Brian Shaw won five championships in Los Angeles with the Lakers, three as a player and two as an assistant coach. Clippers general manager Gary Sacks likes him, and Lamar Odom has endorsed his hiring. Makes sense, right? Well, nothing ever completely makes sense with the Clippers, where Donald Sterling rules the roost. [Read more…]
MIAMI – The Miami Heat knew they could not go to San Antonio down 2-0, and as much as the Spurs wanted Game 2, once it started to get away from them it simply snowballed into a blowout. [Read more…]
We know the Miami Heat have to be better in Game 2 of the NBA Finals on Sunday night. But can the San Antonio Spurs be better? The Heat’s issues have been well-documented. LeBron James needs to be more of a scorer. Role players such as Udonis Haslem and Norris Cole have to contribute more than the collective 6-of-15 showing they managed in the opener. [Read more…]
MIAMI – Nobody is talking about LeBron James’ triple-double this morning. We have come to expect as much from The King. The question of the day Friday, in the wake of San Antonio’s Game 1 victory in the NBA Finals, is whether we should have expected better from every single member of the Miami Heat in the fourth quarter. When you shoot 5-for-18, that ain’t gonna get it done. When your five field goals are matched by your five turnovers, that ain’t gonna
Shane Battier was benched in Game 7 against the Indiana Pacers. Will he re-emerge as a key component for the Miami Heat, or will his minutes be handed over to Norris Cole — perhaps the only guard on the Miami roster who has the speed to defend Tony Parker end-to-end? And for the San Antonio Spurs, there has been a lot of talk about championship experience. But when you look a little deeper, that argument doesn’t hold water. [Read more…]
… because they won’t choke on the grandest of stages at the grandest of moments. They are mentally incapable of laying the type of egg that the Indiana Pacers dumped on us all last night. There are more reasons, detailed below — both in print, and in the video below with CineSort’s Noah Coslov. [Read more…]
I’ve got the Heat winning Game 7 tonight, then moving on to the NBA Finals and losing to the San Antonio Spurs in 7 games. I’ve had Heat in 7 all along, as have staff columnists Jan Hubbard and Andy Kamenetsky. [Read more…]
Chris Paul is being blamed for the dismissal of Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro and isn’t happy about it. Paul has spent the last two seasons with the Clippers, which not coincidentally have been the best back-to-back seasons in the history of the once-woebegone franchise. Now Paul is approaching free agency, the timing of which at the root of the blame. Is he ticked off enough to leave the Clippers over it? [Read more…]