8 Page 46 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Chris Paul Is Out For Game 6, And Everything Is Grim Again
The verdict is in on Chris Paul, who was hurting a whole lot at the end of the Rockets’ Game 5 win: He’s out for Saturday....
The Most Painful Thing For Chris Paul Is Having To Watch
Chris Paul is, let’s say, a competitive person, probably to an unpleasant degree. He is also among the all-time greats at his position and finally, in his 13th season, making a deep run into the postseason. And he is also someone who, in the final minute of a conference finals Game 5, with a mere fo...
If The Warriors Are Going To Die, They Should At Least Die Pretty
The pre-series nightmare, for anyone who is a Warriors fan or particularly despises the Rockets’ brand of basketball, went something like this: The Warriors, a free-flowing, elegant offensive team that so often makes the experience of watching them feel transcendent, would be outpaced by the cold ca...
The Rockets Have An Answer For The Warriors<em></em>
In a game that saw James Harden go 0-for-11 from three point range, the Houston Rockets didn’t have to reckon with disaster. Instead, they beat the Warriors with defense, winning Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals 98-94 by neutralizing some of the toughest-to-guard players in the NBA....
The NBA Playoffs Have Been So Boring, And Last Night Was A New Low
These here NBA Playoffs have been terminally boring. They have been so dull and charmless and forgettable that the one night of actual exciting basketball fans have enjoyed somehow still featured two teams taking 3-0 leads in second-round series. Even Rockets-Warriors, this season’s most anticipated...
Nothing Matters But Now
It’s a funny thing. Year after year you’re told “this is your year,” and it never is, and then, finally, when no one thinks you matter anymore ... it might be your year....
It Hurts To Watch The Cavs Like This
LeBron James looked exhausted. Jordan Clarkson was tasked with running the offense on far too many possessions. The Celtics’ rotation of hyped-up young dudes absolutely hounded the Cavs to death on defense. Watching the best player in the world trying to keep his team from going down 3-2 in the East...
The Capitals Rained Fire On The Lightning<em></em>
It was a dream start for the Washington Capitals tonight—or for any team on the road in a Game 7. Just a minute into the deciding match-up of the Eastern Conference Finals against the Lightning, the Caps’ all-time best player dramatically announced his importance. On a cross-ice pass from Tom Wilson...
Braydon Coburn Made The Mistake Of Trying To Fight Tom Wilson<em></em>
A small scrap in the first period of the Capitals-Lightning Game 7 sent Tampa’s Braydon Coburn and Washington’s Tom Wilson to the box for two minutes each. When that time was up, Wilson wanted to escalate the violence, and Coburn foolishly decided to try and stand his ground in an old-fashioned hoc...
A People's History Of Bill Simmons Making Up Corny Things For Boston Fans To Chant
There are any number of reasons why it’s easy to goof on Bill Simmons, and all of them are honestly pretty solid. Many of these have to do with the way he acts—grandiose and aggrieved and prickly-petty and, now that he’s ascended to demi-mogul status, prone to dilatory rich-guy extemporizing on The ...
The Warriors Have Been Infected By Houston's Brain Worms And It's Ruining The West Finals
Okay, yes, goddammit yes, I was wrong, the Houston Rockets, who tied the Western Conference Finals at two games apiece last night in Oakland, have a chance to win the series. A frighteningly strong one, if like me you break out in hives at the prospect of a Larry O’Brien trophy consecrating into can...
The Rockets Refused To Die And Tied The Series<em></em>
Despite some early hiccups and, um, premature pronouncements of doom, the Rockets held a 53-46 lead going into halftime in Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals against the Warriors. For the most optimistic of Rockets fans, that advantage might’ve been enough to nervously hope for an even series. ...
The Rockets Are Short-Circuiting
One of the coldest, most ruthlessly efficient scorers in the NBA froze up on a wide-open three that Draymond Green was cool to let him have. P.J. Tucker eventually missed his own three to end the possession, but if you’re wondering how badly the Warriors own James Harden and the Rockets right now, h...
I Ask You Once Again: How Are The Cavs Like This?
What’s going on here? Just what the heck is this?...
I'm In Awe Of This Nicklas Backstrom Pass
“That was pretty much a perfect game,” Devante Smith-Pelly said after the Capitals’ convincing 3-0 win to take the Lightning to a Game 7, and, yup. The offense was relentless, the defense was suffocating, and Braden Holtby was impenetrable when tested. (Smith-Pelly had a hell of a game himself, scor...
LeBron James Can Make Scoring 44 Points Look Ordinary
Probably the highest praise to give LeBron James is that his 44-point game tonight wasn’t even all that exhilarating, particularly when it didn’t come packaged with quite as many boards and assists (five and three) as his previous five 40-point outings this postseason. The Cavaliers’ 111-102 defeat...
The Capitals Were Finally Flawless
It wasn’t Andrei Vasilevsky’s fault, but it’s hard to beat perfection. The Tampa Bay Lightning goaltender stopped 31 of 33 Capitals shots tonight in Washington’s 3-0 win over the Bolts in Game 6. Several of those saves were spectacular—though unsurprising for anyone who had seen Vasilevsky’s previou...
Dead Letters: Golden Knights Edition
Subject: Had to buy depends...
God Help Me, I'm Rooting For The Warriors Now
The bleak doom of all good things in this terrible psycho-capitalist hell-society we have made is to be processed and metabolized into an inert clot of blind, gray, mindless nano-goo by precisely the kind of antiseptic, hyper-rational, ahuman actuarial math on display here:...
You Don't Have To Get Cute With The Rockets
The Rockets are coming after Steph Curry. Through the first three games of their series against they Warriors, they have been committed to one idea that they seem to think will give them the best chance to win: use a pick to switch Curry onto the ballhandler on every offensive possession, and then w...