On Monday, Stan Van Gundy was fired from his job as coach of the Orlando Magic. After the emotional tractor trailer jack-knifing that was this Magic season, this move was inevitable. It was a day of housecleaning for the franchise, as they also relieved general manager Otis Smith of his general management duties. Somewhere, no doubt, Dwight Howard ran through a wall, Kool-Aid Man-style, in delight.
If the Twittersphere has taught us one thing, it's that athletes can be completely absurd individuals. The NBA lockout was a prime opportunity to observe how millionaires spend their non-basketball time, and while every day of these NBA playoffs is thrilling, once this seemingly endless process of crowning a champion is complete, it will, once again, be "recess" for the majority of the NBA players. While some potential offseason recess legends are still playing (James Harden, Evan Turner), the rest of the league is already gearing up for a summer that one can only hope is full of shenanigans.
Despite Kobe Bryant’s 42 points, the Oklahoma City Thunder beat the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 5 of their series on Monday night, ending the Lakers’ season and setting up a matchup with the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference Finals. If you didn’t catch Monday’s game, here’s five things you missed.
So much amazing is happening, and the Shootaround crew is here to help you keep track of it all. You'll find takes on moments you might've missed from the previous night, along with ones you will remember forever.
For 48 minutes, the best basketball player alive was just that, and with his team on the brink, we were treated to one of the most dominant performances in playoff history. The 40 points and the 18 rebounds are simply ridiculous, and the way LeBron James carried every part of another lackluster first half was even more so. When LeBron James is truly incredible, it has nothing to do with speed, power, or anything of the like. When he’s the most perfect basketball player man, God, or anybody else could think up, it’s when he’s doing this:
When commentators and analysts look back at the San Antonio Spurs' sweep of the Los Angeles Clippers, many of them will focus on the Spurs' 24-0 run from Game 3. But they were successful because they continually out-executed the Clippers on offense, not just during the one run. In the second half of each game, we saw the Spurs perfectly execute one of coach Gregg Popovich's set plays just when they needed it.
On today’s podcast, The Basketball Jones break down the NBA's second-round series, including: the Pacers' depth and balance, Dwyane Wade's atrocious Game 3, Erik Spoelstra's job security, whether the Lakers or Clippers can survive the weekend, and the resurgent Kevin Garnett. We also discuss the Bulls' Rose-less future, SI's cover story on Tim Duncan, Rookie of the Year and Executive of the Year voting results, Mario Kart 64, JaVale McGee's platypus, Leigh's "Tweet of the Weak," softball, dirt, and much, much more. Enjoy!
Last week, Grantland was pretty cool, right? It was just missing one thing. We were having a hard time putting our finger on it. Then it hit us: We needed a British guy commentating on video game basketball.
This one is more of a podcastito. Jalen had a spare 15 minutes between taping ESPN studio shows to give the people what they want. We talked about the Lakers, how people make too much of who takes the last shot in games, retiring the word "swagger," and — most important — the rumors that Rihanna is dating none other than the New York Knicks' J.R. Smith.
Oh yeah, Jalen also went off about something that made him want to stick both his hands down his throat and "just vomit.” I apologize in advance for the 30 seconds of laughter that followed that statement — not very professional on my part, huh?
After splitting a couple of one-point games to open their series with the 76ers, the Boston Celtics emphatically won Game 3 in Philadelphia on Wednesday night by shooting 52 percent from the field while holding the Sixers to just 41 percent shooting. Since there was a mini Storage Wars marathon on A&E on Wednesday night, your plan was probably to watch that for a little bit before checking out the second half. But because the game was pretty much over at halftime, chances are you immediately flipped back to A&E for the remainder of the night. And when you woke up this morning, I’m guessing you regretted your decision and have spent all day wondering what happened with last night’s game. Well, luckily for you, I watched the entire thing and made notes on everything you missed. Here are my four observations.
It's going to be really sad when the Thunder take Kobe Bryant's robot body and drop it in the ocean like Megatron. Until then, let's enjoy Black Mamba, fashion critic. Come shop with him.
Despite having the best regular-season record, the San Antonio Spurs had some problems on defense — particularly containing ball handlers in pick-and-roll situations. According to Synergy Sports, they were last in the league in terms of points per possession allowed to ball handlers in these plays. I expected the Los Angeles Clippers to exploit this weakness with PNR plays for Chris Paul and for him to take over like he did against the Grizzlies. But that's is not what happened Tuesday night. The Spurs were able to hold Paul to just six points on 3-of-13 shooting, and, while he did have 10 assists, the Spurs forced Paul into five turnovers, as well.
At the end of Game 2 on Tuesday night, the Miami Heat trailed the Indiana Pacers by three points with 8.3 seconds left in the game. The Heat had to inbounds the ball from the corner, which makes setting up a play more difficult. Instead of going for a quick 2, coach Erik Spoelstra designed a play out of a timeout to get a 3-point attempt.
On the JaVale McGee front, news broke today that a bill has been filed in the Philippine House of Representatives to naturalize McGee as a citizen. Among other things, this would make him eligible to play for that country's team in the 2012 Olympic Games in London. Fascinating story, one that I'm very excited to see play out.
But believe it or not, that's the second-most important JaVale McGee–related news of the week. The other piece of news is more important, because it involves me, you, JaVale.
As I watched the Rangers pull away from the Devils on Monday, I realized that in a few days, we might be in for a New York–Los Angeles championship series. The Kings, who face the Coyotes in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals tonight, are an 8-seed, but they have a 1-0 lead on Phoenix in the series and are 9-1 in the NHL playoffs. Right now, it seems there's a solid chance that America's two most populous cities will square off for the Stanley Cup.
The possibility got me thinking about previous New York–L.A. clashes. It turns out that in 336 combined years of American championships (big four sports only), the two biggest cities in the country have met just seven times. That was it. New York is 4-3. Hooray!
That limited history set my mind to wandering, and after an hour spent looking at lists of NHL, NBA, MLB, and NFL champions, along with some furious notepad scribbling, I discovered the greatest sports trivia question of all time. It has to do with cities and championships, but after the time put into the research and the ensuing thrill of discovery, I'm going to be totally heartless and make you read a bit more.
First, a fantastic trivia question that will live forever in the shadow of the one that comes later:
Coming into this past weekend, the first round of these NBA playoffs had been an exercise in defining the league’s classes. The Bulls and their injuries aside, almost every other series seemed set to be over in no more than five games, the higher seed putting away the lower in convincing fashion. There appeared to be two types of teams in this year’s playoffs — those that were equipped to win a playoff series, and those that were not. That’s about when the Nuggets and Grizzlies decided they didn’t much appreciate the side of that line they’d fallen on.
