basketball Page 199 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Ben Simmons Keeps Dunking On Jazz Fans Over His Rookie Of The Year Win
Ben Simmons might not be able to shoot basketballs into hoops with any sort of consistency, but the Sixers point guard can still make life a living hell for his opponents. Just ask the hostile Utah crowd that attended Thursday night’s Sixers-Jazz game, which spent the majority of the game booing Sim...
The Warriors Had Themselves Another Very Normal One
The Warriors lost their second consecutive home game Thursday night, in a thrilling 110–109 overtime affair against the Portland Trail Blazers. Eventually none of this will matter, when the Warriors win the title and we all reflect on this time as a goofy period of intensely embarrassing overreactio...
Referee Meltdown In Celtics-Rockets Surprisingly Has Nothing To Do With James Harden's Footwork
The Rockets ran away from the Celtics Thursday night, in a game that was marred in both halves by some especially spotty and sensitive refereeing by the officiating crew. The officials handed out six technical fouls—three against each team—and at least a couple of them appeared to be the result of r...
Let Us Enjoy A Nightmarishly On-Brand Overtime Period Between The Lowly Suns And The Dreary Magic
The Suns and Magic played an overtime game Wednesday night. Of course you didn’t notice, because you—whoever you are, even if you are literally the head coach of one of these two teams—had something to do that was much better than watching two teams with a combined 22–44 record this season, and a wh...
The Hornets Pissed Away A Golden Chance At A Win In Hilarious Fashion
The Hornets and Nets showed us all the “beautiful game” last night with a truly weird end to regulation, before following it up with a rather bizarre game-ending sequence....
Marcus Thompson of The Athletic zooms right past the central conflicts of the Durant-era Warriors—a looming salary crunch and a style of play that involves less ball and player movement than their coach and non-Durant stars would prefer—to arrive at a vague, Draymond Green-centered and Jimmy Iovine-...
Hassan Whiteside Has A Case Of Free Throw Yips
Hassan Whiteside did some cool things Wednesday night, in Miami’s narrow loss to the Toronto Raptors. He finished with 16 points, 12 rebounds, and three blocks in 31 minutes, and was a game-high plus-22. In the first quarter, with the Heat up nine and feeling frisky, Whiteside brought the ball up th...
Draymond Green Is Kind Of Killing The Warriors
The Warriors got smashed well and good by the Lakers last night, earning their 12th loss of what has so far been an uninspiring (by their standards) season. The Warriors have never had more than seven losses by Christmas during the Steve Kerr era, and it was genuinely strange to see them, at full st...
No One's Scared Of Ben Simmons
Kyrie Irving caught fire to help the Celtics pull away from the 76ers for a 121-114 overtime win in a statement battle between two of the let’s say three best teams in the East. But it was his counterpoint who celebrated Christmas Day with a career high, even if it was a total accident and still sor...
NBA Officials Ruined Two Great Posters With Two Soft Techs
Jaylen Brown and Lauri Markkanen each had an incredible posterizing dunk in their games on Friday night. Each player looked at their respective victims and gave a slight flex in victory over their athletic accomplishment. Shortly after, each player was assessed a technical foul for their “unsportsma...
Here Is A Heartwarming Video Of DeMarcus Cousins Dunking On Kevin Durant
Approximately 11 months after tearing his Achilles tendon, DeMarcus Cousins is slowly working his way into playing shape. He practiced a few times with the Warriors’ D-League team, although Steve Kerr told the San Francisco Chronicle’s Connor Letourneau yesterday that Boogie is “really not that clos...
Mark Cuban Shares Just The Most Exhausting Take On American Basketball
Luka Dončić is very good. He is also cool, the kind of player you look forward to rooting for and enjoying for years to come. It would be a shame if something were to happen that suddenly forced you to start rooting for Zion Williamson to make it his first order of business next season to dunk Donči...
ESPN Got NBA General Managers To Fill Their Diapers Over LeBron James Answering A Question
So I guess ESPN got what they wanted. Days after LeBron James said “duh” when asked if it would be cool to have one of the best players in the world on his team, rival general managers are reportedly losing bowel control over the terrifying implications of a player acknowledging aloud what is plainl...
Luka Dončić's Step-Back Jumper Is As Smooth As It Gets
The Mavericks lost to the Clippers last night in a rather entertaining edition of the DeAndre Jordan Bowl, one where nobody was particularly interested in playing defense and Lou Williams did the Lou Williams thing of making every goddamn shot he thought about. Leading the line for the Mavs was Slov...
Zion Williamson's Duke Is At Least Slightly Less Sanctimonious
Nick Richards had the right idea. After setting a screen on the right side of the arc, the Kentucky forward rolled toward the lane and found himself open as two defenders converged on ball-handler Keldon Johnson. Richards received the pass and turned toward the hoop, where he had a good look at a la...
Zion Williamson Laughs And Hides His Face After Being Asked About Maybe Someday Joining The Knicks
The insanely overpowered Duke Blue Devils gave Texas Tech their first loss of the season Thursday night, at Madison Square Garden, in a refreshingly competitive 69–58 game. Among other things, this was humanoid megafauna Zion Williamson’s first career game at the home of the Knicks, and so of course...
Oh Wait, Never Mind, The Rockets Are Dead Again
The resurgent Rockets lost by two points in Miami Thursday night, but here’s what you need to know: they were up eight points in the second quarter when Chris Paul suffered another hamstring injury and had to leave the game. After the loss—which, to be fair, came on the second night of a back-to-ba...
Buddy Hield Got Two Years Older On One Birthday
This is an odd one: Kings guard Buddy Hield celebrated his 25th birthday Monday. I know this because the NBA, ESPN, Basketball Reference, Draft Express, CBS Sports, Yahoo Sports, RotoWire, something called Roster Source, and The Official Site of the Sacramento Kings all tell me that he was born in D...
Sweet, The NBA Season Is About To Start
Every sports league is too long, but each is too long in its own specific way. The NFL’s mirrors the sport’s true nature as a weekly television show; Major League Baseball can make a half-convincing case for those multiple months of deeply meaningless games in its middle as part of its broader summe...
Rick Pitino Settles For Coaching Gig In Greece, Just As I Have Settled For Life Without Power Over All Living Things
Just two months ago, Rick Pitino and I had big dreams. He was going to stride confidently back into the NBA, take control of a franchise desperately in need of his knack for player development, and begin the satisfying third act of his career. I, on the other hand, was going to ascend into the cosmo...