Category: Sports

The Boston Celtics announced that their two most key defenders, Marcus Smart and Robert Williams, were questionable for Thursday’s Game 1 of the NBA Finals.

Going into the title round of the playoffs, it’s unlikely either would miss a playoff game unless physically unable. Smart is still dealing with a sprained ankle he suffered in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals and a sprained foot he suffered during Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals against the Milwaukee Bucks. He missed four games in the Celtics playoff run, including Games 1 and 4 against the Heat.

Smart, the reigning Defensive Player of the Year, has averaged 15.5 points, 6.2 assists, and 4.5 rebounds in the playoffs.

“The ankle was a pretty serious injury,” Smart said. “I’m thankful to be able to play, let alone still walk.”

Williams has been battling knee issues since late March. Williams has missed seven games of the playoffs due to knee issues, including the first two games of the playoffs and four straight during Boston’s second-round series win over the Milwaukee Bucks.

Williams’ length and athletic range next to Al Horford allow Boston to play two switchable bigs who can defend the rim.

“It’s manageable,” Williams said Wednesday. “Kind of been getting in a routine the past couple games, what I have to go through to have myself ready to play — Obviously, the couple days between these series helped, too.”

The two played in Sunday’s Game 7 win against the Miami Heat. Smart finished with 24 points, nine rebounds, and nine assists. Williams finished with two points and three rebounds in 15 minutes of action.

According to Coach Ime Udoka, both players felt better from where they were as of Sunday’s Game 7 in Miami.

The Three Stripes have made a major move in the summer basketball scene. They recently announced that the Drew League in Los Angeles, Rucker Park in New York and the Atlanta Entertainment Basketball League have all partnered with adidas. Today, we get to check out what jerseys they’ll be wearing in LA and in Atlanta.

“I am extremely excited for AEBL to partner with an iconic brand like adidas,” Jahi “Jah” Rawlings, AEBL Founder, says via press release. “Our visions and how we want to impact the game of basketball on and off the court, and in the community align and will elevate basketball in Atlanta for generations to come.”

“I am very excited about our new partnership with adidas,” Dino Smiley, Drew League Commissioner, adds, also via press release. “I know we will do great things together in the basketball space, but most importantly within the Watts community as a whole.”

Check out details of the threads below.

This week, we’re unveiling the rest of our TOP 75 NBA Teams of All Time, which is featured in an entire special issue dedicated to ranking the best 75 individual season teams ever (shop here). To find out who else made it on the list, read here.

5. 1970-71 Milwaukee Bucks

Coach: Larry Costello

Record: 66-16

Roster: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Lucius Allen, Bob Boozer, Dick Cunningham, Bob Dandridge, Gary Freeman, Bob Greacen, Jon McGlocklin, McCoy McLemore, Oscar Robertson, Greg Smith, Jeff Webb, Marv Winkler, Bill Zopf

When fans and media talk today about some of the “unicorns” who populate the NBA, and marvel at seven-footers who have the athletic ability of players a foot shorter than them, there is something of an underlying belief that stars from the old days would be hopelessly overmatched in any competition with today’s heroes.

In some ways, they are correct. It’s hard to imagine some of the plodding big men of the ‘70s having any shot against Giannis Antetokounmpo or Joel Embiid. But anyone who knows basketball will stop the discussion with one reference: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. In 1969, the Bucks won a coin flip with Phoenix to earn the rights to draft the UCLA center, who had posted an 88-2 record and won three national titles with the Bruins. It was a seminal moment in the history of the franchise, which was just a year old at the time.

Abdul-Jabbar won the Rookie of the Year award for the ’69-70 season and averaged 28.8 ppg and 14.5 rpg. He was 7-2, but had rare speed for someone that tall and the kind of basketball skill that could not be found in NBA frontcourts. 

By the time the ’70-71 season dawned, the Bucks and Abdul-Jabbar were ready for more than just an Eastern Finals appearance. It didn’t matter that the big fella was in just his second year in the League. He was already a superstar and proved it again in ’70-71 by averaging 31.7 ppg and 16.0 rpg and winning the League’s MVP award.

