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The Los Angeles Clippers lost the most successful coach by winning percentage in the franchise’s history when they dismissed Vinny Del Negro, whose contract was due to expire June 30. Del Negro compiled a 128-102 record during his three seasons with the Clippers and for the better part of the past 14 months, had a strong case for a long-term extension, at least ostensibly. The Clippers beat the Grizzlies in the first round of the 2012 playoffs, then finished with a club-record 56 wins this season. No locker room outside of Bexar County, Texas, is perfect, and there were certainly frictional elements in the Clippers’ camp, but the overall culture was decent.

Del Negro was confident in what he was building, and turned down a one-year extension from the team last October. Yet despite the regular-season success, Del Negro could never shake the perception that he lacked the tactical feel for the game required to become an NBA championship-level head coach. Del Negro’s biggest fans during his five-year career have been owners, Jerry Reinsdorf in Chicago and Donald T. Sterling in Los Angeles. Basketball operations people have always been more skeptical of him.

Del Negro is charismatic away from the microphone and well-liked personally. He charmed Sterling at a dinner with the Clippers' brass at the Montage Beverly Hills in late June of 2010. The mood at the table was festive; Del Negro was a pleasure to be around and the spouses had a nice rapport. Del Negro exuded exactly what the Clippers felt they needed to fumigate the place after the final tumultuous seasons of the Mike Dunleavy era -- a happy warrior, both confident and communicative. Charm is infectious, but if it's a person's No. 1 personal attribute, it can also raise suspicions if not accompanied by success.

When Chris Paul arrived in Los Angeles, expectations soared far more quickly than either the Clippers or Del Negro anticipated. The bar was set at contender, and Del Negro would have to prove himself as not only a morale booster but as a coach who could design a plan that delivered.

Del Negro never claimed to be a tactician. He maintained that everyone in the league ran the same basic stuff. He summed up his philosophy best during the winter of 2012 when the Clippers were playing well. "I think it's important for guys to go out there and play off instinct instead of, 'Go here, go there,' or whatever," he said. "I like guys to play. I like guys to get a feel for what we're doing and how we're doing it and work off the instinct and play. I think guys enjoy the game that way a little bit better.”

Paul certainly appreciated his coach’s sentiment, as Del Negro happily ceded most of the play calling. It was also nice to have Del Negro go to bat for Paul’s personnel causes -- free-agent signings, potential trades and the like. But having never reached a conference finals eight years into a Hall of Fame career, even Paul realizes he needs a little help in the final five minutes of a basketball game.

Del Negro’s approval rating has privately been described by those in the locker room as running about 50-50. He had his loyalists, players like Matt Barnes who were grateful for Del Negro’s faith. There were also a few players who felt his strategic shortcomings were tolerable given his affable demeanor. For others, those flaws ran too deep. Then there were the detractors, guys who not only didn’t care to have their minutes reduced, but felt Del Negro was disingenuous in his management and inconsistent in his willingness to communicate. Ballplayers also don’t react kindly when they learn their head coaches advocated trading them midseason. That was one of the unintended consequences of Del Negro assuming a spot at the table as a member of the management team last summer.

Despite falling short in the first round and a desperate coaching performance in Game 6 of the first-round series loss to Memphis, Del Negro still looked as if he might survive. The Clippers aren’t an organization predisposed to spend huge money on a head coach, and as decision-makers took an early survey of the coaching pool, they didn’t find many candidates they considered a dramatic upgrade from Del Negro. For all his imperfections, Del Negro was a known quantity.

Still, the series loss to Memphis confirmed all the lingering doubts that Del Negro was a schematic lightweight. He got better this past season, but the growth trajectory wasn't steep enough, and fell off when it mattered most. Ultimately, the Clippers decided risk aversion carried its own risks. Opportunities are precarious in the NBA, and conservatism doesn’t have a strong track record. Better to explore possibility than embrace certainty.

The Clippers will now have to set a budget, one that will determine the direction of their search. Stan Van Gundy is the best available coach on the market, but he’d give the Clippers sticker shock, assuming he’s even interested. Sterling is currently in San Antonio, scouting Memphis coach Lionel Hollins, the hottest candidate on the coaching market. The Clippers could win the news conference with a Hollins hire, the man who outwitted them in the first round, and someone who’d likely meet Paul’s approval. But Hollins has coached his way into some serious money. Given the number of suitors for his services, he would figure to earn in the neighborhood of $5 million per year, and the Clippers won’t be a favorite in any bidding war. Alvin Gentry would bring the right temperament, along with whiteboard skills and, most importantly, a solid quality-price ratio for a coach with that experience.

Whoever lands the job will encounter a bar even higher than the one Del Negro failed to clear. The Clippers’ job might be desirable, but it’s fraught with pitfalls. The most treacherous of those used to be history. Now it’s expectations.

If the Oklahoma City Thunder drop this series to the Memphis Grizzlies, the loss will be remembered most in OKC as a resounding affirmation of Russell Westbrook. Each of the past three seasons, the Thunder have featured one of the five most efficient offenses in the NBA, but absent Westbrook, they can’t find anything reliable in the half court.

Examine the assets on the floor, and the pick-and-roll game with Kevin Durant and Serge Ibaka seems like a natural choice. The Thunder are well aware of this and have looked diligently for it. Every once in a while, a Durant-Ibaka sequence plays out precisely how Oklahoma City wants it to proceed.

