Minnesota’s burliest player took over in the first half. Its smallest came through with a giant sleight-of-hand charge in the fourth quarter to ice the 99-93 win. Ding, dong, a pair of Thunder dozen-game winning streaks are dead — their overall streak, plus a 12-gamer just over the T-Wolves. The lesson: Good things happen when Nikola Pekovic scores 20 points — the Timberwolves were 5-0 when he hit that entering Thursday night, when Pekovic knocked down 8-of-12 shots in the first half alone for 18 points. He’d finish with 24 and 10. Read More »

Midway through the third quarter of their eventual 92-88 takedown of Memphis, Chicago opened up a 14-point lead as Kirk Hinrich went all 2004 on us. He had a few steals, a blocked shot, a layup, and started a number of fast breaks, all within a four-minute stretch. Eight minutes into the quarter, and Memphis already had seven turnovers while Hinrich was looking like Jimmy Chitwood. Read More »

NBA Summer League games begin Friday in Las Vegas, which is like the opening day of the NCAA Tournament for fans who can’t get enough of watching NBA prospects fighting for roster spots. Lottery players vs. undrafted nobodies, the guaranteed vs. the scrappy. It’s a preview of the next young crop of players who will shape the league. Off all the 23 teams and all of around 300 players involved who aren’t the top pick Anthony Davis, these are the top five most interesting players to watch. Read More »

Rece Davis: “We go to the stage now with the commissioner of the NBA, David Stern.”

“BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

David Stern: “Whoaaaaa (weird smile). Thank you for that warm welcome and good evening. Welcome to the 2012 NBA Draft.”

Ah yes, the annual booing of David Stern. Is there anything more emblematic of the NBA Draft than the antagonistic heckling of the NBA commissioner? Besides hats that don’t fit, excessive hugging and terrible questions from Mark Jones, no, probably not. Read More »

The 2012 NBA Draft has come and gone like Maybach Music Group’s Self Made 2 drop earlier this week. Billed as one of best drafts in recent memory, it didn’t provide the same kind of trade activity that all the pre-draft talk suggested. Nevertheless, the lack of major moves impacted the way the draft played out. Hell, David Stern, Adam Silver and the entire ESPN broadcast couldn’t even keep up with the rate Twitter was disseminating the picks at warp speed. Now GMs, teams and players have no time before they’re notified of how great or how poor their evening went. Read More »

Florida State’s Bernard James came into the Prudential Center on Thursday night with one of the NBA Draft’s most unlikely routes to arrive there. He left a part of one of its best moments. James, you see, served six years in the U.S. Air Force and even did three tours in Iraq, Afghanistan and Qatar. He never graduated high school, but he got some of the loudest cheers of the night from fans who knew his backstory. The fans were their typically quick-to-judge selves on Thursday, booing every Knicks pick and most late-rounders. But for James, the cheer of “U-S-A! U-S-A!” and the accompanying standing ovation was about an appreciation for his service. Read More »

Serge Ibaka is setting the precedent for shotblocking in the NBA. His 3.7 blocks per game this past season were the most since Theo Ratliff was swatting shots in Philly for the Eastern Conference champs back in the 2000-01 season. Ibaka is by far the best shotblocker in the league, but come Thursday, he may have some company.

Anthony Davis earned the No. 1 pick by leading Kentucky to a national championship with his defensive prowess and is heir apparent to the shot-swatting throne. But not all great shotblockers are drafted with a high pick. The aforementioned Serge Ibaka was taken with the No. 24 overall pick in the 2008 NBA Draft. Read on to see which trusty defenders are worthy enough to make our list of the Top-10 Shotblockers of the 2012 NBA Draft. Read More »