fin Page 45 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

2022 NBA Finals: How the teams stack up and storylines to watch
The NBA Finals are finally upon us, and it’s one of the better matchups anyone could’ve hoped for. There is plenty of star power, and each game should be tightly contested as both teams are known for their stifling defense. The league should be thoroughly pleased with the series we’re set to embark ...

Cut the semantics crap, Kevin, you know what Draymond meant about Steph Curry, and he’s right
As much as I’m looking forward to seeing the Golden State Warriors back in the NBA Finals, what I’m not looking forward to is paying them many compliments. They’re extremely fun to watch, no less fun than the League Pass alert days of 2013 and 2014. However, Charles Barkley is correct when he says t...

Gregg Popovich’s coaching tree is monopolizing the NBA Finals
Gregg Popovich is the winningest head coach in NBA history with 1,344 victories. Along with having the most wins for any coach in league history, we’re beginning to see another part of Popovich’s legacy take shape. The four head coaches involved in the last two NBA Finals have a tie to coach Pop, ha...

The last chapter of the greatest rivalry?
It’s a testament to their greatness that whenever Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic line up in a major, where everyone projects they might meet, everyone starts girding up for it. Be it the quarters, semis, or final, everyone knows to block out half a day and gather the supplies necessary. Because whi...

We got a fun Game 7, and here are the players who made their mark the past two weeks
The playoffs just haven’t felt the same since that thrilling Game 6 between the Memphis Grizzlies and Golden State Warriors. Blowouts, unfortunately, littered the conference finals, especially in the east. The Dallas Mavericks only got thoroughly walloped in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals, ...

Congrats Boston, but you have no shot against the Warriors
The Boston Celtics have torn through the playoffs, eliminating each team that’s ousted them in the last three postseasons. After a seven-game slugfest with the Miami Heat, the C’s are in Eastern Conference finals for the first time since 2010, led by Jayson Tatum, who is making a strong case for ent...

Jimmy Butler’s superstar card got declined when Miami needed it most
Earlier this month, FS1’s Nick Wright debuted a bit called the Superstar Club. I don’t usually endorse debate show takes, but this was a solid metaphor. Jimmy Butler was depicted standing in line, waiting for entry. In this year’s Eastern Conference Finals against the Boston Celtics, he nearly cemen...

Icarus can kiss my ass
Perhaps there’s no bigger showcase of Lucy yanking the football away than Liverpool chasing The Quadruple. Because as it got closer, it only became harder and only felt further away. Which sounds stupid, because no team has gotten closer. But fatigue was clear for the last few weeks, and the more ma...

I feel great about not trusting the Hurricanes again
The problem with upping the degree of difficulty on your playoff run is that no matter how good you are, eventually you’ll push yourself off the cliff. The NHL playoffs are hard enough as is without trying to navigate them like they were a bar bet. The Hurricanes didn’t bother to win a road game in ...

Reformatting the NBA Playoffs could solve the league’s injury issue
The NBA Playoffs are gradually winding down, and to be honest, it’s been a bit of a mixed bag where quality is concerned. Despite the rating increase early in the postseason, some of these games have been hard to watch. Injuries to stars and the lack of downtime between games have some thinking it m...

Landry Shamet hath brought a plague upon every house he’s entered
Athletes and fans are a very superstitious lot, and if rituals and patterns are to be taken seriously, Suns’ guard Landry Shamet should be forced to play for lottery teams for the rest of his career. If your team is contending for a championship, needs a piece in the offseason, and picks up or trade...

Real Madrid shouldn’t have even been there
We’ll likely never see a UEFA Champions League run like the one Real Madrid just completed. If only quality of play decided Los Blancos’ quarterfinal and semifinal two legged-ties, as well as Saturday’s one-game final against Liverpool, they would’ve lost each one. Real Madrid trailed late in each s...

Auston Matthews is nearing an elite, rare echelon for American hockey players
The NHL’s most prestigious individual award was first handed out in 1924. Calvin Coolidge just became President of the United States. It took until Barack Obama’s final year in The White House for someone born and raised in America to win the Hart Memorial Trophy, the league’s most valuable player a...

Not to worry Luka, it happens to the best of them
Sure he had to hear his eulogy while he was still living after Andrew Wiggins read him his last rites in Game 3, but Luka Dončić has nothing to be ashamed of. The Dallas Mavericks star led the NBA postseason in scoring, but his singular output was futile against a Golden State Warriors team that pla...

A 75-year streak is in danger of being broken tonight
2021 saw the end of one of the most famous Finals streaks of all-time. Thirty-seven consecutive NBA Finals between 1984 and 2020 saw at least one teammate of Shaquille O’Neal’s on one of the competing rosters. No one on last year’s Suns or Bucks rosters had ever played with O’Neal during his career....

What are the Miami Heat?
Three teams have been pillars of culture in the modern NBA: The San Antonio Spurs, the Oklahoma City Thunder, and the Miami Heat. No matter the players, these three franchises have established systems where players come in to fill a role, commit to the vision, and buy in completely. Of the trio, onl...

Lane Kiffin tells the truth about college football
Lane Kiffin isn’t the hero college football wanted, and certainly not the one we thought we’d get, but he may just be the hero college football needs. The 47-year-old Ole Miss coach has watched the SEC drama of the past week play out in a sort of shocked delight (a man of the people), and in an inte...

Real Madrid have more than just black magic against Liverpool
While four years is a long time in soccer, and teams can greatly transform a couple times in that timespan, Real Madrid and Liverpool look a lot like they did four years ago. Liverpool are still anchored by Virgil van Dijk, Trent Alexander-Arnold, and Andrew Robertson in defense and Sadio Mane and M...

We have parity in the NBA playoffs, and be honest, it’s making you miss the 2017 Warriors
For those who were sick of the Golden State Warriors and LeBron James winning all the time, you finally have what you wanted in the NBA: parity. Going into the playoffs there were at least six teams who had a legitimate shot at winning the championship. But one question: has it been fun?...