In the fourth quarter of the Grizzlies' 87-81 win Saturday that put them up 2-1 in the West semifinals, just before the nine-minute mark, Marc Gasol, along with Quincy Pondexter, corralled Durant off the screen. With both defenders attending to Durant, Ibaka slipped through the lane where Durant hit him on the move with an overhead pass. Darrell Arthur’s rotation from the right/weakside corner onto Ibaka was prompt, but Ibaka wisely looked immediately at Kevin Martin, whom Arthur left in the right corner. The easy pass from Ibaka to Martin was quickly converted into a Martin 3-pointer that trimmed the Grizzlies’ lead to four.

There’s nothing advanced here, but when Martin is parked on the weakside perimeter and either Durant or Ibaka can force help – something that should happen frequently – this two-man action should generate quality offense for Oklahoma City. When the Grizzlies throw multiple bodies at Durant -- and they did this selectively, but not always, on Saturday afternoon -- this is the single most effective way to counter the pressure and find good looks at the basket.

Unfortunately for the Thunder, that Martin 3-pointer is more outlying than representative. Ibaka’s midrange shooting slump has rendered the pick-and-pop game ineffective. Other variations of the Durant-Ibaka two-man game haven’t produced much, either. In the fourth quarter, we saw a wrinkle Oklahoma City likes to trigger in its pin-down for Durant -- a “pin-and-slip” for Ibaka. As Durant makes the catch coming off Ibaka’s down screen, he immediately shuttles the ball to Ibaka, who takes it to the rim. On this possession, only Tayshaun Prince stood between Ibaka and the rim, but Ibaka opted to pull up and shoot an off-rhythm baseline jumper that rattled out.

This is the kind of offense the Thunder desperately need. Granted, Memphis generally handles it well, but there’s a lot of acreage to defend on the floor when Durant gets a solid pick up top. Whether it’s Tony Allen, Prince or Pondexter, guarding Durant coming off that pick is hellacious. Almost any forward progress by Durant triggers a rotation. Meanwhile, Ibaka needs to be adequately shaded if he rolls, and contested if he pops.

There’s a lot to work with in these pick-and-roll sets, and Durant must be able to depend on his best big man to convert possessions into points. If he can’t, the Thunder don’t have much of a chance in this series because few NBA games can be won by teams that score 86.2 points per 100 possessions, which is what the Thunder tallied in Game 3.

 

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The chess game at the power forward spot continues. During the fourth, the Grizzlies hid Zach Randolph on Derek Fisher both early in the quarter and inside of five minutes. In one instance, the Thunder responded by calling for a high pick-and-roll for Durant with Fisher as a screener, and attacking Randolph, who has to account for Fisher fading to a spot along the arc and still worry about pushing Durant baseline. That’s a tough assignment for anyone, but especially so for Randolph, whose route map is pretty limited. No matter, because Fisher was whistled for a moving screen, and the Thunder were never really able to leverage their stretch or speed against Memphis’ girth.

The big-small tug-of-war gives Darrell Arthur a chance to showcase his versatility. He got a shot as the big 4 against a Thunder small-ball lineup late in the third and early in the fourth and fared well hiding out on Fisher and DeAndre Liggins. Arthur was one of those guys who came into the league tarred as a ‘tweener, but in this context Arthur’s tweenerness is useful for Memphis. He’s mobile enough to tread water as a perimeter defender, can defend the pick-and-roll and can handle most of the elbow responsibilities in the Grizzlies' offense. He’s a terrible rebounder as a power forward, but when the Thunder go small, that shortcoming becomes less of a liability.

Encouraging Durant to guard big men in a situation like this hasn’t been any easier than the sales job Miami’s staff had to perform for LeBron James, though we’ve heard much less about the dynamics in Oklahoma City. But there Durant was in the closing minutes of the game matched up against Gasol on the defensive end.

Despite the mismatch, the Grizzlies went to Randolph one-on-one against Ibaka about as often as they looked for Gasol, which is curious. After Randolph drained a contested, off-balance shot in the lane, then missed another, the Griz rightly returned to Gasol. Durant didn’t play him poorly and forced the center into some difficult shots (e.g. a running hook while trotting away from the basket that kissed glass inside of three minutes), but Gasol was still able to get deep inside the paint. For a Grizzlies offense that saw the ball meander around the arc for much of the game, finding Gasol low was a nice salve.

Unless they make a concerted effort to move the ball against Memphis’ lumbering lineups, the Thunder are in serious danger of losing the small vs. big event.

 

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Before Randolph arrived in Memphis, there were nights it seemed like he regarded team basketball as an inconvenience. It’s easy to forget when you watch Randolph do things like get a pass at the elbow then immediately move the ball into Gasol in the low post with a sharp entry pass. That’s not something Randolph would’ve ever been inclined to do, yet it’s a simple part of his nightly routine at this point of his career.

One of the bigger possessions of the first half came early in the second quarter. The ball worked its way over to Z-Bo just above the right elbow. The call was for a handoff to Jerryd Bayless, who swept along the perimeter from the right wing, but Liggins did a nice job denying Bayless on the initial route. Randolph patiently waited, then watched closely as Bayless stopped short, reversed course and wrong-footed Liggins. The instant Bayless got maximum separation from Liggins, Randolph floated a feathery pass, which Bayless snatched out of the air and launched in rhythm for a 20-foot jump shot.

Does Randolph execute the play five years ago with that kind of precision? Not a chance.

What does an NBA head coaching candidate look like in 2013?

A few new trends have emerged in the coaching ranks, namely the Rise of the Video Kids (see Spoelstra, Erik; Vogel, Frank), but most hires in the NBA follow a well-trodden path. Owners and executives love a track record of success and will pay top dollar for a big name. NBA assistants with winning pedigrees are still popular, as are former NBA players who look the part. In general, guys whose career numbers are visible on Basketball Reference are preferable to those who never suited up in the NBA, while college coaches are viewed with a jaundiced eye.

