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As the Dwight Howard saga took one last lap along the curvy road course, with a declaration to RealGM.com of his intent to sign off on a return to Orlando for the final year of his contract (backed up by a source who has spoken to Howard), it turned out that the Magic’s best shot at keeping him was intensifying their efforts to trade him.

That was the Magic’s response to Howard’s statement Tuesday night that he wanted to spend the rest of the season in Orlando and that the Magic should “roll the dice” afterward. Or, perhaps, that was their strategically leaked response. Whatever the actual means, the end was the intended effect.

The Magic forced a resolution by calling Howard on his season-long signals of yearning to make his future home with the Nets by threatening to send him there right away…and letting him watch the playoffs from home. Moving up to New Jersey would move Howard down nine spots in the Eastern Conference standings. He would go from four games behind the Miami Heat for the No. 2 seed to 4 ½ games behind the Milwaukee Bucks for the final playoff spot. And a league source said that missing out on the playoffs would cost Howard significant bonuses from his Adidas contract.

What a great play by the Magic. It seemed to drive home the point they were trying to make all along, that if Howard wants to win a championship the Magic are about as good a short- and mid-term option as he’s got. It didn’t hurt that the Magic racked up victories against the Bulls and Heat in a recent six-day span.

So all of a sudden Howard was willing to consider opting in for the final year of his contract and spending another season in Orlando. That was the only realistic expectation the Magic had. They just wanted to buy some time to see if they could convince Howard to stay even longer. The public waffling by Howard this week is the same sort of alternately encouraging and discouraging signals he’d sent to them in private discussions throughout the season.

With the moment of truth drawing near, Howard says he will sign the waiver of the early termination option on his contract. You can debate whether this whole affair has diminished Howard’s value as a franchise player, but the Magic see him as one, and they have wanted to keep him. It’s looking like they have reached their goal.

A snapshot look at Sunday’s NBA action

Home is where Kobe Bryant, Andrew Bynum and the rest of the Los Angeles Lakers seem to function best. That came through statistically and in the form of the Lakers ninth straight win at home, over the Boston Celtics, on Sunday afternoon.

Bryant scored 10 of his game-high 26 points in the fourth quarter, including the go-ahead jumper with 41 seconds remaining. Bryant leads the NBA with 291 fourth-quarter/overtime points this season, 18 more than Kevin Durant.

Bynum also had a particularly good day in terms of his post-up game. Bynum was 5-for-7 and scored 12 points in post-up situations, with 10 of those coming in the paint.

Bynum ranks third in the NBA with 498 post-up points this season.

Williams stars; Knicks continue to struggle
The issues continued for the New York Knicks, who lost to the Philadelphia 76ers on Sunday.
This time, they were done in by 76ers reserve Lou Williams, who entered shooting only 41 percent from the field, but was 10-for-19 in this contest, including 3-for-5 from 3-point range.

Williams made 8-of-14 jump shots, a nice bounce-back after a stretch in which he made 11-of-his-last 30.

Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin finished with 14 points, seven assist, and six turnovers. He’s now had 10 games with at least six turnovers this season, tied for the second-most such games in the NBA.

After averaging 25 points on 51 percent shooting in his first eight starts this season, Lin has averaged 16.3 points on 29 percent shooting in his last nine, a stretch in which the Knicks are 2-7.

Odd Game of the Night Josh Smith was 13-for-23 from the field, but just 1-for-6 from the free throw line in the Atlanta Hawks 106-99 win over the Sacramento Kings.

Smith is now shooting 56.2 percent from the free throw line for the season, a rate that if maintained would be a career low and a significant drop from his 72.5 percent from a season ago.

Plus-Minus Note of the Night
Cleveland Cavaliers guard Daniel Gibson was a +21 in a win over the Houston Rockets. It was Gibson’s best plus-minus of the season and his best plus-minus in any game since the 2008-09 season.

The Cavaliers, whose bench outscored the Rockets bench, 49-30, are now only one game out of the No. 8 seed in the Eastern Conference.

The rebounds have always come in bunches for Minnesota Timberwolves forward Kevin

Love

Love.The 3-pointers seem to come in streaks.

Love had 39 points and 17 rebounds in the Timberwolves win over the Los Angeles Clippers in a game in which he netted an impressive statistical accomplishment.

Via the Elias Sports Bureau, Love is the first player in NBA history to record consecutive games of at least 35 points and 10 rebounds, making at least five 3-pointers in each game.

Love went 1-for-7 on 3-pointers in his first two games after winning the NBA’s three-point shooting contest. That capped a month in which he went just 8-for-41 on 3-pointers, but he is 10-for-18 from long distance in his last two, with five apiece against the Trail Blazers and Clippers.

Thunder reign on off-night
How good are the Oklahoma City Thunder? Good enough to beat the Dallas Mavericks on a night in which Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant shoot 12-for-38 from the field.

The Thunder had their second-worst shooting night of the season, but improved to 3-0 in 2011-12 when shooting under 40 percent from the field.

Teams shooting below 40 percent from the field entered Monday with a 46-195 record in games this season (.191 winning percentage).

Howard’s Magic Touch
Dwight Howard was 16-for-20 from the field in the Orlando Magic’s 92-88 win over the Toronto Raptors.
It was the ninth time in his career that Howard took at least 15 shots from the field and made at least 80 percent of them. That’s the second-most such games among active players, trailing only Amar’e Stoudemire, who has 11.

Howard's free-throw struggles (4-for-14) cost him a chance at a 40-point, 80-percent shooting game. He's the last player to have such a game, doing so a year ago against the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Instead, he became the first player to shoot at least 80 percent from the field and below 30 percent from the free throw line since he did so in March, 2010. The only other player with multiple such games games in the last 20 years is Shaquille O'Neal.

Howard did handle himself alright on the defensive end, holding his man to 2-for-8 shooting, based on Synergy’s video review data.

Team Feat of the Night
The Chicago Bulls outrebounded the Indiana Pacers, 60-32, in Monday’s win. The plus-28 rebounding margin was the biggest by any NBA team against an opponent this season, and the biggest by the Bulls in a game since late in the 1996-97 season when Michael Jordan and company outrebounded the Philadelphia 76ers, 66-32, for their 66th win of the season.

Plus-Minus Note of the Night
Philadelphia 76ers rookie center Nikola Vucevic posted a career-worst -21 in a loss to the Milwaukee Bucks.

