OAKLAND, Calif — It’s not often that the Most Valuable Player and the MVP runner-up meet in the playoffs — 21 times before this season, to be exact. Even less are the number of times the matchup exceeded the hype. In that case, you may want to stay tuned to the Western Conference finals, because James Harden and Stephen Curry have something special going on right now. The monster showdown continued in Game 2 on Thursday night, and it was brilliant, fabulous,
11. Indiana Pacers – Kelly Oubre, SF, Kansas Like many Jayhawks prospects, Oubre should be even better in an NBA system where he’ll have more scoring opportunities. As a rookie, Oubre should be able to hit open jumpers, and if he develops his ball-handling skills to create his own scoring opportunities, he could be very good. He averaged 9.3 points and 5 rebounds in just 21 minutes per game for Kansas, and went 15-for-19 from the foul line in a late-season victory over
Was an unexpected comeback ever in the works for injured Houston Rockets point guard Patrick Beverley in the Western Conference Finals? It depends who you believe. Rockets’ officials, including head coach Kevin McHale and general manager Daryl Morey, consistently stuck with the company line that he’s out for the entire playoffs, which the Rockets first said on March 30 after Beverley opted for surgery to repair torn ligaments in his left, non-shooting wrist. But Beverley himself has had other ideas. In April, he told Mark Berman
On your mark, get set, go! Track meet, drag race, whatever analogy you like, the Western Conference finals between the top-seeded Golden State Warriors and second-seeded Houston Rockets should be played at a breakneck pace by a pair of teams who are attempting to change the paradigm of NBA offenses. During the regular season, the Warriors led the league in points per game, overall shooting and 3-point shooting. They were second in threes made and scored at least 110 points 40 times,
Impossible to go into the conference finals without talking about the team that should have made it but didn’t — the Los Angeles Clippers. My take: They are not cursed. They were merely too thin, and they didn’t have the fortitude to finish the job. And if the Houston Rockets taught us all one thing during their series against Doc Rivers’ team, it was this: Never give up, no matter how bleak things seem. But that series is behind us, and we
We all had varying degrees of luck/prescience in the second round with our picks, but like the Pacquiao-Mayweather bout, we all nailed the Holyfield-Romney result with flying colors — though none of us foresaw Mitt’s six-pack abs being quite so popular. Those abs are like Matthew Dellavedova — more impressive than you knew. So we move on to the conference finals with a collective breath of fresh air. No more Miami Heat. No more Indiana Pacers. No More San Antonio Spurs.
It’s time we start appreciating these Houston Rockets for what they are instead of wondering what could be down the road. For much of the 2014-15 season, the narrative about Houston for many around the NBA — myself included — has been more about the future than the present. Sure, today looked nice with James Harden and Dwight Howard, but general manager Daryl Morey seemed so close to forming a “Super Team” last summer with Chris Bosh and again at the trade deadline with Goran
LeBron James is headed to another Eastern Conference finals, the Los Angeles Clippers are headed to another Game 7, and who knows where Tom Thibodeau is headed. With those in mind – and no games on Saturday night for the first time since the World Series – we thought it would be a really good time for another edition of the Three-Man Weave. Here we go. 1. Are the Cleveland Cavaliers home free into the NBA Finals? [Read more…]