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• The story of the Maloofs long quest to leave Sacramento, as told by James Ham of Cowbell Kingdom: "The entire Maloof family hopped a plane for New York and asked Stern for permission to relocate the team immediately. That was 2006."
• Carl Bialik of The Wall Street Journal's Daily Fix: "Home teams have, on average, won 6.2 of eight Game Ones each season since 1984, by an average of 8.2 points per game; and 6.1 of eight Game Twos each season, by an average of 7.4 points per game. The good news, though, is that a set of Game One blowouts doesn’t predict the same outcome in Game Two. The correlation between first-round home-team wins in Game Ones and Game Twos is negative: The more home teams win their openers, the fewer win their second games — though the relationship is very slight. There’s also a negative correlation between median victory margin in Games One and Two; and a positive correlation, though a slight 0.2, between mean victory margin in Games One and Two."
• Paul George's motivation: Watching video of last year's playoffs and noticing Dwyane Wade taking plays off, knowing George would not attack.
• Tony Allen wishes he would have made Chris Paul drive the other way.
• Kevin Durant says he is done with being second.
• This is all kinds of PG-13, but fascinating how Michael Jordan's uniform played a crucial role in Eddie Huang's Obama-infused streetwear career.
• Lionel Hollins seems to have lost faith in his bench.
• Would be interested to hear from Mike Dunlap and Byron Scott about tanking. Two coaches who lost a lot of games for organizations that appeared to want exactly that.
• The Nets like to use isolation plays, but they didn't work on Monday night, when the team got one stinking bucket from that approach.
• Now that he's a featured part of the Nuggets attack, here's the book on Evan Fournier.
• Appreciating Mike Woodson.
• Kevin McHale says Jeremy Lin's best attribute is his toughness, and he'll bounce back.
• I'm a little distraught at how much time I spent watching this low-rent Chris Bosh sci-fi.
• The whole idea of a sixth man is a bit odd.
• Popeye Jones can snarl.
• Talking trash to Michael Jordan.

• Tony Bizjak, Dale Kasler and Ryan Lillis of The Sacramento Bee: The uncertainty over the future of the Sacramento Kings will linger at least into next week. Just as Mayor Kevin Johnson announced on Tuesday that a local investor group was finally ready to present its formal bid to buy the team, league officials in New York revealed they have scrubbed plans to vote this week on a competing offer to move the team to Seattle. An NBA spokesman declined to offer a reason. League Commissioner David Stern two weeks ago said a postponement was possible due to what he called the complicated and unprecedented situation the league faces. The NBA has never before had to decide between two cities competing hard and well for the same team, Stern said. Both have well-financed groups eager to buy the team from the Maloof family, the team's current owner, and both cities assure the NBA they can build gleaming state-of-the art arenas in the next few years.
• Broderick Turner of the Los Angeles Times: Having Chauncey Billups back in the starting lineup for the Clippers on Tuesday night against the Portland Trail Blazers meant a lot to the team in many ways. Billups brings the Clippers championship experience. He won a title with the Detroit Pistons over the Lakers in 2004, when Billups was named the Finals most valuable player. "He's a little bit older now," Clippers Coach Vinny Del Negro said about the 36-year-old Billups. "He's missed most of last season and a lot of this season, so that's not as easy to do. We still expect a lot from him with his leadership. He can make shots, obviously. He's another guy that can make plays." Billups had missed the last eight games with a strained right groin. He has played in just 21 games this season and is expected to play in a back-to-back game Wednesday night in Sacramento. Del Negro said the plan is to play Billups about 20 minutes per game.
• Mark Murphy of the Boston Herald: The photo, like so many others from Monday’s explosions, had gone viral. A young woman, her body mostly obscured by a distraught man and an EMT, lay face down on the blood-splattered Boylston Street sidewalk. Avery Bradley spotted the photo online and immediately posted it to his Twitter account with a simple hashtag — #sad. “It just caught my eye,” the Celtics guard said before yesterday’s practice. “All I could think was that this is crazy, to think that people go to an event like this to run. That’s what they train for all year. And for people to lose arms and legs, that’s just crazy.” So Bradley did what so many others could only do. He asked for help from a greater power. “All you can do is pray for their families. I definitely did yesterday,” he said. “I feel bad, and if there’s any way I can help, I will want to help. . . . It could happen anywhere. But to see it happen there or anywhere at all is just crazy.” The Celtics took the practice floor in a relieved state yesterday, most glad last night’s game against Indiana was canceled.
• Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News: With a $100 million payroll, four future Hall of Famers and a storied championship history, it's come to this. The Lakers' season finale Wednesdaytonight against the Houston Rockets could decide whether they perhaps salvage an otherwise disastrous season or miss the playoffs for only the third time in the team's history. Few would have guessed this scenario. Plenty envisioned the Lakers waltzing into the NBA Finals against the Miami Heat. Many wondered if anyone could stop a star-studded lineup that featured Kobe Bryant, Dwight Howard, Steve Nash and Pau Gasol. Never shy to boast, Lakers forward Metta World Peace predicted the team would surpass the NBA's regular-season record (72-10) set by the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls team. "I thought we'd be at a different point right now," World Peace said. "But that's all right." Instead, the Lakers (44-37) enter Wednesdaytonight's game against the Houston Rockets (45-36) at Staples Center with a possible must-win situation. The Lakers are a pure lock for the playoffs if they win, earning a seventh seed and playing the San Antonio Spurs in the first round. A Lakers' loss coupled with a Utah loss against Memphis would leave the Lakers in the eighth spot against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
• Bill Oram of The Salt Lake Tribune: Wishing and hoping and thinking and — oh, right — playing. With apologies to Dusty Springfield, nothing else remains for the Utah Jazz. Their season may conclude with a loss to the Grizzlies here Wednesday, it may end with a Lakers win over the Houston Rockets in Los Angeles or it may be extended into a most unlikely postseason. If the Jazz can beat the Grizzlies at FedEx Forum, they will turn into Rockets fans, hoping Houston, trying to avoid falling into the eighth seed, can beat the Lakers in a game that fittingly, cruelly, doesn’t begin until after the Jazz and Grizzlies end on national TV. The Jazz, who won the season series against L.A., would be even with the Lakers and into the playoffs. "I guess I need to try to get in touch with Kevin McHale," Al Jefferson said of his former Minnesota coach, now with the Rockets, "and tell him to handle that for me. Give me a late birthday present."
• Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun: As another Toronto Raptors season crawls to its conclusion, a franchise teetering on irrelevance has a series of enormous decisions to make. There may not be any one right answer for Tom Anselmi and the board of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, but there is almost certainly a wrong one. The decisions, as they seemingly do at the end of every Raptors season, revolve around the general manager, Bryan Colangelo, and the coach, Dwane Casey. Colangelo has an option year remaining on his contract. Casey has one year left on his deal. And the team is forever paddling in circles, creating the occasional wave, but ending up nowhere in the end. The decision for Anselmi and the board isn’t in any way obvious, with the largest issue being the relationship between Colangelo and Casey. Colangelo did his best to distance himself from his coach early in the season and there has been all kind of internal speculation that the two can’t possibly work together again. That determination may wind up saving his job or costing him the position.
• Chris Vivlamore of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: The Hawks had a chance to control their playoff seed. Not anymore. A poor effort against the Raptors, one in which the Hawks went to their bench early and often, resulted in a 113-96 loss Tuesday night in a nationally televised game at Philips Arena. The Hawks played without Al Horford and just a half with Josh Smith in a game they trailed by as many as 23 points. Smith played 13 minutes and received treatment on his knees at the intermission. He banged a knee in the first half and did not immediately come back to the bench after halftime but later returned with both knees wrapped in ice. Regulars Jeff Teague (19 minutes), Kyle Korver (18) and Devin Harris (17) played less than a half. … The Hawks can clinch the fifth seed in the Eastern Conference, and a first-round playoff against the Nets, with a victory at the Knicks and a Bulls loss at home against the Wizards Wednesday. The Bulls will claim the fifth spot with a victory or if both teams lose Wednesday. The Hawks would finish sixth and get a first-round matchup with the Pacers. The Hawks have split the season series with both the Nets and Pacers this season.
• John Rohde of The Oklahoman: Thunder three-time All-Star point guard Russell Westbrook has never missed a game in the NBA and has the league's longest active streak at 393 consecutive games played. OKC (60-21) closes out the regular season at 7 p.m. Wednesday against the Milwaukee Bucks (37-44) at Chesapeake Energy Arena, but Thunder coach Scott Brooks wouldn't share his starting lineup after Tuesday's practice. Westbrook playfully was asked if there would be a fist fight if Brooks asked him to sit out the finale. “No, no, no. There won't be a fist fight,” Westbrook said with a smile, “but he won't ask me (to do) that.”
• Dan McCarney of the San Antonio Express-News: With all the twists and turns during the 2012-13 regular season, it was only fitting that the Spurs gave us one more on Tuesday, signing Tracy McGrady to fill to roster vacated after the unceremonious whacking of Stephen Jackson. It is the seventh NBA stop for the former franchise player, and eighth as a professional including his recent stint in the Chinese league. He dominated with Qingdao Double Star Eagles, averaging 25 points, 7.2 rebounds and 5.1 assists — the type of numbers he put up as a seven-time All-Star before injuries sapped his athleticism. McGrady won’t find it nearly so easy back in the NBA, where he averaged 5.3 points last season with Atlanta. There’s some speculation that McGrady’s addition had been the end goal all along. But at this point, the most likely explanation is probably the simplest: The Spurs excised what they viewed to be a cancer, and they needed a warm body to help pick up the slack on a Spurs bench that suddenly isn’t so deep. That means chewing up whatever time is available behind starting small forward Kawhi Leonard. And from what Gregg Popovich has said recently, there won’t be much. Leonard, he said, could earn up to 40 minutes a night, leaving precious little for a floor-bound ex-star.
• K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune: Keeping Noah and Gibson healthy is critical during the postseason. The Bulls took Tuesday off, and both players continued treatment on their respective lingering injuries, plantar fasciitis for Noah and a sprained MCL for Gibson. Coach Tom Thibodeau said "it's a possibility" the players will be on minutes limits to start the playoffs, which affects his rotation. "You don't know what the minutes are going to be, so that's another huge factor," Thibodeau said. "We have to get that sorted out in a very short amount of time. "The question is: Are we going to be sharp? You're talking about playoff basketball, where the intensity level is very high and it's the same opponent over and over. Most of the time, games are decided by one or two possessions. So how you matchup with people is critical. A bad matchup for a minute in the playoffs, that's 10 points. We have to be right and ready."
• Brad Townsend of The Dallas Morning News: O.J. Mayo owes an apology to his teammates in general and Vince Carter in particular. In the least, Mayo owes them maximum effort in Wednesday’s season finale against New Orleans. Why Mayo, in coach Rick Carlisle’s opinion, “didn’t compete” during his 28 minutes on the court against Memphis on Monday, is the latest baffler in Mayo’s mystifying late-season swoon. In fact, Mayo’s lack of production and Carlisle’s now-obvious frustration level seemingly increase the likelihood that Wednesday’s game will be his last in a Mavericks uniform. Of course, this could be the finale for some or all of the nine Mavericks who are in the final year of their contract or, as in Mayo’s case, have optional deals for 2013-14. Mayo holds his option, meaning it’s up to him whether to stay at a $4.2 million salary or declare for free agency.
• Scott Bordow of The Arizona Republic: Luis Scola and Goran Dragic were asked whether they would recommend interim head coach Lindsey Hunter returning next season. Both players punted the topic. “That’s a tough question,” Dragic said. “ ... I’m here to play basketball. It’s not my decision to make.” Dragic did say he liked Hunter’s approach to practice. “Alvin (Gentry) was a great coach for the veteran players; he knows when to give them a day off, but for our team we have a young team and we really need to practice hard every day,” Dragic said. “When he (Hunter) took over the team I think we maybe had one or two days off. I think it should be like that.” Scola said he thought Hunter did “a great job. Circumstances were bad and he did as good as he could. But I don’t make those decisions. I’m just a player.” Would a third coach in less than a year be unsettling for the team? “I think it would be a sign of things being bad,” Scola said. “But things are bad.” Suns owner Robert Sarver declined comment when asked about Hunter’s future, and Hunter said no time has been set for a postseason meeting with either General Manager Lance Blanks or President of Basketball Operations Lon Babby.
• David Mayo of MLive.com: One day after Pistons owner Tom Gores bluntly said he wasn't satisfied with on-court performance -- Gores also praised basketball operations, which supports the notion that team president Joe Dumars' job is safe -- Frank said he and his coaching staff want another year to right the ship. Frank noted that the Pistons are ahead of schedule in terms of their financial flexibility this summer because of the Ben Gordon and Tayshaun Prince salary-purging trades within the last year, and said he wants to remain head coach of a franchise in "prime position" to make major moves. "Obviously, you want to be a part of it, because that's why you went through the bleeding," Frank said. "I know, without a doubt, we all want to be back. But at the same time, that's not our decision. "But do I want to be back? Of course, because this is what you signed up for. You want to be part of reshaping the franchise and getting it back to where it was.
• Rick Bonnell of The Charlotte Observer: With a 20-61 record entering the season finale against the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Bobcats might end up with the NBA’s worst record for a second straight season. Charlotte will have a high draft pick and as much as $21 million in room under the salary cap this summer. Owner Michael Jordan and the front office face some big decisions between now and the start of training camp in October. Do they bring back the coaching staff? Which of their free agents do they re-sign? Do they cut ties with power forward Tyrus Thomas? Even what should they call themselves going forward? Coach Mike Dunlap: Winning one out of every four games isn’t the ideal NBA coaching debut, but the Bobcats’ record is about what was predicted at the season’s outset. When Jordan was asked at a season-ticketholder event about Dunlap, the owner said all his major employees’ performances would be reviewed after the season. To Dunlap’s credit, he’s had an impact in player development, the priority he was given when hired. Kemba Walker, Gerald Henderson and Byron Mullens all improved. But Dunlap has had some rocky moments in his interaction with players, particularly veterans.
• Tery Pluto of The Plain Dealer: Kyrie Irving can be great. That's right, the Cavaliers point guard can be great. But he's not there. Not yet. Great players defend. Great players help their team win. Great players find a way to stay on the court for most games. It will be up to Byron Scott or whomever coaches the Cavs to deliver that message next season. At times, Scott has tried. He has pulled Irving from games for a lack of defense. He has talked about Irving's disdain for defense. He consistently compares Irving to Chris Paul, adding that Paul is superior defensively. It's no secret that Irving is a soft defender. That's true of many young players, who believe all that matters is the points next to their name in the box score. The fact the team has yet to come close to the playoffs with him should point out that Irving still has a lot of work to do. … There are times when rolls his eyes or shakes his head in disgust when a teammate makes a poor play. It's kid stuff, but he should know better. None of this is to say Irving is a bad guy or a lousy teammate. But he has some maturing to do, and the Cavs must demand that he do it.
• Jerry Zgoda of the Star Tribune: Timberwolves forward Chase Budinger wants to return to the team next season if an agreement can be reached this summer, but as with any contractual agreement, there’s a bit of fine print. That is, if Rick Adelman returns to coach. Adelman is the reason the Wolves traded the 18th overall pick in last summer’s draft to Houston, where Adelman coached Budinger for three seasons before the pair was reunited in Minnesota. He’s also the reason a California kid wants to remain on the frozen tundra when he becomes an unrestricted free agent free to sign with any team this summer. “I would like to come back,” he said. “I like the organization. I like the staff. I love Adelman.” He saved the most important part for last there. “That’s a big part of it,” he said about the coach who taught a second-round draft pick in 2009 the NBA game. “Our relationship, he knows how I play. I work well in his system. It’s [Adelman’s decision] going to weigh big.”

