nba-playoff Page 28 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
It Hurts To Watch The Cavs Like This
LeBron James looked exhausted. Jordan Clarkson was tasked with running the offense on far too many possessions. The Celtics’ rotation of hyped-up young dudes absolutely hounded the Cavs to death on defense. Watching the best player in the world trying to keep his team from going down 3-2 in the East...
A People's History Of Bill Simmons Making Up Corny Things For Boston Fans To Chant
There are any number of reasons why it’s easy to goof on Bill Simmons, and all of them are honestly pretty solid. Many of these have to do with the way he acts—grandiose and aggrieved and prickly-petty and, now that he’s ascended to demi-mogul status, prone to dilatory rich-guy extemporizing on The ...
The Warriors Have Been Infected By Houston's Brain Worms And It's Ruining The West Finals
Okay, yes, goddammit yes, I was wrong, the Houston Rockets, who tied the Western Conference Finals at two games apiece last night in Oakland, have a chance to win the series. A frighteningly strong one, if like me you break out in hives at the prospect of a Larry O’Brien trophy consecrating into can...
The Rockets Refused To Die And Tied The Series<em></em>
Despite some early hiccups and, um, premature pronouncements of doom, the Rockets held a 53-46 lead going into halftime in Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals against the Warriors. For the most optimistic of Rockets fans, that advantage might’ve been enough to nervously hope for an even series. ...
Oh No
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The Rockets Are Short-Circuiting
One of the coldest, most ruthlessly efficient scorers in the NBA froze up on a wide-open three that Draymond Green was cool to let him have. P.J. Tucker eventually missed his own three to end the possession, but if you’re wondering how badly the Warriors own James Harden and the Rockets right now, h...
I Ask You Once Again: How Are The Cavs Like This?
What’s going on here? Just what the heck is this?...
LeBron James Can Make Scoring 44 Points Look Ordinary
Probably the highest praise to give LeBron James is that his 44-point game tonight wasn’t even all that exhilarating, particularly when it didn’t come packaged with quite as many boards and assists (five and three) as his previous five 40-point outings this postseason. The Cavaliers’ 111-102 defeat...
God Help Me, I'm Rooting For The Warriors Now
The bleak doom of all good things in this terrible psycho-capitalist hell-society we have made is to be processed and metabolized into an inert clot of blind, gray, mindless nano-goo by precisely the kind of antiseptic, hyper-rational, ahuman actuarial math on display here:...
You Don't Have To Get Cute With The Rockets
The Rockets are coming after Steph Curry. Through the first three games of their series against they Warriors, they have been committed to one idea that they seem to think will give them the best chance to win: use a pick to switch Curry onto the ballhandler on every offensive possession, and then w...
You Have To Love A Big Steph Curry Game
The start of Steph Curry’s Game 3 went much like his Game 1 and Game 2, and by the end of the first half he was 3-of-11 from the field. At that point, Curry was shooting a combined 3-of-20 from three-point range for the series, and it was starting to look like the takeover everyone had been waiting...
LeBron In Full Must-Win Mode Is An Unsolvable Problem
The Cavs opened Game 3 with a huge 22-6 run, and that was more or less that. This was not a case of the winning team grabbing an early lead behind a fluky start and nursing it cautiously until the final buzzer—the Cavs were forceful and decisive early, and did some cool and different things to chall...
In The Future, We Will All Gamble Constantly
The NBA Playoffs should be at something like their apex right now, and in the least entertaining possible sense they may well be. There are four notionally entertaining teams left, and they have combined through four games for maybe three entertaining quarters. The league’s biggest and most brillian...
Chris Paul's Yo-Yo Dribble Never Gets Old
Last night, the Houston Rockets blew past the Golden State Warriors in Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals by getting a little more lively on offense and moving the ball. That is cool and good for them, but let’s be honest: the best thing about the game was Chris Paul’s dribbling....
Steph Curry Will Have To Take Over At Some Point
It’s been over two weeks since Steph Curry returned from his knee injury to make the Warriors fully operational for the latter stages of the playoffs, and his results have been mixed. He made the Warriors look invincible once again in his first game back against the Pelicans, but he’s been up and do...
The Desperate Rockets Beat The Warriors, And It Was Actually Fun To Watch
The Rockets can pass! That’s the most stunning takeaway from their 127-105 win against the Warriors tonight, which evened the Western Conference Finals at one game apiece and introduced a prettier, more kinetic version of the Rockets than the team that won 65 games in the regular season. Game 2 saw ...
How Are The Cavs Like This?
The Cleveland Cavaliers, lifted by a huge first half from LeBron James, began the second half of Game 2 against the Celtics with a seven-point lead. This was a vast improvement over the circumstances they found themselves in during Game 1, when the Celtics had put the result out of reach by the end ...
Uh Oh, The Cavs Might Actually Be In Trouble<em></em>
An all-timer of a first quarter from LeBron James, in which he scored 21 of his team’s 27 points, and a 42-point triple-double for the entire game all went to waste in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals, as the Boston Celtics took down the Cleveland LeBrons, 107-94....
The Rockets Have Nothing For Kevin Durant
The Rockets had a plan. They were going to force Steph Curry to defend James Harden one-on-one, stick longer defenders on Curry to harass him on the perimeter, use Clint Capela’s length to disrupt Draymond Green’s pick-and-roll maneuvers, and pounce on any defensive lapses by kicking it out to their...