Some of these biases make sense on the surface, but general managers and owners are often driven by their aversion to risk. By and large, a head coaching hire ranks behind only free agency and the draft as a primary factor when measuring a front office’s competence. The easiest way to pass this test is to hire a winner. The second easiest is to hire someone who seems like a winner and, if he loses, remind ownership and the public of that pedigree. There’s a reason we see certain names pop up on short lists each time there’s a coaching vacancy -- there’s comfort in familiarity. That sentiment becomes stronger when a dark horse like Mike Dunlap doesn’t succeed in Charlotte.

It’s difficult to assess whether the league as a whole is doing a good job of hiring coaches. There are only 1,230 wins to go around each season, so even if we could identify the 30 most capable NBA head coaches in some foolproof, empirical way, about half of them would lose more games than they’d win -- and some of them would lose a whole bunch. There’s no simple way to look at someone and know for certain whether they can thrive as an NBA head coach.

A survey of several league execs, players and other team personnel about what makes a quality hire revealed a few common themes:

It’s all about the buy-in: Game management, preparation and the whiteboard arts are all indispensable qualities for an NBA head coach, but the ability to earn the faith of a superstar and key rotation players is qualification No. 1. “You can always find a graybeard or a grinder who can come up with coverages,” says an NBA front office exec. “But what most teams are looking for now is someone who knows how to build a culture and get the stars to buy in.”

Risk is in the eye of the beholder: What constitutes a safe or risky hire? Ask a dozen execs and you’ll get two dozen answers. For many, coaches from the college ranks represent a considerable risk, and the NBA coaching trail is littered with big-name NCAA coaches with winning pedigrees who flamed out at the next level. Others cite career assistants as high-risk. “You never really know how much of an assistant’s success is based on who his head coach is, and how much of it is real,” one NBA exec says.

Not every fit is a great fit: NBA organizations aren’t one-size-fits-all. They each have a unique character that starts with ownership and management. Some teams project a buttoned-up corporate culture, while others have that foozball-in-the-employee-lounge, open floor plan feel. A coaching candidate who might thrive in one situation won’t necessarily be the right fit in another. Roster, market and ownership are all major variables when measuring fit.

Money is (almost) always an issue: With each passing season, the NBA inducts more owners who come from a “new economy” background, a place where every expenditure is examined for value and efficiency. In this world, wins are measured by the dollar, so spending $4 million per year for a coach if you feel similar results can be achieved with a coach at $1.2 million doesn’t add up.

As we head into the thick of hiring season, here are seven candidates regarded as capable future NBA head coaches. None of the seven have previously held the head job in the NBA -- and some aren’t necessarily the safest choices by conventional measures -- but each would bring an intriguing set of skills and attributes to the job:

David Fizdale, Miami Heat assistant coach
Give Erik Spoelstra the slightest opening and he’ll gush about the impact Fizdale has had as a stabilizing force, teacher and communicator in the circus environment that’s enveloped the Heat over the past three seasons. Fizdale has been instrumental in the evolution of LeBron James’ post game, as well as the feeding and caring of the Heat’s superstar core. When there are new schemes to be implemented or skills to be refined, Fizdale takes it upon himself to make sure the work gets done.

There are a dozens of assistants in the NBA who are certified basketball brainiacs, but few of them have Fizdale’s combination of acumen and capacity to relate to NBA players, despite having never played in the league.

“[Fizdale] grew up hard and fought to get to where he is,” says another NBA power broker. “It’s given him an ability to connect because he understands where a lot of these guys came from.”

Like Spoelstra, Fizdale is an alumnus of the Heat’s video room during the 1990s. He also cut his teeth in the player development realm at Tim Grgurich’s venerable big man camp and as an assistant with Golden State and Atlanta. There’s a broad consensus that the question isn’t if, but when Fizdale will be tapped for a lead job.

David Joerger, Memphis Grizzlies assistant coach
Not long ago, success as a head coach in the Continental Basketball Association was a reliable predictor of success in the NBA. Phil Jackson, George Karl and Flip Saunders, among others, all came up through the minor leagues before landing on an NBA bench. So did Joerger, who won five championships in seven seasons as a head coach in the IBA, CBA and D-League -- all before turning 35 years old.

“He loves the craft,” says an NBA general manager. “Look what he’s done with [the Memphis] defense. He’s got Thibodeau’s thing for defense, but he’s a lot more likable than Thibs.”

When Lionel Hollins delegated the Memphis’ defensive game plan to Joerger, the Grizzlies were the league’s 24th-ranked defense. In the three seasons since, they’ve finished ninth, then seventh and now second in defensive efficiency, and they did it with Zach Randolph at power forward and an unusually small point guard in Mike Conley. It’s rare that NBA players cite their assistants by name, but Tony Allen routinely praises Joerger’s defensive blueprint as an essential ingredient in the Grizz’s success.

Joerger loves to problem-solve and grapple with game theory, and he has an appreciation of analytics. He knows which NBA point guards, in descending order, reject screens most frequently and understands how to impart that information to players. Most of all, Joerger has an acute awareness of what each player on the roster can and can't do. Randolph won't be asked to perform Joakim Noah tasks, and a unit's collective shortcomings are priced into coverage schemes.

Every NBA team these days wants to patent a defensive system, and those in search of an architect have a natural candidate in Joerger.

Fred Hoiberg, Iowa State head coach
Every once in a while, the name of a prominent college coach will circulate as potential NBA material. The communicative and well-tailored Jay Wright was the trendy choice back in 2009 after Villanova’s Final Four run.

Yet for the most part, college coaches have been seen as untouchable by most NBA front offices after a procession of high-profile failures over the past two decades. Are the principles of college ball not transferable to the pro level, or is the under-performance of college coaches a function of the general disposition of the men in question and the rosters they inherited?

