Category: Basketball

Karl-Anthony Towns has just finished his seventh year with the Timberwolves. Former number one draft pick is satisfied with being in Minnesota where he is one of the leaders of the team.

This coming summer the 26-year-old power forward will be eligible to sing max extension with the T-Wolves. While not answering directly on if he plans to sign the extension, he made it clear that ‘things will happen’ in sumer.

“I love this city. So obviously things will happen this summer, when they happen they happen,” Towns said, per Dane Moore. “I’ve been here so long I don’t like making prophecies, I’ll let it come if it comes. And if it comes, it comes, then we’ll deal with it when it comes.”

The Memphis Grizzlies rallied again past the Anthony Edwards-led Minnesota Timberwolves 114-106 on Friday night to reach the 2nd round.

“Physically, mentally, this series was a battle,” said a visibly drained Ja Morant, who went 4 for 14 from the field and had 17 points and 11 assists. “Obviously, the wins were pretty ugly outside of Game 2, but we got it done.”

The Memphis Grizzlies to face the Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference Semifinals. Game 1 is set for 2:30 p.m. Sunday at FedExForum.

Desmond Bane and Dillon Brooks each scored 23 points and the Memphis Grizzlies rallied yet again to eliminate the Anthony Edwards-led Minnesota Timberwolves, winning 114-106 in Game 6 on Friday night.

“We stick together, stay on the same page, and I think it really showed on the big stage this series,” said Bane, who led the Grizzlies in scoring the series, via ESPN.

The Grizzlies advanced to the playoffs for the first time in seven years, this time to meet the Golden State Warriors. Game 1 is in Memphis on Sunday.

The Grizzlies became the last team to progress to the second round of the playoffs after they defeated the Timberwolves in Game 6 (114-106).

Memphis star Ja Morant, who had 17 points, 8 rebounds and 11 assists in this game, trolled Minnesota by tweeting a picture of a grizzly bear chasing a wolf. The Grizzlies will face the Warriors in the second round.

If he becomes available in the trade market this offseason, Donovan Mitchell might find himself taking his own talents to South Beach.

Per Marc Berman of the New York Post, the Miami Heat has been frequently mentioned as a potential landing spot for the Utah Jazz star once traded.

And the factor for the Heat to snatch the All-star guard is Dwyane Wade, their greatest player in franchise history who is now the Jazz’ minority owner.

“Miami has been mentioned by league sources as a smart landing spot for Mitchell with [Dwyane] Wade’s strong connections to his beloved heat.

With that, the Heat looks poised to join the New York Knicks who are initially in the hunt to claim Mitchell. Some key officials of the Knicks like William Wesley and Allan Houston were seen spectating in some of Utah’s first-round games against the Dallas Mavericks, sparking murmurs with regards to their given intention.

Once Miami catches Mitchell, their core and chances to claim the championship will undeniably get stronger. The ball club remains as one of the East’ title heavyweights which features a gritty culture and immense firepower.

With the Jazz now gone in the playoffs, Mitchell’s future in Salt Lake City continues to be a talk in the association. As such, both him and the franchise are projected to face a bold offseason.

Monaco came back to win the game 78-77 and force game 5 next week in Pireaus. Dwayne Bacon scored a game-high 21 points including the winning jumper to lead AS Monaco.

This result tied the series 2-2. Everything is going to be decided in Greece in front of a Pireaus crowd.

Mike James finished the game with 18 points and six rebounds, while his former teammate on the Brooklyn Nets Kevin Durant was watching him from the courtside seats.

“We were just trying to fight,” James said. “Before the game, me and [Dwayne] Bacon talked, and we were just like: If we are gonna go down, we are gonna go down swinging. Talked to the whole team, we wanted to show our best face and come out here fight for what we felt like we deserve. So, I knew it was gonna be a good series before we started, but it is turning out to be even better than I thought.”

Kostas Sloukas, who had hit the go-ahead 3-pointer for the 76 – 77, took a tough shot to win the game for Olympiacos but missed at the buzzer after going 3-3 from beyond the arc. He finished with 19 points while Sasha Vezenkov posted 17 points, eight rebounds and five assists for Olympiacos.

“We have to  analyze the game,” Bartzokas said. “It was a tough game, tough loss for us. We had an opportunity to win the game but we missed three crucial offenses at the end. We are going to get back in the next game in Piraeus.”

James Harden picked the perfect time to finish a playoff game with his third 20-point and 10+ assist game in his career.

The 76ers were reeling coming into a pivotal Game 6 after losing two straight games, allowing the Raptors to take all the momentum going into Jurassic Park while they were down 3-2. All the pressure was on the 76ers; outside voices were ready to fuss and complain about Harden being unable to close out games. They were prepared to eviscerate Coach Doc Rivers for becoming the first coach to lose a 3-0 series lead.

In response, Harden set the tone with his 22 points, six rebounds, and 15 assists. Joel Embiid followed suit with a 33-point and 10 rebounds double-double.