• Tom Moore of phillyBurbs.com: In the wake of a published report saying the organization privately hopes Doug Collins doesn’t return next season as 76ers coach, his agent claims it will be Collins’ call. “The relationship with Doug, me and Sixers management has been terrific,” said John Langel during a Thursday afternoon telephone conversation. “What they told me beyond this season and as recently as today and yesterday is how long Doug stays here is Doug’s decision.” Langel denied rumblings that the story, which cited multiple unnamed NBA sources, in Thursday’s Philadelphia Inquirer originated from Collins’ camp. Sixers spokesman Mike Preston said, “We are aware of the report and will not comment on a column loaded with innuendo and speculation.”
• Bob Cooney of the Philadelphia Daily News: An NBA source reached Thursday said the decision of staying or going is up to Collins, that Harris and Co. are on board with him being the coach of the team "for as long as he wants." That stance hasn't seemed to change since the beginning of the season. But through all this, one thing seems to be clear - Collins most likely won't be coming back as head coach next season. This type of talk usually doesn't arise unless a change is going to happen. Should Collins quit, he would leave the last year of his salary, reportedly at $4.5 million, on the table. No one wants to leave that kind of money out there. But coming back at age 62 and overseeing yet another rebuilding year certainly can't be enticing to Collins, though, again, management would welcome him back with open arms.
• Joseph Goodman of The Miami Herald: In the history of its franchise, the Heat has won less than a handful of games in San Antonio. Up the road a ways from the Alamo is Oklahoma City, where the most hostile home crowd in the NBA cheers for the Thunder. Consider these two cities Exhibit A and Exhibit B for why locking up the best record in the NBA was important for the Heat. In clinching the league’s best record Wednesday, Miami earned itself home-court advantage throughout the playoffs, and that includes a Game 7 scenario at AmericanAirlines Arena in the Finals. In other words, the Heat bought itself an insurance policy. “We’re not going to use that as a crutch, but it’s a nice break-in-case-of-emergency box that we have installed in the ‘Triple A,’ ” Battier said. Since the beginning of the LeBron James Era, the Heat has only played one Game 7. It was the final game of last season’s Eastern Conference finals, and the Heat defeated the Celtics 101-88 at AmericanAirlines Arena. The Heat did not begin the 2012 Finals with home-court advantage but turned that series in its favor with a win in Oklahoma City in Game 2. Miami then won three consecutive games at home to prevent the series from going back to Oklahoma.
• Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald: Danny Ainge doesn’t drink alcohol, but he’s having a shot of reality with his beverages these days. He has a genuine good feeling about his Celtics as they lug duffel bags filled with question marks through the last four regular-season games and into the playoffs. But the president of basketball operations is well aware the odds are not smiling kindly on his lads as they take the court against the Heat in Miami tonight — and beyond. Even with both Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett traveling to Florida, the two stars are battling ankle issues and will not play tonight, according to the team. (Dwyane Wade, who has missed six straight games with right knee soreness, expects to play for the Heat.) In terms of psychological edge, the best thing the Celts may have going for them in a week is they may catch an opponent looking beyond their blip on the screen. “I don’t know,” said Ainge, pondering the point, then reaching for real. “Usually when you’re under the radar and you have low expectations, it’s because you’re not as talented as the teams you’re playing. So I don’t know if that’s good or bad. “We’ve been the favorites in a lot of series over the last years, and our guys have responded to that. This will be a chance to see what our guys are made of being the underdogs.” Ainge then commenced with what would be considered stock talk from a guy at the top of an organization. But even in this case, he didn’t dodge the harsher facts. “I love our team going into the playoffs,” Ainge said. “I think our team has good chemistry, we have a lot of resolve and I think they’re fun to be with.”
• Joe Freeman of The Oregonian: Knock on wood. The most important piece of theTrail Blazers’ future is about to be jinxed. For all the accolades Damian Lillard has received, for all the history-making statistics he has accumulated, for all the hypehe has generated, perhaps his proudest achievement during this runaway Rookie of the Year season has gone unrecognized. Lillard is one of just 39 players in the NBA — and the lone person on his own team — to play in every game this season. His basketball ability is so dynamic and so polished, its easy to forget that Lillard also is quickly proving to be one of the toughest and most durable players in the NBA. “He’s the closest thing I’ve seen to Andre Miller since Andre Miller,” Blazers trainer Jay Jensen said, referring to the former Blazers point guard and one-time NBA Iron Man who played in 632 consecutive games before a suspension ended the streak. “Damian is one of the toughest I’ve seen.” No NBA franchise has had its foundation and future rocked by injuries more than the Blazers in recent seasons, as one-time franchise cornerstones Greg Oden andBrandon Roy had promising careers sabotaged and a host of other players endured various ailments. But Lillard is breaking the Blazers’ bad mojo. Not only has he started all 78 Blazers games, Lillard also has played extensive minutes. Lillard ranks second in the NBA in minutes played (3,012) and third in average per game (38.6).
• Ronald Tillery of The Commercial-Appeal: Grizzlies coach Lionel Hollins doesn’t think his future in Memphis is tied to how far the team advances in the playoffs. His players certainly don’t believe a contract extension for Hollins should come down to the postseason. … Hollins is in the third and final year of his contract. There is nothing in place beyond this season and the Grizzlies have not discussed an extension with him yet. Griz management has not laid out criteria for Hollins, either. Majority owner Robert Pera and CEO Jason Levien have tinkered with the roster while continuing to afford Hollins coaching autonomy. But there is a growing perception that the organization could be waiting to see whether the team advances past the first round after losing an opening-round Game 7 at home to the Los Angeles Clippers last year. Hollins doesn’t believe that is the case.
• Bob Finnan of The News-Herald: The Cavaliers will be facing the hottest team in the NBA when the Knicks visit Quicken Loans Arena on Friday. Now is not the time for Kyrie Irving to wear down before our eyes. In the five games since his return from a sprained left shoulder, Irving is shooting 33.7 percent from the field (29 of 86) and 29.2 percent from behind the arc (7 of 24). He admitted after the Cavs' 111-104 loss to Detroit on Wednesday, he's a bit worn down. "Going into the fourth quarter, I was obviously a little fatigued like everyone else on the court, but that's no excuse for not executing on both ends of the floor," Irving said. Irving has committed an uncharacteristically high 13 turnovers in his last two games. During that span, he's dished out 15 assists. He has averaged 28 points in those two games. The 6-foot-3, 191-pounder has been very good vs. the Knicks this season and has averaged 31.5 points. Included in that total was a career-high 41 points against the Knicks on Dec. 15. "I think he looked more tired in the first half," Cavs coach Byron Scott said. "In the second half, he picked it up."
• Jody Genessy of the Deseret News: Depending on how things play out — in both the impending postseason and the upcoming offseason — tonight could be the last time Paul Millsap ever wears a Utah Jazz uniform at EnergySolutions Arena. Utah finishes its regular season in Minnesota and Memphis, so Friday's game against the Timberwolves could possibly be the free-agent-to-be's home finale after a seven-year stint in Salt Lake City. The longest-tenured Jazz player clearly didn't want to think about that fact, somewhat brushing off a question about whether he'd have extra emotions going into what could be his last home hurrah in a No. 24 Jazz jersey. "I don't approach it differently than any other game, especially in these past few weeks," Millsap said. "The main focus, the main goal, is to win." Millsap smiled when asked to talk about the growth he's experienced since coming to Utah out of Louisiana Tech in 2006.
• Dale Kasler, Ryan Lillis and Tony Bizjak of The Sacramento Bee: In another day of chaos and confusion over the Sacramento Kings, a respected sports publication said Thursday that the NBA is asking Sacramento's bidders to compensate Seattle investors if the team stays put. Sports Business Daily, quoting an unnamed source, said the NBA wants Sacramento's investment group to compensate Seattle investor Chris Hansen for the $30 million nonrefundable deposit he already paid to the Maloof family. The report came one day after a source told The Bee that the Maloofs have demanded a written purchase offer from the Sacramento investors as a backup to the purchase agreement they signed in January with Hansen. The two developments, coming less than a week before the NBA is expected to decide the Kings' fate, underscore the fluid nature of a process that league Commissioner David Stern has called unprecedented. Michael McCann, a legal expert at NBA TV, said the league may have asked Sacramento's investors to compensate Hansen out of fear he might sue the league for damages. "If the NBA is going to, in effect, pick Sacramento over Seattle, it wants to do so in a way that eliminates any legal exposure," McCann said.
• Jeff Faraudo of The Oakland Tribune: The playoffs are secure, a No. 6 seed is not quite so certain. And suddenly neither is the status of center Andrew Bogut, who aggravated a sprained left ankle in the first quarter Thursday night and did not return in the Warriors' 116-97 loss to Oklahoma City. Golden State hung with the Thunder for a half before the NBA's Western Conference leader pulled away. With three games left in the regular season, the Warriors have just a half-game lead over the Houston Rockets in the race for the No. 6 spot in the West. A seventh-place finish would mean a daunting first-round playoff assignment against either the San Antonio Spurs or the Thunder. Bogut, who had microfracture surgery on the same ankle late last April, suffered the sprain in Tuesday's playoff-clinching victory over Minnesota, according to a team spokesperson. He aggravated it Thursday and exited the game with 2:55 left in the first quarter. He went to the locker room for the remainder of the night. It was not immediately clear whether his removal from the game was precautionary or indicative of something more serious.
• Darnell Mayberry of The Oklahoman: In a must-win of sorts, a game the Thunder needed to stay in control of its own destiny, OKC came out and absolutely demolished the Warriors, a team that historically puts pressure on the Thunder inside Oracle Arena. “We emphasized before the game 48 minutes of just toughness and (being) locked in,” said Kevin Durant. They’re going to score, but we stayed locked in and poised. And I think we did that throughout the whole night.” In the race for the West’s top seed, the Thunder is now a half game ahead of San Antonio with three games remaining. In many ways, the final three games will be as challenging as the past five. Unlike the past five, the next three will come against sub-.500 teams, only one of which (Milwaukee) will make the postseason. It’ll be more of a mental challenge to take care of business in these final three than it was to get up for the previous five. Those were about executing and the Thunder playing up to its potential. These final three will be about showing up.
• Frank Isola of the New York Daily News: The next time you hear a team owner, executive or player say “We’re a family,” just remember the unfortunate ending to Kurt Thomas’ career. Family doesn’t treat family that way — unless, I suppose, you are a Soprano or a Manson. Thomas will lose the title of the NBA’s oldest player Friday once the Knicks, desperate to add a healthy body for their depleted front line, release the 40-year-old forward and sign journeyman James Singleton. The expected move — Singleton was in town Thursday but unable to play because the deal was not finalized — comes eight days before the playoffs begin and 23 days since Thomas saved the Knicks’ hide on the West Coast by playing the game of his life. The Knicks’ winning streak, which was snapped at 13 games here Thursday night, began in Utah with Thomas’ selfless and courageous performance. Thomas played with a broken foot, knowing that he could possibly damage it further by playing. Next week, Thomas will have pins inserted in his right foot. “For him to go out there and be playing on a fractured foot and do the things he did for that game, (he) helped us right the ship,” Carmelo Anthony said. “I don’t think he gets enough credit for that.” Instead, Thomas is essentially being fired. This is a necessary evil of the business, of course. The Knicks need frontcourt insurance and Thomas wouldn’t be available even if the Knicks reach the NBA Finals. With Thomas gone, 39-year-old Marcus Camby is now the second- oldest player on the roster behind Jason Kidd and the only active player from the Knicks team that reached the 1999 NBA Finals.
• K.C.Johnson of the Chicago Tribune: The only timeline the Bulls have given regarding Derrick Rose's return is eight to 12 months. That means, given the surgery took place May 12, missing the 2012-13 season always was a possibility. Now that Rose sitting out all season is all but a certainty, the Bulls and Rose have drawn some criticism. Asked in light of that whether the Bulls should have just declared Rose out for the season last fall, coach Tom Thibodeau shrugged. "They were just being forthright," Thibodeau said of management and team physician Brian Cole. "That's what everyone thought. We didn't know, and we still don't know. We were just being honest.” … Rose was cleared for full scrimmaging on Feb. 18. He has practiced well but has given no signs of playing in games. … Thibodeau reiterated there is no drop-dead date for Rose to return, leaving the possibility open he could play in the playoffs after missing the regular season. Nobody expects that scenario to transpire, however, which means Rose likely would return next training camp.

• On Land O' Lakers, Brian Kamenetzky learns interesting stuff about Pau Gasol's mindset: "'I’m reading books about the Zen philosophy and mindset. Zen’s Mind, Beginner’s Mind,' Gasol said. After Sunday’s loss, I asked Pau what motivated him to start exploring Zen in more depth (keeping in mind he used to have a coach into that sort of thing). 'Well, just by reading other books about leadership and self-organization and to have a happy and fulfilled life,' he said. 'All of them pretty much mentioned meditation, self-awareness, live in the present, keeping your mind calm, and emptying your mind.' The last couple years have been tough for him, I noted. 'True,' he replied. And the study, he believes, has been beneficial. 'It’s helped me,' Gasol said. 'It’s helped me, reading these books I think has helped me deal with a lot of stuff that I’ve been through.'" (Pau's Zen mind could come in handy while reading this, in which he is lampooned for failing to play adequate defense against Bill Murray.)
• The flashiest game in the NBA is from the suburbs. Is that a problem?
• There is no such thing as a game-winning shot. There is no such thing as crunch time. There is also no Santa Claus. All three are totally true and totally untrue, and I'm okay with that.
• Larry Sanders' blocks, the website.
• Cole Patty of Hickory High breaks down video of Bradley Beal. Conclusion: "The way Beal moves should be considered one of the finest illusions in the entire NBA."
• Jovan Buha of ClipperBlog on the Clippers sweeping the Lakers: "Make no mistake: this is no moral victory. It’s a real victory, in every sense. The Clippers won the division on their own; nothing was handed to them. They kicked the Lakers’ butts four times spread throughout the season. They deserve all the credit, respect and praise that should be coming their way. For the first time Sunday afternoon, it felt as if there were almost as many Clipper fans as Laker fans at Staples Center. Laker fans have traditionally dominated the crowd in the match-ups, even at Clipper home games, but that’s changing. You could hear Clipper fans booing and fighting back whenever Laker fans would cheer, and there a was a level of off-the-court animosity unbeknownst to the rivalry. L.A. may never be a Clipper town, or even open to the idea, but if the Clippers keep winning, enough fans will flop sides. It happened at the inception of Lob City, and it can happen again. No one loves a winner quite like Los Angeles. The key, of course, is to win."
• Clipper worry: Team was much better before New Year's. (Although, against a tough recent schedule, not bad.)
• Be honest: How'd your NCAA bracket turn out?
• The Warriors' tough new opponent: The idea they're the weak link in the tough West playoff picture. Also, they're good when Carl Landry plays.
• George Karl, Erik Spoelstra, Gregg Popovich, Mike Woodson ... let's talk about coach of the year.
• What's wrong with Gerald Wallace?
• In New York this Thursday, a reading from We'll Always Have Linsanity: Strange Takes on the Strangest Season in Knicks History, which I'm super-excited to read.
• At times a bit PG-13, but thoroughly entertaining. Larry Bird cartoons by an American professional basketball player working Down Under.
• On Hardwood Paroxysm, Alex Wong imagines a different DeMarcus Cousins: "On slower days, he’ll take a larger binder out of the bottom drawer of his desk, and comb through them in detail. He uses a yellow post-it to mark where he last finished. They are the fine print of the company’s travel policy. He wants to suggest changes at the next annual summit meeting with the executives."
• The Rudy Gay trade did good things for Jerryd Bayless.
• Happy Birthday, 48 Minutes of Hell.
• With the season almost over, Blazer scrub Will Barton busted out career highs in almost everything. Danny Nowell of Portland Roundball Society: "It’s a funny idea, that NBA players should shock us by being effective. It’s as if fans imagine a practice wherein the starters win every scrimmage they play 80-0. Fans, I think, and certainly I myself fall into a trap: we think of 'quality' as either a duality or a simple sliding scale. A player is 'good' or 'bad;' a starter is an '8' while his backup is a '4'. Even where we introduce some subjectivity into the idea of player comparison—the numerical scale—we tend to treat player quality as a fixed role rather than a set of attributes unique to individual players. Really, games like the one Will just had are windows into the players’ experience, a night where we see what they do every day. In practice, Barton doesn’t sit on the bench and think about defensive responsibility, he cuts to the rim for lobs from Eric Maynor. How odd it must be, to be a player with such a dynamic style that you work on most days behind closed doors while fans on the other side talk about your ability in the future tense. Let me make an analogy a little closer to my own experience: being Will Barton would be like writing every day, and storing my writing away where no one would see it. My improvements, my present qualities, none of them would get seen. Every NBA scrub, then, is a basketball Kafka."
• The Magic are bad. But Jacque Vaughn has some coaching moves.