The 76ers got burned by Bucks center Drew Gooden, who finished with 25 points and 10 rebounds, his fifth 20-10 game this season, and Brandon Jennings (33 points), who is averaging 31.3 points in three games this month.

PORTLAND, Ore. -- It’s not that the Thunder should still be the SuperSonics, it’s that the Trail Blazers could be the Thunder.

It’s hard to forget the Thunder’s roots when they play a big Northwest Division game within driving distance of Seattle, just as with Kevin Durant in town, it’s hard not to imagine what the alternate course the Blazers could follow if they had picked him over Greg Oden with the first pick in the 2007 draft -- or if Oden and Brandon Roy could have functional knees to give Portland a duo to match Oklahoma City’s Durant and Russell Westbrook (with LaMarcus Aldridge in Rip City to boot).

In the alternate universe, the maturing Trail Blazers would be hitting their stride and possess the best record in the Western Conference, the way the Thunder (19-5) do now. Instead, the cold facts have the Blazers (14-11) in fourth place in what’s become the toughest division in the NBA, and one spot out of the playoffs after Monday's 111-107 overtime loss to Oklahoma City.

Even if Aldridge is fulfilling the best-case scenario projections for his talent, the Trail Blazers, as a team, aren’t maxing out. That’s because they aren’t taking care of the gritty parts of the NBA, such as winning on the road or, in this home game, boxing out on the defensive boards.

Fortune favors the most determined, and while the Blazers fans had every reason to be upset about a bad goaltending call on an apparent clean blocked shot by Aldridge on a Durant layup, they’d be remiss in ignoring what enabled the play to happen: a failure by the Blazers to grab the rebound on three consecutive missed shots by the Thunder.

That set up Durant’s drive to the hoop, and Aldridge’s block that quickly smacked off the backboard and back toward midcourt, only to be ruled a goaltend and tie the game at 103.

“I timed it,” Aldridge said. “I knew he was going to go to the basket, shoot with his right hand, so I timed it perfectly. I put it on the glass. It didn’t hit the glass first.”

The Blazers still had a last possession, still had enough time for Nicolas Batum to drive down a wide-open lane, only to veer away from the basket and have his layup swatted by Westbrook.

And let’s not forget the Blazers were at home for the overtime period, playing on a court where they’d lost only once in their first 12 home games. But the Thunder, cheered on by a small group of fans wearing old Sonics jerseys and calling them by their birth name, outscored the Blazers 8-4 in the extra period.

“Regardless of calls, we still had an opportunity to win that game if we do the things that are necessary: rebound the ball, offensively you execute, you attack, you put the ball in the basket,” Nate McMillan said. “Normally, the fourth quarter -- certainly in close games like that -- it’s going to come down to making plays. They made the plays.”

So now the Blazers are 14-11. Nine of their losses have come on the road, including in Detroit and Sacramento. If the Blazers are still struggling to grasp the basics of being a great NBA team (step one: win at least half of your road games), the Thunder are close to mastering it. They’re 10-4 on the road, and they just pulled out a victory in one of the league’s most challenging venues.

“We are not where we need to be,” Scott Brooks said. “And I think anytime you play i n a hostile crowd like Portland and play the game we played, it’s going to help. No matter how old or how young you are, you always need games like this.”

Truth is, the NBA needs more games like this -- at least the first 47 minutes, before the officiating came to the forefront, when it was just two young and fast teams going at it, producing 13 ties and 12 lead changes, plenty of full-court action, and the occasional back-and-forth between Aldridge (who finished with 39 points) and Durant (33). But Aldridge didn’t have a Westbrook riding shotgun, producing a stat line of 28 points, 11 rebounds and eight assists. Aldridge didn’t even have Ray Felton, who missed the game with a foot injury. (I know “foot injury” is a sensitive word combination in Portland.)

This would be a great playoff series if the Trail Blazers can grab the eighth seed. They’ll need a little more determination, some better late-game execution, a little more of the moxie displayed by the Seattle SuperSon—er, Oklahoma City Thunder.

This is personal.

It has to be. Even though the number of people Kobe Bryant would love to shut up this season (including every voting member of the ESPN.com NBA rankings panel) would probably exceed the total number of Facebook users, I’m convinced the 48 points Kobe dropped Tuesday night were directed at one person in particular: Steve Nash.

Kobe keeps saying how much he hates the Phoenix Suns.

But there’s almost nothing left from the Suns teams that knocked the Lakers out of the first round of the playoffs in 2006 and 2007. The coach is gone, the general manager is gone, every other player is gone ... there’s even a different guy doing tricks in the gorilla suit. The only one who remains is Steve Nash. The same Steve Nash who won the Most Valuable Player award over Bryant in 2005 and 2006.

So really, whom else is Kobe supposed to hate? Channing Frye? Hakim Warrick? He sure doesn’t hate Shannon Brown, his former teammate whom he embraced in a tight hug right after the buzzer sounded.

It’s gotta be Nash.

Those 48 points Kobe scored during the Lakers’ 99-83 victory were his most scored since March 22, 2011 -- against the Phoenix Suns. *And as Dave McMenamin pointed out, the last time Kobe scored more than 48 was when he put up 49 on March 1, 2009 -- against the Phoenix Suns. This can’t be a coincidence. Kobe is too cold and calculating for this to be coincidence.

“I don’t like them,” Bryant said of the Suns. “Plain and simple, I do not like them. They used to whip us pretty good and used to let us know about it, and I. Will. Not. Forget. That.”

Even though most of the guys from that team are gone?

“I. Don’t. Care,” Bryant said. “I won’t let it go.”

He still remembers those people who doubted him when he was drafted in 1996, so he sure is going to remember the guy who took his trophies and sent him home twice.

When Bryant got the chance to go one-on-one with Nash in the first half Tuesday night, he even changed his signature sound. Normally Bryant calls for the ball by using his tongue to push staccato bursts of air through his teeth. It sounds kind of like the Smoke Monster on “Lost.” As soon as Nash switched onto Bryant, however, Kobe made sure he wouldn’t miss out on the opportunity. He posted up Nash on the right block and let loose a holler that could be heard throughout Staples Center.

“Whooo!” he yelled. “Whoo!”

The ball found its way to him, and he scored.

Later, Nash was guarding Bryant again, trying to deny him from the front. But the entry pass sailed over Nash’s head to Bryant, who turned around and had an easy, open jumper.

That was it for Nash’s defensive duties on Kobe. The task fell to Grant Hill for much of the night.

