the-nba-playoffs Page 4 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Once again injuries crashing NBA Playoffs party
Curse thou, NBA playoff injury bug. Why dost thou mar a glorious display with your vile presence and wretched sting?...

NBA Playoff ratings were on fire opening weekend, but that’s not the only way to define the league’s success
Television ratings are one of the most archaic ways to measure what people care about. We’re more than 20 years into the new millennium. Who has time to be held to a live television schedule? I remember as a child watching an episode of Home Improvement when Tim “The Toolman” Taylor was trying to av...

Well look here, the NBA got smart and finally hired social media’s favorite sports broadcaster
Imagine attempting to run a necessary errand before the start of Monday’s first playoff game. It’s the only time that you have during the day to complete this task. You scramble, get it completed and head home safely, but also with purpose, to get home and see as much of the first game as possible. ...

This Kyrie Irving situation is why Adam Silver should allow players to respond to idiot fans
For once, Kyrie Irving is right....

Ranking the NBA’s first round matchups by how likely we are to see an upset
The NBA’s playoffs are easily the most predictable of the major American sports leagues. Without the variability of baseball or the single playoff game format like football, it’s pretty rare that there are any true upsets in the first round of the NBA playoffs. In most years you look at the bracket ...

Boston vs. Kyrie, can everyone lose?
The NBA playoffs have tossed up enough good matchups to keep the first round interesting, even though the NBA usually leans chalky around this time. There weren’t a lot of great games this weekend. The first two on Saturday weren’t bad as the Jazz and Timberwolves got road wins. The Bulls kept thing...

Unlikely heroes lead way to start NBA playoffs
The stars were out for the first day of the NBA playoffs, with Donovan Mitchelll scoring 32 points to lead the Jazz to a 99-93 win in Dallas, Karl-Anthony Towns putting up 29 points and 13 boards to lead the Timberwolves to a Game 1 upset in Memphis, 130-117, and then Tyrese Maxey scored 38 points f...

Women tries, fails to glue herself to NBA floor
The animal rights protestors never fail to keep us entertained (remember when they wanted to rename the bullpen in baseball?), and Glue Lady is no different. Late in the second quarter of the play-in game between the Timberwolves and the Clippers last night, the cameras cut away from a Minnesota fre...

Kawhi Leonard was seen at a Clippers practice and there is absolutely a chance it changes the NBA playoffs
A ghost was spotted at the Los Angeles Clippers’ practice yesterday afternoon....

The top 10 clutch scorers in the upcoming NBA Playoffs
The NBA playoffs are just around the corner, and we’ve got tight races in each conference heading down the stretch. Most top teams are usually led by players who can take a game over, especially in the fourth quarter/crunch time. Some players have been left off the list for various reasons like inju...

This Kyrie situation is starting to feel like the Mayor of New York is trying to beat him in a game of one-on-one
I know this is March Madness and NFL Free Agency season, but the NBA Playoffs start in less than 30 days. That last, and most entertaining, mile of the NBA season, but maximum entertainment value is only achieved if all of the stars are playing. That appears to still be in jeopardy with Kyrie Irving...

Another day, another injury for the Los Angeles Lakers
Health doesn’t appear to be in the cards for the 2021-22 Los Angeles Lakers. Anthony Davis had just returned from a 17-game absence due to a sprained MCL. He was back in the lineup last Tuesday and the Lakers defeated the Brooklyn Nets — sans Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and James Harden — 106-96. Th...

Shaq punching Kyrie Irving would be like a grizzly bear mauling a weasel
Shaquille O’Neal is stirring up trouble again with his comments stemming from a recent episode of The Big Podcast With Shaq. While discussing Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving and his part-time player status, O’Neal casually stated that things would get physical if he and Irving were on the same team...

Dominique Wilkins is owed an apology and the only asterisk I’ll accept in sports
Dominique Wilkins is owed apologies from a lot of you people. ...

‘Malice at the Palace’ documentary is a reminder of the damage that coded language can cause
“I’m never talking about this sh*t again. Can you get that on camera?”...

Deadspin fixes NBA free agency, Part VI: The Sleepers
This isn’t a best of, and it can’t be; we don’t even know who will be available by the time this goes up. ...

Team USA takes out all its frustrations on Iran, but it’ll only get tougher from here
OK, look, Team USA wasn’t losing to Iran....

Olympics are confirming what we already knew: NBA officiating is trash
It’s safe to say at this point that the USA men’s basketball team has not lived up to its expectations. The team consists of some of the best players in the world, and yet, despite the abundance of talent, Team USA continues to fall short against lesser opponents. No matter what head coach Gregg Pop...

Forget Paris 2 - A Harden Day’s Night
The new Space Jam movie is coming soon, but James Harden has beaten LeBron James to the box office with a mid-1990s NBA film tribute of his own....
![This Tokyo Olympics is fine [Update]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/6c788899524642490434cc71d5a70b0c.jpg)
This Tokyo Olympics is fine [Update]
The Olympics shouldn’t be happening during a pandemic that continues to wreak havoc across the globe, but we’re well past the point of no return on that, so on we go — just knowing that COVID-19 is going to be as prominent at the Tokyo Games as Simone Biles and Katie Ledecky....