Whatever the case, Hoiberg would have all the bases covered. Unlike most of the coaches from the college ranks who dabbled in the NBA, Hoiberg played 10 seasons in the league and has an intimate knowledge of the rhythms and demands of NBA life. After his retirement, he served in the Minnesota Timberwolves front office and was passed over for the top job in basketball operations when David Kahn was hired in 2009. Hoiberg endured a season in the Kahn administration before leaving to coach at Iowa State, where he has effectively rebuilt a flailing program into a tourney team.

“He’s a worker bee who has proven he can coach,” says one NBA exec. “If [Rick Adelman] decides to retire, he’d be the perfect fit in Minnesota. He has a track record there. He could coach Rick’s team, and even coach Rick’s philosophy.”

In retrospect, striking out on his own to gain valuable experience coaching his alma mater was probably a blessing for Hoiberg. But after a while, recruiting gets old and there’s a lot of goodwill for him among NBA decision-makers who see him as a young coach with a bright future.

Steve Kerr, TNT analyst
Would you rather evaluate talent or put it to use? Manage the expectations of a moody owner or a dynamic player? Construct a message for a coach, or just be the coach?

Kerr’s three-year stint as general manager of the Phoenix Suns proved that, with most NBA franchises, the easiest way to have an impact on the floor is not as an executive but as a head coach. Many insiders feel that when Kerr is ready to jump back in, it will be on the sidelines. He’d likely want a major say in personnel decisions and would look to avoid many of the trappings encountered in Phoenix, but if the right gig came along, he’d strongly consider the challenge.

“Steve speaks and thinks the game and has a lot of institutional knowledge,” an NBA executive says. “He sees the value of 1-through-12 and would understand how to manage delicate personalities in the locker room. After [Phoenix Suns owner Robert] Sarver, it would be a vacation.”

Personality management is more vocation than vacation in the NBA, but Kerr has a shadowbox full of rings. It’s probably not in his nature to plunk them down on a table a la Pat Riley, but a championship pedigree commands respect. Combine that with Kerr’s even disposition and silver tongue, and a convincing profile of an NBA head coach emerges.

Alex Jensen, Canton Charge head coach
Jensen was the near-unanimous answer to the question, “Who’s the most likely future NBA head coach currently in the D-League?”

The 36-year-old Jensen just finished his second winning season as the head coach in Canton, the Cleveland Cavaliers’ owned-and-operated affiliate, but he’s best known in basketball circles as the late Rick Majerus’ star protegee. Jensen played for Majerus at the University of Utah in the mid-90s and was the starting forward on the Utes team that lost the 1998 title game to Kentucky. After bumping around the Turkish league -- with a few stops in between in Japan, Spain and the CBA -- Jensen reunited with Majerus, joining his staff at Saint Louis for four seasons.

Jensen has preached Majerus’ doctrine in Canton, where the ball must be shared and players must defend. He’s taken Majerus’ motion offense and peppered it with some of the basic high ball-screens and pin-downs that dominate NBA offenses.

“[Jensen] is cerebral and smart,” an NBA coach says. “He already had a great feel for the game, then he soaked up everything Rick [Majerus] taught him.”

D-League players have been getting call-ups and making key contributions at the NBA level. It’s just a matter of time before we see an NBA team dig into the D-League ranks for a head coach.

Robert Pack, Los Angeles Clippers assistant coach
Had Vinny Del Negro not been granted a reprieve by Clippers owner Donald T. Sterling in March 2012, Pack would have been a playoff head coach last season as Del Negro’s replacement, despite only three seasons of service as an NBA assistant.

Pack raised his profile as a hard-nosed but fair instructor, the guy on staff unafraid to get in a player’s face and tell him when he’s disrespecting the game. The Clippers’ roster is a tough audience of veterans and young supernovas, but Pack quickly earned credibility as someone who offered coaching and an honest ear.

Pack brings a floor general’s approach to the game, and can claim Darren Collison and Eric Bledsoe as young point guards who flourished under his direction. Chris Paul has conveyed his respect for Pack’s expertise and manner.

The short résumé might give some potential employers pause, but pair him with a seasoned assistant steeped in game preparation and Pack figures to be a quick study. The Clippers were ready to hand him the keys to the family wagon during a playoff run. A young team looking to invest in the future could afford him the time to grow, as Orlando has with Jacque Vaughn.

David Blatt, Maccabi Tel Aviv head coach
If basketball is an American game gone global, then Blatt is its quintessential ambassador. Raised near Boston, he has spent the last two decades establishing himself as one of Europe’s premier coaches, currently with Maccabi and during the 2012 Olympics with the Russian national team.

It’s been a few years since the persistent chatter about an NBA team -- Toronto the most popular hypothetical -- hiring a head coach out of Europe. Whenever that line of inquiry is resuscitated, Blatt is the most oft-mentioned name, along with Ettore Messina (formerly of Mike Brown’s staff in Los Angeles) and Sergio Scariolo (head coach at Milano, and the Spanish national team that’s won gold at the last two FIBA EuroBasket championships).

Blatt’s American upbringing and playing career at Princeton under Pete Carril make him a logical trailblazer should an NBA team want to take the plunge. Blatt wouldn’t likely be lured by an assistant’s spot on the bench nor by a consultant’s title similar to Messina’s with the Lakers.

“[Blatt] would want some authorship of the roster and a seat at the table,” says a member of an NBA front office who keeps a close watch on Europe. “Mike D’Antoni is the analog.”

D’Antoni was the last real import, and no NBA team has expressed public interest in a coaching candidate from Europe recently. Still, the prospect of a mind like Blatt’s taking the reins of an NBA team is a fascinating thought exercise. Given Blatt's body of work, characterizing such a hire a risk would be silly.

