An insatiable Heat side that has overcome so much to reach the NBA finals as a No 8 seed finds it back against the wall once again following Denver’s Game 4 win on Friday nightFor a just minute or two early in the fourth quarter, it seemed possible, perhaps even probable. Nikola Jokić picked up a fifth personal foul and trudged to the bench. A double-digit deficit – the Miami Heat’s cue to spark into life throughout this unlikely playoff run – was quickly halved with a Jimmy Butler and-one.The Heat’s Kaseya Center rose with expectation. They had seen this before; the sheer will of a Heat team that has defied conventional logic for two months. In the end though,...
As the Nuggets tighten their grip on the NBA finals, the staggering performances conjured by their singular star are making a convincing claim for historical greatnessHybridity has always been in Nikola Jokić’s basketball DNA; after all, this is a player who was famously drafted by Denver in the middle of a Taco Bell commercial for the quesadilla-burrito mashup known as a quesarito. The pretty, historic town of Sombor, where Jokić grew up, is tucked into the northwestern pocket of Serbia, flush against the borders with Croatia and Hungary; the Hungarian, Habsburg, Ottoman and Austrian empires have all, at various points over the past half-millennium, laid claim to it. Jokić, perhaps fittingly given his origins, has emerged over this postseason as...
After the Heat were outplayed and Jimmy Butler rendered all but irrelevant by the Nuggets in their NBA finals opener, Miami’s mission impossible is looking that much tougherMaybe it was the thin air. Perhaps it was fatigue in their 21st game since the end of the regular season. Or just an inevitable reversion towards normality for the postseason’s greatest overachievers.Whatever it was, it was quickly clear that anyone tuning in to the first game of the NBA finals on Thursday in the hope of witnessing a stirring mountain tale starring a brave band of odds-defying underdogs should have switched off the game and streamed The Sound of Music instead. Continue reading...
Gunners fans may well despair at their club’s woes but they should be thankful they don’t support one of his teams on the other side of the AtlanticArsenal supporters are rightly wondering if it can get any worse for their side. Two losses in three matches to open the Premier League season, a manager in Arsène Wenger who has seemingly lost his touch and precious little done during the transfer window to improve the talent on the pitch. But if Arsenal fans are dismayed at the way the club’s majority shareholder, Stan Kroenke, runs affairs at the Emirates, a glance at his US teams offers little hope things will improve.The metaphor that best describes Kroenke’s sports franchises is that of...