At least you can say this about Amir Johnson: he can laugh at himself. The Raptors big man recently got a chance to throw out the first pitch at a Toronto Blue Jays game and showed why you’ll probably never want him to come anywhere close to your baseball team… or Wiffle ball team… or little league team. Read More »

We feel like we’re at a basketball buffet this time of year. Between conference tournaments and early NBA games, we could easily have our fill by 7 p.m., and yet there we go, back for seconds and thirds as the night goes on. Given that many choices it truly means something when a game can hold our attention and Miami’s 21st win in a row, 107-94 over Milwaukee, kept us zoned in. Read More »

The Heat-Clippers showdown got undermined in the last three weeks by Chris Paul‘s hurt kneecap and a flu strain that made most Miami players sick before the game. Still, even with the whole Clippers roster (Jamal Crawford had 13 points, Paul had 3 and Blake Griffin had 13 in their respective returns) mostly healthy, shorthanded Miami bludgeoned its way to a rout made almost unwatchable it was so lopsided if it weren’t for LeBron James’ hypnotizing skills. Read More »

Celtics vs. Knicks felt like not just a big game, but a priority. This was appointment viewing after the trash-talk episode that landed the last Celtics-Knicks game on the front page of every sports page in the country. Read More »

On Sunday, the Knicks were looking to Chris Copeland (22 points) to guide them early harder than someone lost looks for the North Star. The “other” guy in the Knicks’ recent starting five hit his first three threes in rapid fire to keep his team afloat in the first quarter and got another bucket before the first quarter was over. Read More »

The NBA is synonymous with style. Whether it’s the prime kicks the players are rocking or the clothes they’re wearing before games, after games or on red carpets, basketball and fashion have teamed up more and more as the game has achieved a larger prominence in American popular culture (bizarrely, this has all happened under the dictatorial watch of David Stern, but that irony is a post for another time). With all that being said, NBA players aren’t limited to just the clothes and accessories most people associate with style. They’ve also used their own bodies to showcase individuality that can be lost when everyone is wearing the same uniform on the court. Read More »

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Damian Lillard is the best thing about Portland right now – and that includes its legendary breweries. It would be a big upset to see playoff basketball in the Rose City come May, but the rookie point guard is what is keeping that city’s hoops hopes from wilting altogether. Read More »

Of the strange scenes going on in Portland on Monday night during Trail Blazers-Raptors, Amir Johnson‘s tussle with referee David Jones easily wins as most bizarre. Mind you, this was a game where Luke Babbitt dunked over Ed Davis going baseline and the Blazers won despite shooting 0-for-20 from three-point range — the worst mark in league history. Read More »

If you checked out Miami’s 101-92 win against the Hawks last night, then you probably heard this statistic more than once: Atlanta had not allowed a single team to shoot above 50 percent against them all season. Impressive. Fittingly, they went into South Beach and got blitzed by 58 percent shooting from the Heat, including big nights from LeBron James (27 points, six missed shots), Dwyane Wade (26 points, two missed shots) and Norris Cole (10 points and zero missed shots). Read More »