ESPN NBA

Could the Houston Rockets and/or Boston Celtics pull off the impossible?

No team in NBA postseason history has ever come back from a 3-0 series deficit to win a best-of-seven series, but the Rockets and Celtics have both forced a Game 6 at home. Prior to those teams, only 10 teams in history forced a Game 6 after trailing 3-0 in a best-of-seven, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

The Rockets and Celtics will both be at home in Game 6. According to history, there’s a 50-50 chance each team forces a Game 7. Six of those 10 teams to force a Game 6 were at home, and three of them forced a Game 7 -– the only three teams to force a Game 7 after trailing 3-0.

How did the Rockets get it done?

Kevin Durant was the primary ball handler on 14 of his 19 fourth-quarter touches in Game 5 but failed to score in the fourth quarter. Durant’s extra usage since Russell Westbrook’s injury includes 24 more touches per game, mostly in the backcourt as the team’s ball handler.

Durant was scoreless in the fourth quarter for the first time in his playoff career when playing at least 10 minutes in the fourth quarter.

The Rockets shot well from beyond the arc. They made 14 3-pointers in a playoff game for the first time since 1997 against the same franchise, when they were in Seattle as the SuperSonics.

James Harden made a playoff career-high seven 3-pointers (he made his first seven attempts).

The Thunder employed a “Hack-Asik” strategy in the fourth quarter but Omer Asik was 11-for-16 on free throws in the 4th quarter (1.38 points per possession). The Rockets scored nine points on 17 fourth-quarter possessions that didn't end in Asik free throws (0.53 points per possession).

How did the Celtics get it done?

Carmelo Anthony was in isolation on 52 percent of his offensive plays in Game 5, shooting 3-of-12 from the field on those plays. Anthony has shot 30 percent from the field in isolation for the series (46 percent on all other plays).

The Knicks used isolation on 16 percent of their offensive plays in the regular season, the highest rate in the NBA (league average: 10 percent). In the postseason, though, the Knicks have upped that rate to 27 percent.

Despite the high usage in the regular season, the Knicks were the fifth-most efficient team in isolation, averaging 0.87 points per play. In the postseason, the Knicks’ 0.71 points per play in isolation is second-worst among playoff teams.

The Celtics shot 50 percent on 3-point attempts in Game 5 after shooting 30 percent in the first four games of the series. The Knicks are shooting 23 percent on 3-pointers in their past two games after 38 percent in the first three games.

Former professional football player Wade Davis came out in 2012, a few years after retiring from the game. We spoke on Monday soon after Jason Collins' story was published, and one of Davis' first reaction was, "He's perfect."

Davis stops by TrueHoop TV to explain what makes Collins a strong candidate to perform the hard work of being North American team pro sports' first openly gay male athlete.
 

Former New York Times and current Grantland basketball writer Jonathan Abrams takes the time to do things right, digging in deep to tell us amazing stories, like one of the first and still the best Royce White profile, the definitive guide to Stephen Jackson's thinking and of course the oral history of the Malice at the Palace. Each of this stories is nuanced and textured and fun to read. Like a little book.

And now he's going to write a big book. The deal is freshly signed. Boys Among Men: How a Generation of High Schoolers Chasing Their NBA Dreams Changed the Game and Themselves tells the story of players who jumped directly from high school to the NBA, from Moses Malone in 1974 to Amir Johnson in 2005.

When's it coming out, you ask? You can't rush these things. I asked Abrams that question, and he mumbled something about 2015. But it's happening.

So odd to me, that people wonder why Jason Collins' coming out made bigger waves than Brittney Griner's.

Well, gather 'round, because I'm about to explain.

1. How many WNBA players are out? As of 2005, Michele Van Gorp, Sue Wicks and Sheryl Swoopes. That was eight years ago.
2. That the WNBA doesn't make news like the NBA is elemental. It is a lower profile sport.
3. We don't know precisely the obstacles Collins faced in coming out. But we do know that in NBA, MLB, NFL and NHL history no other active player has overcome them before, despite thousands of athletes over more than a century.
4. Jason Collins is a man.

Whoa. What? Huh? That last point?

If I thought it would work, here's where I'd drop 5,000 words of queer theory on you. Or you can take my word for it that gay men and women have long faced subtly different obstacles in gaining mainstream embrace. For men, a particular issue has been that society's powerbrokers -- disproportionately heterosexual men -- have long acted scared of gay men, and particularly of being sexually assaulted by them.

That quickens the pulse of the people who set the agenda, particularly in the male-dominated sphere of pro sports. For many sports fans that gave Collins' announcement a "wow" factor -- likely subconscious -- that Griner's cool announcement lacked.

This is why we hear so much about group showering whenever gay athletes are discussed. The shower is where a lot of heterosexual men hate to be reminded gay men exist, even if they can handle that reality perfectly well in other settings.

Compared to women or gay men, heterosexual men lack practice coping with sexualization, and are easily alarmed.

So chalk that up as the first fear: That the open existence of homosexual men makes some heterosexual men feel unsafe. This prompts fear. Fear and hatred have always walked hand in hand. Hatred, of course, is the key obstacle Collins will face.

Would you believe there's another fear in play that's even trickier to write about? The second is that admiring professional athletes' bodies -- no small part of what sports fans have long done daily -- just got weird for the ardently heterosexual male. Jason Collins is asking fans to tour their own psyches in a challenging new way.

And here's where I really think you ought to read what one of America's most decorated writers (be warned, it's PG-13 or beyond), Sherman Alexie, has to say about about how we see gay athletes, in The Stranger.

So who are the best-looking men in the USA? The answer, obviously, is professional athletes. I mean, Jesus, Google-Image Adrian Peterson. Study how cut, shredded, and jacked he is.

Cut. Shredded. Jacked. Those are violent straight-boy adjectives that mean "beautiful." But we straight boys aren't supposed to think of other men as beautiful. We're supposed to think of the most physically gifted men as warrior soldiers, as dangerous demigods.

And there's the rub: When we're talking about professional athletes, we are mostly talking about males passionately admiring the physical attributes and abilities of other males. It might not be homosexual, but it certainly is homoerotic.

So when Jason Collins, an NBA basketball player, announced this week that he was gay and became the first active athlete in the four major professional American sports leagues to come out of the closet, I was proud of him. And I was aroused, politically speaking.

He's the Jackie Robinson of homosexual basketball big men.

He's seven feet and 250 pounds of man-loving man.

And he's an aging center in the last days of his professional career who might not be signed by a team next season.

