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Wow. This is a Laker fan playing Gotye, singing his pleas for Kobe Bryant to end the Hero Ball approach to crunch time. Of course it's set to the tune of "Somebody that I Used to Know."

You didn't have to take that shot.
Just drive the lane and dump it off to either Pau or Bynum.
Those two guys are really tall,
And when you keep it for yourself we never score enough.

You didn't have to hog the ball.
You're triple-teamed so kick it out to either Blake or Sessions.
I know that they don't shoot so well,
but you're really not the Kobe that we used to know.

In the mid 1970s, legendary Celtics coach and team president Red Auerbach gathered several NBA stars, and a veteran of refereeing, to make a video. The goal? To end flopping.

That's right, nearly four decades ago, Auerbach was the Pied Piper of what has become the Stop the Flop movement, as you can see on video.

"Coaches today in high school, college and pro, are teaching the players how to fall! This is unreal!"

The Auerbach in this video is not a man who minds jabbing a finger at the camera to make a point.

Auerbach leads players like Wes Unseld and Mike Riordan through flopping scenarios. After Riordan hits the deck, Auerbach quizzes him. "Did Wes Unseld hit that man hard enough to knock him down? What went through your mind, Mike? What was your purpose when making that pick?"

Riordan says that initially he was "trying to free my teammate Elvin Hayes here for a jumpshot or a move to the hoop without the ball. But also, if I could get away with it, to draw a foul on Wes in setting that pick. To fake a foul, in other words. That was the second purpose."

Auerbach brings Hall of Fame referee Mendy Rudolph into the conversation. Rudolph jokes about how "Mike went and did some 'Hollywood acting." Rudolph's advice: Don't call a thing.

Auerbach directs another scenario, with another flop. Rudolph says "it was a great acting job by Clem Haskins. Now the contact between Mike and Clem was totally incidental, and again the officials should ignore it completely to eliminate this kind of acting in our game."

Then Rudolph adds another option for officials: "If they’re smart, again, to stop it, to stop it early in the game: Call a blocking foul on this man right here, and he’ll stop falling on the floor picking up splinters on his backside.”

"Well I happen to agree with you," says Auerbach. "I am very, very much opposed to this kind of basketball.”

"We’ve got to stop this sort of play in the NBA," replies Rudolph.

Auerbach: "Exactly!"

Auerbach closes the video by turning to the camera and addressing viewers:

This segment is not aimed at referees, believe me. It’s aimed at coaches, it’s aimed at players.

What are we going to do about it?

Let’s clean this thing up!

Let’s not hurt the game.

In retrospect, the referees lost control of the game early in the second quarter. Tyler Hansbrough fouled the daylights out of Dwyane Wade. Some would point out he "made a play on the ball," as if first hitting the Spalding mitigated a karate chop to the face of the mid-air guy. In slow motion ... wow. With a menacing scowl, Hansbrough met the Heat star in the sky. The fouling begins not with the right hand but with the left -- a forearm to the base of the neck that would have been a hard foul all by itself. Then the right arm windmilled through the ball, Wade's arms, and -- changing paths now, evidently to ensure maximum effect -- veered directly to Wade's eye and temple. Both, of course, are part of an athlete's head, which scientists are increasingly sure can sustain permanent brain damage from seemingly minor impacts like this.

Wade fell to the court, and stayed face down for a while.

Hansbrough slapped a cool low-five with his teammate Lou Amundson -- mission accomplished.

What mission could that have been? What page were they on together, exactly? A clue came from the post-game comments from the franchise's most respected voice. After that game, physical to the point that the fun plays have almost all been forgotten, Pacers president Larry Bird declared how disgusted he was with how "soft" his team had been. Could it be taken any other way than Bird was ordering up more of the same, and harder, in Game 6 -- just like he once did as a Celtic player, precipitating Kevin McHale's clotheslining of Kurt Rambis?

Game 5 had plenty more in store. In real time, commentator Steve Kerr mused about a Flagrant 2 for Hansbrough, which would have resulted in his ejection. It seemed a bit harsh at the time, but in retrospect, it would have been brilliant. In failing to eject Hansbrough, the referees whiffed on their last chance to control the game, took a pass on fulfilling the NBA's mission to prevent the spread of violence and set a precedent that would encourage one dangerous foul after another, all game long.

Moments later, Hansbrough had the ball and room to roll. The only thing between him and the hoop was ... Udonis Haslem -- Wade's avenging angel since they were rookies together.

Uh-oh.

