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What is Pau Gasol worth?

Many believe this is the central question of the Lakers' offseason.

Gasol was integral to three straight Finals appearances. He out-fought and outplayed Dwight Howard and Kevin Garnett in back-to-back Finals victories. But careers and perceptions change quickly in L.A. and, to many, it now appears imminent that Gasol and the remaining $38 million on his contract will be traded this offseason.

Three top Lakers writers break down Gasol's place in the Lakers' future:

• OC Register’s Kevin Ding (who noted Gasol had a plus/minus of minus-53 for the second round): "It's abundantly clear now that the triangle offense is long gone that Lakers can use some perimeter pizzazz and tenacity a lot more than they can use Gasol's versatility-turned-uncertainty. But even if Gasol averages 50 points and 30 rebounds in the Olympics, the Lakers have a further complication in that they are trying to reduce their payroll in the wake of the post-lockout luxury-tax penalties and revenue sharing that have changed their landscape. Because of that, trading Gasol for a great player who has another massive contract isn't what they really want, either. The Lakers might have to go that route and figure out some money things later, as they were willing to do with their aborted deal for Chris Paul before the season."
• ESPN LA’s Dave McMenamin: "Bryant publicly demoted Gasol to the third scoring option during the regular season and then called him out in the playoffs for not being the aggressive scorer he once was. That makes Gasol the first to go. Call up Houston. Call up Chicago. Call up Minnesota. Call up Orlando. See whether interest is still out there. Better yet, call up all 29 other teams and maybe even go the draft pick route. This year's draft is widely considered to be the deepest in nearly a decade. Gasol turns 32 in July. He's played 11 years in the league plus put in a ton of time overseas playing for the Spanish national team. He averaged 12.5 points per game during the playoffs. History will show he was a vital piece of the Lakers' championship lore, but now is not the time for nostalgia. He's the first domino."
• ESPN LA’s Brian Kamenetzky: "He's supremely talented, versatile and a true team player capable of elevating any good team to elite status, and perhaps of pushing a near-elite team over the top. On the other hand, he won't transform a Brooklyn-esque loser, is very expensive, on the downside of his career, and short of being sent to a team in Spain, won't energize a season-ticket base. Finding a new home for Gasol isn't a simple proposition. The same contract prompting the Lakers to move him will make many teams hesitant to take him on."

The analysis above agrees that Pau is: expensive, talented, seven years older than Andrew Bynum and perhaps not the best fit, emotionally, with Kobe Bryant (though that seemed to be working just fine a few years ago).

The Lakers need more depth and fewer gargantuan contracts, so all signals point to Gasol's departure. Indeed, the Lakers have signaled that they are ready to part with him and, though the transaction was canceled by the NBA, the thwarted three-way deal that would have brought Chris Paul to the Lakers still provides the most accurate measure of Gasol's value.

Back in December 2011, the Rockets were willing to give up Kevin Martin, Luis Scola and Goran Dragic in exchange for Gasol.

That’s quite a haul, and a similar trade this summer would supply the Lakers, who counted on Steve Blake and Devin Ebanks for important rotation minutes in the playoffs, with real punch off the pine.

But after a disappointing postseason, does Gasol net the same goodies?

It’s true 2012 was Gasol’s worst scoring season of his NBA career by a point, though his rebounding and assist numbers remained constant. And it’s true that Gasol played farther from the basket on offense than at any time in his career.

It’s also true -- and this is important -- that Pau Gasol is a center. The Lakers managed to end up with two excellent 7-foot players, so Gasol, the more versatile one, plays power forward, but he’s a center. And it’s hard to overvalue a center who rebounds, defends, scores and passes like Gasol. The fact that the Lakers have surplus of this kind of player is borderline obscene and the reason many thought they could contend this season despite their obvious flaws.

They have options.

Perhaps Bynum would draw a better return.

Or maybe instead of ditching Gasol or Bynum, the Lakers could, like the San Antonio Spurs, simply extract more value from their cheaper pieces. After all, the combined salary of Kawhi Leonard, Gary Neal and Danny Green is less than the Lakers pay Steve Blake.

But it won’t be possible for them to get anywhere near the salary cap with their big three -- or even their two bigs -- on the books.

