Hawks outlast Celtics' comeback from ice-cold start for Game 1 win The Boston Celtics will likely reflect on Game 1 of their first-round series against the Atlanta Hawks and wonder what could have been if they hadn't started the night with one of their worst shooting performances of the season. They also may consider how they measure up now that one of their best players could miss time. … [Read more...]

Bradley exits Celtics' loss with strained hamstring 9:57 PM ET Chris ForsbergESPN Staff Writer Close Covered Celtics since 2007 Emmy award-winning videographer Joined ESPNBoston.com in 2009 print ATLANTA -- Celtics shooting guard Avery Bradley suffered a strained right hamstring in the fourth quarter of Saturday night's 102-101 loss to the Hawks in Game 1 of their Eastern … [Read more...]

Curry's ankle injury creates concern in Warriors' Game 1 blowout The record-setting Golden State Warriors pursuit of a second-straight NBA championship started off very well with a convincing 104-78 blowout of the No. 8 seed Houston Rockets in Game 1 of their first-round series Saturday afternoon at Oracle Arena. The win seemed to confirm everything analysts predicted heading into the series … [Read more...]

Keith Smart back with Heat after treating cancer 4:10 PM ET Michael WallaceESPN Staff Writer Close ESPN.com NBA reporter Blogs regularly on the Miami Heat 14 years covering the ACC, SEC, NFL and NBA print MIAMI -- Assistant coach Keith Smart is back with the Miami Heat after completing cancer treatment and is expected to resume many of his normal duties during the playoffs. Smart, … [Read more...]

Paul George is a beast, and the Raptors' playoff demons are back Welcome back to the playoff stage, Paul George. It missed you — at least as much as the Toronto Raptors did not miss it. [Follow Dunks Don't Lie on Tumblr: The best slams from all of basketball] After missing nearly all of the 2014-15 season following the devastating leg injury he suffered during a summertime USA Basketball … [Read more...]

ESPN Forecast: Predicting Round 1 of the playoffs 2:01 PM ET print Who will advance to the second round of the NBA playoffs? We polled the ESPN Forecast panel of experts and a panel of fans. Here are the results, along with predictions from ESPN's Basketball Power Index (BPI), FiveThirtyEight and PredictWise. (2) Raptors VS. (7) Pacers TOR (%) IND (%) ESPN Forecast 75 25 BPI 72 28 … [Read more...]

Rockets say they can handle James Harden's turnovers 10:55 PM ET Calvin WatkinsESPN Staff Writer Close Calvin Watkins covers the Houston Rockets and the NBA for ESPN.com. He joined ESPNDallas.com in September 2009. He's covered the Dallas Cowboys and Texas Rangers as well as colleges, boxing and high school sports. print OAKLAND, Calif. -- If James Harden is to continue the … [Read more...]

Rotoworld Podcasts: Saturday DFS Preview Saturday, April 16, 2016 It's almost a Coach Tom Emanski special! Four games back-to-back-to-back. Emanski was a slacker with only three in a row, but I digress. Not too much value out there with injuries and it is almost impossible to fade Stephen Curry. In case you missed it, here are the preview pods for the East and West. Tons of lineup info and … [Read more...]

Playoff Preview: Predictions and Draft Recap As Jim Mora said, "PLAYOFFS?!" We finally made it through 1,230 regular-season games and now the fun begins with no more rest. On top of what should be a ton of great games, fantasy keeps rolling in the postseason, especially in DFS. In case you missed it, we did a Western Conference and an Eastern Conference podcast previews for all 16 teams (click the … [Read more...]

Feature Presentation: 2015-16 BDL Awards We at Ball Don't Lie enjoy healthy debate about basketball and its strange cast of characters, from Oscar Robertson's "get off my lawn" diatribe on Stephen Curry to D'Angelo Russell's sting operation on a self-dubbed dude named Swaggy P and his Australian hip hop artist fiancé. (Yup, those things happened.) It's NBA with a twist here at the BDL, so we … [Read more...]