Hansbrough slowed. Instead of a power dunk, now he was thinking jumper. Haslem swung two arms right through Hansbrough's shooting arm and -- oops! -- caught a whole bunch of face. Hansbrough's head ricocheted. In slow motion he looked like a crash test dummy at the moment of impact. (If you're a mom or a dad or somebody who loves Tyler Hansbrough you'd hate to watch it.)

That hardly ended it. Before the final horn, one had no choice but to wonder if the Heat had held a team meeting about the value of hitting people in the face. David West would be bitter about Shane Battier's knocking him down. West would bash LeBron James on the top of the head with an elbow. Mario Chalmers would snuff out a Paul George drive with a play to the face much like Haslem's, only without Haslem's force. The most violent play of the bunch would come in garbage time, when Heat reserve Dexter Pittman presented his high-speed forearm to the neck of a sprinting Lance Stephenson, which was reminiscent of the ugliest play of last year's playoffs: Andrew Bynum's assault on J.J. Barea.

Despite a rare playoff game filled with beautiful fast-break moments, the story of the NBA would transform, thanks to all those hard playoff fouls, to a story of violence as the league office in New York decides how many players to suspend for Game 6.

And none of it had to happen.

---

The NBA has it exactly right: The game is better when it's not violent.

There are business reasons for that: Although some fans will tell you they're thrilled by the no-extra-charge sprinkling of mixed martial arts, by and large the league operates with the fear of riling a finicky general sports audience that is terrified of the spectacle of these players -- predominantly black -- behaving violently. In baseball and hockey it's "boys will be boys" but in this sport it's treated like the end of civilization as we know it when they start taking swings. Harsh penalties have essentially eliminated not only bench-clearing brawls but also punches and even most blatant elbows. There's a reason the Wests and Haslems have learned to attack using the elbow of a straight arm.

There are also basketball reasons to police rough play more in this sport than others. This sport is at its best when the action is free-flowing. Both of those hard fouls were designed in part to keep the Wades and Hansbroughs of the world from finishing at the rim with power dunks. But, of course, those power dunks are exactly what the league and its fans rightly want. That is the sport at its best. Two guys knocking each other in the noggin -- you can get that from all kinds of dumber, less skilled, less athletic games.

This is the sport where people fly to the hoop, and the vast majority of "hard playoff fouls" are designed to scare players from even trying to take off.

It's like using a jet fighter as a battering ram. Nothing dumber.

Old-timers tell fish tales of a game that was both vastly better and far more violent years ago. But the video reveals the truth: Through the NBA's "glory days" players had almost no muscle, didn't run nearly as fast or jump as high, didn't take defense anywhere near as seriously and endured precious little contact. Not to mention, the scores in those days were through the roof compared to today, precisely because so very many of those offensive players were entirely unmolested by defense. The most famous hard foul of yesteryear, Kevin McHale's clotheslining of Kurt Rambis, was such a big deal because it was such a massive departure from the norm. A few years ago Jason Kidd threw Jannero Pargo the court every bit as hard, and nobody remembers it because players go down that hard all the time.

Nowadays bigger, stronger bodies collide play after play, at elevations off the court few could imagine three decades ago. The forces in play are vastly greater, the knowledge of brain damage that much more acute. The league does far more than ever to prevent the escalation of violence, because it has to and should.

That is why referees are lectured again and again about keeping control of games, and dealing harshly with the kinds of fouls that might lead to escalation. This is why the work of Game 5's referees, Derrick Stafford, Greg Willard and Jason Phillips, is being second-guessed by the league as we speak.

---

Of all the dumb moments of Game 5 -- and there were several, including Danny Granger injuring his own ankle while trying to put a hard foul on James (the second time he twisted his ankle, when he had to leave the game for good) and Mike Miller playing an extended period with a Nike on one foot and a sock on the other -- none was dumber than the referees' huddle moments after Hansbrough's foul.

Everyone at home with or without a DVR, every fan in the seats and the people at league offices in New York all had replay of the video to watch. And they did. Miami fans who reacted mildly in real time saw it on the arena's big screen and were suddenly livid. It was a lot worse in replay, which made Hansbrough's intentions clear as something beyond blocking a shot.

The poor referees were just about the only people in the world who could not see it again, and they were the only people in the world who got to decide Hansbrough's penalty.

In retrospect, a Flagrant 2 would have been the right call, for two reasons. The first is, we now know with the unfair benefit of hindsight, that it would have prevented several more blows to the head. The second, though, is that thanks to the oddities of NBA rules, that call would would have triggered a video review, finally putting the referees on an equal information footing with Joe and Jane Fan in the tenth row.

