nba Page 175 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Knicks lose playoff game at Madison Square Garden, water is wet
On Sunday, almost eight years to the day since the last time it happened — May 16, 2013 — the Knicks had a chance to win a playoff game inside Madison Square Garden. As usual, they didn’t. And shockingly enough, Knicks fans are dumbfounded about how this happened, as if this isn’t a franchise that h...

Basketball returns home
Even as just a casual basketball fan, I have not missed out on the schadenfreude of the New York Knicks the past decade. It’s always affirming when a place that considers itself essential to a sport, perhaps to the world through that sport, is rendered irrelevant. Watching the Knicks’ sense of self ...

LeBron James drinking tequila with Drake shows NBA has moved past COVID
“It’s not a big deal.”...

Kawhi Leonard’s legacy is on the line
There’s a lot at stake for Kawhi Leonard....

Scott Kazmir returns for first start in five years
After José Godoy became the 20,000th player in major league history on Friday, Rays’ shortstop Taylor Walls debuted on Sunday, becoming No. 20,001....

Blazers-Nuggets briefly bumped to ESPN2, still a far cry from tape-delayed 1981 Finals
The start of Trail Blazers-Nuggets was bumped to ESPN2 as Jose Ramírez and Josh Taylor fought for the undisputed junior welterweight title on ESPN, which is barely fathomable in 2021. Taylor won by unanimous decision, and ESPN switched over to the action in Denver with 6:40 left in the first quarter...

The Warriors would’ve won by 30 if Klay were healthy
Last night’s Memphis-Golden State Play-In game was epic. Not quite as epic as the Warriors-Lakers game that happened two days earlier, but still really fun. While it was winding down, I noticed a few things:...

Statement made: Ja Morant has arrived — and Steph Curry knows it, too
Ja Morant needed one of these, and it came at the exact time it was supposed to for a rising star of his projected caliber. ...

Gimme an X! MLB’s 20,000th player reminds us what baseball desperately needs
In 1975, Bob Watson scored Major League Baseball’s one millionth run, an achievement which earned him one million Tootsie Rolls and one million pennies from the candy company, all of which Watson donated to charity....

I dunno, maybe try a little harder to get the ball to the world’s best shooter?
Stephen Curry scored 39 points on Friday night, shooting 13-for-28 from the field with six three-pointers… and it wasn’t enough....

The biggest “snubs” from the NBA Awards finalists
Y’all are already mad over ‘Player X’ not appearing on at least one of these ballots, so we’re gathered here today to commemorate those unable to join their peers as NBA Award Finalists. ...

Still think Rodgers could've run it in?
Down eight points and with just over two minutes remaining in the NFC Championship Game, Packers head coach Matt Lafleur opted to kick a field goal instead of going for the tie. The entire NFL world collectively scratched their heads and muttered, “Huh?” at the sight of the NFL’s MVP, Aaron Rodgers,...

‘Davidson Steph Curry’ is showing up tonight – it’s over for the Memphis Grizzlies
If Quin Snyder was smart, he’d already have the Utah Jazz preparing to play the Golden State Warriors for Game One of their first-round series that will start Sunday night in Salt Lake City. Any time spent on game planning for Ja Morant and the Memphis Grizzlies will be a waste of time, given that t...

Home cookin’ won’t be equal for all NBA playoff teams
For the first time in two years, we might actually get to talk about home-court advantage in the NBA playoffs, but in a weird, 2021-ish kind of way....

Nathan MacKinnon is unplayable
Everyone knows that after his 105-point-in-a-56-game season that Connor McDavid is the best player in the world. But what my book presupposes is... maybe he isn’t? (an old joke, and I’ve come to have no use for Wes Anderson over the years and you likely have to, but it’s still a good one). ...

Stephen A. Smith and baseball, always an incredible combination
Just over a quarter of the way into the MLB season, it’s pretty safe to say that Shohei Ohtani has been insane. Ohtani currently leads Major League Baseball in home runs. He’s 3rd in slugging percentage, 15th in OPS, 18th in wOBA, and a partridge in a pear tree. Oh, he’s also been pretty damn good a...

Leave Kwame Brown alone
When you poke the bear, you best be ready for the consequences. And Kwame Brown is a 6-foot-11, 290-pound bear that was in hibernation until his rest was disturbed by two of his former teammates....

Sorry, Phoenix: The reward for your historic season is a first-round series against the world's best player and his championship team
Man, the Phoenix Suns are fantastic, so this isn’t to say they can’t do it, but it sucks that awaiting them in the first round after their fifth-best regular-season ever are LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers....

LeBron cements the continued existence of a game he hates
Look, the Play-in Tournament is stupid. Everyone pretty much knows it. The players certainly hate it, and even the ones who get to participate in it probably don’t like it much more. It’s manufactured drama. We’ve had 72 games this year, and in normal times we’ll have 82, and if you’re not in playof...

Ionescu continues to live up to the hype, and it’s exactly what the WNBA needs
Avengers: Infinity War, Machu Picchu, and Flex Tape....