See, here’s the real issue for the Lakers, the one that makes moving Gasol or Bynum seem inevitable: Kobe Bryant’s spectacularly huge contract.

Last offseason, Henry Abbott first noted what an albatross this contract would become:

"Bryant is due to draw a salary of $25,244,493 in 2011-2012, $27,849,149 the following year and $30,453,805 in 2013-2014, when he will be 35. The cold hard question for general manager Mitch Kupchak would become: Which Laker team is better, Bryant and $32 million or so in supporting cast, or $60 million in the best players money can buy without Bryant?

...it may be time to find out if Bryant might consider waiving his no-trade clause. He is such a big name that he may, even under a new CBA, fetch the Lakers a player or two in addition to salary cap relief.

Then there's the final, unthinkable option: It has been discussed that the new CBA may have an amnesty clause, that lets teams buy out players and send them on their way. Depending how it's negotiated, this could include salary cap relief. And if so, would the Lakers use it on Bryant?”

Whether or not they knew league-wide austerity measures were in the offing in 2010, when they gave Bryant his last big extension, there’s no debate that, in basketball terms, the Lakers drastically overvalued their star wing. He is now a volume scorer who is still an excellent player, but the fact is that players better than him -- like Dwight Howard, LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Chris Paul -- are paid way less. Even supposing that, despite his age, Bryant's game somehow remains at its current level, the market price for a superstar has fallen precipitously since his last contract.

By the time Kobe's current contract nears expiration, it will be one of the worst in the NBA -- not because he will have deteriorated beyond recognition, but because the outrageous sum will have such a limiting effect on the Lakers' options.

So perhaps instead of wondering what Pau is worth, we should be asking different questions:

Is it worth $30 million in 2014-15 to see Bryant retire a Laker?

To many, the answer is an emphatic “Yes!”

But what about on the court -- is he worth more than Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili combined?

Because that’s how much he makes.

Is he worth destroying the most formidable frontline in the NBA?

Because, as everyone seems to tacitly acknowledge, that’s how much Kobe Bryant costs.

The Lakers patiently worked the ball to Andrew Bynum, who had established position deep in the post. He took a dribble, rotated his massive shoulders to the baseline and lofted a feathery right-handed jump hook that just rimmed out.

A split second later, Ty Lawson was laying the ball in over a frantic, backpedaling defender.

The six-second exchange during the first quarter of Game 2 encapsulates the dramatic clash in styles these two teams present. The Lakers are going to pound away on the undersized Nuggets inside, and Denver’s only hope is to speed up the game by racing the ball up the court at every opportunity.

Its best opportunity to do that will come against the Lakers’ second unit, which has trouble controlling the pace when either Bynum or Gasol goes to the bench.

Enter Andre Miller, Al Harrington and Corey Brewer.

These three substitutes have been on the court for most of Denver’s best moments and are setting a great example for how they and their teammates can make this series more competitive.

Miller is about as slow as NBA point guards come, but he understands something very important: no one is faster than the ball. Miller's vision is world class, and he has an uncanny ability to delicately float the ball up court, over the defense and into the hands of his playmakers.

Without the relatively plodding Laker big men clogging up the paint, the Nuggets’ streaking wings have found success attacking the rim.

None more so than Brewer, who seems to have a perfect grasp on the Nuggets’ gameplan. On defense, Brewer has been a disruptive force, all flailing limbs and scrambling, quick feet. Even when he gets caught out of position, it seems to be in a way that creates the type of unsettled situations that benefit Denver. And as soon as a shot goes up, Brewer takes off up court, sprinting down the sidelines before the ball even reaches the rim.

Brewer’s aggressive work in the open court earned him five transition layup attempts in Game 2, a few on the type of over-the-shoulder passes that made him look like a wide receiver running a fly pattern past a flat-footed safety. Miller was the quarterback.

The Lakers have won both games, but the Nuggets have outscored Lakers with Brewer and Miller together on the floor. And when the Nuggets add a big man with 3-point shooting ability like Harrington, they’ve done even better. Harrington can jog into an open 3 as a trailer on the fast break, or offer crucial spacing in the Nuggets’ dribble-drive attack.

