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Five dribbles of chatter from the league's front-office and coaching grapevines:

Among the immediate concerns for the Indiana Pacers heading into the Eastern Conference finals against Miami is the state of David West's right calf. One of the longer-term worries, though, is West's forthcoming free agency.

The Pacers' veteran leader openly loves his situation in Indiana, which certainly gives Indy justified cause for optimism when it comes to re-signing the 32-year-old this summer. Yet the whispers are already swirling that Chris Paul's Los Angeles Clippers, in particular, are going to make a hard run at West in the offseason.

Indy will certainly have the ability to pay West more to convince its locker-room sage to stay, given that the Clips would presumably have to structure an offer with the $5.15 million midlevel exception available to nontax teams. But you have to figure that the former Hornet -- who rose to All-Star prominence playing alongside CP3 -- is going to want to hear the details of a proposal pitching a reunion with his old point guard ... as long as Paul himself, of course, decides to stay. If Paul re-signs with the Clips as most league insiders continue to expect, L.A. will be seeking to add the final piece or two to cement itself as a contender with some staying power.

Yet Indy's brass must feel some reassurance when it hears West say things like he said in the wake of the New York series when he described the Pacers as "the most together group I've ever been a part of."

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Early estimates suggest that the Toronto Raptors would be willing to offer Masai Ujiri an annual salary in excess of $2 million to leave the Denver Nuggets' front office.

The Nuggets, I'm told, nonetheless remain positive that they'll be able to hang on to Ujiri -- just named the NBA's Executive of the Year for the 2012-13 season -- while knowing they'll obviously have to raise his reported salary of $500,000 to keep him from wanting to leave.

It should be noted that, as of Monday night, Toronto had yet to secure permission from the Nuggets to officially woo Ujiri. But that hasn't stopped the Nigeria native from being billed as the Raptors' top target after it became apparent that Phil Jackson -- despite his longtime friendship with new Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment president and CEO Tim Leiweke -- was in no rush to embrace Toronto's interest.

Jackson has said repeatedly in recent weeks that he wants the opportunity to run a team from the top, a la Pat Riley, for the first time in his basketball career. After ESPN.com reported that the 11-ringed coaching legend wanted to let the fate of the Sacramento Kings play out before deciding anything about his future, Jackson said in a subsequent visit to "The Tonight Show" that his discussions about running basketball operations for the Chris Hansen-led group trying to purchase and relocate the Kings to Seattle were "serious talk."

Some league observers, however, remain convinced that Jackson's flirtations with teams are largely aimed at convincing Lakers lead basketball decision-maker Jim Buss to cede his organizational power to sister Jeanie Buss ... which would theoretically enable Jeanie to bring Phil, her fiancé, back to Lakerland as L.A.'s next front-office chief.

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At least two teams came away from last week's Board of Governors meeting in Dallas convinced that the 22-8 vote in favor of keeping the Kings in Sacramento would have been a lot closer if NBA commissioner David Stern wasn't so determined to lobby owners in the room to keep the franchise right where it is.

Yet a third team consulted told ESPN.com that Sacramento likely would have prevailed anyway, with or without Stern's hard push, since a simple majority of just 16 votes was all that was needed to block the proposed relocation to Seattle.

My follow-up question: Does the league's ultimate decision to keep the Kings in Sactown do anything to erase at least a little of the bitterness that locals still harbor about the way the 2002 Western Conference finals against the Lakers played out?

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On the coaching front ...

One reason the Nets' coaching search isn't moving too quickly: Lionel Hollins and Brian Shaw, two of Brooklyn's foremost targets, are still at work in the playoffs.

Sources say the Grizzlies remain determined to sign Hollins to a new deal after the playoffs. Contract discussions were mutually tabled by both sides until the postseason plays out, but that does expose Memphis to a high-dollar offer from Brooklyn in July that gets Hollins' attention.

The Clippers, while still deliberating the future of incumbent coach Vinny Del Negro, are now widely presumed to be in the running for Hollins as well after owner Donald T. Sterling -- who doesn't even attend all of his own team's playoff games -- showed up courtside Sunday in San Antonio to watch the Grizzlies get thumped in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals. But skepticism persists, even if the Clips do soon have an opening, about Sterling's appetite to pay what it would take to extricate Hollins from Memphis, where he is revered locally.

Interesting footnote about the Nets' coaching search: Italian legend Ettore Messina, reported by Yahoo! Sports to be a candidate who is tempting to Atlanta Hawks GM Danny Ferry, is not on Brooklyn's list. If the Hawks make Messina the first European head coach in NBA history, he would have to find a way out of Russian superclub CSKA Moscow, which for years received considerable financial support from Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov.

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Lakers assistant coach Steve Clifford, who previously interviewed for the Milwaukee Bucks' head-coaching job, interviews Tuesday for Charlotte's opening. The Bobcats are also scheduled to interview Utah assistant Jeff Hornacek later this week, with both Clifford and Hornacek likewise in the mix for the Phoenix Suns' job.