“We had opportunities last few games to put them away and we just didn’t,” Harden said. “So I wanted to come out and be aggressive. Not just scoring (the) basketball, but making the right plays, and getting into the paint. I knew good things would happen.”

The 76ers put the game away in the third quarter after scoring on their first eight trips down the court, opening up a 13-point lead. Philly eventually stretched their run out to 30-9, capped off by a Harden step-back triple that gave the Sixers a 92-70 lead.

When it was all said and done, Philly left Toronto with a 132-97 win and a date with Miami in the second round. Game 1 will be on Monday.

“We weren’t going back to Philly for a Game 7,”  Harden said.

Recent Hollywood blockbusters have got me considering options in alternate universes—Peter Parker-type ones, where I can see the Spidey meme lived out in real life. I’m not talking about the Metaverse, I’m talking about a temporary escape to the places on TV and movie screens that look more liveable than here. Where everyone is happy and I have secret superpowers that solve problems. All of them.

But before I decide where to call home, there’s something else to think about: How and where could SLAM exist in another dimension? That question has been answered, a few times over. 

The biggest world, a universe really, where SLAM has a presence is the Marvel Universe. Luke Cage series creator Cheo Hodari Coker—who also wrote SLAM 24’s cover story on Kobe Bryant—showed some love to his SLAM Fam by including a fictional excerpt of the PUNKS column (our former HS section, now called The Come Up) in the first episode of the Netflix show. Fast forward to a scene in Pop’s Barbershop, and some of the article’s finer details can be seen in the freeze frame. I strained my eyes to read more about “RUN-DSC…”

You’ll also find SLAM in the world of comedy, thanks to Shea Serrano and Arturo Torres, the bestselling writer and illustrator of a ton of New York Times’ hits like Basketball and Other Things, who immortalized fictional Sixers fan Jim Halpert from The Office on a cover that I’d happily buy multiple copies of. There’s also a rumor going around the SLAM Dome that the publication’s fine literature can be found in STARZ’ Survivor’s Remorse. Any world with a character played by Mike Epps could be fun. 

Back in 1998, two universes almost intertwined for real, for real. Filmmaker Spike Lee was working on his next masterpiece, He Got Game, and the film’s lead character, Jesus Shuttlesworth, was (at the time) about to be an even bigger deal than Ray Allen. By then, SLAM was kind of a big deal too. Spike shared SLAM’s love for the Knicks, the playful hate of Reggie Miller and understood that the magazine’s readers were his viewers. Our mutual audience would be flooding movie theaters to watch Denzel Washington rock a pair of Jordan XIIIs and battle Ray one-on-one. He also understood that (in the basketball world of the late ’90s) a SLAM cover was as big of a promo as anyone could get. SLAM Ed. Tony Gervino also saw it as a chance to pull just about any stunt necessary.

A plan was formed. Spike wanted a Jesus Shuttlesworth cover and SLAM was the only mag who could legitimately pull it off. The movie was in production, yet no one knew about it or Allen’s involvement, so the idea was to drop the Jesus cover as the ultimate April Fool’s prank in the spring of 1998. It would make history as the first SLAM cover featuring a fictional character. But it didn’t happen. An irritating leak meant that the element of surprise was gone and the concept was void.

While the Shuttlesworth cover may not have entered our galaxy, fans of Spike’s classic movie will have observed that “Coney Island Jesus” did in fact get a cover. It sits in pride of place above the TV of Jesus’ humble abode…and in Spike Lee’s office in Brooklyn.

Before emails and comment sections in social media, SLAM’s Trash Talk section was made up of physical letters. Not only would fans complain to the editors about stories, yell at readers who made up the previous issue’s Trash Talk and vent about their team’s losing streak, some would also submit carefully crafted pieces of art. Sometimes it was a sketch of an older cover, sometimes their favorite player, sometimes just their own version of the SLAM logo. One such submission came from a storyboard/design team based in L.A. who happened to be huge fans of SLAM. In writing, they requested back issues, t-shirts and even offered content suggestions. Those letters were from the team who worked on a little up and coming animated series called South Park.

The crew at South Park sent SLAM a few letters in the early days, but the one that really caught the staff’s attention was a reworked SLAM cover sent in the form of a greeting card. It featured  Kobe’s Issue 24 joint, only with Kenny’s head replacing the Spalding ball under Bryant’s arm. They wanted to work it into a story that would be aired, but (in true South Park style) would take it a step further, with Kobe holding an AK-47.

World events in the spring of ’99 led to this cover never happening—it’s probably better that it didn’t—but we’ll always remember when Kobe was hanging out in South Park.

Seeing the magazine immortalized in animated form is wild. It was Christmas 2020 when we were once again reminded of that feeling. The pandemic had me, my wife and our 1-year-old daughter stuck in our tiny flat in London on Christmas Day. It wasn’t all bad. We bought some fancy food and drinks, didn’t need to travel anywhere and Pixar was premiering a movie called Soul that gave us something to look forward to. We loved the film and appreciated the finer details of the world that the lead character, Joe Gardner, called home.