“Just make him work,” Hill said of his thankless task. “He hit some tough shots. He missed some shots at times. I thought in the third quarter I did a decent job ... then he came out in the fourth and really did a good job of closing it."

Bryant made six of his seven shots in the fourth quarter. (LeBron James, meanwhile, didn’t take a shot in the fourth quarter and was 1-for-3 in overtime of the Heat’s loss at Golden State, if you feel like having that discussion.)

Over the past five games, Bryant has made 69 of 134 shots (51 percent). So while this might not be as spectacular as, say, his run of four consecutive 50-point games in 2006-07, the fact that he can be so accurate while playing with a torn ligament in his right wrist makes this as impressive a stretch as I’ve seen him play.

“He’s doing it in a pretty efficient manner,” Derek Fisher said. “That’s what really stands out about what he’s doing now. He’s always going to be aggressive and assertive to score, but he’s picking his spots and he’s doing it in a very efficient manner. That ranks it right up there with the best of them because it doesn’t look like he’s trying to do it. He’s just doing it within the flow of the game. That’s been very effective for him and us.”

Fourteen of Bryant's 18 baskets Tuesday night came from below the foul line. Only five of his 13 misses were from that range.

“Just making adjustments,” Bryant said. “You have to figure out a way to get it done. There’s no time to make excuses.”

I still don’t think it’s a good long-term indicator for the Lakers if they need Bryant to be so great in order to beat the likes of Phoenix and Golden State at home. But it’s not as detrimental if he’s shooting so effectively, instead of taking wild shots at the expense of getting the ball to the big men. That was the issue I’ve had with him before: not playing the percentages. On Tuesday night, he made 58 percent of his 31 shots. Maybe he should have shot even more.

There’s no way he can shoot 58 percent every game ... if only because there’s no way he can play every game against Steve Nash.

Things don't look much different from last season for the Chicago Bulls, who rolled to a win over the Orlando Magic on Friday, with perhaps one subtle exception.

Since the start of last season, the Bulls are now 29-11 against teams that are .500 or better. That’s the best mark against such teams in the NBA.

One much-discussed trend evident from Chicago’s strong start is Derrick Rose’s evolution into becoming more of a pass-first player (he had 10 more assists in Friday’s win).

The proof of this can be seen in video review of situations in which he is the ballhandler on a pick-and-roll play.

Rose has increased the rate at which he’ll pass on pick-and-roll plays in the early part of the season. Last season, he did so slightly less than half of the time of the time.

This season, he’s done so slightly more often, and with greater success, as noted in the chart on the right.

One extra time per game of choosing to pass rather than shoot has led to good results so far. He had four of his 10 assists on pick-and-rolls in Friday’s win.

That said, Rose’s high assist total early this season is actually almost a near match for what he did in the first eight games last season, when he registered 76 assists. It will be worth watching to see if his pass-first ways continue.

Elsewhere in the NBA

Golden Nuggets

The Denver Nuggets won again, beating the New Orleans Hornets, 96-88 to improve to 6-2. Denver is playing at the fastest pace in the league, registering upwards of 100 possessions per game and averaging the most fast-break points per game (24.3).

But what stat is most shocking? They rank first in the NBA in defensive efficiency, allowing 92 points allowed per 100 possessions.

A Night To Forget for Pierce
On a night in which the Boston Celtics were held to just 25 first-half points (their-worst output, via Elias, since 1995), Paul Pierce was just 3-for-17 from the field.

It was just the second game in Pierce's career in which he made that few shots in that many attempts.

Pierce was 3-for-19 in a Celtics loss at the Charlotte Hornets on April Fool's Day in 2001.

Spreading the Love Around
In a 98-87 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers, Minnesota Timberwolves forward Kevin Love had 29 points and 14 rebounds.

Love is the first to have at least 20 points and 12 rebounds in his team's first seven games since 1975 (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar -- 10 straight).

Plus-Minus Stat of the Night
Carmelo Anthony starred for the New York Knicks with 37 points, but fan-favorite guard Iman Shumpert made an impact again.

The Knicks outscored the Washington Wizards by 20 points in Shumpert’s 37 minutes on the floor on Friday. They were outscored by 17 points in the 11 minutes in which he was on the bench.

Anthony, by the way, has 204 points through the Knicks first seven games. According to Elias, only one Knicks player had more points in that many games—Bernard King with 228 in 1984-1985.

Stephen Curry isn’t playing for the Golden State Warriors against the Los Angeles Lakers Friday night because of his sprained right ankle. He says he won’t play against the Utah Jazz Saturday, when he’ll have a doctor examine the ankle again. He hopes to return next Thursday, Jan. 12, when the Warriors play the Orlando Magic in Oakland.

Curry had surgery to repair two of the three main ligaments in his ankle and now has sprained the third. He hurt the ankle in a preaseason game against the Sacramento Kings, then in the second regular season game against the Chicago Bulls and again vs. the San Antonio Spurs on Jan. 4.

Curry said the most frustrating aspect has been an inability to find any consistency because he is constantly getting hurt. He’s already going to make one change: he’s switching shoe models, from Nike Hyperdunks to Nike Zooms.

LOS ANGELES -- Derrick Rose is making the point guard debate as tough as … stopping Derrick Rose. Whenever the inevitable question about who’s the best point guard in the NBA came up I used to give myself an out and say that Derrick Rose was the best player at the point guard but Chris Paul was the best point guard. Paul did a better job fulfilling the traditional duties of the job: running the offense and setting up teammates, thus the distinction. But if Derrick Rose is going to play like this, dominate in every facet of the game the way he did by beating Paul’s Clippers on Friday night, then he’ll deserve to be called the best point guard -- in addition to the reigning Most Valuable Player.

It can’t be done much better than Rose’s 29 points, 16 assists and eight rebounds.

That it came against Paul makes it more definitive. This game was like a tutorial on how to play the position. (That it came on Dec. 30 and not Dec. 25 is still a sore subject for those who favor the purple and gold colors in this town.)

“It’s a point guard-driven league,” Paul said. “Every night I play, I’ve got my hands full. It was Tony Parker two nights ago.”

Sunday brings Ty Lawson, the first day of a month that will see him square off against Ray Felton, Deron Williams, Ricky Rubio and Russell Westbrook before it’s done. I’ll be interested to hear his rankings after he gets an up-close look at all of them.

Rose called these type of matchups: “Fun. Fun. Fun.

It’s a challenge, especially when you’re on an island. The crowd gets into it.