The Miller-Brewer-Harrington combination has outscored the Lakers by 16 points and is the only three-man Nuggets combination that has a positive plus/minus in extended court time.

So though Los Angeles has dominated the series thus far, the Nuggets have shown they know how to counteract the Lakers' size.

And luckily, Miller, Brewer and Harrington aren’t the only Denver players that have the requisite skill sets. In fact, they share many qualities with the Nuggets who start the game.

After a shaky start to Game 1, Lawson has shown more confidence advancing the ball quickly with the pass or dribble. Arron Afflalo has plenty of athleticism to beat the Lakers up court and finish plays when he gets there. Danilo Gallinari is a career 37 percent 3-point shooter who can slide to the power forward position.

The pieces are in place. As the Nuggets head to the friendly confines of Denver’s Pepsi Center, they must hope their young starters can take a few cues from their effective, veteran substitutes.

Statistical support provided by NBA.com.

Basketball geekery has delved into crunch time in various ways.

• First there was individual field goal percentage. That's where we learned that the players we thought owned crunch time (for instance Kobe Bryant and Chauncey Billups) actually miss a lot.
• A year ago, we added something new, looking at team offenses. That's a more important measure, assuming you value wins more than highlights. Who cares who gets the bucket, so long as they're on your team? That's where we learned that most teams were about the same, with some exceptions, including Chris Paul's Hornets, which were amazing.

But all that is only part of the picture. Because as much as we love clutch buckets, clutch wins also have a ton to do with defense. If you're going to point to any team as elite in the clutch, that must be included, and now it is.

As John Hollinger has explained, a lot of what teams do in crunch time is likely random. Looking at tiny parts of games creates some wacky results without a lot of predictive value ... anyone who says they know a team will do well in crunch time is likely fibbing. All teams do both well and poorly at different times. But defense may be a bit of an exception. Teams do seem to play defense with a certain consistency late in games.

Using NBA.com data from the last five years (current as of today), from games within five points in the final five minutes of the fourth quarter or overtime, Trevor Ebaugh of ESPN Stats & Info. dug in and created this pretty Tableau table:



Some of what we noticed:

• The Cavaliers of LeBron James and Mike Brown were unreal in crunch time, leading the league by a hefty margin for three straight years, with the best performances of any teams in the record. It's easy to see that LeBron James matters here -- once he left for Miami the Cavaliers’ plus/minus plummeted. The Cavs averaged plus-113 with James during those three seasons, and plus one in the two seasons since. Meanwhile, before James, the Heat weren't good in crunch time, but have since become very solid.
• Mike Brown emerges as an interesting character in crunch time. With James in Cleveland three straight years, and now in Los Angeles after a year off, his teams led the league by this metric every year he has coached in the last half-decade. In this period, neither team has been as good with other coaches, either.
• The Lakers have by far the best crunch time plus/minus this season (plus-79, the Pacers are second at plus-65). Pau Gasol (plus-78) has been their biggest individual star, followed closely by Andrew Bynum (plus-74). Kobe Bryant ranks third at plus-58. The Lakers achieved this number with the NBA's second-best clutch offense (behind the Magic) and the eighth-best defense.
• Three teams have shone for five straight years: The Lakers, Celtics and Magic. The Nuggets are flirting with joining that club, too.
• Superstars matter. Or, at least some do. LeBron James, Derrick Rose, Dirk Nowitzki, Kobe Bryant and Chris Paul almost always end the season positive in this regard -- the only exceptions are Paul and Nowitzki this year, which could still change. Other big names, like Kevin Durant, Tim Duncan, Carmelo Anthony and Dwyane Wade have had more mixed results.
• Good teams in general do well in crunch time. The top six teams in crunch time plus/minus this season have already locked up playoff spots, for instance (Lakers, Pacers, Hawks, Magic, Spurs and Bulls). But it's hardly a perfect correlation. In fact, surely a lot of what we're seeing in this chart appears to be simple randomness. The Pacers, terrible for a long time, are suddenly leaders. The Kings are excellent crunch time defenders this season. The Hawks are a solid team that is way better than solid late in games. And plenty of good teams -- the Sixers, the Knicks -- are pretty bad with the game on the line.
• Over the past half-decade, just two teams, the Knicks and Timberwolves, haven't had a single season in positive territory.
• The top ten late-game offensive teams this season are the Magic, Lakers, Grizzlies, Bulls, Hawks, Pacers, Rockets, Thunder, Spurs and Knicks.
• The Pacers are by far this season's best defensive team late in close games. They are followed by the Hawks, Kings (!), Spurs, Heat, Magic, Bulls, Lakers, Thunder and Clippers.
• The Dallas Mavericks have been very good for the last five years, but also have had the biggest drop-off in crunch time performance, from a league-leading plus-117 last season to an anemic minus-16 this season.
• The Hawks have been good in crunch time for four straight years.
• The Spurs and Thunder have been up and down.
• The Houston Rockets (plus-31) and Memphis Grizzlies (plus-28) are the best crunch time teams this season that have yet to lock up a playoff spot. The Los Angeles Clippers (minus-9) are the only playoff team with a negative clutch plus/minus.