The void
Los Angeles Clippers forward Blake Griffin didn’t practice Thursday and spent a good portion of the day receiving treatment on his right ankle, which he sprained severely Monday, one day before the Clippers’ Game 5 loss in Los Angeles. If Griffin can’t go in Game 6, or is largely ineffective as a post presence on the offensive end, the Clippers have big issues. They’re not a team -- like San Antonio, for instance -- that runs an airtight system fueled by interchangeable parts. Tim Duncan and Tony Parker are indispensable to their team’s success, but the Spurs can subsist for long stretches without them because the offensive objectives don’t change with their absences.

The Clippers need Griffin down low, where he draws defenders and forces rotations, and in the pick-and-roll with Chris Paul, which forces the Memphis Grizzlies’ big guys to account for him, Chris Paul and the space around them.

The contingency
How can the Clippers absorb Griffin’s absence? On Thursday, Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro said that if Griffin isn’t available, veteran multitasker Lamar Odom would start at power forward for the Clippers. Odom’s presence on the floor with the starters would give the Clippers yet another versatile ball handler and a crafty -- if occasionally freelancing -- team defender. But a better bet might be to go small and hand the lion’s share of the minutes at power forward to Matt Barnes. That would enable them to replicate the successful formula of the bench and open up the game. The Grizzlies like chaos, but their very particular controlled brand of chaos, not the outright disorder a small-ball Clippers unit would bring.

This scheme wouldn’t be without serious challenges for the Clippers. They’d probably have to send quick double-teams from the top of the floor to help Barnes on Zach Randolph, something they did fairly effectively in spots during last season’s epic Game 7. And Paul has always preferred a more controlled approach to half-court offense. But the Clippers will need to move this game from paint to the perimeter, and Barnes at the 4 for significant periods certainly would do that.

The juggernaut
Not exactly a label we normally affix to the Grizzlies’ offense, but racking up 114.4 points per 100 possessions against the Clippers in Game 5 definitely clears the bar for locomotive status. The Grizzlies have done a masterful job of moving Marc Gasol and Randolph around the half court, and by doing so, they’ve been able to cross up Griffin, DeAndre Jordan and the bench bigs.

This isn’t stuff we haven’t seen from the Grizzlies before: pin-downs by Gasol for Randolph, or vice versa. Pick-and-roll-and-replace with Mike Conley and both Gasol and Randolph. The Clippers aren’t a bad defensive team (ranked ninth this season in defensive efficiency), but Memphis’ execution on these sets has been crisp, timely and deceptive. As capable as the Clippers are at defending initial actions, if a defense throws multiple-choice questions at them, things have a way of breaking down. That’s what we’ve seen over the past 3½ games from Memphis, and the trend line keeps improving.

The Q
When the Clippers have grasped for answers after the first quarter, they’ve frequently tapped a three-guard lineup composed of Paul, Eric Bledsoe and Jamal Crawford. Not a terrible idea in theory, but Memphis coach Lionel Hollins has countered that combination with Conley, Tony Allen and reserve Quincy Pondexter.

Memphis has been winning this battle. Allen smothers Crawford, who has shot 43.8 percent during the Clippers’ three losses (only 3-for-11 beyond the arc), and many of those attempts have been with a Crawfordian degree of difficulty. Meanwhile, Pondexter’s size and brawn have bothered Paul. The Clippers point guard tallied 35 points in Game 5 but hasn’t distributed the ball (only 14 assists combined over the three losses). Offensively, Pondexter has given the Grizz some needed stretch, which has been just enough to complicate the Clippers’ rotations and give Gasol the room he needs to work. Bledsoe pesters Conley, but the Grizzlies have adjusted, running the offense through Gasol at the elbow or having Tayshaun Prince initiate possessions with Conley off the ball.

Playoff teams need X factors, players who outperform their baseline production. Pondexter has been that difference-maker in this series, and it’s helped Memphis inordinately.

The consequences
For Memphis, closing out the Clippers on Friday night by winning the series’ final four games would be a resounding success after a sometimes tumultuous season. Dealing Rudy Gay created a lightning rod in Memphis and a period of discontent between Hollins and management. Randolph voiced his objections to some of the new wrinkles in the offense introduced after Gay’s departure and struggled after injuring his ankle in March, which was a major cause for concern. More than all that, though, revenge is a dish that’s best served cold (and in Memphis, it’s also served deep-fried with a heavy sauce), and we’ll see a fully catered event in the Grizzlies’ locker room on Friday night if they can close out the series.

On the Clippers’ side, a loss would be devastating. A 56-win team that looked like a serious contender for much of the season and as recently as 10 days ago would return to Los Angeles with some fateful questions: Paul’s free agency, doubts about roster composition, questions about managerial structure, unhappy ownership and Del Negro’s future.

Summers in Los Angeles are generally temperate, but if the Clippers bow out in Round 1, there will be a high-pressure system hanging over the Clippers offices and training facility in Playa Vista, Calif.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In response to several Twitter requests, here's Outside the Lines on Jason Collins, featuring TrueHoop's Kevin Arnovitz:

"No one wants to live in fear. I've always been scared of saying the wrong thing. I don't sleep well. I never have. But each time I tell another person, I feel stronger and sleep a little more soundly. It takes an enormous amount of energy to guard such a big secret. I've endured years of misery and gone to enormous lengths to live a lie. I was certain that my world would fall apart if anyone knew. And yet when I acknowledged my sexuality I felt whole for the first time."