Some say the league does not want to have everything decided by video. But they are deciding it that way right now, today, in New York, where league officials are watching nothing but video. From the rules:

League will review every flagrant, called or not. The League Office will consider the following factors (as well as any other relevant facts and circumstances) in determining whether to classify a foul as Flagrant “1” or Flagrant “2”, to reclassify a flagrant foul, or to impose a fine and/or suspension on the player involved: how hard the foul was; the outcome of the foul (e.g., whether it led to an altercation); and the level of the injury sustained by the player who was fouled.

It is great that the league is using video to get to the bottom of these things. It's the best available tool for investigating flagrant fouls, flopping, and a hundred other kinds of calls.

But why so slow? Here the NBA is losing a battle with the information age. On these tough-to-get-right-in-real-time calls, the league is fooled nightly, and everybody knows it.

Meanwhile, whole wars are being fought, missiles fired, bombs dropped, combat teams deployed based on real-time decisions, based on video beamed around the world. Barack Obama oversees Navy Seals by television, and gets Osama bin Laden as a result.

The NBA is no war, at least it's not supposed to be, but the same kinds of information can be processed just as fast. Which means where there used to be three options there are now four:

1. Get things blatantly wrong now and again and deal with the fact there will be a certain error rate.
2. Stop games almost constantly to review video, making the game a horrible TV product just as TV replaces tickets as the biggest revenue source.
3. Review video in New York and hand down punishments a day or two after the game.
4. Review video in real time.

No. 4 is, to me, obviously where the league is headed. There can't be blatant mistakes every night -- not the way people consume the game now. They can't make us wait while referees watch. And waiting for the real people to review the tape ... how could that possibly take so long? It's a few seconds of video. It's impossible to watch for more than a minute or two. Make up your mind and move on.

Here's my HoopIdea: The reviews in New York must happen instantly, mid-game, so that a player can be ejected or not while it still matters, and can still prevent a game from getting out of hand. Alternately, and better: Have a fourth, video-enabled referee on the sidelines, reviewing everything all the time. That referee would have started reviewing on video the moment the play was whistled dead, and could have easily had a good, lasting decision in the interim before Wade stepped to the line. That referee could also quickly and permanently solve flopping, traveling, out of bounds and so much more.

It's not how things used to be done, but it didn't used to be that every fan had better information than the referees. It's where this is headed, and it'll make a better game, one where it will make little sense for players to try to fool the referees with hard fouls, flops or anything else.