• Phil Collin of the Los Angeles Daily News: One teammate uttered the words "bionic nan." Kobe Bryant has taken to calling Metta World Peace "Logan," the character in "Wolverine." Whatever Metta Madness is flowing through his veins, it looks like World Peace will return to the Lakers lineup tonight, 12 days after undergoing surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his left knee. A medical miracle? Not really, World Peace said. He was itching to play the moment he was asked by Dr. Steve Lombardo if he could put weight on the leg, and he hopped out of bed and did so only hours after the operation ."As long as he didn't have to stitch anything together, I couldn't do anything to (further damage) it," World Peace said Monday after going through 3-on-3 workouts. "I was in great shape. The doc said he was surprised my knee was in such great shape playing 14 years in the NBA and always in a defensive stance. "When I heard all that, it wasn't like I was trying to come back to be a Superman. I figured I've just got to play through pain and it will get better as time goes." … Guard Steve Nash, who was "super optimistic" about a return last Friday, remains doubtful with a hamstring strain.
• Mike McGraw of the Daily Herald: The last thing the Bulls need with six games left in the regular season is to roll back downhill with their health concerns, but that appears to have happened. Joakim Noah returned to the court Sunday against Detroit after missing eight games to rest chronic plantar fasciitis in his feet. Noah played well (13 points, 7 rebounds in 21 minutes), but his feet didn't react well Monday morning, according to coach Tom Thibodeau. "Jo had a little bit of a setback. We'll see. We'll see where he is," Thibodeau said after practice at the Berto Center. There's no telling if or when Noah might be back to normal this season. It seems unlikely he'll play Tuesday when the Bulls host Toronto. While most injuries slowly improve, plantar fasciitis patients often talk about how the ailment is so unpredictable. Thibodeau said Noah felt good after Sunday's game.
• Joseph Goodman of The Miami Herald: While the rest of the NBA community is busy speculating about the future of LeBron James and how the Heat plans to navigate the new salary cap, Pat Riley is thinking long-term about how special the run of this Heat team can become. Speaking with reporters at the Heat’s “Family Fest” on Sunday, Riley pointed to models of success the NBA considers some the best in its history as the ultimate goal for the Heat while also reminding the city to enjoy this “special time.” “I just want to keep helping them, keep bringing in more pieces that are going to complement them and hope we can have one of those 10-year rides, you know,” Riley said. “You think about every team, through the Celtics in the ’60s and the Lakers in the ’80s and the Bulls and then again the Spurs, those guys have been together eight, nine, 10 years and if we can keep this group together for eight, nine, 10 years, then we’re all going to have some fun.” And then a piece of advice. “So, don’t ever take it for granted,” he said. Already this season the Heat has won 27 games in a row, the most in franchise history and the second most in the history of the NBA. Now the team is on the verge of another milestone. A victory Tuesday against the Milwaukee Bucks would give the Heat 61 victories, which would tie the franchise’s record for a single season.
• Howard Beck of The New York Times: This streak brings its own questions: Is the new, efficient Smith here to stay, or will he revert to bad habits under postseason duress? Can Anthony keep scoring at this rate when defenses target him during the playoffs? Can the Knicks make the finals with a merely average defense? Does their defense have another gear? What happens to the chemistry if Amar’e Stoudemire, Rasheed Wallace and Kurt Thomas return? And most curious of all: After months of mediocrity, where did this Knicks team come from? “It’s April, I guess,” Anthony said. “It’s April. It’s time to go.”
• Ronald Tillery of The Commercial-Appeal: The one thing people would never accuse Mike Conley of is being flashy. He tends to appear conservative — on and off the court. But that is starting to change — at least on the floor — where Conley’s offensive game suddenly has a lot of bling-bling to it. The Griz have increasingly relied on Conley to carry a heavier offensive load, particularly late in games, and it’s allowed him to shine. It’s a dramatic transformation for a point guard who had been content with being a passive piece of the puzzle for most of his six-year career. Conley enters Tuesday night’s game against the Charlotte Bobcats having scored at least 20 points in each of the past four games. That’s the longest streak by any Grizzlies player this season. Relatively speaking, Conley is in the proverbial zone as a scorer. “I’m really comfortable right now,” Conley said. Coach Lionel Hollins seems impressed yet not surprised by Conley’s maturation. “He’s just a more confident player,” Hollins said.
• John Reid of The Times-Picayune: Although they got into an apparent shouting match during a timeout in last Friday’s game against the Utah Jazz, New Orleans Hornets Coach Monty Williams and guardEric Gordon both appear to have moved past the conflict. But Williams said he's not going to stop pushing Gordon to improve his overall play, especially during the final five games of the season. Against the Jazz, Williams did not put Gordon back into game after they apparently got into shouting match. Williams was visibly agitated, yelling in Gordon’s direction when he apparently didn’t think Gordon was hustling enough. Assistant coach Randy Ayers stepped in front of Williams to calm him, after Gordon hollered back at him. “He’s a dynamic guard, that’s why I push him,’’ said Williams, who plans to start Gordon for the second consecutive since the incident on Tuesday night when the Hornets play the Lakers at the Staples Center. “I’m not going to allow him to settle for where he is in his career right now. He’s got to get better. If he gets better, he should be an All-Star someday.’’ Gordon admitted the conflict was a heat of the moment situation that shouldn't be blown out of proportion. “It got very heated in the moment, but I’m not letting none of that get to me,” Gordon said. “I’m just out here, still trying to play.”
• Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon-Journal: As Kyrie Irving continues to shrink away from any public platform, Tristan Thompson is embracing his role as a spokesman — and he’s backing it up with his play on the court, too. “Just being myself, just being a natural leader and speaking up if I see something is wrong,” Thompson said after the victory Sunday against the Magic. “Just recently y’all have been coming to me, and I’ve been speaking, so I guess you can say I’ve been a leader.” Because of the position he plays and his immense talent, Irving remains the floor leader. But twice in the past week Irving has been given the opportunity to take a stand publicly and twice he declined.
• Jerry Zgoda of the Star Tribune: If there was any lingering doubt, Timberwolves forward Kevin Love’s season officially is over, but it’s not just because of that healing shooting hand. Love will have arthroscopic surgery to remove scar tissue in his left knee later this week. Love will consult with two surgeons on Wednesday at New York’s Hospital for Special Surgery: He’ll see his hand doctor for a checkup on that right hand he has broken twice this season and also will consult with knee surgeon Dr. David Altchek, who probably will perform the operation that same day. Love’s left knee has bothered him much of the season, but it has grown more painful in recent days as he ramped up workouts for a possible return yet this season. He told team doctors after games in December that his hip was hurting him, and Wolves doctors concluded that the problem was connected to his knee pain. David Kahn, Timberwolves president of basketball operations, called the arthroscopic surgery “minor” and said he expects Love to resume his normal summer workouts in Los Angeles by early June after a season in which he has played just 18 games.
• Charles F. Gardner of the Journal Sentinel: Larry Sanders has plenty of competition for the most improved player honor, and he's also in the conversation for the defensive player of the year award. New Orleans' Greivis Vasquez, Houston's Omer Asik, Philadelphia's Jrue Holiday, Orlando's Nikola Vucevic and Indiana's Paul George are garnering support for the most improved award, voted on by 122 journalists who cover the NBA. … Several detailed analytical studies support Boylan's view. And a mere glance at last season's statistics shows Sanders played in 52 games without any starts and a total of 643 minutes, while this season he has started 53 of 69 games and played 1,892 minutes, an average of 27.4 minutes. This is the second consecutive year the Bucks have put a player in contention for the award. Ersan Ilyasova finished second to Orlando's Ryan Anderson for the most improved honor in 2011-'12. … The Bucks designed a public relations campaign featuring a colorful set of blocks to promote Sanders' candidacy for the most improved player and defensive player of the year awards. Sanders led the league in blocks for much of the season until recently being passed by last year's rejections leader, Serge Ibaka of Oklahoma City. Ibaka is averaging 3.07 blocks to Sanders' 2.9.
• Michael Lee of The Washington Post: John Wall was unaccustomed to having a teammate challenge him, but in hindsight, he couldn’t disagree with anything that Okafor told him: Wittman had to go with someone else if he was ineffective and Wall has to trust that the coach is doing what was in the best interest of the team, which should always come first. … What followed after the encounter has been the best basketball of Wall’s young career. Beginning with the next game on March 1 against the New York Knicks – the Wizards’ opponent on Tuesday at Madison Square Garden – the third-year point guard has been on a statistical tear that has changed perceptions of his career and shown that his talents are no longer stagnating. In his past 21 games, Wall is averaging 22.7 points, 7.9 assists and 4.9 rebounds and has recorded 10 games with at least 20 points, three games of 35 or more, and seven double-doubles. In that time, only LeBron James and Kobe Bryant are averaging at least 22 points, seven assists and 4.9 rebounds. “I think I really had to grow. Get my teammates back behind me. Because that’s not the way you’re supposed to come out as a leader and as a franchise guy,” Wall said of his attitude the night of the argument with Okafor.
• John Rohde of The Oklahoman: With Sunday's 125-120 victory over the Thunder, New York Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony is now 11-1 all-time against Kevin Durant in NBA games where both have played. Durant's lone head-to-head victory against Anthony came in a 151-147 double-overtime contest at KeyArena on April 6, 2008, which means Durant has yet to defeat Anthony while with the Thunder. Anthony did not play in OKC's 95-94 victory at New York on March 7 this season. Against Durant, Anthony has averaged 30.2 points, 6.9 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 1.5 steals while shooting 50.4 percent from the field, 40.0 percent from 3-point range and 84.8 percent from the free-throw line. Meanwhile, Durant has averaged 26.8 points, 6.5 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 1.3 steals while shooting 42.2 percent from the floor, 38.3 percent from 3-point range and 89.1 percent from the free-throw line.
• Eddie Sefko of The Dallas Morning News: Dirk Nowitzki doesn’t want it to end like this. Slugging it out for the eighth seed — or more likely missing the playoffs — is bad enough once. Or twice. In the autumn of his NBA career, he wants more. And while he has no problem putting pressure on ownership to find some high-quality warriors to play alongside him, Nowitzki also is OK taking on his share of the workload off the court. He’s ready to hit the recruiting trail. “I’ve said it all year long — this is a big summer for us,” Nowitzki said. “We have to get better. We have to get some guys in that can get us back to the top level. We want to be a top-four seed in the West. That was always our goal, to play for the top. So this is a big summer. If [owner Mark Cuban] needs me to recruit and do all that stuff, I’m more than happy to.” Will it be enough to woo a marquee free agent or finagle a sign-and-trade? Nobody knows for sure. But it can’t hurt.
• Doug Smith of the Toronto Star: What if? What if the Raptors hadn’t screwed up so many years ago when they had the chance to hire Hammond? What if they hadn’t blown it by going through a ridiculous process of whittling a large group to four only to say they were going to open up the process again only to come back to the same four and eventually picking Rob Babcock. The four — Babcock, Jeff Weltman, Mark Warkentien and Tony DiLeo (remember that Gang of Four?) —were basically underwhelming at that time and that the Raptors — and I am pointing a finger directly at Richard Peddie — didn’t even deign to interview Hammond, who was the No. 1 man to Joe Dumars in Deroit at the time, was a shocking blown opportunity. John wanted the job and deserved to have a shot at it; the short-sightedness of Peddie and his people set the franchise back years, so far that they might still be digging out almost a decade later.
• Dale Kasler, Ryan Lillis and Tony Bizjak of The Sacramento Bee: Beverly Hills billionaire Ron Burkle, a driving force for the past two years in trying to keep the Kings from leaving town, will not invest in the team or the proposed Downtown Plaza arena, Mayor Kevin Johnson announced Monday afternoon. Facing questions over a conflict of interest, Burkle instead will focus on redeveloping other portions of Downtown Plaza. "He's so committed to Sacramento," the mayor said, adding that he spoke with Burkle on Monday. "There's a host of ancillary development opportunities that Ron will participate in." … Johnson insisted that Burkle's new role would not deflate the effort to keep the Kings from going to Seattle, and said other investors would pick up the financial slack. He did not give specifics.
• Marcus Thompson II of The Oakland Tribune: The Warriors have a get-well game Tuesday against visiting Minnesota, which is 18 games under .500. A win coupled with a loss by Utah or the Los Angeles Lakers would clinch the Warriors' first postseason bid since 2007. But success against the Timberwolves won't answer an emerging concern. If you let Utah, a bad road team on the cusp of missing the playoffs, shut down Curry and the Warriors offense at the most critical of times, will Golden State be able to score in the postseason? Sunday night was less an anomaly and more like a trend. The Warriors have lost seven of their last 10 games against winning teams, including Sunday's home loss to Utah. In those 10 games, the Warriors averaged 22.4 fourth-quarter points. That includes a 17-point fourth quarter in a blowout of visiting New York, but finding offense against stiff defenses has been a major problem. … Jackson likes having Jack on the floor, so the three-guard lineup isn't going anywhere. That makes sense considering the way Jack has played this season. Jack is more secure with the ball than Curry, and defenses have aggressively double-teamed Curry late in games, something harder to do when he's playing off the ball. This quandary will continue into the postseason when the defenses step up a notch and coaching chess matches ensue. Because, no doubt, as goes Curry, so goes Golden State.
• Bill Oram of The Salt Lake Tribune: Well, this ought to be a good story. Jazz forward DeMarre Carroll tweeted Monday afternoon that he broke the rim during a pickup game at Life Time Fitness, an athletic club in South Jordan. There have been plenty of classic backboard breaking moments [this is a solid compendium] but the whole library doesn't quite seem complete without footage of Carroll's. Does anybody have it? Carroll, 26, averages 16 minutes per game in 64 appearances this season. He is a pending free agent, but even if he ends up leaving it's unlikely it will be without recounting the story of the time he broke the backboard at Life Time Fitness. Stay tuned.

