2019-nba-playoffs Page 1 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
NBA Playoff ratings were on fire opening weekend, but that’s not the only way to define the league’s success
Television ratings are one of the most archaic ways to measure what people care about. We’re more than 20 years into the new millennium. Who has time to be held to a live television schedule? I remember as a child watching an episode of Home Improvement when Tim “The Toolman” Taylor was trying to av...
Three years later and nothing has changed, the Lakers are still a mess
Looking back at the Russell Westbrook trade, it makes sense what they were trying to do. The Los Angeles Lakers’ 2020-21 season was cut at the kneecaps by injury. It was the second time that had happened in three seasons. They needed a third star so that if they lost LeBron James or Anthony Davis or...
It's Time For A National Conversation About Drake's Horny Watch
One thing that can be said about Drake that cannot be said about a disconcertingly large number of other famous people is that it is clear why he is famous. He has done actual things—performed some hugely popular songs about how disappointed he is in various exes; endorsed one of the better-liked le...
Here Are Some Cool Guys Who Are Now NBA Champions
Kawhi Leonard won his second career Finals MVP Thursday night, becoming the first player in NBA history to win one in each conference. The magnitude of what he personally accomplished likely will take some time to settle in: After missing a full season due to injury and forcing his way out of San An...
![Alameda County Sheriff's Office Wants To Charge Raptors Exec Masai Ujiri With Battery [Update]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/itphupop5snhu4vufp83.jpg)
Alameda County Sheriff's Office Wants To Charge Raptors Exec Masai Ujiri With Battery [Update]
Raptors president of basketball operations Masai Ujiri was walking onto the floor Thursday night to celebrate his team’s championship when he appeared to get in some sort of altercation with a cop. The Alameda County Sheriff’s Office claimed that Ujiri shoved one of its deputies and nudged him in th...
Pascal Siakam And Fred VanVleet Were Pure Joy
The very end of Game 6 was like holding in a sneeze. At the end of the NBA Finals you might expect a satisfying, full release of tension, but that moment never really came. Instead the refs puttered and dithered over what to do with that ersatz timeout and then a foul on Kawhi Leonard and then how m...
There's A Difference Between Luck That's Received And Luck That's Found
Other franchises will want to make a replicable plan out of the Toronto Raptors’ journey to one of the truly amazing championships in NBA history. That’s how it goes. There has to be some parable in what everybody just watched, even if it’s the dullest kind, the kind about the friggin’ salary cap. ...
Fuck Your Asterisk
I heard someone on sports talk radio the other day say that if the Raptors pulled out a win in these NBA Finals, fans would forget about what exactly happened to Golden State during the series—he made this supposition after Kevin Durant’s calf rolled up but before Klay Thompson’s knee buckled like a...
Kyle Lowry Kept The Raptors Alive
It was an up-and-down postseason in what’s been an up-and-down career for Raptors point guard Kyle Lowry, but on Thursday night, when all of his teammates struggled to score out of the gate in Game 6, it was Lowry who helped give them the jumpstart they needed to eventually cross the finish line. As...
Kawhi Leonard, Whenever You Get A Minute, This Extremely Drunk Raptors Fan Has A Plant For You
Kawhi Leonard had one of the great NBA postseasons, dismantling the Process, outplaying the MVP, and being the single best player in a Finals that brought down a dynasty. He was near-unanimous Finals MVP, and is now the first player in the history of the league to earn that honor in both conferences...
Oakland's Past Is Brighter Than The Warriors' Future
OAKLAND — The nostalgia in the building was thick enough to cut with DeMarcus Cousins, so much so that many of the last 19,596 humans shoved into what has always been known by the locals as “The Coliseum” almost forgot that there was a championship to defend, a season to prolong and a summer to defe...
Report: Klay Thompson Tore His ACL
Klay Thompson taking a nasty fall in Game 6, limping into the tunnel, then turning around to get back on the floor and drain his free throws was about as heroic as basketball gets. The Warriors guard even told head coach Steve Kerr he’d be back after a two-minute rest, only to leave the arena on cru...
We Must Remove Mark Jackson From NBA Broadcasts Post-Haste
There is the constant travel and the dreary tape-eating research and the broader long-season ennui and the oppressive non-negotiable formalwear, and all of that is unpleasant. All the bleak hotel club sandwiches and the time away from family and periodically having to go to literally Phoenix and the...
Kyle Lowry Deserves No Slander This Time
Just to get this out of the way: Draymond Green got his fingers on the ball. The one body who guards two bodies like perhaps no other player in NBA history did it all over again. Green denied Marc Gasol the ball by fronting, then scooted out to poke Lowry’s potential game-winner behind the backboard...
There's Nothing Quite Like Draymond Green At Full Speed
Draymond Green’s curse (well, other than the invisible backpack) is that no matter how good he gets at basketball, the most immediately and undeniably impressive basketball feats, the truly unmistakable displays of superhuman ability, will never be available to him. He will never pour on the hailsto...
Who The Hell Knows How This Ends, But At Least It's Not Without A Fight
Nope, I have nothing for you. I cannot explain how the Golden State Warriors won Game 5 of the NBA Finals, and neither can any of you. A team in tatters refused to shred, and it remains obstinate in the face of a hockey team’s list of injuries. This is almost not at all about the Toronto Raptors any...
The Raptors Blew It
Coming close hurts all the more when you can quantify just how close you came. One shot, or one missed shot, or one call the other way, or ... one timeout? The Raptors came oh so close to winning a championship Monday night, and it’s not the one-point final margin that’ll stick in craws and steal sl...
Report: Kevin Durant's "Expected" To Play Game 5
The Golden State Warriors are facing elimination, but Kevin Durant, who hurt his leg a month ago, isn’t a sure thing for tonight’s game against the Raptors. At today’s practice, head coach Steve Kerr wouldn’t say anything beyond calling his player a “game-time decision” for Game 5 of the NBA Finals....
The Raptors Are The Warriors Now
Recency bias is a hateful but dominant force in the best-of-seven world, so the clear assumption to be made from Game 4 of the NBA Finals is that Game 6 seems unlikely. The Toronto Raptors are the new Golden State Warriors, and the Golden State Warriors are finally all about the trailing step, the a...
Kawhi Leonard Took Over And The Warriors Couldn't Do A Thing About It
The Warriors as currently constituted are “merely” a great NBA team. In just about any other context, it’s peak roster construction. A couple of all-world shooters, a couple of bangers down low with shots of their own, a scattering of role players each with their own specific skills, and an overall ...