Mostly, this feels like it's the tip of the iceberg. There's a lot more to learn about all this, and one of the big questions on the horizon is something Bill James has wrestled with in baseball for quite some time: Is there such a thing as clutch time performers? Are there really players or teams who do better with the game on the line?

That's still not something we know. What we do know is that a lot of what we thought we knew was wrong.

With a 112-108 overtime win over the Dallas Mavericks on Sunday, the Los Angeles Lakers moved to a season-high 17 games over .500 (39-22) and improved to 4-1 this season without the league’s leading scorer, Kobe Bryant.

Tonight, the Lakers will look to build on that momentum against the San Antonio Spurs (10:30 ET).

Instead of taking a step back lately, the Lakers have shown they can both win without their superstar and thrive offensively. In the last five games, the Lakers are averaging more points and shooting more efficiently compared to when Bryant has been in the lineup this season.

Much of the Lakers’ success without Bryant has been due to the supporting cast stepping up, most notably Andrew Bynum and Metta World Peace.

Andrew Bynum
In his first 51 games this season, Bynum averaged a double-double, posting career highs in points (18.3) and rebounds (11.8). But in the last five games without Bryant, he has really stepped up his game at both ends of the floor and has taken an increasing role in the offense. He is averaging four more points per game, five more rebounds per game and nine more shot attempts per game without Bryant.

One of the areas where Bynum has been the most aggressive is in the post. Over the last five games, he has almost doubled his field goal attempts on post-up plays per game compared to when Bryant was in the lineup and has increased his scoring in those situations.

Metta World Peace
World Peace has also found a rhythm in Bryant’s absence. In the last five games, World Peace is averaging 17 points on 52 percent shooting. Prior to this stretch, World Peace averaged just 6.5 points. No other player on the Lakers has increased his scoring more since Bryant has been out of the lineup than World Peace.

Where World Peace has improved the most is his jump shooting. In his first 55 games, World Peace shot just 29 percent from 10 feet and beyond. However, he has been on fire from the outside in the last five games, shooting over 47 percent from that distance.

The Heat and Lakers both emerged victorious Sunday afternoon, as Miami clinched the Southeast Division, and Los Angeles moved a game and a half ahead of the Clippers in the Pacific Division.

The Heat relied on their Big Three, and the Lakers leaned on their two bigs, as we learn from diving into the numbers...

Heat 93, Knicks 85
Miami snapped New York's nine-game home win streak, thanks to a combined 73 points from the trio of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.

Those three scored 78.5 percent of the Heat's points, their highest percentage in a Miami win this season. With 16 points and 14 rebounds, Bosh recorded his first double-double and second double-digit rebounding game since the All-Star break.

Carmelo Anthony kept the game close with 42 points, the most any player has scored against the Heat this season.

But Anthony got little help from the other Knicks starters, who combined for 19 points. This was the first time since the NBA-ABA merger that the Knicks had a player score 40 or more points with no other starter reaching double figures.

Carmelo Anthony scored 26 of his 42 points on isolation plays, his most points on such plays this season and the most allowed by the Heat.

