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
The referees for tonight’s Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals are Danny Crawford, James Capers and Marc Davis. Their assignment is to call two fouls on Roy Hibbert within the first 90 seconds. Just kidding. But let there be no doubt the Miami Heat will do their best to attack the basket and draw fouls on Hibbert tonight as the series shifts back to Miami tied 2-2, because the Heat’s best plan of attack is to neutralize the one player who
Lionel Hollins, whose contract is about to expire, may very well have coached his final game for the Memphis Grizzlies. And he may have sealed his fate months ago, not mere hours ago when his Grizzlies were swept out of the playoffs, when he said you can’t have champagne tastes on a beer budget. [Read more…]
When was the last time you saw Udonis Haslem have a game like that? The oft-criticized Miami forward had his best game of the entire season — and the postseason — in shooting 8-for-9 from the field and scoring 17 points, leading the way during Miami’s 70-point first half as the Heat regained control of their Eastern Conference finals series with Indiana by crushing the Pacers 114-96 Sunday night in Game 3. Haslem’s previous season-high was 13 points — done once in
This is the “I Have a Dream” column – or the I had a dream column, to be more specific. Six hours of sleep are in the books as I awake this Saturday morning with a feeling of hope bordering on euphoria. I watched the Miami Heat lose a game last night, and tomorrow night I may watch them lose again. The old rule says there is no cheering in the press box, with the exception of cheering silently for your
Indiana Pacers coach Frank Vogel is taking a ton of heat (pun intended) today for removing Roy Hibbert from the lineup for the final play of Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals last night when LeBron James made a driving layup at the buzzer in overtime for a 103-102 victory. And make no mistake, Vogel made a mistake — he even admitted as much in the postgame interview room. But what about Paul George, who would have been the hero of
That has been my pick all along, and I repeated it today in this video with Noah Coslov of CineSport. [Read more…]
Two things to watch for tonight in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals: A little more (maybe a lot) of Tony Allen defending Tony Parker, and a lot more production from Zach Randolph, who goes to his right about as often as Rachel Maddow. The Spurs did an exceptional job of keeping Randolph from hurting them in their decisive Game 1 victory, but the Grizzlies and coach Lionel Hollins have shown themselves masters of making the correct adjustments as the