• Buck Harvey of the San Antonio Express-News: Zach Randolph called it his “win-win dance,” and the choreography was not cutting edge. He hopped, and he smiled, and he acted like someone who would never miss another shot. This was two years ago. Against the Spurs. When it seemed he would never miss another shot. He would eventually prove to be human. Still, the lose-lose dance he performed Sunday should be seen as the same kind of temporary tango. Because this isn’t Randolph. These aren’t the Grizzlies. And this isn’t how the series will continue. The Spurs will take how the series began. These Western Conference finals, after all, started nothing like last year’s did. Then, the Spurs had to scratch out the I-want-some-nasty game. … Sunday was closer to a Spurs clinic, as well as a counter to those who saw Memphis as the trendy pick. When Tony Parker wasn’t shredding Memphis, the Spurs’ shooters were overwhelming a group that was second in the NBA this past season in 3-point defense. … The Grizzlies will try. They will review film, and they will prepare to play to their strength. They will pound with Z-Bo as they pounded the Clippers and Thunder before, and dancing will be optional.
• Dan McCarney of the San Antonio Express-News: Memphis’ abject lack of outside shooting (5 for 12 on 3s) killed them in two respects. One, they were outscored by 27 points from beyond the arc, easily the biggest different in the game. Two, it allowed the Spurs to basically ignore their perimeter players and collapse on the low-post tandem of Randolph and Marc Gasol. Gasol was active early on, but he needed 16 shots to score 15 points while drawing just two free throws. Randolph barely got any touches at all, scoring his lone bucket on a tip-in while missing 7 of 8 shots. He had been averaging 19.7 points on 51.2-percent shooting in the postseason. It’s fitting Gregg Popovich used a football metaphor to describe the Spurs’ strategy, which was basically a page taken straight from their first-round meeting with the Lakers — swarm the paint first, recover on shooters second. “Zach and Marc are a heck of a combination, probably the best high-low combination in the league,” Popovich said. “Everything they do is really difficult to stick with, and you’ve got to have a mindset to do it on every down. You can’t be perfect at it. They’re just too good. But the effort was there for 48 minutes.” … The Grizzlies have bounced back from 0-1 deficits to win each of their past two series. Conversely, the Spurs are 19-3 when they win the first game of a best-of-seven series in the Duncan/Popovich era.
• Dave Hyde of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel: So when he's asked about playing Indiana next, and how they'll strategize against him again, you know he's run the matchup through his mind. And it's not a hard conclusion on Indiana's best play against him. "They'll try to put me on the floor, maybe,'' LeBron James said. "They'll be physical with me, maybe. … The word is you've got to beat up the Heat to beat them. And every team has tried to do that." This wasn't just Indiana's way in their playoff series last year. It was Chicago's method last week. That series offered another glimpse into what may be the final rite of public passage for the best player in the game. Lots of teams hit LeBron at the rim. Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau took it to uncharted territory. He ordered his players to get rough with LeBron in the open court, well before he became unstoppable near the basket. When Nazr Mohammed threw a two-arm wrap around LeBron near mid-court, then shoved LeBron to the floor, Thibodeau snapped. He said LeBron flopped. Nate Robinson then football-tackled LeBron near mid-court. There was something old-school gallant about Chicago's game plan, bit players trying to take out the game's best player. "Hopefully, the league will look at that,'' Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. That's not intent here. It's, again, this strange, final passage LeBron seems to be making. Teams always played Michael Jordan hard right to the end of his Chicago run. But no one got Medieval on Jordan.
• Mike Wells of The Indianapolis Star: The last time I got a text from from Larry Bird at 1 a.m. it was about this time a year ago. It first started with a telephone call talking about how poor the Pacers played in their 32-point loss to the Miami Heat in Game 5. Then came the text message. My phone went off again early Sunday morning. It was Bird, who has kept a low profile since stepping down as a president last June. Bird was offering up nothing but praise this time about the team he put together. “Those who play together stay together!” Bird wrote in the text. Bird is right, the Pacers stuck together all year. They stuck together when Danny Granger was ruled out at the start of the season. They stuck together when they got off to a slow start. They stuck together when Granger came back and then went down again for the rest of the season. And they stuck together when they opened the second round of the playoffs as the underdogs against the New York Knicks. For years, outsiders have questioned the Pacers on who the face of the franchise is and who is going to lead them in the playoffs. The Pacers have shied away from getting caught up in that talk. They proved it again on Saturday after they eliminated the Knicks in six games.
• Mike Ganter of the Toronto Sun: Today, barring a stunning turn of events, it is expected Bryan Colangelo’s term in Toronto will end seven years and 81 days after it began. Under his guidance, the Raptors made it to the playoffs twice — in each of his first two full seasons on the job. The five-year drought since then more than justifies the organization heading in another direction. This is not an indictment of Colangelo. It’s just a recognition of the fact that he has had his chance to turn things around here and now it’s time to give someone else that chance. Much is being made right now of the Raptors’ dithering in this respect. Under recently named president and CEO — and this is key — but still not actively serving Tim Leiweke, the impression has been left that the organization is somehow being harmed by a lack of an immediate decision on the general manager. One way or another, that impression will end today. Colangelo probably had another year with the Raptors had MLSE not gone out and snapped up Leiweke. … There are plenty of targeted names out there to fill Colangelo’s shoes. From Denver’s Masai Ujiri to Indiana’s Kevin Pritchard to Oklahoma City’s Troy Weaver, there is plenty to like about the wish list but so far that’s all it is — a wish list. Ujiri, the Denver GM and former Colangelo assistant in Toronto, has given no indication he is interested, but nor have either of the other two. It’s all well and good to target a guy, even one as presumably easy as it would be to target the recently named NBA executive of the year in Ujiri. But it’s another to actually hook that target. So, yes, there’s still a slight chance Colangelo could be back.
• Doug Smith of the Toronto Star: One theory making the rounds in NBA circles over the weekend is that both sides are trying to find a way for Colangelo to remain in the organization but perhaps in a different role. Other people in the league, however, are certain that the longer Leiweke lets the situation drag on, the more likely it is that Colangelo leaves and that the chief executive officer is plumbing the depths of other front offices to find someone with a reputation — and the ability — that would make a new hire seem like a big splash. But whatever the resolution, it won’t come until the last minute, at least. Monday is supposedly the deadline for the 2013-14 option on Colangelo’s contract to be picked up. It could be extended by mutual agreement. Still, there are other issues — and human situations — to be dealt with and taken into consideration. Colangelo’s chief lieutenant, Ed Stefanski, has been on the job less than two years, is under contract for one more and has a resumé just as impressive as any of the rival executives whose names have emerged publicly. But if Leiweke — and sources are adamant that this is his decision to make — insists on bringing someone in to work either with or independent of Colangelo in some senior role, where does that leave the well-respected Stefanski? And if Leiweke decides to cut ties entirely with Colangelo, the front-office upheaval could be significant. Along with Stefanski, assistant general manager Marc Eversley is closely aligned with Colangelo and someone new in charge might not be comfortable with that arrangement. Coach Dwane Casey, entering the final year of his contract, has the full support of Colangelo but does that change if there’s a new boss in charge? So it’s not as if Leiweke’s decision will only have an impact on one member of the front-office staff.