Homophobic basketball fans will disparage his skills, somehow equating his NBA benchwarmer status with his sexuality. But let's not forget that Collins is still one of the best 1,000 basketball players in the world. He has always been better than his modest statistics would indicate, and his teams have been dramatically more efficient with him on the court. He is better at hoops than 99.9 percent of you are at anything you do. He might not be a demigod, but he's certainly a semi-demigod. Moreover, his basketball colleagues universally praise him as a physically and mentally tough player. In his prime, he ably battled that behemoth known as Shaquille O'Neal. Most of all, Collins is widely regarded as one of the finest gentlemen to ever play the game. Generous, wise, and supportive, he's a natural leader. And he has a degree from Stanford University.

In other words, he's a highly attractive dude.

 

David Thorpe has his doubts the Thunder can even beat the Rockets, let alone win a title. And Russell Westbrook's injury is only part of the story.

On video, it looks like strategy.

Stephen Curry, the NBA's newest and slightest superstar, who has been killing the Nuggets on ankles so brittle he recently tweeted "no ankle left unturned lol," was minding his own business, jogging through the lane three-and-a-half minutes into Game 5, when the Nuggets' Kenneth Faried stepped backward, directly into Curry's tender foot.

It wasn't an isolated event.

"Three or four plays in the first four minutes," estimates Curry, who says "of course" the Nuggets were trying to rough him up.

I knew this was coming. Intentional fouls, I've been increasingly realizing, are the go-to method of controlling superstars. Curry, with a skinny build and weak ankles, is more vulnerable than anybody. As he emerged as a player who could decide a series, the clock was ticking. He would get roughed up. It made too much sense.

"Some dirty plays early," pointed out Curry's coach, Mark Jackson, who later said this of Faried: "Take a look ... the screen on Curry by the foul line is a shot at his ankle. Clearly. That can't be debated. ... I've got inside information that some people don't like that brand of basketball and they clearly didn't co-sign it. So they wanted me to know they had no parts in what was taking place."

Jackson -- whose team has committed all kinds of hard fouls in this series (ask Andre Iguodala about Andrew Bogut) and this season, including some that caused injury -- spoke passionately in defense of hard play, and even hard fouls. But he stressed it was important for both teams to go to the trouble to avoid injuring each other.

On TNT later, Charles Barkley explained: "I've been on teams where you say ... this dude's too comfortable. Every time you get a chance, hit him. You want him to be thinking about 'Where am I going to get hit at next time?' You can't go out there like you're at a shootaround."

Shaquille O'Neal heartily co-signed, saying Jackson went too far in calling such a thing "dirty," insisting instead it's just the nature of the game. (Every retired player will tell you it was way rougher when they played. That's what they do, even though there's little evidence the game was really more physical back then.)

Here's the thing, though: Forget the teams for a second. Forget rooting for Denver or Golden State. Forget the tail-chasing debate about what's "dirty."

Put yourselves in the position of the people who are charged with keeping players safe: The NBA. They're the ones who have fallen asleep on the job here.

If you're the NBA, or any fan of basketball, you want nothing more than for Curry -- the most exciting player in these playoffs -- to keep creating artistic moments that fire the imagination. You want to see skilled players doing the skilled things that make this league unique, and distinct from MMA. You want this for every player.

In short, you don't want to see Curry play his best in Game 6 only if he proves his ankles can withstand intentional attack. (We already know they probably can't ... he has missed dozens of games from plays with no contact at all.) You want him at his best in Game 6 because the other team is not "hitting him every chance they get."

And we could have that, right now.

Teams are roughing up opposing stars because it works. It works because many intentional fouls are missed entirely by the referees, and those that are noticed, even dangerous ones, are punished too lightly to make it stop.

Barkley and O'Neal played in an NBA where there was no strategic reason not to rough a guy like Curry up. You "hit" him 10 times a night as a team, you get called for four or five. That's the cost. The benefit is he is intimidated, fearing for safety, and diminished as a scoring threat all night long, for every play of his night. The benefit is bigger than the cost! Someone with SportVu data can probably do the math: Six or seven extra free throws is a small price to pay for a dozen extra hits -- many uncalled -- that result in a cowed, hobbled or injured opposing star. That's a fantastic trade for the more aggressive team.

That's "playoff basketball."

No coach will go on record against it. They want the ability to hit players early and often, both because it's a valuable tactic for a team and because it's a particularly valuable tactic for coaches. Intentional fouls take power from superstars -- who'd dominate even more without fear of injury -- and give it to he who can order up the hits.

The problem, though, is that it's 2013, and the league has more than enough tools, right now, to clean all of this up. Getting away scot-free with a lot of cheap shots is a key reason this is a winning strategy. But why, in a world where every court is encircled by cameras, where everyone at home benefits from truly instant HD replay from all kinds of angles, would the people making the key decisions of the game not have real-time access to that crucial information? Why would we shrug and say "we can't catch 'em all" when we totally can?

You have no idea how many times a night, thanks to the magic of watching ESPN or TNT in HD with a remote control in my hand, I know precisely whether there was a foul or not, even as the referees have no idea. It's crazy. And it makes the NBA look crazy. Why do the people with the beer and the popcorn on the couch have better real-time information than the people making game-deciding calls?

NBA referees are the best in the world, but everybody thinks they're terrible because of this. And meanwhile, the game is not being called nearly as accurately, quickly or comprehensively as it could be.

My HoopIdea: Get away from stopping the game for video review. And graduate to a courtside referee or two, with as many TV screens as would be helpful, showing every angle imaginable. This video referee crew would constantly review all the best angles of what is happening right now as it happens. They might be a few seconds behind real time if they need to rewind briefly, but not much. They'd essentially know everything video could know, without having to stop the game to huddle around a single monitor. And when they know something the referees on the court missed, they'd be able to tell them at the next dead ball, or even sooner.

The plays where the video makes the referees look foolish ... they're usually at dead balls anyway.

Before you tell me this is loco, realize the league already does this. They review the games after they're over, for instance a whole day later. And then they "correct" the referees' work when it was egregiously wrong, either by apologizing for a missed call, and then warning, fining or suspending somebody for a flop, a dirty play, fighting or anything else.

I'm baffled by the delay. Players are hitting each other as part of team-wide strategy -- endorsed by Barkley, O'Neal and oddly, even Mark Jackson -- because they help them win games.

As long as the real punishment only comes after the game, there are still wins to be had for teams who are beating people up. Whatever the NBA believes can be gleaned from video, glean it when it's still useful to decide the game, when it's still useful to keep up with the fans at home, and to make the strategy of Tackle Basketball stop working.

The league's executives, from David Stern to Stu Jackson, have been clear they do not want teams taking the floor planning to hurt each other. Time to do something about it.

