Silva: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for NFC teams.
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Ryan Callahan scored for the fifth time in four days and defenseman Ryan McDonagh snapped a second-period tie to lift the New York Rangers to a 3-2 victory over the Washington Capitals on Sunday.
Kobe Bryant hit a baseline jump shot with 4.2 seconds left and the Los Angeles Lakers wrapped up a six-game road trip by holding on to beat the Raptors 94-92 on Sunday, their eighth victory in nine meetings with Toronto
Arc's five up, five down: After No. 11 Michigan State's 58-48 upset of No. 3 Ohio State, you'd be a fool to discount the Spartans' national title chances now.
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The United States completed a 5-0 rout of Switzerland in the Davis Cup on Sunday, with 19-year-old Ryan Harrison and John Isner winning closing singles matches.
Euro Roundup: First-place Manchester City won 1-0 at Aston Villa on Sunday on Joleon Lescott's goal in the 63rd minute, maintaining its two-point lead over Manchester United in the Premier League.
Tessa Worley of France fought off gusting winds to win a second consecutive World Cup giant slalom Sunday in the Andorran Pyrenees. Overall leader Lindsey Vonn was more than a second behind and finished eighth.
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AP
PHOENIX - Shaquille O’Neal and the rest of the Phoenix Suns insist everything is all right, that they just need time to work out the kinks that come with their giant addition.
“We’re not going to panic,” Amare Stoudemire said.
Time is running out, though, for the three-time defending Pacific Division champs. With 21 games remaining in the regular season, the Suns have fallen to sixth in the Western Conference. They are 3-5 since O’Neal was acquired from Miami for Shawn Marion and Marcus Banks.
“Time is a-ticking, but we’re basically in a bit of a training camp during the season right now,” Raja Bell said after the team practiced on Thursday. “We’ve taken away a major part of what we did and added a piece that could be even a bigger part of what we do, and that’s going to take some time.”
Entering Thursday night’s play, Phoenix was three games out of first but only 3½ ahead of ninth-place Denver. Such is the state of the extremely cramped Western Conference.
“Everybody’s got to take a little bit of a dose of reality,” Suns coach Mike D’Antoni said. “There’s nine really, really, really, really good teams in the West, and somebody’s not going to make it.”
This is hardly the time for what O’Neal called “the experimental phase” of working him into what had been a full-tilt, high-octane style.
O’Neal, who turned 36 on Thursday, has brought what the Suns wanted to their game.
He’s averaging 10 points and 11 rebounds for Phoenix, with a high of 18 boards Wednesday at Denver, and he’s erased the offensive rebound woes that had plagued the pre-Shaq Suns. But the team’s perimeter defense has been awful, its shooting inconsistent and the ball-handling often atrocious. Phoenix is averaging 16.5 turnovers since O’Neal joined the team.
“All of that I believe is a byproduct of just guys trying to get accustomed to what we’re doing now, the different personnel and different spacing on the court,” Bell said. “You know Shawn was a guy who was definitely a spacer. That allowed Steve (Nash) and the guys who make a lot of plays to have a lot of room to make those plays. When you add a big body like Shaq, plus his defender, that space that was wide open isn’t there.”
Nash, who has 30 turnovers in those eight games, left without talking to reporters on Thursday, but his previous comments echo those of his teammates: that the Suns need more time to work things out.
O’Neal believes Nash should take more shots.
“Steve is the most unselfish player ever created,” O’Neal said. “A lot of times when he has the shot he’s looking to get somebody else the ball. Sometimes he’s just too unselfish.”
While the Suns have been better defensively inside, perimeter players have lit up the scoreboard against them. Marion is one of the league’s best defensive players. Bell, also a top defender, has been left to guard some bigger players, as has Grant Hill.
D’Antoni also said teams are super-confident because of the Suns’ reputation for being soft defensively.
“Right now people come in thinking ’Oh, we’re going to get a lot of easy shots,”’ D’Antoni said. “Whether they’re easy or not, they’re knocking them down.”
O’Neal said it’s a matter of constant defensive effort, something that’s was lacking even in the best of times for the Suns of the past.
“I’ve been here two, three weeks now, and I know that when we get into guys and play with a lot of energy, we’re a hard team to beat,” he said. “We just have to do that almost every game and you know it’s going to take some time.”
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It didn’t take much time for Pau Gasol to blend in with the Los Angeles Lakers, but that was not nearly the dramatic change of adding a 7-foot-1, 320-pound behemoth into the middle of what had been a flock of gazelles.
On Friday night, the Suns play Utah in the opener of a crucial five-game home stand that includes an afternoon contest against San Antonio on Sunday.
“For the fans, I know they’ve got to be a bit frustrated, but all I can say as a player is we are too,” Bell said. “There’s no book on how long these things take.”
Kobe Bryant hit a baseline jump shot with 4.2 seconds left and the Los Angeles Lakers wrapped up a six-game road trip by holding on to beat the Raptors 94-92 on Sunday, their eighth victory in nine meetings with Toronto
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Wesseling: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for AFC teams.
Ryan Callahan scored for the fifth time in four days and defenseman Ryan McDonagh snapped a second-period tie to lift the New York Rangers to a 3-2 victory over the Washington Capitals on Sunday.
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