• Mark Kiszla of The Denver Post: If you had to pick one man whose leadership is most essential to the future success of the Nuggets, would you go with coach George Karl or general manager Masai Ujiri? My vote: Ujiri is more valuable. By a power of 10. Contrary to popular belief, the potential free agent Denver really needs to lock up this offseason is not Andre Iguodala, a $15 million guard who shoots 58 percent from the foul line and is professed to be an all-world defender, yet can't be entrusted to lock down Stephen Curry in the NBA playoffs. Ujiri rescued the Nuggets from the chaos caused by Carmelo Anthony's trade demand. Ujiri has discovered real talent late in the first round of the NBA draft, while bringing Kenneth Faried and Evan Fournier to Denver. Ujiri would be far harder to replace in the front office than Karl would be on the bench. Sports executive Tim Leiweke helped bring the Avalanche to Colorado. Now Leiweke could steal Ujiri from town. Leiweke oversees the Toronto Raptors. The Raptors have cast covetous eyes at Ujiri. Ujiri deserves a big raise from the Nuggets. Pronto. … With all due respect to Ty Lawson, Ujiri is the MVP of the Nuggets. Lose Ujiri, and the Nuggets would be lost.
• Frank Isola of the New York Daily News: Carmelo Anthony sat shirtless and wore ice packs on both knees late Saturday night as he surveyed the losing locker room inside Bankers Life Fieldhouse. From his demeanor and posture right down to the accessories needed to heal his aching body, Anthony resembled Patrick Ewing more than ever after the Knicks’ season ended prematurely against the Indiana Pacers. The look said it all: Another prime year lost, another bid for that elusive championship wasted. “I mean, it’s a disappointment,” Anthony said. … The time, of course, is now. Anthony turns 29 on May 29 and has been in the league 10 years. That’s a lot of miles on his legs. Ewing was 31 when he reached the NBA Finals in 1994, his ninth season. A better comparison are two of Anthony’s contemporaries from the historic 2003 draft class. James, who turns 29 in December, has been to the NBA Finals three times and could secure a second straight championship next month. Wade, 31, is in his 10th year and has reached the Finals three times and won two rings. Anthony’s best finish was the Western Conference finals. Otherwise, he’s been out of the first round just twice. Anthony is in the prime of his career, but there is no guarantee that the best years are ahead for him and the Knicks. Maybe that’s what he was contemplating late Saturday night after another lost season.
• Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel: Orlando Magic fans approach Pat Williams whenever they see him around town these days. "Come on home with the first pick," they say. "Bring it on back," they say. "OK, we're looking for that first pick," they say. What those strangers are referring to is the 2013 NBA Draft Lottery, which will take place Tuesday night in midtown Manhattan. The Magic own a 25-percent chance of winning the top overall pick, the highest probability of any team, and Williams will be there once again, on stage, serving as the public face of the franchise. Williams, the Magic's co-founder and senior vice president, is a living, breathing good-luck charm. His teams have won the lottery four different times: thePhiladelphia 76ers in 1986 and the Magic in 1992, 1993 and 2004. "People just expect another one," he says now, chuckling. "We only have a 25-percent chance! I guess if I don't come back with the top pick, they'll say, 'Boy, what a bum he is. What was he doing up there?' " Many people remember Williams for his lottery fortune instead of his skill and accomplishments as a sports executive. Major networks have televised the lottery ever since the its inception in 1985, and Williams' reactions to his victories have been priceless.
• Rick Bonnell of The Charlotte Observer: The Charlotte Bobcats are on their way to becoming the Charlotte Hornets. The Bobcats have started pursuing a name change to Charlotte’s original NBA team, an informed source confirmed to the Observer. Though the Bobcats will need permission from the league to make such a change, incoming NBA commissioner Adam Silver has twice indicated that shouldn’t be a problem. What’s still in question is when the name change could be implemented and how extensively the Bobcats would assume the Hornets’ old look. The source, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, would not comment on whether the popular teal-and-purple color scheme would return to Charlotte. The Hornets were Charlotte’s first major-league team, and for most of 14 years the town embraced the team. The consecutive sellout streak for home games reached 364, nearly nine full seasons. Players like Muggsy Bogues and Dell Curry still live here and are still prominent figures. The Hornets drafted power forward Larry Johnson and center Alonzo Mourning with top-two picks and they led the team to an unlikely victory over the Boston Celtics in a first-ever playoff appearance in 1993. But even before then the Hornets owned the town.
• Dwain Price of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram: As the Dallas Mavericks contingent of Donnie Nelson and Keith Grant prepare to head to New York for Tuesday’s NBA Draft lottery selection, they do so knowing nothing strategically will determine whether the Mavs can walk away with the No. 1 overall draft pick. No tea leaves. No Ouija boards. No X’s and O’s. Just like the Powerball winner, it comes down to pure luck as to who wins the draft lottery. Owner Mark Cuban said: “As much as we want to say it’s all science, there’s a big part of it that’s luck.’’ The lottery is at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the ABC Times Square Studios in New York City. This is just the second time in the Cuban era that the Mavs have been in the draft lottery. Cuban purchased the Mavs on Jan. 4, 2000, and Dallas was involved in the lottery some four months later after finishing the season with a 40-42 record.
• John Rohde of The Oklahoman: Last summer, Thunder forward Serge Ibaka was said to be considering working with Olajuwon, but Ibaka didn't have adequate time. Ibaka was busy playing for silver medalist Spain at the Olympic Games in London and then returned to OKC to hammer out the details of a four-year contract extension worth at least $49 million that begins next season. Multiple times during his exit interview session on Thursday, Ibaka said his primary focus this offseason will be to find ways to “create my own shot.” Might this include a trip to Houston to work with Olajuwon? “Yes, it's a possibility,” the 23-year-old Ibaka said. “It depends on how the summer goes. If there's time, I would like to go (work with Olajuwon). I'm not just focused to go see Hakeem, I'm focused to work on my game. From what I've heard, it's a good option for me. … I really, really want to get better and create my own shot. So it's something I will focus on this summer.” NBA players who have worked with Olajuwon include Yao Ming, Dwight Howard, Carmelo Anthony, Amar'e Stoudemire, Luol Deng, Emeka Okafor, JaVale McGee and Kenneth Faried. Olajuwon also has worked with Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. Thunder coach Scott Brooks is friends with Olajuwon and was his teammate for 2 1/2 seasons (1992-95) in Houston.