• When your PER is higher than your age, you're Kyrie Irving. Or a short list of other players. Also, free agency has been the bane of Cleveland fans. But now that the Cavaliers have Kyrie Irving, the kind of player anyone would want to play with, free agency could become their friend, writes David Thorpe.
• The Pacers have not gone small much, and don't like to go small. So if the Heat go small ... what happens?
• Timothy Varner on 48 Minutes of Hell: "Chris Paul and Tony Parker finished third and fifth in MVP voting. They share a position. One could make an argument that they were the league’s best two point guards this season. Coming into this series, it will be fun to speculate whether Parker or Paul will win 'the matchup'. ... The problem, of course, is that matchup doesn’t exist -- at least not in the hero ball sense. Paul vs. Parker is not a Hollywood boxing bout. It isn’t even a true blue Castillo-Corrales slug fest. It’s a paper tiger. Within their program, the Spurs prefer to feature wings who can defend multiple positions. Bruce Bowen is the historic standard, but the Spurs regularly use Kawhi Leonard, Danny Green, Manu Ginobili, and Stephen Jackson to defend multiple positions. Ginobili might be deployed against 1s, 2s, and 3s; Jackson against 2s, 3s, and 4s. And so on. This doesn’t make the Spurs entirely unique, but it does point to one of the more intriguing matchups of the series: Danny Green vs. Chris Paul."
• Something is up with the Lakers' pick-and-roll defense. Kevin Ding of the Orange County Register: "In their previous road game, the Lakers played pick-and-roll coverage incorrectly 92 percent of the time, according to [Coach Mike] Brown's own analysis of the Game 6 loss in Denver. It is hardly shocking that they were shredded by a far more talented, more focused Thunder attack."
• Paul Shirley came across a YouTube video of a big college dunk from his Iowa State days. He writes about it for ChicagoSide: "In this particular play, my college teammate, Jamaal Tinsley, made into fools several members of the University of Colorado backcourt before throwing the ball to me for a one-handed dunk that might even be called ferocious, if you need an adjective. Tinsley’s ball-handling tricks served as the final sentence in a masterful short story; my dunk was the exclamation point. The crowd released its tension in an avalanche of happy noise. For me, it was an incomparable rush; better than the most intense sexual encounter I’ve ever had. (Which might be an indictment of my sex life, but probably isn’t -- sorry, no hyperlinks here.) Even as I watched the video more than a decade later, I felt something similar to sexual release: a chill down my spine, sagging shoulders, relaxation in my lower back. I’ve never done cocaine. But that feeling -- the sense that I had just brought about a palpable crescendo of enthusiasm in 14,000 people, most of whom were paying rapt attention to my every movement -- is exactly what I imagine cocaine would be like: intense, immediate, and incredibly pleasurable. And just as dangerous -- because that feeling was one of the reasons I played basketball."
• A long-simmering debate among athletes: What matters more, the number of miles (or in basketball, minutes played) or age? The New York Times digs into the issue by looking into running research and finds ... science doesn't have a clear answer yet.
• Beware the columnist who has been watching lots of "Law & Order" re-runs.
• College hoops statistics suggest that you can't do much to make your opponents miss 3s. The winning strategy appears to be, especially if you're the favorites, to expend your energy trying to limit the number of attempts.
• Blake Griffin says he is not concerned about being labeled a flopper.
• Losing playoff games by big margins does not bode well for the Lakers.
• Zach Lowe of SI.com: "I am astonished on a daily basis by how many fans, both in Boston and elsewhere, think the Celtics are a good offensive team, and are thus surprised they have struggled to score against the Hawks and the Sixers. The misunderstanding seems to come from the fact that a) Boston has very famous players on its team; and b) the Celtics rank fifth overall in field-goal percentage and eighth in three-point percentage. So let me put this as clearly as I can: The Celtics are a bad offensive team. They were so-so last season and in 2009-10, and have been in continuing decline on offense for three seasons now. It’s wonderful that they shoot with great accuracy, especially from three-point range, but accurate shooting does not alone make a team good at scoring points. Field-goal percentage is no way to judge offense. It does not account for how many shots a team generates, how often it gets to the foul line and what sorts of shots it attempts. And in news that broke three years ago, this is where Boston fails."
• Now online in its entirety, for free: The documentary Small Market, Big Heart, made on a shoestring with the goal of humanizing the plight of Kings fans, who have long done a hell of a job supporting the often-miserable Kings.
• I think this is humor from Kobe Bryant. Or maybe not. (Via Slam.)
• Will James Jones make it back into the Heat rotation as a zone buster?
• Goran Dragic is a sexy free agent name. For perspective, his stats are very similar to Jarrett Jack's.

