Take out the brooms. Who would have thought we’d be saying that about the reigning World Champions? The Dallas Mavericks were swept by the Oklahoma City Thunder on Saturday night after only eight days of playoff basketball, becoming the first team to be eliminated in the 2011-2012 Playoffs. As the TNT crew stated, they’re going fishing. It marked only the second time the team was swept out of the playoffs. The first time was against the Portland Trail Blazers in 1990, in a best-of-5 format. It
The Coach of the Year was announced Tuesday, with Gregg Popovich coming out on top by a wide margin. It was certainly well-deserved, but there were plenty of other coaches that warranted attention as well. Thirteen coaches received votes, including Frank Vogel, Lionel Hollins, Tyrone Corbin, Stan Van Gundy and Vinny Del Negro – mid-season crisis and all. The work of these fine coaches will be on display tonight as we look into the preview of three playoff games on Wednesday night. Utah (0-1) at
Gregg Popovich, who guided the San Antonio Spurs to the best record in the Western Conference, has been voted the NBA’s Coach of the Year, the league announced Tuesday. It is the second Red Auerbach trophy for Popovich, who also won in 2003. He received 77 first-place votes and 467 points from a 119-member media panel, easily outdistancing Tom Thibodeau of the Chicago Bulls, who won last year. Despite a compressed schedule shortened to 66 games by the lockout, the Spurs went
For NBA writers, pregame with Gregg Popovich is a little like trading engaging barbs with Bill Maher. It can be humorous, but the guy you are talking to is a minimum of two times as quick as you and five times as smart, so step carefully. Pop is a guy who majored in Soviet Studies at the Air Force Academy and worked in highly sensitive missions on the border of Russia and Turkey when he was a younger man. So while he
After 66 games of the wildest schedule the league has ever seen, the lockout shortened regular season has finally come to a close. No more four games in five nights or back-to-back-to-backs. The demanding schedule saw many key players suffer devastating and nagging injuries throughout the season. The Hawks and the Clippers will surely feel those losses as they head into the playoffs without Al Horford and Chauncey Billups, respectively. Without a real training camp and preseason, teams with new coaches and players were
You had to enjoy watching the Jazz fight off the Suns and the Rockets for the West’s final playoff spot. They have been playing playoff-atmosphere basketball for the better part of April, but they are about to go up against a machine of a team that Tim Duncan described as the deepest he has ever played on. That’s a mouthful right there. Here are five things to watch for in the first-round playoff series between the San Antonio Spurs and
Sports is always in search of something special – rivalries, dynasties, the greatest. In so many ways, the rivalry between the Lakers and Spurs should qualify as classic. But the reality of the NBA is that there is one true lasting rivalry – Celtics and Lakers. One franchise has 17 titles, the other 16. They have met 12 times in the Finals with Boston holding a 9-3 edge. Larry Bird vs. Magic Johnson was Lakers-Celtics. Bill Russell vs. Wilt Chamberlain is the NBA’s
That was no playoff preview. Paul Pierce, expected to have a huge game as the de facto point guard, got the night off instead, as did Kevin Garnett. With Ray Allen and Rajon Rondo hurt, that was 80% of the Celtics’ familiar starting five on the sidelines. Red-hot Avery Bradley scored 28 to keep the makeshift lineup in the game, but the Hawks won, as Joe Johnson, who had been quiet for a while, exploded for 30 points. MEM @ CHA: I guessed