nba-finals Page 30 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

The Mystics Lost Elena Delle Donne And, Obviously, They Lost Game 2
The Washington Mystics were likely feeling confident heading into Tuesday’s WNBA Finals Game 2, as they looked all-around fantastic in their Game 1 win against the Connecticut Sun. But just a few minutes into tonight’s match-up, the Mystics would experience a disturbing flashback to last year’s Fina...

This Time Around, The Mystics Look Inevitable
Last September, the Washington Mystics skulked out of the WNBA Finals, having been swept in three games by the unstoppable Seattle Storm. A year later, the tables have turned. Elena Delle Donne has recovered from last year’s inconvenient knee injury; crafty Belgian forward Emma Meesseman is back aft...

Alameda County Sheriff's Office Says Body-Cam Footage Cut Out Right Before Masai Ujiri Allegedly Concussed Deputy
Police want to charge Toronto Raptors president of basketball operations Masai Ujiri with a crime for allegedly concussing an Alameda County Sheriff’s Office deputy with a two-fisted shove in the aftermath of Toronto’s Finals-clinching Game 6 win in Oakland. Soon the department is expected to file a...

It's Time For A National Conversation About Drake's Horny Watch
One thing that can be said about Drake that cannot be said about a disconcertingly large number of other famous people is that it is clear why he is famous. He has done actual things—performed some hugely popular songs about how disappointed he is in various exes; endorsed one of the better-liked le...

Here Are Some Cool Guys Who Are Now NBA Champions
Kawhi Leonard won his second career Finals MVP Thursday night, becoming the first player in NBA history to win one in each conference. The magnitude of what he personally accomplished likely will take some time to settle in: After missing a full season due to injury and forcing his way out of San An...
![Alameda County Sheriff's Office Wants To Charge Raptors Exec Masai Ujiri With Battery [Update]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/itphupop5snhu4vufp83.jpg)
Alameda County Sheriff's Office Wants To Charge Raptors Exec Masai Ujiri With Battery [Update]
Raptors president of basketball operations Masai Ujiri was walking onto the floor Thursday night to celebrate his team’s championship when he appeared to get in some sort of altercation with a cop. The Alameda County Sheriff’s Office claimed that Ujiri shoved one of its deputies and nudged him in th...

Pascal Siakam And Fred VanVleet Were Pure Joy
The very end of Game 6 was like holding in a sneeze. At the end of the NBA Finals you might expect a satisfying, full release of tension, but that moment never really came. Instead the refs puttered and dithered over what to do with that ersatz timeout and then a foul on Kawhi Leonard and then how m...

There's A Difference Between Luck That's Received And Luck That's Found
Other franchises will want to make a replicable plan out of the Toronto Raptors’ journey to one of the truly amazing championships in NBA history. That’s how it goes. There has to be some parable in what everybody just watched, even if it’s the dullest kind, the kind about the friggin’ salary cap. ...

Fuck Your Asterisk
I heard someone on sports talk radio the other day say that if the Raptors pulled out a win in these NBA Finals, fans would forget about what exactly happened to Golden State during the series—he made this supposition after Kevin Durant’s calf rolled up but before Klay Thompson’s knee buckled like a...

Kyle Lowry Kept The Raptors Alive
It was an up-and-down postseason in what’s been an up-and-down career for Raptors point guard Kyle Lowry, but on Thursday night, when all of his teammates struggled to score out of the gate in Game 6, it was Lowry who helped give them the jumpstart they needed to eventually cross the finish line. As...

Drake Had Three Weeks To Workshop His Next Promo, And This Is What He Came Up With
The last time we did this, Drake had descended from his stage in the heart of Toronto—why does Drake get a stage? Why doesn’t he watch the game among the rest of the fans?—to tell us that Raptors fans are very good at following the rules. The performance left some clear opportunities for improvement...

Kawhi Leonard, Whenever You Get A Minute, This Extremely Drunk Raptors Fan Has A Plant For You
Kawhi Leonard had one of the great NBA postseasons, dismantling the Process, outplaying the MVP, and being the single best player in a Finals that brought down a dynasty. He was near-unanimous Finals MVP, and is now the first player in the history of the league to earn that honor in both conferences...

Oakland's Past Is Brighter Than The Warriors' Future
OAKLAND — The nostalgia in the building was thick enough to cut with DeMarcus Cousins, so much so that many of the last 19,596 humans shoved into what has always been known by the locals as “The Coliseum” almost forgot that there was a championship to defend, a season to prolong and a summer to defe...

It Appears That Raptors President Masai Ujiri Got Into It With A Cop
Toronto Raptors president of basketball operations Masai Ujiri has always been known as a fiery dude—recall when he yelled, “Fuck Brooklyn!” before a game against the Nets—but after the buzzer sounded last night and the Raptors became NBA champions, he reportedly reached a new level of not giving a ...

Draymond Green Has Done Many Dumb Things, But Calling A Non-Existent Timeout Wasn't One Of Them
For people who enjoy watching nard-kicker and general loudmouth Draymond Green suck and fail, the 2019 NBA Finals provided few moments of satisfaction. He was mostly brilliant in the series, and made a couple of the best plays in Golden State’s Game 5 road win to push the series back to Oakland. Aft...

Report: Klay Thompson Tore His ACL
Klay Thompson taking a nasty fall in Game 6, limping into the tunnel, then turning around to get back on the floor and drain his free throws was about as heroic as basketball gets. The Warriors guard even told head coach Steve Kerr he’d be back after a two-minute rest, only to leave the arena on cru...

The Toronto Freaking Raptors Are Now NBA Champions
The Toronto Raptors, of all teams, are your new NBA champions, after pulling out a 114–110 win in Oakland in Thursday night’s Game 6. It wasn’t necessarily a series that will be remembered for its aesthetic beauty, but in the end the Raptors earned their first title with six games of incredibly suff...

Klay Thompson Helped Off With Bad Knee Injury, Heroically Returns, Sinks Free Throws, Runs Back Off, Is Out
Toward the end of the third quarter of Thursday night’s Game 6 in Oakland, Klay Thompson landed awkwardly after he was fouled on a breakaway layup by Danny Green, and appeared to badly mess up his left knee. Klay has already missed a game of this series with an injured left hamstring; the Warriors a...

We Must Remove Mark Jackson From NBA Broadcasts Post-Haste
There is the constant travel and the dreary tape-eating research and the broader long-season ennui and the oppressive non-negotiable formalwear, and all of that is unpleasant. All the bleak hotel club sandwiches and the time away from family and periodically having to go to literally Phoenix and the...

Go Ahead And Get Upset About Kevin Durant's Injury
After a rapid and opaque rehabilitation from a strained calf, Kevin Durant’s return to Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Monday was cut short by a devastating injury. Everyone on the Warriors seems both stricken and kind of confused about who to blame; journalists like The Athletic’s Tim Kawakami who wrot...