finals Page 23 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
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...
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...
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?...
The Grizzlies and Heat reacted completely differently to plays where their stars were seemingly injured
Acting like you’ve been there before might be cliché in the world of sports, but it really is the only way to operate for some franchises. For other organizations, it’s a few words some lame old guy threw together ages ago....
Winning fourth ring and first finals MVP would quiet critics and crush many narratives surrounding Stephen Curry’s legacy
On the cusp of returning to the NBA Finals for the first time since 2019, Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors find themselves in prime position to silence critics. With a 3-0 lead, the Warriors are all but guaranteed to have a spot saved for them on June 2 when the Finals begin. Winning a four...
Whose personality is more irritating: Current Jimmy Butler or prime Dwight Howard?
Everyone has had that coworker who kind of sucks but is really good at his job so the manager looks the other way when Glen takes 20 minute out of the weekly staff meeting to brag about his weekend jet skiing. Yeah, he’s annoying, but holy shit can he sell the hell out of reasonably priced Kias. Dwi...
For a little bit we were complimenting or condemning Derrick White, then it was just time to celebrate Rihanna’s baby
For a second there, Derrick White’s child was going to be the most interesting and discussed birth in the world. The Boston Celtics tweeted out shortly before 10 a.m. that Derrick White would be missing Game 2 due to personal reasons. That’s quite a blow to their roster the morning of Game 2 of the ...
Miami and Boston meet again in the conference finals and this time their coaches even have history
This year’s Eastern Conference Finals matchup should be a rough, rugged, defensive series that will most likely come down to game seven. The Heat and Celtics are pretty evenly matched and familiar, having faced off in the ECF just two years ago. This will be the third meeting for the Heat and Celtic...
We're seeing an NBA coaching reformation
If the success of Boston’s Ime Udoka and New Orleans’ Willie Green has taught NBA ownership anything, when it comes to hiring coaches, it should be out with the old, in with the new. These two rising coaching stars stepped into dysfunctional messes, with Udoka trying to bring together a team that wa...
Those Game 7s were a dud, but that doesn’t dilute the outstanding performances from the second round that deserve recognition
That was quite an exhilarating second round of NBA Playoff action… until it wasn’t. ...
Who do Eastern Conference teams need to worry about in a post-LeBron playoff world?
Last week, the NBA presented and christened its Eastern Conference Finals Trophy after Larry Bird. It was a well-deserved honor for an old Hick from French Lick, who helped pave the NBA’s Gilded Age. However, King James should be the most revered monarch over the East. LeBron was the Eastern Confere...
For the Bucks to win a third game in Boston, it’s going to take one helluva homecoming for Pat Connaughton
The Milwaukee Bucks did not have enough to finish off the Boston Celtics in Game 6 at home on Friday. Just like in the Bucks’ win on Wednesday night in Boston, they were down double digits going into the fourth quarter after a third-quarter Celtics run. The Celtics would extend the lead early in the...
Milwaukee empathizing with last season’s Brooklyn Nets
It’s deja vu all over again for the Milwaukee Bucks — their conference semifinals are looking eerily similar to last year’s series against the Brooklyn Nets. To refresh your memory, they were saved from being sent packing by none other than Kevin Durant’s big toe, juuuuust landing on that three-poin...
Failure to capitalize: Washington out in first round for fourth-straight season
The Washington Capitals just pissed away their first-round Eastern Conference series against the Florida Panthers. The President’s Trophy winners were on the ropes in three straight games. And the Panthers won all three of those postseason contests in succession, two in overtime and one after traili...
Leafs on precipice of some kind of history
Nobody ever tweeted about a Florida Panthers playoff series victory before last night, when Carter Verhaeghe, off a pass from Claude Giroux – trade deadline acquisition and bringer of tons of vicarious Panthers fans from Philadelphia – lifted Florida to a 4-3 overtime win over the Capitals, and a 4-...
Knicks fans have bought the most expensive tickets in the NBA for 12 consecutive years — this is so New York
The city that never sleeps doesn’t know how to budget, either....