• T.J. Simers of the Los Angeles Times: And a lot of sportswriters, players, coaches and administrators have tried over the decades to make winners out of the Clippers only to fail. I wrote about the immaturity of DeAndre Jordan and Blake Griffin and problems with Paul that have threatened to sidetrack my favorite team in town, no one more of a Clippers honk than Page 2. Shoot, I went to Memphis with the Clippers a year ago and no one goes to such a rathole unless it's to be there for their family. But then you know what it's like raising children. You can't be their friends. Sometimes you have to lower the boom, and toss in a little discipline even when it might hurt you more than them. So I had to spank the Clippers before we could all come together Sunday and beat the Lakers. … Bringing fun to a locker room is just what Page 2 does. And just as I have preached to the guys all year, if you're going to be successful, you have to feast on the really crummy teams to pad your record. Fortunately, the Clippers got to play the Lakers four times this season, which is like having the Houston Astros on your schedule. And they swept them, of course.
• Vincent Bonsignore of the Los Angeles Daily News: Clippers center DeAndre Jordan shouted across the locker room Sunday to Chris Paul. "I don't like you, Chris," Jordan yelled out. Paul didn't flinch. "I don't care," Paul answered. Meanwhile, Clippers forward Blake Griffin turned to Jordan, whose locker is near his, and snipped: "Get out of my way DeAndre. Move," Griffin shouted. Jordan didn't back down."I don't like you, Blake Griffin," Jordan screamed. Finally, all three players shared a hearty laugh. Turns out it was all in fun. But it also was a message delivered to anyone who thinks the Clippers have a chemistry problem or their star players don't get along. There recently has been talk that Paul, Jordan and Griffin are at odds, but it sure didn't look like they had problems as they joked around in the locker room after beating the Lakers on Sunday to clinch the first division title in franchise history. Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro insisted nothing out of the ordinary is going on with his young team. "There's not this big friction thing going on like people think," Del Negro said. "We've got some good guys. We have to manage (personalities) absolutely. But I know the guys want to win."
• Howard Beck of The New York Times: The Knicks thus claimed their 12th straight win and gave the streak an indisputable new legitimacy, taking down the defending Western Conference champions on their home court, where the Thunder (56-21) had lost just five times. “Probably one of the biggest wins we’ve had in a long time,” Carmelo Anthony said. For so many reasons. The Knicks reached 50 victories for the first time since the 1999-2000 season. They now need just one victory, or a Nets loss, to clinch their first Atlantic Division title since 1994. And the winning streak is the third longest in franchise history. The drive for a championship never looked more tangible. “It all goes hand in hand,” said Coach Mike Woodson, who got his 68th win with the Knicks, securing the best 100-game start in franchise history. … The Knicks had gone 20 days without a defeat, and 20 days without facing an elite team at full strength. They were spared the burden of LeBron James and Dwyane Wade last week in Miami. Their only victory over a team with a winning percentage of .600 or better was against the Memphis Grizzlies. “This may be the biggest, considering that’s a healthy team that’s playing with all their guns,” Chandler said. “It’s very hard to come in this building and get a win.”
• Darnell Mayberry of The Oklahoman: Yet the only consistent thing about the Thunder's defense seems to be inconsistency. Oklahoma City followed up its best defensive performance of the season with one of its worst. After holding Indiana to eight points on 2-for-18 shooting in the fourth quarter Friday, the Thunder allowed a season high for points, yielded at least 30 points in three quarters (and 29 in the fourth) and allowed 19 offensive rebounds. The rebounding was the worst of all evils. That's because Sunday marked the fifth time in the past 10 games that the Thunder has allowed at least 16 offensive rebounds. The Knicks converted their 19 offensive boards into 23 second-chance points. … After out-rebounding the Pacers, the league's best rebounding team, by 22, Sunday's showing was the equivalent of five steps back after one step forward. In its past 10 games, the Thunder has allowed 14 offensive rebounds. By comparison, the league's high mark is Milwaukee's 12.3. So are the players not blocking out enough? “It's a combination,” Brooks said. “Everybody has to think rebound. We're such a high, explosive offensive transition team that we can't think about that until we secure the ball. That's just something that we will brush up on and try to get better at that the last five games.”
• Bill Oram of The Salt Lake Tribune: By the time the Utah Jazz took the floor Sunday, through no effort of their own, they had crept back in the playoff picture. Early arrivals to Oracle Arena sat around the visitors’ locker room, watching intently on a projector as the Los Angeles Clippers ran the Lakers out of their shared gym. "I think everybody knows what the Lakers did today," Jazz forward Marvin Williams said. "We had a golden opportunity to come out and switch places with them." The Jazz took that opportunity and made a golden statement, beating the Warriors 97-90 after Mo Williams made a game-clinching 3-pointer with 13.4 seconds left. With the win, the Jazz moved a half-game ahead of the Lakers. The victory represented the Jazz’s most encouraging road effort of the season. It was just their third road victory over a team with a winning record, and it gave them consecutive road wins for the first time this season. Beating Golden State may have turned the tide of an entire season. The Jazz host the Oklahoma City Thunder on Tuesday, and Minnesota on Friday, then close out the season with road games at Minnesota and Memphis. "We win out," Gordon Hayward said simply, "we’ll be fine."
• Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe: It’s less than two weeks before the Celtics take the floor for their first-round playoff series against likely the Knicks or Pacers, and during that time they need to find cohesion. The team decided to rest Kevin Garnett (ankle inflammation) for two weeks, and Paul Pierce also needed a break to rest his gimpy ankle. But sooner or later, the Celtics have to get their core on the floor at the same time, and Sunday night was it. The combination of Pierce and Garnett, with the welcomed help of the resurgent Brandon Bass, led to a 107-96 win over the improving Washington Wizards. If only the shorthanded Celtics had played with the same energy Friday as they did on Sunday, they would have made it easier on themselves in their quest for the sixth seed in the Eastern Conference. This is a critical stretch for the Celtics, who don’t want to match up with the Knicks, winners of 12 straight games after beating Oklahoma City on the road Sunday without Amar’e Stoudemire or Kenyon Martin. Moving up to sixth — they trail Atlanta by 1½ games — likely would set up a first-round series with the Pacers, who were soundly beaten by the Wizards Saturday, and the Thunder the previous night.
• Ronald Tillery of The Commercial-Appeal: Newcomer Keyon Dooling and rookie Tony Wroten were back with the Griz after playing Saturday for the NBA Development League’s Reno Bighorns. It was a move designed to allow both players to stretch their legs. … Conley recorded his fourth straight 20-point game. The Griz hadn’t had a player score 20-plus points in four consecutive games this season. He’s been efficient, too. Conley took advantage of the Kings’ weak interior defense and attacked the baskets for layups. He’s shot 59 percent (36 of 61 from the field) in the four games. Zach Randolph is having a hard time getting his shot off around the rim because of shot-blocking defenders and he’s missing easy layups as of late. He finished 4 of 13 from the field and attempted just two free throws. Randolph is 11 of 30 in his last two games.
• Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press: "We're playing like a team. We look good, man." The Pistons fan seated in the first row behind the media table Sunday night sounded surprised in the waning minutes of his team's 99-85 victory over the Chicago Bulls. That's understandable, since it had been nearly two months since the Palace crowd had witnessed a victory. And it had been over four years since fans had witnessed a victory over the Bulls on any court. But with the Pistons' bench combining for 43 points, and Brandon Knight tallying 20 points and five assists, the Pistons were able to get their first victory at the Palace since Feb. 13 -- a span of eight games. "It feels good just to finish out a game strong against them, where we were the team not to make mistakes and to capitalize on their mistakes," Knight said of the Pistons' 18-game losing streak to the playoff-bound Bulls. Although Pistons coach Lawrence Frank downplayed the streak's significance during three earlier losses this season, he admitted it was a topic of conversation.
• John Reid of The Times-Picayune: New Orleans Hornets guard Eric Gordon and his teammates have experienced their share of disappointing losses and missed opportunities on the road this season. But for the first time in nearly two months they enjoyed a road victory, defeating the Phoenix Suns 95-92 on Sunday night in front of 16,780 at the U.S. Airways Center. … Eric Gordon frequently drove the lane and maintained being aggressive after halftime, which is something he has not done frequently this season. It was the Suns that extended Gordon a four-year, $58 million contract offer last summer. The Hornets matched the offer, even though Gordon said his "heart was in Phoenix." In a heat of the moment situation during this past Friday’s 95-83 loss to Utah Jazz at EnergySolutions Arena, Williams got into a shouting match with Gordon during a timeout in the third quarter. Williams apparently didn’t think Gordon was hustling enough. But both appeared to move beyond the conflict as Williams kept Gordon in the starting lineup Sunday. Gordon played with intensity and the Suns struggled to stay in front of him. Gordon made all six of his free throws and he also had six assists and two steals 31 minutes of work.
• Eddie Sefko of The Dallas Morning News: Dirk Nowitzki has twisted and sprained his ankles dozens of times. But what happened Sunday night in Portland was different. He said he came down funny after jumping for a rebound in the second quarter. The ankle stiffened up at halftime, when he had it re-taped. He was ineffective in the third quarter, then sat out the entire fourth quarter. The Mavericks limped to the finish line for a 96-91 win. They were ahead by 26 late in the third quarter and by 20 at the start of the fourth. “I said at the start of the fourth it’s a little stiff, and I decided to just sit this one,” Nowitzki said. “Obviously, it got a lot closer than we were hoping for so we had to grind it out down the stretch. I think I jumped for a rebound in the second quarter and must have landed wrong or something. I must have irritated my bone spurs. I got really stiff and couldn’t really move much in the third quarter. I tried, got it retaped at halftime, but it didn’t help much. I said I’m going to sit this one out and the boys will bring it home. It was a lot closer than we hoped, but we got it done.” Nowitzki said he “definitely” will play Wednesday.
• Michael Beaven of the Akron Beacon-Journal: Cavaliers coach Byron Scott turned to an unlikely five-man lineup for a spark in the fourth quarter Sunday night and the decision paid off big time. Starter Wayne Ellington joined reserves Omri Casspi, Kevin Jones, Shaun Livingston, and Marreese Speights to help the host Cavs rally from a deficit to the Orlando Magic and earn a 91-85 victory. “That group I thought played pretty good basketball, especially defensively,” Scott said. “We didn’t score a lot, but they didn’t either.” A crowd of 16,341 witnessed the Cavs (24-52) start off slow against the Magic (19-59), but regain their composure in time to notch a second consecutive win. “It was a good win,” Scott said. “On the defensive end again, I thought our guys did a lot of good things just like we did in Boston [in a 97-91 win Friday night]. That is basically why we got the win tonight.” … Irving was asked before the game about the speculation that Scott could be let go following the season. He downplayed it and said: “Until that time comes, I’m not really worried about it. To even imagine that, I’m not going down that road. I’m focused on finishing the season with him and that’s all that matters right now.”

• Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News: In the aftermath of another heartbreaker, there was nothing more the Spurs could do but make the best of it. Monday’s 92-90 loss to Memphis essentially ended with a Mike Conley layup with 0.6 seconds left, the Grizzlies’ point guard doing to the Spurs what Miami’s Chris Bosh and Houston’s James Harden had done in the span of eight days before. Namely, rip their guts out. It was the Spurs’ sixth consecutive game to come down to the final play of regulation and the third they had lost in the middle of a white-knuckle race for the Western Conference’s top playoff seed. “If they have the character I know they have, this is all going in the computer,” coach Gregg Popovich said. “It will make them smarter and make them make the right decisions come playoff time, hopefully.” By now, forgive the Spurs if they are all “learning experienced” out. Monday at FedEx Forum, they very nearly did to the Grizzlies what Miami had done to them in San Antonio the night before, when LeBron James and Dwyane Wade sat and the Heat won anyway. This time, Popovich kept All-Star forward Tim Duncan and small forward Kawhi Leonard at home to rest sore left knees, along with sixth man Manu Ginobili, who is out for as many as four weeks with a strained right hamstring.
• David Barron of the Houston Chronicle: James Harden sat out a second consecutive game as coach Kevin McHale said his primary goal for the All-Star guard was for him to be at maximum efficiency as the playoffs approach. “I think it’s important that James tries to get this thing to the best level he can, considering that we’re short on time,” McHale said. “The longer you have something that bothers you, the more accustomed you get to it and the less you think it bothers you. But when you look at you play — actually stand way, way, way back — you analyze that ‘I’m not doing things the way I used to.’” Harden, who iced his foot twice and underwent treatment Monday morning, agreed it’s better to err on the side of caution. “Health is definitely more important,” he said. “When I’m not effective on the court and not playing to my best abilities, hopefully guys can keep winning and we can go the right way and I hope I can come back and help them out as well.”
• Phil Collin of the Los Angeles Daily News: At one point, the Clippers sat atop the Pacific Division with a 32-9 record on the heels of their 17-game win streak. Entering Monday's game against Indiana, the Clippers were 17-16 since that point. And after a month in which the Clippers went 7-7, it's obvious they're still trying to rediscover the formula that propelled them to their fast start. "We didn't finish a few games out," Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro said of the .500 record in March. "We had a couple of opportunities, but you have to be able to finish games out by getting stops or making plays but we missed a few opportunities, especially on the road. You've got to play better. You win games by playing at a high level consistently." The Clippers have been beset by injuries, even after it looked like they were ready to make a big run when Chauncey Billups returned in earnest from his Achilles' injury. But then a new series of bumps hit, particularly among key reserves Eric Bledsoe and Jamal Crawford. "You can talk about injuries, you can talk about schedule, you can talk about all these things," Del Negro said. "Everyone goes through it, some more than others. At the end of the day, you have to win games."
• Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times: That day is here. Shaquille O'Neal's No. 34 will join Chamberlain's No. 13, Abdul-Jabbar's No. 33 and the banner that honors Mikan's No. 99 in the upper reaches of Staples Center on Tuesday when the Lakers play the Dallas Mavericks. After winning three of his four titles with the Lakers during a 19-season career that ended in 2011, O'Neal doesn't need to fear his place in purple-and-gold lore anymore. Collectively, the Lakers' Biggest Four logged 11 most valuable player awards, 18 championships and 51 All-Star game selections over their careers. Fifteen of those titles came with the Lakers. "It's not surprising the success the Lakers have had," said Hall of Fame guard Gail Goodrich, a member of the 1971-72 team that won the championship with Chamberlain and West, "because they've had great centers." The Lakers' luck in acquiring those centers, however, was nothing less than extraordinary.
• Jody Genessy of the Deseret News: If you ask Al Jefferson, the NBA forgot to dish out an award on Monday. Denver's George Karl and Miami's Erik Spoelstra earned coach of the month honors for March, while the Knicks' J.R. Smith and Big Al were named players of the week for their respective conferences. "They said Al Jefferson's player of the week," Jefferson said. "I think the Utah Jazz is the team of the week." Can a trophy maker along the Wasatch Front make that award happen? Continuing their red-hot play of late, the Jazz might be front-runners for team of the month honors based on their 112-102 blowout win against the Portland Trail Blazers on Monday night at EnergySolutions Arena. The victory pushed the Jazz's season-high winning streak to five games, the most consecutive wins they've strung together since the end of the 2011-12 season. The outcome also gave Utah (39-36) sole possession of the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference, putting the streaking squad a half-game above the vaunted Los Angeles Lakers (38-36). "We're just a team playing like we want to be in the playoffs," Jefferson said, "and that's the difference."
• Eric Koreen of the National Post: Jose Calderon is not done handing out assists for the Toronto Raptors. As of now, Calderon is acting as Landry Fields’ landlord. Fields has been living in the condo Calderon lived in during much of his Raptors tenure for the entire year. There are no immediate plans for Calderon to kick his old teammate out. The two will deal with it at the end of the year, Calderon said on Monday. So, that gave Calderon one less thing to worry about as he made his return to Toronto, playing his first game in the Air Canada Centre since the late-January trade that ended his seven-and-a-half-year tenure as a Raptor. Everything else — well, Calderon had a word for it. “It’s been weird since this morning, being in Toronto in a hotel,” Calderon said. “It’s just weird. It’s a weird feeling all around.” Yes, almost the entirety of Detroit Pistons’ 108-98 win was strange. But at least it was predictable. There was no doubt how the fans would react to the return of the franchise’s all-time assists leader. “I think obviously there’s a lot of emotion involved. I think this will be a little bit different than some of the other former Raptors,” said Pistons coach, and former Nets coach, Lawrence Frank. “I was around when Vince [Carter] came back, and [the same thing happened with] Tracy McGrady and Chris Bosh. This will be, hopefully, the complete opposite.” It was.
• Brendan Savage of MLive.com: Forward Jason Maxiell might have played his final game for the Detroit Pistons after undergoing season-ending surgery to repair a detached retina. Maxiell, who will be an unrestricted free agent after the season and might not return to the Pistons, is expected to make a full recovery. "It's very disappointing," coach Lawrence Frank said. "You feel horrible for Jason. You hate to see any of your guys get injured, especially where their season is over. "The positives are the surgery went very well. He won't be able to resume any basketball activities for two months but the good thing is it's not career threatening. He'll be able to get back and get back to playing basketball." … Maxiell, 30, has spent his entire eight-year NBA career with the Pistons since they made him their first-round pick (26th overall) out of Cincinnati in 2005. He became the player with the longest Pistons' tenure when Tayshaun Prince was traded to Memphis in January. He has started 175 of 523 career games for the Pistons, averaging 6.1 points, 4.4 rebounds and 0.8 blocks.
• Michael Cunningham of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: The Cavaliers aren’t the kind of opponent likely to inspire the Hawks to find the the “playoff mode” coach Larry Drew is seeking as the regular season draws to a close. That was the concern for Drew after he said his team “played as if we can turn it on at any point” during a lackluster victory against Orlando Saturday. It took a while for the Hawks to find their form against the struggling Cavaliers, but they eventually did enough to secire a 102-94 victory Monday at Philips Arena. “We want to get back to just grinding defensive possessions out,” Drew said. “I thought we did a little better job tonight (but) not what I was hoping. I thought we had some breakdowns tonight. As we wind this thing down we need to get back to where we not focus on our offense as much as our defense. That got us into a little bit of trouble tonight.” … Hawks forward Kyle Korver extended his streak of consecutive games with a made 3-pointer to 68 games to tie Reggie Miller for fifth place on the NBA’s all-time list. Dennis Scott is fourth all-time with 78 consecutive games with at least one 3-pointer made.
• Charles F. Gardner of the Journal Sentinel: Charlotte coach Mike Dunlap said he's glad his team is playing teams in contention for the playoffs. "The great thing about playing the Bucks tonight is they have the playoff fever," Dunlap said. "Every possession presents itself with an intensity that is good for our young guys to understand." Charlotte scored 60 points in the first half but only 42 in the second half as the Bucks won their 10th consecutive home game against the Bobcats. The Bucks and Bobcats met twice early in the season, with Charlotte prevailing at home, 102-98, on Nov. 19 and the Bucks winning at home, 108-93, on Dec. 7. Charlotte started 7-5, matching its total of victories last season. But it has won just 10 more times since that promising start. "Youth, is one," Dunlap said. "And two is you have them in a concentrated period of the training camp and you come right into the season. There's a bit of fizz there in terms of clarity.”
• Ray Richardson of the Pioneer Press: Nikola Pekovic had 29 points and Dante Cunningham added 19 points off the bench to lead the Timberwolves to a 110-100 victory over Boston on Monday night, April 1, at Target Center. The victory left Wolves coach Rick Adelman two wins shy of his career 1,000th victory. Adelman, in his 22nd season as an NBA coach, is 998-702. The win also snapped the Wolves' 11-game losing streak to Boston. Avery Bradley led Boston with 19 points. The Wolves took advantage of a depleted Celtics team that played without Kevin Garnett (ankle) and Paul Pierce (personal reasons). Both remained in Boston. This was a game the Wolves were supposed to control and they did. Pekovic returned from missing one game with a sprained left ankle and his presence made a huge difference inside. Without Garnett, the Celtics had virtually no inside answer for Pekovic.
• Baxter Holmes of The Boston Globe: Jeff Green’s resurgence coincided with the point at which Rajon Rondo suffered his injury, but Doc Rivers said he isn’t sure if that’s a coincidence or not. “Because with the whole heart thing and sitting out a year, you don’t know if this is progression from sitting out a year or if this is just him getting better as a player and getting more confident,” Rivers said. From the start of the season to Jan. 25, the day Rondo was injured, Green, who sat out last season after undergoing open-heart surgery, was averaging 9.6 points. Since then, Green was averaging 16.3 points per game entering Monday night, when he scored 10.
• Mike Tokito of The Oregonian: Damian Lillard broke the NBA rookie record for most three-point makes in a season. His first three-pointer of the game, with 6:16 left in the first quarter, was the 167th of the season, breaking the record he had shared with Golden State's Stephen Curry, who set it during the 2009-10 season. Lillard finished 3 for 7 behind the arc and had 17 points.
• Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon-Journal: Tristan Thompson is one of seven finalists for the prestigious J. Walter Kennedy Award, given annually by the Pro Basketball Writers Association to the player, coach or trainer who shows outstanding service and dedication to the community. Thompson created “Giving Thanks in Tristan’s Town” for Thanksgiving, purchasing turkeys and groceries for 150 families from Historic Greater Friendship Baptist Church in Cleveland. He helped distribute the meals along with game tickets. Thompson has also raised funds for Cavaliers Youth Fund and has been an advocate for pediatric epilepsy because his younger brother has epilepsy. He has worked on behalf of the Domestic Violence & Child Advocacy Center and is active in filling requests with the Cavs’ community service department. He has helped with events at the Children’s Rehab Hospital, Harvest for Hunger food drive and participated in the filming of a Valentine’s Day video for women whose military husbands were deployed.

