He just coached the Chicago Bulls to a very impressive Game 1 win in Cleveland. He finished off the Milwaukee Bucks in Game 6 of the first round with a 54-point victory. He has had a surprising level of success the past two seasons despite being without Derrick Rose. He is widely regarded as one of the best tacticians in basketball. Yet Tom Thibodeau appears to be on the way out in Chicago. Even if he wins a championship. How can this be? Is there
The Bulls are continuing to win playoff games, yet the behind-the-scenes drama involving the front office and head coach Tom Thibodeau continues to escalate. In an Adrian Wojnarowski column filed after Chicago’s Game 1 win in Cleveland, the Yahoo! reporter says management still “can’t wait to rid itself” of Thibodeau. Furthermore, Wojnarowski cited some fairly disturbing examples of the lengths to which the relationship between the coaching staff and front office has been broken. In one such case, an assistant coach actually feared his
The Milwaukee Bucks surprisingly took the Chicago Bulls to six games in the first round of the playoffs, but the magical run came to an abrupt end on Thursday when the Bulls clamped down and ended the series in dominating fashion with a 120-66 victory on the road. The Bucks failed to score 20 points in any of the quarters and trailed 65-33 at the half. Zaza Pachulia led the team with eight points, which gives you an idea of how inept
The mix of beige and off white dominating DeAndre Jordan’s post-game wardrobe was appropriate. All the color, after all, had drained from the Los Angeles Clippers following a critical, emotionally brutal 111-107 loss to the San Antonio Spurs Tuesday night at Staples Center, giving the Spurs a 3-2 lead in this titanic opening round matchup. At this point, you sympathize with Clippers fans who must feel like they’re being trolled. San Antonio isn’t the dominating force of last season, but even beat
Everyone knows that the Eastern Conference is nowhere near as good as the Western Conference. But that doesn’t mean that the first round of the East playoffs won’t be compelling. As everyone knows, all you need is one road team to win to make a series interesting. Can the top-seeded Atlanta Hawks rediscover their rhythm? Did the Boston Celtics build confidence with two late-season wins over Cleveland? Is Chicago’s Derrick Rose returning to form or just an accident waiting to happen again? Do
The NBA regular season ends tomorrow, and as of now — even with most teams having played 81 of their 82 games — not a single first-round matchup is locked in. It’s an incredibly rare situation that promises to bring loads of drama both Tuesday night and especially Wednesday night, as the 2014-15 slate comes to a close. In the West, the complex playoff picture was reasonably summed up in one tweet on Tuesday morning from San Antonio’s star guard Manu Ginobili: So,
It’s that time of year again. After all of the laughs, other-worldly performances, and misguided declarations that someone was dead, we’ve arrived at the end of the season. It’s time to pick a winner for the NBA’s Most Improved Player award. As always, I told myself I wasn’t going to cry. As always, I lied to myself. (Sniffle) We saw a lot of improvement in the NBA this season. The Atlanta Hawks went from Eastern Conference Playoff Team With a Losing Record™ to The Spurs
BROOKLYN – A string of poor play may cost the Brooklyn Nets a playoff spot in the pathetic Eastern Conference. Their inability over the last several games – and throughout the season as a whole – to consistently beat winning teams could end up being the back-breaker for this ballclub. Despite being without Joakim Noah, the Chicago Bulls outscored the Nets 30-15 in the third quarter and ran away with a 113-86 laugher that cost Brooklyn the eighth spot in the East,