nba-playoff Page 21 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
The Bucks Humanely Sent The Celtics To The Rainbow Bridge
In the third quarter of Wednesday night’s Celtics-Bucks game, the Celtics half-heartedly swarmed a Giannis Antetokounmpo-Eric Bledsoe pick and roll at the top of the key, and Giannis smartly dumped a little bounce pass to Bledsoe on the short roll, where he could attack a scrambled Celtics defense. ...
Jamal Murray Has A Great Deal Of Sauce
Jamal Murray in his zone has become appointment viewing. The appointment is at an ENT’s office, and the doctor’s trying to determine why steam is billowing out of your nose and the nose of Jamal Murray....
Nuggets Finally Shake Loose, Put A Whupping On Trail Blazers
Some of what has made Nuggets-Trail Blazers such a fun playoff series is how evenly matched the teams appear to be. Headed into Game 5 with the series tied, neither team had won a game by more than eight points, and the last two games, a split, were decided by a grand total of seven points. One of t...
An Ailing Joel Embiid Isn't All That Ails The 76ers
The 76ers were blown out in Game 5 Tuesday night, 125–89, by Kawhi Leonard and the Toronto Raptors. Nothing much worked for Philadelphia—the closest they came to a functional offense was Jimmy Butler willing his way to the line for 11 free throws. By the midpoint of the fourth quarter, the game had ...
Kawhi Leonard Just Dunks The Absolute Hell Out Of The 76ers
Kawhi Leonard is doing it again. He put up a 13-and-10 double-double before halftime of Game 5 of the 76ers-Raptors conference semifinal series, with three assists and a pair of steals. It’s not clear tonight that the Raptors even require all these damn heroics—they’re up 21 at the half and the Sixe...
Joel Embiid Has Diarrhea
In the spring of 2019, writer Giri Nathan asked an editor if he could write a blog about Joel Embiid in the style of writer Gay Talese’s “Frank Sinatra Has A Cold.” The Sixers player was irritable and dealing with various ailments as his team fought a tight playoff series against the Raptors. “Why t...
Milwaukee's Bench Broke Boston's Will
By the latter part of the fourth quarter of last night’s home game against the Milwaukee Bucks, the Boston Celtics had all but disbanded on the court. Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo was rampaging to the rim on virtually every possession; the Celtics had given up on helping each other defensively,...
Giannis Antetokounmpo Is The Most Demoralizing Man In The NBA
These here Boston Celtics seem dead, filleted and breaded and fully cooked, and their feeble attempts to bridge a series of late deficits last night strongly suggested that, one recent example of a blown 3-1 lead notwithstanding, this is a mentally broken basketball team with one single game betwee...
The Unflappable Warriors Are Being Flapped By The Feisty Rockets
It wasn’t pretty—it hasn’t been pretty, no two-minute stretch of this series has been the least bit aesthetically pleasant—but the Houston Rockets outlasted the Golden State Warriors in Game 4 to knot their conference semifinal series at two games apiece....
The Celtics Appear To Be In The Deepest Of Doo Doo
The Celtics are left with a couple bad omens from Game 4, which ended Monday night with Boston fans booing their team off the court at the end of a pivotal 113–101 loss. Apart, that is, from the fact that the Bucks are now in a commanding 3–1 series lead, with Game 5 back in Milwaukee, where the Buc...
Kawhi Leonard Is Just Very Frickin' Good
Look, man. I think the Toronto Raptors are still outright failing at lots of fairly basic manufacturing-a-series-win-type shit. They still have no plan, for example, for creating a steady diet of reasonably high-percentage shots. Or for attacking J.J. Redick, Philadelphia’s best shooter and most vul...
The Nuggets And Blazers Are Exactly What The NBA Playoffs Needed
The Denver Nuggets and Portland Trail Blazers had every right to give us a sloppy, disappointing Game 4. On Friday night, they played a four-overtime thriller that left both teams exhausted, one team utterly heartbroken, and one superstar out on his feet. All of this could have easily added up to an...
Boban Marjanovic Uses His Large Frame To Obscure Kyle Lowry's Line Of Sight
Boban Marjanovic provided excellent towering defense against Kyle Lowry as the Raptor tried to inbound the ball for the final possession of the half that Toronto got as a result of Lowry selling a foul well....
Steph Curry Blows Wide-Open Dunk In OT, Warriors Immediately Wave White Flag And Give Up On Comeback
The Golden State Warriors needed to score a whole bunch of points real quick at the end of overtime to keep pace in Game 3 tonight in Houston, and instead of doing so, they ended the game in one of the weirder ways you’ll see all postseason....
The Raptors Are Doing Whatever The Hell This Is Again
Well, shit....
Nikola Jokic Explains His Body
There’s a charming feature on Nuggets superstar Nikola Jokic, who’s been thriving in his first postseason, over at ESPN today. It addresses many questions that may have been lingering in viewers’ minds. To take just a few:...
Ben Simmons Gets Away With Elbowing Kyle Lowry In The Dick And Balls
This is some dirty stuff right here. In the second quarter of Thursday night’s Game 3 in the 76ers-Raptors series, Kyle Lowry boxed out Ben Simmons on the defensive glass, and Simmons toppled to the floor along the baseline. With Lowry teetering over him, Simmons threw an angry elbow directly to Low...
ESPN's Tim Legler Loses It After His Phone Stops Working During Stephen A. Smith's Show
ESPN NBA analyst Tim Legler had a bit of trouble delivering his takes about the remaining playoff series when he joined Stephen A. Smith’s show this afternoon. Legler was in the middle of praising Khris Middleton when Smith cut him off to tell him he couldn’t hear him. Unbeknownst to Legler, viewers...
It Sucks That One Of These Teams Must Be Served Up To The Warriors Like Ann Darrow To King Kong
The Denver Nuggets and Portland Trail Blazers played a choppy and bloody and occasionally stupid but highly entertaining Game 2 Wednesday night, with the Blazers prevailing on the road, 97–90, to tie up the series headed back to Portland. The winner of this series should get a trophy and a parade an...
![Torrey Craig's Face Smashed Up And Bloodied By Opponent's Arm And Teammate's Leg [Update]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/m3lwkjhcyhb8zvevmpzj.png)
Torrey Craig's Face Smashed Up And Bloodied By Opponent's Arm And Teammate's Leg [Update]
Second-year forward Torrey Craig has been surprisingly huge for the Nuggets this postseason, playing about 20 minutes a night and posting a blistering 71 percent true shooting mark through eight games. The Nuggets benefit tremendously from his scrappy, versatile defense and respectable perimeter sho...