Mark Jackson leans into his words as if they’re skinny, 1990s point guards trying to stop him. He shoves them around. Boasts are bellowed. Mind games are played. Sermons are delivered.

A lot happens when Jackson is on the mike. Between the platitudes and clichés, here are some Jackson pronouncements from this year's playoff run:

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"They tried to send hit men on Steph.”

Jackson said this after a Game 5 loss to the Nuggets wherein Stephen Curry was roughed up a bit off the ball.

I would call this a savvy public display of hypocrisy. It’s hard for the guy who coaches Andrew Bogut and Draymond Green to call out the opposition for roughing people up. It's ridiculous on its face.

At the same time, it was smart of Jackson to alert refs to off-ball action.

The natural tendency, even for referees, is to focus on the ball. With this declaration, Jackson took a laser pointer and attached the light to Kenneth Faried’s jersey. The Warriors coach called Faried out specifically for hitting Curry’s ankle. In Game 6, Faried picks up his third foul on a “trip” of Harrison Barnes. Except, Barnes appeared to trip over his own feet on the replay. We’ll never know if Jackson’s complaints helped swing the foul that caused Faried to get benched in Game 6, but I have my suspicions.

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"I've taken pride in not ever criticizing referees -- for two years. And then reading the statement by the NBA, I'm extremely thankful I am not fined for criticizing referees."

Jackson is a swaggering braggart. (After beating the Lakers, he declared his team better and even added, “They are in the rearview mirror.”) But it's complicated.

This brashness is at odds with an almost priggish devotion to his own sense of propriety. He never curses, at least in public. There’s no more rap music in a Warriors locker room, which could now double as a library reading room.

Jackson advocates a particular decorum around officials. He got his first and only technical foul by literally asking for it. Seriously, Jackson didn’t like the calls so he politely asked the ref to give him a technical as a demonstration to his players.

So it’s no surprise that, after making the hit men comments, Jackson takes pride that he didn’t violate his own code. Aspects of Denver’s play were criticized, but the refs were never questioned, at least explicitly. I have no firm grasp as to why Jackson adheres to these codes, but the structure may give him comfort.

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“I’m a guy that believes, again, that God has his hands on this team.”

The God issue is sensitive, especially when you consider that the Bay Area isn’t exactly the Bible Belt. As you’ve probably noticed over these playoffs, Jackson is publicly quite religious. Regardless of Jackson's right to sermonize, I will hazard that these statements are sometimes taken too literally. I don’t believe that Jackson believes God delivers the wind gust that causes Manu Ginobili’s air ball because God loves the Warriors. It feels more like a statement about how the team communes with whatever Jackson thinks God to be and how he thinks this is a good process.

Warning: I’m not religious in the slightest, and I’ve never had an extended theological discussion with Jackson. I’ve just noticed that Jackson is big on the power of positive thinking.

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"Those guys are just getting to the hospital. The baby has been born already."

This was in response to Curry’s 22-point third quarter explosion in Game 4 against Denver. In the amusing quote, Jackson isn’t just talking about how Curry's play; he’s talking about how ignored his greatness was when obscured by injuries, Monta Ellis’ ball-hoggery, losses and a non-Lakers Pacific time slot.

It has a certain resonance with a Bay Area populace that is equal parts proud of the region and insecure over how it doesn’t get enough attention. The Bay is beautiful and important, but it isn’t Los Angeles in terms of national and international cachet. East Coast bias isn’t real to the media-steeped L.A. sports market. In the Bay, fans can bristle over how their teams miss out on national coverage. It’s a big market with a big chip on its shoulder. Oh, you just discovered Curry? He’s been great for a while! And we have EXCELLENT food and wine out here! L.A. stinks!

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"We live in a country that allows you to be whoever you want to be. As a Christian man, I serve a God that allows you free will to be whoever you want to be. As a Christian man, I have beliefs of what's right and what's wrong. That being said, I know Jason Collins. I know his family. And certainly [I'm] praying for them at this time."

This was such a tense moment at Warriors practice. A local reporter asked noted Christian Jackson for his thoughts on Jason Collins coming out. As Jackson started, nobody really knew where this quote was headed.

The words are vague and, frankly, cryptic. Most around the sports world were congratulating Collins, rolling out the welcome mat. Whatever Jackson was saying was at odds with that. But his words also weren’t specifically hateful or rejecting. He later spoke well of both Collins and his family.

