basketball Page 178 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Potential 2018 NBA Finals Outcomes, Ranked
1. Cavaliers def. Warriors...
The Philadelphia 76ers Should Blow Up The Team And Not Worry About The Short-Term Consequences
After half a decade under head coach Brett Brown and four years and two contracts into the career of star center Joel Embiid—the team’s only All-Star—the Philadelphia 76ers and their fans face a moment of reckoning. It’s a painful one, but it won’t get any less painful if we ignore it. The facts are...
Ben Simmons Was Bad But So What
Nobody needs it explained to them that it’s relatively normal for a rookie, no matter how talented, to play like ass for an entire series in the second round of his first trip to the playoffs. This is how things are generally supposed to go....
The Frail Celtics Still Took Down The Sixers
The Celtics are one more decently bad injury away from barely being able to field a full NBA-caliber rotation, but that didn’t stop the guys they have left from carrying their team to a 114-112 Game 5 win over the 76ers, clinching Boston’s spot in the Eastern Conference Finals....
Future Of Basketball Luka Dončić<em></em> Gets A Rare Triple-Double In Spain
Possible first-overall draft pick Luka Dončić, who’s been playing in Spain with Real Madrid since he was 16, is already the kind of all-around athletic beast who appears to be the final form that every basketball player is evolving towards. He’s a six-foot-eight guard/forward hybrid who’s comfortabl...
The Warriors Are Infuriatingly Too Pretty To Hate
The Pelicans had earned a fleeting lead towards the end of Game 5's second quarter last night. They’d sunk five straight shots from four different guys, with the one-browed god Anthony Davis doubling up on feral dunks. Both these teams are lean and love to run, and at this point the tempo was furiou...
The Rockets Better Not Fuck This Up
The Houston Rockets and Golden State Warriors wrapped up their five-game eliminations of, respectively, the Utah Jazz and New Orleans Pelicans last night. Like the series they ended, neither game was particularly closely contested; both losing teams did just enough to preserve their dignity and no m...
Charles Barkley And Shaq Got Each Other Steaming Mad By Yelling About Some Stupid Shit
In the right corner: Charles Barkley, man who thinks coaches need to have great relationships with their best players in order to win. In the left: Shaq, who would like to use his history being a toxic shitheel as proof that players and coaches can win while hating each other. What follows is a fail...
Chris Paul Stuck The Dagger In The Jazz
Chris Paul is advancing beyond the second round for the first time in his NBA career, and he did so by putting the Rockets on his back for their 112-102 Game 5 win against the Jazz. Paul got a new playoff high of 41 points, with 10 assists, seven boards, and no turnovers. And after Jazz rookie Donov...
What's Eating Rodney Hood?
In the second postseason of his career, Rodney Hood has done very little to speak of. So far the Cavs’ trade deadline pickup has coughed up 4.6 points a game on 40-percent shooting from the floor and just 13-percent shooting from the arc, making him an especially useless cog in a LeBron Plus Shooter...
T.J. McConnell Saves The Sixers From A Sweep
A last-second surprise from Sixers coach Brett Brown proved to be the difference-maker in his team’s Game 4 against the Celtics. For only the second time all season, reserve Philly point guard T.J. McConnell got a spot in the starting lineup, replacing small forward Robert Covington, who had failed ...
Pistons Fire Stan Van Gundy, And It Looks Like The Coach-GM Hybrid Job Is Dying
ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported today that Stan Van Gundy has “parted ways” with the Detroit Pistons after four years of serving as the team’s coach and general manager. Van Gundy had one year remaining on a five-year, $35 million deal he signed in 2014, and Pistons owner Tom Gores said the chang...
You Check Ben Simmons The Same Way You Defend A Campsite
When I look at Philadelphia 76ers guard Ben Simmons, I see a very tall and extremely talented young basketball player with a resting dick face and no jump shot. When Boston Celtics coach Brad Stevens looks at him, he sees a curious foraging bear. For this reason, he is a basketball coaching genius....
Donovan Mitchell Was Invincible For A Minute
Donovan Mitchell spent his first-ever playoff series incinerating both his defenders and every reasonable expectation for even the most precocious rookie. In pouring in 28.5 ppg on 46 percent shooting from the floor and 36 percent from three, Mitchell managed serious volume without loss of efficienc...
How Clint Capela Became Houston's Secret Weapon
Early in the second quarter of the Houston Rockets’ postseason-opening win over the Minnesota Timberwolves, James Harden wiggled through the defense, drew help, and dropped a pass to Clint Capela for a dunk. It was Capela’s third jam of the game, with Harden assisting on each. TNT announcer Chris We...
Unaired <i>SNL</i> Sketch Savages LeBron’s Worthless Cavs Teammates<em></em>
Donald Glover and the jokers at Saturday Night Live cooked up this sketch about “the other Cavaliers” for yesterday’s episode, but for one reason or another it was cut from the final show, for time. I predict you will enjoy it, so long as you are not one of LeBron’s current teammates....
The Benching Of DeMar DeRozan Feels Like A Point Of No Return For The Raptors
That the Cavs won Game 3, at home, on another act of eye-popping heroism from LeBron James, should surprise exactly no one. The Cavs were the favorites, they won both games in Toronto, they have the best player in the world, and the Raptors are cursed. But that doesn’t mean the game wasn’t without g...
God Bless Playoff Rondo
The Pelicans grabbed a vital and unexpected win in their second-round series against the Warriors Friday night, in a game that was never close after the Pelicans ripped off a 10-1 run near the start of the second half. Anthony Davis and Jrue Holiday were fabulous; Nikola Mirotic got loose for a doub...
Spurs Assistant Becky Hammon To Interview For Bucks Head Coaching Job
Becky Hammon, the first woman to serve as an assistant coach in NBA history, will reportedly interview for the vacant head coach position with the Milwaukee Bucks. Per ESPN:...
Kevin Love Finally Woke Up
In every playoff series, LeBron James is going to have a handful of games where he’s utterly unstoppable and goes for some ridiculous stat line like 45-12-14 just because he can and because his team needs him to be everywhere all the time. The Cavs found out how far LeBron alone can take them in the...