Lakers 112, Mavericks 108 (OT)Los Angeles improved to 4-1 without Kobe Bryant this season, in large part because of two Pau Gasol three-pointers in overtime. This is the first time Gasol has made two or more treys in a game for the Lakers. He previously did it twice with the Grizzlies, most recently over five years ago in December 2006.

The Lakers have won six straight versus Dallas, and they swept the four-game season series from the Mavericks. The Elias Sports Bureau tells us that the last time a team won all four games of a season series against the defending champion was five years ago, when the Magic swept the Heat.

Since the Mavericks eliminated Los Angeles in four games in last season's Western Conference Semifinals, it's also the fourth time ever that a team swept the season series against the same team that swept them the previous postseason.

Gasol finished with 20 points and 10 rebounds, and Andrew Bynum had 23 points and 16 boards, marking the third time this season they each posted 20 and 10 in the same game.

The Mavericks lost despite scoring 108 points, ending their 18-game win streak when scoring 100 or more points.

Andrew Bynum had a monster night on Wednesday in the Lakers' big road win over the Spurs. He racked up 30 rebounds.

30!

Only eight other players have collected that many boards in a game since the 1985-86 season, and no Laker had accomplished such a feat since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1978. Meanwhile, the entire Spurs team managed only 33 rebounds.

Although Bynum was pleased with his heroics on the glass, he was bothered by his subpar shooting performance from the field. From Kevin Ding of the Orange County Register:

But Bynum also wasn’t satisfied, citing his 7-of-20 shooting from the field to go with 2-of-4 free-throw shooting. In these three road games without Bryant, enabling opposing defenses to trap Bynum faster and stronger, Bynum shot 24 of 64 from the field (37.5 percent).

He said he needs to figure out a way to get his base stronger to shoot with defenses taking away the dribbles he likes to take to get himself in rhythm.

“People are realizing if I get two or three dribbles, I’m going to get a basket very quickly and very easily,” Bynum said.

Bynum described himself in the locker room after a postgame shower as “a little upset” about the shooting that he said will send him into the gym for more work.

“For me, I’ll remember shooting horribly,” he said.

Bynum has an interesting dilemma that most of us face at some point -- what feels comfortable might not be the most efficient way to master a task. He likes to dribble the basketball before going up for his shot. For Bynum, it's a way of clearing his throat, of sorts, before getting into his move. But those dribbles present complications. They provide time for defenses to swarm and also leave him potentially vulnerable to turnovers.

A while back, 82games.com studied the correlation between the number of dribbles of a player taking a shot (or drawing a foul, or committing a turnover) -- in other words, the player whose action is decisive on a given possession. It's no surprise that the research concluded that a player is most likely to score and least likely to commit a turnover or get his shot blocked if he takes zero dribbles.

More of this kind of data is being explored. To wit, check out this clip from the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, in which Jackie MacMullan shares some findings about the correlation between Kevin Durant's shooting performance and the number of dribbles he takes prior to his shot attempts. For this specific portion for the discussion, please fast forward to the 16:00 mark:

Do the Lakers and Clippers share a rivalry? That all depends on where you set the bar. The two teams clearly have some mutual animosity but, as Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro said prior to Wednesday's game, it isn't a rivalry yet -- at least not until the Clippers win some meaningful games.

Once Los Angeles absorbed the hype and settled in for the tiebreaker in the city series, there was a whole lot to glean about these two teams:

• Remember when we used to refer to Andrew Bynum as raw? His temperament may still be immature, but for all the acting out and histrionics, he's become one of the 10 most difficult guys in the league to defend. The jab, the emerging face-up game, his eagerness to move low the instant his man steps out -- then the ability to seal him off. The 3-pointer aside, Bynum's repertoire seems limitless and he's approaching every touch as if it's his last. No wonder he's calling for the ball. Bynum finished with 36 points on 13-for-20 shooting from the field and 10-for-12 from the line.
• The Lakers are a crafty bunch. One of the ways Bynum is able to get such deep position against his defender? The Lakers will run their 3 man -- sometimes Metta World Peace and sometimes Matt Barnes -- across the baseline on a curl, something they did on Wednesday night. On their way across the court, World Peace or Barnes would bump DeAndre Jordan, buying just enough time or space for Bynum to creep that much closer to the hoop. When that happens, the Lakers guards would instantly deliver the entry pass into Bynum. At that point, most of the hard work is done for the Lakers, and Bynum is left with a high-percentage shot against a off-balance defender.
• The Clippers' recent improvement can be attributed, in some part, to Jordan's aggressive defense, both underneath and out on the perimeter in pick-and-roll coverage. Jordan is the team's defensive ace of the future, the big man who is supposed to give the Clippers that Tyson Chandler-ish presence beneath the rim. A performance like tonight has to be dejecting, both for Jordan and the team. He didn't get much help, but a one-on-one matchup against an elite counterpart in a key game is the equivalent of a big midterm for a highly paid young center like Jordan.
• Kobe Bryant did most of his work at the foul line extended and below, toying with a procession of Clippers defenders that included Randy Foye, Caron Butler, Nick Young and, for the briefest of stretches, Eric Bledsoe (the Clippers' most capable perimeter defender). The Clippers threw a zone at Bryant and the Lakers for a short stint, then sent double-teams at him, usually from the block in the form of Kenyon Martin, but sometimes from up top. Bryant never wavered from his attack. With the game on the line and the Lakers leading by only two points inside of a minute, Bryant manipulated a switch on a little brush screen for Ramon Sessions. Now covered by Foye, whom Bryant devoured from start to finish, Kobe received the ball off the mid-left block, floated left, then elevated over the 6-foot-4 Foye.
• Speaking of Sessions, he's given the Lakers an entirely different look. He approaches each possession with a purpose and his decisive nature is helping the Lakers get the ball in better spots. Decision-makers like Sessions can help a team execute possessions. It’s not as if Derek Fisher didn’t have good judgment -- he was the consummate wise man -- but he rarely was in a position to make big ones. Sessions is trustworthy and a versatile pick-and-roll guard. The 1-2 pick-and-roll he runs with Kobe up top makes life inordinately easier for Bryant, and Sessions got at least four buckets of his own out of that action. Run under a screen for Sessions and he can shoot or make a play. And when Bryant or Bynum draw attention, Sessions will dart to the rim fearlessly, often drawing a foul. It's a brilliant pickup for a team that needed perimeter penetration and a steady hand on the rudder as the Lakers approach the postseason.
• Blake Griffin did this and this -- practically shoving Pau Gasol into retirement. Griffin said that he'd hoped the second dunk would provide the Clippers with some momentum. It did momentarily, but ultimately spectacle lost out to substance. After the game, Bynum characterized the contrast like this: "We got the W, [Griffin] can have the highlight." Griffin and Gasol went at it all night, and it was a treat to watch. Are there two more stylistically opposed power forwards on earth? Tally up the primary strengths of each and you'd be hard-pressed to find any overlap. Yet they're both phenomenal, just at different crafts.
• Why have the Clippers been playing better basketball of late? One refrain you’ll hear from fans, media, coaches and players alike is that they’re pushing the tempo. To the naked eye, that makes sense. The sets seem more fluid and there’s less of a struggle to find shots in the half court. The only problem? The Clippers played some of their slowest ball of the season during the streak. Here were the number of possessions in the respective games: 87, 93, 93, 87, 90, 88 -- every single game below the league average of 93.8. In the process, the Clippers have dropped to 27^th in pace factor. Wednesday night was their swiftest game in weeks -- 95 or 96 possessions -- which prompts the questions: Are the Clippers better off slowing things down and letting Paul pick apart opponents in the half court?
• Paul had his inside-out dribble working as he snaked through the forest of Laker defenders. What's new? He got some help from Butler, who was leveraging the freedom the Lakers gave him on the back side of the defense. The Clippers generally need a weakside threat who can hit shots if they're going to be competitive and Butler gave them that tonight. Meanwhile, Paul found every opportunity to feed his teammates, racking up 16 assists. Unfortunately for the Clippers, he needed 20.
• Griffin needs some ball screens to help him burst to the hole. The Lakers have their 1-2 pick-and-roll. Well, the Clippers need a 4-5 to give Griffin another path the rim.

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.