I’m taking the challenge. It’s fun, man. It could be anybody.”

On this night it was Paul. Paul’s line of 15 points, 14 assists and four steals would normally jump off the stat sheet, but it didn’t even amount to the best numbers on his team (those would be Blake Griffin’s 34 points and 13 rebounds). Still, the artistry of Paul’s game was evident throughout the night. Paul might be the greatest threat in the league when he’s standing still, dribbling. He can cause chaos without moving. That’s what he did in the third quarter, when he circled around Griffin, got into the lane and then came to a halt. Rose trailed off the screen, Carlos Boozer ran behind Paul to cover a potential jump-shooter and Joakim Noah stepped toward Paul. That left Griffin with an open path to cut down the lane, collect a bounce pass from Paul and slam it home.

There was also a Lob City pass to DeAndre Jordan, and a pretty drive for a layup after an offensive set broke down.

But Rose was more dominant.

“They’re both fierce competitors,” Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau said. “Derrick got our team going offensively. We had some easy baskets, we had a good pace. And his rebounding was terrific tonight. The assists, the points, but the rebounding was excellent.

“He’s gotten significantly better because of his experience. He’s seeing every type of defense there is, and I think he understands where the holes in the defense are. Every time you put two [defenders] on the ball or do certain things, there’s going to be openings. And he’s got to read those and I think he’s doing a good job with that.”

Rose says he’s gotten back to the way he played in high school. He swears he was pass-first back then, but shifted to more of a scorer at his coach’s request during his lone college season at Memphis.

“Ask Coach Cal,” Rose said.

That style continued in his first three years in the NBA. But now, with the addition of free agent Richard Hamilton and with Carlos Boozer available from the outset of the season, Rose has more options at his disposal. The problem was he started playing that way, as indecisive as that annoying person in front of you at Starbucks who had his entire time in line to look at the board but still can’t figure out his order when he gets to the front.

In the season opener against the Lakers, Rose kept standing at the top, trying to direct the offense from there. The tell-tale stat: He did not attempt a free throw. He tried shooting a little more the next night at Golden State and wound up firing eight 3-pointers, missing seven. The tell-tale stat from Friday: He got to the free throw line 11 times, and made 10.

“Me attacking first, it opens up everyone else on the court,” Rose said. “The first game I was basically on the perimeter, passing everyone the ball. Settling for jumps shots. I think the Golden State game was like that too. Since then, I’m trying to push the ball and get to the line.”

Rose’s hands were all over the decisive sequence midway through the fourth quarter, by firing a pass to Luol Deng for a 3-pointer from the right corner, driving to the hoop then dishing to Kyle Korver for a 3 from the left corner, then hitting a 3 of his own from the top to put the Bulls ahead by 15.

He also didn’t let Paul and the Clippers come back. That’s another element of the experience Thibodeau talked about. Rose sounded pretty knowledgeable about the tendencies of a Clippers team that has only been together for a couple of weeks.

“If you watch their games, at the end of the quarters, especially in the fourth quarter, they always give [Paul] an isolation at the top of the key,” Rose said. “He loves shooting at the top of the key, at the elbows, and you really have to get into him. He’s a great player, especially when he has the ball in his hands in isolation.”

Keep in mind, Rose won the MVP after only three laps around the league. He’s still downloading information, but he said, “My basketball IQ is getting very high.”

Meanwhile, he’s counting on his buddies to keep his ego level low. “I don’t have any yes men in my circle,” he said. They’ll usually hit up his cellphones during or right after games and call him out on any mistakes.

On Friday night he checked his Blackberry and saw 11 text messages and four BBMs, then unlocked his iPhone and quickly scrolled through about 10 more messages. Not much negative to say about his performance. It was Derrick Rose who sent out a signal that was more emphatic than any text or tweet: After being crowned the best in the league, he’s ready to be the best at his position.

The Knicks are just as disconnected in the locker room as they are on the court. There’s no one voice that speaks for them, just as there’s no player setting the tone, creating a template on either offense or defense that the rest of the team can follow.

Consider, in chronological order in which they were said, these quotes from the starting frontcourt after the Knicks lost to the Lakers, 99-82, Thursday night.

“With the way this season is, we didn’t get much time to come together and get things said and get an understanding of where we’re going to get our shots.”

--Tyson Chandler

“There’s no excuses. There’s definitely no excuses. It is what it is at this point in time. You can’t cry over a short training camp. It’s all about playing basketball right now.”

-- Carmelo Anthony

“We’ve only had a short amount of time. We’re still trying to figure it out. Offensively we’re just not smooth right now. It takes time to get it together.”

-- Amare Stoudemire

In the box score that’s two for “it will take time” and one “lack of time is no excuse.” Whose voice should matter the most? Stoudemire got to New York first. Anthony is the most heralded. Chandler won a championship. Yet no one has established himself as The Man on this team.

So the Knicks look aimless, seeming to regress by the day, their exciting Christmas victory over Boston both negated by subsequent losses to the Warriors and Lakers and diminished by the fact the Celtics have yet to beat anybody since.

Their defensive average of 98 points allowed per game ranks in the bottom third of the league and yet, surprisingly, their greatest concern is offense right now. The coaching staff’s greatest concern is finding a way to get Chandler more involved, even though he was brought there to shore up the defense.

Chandler managed 13 points Thursday, mostly because he made 11 of 14 free throws. (The only thing the Knicks did well all night was hit free throws, 34 of 41).

One play typified the difficulty they’ve had incorporating Chandler. The Lakers’ Jason Kapono, who is five inches shorter than the 7-foot-1 Chandler, switched on to him and Chandler reached up his hand to ask for the ball on the right block. Mike Bibby saw the mismatch, but couldn’t figure out a way to deliver the ball to him. He wound up passing elsewhere.

But let’s be honest: the Knicks won’t rise and fall with Chandler’s touches in the paint. The way they’re constructed they need Carmelo and Amare to total at least 47 points – their combined career averages – to win games.

They went for 48 (37 by Melo) against Boston, but in the next two games have produced 29 and 42. There’s no guarantee they’ll hit the number at Sacramento Saturday because Stoudemire sprained his left ankle in the fourth quarter and says he is day to day.

Can the defense hold things down if Amare is hurt? Uh, would that be the same defense that let the Lakers shoot 72 percent in the first half? The Lakers actually shot better from the field with the Knicks attempting to check them than they did standing unguarded at the free-throw line (67 percent) in the first half.

