For the Miami Heat, the story of the night will be how LeBron James went into Quicken Loans Arena and dropped 43 points on 14-of-19 shooting from the field to help his team come out with a 100-96 victory. The Cleveland Cavaliers will largely wonder how Dion Waiters didn’t get a foul call when it mattered the most. Down 95-90 with just under 30 seconds left in the fourth quarter, Waiters saw an opening and drove to the basket past Ray Allen.
I’ve never been huge on the All-Star Game. Sure, the novelty is great. I mean, all the stars are there. But that wears off pretty quickly, and then I remember that what I really like about basketball is seeing players stand out above the rest, and that doesn’t usually happen in an all-star environment. I also like defense sometimes. Speaking of players standing out above the rest, if you haven’t seen John Wall’s dunk from last night, go do that right
For Anthony Bennett, the No. 1 overall pick in last year’s draft, his first season in the league has mostly been one big nightmare to forget. He came in behind schedule due to shoulder surgery recovery, and was clearly not in game shape. He didn’t score his first field goal until the fifth game of the season, is shooting 31.9 percent from the field and has generally looked lost all season in an offense that has seen just about every relevant
The Cleveland Cavaliers are an absolute mess this season, and owner Dan Gilbert has finally had enough. After watching his team suffer a humiliating defeat at home against a depleted Los Angeles Lakers team on Wednesday, Gilbert made the decision to fire general manager Chris Grant, the architect of this currently-disastrous team. Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports first reported the news: Gilbert informed Grant of his dismissal late Thursday morning, sources said. Assistant general manager David Griffin will take over as the interim GM,
In case you haven’t noticed, Dwyane Wade has been missing an awful lot of games this season for someone who reportedly has no injuries. The Miami Heat’s training staff have Wade on a strict schedule in terms of when he should play – he has missed 12 games on the season – to preserve and prepare his body for the playoffs. The problem with this is that the team is just 7-5 when he is out of the lineup, and it’s
As Sunday night winds down, the desired time that both the Cleveland Cavaliers and Los Angeles Lakers had hoped to complete a deal involving Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol has almost expired. Bynum’s contract becomes fully guaranteed Tuesday afternoon at 5:00pm EST, so there is still time to complete a deal, but all parties involved would like such a transaction to happen sooner rather than later to allow time for everything to clear. Sometimes that process can take up to 48
With the prospect of a dazzling draft class looming in 2014, the word “tanking” has been as much a part of the NBA lexicon as flopping or fouling. Teams with little to no hope of making the playoffs – let alone doing anything there if they did – should just pack it in now and wait for the lottery in May and the draft in June. That’s where the real bonanza lies this season. Tanking has always been part of the NBA,
In 2011, when the Cleveland Cavaliers were awarded the first overall pick at the NBA’s draft lottery, Nick Gilbert – the son of Cavs owner Dan Gilbert – exclaimed on national television, “What’s not to like?!” Two years after using that first pick on Kyrie Irving, the Cavaliers were once again awarded the top overall pick at the this year’s draft lottery. On that night this past May, ESPN’s Heather Cox repeated Nick Gilbert’s question back to him. “What’s not to like?”