My Sports News Digest

NEW YORK (NBA/Newsfeed) — The NBA Finals Game 2 on ABC — Miami Heat defeated Oklahoma City to even the series at 1-1 — generated an 11.8 overnight rating, the best overnight rating for a Game 2 since 2004 and second highest ever on ABC, according to Nielsen. The 11.8 rating is up 12 percent compared to last year’s Finals Game 2 (Miami Heat vs. Dallas Mavericks), which earned a 10.5. The two-game NBA Finals overnight ratings average for 2012 is an 11.8, up 11 percent from last year. Game 2 peaked with a 15.1 rating from 11:30 to 11:45 [...]

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NEW YORK (NBA/Newsfeed) – Phil Jackson says “there might be” an NBA job that would lure him out of retirement. The 11-time NBA champion coach tells HBO’s “Real Sports” that the Knicks and Magic openings this offseason were not the positions to bring him back to the bench. In an interview scheduled to air Tuesday night, Jackson confirms that New York, where he started his playing career, didn’t contact him before removing the interim tag from Mike Woodson’s title, but “I wasn’t going to take the job, that’s for sure.” Jackson calls the Knicks’ roster “clumsy” because their players “don’t [...]

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NEW ORLEANS (NBA/Newsfeed) – Saints owner Tom Benson has officially gained control of the New Orleans Hornets from the NBA. The completion Friday of the $ 338 million sale of the NBA club comes two days after the league’s board of governors approved the decision to sell to Benson. As part of the deal, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has approved the Hornets’ lease extension at the state-owned New Orleans Arena, which runs through 2024 and provides for $ 50 million in improvements. Benson agreed in April to buy the Hornets. The team had been owned by the NBA since December [...]

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OKLAHOMA CITY (NBA/Newsfeed) – A long, taxing year is coming to a familiar finish for Oklahoma City Thunder guard Derek Fisher. It all started with him being front and center during the NBA lockout as the president of the players’ union. It grew more complicated when the Los Angeles Lakers traded him away after he’d won five championships with the franchise. Fisher signed on with Oklahoma City, and he’s three wins away from achieving his ultimate goal of winning a sixth title. Only 13 players in NBA history have been a part of that many championship teams. “What it would [...]

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MIAMI (NBA/Newsfeed) – It’s a rematch: Miami and Boston will meet in the playoffs again, this time with a spot in the NBA finals at stake. Boston’s 85-75 win in Game 7 over Philadelphia on Saturday night earned the Celtics a trip to Miami, where the reigning East champion Heat will host Game 1 of this year’s conference title series Monday night. Boston took the regular-season series from Miami 3-1, though the last of those meetings was in the final game of the season and came on a night where LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh all sat out [...]

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MIAMI (NBA/Newsfeed) – LeBron James shook a few hands, slapped a few fives, gave a few hugs. That was the extent of his celebrating after the Miami Heat ousted the Indiana Pacers. A return to the Eastern Conference finals – no small achievement by any measure – is nice, though it’s far from the oft-stated goal for the reigning NBA MVP and the Heat. They’ll host Game 1 of the East title series on Monday night against either Philadelphia or Boston, both of those teams having been ousted from last year’s playoffs by Miami in five games. “You can’t just [...]

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PHILADELPHIA (NBA/Newsfeed) – Under new management, the 76ers had Philadelphia caring about basketball again. They had co-owner Will Smith sitting courtside and playing along to the cameras. They brought Julius Erving back in the fold. Allen Iverson made a stirring return, too. But the biggest buzz at last came from the Sixers themselves. No longer mired in mediocrity, Jrue Holiday, Evan Turner, Andre Iguodala, Lou Williams, Elton Brand and Co., carried the team from a 20-9 start into plucky postseason overachievers. Led by coach Doug Collins, the Sixers posted their first winning record (35-31) since 2004-05, and won a playoff [...]

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NEW YORK (NBA/Newsfed) — Knicks’ guard Baron Davis will undergo surgery later this week after an MRI on Monday revealed major damage to his right knee, according to the Knicks. Davis, whose right knee buckled in the third quarter Sunday in Game 4 of the playoff series with the Miami Heat, has a partial tear of the patella tendon and complete tears of the anterior cruciate and medial collateral knee ligaments. Recovery from the surgery will take about 12 months. Davis, who has battled injuries all season, is the latest Knicks guard lost to an injury. Jeremy Lin is still [...]

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