pie Page 12 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Phil Mickelson tries to justify joining LIV tour (again), fails (again)
Phil Mickelson is facing the golf media in the lead-up to this weekend’s U.S. Open, and suffice it to say: it isn’t pretty. It’s not that the LIV press conferences have exactly gone easy on the defecting golfers, but the press has faced more moderation and censorship from people who have also been p...

It’s time for the yearly symposium on whether this is finally it for the Penguins
This is yet another distasteful side effect of the NHL’s salary cap. Fans and observers of a certain team, especially a successful one, have to start judging just how much sand is left in the hourglass. They have to weigh the age of the best players, salaries of those players, when contracts run out...

We're seeing an NBA coaching reformation
If the success of Boston’s Ime Udoka and New Orleans’ Willie Green has taught NBA ownership anything, when it comes to hiring coaches, it should be out with the old, in with the new. These two rising coaching stars stepped into dysfunctional messes, with Udoka trying to bring together a team that wa...

Failure to capitalize: Washington out in first round for fourth-straight season
The Washington Capitals just pissed away their first-round Eastern Conference series against the Florida Panthers. The President’s Trophy winners were on the ropes in three straight games. And the Panthers won all three of those postseason contests in succession, two in overtime and one after traili...

Can we get a more bingeable NBA Playoffs, please?
As we near the halfway point of the NBA Playoffs, it’s a good time to take inventory of what’s working, and what’s driving viewers to dive for the mute button any time they hear Lizzo’s “Now here go!” at the top of that commercial for cruise ships. While I could do an entire post about how I’d rathe...

The Warriors’ wild ride
It feels like yesterday that everyone hated the Golden State Warriors, save for those living in Oakland. It was one of the few things NBA fans agreed on in unison. When the Warriors signed Kevin Durant in 2016, he temporarily broke the NBA. The Warriors had already won a championship in 2015 before ...

A Knights' fail
BWAHAHAHAHAHA! Look at these dumb fuckers! They’re $10 million over the salary cap and still couldn’t finish in the top three of a division full of fuckwits and bindle-carriers! They couldn’t finish ahead of the Kings! The Kings who are led by Anze Kopitar and Drew Doughty, whose tires are so bald t...

Take Your Pick: The 32 best NFL first rounders at each draft slot since 2002
The NFL Draft is all about predicting the future. There are countless guesses as to which players will fit in a certain system or what position groups have the deepest talent pool that could affect where the league trends down the line. In preparation for those hypotheticals, most will look back at ...

The Nets are so weird
And thus ends yet another attempt by the Brooklyn Nets to skip the line and crash into the NBA penthouse. Actually, “another Nets experiment” sounds a little more apt. Because the Nets, the Brooklyn version, have always felt like one....

Maybe Jack Eichel just isn’t that guy
If you’re trying to blow your own face off and fall down a sewer for comedic effect instead of securing a playoff spot, you’d have to give the Vegas Golden Knights an Emmy for their performance last night. Needing just about every point they can get to pass the Dallas Stars for the last wildcard spo...

Is Karl-Anthony Towns still ‘the man’ in Minnesota?
After three pitiful playoff games, on Saturday Karl-Anthony Towns put together the best game of his brief playoff career, finishing with 33 points and 14 rebounds on 47 percent shooting. And wouldn’t you know it, the Timberwolves won the game, tying the series at 2-2. Much has been written about Tow...

Ranking the top postseason performances in Miami Heat history
Jimmy Butler had a memorable Game 4 against the Milwaukee Bucks on Monday, dropping 56 points in a 119-114 victory over the No. 1 seed....

Here’s a solution for college coaches pissed off at the transfer portal
College coaches griping about the transfer portal and NIL deals turning college athletics into the Wild West is the new salmon crudo, aka a dish that’s so popular and served so often that Padma and Tom made fun of its omnipresence during an episode of Top Chef....

And we all thought Barcelona was done big-game hunting
We didn’t really get as big of a window to laugh at Barcelona as we thought or hoped. Proving the life lesson that you need to celebrate anything worth celebrating at that time and that place or you’ll miss the opportunity. Barça is roaring in La Liga right now, all the way up to second after winnin...

We forgot about Trae
Led by Trae Young, the Atlanta Hawks began this season with more buzz than the city’s best lemon pepper wings. They were a quality young League Pass team who’d matured into an Eastern Conference heavyweight overnight. The 2021 postseason served as the setting for Young’s glow-up from empty calorie s...

Kevin Durant says Dirk Nowitzki is the best shooting big of all time, but it's actually Kevin Durant
I’m not surprised that Kevin Durant has a great deal of respect for Dirk Nowitzki’s game. Prior to Dirk becoming one of the best players in the league, all the basketball players who were bigger than most of the other basketball players were scoffed at for not playing with their back to the basket. ...

I MF’d Barcelona
There’s no hiding, not after yesterday. Not after Barcelona, just months ago the biggest figure of fun in world soccer, waltzed into the Bernabeu, and kicked eight different kinds of shit out Madrid to the tune of 4-0. It could have been 8-0 or 10-0. It probably should have been 5-0 or 6-0. This was...

The Golden Knights are running out of racetrack
Normally, a team five seasons out from its creation fighting for a playoff spot would be a mark of success. They’ve built and grown over four years, taken their lumps, accrued draft picks and developed their own, and were starting to see the first signs of something real. But nothing is normal about...

Tiger bests Lefty again, wins PIP initiative
Sorry, Phil — Tiger might be out of the game for now, but you’re still sitting at second best....

Mike Zimmer fired partly for saying what Minnesota Vikings still refuse to admit
Wait, there’s still a debate about the quarterbacking abilities of Kirk Cousins? I thought we were past this, like the, “Is Joe Flacco elite?” argument. Apparently, new Minnesota coach Kevin O’Connell will continue living out a Twitter argument in real time....