NBA playoffs Page 17 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Even A Hobbled Donovan Mitchell Won't Go Down Easily
After bruising his foot in Game 1, Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell insisted that he’d suit up for Game 2, despite having to play through a personally unprecedented amount of pain to do so. He didn’t seem very limited in his second-ever playoff game when he got a steal and scored on the first possession ...
Gregg Popovich Won't Coach Spurs In Game 3 Following Death Of His Wife
The San Antonio Spurs have announced that head coach Gregg Popovich will not be with the team for tonight’s playoff game against the Warriors. Last night, the team announced that Popovich’s wife, Erin, had died at the age of 67 after battling an illness....
Seriously, What The Hell Are The Minnesota Timberwolves Doing?
In Game 1 of the Rockets-Timberwolves series, the eighth-seeded Wolves lost in no small part because they inexplicably froze their two best players, Jimmy Butler and Karl-Anthony Towns, out of the offense. Game 2 was last night, and the Rockets won, 102-82. Here are some stats from that, courtesy of...
The Time Has Come For Carmelo Anthony To Hit Some Damn Shots
For all the handwringing over Russell Westbrook’s stat-chasing and shot selection, and over Paul George’s occasional listlessness, an even bigger problem has spent the season lurking in Oklahoma City. A Melo problem....
Playoff Rondo Is Truly Back
For essentially the duration of Anthony Davis’s career, the Pelicans have been knocked for being a one-man team with precious little depth, no wing players, and little dynamism to their offense that doesn’t start and finish with Davis. The addition of DeMarcus Cousins helped allay the severity of th...
Eric Bledsoe On The Guy Currently Beating His Ass: "I Don't Even Know Who The Fuck That Is"
Bucks point guard Eric Bledsoe has not played very well in his team’s first two playoff games against the Boston Celtics, and his squad is now down 0-2 in the series. Bledsoe is shooting just 36 percent from the field in the series, and has been thoroughly outplayed by Boston’s backup-turned-startin...
Gregg Popovich's Praise Of LaMarcus Aldridge Felt Rather Pointed
The Spurs are down 0-2 to the Warriors in their first-round playoff series, and Kawhi Leonard is not with the team. The reasons for that are still somehow impossibly murky—Leonard has been dealing with an injured quad muscle all year; he may or may not have been healthy enough to play for some time ...
How Many More Times Can The Heat Do That?
It’s true that the Miami Heat dominated most of last night’s Game 2 against the Sixers, only wobbling late in the fourth quarter before being steadied once again by Dwyane Wade. It’s true that Wade was spectacular, and hewed much closer to the 2010 version of himself than the player he’s been recent...
Steven Adams's Arm Seems To Have Survived This Dunk
Please turn up the volume on your computing device, and listen to the goddamn sound this Steven Adams alley-oop made. ...
Uhh, The Pacers Beat The Living Shit Out Of The Cavaliers
Apart from a furious run spanning the end of the third quarter and the start of the fourth, the Cavs were soundly whupped on their home floor by the Pacers Sunday afternoon, and lost 98-80. Possibly these are the end times. Up...is it down?...
The End Of Bucks-Celtics Featured A Ridiculous Sequence Of Clutch Buckets
Game 1 of Bucks-Celtics was choppy and hectic and low-scoring, but man was it tense, and the last 10 minutes or so were breathless, hilarious fun. Let’s just sit here and enjoy some highlights for a few minutes, yeah?...
Joel Embiid Moves One Big Step Closer To Returning To Action
For a while during the first half of Saturday’s Game 1 it looked like the Miami Heat might be able to capitalize on the absence of Joel Embiid, who has been in the NBA’s concussion protocol since March 28. Miami had a six-point lead after the first quarter; their lead in the first half grew to as la...
Jrue Holiday And Anthony Davis Overwhelmed The Trail Blazers
Saturday’s slate of NBA playoff games—Game 1s? Games 1?—mostly went as expected: the Warriors made lunchmeat out of the Spurs; the Raptors almost Raptored against the Wizards, but pulled away in the fourth quarter; the Sixers just ran away from the Heat in the second half. Home teams went 3-0 throug...
Timberwolves Survive Nikola Jokic To Earn First Playoff Bid In 13 Years
The NBA’s unofficial play-in game lived up to its importance tonight, as the Minnesota Timberwolves needed overtime to outlast the Denver Nuggets for the Western Conference eighth seed. Minnesota earned its playoff appearance with a 112-106 win, overcoming stellar play from Nikola Jokic—who scored 3...
Here's Everything At Stake On The Last Night Of The NBA Regular Season
Tonight, anyone watching the NBA will get to see the closest possible regular-season equivalent of a play-in game when the Denver Nuggets travel to Minnesota to play the T-Wolves for the last playoff spot. Both clubs are 46-35, and Minnesota leads the season series 2-1, though a 100-96 win last week...
As Bad News Goes, Steph Curry's Injury Update Is Good News
The alternate headline for this blog is “As Good News Goes, Steph Curry’s Injury Update Is Bad News”—you can choose for yourself whether to be a glass-is-half-full sort on this. At any rate, the update on Steph’s busted knee is in:...
This Ridiculous NBA Season Can At Least Serve Up A Lot Of Hilariously Unwanted Final Scores
A fun thing to track, this time of year, is NBA games that produce outcomes that, purely from a standings perspective, are catastrophic for both teams. This season offers plenty of potential on this front: 18 of the NBA’s 30 teams are firmly in the playoff picture; all but the top two of each confer...
Adam Silver Still Wants To Overhaul The NBA Playoffs
At his big pre-dunk contest press conference Saturday night, NBA commissioner Adam Silver used a question about All Star selections to prompt a discussion about the format of the league’s playoffs. It sounds like he would still very much like to do away with the current format, which has the top eig...
![Draymond Green Finally Gets T-Shirt Revenge On LeBron, Gets Owned Anyway [Update]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/wk5up8f7mstefoxiihja.jpg)
Draymond Green Finally Gets T-Shirt Revenge On LeBron, Gets Owned Anyway [Update]
The last time the Warriors won a title (the year before they blew a 3-1 lead in the NBA Finals), Draymond Green got tipsy at the team’s victory parade in Oakland. He mocked the Cleveland Cavaliers by rapping “Cavaliers? Nope. We won? Yupp. They suck? Yupp. We here? Yupp. They not? Nooope.”...
JaVale McGee Is Now A Guy With A Championship Ring
Before the Golden State Warriors signed him, JaVale McGee was a big joke. The 7-foot center had spent his career collecting alley-oops, losing track of his defensive assignments, and committing all manner of horrifying blunders. McGee played well enough for the Nuggets in one playoff series to earn ...