nationalbasketballassociationplayoffs Page 2 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Here we go already with the Wemby MVP talk
Hyperbole often rules the day in sports media in the social media age. Everyone is almost subconsciously attempting to go viral during every waking moment. Enter former NBA player and current TNT analyst Kenny Smith. While calling a summer league game this week, Victor Wembanyama’s name came up in t...
History says the NBA Champion will be the Finals Game 4 winner
By the end of Game 4 of the NBA Finals on Friday night in Miami, we’ll know who will be hoisting the Larry O’Brien Trophy. It won’t have anything to do with the Denver Nuggets having a possible 3-1 series lead, or if the Heat have stormed back to tie the series at 2-2 before things shift back to Col...
Jimmy Butler was good enough in Game 2
There was a little too much fouling of 3-point shooters for my taste on Sunday night, but other than that, the Miami Heat and Denver Nuggets played quite the thrilling Game 2. The Nuggets threw run after run at the Heat, who ate every blow and kept countering. Eventually the Heat put the Nuggets on ...
The Denver Nuggets did something no team has done in a long time — beat the Miami Heat in Game 1
The last time the Miami Heat lost the first game of a series they got swept. Game 1 is always important, but Thursday night was essential for the Denver Nuggets — a franchise that is making its first appearance in the NBA Finals. It’s why Mike Malone knew his team was a must-win scenario....
Heat can't get past Nuggets on guts alone
For once a Miami Heat 2023 playoff game played out the way that was expected. The Denver Nuggets are bigger, more talented, and won Game 1 of the NBA Finals by a double-digit margin — 104-93....
Boston Celtics blew it and didn’t even give fans their money’s worth
After a dramatic finish to Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals, Game 7 didn’t nearly live up to the hype. But that only matters to the city of Boston. The Miami Heat stormed into Beantown, took care of business early, and completely silenced the crowd inside TD Garden by halftime. The Celtics mi...
The NBA holds officials like Eric Lewis to higher standards than we do Supreme Court justices
Updated Aug. 30: Eric Lewis has retired amid the league investigation into whether or not he had a burner Twitter/X account. ...
Carolina Hurricanes and Dallas Stars haven’t thrown in the towel yet, unlike their NBA counterparts
We could be breaking out the brooms for all four NHL and NBA conference finals. The Denver Nuggets finished off the LeBron-LeLakers and the Miami Heat will eventually put the Celtics out of their misery on the hardcourt side of things....
No more encores for LeBron James and the Lakers
The Los Angeles Lakers and their fan base have been hit with a heavy dose of reality in the Western Conference Finals against the Denver Nuggets. They’ve been a nice “redemption” story after bouncing back from a horrible start to the season, but it’s all over. On Saturday night, the Lakers fell into...
Will the Warriors-Lakers series be determined by a dog on social media?
The defending champion Golden State Warriors pulled out a much-needed victory in Game 5 of their NBA Western semifinals series. Heart of a champion stuff after being down 3-1 to the Los Angeles Lakers right? There was no way that the winners of four of the last eight NBA Championships were going to ...
Celtics' Joe Mazzulla’s reluctance to call a timeout is a blunder that’s become too common
The use of timeouts in one-possession games is a contentious philosophical debate in NBA circles. Each end-of-game episode presents coaches with an ambiguous multiple-choice equation. Timeouts have an expiration date, but that hasn’t stopped coaches from attempting to carry them into the next game o...
These 9 NBA veterans are crucial to their team's playoff success
Older generations have always had critiques of where the game is going. Each generation, old heads critique how soft and easy the game has become. You can track this through podcasts, interviews, and any episode of the NBA on TNT with Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal. While revisionist history a...
Never trust an NBA Eastern Conference team
It’s getting pretty freaking unfunny how quickly the playoffs can flip narratives. The NBA’s Eastern Conference is supposed to be the superior of the two, with the three best records belonging to Milwaukee, Boston, and Philadelphia, and four of the top six marks overall. The first round was going to...
Which Jimmy Butler are the Knicks getting?
Jimmy Butler is the validation I needed that NBA playoff basketball is America’s fifth major professional sports league among the “Big Four.” From the pace to the way games are scheduled as a series to the effort, it’s almost a parallel Association. Golden State has been historically bad on the road...
When David beats Goliath in the playoffs
The Miami Heat became the NBA’s sixth No. 8 seed to topple their conference’s top seed in the playoffs after beating Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks....
The Lakers need to humble the Grizzlies in Game 2 for sake of the NBA
The Memphis Grizzlies are on the brink of falling 2-0 to the Los Angeles Lakers in their first-round series, which brings a smile to the faces of many people outside Tennessee. These young Grizzlies have talked a gang of mess all season and could find themselves in a deep hole after Wednesday night’...
Overreacting to Game 1 of each NBA Playoff series
One game into each NBA postseason series feels like a good time to make some premature, bold declarations. The postseason tipped off with a fury of finishes that ranged from exciting to anesthesia. But Game 1 is a starter kit that we’ll try to extrapolate on. It would be wise to tread carefully in t...
Battle of the bottom of the Eastern Conference barrel
The Eastern Conference hasn’t been as wide open as the West this season, so their play-in race wasn’t nearly as exciting. There isn’t much expected from the play-in participants in the east, even though the Miami Heat were in the Eastern Conference Finals last postseason. In the east, the Milwaukee ...
Can we just skip the Eastern Conference play-in tournament this year?
As the NBA regular season nears its end, teams continue to jockey for playoff and play-in tournament positions producing some wild races heading toward the finish line. The race in the West is setting up for a photo finish over the last few days, with both playoff and play-in implications on the lin...
You can’t be annoying AND miss both free throws
The Boston Celtics have had a pretty shitty go of it the past week or so. They’ve lost four of five — two to the New York Knicks (one in double OT), one to the Brooklyn Nets (where they got booed off their home floor), and an OT loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Celtics are now two games behind t...