kevin Page 35 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Ranking the NBA’s first round matchups by how likely we are to see an upset
The NBA’s playoffs are easily the most predictable of the major American sports leagues. Without the variability of baseball or the single playoff game format like football, it’s pretty rare that there are any true upsets in the first round of the NBA playoffs. In most years you look at the bracket ...
Unlikely heroes lead way to start NBA playoffs
The stars were out for the first day of the NBA playoffs, with Donovan Mitchelll scoring 32 points to lead the Jazz to a 99-93 win in Dallas, Karl-Anthony Towns putting up 29 points and 13 boards to lead the Timberwolves to a Game 1 upset in Memphis, 130-117, and then Tyrese Maxey scored 38 points f...
The Los Angeles Clippers are the red circle of death of the NBA
Man, Steve Ballmer had to be feeling really good when he first got Paul George and Kawhi Leonard. I mean like “Steve Ballmer hyping up a pep rally” good or “Christmas morning presents as a child” good. He felt “Just bought a brand new XBox and am barely able to drive home below the speed limit” good...
Civil servant Kyrie Irving probably shouldn’t Google ‘Nets owner-China ties’
Two of the people not quoted in ESPN’s nearly flawless piece about Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai’s problematic ties to China — including a business under the umbrella of his company developing facial recognition software that may or may not have been equipped with an “Uyghur alarm” to alert police of...
It’s 2022, we don’t need positions on the All-NBA ballots anymore
Positions in basketball are entirely different than almost every sport. In baseball a pitcher is required to stand at the mound until he decides to throw a pitch, make a pick-off attempt, or step off to take a break. In football, a play cannot be called for an offensive lineman to receive the ball u...
Steven Kwan is kicking off his career hotter than anyone ever
First things first, I just want to say that I know he’s only played four career games, but that doesn’t take away from how insane Cleveland’s 24-year-old rookie, Steven Kwan, has been during this stretch. In 19 plate appearances, Kwan has recorded nine hits (three extra-base hits) and six walks for ...
Russell Westbrook can’t see the forest… or the trees
Russell Westbrook didn’t hesitate to kick dirt on Frank Vogel after the latter was fired as Lakers coach....
NBA play-in tournament: Tuesday’s matchup preview
It’s play-in tournament time, and now that we know all the participants, let’s look at Day One, which will be the seven vs. eight seed in each conference. We have intriguing matchups here and two teams that weren’t expected to be dealing with the play-in when the season started back in October....
NBA playoff matchups we’d love to see (and one we wouldn’t)
The 2022 NBA playoffs is an annual garden of forking paths. Teams don’t know who to expect awaiting them in the next round or when their season will end. One injury can swing momentum in the other direction. What we do know is that there are particular matchups that are more palatable than others. C...
The Rockets didn’t win much, but they were a blast to watch towards the end of the season
Once the NCAA Basketball Tournaments come around, the rest of the NBA season can feel like a slog. If you were already upset about players missing games, the volume gets ratcheted up on that, and at that point it’s fairly clear which teams are the best in the league. It’s also hard to muster excitem...
And the award for Most Unreliable Player of the Year goes to…
The NBA season has finally ended, and now it’s time to hand out some hardware. But this isn’t your usual NBA award. We’re handing out the MUP for the Most Unreliable Player of the Year. The criteria’s open to anything from being unavailable due to frequent injury, dealing with bouts of narcissism, t...
This NBA season was not fantastic
The NBA ended its worst season in recent memory on Sunday. Yes, it was really that bad....
To the death, then
The only result between Manchester City and Liverpool this morning that would have made it a “title decider” (which is how it was built by every outlet broadcasting it) was a City win. A four-point gap at this point in the season, requiring City to fuck up two games in the run-in while Liverpool to ...
Why Embiid’s scoring title is a BIG deal
Joel Embiid capped off his chase for the scoring crown on Saturday night by summoning a brilliant 41-point, 20-rebound outing in the Philadelphia 76ers’ 133-120 win over the Indiana Pacers. A dazzling 40/20 game was the perfect way to secure the best individual accomplishment of his career....
Kyrie Irving thinks Giannis intentionally tried to injure him in last year’s playoffs
When Kyrie Irving rolled his ankle last year in the Eastern Conference semifinals against the Milwaukee Bucks, it seemed like a common unintentional injury we often see on the NBA hardwood. Devin Williams, a trainer who works with Irving and other players, says it may not have been what we initially...
Lost in Liverpool’s pursuit of a quad is Man City’s potential treble
With Tiger Woods falling out of contention and Sunday at Augusta turning into a sleepy 3-year-old crashing off of sugar, wake yourself up by flipping on probably the biggest game of the English Premier League season. Man City sits atop the table but only barely. Liverpool, still chasing a potential ...
We forgot about Trae
Led by Trae Young, the Atlanta Hawks began this season with more buzz than the city’s best lemon pepper wings. They were a quality young League Pass team who’d matured into an Eastern Conference heavyweight overnight. The 2021 postseason served as the setting for Young’s glow-up from empty calorie s...
Fictional Hooper Bracket: Billy Hoyle is the king of the silver screen
When Billy Hoyle told Sidney Deane he’s hustled players a helluva lot better than him, I was skeptical. How many times can you show up to a pickup game and aww shucks your way into a wad of cash? Well after six rounds and thousands of votes, it seems the scheme is still humming along....
Duke's Jon Scheyer faces an impossible task
As of this past Saturday, we have officially entered the Jon Scheyer era in Duke basketball. A first-time head coach, hand-picked by Mike Krzyzewski as his successor, Scheyer has been rising the ranks as an assistant coach with the Blue Devils since 2013....
Deadspin’s 2022 MLB predictions: The good, the bad, the frustrating
You don’t need sportswriters to tell you that the Dodgers are going to be better than the Diamondbacks this year. You already know that. At the same time, it feels wrong to go into the baseball season without looking ahead at it, without trying to gaze into a crystal ball to make some kind of picks....