• Mark Kiszla of The Denver Post: One cheap shot can change everything. The mojo in this NBA playoff series turned decidedly back in the favor of the Nuggets when Golden State center Andrew Bogut turned into a coward and went for the throat of Kenneth Faried. Any guise of good sportsmanship is gone. This is a brawl. Oh, it's on now. Golden State coach Mark Jackson accused the Nuggets of being "hit men." Faried countered by alleging Bogut has repeatedly hit him in the throat. Denver did more than beat Golden State 107-100 on Tuesday night to stave off an unwanted start to summer vacation. When Bogut lost his head, taking a cheap shot at Faried, it was the first sign Denver had wormed its way into the heads of the Warriors. "He just hit me, and I was shocked," Faried said. "But I was happy about it." Bogut cracked. And there is a crack in the door for the Nuggets to beat the odds, show Golden State who's boss and make an unlikely comeback from a 3-1 deficit to win the opening-round series. … Thanks to Bogut, they look like wannabe thugs. After a loss in Game 4 at Golden State, Faried was so frustrated he kicked a hole in the locker room wall. "They can bill me," Faried said. He'll be back, for Game 6, with the pressure on Golden State. This time, Faried and the Nuggets are looking to kick tail. The mind-set the Nuggets will take into this fight? "We ain't leaving here," Faried said, "until we've won."
• Tim Kawakami of the San Jose Mercury News: Stephen Curry had a cold, cold look in is eyes for the last half of Game 5 on Tuesday, and he still had it in the locker room later. He looked outraged after the Warriors' 107-100 loss to Denver. He looked bruised. Really, he looked like he was plotting vengeance. And most of all, Curry looked like he wanted to play Game 6 right here, right now instead of having to wait until Thursday at Oracle Arena. … It’s not happy-fun, it's edgy NBA playoff-fun, where the longer a series goes, the more the passion and dislike boils over into something like an alley fight. And where there are on-court taunts and messages sent, including, according to Warriors sources, Nuggets players repeatedly telling Curry that he was a soft player. The Warriors still lead this series 3-2, and now they are angry, too. … Though the Warriors were clearly outplayed in this game, which denied them their first shot at clinching this series, their locker room was feeling good about the late comeback and the home game Thursday. And mostly, they were fuming about the hits Curry took from the first minutes of this game. "They tried to send hit men (at Curry)," Warriors coach Mark Jackson said. The general point: The Nuggets delivered most of the hits--legal or not--and the Warriors failed because they didn't recover until the fourth quarter, when it was too late. The implied point: The Warriors are planning to hit first, second, third and 100th on Thursday.
• Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times: It's tough to win a playoff game going one on five. The Clippers gamely tried Tuesday at Staples Center, but not even the sustained brilliance of Chris Paul was enough on a night he nearly doubled the output of his fellow starters with 35 points. The Memphis Grizzlies didn't deliver a powerful jab during a 103-93 victory in Game 5 of their Western Conference first-round series as much as what seemed like a knockout blow, taking a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven series. Now that the series has started, to use that expression about the road team breaking through for a playoff victory, it's pretty much over for the Clippers. They have lost three consecutive games, and as tempting it is to use Blake Griffin's sprained ankle as an excuse or tout the Clippers' recent success at FedEx Forum, where they won twice in the playoffs last season and twice during the recently completed regular season, well, forget it. If Tuesday's no-show is any indication of the way the Clippers intend to play at a time when they need contributions from everybody, then they might as well call it a season instead of taking the flight to Memphis for Game 6 on Friday. That could be the end of the Vinny Del Negro era and these Clippers as we know them.
• Vincent Bonsignore of the Los Angeles Daily News: Just the other day Blake Griffin was talking about how different these playoffs are compared to last year - the key being no longer having to drag an injured leg up and down the court. If Griffin didn't believe in the power of the jinx then, he might now. All it took was jumping innocently Monday during practice and then planting his right foot onto the foot of a teammate upon landing. The result being a sprained ankle so severe that if this was the regular season his absence might be measured in weeks, not hours. Not to mention a first-round playoff series against the Memphis Grizzlies that just got turned on its head. Griffin gutted it out Tuesday in Game 5, but gone was all the explosiveness that makes him one of the most gifted forwards in the game. He was limited, and it showed. And that left the Clippers stuck in first gear in a game they absolutely had to have to hold onto any sort of control of this series. … The problem is, ankle sprains don't just go away in a day or two, leaving the Clippers vulnerable the rest of the series. They have a training staff players continually praise for getting them ready to play, regardless of the situation - but they'll be put to the test between now and Friday's Game 6 to get Griffin's ankle to a point it can carry him through another game. The question is, will he be the decoy he was Tuesday or someone capable of actually contributing? And can he give them more than the three quarters he played in Game 5? Nothing less than the Clippers' season hangs in the balance.
• Chris Vivlamore of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: What took so long? The Hawks vaulted back into their first-round playoff series against the Pacers by starting a bigger lineup that resulted in convincing home victories in Games 3 and 4. The greatest of the many benefits of the move has been the matchup of Josh Smith on Paul George. It has been a clear victory for the Hawks that has the best-of-seven series tied 2-2 and headed back to Indiana for Game 5 on Wednesday night. Smith has stifled George on defense. The Pacers’ All-Star small forward averaged 25.0 points, 9.5 rebounds and 7.5 assists in Games 1 and 2. However, he averaged 18.5 points, 10.5 rebounds and 1.5 assists in Games 3 and 4. He had only three points at halftime in Game 4 on Monday when the Hawks built what was an insurmountable lead. He has not been the facilitator he was who made the Pacers’ offense so effective in the first two games. Smith also has prevented the Pacers from getting the ball to George in favorable places on the floor. The lineup change also meant that George had to guard Smith. It’s another battle won by the Hawks.
• Mike Wells of The Indianapolis Star: It’s something nobody thought would happen at any point of the season, especially in the playoffs. Indiana Pacers power forward David West hasn’t had an impact in the series against the Atlanta Hawks. Not West, the backbone of the Pacers. Not West, the team’s most consistent player the past two seasons. Not West, the veteran savvy player who has managed to overcome his shortcomings in speed and athleticism to often end up schooling players at his position. Yes, that West. West continued to be unnoticeable Monday when the Hawks evened the series with the Pacers via their 102-91 victory at Philips Arena. … “I have to figure out a way to be more effective in this series,” West said. “I feel like I have an advantage at times, but we have to be able to catch a good rhythm in these games.” West is right: It’s time for him to get out of his funk. The Pacers need him. No offense to Paul George and the rest of the team, but they won’t win this series without West getting back to being the David West of the regular season.
• Darnell Mayberry of The Oklahoman: After missing the game's most important shot Monday night at Houston, a stick-back attempt from point-blank range, Ibaka whipped his head back, and then his body, and then crumpled to the court. As he remained on his backside, Ibaka put both arms over his head. He couldn't believe what he had just done. He had just cost the Thunder the closeout game at Houston. “It was tough. It was tough,” Ibaka said Tuesday, a day later. “I wanted to try to save my team, and it didn't happen. It was tough for me.” On the list of Thunder players who didn't deserve to deal with that amount of agony, Ibaka ranked a close second to Kevin Durant. … “It was my first time to be in that position, you know?” Ibaka tried to explain. He continued. “I didn't sleep last night, man.” … Ibaka insists he'll learn from it. “The good thing about it is we have one more game (Wednesday),” Ibaka said. “Like I said, for me, that was my first time to be in that position. It didn't happen, so now I know how it feels and I'm going to move on.”
• David Barron of the Houston Chronicle: Patrick Beverley has endured summers in Chicago and winters in Russia, so there isn’t much chance he’s going to get emotionally distraught over another night in Oklahoma City. And even if Beverley were prone to get his feelings hurt when people hurl abuse his way, he can consult one of the NBA’s reigning experts on the fine art of being a visiting team villain. “In the famous words of Bill Walton, if they’re cheering you in the opponent’s gym, you’re doing something wrong,” said Rockets coach Kevin McHale, a veteran of the Lakers-Celtics brouhahas of the 1980s. “I don’t think they’re cheering (Beverley), so he must be doing something right.” Wednesday night’s Game 5 will be the Rockets’ first game at Oklahoma City since the Game 2 incident in which Thunder guard Russell Westbook suffered a knee injury when he appeared to be trying to call a timeout and Beverley moved in for an attempted steal. Westbrook required season-ending surgery, and Beverley received all manner of Internet abuse from Thunder fans, including a couple of death threats from a Twitter account linked to an Oklahoma City ball boy.
• Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald: Kevin Garnett will take the Madison Square Garden floor this evening to participate in his 1,453rd NBA game. He insists that he hasn’t considered there may not be a 1,454th. If the Celtics do not defeat the New York Knicks tonight, their season will be over — a 4-1 Eastern Conference quarterfinals exit. One of the first questions that will follow is whether Garnett’s career, too, will be at an end. But the Big Ticket doesn’t want to consider the fact he may be punching his ticket to retirement. Such thoughts can only get in the way. So when he sat his 6-foot-11 frame down at the C’s practice facility yesterday, his vision was sharply tunneled. He seems to play most every game as if it could be his last. But would this one be any different because it could be, you know, the last? “Not really. Game 7’s an all-out,” said Garnett, echoing a team theme that every game now is a Game 7, even though tonight’s is, indeed, Game 5. “That’s just what they are, the last opportunity to survive. Your mentality can’t be anything different.” … So if he did spend yesterday morning wondering what Thanksgiving on a beach would feel like, he wasn’t sharing that later. And he didn’t want to ante up for any hypothetical poker.
• Howard Beck of The New York Times: J.R. Smith will rejoin the rotation Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden, and in all likelihood, the Knicks will close out the series. No N.B.A. team has come back from a 3-0 deficit, and the Celtics will probably not be the first. The Knicks have not lost a home game since March 7. The elbow, the suspension and the loss may ultimately become a footnote to an otherwise glorious season. But if the Knicks stumble in Game 5? If Tyson Chandler’s neck flares up? If Raymond Felton’s ankle turns? If Carmelo Anthony goes 10 for 35 again? Sometimes, it takes just a single sprain, one unlucky bounce or a shooting slump to turn a series around. The smart teams know this, and they act accordingly, treating each game as vital. Whether this series ends in five games, six or seven, the Knicks will have cost themselves vital recovery time — even more crucial for a team relying on so many older veterans. They need to preserve Jason Kidd’s 40-year-old legs and Kenyon Martin’s surgically repaired knees for the challenges ahead, and the expected showdown with the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference finals.

