nba-playoff Page 6 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Will Nikola Jokić lead Denver to its first title or will Jimmy Butler fulfill his playoff prophecy?
One of the least anticipated matchups in recent memory is upon us. The Denver Nuggets and Miami Heat. Let’s be real here. No LeBron, no Jayson Tatum, and no Boston Celtics legends in the stands. Media members have been openly grousing all week about having to cover the Nuggets. That’s a cornball pos...

Epic upsets, stellar QBs, and the most notable sports moments of the first half of 2023
Take a deep breath before I reveal a stunning fact, it’s almost June. Some of you were just pulling out the trusty snow blower and now it’s swimsuit season — I hope your diet went better than mine....

Don't tune out the rest of the NBA playoffs just because the Lakers lost
Some of you American sports fans might be done with the NBA for the 2022-23 season. With the New York Knicks, Philadelphia 76ers, and Golden State Warriors all eliminated, some may feel that it’s time to prepare NFL fantasy draft strategies. Feel free, but with the Denver Nuggets playing the Los Ang...

Jimmy Butler completely sonned Grant Williams, Boston Celtics in Game 2
Forget what you’ve heard. The Miami Heat’s Jimmy Butler is the most dangerous weapon left in the NBA playoffs. Boston Celtics forward Grant Williams found that out the hard way during game two of the Eastern Conference Finals Friday night. Williams chose the trash talk route and, of all people, chos...

Jamal Murray’s excellence forces Lakers into a must-win Game 3
In an NBA playoff series, Game 2 is usually the forgotten game. A series usually needs a location change before bold predictions are made. After dominating the Los Angeles Lakers for most of Game 1, the Denver Nuggets’ fourth-quarter performance left much to be desired in a victory that they almost ...

Denver defense nearly spoils Nuggets' greatest offensive performance in franchise history
What will always jump out most on the screen when watching the 2022-23 Denver Nuggets is their offense. Through three quarters against the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals, it looked like they reached the level of special that Keanu Reeves reached in The Matrix when he s...

LeBron James vs. Nikola Jokić, and the other Lakers-Nuggets Western Conference Finals storylines
We did not get Kevin Durant vs. Stephen Curry in the Western Conference Finals. Instead, the participants in the series are the best teams in the conference — the Denver Nuggets and Los Angeles Lakers....

Can Denver avoid the choke when it counts most in the Western Conference Finals?
The NBA is down to its final four as this year’s conference finals have brought about Déjà vu, although this isn’t an illusion of the mind. Less than three years ago, we saw the same teams representing the NBA’s Eastern and Western Finals. In the west, we’ve got the Lakers and Nuggets in a rematch f...

The NBA Playoffs have earlier start times from here on out — God is good
In 2015, I was in Los Angeles for the annual Online News Association Conference. It meant that as a Michigan native, I was up at 9:00 am PST to watch the Wolverines obliterate BYU 31-0 in a college football game that had a noon kickoff on East Coast time. That was also the day that I understood the ...

Joel Embiid is right
Joel Embiid and Nikola Jokić are starkly different people. Yes, they are MVP centers who were not raised in America, but the similarities largely stop there. One player is from Africa and the other is from Europe. One player is the most physically dominant in the NBA, the other combines size, court ...

Will no NBA playoff games on Saturday help the XFL Championship Game’s ratings?
On Saturday at 8:00 p.m. EST on ABC (or ESPN+) in San Antonio, Texas, the D.C. Defenders (9-1) will face the Arlington Renegades (4-6) in the XFL Championship Game at the Alamodome. But, will anybody watch?...

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 ...

Blood, sweat, and bodyslams: 10 moments that defined the Heat-Knicks playoff rivalry
The Miami Heat and New York Knicks have plenty of bad blood, dating back to the mid-90s. Even 30 years after Pat Riley left New York for Miami, storylines remain between the two teams. Riley is now the Heat’s president, while Tom Thibodeau, an assistant for Jeff Van Gundy, Riley’s successor in New Y...

Lakers-Warriors Game 4 doubled as a West Coast DJ set
It is a shame that TNT has the Eastern Conference Finals this season. I have enjoyed New Edition at halftime during the Boston Celtics vs. Philadelphia 76ers second-round matchup, and once the Miami Heat finish off the New York Knicks I do want to hear all of the Slip and Slide and Rick Ross catalog...

The NBA Playoffs are Anthony Davis’ world and Golden State is just living in it
On an early defensive possession in the Los Angeles Lakers’ Game 3 victory, Steph Curry turned on the jets along the baseline and left Jarred Vanderbilt eating dust on a drive to the rim. The only deterrent between Curry and two points was Anthony Davis stepping up to contest. Curry attempted to lof...

It’s not supposed to be that easy, Connor
The NHL playoffs like to revel in its celebration of depth and the unsung. Everyone gets a shift, so everyone had better do a job or more, and the puck can bounce onto anyone’s stick or off anyone’s ass to change a game, a series, a whole spring. It is not always a stage for the leading men to provi...

In the battle of COVID vs. sports, evil vs. entertainment, sports won
Now that COVID is officially over, and everyone can throw their masks in the trash, (Is that how this works?), it feels like a good time to declare that sports beat COVID. If you’re wondering who was keeping score, I was, and sports handily outlasted the virus — that killed very few, if any, athlete...

Denver Post columnist pens love letter to Nikola Jokić's undies
The low point of the NBA season has been the interminable debate over the MVP. From Kendrick Perkins and JJ Redick stirring an empty pot about prejudice giving the leg up to Nikola Jokić in the MVP race to Doug Gottlieb bashing his own skull in, blithering on about how race helped Joel Embiid win MV...

Anthony Davis gives Golden State a browbeating
When the Los Angeles Lakers and LeBron James were pushing to acquire Anthony Davis during the 2018-19 season, they had every reason to believe that they were going after the future face of the franchise. In the Lakers’ 117-112 Game 1 victory over the Golden State Warriors in the second round of the ...