NBA Playoffs: 2nd Round Wraps
A concise wrap-up of each series in the NBA’s conference semi-finals.
A concise wrap-up of each series in the NBA’s conference semi-finals.
For four straight seasons, the Buffalo Bills had been the gold standard of the AFC—four straight conference championships, a feat unparalleled in the Super Bowl era. They hadn’t won that final game of the year, but they were winning most everything else. All good things come to an end though, and the 1994 Buffalo Bills […]
The 1994 Miami Dolphins were feeling the urgency of the moment. Even with the great Dan Marino at quarterback and the legendary Don Shula on the sidelines, the Fish hadn’t been to a Super Bowl since Marino’s MVP year of 1984, and they had yet to win one with the future Hall of Fame quarterback. […]
The 1969 World Series between the Baltimore Orioles and New York Mets was a bit ironic. Just nine months earlier, these same two cities had met in Super Bowl III, when the then-Baltimore Colts met Joe Namath’s Jets. In that Super Bowl, the heavily favored team from Baltimore was upset by New York. Now, in […]
Baseball entered a new era in 1969. For the first time, the two leagues had been split into divisions, meaning a postseason round would have to be played prior to the World Series. The first edition of the 1969 NLCS featured the New York Mets and the Atlanta Braves. In a series that was then […]
The League Championship Series round was brand-new in 1969, and the first edition of the ALCS was between the Baltimore Orioles and Minnesota Twins. Two young, aggressive managers who would both become very familiar with each other and to baseball fans everywhere were in the dugouts—Earl Weaver and Billy Martin. There was some extremely tense […]
Since their founding in 1962, the Mets had done nothing but lose. In fairness to them, expansion franchises were put behind the eight-ball a lot more than they are today when it comes to building a roster. But the hard numbers told you that in New York’s first seven seasons, they lost at least 100 […]
The 1969 Baltimore Orioles came into the season just three years removed from winning the franchise’s first World Series title in 1966, but still in the midst of change. Hank Bauer had managed the ’66 champs. But after slipping under .500 in 1967, then being a middling 43-37 halfway through 1968, Bauer had been replaced […]
A Braves franchise that had been a consistent winner in Milwaukee, including a 1957 World Series title, moved to Atlanta in 1965. By 1967, the Braves were losing more than they were winning. They made a managerial change, bringing in Lum Harris. The team improved to .500 in ’68. The 1969 Atlanta Braves made an […]
The people of Minneapolis-St. Paul got major league baseball in 1960 when the first iteration of the Washington Senators moved west and renamed themselves the Twins. It only took five years to reach the World Series, in 1965. When the franchise slipped under .500 in 1968, they made a managerial change—Billy Martin got his first […]
The second round of the NBA playoffs tips off Saturday night in Denver. By the conclusion of next Thursday, all series will have their first two games in. You can check out each team’s season-long numbers at our pre-playoff notebook, The Tale of the Tape. The statistical results, both team and individual, are posted in […]
This post will be updated as each series concludes. We’ll run basic Tale of the Tape numbers, team-wide and individual, for each matchup and offer a brief comment. For the individual stats, unless noted otherwise, you can just assume they shot between 45 percent and 55 percent from the floor. Minnesota (3) sweeps Phoenix (6) […]