Game 1 of the Rockets-Timberwolves series, the eighth-seeded Wolves lost in no small part because they inexplicably froze their two best players, Jimmy Butler and Karl-Anthony Towns, out of the offense. Game 2 was last night, and the Rockets won, 102-82. Here are some stats from that, courtesy of...
I’m Getting Pretty Fed The Fuck Up With James Comey<em></em>
Former FBI director and self-appointed beacon of rectitude James Comey is currently in the midst of barnstorming the country’s numerous morning show sets to plug his new tell-all. And while I will gladly side with Comey in any tiff with the President or with Meghan McCain, I think I’ve had just abou...
LeBron James Says He Wasn't Blindsided By TNT Reporter Asking Him About Erin Popovich
After the Cleveland Cavaliers won last night to level their series against the Pacers at one game apiece, TNT reporter Allie LaForce asked LeBron James about the death of Gregg Popovich’s wife, Erin Popovich, which had been reported earlier in the night. From James’s reaction, it seemed that it was ...
The Time Has Come For Carmelo Anthony To Hit Some Damn Shots
For all the handwringing over Russell Westbrook’s stat-chasing and shot selection, and over Paul George’s occasional listlessness, an even bigger problem has spent the season lurking in Oklahoma City. A Melo problem....
Larry Nance Jr. Spikes Trevor Booker's Weak Shot Attempt Directly Into Hell
The Pacers are grinding their way back from Playoff LeBron’s personal game-opening 16-1 run, with no help from this sorry Antawn Jamison-ass quasi-hook flip shot by Indiana’s Trevor Booker, which Larry Nance Jr., acting as the living incarnation of righteous justice, pounded into the parquet so hard...
Playoff LeBron Goes On 16-1 Run To Start Game 2
After getting smoked in Game 1 of their first-round series against the Pacers, the Cavaliers came out for tonight’s Game 2 with zero interest in fucking around. Or, to be more specific, LeBron came out with zero interest in fucking around—which he demonstrated very clearly by building a 16-1 Clevela...
Playoff Rondo Is Truly Back
For essentially the duration of Anthony Davis’s career, the Pelicans have been knocked for being a one-man team with precious little depth, no wing players, and little dynamism to their offense that doesn’t start and finish with Davis. The addition of DeMarcus Cousins helped allay the severity of th...
The Raptors Put The Wizards In The Trash, Where They Belong
The competitive part of last night’s Game 2 between the Toronto Raptors and Washington Wizards was over, long over, by the time some combination of shame and embarrassment sparked a smidgen of detectable pride or competitive intensity in any Washington player. The result was a laughably misleading ...
Eric Bledsoe On The Guy Currently Beating His Ass: "I Don't Even Know Who The Fuck That Is"
Bucks point guard Eric Bledsoe has not played very well in his team’s first two playoff games against the Boston Celtics, and his squad is now down 0-2 in the series. Bledsoe is shooting just 36 percent from the field in the series, and has been thoroughly outplayed by Boston’s backup-turned-startin...
Jrue Holiday Decided The Pelicans Would Win (And They Did)
The Pelicans went up 2-0 on the Blazers in their first-round series Tuesday night with a 111-102 road win. They did this thanks in part to main man Anthony Davis—who picked up a 22-point double-double—but mostly because point guard Jrue Holiday took the game over and willed the Pelicans to a narrow ...
Suddenly, Jaylen Brown Is The Celtics' New Leader
The Boston Celtics are generally broken and injured for this year’s playoffs, but after a 120-106 win to take a 2-0 series lead over the Bucks, they’re in prime position to survive at least the first round. And for both of the Celtics’ wins so far in the postseason, they owe a huge debt to Jaylen Br...
Nothing Matters, But LaMarcus Aldridge Was Awesome Last Night
They have to say they believe they can win, of course. More than that, they have to actually believe that it’s at least possible, or they would not be the sorts of people capable of claiming the West’s seventh playoff seed with a roster that looks like somebody sat on a keyboard. None of the rest of...
Gregg Popovich's Praise Of LaMarcus Aldridge Felt Rather Pointed
The Spurs are down 0-2 to the Warriors in their first-round playoff series, and Kawhi Leonard is not with the team. The reasons for that are still somehow impossibly murky—Leonard has been dealing with an injured quad muscle all year; he may or may not have been healthy enough to play for some time ...
How Many More Times Can The Heat Do That?
It’s true that the Miami Heat dominated most of last night’s Game 2 against the Sixers, only wobbling late in the fourth quarter before being steadied once again by Dwyane Wade. It’s true that Wade was spectacular, and hewed much closer to the 2010 version of himself than the player he’s been recent...
Joel Embiid Is Not Happy After Tonight's Sixers Loss
Joel Embiid cleared concussion protocol yesterday—nearly three weeks after he initially landed in said protocol by smacking heads with teammate Markelle Fultz and fracturing his orbital bone—but the Sixers center was still on the bench for tonight’s Game 2 against the Heat. He’s apparently not too t...
It's 2018, My God, And Dwyane Wade Just Won A Playoff Game Through The Force Of His Own Will
Dwyane Wade established tonight’s Game 2 against the 76ers as a Dwyane Wade Night, a performance bound to get the word “vintage” repeatedly attached to it, pretty early on: certainly before the end of the first half, by which point he’d scored 21 on 8-for-9 shooting off the bench. In the second quar...