Five matchups to watch on Wednesday’s 10-game schedule…

Detroit at Toronto: Pistons’ frontcourt vs. Chris Bosh Previously known as three of the Seven Dwarfs’ cousins, Ben Wallace (Buffy), Chris Wilcox (Lazy) and Kwame Brown (Fumbly) earned their money Tuesday by taking Dwight Howard completely out of Detroit’s upset win over Orlando. Read More »

With no more preseason games and just a few days until the NBA regular season starts, all that’s left to do is iron out some position battles and figure out who among the banged-up is healthy enough to suit up for Opening Night. There was an outside chance that Shaq, among others, would be suspended for the Cavs/Celtics opener after he left the bench during Mo Williams and Shelden Williams‘ altercation a few nights ago. But the NBA ruled that since the scrap happened technically at halftime, guys who left the bench won’t be punished … Read More »

Last year we debuted the “Highs and Lows” system — previewing the NBA season by predicting the respective ceiling and basement for each team. Same theme, different season…

Added: Ben Gordon, Charlie Villanueva, Austin Daye, Chris Wilcox, Ben Wallace, DaJuan Summers, Jonas Jerebko Read More »

The names and the teams may change, but NBA training camp is annually littered with position battles. This year, for example, you’ll have Steve Blake trying to keep his starting PG job safe from Andre Miller in Portland; Brandon Jennings and Luke Ridnour (and perhaps Ramon Sessions) fighting for top QB duties in Milwaukee; and in Washington, Nick Young, Randy Foye, Mike Miller and DeShawn Stevenson will vie for the starting backcourt spot next to Gilbert Arenas, while JaVale McGee and Fab Oberto challenge Brendan Haywood for minutes at center.

Most of the time, you can predict the winners fairly accurately before camp even opens. Not so much in Detroit. Read More »

Like we said in yesterday’s Smack, the NBA releasing its regular-season schedule shouldn’t be that big of a deal, but at the same time, it’s kind of hard to gloss over when there’s almost nothing else happening in the news. Dime’s Jeff Chen listed his Top 10 games to watch this season, but we’ve got a few more to add … Opening night, Oct. 27, will be headlined by Celtics/Cavs on TNT, followed by Clippers/Lakers, when Kobe and crew get their rings and the championship banner is unveiled. (You think Spike Lee won’t be there front-row to schmooze with his new favorite team? There’s a better chance Jack misses that game than Spike.) Read More »

As not to break my own “It’s just summer league” adage, I won’t get too excited about the fact that Roy Hibbert and Tyler Hansbrough are rampaging through Orlando right now for my Pacers like Robert Parish and Kevin McHale in ‘86 (with A.J. Price as their Dennis Johnson).

We’re still months away from the real games, from even beginning to determine whether Hansbrough will become the good pro I think he’ll be, or the Lottery pick bust his harsher critics think he’ll be. Read More »

It’s Armageddon over in Laker-Land. Clicking through the L.A. Times this morning, a couple things stood out. First was this bit on Andrew Bynum, whose postseason has gone pretty much the exact opposite of Rajon Rondo’s: Whereas Rondo went from X-factor to legit star over the last few weeks, Bynum has gone from supposed-to-be star to Kwame Brown Reincarnate. From Times writer Mike Bresnahan: Read More »

Remember when the Magic were stumbling at the end of the regular season, but we all figured they were doing themselves a favor anyway by conceding a top-2 seed and avoiding the Pistons? Well, Dwight Howard’s team wishes they were playing Detroit now. Orlando went down 2-1 to the Sixers last night, dropping Game 3 in Philly and joining the Spurs and Hornets in that “WTF, we’re supposed to be better than this!” semi-panic mode … Read More »

Last night you saw reasons A-thru-Z why — even with Manu Ginobili out of the picture — nobody wants to draw the Spurs early in the playoffs: Tim Duncan. Needing a win over New Orleans to secure the 3rd seed in the West and win another division title (a loss could have dropped them to 5th place), Duncan turned into the bad guy from No Country For Old Men in overtime. Read More »

When the Rockets lost to the Spurs over the weekend, one of their biggest problems was an overall indecisiveness and lack of an offensive identity in the fourth quarter, whereas San Antonio knew exactly who they were going to and what they were doing in crunch time. In last night’s double-overtime win over the Pistons, the Rockets had it figured out:Feed the ball to Yao Ming. Read More »