Let's take a look at the three biggest keys to the Denver Nuggets win over the Golden State Warriors in Game 5.

Nuggets get back to what works
The Nuggets outscored the Warriors 50-24 in the paint Tuesday, the largest paint differential in any game in the 2013 playoffs.

The bulk of that damage was done in the first half, when they made 17-of-29 shots in the paint (56 percent).

Denver only outscored Golden State by eight points in the paint in the first four games of the series.

The Nuggets outscored their opponents by 17.4 paint points per game during the regular season, the best paint differential in the league.

Difference-Maker: Andre Iguodala
Andre Igoudala finished with 25 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists.

He’s the first Nuggets player to hit all three of those statistical benchmarks in a game since Lafayette “Fat” Lever.

Igoudala made inside work a priority in Game 5.

He scored 14 of his points from inside five feet. In the first four games of the series, he totaled 20 points from that distance.

Curry cooled off
Stephen Curry was 7-for-19 from the field and made only one 3-point shot (he needed three to set the record for most 3-pointers made in a player’s first five career playoff games).

Curry was 4-for-10 when guarded by Ty Lawson, 2-for-5 combined against Igoudala and Corey Brewer, and 1-for-4 in transition.

The 1-for-4 in transition continues a trend. He’s 5-for-16 on transition shot attempts in this series.

Up 3-1 in the series, the Golden State Warriors look to close out the Denver Nuggets on Tuesday.

It would be just the second postseason series that the Warriors have won since 1992, joining a 2007 series win over the Dallas Mavericks.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, that’s tied for the second fewest series wins in that span. The Grizzlies, Raptors and Wizards also have just one in that span, while the Bobcats remain winless.

Meanwhile, the Nuggets look to avoid their eighth first-round exit over the past nine years.

Denver’s Defensive Woes
The Warriors are shooting 57.6 percent from the field over the past three games, and 53.0 percent for the series.

From the Nuggets perspective, the last team to finish a postseason allowing a higher field goal percentage was the Hornets in 1997 (57.0).

Those numbers are still heavily influenced by Golden State’s Game 2 outburst. The Warriors’ 131 points were the most in a regulation playoff game in five years, while their 64.6 field goal percentage was the highest since 1991.

Curry Makes His Mark
Stephen Curry is the third player in NBA history to tally at least 100 points and 40 assists in his first four career playoff games combined. According to Elias, he joins Kevin Johnson and Oscar Robertson.

Curry is averaging 27.3 PPG and 10.0 APG so far this postseason. Time will tell if he can keep up that pace, but only five players in NBA history have averaged 25 points and 10 assists in a single postseason (min. 4 games).

Allen Iverson (2004-05), Tim Hardaway (1990-91), Magic Johnson (1989-90), Isiah Thomas (1985-86), and Oscar Robertson (1961-62, 1964-65) make up the current list.

Curry needs to make only three 3-pointers on Tuesday to set a new record for 3s in a player’s first five playoff games. He has 18 through the first four games.

It's late in a close game, your team has the ball, and they need to decide what to do.

Pick and roll? Isolation? Drive and kick? This shooter? That one?

These are tough decisions and precisely why coaches get the big bucks.

