In the first quarter tonight, Shane Battier and Manu Ginobili met up off a screen on Miami’s end. As you could’ve guessed, there was a flop involved. Battier is out here acting better than Keanu Reeves, somehow, someway making it look legit when he throws his legs out from under himself. He really should get fined for this, but in the end, you know that won’t happen. Read More »

Remember watching Tyrus Thomas during LSU’s run to the Final Four in the 2006 NCAA Tournament? The man was an animal, destroying top overall seed Duke during a Sweet 16 matchup and then hanging 21 points, grabbing 13 rebounds, and blocking three shots against Texas in a regional final. He went from being a complete nobody during the preseason to looking like a surefire NBA star. Read More »

In preparation for the start of this weekend’s NBA Playoffs, we thought that would be interesting to take a look at this postseason’s x-factors. While it is more conventional to say that Player X is the x-factor for their franchise entering the playoffs, you always need to dig a little deeper, go a little bit more in depth by taking a look at other specific variables within different team’s situations that have the capacity to swing a series. Read More »

If last night’s Thunder/Spurs game was a preview of the Western Conference Finals, we’d be more than ok with it. The Manu-less Spurs made the trip to OKC and fought valiantly, but still got a whole facefull of Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant buckets. The NBA’s top dynamic duo combined for 52 of the Thunder’s 100 total points in a 100-88 victory. Russ put in 27 (as well as seven boards and seven assists), despite playing 10 minutes less than KD (25, nine boards, six assists) … We’re not going to lie, after Durant dribbled through half the Spurs’ team and then hit San Antonio with a huge dunk, we 100% laughed out loud when TNT was going to commercial showing a replay and Reggie Miller yelled, “Mommmy has some things for daddy to do!” … Read More »

Not everyone can be LeBron James. That’s okay, especially in the playoffs when just as many big games are determined not by the last shot, but by the defensive rebound or the charge or the swing pass or the block that set up that last shot. The club of playoff x-factors is long and memorable, and we’ll see some more names be inducted this year. Read More »

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The Knicks only had 3-of-12 shooting by Carmelo Anthony (nine points though he did get 12 boards) and were on the road in San Antonio and yet New York went into Texas and still won, 104-100 to stay undefeated against all odds. And by against all odds, we mean Raymond Felton dropped 25 points, Jason Kidd kept up his torrid shooting by going 4-of-6 from three and the Knickerbockers had just five points in transition. Read More »

Shooting is tough enough with a hand in your face. But wait just a second, Miami’s players are saying: try shooting with no one near you. The LeBron James-Dwyane Wade-Chris Bosh trio is so good at bunching defenders together in one place that it’s leaving Heat shooters in a predicament few would consider a drawback. They’re simply too wide open. “You’re naked,” Shane Battier told the Sun-Sentinel today. Read More »

Kevin Durant‘s contribution to his new movie, Thunderstruck, has been interesting to watch evolve. Maybe the biggest reason for that feeling is that I just don’t picture KD as a guy with movie ambitions. Need him on set? He’s probably still at the gym hoisting his 500th jumper of his second shooting session of the day (conveniently, he plays a basketball player in the new movie). So the thinking began: Who else could make a surprising movie star — and do they have a role tailored for them? Read More »

*Incoming phone call by Dwight Howard* If you’re Rob Hennigan in your first two weeks on the job as Orlando’s GM, this is a call you don’t want to take. This is the call everyone knows where you just look at the ID for a couple seconds as you decide. Or, maybe if you’re Hennigan you’re psyched to take it because you have all this Oklahoma City front-office confidence and after all didn’t Howard just say he wanted to stay near Disneyworld? Yeah, he did say that last season at the trade deadline — and now, he’s told Hennigan he wants a trade to the Brooklyn Nets. ESPN’s Chris Broussard reported that news Saturday night and even if it’s a a walk back from his last stance, it’s not a surprise with Howard, you know? Read More »