When Lamar Odom heaved the ball down-court to drain away what seconds remained between the 2010 Los Angeles Lakers and a championship, few realized that it marked the start of a new era. The period that followed was defined by who wasn’t in L.A. that June night: LeBron James. For each of the next eight […]
Toronto surprised some sports fans by winning the Eastern Conference over the Milwaukee Bucks — but the FiveThirtyEight NBA predictions model had given the Raptors the edge in that series. As of our taping, our model also had the Raptors as favorites to win the NBA Finals over the defending champions, the Golden State Warriors. […]
The 2018-19 NBA season will be remembered as the year of the comeback. Of headbands. It began on opening night, when a black bandana-clad Kyrie Irving freelanced as an estranged Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. It continued when the Philadelphia 76ers underwent the most comprehensive makeover of any team, leading to the formation of a headband […]
sara.ziegler (Sara Ziegler, assistant sports editor): The Toronto Raptors stole a road win Thursday night with a huge game from Kawhi Leonard and are now just one win away from taking the Eastern Conference finals against the Milwaukee Bucks. If the Raptors can win either of the next two games, they’ll move on to face […]
In many ways, Thursday’s pivotal Game 5 between the Raptors and Bucks embodied the topsy-turvy nature of this Eastern Conference finals series as a whole. Milwaukee, the winner of the first two games, dominated the early portion of the contest, only for Toronto, which took Games 3 and 4, to come storming back. But down […]