“If you told anybody, let alone us in the dressing room, that we’d have a place in the finals as an eight seed, I would have only told you that you were crazy if you said it took 14 games,” Williams said.

• PHOTOS: The Kings in photos

• MORE: Gagne back at practice, enjoying Kings’ success

“But we’re here for a reason,” he added. “We’ve battled our tails off here the whole season, and things have come together here. We go into every series

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Tim Duncan

Kevin Durant is among the best players in the game today.

But neither of them might be the difference in the Western Conference playoffs.

The matchup of San Antonio’s Tony Parker and Oklahoma City’s Russell Westbrook is likely to tip the balance between two teams that have one playoff loss thus far.

How they execute the game plan and how they execute versus each other is a difference maker.

Stats aren’t really important but Parker averaged 18.3 points and 7.7 assists. Westbrook averaged 19.0 and 6.8.

Who would you like in your back court?

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Well, the NFL Players Association sure has been busy.

Not only has the union taken up the flag of the Saints over the bounty suspensions, now it has taken direct aim at the NFL by filing a collusion complaint.

Let’s first go back a bit.

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In early April, several media outlets, including the Globe, began taking a closer look at the economics of the new collective bargaining agreement after a few owners, including the Patriots’ Robert Kraft, commented that the NFL expected the salary cap to remain flat for a few years.

Those comments ran counter to what NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith told agents in February.

Smith said the cap would be flat for a few years but the players would begin reaping the rewards of the new media contracts starting

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Turns out what they really want in the Garden State is to be able to bet 100 bucks on the Jets in the sports book at the Meadowlands race track before strolling over to the stadium for the Sept. 9 home opener against Buffalo.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell might shudder at the idea, but it could happen. Probably not this season as Christie hopes, but it’s entirely conceivable that by the time the Super Bowl comes to the New York metropolitan area in 2014, it will be easy to place a wager on your favorite team at the race track next door.

That’s a sobering thought for a league so paranoid about sports betting that for years it forbade Las Vegas from even being mentioned during games. But

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Concussions are a concern for Scott. (US PRESSWIRE) Earlier this spring, former NFL quarterback Kurt Warner unwittingly

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Jamal Lewis, one of many former NFL players, says the NFL misled them on long-term risks of concussions – Part 1.
Former Cleveland Browns running back Jamal Lewis tells his story of life after football, one of many former players who had concussions during their NFL careers. Professional football players say the NFL misled them about the long-term risks of concussions and conspired to suppress the truth.
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By 2009, the year that concussions derailed veteran Cleveland Browns running back Jamal Lewis’ career, there were ample warning signs that pro football’s skull-jarring impacts were

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10 FREE Pro Sports Picks from Pregame.com

Save up to 80% at FansEdge Clearance Center – shop NFL, NCAA, MLB, NBA More

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Mark Buehrle pitched into the eighth inning and the Miami Marlins moved within a victory of tying the team record for the most in a month with a 5-3 win over the San Francisco Giants on Saturday.

Giancarlo Stanton hit two doubles and scored twice while Logan Morrison drove in two runs for the Marlins. Miami is a major league best 18-7 in May. The Marlins went 19-10 in August 1997.

”It’s outstanding, we’re playing some good ball,” Buehrle said. ”Everything is coming together at the same time. Hopefully we can keep it going into the next month and the couple days we have left in this month.”

Buehrle (5-4) allowed two runs and eight hits while throwing 69 of 100 pitches for strikes.

”He’s going to give you his heart out there,” Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen said. ”I know

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Love is in the air at the Cannes Film Festival, as the jury sits down Sunday to choose its prizewinners.

There’s love in the face of death in Michael Haneke’s “Amour,” love in conflict with faith in Christian Mungiu’s “Beyond the Hills” and love against the odds in Jacques Audiard’s “Rust and Bone” — three favorites to take the top prize, the Palme d’Or.

The jury, which is led by Italian director Nanni Moretti and includes actors Ewan McGregor and Diane Kruger, director Alexander Payne and fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaultier, will announce the prize winners at a ceremony later.

For filmmakers, it means a frustrating wait. Directors and actors getting prizes are tipped off that they should show up to the ceremony, but are not told what they have won.

“We knew we would have an award, we didn’t know what, which one,” said Laurent Cantet, who won the top prize in

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Standing before a wall of comic books looming with ominous images of one super hero after another — Thor, Captain America, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk — you see the evolution.

Innocuous little joints like this place, Capital City Comics in Montgomery, gave birth to the fandom surrounding the cinematic juggernaut that Marvel’s “The Avengers” has become in just a little more than four weeks since its initial opening.

When superheroes converge on the big 3D screen more than 70 years after their comic book line’s first release, something big — no, colossal — is bound to happen.

Mike Andrews, 42, is a regular and sometime “minion” at Capital City Comics, which recently relocated from Atlanta Highway to Festival Plaza where, conveniently, Rave Motion Pictures Festival 16 also makes its home.

Across Vaughn Road is the city’s other comics shop,

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