The Miami Heat have not lost two consecutive games since January. What happens to them if they drop Game 2? I’ll tell you: They run the risk of becoming mental midgets in Game 3 and then getting swept out of the NBA Finals next Thursday night. Should we expect that to happen? The folks who have 25-1 odds on a San Antonio sweep certainly hope so, but there is still a long, long way to go in this series. [Read more…]
LeBron James’s 18 points, 18 rebounds and 10 assists were not enough to defeat the San Antonio Spurs in Game 1 of the 2013 NBA Finals, but can we expect more from? Should be expect more from him? Do the Heat need more from him? Moke Hamilton doesn’t seem to think so. He joined the Fred and Ted Show with Fred David and Ted Johnson on CBS Houston’s 610AM and reflected on Game 1. [Read more…]
Shane Battier was benched in Game 7 against the Indiana Pacers. Will he re-emerge as a key component for the Miami Heat, or will his minutes be handed over to Norris Cole — perhaps the only guard on the Miami roster who has the speed to defend Tony Parker end-to-end? And for the San Antonio Spurs, there has been a lot of talk about championship experience. But when you look a little deeper, that argument doesn’t hold water. [Read more…]
… because they won’t choke on the grandest of stages at the grandest of moments. They are mentally incapable of laying the type of egg that the Indiana Pacers dumped on us all last night. There are more reasons, detailed below — both in print, and in the video below with CineSort’s Noah Coslov. [Read more…]
Everyone on planet Earth has one thing in common today, as we do every day: We are all getting older by the moment. Jason Kidd’s retirement makes that truism hit home a little more, because I have become friendly with Kidd over the years through covering him since he came out of Cal as the kind of freakish point guard the likes of whom had rarely been seen before. When players you have covered for years upon years announce retirements, it
I’ve got the Heat winning Game 7 tonight, then moving on to the NBA Finals and losing to the San Antonio Spurs in 7 games. I’ve had Heat in 7 all along, as have staff columnists Jan Hubbard and Andy Kamenetsky. [Read more…]
Even if you are not a fan of the Indiana Pacers or the Miami Heat, tonight’s Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals is Must-See TV. Each team has three stars, though the Heat’s Big Three (might we need to change that name after what we’ve seen in this series?) have historically outshined their counterparts on the Pacers (Paul George, Roy Hibbert and David West) in terms of polularity and mass appeal. [Read more…]
I was watching Game 3 with my dad a few nights ago when he made the observation that he thought LeBron James is a better player than Michael Jordan was. It was quite a mouthful from the old man, who has been around long enough to have seen Dolph Schayes play in person, but I had to stop him in his tracks. “Let’s wait and see. Jordan was an assassin. Jordan won six titles. LeBron has won one title, not six. James has