The second round did not start well for Miami. The Pacers looked to be more game for an East semifinal than Miami, the team with the MVP (LeBron) who’d just accepted the award before the game from David Stern. The building was loud, even by TV — and South Beach — standards. But it was like Indiana came out with Bose headphones on, with Roy Hibbert (17 points) and David West (17 points, 12 boards) knocking out all the noise and knocking down all the shots in the early going. Well, every drama needs three acts, and the second, an abdominal injury to Chris Bosh, beget a third, where James and Dwyane Wade took over and stole Game 1 in the process. Read More »

Although Chris Paul and Tyson Chandler stole the headlines, my favorite move of the 2011 NBA offseason was the Indiana Pacers signing free agent David West.

It wasn’t because the Pacers are my favorite team – honestly, since it’s no longer my job to watch the NBA every night, I’ve gone back to the neutrality that comes with waiting for the Sonics to return to Seattle – but because West-to-Indy made so much sense on so many levels: Read More »

If you tuned into Miami-New York from a vacuum, you’d have no idea the Knicks were 0-13 in their last playoff games. Carmelo Anthony finished with 41 points and edged New York to the 89-87 win over Miami to get the series to 3-1 (Even the ghost of Sacramento-era Mike Bibby was draining threes for the Knicks). Elimination was held off for one night for NY, but that didn’t mean Dwyane Wade didn’t erase one of Melo’s backcuts to the hoop with 3:26 left in the fourth. Read More »

Mike Bibby has always had some of the nicest player exclusive Jordans in the league. But last night, Dwyane Wade wasn’t feeling them. At one point, Bibby lost his shoe, and instead of leaving it be, Wade picked it up and tossed it down towards the Heat bench. Pretty funny. Read More »

The playoffs are basically 24 hours away, and you know what that means: hot new sneakers. Jordan Brand is set to release new playoff exclusive home and away colorways for the Jordan CP3.V, Melo M8 and the Fly Wade 2 EV. When Chris Paul, Dwyane Wade and Carmelo Anthony take the floor this weekend, they’ll be rocking these joints. Read More »

With only a few games left on the slate it’s looking like LeBron James will be our MVP for 2012. His main competition, Kevin Durant, has surrendered, recently quoted saying:

“He [LeBron] deserves all the love [for MVP], He’s playing phenomenal basketball. I’m just trying to get better every single game and trying to help my team as much as I can. I’m just blessed to be in that conversation.”

Here’s what the Top 10 MVP Candidates looks like today: Read More »

You see that? That’s what all those people in Boston and Minnesota used to talk about; what all those people in Utah still talk about. Last night, that was Al Jefferson showing his entire skill set, showing why he should be right up there in the discussion with Andrew Bynum and whoever else you think might be the second-best center in the NBA behind Dwight Howard … In a game the Jazz needed to win to clinch the final playoff spot in the West and eliminate the Suns from contention, Jefferson put up 18 points and 16 rebounds to go with four assists and two blocks. Read More »

Saturday morning, things looked pretty good for the Heat: All they had to do was beat the craptastic Wizards at home, and if the Bulls lost to the Mavs in a game that injury-racked Derrick Rose (head, shoulders, knees, toes) probably wouldn’t play in, Miami would be in prime position to snatch the No. 1 playoff seed in the East before the regular season wraps up next week … Saturday evening, it was a different story: D-Rose was cleared to play, and Miami’s plan to give LeBron and Chris Bosh the night off suddenly looked stupid when Dwyane Wade hurt his finger in the opening minutes and never returned. By the end of the night, Chicago had stretched its lead over Miami to 2.5 games, and shrunk the Heat’s margin for error down to zero … Read More »

Nothing gets us going in the Dime offices like a good ol’ fashioned debate, and the best debates are the ones that get heated. Trying to rate the best dunkers in the league is unanimously impossible. Do you want style? Force? Does a big man get points taken away? If a player is an epic dunker in warm-ups, does that count?

Back in the day, we had Vince Carter and there was no denying what type of dunker he was. But in the current NBA, outside of perhaps one or two guys, you could make a case for anyone. Read More »

Last night’s Heat/Bulls game got heated. As far as regular season games go, it was way more physical than usual and it’s pretty clear these two teams hate each other – a long playoff series between them would be incredible.

Rip Hamilton has been antagonizing opponents for years with his Reggie Miller-like schtick. Last night Rip used some of his old tricks to goad Dwyane Wade into giving him a forearm shiver to the chest. Hamilton’s WWE-level acting skills did the rest: Read More »