Too bad so many teams keep screwing these decisions up in these playoffs.

My radical proposal, developed over the last several years of obsessing over this stuff: Whatever your team does, it ought to be something with a good chance of succeeding. There are lots of right answers.

I'd bet big money time will make clearer that the wrong answer is to call timeout to set up an isolation play. No matter your opinion of advanced stats, these things are all true:

• Timeouts hurt the offense and help the defense.
• Isolations consistently rank as just about the least effective type of NBA play.
• It's essentially impossible to find evidence any player is predictably efficient against the double team.
• "Any random open player" has been shown to be a better option than a covered superstar, and it's not close.

And yet, look what has been happening in these playoffs.

THUNDER GAME 4 vs. ROCKETS

This has been the season that many teams have seen the light about moving the ball to the open man. For instance, instead of LeBron James and Dwyane Wade vs. the world, the Heat have surrounded their stars with deadly shooters. Predictably, it has made a massive difference.

The Spurs were counted out as old, but dusted almost everybody by continuing their long-term worship of uncontested shots.

See the trend there? Good teams that don't play Hero Ball sweep the first round.

Meanwhile, of the league's three top contending teams (Miami, San Antonio, Oklahoma City) this season, the Thunder were always the holdouts. They have long believed in isolation hoops. Perhaps this is no surprise ... their coach had a playing career that coincided almost perfectly with the heyday of isolation play. Smart research has long shown that the Thunder's offense is at its best when Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook shot a little bit less, but the team sure does not run plays with that in mind. Their strategic approach has always been built around the idea that they want those guys shooting the rock.

The Thunder roster, led by the stars, are so doggone good that makes for a top-five NBA' offense anyway. But when Westbrook went down to a knee injury, a scary new decision faced Oklahoma City. Without Westbrook, would they finally see the value in open shooters? Or would they double down in their commitment to superstars, only this time with just one left?

The problem with having only one superstar is that my mom could draw up the defensive scheme. (On Monday night's broadcast Chris Webber saw what the Rockets were doing late to cover Durant and declared it the first time in his entire life he had seen a full-court double-team.) It's easy to make sure Durant faces a ton of defense every possession, and so what if he occasionally beats 'em all?

The result was the Rockets -- perhaps the worst defensive team in the playoffs -- held one of the league's best offensive teams (60-game winners) to a grand total of three buckets over the game's five final minutes. In that time Derek Fisher, Kevin Martin, Serge Ibaka and Thabo Sefolosha spent all kinds of time -- on video, it's glaring -- standing all alone in position to catch and shoot. Research shows open role players in those kinds of situations are vastly more effective than covered stars. According to NBA.com's stats tool, however, those four together combined for a grand total of one attempt, while Durant and fill-in Westbrook -- Reggie Jackson, took all the shots.

Simply put, with more respect for open shooters, and less fascination with who's shooting, the Thunder absolutely could have scored more. And they only had to score a tiny bit more to, you know, end the series.

It came to a hilarious head with 12 seconds left. The Thunder had been force-feeding Durant so religiously the defense scarcely looked at anybody else. And yet, in the face of evidence timeouts only help the defense, and despite a Rockets team scrambling to get in place, the Thunder called a timeout.

They hadn't run an actual play in a half-hour, and weren't about to. What could there have been to talk about? It was the stuff of Twitter jokes:

@truehoop "just to confirm guys, we're going with Kevin. I know you know, just wanted to emphasise. So, yeah... ' - Scott Brooks.

— Anton Trees (@as_trees) April 30, 2013

 

After letting the defense get set, the Thunder flirted with turning the ball over, and ended up losing valuable seconds trying to establish Durant. He gave up his dribble in the face of tough defense, almost turned it over trying to get it to Jackson, who scrambled to create a Hail Mary out of a broken play that failed at the buzzer.

Would it kill you to run a pick-and-roll?

ROCKETS GAME 4 vs. THUNDER
All the things I just wrote about Durant and the Thunder go double for the Rockets and James Harden. Kevin McHale uses Harden like you used your favorite new song when you were 12 -- again and again and again until it's completely worn out.

As much as the Thunder offense was good all season but bad in crunch time, the Rockets are the kings of that particular dynamic, and have been for the same reason all season. They're also famously the most analytical team in the league, meaning almost certainly somebody is telling McHale this is a bad idea, but he's doing it anyway.

The Rockets' late-game offense consisted largely of Harden shooting tough shots against the Thunder's hand-picked defenders, Sefolosha and in one case after a switch, Ibaka, with teammates standing still and watching with the shot clock expiring. These are awful conditions for an offense -- how strange for the offense to have set up the conditions that precise way.

Non-Harden players made two of five shots in the final five minutes. None of Harden's three shots were all that close. One was an airball.

This is an old trend from the Lakers, which has been generally true throughout Kobe Bryant's career: The team builds a lead playing some kind of team-focused ball, and then the offense grinds to a halt late in games when the offense focuses increasingly on the team's "best option." In reality the team's best option is to keep using the screens, cuts, passes and movement of people and the ball that got them the lead in the first place.

KNICKS vs. CELTICS GAME 4
The Celtics won this game. Here's an exchange that shows why: With 1:12 left in regulation and the Knicks up two, Paul Pierce took a handoff from Kevin Garnett on the left side. Everyone knows Pierce is the Celtics' closer, and everyone knows his go-to closing move is a nifty little fall away jumper around the free throw line. By the time Pierce got to his spot and elevated, Tyson Chandler, Carmelo Anthony and Raymond Felton formed a nice crowd around him.

But ... surprise! Pierce didn't shoot. He passed. Back to Garnett. Who had roughly 400 square miles of open space all around him, as the defense had been wholly duped into crunch time hero worship. Garnett stepped into a nice tidy open jump shot. Not a hero shot at all -- and therefore a wonderful one, with very high expected points per possession. The best shots are open shots.

Meanwhile the Knicks, like the Thunder, were missing a key scorer -- in this instance J.R. Smith was out. And like the Thunder they used that as an excuse to go Hero Ball all the way.

So on the next possession New York got the ball to Carmelo Anthony, who was very well covered by long, lean Jeff Green, and missed a 29-footer as the clock expired.

It was as the Knicks believed there was literally magic in Anthony's fingertips. For much of the season the Knicks were a study in ball movement, with shooters hoisting open 3s at record rates. They tossed that playbook for this game, however, instead having Anthony launch 35 shots almost all of which were heavily covered. He missed 25.

The Knicks averaged more than 19 assists per game this year but finished this 53-minute overtime game with 10. It's easy to see why -- because in situations when a covered Anthony would have once passed to the open man -- and there were plenty of them -- out of a misguided conviction it was best for his team, in this game he fired away.