And before the season, Milwaukee added another legend, Mr. Triple-Double, Oscar Robertson. Although the Big O had 10 years of wear on his tires, he was still extremely dangerous and gave the Bucks the kind of backcourt production they needed. Any team that wanted to double (or even triple) the post would have to deal with one of the best all-around players in NBA history. How was that for a pairing?

But the Bucks were way more than a two-man team. Forwards Bob Dandridge and Greg Smith were productive counterparts to Abdul-Jabbar, while Jon McGlocklin’s ability to score from the midrange and off the dribble created trouble for opponents concentrating on anyone else.

There wasn’t a lot of depth—forward Bob Boozer and guard Lucius Allen were the main bench weapons—but it didn’t matter. The Bucks rolled to 66 wins—14 better than the next-best NBA team. They won the Midwest Division by 15 over the Bulls and cruised into the playoffs as the prohibitive favorites to win it all. The Bucks led the NBA in scoring and were third in fewest points allowed. They shared the ball like no other team and hammered the boards.

The Bucks bolted to a 3-0 series lead in their Western Semifinal series against San Francisco, and though the Warriors took the fourth game, Milwaukee rebounded to close out the Warriors in resounding fashion, 136-86. The Lakers took a game from the Bucks in the Western Finals, after Milwaukee had won the first two of the series at home, but that was all L.A. could muster. Milwaukee throttled the Lakers in the next two games to earn a Finals clash with Baltimore, which had outlasted the defending NBA champion Knicks in the East.

The Bucks made the Finals a ho-hum affair by sweeping away the Bullets and winning all but one of the four games by double digits. In fact, Milwaukee did not trail at the intermission of any game—quarters or halves—and were not in significant trouble at any time. Abdul-Jabbar was the MVP, and Robertson and Dandridge made key contributions throughout the series. No expansion team ever won a title more quickly than did the Bucks.    

Then again, no other team had Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

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Photos via Getty Images.

The Boston Celtics have emerged as the Eastern Conference representative for the 2022 NBA Finals, while the Golden State Warriors will represent the West.

Boston’s defensive focus will mainly be on Stephen Curry, perhaps the best perimeter-oriented player in the League.

He gets to see the 2022 Defensive Player of the Year, Boston’s Marcus Smart, who will likely be stalking Curry the entire series. For opposing guards in the League, the assignment doesn’t get much more complex than Curry, let alone stopping him in the NBA Finals.

In an interview with Chris Haynes of YahooSports, Smart had said that guarding Curry on this stage is “special,” considering that this is also his first Finals appearance. The most important detail, as Smart noted, was getting his rest. 

“Getting sleep in this series is huge, man,” Smart told Haynes. “You know they are going to make you run. You have to put on your track shoes, and you have to be ready. So for me, it’s about being able to get my rest and a good night’s sleep. My conditioning is there to keep up with these guys, but you have to be fresh for them.”

Perhaps Boston is the best-equipped team to deal with Golden State than previous teams, given their physical nature and how tall their lineups are. Players such as Smart and Jaylen Brown will be able to match up with Curry and Klay Thompson, given their similarities with physical tools. 

The battle within the war also has some extra incentives to it as well because of the two times that Boston and Golden State met in the regular season, specifically during a Warriors-Celtics game on March 16 when Smart rolled Curry’s ankle while diving for a loose ball.

Smart is also seen as a target by players and fans because of his playstyle: a rigid, blue-collar attitude that reflects in Smart and how others perceive him. He plays as hard as anyone in the League, diving for everything on the floor, and plays perhaps the most exhilarating defense with a proud personality. Sometimes he can rub people the wrong way, but that doesn’t mean he will change to please people.

“I know I’m not the League’s favorite, I know I’m not the fan-favorite all the time, and I know I’m not a lot of people’s favorite player,” Smart suggested per Haynes. “My whole life has been like that. I’ve always been the underdog.”

This year’s Finals will be a matchup of polar opposite forces who are similar in many different ways. The Warriors are seen as the standard of the NBA, while Boston is more of an underdog team with hard-working players who fight for everything. And if Boston’s seven-game slugfest with Miami indicates anything, Golden State is in for a bumpy ride in these NBA Finals.

This week, we’ll be unveiling the rest of our SLAM TOP 75 NBA Teams of All Time list, which is featured in an entire special issue dedicated to the best 75 individual season teams ever. To find out who else made it on the list, read here.

