nba Page 221 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
The Good Part Of The NBA Season Has Started
It is a curious folkway here at Deadspin that NBA-related previews cannot be published before the start of whatever it is they’re previewing. It’s not covered during the onboarding process, and is more just one of those things that you learn over the course of time as a member of the staff, like the...
Let Us Hope Jayson Tatum Has Won His Long Battle Against Kobe Brain
Celtics star Jayson Tatum scored 26 points on 11-of-20 shooting during last night’s Game 2 victory over the Pacers. He was very good, but the best play he made, and the one that should have Celtics fans most encouraged moving forward, involved him passing on what could have been a game-deciding dagg...
Jared Dudley Versus Ben Simmons Should Turn Into Some Prime NBA Playoff Beef
In Game 1 against the Sixers, fleshy Nets vet Jared Dudley shone. He finished with two points, but made several nice reads after lumbering into traffic, snagged a steal which led to a charming slow-break before Mike Scott broke it up on aesthetic principle, and, most importantly, played some stout d...
Giannis Shamed Former Buck Thon Maker Into Submission, Twice
There’s no real drama left in the ass-whooping better known as the Bucks-Pistons first-round series. Milwaukee is the best team in the East, featuring the likely MVP and a top five offense and defense. Detroit is...not that, plus they’re missing their best player, Blake Griffin, due to injury....
The Pacers Kept Handing Bojan Bogdanovic The Ball Until It Killed Them
It looked like the Pacers got some much-needed redemption on Wednesday. After putting up a measly eight points in the third quarter against the Celtics in Game 1—Indiana would go on to lose 84-74—the Pacers had a strong third quarter of their own in Game 2, outscoring Boston 29-16. But that momentum...
Russell Westbrook Is Struggling
The sixth-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder were such a popular pick to upset the third-seeded Portland Trail Blazers in the first round of the NBA Playoffs that it’s hardly fair to even call them the underdogs. Only one of ESPN’s panel of 20 analysts picked the Blazers to take the series, and the thinki...
The Damian Lillard Experience Is The Sweetest Show In Basketball
Tell yourself you love basketball as a beautiful game, to watch the ball ping around the court as a team’s collective hive-mind hunts the best available shot. Then watch the last week of the NBA playoffs and see if you can stick to that conviction. Between Lou Williams’s rash of perverse leaners on ...
Nikola Jokic Showed Gary Harris How To Soothe His Bashed Testicles
While Jamal Murray was catching fire late in the fourth quarter and leading the Nuggets to a dramatic playoff win over the Spurs, his teammates, Nikola Jokic and Gary Harris, were dealing with a separate problem....
Nothing Could Have Shaken Mike Malone's Faith In Jamal Murray
It’s hard to overstate just how bad Jamal Murray was through the first three quarters of Game 2 against the Spurs. The numbers are as plain and grim as numbers get: 0-of-8 from the field, two assists, and a plus-minus of -18 in 24 minutes. But even those numbers don’t quite capture the depths to whi...
Damian Lillard Boils Old Ham
Damian Lillard absolutely torched the Oklahoma City Thunder on Tuesday night with 26 points, six assists, five rebounds and three steals. It was a performance that came in a convincing 114-94 win that gave the Blazers an important 2-0 lead in the first-round series....
Jamal Murray Washed Away The Sins Of His Horrendous Start With A Near-Perfect Fourth Quarter
Late in the third quarter, the Nuggets were close to overcoming the 19-point deficit the Spurs had put them in just a few minutes earlier. Thanks to the efforts of Malik Beasley, Denver had whittled the lead down to six with about 1:30 remaining in the quarter, and San Antonio was forced to call tim...
Montrezl Harrell Is Very Finicky About His Free Throw Routine
Clippers center Montrezl Harrell is a giant dude who will try to dunk on anyone and scrap for every rebound. He’s spent the first two games of the playoffs succeeding in both areas, going 20-for-24 from the field and causing trouble for the Warriors. He’s also rather fussy about how he is presented ...
Goddammit, DeMarcus Cousins Is Probably Done For The Playoffs With A Torn Quad
DeMarcus Cousins might be the unluckiest player in the NBA. After eight seasons on two of the NBA’s most cursed franchises, Boogie’s first-ever playoff run is almost certainly over after 25 minutes and 11 points, as the Warriors announced Tuesday that Cousins has a torn left quadriceps. ...
The Warriors Deserved That
Tiger Woods sat back and said, “Well, what I did was pretty damned impressive, but that? Did you see THAT?” “That,” of course, was the most spectacular pipe job in NBA postseason history....
Put Lou Williams In The Hall Of Fame For What He Just Did To The Warriors
The L.A. Clippers pulled off an absurd comeback victory against the Golden State Warriors on Monday night, tying the first-round series at one-all by winning 135-131 after being down 94-63 in the third quarter. They were aided by a DeMarcus Cousins injury and a late Kevin Durant foul out, but the Cl...
Joel Embiid Couldn't Keep A Straight Face While Apologizing For His Elbow On Jarrett Allen
Joel Embiid got hit with a flagrant foul late in the first half of his Sixers’ eventual series-tying 145-123 win over the Nets on Monday night when he unleashed the full force of his elbow into Jarrett Allen’s neck while trying to beat him in the paint. Allen got up right away, but my goodness, that...
DeMarcus Cousins Limps Out Of Game With Non-Contact Leg Injury
The Warriors are facing a scary situation early in their Game 2 battle against the Clippers, because DeMarcus Cousins had to head back through the tunnel after injuring his left leg while trying to make a steal....
There's A Lot Going On In This Jason Vargas Interview
Everyone’s eyes will naturally be drawn to the colonial-seeming fellow sliding into the background of Saturday’s postgame scrum for Mets pitcher Jason Vargas. Fine, that’s understandable. This blog will get to him shortly, but there are other things to appreciate here, too....
I Hope Giannis Makes These Cowards Weep On National Television
The start of the NBA playoffs always brings a series or two that, when seen on the schedule, elicits a collective cry from fans all over the world: “Can we just skip this one?” At first glance, the Bucks-Pistons series, which has the Eastern Conference’s No. 1 seed going against a Blake Griffin-less...
Enes Kanter Saved The Blazers From Getting Swept For A Third Straight Year
One of the hallmarks of surprise wins in the NBA is when the last player a team expects comes out of the woodwork with a sudden burst of talent that they’ve never displayed before and causes all sorts of pandemonium with their presence. For the Oklahoma City Thunder on Sunday, the unexpected spoiler...