playoffs Page 59 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Drake Cuts Sweaty Promo About How Raptors Fans Are Really Good At Following The Rules
The Raptors beat the Milwaukee Bucks in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals last night, and Drake, the Raptors’ rowdy uncle/human mascot, was not in the building. He was back home in Toronto, watching the game with thousands of Raptors fans in an outdoor square. He was so excited after the win t...
Raptors Defense Pushes Bucks To The Toilet's Edge In Game 5 Upset
The Milwaukee Bucks, the best team of the 2018–19 regular season and by far the best team through the first two rounds of the playoffs, find themselves in the deepest of caca following a 105–99 loss to the Toronto Raptors in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals. The Bucks will have to stave off e...
Drake Has Become The Rowdy Uncle Of The Raptors
“In the Six cooking with the wrist motion,” Drake rapped prophetically in 2015. “The Six” refers to Toronto’s area code. “Wrist motion” refers to the stress relief he offered Raptors coach Nick Nurse late in their Game 4 Eastern Conference Finals win....
Quit Smashing Giannis Into The Damn Wall Already
For a top-seeded team that rampaged through the regular season and the first two rounds of the playoffs at a nigh-historic level of dominance, the Milwaukee Bucks feature a dull-ass half-court offense. Often—dismally often—it’s just, well, this:...
The Blues Exorcise The Decades
The thing you have to understand is how big a deal this is. In the coming days, before and after the Stanley Cup Final begins on Monday in Boston, you are going to hear ad nauseam that this is the St. Louis Blues’ first finals appearance since 1970. That is true, and 49 years is a long, long time, b...
Fired-Up Raptors Thoroughly Flatten Bucks, Draw Even In Eastern Conference Finals
For the first time in this series and just the second time in these playoffs, the Milwaukee Bucks were roundly outclassed Tuesday night and fell convincingly, 120–102, to the Toronto Raptors to even up the Eastern Conference Finals. The Raptors grabbed a slim first-quarter lead and spent the rest of...
The Blues Took The Sharks Off Life Support And Advanced To The Stanley Cup Final
Game 6 of the Western Conference Finals followed the exact same template as the last two games in this series, as the Blues got out to an early lead and kept it, eliminating the banged-up Sharks in front of an uncontainable home crowd whose force almost rivaled the storms outside. St. Louis earned t...
Counterpoint: A Little Scuffle Only Means The Sharks Are Ready To Shock The World
I have been a lifelong Sharks fan for at least two weeks, and if there’s anything my hours of fandom have taught me it’s this: Deadspin’s Barry Petchesky is wrong to underestimate the mighty Sharks....
Game 6 Just Got A Lot Tougher For The Sharks
The Sharks will not have Erik Karlsson or Tomas Hertl for Game 6 tonight, and Joe Pavelski is a game-time decision. By the low, low standards set by a disastrous Game 5, the news could be worse. Joe Pavelski could be definitely out instead of just possibly out and definitely hampered. Joonas Donskoi...
What's Left Of The Warriors Completes Sweep Of The Trail Blazers
The Golden State Warriors, minus Kevin Durant, minus DeMarcus Cousins, minus Andre Iguodala, completed a four-game sweep of the Portland Trail Blazers Monday night, overcoming another 17-point deficit, and another Meyers Leonard Game, and Draymond Green getting dunked through the planet and back out...
Tireless Steph Curry Helpfully Illustrates Seth Curry's Point
Seth Curry was careful to say the Warriors are “definitely not a better team” without Kevin Durant in their lineup—which, duh—but it is the younger Curry’s opinion that the Warriors do move the ball and themselves more, and more quickly, when they don’t have Durant around. Durant makes the Warriors ...
Kevin Durant Has Logged On
The biggest downside—or upside, depending on your point of view—to Kevin Durant’s clearly unmild calf injury is that he has more time to spend online. He was already extremely online, even if you’re only counting his main and not his dozen burners, but injured Durant has extra time to contemplate hi...
Kawhi Leonard Is Doing Everything A Player Could Be Asked To Do
Kawhi Leonard is no longer the defensive marauder he once was, maybe because he’s been saddled with Jordanesque duties on the other side of the ball. The Raptors’ sludgy tar-pit offense leaves Leonard no possession to catch his breath. Almost every trip down the floor, he’s relied upon to create som...
It Is Time For The Steph Curry Seth Curry Power Rankings
Three games into the Western Conference Finals, it’s time to update the Steph Curry Seth Curry Power Rankings. Things are getting awfully tense as the Currys play hard against each other. Their mom Sonya Curry even skipped her pregame cocktail because of the stress of watching them compete. Talk abo...
Well, That Was A Disaster For The Sharks
The Sharks seem pretty, pretty boned after Sunday’s 5-0 loss to the Blues, which gives St. Louis a 3-2 series lead. And it’s not even the whole verge-of-elimination thing; San Jose has faced that before, and they’re still here. But if they’re to complete another series comeback, and win yet another ...
This Is Probably As Likable As Draymond Green Is Ever Going To Get
The Golden State Warriors were able to overcome an 18-point deficit, and Meyers Leonard playing the game of his career, to take Game 3 from the Trail Blazers in Portland, 110-99. The defending champs now hold a historically insurmountable 3-0 series lead thanks to impressive performances from Steph ...
Introducing The Steph Curry Seth Curry Power Rankings
Two games into the Western Conference Finals, it’s time to unveil the Steph Curry Seth Curry Power Rankings. The Warriors beat the Blazers 114-111 on Thursday night, and both Currys played hard. Seth stole the ball from his big brother four times and added 16 points. Steph had 37-8-8. ...
Andre Iguodala's Hands Are Still Crazy
I’m not saying it’s a good thing that one of the top five basketball players in the world isn’t healthy enough to play in the Western Conference Finals, but without Kevin Durant (or DeMarcus Cousins, to a lesser extent), the Golden State Warriors lose a lot of the baggage they’ve picked up as the vi...
Well, At Least David Backes Is In A Cup Final
I’m sitting here trying to come up with a reason it’s not a total bummer that the vile Boston Bruins are in their third Stanley Cup Final of the decade after a 4-0 win to complete a sweep of Carolina, and, reader, I am struggling. (This applies to non-Bruins fans only, of course. For Bruins fans: Co...
Trail Blazers Solve Many Of Game 1's Problems, Still Narrowly Fall To The Warriors
The Portland Trail Blazers made a real contest out of Game 2 of their Western Conference Finals series against the Golden State Warriors. After getting blown out in Game 1, head coach Terry Stots rejiggered his lineups and—thank God—his defensive approach, and the result was a 15-point halftime lead...