While searching for his missing watch in the couch cushions, Mike Breen finds a few surprises… Read More »

Miami’s pretty good when they put it together. The Spurs played perfectly through 24 minutes, and even got two ridiculous buzzer beaters from the same player, and yet it couldn’t stop them from getting completely stomped out on South Beach. After surrendering 63 first half points, the Heat responded with 71 of their own in the second half, LeBron and Bosh combined for 63 points and Miami ran away with the game, 120-98. Going into last night, the Spurs hadn’t won a road game all year. Miami had lost three in a row. One of the streaks had to end last night, and the Heat broke their visitor’s back. Read More »

On the opening day of the regular season, it was hard to pick a leading headline. Too many great games. Matchups. Players to watch. Championship-caliber teams. And it was all on Christmas, so you know everyone (besides the entire Dallas organization) was bringing everything they had for the national TV audience. But we weren’t sure any game topped the one smack in the middle: Chicago coming from behind in the final minutes to shock the Lakers, 88-87. Chicago gave us a new meaning for Chistmas stuffing by snuffing Kobe Bryant‘s (28 points, seven rebounds, six assists) baseline pull-up at the buzzer and stealing a game they had no business winning, down double digits in the fourth quarter, and then after being down six with 54 seconds left once Kobe made a miraculous spin move fallaway. Read More »

This is what happens when Jeff Van Gundy wishes upon a star… Read More »

Our Saturday started off as perfectly as possible with news greeting us as our alarm clocks rang that a tentative labor agreement had been reached, and that the lockout was finally, if unofficially, over. For now, we can’t completely invest ourselves in a new season – scheduled to be 66 games, starting on Christmas day – but pretty much everyone agrees on one thing: this deal will get approved and will get done. Book it. So who won and who lost? With the cancellation of games, everyone loses: the fans, the owners and the players. But as far as the approved deal, many of the leading names on both sides came out of this looking as good as they could’ve under the current circumstances. Read More »

While we might’ve seen this coming – the end of the road for Yao Ming – we weren’t ready for it just yet. Now the next phase in Yao’s life has all but begun. Gone will be the 20/10 nights. Gone will be the All-Star games. And gone will be any chance at a championship.

The focus has shifted to his place in history. Is he a Hall of Fame player? Some say he didn’t do enough on the court, and that should be the only thing that matters. Others say his overall impact was greater than probably half of the players already elected into the Hall of Fame. Read More »

Imagine this: Amar’e Stoudemire putting up elbow jumpers in the Holy Land. Kobe posting up in Rome after a stroll down the Spanish Steps. And most realistically, Deron Williams trading Russian billionaire for Turkish Delight in Istanbul. If D-Will is giving us good info, then this just might be the case – ever since, Williams announced his plans to migrate to the Turkish team, Besiktas, rumors have swirled about locked-out NBAers starting up a mass migration to Europe to play ball in 2011-12. Read More »

During Game 6 in Dallas last night, Jeff Van Gundy said “the best predictor of future behavior is prior acts.” (I went back to my DVR at midnight and fast-forwarded through almost the entire first half to find the exact quote.)

Why did I waste 30 minutes of my life searching for this?

Because Rick Carlisle has coached three teams in the NBA, and he always makes them better. A lot better (see the below graphic). Read More »

We’ve seen it far too often in the NBA. Corporate elites married to their BlackBerrys occupy the best seats in the house, relegating the beer-drinking, obnoxiously chanting fans to the inaudible back corners of the arena. At first it brought tears to my eyes, watching the heart of the NBA, the fans, being pushed away from the action. But now that it’s an undeniable facet of every NBA arena, we have to accept it. Read More »

OMG. LOL. WTF. LMAO. Seriously, what did we watch? How did that happen? One minute Miami was introducing the first ever NBA Finals Dunk Contest, and the next the Mavs were canning Js all over the place, erasing a 15-point lead in the final seven minutes and grabbing the win they absolutely had to have, 95-93, after Dirk hit a layup with just three seconds left. Was this the swing game? It’s too early to say. But one thing it did do was turn this jaunt from a coronation to a series. Read More »