In the final five minutes of regulation plus overtime a collection of the Knicks most efficient shooters -- Steve Novak, Jason Kidd and Tyson Chandler -- didn't take a single shot, while Anthony shot a mighty ten and made but two. Non-Anthony Knicks, meanwhile, were three-of-six over those crucial ten minutes.

The role of a coach is to guide a team to run the plays that give the team the best possible chance of success. If you were an NBA owner, how long would you keep believing in a coach whose teams used the exact opposite approach when it mattered most, running plays that would predictably get bad results?

"It's going to get ugly." That's how a source close to the ownership group attempting to purchase the Sacramento Kings and move them to Seattle described the next steps after the NBA relocation committee recommended that the team should stay put.

The Seattle group isn't taking no for an answer. They plan to take their case to the Board of Governors during a meeting scheduled two weeks from now to formally vote on the Seattle proposal.

In a statement posted Monday night on the group's Web site, SonicsArena.com, lead investor Chris Hansen vowed to fight.

"While this represents yet another obstacle to achieving our goal," wrote Hansen in a letter addressed to Sonics fans, "I just wanted to reassure all of you that we have numerous options at our disposal and have absolutely no plans to give up."

In the statement, Hansen made clear the aggressive argument he plans to make to the Board of Governors. He said that his group is "one of the best ownership groups ever assembled," has offered "a much higher price" for the Kings and has "a much more solid Arena plan" in Seattle than the proposal to build a new arena in Sacramento.

The task ahead of the Seattle group is challenging: They must convince at least half of the league's owners to vote against the relocation committee's recommendation. According to the source, multiple owners indicated in private conversations they intend to vote along the lines of the recommendation. The Seattle group has to hope that the entire Board of Governors is more favorable to its position than the seven-member committee, which included four owners from small markets.

Working against the Seattle group is the sentiment Stern expressed on NBA TV in explaining the decision.

"I didn't see a unanimous vote coming," he told reporter Dei Lynam, "but they decided as strong as the Seattle bid was -- and it was very strong -- there's some benefit that should be given to a city that has supported us for so long and has stepped up to contribute to building a new building as well."

It's clear the recommendation caught the Seattle group off guard. Investor Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft, told local radio host Mitch Levy that he was "horribly, horribly disappointed" by the decision. But the decision isn't final yet, and the Seattle group still believes it can win the fight for the Kings.

Let’s not call what the Los Angeles Clippers and Memphis Grizzlies share a rivalry, because that’s a stamp reserved for rare use. But for the second consecutive season, the Clippers and Grizzlies are delivering us a serious piece of first-round entertainment that plays like something we usually see in late May. These games have been fueled by a familiar but unique grade of intensity, and with Game 5 set for Staples Center on Tuesday night, the heat in this series will be dialed up to maximum capacity.

Both last year and now, Clips-Griz has been the rare first-round series where an early bounce would be cataclysmic for both teams. Each team played championship-caliber basketball for sustained stretches during the regular season, and both have produced a single performance (Clippers Game 1, Grizzlies Game 4) as good as anything else on display in the first round.

The problem for both is that the furthest reaches of the playoff bracket generally have room for only one team of that breed. That means that in less than a week, one of these two 56-win teams will be in basketball purgatory after the most successful season in franchise history and showing glimpses of brilliance just days before elimination.

Beyond success or failure, there’s even more at stake. Chris Paul becomes a free agent on July 1. Although the probabilities of his remaining with the Clippers are very high, meeting last season’s benchmark leaves far less doubt than a playoff failure does.

On the Memphis side, it’s clear the Grizzlies’ new management is playing the long game. They’re an inquisitive group by their very nature, and it’s difficult to imagine the organization not fully exploring every opportunity this summer, even if that means losing guys who are major contributors to the team’s identity. The case for retaining the present core becomes an even tougher sell if the Grizzlies make a first-round exit for a second straight spring.

Neither coach is under contract for next season, which means the respective long-term prospects of Vinny Del Negro and Lionel Hollins are both in play, something we rarely see in a series. No matter how high the stated expectations or personal preferences, it’s hard to dismiss a coach who led a team that won a ton of basketball games and justified its playoff seeding. But it’s easy to argue for change if that team is either backsliding or stagnating.

A vulnerable Oklahoma City Thunder team -- the presumptive second-round matchup for whoever emerges from the wreckage -- compounds that intensity because both the Clippers and Grizzlies can see a navigable path to the NBA Finals.

The most competitive seven-game playoff series tend to be divided into two acts. The first four games comprise the first act. Although the Clippers and Grizzlies met 14 times in 15 months prior to this series, Act 1 served to re-establish the characters and larger themes of the series -- and the introduction of new ones.

The Grizzlies are the league’s most self-realized team. They’ve come to terms with their shortcomings, and when they’re at their best, the Grizzlies mitigate those flaws and focus on their undeniable strength. No other unit in the NBA features a frontcourt tandem that is so perfectly complementary as Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph. For a team that ranked in the bottom half of the league in offensive efficiency during the regular season, man, Memphis runs some beautiful stuff when Gasol and Randolph are synchronized and using their big-man telepathy.

In Games 1 and 2 on their home court, the Clippers had relative success mucking this up. Much of that was Blake Griffin winning the battle of wits against Randolph down on the low block, but also the Clippers’ bigs applying pressure and making aggressive attempts to deny entry to Gasol and Randolph.

In Memphis, Gasol controlled the space on the floor, almost as the big man version of Chris Paul. Gasol obviously doesn’t have possession of the ball to the extent Paul does, but Gasol’s movement off the ball is just as vital to his team’s offense as Paul's movement of the ball is to the Clippers. Randolph’s work space is much smaller, but the baseline in Memphis belonged to him. Space dictates control underneath -- the angles available to Randolph when he’s fed the ball and looking to score (which he does at an efficient rate), and the room he’s afforded to gobble up misses. Armed with virtually no lethal perimeter shooting, the Grizzlies can’t succeed without executing the high-low game, Randolph isolated in the post and Gasol finding clean attempts by lifting to 20 feet against a scrambling Clippers’ defense.

The Clippers are almost mirror opposites of the Grizzlies and are a hard team to understand because they’re a study in contradiction. Critics -- and I’ve been one -- cite the team’s rudimentary offense which seems to stall at inopportune times against the league’s better defenses (Memphis is ranked No. 2 in the NBA). But as Del Negro rightly pointed out the other day, the Clippers ranked fourth in offensive efficiency this season. However much the Clippers’ half-court offense offends aesthetic sensibilities, the results bear out. Paul’s surgical work off the dribble and Griffin’s capacity to work at will on the block were the primary elements of control in Games 1 and 2.