• J.A. Adande telling a great Kobe Bryant story.
• Al Horford played 41 minutes in just his second game since returning from shoulder surgery. In that time he grabbed 11 rebounds, made a game-saving defensive play on Rajon Rondo and, according to John Hollinger, really lubricated the sputtering Hawks offense: "The telltale sign: Open corner 3-pointers. They'd been as rare as chowder in these parts, but Atlanta got several Tuesday night and converted 7-of-16 from distance. Marvin Williams, instated as a starter to guard Boston's Paul Pierce, made three of them, tripling his total from the first four games."
• I love this: The Nuggets are using a laptop in the huddle at the end of games to help predict what plays the Lakers might run. Don't be surprised if in a few years, each assistant has a iPad-like tablet, instead of a clipboard, in hand.
• Kobe Bryant's sweaty, game-worn mask garnered $67,100 in a charity auction.
• Kevin Durant's top 10 plays, which remind you that he's a very under-appreciated dunker.
• Facebook's massive IPO might help bring a new arena to Seattle.
• Basketball Value with a data on how every five-man lineup has fared thus far in the postseason.
• It turns out the Dream Team did lose a game -- to a squad of collegiate players lead by Bobby Hurley and Chris Webber. That footage will be a part of a Dream Team documentary coming to NBA TV.
• The Celtics are still up 3-2 against the Hawks, but Brian Robb of Celtics Hub is worried about Paul Pierce. The hobbled vet didn't attempt a single free throw in Game 5.
• No reason for Jeremy Lin to play if that knee isn't 100 percent.
• This story (Insider) is about LeBron James's historic season and how it compares to Michael Jordan's best years. But I can't help noticing this other bit: The numbers say no great player turned it up in the playoffs like Hakeem Olajuwon.
• The Bulls needed some bailout shooting from Luol Deng to survive Game 5. On By the Horns, Matt McHale isn't exactly thrilled: "Deng’s threes were also a red flag. The Bulls needed all three of them in the fourth quarter. Lu repeatedly beating the buzzer with contested threes isn’t something the team can count on consistently, especially not on the road in Philadelphia on Thursday. When Philly’s defense turns up the pressure in the fourth quarter, the Bulls cannot seem to generate good looks. Or even average looks. You can check out the shot chart. Philly’s D is either forcing long jumpers or intimidating the Bulls at the rim. In the fourth quarter last night, Chicago went 1-for-6 in the paint."
• The Lakers want to exploit their advantage in the post, but the Nuggets are making it awfully crowded down on the low block. Forum Blue and Gold's Darius Soriano has sage advice: "The Lakers need to move the ball more, cut and screen more, and then look for quick duck ins from their big men where they can catch the ball on the move or sliding into position where they’re more of a threat to score. By incorporating more ball and player movement before post entries are made, it should also afford the Lakers that extra beat of time they need to make a quick move to try and get a basket. Cross screens can also be utilized both in “horns” actions and in more simple sets that don’t involve the double high post look to begin a possession."
• Apparently, playing defense in the playoffs requires some blatant shoving.
• Aaron McGuire, writing about the Spurs on 48 Minutes of Hell: "The Spurs have managed to win six games this season while shooting 40 percent or lower from the floor (meaning that we shot less than or equal to 40 percent in 11.1 percent of our wins). Last season, despite their insane record, the Spurs won only once while shooting that poorly from the floor. This isn’t a matter of luck. The Spurs’ defense this season has played significantly better than last season’s, and while they certainly had their periods of lesser performance akin to last season, the Spurs we’re watching in this year’s playoffs are currently playing better defense than anyone in the Western Conference."
• Shawn Kemp (on stage!) will bring you some beef, but only if you'll have it with mustard.
• If it was his last game with the Magic, Jameer Nelson went out with a bang.
• It's not your fault if you don't know how good the Indiana Pacers are. Jonathan Auping writes on 8 Points 9 Seconds: "The Indiana Pacers played a grand total of one game on national television this season. (Side note: I do not consider NBA TV to qualify as national TV. I am talking about games played on ABC, ESPN or TNT. There’s something about having either Kenny and Charles or Magic and Wilbon talking about your first-half performance that feels like validation). The only chance that the country had to watch the Pacers was a 111-94 win over the Philadelphia 76ers on ESPN back on March 14. The Charlotte Bobcats had exactly as many nationally televised games as the Pacers."

This report from Kevin Arnovitz has some interesting thoughts from Clippers and Grizzlies players on the rampant flopping in their first-round series.

While Chris Paul dismissed the notion entirely (he plays the head game at another level), Reggie Evans and Blake Griffin were more open to discussing, and defending, their flopping philosophies.

• Griffin: "It's one of those things where every play means a lot. You never know what one play can do, so you're making sure you're getting every possession you can."
• Evans: "If you can sell a call and get away with it, why not do it? It's all a part of the game. It's always the one who it doesn't work out in their favor -- that's the one that's always complaining about it."
• Evans: "People say I flop a lot. I pick my moments. One thing about these referees, they do a good job of knowing who's high on the radar when it comes to flops."

The quotes reveal why players flop in the first place and why they are more motivated to do so in the postseason, when winning is all that matters.

Evans also addressed specific questions about Paul's reputation for flopping: "I don't think he's flopping. He's not the flopping type of guy, in my opinion. I think he really gets fouls. You think of a flop, you think of something like what (Pau) Gasol or (Danilo) Gallinari do. That's a flop. But Chris is getting fouled."

I wonder if Evans has seen this video.

JaVale McGee and the power of suggestion

It was undeniably the most important game of JaVale McGee's young career, and among his very finest performances. 21 points on 12 shots, many of which were jaw-dropping rim attacks. 14 rebounds. Two blocks, both in the fourth quarter ... including sending back a Pau Gasol dunk with less than two minutes left. As McGee stood on the court, post-game, doing a hero's interview with TNT's Craig Sager, Sager noted that McGee was rightly holding the game ball. As the conversation wound up, Sager advised McGee -- a wonderful player with a reputation as a kook -- to hang onto that ball. The camera lingered on McGee as he thanked Sager and made his way along the edge of the largely empty post-game Staples Center stands and into the tunnel. The last thing McGee did before disappearing from view? He heaved that game ball, baseball-style, into the great beyond of the arena.

