Hey, how about those road teams in the playoffs, hunh? It was a lost weekend that would have made Ray Milland proud. I spent huge chunks of Saturday and Sunday at an AAU tournament and missed several games. When I finally got home and turned on the TV, I wished I was back at the AAU tournament. If you didn’t watch the NBA playoffs this weekend, you didn’t miss much. All eight road teams lost Game 1, the first time that has happened
(Readers: This column was first published on March 9 with the title “Dreaming of OKC vs. James Harden.” Well, Mr. Hubbard’s dream has come to fruition, and Game 1 is tonight. Brace yourselves.-CS) The concept of payback often results in conflicting feelings. Revenge at its worst could be considered a character defect and something you would not teach your kids. But in the right context, proving someone made a mistake – payback – and doing it with class, can be delightfully rewarding.
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
Back in March, our top-notch, seasoned, voice-of-reason columnist Jan Hubbard penned a column that read somewhat like a prayer … or a plea. Please, please, please let us have a Rockets-Thunder playoff series. Everyone who thought the Thunder won the big preseason trade of James Harden for Kevin Martin will be on the edge of their seats for this one, because there is nothing quite as compelling as seeing a former player who helped his team reach the NBA Finals come
Some weeks ago while he was still running the show for the Los Angeles Lakers, Kobe Bryant – who has since been lost for the season with a painful Achilles tear – promised that his team would be in the playoffs. That promise was fulfilled on Wednesday when the Utah Jazz lost to the Memphis Grizzlies to end their hopes of beating out the Lakers for the final playoff spot. Even if they won, it wouldn’t have mattered because the Lakers
The Atlanta Hawks are going to lose to the New York Knicks tonight. The only question is by how much? A victory would not be a good thing for Atlanta. They would move up to fifth place (along with a Chicago loss), and they would be setting themselves up for a second-round beatdown against the Miami Heat — if they were first able to defeat Brooklyn in Round One. And no, the Hawks would not be the ones beating anybody down if
While you were watching the Masters … or fertilizing the lawn … or watching baseball … or enjoying Mark Heisler’s public resignation from The New York Times after they turned down his one-on-one interview with Kobe Bryant … or learning that Mike Rice is up to his old tricks, except now he is berating 12-year-old girls, a whole helluva lot was being decided in the NBA. Just think where we might be a week from now when eight Game 1s will
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…]