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...
The Lakers star is only the eighth player and first since Michael Jordan to win an NBA title, an NCAA championship and an Olympic gold medal. At 27, the best may be yet to comeAnthony Davis looked on with an expression of disbelief on Sunday night as the Los Angeles Lakers put the finishing touches on their first NBA championship in a decade. For the 27-year-old big man from Chicago’s South Side, the elusive missing piece in a career with no shortage of individual successes was finally in his grasp.As the Lakers’ other, slightly older do-it-all superstar took in the scene from down the bench, he couldn’t help but feel a tinge of nostalgia. You never forget your first time....
LA or Miami? Our writers predict the winner, key players and dark horses before the championship tiltWell, that’s the question isn’t it? It’s tempting to say that there’s not much hope, but the Heat have been surpassing expectations all postseason. There’s a simple answer here: limit either LeBron James or Anthony Davis and force the other to try to carry the entire team, hope that they can’t. Reminder: Simple is not the same as easy. HF Continue reading...