Granted, there was no way to stop some of the shots Kobe Bryant threw up, including the 3-pointer that banked in after he was fouled on the way up. But the least they could have done was attempted to run out and wave a hand at the shooters who camped out in the corners after that and knocked down 3-pointers left and right to put this game away midway through the fourth quarter.

With so much going wrong, where to start fixing the Knicks? What to say?

“If I knew, I’d go in and tell them,” coach Mike D’Antoni said. “I don’t know yet, but we’ll turn it around.”

D'Antoni had the most disturbing comments of all, when he said he hasn't had a good feeling about the Knicks offense all month, and that the only reason they beat Boston was because of outstanding individual performances, not great team play. Normally coaches waiver between false bravado when things aren't working or intense nitpicking to counter excessive, premature praise. What D'Antoni has done is turn over his cards and shown a 3 and a 5, off-suited. He just admitted that he ain't got it.

The Knicks can expect Baron Davis to run the point when he returns from his back injury. That should help. Only Davis still can’t provide an answer as to when that will be.

Until then, we’ll continue to wonder just what this team is, and to whom it belongs.

The Oklahoma City Thunder place a high value on players’ ability to “fit in” – and it’s clear Russell Westbrook no longer does. If he doesn’t fit emotionally, he’ll be a bad fit financially. One way or another, he can’t be a part of their long-term planning.

Westbrook and Kevin Durant got into a shouting match during a timeout in the Thunder’s victory at Memphis Wednesday night. As detailed by The Oklahoman’s Darnell Mayberry, Westbrook was yelling at Thabo Sefolosha for passing up an open shot and when Durant tried to calm him down, Westbrook snapped at Durant. Back on the court, Durant patted Westbrook on the head and they appeared to coexist the rest of the game.

A Thunder source said the altercation amounted to “nothing at all” and a source close to Durant said, “I don’t think it’s that big a deal.”

But Westbrook couldn’t get over it enough to make a shot Wednesday, finishing 0-for-13 from the field. And it isn’t the first time he and Durant have clashed. The Thunder can’t afford to bet it will be the last. Even Durant’s ally qualified his downplaying of the situation by saying Durant and Westbrook were fine “right now.” He couldn’t guarantee they’ll stay that way.

If the Thunder do want Westbrook, it’s not a given that he wants to be there. He’s told friends he feels Thunder coach Scott Brooks blames him for losses, while the credit for victories goes to Durant. You also don’t hear Westbrook constantly profess his love of playing in a small market the way Durant does.

Culture is a big part of the Thunder program. They value fit over talent. One of the reasons they took James Harden over, say, eventual rookie of the year Tyreke Evans in the 2009 draft was because they thought Harden could tolerate a secondary role.

Now, about the money. Westbrook becomes a restricted free agent after this season. He’s about to get real expensive. And thanks to the new “Derrick Rose Rule,” which allows players who win an MVP or make the All-Star starting lineup or All-NBA team twice in the first four years, he could be even more expensive. As in, eligible for a contract that pays him 30 percent of the salary cap. Westbrook was second-team All-NBA last season.

The Rose Rule already bumped Durant’s paycheck by an extra $2.5 million a year, and Westbrook could be living in that same $18 million-a-season neighborhood. Depending on what other moves the Thunder make, a huge boost to Westbrook’s salary could put Oklahoma City in luxury tax territory next season and beyond. Starting in 2013-14 the tax will be progressively more punitive than the simple dollar-for-dollar surcharge in place now, and there are additional penalties for repeat tax “offenders.” In addition tax teams have restrictions on their abilities to make trades and sign players to the full mid-level exception.

Within minutes of the bench spat Wednesday night Twitter exploded with all kinds of trade suggestions for Westbrook. But I didn’t see anyone mention the best idea: to Golden State for Stephen Curry.

Curry is still on his rookie contract through 2012-13 (when he’ll make $4 million) so he would almost guarantee the Thunder stay below the tax threshold for another year, and he probably won’t be eligible for the Rose Rule pay boost, which would keep his maximum salary 5 percent lower than what Westbrook’s might be when it’s time to re-sign him.

Curry would also give the Thunder more scoring punch from the starting 2-guard spot than they currently have from Sefolosha. From Golden State’s perspective, Westbrook is a better defender than Curry, and that should count a lot for the new-look Warriors. (Believe it or not, Mark Jackson’s squad is among the top 10 defenses for fewest opponent points allowed so far.) And Westbrook is more likely to cause sprained ankles than suffer as many as Curry has.

Eric Maynor is more than capable of taking over at point guard for the Thunder. According to 82games.com, the lineup of Maynor, Durant, James Harden, Serge Ibaka and Nick Collison had almost identical offensive and defensive points-per-possession numbers as the same unit with Westbrook. And Maynor had a higher net on-court/off-court plus/minus than Westbrook last season. Don’t forget that Maynor played the entire fourth quarter while Westbrook sat on the bench in the Thunder’s lone victory against Dallas in the Western Conference finals. When Maynor needs a rest they could bring in Harden and slide Curry over to the point, then sub Maynor back in to give Curry a breather.

It makes sense all the way around. More importantly for Oklahoma City, it fits.

The Knicks enter the season with great expectations, in no small part because of the addition of big man Tyson Chandler.

Exactly how will he make a difference? We take a closer look at the key skills Chandler brings with the help of our Synergy video evaluation tool.

Contesting the Long Range Shot
The Mavericks lead the Washington Wizards by three points in the third quarter in a late-January game last season, but the Wizards are about to get a couple of shots to tie.

The ball swings to Nick Young in the corner opposite where it was just moments before.

Chandler is able to shift focus from one end to the other. He comes racing at Young, forcing an ugly miss.

After a second miss, Trevor Booker, grabs the rebound and throws it back to Rashard Lewis at the wing.

It's an open 3-pointer, but Lewis hesitates.

That allows Chandler to leap out again, raise his arms and contest Lewis' shot. Lewis ended up overshooting. The ball hit the back rim, no good.

The Knicks got crushed last season by long shots last season. They ranked 30th in the NBA in points allowed per shot on shots from 17 feet to the 3-point line and 28th in the league against 3-pointers.

Chandler will provide an improvement, ranking just above average at defending the mid-range jumper, and in the top one-quarter of the league when trying to deny a 3-pointer.

Defending the Pick-and-Roll
The score is tied with five minutes left in the fourth quarter of a late-January game with the Phoenix Suns. Steve Nash has the ball in his hands with eight seconds on the shot clock.

