At least once during this World Championship tournament, Kevin Durant needed a game where he just went HAM on the comp and dropped ruthless buckets. Yesterday’s quarterfinal against Russia was that game. With “1972″ written on his sneakers — an ode to the ’72 USA Olympic squad that got famously screwed against Russia — Durant scored 33 points (11-19 FG) in another convincing win that was actually close for about a half until the U.S. broke it open and won by 10 to advance to the Final Four. Read More »

Kobe Bryant ruled the basketball kingdom in 2009: NBA championship, Finals MVP, official status as one of the greatest players of all-time. With his game and his fame having never been at higher levels going into the 2010 season, what else did Kobe have to prove? In my interview from Dime #55 (Feb. 2010), the Black Mamba talked about legacies and legends, months before he would add a fifth ‘chip and another Finals MVP in last night’s Game 7 victory: Read More »

OK, so it’s safe to say Vince Carter is back. After a terrible month of January that would’ve made bigger headlines had the Magic had been losing, Vince ran off two straight 20-point games over Super Bowl weekend, then last night he exploded on the Hornets like Shane Diesel at a cougar convention … Vince got going early, scoring seven of Orlando’s first 12 points after tip-off, but was fairly quiet the rest of the first half as the Magic got picked apart by Darren Collison (27 pts, 9 asts, 4 stls) and David West (27 pts) and gave up 70 points by halftime. The defense tightened up in the second half, though, and Vince went nuts. He finished with 48 points, six threes and zero dunks. Read More »

David Stern knew better than to seriously compete with the NFL conference championships on Sunday, putting only three games on the NBA schedule. And good thing the Vikings lost, because if Brett Favre had made the Super Bowl, the media hype over the next two weeks might lead the NBA to suspend their operation altogether until after the entire world hopped off Favre’s jock. Peyton Manning/Drew Brees — plus some Kim Kardashian sprinkled in — we can deal with; a 24-hour, 14-day Favre love fest would be too much to handle … The Mavs faced the Knicks at MSG, and, well, Dime reader JHUSTLE can explain it best: “Aight Dime the next post has gotta be how my Mavs just destroyed the Knicks by 50. FIFTY POINTS???!!! Woooooooow just burn the Garden to the ground after that one. That team should be ashamed of themselves. That’s a 2K10 score, not a real life NBA game score. SMFH.” … Read More »

Whatever was said between Allen Iverson and the Philadelphia front-office brass when the two sides met in Dallas yesterday, A.I.’s case for joining his old team was no doubt strengthened by what happened when the Philly players ran into the Mavericks that same night. Starting Jrue Holiday at PG and Willie Green at SG, the Sixers backcourt was looking real thin while getting dominated by 36-year-old Jason Kidd (22 pts, 11 asts, 6 rebs, 4 stls, 3 blks) in every facet of the game and hit up by Jason Terry for the game-winner … Read More »