On March 26, the Toronto Raptors began a game against the Indiana Pacers by pounding the ball in the post. But they weren’t feeding a big man — though they roster two centers, both come off the bench when the team is at full strength. Instead, they were playing their own version of small ball: […]
For a long stretch of the season, the Chicago Bulls proved just about everybody wrong, in a whole lot of ways. The DeMar DeRozan sign-and-trade acquisition — panned by league insiders as one of the worst moves of the offseason — worked out splendidly, with DeRozan emerging as an early season MVP candidate. The team’s […]
Before Monday night, no team in the NBA was hotter than the Boston Celtics. Boston had won six games in a row, as well as 11 of its previous 12 and 24 of its previous 28, outscoring opponents by 15.8 points per game along the way as it charged into a tie for first place […]
Here is as satisfying a highlight as this NBA season will produce: That’s reigning MVP Nikola Jokić of the Denver Nuggets giving the business to Sacramento’s Damian Jones earlier this month. Like most of the Serbian center’s best plays, it begs for metaphor — a boulder running a slalom course, maybe — but the bare-bones […]
In the immediate wake of the Philadelphia 76ers’ blockbuster trade for James Harden, most of the focus was on how Harden would mesh with Philly’s incumbent MVP candidate, Joel Embiid. The early returns on that front have been mostly encouraging, give or take an embarrassing blowout loss to Harden’s former team, the Brooklyn Nets, and […]