Nash moves left, setting up for a pick-and-roll. Chandler switches, moves off his man, and forces Nash outside.

Nash drives and curls around Chandler, but Chandler stays with him and raises his right arm as Nash prepares to shoot.

Nash twists and flips up an awkward shot. No good.

This is often what it’s like to go up against Chandler if you’re a point guard who likes to run the pick-and-roll.

Chandler ranks above average when guarding the ballhandler on pick-and-roll plays. But what’s key is that he outranked the Knicks big men by a considerable margin (see chart on right).

More than capable offensively
There are two-and-a-half minutes left in the fourth quarter, with the Mavericks down a point to the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Kidd sets up Jason Terry for a 3-pointer from the left side that misses.

Chandler skies over a Timberwolves defender for the rebound and goes right back up, while getting hacked.

The ball drops through the hoop, and Chandler converts a subsequent free throw. Dallas goes on to win by eight.

Let’s look at that play from four perspectives:

The rebound: Chandler rated sixth in the NBA in offensive rebound percentage, an estimate of how frequently he was able to rebound a missed shot from his teammates.

The re-elevation: Chandler held on to the ball. He averaged only 1.5 turnovers per 36 minutes last season, a career-best.

The finish: Chandler shot 64 percent on his putback attempts. He got fouled enough to score at least one point on nearly two-thirds of his putbacks, the sixth-best rate in the NBA.

The free throw: Chandler improved significantly on his free throw shooting the last two seasons, shooting them at 72 percent.

In conclusion
“If you talk about guys who have had an impact on the team and basically changed the culture, that’s Tyson Chandler. He’s probably done that better than anybody in the league this year.”
-- Mark Cuban prior to last year's All-Star Break

Chandler is not a player who will overwhelm you with his contributions. But at least last season, the sum was greater than its parts.

There's a stat on Basketball-Reference.com that requires multiple pages of explanation -- Win Shares. It's representative of the sum of the parts a player contributes and can be broken down into 48-minute segments. The parts come from making plays like those described above.

Last season only four players had a higher Win Share per 48 rate than Chandler: LeBron James, Dwight Howard, Pau Gasol and Chris Paul.

The Knicks can only hope he’ll be that valuable on both ends of the floor in 2011-12.

This just dawned on me: It’s possible that for this specific, lockout-shortened season, Mike Brown could be a better coach for the Lakers than Phil Jackson.

Jackson’s time spent coaching the Bulls and playing for the Knicks had prepared him to deal with nearly every scenario that came his way with the Lakers, from managing superstars to handling quirky personalities. The one thing he’d never done is coach a team in a condensed season after a work stoppage.

Jackson parted with the Bulls in 1998 and spent the next year on a coaching sabbatical while the NBA missed its first games due to a labor dispute. Coaching a reduced schedule, when the games come faster and each one carries more weight, wouldn’t suit Jackson. He’s the type to experiment during the regular season, or make decisions simply to prove a point, unconcerned if his team lost as long as it learned from the experience and was better prepared for the playoffs.

With only 66 games to play there will be no time to use games as teachable moments this year, no time to dismiss defeat by asking “Is it the playoffs yet?” -- as Jackson did after falling to the Celtics last season. The postseason isn’t as far off in the distance right now. The jockeying for position will be more furious.

Brown will have a sense of urgency and seriousness, as he demonstrated at the beginning of training camp Friday with a work schedule that began with a 9:30 breakfast and ended with sweat-drenched players walking off the practice court at 4 p.m. He knows he’ll be held to the lofty standards set by Jackson, that each game will be a mini-referendum on his hire, that there is little time to implement the changes he wants to bring to this squad.

Brown’s Cavaliers had the NBA’s best regular-season record twice during his five years coaching in Cleveland. That’s once more than Jackson did in his 11 years in L.A.

Anyone who saw Brown operate in Cleveland, where his Cavaliers held opponents to the lowest field-goal percentage and point total in the league in 2008-09, knows which side of the court Brown will emphasize.

“I believe that you can take your defense from team to team to team,” Brown said. “If you communicate, if you trust and help and you do that with effort, you’ll get stops. If you have a system that can kind of help the guys out, then I believe you’ll get more stops. But offensively I think you’ll have to cater to your personnel.

“In Cleveland everybody said, ‘That Mike Brown, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about offensively’. And I might not have, I don’t know. But I do know that our best player was a guy that liked the ball at the top of the floor in LeBron James, and he liked to play pick-and-roll. So if I can get that group to believe that they’re going to win the game by getting stops. We have enough to score when you have a guy like LeBron James …

“Offensively we just need to keep it simple and spend a ton of time on the defensive end.”

In Kobe Bryant, Brown recognizes he has a player that likes to operate from the elbows of the paint, or near the low blocks in what Brown dubbed “the Karl Malone area.” That already puts Brown a step ahead of the last coach who tried to replace Jackson in L.A., Rudy Tomjanovich, who set up Bryant at the top of the floor. That forced Kobe to do more dribbling and left him susceptible to easy double-teams from either side. As much as Bryant chafed at the triangle offense at times, he came to appreciate the way it could isolate him against a defender. It sounds like those same principles will still apply in Brown’s offense.

And it sounds like Bryant was ready to sign off on Brown after one day of work.

Kobe called Brown “very detail-oriented, passionate and a hard-worker. I can respect that. I think his attention to detail will win the rest of the guys over.”

Brown doesn’t have the qualities of a psychologist and media marionette-master that Phil Jackson possessed. Those would have come in handy this week on a typically zany episode in Lakerland, in which the team was set to ship Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom out of town in a three-way trade that would have brought Chris Paul to L.A. -- until David Stern killed the deal. As the Lakers tried to reconfigure the trade Friday, they were left with an uncertain roster and an unhappy sixth man.

Odom arrived 90 minutes late, met with general manager Mitch Kupchak, then left. Brown is classifying Odom as “unavailable” right now, and said he was willing to give him a few days off to clear his head.

Meanwhile, Brown has an out-of-shape forward renamed Metta World Peace, who admitted he had “a little more martinis” after the labor talks blew up in November and David Stern proclaimed the onset of “nuclear winter.” There is a center who will serve a five-game suspension to start the season because of his antics in the Lakers’ final playoff game. There are more cameras and digital recorders capturing Brown’s post-practice words than there were in Cleveland.

Brown said he would put his imprint on the Lakers “just like I would in any other location.” It took only one day on the job to see that Lakerland is not “any other location.”

