Archives › Rob Mahoney
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Dirk Nowitzki will never hear the end of the question. In the ensuing days, weeks, months, and even years, he’ll be posed the same inquiry over and over, so many times that his answer will grow repetitive but never robotic. The very thought will always invoke the same emotion he felt on this night, this…
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NBA Finals: Dallas tops Miami in Game 5 with an outlier, but what of it?
Jun 10, 2011, 3:38 AM EDT
The Dallas Mavericks took a 3-2 series lead on Thursday night with a 112-103 win, but their tremendous offense — the propulsive force that allowed them to pull within a single victory of taking the NBA title — was immediately tagged as an outlier, and saddled with all of the negative stigma that statistical improbabilities…
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The Miami Heat lost Game 4, 83-86, in part because of LeBron James. That’s okay. Players are allowed to have off nights. They’re allowed to struggle. They’re allowed to be passive once in awhile, and frankly, it’s human nature to ease off the gas from time to time. But in doing so, they strengthen the…
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NBA Finals: Miami endures, wins Game 3 to take a 2-1 series lead over Dallas
Jun 6, 2011, 1:23 AM EDT
Game 3 of the 2011 NBA Finals was a 48-minute spectacular. It was a heartbreaker and a series changer. It was valiant, defeating, and entertaining, and it was decided by an incredibly slim margin. With a single bucket — a Chris Bosh baseline jumper, to be exact — Miami topped Dallas, 88-86, in a riveting…
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NBA Finals: Dallas tops Miami in Game 2 with an incredible fourth quarter comeback
Jun 3, 2011, 2:53 AM EDT
From where we sit now, it’s so easy to look back at the dissipation of Miami’s 15-point fourth-quarter lead and point incredulously at what went wrong. The answers for what ails the Heat are always so obvious; their flaws are so glaring and fixable that armchair coaches across the country typically resolve them before Mark…
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NBA Finals: Miami balances star power with rebounding grit in Game 1 win
Jun 1, 2011, 2:26 AM EDT
All that it’s taken for the Miami Heat to win games in this year’s playoffs is the ability to maintain reasonable margins. They go on runs, they shut down their opponents’ offensive options, and they stretch their legs with displays of supreme athleticism, but the body of the single-game narrative — the initial 43 or…
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NBA Playoffs: Mavs win with offensive potency despite the absences of Butler and Beaubois
May 26, 2011, 2:59 PM EDT
As the Dallas Mavericks are doused with the effusive praise that comes with being a conference champion, let’s not forget that their incredible accomplishments have come despite their two X-factors watching in suits from the sideline. It’s odd to discuss a team headed to the NBA finals in terms of substantial setbacks, but there’s simply…
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NBA Playoffs: Bulls bounce Hawks, will need more from Boozer vs. Heat
May 13, 2011, 12:01 AM EDT
Chicago’s Game 6 dominance was in no way a surprise. Though Atlanta has played effective basketball at various points during this series, games like this one fall in line with the initial assessments of the Bulls’ superiority. The Hawks exceeded most projections of their playoff performance, but their postseason success didn’t change the fact that…
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NBA Playoffs: Mavs drop the Lakers in four, sweep away a dynasty
May 8, 2011, 9:42 PM EDT
Somehow, it only took the Dallas Mavericks four games to prove wrong just about every prediction and every presupposition that existed going into their series against the Los Angeles Lakers. The Lakers appeared bound for the Finals to pen a fitting final chapter of Phil Jackson’s coaching career. The Mavericks were supposedly the lesser team,…
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NBA Playoffs: Derrick Rose breaks free, torches Hawks for 44 in Game 3 win
May 7, 2011, 12:41 AM EDT
The Atlanta Hawks managed to bother Derrick Rose in the first two games of this series by using their bigs to clog the middle of the floor on Chicago’s screen-and-rolls, but Rose seemed to have an epiphany of sorts in Game 3; rather than play conservatively in an attempt to exploit the Atlanta defense with…
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NBA Playoffs: Bulls get back to basics, even up series against Hawks
May 5, 2011, 1:00 AM EDT
If Game 1 between the Chicago Bulls and Atlanta Hawks was an aberration — after all, the Hawks converted tough jumpers at an extremely high rate, and rode the high of those makes into a well-executed defense and an improbable victory — then Game 2 was oddly typical. The Bulls are no strangers to offensive…
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NBA Playoffs: Hawks give Bulls a run for their money on the boards
May 4, 2011, 7:47 PM EDT
In their Game 1 victory, the Atlanta Hawks pulled off a hell of a trick: not only did they completely negate one of the Chicago Bulls’ greatest advantages, but they did so in a way that flew completely under the radar. Sure, they bothered Derrick Rose and limited Carlos Boozer. They also took away Chicago’s…
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It’s time to go back to the drawing board, NBA world. These Atlanta Hawks apparently aren’t ready to crumble under the Chicago Bulls’ might just yet, as the underdog club — predicted by most to win but a single game in this series (or less), and predicted by yours truly to be overrun by Derrick…
