Why did the Nets acquire Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett from Boston last offseason, mortgaging key future assets to do so? To help win a championship? To be on the floor in important moments in the playoffs, where their championship experience and leadership would prove invaluable to a team that previously had no players with real, legitimate postseason success? In the most important moments in the Brooklyn Nets’ season, the final minutes of the team’s Game 5 loss in Toronto, Pierce and
We’re in the midst of the closest round of playoff games in the league’s history on the court, but that hasn’t stopped the New York Knicks from looking for a new coach and Donald Sterling for bringing attention off the court. Steve Kerr has emerged as the early consensus frontrunner to become the new head coach of the Knicks thanks to his relationship with Phil Jackson and shared belief in the Triangle offense. Before covering Game 4 between the Raptors and Nets
BROOKLYN — The Toronto Raptors were tired of being the less physical, aggressive and careful team in their first round series with the Brooklyn Nets. So they flipped the script on Brooklyn in Sunday night’s Game 4 at the Barclays Center and took control of their playoff fate. Toronto set the tone in the first quarter by scoring 35 points and finished the game by not allowing a field goal over the final six minutes and 11 seconds in an 87-79
On Thursday night, Philips Arena opened its doors for the Atlanta Hawks first home playoff game of the 2014 NBA postseason. After having stolen home court advantage, the air in Atlanta was heavy, of course it was humid—welcome to Georgia, but it was heavy with hope and expectation. All week long, ever since the Hawks 101-93 Game 1 road victory in Indiana on Saturday, the talk among locals has been upset. Not just a game; the series. The team’s confidence only served to
Masai Ujiri made his first trip to Brooklyn since his infamous remarks about the borough before Game 1 at a fan rally in Toronto. “F*ck Brooklyn,” Ujiri said. (Some of you might not have known exactly what Ujiri said. Now you know.) Sitting courtside at Barclays Center before Game 3, Ujiri spoke with SheridanHoops about the incident and the hostile environment the Raptors would face in Brooklyn going forward. “It wasn’t about Brooklyn, honestly,” Ujiri told SheridanHoops. “I apologized to Brooklyn, I apologized
The Indiana Pacers, now down 2-1 in their series with the Atlanta Hawks after a 98-85 loss in Game 3 in Atlanta Thursday night, have been the talk of the postseason. Even amidst their late-season swoon, many experts had them pegged to dispatch their first round opponent, especially considering that the Hawks finished the year below .500 with a 38-44 record. The talk, however, hasn’t been flattering, or quite constructive. Their statistical numbers haven’t been very staggering either, at least not in
The Atlanta Hawks are quite social savvy when it comes to Twitter. More than most teams, the Hawks often utilize their social presence to draw fans in, often having players take over the account during games to do Q&As with fans. Tuesday, as the Hawks prepared to take on the Indiana Pacers in Game 2 of their first round series—hoping to extend their series lead to 2-0, the ATLHawks Twitter handle fell into the hands of shooting guard John Jenkins. [Read more…]
Through two days of NBA playoff games, we have seen some horrendous officiating. Blake Griffin basically got benched by the refs in Game 1 of the Warriors-Clippers series. Dwight Howard picked up his 6th foul late in last night’s Blazers-Rockets game on an egregiously bad call. Four players ended up with DQs in that game, which lasted a ghastly 3:21, featured 65 fouls and made quite a few East Coast viewers a little less productive today at their jobs. Is this what