• Buck Harvey of the San Antonio Express-News: LeBron James and Dwyane Wade watched on the locker room television, then burst out to greet their teammates. To use Erik Spoelstra’s phrase, they “tackled everyone.” And if it was possible, David Stern would have parachuted in to join them. Stern had looked foolish the last time, announcing “substantial sanctions” were forthcoming before the undermanned Spurs pressed the Heat. This time? The franchise that’s irritated Stern for more than a decade was hit with something more significant than a fine. Those who believe in the worst of the NBA office probably see signs of a conspiracy again. After all, Joey Crawford showed up, and when is the last time that’s been good for San Antonio? Then there was the call by another official, Jason Phillips, with 32 seconds left. The Miami version of Nando De Colo, Norris Cole, fell on a drive; Kawhi Leonard got the foul because he was the only one nearby. “We got some lucky breaks at the end,” Spoelstra said, and he followed with something as true. “But that’s basketball.” One call didn’t determine this game, not when the Heat played with the kind of competitive joy the Spurs had in November in Miami. Chris Bosh used the word “fun,” because it was for them. Just as the Spurs played loose in Miami, so did the Heat Sunday. … With the Thunder waiting for the second game of a back-to-back in OKC on Thursday, will this be the week that scrambles the Western Conference seeding? Stern wouldn’t mind, since he’s butted heads with the Spurs for years. And while he pushed for an economic model that allowed small markets to compete, he always preferred selling something other than a Spurs franchise that has never moved the television needle. And so there Stern was Sunday, with his final postseason as the NBA commissioner approaching, watching Bosh line up the game-winner.
• Ethan J. Skolnick of the Palm Beach Post: Could the Heat center imagine playing at such a level at age 37? “I don’t know if I’ll still be playing,” said Chris Bosh, who recently turned 29. “I don’t want to, no. I will if I have to. You can’t tell the future, but I don’t plan to.” If the rest of his career is anywhere near as enjoyable as Sunday night’s 88-86 victory, you’d think he could be convinced to reconsider. With LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Mario Chalmers all sitting — due to what Miami coach Erik Spoelstra characterized as nagging injuries but what many suspected was payback for San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich’s ploy in November — Bosh had a rare opportunity to anchor the Heat, and to do so against the Spurs, the West’s best squad. And so there he was, with the Heat down one. There he was, after Spoelstra trusted his team to push the ball without a timeout. There he was, standing open after a screen, 25 feet from the basket, just past the top of the key, after Tiago Splitter failed to switch and three defenders flailed toward Ray Allen. “I saw myself shooting that,” Allen said. “I was about to shoot it, and I felt my guy come up on me, and hey, there’s somebody open, and I found him.” He found Bosh, who had 20 points at that stage, including a couple of 3-pointers. “Fairly decent look,” Spoelstra said. Bosh wasn’t surprised to be that free. “I had to make the shot still,” he said, laughing.
• Harvey Araton of The New York Times: One championship, two finals appearances, and countless clutch shots and defensive stands later, Pierce, at 35, is considered one of the league’s sage big-game veterans, a future Retired Number Celtic, a nearly certain Hall of Famer. His delayed ascension might also reflect the best-case career trajectory for the Knicks’Carmelo Anthony, whose professional years have mimicked Pierce’s 20s far more than they have LeBron James’s. With the Knicks poised to displace the Celtics as Atlantic Division champions after beating them, 108-89, on Sunday night at Madison Square Garden, this would be a propitious time to present Pierce as Exhibit A in the case for Anthony’s potential growth into no-questions-asked superstardom. Anthony’s critics, including me, have never underestimated his combustible package of size, strength and first-step speed. But his teams in Denver and in New York have produced poor playoff results, and he has admitted to failing to fully grasp the essence of collective elegance until last summer’s Olympics. Isn’t it fair to say that when it comes to winning at the highest level, Anthony is still an undergraduate student trying to complete a master’s program?
• Baxter Holmes of The Boston Globe: As one of three NBA coaches on the league’s competition committee, Rivers, who is joined by Dallas’s Rick Carlisle and Memphis’s Lionel Hollins, is asked to vote on potential rule changes and other competition-related matters. One issue Rivers said he expects to come up this offseason is the idea of coaches sitting star players in games, which Miami did Sunday night against San Antonio. The Heat sat LeBron James, Dywane Wade, and Mario Chalmers against the Spurs, indicating that each had injuries such as a hamstring strain and a sprained ankle. The move caused a stir because Spurs coach Gregg Popovich had sent forward Tim Duncan, guard Manu Ginobili, and guard Tony Parker home before playing the Heat Nov. 19. … “I’ve got a feeling it will come up, probably loudly,” Rivers said. “But I don’t know what you’re supposed to do about it as a coach. It’s a tough one, honestly. From the fans’ standpoint, they pay to see the players play and I get that. From the league’s standpoint, they want to protect that. From a coaching standpoint, you want to do what’s best for your team. It’s a tough one.” However, the Celtics may have an advantage in this area because their star players are pushing 35 and above, so no one really questions why they sit: they’re just old. “I think ‘old’ is an actual injury,” Rivers joked. “You have the ‘hamstring injury’ and you have the ‘old injury.’ ”
• Craig Stouffer of the Washington Examiner: With a 109-92 victory over Toronto before 14,360 at Verizon Center, the Wizards (27-46) achieved their objective and saw shades of what their starting backcourt hopes to be next year. Bradley Beal matched a career-high with six 3-pointers and a game-high 24 points after missing 11 of the last 14 games with a sprained left ankle. His return was the perfect complement to John Wall's 18 points and 10 assists with a single turnover, the bookend to a superb March played mostly without his rookie teammate. "It's very important, especially to me and especially to the team, because we want to end on a good note, make a run for the ninth seed," Beal said. … Beal checked in with 4:37 remaining the first quarter. His 3-pointer over 6-foot-11 Jonas Valanciunas (18 points, 10 rebounds) broke a 33-33 tie early in the second, starting a stretch in which the Wizards outscored the Raptors by 10 over the final eight minutes of the half. "I think we've seen it in his attitude," Wizards coach Randy Wittman said of Beal. "He's been working, and he wants to get back. That's a good sign. ... I've been in it long enough where I've seen guys say they don't want to get back."
• Cathal Kelly of the Toronto Star: The vogue trend in the league is to shoot three-pointers at every opportunity. On that basis, Gay is a victim of fashion. His three-point shooting is middling overall (33.9 per cent career), and trending like an anvil tipped into a well (26.7 per cent this year). Gay missed his shot. Toronto missed its chance. All the momentum drained away then. It finished 109-92. “You don’t want to question a guy’s decision, but we’d much rather go to the basket,” coach Dwane Casey said. “He made that choice.” Bad choices, large and small, haunt this team. It was a wrong choice to come out looking like they needed a little nap after the excitement of the anthems. ‘We came out with a lax disposition,” Casey said flatly. “(Casey) said that to us also,” Kyle Lowry said afterward, as if relieved to hear that he wasn’t the only one. It was a wrong choice to get into early foul trouble.
• John Reid of The Times-Picayune: New Orleans Hornets guard Greivis Vasquez said Coach Monty Williams called him out in front of his teammates during halftime for not playing like a leader after committing three turnovers and scoring five points. But Vasquez used it as motivation, dominating the third quarter by making all six shots, distributing three assists and most importantly not committing a turnover for the entire second half on his way to a team-high 25 points. Vasquez not only looked for his shot, but he got the Hornets in their offensive sets quicker and looked specifically for forward Anthony Davis on lob passes coming off pick-and-roll plays. Vasquez and Davis combined to score 29 of the Hornets' 36 points in the third quarter. It was enough for the Hornets to end a two-game losing streak and finish their seven-game homestand at 4-3.
• Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon-Journal: Kyrie Irving’s return from a sprained left shoulder Sunday provided Shaun Livingston with a welcome break. Livingston is able to return to his reserve role after averaging 32 minutes in the eight games he started. Livingston played well in Irving’s absence, but he now strengthens a bench that has been depleted by the injuries to the starters. “It keeps the second unit a little more intact and it cuts down his minutes, which I think is important,” coach Byron Scott said. “I thought he was running on fumes for a little while because of all the minutes we’ve been playing him. He gets more of a break and can resume his normal position and normal playing time. That definitely helps.”
• Teddy Greenstein of the Chicago Tribune: The NBA's decision to upgrade a Gibson foul onLeBron James from a regular shooting foul to a flagrant foul surprised Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau. "I guess we have to call the league and get clarification on that," he said. "I didn't see it that way. I still don't have a good understanding of what a flagrant foul is. By rule it's unnecessary, excessive. I thought I got some clarity last year, but apparently I didn't." James complained after Wednesday's game of fouls he deemed "not basketball plays." Asked if James' opinion carries weight with the league, Thibodeau replied: "I guess we have to talk to the league to find out."
• Vincent Goodwill of The Detroit News: When a team shoots 50 percent on the road and holds its opponent under 40 percent, it expects to win. But when these two meet, no one stat can guarantee victory for the Pistons. They had a chance to send the game to overtime, trailing by three with 22 seconds left, but Charlie Villanueva's 3-point attempt didn't find its mark. Jose Calderon would've been a candidate to take a tying 3-pointer, but he has a tendon problem in his elbow and when the ball swung to him, he was no threat to shoot, so Villanueva launched a long jumper in a failed attempt to send the game to overtime. Rodney Stuckey hit a 3-pointer on the final possession to cut the lead from four to one. The Pistons (24-50) were already undermanned without Jason Maxiell (eye injury, didn't make the trip) and Will Bynum (hand). The Bulls (40-32) were playing without Joakim Noah, Marco Belinelli, former Piston Richard Hamilton and 2011 MVP Derrick Rose, who's yet to return from tearing his Achilles. Even without those four, especially the pesky Noah, the Bulls made the necessary plays down the stretch to give the Pistons that sinking feeling. "It was some bad bounces, I had a bad turnover," said Greg Monroe, who finished with 18 points, 10 rebounds and four assists, benefitting from Noah's absence. "Just a half-second late, that might've been the difference. We played with good energy, good effort the whole game. When it counted, we were a step late."

The NBA began the season with a new rule against flopping, and the early indications were it made a difference.

Since 2013 began, however, the NBA has cited a mere four flops, out of close to 25,000 minutes of live ball play. Here they are, with video:

• Corey Brewer (March 9)
• C.J. Watson (Januar 25)
• Kevin Martin (January 23)
• J.J. Barea (January 22)

Considering that the league issued a total of 12 warnings and fines in the first two months of the season, that could be a sign the rule is doing its job, and players are flopping less.

But on the other hand, it's not that hard to find examples of flops that are going unpunished. A sampling:

• Chris Paul (March 19)
• Kyle Lowry (January 16)
• Blake Griffin (January 19)
• Chris Bosh (January 30)
• Gordon Hayward (March 13)
• Lance Stephenson (March 15)

Subjective observations suggests that the league, as a whole, on the season, has less flopping. But there's also evidence that the NBA is becoming increasingly lax in its policing.

The playoffs, when flopping rates are usually at their season-high, are just around the corner. Teams value every possession more in the playoffs, and therefore the incentive to flop will be high. And the league's flopping policy has always had the flaw that fines and sanctions are only handed down after the game, so a key flop still might win some team or another a playoff game.

Now seems like the right time to make clear the best game plans should not involve flops.

Also, the way the league has punished flopping has not helped to combat the perception that superstars are largely immune. The biggest name on the list of floppers this season is Tony Parker. Meanwhile the player with one of the greatest flopping reputations, Paul, has gotten off entirely, despite video evidence that he hasn't changed his style much. The league has an excellent opportunity right now to prove stars like Paul can get in flop trouble, too.

