Last I checked, soccer was a pretty popular sport around the globe. More popular than basketball, I might add. And if you’ve ever sat on the sofa and watched a soccer match, you’ve probably noticed that there are no TV timeouts. You get 45 minutes of action, then you can get up and make a sandwich, and then you go back and get 45 more minutes of non-stop action, commercial-free. Why can’t the NBA be quite as enjoyable? Don’t get me wrong …
The mix of beige and off white dominating DeAndre Jordan’s post-game wardrobe was appropriate. All the color, after all, had drained from the Los Angeles Clippers following a critical, emotionally brutal 111-107 loss to the San Antonio Spurs Tuesday night at Staples Center, giving the Spurs a 3-2 lead in this titanic opening round matchup. At this point, you sympathize with Clippers fans who must feel like they’re being trolled. San Antonio isn’t the dominating force of last season, but even beat
Game 5 of the Clippers-Spurs series was a great one, going down to the final minute. But it lasted nearly three hours, ending just before 2 a.m. EDT on the East Coast. This, folks, is a problem. And the NBA needs to solve it. You simply CANNOT have the best basketball of the postseason being played when two-thirds of the country is asleep. What if there was a magic formula that could shave an hour off the game time? Would the NBA even consider looking
The Los Angeles Clippers looked fantastic at home in Game 1 against the San Antonio Spurs when they easily beat the reigning champions 107-92. The script has completely flipped since, with the Spurs edging the Clippers in overtime in Game 2 to take away homecourt advantage, and then completely and utterly demolishing them in Game 3 at the AT&T Center 100-73. Kawhi Leonard was virtually unstoppable, scoring 32 points on 13-of-18 shooting from the field to go with four rebounds, three steals
In Game 1 of the Western Conference first-round series between the Clippers and defending champion Spurs, San Antonio was overwhelmed by the energy of the home team. Los Angeles, even when making mistakes in defensive rotations, did so with so much speed and commitment that it often didn’t matter. The Clippers, with an assortment power dunks from Blake Griffin and power spikes from DeAndre Jordan, had the capacity crowd at Staples Center in a frenzy all night. The Spurs didn’t have an
NBA free agency is still over two months away, but rumblings are already starting that the top realistic name available is very ready to explore the market come July. ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne reported last week that LaMarcus Aldridge was more likely to leave the Blazers than most folks around the league realize, while The Oregonian‘s Jason Quick quoted an anonymous Portland teammate as estimating the chances of Aldridge returning to Portland are 50-50, at best. The rumor mill picked up even more steam
Can I have last weekend back? I mean, seriously. The playoff games were duds, almost all of them. And the one game that went to overtime happened so early Saturday afternoon, lunch was not even finished. Watching playoff games should never feel like a chore, but it sort of felt that way the past two days. The second-most compelling thing I saw on video was Blake Griffin posterizing Aron Baynes twice in a row, and technically that did not happen over the
A funny thing happened on the Clippers’ way to continued ignominy. Imagine finishing the season on a 14-1 surge that takes you to the third seed in the brutal Western Conference and finding yourself facing the sixth-seeded booby prize, the defending NBA champion San Antonio Spurs, who are favored in the series opener on your floor. What else is new? As one buzzard said to another, “I’ve been having Clipper luck.” Oh, you say the Clippers won? Fairy tales can come true; they just