I don’t think anyone was questioning the Miami Heat’s chances coming into the playoffs. After cruising through the regular season with 66 wins, highlighted by their ridiculous 27-game winning streak, they were able to come into the postseason with very few criticisms. No crippling injuries, no team controversies, and no glaring weaknesses makes them an easy choice to repeat. Read More »

Tony Allen is a great defender, earning another All-Defensive First Team selection this year (his second-straight selection to the First Team). Besides adding that shutdown mentality on the wings, the former Celtic also enhances the Grizzlies with a little bit of “crazy.” Every great team needs that. Read More »

Defense wins championships. Over the years, the same concept is continuously preached… all the while Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Michael Jordan rule the world with unmatched offense. However, in the end over the past 25 years, that theory has been proven correct more consistently than not. Read More »

Reggie Jackson might be the only person alive who doesn’t miss Russell Westbrook, and while OKC is struggling to cop with it, he’s been doing what he can. In the Thunder’s Game 3 loss, Jackson posted 16 points and 10 boards and had a few of the game’s nicest highlight. Read More »

While the ghost of Derek Fisher nearly won this game for Oklahoma City — seriously, the Grizzlies probably expected anything else before expecting Fisher to go for 19 points — Kevin Durant was undeniably the best player on the floor. Read More »

There’s a first time for everything, and in yesterday afternoon’s matinee in San Antonio, we saw an injured star player attempt to coach a playoff team through 140 characters. Anxious that he can’t be out there helping his teammates, Kobe Bryant took to Twitter with the same aggressiveness he usually shows on wing isolations. Not everyone was feeling it. Read More »

With the 2012-13 NBA regular season over and the playoff standings set, it’s time to dissect the first-round matchups. From team vs. team to player vs. player to front-court vs. front-court, here are the top-five most interesting matchups for the first round of the NBA playoffs. Read More »

On a day that saw the last of Rasheed Wallace, as well as the NBA’s regular season, we saw the first of something else: the first NBA player to hit 270 three-pointers in one season. Stephen Curry broke Ray Allen‘s record last night in Golden State’s 11-point win over Portland, and while it took him longer than one quarter, as Jarrett Jack originally joked, the 6-3 guard still got it done. Read More »

The NBA is notorious for having a small number of teams with realistic championship expectations. While nearly half of the NFL can claim to be in the running, the NBA normally only has a handful of true contenders. The Heat, Thunder and Spurs have all established themselves as frontrunners to be playing into June, but there is another interesting group below them of teams that have shown the capability of playing with the elite. Read More »

In theory, these first-round matchups could all be null soon. The reality is that in the Eastern Conference, three teams are tied for fifth, at 14.5 games behind Miami. In the West, just 3.5 games separate sixth from ninth. Read More »