-- Jason Collins in Sports Illustrated

Everything has changed, yet it all seems so self-evident when you break it down. In which workplace, family, school or community would we not want someone to feel like the best version of himself and committed to his well-being? What benefit is derived from imposing what Metta World Peace aptly referred to as “unnecessary stress” on another person? How is basketball, sports, or the larger world better when we have people like Jason Collins enduring misery, sleeping poorly and expending precious energy guarding secrets? We shouldn’t wait for everyone to be ready before we create the environment for a guy like Collins to thrive -- we should get ready.

This is why the “readiness” canard never rang true to me. The world is never completely ready for change, and there are some in the NBA today expressing ambivalence about Collins’ announcement. Those voices won’t be the last. The next time Collins sets a screen in front of 18,000 people, it’s a fair bet that a couple of them will be angry. There will be players who grumble privately that Collins’ admission makes life a little more awkward for them.

There’s going to be a serious temptation in the next few days to dwell on the commentary of those who are least comfortable with Collins’ decision, but let’s not. We should offer clarity where it’s lacking and perspective where there isn’t any, but this has always been a conversation that’s strongest when it’s forward-looking, not reactive. Present resistance isn’t nearly as profound as future potential. Pretty soon, just about everyone will get over it because that’s what progress is -- the collective act of getting over it.

I still can’t figure out if Collins' coming out is a “where were you when it happened” moment. When I first learned about Collins I was banging out some thoughts and impressions about the Clippers-Grizzlies first-round playoff series for a column. Before Game 4 in Memphis, I witnessed an amusing scene in the Grizzlies locker room, which was empty except for Zach Randolph and Tony Allen sitting at their lockers. Allen was playfully lecturing Z-Bo about the nuances of help defense and the job of the big man in a defensive rotation. Z-Bo smiled, knowing everything Allen was saying was correct. Then, shaking his head, he said, “The big man can never win.”

It was one of those snapshots when players reveal not only something about their approach to the craft but also a bit of who they are as people. Those are the moments you live for when you cover a sport, when the characters become fuller and the images become brighter -- when athletes become real people.

That’s all this conversation about openly gay athletes has ever been about it, our collective willingness to afford them the dignity of self-expression. A human being simply can’t live in fear of his or her own identity. Anyone who has could tell you how torturous it is. Jason Collins understood that, and that realization fueled his decision to come out as an openly gay man on Monday.

Collins called coming out “the right thing.” Some of that is a political imperative, but more than anything, Collins made a quality-of-life decision, just as did Golden State executive Rick Welts and anyone else who’s opted, as Collins wrote, to be whole. That means taking all of the different fragments in life -- work, family, friends, passions, maybe school or worship -- and bringing them together and becoming a complete person.

Sports was one of the last places in American public life where that was impossible, but Collins has righted that.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- As news of the injury to Oklahoma City Thunder guard Russell Westbrook reverberated through the NBA on Friday, the Los Angeles Clippers and Memphis Grizzlies reacted to the Westbrook’s possible absence in a potential second-round series between the Thunder and the winner of the first-round series between the Clippers and Grizzlies.

“[The Thunder] are still a great team even without him, but he’s a huge part of their offense and a great player,” Clippers forward Blake Griffin said. “So it does leave them vulnerable but we can’t really look to that yet. We can’t be focused on that. We have to take care of business first of all here, then set our sights on that.”

The Thunder announced on Friday that Westbrook will undergo surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his right knee. The procedure has yet to be scheduled and there is currently no timetable for his return, according to Thunder team officials. Should Westbrook be sidelined for an extended period and Oklahoma City advances to the second round, he'd miss a series against either the Clippers or the Grizzlies.

Griffin, who suffered a torn meniscus in his left knee while training for the Olympics last July, said the recovery time can vary player to player, depending on the severity of the injury.

“As long as you’re not repairing, you can come back pretty quickly,” Griffin said. “But you’re a step slow. It takes a little bit to get that feeling back and to get the swelling completely out and all that.”

Grizzlies forward Tayshaun Prince said the Thunder’s depth will keep Oklahoma City very competitive, but that injuries can have a major impact on any team’s title chances.

“They’ve got a good enough team to where they’ll still be focused,” Prince said. “No matter what five guys they have on the court, they’ll play hard regardless, so they’ll always have a chance. But obviously we know that’s a big piece to their puzzle. Everybody’s vulnerable when you lose a big piece.”

Prince referenced the near-perfect health enjoyed by the Detroit Pistons’ 2004 championship team for whom he played all 82 games, and the Pistons' 2008 team with a hobbled Chauncey Billups that lost the conference finals to the Boston Celtics.

Clippers guard Jamal Crawford offered compassion for Westbrook while also acknowledging that the injury has implications in the competitive Western Conference bracket.

“As a competitor, you know you’re only a play away from being hurt, so you never want to see that happen,” Crawford said. “[Westbrook] is one of the best players in the league, so it makes this more interesting. That’s for sure.”

Like Crawford, many players on the Clippers and Grizzlies expressed their sympathy for Westbrook, who’s never missed a game during his five season in the NBA. Clippers guard Chris Paul said he spoke to Westbrook on the phone on Friday morning after news of Westbrook’s torn meniscus became public.

“[Westbrook] is a really good friend of mine, and I actually talked to him before we came to practice this morning,” Paul said. “I told him I feel for him, and praying for him, and I hope he’s back soon.”

Paul rejected the notion that Westbrook’s injury will have any impact on the Clippers’ current series with the Grizzlies, which the Clippers lead 2-1.

“It doesn’t do anything for our series,” Paul said.

Clippers veteran guard Billups agreed with Paul. He sternly insisted the injury has absolutely no bearing on the Clippers’ first-round matchup with the Grizzlies. He interrupted a question about the ramifications of Westbrook’s absence to drive home the point.

