The two best words in sports are Game Seven. When it comes to the NBA Finals, Game 5 isn’t too bad, either. Either one team has a 3-1 lead, which means the trailing team will scratch, claw, bite, fight and cheat to stay win. Or the teams are tied 2-2, which means both teams will scratch, claw, bite, fight and cheat to win. Our collection of the best Game Five showdowns of the David Stern Era includes three in which the series was
When we decided to flush out the five best NBA Finals games of the David Stern Era, we didn’t think we would have so much trouble with Game 3. Since Stern became commissioner in 1984, no Finals game number has had more duds than Game 3. While other games had seven and eight candidates for our top five list, we had issues coming up with five truly great Game 3 showdowns. Three of the games making our list took place in the
The Spurs stars may be getting old, but their blueprint for winning remains as strong as ever. They were beaten at their own game by former Spurs executive, Sam Presti, this season, but they still have a few more tricks up their sleeve with Erazem Lorbek and Nando De Colo. Since that fortunate day in 1997 when the ping-pong balls magically awarded Tim Duncan to San Antonio, the Spurs have written the instruction manual on how a small market team can achieve
Right now, the Oklahoma City Thunder are trying to figure out how to get three more wins over the Miami Heat and claim the NBA championship. Whether they can do that remains to be seen. But once the Finals are over, the Thunder will have another issue on their hands – putting a coach in place for next season. Thunder coach Scott Brooks does not have a contract for next season. And while a trip to the NBA Finals makes it seem
The Conference Finals for both the East and the West had something in common this season: Each had a 36-year-old future hall of fame center (or power forward) in Kevin Garnett and Tim Duncan, trying desperately to help their respective teams reach the promised land of the NBA Finals. Both players had their moments, as you will see in the videos below. (via FocusedFolks20) (via Hennessy1764) Facing teams represented by the brightest superstars of today in LeBron James and Kevin Durant, Garnett and Duncan fell just short of making
There is no basketball game on Friday night, which means you can take some time to read about what’s going on around the league, from LeBron James’ epic performance, David Stern’s thoughts on the draft lottery, Indiana’s next move, and much more. Did you see how many shots LeBron James missed in Game 6? You can see every single one of them in this video. Really, though, was James’ performance on Thursday night the best he has ever put on? Statistically, no.
Maybe it was the unrelenting schedule finally catching up to us. Maybe it was the hectic planning of last weekend’s trip to Philadelphia for an AAU tournament. Whatever the reason, we missed a week of The Bernucca List, and we apologize. Reader Technologic provided the right answer for last week’s list, which was “The last 10 players to lead their team in scoring in a road Game 7 win.” Congratulations, Technologic. Can we call you Techno for short? Onto this week’s list,
Tonight, the Boston Celtics will try to become the 16th team in NBA history to come back from an 0-2 deficit to win a playoff series. Yesterday, the Oklahoma City Thunder became the 15th. Here is the list of all the teams that have done it, and below are some interesting notes about the Celtics and Heat. Boston (vs. Los Angeles) 1969 Finals Los Angeles (vs. San Francisco) 1969 Western Division Semifinals Baltimore (vs. New York) 1971 Eastern Conference Finals Portland (vs. Philadelphia) 1977 Finals Chicago (vs. New York) 1993 Eastern Conference Finals Houston (vs. Phoenix) 1994 Western Conference