It’s time for the Boston Celtics to snap out of it. When the Celtics host the Chicago Bulls in the first game of ESPN’s Friday doubleheader, they will be trying to avoid a third straight home loss, something they have not done since the tail end of the 2009-10 season, when they were beaten by San Antonio, Oklahoma City and Houston. Optimists in Celtics Nation will point out that Gang Green managed to regroup that season and ended up within a stop
Our founder, Chris Sheridan, hereafter to be known as OFCS, had the Heat at No. 1 in his rankings before they lost to the Warriors, which shows what he knows. Just kidding. We may have a lot of years covering the NBA between us, but if we were clairvoyant, we’d be selling our rankings to, uh, investors at $1,000 a pop. With the teams at the 9-10-11-game mark, the great ones have yet to pull away from the pack, although some bad teams
// Dwyane Wade came back, but so did the Golden State Warriors. Derrick Rose dueled Ricky Rubio. And Kobe Bryant erupted for 48 points. But they all have to take a momentary backseat to the Washington Wizards, who finally won a game. All it took was an overhaul of their starting lineup, a spark from their previously invisible prized rookie and a visit from the weary Toronto Raptors. The last winless team in the NBA broke through Tuesday night with a 93-78 win
We begin today with a question for those of you with advanced math skills: What are the odds of a 13-point underdog winning by 13 points? It is a pertinent question as we move toward Friday the 13th (the first of three Friday the 13ths in this leap year preceding 2013), because the New Orleans Hornets’ bad luck streak came to a big end last night in Denver as they stunned the Nuggets 94-81 to snap a six-game losing streak. The Hornets
CHICAGO — Fresh off last night’s 14-point beatdown of the Orlando Magic — on the road, no less — can someone please tell me why the Chicago Bulls should jeopardize everything they have going right now by trying to trade for center Dwight Howard? Lest we forget, the Bulls won a league-best 62 games last season, had the youngest MVP in league history, saw their first-year head coach win Coach of the Year, were the league’s top defensive team and went
Friday was not a good day for the Boston Celtics. First came David West’s assertion that his supposed free agent snubbing of the C’s was nothing of the kind. Then there was the news that the Celtics withdrew their qualifying offer to Jeff Green in December when they learned he had a heart ailment, making him an unrestricted free agent. And to cap things off, the Celtics had their worst offensive showing of the season in an 87-74 home loss to the
There are a dozen games on the slate Friday night, including the Mike D’Antoni Death Watch in Washington. However, the best of the bunch has the Chicago Bulls taking their five-game winning streak to Orlando, where their primary concern may not be Magic center Dwight Howard. Yes, Howard has been his usual monstrous self lately, ignoring the trade rumors to average 20 points, 18 rebounds and 2.8 blocks in his last five games. Right now, the best strategy appears is to
In recent years, we have gotten extended looks at the San Antonio Spurs without Manu Ginobili. And what we have seen is a contender reduced to a pretender. In 2009, Ginobili suffered an ankle injury in early April that cost him the final six games of the regular season and the postseason, which ended abruptly with a five-game exit vs. Dallas. As my colleague Jan Hubbard pointed out some time ago, the Spurs were the best regular-season team in the NBA last