nba-playoff Page 56 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Seriously, What The Hell Is Going On With The Pacers?
Things have been bad for the Pacers for about two months, during which the team took on the surly, listless post-holiday air of an unhappy family too long indoors. But even when they were playing their worst, it was hard to imagine this. Down 2-1 series to the eighth-seeded Hawks, the Pacers are in ...
Mike Miller Is Not A Chair, Kendrick Perkins
Get off of Mike Miller, Kendrick! He isn't a chair. Ah, what the heck. You deserve a quick breather. Keep workin' hard out there, Perk....
LaMarcus Aldridge And His Jumper Are Here To Torment
Here's how good LaMarcus Aldridge has been against the Rockets in the first two games of their playoff series: When I first saw this obviously fake and joke-y shot chart on Twitter this morning, my first thought wasn't, "Haha what a silly and stupid thing that is." It was, "Yep. Looks about right."...
Josh McRoberts Gets Away With A Flying Elbow To LeBron's Throat
Josh McRoberts put an elbow in LeBron James's throat near the end of tonight's playoff game, but somehow, the Bobcat wasn't called for anything more than a shooting foul....
Terry Stotts, Reinvented: How A Retread NBA Coach Became Cutting Edge
Players get better, and players get worse. This is a fundamental truth, and an arc we've always understood, analytics or not, as part of the fabric of not just sports, but performance and ability in general. Sometimes you get better at your job, sometimes you fall off. But we don't really look at co...
Did Nene's Whistle From The Bench Make Hinrich Miss His Foul Shot? (No.)
Last night in overtime of the Wizards-Bulls game, Kirk Hinrich went to the line with 2.4 seconds left, the score 101-99, and a chance to tie the game. But he missed! How could this be? Last night, we thought it was because he was a clutch gene-free, low-motor choke artist. But today, we may have our...
Report: Pacers Had Fistfight Before Game 1
Adrian Wojnarowski goes out of his way to downplay a practice fight between Lance Stephenson and Evan Turner as something normal for the close quarters of an NBA team, but that's not going to stop observers from pointing to it as one symptom—or possible cause—of the Pacers' precipitous decline....
Oh Hell, Root For The Wizards: John Wall's Brave, Stubborn Playoff Run
If you have watched much Washington Wizards basketball over the past four seasons, first of all, why, and I am so sorry—but also, you have seen John Wall chase down a ballhandler in transition, take off like a fucking F/A-18 off a carrier deck, and swat the absolute shit out of the ball. It's reall...
The Nets Are Very Old, But Their Defense Is Next Level
The average age of the Brooklyn Nets preferred starting lineup right now is 32.4. Joe Johnson, Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Deron Williams have seemingly been in our collective consciousness for decades. Even Shaun Livingston, the fifth member of that quintet, is best known for a gruesome knee in...
Tony Allen Is The Defensive Stopper You Can Root For
There's a certain stigma that often hounds players who are labeled as defensive stoppers in the NBA, a belief that no small part of their success is derived from the fact that they are simply willing to play like assholes. This was true of Bruce Bowen, who was never all that feisty but wasn't shy a...
Durant, Perkins Heroics Force Overtime In Oklahoma City
This play, and everything about it, is absolutely nuts....
Raptors Blame ESPN For Shot-Clock Malfunction [Update]
The shot clocks blew out in the third quarter of Saturday's Game 1 in Toronto, which led to pure absurdity: the Raptors' PA guy counting down the shot clock while looking at a stopwatch held by an NBA official next to him. When it expired, he would literally say "Horn!", and it was the funniest damn...
Is Chris Paul Somehow Underrated?
There's a neat narrative in the NBA today (which we help perpetuate) that LeBron James and Kevin Durant are the best players in the league by a mile, each season a clash between two great legacies in the making. But how true is this, really?...
It's So Hard To Escape The Blazers
It's a question that we've asked before, and after falling to the Blazers in overtime last night, it's one that the Rockets are probably asking themselves a lot this morning: How the hell do you beat the Blazers?...
Russell Westbrook And Kevin Durant Are Awesome
This is a beautiful thing. In the first quarter of Grizzlies-Thunder, Russell Westbrook grabbed a rebound and, in the same motion, effortlessly flicked a pass three-quarters of the court that just so happened to land right in front of a streaking Kevin Durant for a fast break dunk that had no busin...
Goodbye, Evan Turner
What makes this a nice play is that Evan Turner thought Jeff Teague was going baseline, but Teague knew better and pulled up for the three, leaving Turner out to dry. What puts it over the top is that Turner and Roy Hibbert are in total synchronization. ...
Blake Griffin Fouls Out, Dumps Water All Over Warriors Fan
Blake Griffin fouled out with 48 seconds left in the game, and the score tied 105-105. It was kind of a ticky-tacky foul and Griffin was reacting to the video replay. He lifted his arms in exasperation and dumped the water he was holding all over the guy in a Warriors shirt behind him. Then he threw...
Jeff Van Gundy Is Sick Of These Charlatan Paddleboat Salesmen
Mike Breen and Jeff Van Gundy are calling the Golden State-L.A. Clippers game today and coming back from a break late in the third quarter, Van Gundy, rightly, decided to sound off on paddleboats. ...
Sniper Got 'Em
Mike Fratello gave this chick to Ian Eagle during the Nets-Raptors game and some cold-hearted sniper took the poor guy right out....
Raptors GM Masai Ujiri To Toronto Crowd: "FUCK BROOKLYN!"
Toronto is turned all the way up today. Here's Raptors general manager Masai Ujiri pumping up the crowd before today's game against the Brooklyn Nets with some fiery rhetoric. Welcome, NBA playoffs....