Celtics Win Ripples Across Globe

Celtics beaten 83-79 as Lakers claim 16th title

(AP) - The Los Angeles Lakers have won their 16th NBA championship, dramatically rallying from a fourth-quarter deficit to beat the Boston Celtics 83-79 in Game 7 of the NBA finals. Kobe Bryant scored 23 points despite 6-of-24 shooting while winning his fifth title with the Lakers, who repeated as NBA champions for the first time since winning three straight from 2000-02. More»

It's no NBA—but it shouldn't be, argues blogger. Plus, some players are hot.

(NEWSER) - The WNBA finals are going on, which has—in the past—led Sam Greenspan to joke, “Man I hope one of the players lands a one-handed breakaway dunk to seal the best-of-one series!” The league is “universally ripped on,” he writes for 11points.com, but the time has come to give it a break, and here’s why:

• The playoffs don’t go on forever: “As much as I love them, even I find the NBA playoffs to be farcically slow.”

Lakers star makes inroads with new Chinese foundation

(NEWSER) - Yao Ming may be an NBA star, but the most popular basketball player in China is Kobe Bryant—he's plastered on billboards and even once had his own reality show on Chinese TV. The Lakers guard has made a deliberate push in the world's largest nation, and he's now establishing the Kobe Bryant China Fund to benefit education and health. "I think he can be a one-man State Department," a financier working with Bryant told the Wall Street Journal. More»

Cops vow to jail miscreants as coliseum fills

(NEWSER) - An estimated 150,000 clogged streets in downtown Los Angeles today as the NBA-champion Lakers took a victory lap around downtown, the Times reports. Some 80,000 more jammed the Coliseum for a rally at parade’s end. Police, hoping to avoid the looting and chaos that followed Sunday’s clinching victory over the Orlando Magic, turned out in force. More»

Cocaine killed the athlete 22 years ago, but the impact lingers

(NEWSER) - Twenty-two years ago, Celtics legend Larry Bird called the sudden death of new Boston draftee Len Bias "one of the the cruelest things I've ever heard." The legacy of the Maryland basketball great, whose NBA career ended with cocaine use just two days after it began, retains its nuance and potency even now, writes Michael Weinreb for ESPN. More»