neil (Neil Paine, senior sportswriter): The NBA is now two games in to every second-round series, and each matchup is currently tied at 1-1 … except Warriors-Rockets, which was the series most people had circled as the most competitive (and compelling) of Round 2. So what better place to start our chat than that matchup, […]
There were several big storylines in the NBA this past weekend as the second round of the playoffs commenced. But all things considered, only one outcome was truly surprising: The Boston Celtics, who have struggled to find consistency, pieced together a dominant showing on the road against the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks. Even more impressive than […]
gfoster (Geoff Foster, senior sports editor): The first-round of these NBA playoffs was widely viewed as a small appetizer (an amuse-bouche?) before the real meal begins in the conference semifinals. That has largely held true, particularly in the East, where the four teams that won — the Bucks, Celtics, Sixers and Raptors — lost a […]
neil (Neil Paine, senior sportswriter): Now that every NBA team has played Game 82 of the regular season, we can finally get to the real business at hand: The playoffs. Let’s start with the Eastern Conference, where the Milwaukee Bucks earned the franchise’s first top seed since the league adopted the 16-team playoff format in […]
Thursday night marks the return of NBA hoops, with teams entering the homestretch of their season. A few are fighting for their playoff lives, while others will try to avoid a late-season collapse. And for a handful of others, just playing basketball again figures to be a good thing, if only to shift the conversation […]