• Joseph Goodman of The Miami Herald: Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert is well-known for his shocking public statements regarding LeBron James. To that end, Wednesday’s latest bombshell should come as no surprise. Hours before the Heat was to play the Cavaliers at Quicken Loans Arena, Gilbert took to Twitter with a message directed at Cavs fans: “Cleveland Cavaliers young talent makes our future very bright. Clearly, LeBron’s is as well. Time for everyone to focus on the road ahead.” Focus on what road ahead, exactly? The message served two purposes. First, it was a public plea for Cavaliers fans to go easy on James on Wednesday night rather than boo him unmercifully and chant stuff like, “Akron hates you.” Secondly, but more importantly, it was Gilbert’s way of extending an olive branch to James. James can opt out of his current contract in 2014, and it’s never too early to start courting the best player in the league. And, of course, here’s the cynical translation of Gilbert’s tweet: Please, for the love of God and my pocketbook — but mostly my pocketbook — cheer for LeBron tonight.” Don’t forget, that when Gilbert lost James to free agency in 2010, the Cavs’ owner lost bank-vaults worth of revenue potential.
• Bill Livingston of The Plain Dealer: If James does indeed return in 2014, when he can opt out of his Miami contract, it would take on overtones of the biblical story of the prodigal son. To many Cavs fans, it would only be good business to take a shortcut back to contention. To others, because of the way he surrendered on the court before leaving and the ugly tone of the television show in which he announced his defection, it would be the story of another, more sinister family. James would be Fredo, as described, after he betrayed the Corleone family in "The Godfather: Part II" by his brother Michael: "You're nothing to me. You're not a brother. You're not a friend. You broke [our] hearts." To these fans, it will always be personal. Most of all, in the Cleveland way, the way of Red Right 88 and The Drive, The Fumble, The Shot, and Jose Mesa, it will always be about the next time. Someday, it will be their time, the time when the last game ends and there is no choice but to shine a light on a city that has waited for its close-up for almost a half-century.
• Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel: This was not accidental death-by-dunk. No, LeBron James confirmed Wednesday that his power slam at the expense of Boston Celtics guard Jason Terry in the second quarter of Monday night's Miami Heat victory at TD Garden was very much with malice intended. Asked after the morning shootaround at Quicken Loans Arena if he had the opportunity to review the dunk, James nodded and said, "Yeah, I have, I have." He wasn't finished. No, not after Terry has taken opportunities while with both the Dallas Mavericks and now Celtics to launch verbal salvos at James' Heat, including when the Mavericks defeated the Heat in the 2011 NBA Finals. "It was one of my better ones," James said. "And the fact that it happened to J.T. made it even that much sweeter. Because I think we all know what J.T. talks, and he talks too much sometimes and I'm glad it happened to him." Asked for comment at Wednesday's Celtics shootaround in New Orleans, Terry told the media, "I'm not even commenting. No comment. Zero. I have none. A basketball play. My reaction was when the fans were cheering and I went up and knocked down the technical. That's a great reaction. Wasn't the first, won't be the last." James received a technical foul for his stare-down of Terry after the dunk.
• Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News: With Tim Duncan again anchoring the show — to the tune of 25 points, 13 rebounds, six assists and four blocks — the Spurs sent the Warriors to their 29th consecutive loss in San Antonio, a string of futility dating to Valentine’s Day 1997. It wasn’t the most talked-about streak around the NBA, but it was one the Spurs (52-16) were satisfied to prolong. Combined with Oklahoma City’s overtime loss at Memphis, it left the Spurs 21/2 games ahead of the Thunder in the Western Conference race. … If there were any doubts whether Duncan could regain the form from before his Feb. 2 knee injury, the past three games have put them to rest. The 36-year-old is averaging 27.7 points, 14.7 rebounds, four assists, and 3.3 blocks over that stretch. “He’s an all-time great for a reason,” Mark Jackson said. After going 11 of 17 for his third straight game shooting above 60 percent, Duncan was asked to assess the state of his revived jump shot. “It doesn’t feel great, but it’s going in a little bit,” Duncan said.
• Ronald Tillery of The Commercial-Appeal: It didn’t take long to discern the measure of intensity that would fill FedExForum on Wednesday night. Instead of going around a screen Griz center Marc Gasol set near mid-court, Oklahoma City Thunder guard Russell Westbrook charged into Gasol and delivered a deliberate hockey-style check with his right shoulder. Gasol took umbrage and so did referee Michael Smith, who whistled Westbrook for a foul while players from both teams engaged in verbal jousting. And the game was less than two minutes old. The rivalry, however, dates back nearly three years when these teams bumped and grinded through a seven-game Western Conference semifinals series. The Griz actually hit first in this one. Memphis jumped out to an early 10-point lead and then Gasol delivered a knockout punch that allowed Memphis to get a 90-89 overtime victory before sellout crowd of 18,119. Gasol extended the Grizzlies’ home winning streak to nine games when he tipped in a Zach Randolph miss with 0.9 seconds left. Westbrook’s desperation heave was way off as the final buzzer sounded. “I just crashed the boards and got lucky,” Gasol said. “What does Tony (Allen) say: ‘Grit, grind?’ We definitely believe.”
• Chris Vivlamore of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Jeff Teague made his statement. With so much talk about the Bucks’ guard combination of Monta Ellis and Brandon Jennings, the Hawks guard had something to say about his game Wednesday night. Teague finished with 27 points and 11 assists as the Hawks held off the Bucks 98-90 at Philips Arena in a key Eastern Conference game. It was one point shy of Teague’s season- and career-high point total. The Hawks (38-30) won for the fourth time in five games and kept hold of the fifth spot in the conference playoff race. Teague was challenged by Player Development Instructor Nick Van Exel at halftime to pick up his energy and play. The guard responded with 12 points in a decisive third quarter. “C’mon,” is what Teague said Van Exel simply told him. “Me and him a little way we talk to each other. I knew what he meant.”
• Richard Walker of the Gaston Gazette: When the Charlotte Bobcats acquired Josh McRoberts last month, he was the throw-in on a no-risk trade deadline deal. When they signed Jannero Pargo last week, they were simply looking for a healthy body to back up starting point guard Kemba Walker. On Wednesday night, McRoberts and Pargo were more valuable than perhaps their team could’ve ever imagined in a 107-101 win over the Toronto Raptors that gives Charlotte its first winning streak since Nov. 19 and 21 – or way back when the Bobcats were off a franchise-record 6-4 start. “The journey’s been a long and tough one for our team,” said Charlotte coach Mike Dunlap, whose team has won three of its last five games, including three straight at Time Warner Cable Arena, to improve to 16-52. “But we’re playing hard and we’re playing together.”
• Jimmy Smith of The Times-Picayune: New Orleans Hornets forward Anthony Davis has some Kobe Bryant in him. It is often said that the Lakers' legend plays best when he's not at 100 percent. Davis was far from 100 percent on Wednesday against the Boston Celtics, but told reporters after the game there was no way he was not going to play with what Coach Monty Williams had described as "a stomach issue." Davis said he nursed his energy throughout the day, sitting out the morning shoot-around, but managing to play 28 minutes Wednesday night. Davis' game-winning tip in of an Eric Gordon miss with 0.3 on the clock helped the Hornets snap a four-game losing streak with a win over a quality opponent. Davis had 9 points and 8 rebounds, along with two blocked shots and a steal. He is the unquestioned future of this franchise. … If there's an indispensible player this year, it's Ryan Anderson. Easily, the acquisition of Anderson over the summer in a sign-and-trade with the Orlando Magic was the Hornets best offseason move. Even though Anderson is just in his fifth NBA season, he plays with a veteran savvy that will help solidify the future of the team for the next few years.
• Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle: With a day off and orders to clear his mind, Jeremy Lin took the opportunity to head to the gym. He did change things up a bit. With Alicia Keys taking over Toyota Center, Lin found a different court and a few different teammates. But Lin’s idea of a day off included basketball. “It’s therapeutic,” he said. After Sunday’s 30-point loss to Golden State, he and the Rockets needed the therapy, so Lin spent a chunk of Monday launching jumpers and playing HORSE. When the Rockets reconvened at Toyota Center on Wednesday, Lin spent the night as if still goofing with his brother and buddies far from the cameras and lights. He repeatedly pierced the Utah Jazz defense, helping to drive the Rockets to a 26-point lead. And when the Jazz rallied in the fourth quarter, Lin knifed through them again, with one drive to a layup and another and a pass for a Chandler Parsons dunk that finally closed out the Jazz 100-93. Lin made eight of nine shots in the paint as the Rockets went from launching 3-pointers to beating the Jazz at the rim, and from a series of slow starts to a rapid bolt from the opening tip that set the tone for the game.
• Michael Lee of The Washington Post: The visiting locker room at US Airways Center was filled with the usual laughter and playful banter that comes following a victory, but the Washington Wizards’ celebration of a much-needed road win over the Phoenix Suns was tempered some by what was happening behind a glass window leading to the training room. There, rookie Bradley Beal sat with a white towel covering his head, left leg elevated as he received treatment on a troublesome ankle that he aggravated in the fourth quarter of the Wizards’ 88-79 win. “It’s tough for him,” forward Trevor Ariza said, looking back at the beleaguered Beal. “I feel bad for him that he has to go through this.” Beal will likely miss more time after his second gruesome landing this month; the latest coming during a near meltdown in which the Wizards let an 18-point lead get whittled down to just three points with about nine minutes remaining.
• Howard Beck of The New York Times: Iman Shumpert said he felt a pop in the knee while pushing off toward the rim. The medical staff later told him it was probably scar tissue. … Doctors will re-evaluate Shumpert on Thursday, but no tests are planned. The Knicks can hardly afford another serious injury after losing Thomas, Rasheed Wallace and Amar’e Stoudemire in recent weeks. Woodson pushed for a veteran-laden roster over the summer, in the belief that experience wins playoff games. Now it appears that two of those veterans — Thomas and Wallace — will never get the chance to prove the point. Another veteran, Marcus Camby, has hardly played because of foot troubles. And Jason Kidd’s production has declined since the fall. But Woodson remains adamant that the strategy was correct. “Absolutely — I will never back off that,” Woodson said, adding: “We’re still sitting where we need to be, at the top of our division. And we just got to get some key pieces back, like Melo tonight, and get Tyson back in a uniform.” For better or worse, this will be the roster the Knicks take into the playoffs next month. They have no plans to sign a free agent, because it would require cutting a player — likely Wallace or Thomas. That is a trade-off Woodson refuses to make. Instead, he is banking on the possibility, however remote, that Thomas and Wallace could return in the postseason.
• Filip Bondy of the New York Daily News: Before the game, Mark Cuban lectured the Nets about why they shouldn’t have signed Deron Williams to such a big, suffocating contract. Then Williams went out and disputed that claim with a soaring second half, leading the Nets to a 113-96 road victory over the Mavs that P.J. Carlesimo rightfully labeled, “one of our best games all year.” Williams finished with 31 points in this bittersweet homecoming, all but five of them in the second half. He also had six assists, most of them to Brook Lopez, who scored 38 points on 15-of-22 shooting and 11 had 11 rebounds. Reggie Evans contributed his usual manic energy and 22 boards. It was an inspiring, entertaining victory for the visitors, and for Williams in particular. During one stretch of the final quarter, Williams buried every shot he attempted – from step-backs to fadeaways. When he nailed a running, off-balance jumper from the right side to give the Nets a nine-point lead with 6:28 left in the game, even Williams broke out in a broad smile at his own ridiculous display.
• Phil Collin of the Los Angeles Daily News: With another wave of injuries hitting the Clippers, and probably a little stung by losses in three of the previous four games, Coach Vinny Del Negro was a little testy prior to Wednesday's game against Philadelphia. His point? The Clippers can't worry about lineup rotations. They have games to win. "It's funny," Del Negro said, not smiling. "I hear a lot of talk out there about rotations, 'I've got to get a rotation.' One, we can't do it because we've had so many injuries. Two, it's hard for us to do because guys are in and out of the lineup and three, guys have minute restrictions. "So people talk about rotations, of course we'd like to get a rotation but it doesn't work like that. So everybody out there talking about it needs to do a little research and understand it doesn't work like that.” … The Clippers played without Chauncey Billups, Eric Bledsoe and Ronny Turiaf available. Jamal Crawford is still working through his ankle injury. Maalik Wayns, on his second 10-day contract with the Clippers, started the second quarter at point guard.

With 7:03 left in the third quarter on Wednesday, the Cleveland Cavaliers were rolling the Miami Heat, 67-40. Then Cleveland's proverbial wheels came flying off.

Over the next 8:37, Miami outscored the Cavs 37-10, hitting 12 of 18 shots and outrebounding Cleveland 12-3. Simultaneously, the Cavaliers made only 3 of 11 shots and turned the ball over four times. At one point during that stretch, the Heat scored on 15 straight possessions.

LeBron James scored Miami's final eight points in the game-tying run, as part of his massive fourth quarter. He had 14 fourth-quarter points and assisted on eight more, accounting for 22 of the Heat's 30 fourth-quarter points.

No player has accounted for a higher percentage of his team's fourth-quarter offense in a single game this season, and the result was the biggest comeback win of LeBron James' career.

James also compiled his 36th career triple-double (25 points, 12 rebounds, 10 assists), which is second-most among active players. But he won't be catching the leader anytime soon; Jason Kidd ranks first among active players with 107 triple-doubles.

How rare is a 27-point comeback?
This was the third such comeback win this season, but it's not a common thing. In the last 15 seasons, teams trailing by 27 or more in the second half had five wins in 2,018 games entering tonight, for a miniscule win percentage of .002. Incidentally, the largest comeback win in NBA history is 36 points, by the Jazz against the Nuggets in 1996.

Miami trailed by 21 points at halftime, making this the largest halftime deficit overcome to win in Heat history. Over the entire second half, the Heat scored 145.7 points per 100 possessions, their third-highest offensive efficiency in a half this season.

Oh by the way, Miami has now won 24 consecutive games, leaving the Heat nine wins shy of tying the 1971-72 Lakers for the NBA’s longest win streak. Miami's next three games are against opponents at least 20 games below .500 (Pistons, Bobcats, Magic).

• Ethan J. Skolnick of the Palm Beach Post: Chris Bosh, occasional actor, has mastered the deadpan delivery — and he put those skills on display Tuesday night, shortly after the streaking Heat displayed their basketball skills on the court. Would 20 straight wins, a total that will be on the table Wednesday night in Philadelphia, be sufficient to excite him? “Ten is enough for me,” Bosh said. What about 20? “Twenty’s cool,” Bosh said. “I’ll take it. We’re going to have to earn it, I’m sure.” They will, even if as much of the challenge will come from the circumstances — a late-night flight followed by a 7 p.m. road tip — as from an opponent they’ve defeated 12 straight times. Yet what was apparent again Tuesday, in a 98-81 workmanlike hammering of the Hawks, is that there’s little that can fluster the Heat of late, including when they get little offensively from LeBron James.
• Barry Jackson of The Miami Herald: Friday’s meeting with Milwaukee — the Heat’s second game on a five-game road trip — could end up being a preview of a first-round playoff series. And at least one Bucks player believes that would be the preferable matchup for Milwaukee, which entered Tuesday in the No. 8 seed. “The two games that we played Miami so far, we matched up well against them,” guard Brandon Jennings told The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “If you ask me, that’s who I would want to play first round, Miami. “Right now we haven’t really played well against the Knicks. I just feel better if we play Miami first round, just the fact we have good games against them.” Chris Bosh said Jennings’ comment doesn’t bother him. “That’s great,” Bosh said. “I hope people want to see us. Milwaukee is a good team. It would be great games.” But Rashard Lewis said: “Be careful what you ask for.” The Heat beat Milwaukee in overtime in Miami in November but lost 104-85 Dec. 29 in Wisconsin.
• Kevin Ding of The Orange County Register: Dwight Howard killed 'em with paint dominance, half-decent free-throw shooting and his usual kindness. Howard rode the positive energy he often preaches through his return game in Orlando on Tuesday. With Howard making 25 of 39 shots from the free-throw line – tying the NBA record for attempts he set a year ago – the Lakers beat Howard's old Orlando Magic team, 106-97. He smiled from pregame warmups to the victorious end – even as Orlando fans wore his old jerseys with the "H" on the back changed into a "C," one fan interrupted the national anthem to insult him and Magic coach Jacque Vaughn deliberately probed time and again at Howard's free-throw weakness. Despite a cold-shooting night from Kobe Bryant, the Lakers won because Howard left Orlando center Nik Vucevic likening him to "the Dwight that dominated the league the past few seasons." Howard finished with 39 points, 16 rebounds and three blocks – and Bryant said the Lakers' 17-6 run has sprung from Howard "just buying in to what we need him to do – him excelling at it."
• Brian Schmitz of the Orlando Sentinel: There was plenty of Hack-A-Howard, even more Hate-A-Howard. The entire night was just another sad, bittersweet reminder of the Magic's legacy. For the city of Orlando. For the franchise and its fans. And for Dwight Howard, the guest of dishonor. The leather-lunged booing, caustic commentary and contentious Dwightmosphere turned Amway Center into a venting session first and a sporting event second. These engagements merely have become an embarrassing tradition for the Magic and the faithful, even if some circumstances are out of their control. They lead the NBA in this unfortunate ritual: Their once-beloved superstars return to the city of Orlando for the first time, only to be buried in boos and belligerence. Shaq, Penny, T-Mac, Grant Hill and now Dwight have all had similar toxic reunions here. … Howard put the Magic through the ringer – and the Magic tried to embarrass him as well. They sent his notorious free-throw form to the free-throw line by fouling intentionally – and it backfired.
• Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News: Even though the two went through a verbal back-and-forth in the media, Magic guard Jameer Nelson insists Dwight Howard "isn't a bad guy." But Nelson made it clear he's no longer close with the Lakers center. … The relationship strains stem partly from comments Howard made in an interview that aired last week on CBS2/KCAL9 in which he said, "My team in Orlando was a team full of people who nobody wanted. I was the leader and I led that team with a smile on my face." … Still, it appeared the two made some inroads in restoring their relationship. Howard and Nelson talked on the court following the Lakers' 106-97 win Tuesday over the Orlando Magic at Amway Arena. Nelson also prevented Howard from taking a nasty fall on a drive in the second quarter by holding him. "Jameer is my brother," Howard said. "I have no bad feelings toward him." But with Nelson expressing offense to Howard's interview, the Lakers center said he texted the Magic guard to clarify his comments. Did Howard apologize? "I guess publicly," Nelson said. "I'm not looking for an apology."
• Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News: Deron Williams has reached that comfort zone, the same one he enjoyed during the height of his days in Utah. It’s not just his rejuvenated body and rediscovered explosiveness. It’s also his approach. It’s his awareness. He has become the unquestioned leader of the Nets since the All-Star break, the point man calling out plays and taking control of a flowing offense. … For all of the 40 minutes he played Tuesday night at Barclays Center, he was the best player on the court in a 108-98 victory. He had 21 points and 13 assists, picking up the slack while Joe Johnson was inactive because of his sore left heel. It has been a similar story since the break for Williams, who has regained his All-Star form since dropping weight and undergoing another round of cortisone injections into his inflamed ankles. His leadership had been called into question the last two years, mostly because he sulked his way through losing seasons and was blamed for two coaches getting canned. But the last three weeks have undoubtedly represented Williams’ best stretch as a Net. It’s still a small sample size, but also an encouraging trend for the Nets.
• Ray Richardson of the Pioneer Press: In this season of aches and pains, short-handed lineups and overall misery, the Timberwolves were due for some type of feel-good moment. It finally happened with a blowout win over the San Antonio Spurs, the team with the NBA's best record (49-16), and Ricky Rubio's first NBA triple-double. There was even an inspiring second quarter in which the Wolves outscored San Antonio 29-10 to set up a 107-83 victory in front of an impressed crowd of 14,219. Some might want to put an asterisk in front of the victory, given that injured Spurs starters Tim Duncan (sore left knee), Tony Parker (ankle) and Kawhi Leonard (sore left knee) did not make the trip to the Twin Cities. The night, however, belonged to Rubio, who finished with 21 points, 13 rebounds and 12 assists to cap the best performance in his comeback from a major knee injury last season.
• Rick Bonnell of The Charlotte Observer: This is how Gerald Henderson describes what he hears from coach Mike Dunlap these days: “He wants me to shoot it every time. He wants me to think, ‘SCORE’ every time.” It doesn’t always work out that way. Henderson is a reluctant ball hog. But Tuesday he was on a preposterous roll that led to a preposterous score: Charlotte Bobcats 100, Boston Celtics 74. Suspend your disbelief; this really did happen for a Bobcats team on a 10-game losing streak and an NBA-worst 14-50 record. This was Charlotte’s widest margin of victory since January of 2010, when the Bobcats beat the Miami Heat 104-65. Many contributed, but none came close to shooting guard Henderson, who finished with a career-high 35 points.
• Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon-Journal: After the Cavaliers claimed Shaun Livingston off waivers from the Washington Wizards on Christmas Day, Livingston’s first game as a member of the Cavs was against the Wizards. Now that Livingston is the starting point guard for the foreseeable future given Kyrie Irving’s injury, it only makes sense that Livingston’s first start also came against the Wizards on Tuesday. … It’s clear Livingston didn’t enjoy his time in Washington. He had been there once before, but when the Rockets released him at the end of training camp, the Wizards again inquired early in the season. With few other options available, Livingston agreed to return to the Wizards. “Probably one of the worst spots I’ve been in my career,” Livingston said of his time in Washington. “At the same time, it’s been a godsend here.” Livingston said he’s a cerebral player who didn’t have the right pieces around him in Washington, and the lack of structure within the Wizards didn’t help him. It’s why he never thought his career was over after the Wizards released him in December.
• Ronald Tillery of The Commercial-Appeal: Tony Allen lunged for a steal and missed as momentum took him toward midcourt and out of the play. His Grizzlies teammates then began to scramble to cover the potential gaps in their defense. And they did just that until Allen recovered, flew toward the basket and recorded a block on a would-be layup. Whenever the Portland Trail Blazers thought there was daylight on offense Tuesday night, the Grizzlies pulled a shade before leaving the Rose Garden with a 102-97 victory. Hardly anything was rosy for the Blazers against a Grizzlies’ defense that didn’t seem to relax on many possessions. Just ask the Blazers and their incredibly shrinking shooting percentages from quarter to quarter. Portland began the night shooting 45 percent in the opening period. The Blazers made 39 percent of their shots in the second and only connected on 22 percent in the third.
• Eddie Sefko of The Dallas Morning News: Center Chris Kaman started Tuesday night, but was pulled from the game after just 2:14 had elapsed off the clock. Coach Rick Carlisle took blame for putting Kaman in that situation, but it didn’t make it any easier for Kaman to understand. He was clearly not happy to get yanked that quickly. He never re-entered the game. … Carlisle said he realized quickly this game was not going to be one in which Kaman could prosper. … Carlisle said he had talked with Kaman about the situation immediately after the game. With a bigger set of centers and power forwards looming in San Antonio on Thursday, it would seem logical that Kaman would be back to his normal minutes against the Spurs.
• Marc Berman of the New York Post: The Melodrama continues. The most important d-word tonight wasn’t about Denver but drainage. Carmelo Anthony said he expects to play tomorrow in his first homecoming in Denver but admitted his sore right knee is not getting better and if this continues, he may have the fluid in his knee drained. Mike Woodson listed him as “probably probable’’ and Melo indicated he would play and then possibly reevaluate after the contest. So tomorrow’s showdown game vs. the Nuggets could conceivably be his last of the West Coast trip. “We’re talking about it,’’ Anthony said after practicing on the Nuggets practice court at Pepsi Center. “The doctors will sit down and talk about it and see my options. I think that’s the last option - to get the knee drained. I have to weigh all the options - how much time I’d have to take off.’’