So here we are at Act II, about 265 basketball possessions per team to culminate a season that’s seen almost 8,000. The Clippers and Grizzlies style different fashions on the court, but they both stake claim to possession control as the defining attribute to their master plans. For all the other factors that are ratcheting up the pressure in the series, that commonality -- the need to control not just tempo, but also physical and mental space -- boils the hottest.

ESPN.com's Kevin Arnovitz has been out of the closet, and going to work at NBA stadiums (and yes, in locker rooms) for years.

In his experience, how can Jason Collins, now that he's out, really expect to be treated?

Phoenix guard Kendall Marshall might have the NBA's best Twitter game, as we discussed with him on TrueHoop TV last week. In the second of two episodes we get the back story behind @KButter5 tweets like "So apparently yelling 'GET A BUCKET' is frowned upon at an 8th grade girls lacrosse game. My bad."

• Mark Bradley of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: The notion struck midway through another second quarter in which the Atlanta Hawks were extracting, without Novocain and with great force, the “d” from Indiana. “The Pacers can’t guard the Hawks,” declared a correspondent watching from on high, “and the Hawks can guard the Pacers. How’d that happen?” These are the Hawks and this is the postseason, so who knows? But know this: The Hawks can win this series and if they do, it won’t be much of an upset now. Indiana, the East’s No. 3 seed, just spent two games in Philips Arena making a case for itself as the most overrated team in the history of basketball, and the unloved Hawks … well, they’ve been lovely. Yes, this best-of-seven is tied at 2, and yes, the Hawks will have to take a game in Indianapolis, where they lost twice last week by an aggregate 32 points, in order to advance, But the dynamics of this matchup have been inverted. The Pacers, with much to lose, seem capable of losing it all. The Hawks, whose modest mission this season was not to stink before the real rebuilding begins this summer, look like a team constructed by a master craftsman. … So what happens now? The Pacers are very good at home, but they’ve been handed real reason to doubt. The looks on their faces during that second quarter spoke of anger and frustration but mostly bewilderment. This series was theirs to win. They’re in peril of losing it to a team that was built to be torn down.
• Bob Kravitz of The Indianapolis Star: Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. So never mind what a certain not-so-humble (but good-looking) columnist wrote a couple of days back in this space: This Pacers-Hawks series isn’t over. It’s far from over. In fact, it’s just beginning, a best-of-three with two games in Indianapolis, after the Pacers’ 102-91 Game 4 loss to the Hawks. Mea culpa, mea culpa — which is Latin for “Man, did I get that wrong.” It still says here the Pacers win this series in six games — at some point I’m bound to be right about something — but it’s easy to lose the faith while watching the way they’ve regressed to the disconnected, defenseless style of play that marked the final week and a half of the regular season. What’s happened to this group? This was the league’s second-best defensive team in terms of points allowed. This was the league’s top defensive team in terms of field goal percentage allowed and three-point field goal percentage allowed. But they’re getting absolutely skewered by the Atlanta Hawks, who are making plays and leaving the Pacers players with hands on hips, shooting each other empty, angry glances. … Raise the red flags. Sound the alarm bells. This series, which never should have become a series, has left the Pacers with almost no margin of error. Color me fooled. And chastened.
• Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle: Finally, the ball did not bounce 12 feet in the air and stab the Rockets in the heart. Kevin Durant did not get the last shot. The Rockets held on. After consecutive games in which the Rockets did everything but close out a win, they held their breath as a pair of last-chance Oklahoma City shots came up short. When Reggie Jackson’s runner and Serge Ibaka putback missed, the Rockets escaped 105-103 on Monday night, sending the first-round series back to Oklahoma City with the Thunder leading 3-1 but giving the Rockets their first playoff win since 2009. “We know we can play with these guys,” said Chandler Parsons, who led the Rockets with 27 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists. “We know we can beat these guys. We were in the same situation the last two games. No way we were going to give it up.” They had clearly earned it, coming back from a 13-point deficit and making just enough stops with the game on the line to extend their season to Game 5 on Wednesday night. “Great win by us,” Rockets coach Kevin McHale said. “It was a gutsy win. I told our guys before the game, ‘One thing about our team, we’re not going to lay down.’ They fought all year long. We had different lineups. We’ve had different kinds of stuff happen. The one constant has been their willingness to go out and scrap and fight. I said, ‘There’s no way we’re going to lay an egg tonight.’ We went out and we fought hard.”
• John Rohde of The Oklahoman: The frenzied finish resulted in a 105-103 loss for the Thunder, which failed in its quest to sweep this best-of-7 opening-round playoff series. Leading 3-1, OKC will try to close out the series in Game 5 at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday at Chesapeake Energy Arena. The best news arrived roughly 90 minutes later when the Thunder boarded its charter and returned home after four draining days away from home. The team left OKC on Friday afternoon just hours after learning three-time All-Star point guard Russell Westbrook would be out indefinitely with a lateral meniscus tear in his right knee. The following morning came news that Westbrook would be lost for the entire postseason after having surgery in Vail, Colo. Later that night was Game 3, the first contest in Thunder history with no Westbrook on the court. OKC jumped out to a 26-point lead and managed to hang on for a 104-101 victory. A collective sigh of relief was visible from Thunder players, even from veteran power forward Nick Collison, who admitted it had been an emotional 48 hours.
• Tim Smith of the New York Daily News: Ten days ago the Nets defended their home court at Barclays Center and opened their first-round series against the Bulls with a victory so resounding it seemed they were launching into a run that would carry them deep into the postseason. On Monday night, the Nets returned home having lost three straight games, including a triple-OT fiasco that followed an epic fourth-quarter collapse in Game 4. Gone was the ebullient spirit of that inaugural playoff game at Barclays Center, replaced by an atmosphere of desperation and disappointment as the Nets, in a 3-1 hole , stared down elimination. Only eight teams have rallied from that same deficit, but the Nets were 5-0 in Game 5 elimination games. There was hope. Brooklyn stoked that ember of hope and beat the Bulls at their own game, staving off elimination with a 110-91 victory . Now they head back to Chicago to face another elimination game on Thursday. “Our backs are against the wall right now,” said forward Gerald Wallace. “We’re in fighting spirit. We’re a fighting team and we’re not ready to go home. We feel like we’re better than this team. We feel like we’re good enough and a better team and we can come back and win three in a row just like they did.”