One such detail was something I’d missed completely. It sat—of course—in the barbershop scene, on the table by the lollipops. A copy of SLAM. It was instantly recognizable as a rework of Issue 106, LeBron’s logo cover, with a fictional baller from the Pixar universe. No one at SLAM knew about it ahead of time, but everyone thought it was dope.  

The movie was the work of Kemp Powers, a writer from Brooklyn who understood the cultural importance of SLAM. Soul’s release capped off a year marred with tension, yet Pixar’s world felt like a place of solitude. 

These SLAM covers may be fictional, but they provided a hint of familiarity and were a nod of appreciation from the designers of alternate universes. For those of us who need to escape, even for a moment, they’re as real as it gets. 

The celebration began after Bojan Bogdanovic missed a potential game-winner. The Mavs were up two points with 4.3 seconds remaining in a closeout Game 6 when Bogey’s put up his prayer after pump-faking Spencer Dinwiddie out of his way for a wide-open three-pointer from the left-wing.

The moment seemed to hang in the air, but Bogey’s shot was short, Donovan Mitchell nearly fell to his knees in disbelief as Luka Doncic, and the Mavs celebrated getting to round two.

“Oh, man, I thought, ‘He don’t miss a lot of those,’” Doncic said, per ESPN. “My heart stopped.”

For the first time since 2011, the Mavericks have won a playoff series. The 98-96 closeout win also represented Doncic’s first playoff series win and will be the first time he’s moved past the first round in his bright career.

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All love.

Great series, @utahjazz. pic.twitter.com/k3iwgdWhO3

— x – Dallas Mavericks (@dallasmavs) April 29, 2022

Doncic finished Game 6 with 24 points, nine rebounds, and eight assists in 42 minutes, playing the entire second half as the Mavs rallied from a 12-point halftime deficit. The triumphant comeback came after the Mavs torched Utah’s defense with 14 second-half triples, the most in one half in Dallas playoff history.

“Happiness, man,” Doncic said. “I think we worked really hard to get here. I think we deserve to get past the first round. Everybody fought their ass off today. We didn’t play good today, but everybody was staying together. Keeping everybody together was the key to win this game.”

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MAGIC 🪄🪄🪄 pic.twitter.com/w2eU4CA4sl

— x – Dallas Mavericks (@dallasmavs) April 29, 2022

The third quarter proved vital as the Mavs outscored the Jazz 36-19 and knocked down 8-12 three-pointers. Ten out of the Mavs’ 13 bucks were assisted, primarily thanks to the decisive decision-making of Doncic out of traps and double-teams. Doncic had one dime but scored 10 points, including two step-back threes in the monumental third frame.

“I like sharing the ball,” Doncic said. “If they’re going to [double-team], somebody is going to be open. We’ve been playing against blitzes or hits the whole season, and I think we did great. Then it’s just basketball, four-on-three.”

Game 1 of the Suns-Mavs second-round series will start on Monday.

Chris Paul and the Phoenix Suns are advancing to round two of the playoffs after the Point God put together a perfect shooting night to help lead Phoenix to a 115-109 win over the Pelicans.

Paul scored 33 points on 14-14 shooting from the field, went 4-4 from the free-throw line, and sank his one and only attempt from beyond the arc. He also hauled in five rebounds and dished out eight assists. The 12-time All-Star became the first player in playoff history to make all 14 of his shots as he led the Suns back from a double-digit deficit.

“It’s unbelievably special; you have no idea how special it is for me,” said Paul, per ESPN. “I had no clue (hadn’t missed). At halftime, I realized I might need to shoot a little bit more.”

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That man hasn’t missed yet. Sheesh. (via @NBAonTNT) pic.twitter.com/iYKMMiL3SJ

— SLAM (@SLAMonline) April 29, 2022

CP3 scored his 33 points on seven different defenders, asserting his will on the Pelicans’ defense with his signature midrange jumper. Paul made 11 shots outside the paint, none more important than his 10-foot pull-up with 28 seconds left in the fourth quarter to give Phoenix a five-point lead.

With Deandre Ayton as his pick-and-roll partner, Paul and the Suns erased a 10-point deficit in the third quarter after knocking down 13 of their first 14 shots. Paul hit six jumpers while Ayton (22 points, seven rebounds, and four assists) made two.

“I don’t believe in heat checks, I don’t shoot enough to take a heat check, and once I miss, I might be cold,” Paul said. “They were sort of letting me get to my spots.”

According to Elias Sports Bureau, Paul and Ayton shot a combined 24-26 from the field, the highest combined field goal percentage (92.3 percent) by a pair of teammates in a playoff game in the shot-clock era.

The Suns and Dallas Mavericks are set for a second-round showdown that begins on May 2 in Footprint Center.