playoffs Page 132 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Here's A New Attempt At Gauging The Defensive Impact Of NBA Players
The defensive impact of individual NBA players is hard to measure, as it's so intertwined with their teammates' performance. Austin Clemens, undeterred, has taken an ambitious shot with his new Adjusted Impact by Court Location model, which attempts to parse out individual impacts on opponent shot s...
Even When The Spurs Lose, Gregg Popovich Wins
The Spurs may have lost to the Thunder last night, but Gregg Popovich continued to win his war against reporters who dare to ask him questions. ...
The Thunder Are The Thunder Again, And This Is A Brand New Series
I suppose we can go ahead and forget about the first two games of the Western Conference finals, which saw the Serge Ibaka-less Thunder getting swallowed whole by the Spurs while Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant did their best to fight off the inevitable. We can forget those two games because Ser...
Mic'd Up Patrice Bergeron Is A Must For Hockey Fans
Every hockey player should wear a microphone at all times. These wonderful exchanges—between P.K. Subban and Patrice Bergeron, and between Bergeron and referee Dan O'Halloran—show how your penalty (or no-call) sausage is made....
The Thunder Got Back Serge Ibaka, May Have Gotten Back Into This Series
Now this is more like it. When the Thunder announced they'd lost Serge Ibaka for the remainder of the playoffs to a calf injury, it seemed like we'd all miss out on another classic clash of age vs. youth, savvy vs. athleticism, creative offense vs. "dribble around, then someone shoot!" Ibaka's retur...
Ray Allen Capitalizes On Lax Pacers Defense With Superb Fourth Quarter
Ray Allen played a large part in allowing the Heat to break away from the Pacers Saturday night with four threes in the fourth quarter in a Game 3 win. Indiana's defense saw the three-point specialist as an afterthought, and he made them pay....
Boston Hockey Twitter: Not As Racist As Made Out To Be
After Montreal's P.K. Subban scored to beat Boston in game one of their series, there were two inescapable talking points: That the word "nigger" was trending in Boston (this was quickly debunked) and there had been 17,000 tweets containing the slur and Subban's name. Would it change your impression...
The Habs' Luck Is Real, And It's Spectacular
The Canadiens' 3-2 overtime victory in New York puts them right back in this series, a close-fought game that devolved into an absolutely wild final five minutes or so. Three goals in short succession sent it to OT then decided it—punch, counterpunch, sucker punch—and all three were deflections that...
Daniel Carcillo Gets Game Misconduct For Lashing Out At Linesman
Rangers forward Daniel Carcillo took an early exit from Game 3 after hitting linesman Scott Driscoll as Driscoll tried to pull him away from a fight....
Where Did The Kings' Offense Come From?
Through the Olympic break, the Los Angeles Kings were struggling for offense. Or, more accurately, they were struggling to get the puck into the back of the net—which isn't the same thing at all....
This GIF Is All The Spurs-Thunder Analysis You Need
This GIF has been making its way around Twitter this morning, and it's all that really needs to be said about what has happened so far in the first two conference finals games between the Spurs and Thunder. ...
Russell Westbrook To Kevin Durant: "Wake Up"
What we have here (via CJ Fogler) is an excellent opportunity for projection. A fairly innocuous exhortation from one frustrated player to another after a defensive lapse, but in the context of the Spurs' blowout, their 2-0 series lead, and Kevin Durant's and Russell Westbrook's shitty shooting nigh...
Boston Barely Honors Bet, Flies World's Tiniest Habs Flag At City Hall
Before the Canadiens-Bruins series, the mayors of Montreal and Boston made a friendly wager: The flag of the winning team would fly over the losing town's city hall. You know how that series went, so today, Boston paid up. The bare minimum, anyway. ...
The Secret Of The NHL's Greatest Call: Location! Location! Location!
Howie Rose was never one to use a canned line, but this called for something special, something that would convey the size of the moment. On May 27, 1994, as the Rangers clung to a 1-0 lead over the Devils late in the third period of Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals, words began to form in th...
Paul George Says He Blacked Out After Taking A Knee To The Head
NBA fans saw something they aren't really used to seeing during last night's game between the Heat and Pacers: a player lying motionless on the floor after taking a blow to the head....
Goaltending Is Not The Canadiens' Problem
The difference between an elite goaltender and an outright bad one really isn't that huge. The best goalie in the league is probably going to give you .925, maybe .930 over the course of a season. The worst regular starter is probably going to sit around .900 or .905. That's two or three extra saves...
It's Westbrook And Durant Vs. The World Now
The Spurs, because they are the all-consuming, unrelenting Spurs, did everything they were supposed to in their Game 1 matchup with the Thunder last night. With Serge Ibaka off the floor, they put their heads down and attacked the rim over and over again, scoring 66 points in the paint. They were in...
Carey Price Is Out For The Series
The Canadiens' chances of reaching their first Cup final since 1993 has suffered a major blow, after coach Michel Therrien announced that goalie Carey Price will miss at least the rest of the series with an injury suffered in a Game 1 collision with the Rangers' Chris Kreider. As you might expect, s...
Pacers Post-Game Live Shot Features Dude In "Fuck LeBron" T-Shirt
Spider-Man and a Pacers fan in a "Fuck LeBron" shirt made special appearances last night on WRTV, the Indianapolis ABC affiliate, during a live post-game shot following Indiana's 107-96 win over Miami....
Report: NBA To Overhaul Replay System
It's one of the more ominous sights in pro sports: three referees, huddled around the scorer's table for agonizing minutes, reviewing a crucial late-game on a tiny monitor. According to a report from the Sun-Sentinel's Ira Winderman, after next month, it'll never happen again....