Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been tagged as “NBA playoffs”
TLDR: they’re not what they were a couple of weeks ago. Almost exactly a month ago, I wrote a piece about the Spurs’ chance of making the playoffs, according to the number crunchers at Fivethirtyeight, I analogized the Spurs’ chances to a hiker whose group is approached by a bear. Our Spurs hiker did not …
Memphis put up a fight, but this is how the Spurs prevailed. The Spurs closed out a grueling series against the predictably dogged Grizzlies on Thursday night in Memphis. Advanced metrics aside for a second, you can’t tell the story of this thrilling Game 6 victory without pointing to the spectacular play of both Kawhi …
OKLAHOMA CITY — If the San Antonio Spurs fell off a cliff somewhere in the course of their second-round playoff series, it was because the Oklahoma City Thunder pushed them. Players age. Teams struggle. Games are lost to slumped shooting or flustered decisions. Yet Oklahoma City took a proactive role in bringing these facts …
While the rest of the basketball world watched with morbid curiosity, San Antonians were afraid to look. Tim Duncan’s career, for all its boring glory, may have reached its end, leaving a sadness in and around town that is difficult to explain. We ignore the possibility that it’s all over, and put on our bravest …
Coaches who have proven their mettle may come back from lunch to a pink slip (hey there, Kevin McHale). Players who have given significant chunks of their careers–or even their entire career–to a team may suddenly find themselves on the trade block (hi, Anderson Varejao). In an era where chasing and acquiring The Next Best …
Anybody else sleep last night? After game 4 there was a lot of talk about the end of things, eras, careers. It all gave game 5 something of an existential feel, like it was a fight for survival motivated not merely by a desire to advance but by a need for validation. The Spurs …
“Your pretty stunned when Jason (Phillips, the ref) doesn’t call that when Kawhi (Leonard) tries to foul (Russell Westbrook)?” That’s what was asked of Gregg Popovich on the post-game podium, and his answer goes a long way towards explaining why we’re not going to pin too much of Game 5’s outcome on the refs, despite …
An NBA series follows a format. There’s the opening Game 1, the crucial Game 2, the “pivotal” Game 3 where the series usually turns, the “must-win” Game 4 for whoever is down (either 2-1 or 3-0), followed by either “the decisive” or once again “pivotal” Game 5. In this case, Game 5 will be …
In many respects this was a topsy-turvy game with the San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder switching their normal game plans. For example, whereas San Antonio’s ball movement was spotty, Oklahoma City’s half-court sets featured all kinds of weak-side action and dive cuts, as well as kick-out and drop passes. The proof of this …
If you want to wring your hands, feel free. You can cry into your cereal, post tweets or website comments of outrage, kick, yell, scream … do whatever you want in the wake of Monday night’s officiating chaos at the end of Spurs–Thunder Game 2. The uncalled offensive foul on Dion Waiters — which head …
When the Spurs won their 5th NBA championship in 2014 it broke up the Heat and sent LeBron James crawling back to Cleveland. If history repeats itself and the Spurs beat OKC in this 2nd round playoff match up. Could this force Kevin Durant out of OKC and possibly have him looking to join the Spurs …
SAN ANTONIO — If they needed a reminder, the Spurs could always dig deep into the NBA annals to the 1985 Finals where Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and the Lakers were thumped 148-114 at Boston Garden in the series opener by the Celtics. It became known as the Memorial Day Massacre. It was memorable, indeed. …