Kyrie Irving grabs a deflection at the high post, spins like a top toward the opposing basket and takes off.

As he gallops down the floor, ball bouncing evenly between his right hand and the hardwood, he methodically scans the court; absorbing and processing the discrete bits of information the game offers up to him. Frisking noise for signal. Irving eyes Philadelphia’s Jrue Holiday -- racing just ahead him, 42 inches to his left, far arm outstretched -- and senses two Cavaliers teammates keeping pace alongside and behind him, forming a sort of roving isosceles triangle.

Irving’s eyes dart, rereading the floor, and a familiar pattern begins to emerge -- the various puzzle pieces aligning themselves in ways he’s seen and successfully navigated before. Holiday, stride for stride, commited to sticking on him. No other 76ers defender in his sightlines. Tristan Thompson on his flank. Something in Thompson’s bearing confirming Irving’s intuition that more help is on the way. Holiday hewing closer to him still.

As Irving crosses midcourt and approaches the 3-point line, he locks eyes with his defender, and the problem of what to do with the basketball suddenly resolves itself. The pattern collapses into a solution. Irving slows slightly and shifts his course a few degrees; from directly toward the basket to somewhere just to its right. The instant Holiday bites, Irving whips a pass behind his back, across the base of the triangle he imagines binding him and his two teammates, and into the expectant hands of Thompson, who immediately turns and shovels it to a trailing Alonzo Gee. Gee finishes with an uncontested dunk.

Watching from the baseline, Irving reflects on the sequence and files it away. Another pattern in his growing database, another experience to draw from. He begins to jog back to the other end to join his teammates …

And then it happens.

Like shaken from a dream, midstride, Irving finds himself somewhere else entirely. Disoriented, he blinks twice and the blur of his new environment coalesces into something familiar. He is on a treadmill in the Cavaliers’ converted film room. When the simulation finishes, it's always jarring.

Irving pauses the exercise device and removes his glasses and headset. The hum of neighboring machines creeps into his awareness. He looks around the room, regarding the other tall men running in place, minds elsewhere. He takes a slug of water, dismounts the treadmill and begins walking across the facility. It's lunchtime.
 

---

What separates good basketball players from great ones, and the great from LeBron? It isn’t physical -- at least not in the classic meaning of the word -- but perceptual. While we gawk at the vertical leaps, straight-line speed and superhuman upper torsos of the men who play in the NBA, the most meaningful distinction between them and us is hidden. The brain is the thing.

“You have to have an NBA-expert-level brain to play in the NBA,” said Ben Alamar, an analytics advisor, from a hallway at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference last weekend in Boston. “When you’re on the court and things are happening, you’re not making decisions. You’re reacting to things that are going to happen five seconds later.”

To underscore his point, Alamar, a professor of sports management at Menlo College in California, pointed to Michael Jordan.

“He’s a great athlete, but it wasn’t because he was a great athlete that he was Michael Jordan. It was because he had an expert brain.”

The recognition primed decision model (RPD) represents the best effort of the scientific community to make sense of a how a mind like Jordan’s operates. Herbert Simon, a pioneer in the study of decision-making, described the basic RPD mechanism simply: “The situation has provided a cue; this cue has given the expert access to information stored in memory; and the information provides the answer. Intuition is nothing more and nothing less than recognition.”

It’s not instinct, it’s memory. But for this recognition-based judgment to develop, certain basic conditions have to be met, the most essential being regular practice and feedback. To become an expert pattern recognizer –- a Michael Jordan -- practitioners have to keep at it, and receive immediate information about how they’re doing.

The problem for the NBA is that it doesn’t have a natural way to cultivate this essential RPD-style decision-making expertise in its players. Playing enough NBA basketball to develop peak-level, NBA-specific pattern recognition capabilities is physically impossible. Chess masters generally peak by playing for 10,000 hours, or five hours a day for about six years. A basketball player’s body would crumple under that load. The man who logged the most minutes in NBA history, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, played only 1,100 hours in his entire career.

There are certainly hardwood geniuses who master through sheer intuition what others can do only by rote memorization, but they come along just a few times every generation. So the salient question for NBA talent development is this: What do you do with those who aren’t savants? How do you imbue a young player with years of experience, and the consequent judgment, without ruining his legs in the process? How do you fine-tune the head while sparing the body? How do you train a brain to be like Mike’s?

Enter Krossover.

Krossover is a New York-based startup that fashions team video into choose-your-own-adventure-style tutorials for players and fans. From a smartphone or a tablet, a pro like Kyrie Irving can watch game film that takes him up to a decisive moment and presents him with a menu of options. On this two-man break, should he shoot or pass? From where or to who? After making his decision, Irving is given immediate feedback on how well, and how quickly, he chose.

Think of it as interactive film. Krossover founder Vasu Kulkarni and Alamar (who is an adviser to the company) say the game can test this kind of hoops IQ, a huge help in projecting who will successfully make the leap from college to the pros. But Krossover also claims it can actually train this basketball intelligence. Though its “sIQ” application is still in its infant stages, Krossover has already sold the technology to two NBA teams.

Kulkarni is not alone. Take Axon Sports, one of the darlings of last year's Sloan conference. The company is already developing sport-specific cognitive training programs and the immersion technologies that will make them fly.

Jason Sherwin, a researcher at Columbia University, delivered a paper at Sloan 2013 outlining the neuromechanics of pitch recognition in baseball players, a process he says has applicability to basketball. Sherwin agrees that the theoretical groundwork for using virtual reality simulators to train athletes is sound. It’s just a matter of getting the finer points of the technology right.

“The problem is having an experimental setup, a training setup, that is ecologically valid for what conditions are going to be like in the game,” Sherwin said. In other words, the simulation needs to feel enough like reality to the player, or mimic it sufficiently, that lessons from the lab translate to the field.

Early adopters have already had success. According to Alamar, the U.S. Olympic volleyball team had an interactive video-training application developed for it. Sherwin added that the military has long had similar interest in simulators that optimize decision-making in theaters of war. Pilots have been using flight simulators for decades now.

The impact of this training, when perfected and adopted on a large scale, will be profound. If what separated Jordan from his peers really was between his ears, then imagine a court of Jordans, all guided by finely calibrated expert brains, methodically, brilliantly picking apart schemes, while the Jordans on the other end adjust on the fly to thwart them. Imagine NBA basketball played, night in and night out, at the highest possible level.

In this way, it’s easy to envisage the future of the sport not as some cold, clinical abstraction -- optimally nutritionally titrated, automatonic players mindlessly executing orders some algorithm spat out -- but as something much more familiar.

A league of men made perfect by practice.

• Benjamin Hochman of The Denver Post: The Los Angeles Clippers fell apart in the second half at the Pepsi Center, losing 107-92 to the scorching Nuggets, winners of seven consecutive games. The Nuggets were airborne all evening. The game's first basket was a Gallo breakaway dunk. Kenneth Faried swatted Chris Paul's layup in the first quarter. Kosta Koufos, normally known for the lay-in, hammered home a dunk early. JaVale McGee stuffed Lamar Odom with the scorn of an angered Kardashian. … The Clippers played Wednesday on the West Coast and Thursday in Denver, which meant things probably wouldn't go well for them. Check out this info courtesy of the stat guys with Clippers TV — since 2007-08, teams that play a game on the West Coast and then come to Denver for a back-to-back are 3-41 in the Denver game. Unreal. And Nuggets PR calculated that the Nuggets are 44-10 since 2009-10 when facing an opponent at home in second game of back-to-back, no matter where that team is coming from.
• John Rohde of The Oklahoman: Thursday’s victory completes four straight games against quality teams, three of which are bound for the playoffs and another that should be. OKC finished with a 3-1 record against these teams, which is more than acceptable. The Thunder’s victories came on two of the biggest stages in the world – Staples Center and Madison Square Garden against the Los Angeles Clippers and New York Knicks, respectively. The other victory came at home against the underachieving, but undeniably talented, Los Angeles Lakers. The lone loss was at Pepsi Center, where the Denver Nuggets own a 27-3 record, tied with the world champion Miami Heat for the best home mark in the NBA. Had Denver’s Ty Lawson not drained a 20-footer with 0.2 seconds left, the Thunder might have been able to win in overtime and made it a clean four-game sweep. Had that transpired, OKC (45-16) would be riding a seven-game winning streak. Instead, winning six of its last seven will have to do.
• Tim Smith of the New York Daily News: If the Knicks were going to have any shot of beating OKC, they needed to put the clamps on Kevin Durant, who entered the night leading the NBA in scoring at 28.6 points per game, and Russell Westbrook, who had averaged 32 points in his last five games. Durant finished with 34 points and Westbrook had an erratic 21. And Woodson decided to put Kenyon Martin in the game to guard Durant. It seemed like a risky move, considering Durant is about as fluid a scorer as you will find in a 6-foot-9 body. … In the third quarter, when Durant went slashing through the lane, Martin went all Charles Oakley on the OKC forward, hitting him with a cross-bodycheck that sent Durant to the floor hard. At first officials called Martin for a flagrant foul, but they reversed it after a review. “I am not trying to hurt anyone,” Martin said. “It is a contact sport. I want to let them know it is not going to be easy. That’s always how I’ve approached the game.” Woodson called it “old school” and said that’s what Martin, Kurt Thomas and Rasheed Wallace bring to the Knicks. “They don’t believe in guys coming to the rim getting layups,” Woodson said. Without their star scorer and with only one player who caught fire, the Knicks needed to grind one out. They fell just short against one of the best teams in the NBA. There’s no shame in that. But they better hope Anthony gets back in a hurry so they don’t lose too much ground in the Eastern Conference standings.
• Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel: Congratulations, Dwight Howard. You have now done the impossible. You have pretty much alienated everybody you ever knew in Orlando. The fans who once poured their hearts, souls and disposable income into you are irate because you lied to them about your "love" and "loyalty" to the city. The kids who once idolized you can't stand you because you stiffed them by blowing off your own youth basketball camp before bailing out and high-tailing it to the West Coast. Your former coach Stan Van Gundy and former general manager Otis Smith -- two decent men who had your back at every turn – are surely disappointed in the way you threw them under the bus and cost them their seven-figure jobs. And, sadly and pathetically, you've even lost the respect of your former Magic teammates – a bunch of good guys who you once called your "family" but now have denigrated and minimized into a "a team full of people nobody wanted." … Do you notice anything missing from Dwight's extensive explanation of his "team full of people who nobody wanted" comments? Never once does he take responsibility for what he said.
• Bob Finnan of The News-Herald: After Wednesday's game at Quicken Loans Arena, Cavaliers point guard Kyrie Irving admitted his right knee is not 100 percent. "I'm trying not to let it bother me," Irving said. "It's still bruised. The only way it'll get better is to the sit out the rest of the season, and I'm not doing that." Irving played 38 minutes in the 104-101 victory over the Utah Jazz. It was a rough-and-tumble game, and the point guard took several hard falls. Cavs coach Byron Scott said he found out Irving's knee was bothering him by reading the daily media clips on Thursday morning. He said after practice, if Irving's knee gets any worse, he would have no hesitations about shutting him down. The news caused a furor on Twitter. A Cavs spokesman clarified the team has no plans to rest Irving. "If he said it was bothering him again to the point that he can't perform like I know he's capable of, yeah (I'd considering shutting him down)," Scott said.
• Rick Bonnell of The Charlotte Observer: Charlotte Bobcats rookie Michael Kidd-Gilchrist says he’s not going to use a concussion as an excuse. Others who care about him say mentioning the concussion Kidd-Gilchrist suffered in early February isn’t an excuse, it’s an explanation. Until the last two games he hadn’t been the player worthy of the No. 2 overall pick; not the guy who occasionally totals 25 points or 10 rebounds or three steals. Simply put, not himself. “He’s always in the action – he’s a physical player who attacks – so for him to get a concussion, you’ve got to make sure it’s all the way out,” said Bobcats co-captain Gerald Henderson. “That’s nothing to play with.” Yet that’s precisely what Kidd-Gilchrist did; play with it. He collided with teammate Jeff Taylor Feb. 2 in Houston. First his head and neck made contact with Taylor’s leg, then his head bounced off the floor at the Toyota Center. The injury was serious enough that his neck was immobilized by medical staff and he spent the night in a Houston hospital. Kidd-Gilchrist missed the next two games before passing the NBA’s post-concussion protocol to play again. But there’s a difference between being well enough to play and effective. He struggled the past month, and appeared to hit a low point against the Los Angeles Clippers at the start of a four-game West Coast trip.
• Mark Murphy of the Boston Herald: Jeff Green has taken over leadership of the second unit, and is usually on the floor at the end of games. That perpetual pressure Green imposes on himself is paying its highest dividend yet. … Garnett has told him not to be so nice, in language that typically can’t be used here. They’ve all told him to be more selfish. But Green has the critiques covered. That never-ending gravity was apparent the night of Feb. 20 in a tweet by @unclejeffgreen: “Damn altitude killed me today, tough (loss) but got another one tomorrow.” Green came off the bench with 15 points that night during a loss to the Lakers in the Staples Center. He also had seven rebounds, four assists and a block. He may have been minus-11, but rare was the Celtic with something to crow about that night. So Green sent out a modern mea culpa. He tweeted. Some players, especially, need a new kind of release.
• Ray Richardson of the Pioneer Press: As Ricky Rubio approaches the one-year anniversary Saturday, March 9, of his devastating knee injury, the second-year guard is still rebuilding the skills that made him one of the NBA's most entertaining players as a rookie. The total package in Rubio's game might not be complete until next season, but the Barcelona native has made enough progress to show he's still an impact player. "I know what he did overseas, and he's not back to that level yet," San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovic said in February. "An injury that keeps you out that long, it takes a while to get your rhythm back, regain your confidence and really feel 100 percent. He'll get there because he's a hard worker. He's still going to be a heck of a player here in Minnesota." What Rubio lacks in elevation, he has made up in floor burns and bruises, diving for loose balls and making steals.
• Daniel Brown of the San Jose Mercury News: A little more than a year after the birth of "Linsanity," point guard Jeremy Lin returns to where it almost didn't begin. He was buried on the Warriors' bench for 29 forgettable games two seasons ago. It was during that stretch when an elderly man with a special place in basketball history sat down and wrote him a fan letter. "I figured he could use a little bit of encouragement," recalled Wat Misaka, now 89 and living in Salt Lake City. "So I sent him a note that said: 'Hang in there. It's sure to get better.' " Things got better all right. Lin, now with the Houston Rockets, returns to Oracle Arena on Friday as an internationally known sensation playing on a three-year, $25 million contract. A documentary that traces his unlikely rise to fame with the New York Knicks opened to rave reviews at the Sundance Film Festival in January. The 88-minute film, "Linsanity," makes its San Francisco debut next Thursday at the Center for Asian American Media Festival. Lin's global fame means the world to Misaka, who in 1947 became the first non-Caucasian to play professional basketball in the U.S. The Japanese-American was a 5-foot-7, 150-pound point guard for the Knicks, even if his career only lasted three games. To Misaka, the rise of another Asian-American wasn't "Linsanity." It was lineage. "It really made me feel good that he was getting all the attention that he deserved," he said.
• Ailene Voisin of The Sacramento Bee: Mitch Richmond is buying back into the Kings. Emotionally, for sure. Financially, he hopes. And we knew that. The first legitimate star of the Sacramento era is among the investors who each have committed $1 million and are bidding on the seven percent share being auctioned in bankruptcy proceedings. But that's not the bottom line. Richmond wants back into basketball, too. After a meet-and-greet session with fans and reporters Thursday at a downtown restaurant, the six-time All-Star quietly revealed that, if the Mastrov/Burkle ownership bid for the Kings prevails, he will pursue a position in the basketball front office. "That's where my interest is, what I'd be looking at," said Richmond, a consultant with Golden State until 2009. "I left when (Chris Mullin) was let go." Because uncertainty intrudes into virtually every conversation about the Kings and their future, Richmond declined to elaborate. There is an exhausting list of issues to be addressed and resolved before one city celebrates and the other city slumps.
• Kerry Eggers of The Portland Tribune: Chris McGowan is in the preliminary stages of selling the Rose Garden’s naming rights. He hired a company called “Premier Partnership” to facilitate the process. They have a list of about 100 businesses — some local, some national — that have a likelihood of interest. Three or four presentations have already been scheduled. “We’re getting pretty good feedback,” he says. “It could be a local company, which would be great, or it could be a (national) blue-chip brand.” McGowan would like to have a contract in place before the 2013-14 NBA season. It’s not a done deal, though, that he’ll make a deal at all. “It’s good for our organization to have this revenue stream,” he says. “All of it would get reinvested into what we do on the court. There are only three NBA teams that don’t have (a naming rights deal). But I’m going to be very cautious about it. I’m not going to do a deal with the wrong brand. We’re the Portland Trail Blazers. The Rose Garden has a great name. It’s not something we have to do, which is a good position to be in. There are a lot of companies that have to get deals done. We’re not one of them.” … McGowan speaks almost daily with general manager Neil Olshey, who runs the basketball side of the operation, and often sits with him at games. … It’s way too early to predict how successful McGowan will be with his new mission. He is certainly bright and an ideas guy, and seems every bit a people person, which never hurts when you’re dealing with the public. He doesn’t carry himself as a big shot. He seems genuinely enchanted with Portland, too, where his boys can play soccer and lacrosse and his family can ski and enjoy the outdoors. When I ask if he envisions this job as being a steppingstone to something bigger — if this is just another line on his resume — he smiles.