“It’s got nothing to do with this series,” Billups said. “I hope he gets healthy, but it has nothing to do with this series.”

Westbrook’s injury occurred when Houston Rockets guard Patrick Beverley lunged at the ball in search of a steal as Westbrook dribbled the ball to the sideline to call a time-out. Upon contact with Beverley, Westbrook fell to the floor, then rose, hopping to the bench in pain.

“That’s a freakish accident, that play,” Prince said. “I’m pretty sure the Oklahoma City fans will be pretty pissed off at Beverly.”

The unspeakable
At Grizzlies practice on Wednesday, Tony Allen was asked very generally what adjustments his team needed to make in Game 3. Allen catalogued the greatest hits -- rebounding, “X factor” Eric Bledsoe, pick-and-roll coverage and “we need to try to make someone else beat us.”

Allen wasn’t referring to the aforementioned Bledsoe, rather Chris Paul.

Reporters are in the clarity business, so one asked Allen to confirm that Paul was, indeed, the person of interest. Allen conceded that he was. “I didn’t want to say his name,” Allen said. “I don’t mind talking about it. He is who he is. He’s an All-Star point guard. He’s been a pain in our behind these last two games, and we want to go out there and try to do our best to do a better job of containing him.”

Since Allen has been fixated on Paul since the Clippers point guard banked in the game winner in Game 2 on Monday night, it bears considering whether Allen will draw Him as his primary defensive assignment in Game 3. Cross-matching is fraught with risk because the rest of Memphis’ backcourt is on the small side, which means Chauncey Billups could post up and Jamal Crawford could rise and shoot. But the alternative -- having Paul probe the middle of the court unfettered -- could be fatal for Memphis.

The block
After battling foul trouble in Game 1, when he finished with only 10 points in 25 minutes, Blake Griffin quickly established himself as the focal point of the Clippers’ offense early in Game 2. Possession after possession in the first quarter, the Clippers fed Griffin down on the block, at one point on four consecutive possessions -- left, then right, then left, then right.

There’s still a vocal contingent that believes Griffin’s post game is nothing more than a jack-in-the-box -- a long windup followed by a random burst -- but Griffin beat Zach Randolph, Marc Gasol and Darrell Arthur with jump steps, spins to get baseline when the defender crowded him, spins to get middle when the defense was stretched. All the while, Griffin did his John Wooden Best, acting quickly but never hurrying.

The Grizzlies looked for Gasol down low, as well. Gasol drew mismatches, then dragged the likes of Caron Butler to the post. Arthur pinned DeAndre Jordan at the elbow to allow Gasol to move low a step ahead of his defender. And they had Gasol roll deeper with the intention of getting him the ball closer to the basket.

All of this highlights one truism -- the Clippers need Griffin and the Grizzlies really need Gasol to score down low.

The whistle
Last season’s seven-game tilt between the Clippers and Grizzlies was an absolute slugfest. Perhaps in response, this season’s series has been officiated far more tightly, at least through the first two games. There’s some debate as to whom that favors, but the Grizzlies seem far more frustrated by the bevy of foul calls than the Clippers.

Asked on Wednesday how to avoid the kind of ticky-tack fouls that are hampering his team, a salty Lionel Hollins responded, “Stop committing ticky-tack fouls.”

Hollins has seen his team give up several points in the series by fouling 30 feet from the basket while the Clippers are in the bonus. The Grizzlies know better. They also know they’re the superior defensive team, albeit the one with less foot speed. As they come home for Game 3, the Grizzlies need to focus less on gladiating and more on what they do best as a defense -- sending opponents to destinations on the floor they have no desire to visit. Do that, and the rest will take care of itself.

The freak
The word is out on Bledsoe who, in 32 total minutes, has outrebounded the 7-foot Gasol, wreaked havoc on the Grizzlies’ backcourt and injected into the series an element of chaos. That's a quality that normally favors Memphis, but has worked to the Clippers’ benefit over the first two games.

Allen is right -- Bledsoe is the series’ X factor, the player whose speed exposes the Grizzlies’ lack thereof, and whose pressure upsets an opponent that needs a modicum of space to get what it wants offensively.

No instructions exist to contain Bledsoe, apart from waiting for him to self-combust, which will happen from time to time. Bledsoe averaged 16 minutes over the first two games, but Vinny Del Negro kept him on the floor during the Clippers’ fourth-quarter surge in Game 1. The Clippers’ coach has gradually invested a level of trust in Bledsoe, one that will continue to pay dividends when the game calls for some guerrilla warfare.

The coach
Speaking of Del Negro, a number of NBA insiders and observers have come to a similar conclusion: He’s coached his tail off over the first two games of the series.

Rather than shorten the Clippers’ rotation, the much-maligned Del Negro returned to what worked in November and December, when the Clippers played championship-level basketball for nearly eight weeks -- two well-defined units, with extended minutes for Paul and Griffin and slightly abbreviated stints for the starting wings.

So far as play calling, Del Negro still defers much of it to Paul, but has also installed a number of nifty sets that use Paul off the ball in order to get him some live catches and destabilize the Grizzlies’ sturdy defense. And watch for another pretty scheme where Paul dishes the ball off to the wing, makes a UCLA cut before reversing course to set a back screen for Griffin.

These are just a couple of examples. Each game, the Clippers show off a few new wrinkles in what’s been an otherwise rudimentary offense during Del Negro’s tenure as coach. The stuff is working -- and Del Negro and staff deserve praise.

The Glass
Finding signs of encouragement after a 21-point loss can be like leading a search party in the dark, but if the Grizzlies are looking for some reassurance, it should come in the near certainty that they won’t be outrebounded again by a 2-to-1 margin. If that seemed unprecedented, that's because it was. Memphis didn't come anywhere close to a margin like that in any game during the regular season.

