BROOKLYN – Portland Trail Blazers coach Terry Stotts doesn’t run any crazy offensive scheme. He just tries to get the most out of his talented players. Often this season, that has meant letting his shooters shoot with the rest taking care of itself. So far, that has been a major key to the success of the NBA’s hottest team. It seems simple, but in a sporting landscape where coaches like to exert influence or control, sometimes giving individuals freedom can get
NEW YORK- One of the last things you want to hear from an NBA team is acknowledging a lack of effort, but that’s exactly what you got from the New York Knickerbockers on Saturday night. It came from the coach. It came from the players. The malodorous negativity wafted through the Knicks’ locker room after a 110-90 loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Saturday night. It was New York’s fifth straight loss at home as the Knicks fell to 3-6 overall. “We’re
The result of the game Thursday night was almost secondary to what happened behind the scenes in the cavernous tunnels of Madison Square Garden. Unhappy with his role and the lack of playing time, Omer Asik reportedly asked for a trade at some point before the Knicks and Rockets took the court, as broken by Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle. [Read more…]
The first thing you notice watching the undefeated Indiana Pacers is their intensity. More than the other seven teams this writer has seen in person this season, Indiana plays hard and aggressive basketball for 48 minutes. Indiana remained unbeaten at 8-0 after Monday’s 95-79 home win over Memphis. “We are just trying to play our style of basketball,” Pacers forward David West said after Indiana’s hard-fought 96-91 win over the Nets on Saturday in Brooklyn. That tough, tenacious style includes going hard on every
The first thing you notice watching the undefeated Indiana Pacers is their intensity. More than the other seven teams this writer has seen in person this season, Indiana plays hard and aggressive basketball for 48 minutes. The Pacers did that again Saturday night – its fourth game in five nights- and came away with a hard-fought 96-91 win over the Nets at Barclays Center to go to 7-0 on the season. “We are just trying to play our style of basketball,” Pacers
It’s exactly 10 days into this NBA regular season, it feels like 10 weeks for those who cover the league on a regular basis, and a whole hell of a lot has already happened. Few things have gone as expected, of course the undefeated start for the Pacers is an exception, and surprises abound across the league. Here are 10 that immediately came to mind, including a pair of dazzling young point guards, one major market team in big trouble and
BROOKLYN – Through three regular season games, Alec Burks led the Utah Jazz in points per game (18.0), two-point field goal percentage among players who took at least one shot per game (57.6), offensive rating (107), win shares, win shares per 48 minutes (.131) and PER (19.2). Sounds like someone who should start for a rebuilding team like the Jazz, no? Yet the 12th overall in the 2011 draft has yet to start a game in his NBA career. Why? “He’s deserved to start
There’s no question the New York Knicks have a lot of really good players other than Carmelo Anthony. But without J.R. Smith in the lineup for the first five games, they lack a quality second option on offense in order to succeed against the league’s better teams. Who knows? The Knicks may end up struggling even when Smith returns from his season-opening five-game suspension. On Sunday night at Madison Square Garden, the Knicks struggled mightily in the first quarter, when Minnesota raced