off Page 160 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
A Timely And Exhaustive Preview Of The 2018 NBA Playoffs
Ah, casual sports fan: We meet again. The 2018 NBA playoffs begin this afternoon! How the hell will you know what is going on in the games, other than like a bunch of sweaty dudes bouncing a ball and throwing it through a pair of rings, if you don’t have some 10,000 words of preview and analysis to ...
Unleash Playoff LeBron
Fifteen years on, you could hardly be blamed for being desensitized to LeBron James. You and me and everyone else that plays with real and fake MVP votes at the end of every NBA season know how boring monotony can get, and so we stitch together some selective, season-specific argument sort-of-provi...
Okay, Confirmed, Evander Kane Is A "Playoff Player"
In his ninth season, in his fourth city, Evander Kane had played 574 games without ever making the playoffs. (That was just five games shy of Carolina’s Jeff Skinner, who now has no real challengers.) So when Kane earlier this week called himself a “playoff player,” he was talking style, not experi...
Good Lord, Filip Forsberg, This Is Sorcery
Filip Forsberg scored twice in the third period of the Predators’ 5-2 win over the Avalanche in Game 1 of their first-round series tonight, but forget about that first goal for now, because his second one was truly gorgeous. It’s unclear how exactly he managed to keep track of the puck here in order...
Capitals Collapse, In What Is Surely Not An Omen Of Things To Come
Maybe it’s just me, but it felt easier to talk myself into the Capitals this playoffs. They’re still a very good team, the thinking went, but without the pressure of the Presidents’ Trophy—which they won the past two years—maybe they could learn from experience and surprise people by avoiding the in...
The Bruins Whupped The Leafs, But The Ugliness Is Just Beginning
Despite one truly beautiful goal from Toronto’s Zach Hyman, the Bruins easily dispatched the Maple Leafs at home in the first game of their opening-round series tonight, winning 5-1. Boston looked good doing it, too—they closed the night with four straight goals, including this third-period highligh...
Winnipeg's Been Waiting A Long Time For This
It had been 22 years since a Winnipeg Jets team won a playoff game, and that wasn’t even these Winnipeg Jets. That was a different franchise altogether; it’s in Arizona now. This Jets franchise, including its time in Atlanta, had never won a playoff game. But before a crazy, popcorn-erupting, whited...
This Is What Playoff Hockey In Vegas Looks Like
The Vegas Golden Knights, the expansion NHL team that somehow won its division, were the best story in hockey this year. ...
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...
Should A Sports Hall Of Fame Have A Maximum Capacity?<em></em>
Before we get into the Funbag, I wanna talk about pizza, specifically this tweet I sent out while I was less than sober: ...
Geoffrey Kamworor Raced Ten Miles, Then Ran A 13:01 5K<em></em><em></em>
The first three quarters or so of this weekend’s IAAF World Half Marathon Championships in Valencia, Spain, were cagey and uneventful, as the runners hung out and watched each other while being buffeted by powerful gusts of wind. Then, with about six kilometers left to go, two-time defending world c...
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...
Baseball Hall Of Fame Retires Chief Wahoo Before The Cleveland Indians
Cleveland Indians legend Jim Thome got a well-deserved first-ballot Hall of Fame nod this year, and after some apparent discussion, as well as a specific request by Thome, the slugger will go in on a plaque bearing the Cleveland “Block C” logo, rather than the “Chief Wahoo” Native American caricatur...
A Neat Playoff Idea: Let The Top Seeds Choose Their Opponents
Credit goes to the Maple Leafs announcers on TSN for bringing this to my attention tonight, even though it was decided on at the start of the season, but here is a fun idea to mix up the playoffs from the Southern Professional Hockey League:...
Someone Stole World Championship Rings From The Hockey Hall Of Fame
A dastardly thief walked into the Hockey Hall of Fame and stole two rings donated by recent Hall of Fame inductee Paul Kariya, the CBC reports. Was this the work of the Canadian villain the Puckburgler? Perhaps!...
Nick Young's Irrational Confidence Almost, Kinda, Sorta Works
Nick Young did not come close to making this shot. Not remotely. But he played it off as if he did, and sometimes that’s all you need. Announcer Bob Fitzgerald fell for it, hard. ...
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...
Report: Part Of Solution To NBA Player-Referee Acrimony Is Cutting Out The League Office
ESPN’s Brian Windhorst reported Saturday night on a meeting held between representatives of the NBA players’ union and members of the referees’ union, to discuss the ongoing and escalating hostility between the two groups this season....