What is this prayer about then? Salvation? Happiness? Protection?

In that same news conference, Jackson spoke of praying during every national anthem.

My take? Jackson probably should have gone a different direction with his comments, but I also believe he was processing right in front of us. Jackson didn’t give any indication of having known of Collins’ sexual orientation, despite his friendly relationship with Jason and his family. By all appearances, the news was fresh to him.

Perhaps this is how tolerance happens. Those who wrongly think they live a world apart from gay people suddenly find that they already know and quite like a gay person. The once myopic are forced to grapple, forced to process. It’s easy to not see the humanity in someone you initially view as an “other.” But if you already see the humanity in a person before he declares himself to hail from an “other” category? It’s too late; you’ve already bonded with that person. You already know better than to dismiss his personhood. That kind of wake-up call can broaden perspectives and bring people together.

All of this might have absolutely nothing to do with Jackson. Again, he was vague. But the uncomfortable moment made me aware of how people around the NBA were processing and incorporating what they just learned about their brave friend Jason Collins.

Also worth noting on this tricky subject: While players the league over have spoken on the record about Collins coming out, as far as I'm aware that's not true of a single Warrior.

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"In my opinion, they're the greatest shooting backcourt in the history of the game."

Remember how I said that Jackson is a swaggering braggart? He made these comments about Curry and Klay Thompson. Based on 3-point shooting, he has an excellent case. He likes to pump his guys up, perhaps hoping that they adopt his optimistic paradigm. It’s easier to become a star if you think it possible first.

Talk like this rubs some people the wrong way, but I love it. Most coaches are so afraid to say anything good about their players. It’s refreshing to see someone skirt the line of hyperbole in the other direction.

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"That's stupid. ... I'm doing it for fun."
Jackson was asked why he kept submitting paperwork listing Carl Landry as a starter against the Nuggets when Harrison Barnes was actually the starting power forward.

He dismissed the notion it was superstition. The coach just thought it amusing to repeatedly deliver an inaccurate lineup card.

While I don’t find the joke hilarious, I do believe in the value of stepping back from playoff game terror and chuckling at its absurd quirks. The great coaches occasionally exhibit some detached whimsy. Think Gregg Popovich intentionally fouling Shaq after tipoff or Phil Jackson smiling on the bench for reasons unknown. Mark Jackson’s coaching equivalent to playing with his food could be a good sign. I also believe he was just messing with George Karl to glean a slight advantage.

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“Can I be honest with ya? I’m jealous. I wish I could put on a uniform the way you ballin'.”

You could regard this, from TNT's Inside Trax timeout microphone, as Jackson trying to convey that his players should appreciate and seize the moment.

But something in his tone makes me believe the comments are more nostalgic, less practical. From what I’ve heard from players-turned-coaches, there is no high that matches going out on a court and actually shaping the game with your hands. I wonder if Jackson was just thinking aloud as he contemplated life on the bench. I wonder if Jackson actually does feel a pang of jealousy or if he's experiencing a miniature midlife crisis on account of no longer being able to share in this unique experience.

The statement could be less about missing the past than appreciating the present, though. So many players from the Jordan era condescend to the modern NBA. "It was so much tougher then!" is the refrain. Jackson talks up his era on occasion. But in this moment, he's telling his modern team what a privilege it would be to play with it. Jackson has reverence for the past, but not so much that he's degrading what happens now, in front of his eyes. It's easy to roll your eyes at his "greatest shooting backcourt" comments, but such bold declarations might show the Warriors coach to be hyper-present and quite respectful of the talent he presides over. If so, that's pretty cool.

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“Can I stop again to tell you I love you? Outstanding.”

“Love” can be a dirty word in the machismo-steeped culture of pro sports. But bless him, Jackson is too emotional to use any other word.

I have no clue how the Warriors take this, but it’s notable that most coaches never say anything like this. Because “their business” is a business. “Love” does not belong in a business, just as Jackson’s religious statements might not belong in corporate America.

But sports are strange because, to be a business, people must believe these teams are far more than that. Executives, players, coaches, everybody involved have to emotionally invest in something other than profit, even if profit is also a motivation. And in this gray zone of life called “sports,” this nexus of tribalism, feeling, glory and money, Jackson lives loudly.

Marc Stein and David Thorpe on coach of the year, coach of the playoffs, coaches on the hot seat, coaches doing smart things and coaches doing dumb things.

The NBA sent around the most interesting list:

1. George Karl 404
2. Erik Spoelstra 190
3. Mike Woodson 127
4. Gregg Popovich 120
5. Frank Vogel 60
6. Lionel Hollins 55
7. Mark Jackson 47
8. Tom Thibodeau 40
9. Kevin McHale 17
10. P.J. Carlesimo 8
11. Vinny Del Negro 8
12. Larry Drew 6
13. Doc Rivers 4
14. Scott Brooks 3

What is that exactly? The final tallies of a marathon night of pingpong at some offseason association meeting for coaches? The results of some kind of snooker tournament?

No, no. It's none of that. Those are the final scores of this year's NBA Coach of the Year voting.

OK.

A selected smattering of Twitter responses:

• "Awards are jokes."
• "Facepalm."
• "WHAT THE BLOODY HELL."
• "I quit."
• "That's criminal."
• "Time to scrap the award."
• "LOL OMG fix this system."

Many of those comments are focused on the maligned Del Negro finishing ahead of the near-legendary Rivers, but that's only one of the many surprises on this list.

Now, here's the thing: That's voting with a history of a certain kind of logic. Sports writers and broadcasters vote, and tend not to vote for the guy they think is actually the best coach, but instead for the guy whose team was most surprisingly good.

Almost everyone agrees Phil Jackson is right there with Red Auerbach in the "best coach ever" conversation -- an assertion nicely affirmed by the Lakers' disarray in his absence. But somehow Jackson won this award only once, way back in 1996. All those years all those voters believed he was the best ... but voted for someone else.

That tells you the NBA Coach of the Year award is for something other than being the NBA's best coach.

Different question: Who's the best coach?

Wouldn't you prefer an award that really was for the best coach? Isn't that what you want to know?

There's no reason we can't have that. In fact, ESPN Forecast -- a giant panel of voters who watch the NBA closely -- is ready to give you just that. Recognizing a need for a better way to identify the best coach in the NBA, we asked them today to identify the best coach in the NBA. We used a voting and scoring system similar to the NBA's. It took only a few hours, and the San Antonio Spurs' Gregg Popovich is the runaway winner. With the results from 70 voters in, the results:

OUR NEW PREDICTION ENGINE



The results for "Best coach in the NBA" powered by ESPN Forecast.

1. Gregg Popovich 690
2. Tom Thibodeau 433
3. Doc Rivers 262
4. Rick Carlisle 169
5. Erik Spoelstra 131
6. George Karl 72
7. Rick Adelman 39
8. Lionel Hollins 38
9. Frank Vogel 20
10. Mike Woodson 8
11. Mark Jackson 5
12. Scott Brooks 4
13. Kevin McHale 1

These results are far different from the real coach of the year vote, of course. Popovich went from fourth to first. Rivers shot up the list. Carlisle and Adelman didn't get a single vote of any kind in the NBA's contest, but both are respected and on the Forecast list.

That, I suggest, is the point of this exercise. Here, if you want it, is a list that uses smart information-gathering techniques to roughly approximate who we (everyone really -- media, fans, players, owners) truly believe coaches best.

Coaching is murky and tough to vote on with conviction. The best of it happens behind closed doors and away from microphones. Assistants do a lot of what matters. It's difficult to score. Maybe Phil's roster got him a lot of those wins. Tim Duncan might be the secret sauce of Popovich's intimidating win percentage. Voters seem to have historically bet that the coach of the "little team that could" must be doing a hell of a job.