• Andre C. Fernandez of The Miami Herald: The Heat continued to climb the ladder on the list of the NBA’s all-time best winning streaks with Wednesday’s victory. Miami tied seven other teams that have strung 16 victories together, including three that went on to win the championship (1964-65 Celtics, 1970-71 Bucks and 1999-2000 Lakers). But the Heat still has a long way to go to get even near the NBA record of 33 in a row set by the 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers. “It’s not really in the back of my head or anything like what number we’d like to hit,” LeBron James said. “If it hit a league record, I mean that’s crazy if we did at some point. We don’t want to lose, but we’re going to play each and every game and not worry about it.” Among some of the notable teams the Heat could catch soon on the all-time list include the record-setting 1995-96 Bulls who won 18 in a row during a 72-10 regular season, and 1999-2000 Lakers who had a 19-game winning streak that season. The 2007-08 Rockets have the second-longest streak — 22 in a row.
• Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News: In a season in which they dug so much to climb back into playoff contention, it seemed appropriate the Lakers operated in the same fashion in a game that could largely dictate those fortunes. The Lakers' 108-102 victory Wednesday over the New Orleans Hornets didn't just mark a game in which they overcame a 25-point deficit against a sub.-500 opponent. This didn't just mark the first time the Lakers overcame such a large gap since overcoming a 30-point deficit against the Dallas Mavericks in 2002. The Lakers' latest win gave them renewed confidence they can overcome any obstacle. "Games like this really strengthen the bond between us players," Lakers guard Kobe Bryant said. "That's really what the playoffs are all about. You have adversity. It's about who's going to stick together and who's not going to break." It helps that the win improves the bottom line results, too. With the Utah Jazz losing Tuesday to Cleveland, the Lakers (31-32) trail Utah (32-28) by only 1 games for the eighth and final Western Conference playoff spot.
• Dwain Price of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram: Basketball Hall of Fame forward Dennis Rodman took a lot of heat recently when he flew to North Korea and met with controversial North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. But Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban saw no problem with the two meeting. “Actually I think it’ll help,” Cuban said before Wednesday’s game against the Houston Rockets. “When you’ve got somebody talking about something other than global nuclear destruction, that’s a step in the right direction because you know there’s a topic you can have a conversation about that isn’t thinking about something else. Just like any argument, when you calm it down by switching subjects, that’s a good thing.” Cuban isn’t sure if anything of substance will come from the meeting between Rodman and Kim. But the fact that Kim is a huge basketball fan apparently says that he can at least relate to Rodman. “Who knows if it has any staying power, but it’s certainly not a negative,” Cuban said. “When I think of world peace I think of Rodman.” … In a recent interview with Charlie Rose for 60 Minutes, NBA commissioner David Stern characterized Rodman’s visit with Kim as “ridiculous.”
• Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe: On a play usually reserved for Paul Pierce or Kevin Garnett, Jeff Green attempted the final shot Wednesday night and he helped seal perhaps the Celtics’ biggest win of the season. Green has emerged as a primary offensive weapon in the past two months, but with the Celtics having possession with 23.6 seconds left and the game tied at 81 against the Pacers, the forward usually would have expected Pierce or Garnett to take the final shot. Instead, Garnett decoyed off the pick-and-roll and found Green with a high pass that he gathered in. Green scored with 0.5 seconds left for Boston’s 83-81 win. Not only did Green flourish in a critical time, but having his name called was a sign of confidence from coach Doc Rivers. “It builds confidence, especially with the playoffs right around the corner,” Green said. “Now at this point in time of the season, that confidence will be [useful]. You know all the attention is going to be focused on Kevin and Paul, but with the confidence that we’ll have going into the playoffs as far as the end of games, I think Doc trusts that we can make plays and help and take some of the pressure off Kevin and Paul.
• Brian Schmit of the Orlando Sentinel: Former Magic forward Rashard Lewis called Dwight Howard's recent comments about his former Magic teammates "disrespectful" and defended Jameer Nelson, once one of Howard's closest friends. Howard told KCAL-TV in L.A. that "my team in Orlando was a team full of people who nobody wanted, and I was the leader and I led that team with a smile on my face." Howard, Lewis and Nelson were on the Magic team that defied odds and reached the NBA Finals in 2009. "It's disrespectful more than anything. We helped Dwight become the player he was," said Lewis, now a member of the Miami Heat, who faced the Magic on Wednesday night. Lewis wasn't a nobody in the summer of 2007. He was the top free agent, and the Magic signed him to a six-year, $118-million contract to help Howard win. "We made a good run. Hell, look at those (conference and division) banners hanging in the stands. They don't say Dwight Howard on them... I think everybody should get a little piece of the credit. It's not just one guy who did everything." Nelson said after shootaround that he was disappointed in Howard's professionalism. "At some point, when are you [Dwight] gonna as a man, when are you going to take ownership and stay out of the media in a professional manner?" Nelson told the Sentinel.
• T.J. Simers of the Los Angeles Times: And here we have the Clippers, feeling really good about themselves, but what have they really accomplished? Do they belong in the same class as Oklahoma City and San Antonio after getting spanked at home by each recently? Could they beat the Lakers in a No. 3 seed versus No. 6 matchup, the best possible opponent for the Lakers, as Shaq suggested on TNT? "The Clippers are not legitimate" championship contenders, said Barkley, and so I wonder who Barkley would pick if the soft Clippers met the dead Lakers. With nothing else to do but watch the Clippers abuse Milwaukee on Wednesday night, why not put the brakes on this joy ride and agree or disagree with Barkley? Ralph Lawler, the team's long-time broadcaster, said there are things that must go the Clippers' way. "Chauncey Billups has to be Chauncey Billups," said Lawler, and lately Billups has struggled. "Eric Bledsoe has to be the Bledsoe who was so dynamic in the playoffs last year," said Lawler, and lately Bledsoe has been hobbled. Lawler said the Clippers will come on. "But if not, Charles could be just plain right," said Lawler, his sidekick Mike Smith saying nothing and no one seemingly disappointed.
• Al Iannazzone of Newsday: Mike Woodson said the MRI on Carmelo Anthony's injured right knee showed "some fluid buildup" in there. "That's what's causing the stiffness," Woodson said. "Rest will probably be the best thing for him." Anthony rested Wednesday night, sitting out against the Pistons. Woodson said Anthony would be evaluated again Thursday night and if he feels better, he could play against the Thunder at the Garden. Woodson said it will be Anthony's decision. "I'll do whatever he wants to do," Woodson said. "Trust me. Players know their own body. If he tells me he wants to play I'm going to play him. I'm not going to fight him on that . . . If he says, 'Coach, I need to sit down and rest a game or two,' I'm going to grant that, absolutely." The irony is Woodson said Anthony asked out of Monday's game in Cleveland before he aggravated his knee and the coach didn't listen to him. "He just kind of nodded that his knee wasn't right," Woodson said. "I kind of ignored it somewhat. Maybe I shouldn't have."
• Rusty Simmons of the San Francisco Chronicle: Center Andrew Bogut on Wednesday was part of the Warriors' starting lineup in consecutive games for only the fifth time, and executive board member Jerry West thinks they might need more of the big man to hold on to their playoff spot. "We really need him in the lineup. Oh, my gosh, yeah, we need him in there," West said. "He's crucial for us to be able to close this season out the way we want to close it out." After beating the Kings 87-83 on Wednesday night, the Warriors remain in sixth place in the Western Conference - 5 games back of fifth-place Denver and six games ahead of 10th-place Portland. … "We're not seeing the real Andrew Bogut, with all the (injuries) he's been through," West said. "He just gives us something we do not have, OK? He's got a great mind to play the game. He's physical as heck. He takes up space. He doesn't even really want to shoot the ball. His knowledge of the game is off the charts, and this is the kind of player that makes other players better."
• Seth Walder of the New York Daily News: Kris Humphries' official divorce from Kim Kardashian is fast approaching, but his divorce from playing time will come much sooner. According to a league source, Humphries was informed by coach P.J. Carlesimo Wednesday morning that he will no longer be part of the Nets' shortened rotation. Carlesimo has said in recent days that he wants to limit the rotation to nine or 10 players as the Nets head into the stretch run before the postseason. The 6'9" forward is averaging 18.4 minutes per game this season, a number that has dwindled substantially since the beginning of the year. He has grabbed 5.9 rebounds per game while scoring 5.5 points per contest. The decision to bench Humphries is curious given how fervently the Nets have worked to keep him. In July, the Nets inked the forward to a two-year, $24 million contract. Two weeks ago, at the trade deadline, the Nets could have traded Humphries to their opponent Wednesday night, Charlotte, in a deal that would have brought back Ben Gordon. And yet, despite their commitment to Humphries financially and the value he could have returned in the trade market, his only spot on the team for the foreseeable future will be on the bench.
• Ronald Tillery of of The Commercial-Appeal: Darrell Arthur sat on the bench unavailable and trying to get comfortable with a sore neck and back. Zach Randolph, nursing a left ankle sprain, was nowhere in sight. And it appeared the home team missed a lot more than their starting power forward and his understudy most of Wednesday night. However, the Grizzlies finally located their dogged defense, and a late scoring run allowed them to catch and pass the Portland Trail Blazers for a 91-85 victory before 16,214 in FedExForum. The Griz, winners in 10 of their last 11 games, overcame a 17-point, second-half deficit to capture a sixth consecutive win at home. This was the second straight home game in which the Griz had to dig out of a major hole. … “We don’t like being down 17 or 25, but in those situations we find out who we are,” Griz point guard Mike Conley said. “It’s good for us to sometimes win in different ways.”
• Mike Monroe of the San Antonio Express-News: Spurs center Tiago Splitter was excited by the news that the NBA has scheduled its first preseason game ever in his native Brazil. The Bulls and Washington Wizards will play Oct. 12 in Rio De Janeiro. “Oh, yes, this is a big step for us,” Splitter said. “We have all the World Cup and Olympic Games, and now we have an NBA game. It’s great for basketball in Brazil, and I’m very happy we’re going to have a game there.” Splitter said he would have been thrilled had the Spurs been selected to play, but understood the choice of the Wizards, who have 10-year Brazilian veteran center Nene. “I don’t know if the Spurs were considered for the choice, but I know that they want to bring Nene,” he said. “Of course, he is a veteran who has played a long time in the NBA.”
• Dan McCarney of the San Antonio Express-News: Apparently not intimidated by Manu Ginobili’s previous treatment of its brethren, a bat dared to fly through the AT&T Center during the second half. Spurs trainer Will Sevening comically shook his index finger at Ginobili to prevent another impromptu extermination, but the Argentine needed no warning after his last encounter required a series of rabies shots. “One for one is a great percentage,” he said. “I’m going to retire.”
• Chris Vivlamore of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: The Hawks took out a great deal of frustration against the 76ers. First, they ended a three-game losing streak. Second, and perhaps more important, they halted a six-game slide against the Sixers. The Hawks led by as many as 21 points en route to a 107-96 victory over the Sixers Wednesday night at Philips Arena. “I wanted to use that as motivation,” coach Larry Drew said of the recent failures against the Sixers. “That is why part of our pre-game talk was the fact that this team, for the last six games, has owned us. We need to step up to the challenge. We need to respond. After getting off to a slow start, we responded very well.” The Hawks (34-26) avoided matching a season-high four-game slide. They avenged a 19-point loss to the Sixers in Philadelphia on Dec. 21.
• Bob Finnan of The News-Herald: Cavaliers coach Byron Scott has devised a plan to keep the bug that has ravaged his team from being even more contagious. "We'll wear gloves and surgical masks," he joked. Cavs center Tyler Zeller returned to the starting lineup for the Utah game on Wednesday. Zeller and shooting guard Dion Waiters missed Monday's game and spent some time in the hospital over the weekend with flu-like symptoms. They were throwing up and had extreme pain in their stomachs. Guard Daniel Gibson was added to the list on Wednesday. Waiters and Gibson were told to stay home and didn't play vs. the Jazz. Scott said Waiters had a doctor's visit on Wednesday. The 7-foot, 250-pound Zeller returned to practice on Tuesday. "We didn't do a ton as far as practice-wise, but I was exhausted," he said. "I was trying to get my energy back up."
• Ray Richardson of the Star Tribune: Timberwolves forward Kevin Love has a meeting scheduled in New York on Wednesday, March 13, to meet with the doctor that performed the Jan. 15 surgery on his right hand. Love said the meeting with Dr. Michelle Carson could determine when he might be able to return to the lineup. "We'll pick a game or two that's right for me to come back," Love said before the Wolves' game Wednesday night, March 6, against the Washington Wizards at Target Center. "Until I see what the doctor says, I don't know." Love was projected to miss eight to 10 weeks after refracturing the third and fourth metacarpal bones in his right hand Jan. 3 at Denver. … Love said his recovery is on schedule and that he hopes to play again before the end of the month.
• Zach Buchanan of The Arizona Republic: The ink is barely dry on the trade that sent guard Sebastian Telfair to the Raptors two weeks ago, and Telfair already was back at US Airways Center facing his old team. Except this time, it felt different than other reunions he’s had. “Going back to Boston, Minnesota and Portland, there were more butterflies,” Telfair said. “I was a little more anxious and amped about it. I’m pumped for this game, but I don’t have the butterflies and I’m a little nervous about that, for whatever reason.” Late in his tenure with the Suns, Telfair had dropped out of the rotation as Phoenix sought to get extended looks at rookies Kendall Marshall and Diante Garrett. If Telfair thought the move to Toronto would open more playing time, it hasn’t happened in the six games since. Telfair has received just seven minutes of playing time in that span, recording four fouls and nothing else in a loss to Cleveland on Feb.27, although the 27-year-old said he expected to get extended minutes against his former squad.
• Berry Tramel of The Oklahoman: Ben Alamar once worked for the Thunder as a analytics consultant. Analytics is the discovery and communication of meaningful patterns of data. Simply put in sports, analytics is the deep study of statistics. Now Alamar is a professor of management at Menlo College in California, and he has written a book that soon will be available: Sports Analytics: A Guide for Coaches, Managers and Other Decision Makers. The book should be a fabulous peek behind the Thunder veil. Sam Presti’s secretive organization is wondrously successful but maddeningly frustrating for followers of the team who want to learn more about how and why decisions are made. Presti seldom speaks in detail, and his lieutenants never speak at all. But last week, Alamar spoke at the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in Boston, and he sat down for an interview with Grantland’s Zach Lowe, which you can view here. It’s a fascinating look at some inside Thunder decisions.