nikola Page 15 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

How many firing squads can Carey Price turn back?
The Montreal Canadiens aren’t quite as chained to their history and tradition as the rest of the hockey world (including yours truly) likes to joke about. They can never escape it, and nor should they. it’s the MONTREAL CANADIENS, for fuck’s sake. But the drawn-out pregame ceremonies and insistence ...

This is what the Blackhawks have always been
It’s probably a story that you’ve heard a million times by now if you have any sports leanings, but it needs emphasizing. In the spring of 2010, the Chicago Blackhawks were the center of Chicago. Not just Chicago sports, but Chicago. It was a meteoric and shocking rise, simply because three years be...

What to know for the upcoming Olympic Men’s Basketball Qualifying
As the NBA playoffs continue, 24 national teams across the world are vying for the final four open men’s basketball Olympic berths. The tournaments will run from June 29 through July 4 in Canada, Croatia, Serbia, and Lithuania. ...

Jason Kidd's hiring in Dallas totally won’t backfire
What has Jason Kidd done to earn a third opportunity as head coach of an NBA franchise? I’m legitimately curious. All he did in his one year with the Nets and three and a half with Milwaukee was win one playoff series while consistently underperforming and failing to win a single division title. The...

Deandre Ayton showing he is worthy of his No. 1 overall slot
Three years in, and you could already safely assume that the ‘18 class will be one of the best from their decade. ...

As expected, ‘The Process’ failed
When Keyzer Soze infamously said, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist,” at the end of The Usual Suspects, he wasn’t just talking about the con he’d just gotten away with. He was also foreshadowing what Sam Hinkie would do to Sixers fans....

Well, these playoffs took some unexpected turns in the past week
Less than a week ago, the second round of the NBA playoffs seemed like it was on its way to wrapping up quickly, with the 76ers and Nets looking far superior to the Hawks and Bucks, the Suns on the verge of sweeping the Nuggets, and the Clippers down 2-0 to the Jazz with no answers for Utah’s abilit...
![What the hell?! Now CP3 tests positive for COVID, as walking-wounded playoffs roll on [Update]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/151bc5ab8f372d8331fe5dc47b17fd47.jpg)

NBA needs to reevaluate these flagrant-foul rules
The NBA must reconsider the definitions of these fouls. ...

Man, do the Cubs need to shut up
I’ve documented how on the field, the Chicago Cubs are quickly becoming one of the stories in Major League Baseball. This is a team that had been partially stripped for parts by its owner (even though he’s tried to duck that in recent days like the coward he is), who also left the roster high and dr...

Stop the Bubble slander
The Denver Nuggets are down 3-0, meaning no team who reached the NBA’s Final Four in The Bubble has won a game past Round 1, and one of them didn’t even do that. But these four teams — the Nuggets, Los Angeles Lakers, Miami Heat, and Boston Celtics — shouldn’t be diminished for accomplishing what th...

Wheat, chaff, separation, etc., in NBA’s second round
It’s beginning to look a lot like a short second round of the NBA playoffs after the Suns rolled out to a 3-0 lead on the Nuggets with a 116-102 win in Denver on Friday night, behind 28 points from Devin Booker and a 27-point, eight-assist night from Chris Paul....

What happened to all the NBA’s best playoff heel teams?
The NBA playoffs have featured excellent basketball as players who have been on the rise as stars in the league have battled to grab the spotlight....

Nikola Jokić will no longer be overshadowed by a burrito
It’s safe to say that Nikola Jokić is no longer an afterthought to some tasty Mexican fare. ...

THAT is exactly what the Suns need to keep doing
If your entire starting five is at least a +12 or higher, then you’ll look like the Phoenix Suns did in their 122-105 Game 1 victory over the Denver Nuggets last night. And their balance is precisely why they have the edge on a shorthanded Nuggets roster....

Road warrior Kawhi Leonard joins NBA elite with season-saver in Dallas
If you were watching Game 6 of Clippers-Mavericks on Friday night, you heard about a hundred times how there’s never been a series in the NBA where the road team won the first six games — until now, since Los Angeles notched a 104-97 victory behind 45 points from Kawhi Leonard....

Devin Booker goes off, joins rarified NBA royalty in slaying L.A.
The NBA has a superstar that not enough people talk about as being in the top tier of league talents, but last night he showcased that he belongs. On the road, to close out the defending champions, Devin Booker went ballistic — he dropped 47 points (a playoff career-high), 11 rebounds, eight three-p...

If only playoff hockey could just be playoff hockey and not these garbage hits
When hockey fans tell you, and they will tell you, that playoff hockey is the best thing in sports, what they’re imagining is that every game, every series, looks like Game 2 of the Avalanche and Knights. The thing is, of course, it doesn’t, and a lot of series are just noisy slogs as coaches really...

Nuggets/Blazers is so much more than just Jokić vs. Lillard
Nikola Jokić and Damian Lillard are doing exactly what they’re supposed to do....

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 ...