Peeling oneself off the sofa was no easy task after a day and night spent sinking deeper and deeper into the upholstery. But the more you watched, the more you learned Saturday on Day One of the NBA Playoffs. Four lessons taken away: You do not want to have Draymond Green as your primary on-the-ball defender on the biggest play of the game – especially against a guy who has been in the league since Green was in diapers. You are in trouble
The often monotonous 82-game NBA regular season has come and gone. The worst teams have finished playing and the best 16 teams (yes, that is being generous to the Bucks) advanced to the postseason, guaranteeing high quality, spirited basketball. The seedings and schedules have been set, and each conference has matchups that are incredibly intriguing. For each team in the first round, there is one player who has to emerge and play a key role for that club to advance. Let’s have a
The Golden State Warriors are one of the surprise playoffs teams out of the Western Conference this season. Expected in the preseason to make noise if – and only if – Andrew Bogut stayed healthy, the team appeared destined for a rough start when it was reported that Bogut could miss a big chunk of the season – and he did – due to an unstable ankle that needed more time to heal than expected. Despite his absence, however, the Warriors found
Excluding the eighth seed in the Western Conference, all 15 of the other playoff spots are accounted for. Many of those teams, however, are still playing to determine their first round matchup. With the Milwaukee Bucks dropping a game to the Charlotte Bobcats—on a night that the Boston Celtics overwhelmed the Orlando Magic—the eighth seed is no longer in question, and we now have the first matchup of the 2013 NBA Playoffs. [Read more…]
It’s forever a delicate balance for the great scorers. After all these years, Kobe Bryant and Carmelo Anthony still get ripped for being selfish and LeBron James and Kevin Durant get ripped for not being selfish enough. [Read more…]
Lets talk about the Golden State Warriors. How many people, before the season began, thought that this team could make the playoffs without a healthy Andrew Bogut anchoring its defense? If the number reads more than zero, then we have some liars in our hands because lets face it: no one thought that the Warriors would be good enough in the Western Conference if they couldn’t play defense. Without Bogut’s availability, there was no reason to assume that they would suddenly
It’s an age old tradition in sports. Rookie hazing. In the NBA, many rookies are subjected to carrying luggage for their veteran teammates, buying coffee or even making sandwiches for lunch. Oftentimes, veteran players go to great extents to pull pranks on rookies. Wednesday proved to be no different for the Golden State Warriors. [Read more…]
They don’t do T-shirts in Los Angeles. They do trophies. So while the New York Knicks and Golden State Warriors were showering their players with shirts and shouts celebrating their respective achievements, the Lakers were doing their best to be T-shirt-worthy. Yes, they are back in eighth place in the Western Conference thanks to 23 fourth-quarter points from Kobe Bryant (there is a reason why he retains a top 10 spot in the MVP rankings) in a 104-96 victory over New Orleans.