Mike Brown will be coaching his final game for the Los Angeles Lakers tonight if they lose Game 7 to the Denver Nuggets. Says who? Magic Johnson, that’s who. “His job will go,” Johnson said on ESPN, where he is a studio analyst. “The Lakers are about championships. That’s what the Lakers are about. If they lose this game, Mike Brown, I bet you, will not be sitting there.” Johnson sold his 4.5% stake in the Lakers in 2010, but he remains on the
NEWS If any doubt remained, the Phoenix Suns’ Steve Nash established his bona fides as one of the organization’s all-time greats on Feb. 1, when he blew past Kevin Johnson as the franchise’s all-time leader in career assists. (Nash also holds team records for three-pointers made and attempted, as well as three-point and free throw shooting percentages.) Now, he’s on the cusp of passing an NBA icon. With Phoenix set to host the Los Angeles Clippers tonight on TNT (10:30 p.m. ET)
NOTES Paraphrasing Yogi Berra, it’s getting dark early for the Miami Heat (40-16) as it tries to secure the top seed in the Eastern Conference, with the Chicago Bulls (44-14) owning a three-game cushion. The Heat, however, still has some time to turn back the clock, beginning tonight when it visits the front-running Bulls (8 p.m. ET, TNT). The teams will play once more, in Miami, April 19. They have split the first two games of their regular-season series. The Heat
NEWS With two weeks to go in the regular season, races are tightening up and down the standings in both conferences. There are bubble teams trying to leapfrog lower-seeded clubs for a coveted spot in the postseason; and middle-of-the-playoff-pack clubs vying for the most promising seedings. Perhaps the most intriguing races, however, are atop the respective conferences. San Antonio’s torrid second half has the Spurs (40-14. .741) percentage points ahead of the Oklahoma City Thunder (41-15, .732) in the Western Conference,
By TERRY LYONS NEW YORK, APRIL 6, 2012 — There’s a common belief that when someone passes from this earth, their life passes before their eyes in an instant. If that is the case, together with one of my best friends in the world, I can now attest to living through that experience when we attended Magic/Bird on Broadway last Wednesday afternoon. For 90 minutes, we must’ve been out cold because our basketball lives passed right in front of our eyes
There are 10 NBA games scheduled for tonight, March 27, 2012. NEWS: Orlando Magic big man, Glen Davis, has been fined #35,000 for making an obscene gesture in a game against the Toronto Raptors at Air Canada Centre on March 26, 2012. Stephen Curry’s sore ankle will cost two additional weeks. Even though Amare Stoudemire is able to avoid surgery on the bulging disk in his back, he will still be sidelined for 2-4 weeks. NOTES: The Prudential Center in Newark, NJ will host the 2012
One of the minor effects of Magic Johnson’s revelation that he was HIV positive was that a new term was added to sports writing and we all had to learn how to spell it. Human Immunodeficiency Virus. Beginning with Johnson’s announcement that he was retiring on November 7, 1991, I wrote that term many more times than I would have preferred. HIV wasn’t supposed to be part of the sports section. It belonged somewhere else. Ultimately, however, the intrusion of HIV into basketball
According to Elias Sports Bureau, Rajon Rondo became only the third player in NBA history to record 15 points, 20 assists, and 15 rebounds in a single game. The other two? Oscar Robertson and Wilt Chamberlain. Only two other players have had a 15-15-15 line in the past 25 season, being Magic Johnson and Jason Kidd. Rajon Rondo has 10+ assists in five straight games. The Lakers held the Heat to just 83 points, more than 17 points below their average