• Vaughn McClure of the Chicago Tribune: The Bulls needed Kirk Hinrich for all 59 minutes he played in a Game 4 triple-overtime win. Monday night in Game 5, they had to figure out how to proceed without him. The simple solution, with Hinrich sidelined by a bruised left calf, was a heavy dose of Nate Robinson, who was coming off his 34-point explosion in Game 4. The offensive-minded Robinson, however, is light years behind Hinrich in terms of defensive ability. Rookie Marquis Teague and Marco Belinelli spelled Robinson for brief stints, but Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau relied heavily on his diminutive point guard, playing him 43-plus minutes. As Hinrich watched from a row behind the bench, Robinson played with his typical high energy but failed to match his Game 4 output. He looked for his teammates more than his own shots for a good portion of the game and seemed to run out of steam in the end. He scored a team-high 20 points and had eight assists in the Bulls' 110-91 loss to the Nets. Robinson went 1-for-5 from 3-point range and committed three turnovers. His most costly miscue came with two minutes left in regulation. Robinson picked up his dribble against Deron Williams and tried to force a pass to Luol Deng. Nets forward Gerald Wallace stepped into the passing lane and broke free for the game-clinching dunk. "Had a crucial turnover down the stretch that really hurt us,'' Robinson said. "I take the blame for that, and that's something I have to do better."
• Christopher Dempsey of The Denver Post: Faces crinkled and shoulders shrugged in befuddlement. The question: What now? The Nuggets, down 3-1 to Golden State in their opening round playoff series, have had few defensive answers to the Warriors' offensive onslaught. What to do? It is suddenly a tough question. "Uh ... I don't know," Nuggets forward Kenneth Faried said. "I really don't." Nuggets guard Andre Miller: "That's the coaches' decision to figure out the adjustments, who is guarding who, certain things like that. It's a pride thing, and I think the coaches will figure out a way to adjust to things." Nuggets guard Ty Lawson: "Man ... whatever the coaches come up with." The problem is, most everything the Nuggets have tried on defense in this series hasn't worked after Golden State's all-star forward, David Lee, went down with an injury in Game 1. Warriors coach Mark Jackson then went with a small, three-guard lineup that has given the Nuggets fits. Lee's absence has turned the Warriors from a conventional team to a wild card, from having a dual low-post game to running a spread — four shooters on the perimeter, each with the ability to create a shot for their teammates. As a result, the Nuggets' defense been stretched thin and distorted beyond recognition.
• Carl Steward of The Oakland Tribune: In 438 best-of-seven playoff series throughout NBA history, only eight teams have rallied from 3-1 deficits to win. But coach Mark Jackson is having nothing with the odds that favor the Warriors to advance as they head into Denver for Game 5 on Tuesday. "We expect to see a tough Denver Nuggets team that's fighting for its playoff life, that's prepared and ready to keep the series going," Jackson said Monday. "The most difficult game is the close-out game. I've got a young team, and if we keep doing what we're doing, we'll put ourselves in position to move on. But it's a tough task, because this is a very good Nuggets team." The last team to complete a comeback from being down 3-1 was the 2006 Phoenix Suns. Kobe Bryant led the seventh-seeded Los Angeles Lakers to the 3-1 advantage, but Phoenix won three games fairly handily to salvage the series. In 2003, the Orlando Magic got up 3-1 on top-seeded Detroit, but the Pistons rallied after the Magic's Tracy McGrady pronounced that it felt good to get out of the first round. The Warriors are making no such pronouncements. … Another number that doesn't favor the Nuggets: In seven of his eight seasons as Denver's coach, George Karl has failed to get out of the first round, three of those times with home-court advantage in the series.
• Ronald Tillery of The Commercial-Appeal: Lionel Hollins went with a trust factor over gut feeling. Who can I trust? That’s the question Hollins and Los Angeles Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro will ask themselves over and over again Tuesday night during a pivotal Game 5 of their Western Conference playoff series in Staples Center. Game 5 winners have gone on to win playoff series 83 percent of the time. So it’s no wonder that rotations shorten and coaches lean on a select group they deem old reliable in a long playoff series. “We’re trying to play the people who are producing and not have huge gaps or lulls,” Hollins said. “I’ve been trying to piecemeal rotations and keep our (starters) fresh. Everybody that got in (the rotation) during the regular season isn’t getting to trot out there. It’s just the way it is.” The series is knotted at 2-2 but the coaches couldn’t be further apart in philosophy. Hollins hasn’t dug deep into his bench and even regular-season super sub Bayless disappeared over the past three games. Conversely, Del Negro relied on most of his roster. He’s played all but two healthy players in the series.
• Phil Collin of the Los Angeles Daily News: They've bludgeoned each other for four games and they will for at least two more. But the more the Clippers and Memphis Grizzlies have at each other, the less pure basketball tactics will make a difference. In tonight's Game 5 of the best-of-7 Western Conference playoff series, mind over matter figures to trump anything out of a playbook in the Staples Center clash. "The biggest thing is a sense of urgency is going to be the key," Clippers guard Chauncey Billups said. "They played desperate basketball, now it's our turn. We have to make a few adjustments, but it's our turn now to play with a sense of urgency." The first-round series has been a classic case of NBA playoffs through the years. The teams are seeded fourth and fifth, and the team playing at home has been the aggressor and the victor. It's no surprise the series stands at 2-2, especially after they went the full seven a year ago. How close are these teams? To a man, they'll point out the one physical matchup that has illustrated the direction of this series, and it's rebounding. Win the rebound battle, win the game. And a closer look at the four games shows the margin of rebounding is eerily close to the margin of the final score.
• Jerry Brewer of The Seattle Times: As I've written before, this was the best time for the NBA to return, and now that Seattle feels left at the altar, old wounds have reopened, and old bitterness has resurfaced. With no expansion on the table, there is no clear path to acquire a team, and while the deal to build a $490 million Sodo arena could stay together for up to five years, can the fan base really stand to go through another relocation tug of war with an incumbent NBA city? It's impossible to trust that a victory is possible until Stern retires. Count the days until Feb. 1, 2014. Maybe then, when Adam Silver takes over as commissioner, the game will have clear rules. Hansen tried to win the right way. He tried to do it with transparency; no buying the Kings and pretending to want to stay in Sacramento. He tried to do it with record-setting money and a polished business plan. But the NBA is a liar's game, full of hypocrites, improper alliances, a lack of financial creativity and a commissioner who is more powerful than the owners he represents. Stern revises the rules according to his whims. It seems Seattle was destined to lose in this ever-changing game. We're back in a familiar place with that spirit-crushing league. Abandoned. Again.
• Ailene Voisin of The Sacramento Bee: "Justice prevailed," said Jerry Reynolds, who has been with the Kings since their inaugural 1985-86 season in Sacramento. "This is the right decision. Seattle is a great city that deserves an NBA franchise. And at some point, they'll have one." But … "But this is our team," Reynolds added forcefully, and note the high level of cooperation that was necessary to facilitate the public/private partnership for a downtown sports and entertainment complex. "Sacramento is a major-league city, and it simply has to have a major-league sports team to grow. "When we travel around the country and see how these arenas have revitalized downtowns in Los Angeles, Indianapolis, Miami, to name a few cities, I keep thinking that a downtown arena here can be just as special. And this was probably Sac's last best chance."