basketball Page 275 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

The Warriors Are Cruel
I won’t presume to know how Grizzlies fans were feeling during the first few minutes of last night’s Game 5 loss to the Warriors. It was certainly too early for them to be feeling confident, but the Grizzlies being up by double digits early, with Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph doing their thing and th...

Al Horford Wills Atlanta To A Win In Game 5
The Wizards almost blew Game 3. They had a 19-point lead going into the fourth quarter, but with 14 seconds left found themselves tied. Only a miracle Paul Pierce shot bailed them out. ...

Report: NBA GMs See No Problem With Hack-A-Shaq
The NBA’s general managers held their annual meeting in Chicago today, and one of the topics discussed was the intentional fouling of bad free throwers, known as Hack-A-Shaq or Hack-A-[Insert Terrible Free Thrower]. CBS’s Ken Berger reports that there was “no overwhelming consensus” from executives ...

The NBA's Christmas Uniforms Are Actually Great This Year (For Once)
Uni Watch has the designs for the NBA’s typically gahd-awful Christmas Day uniforms. They’re great. They’re better than like half the league’s standard unis. (The teams in red look like Coke ads.)...

Preeminent Shaq Critic Kobe Bryant Chastises Media For Criticizing Shaq
Kobe Bryant has been feisty on Twitter lately, first deploying a meme in defense of Russell Westbrook, and now chastising the NBA media for building false narratives: ...

Russell Westbrook Catches A Too-Little Break, Far Too Late
With just under six minutes remaining in Oklahoma City’s 116-104 loss to the Pacers last night, Russell Westbrook collided with Indiana’s Luis Scola as the latter set a screen for the former’s man, George Hill. Referee Ed Malloy called a personal foul on Westbrook, his third; Westbrook complained, ...

Matt Barnes Once Tried To Beat Up Mo Cheeks
Sports Illustrated published a profile of longtime NBA role player and noted asshole Matt Barnes today. The story effectively goes about humanizing Barnes, who’s known more for his eagerness to scrap on the court than for his play, but there’s still plenty of great anecdotes in there about Barnes lo...

K.J. McDaniels Gets Two Chasedown Blocks In 10 Seconds
Houston Rockets rookie shooting guard K.J. McDaniels has quickly established himself as one of the best shot-blocking guards in the league. He’s averaging 1.1 blocks per game while playing just 22 minutes a night, and his 70 blocks put him ahead of big men like Taj Gibson, LaMarcus Aldridge, and Ken...

Mark Cuban Says College Basketball Is Hideous And Unwatchable
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban joins a growing chorus of those calling for major changes to the rules and strategies of college basketball, which—to his eye—is “uglier than ugly,” relying on a plodding, disjointed style that results in boring games and fails to prepare players for the NBA....

A Sense Of Where You Are
Oh, man, great job by The New Yorker making John McPhee's classic profile of Dollar Bill Bradley at Princeton available to us for free....

NBA Players Will Vote On Their Own Awards
According to USA Today, the NBPA will vote on a series of end-of-season awards, including MVP and Man of the Year, presumably out of an abiding hatred of basketball reporters. ...

Report: Chris Copeland Stabbed; Two Hawks Arrested At NYC Nightclub
According to the New York Daily News, Indiana Pacers forward Chris Copeland was stabbed in the abdomen outside of 1 OAK in New York City early this morning. Copeland’s wife, Katrine Saltara, and a second woman were also slashed during the incident. Pero Antic and Thabo Sefalosha of the Atlanta Hawks...

Bo Ryan Is The Poor Sport He's Supposed To Be
So Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan said some sorta poor-sport-y stuff after his Badgers lost the NCAA championship game to Duke last night. In the video below, he can’t get through the pro forma talk of how much his graduating players meant to him without tossing in a passive-aggressive aside about how “we...

Barack Obama Hit Paul Pierce With Some Top-Notch Trash Talk
The Washington Wizards recently visited the White House to play basketball with some kids and Barack Obama, and damn, man, the President of the United States can really talk some shit....

How John Calipari's Juggled Kentucky's Lineups To A Near-Perfect Season
In late October, Kentucky coach John Calipari announced a unique substitution pattern, one specifically designed to take advantage of the squad's nine McDonald's All-Americans. He would platoon his Wildcats, splitting the team into White and Blue units that would alternate for several minutes spurts...

Sim Bhullar Is A Good Giant
The Kings called up 7-foot-5 Sim Bhullar from their D-League affiliate on Thursday and signed him to a 10-day contract, making him the first player of Indian descent in the league. In Bhullar’s time on the Reno Bighorns he’s slimmed down to 360 pounds, and one time he mashed a guy 30 feet into the e...

Warriors Top Suns In A Bonkers Final 30 Seconds
The first 47:30 of the Warriors-Suns game was mostly forgettable, but the final half minute had as much drama as you could ever hope for. Down two, the Warriors got four cracks at the basket—good defensive rebounding, Suns—with Stephen Curry finally nailing a three with eight seconds remaining: ...

Anthony Bennett, My Friend, What Are You Doing?
You know, it’s been a while since we’ve checked in on former No. 1 overall pick Anthony Bennett, the guy who last year turned in one of the saddest rookie campaigns in history. Maybe things are finally starting to look up for him! ...

The Lame Clippers Crowd Made Blake Griffin All Sad
Last night's game between the Warriors and Clippers, a nationally televised contest between two powerful conference rivals, was one of those games that's supposed to come with a "playoff atmosphere," featuring the home fans going nuts and chanting mean things at the visitors and causing all kinds of...

David Blatt Just Stands There Like A Buster And Parrots LeBron's Calls
ESPN NBA writer Brian Windhorst, who is as connected to LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers as any reporter can be, was a guest on Bill Simmons's latest podcast, and he dropped some juicy stuff about the various melodramas that have been hanging over the team all season. The whole thing is wo...