Don’t let the story of the boy who cried wolf affect how seriously you take the Josh Smith trade rumors circa 2009. Granted, we heard the same thing on a bi-weekly basis for the entirety of the off-season last year: the Hawks want to get rid of Smith because he’s been a difficult guy in the clubhouse, but he’s not that much of a problem that they’re willing to sell him on the cheap.

The fact that this is the second year in which the rumor popped up on first day of the offseason says something about the situation. Read More »

Facing elimination, Dirk Nowitzki played like Video Game Dirk last night. And not just because his numbers were ridiculous (44 pts, 13 rebs), but because video games can’t account for things like heart and nerves and a conscience, there was no trace of the big-game/crunch-time meltdown Dirk critics had come to expect. He was closer to a machine in the fourth quarter, scoring 19 in the quarter including the go-ahead bucket on a pretty fadeaway over K-Mart. Read More »

Game 7 of Hawks/Heat ended up being a(nother) blowout, but it at least offered a helpful reminder of how small the margin for error can be in the playoffs. Early in the second quarter, Atlanta was up by two in what had been a back-and-forth game. Then Flip Murray hit a wide-open three off a scramble for a loose ball, Joe Johnson drained a trey from one step behind the arc, then J.J. pulled up for another triple waaay behind the arc. In the course of about one minute the Hawks went from up being two, to being up 11, and after that it was just target practice. Read More »

Are the Hawks just ultra-confident that they’ll win any Game Seven in their own gym? Because with a chance to eliminate D-Wade and the Heat last night, ATL came out, as Mark Jackson put it, like they had some kind of cushion. True, the Hawks were essentially missing two starters (Al Horford out; Marvin Williams played five minutes), and generally they were not a good road team this year. But execution and effort are two different things … Read More »

With the remaining NBA teams approaching the 90-game mark, almost everybody is playing through some kind of pain. Going into tonight’s schedule, here’s the latest injury update: Read More »

Mondays are all about decisions. And this week there are serious, serious, decisions to be made. The playoffs are a coming and you need your roster and starting lineups on point. This week has plenty of injury risks in it and as long I had a decent back up, there are only a few of the risk starts that I would actually make. Read More »

You all know the saying: Everybody in the NBA makes a run. But damn, can nobody hold a fourth-quarter lead anymore? Over the weekend it seemed half the League’s games involved teams blowing leads in the final minutes—some as big as 15 to 20 points. Last night was no different, as even one of the League’s best individual finishers saw his team fall apart down the stretch. In Miami, D-Wade (41 pts, 7 rebs, 9 asts, 7 stls) had the Heat up by 11 midway through the fourth after he picked off a pass intended for LeBron (42 pts, 8 rebs, 6 threes) and threw down a breakaway reverse jackknife. Right after that, though, LBJ and Mo Williams (30 pts) took over, sparking a rally during which the Heat went 2-for-17 and lost the lead in the blink of an eye. With Cleveland up three and about 40 seconds left, LeBron delivered the dagger when he re-created his monster dunk from the Celtics series last year; turning Jamario Moon into James Posey and J.O. into KG. Forget the score at that point; LeBron punched it so hard, Miami’s spirit would have been broken even if it only put the Cavs ahead by one … Read More »