Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili and Danny Green weren’t in Miami for Thursday’s nationally televised game. After 36 minutes of the big, bad Heat playing neck-and-neck with the Spurs’ second unit, the Heat’s biggest star showed up in a big way to stop the messing around. LeBron James wasn’t a miracle worker all night — ESPN reported San Antonio’s motley crew outscored Miami by one in LeBron’s 39 minutes of PT — but in the final eight minutes he was like a conductor. Read More »

The second hand hasn’t slowed down yet for Father Time, Tim Duncan. The big shot hasn’t escaped his point guard, Tony Parker, either. Duncan showed up early and often, while Parker’s 13th and 14th points (he added 11 dimes) came on the game-winning bucket over an outstretched Serge Ibaka in San Antonio’s 86-84 win. Read More »

There are established patterns to winning NBA Coach of the Year. You either guide a team with high expectations to its expected goal, stun with an eye-popping turnaround out of the Lottery or take a team from the playoff fringe into a team no one wants to face in the opening round by catching fire. We’ll call them the Excellence’s Status Quo, Out Of Nowhere, or Next Step plans to earning respect, respectively. With the curtain being drawn on the 2012-13 season tonight, Dime is projecting the major awards all week, and today we look at the top coach. Read More »

Gregg Popovich is the Most Interesting Coach In The World. From his job monitoring Soviet intelligence to the small-market dynasty he’s coached in San Antonio, Popovich has the evergreen success, tenure and the temperament to not really care what most people (save for GM R.C. Buford) think about him. Thus, he gives great interviews — save that they’re not sideline talks between quarters (more on that in a second). In his appearance on 790 The Ticket in Miami Wednesday his most interesting answers came about Stan Van Gundy and the presidential debate. Read More »

It’s difficult to pinpoint the influence of an NBA coach on their team’s success without talking of winning percentage and titles. Even with that quantitative data, there’s no way to award one coach more props for leading his team to a title than another. Doing so is what Bill Russell would say was like “comparing ghosts.” Read More »

The life cycle of Tom Coughlin and Greg Schiano‘s midfield  feud Sunday over what is proper NFL end-game etiquette is just about over now. We’ve heard the defenses and the accusations and hashed out what exactly count as unwritten rules in football. The rarity of coaches tossing jabs at each other — I can think of just Jim Harbaugh vs. Jim Schwartz and Pete Carroll blasting Mike Bellotti — is still too good to let go entirely, though. Read More »

Ask Gregg Popovich about his golf handicap, and he’ll say he hasn’t hit a ball in over a decade. Ask him about his favorite music, and he’ll rattle off artists like Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Led Zepplin, Usef and anyone else not named Stak5 (err, Stephen Jackson). You can even ask him about his favorite beer, and he’ll answer, “Stroh’s. In the tall bottle.” Coach Pop has a dry sense of humor, and can sometimes come across as less loving than Bobby Knight. The last thing you’d expect from him is hyperbole. But here we are, at the end of August, and Popovich is calling Kawhi Leonard a future star. And he means it. Read More »

They’re our perpetual under-the-radar on-the-radar basketball sweetheart. We’re going steady with the San Antonio Spurs. A conversation about the Spurs is spoken out loud, and heads nod vigorously because we know. Don’t you love Tony Parker? Only if others knew his Value like we do. The Spurs are in the know, an anonymously revered work of art that only the cultured discuss in whispered voices. Read More »

Too soon? Maybe. Yesterday morning, we finished off Spain in a game that was entirely too close for comfort after Team USA smoked everyone else throughout the Olympics. Now, just 24 hours later, the gold medal celebration has worn off and we can start looking forward to 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Read More »

The last time USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo wanted to secure a coaching commitment from Mike Krzyzewski, he had a pizza and a bottle of wine with the Duke coach. After winning gold in 2008 in Beijing, Colangelo needed to get Coach K to coach again in 2012 to mirror the commitments many of the players had made. Colangelo joked with reporters that he’ll try the same meal again after London regarding 2016′s head coaching spot, but don’t think it’s a formality the 65-year-old will accept. Read More »