We begin with the first round of the NBA playoffs, since they started this week, and which teams and players seem to be in good shape. While Neil is looking more prophetic, for the moment, for picking the Los Angeles team that he did, the Hot Takedown crew hasn’t lost faith in LeBron James quite […]
LeBron James is, of course, no stranger to the postseason: He has missed the playoffs only three times in his 17 seasons in the NBA, including his disastrous inaugural season with the Los Angeles Lakers. But though LeBron has been a fixture in the finals, he hasn’t usually been favored by seeding to get there. […]
Graphics by Ryan Best In their second game of the 2019-20 season, the defending champion Toronto Raptors played the division rival Boston Celtics. Boston had struggled offensively in its season opener, scoring only 91.4 points per 100 possessions in a loss to the Philadelphia 76ers, and once the game got underway, Toronto replicated much of […]
chris.herring (Chris Herring, senior sportswriter): It’s been a minute since we last chatted about the NBA at length, and for good reason: The whole world changed, calling into question whether the season could even be resumed at one point. But now the restart is in full swing — with no virus cases detected — and […]
It’s always satisfying when two players with agreeable games end up on the same team, under a coach who understands their symbiotic energy and optimizes their creativity inside the right system. My favorite example is Duncan Robinson and Bam Adebayo, a two-man basketball opera who might also represent the NBA’s most potent 1-2 punch. They […]