Four teams are on the brink of moving into the conference finals of the NHL playoffs and to the surprise of everyone, one of them is not the Chicago Blackhawks. The Western Conference’s top seed, and co-favorite with Pittsburgh for the Stanley Cup, has been pushed to the brink of elimination by the Detroit Red Wings. It’s there that we’ll begin our review of all four second-round matchups.
The Friday night schedule for TV daily sports looks an awful lot like Wednesday’s—it’s a day to focus on the stars, with LeBron James and Sidney Crosby getting the attention, and the Yankees playing a big AL East game.
The Atlanta Braves came blazing out of the gate in April, starting to take a step back in the first part of May, and now have re-asserted themselves atop the NL East with a six-game win streak. With a record of 28-18, the Braves lead the Washington Nationals by 4 ½ games coming into Thursday’s action. The National League installment of this week’s MLB coverage will take a deeper look at what’s making this club tick and whether they can keep on ticking.
Terry Francona makes his return to Fenway Park tonight in a spirit of triumph. The former Red Sox manager, now with the Cleveland Indians, will bring a first-place club to town for a four-game series. The Tribe is 26-19, and a half-game up on Detroit in the American League Central. Today’s MLB coverage will break down how the Indians are doing it, and ask whether Francona’s triumphant return is just a May thing.
After a wild night in the NBA playoffs on Wednesday, the daily sports focus shifts to a heavy NHL night on Thursday. The hockey playoffs will feature a nationally televised tripleheader, with the prospect of one team advancing to the conference finals, and both last year’s champs and this year’s favorite facing big games.
With the baseball season a little past the one-quarter mark, TheSportsNotebook is laying out the case for who should be leading in the race for All-Star positions and major awards. Today our MLB coverage focuses on the National League.
The daily sports menu for Wednesday is star-driven, as LeBron James and Sidney Crosby go into action in the NBA & NHL playoffs and the man who’s been the American League’s best pitcher in the early part of the 2013 season gets the ball on ESPN.
We’re just past the quarter pole in the major league baseball season and that means it’s time to see where we stand in the race for the All-Star spots and the major awards. Today, TheSportsNotebook’s MLB coverage will focus on the American League.
The NBA playoffs resume tonight, with Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals being the focal point of the daily sports diet for Tuesday. Memphis visits San Antonio in a game that tips at 9 PM ET on ESPN, and I would presume that means you get the entertaining pregame set of Michael Wilbon and Magic Johnson, with Jalen Rose and Bill Simmons along for the ride.
The Ottawa Senators and Detroit Red Wings have served notice they won’t go quietly, nor passively accept their roles as sacrificial lambs for the heavily favored Pittsburgh Penguins and Chicago Blackhawks. Each underdog got badly needed wins over the weekend, as TheSportsNotebook reviews all four second-round series…
It’s a night off in the NBA playoffs tonight, as Memphis-San Antonio resume their Western Conference Finals matchup on Tuesday, and Miami-Indiana don’t start in the East until Wednesday. That allows the NHL to be the focal point of the daily sports menu on Monday.
The conference finals in the NBA playoffs are set, as the Indiana Pacers eliminated the New York Knicks, 106-99 in Game 6 of their second round series. We’ll briefly recap the Pacers-Knicks game, and then dive into previews of the next round—Memphis-San Antonio in the West and Indiana-Miami in the East.