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3 weeks ago | 
hoopshype.com | Mark Deeks
Well, that wasn’t supposed to happen. A month ago, the Cleveland Cavaliers were closing out a regular season in which they dominated the Eastern Conference. Their 64-18 record saw them win the first seed, a whole three games ahead of the defending champion Boston Celtics, with a big gap to the New York Knicks (13.0 games back) and Indiana Pacers (14.0) in third and fourth respectively.
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3 weeks ago | 
heavy.com | Mark Deeks
The Tampa Bay Rays head to Canada this week for a road series against the Toronto Blue Jays, but they will be doing so without their lead-off hitter. A few hours before the first pitch of the series, the Rays placed first baseman-designated hitter Yandy Diaz on the restricted list, for what was soon reported by Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times as being an invalid passport.
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3 weeks ago | 
heavy.com | Mark Deeks
Although his French team’s season has yet to finish, reports out of Europe indicate that American/Macedonian point guard T.J. Shorts will leave his Paris Basket team this summer, spurn EuroLeague offers, and head to the NBA, where he will sign with the Memphis Grizzlies. As first reported by BasketEurope, Shorts will leave the French capital to return to America, and try to make the NBA for the first time.
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3 weeks ago | 
heavy.com | Mark Deeks
Across the 2024-25 NBA regular season, the “clutchest” player in the league was Denver Nuggets superstar and three-time Most Valuable Player Award winner, Nikola Jokic. And not only was he the clutchest player in the league; he was the clutchest player in the league by quite some margin. This ranking comes from the work of Inpredictable, a sports analytics website run by Michael Beuoy that focuses on win probability models, and anything derivative thereof.
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4 weeks ago | 
heavy.com | Mark Deeks
The greatness of Nikola Jokic greatness is well documented. Already regarded as one of the greatest players and centres of all time, the big Serbian has turned his lowly draft status into true superstardom.
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4 weeks ago | 
heavy.com | Mark Deeks
The Los Angeles Lakers‘ hopes of a deep postseason run in the 2025 NBA Playoffs were curtailed early by a limp first-round loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves in which they never truly threatened. They won the second game of the series, with LeBron James recording 21 points, 11 rebounds and 7 assists, but that was all, crashing out 4-1 in a series in which they only cracked the 100-point margin twice.
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4 weeks ago | 
heavy.com | Mark Deeks
Having spent 15 seasons there and won an NBA Championship together, ten-time former NBA All-Star Paul Pierce will forever be remembered as a Boston Celtic. His #34 jersey hangs from the rafters of the TD Garden and, when his time comes, he will be inaugurated into the Hall of Fame as a Celtic. Now working as a pundit, it is inevitable that Pierce will be biased towards the team he marshalled for so long. But sometimes, bias comes at the cost of dignity.
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1 month ago | 
heavy.com | Mark Deeks
In Game Two of their second-round series against the Denver Nuggets, the Oklahoma City Thunder put on an offensive clinic. They outscored Denver by 24 points in the first quarter and never looked back on their way to a 149-106 victory, that evened the series score at 1-1. Scoring has significantly increased in the NBA over the past two decades, from 93.4 points per team per game in 2003-04 to 113.8 this past regular season.
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1 month ago | 
heavy.com | Mark Deeks
Over the 2024 offseason, the Detroit Pistons acquired Tobias Harris, Malik Beasley and Tim Hardaway Jr, while re-signing Simone Fontecchio. None of the four are individually stars, but each are above-average outside shooters who have provided floor spacing threats that increase the options in the team’s playbook, and created wider driving lanes for Cade Cunningham to exploit. This simple offseason revision has been a key part of Detroit’s turnaround.
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1 month ago | 
thejefffoxshow.com | Mark Deeks
This post was originally published on this siteDespite losing Paul George in free agency last summer, the LA Clippers followed up their 51-31 record of 2023-24 with a 50-32 record in 2024-25. A loss in seven games to the Denver Nuggets has unfortunately meant their third consecutive first-round postseason exit; nevertheless, they have been able to navigate the demise of the once-celebrated yet ultimately anticlimactic George/Kawhi Leonard era, and come out of it no worse off than they were.
