2019-nba-playoffs Page 2 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
The Raptors Won But Finals Chaos Still Reigns
It’s cheap to say that the Raptors beat the Gldn Stae Warors (which is to say, 63 percent of the Golden State Warriors) in Game 3 of the NBA Finals; in fact, it isn’t much of a stretch to say that the Raptors might have won the game anyway....
The Golden State Warriors Will Be Pretty Crabbed For Game 3
A seminal description of Steph Curry’s 2012 ankle surgery inspired “crab meat” as in-house shorthand for serious sports injuries. But right now, with the NBA Finals tied 1-1, Curry might be the only Golden State Warrior who could not be consumed with melted butter and lemon. Nearly everyone else in ...
The Weirder The Finals Get, The Better
The news from the NBA Finals is all good, kids, and it is this: Nobody has any narratives left to invent. The events of Games 1 and 2 have savaged all the preconceptions, conceptions, and the way it’s looking, the post-conceptions of this series. Nobody has any idea what’s coming next, and nobody wi...
The Warriors Should Have Been Fucked
There’s no such thing as an NBA Finals loss that doesn’t sting, but some of them hurt more than others. The J.R. Smith Disaster was so demoralizing that you knew, even though it happened in Game 1, that the Cavs would never recover. Last night’s Game 2, which the Raptors lost 109-104, was not nearly...
Marc Gasol Can Run With The Warriors, And Get Buckets Too
Marc Gasol has been a prime component of the Raptors’ asphyxiating defense—one of the most switchable, responsive, obnoxiously needling teams in recent memory. His post D has been stout enough to knock Joel Embiid a notch down from series-defining to merely good. By Giannis Antetokounmpo’s own admi...
Fred VanVleet Can Do No Wrong
How big a lead does a team have to have on the Warriors before its fans can feel comfortable? Twenty points with two minutes left? Fifteen points with 30 seconds to go? To me, it didn’t feel like the Raptors had Game 1 locked up until they were actually dribbling out the final ticks, up nine with th...
What Happened To All The Interesting Refs?
One of the nerdier things a basketball fan can do at 9 a.m. Eastern Weirdo Time is to go to the NBA website and glom onto the identities of the officials who will work whatever game interests you True, NBA ref nerddom is an exceedingly small subset of Nerdvania, but let a thousand sets of hipster gl...
A Thorough And Informative 2019 NBA Finals Preview For Basketball Idiots
Hello, casual basketball viewer! At long last, the NBA Finals are here, and you know what that means: It’s time once again for you to crib a pitiful smattering of hoops knowledge from this extremely half-assed blog and carry it forth to the sports bar like the torch that lights your path....
Drake And The Raptors Both Got A Talking-To From The NBA
The Toronto Raptors will host Game 1 of the NBA Finals tonight, and there’s no doubt Drake will be sitting on the sideline. He’s behaved like an unruly dingus courtside in Toronto, blurring the lines between participant and bystander in ways that would make Spike Lee blush. Bucks coach Mike Budenhol...
Even If The Warriors Win, Oakland Loses
This is the real NBA Finals, the one that transcends Larry O’Brien, Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard, Doris Burke, Woj, Adam Silver, dynasties, the next Why-The-Lakers-Are-On-Fire tell-all, the works. This is Oakland’s last stand with the team it raised from a pup, its last healthy bite of an apple that ...
This Kawhi Leonard Ball Fake Is Hypnotic
Kawhi Leonard has been doing a lot that’s reminiscent of Michael Jordan. The raw scoring—Leonard is up to 31.4 points per game this postseason—the shimmying midrange work, the perimeter defense. Add a new entry to the list: ball fakes only possible with enormous mitts. Check out this possession in G...
Aaron Rodgers Loses Chugging Contest Among Milwaukee-Area Sportsmen
Since the Toronto Raptors have Drake cheering them on, the Milwaukee Bucks need their own celebrity row. Green Bay lineman David Bakhtiari has filled a spot more than once, and he’s excelled at acting as a Rally Packer for the crowd. All he has to do is chug beers, and the crowd gets fired up....
Drake Cuts Sweaty Promo About How Raptors Fans Are Really Good At Following The Rules
The Raptors beat the Milwaukee Bucks in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals last night, and Drake, the Raptors’ rowdy uncle/human mascot, was not in the building. He was back home in Toronto, watching the game with thousands of Raptors fans in an outdoor square. He was so excited after the win t...
Raptors Defense Pushes Bucks To The Toilet's Edge In Game 5 Upset
The Milwaukee Bucks, the best team of the 2018–19 regular season and by far the best team through the first two rounds of the playoffs, find themselves in the deepest of caca following a 105–99 loss to the Toronto Raptors in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals. The Bucks will have to stave off e...
Drake Has Become The Rowdy Uncle Of The Raptors
“In the Six cooking with the wrist motion,” Drake rapped prophetically in 2015. “The Six” refers to Toronto’s area code. “Wrist motion” refers to the stress relief he offered Raptors coach Nick Nurse late in their Game 4 Eastern Conference Finals win....
Quit Smashing Giannis Into The Damn Wall Already
For a top-seeded team that rampaged through the regular season and the first two rounds of the playoffs at a nigh-historic level of dominance, the Milwaukee Bucks feature a dull-ass half-court offense. Often—dismally often—it’s just, well, this:...
Fired-Up Raptors Thoroughly Flatten Bucks, Draw Even In Eastern Conference Finals
For the first time in this series and just the second time in these playoffs, the Milwaukee Bucks were roundly outclassed Tuesday night and fell convincingly, 120–102, to the Toronto Raptors to even up the Eastern Conference Finals. The Raptors grabbed a slim first-quarter lead and spent the rest of...
What's Left Of The Warriors Completes Sweep Of The Trail Blazers
The Golden State Warriors, minus Kevin Durant, minus DeMarcus Cousins, minus Andre Iguodala, completed a four-game sweep of the Portland Trail Blazers Monday night, overcoming another 17-point deficit, and another Meyers Leonard Game, and Draymond Green getting dunked through the planet and back out...
Tireless Steph Curry Helpfully Illustrates Seth Curry's Point
Seth Curry was careful to say the Warriors are “definitely not a better team” without Kevin Durant in their lineup—which, duh—but it is the younger Curry’s opinion that the Warriors do move the ball and themselves more, and more quickly, when they don’t have Durant around. Durant makes the Warriors ...
Kevin Durant Has Logged On
The biggest downside—or upside, depending on your point of view—to Kevin Durant’s clearly unmild calf injury is that he has more time to spend online. He was already extremely online, even if you’re only counting his main and not his dozen burners, but injured Durant has extra time to contemplate hi...