But giving the award to someone other than who we think is the best coach has robbed the award of a great deal of authority. (The list of past winners is littered with the likes of Mike Schuler and Sam Mitchell -- guys the league as a whole has decided, upon review, really are not cut out to coach in this league.)

Karl, of course, is a respected NBA lifer on both lists. That he belongs somewhere up there is beyond doubt. But at the top?

The logic of his winning works like this: The Nuggets don't have an offensive superstar. That point is in the first line of the news story about Karl's victory. By and large such teams are seen as doomed -- despite the ongoing playoff success of the similarly starless Bulls and Pacers.

In this particular case, however, it's tricky. Stat geeks loved that roster from the start, and using different approaches, John Hollinger and several others predicted the Nuggets would be this good or better. (Some stat geeks say the big thing holding that roster back was ... Karl himself.) Not to mention, David Thorpe would argue that in the second half of the season, the Nuggets absolutely did have an offensive star, and his name is Ty Lawson.

Whether you buy what Hollinger or Thorpe had to say, I suspect you'll agree when I say the NBA's results do not really reflect who we truly believe are the best coaches in the NBA. Not these names, not in that order. If you owned a team, would you really pursue Karl over Popovich? Would you call Frank Vogel before Tom Thibodeau? Would you blow off calls from Rivers in favor of Del Negro? (Would you forget entirely recent championship- and award-winner Rick Carlisle?)

The big crime here, of course, is that the NBA's results, while satisfying a certain itch to reward surprising performance, are not anybody's real list of who is the best coach in the NBA.

And isn't that what this award ought to be?

A team gets its first All-Star in 16 years. They've been wandering, starless, through the desert, and finally, this guy's featured in the big game. In that game, he represents the ascent of a much maligned franchise, and the validation of the new owner's controversial signing.

Can you really argue that this team needs less of the star, be it by trade or minutes allotted?

Yes.

You can make these arguments when the All-Star is David Lee and the team is the Golden State Warriors.

Warriors-Nuggets was over early, supposedly. The Warriors had squandered Game 1, the game they had to steal. Denver is famously unbeatable at home, and here the Warriors had lost an opportunity for a Mile High victory to a creaky Andre Miller up-and-under. They were unlikely to get another opportunity like that one because -- and this is when it got really dire -- Lee had gone down with a torn hip flexor. Lee claimed that he had heard a "pop," which might as well have been the noise of a Warriors season bursting into ruin, all in one moment.

And yet, in destruction's wake, Golden State gained new life. The power forward's injury forced the Warriors to get creative. And oh, how it worked.

As a result, Lee should be less central to future Warriors plans.

Mark Jackson's most common lineup in the Warriors' victorious Round 1 was the Don Nelson fever dream of Stephen Curry, Jarrett Jack, Klay Thompson, Harrison Barnes and Andrew Bogut. You know how often that happened in the regular season? Once -- and for a mere minute in a March 8 loss to Houston. After appearing together in six playoff games, this particular lineup already has gotten 76 times more run than it ever got in the first 82 games.

Jackson can be forgiven for declining to play Barnes at power forward until now, though I wish he'd dabbled more with the idea this season. Barnes is a 20-year-old rookie. Asking him to guard NBA big men is a tall order -- he didn't even guard a lot of big men in college. He doesn't set the best screens, and it's not as if he's a dead-eye small-ball shooter, at 36 percent from 3. To gamble with the rookie as a "stretch 4" was quite the risk. What if Barnes crumbled? What if he whiffed on every screen and bricked every shot?

This is probably why Jackson came to his decision to go small with self-aware incredulity. As Jackson told it: "I came to my coaches early this morning. I said, 'Am I crazy to start Harrison at the 4? Somebody talk me out of it.' "

Nobody did, and the result was a Warriors unit that drowned the Nuggets in 3s. The lineup fired up 27.2 3-point attempts per 48 minutes, and hit a scalding 41.9 percent. By the end of Game 6, the Nuggets were dead, and this formerly untested lineup had played 26 percent of all minutes in the series. Beyond that, the Warriors succeeded with every lineup that featured Barnes at power forward (excluding a few that played less than a minute together). Harrison himself had quite a series, making 41 percent of his 3s, while making, for him, a quarter-season's worth of 3s in a mere six games.

That the Warriors thrived while playing small and shooting lots of 3s begs the question: Well, why don't they shoot more 3s sooner? Golden State finished this season a league-best 40.3 percent from deep. But it was only 15th in the league in pace-adjusted attempts (19.4 per game). It would seem like this team is leaving points on the table, points it can ill afford to squander with a roster that struggles to attack the rim or draw fouls. Why not let it rip?

The answer is that Golden State so rarely has more than three 3-point shooters on the floor at once, in part because Lee played so many minutes. To be clear, Lee is a skilled offensive player and he's clearly better than his primary backup, Carl Landry. The problem isn't that Lee or Landry is inadequate. The problem is 3s are incredibly valuable, and neither shoots them.

This means that Lee is, in some ways, a drag on his team's greatest offensive advantage. That's more than a mild issue when he's making more than $15 million in 2016, and offers some of the league's worst interior defense to boot.

Hypothetically, let's say that Lee's large contract precludes a helpful trade (or perhaps more accurately, Lee's relationship with management precludes a trade). At the very least, the Warriors have learned that spacing the floor with four 3-point shooters can be a great strategy.

Curry scares up marvelous amounts defensive attention on the perimeter. Klay Thompson, too. Place two more guys outside the arc, and you're stretching an opposing defense tissue-thin. Hello, more room for Curry's drives, more opportunities for Bogut's alley-oops and more explosive dunks from Barnes. In the NBA, extra space is like a PED; it imperceptibly helps an athlete reach new heights.

The Warriors can't get to this basketball Shangri-la while continuing to play Lee heavy minutes. If this team is to reach its potential going forward, it needs to either develop Lee's 3-point shot, trade him, or curtail his role.

Ethan Sherwood Strauss was our invited guest on this version of TrueHoop TV, and he did a great job explaining the might of the Warriors. But, predictably, his dog Otto stole the show.

Also, a key point: We discuss a controversial block/charge call from the Nuggets loss. From a 2008 TrueHoop post:

A lot of calls that look like charges are correctly called blocks. When you rewind these plays on your Tivo, don't do what referees make fun of fans for doing: Trying to decide if the players feet were set before the contact.

That's not the standard.

What you want to know is: Is the defensive player's torso set in position before the offensive player begins his upward motion? The defense can not slide into position after the offensive player has reached this stage.

Why did they set that standard at the moment of upward motion? Joe Borgia, the NBA's director of officiating programs and development, says "because we had to set it somewhere." He adds that "the moment of alighting is too late." In years of watching film, however, Borgia has confidence they chose the correct moment.