It still wasn’t as bad as it was for the start of training camp in 2003. Bryant was coming off a tumultuous summer in which he was accused of sexual assault in Colorado, and he didn’t show up for Day One when the team gathered for camp in Hawaii. Jackson didn’t seem bothered at all. He playfully went along with the company line that Bryant was “under the weather,” wondering if that weather was a “marine inversion layer.”

Jackson was the king of media day. He is the all-time emperor of the playoffs. But all of the stuff in between training camp and late April, those petty annoyances that he called “the damn games,” are better left to a guy who cares about them more, a guy like Mike Brown.

Brown wouldn't make that proclamation himself. But he did give himself the edge over Jackson in one category.

"I do know that I have a better glasses collection than he does," Brown said, sporting a pair of stylish black-framed spectacles. "I’ll put my paycheck to his old paycheck on that any day, for sure."

With the countdown to the resumption of NBA business now being measured in hours rather than days, talks between teams and players are reaching a frenzied pace – a pace matched only by the rumor mill and my Twitter timeline.

Get ready. A lot of players are going to be changing addresses in a very, very short period of time.

The new amnesty provision is fueling the fire. Teams will be able to kick one contract to the curb, relieving themselves of the potential tax burden and the hit on their salary cap (while still having to pay the player his actual salary).

The final details of the amnesty provision still aren’t known. In fact, it’s likely that the league itself isn’t exactly sure what the rules will be yet – lawyers for the league and players association probably will be hammering out details until the final minute, before collapsing in a heap from exhaustion.

Here’s what we know so far about amnesty – or at least what we think we know:

• The NBA utilized an amnesty provision once before, with the 2005 CBA. Since the 2005 CBA changed the tax rules but left the salary cap system relatively untouched, the 2005 amnesty provision provided only tax relief. This year both the cap and tax systems are changing significantly, so the amnesty provision will provide both cap and tax relief. Teams may utilize this provision for various purposes – to get out of a bad contract (Orlando), to avoid paying an exorbitant luxury tax bill (um ... Orlando), or to clear additional room under the salary cap to sign a free agent (New York).
• Teams don’t have to utilize their amnesty provision this season. For many teams it will make more sense to bank their amnesty for a couple years. In fact, some pundits have predicted that there will be no more than a handful of amnesty cuts this season. One possible strategy for the Lakers will be to hang on to their amnesty for two years (when the new luxury-tax rates kick in) as a hedge against Kobe Bryant (who will make $30.5 million in 2013-14) suffering a bad injury or steep decline in production.
• Amnesty is a one-time deal. Teams can use it prior to any season under the current CBA, but once they’ve used it, it’s gone forever.
• Amnesty can only be used on players who are under contract right now. So if the Clippers sign Caron Butler to a three-year contract for $24 million and they don’t use their amnesty this year, they can’t use it on Butler next year when they come to their senses. Since the longest contracts currently in existence last through 2015-16, the amnesty provision will effectively cease to exist when the season starts in 2015.
• There will be a short window of time during which teams can utilize their amnesty provision each season. This year there will be a seven-day window when teams can amnesty players, but the dates have not yet been finalized. If a team doesn’t amnesty a player by the close of the window, then they have to wait until next season.
• Teams cannot amnesty players they acquire in trade. While the Lakers would be willing to take on Hedo Turkoglu’s enormous contract as part of a package deal for Dwight Howard, they would have liked it a lot more if they were then able to send him packing via amnesty. No such luck.
• The salaries of amnestied players will continue to count toward a team’s minimum salary requirement. This season teams will need to spend at least 80 percent of the salary cap, and there was speculation that Washington would be reluctant to amnesty Rashard Lewis and his $21.1 million salary due to this requirement. But with Lewis’ salary counting toward the $46.44 minimum even if they let him go, the team now has no such concerns.
• Another new rule in the 2011 CBA is what they’re calling the “stretch” provision. When a team waives a player, they have the option of stretching out both the money they owe him and his hit on their salary cap. However the stretch provision can only be utilized with contract signed under the new CBA, so the salaries of amnestied players cannot be stretched.
• One concern with the concept of amnesty is that every released player would simply pack his bags and head to South Beach to sign with the Heat. The league came up with a clever idea to keep this from happening. Before clearing waivers, the players will go through a “secondary waiver” process where teams under the cap can submit a bid. (That’s right, it’s a silent auction, just like when you bid on that trip to Tahoe at your kid’s school fundraiser.) The highest bidder gets the player. Only players who clear both the regular waiver process and these new secondary waivers will actually become free agents.
• Teams have to utilize cap room in order to bid for an amnestied player. This means that teams that are over the cap are automatically out of the running. A capped-out team like the Heat or Lakers has to wait for an amnestied player to clear secondary waivers before they have a chance to sign him. It is assumed that all the good players – including possible amnesty cuts Baron Davis and Chauncey Billups – will be snatched-up in the secondary waiver process, and won’t make it all the way to free agency.
• So which are the teams with cap room, and therefore shoppers in the secondary waiver market? That’s a tough question to answer. Dollars are set aside for “cap holds” to account for exceptions, free agents, draft picks, and empty roster spots – so cap room often isn’t really cap room unless the team renounces their free agents and exceptions. So consider the following a potential list of teams with cap room, subject to the team doing the work necessary to clear its cap holds: Charlotte ($10.4 million), Cleveland ($2.6 million), Denver ($28.4 million), Detroit ($10.2 million), Golden State ($8.9 million), Houston ($9.7 million), Indiana ($21.0 million), LA Clippers ($13.1 million), Memphis ($5.1 million), Milwaukee ($6.5 million), Minnesota ($9.5 million), New Jersey ($17.1 million), New Orleans ($12.6 million), Oklahoma City ($4.4 million), Philadelphia ($3.9 million), Sacramento ($28.1 million), Toronto ($10.9 million), Utah ($1.0 million) and Washington ($18.3 million).
• Don’t get too excited simply because your team is on the above list. As I explained, this cap room is available only if the team renounces all its available cap holds (and the actual amount will be a little less than what is listed, due to charges for empty roster spots). For example, the Cavs would have to renounce their draft rights to Kyrie Irving and Tristan Thompson – which isn’t about to happen. In addition, the league usually counts verbal agreements against a team’s cap. Even though teams and players aren’t supposed to make verbal commitments before Friday, there already have been several announcements of impending signings. The league may reduce teams’ available cap room as a result of these announcements. However, teams can also increase their available cap room by amnestying their own players, or by making trades in which they take on less salary than they send out. So the money teams will have available for bidding in the secondary waiver market simply can’t be specified at this time with any degree of detail.
• Since players who are snatched up via the secondary waiver process don’t become free agents, they don’t sign new contracts with the team that claims them. This means that if a player with three years remaining on his contract gets amnestied, the team that claims him gets him for all three years.
• The details on the bidding process aren’t known yet. It is believed (but not officially confirmed) that teams must bid at least the minimum salary. Also, if a player has more than one year remaining, the team must bid on the full length of the contract – for example, if a player has three years remaining, then a $4 million bid means the team is committing to at least $4 million per year for three years.
• If a team acquires an amnestied player through secondary waivers, they pay a portion of the player’s salary equal to their bid. If the Knicks waive Billups and the Clippers are the winning bidder at $5 million, then the Clippers pay him $5 million this season, with the Knicks continuing to be responsible for the remaining $9.2 million of his $14.2 million salary.
• If a team acquires an amnestied player through secondary waivers, then it is likely they will be able to trade the player after 30 days – just like any other player claimed through the waiver process. This is another detail that has not yet been confirmed by the league. Nor is it known what the player’s trade value will be for salary matching purposes, but it will likely be the amount the team is actually paying the player (i.e., the amount of their bid).
• While this has also not been confirmed by the league, it is likely that teams will not be allowed to re-sign or re-acquire (for example, through a trade) their amnestied player for the length of his amnestied contract. For example, if the Magic, as expected, use their amnesty on Gilbert Arenas – with three years left on his contract – he can’t play for the Magic again for three seasons. This rule also existed in the 2005 amnesty provision.

