sports Page 466 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Wheat, chaff, separation, etc., in NBA’s second round
It’s beginning to look a lot like a short second round of the NBA playoffs after the Suns rolled out to a 3-0 lead on the Nuggets with a 116-102 win in Denver on Friday night, behind 28 points from Devin Booker and a 27-point, eight-assist night from Chris Paul....

Jacob deGrom is deBest, but can he stay healthy?
Jacob deGrom is incredible, that’s nothing new. Friday night, the best pitcher on the planet had his third game this season with double-digit strikeouts and no walks, lowering his ERA to 0.56 with six innings of one-hit ball against the Padres....

Cool take: Four hours is too much baseball
Ryan Butcher started the 10th inning for the Diamondbacks in their game against the Angels on Friday night, with Jared Walsh serving as the courtesy runner at second base. But it was another of baseball’s unnecessary and irritating new rules that really wound up causing trouble for Arizona....

There will never be another game like MJ's ‘Flu Game,’ and that’s a good thing
Twenty-four years ago today, Michael Jordan played in Game 5 of the NBA Finals against the Utah Jazz while being — as the band Disturbed would say — down with the sickness after getting food poisoning from a pizza delivered to his hotel room the night before by five randos. ...

Vandy’s Kumar Rocker has no more use for college hitters
It’s so unfair, man. ...

With Julio Jones shipped to Titans, a look back at the memorable receiver deals and who won them
Julio Jones isn’t the first big name wide receiver to be traded. In fact, of the top skill positions on the offensive side of the ball, I feel like marquee receivers get moved more than any other position. Whether it’s due to contract disputes, diva personalities, or clashes with coaches, it’s alway...

HEAR ME OUT: The infield fly rule is dumb and needs to be done away with
Last night’s Astros-Red Sox game had everything. There was a divisive fan moment before the game when a kid called Alex Bregman over under the guise of wanting to get a picture only to pull the rug out from underneath him and call him a cheater. There were six lead changes — more than any game since...

Kawhi’s gonna have to do it again
This 0-2 hole, in some ways, isn’t as dispiriting as the previous round’s seemed to be for the Los Angeles Clippers. ...

Euro 2021: Joachim Löw might wish he left before last call
We all know it’s hard to leave when you can’t find the door. But sometimes you pay even more when you ignore the door that was right there....

Pandemic hockey giving us something to build on
The cool fact about the NHL’s semifinal round is that while the Islanders and Lightning are meeting for a trip to the Stanley Cup Final for the second straight year, the other series pits the Canadiens against the Golden Knights, a matchup featuring the largest gap between inaugural seasons in leagu...

Giannis Antetokounmpo, Mike Budenholzer, and the Bucks are maddening
Ever heard the term, “work smarter, not harder?” Well, the Milwaukee Bucks haven’t, as they love to make simple things complicated....

Nazem Kadri cost the Avs everything
Hockey is a truly vicious sport, in that the team that wins the Presidents’ Trophy — i.e. the team that is best over the largest sample size — rarely “justifies” that achievement in the playoffs. You have to go all the way back to the Hawks in 2013, another shortened season, to find a team that was ...

Hear me out: If Chris Paul is a winner, why hasn’t he won anything?
Remember Cars? Yesterday was the movie’s 15-year anniversary. In the 2006 film, after a full season of third-place finishes, a racer — Chick Hicks — is asked to compete with the top two racers for a chance to win the championship. That’s a plot hole that has bugged me for the last fifteen years. Why...

Bruce Arians: 'If you want to go back to normal, get vaccinated'
Though the NFL is somewhat divided, Bruce Arians has a very simple idea as to how he could see things returning to normal....

Stop making nonsensical ‘Build a roster with $10’ thingys
You know what I hate? I hate seeing those grid posts on social media that give you a certain budget to create a lineup. Seriously, I don’t understand the point of them at all. Those websites should really stop posting these things....

A 12-team playoff won’t change the fact that the same schools win every year
Well, ladies and gentlemen, it looks like a 12-team college football playoff format could be on the horizon. ...

Mom makes MLB catch of the year
Is there anything a mom can’t do? It’s an overused phrase, I know. But it’s pretty true. I’d like to imagine that someone, somewhere, actually has a list of all things the super-moms can do out there. Now, it’s time to add, “mom bare hands foul ball with baby in hand” to the file....


Pete Alonso has no problems with sticky stuff, but big problems with MLB
Break out your tin foil hats, because we’re diving into the Major League Baseball conspiracy well. All the talk around baseball’s proverbial water cooler lately has been about pitchers using sticky substances to increase their grip on the baseball. However, according to 2019 NL Rookie of the Year, P...

LeBron reminds us of other greats who wore multiple numbers on the same team
After a tumultuous 2018-19 season with the Los Angeles Lakers, LeBron James tweeted this out, passive-aggressively declaring his intentions to change his number to six....