playoffs Page 46 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Report: Klay Thompson Tore His ACL
Klay Thompson taking a nasty fall in Game 6, limping into the tunnel, then turning around to get back on the floor and drain his free throws was about as heroic as basketball gets. The Warriors guard even told head coach Steve Kerr he’d be back after a two-minute rest, only to leave the arena on cru...
We Must Remove Mark Jackson From NBA Broadcasts Post-Haste
There is the constant travel and the dreary tape-eating research and the broader long-season ennui and the oppressive non-negotiable formalwear, and all of that is unpleasant. All the bleak hotel club sandwiches and the time away from family and periodically having to go to literally Phoenix and the...
Go Ahead And Get Upset About Kevin Durant's Injury
After a rapid and opaque rehabilitation from a strained calf, Kevin Durant’s return to Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Monday was cut short by a devastating injury. Everyone on the Warriors seems both stricken and kind of confused about who to blame; journalists like The Athletic’s Tim Kawakami who wrot...
One Sequence Choked The Life Out Of The Bruins
Game 7 and thus the Stanley Cup Final ended in a 2:34 stretch in the third, and, on one level, Brayden Schenn’s goal to put the Blues up 3-0 was anticlimactic. Yes, it put the game functionally out of reach for the Bruins. But what it really meant was a stoppage in play, and so was the first time w...
Lift Stanley And Play "Gloria"
The St. Louis Blues are Stanley Cup champions. Say it to yourself, because no one’s ever been able to say it before. Swish it around in your mouth like a sommelier, picking out notes of gratification, bliss, and disbelief. Do not spit it out, because when you win the Stanley Cup, you keep drinking. ...
Kyle Lowry Deserves No Slander This Time
Just to get this out of the way: Draymond Green got his fingers on the ball. The one body who guards two bodies like perhaps no other player in NBA history did it all over again. Green denied Marc Gasol the ball by fronting, then scooted out to poke Lowry’s potential game-winner behind the backboard...
There's Nothing Quite Like Draymond Green At Full Speed
Draymond Green’s curse (well, other than the invisible backpack) is that no matter how good he gets at basketball, the most immediately and undeniably impressive basketball feats, the truly unmistakable displays of superhuman ability, will never be available to him. He will never pour on the hailsto...
Who The Hell Knows How This Ends, But At Least It's Not Without A Fight
Nope, I have nothing for you. I cannot explain how the Golden State Warriors won Game 5 of the NBA Finals, and neither can any of you. A team in tatters refused to shred, and it remains obstinate in the face of a hockey team’s list of injuries. This is almost not at all about the Toronto Raptors any...
The Raptors Blew It
Coming close hurts all the more when you can quantify just how close you came. One shot, or one missed shot, or one call the other way, or ... one timeout? The Raptors came oh so close to winning a championship Monday night, and it’s not the one-point final margin that’ll stick in craws and steal sl...
Success Spoiled Golden State Warriors Fans
A year ago, Steph Curry told SLAM how grateful he was that Oakland had embraced him “as one of their own.” He’s done his part, there: tons of local charity work, putting Oakland on a shoe and then giving 30 of them away. All of which is to say that he could likely tell you more about the town other ...
Report: Kevin Durant's "Expected" To Play Game 5
The Golden State Warriors are facing elimination, but Kevin Durant, who hurt his leg a month ago, isn’t a sure thing for tonight’s game against the Raptors. At today’s practice, head coach Steve Kerr wouldn’t say anything beyond calling his player a “game-time decision” for Game 5 of the NBA Finals....
Oh No
Subscribers to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s saw this in Sunday’s e-edition, hours before the Blues played (and lost) Game 6. Science says there is now approximately a zero percent chance the Blues win the Cup....
Charlie McAvoy Made The Save Of The Series
Ignore the 5-1 final score. Far from a blowout, Game 6 had the feel of a rain-swollen reservoir. With the Blues one game away from their first Cup in franchise history, and 18,000 fans screaming so loudly that NBC didn’t even have to juice the crowd mic, and another 30,000 watching on screens outsid...
Tuukka Rask And The Bruins Spoil St. Louis's Party, Force Game 7
It certainly feels fitting that the first two of the Bruins’ goals in Game 6 came via some very visible influence from the referees. Not in any controversial way, for the record, but every Boston fan who believes in karma must surely feel that their 5-1 victory on Sunday night was preordained, afte...
Ivan Barbashev Is Suspended For Game 6 And The Blues Will Miss Him
When the Blues try to raise the Stanley Cup Sunday night, they’ll do so without forward Ivan Barbashev, who was given a one-game suspension by the NHL’s Department of Player Safety for a high hit on Boston’s Marcus Johansson. Given the tenor of this series and what the Blues are trying to do (and ha...
The Raptors Are The Warriors Now
Recency bias is a hateful but dominant force in the best-of-seven world, so the clear assumption to be made from Game 4 of the NBA Finals is that Game 6 seems unlikely. The Toronto Raptors are the new Golden State Warriors, and the Golden State Warriors are finally all about the trailing step, the a...
Kawhi Leonard Took Over And The Warriors Couldn't Do A Thing About It
The Warriors as currently constituted are “merely” a great NBA team. In just about any other context, it’s peak roster construction. A couple of all-world shooters, a couple of bangers down low with shots of their own, a scattering of role players each with their own specific skills, and an overall ...
It's Downright Spooky How Ryan O'Reilly Is Always In The Right Place
The Ryan O’Reilly trade had a real “deck chairs on the Titanic” vibe when it went down last offseason. O’Reilly, who was depressed after losing so many games up in Buffalo, went over to St. Louis in exchange for three replacement-level players and some draft picks, and as the Blues struggled to win ...
Again? Seriously?
I’m tired. Of officials blowing big, important calls in the playoffs, mostly, but also of having to write blogs about them that try to say something more intelligent than well, it’s bad to get these calls wrong in such big moments, but also being an NHL official is a difficult job and even the best ...
Blues Benefit From Controversial No-Call To Take 3–2 Series Lead Over Bruins
The St. Louis Blues won Thursday night in Boston, 2–1, to take a 3–2 lead in the Stanley Cup Final. If Game 5 was the last hockey game of the season in Boston, the lasting image of the home finale will be trash raining down on the ice as furious Bruins fans expressed their displeasure with the way ...