 

• Rusty Simmons of the San Francisco Chronicle: David Lee provided the inspiration, and Stephen Curry provided the much-needed separation. The sixth-seeded Warriors followed the two players who have led them all season and turned Oracle Arena into a place of hysteric celebration with a 92-88, series-clinching victory over third-seeded Denver in Game 6 on Thursday night. … The Warriors moved to 10-1 in home close-out games during their West Coast era (since 1962-63), won a postseason series for the first time since 2007 and will open a best-of-seven, second-round series at second-seeded San Antonio on Monday. None of it came easy. Lee, who was supposed to be sidelined for the rest of the postseason, shocked the 19,596 fans by participating in the pregame layup lines. When the All-Star forward checked into the game with 2:23 remaining in the first quarter and hobbled through 87 seconds of inspiring play with a completely torn right hip flexor, it whipped the crowd into a frenzy and his teammates into a second-half surge. Curry took control from there, going into shoot-spin-and-dance mode in the third quarter. He was so confident in his silky jumper that he would release the shot, and instantly twist to retreat on defense and start celebrating.
• Mark Kiszla of The Denver Post: Get this arrogance: In the ultimate win-or-go-home game, the Nuggets planned on sleeping in San Francisco after Game 6. They boldly informed the hotel staff at their five-star accommodations to turn down the bed covers for them, insisting they would return to celebrate a victory. Before the first team bus rolled across the Bay Bridge toward the arena, Nuggets general manager claimed Masai Ujiri: "I'm leaving something precious in my hotel room." Well, I guess Ujiri left his heart in San Francisco. Would somebody please mail it back to Colorado? The Nuggets showered, packed their bags and took a red-eye charter flight that carried all their regrets back to Denver. A team lovingly and intelligently built by Ujiri won a record 57 games during the regular season, but ultimately proved it wasn't built to survive the stress test of playoff basketball. The Nuggets like to run. But they can't hide the reason for this defeat. Denver cannot shoot straight. … For the eighth time in his nine seasons as Denver coach, George Karl was bumped off in the opening round of the playoffs, this time blowing the opportunity of home-court advantage provided by the third seed in the Western Conference. Elimination games measure the size of the heart as much as the depth of a team's talent. … This was the Denver team Karl wanted. What happens to teams whose coach is the star? They crash and burn. The NBA is a players' league.
• George Willis of the New York Post: Gerald Wallace admits he has no idea what to expect tomorrow night when the Nets play host to the Bulls in a winner-take-all Game 7 at Barclays Center. “I’ve never played in a Game 7,” Wallace said last night. “I don’t have a clue. I don’t know what to expect.” He will find out now that the Nets have fought back from a 3-1 deficit in the best-of-seven series to play a seventh game on their home floor. As exhilarating as their 95-92 triumph over the Bulls was last night, the Nets understand there’s really no time to start celebrating until they finish the job tomorrow night. “Now it comes down to one game,” Joe Johnson said. “I feel like we’ve got a pretty good chance because it’s going to be on our home floor in Brooklyn. We’ll be ready.’’ Brooklyn will be ready. Now it’s about making memories, the kind of memories that are handed down from generation to generation. The Bulls like to bombard you with their memories. During seemingly every timeout there are video replays of Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen and championship trophies. Good for them. It’s time for Brooklyn to start making its own memories, the kind of special moments that winning a Game 7 can provide.
• Teddy Greenstein of the Chicago Tribune: If Game 5 of the 1997 NBA Finals was the "Flu Game," this was the "Pandemic Game." Luol Deng was scratched after originally appearing in the starting lineup. He limped out of the arena 10 minutes before tipoff, looking as if he could barely drive a car let alone drive the lane in a playoff game. "He is feeling really bad," teammate Marco Belinelli said. Taj Gibson also was feeling it. Nate Robinson, too. Asked what they had, coach Tom Thibodeau was comically evasive: "A viral something something. Flu-like symptoms, whatever." It turns out that Deng was by far the sickest, but Thibodeau declined to rank them before the game. "Now we're into degrees of sickness?" he wondered. "They're sick. I feel great. Couldn't be better." Thibodeau could not say the same after watching his team struggle down the stretch in their 95-92 loss to the Nets that forces a Game 7 Saturday in New York. The losses of Deng and Kirk Hinrich (calf), coupled with the illnesses of Robinson and Gibson took a harsh toll. Thibodeau used his bench for a total of less than 28 minutes, and it produced just seven points, four rebounds and one assist. The Nets' bench was good for 27 points and 16 boards.
• Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald: Of all the deep and dark strategic and psychological angles to be explored as the Celtics head into Game 6 against the Knicks tonight, there is a rather basic human reflex that unfolded among three old guys with not too many gunfights left. When the future is uncertain, one tends to cling to the present. Put simply, Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Jason Terry don’t want to stop playing basketball with each other just yet, dammit. At ages 35, 36 and 35, respectively, and with the Celts headed for some major offseason decisions that could very well alter the franchise’s facade next season, the three have taken a look around and decided that a quick exit to the Knicks — these Knicks — was not how they wanted their potential final paragraph together to read. “More important than all of this stuff people are talking about is how do we want to go out?” said Terry. “If we’re going to go out, we’re going to go out fighting and with our whole entire effort out there on the floor. I think that’s been more important than anything in getting us from where we were to here.”
• Howard Beck of The New York Times: The analytics revolution has not yet accounted for the sartorial choices of N.B.A. players, but it is generally accepted that playoff games are not won or lost in the walk-in closet. (Russell Westbrook is proof of this.) So it was not the fact that all the Knicks players arrived at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday in shades of black for a critical playoff game that bothered their coach. It was the implied message that came with their funereal uniformity: that their series against the Boston Celtics — a proud, veteran team, steeped in playoff experience — was effectively over. That a victory would prove a mere formality. It wasn’t the fashion sense. It was the arrogance. “I’m a little upset about that,” Coach Mike Woodson said Thursday, “and I’ve addressed that.” Coming from Woodson, who strenuously avoids criticizing his players in public, this was as strong a statement as there could be. The Knicks have greater concerns after failing twice to close out the series and allowing the Celtics to turn a near sweep into a 3-2 nail-biter. Their 92-86 loss Wednesday would have been troublesome anyway, but it looked much worse given their misplaced confidence. … Chandler and Jason Kidd won a title in Dallas, and Martin made two finals alongside Kidd a decade ago, but the core of this roster has proved nothing on the N.B.A.’s playoff stage. Smith and Carmelo Anthony have been out of the first round only once. Raymond Felton and Iman Shumpert have never won a playoff series. … To recap: the series is not over, the Celtics are not dead, and the Knicks would be wise to save their fashion statements for the off-season, whenever it may arrive.
• Chris Vivlamore of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Hawks coach Larry Drew reiterated Thursday that he had no problem with the officiating in the team’s Game 5 loss to the Pacers. Drew said the same after a 106-83 loss Wednesday in the first-round playoff series, despite his team getting hit with three technical fouls. What Drew did have a problem with was the way his team lost its composure, much the same way it did in losses in games 1 and 2. “The way we went at the officials, it was like we were playing the blame game again,” Drew said. “I thought we got a great whistle. We got to the free-throw line. It wasn’t the whistle. The way we responded was not the way to get it down. Not in the playoffs. You have to be much tougher, mentally you have to be stronger. … You have to have thick skin. You can’t let things rattle you.” The Hawks took two more free throws than the host Pacers, 37-35. In making 30 of the 37 attempts, the Hawks shot 81.1 percent from the line, by far their best effort of the series. The Hawks entered Game 5 shooting a meager 59-of-103 (.573).
• Mike Wells of The Indianapolis Star: Indiana Pacers coach Frank Vogel has been known to shy away from certain ties or shirts he feels are bad luck. But he’s not changing anything for Friday’s Game 6 of the Pacers’ NBA first-round playoff series against the Hawks despite a 13-game losing streak in Atlanta. The Pacers are staying at the same hotel they used in the Atlanta area for losses in Games 3 and 4. “One of the worst things you can do is change up your routine, especially in a big-game situation,” said Dr. Adam Shunk, a sports psychologist at St. Vincent Sports Performance. “Most athletes stick to the basics and do what’s always worked. There’s no reason to change things at a big moment.” The Pacers departed Indianapolis on Thursday afternoon with enough clothes to last six nights. Snap a losing streak that dates to 2006 and they’re possibly headed to New York for the start of a second round series against the Knicks. If the Pacers and Knicks — who lead their respective series 3-2 — close out Atlanta and Boston Friday, Game 1 will be Sunday at Madison Square Garden. First things first, though: The Pacers must end the hex that’s been taking place in Atlanta.
• Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle: Francisco Garcia closed in so tightly, Kevin Durant might have looked down and thought he had added a new tattoo. Chandler Parsons was charging from Durant’s right, Patrick Beverley reaching from his left, Omer Asik waiting in the lane. Durant wasn’t this much the center of attention when he showed up for a flag football game during the lockout, but he did not have to look hard to find an open teammate. This was just how the Rockets wanted it. Durant still could have gotten a shot that, for him, would be a good shot, and he often did. But as those shots missed in Wednesday’s fourth quarter, all the open Oklahoma City shooters firing away in his orbit were not enough as the Rockets beat the Thunder 107-100 to force a Game 6 at Toyota Center on Friday night. The Rockets dared the Thunder to make the shots they had given them nearly as brazenly as when Oklahoma City coach Scott Brooks repeatedly sent Asik to the line to test his ability to make free throws. “They don’t care about the rest of the team,” Durant lamented after the game, defining the Rockets’ defensive game plan with the same ease as his shooting motion. “When I have the ball, it’s like four guys guarding me at one time.” The Rockets — or perhaps the Thunder players sharing the court with Durant — have made Russell Westbrook look like Michael Jordan in absentia. As valuable as Westbrook has been to the Thunder’s ascent to contender status, other players’ inability to pick up the slack on the offensive end, particularly as the Rockets have grown obsessed with surrounding Durant, has made Westbrook seem irreplaceable. At times, someone might as well have removed their shoelaces.
• Berry Tramel of The Oklahoman: (Scott) Brooks' coaching reputation is on the line as this remade Thunder-Rockets series hits the homestretch, with Game 6 Friday night at the Toyota Center and a Game 7 Sunday back in Oklahoma City should the Rockets survive. Brooks does not want to coach the first team in NBA history to lose a series after leading three games to none. Kevin McHale, a heck of a forward in his Celtic days but innocuous in 242 regular-season games as a coach, is making all the right moves in keeping his Rockets kicking. The Rockets we saw in Game 1 12 days ago is nothing like the Rockets we saw in Game 5 Wednesday night. The Thunder is changed, too, by Russell Westbrook's injury. The Thunder has won once without Westbrook and dang near won another, but there's been nothing easy about it. And it's up to Brooks to do something. … Here's what we've learned through five games of Thunder-Rockets. Playoff basketball is not like February basketball. In the postseason, teams grow to know and despise each other. Basketball savvy minds find every flaw in the opponent and try to expose it. Brooks must counter. Both in strategy and in personnel. “Everything is being considered, there's no question,” Brooks said. That's good to know.
• Ronald Tillery of The Commercial-Appeal: Memphis has won the last three games of the series after falling behind 2-0. The Griz lead a postseason series for the first time since going ahead 2-1 against the Oklahoma City Thunder in the 2011 Western Conference semifinals. Randolph leads Memphis in scoring (19.3 points) and rebounding (8) during the postseason. He’s averaging 25.5 points and 10 rebounds at home during the playoffs compared with 13 points and 6 rebounds on the road. Conley ranks second behind Golden State’s Stephen Curry in the NBA in assists (8.6) during the playoffs. Meanwhile, Paul will play despite a bruised left thumb. Griffin did not practice Thursday and received treatment for a high right ankle sprain. Griffin will be a game-time decision. Said Paul about Game 6: “It’s going to take a lot of fight. Playing there has been tough, but we’ve shown the ability to win there.”
• Broderick Turner of the Los Angeles Times: Win or go home. It's the slogan for the NBA during the playoffs and it now applies to the Clippers. The reeling Clippers must beat the surging Memphis Grizzlieson Friday night, on the road, in Game 6 of their Western Conference first-round playoff series or L.A.'s season is over. If the Clippers find a way to win — something they haven't done in the last three games after winning the first two in this best-of-seven series — Game 7 would be Sunday at Staples Center. But winning Friday seems to be a tall order for the Clippers, on several fronts. Blake Griffin said his sprained right ankle has been "fluctuating" between being painful and showing some improvement, leaving his status uncertain for Game 6. Chris Paul said his bruised left thumb is feeling better and promised, "I'll be ready" to play Friday. The Clippers have played poorly this series in Memphis, where they lost Games 3 and 4 by an average of 16.5 points. "Down 3 to 2, going into a hostile environment, you see what you're made of," Paul said after practice on Thursday. "It's what the playoffs are for and that's why we get the chance to correct things."