It looks like Arron Afflalo will be playing basketball next month, which is why he didn’t play basketball Sunday. That was the ironic twist to this weekend’s news of a potential lockout-ending settlement between the NBA and its players, which came the day before Baron Davis and Tina Thompson held their charity exhibition game in Los Angeles. Business came first for Afflalo, so rather than risk injury right before he enters free agency he watched from a courtside seat while DeMar DeRozan put on a dunking display and Craig Smith showed off his ballhandling skills.

Afflalo is a restricted free agent, meaning the Denver Nuggets can retain him by matching any offer made to him within a newly shortened three-day window. The Chicago Bulls keep popping up as a possible destination for Afflalo, but indications are that he’ll wind up back in Denver. It’s not so easy to make that prediction for the rest of his teammates.

Free agents J.R. Smith, Wilson Chandler and Kenyon Martin all signed to play in China, whose teams did not allow players to escape their contracts and return to the NBA if the lockout ended. If they hold them to that, the earliest they could come back would be March. Meanwhile, Nene is a free agent considered among the best in this class and is certain to draw big offers from other teams. It all makes the Nuggets the least stable team in the league when it comes to roster continuity.

“I hope for the best for Nene and hope for the best for me,” Afflalo said. “He’s not closed-minded to Denver, but it’s an important decision for him. Hopefully he makes the right one.

“I’m definitely going to be giving some of the guys and getting a feel for them and seeing how things work. I thought it was a great opportunity for us last year, really jelling, finding new leadership and finding new confidence within the organization. We’ll see what happens. If I’m there, we’ve got a team to compete. You can’t make excuses.”

At least the No. 1 issue that hung over the franchise at the outset of last season is resolved. Carmelo Anthony is gone. The trade with the Knicks made the Nuggets a deeper team and they wound up playing at a faster pace, with the ball distributed more evenly. Afflalo wound up taking the same number of shots per game pre- and post-trade, even though he played eight fewer minutes per game and was curtailed by a hamstring injury.

“I look at it as opportunity,” Afflalo said. “It was more motivation for me to work hard and be a better player. So if I am in that position next year I can fulfill a different role.”

He developed a reputation for hitting clutch shots and was a reliable from three-point range (42 percent).

The only other outside shooting threats the Nuggets currently have under contract are Danilo Gallinari and Al Harrington. The Nuggets are fine at point guard, with Ty Lawson and Andre Miller, but with Nene’s situation unresolved so is the team’s inside scoring.

That’s all beyond Afflalo’s control.

“I’m just so appreciative that we’re back playing,” Afflalo said. “So before I start making demands I want to start taking care of my situation and then move forward from that point.”

How do you defend a player who has averaged 25.0 points and 10.0 rebounds for his playoff career? That's the question the Oklahoma City Thunder will ask as they face Dirk Nowitzki and the Dallas Mavericks in the Western Conference Finals.
Nowitzki is one of four players to average those numbers for his postseason career. The other three -- Hakeem Olajuwon, Elgin Baylor, Bob Pettit -- are in the Hall of Fame. He's been a part of a Mavericks team that has made 11 straight postseasons, all 50-win seasons, as well.

So how should the Thunder attack such a daunting task that the Portland Trail Blazers and Los Angeles Lakers this postseason couldn't handle?

1. Defend him out to the 3-point line
Nowitzki shot 50.2 percent during the regular season from the field outside the paint. That was the highest percentage in the league among players whose majority of shots came outside the paint and had at least 500 field-goal attempts outside the paint.

Nowitzki shot 49.2 percent in the regular season from 10 feet and beyond. That was the third-highest percentage in the NBA (Al Horford, Elton Brand).

He also doesn’t mind taking mid-range two-pointers on the baseline outside the paint. The Thunder didn’t get the message in the regular season as Nowitzki hit 57 percent of his shots against them in that spot.

2. Double-team when the shooters are off the court
The vast majority of double teams on Nowitzki result in passes to spot-up shooters. Often, these passes result in 3-pointers. As the Lakers found out in Game 4, the Mavericks don’t shy away from an open 3-pointer. During the regular season, 27.4 percent of the Mavericks field goal attempts were 3-pointers, the third-highest percentage in the NBA.

However, who do you leave open? Using “effective field goal percentage”, a metric adjusted for three-pointers, the Mavericks have four players who had a higher effective field goal percentage on spot-up shots than the league average of 48.3 percent.

3. Keep him off the free-throw line
Nowitzki is the only 7-footer to rank in the top 100 in NBA history in both free throw percentage (14th) and three-point percentage (86th). He has the highest free throw percentage (87.7 percent) and highest three-point field goal percentage (38.1) in NBA history for a seven-footer.

During the regular season, Nowitzki got to the free-throw line 19 times in two games against the Thunder, missing just once.