Good thing Sager didn't say "hang onto those shorts."

The Celtics, Heat and reputations

In a great article about the prowess of Rajon Rondo, it was pointed out that the Celtics are incredibly efficient in crunch time, especially as compared to the Heat.

I cringed as I read it.

The Celtics have created a huge bundle of great late-game plays, and run some of the league's most beautiful sets. But our eyes deceive us on these things all the time, and though people hate to hear it, the numbers almost never support the persistent idea that the Heat are terrible at much of anything.

Sure enough, as it happened the Celtics closed a game last night with some of the poorest execution imaginable.

Which, it turns out, is not as out of character as you might think. NBA.com's new stats site, tells us, essentially that the Heat crush the Celtics by every relevant measure late in games. In games either team was tied or trailing closely with 3 minutes left, the Celtics finished this season with a 5-11 record, which is not good by any measure, even compared to the Heat, who were 9-8. The Heat had the league's fifth most efficient offense, with the second-best true shooting percentage late in those games. The Celtics, meanwhile, had the 26th most efficient offense, with the 27th best true shooting percentage.

And as it happened, with the game on the line against the Hawks, Boston's big opportunity ended with the opposite of efficient execution. Rondo went on a dribble-odyssey to nowhere, capped by a too-late desperation pass that was tipped and sailed out of bounds at the final horn.

None of that proves anything, other than that every team, even the veteran Celtics, has miscues late. So why do the Heat seem to have no clue? Just maybe people make a bit bigger of a fuss out of the Heat's flaws, not because they are more common, but because they fit a certain narrative.

Kobe Bryant and hotness

Speaking of certain narratives, Kobe Bryant hit four straight late 3s to turn a blowout into a squeaker, which had the broadcasters and everybody else saying the words "on fire" again and again. And four 3s ... that is a "wow" moment. I wonder how many players have ever done that, let alone late in a close playoff game.

But we also see what we want. Nobody, for instance, described JaVale McGee or Andre Miller as "on fire" in this game, because they take easier shots, I guess, and because that's not what we expect from them.

The truth, however, is that Miller and McGee finished the period a game-changing, scorching eight of 11 from the floor in the fourth quarter. Bryant's fourth included that stretch of four big makes, but in keeping with the bigger odds -- he's a pretty average 3-point shooter, and nobody is very good shooting with hands in their faces -- he ended the game with three straight misses. His final fourth quarter tally was five makes, seven misses, and still, somehow, a monopoly on claims of a hot hand.

Pick one: Andre Miller or Ty Lawson

The Nuggets have a problem. Arguably their best player is Ty Lawson. But so many of their other good players, especially the freakish athletes -- McGee, Kenneth Faried, Corey Brewer -- get so much out of playing with Andre "lob" Miller. There is simply no way McGee could have had his great Game 5 without Miller looking for him. George Karl has been playing Lawson and Miller late in games, but that seems to be more of a concession to the team's pecking order -- both "deserve" to play -- rather than the best possible lineup. Without the ball, neither is terribly useful. On late defensive possessions, although it happens Miller was guarding Bryant for his key late miss, it's a cinch to make the case that either or both should sit for defensive standouts Arron Afflalo or Brewer. Not to mention the magnificent Faried sat for the entire final period.

Short rotations

In the playoffs coaches shorten their benches. Play your best players. And for all I know it's right. But watching players like Andrew Bynum and Spencer Hawes, it's undeniable to me that fatigue plays a role in the playoffs. You sure you don't want Jordan Hill in there a bit more? Is it a lock that Nikola Vucevic would be of no use?

There are spells of the game when it seems anyone who had had a cup of coffee in the last 24 hours would do better than those exhausted players -- players who are blatantly excellent when not so tired.

And then consider players like the Bulls' Ronnie Brewer, who played 13, 13 and zero minutes in the first three games of the playoffs. A year ago, he got consideration as an all-NBA defender. But he was the odd man out as the Bulls shortened the rotation for the playoffs. In Game 5 he finally got some meaningful time, 29 minutes, and was blatantly fantastic, bringing precisely the kind of high-energy toughness the Bulls have been lacking since injuries to Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah.

And as it happens, Brewer's in a crew of three Bulls bench players, along with Taj Gibson and Kyle Korver, who are the only Bulls with positive plus/minus numbers in the playoffs. Even on the most injured playoff team, all three have seen their minutes drop compared to the regular season.

Statistical support provided by NBA.com.