There’s a general belief that rebounding doesn’t slump in the NBA. A team like the Grizzlies, which dominated the boards in the regular season (second in overall rebounding rate), doesn’t forget how to ply its trade. Short of injury or a deliberate strategy like a zone defense or fronting the post -- tactics that can make it harder to crash the glass -- a debacle such as Saturday night's is an outlier.

The Grizzlies better hope so. They’re not a team endowed with much perimeter firepower or natural athleticism. They win basketball games by controlling possessions, something they simply can’t accomplish if the Clippers are collecting 42 percent of their misses.

The Point God
Chris Paul exerts an element of control over a basketball game that’s uncanny, and this hasn't been news in ages. What’s more interesting to observe is how he manages his role within the emotional and strategic contours of that game, not unlike LeBron James, in a sense. Is Paul creating for others, or hunting shots for himself? Is he conserving energy off the ball, or is he in Probe Mode?

On Saturday night, the answer was all of the above, and that’s really where Paul needs to be for the Clippers to achieve their full potential as an offensive club. We saw some new wrinkles to the Clippers’ half-court game, with Paul not exclusively an initiator but also a scorer. He came off screens for live-ball catches in a couple of inventive sets, the kind of stuff we haven’t always seen from the Clippers. But Paul also claimed several possessions for himself to test the mobility of the Memphis big men.

For Memphis, the pick-and-roll coverage has to improve, and the Grizzlies know that. They’re an exceptionally well-prepared group that’s completely devoted to the execution of a very intelligent defensive system. Grizzlies coach Lionel Hollins and several players laid it out Sunday at practice.

“The guards have to do a better job of pushing up on the ball handlers,” Mike Conley said. “They were flipping the screens, so our big would show one way, but then their big would flip the screen and Chris would see it. I’d run into the screen pretty good and he’d get a full head of steam on our big man, and you can’t guard him when he’s got a full head of steam with the confidence he has in the paint.”

A defense might not be able to take away Paul’s confidence, but it can take away some real estate.

The Gamble
OK, so who’s going to defend Paul? A tough question because there’s no entirely satisfying answer. In Game 1, Hollins opted for Conley. This wasn’t an unreasonable conclusion.

Conley did an acceptable job of checking Paul during last year’s playoff series. Paul certainly created some quality shots, but he worked for just about everything and spent a fair amount of time in spots on the floor where he had no interest being.

But on Saturday, it wasn’t just that Paul got where he wanted to go, but that he got there in such little traffic. As Blake Griffin said, there was something extremely un-Grizzly about the Clippers' "getting what they wanted," and it can largely be attributed to the little resistance encountered by Paul.

The obvious alternative would be to stick Tony Allen on Paul, but that presents other risks, such as Chauncey Billups dragging Conley into the post. We saw Billups draw Conley on a switch in Game 1 and then promptly back Conley down before draining an easy midrange shot over him.

There are no good choices for guarding Paul, but that might be a risk the Grizzlies have to take. If nothing else, it’s putting your best defender where he’s most useful.

The Center
The league has only a handful of players through whom you can run your offense at the high post. Marc Gasol is one of them. On the possessions when Memphis’ offense is at its most fluid and attractive, chances are Gasol is stationed at the elbow.

The Grizzlies need Gasol to spend time at that spot and feed his teammates, but they also need him to generate some offense for himself, which is why Gasol’s ratio of low-post to high-post touches has been increasing recently. When Gasol is aggressive down on the block, he’s effective, and it’s not as if working down low strips him of his ability to be a playmaker. Instead of playing high-low with Zach Randolph, the Grizzlies can play block to block -- horizontal passes rather than vertical ones.

Having Gasol set up in the low post has its drawbacks. For one, it cramps Randolph a bit. The right block is where Randolph makes his living and serves his team best, and he needs a ribbon of empty space around him. But the Grizzlies do a nice job of staggering the minutes of their big men, which should provide Gasol with plenty of feeds closer to the basket.

The Spark
When the Clippers were ripping off 17 straight wins in December, the margins of victory could be credited to the performance of the second unit, which was decimating the league. Between Eric Bledsoe’s bedlam, Jamal Crawford’s marksmanship, Matt Barnes’ wiliness, Lamar Odom’s versatility and Ronny Turiaf’s … turiafity, the Clippers featured the most exciting and most productive bench in basketball. When excitement and productivity meet, you’re generally in a good place.

That’s the world the Clippers returned to in Game 1. “It felt like December” was something we heard a lot Saturday night and into Sunday, and nothing triggered that sense of deja vu more than the play of the bench.

The Grizzlies do chaos very well themselves, even if their complementary players aren't as talented. They also encountered this last April, so there’s no element of surprise. What they have to do now is neutralize to some degree the energy generated by the Clippers’ reinforcements.

Thanks to the resourcefulness of Chris Vernon, radio host at 92.9 ESPN Sports Radio in Memphis, the world was treated to video of Tony Allen's interpretation of Montell Jordan's "This is How We Do It" at Allen's Karaoke Night last week.



Objectively terrible, don't you think? Allen couldn't remember word one of the song.

On Saturday at Grizzlies' shootaround prior to Memphis' Game 1 matchup with the Los Angeles Clippers, Allen offered an explanation of the NBA's biggest karaoke fail in recent memory:

I thought I knew it. I froze up. You know what it was? I'm going to tell you what it was. The words were coming off the projector too slow, Man. So I was trying to read it and trying to remember what I knew, then look at the words and it didn't mix.

But I've been listening to that song ever since I left that place. There will be a comeback, definitely. Definitely.

There are second acts in Tony Allen's America.