BOSTON — From the beginning of the 2007-08 season until the final horn sounded after Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals against the Miami Hea last June, the Boston Celtics were encapsulated by the Big Three +1 of Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Rajon Rondo. If anyone needs a refresher course on what was lost when Ray Allen decided to head down to Miami to team up with Dwyane Wade and LeBron James, last night’s performance by the Celtics
When you are held together with duct tape and screws, your days of playing 82-game seasons are over. The Golden State Warriors knew this when they acquired Andrew Bogut from the Milwaukee Bucks last season, and now they are living with the consequences. Bogut will not play for the next 7-10 days, the Warriors announced Thursday. From their news release: “Warriors center Andrew Bogut will not play in any of the team’s games over the next 7-10 days in an effort to continue
// We can now safely say that James Harden has come back down to earth, missing two-thirds of his shots in each of the Houston Rockets’ last two games. He still is the only player in the NBA averaging more than 30 points (30.3), and he is shooting just a shade under 50 percent (.494) — although his 3-point accuracy is a mere 28 percent. He was certainly the buzz player over the first couple days of the season, even earning
Mehmet Okur, the first talented big man to make the move from Turkey to the NBA, has announced his retirement at age 33. Okur was never the same player after he ruptured his Achilles tendon in April, 2010. Though he returned to the court with the Utah Jazz the following year and played 13 games, and spent part of last season with the New Jersey Nets after the NBA lockout, Okur was not the force he once was. “A player of certain level should say goodbye to
There is only one undefeated team remaining in the NBA, and New Yorkers would be ecstatic about it if they weren’t spending all of their time on gasoline lines and on hold with Con Edison. In Miami, the Heat’s lopsided loss to the Knicks has already been written off, and they are penciling themselves into the NBA Finals — as is their right, sort of. Here’s the thing: The Knicks have been rebuilt to defeat the Heat with a combination of size,
Really? Thirty of these already? We started these about a year ago for two reasons. One was both editor-in-chief Chris Sheridan and yours truly both were big fans of The Spy List, which ran in Spy, a wonderfully snarky monthly magazine in the late 1980s and early 1990s. (It also did its fair share of good investigative reporting, by the way.) The other reason we began running these was NBA commissioner David Stern and union chief Billy Hunter were remarkably unsympathetic to
The Bobcats aren’t very good, but they are better than last year and do have a few fantasy-relevant players. Byron Mullens rewarded his owners with six 3-pointers, 24 points and 8 rebounds. Kemba Walker (17 PTS, 8 AST) had a nice line. The surprise starting SG was rookie Jeffrey Taylor, but he played only ten minutes; Ramon Sessions had 17 PTS and 9 AST off the bench and will continue to fill in for Gerald Henderson (sprained foot) for at
Fashion. The faux pas; the dos and don’ts. It all makes for great conversation. NBA athletes are generally big proponents of fashion, often wearing their endorsed apparel or sporting their nicest threads as they enter the arena on game day. One of the most recent trends over the past year or so would be the advent of “skinny” jeans for men. Rapper Lil’ Wayne may be one of the most recognizable celebrity men to sport the skinny jean look. Now, it seems—as Denver Nuggets guard