• Jeff Schultz of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: The new tough-minded, cool and resilient, ain’t-no-call-in-the-world-gonna-cause-us-to-trigger-another-nuclear-meltdown Hawks returned to action Wednesday night. And they stuck around — for about a quarter and a half. Not long enough. What was it coach Larry Drew said earlier Wednesday when asked what had to change from when his players packed a suitcase, but clearly not their lithium, for games 1 and 2 of this playoff series? “Very glaring,” he said. “In games 1 and 2 we were not a very aggressive team, and we complained about all of the calls. You have to play through that. You can’t let that be a reason why we don’t play well.” … Question: What happens to the Hawks when their coach doesn’t tell his players to keep their cool? The Hawks lost by 23 points, 106-83. The Pacers now lead the series 3-2, with Game 6 in Atlanta on Friday. Drew has 48 hours to hose everybody off until then. Said Al Horford, “I know at times it can get frustrating but we can’t do that, especially on the road. … We have a group of emotional guys who want to win. But you have to be smarter.”
• Bob Kravitz of The Indianapolis Star: For weeks now, coach Frank Vogel has been waiting for a vintage Indiana Pacers defensive performance. For weeks, he’s been looking for the active hands, the help-side defense, the dig-in mentality that made the Pacers a dangerous and intriguing team all season long. Finally, after 12 straight games of giving up 90 or more points, the real Pacers — or at least we think they’re the real Pacers — showed up when they had a “must” win playoff game. Finally, after 12 games of watching their defensive numbers become bloated, the Pacers did a number on the Atlanta Hawks, beating them 106-83 in Game 5, taking a 3-2 series lead in a foul-besotted game that seemed to last four hours. The 90-point number is not an insignificant statistic for the Pacers. They were 31-6 during the regular season when holding opponents below 90, 18-26 when they did not. That, friends, was vintage. That was the Pacers who finished third in the Eastern Conference with 49 victories. That was who they are, but haven’t been in way too long.
• Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald: Doc Rivers is fond of bringing in additional coaches during the playoffs. Which makes it a bit unfortunate that Terry Francona has a new gig. But it’s fair to assume the Celtics coach will, if he hasn’t already done so, be ringing up his old pal, the former Red Sox skipper and current Indians manager, as he tries to stitch together Celtics-Knicks 2013 with Sox-Yankees 2004. Rivers had to reach when his band of Bostonians fell behind the New York entry, 3-0, in this first-round playoff series. Hey, the basketball talk wasn’t exactly getting through. But after last night’s 92-86 Shamrock shakedown of the Knicks, it’s 3-2, and there has to be at least some trepidation on the latter’s plane as it heads to Boston today for a Game 6 tomorrow night that they never thought would be necessary. “Well, I’ll just say we’ve talked about something in that (vein),” said Rivers of the reference to the Red Sox’ comeback from three down in the American League Championship Series. “I’m not going to give you what we talked about, but it’s a guy. We’ve talked about people . . . yes. I’m not going to say what.” According to Celtics players, their coach told them about Kevin Millar, who now famously told people prior in ’04 that the Yankees shouldn’t let his team get Game 4. He reasoned that the Sox had Pedro Martinez and Curt Schilling set to start Games 5 and 6, and if his club got to a seventh game, anything could happen. “If we win this next game, then anything’s possible,” said Jason Terry.
• Marc Berman of the New York Post: The Knicks and J.R. Smith said this series was over, but somebody forgot to tell the Celtics. In nothing short of a choke, the shaky Knicks allowed the Celtics to keep their season alive and take Game 5 in a 92-86 shocker Wednesday night at the Garden, staving off a so-called “funeral’’ for Boston. The Knicks appeared to get too full of themselves in the past few days and it cost them. Smith bragged the series would be over if he played Sunday. Following the lead of Kenyon Martin, several of the Knicks players had black jackets and black slacks hanging in their lockers before the game, pretending they were attending the Celtics’ funeral. After Game 4, Martin said he would wear black Wednesday after Jason Terry told him Sunday he wouldn’t let the Knicks dance at their funeral. Martin did and his teammates did too in a presumptuous move for a franchise that hasn’t won a playoff series since 2000. “We were going to a funeral, but it looks like we got buried,” J.R. Smith said. The Knicks still lead the series 3-2, but it’s headed back to Boston, echoing memories of 2004 when the Red Sox rallied from a 3-0 deficit to trounce the Yankees. No NBA team has recovered from a 3-0 series deficit.
• Nick Matthews of the Houston Chronicle: Kevin Durant apparently doesn’t know Omer Asik. The way Asik is playing, Durant will soon. In the fourth quarter of the Rockets’ 107-100 Game 5 victory, Oklahoma City used a strategy of fouling the Rockets’ center intentionally in hopes of making a comeback. It didn’t work, as Asik made 7-of-12 free throws in the stretch and eventually finished with 21 points. Durant called the strategy — “Hack-A- … Whatever His Name Is.” “We used hack-a …” he stumbled, trying to say Asik’s name, “whatever his name is, that kind of slowed the rhythm down a bit.” Oklahoma City was down 92-82 when it began the strategy and only cut the lead to 99-92 before giving it up. Here’s guessing that Rockets coach Kevin McHale might bring that one up to Asik for motivation.
• Berry Tramel of The Oklahoman: The Thunder-Rocket series is proving two things, at least on the Oklahoma City side. How good Kevin Durant is. And how good Russell Westbrook is. The Rockets clubbed the Thunder 107-100 — it wasn't that close — in Game 5 Wednesday night, and everyone in Thunder blue is thinking the same thing. Uh-oh. History could be in the making. No NBA team ever has won a playoff series after trailing three games to none, but the Rockets are halfway there. And headed home to Houston. “Go home for Game 6,” said Rocket star James Harden, who posted a cool 31 points on 10-of-16 shooting. “It should be interesting.” Nothing but interesting. Even in victory, the Thunder has seemed completely lost without Westbrook, the mercurial point guard who suffered a season-ending knee injury in Game 2. Without Westbrook, the Thunder load is completely on Durant, who was mighty for three quarters Wednesday night, with 36 points on 11-of-18 shooting.
• Christopher Dempsey of The Denver Post: How physical will Game 6 be? The Nuggets took their shots in Game 5 — and received a few as well. Will they continue this style of play? Perhaps more important, will the referees let them? Getting more hands-on with the Warriors was a large part of the Nuggets' success Tuesday. Golden State is ready to respond. Will the supporting cast show up again? Ty Lawson has been the lead player for the Nuggets in this series, but he had plenty of help in Game 5. Andre Iguodala nearly had a triple-double (25 points, 12 rebounds seven assists). All five starters — including a newcomer to the opening lineup, center JaVale McGee — scored in double figures. Wilson Chandler had his best game of the series, scoring 19 points (including five 3-pointers). Can the Nuggets force a Game 7? Denver needs to win Thursday night in Oakland, Calif., to play Game 7 at the Pepsi Center (where the Nuggets are 40-4 this season) on Saturday. To win Game 6, Denver needs to play better in the second half. During the series, the Nuggets have been outscored by 30 points in the second half.
• Carl Steward of The Oakland Tribune: While coaches Mark Jackson and George Karl continued firing shots Wednesday regarding alleged dirty tactics against Stephen Curry, Curry was ready to move on to new business. Curry said undue focus on the mounting physicality in the opening-round playoff series can only do a disservice to himself and his Warriors teammates as they try to finish off the favored Denver Nuggets at Oracle Arena on Thursday night. "Nobody's really talking about it in the locker room," said Curry. "We're just approaching Game 6 like normal. You can't get distracted by that. We have a chance to close out the series at home. It's a big opportunity we have to take advantage of." Jackson, however, continued to zero in on the Nuggets' rough treatment of Curry, specifically what he viewed as an intentional kick by forward Kenneth Faried to Curry's ankle. "I can live with physical basketball. Taking a stab at Steph Curry's ankle is not physical basketball," Jackson said. "If you attempt to kick him with your foot on his foot, that's not a basketball play. That's a cheap shot." Karl responded to Jackson's assertions at Denver's Wednesday practice. "My basic reaction is he's watching a different movie than I'm watching," Karl said. "If there's a scorecard and we're in a boxing fight right now, they're winning the fight. We won a round (here and there), but I'm going to tell you, I'll go to any arbiter now and show the dirty shots -- they're winning."
• Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times: During the Game 5 telecast on TNT, Steve Kerr was asked about Rose working through the mental hurdles of coming back from a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee and said, “I think where the Bulls are now with this series with Kirk Hinrich struggling with the calf injury, if Derrick is OK and there’s no threat to further injury, I think he’s got to play. He has to put himself out there for 15-20 minutes. “Look at what [Joakim] Noah and Hinrich are putting themselves through with their injuries. I think it’s time for Derrick . . . maybe he owes it to his teammates.” Hinrich said Rose doesn’t owe them anything. “We don’t feel that way,’’ Hinrich said. “We know what kind of guy he is and what kind of teammate he is, and we don’t feel that way. I haven’t heard one ill word said about it. You give a guy who has that type of character the benefit of the doubt. We know that he’s such a big part of this organization and this team that we trust he’s making the right decision for that and for himself.’’ Rose was working on his outside shot at the end of practice Wednesday but did not meet with the media, trying not to be a ¬distraction. Good luck with that.
• Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News: Belief is important. Talk is cheap. The Nets have always walked along that thin line. So why stop in the playoffs? "There's no doubt in our mind we are the better team," Andray Blatche said Wednesday, a day before Game 6 against the Bulls. "We're just in a hole." When the Nets step on the United Center court Thursday, they'll be one loss from elimination, one heartbreak away from a disappointing inaugural campaign in the outer borough. But trailing the Bulls hasn't sapped Brooklyn's public confidence, which has been swollen from the time players declared their championship aspirations in training camp. But the Nets have good reasons to trump their chances against the banged-up Bulls. They'd be leading this series if anything had gone right in the final three minutes of regulation in Game 4. Chicago point guard Kirk Hinrich missed practice Wednesday and is listed as "day-to-day." Derrick Rose is still unlikely to walk out of the locker room in a uniform. Joakim Noah is injured and getting abused by Brook Lopez. The Nets have a full roster, albeit with a starting shooting guard, Joe Johnson, who said Wednesday that his plantar fasciitis has him playing like "a decoy."

On video, it looks like strategy.

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

It wasn't an isolated event.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And we could have that, right now.

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

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

That's "playoff basketball."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Igoudala made inside work a priority in Game 5.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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