Take your pick on the storyline you want to cover before Thursday’s Game 7, but if you ask me, the biggest story that no one is talking about is that 16 of the 30 players in the NBA Finals are going to be free agents after the season. With that in mind, we break down the Top 10 free agents in the NBA Finals. Read More »

Trust, you won’t find anybody on the Celtics complaining about the NBA Finals 2-3-2 format. With a squad of veterans who probably need to play up-tempo every game to win this series, a long stretch at home is just what they need. It’s especially huge for Kevin Garnett, who struggled in L.A. (11.0 ppg, 4.0 rpg), but with a week’s worth of sleeping in his own bed and eating some home cooking, should see an improvement. And apparently the Celtics left Mike Finley behind in Boston for those first two games, so they can dust him off now … As for the defending champs, everybody is making this trip about Kobe and his legacy, but what they really need is for Lamar Odom and the bench mob to step up. Read More »

Not trying to take anything away from the Celtics and the completeness of their domination, but Boston’s win last night wasn’t nearly as interesting as Cleveland’s loss. You already knew the story line going into the tiebreaker Game 5 would be whether this was LeBron‘s last home game “deep in the Q,” but you also have to remember what city we’re talking about here. This is potentially one more year where Cleveland had a championship-caliber squad — the Cavs, the Browns, the Indians, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony — and something went terribly wrong on the way to what seemed like a certain ‘chip … Things were fine until the Celtics went on a 15-0 run in the second quarter, capped by Paul Pierce‘s and-one layup. Read More »

The Suns vs. Spurs is one of the most underrated rivalries in sports, and it even flies under the radar as an NBA rivalry. It seems that every year now we have a Spurs vs. Suns bloodbath to look forward to, although under different circumstances each time. Read More »

A couple days ago, I started drafting a column about the concept of shutting a player down for the season when he’s dealing with a lingering injury and his team is out of playoff contention. Exhibit 1A was going to be Chris Paul. As soon as the Hornets were mathematically knocked out of the postseason, if I were running the team, I would have sat CP and his not-100-percent knee. Read More »

Well, at least the Raptors video production crew is in playoff form. Twenty-four hours after losing Chris Bosh for at least the rest of the regular season, the “Who will step up?” video before last night’s Toronto/Boston game was a dramatic epic that put Jarrett Jack only slightly behind Morgan Freeman as a narrator, and almost had you believing Marco Belinelli and Amir Johnson are really gonna come off the bench like Marlon Wayans in The 6th Man and carry the Raptors to a ‘chip. Read More »

If nothing else, Northern Iowa needs to keep this run going so we can see how many more times Greg Gumbel butchers the name Ali Farokhmaneh. One of the 14 variations he had yesterday was pronouncing the kid’s first name “Aloof” … In case you missed it, Farokhmanesh is becoming the breakout star of the NCAA Tournament. After dropping the game-winning three against UNLV in the first round, the 6-foot senior delivered the dagger yesterday as the Panthers took out overall No. 1 seed Kansas. Northern Iowa was up by one with 40 seconds left when they broke KU’s full-court press and got it ahead to Farokhmanesh. Read More »

Carmelo Anthony did everything he was supposed to do against the Rockets on Monday, except win the game. All night long ‘Melo was proving why Clyde Drexler called him “probably the best — no, he IS the best offensive player in the game,” scoring 45 points on 18-of-35 shooting to go with 10 rebounds and only one turnover … ‘Melo was clutch in the fourth, dropping 15 of Denver’s 28 points and putting the Nuggets up double-digits. But next thing you know, Houston hit a few threes and suddenly it was a one-possession game. And every time ‘Melo seemed to stick the dagger, somebody would respond on the other end. Read More »

Too old. Too slow. By now it sounds like a recording for the Boston Celtics, but there’s a new problem beginning to surface that may be the real reason why this team is looking like a fake contender. Forget age and speed — these Celtics aren’t as hungry as they were in ’08 and ’09. During last night’s 20-piecing at home at the hands of the Grizzlies, the Celtics looked a lot like the UConn men’s team when they went through the motions before quitting in the Big East Tournament; maybe it’s something in the New England water … Rudy Gay (28 pts, 8 rebs) is exactly the kind of motivated thoroughbred giving Boston problems. Read More »

After three quarters of feeding the post and flexing their size advantage, the Lakers went back to their bread and butter when things got tense against Toronto: Give it to Kobe Bryant and vacate the premises … Midway through the fourth, L.A. was down on the scoreboard and in danger of losing their fourth game in a row. Predictably, that’s when Kobe (32 pts, 6 rebs, 6 asts) went to work. In the span of what seemed like a few seconds, he strung together a jumper and some free throws to turn a four-point deficit into a Lakers lead. A couple minutes later, Kobe put L.A. up four with a short baseline fadeaway. Read More »