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.
Miami coach Al Golden says the worst is behind him, but his headaches figure to continue now that former booster Nevin Shapiro, now in jail, says his involvement with the Hurricanes program will result in stiff penalties.
Golf's dream pairing - Woods and Mickelson - is on the course in the final round at Pebble Beach. Jason Sobel has hole-by-hole reports.
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.
Robins: It’s the Year of the Dragon on the Lunar calendar, and this Chinese influence could extend to it also being the year of the Pekingese on the green carpet at the 136th Westminster Dog Show on Tuesday.
AP
AUBURN HILLS, Mich. - Robert Horry was all set to cut through the lane after inbounding the ball with 9.6 seconds left when a strange thing happened — extremely strange, actually, considering his postseason history.
Rasheed Wallace suddenly went to double-team Manu Ginobili in the corner, leaving no one within 15 feet of one of the best clutch shooters in NBA postseason history.
Bad idea. Very bad.
“I saw Rasheed bite and said: ‘Oh, let me stay out here,”’ Horry said after he knocked down a wide-open 3-pointer with 5.8 seconds remaining in overtime Sunday night to give San Antonio a 96-95 victory over Detroit in Game 5 of the NBA Finals.
Horry, the veteran dubbed “Big Shot Bob” whose clutch postseason 3-pointers have defined his career, gave the Spurs a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven series. San Antonio bounced back from a pair of lopsided losses to defeat the defending champs in their own building and send the series back to Texas needing just one more victory for a third title in seven years.
“The play was for me to take that shot, but then I saw Rasheed coming,” Ginobili said “My first option in those moments was Robert. He’s a winner. He’s been in that situation so many times. Everyone knows what he does.”
The Pistons had one final chance after Horry’s shot, but Richard Hamilton missed a runner from the lane and Bruce Bowen rebounded to end it.
After four blowouts, this was the type of game everyone had been waiting almost two weeks to see — an intense, closely-fought nail-biter befitting of a championship series. The fourth quarter was close throughout, with clutch shots coming from Chauncey Billups and Hamilton for the Pistons, and Horry and Ginobili of San Antonio.
The player who wasn’t hitting the big ones was two-time NBA Finals MVP Tim Duncan, who missed six straight foul shots and a putback at the end of the fourth quarter that would have won it for the Spurs.
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Game 6 will be Tuesday night, and Game 7, if necessary, on Thursday.
The Pistons haven’t won in San Antonio since 1997, and the Spurs had the NBA’s best regular-season home record.
Horry finished with 21 points, Duncan had 26 points and 19 rebounds, Ginobili scored 15 and Tony Parker 14. Billups led Detroit with 34 points.
“It was the kind of game where you hate to see anybody lose,” Pistons coach Larry Brown said.
Of the prior 23 times a finals series has been tied 2-2, the Game 5 winner has gone on to win the title 17 times. The most recent time it has happened was 2003, when San Antonio defeated New Jersey. A game 5 loser won following a 2-2 tie most recently in 1994, when the Houston Rockets defeated the New York Knicks in Games 6 and 7.
Duncan also missed San Antonio’s first two shots of overtime and lost control of an entry pass with 56 seconds left in the extra period with Detroit ahead 95-93.
An offensive rebound gave Detroit two possessions while running down the final minute of overtime, but Billups missed on a drive with 9.4 seconds remaining. After a timeout, Horry knocked down the 3 that won it.
“You can’t go back and say shoulda, woulda, coulda. It was caught in the corner and I just tried to double. Now we have a day and a half. We’re cool,” Wallace said.
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.
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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.