6. 1986-87 Los Angeles Lakers

Coach: Pat Riley

Record: 65-17

Roster: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Adrian Branch, Frank Brickowski, Michael Cooper, AC Green, Magic Johnson, Wes Matthews, Kurt Rambis, Byron Scott, Mike Smrek, Billy Thompson, Mychal Thompson, James Worthy

One of the greatest teams in Lakers history began and ended the regular season with losses. A truer representation of the Lakers’ dominance came in the stretch of March and April, in which they won 21 of 22, a run that served as a statement of intent for the postseason. These guys were serious.

They were motivated, too. A year earlier, they’d missed the Finals for the first time in five years and watched as Larry Bird and the hated Celtics won their third title of the decade. They’d be in no mood to watch this time.

Magic Johnson was already a three-time NBA champion and two-time Finals MVP, but unlike his rival Bird, he had yet to win a regular-season MVP. He went out and put up numbers that would make it hard to give it to anyone else: a career-high 23.9 ppg and a League-high 12.2 apg, along with 6.3 rpg and 1.7 spg. Those numbers helped cover for the diminishing production of living legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who, at age 39, still averaged 17.5 ppg.

The rest of the Showtime squad was at or near its prime. James Worthy and Byron Scott were terrors running with Magic on the break, with Worthy averaging 19.4 ppg and Scott adding 17. Second-year forward AC Green was a famously weird stylistic fit on Hollywood’s favorite squad, but his 10.8 ppg and 7.8 rpg spoke to his value in the paint. Vets like Michael Cooper, Mychal Thompson and Kurt Rambis personified the team’s underrated defense and toughness.

After that dominant regular-season—they finished six games ahead of Boston and a full 10 games clear in the West—the Lakers looked basically untouchable through the first three rounds of the playoffs: 3-0 over Denver, 4-1 over Golden State, 4-0 over Seattle. It all set up the seemingly inevitable matchup with the Celtics, who’d needed seven games to get past Milwaukee and Detroit in the East. The Lakers had all the momentum, but they knew better than to take the Celtics lightly.

They did anything but, walloping Boston by a combined 32 points en route to a 2-0 lead before eventually taking a 3-2 lead back to Los Angeles for Game 6. Down 5 at the half, the Lakers blew the roof off the Forum with a 30-12 third quarter and cruised to victory behind a throwback 32-point effort from Kareem. But it was Magic who added another Finals MVP to his first regular-season trophy. In this moment, the League belonged to him.

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Photos via Getty Images

The Utah Jazz’s season came to a disappointing end when they lost in the first round of the 2022 NBA Playoffs to the Dallas Mavericks. With the team’s fate now in jeopardy, Coach Quin Snyder could potentially be on his way out after eight seasons in charge.

According to Adrian Wojnarowski and Tim MacMahon, owner Ryan Smith and CEO of Basketball Operations Danny Ainge have contacted Snyder about his future with Utah. Discussions have been in “good faith” with Snyder despite the uncertainty of the outlook for Utah. 

Snyder, who’s been with the team since the 2014-2015 season, has made the playoffs in six of his eight seasons but never made it past the second round. His teams never fell outside of the top 15 in defensive rating since he first took over, and he has never won less than 35 games in his eight seasons as head coach.

Snyder is under contract until the 2023-2024 season, with that final year being a coach option. 

Reports also say that the team is fine with Snyder coming back on his current contract, but nothing concrete on his long-term or immediate future. The team has also shown that they are preparing for potential earth-shattering roster changes that could change the team’s outlook, depending on the moves made by Utah’s front office that could determine if Snyder is to remain in Salt Lake City or seek a job elsewhere.

If Snyder were to leave, there would be only one head coaching vacancy left in the League to fill, with Charlotte Hornets. Snyder was linked previously to the Lakers’ job, but they opted to hire Bucks assistant coach Darvin Ham instead. 

The Jazz is in flux; the Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert situation remain unclear. Ownership has changed hands, and the front office leadership has changed in the last two years. This year, the team is set to be very deep in the luxury tax. Moving forward, the Utah Jazz will have a lot of choices to make, and they might be served to focus on improving the confidence Mitchell has in the team.