basketball Page 175 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Don't Worry About The Warriors, But Worry A Little
There are worse problems to have as a basketball team than the lingering hangover and lousy vibes that come with a half-decade of all-devouring dominance. In the abstract, that doesn’t really sound like a problem at all—being slowly spoiled by overwhelming success is, on balance, a much better way t...

Warriors Dodge A Whole Hailstorm Of Bullets, Hold Off Rockets In Game 5
The Warriors found themselves in a real hairy spot Wednesday night, in the second half of Game 5 of their conference semifinal series against the Houston Rockets. The Rockets were surging even before Kevin Durant went down with a lower leg injury, erasing Golden State’s early lead and drawing to wit...
![Kevin Durant Leaves Game After Suffering Alarming Non-Contact Leg Injury [Update]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/rbmkyyzfpjakryfypnh6.gif)
Kevin Durant Leaves Game After Suffering Alarming Non-Contact Leg Injury [Update]
Late in the third quarter of Wednesday night’s Game 5 of Rockets-Warriors, Kevin Durant pulled up with a sudden non-contact lower leg injury, and had to leave the game. Reggie Miller, working the TNT broadcast, observed that the sequence of Durant’s injury looked strikingly similar to the Achilles t...

The Bucks Humanely Sent The Celtics To The Rainbow Bridge
In the third quarter of Wednesday night’s Celtics-Bucks game, the Celtics half-heartedly swarmed a Giannis Antetokounmpo-Eric Bledsoe pick and roll at the top of the key, and Giannis smartly dumped a little bounce pass to Bledsoe on the short roll, where he could attack a scrambled Celtics defense. ...

The Lakers' Bumbling Courtship Of Tyronn Lue Appears To Have Hit A Snag
The Lakers reportedly went through a bizarre and even troubling process to arrive at this moment in the search for their next head coach—the moment when they sit at a table and hammer out a deal with Tyronn Lue, backed by the full support of everyone in the organization. Part of that process, as rep...

Nikola Jokic Finally Triumphed Over His Archenemy The Microphone
Nikola Jokic is a man of simple desires. He wants to make cool passes, “eat good,” “watch TV show,” and be stronger than the Coke. He also wants a damn microphone that he can hold in his hand without any issues....

Nuggets Finally Shake Loose, Put A Whupping On Trail Blazers
Some of what has made Nuggets-Trail Blazers such a fun playoff series is how evenly matched the teams appear to be. Headed into Game 5 with the series tied, neither team had won a game by more than eight points, and the last two games, a split, were decided by a grand total of seven points. One of t...

An Ailing Joel Embiid Isn't All That Ails The 76ers
The 76ers were blown out in Game 5 Tuesday night, 125–89, by Kawhi Leonard and the Toronto Raptors. Nothing much worked for Philadelphia—the closest they came to a functional offense was Jimmy Butler willing his way to the line for 11 free throws. By the midpoint of the fourth quarter, the game had ...

Report: The Lakers Have A Supremely Jacked-Up Hiring Process
The Lakers are reportedly in the process of hiring former Cleveland Cavaliers head coach Tyronn Lue to replace the fired Luke Walton. Contractual parameters are being sorted out, according to Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports. Lue’s hiring would come with the blessing of LeBron James, who of course won a...

Giannis Antetokounmpo Is The Most Demoralizing Man In The NBA
These here Boston Celtics seem dead, filleted and breaded and fully cooked, and their feeble attempts to bridge a series of late deficits last night strongly suggested that, one recent example of a blown 3-1 lead notwithstanding, this is a mentally broken basketball team with one single game betwee...

The Unflappable Warriors Are Being Flapped By The Feisty Rockets
It wasn’t pretty—it hasn’t been pretty, no two-minute stretch of this series has been the least bit aesthetically pleasant—but the Houston Rockets outlasted the Golden State Warriors in Game 4 to knot their conference semifinal series at two games apiece....

The Celtics Appear To Be In The Deepest Of Doo Doo
The Celtics are left with a couple bad omens from Game 4, which ended Monday night with Boston fans booing their team off the court at the end of a pivotal 113–101 loss. Apart, that is, from the fact that the Bucks are now in a commanding 3–1 series lead, with Game 5 back in Milwaukee, where the Buc...

The Nuggets And Blazers Are Exactly What The NBA Playoffs Needed
The Denver Nuggets and Portland Trail Blazers had every right to give us a sloppy, disappointing Game 4. On Friday night, they played a four-overtime thriller that left both teams exhausted, one team utterly heartbroken, and one superstar out on his feet. All of this could have easily added up to an...

Boban Marjanovic Uses His Large Frame To Obscure Kyle Lowry's Line Of Sight
Boban Marjanovic provided excellent towering defense against Kyle Lowry as the Raptor tried to inbound the ball for the final possession of the half that Toronto got as a result of Lowry selling a foul well....

Steph Curry Blows Wide-Open Dunk In OT, Warriors Immediately Wave White Flag And Give Up On Comeback
The Golden State Warriors needed to score a whole bunch of points real quick at the end of overtime to keep pace in Game 3 tonight in Houston, and instead of doing so, they ended the game in one of the weirder ways you’ll see all postseason....

The Four-Overtime Slog Between The Nuggets And Trail Blazers Caused An NBA Y2K
The Portland Trail Blazers survived the 68-minute marathon against the Denver Nuggets on Friday with a 140-137 win at home. Since it had been over 60 years since the last time a postseason game had gone the distance of four overtimes (1953), neither team had exactly prepared for this particular scen...

Bulls Give Another Contract Extension To That Hardass Everyone Hated
The Chicago Bulls, fresh off a successful season of not winning too many games to miss out on a primo lottery spot, reportedly have signed a “multi-year” extension with head coach Jim Boylen. Boylen, who took over for Fred Hoiberg as interim coach during last season and had already signed an extensi...

The Raptors Are Doing Whatever The Hell This Is Again
Well, shit....

It Sucks That One Of These Teams Must Be Served Up To The Warriors Like Ann Darrow To King Kong
The Denver Nuggets and Portland Trail Blazers played a choppy and bloody and occasionally stupid but highly entertaining Game 2 Wednesday night, with the Blazers prevailing on the road, 97–90, to tie up the series headed back to Portland. The winner of this series should get a trophy and a parade an...
![Torrey Craig's Face Smashed Up And Bloodied By Opponent's Arm And Teammate's Leg [Update]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/m3lwkjhcyhb8zvevmpzj.png)
Torrey Craig's Face Smashed Up And Bloodied By Opponent's Arm And Teammate's Leg [Update]
Second-year forward Torrey Craig has been surprisingly huge for the Nuggets this postseason, playing about 20 minutes a night and posting a blistering 71 percent true shooting mark through eight games. The Nuggets benefit tremendously from his scrappy, versatile defense and respectable perimeter sho...