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Kirk Hinrich is doubtful to play at all in the Atlanta Hawks’ series against the Chicago Bulls. As such, the Hawks are doubtful to even remain competitive in the series that will surely spell their playoff end. I hate to foretell a team’s postseason demise in such certain terms, but Hinrich’s absence makes it easy;…
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The deed is done. Even the slightest doubts of the Grizzlies’ prowess in their first round series have been put to rest, as have the revered San Antonio Spurs. Memphis completed their seemingly improbable upset by dominating in the most probable ways; the Grizz scrambled, posted up, defended, rebounded, and scrapped their way to a…
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NBA Playoffs: Atlanta wins ugly, but moves on to the second round
Apr 29, 2011, 1:23 AM EDT
In all honesty, I would never wish repeat viewing of the Atlanta Hawks’ series-clinching victory over the Orlando Magic on my worst enemy. The on-court product was brutal. Neither team could convert any of their shots, the turnovers were many, and the execution on the whole was fairly awful. Atlanta’s 39.2 percent shooting from the…
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NBA Playoffs: Spurs tear a hole in the fabric of the universe, improbably beat Grizzlies to stay alive
Apr 28, 2011, 12:47 AM EDT
This series, these playoffs, or this calendar year may be over before anyone has fully recovered from Game 5′s madness. San Antonio somehow managed to escape with a win, but I’m not quite sure anyone could properly explain how it happened. The Grizzlies converted down the stretch in the fourth quarter. They worked the ball…
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The NBA playoffs are a basketball fan’s dream; there are anywhere between two and four competitive basketball games on every night, each with their own allure, their own stars, and their own evolving narrative. There’s so much to enjoy and so much to learn, and unfortunately — due to wide, national broadcasting and the influx…
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NBA Playoffs: Magic demolish the Hawks, turn the series on its head
Apr 26, 2011, 10:44 PM EDT
On Tuesday night, the Orlando Magic returned to the comforts of reality, while the Atlanta Hawks experienced a jarring awakening. The first four games in this series weren’t an accurate representation of the performance of either team, but Game 5 shifted the matchup back toward balance, as Orlando thoroughly dominated both ends of the court…
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NBA Playoffs: Grizzlies go for the kill, take 3-1 lead over Spurs
Apr 26, 2011, 12:51 AM EDT
The San Antonio Spurs are lost. Their will is broken, their vaunted offense has withered and died, and the three-star core that has brought so much success to the Spurs franchise just isn’t producing at an acceptable level. Or, more accurately, the Memphis Grizzlies have erased the Spurs. They’ve broken San Antonio’s will, and smothered…
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We’re well past a mere first round scare or claims of an “upset alert.” With an 88-85 win in Game 4, the Atlanta Hawks have pushed the fourth-seeded Orlando Magic to the very edge of their playoff lives, a considerable achievement considering the regular season profiles of both teams. The Magic were the league’s fourth…
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Game 1 of the series between the Denver Nuggets and Oklahoma City Thunder stood out as a highly entertaining contest in an opening weekend full of highly entertaining contests, but the reprise in Game 2 couldn’t quite measure up as a competitive spectacle. Blame the Thunder; OKC used a dominant first quarter as a catalyst…
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The Orlando Magic still haven’t figured out how to get consistent offensive production out of their perimeter players, but they made one drastic improvement from Game 1 to Game 2: the Magic defense is now in full effect. Atlanta played a competitive game by putting up a strong defensive front of their own and hitting…
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NBA Playoffs: Grizzlies win the day, but is their success sustainable?
Apr 17, 2011, 6:34 PM EDT
The Memphis Grizzlies did it. They made big play after big play down the stretch on Sunday afternoon, and secured a 1-0 series lead against the top-seeded San Antonio Spurs, not to mention scored their first playoff win in franchise history. The victory was a tremendous achievement on several levels, and yet even the Grizzlies’…
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NBA Playoffs: Dwight’s one-man show comes up short against Hawks
Apr 17, 2011, 12:29 AM EDT
One couldn’t possibly expect, ask, or demand more of Dwight Howard than the Magic center gave in Game 1, and yet the Atlanta Hawks were somehow still able to take an early series lead with an efficient opening salvo. Atlanta is clearly equipped to compete in this series, and though they took a brutal 46-point,…
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Video: Grizzlies ready for 'running' Spurs
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Video: Durant won't 'compromise himself' like other stars
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Video: Knicks avoid elimination
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Video: Heat finish off Bulls, James 'has no energy left'
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Video: Health woes make Heat vulnerable
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Video: Good news for Sacramento, Kings stay
