On your mark, get set, go! Track meet, drag race, whatever analogy you like, the Western Conference finals between the top-seeded Golden State Warriors and second-seeded Houston Rockets should be played at a breakneck pace by a pair of teams who are attempting to change the paradigm of NBA offenses. During the regular season, the Warriors led the league in points per game, overall shooting and 3-point shooting. They were second in threes made and scored at least 110 points 40 times,
LeBron James is headed to another Eastern Conference finals, the Los Angeles Clippers are headed to another Game 7, and who knows where Tom Thibodeau is headed. With those in mind – and no games on Saturday night for the first time since the World Series – we thought it would be a really good time for another edition of the Three-Man Weave. Here we go. 1. Are the Cleveland Cavaliers home free into the NBA Finals? [Read more…]
Over the weekend, we saw a trio of buzzer-beaters from Derrick Rose, Paul Pierce and LeBron James win NBA playoff games. All three were certainly fantastic moments that ended intense, exciting postseason games. But before we get too excited about them, let’s consider these two factors. 1. The shots by Rose and Pierce were lucky. Yes, lucky. The next NBA player who actually tries to bank in a straightaway shot will be the first. Was some experience and skill involved in finding
Last summer, we ran a post detailing which players received the biggest raises in salary from the previous year. The list was made up of three types of players. A. Players who received maximum salary deals as their second contracts, such as DeMarcus Cousins. B. Former first-round picks who received sizable contract extensions, although not necessarily max deals, such as Larry Sanders. C. Second-round picks who had been making near league minimum and signed new deals, such as Lance Stephenson. The latter category has
With about two minutes remaining in Saturday night’s Game 7 between the San Antonio Spurs and Los Angeles Clippers and still no clear indication regarding which team was moving on and which team was going home, Tim Duncan gave himself a break from the magnitude of the moment and offered some candid perspective. The All-Star forward and face of one of the handful of NBA dynasties approached Doc Rivers, who was in his 12th Game 7 as a coach. With one
Twenty teams already are into their offseason and will be joined by two more this weekend. That means those teams already are looking at a free agent market that will be the last as we have come to know it. The projected salary cap for teams this summer is $67.1 million with a projected tax line of $81.6 million. The cap is rising more than 6 percent from last summer’s $63.065 million, which is actually a smaller increase than the jump
You could say I’ve been following the NBA for a while. The first game I ever attended was Game 3 of the 1972 NBA Finals, which featured seven members of the 50 Greatest Players – Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West, Walt Frazier, Jerry Lucas, Earl Monroe, Dave DeBusschere and Willis Reed, who was injured. It also featured Pat Riley and Phil Jackson, two of the 10 Greatest Coaches. I grew up in Brooklyn, which wasn’t wired for cable. You could watch whatever the
Everyone knows that the Eastern Conference is nowhere near as good as the Western Conference. But that doesn’t mean that the first round of the East playoffs won’t be compelling. As everyone knows, all you need is one road team to win to make a series interesting. Can the top-seeded Atlanta Hawks rediscover their rhythm? Did the Boston Celtics build confidence with two late-season wins over Cleveland? Is Chicago’s Derrick Rose returning to form or just an accident waiting to happen again? Do