Well, this series brings together two polar opposites. On the one hand we have the Miami Heat going for their three-peat, striving to get as close to perfection as possible before they move on to the second round. On the other hand we have the “just happy to be here” Bobcats, who have never won a playoff series in their existence and aren’t about to start now. The Bobcats are listed at 250-1 to win the championship, the same odds as the
The Wizards made us really, really upset on the final night of the regular season by moving up from sixth place to fifth place, denying us a rematch of last year’s Bulls-Nets series that went seven games and was won by Joakim Noah in his old home borough. Well, I guess it wasn’t the Wizards’ fault. All the Nets needed to do to lock up that matchup (and avoid the Heat in the second round) was beat Cleveland. Instead, they lost
Do they have to play this series? Do we really have to watch it and pay close attention? Look, we all know how bad the Leastern Conference was this season, and we all knew that there would be at least one bad team crashing the party. And the one we ended up with is an Atlanta Hawks team whose general manager, Danny Ferry, said a few weeks back that it really didn’t matter if the Hawks qualified for the postseason or
The twists and turns for the Brooklyn Nets and Toronto Raptors over the course of the regular season could almost rival those of the red and purple weddings on a certain Game show based in Westeros. Brooklyn had championship aspirations ever since it acquired Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett on draft night, but ended the 2013 calendar year at 10-21, with All-Star center Brook Lopez out for the season, and searching for answers under rookie head coach Jason Kidd. While Pierce
I was taping an appearance on the BBC the other day, which of course means that we were breaking everything down to the most basic of basics. “Will the Miami Heat three-peat?” was the first question. And you can’t blame the Brits for asking the same question everyone in the basketball universe is asking. (Aside from “Who will win the Andrew Wiggins lottery?”) Resisting the urge to use the words “bollocks” and “crikey” (keeping those in the vault), I dispensed my wisdom to
If you put together all the years of basketball journalism experience among the six writers listed below (OK, we’ll exclude Danny Schayes, but he DID learn a thing or two during his six or seven decades as a backup stiff center), you’ve got almost a century of combined veteran savvy. Yes, we are older than the Nets. And last year’s GeriatKnicks. Those of you who have been following this site since its inception more than two years ago know that Sheridan Hoops
This is the time of year where everyone and their mothers offer up a series of fearless prognostications about the upcoming NBA season. Here’s what I can tell you about my skills at predicting the future. If I was really any good at it, I wouldn’t be wasting it on the NBA season. And neither would anyone else. I am not reading tea leaves, interpreting tarot cards, gazing into crystal balls, holding seances, poring over analytics or buying classified information on the
It’s prediction time, and as I have always liked to say: Predictions are like armpits: Everyone has them, and all of them stink. Take it from a guy who picked Spurs in 7 last season. Yes, that one missed – but find me a guy who predicted that Gregg Popovich would have an extreme bout of cranial flatulence with the championship within his grasp at the end of Game 6, and then I’ll drop the armpit line. I still can’t get