As the season winds down with the playoffs set to begin one week from tomorrow, players and teams are starting to feel more tension and desperation. It showed on a Thursday night that featured 11 technical fouls, five flagrant fouls and three ejections in three games with teams jockeying for playoff positioning. We start with the Miami Heat, who extended their winning streak to five games as they beat the league-leading Chicago Bulls 83-72. Despite missing Chris Bosh and Derrick Rose, the game
Steve Nash and the Phoenix Suns were far from playoff contention heading into the All-Star break. Since the beginning of March, however, they have turned a corner, compiling an 18-10 record and are just a half-game behind the Utah Jazz for the eighth seed in the Western Conference. Phoenix (32-30) looks to bounce back from a loss and stay squarely in the playoff picture as they host the Los Angeles Clippers in Thursday’s best game on TNT. They defeated the Clippers in the
There were so many games last night (14) in the NBA, your fingers go calloused from switching the remote and your brain got scrambled by considering all the playoff possibilities. Bottom line: There are still eight nights left of regular season basketball, a lot can happen over those eight days, and we need to find a way to give you a synopsis of what’s up. To do that, we’ll focus today on the teams with 32-30 records. There are three of them, they
The Dallas Mavericks are clinging to the seventh seed in the cramped Western Conference playoff race. A loss tonight would inch them closer to being the first team since the 1997-1998 Bulls to miss the playoffs after a championship season. Relating further to those Bulls, the Mavericks are also working with a shortened lockout season. Dallas (34-28) looks to avoid that dubious feat and snap a two-game skid as they try to sweep the season series against the Houston Rockets for the second
… and don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. Hey, gotta try to one-up the Sixers’ fans, right? In the city where they once booed Santa Claus, the patrons were not quite so delighted last night. And they let the home team know about it. The Philadelphia 76ers were booed off their home floor in their final home game of the regular season Tuesday night, a 102-97 loss to the Indiana Pacers that cut their lead over
The San Antonio Spurs are healthy and playing their best basketball of the season as they gear up for the playoffs. They sit atop the Western Conference by percentage points, and a win tonight would provide a 1/2 game lead over the idle Oklahoma City. However, the team has been unable to solve one team in their recent meetings: the Los Angeles Lakers, who they play again in Tuesday’s best game. The Spurs (43-16) hope to avoid a fourth consecutive loss to the
Monday night’s triple-overtime thriller in Salt Lake City simply was one of the best games of the season. It was a three-hour commercial for why League Pass is worth every penny and Exhibit A for why I walk away laughing when some fool tries to explain why the college game is better than the NBA. We will get to that game in some detail. But the first matter of discussion is the Houston Rockets, whose late-season freefall gives North Korea’s space
