A better basketball site.
For intelligent readers, from veteran writers.
Keep scrolling down. Good stuff here.
The two best games of the playoffs thus far have clearly been Game 4 between the Brooklyn Nets and Chicago Bulls and Game 1 between the Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs, which had a number of similarities.
Both games went multiple overtimes. Both games had plenty of big shots. Both games had role players becoming unlikely heroes.
And unfortunately for the Nets and Warriors, both games had huge collapses late in regulation.
Here’s the bottom line on Carmelo Anthony’s recent play. Using the measuring stick of points per shot, it is his worst four-game stretch of the postseason since the first four playoff games of his career.
Furthermore, when compared alongside other worst four-game stretches of contemporary solo superstars, it is near the bottom.
Following Sunday’s loss to Indiana in the Eastern Conference semifinals opener, the Knicks are 1-3 in their last four games, including 0-2 at home. Their only win saw them nearly squander a 26-point lead in a matter of minutes as they repeatedly force-fed Anthony (and, to be fair, J.R. Smith) in isolation situations.
And just like that, the second round is upon us. If that felt a little abrupt, don’t worry: it was. Somehow the first series to be set is the last to get underway, which I’m sure Gregg Popovich and the Spurs won’t mind. Mark Jackson and the Warriors probably won’t mind too much either, with Andrew Bogut and Steph Curry’s ankle troubles. For more on the Warriors and Spurs, check out Jan Hubbard’s latest column.
The other series that starts tomorrow will be the Bulls and the Heat, and while it won’t be Derrick Rose vs. LeBron James, there’s plenty of intrigue with the Bulls if you can get over their All-Star point guard’s absence. Just watching them dig down to their deepest reserves of grit against the Nets should have done that. In another new column on Sheridan Hoops, Jeremy Bauman looks at what the Bulls have accomplished without their franchise player.
Still, the rumors will continue to abound over Rose, and not without reason: he still hasn’t ruled out that he’ll return, and it’s not unreasonable to presume that the best chance the Bulls have of knocking off Miami is with him in the lineup. So let’s start off today’s roundup of the latest news from around the NBA with an item on Rose:
Hello and welcome to the Evening News.
As the playoffs are under way, we’ll keep you updated every evening. What’s happening today?
Here’s the latest news from around the league:
The Los Angeles Lakers, although they finished the season on a very strong note, have greatly underachieved this season. We all know this.
For that, most want to blame Mike D’Antoni for his inability to make better use of the talent he has. Any time you have four Hall of Fame-level players on the same team (which doesn’t happen very often), you have the responsibility of doing big things. If you don’t, the blame goes on you. It’s as simple as that.
Or is it?
Jerry West – the NBA great and now a consultant for the Golden State Warriors - doesn’t think D’Antoni deserves half the amount of criticism he has gotten over the course of the season.