With losses at Detroit on Tuesday and at Washington on Wednesday, the Los Angeles Lakers are 6-14 on the road this season.

Finding ways to win on the road isn’t the only problem for the Lakers. Their performance in clutch situations – specifically Kobe Bryant’s – might be a bigger cause for concern.
(A clutch situation is defined as fourth quarter or overtime, less than five minutes left, with neither team ahead by more than five points.)

In their loss to the Wizards, Bryant went 0-for-4 from the field in clutch situations, but his teammates went 2-for-4. For Bryant, it was a continuation of how things have gone for him this season.

Bryant is shooting just 26.8 percent (19-71) in clutch situations, and has produced 0.79 points per field goal attempt. Last season, Bryant shot 40.2 percent in those situations, and averaged 1.28 points per field goal attempt.

The rest of the team, surprisingly, has been much more efficient. Excluding Bryant, the Lakers are shooting well over 50 percent, averaging 1.50 points per field goal attempt in clutch situations.

Andrew Bynum made his only field goal attempt in the clutch against the Wizards. The Lakers center has led the way for that group, shooting 87.0 percent from the field (20-of-23) in clutch situations. Bynum has scored seven fewer points than Bryant in the clutch (56-49), but has also taken 48 fewer field goal attempts than Bryant (71 to 23).

A look at the six players making their first All-Star Game appearance this season.

• Luol Deng, who is averaging 16.0 points and 7.3 rebounds per game, is one of two All-Stars from the Chicago Bulls. Deng has been arguably the most valuable defender on one of the best defensive teams in the NBA.

When Deng is on the court, the Bulls are allowing just 90.9 points per 100 possessions. When he’s off the floor, that number jumps to 99.9 and opponents are shooting almost three percentage points better from the field.

• At 18-8, the Philadelphia 76ers are off to their best 26-game start since the 2000-01 season, a year they went to the NBA Finals. A large part of their success this season has been due to the play of Andre Iguodala, who is averaging career highs in 3-point percentage (39.0) and rebounds (6.7).

Iguodala has been most productive in transition this season where he’s collected 86 points, the most he’s recorded among all play types.

• In his fourth season, Roy Hibbert has blossomed into one of the best young centers in the NBA. He’s averaging career highs in points (13.6), rebounds (9.9) and field goal percentage (50.9). Hibbert’s biggest improvement has been in the post.

• Andrew Bynum is averaging careers highs in points (17.1) and rebounds (12.6), and is one of only three players in the NBA averaging at least 17 points and 12 rebounds this season. Bynum has done his damage close to the basket; his 5.5 field goals per game inside five feet are second in the NBA only to his All-Star teammate Blake Griffin (6.1).

• LaMarcus Aldridge is averaging a career-high 23.3 points per game, fifth in the NBA. He’s been dominant in the halfcourt offense where he’s scored 564 points this season, second behind only Kobe Bryant.

• Despite older brother Pau being left off the team, little brother Marc Gasol will be a Western Conference reserve as the only All-Star from the Memphis Grizzlies.

Gasol has established himself as one of the elite post defenders in the NBA; he’s averaging a career-high 2.2 blocks per game (fourth in the NBA), and among players who’ve defended at least 50 post-up plays, he’s allowing the third-fewest points per play this season (0.58).

New York Knicks guard Jeremy Lin has made quite an impression in the last two games.

Lin had a career high 28 points and eight assists in a win over the Utah Jazz. He scored 32 points in his first nine games of the season, but has 53 points (and a lot of fan support) in his last two games.

Lin was very effective handling, protecting, and shooting the ball on the pick-and-roll, making half of his 10 baskets on pick-and-rolls.

In both this game and the win over the New Jersey Nets that earned him a starting spot, Lin was 5-for-8 when shooting on pick-and-rolls, and in each game he twice converted 3-point plays by getting fouled on his dribble-drives.

Additionally, Lin has been better than Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni thought he would be on the defensive end. Lin’s man is 5-for-18 from the field in the last two games.

In the category of fun with small sample sizes, Lin is the Knicks leader in two advanced stats- John Hollinger’s PER, and Basketball-Reference.com’s Win Shares per 48 minutes, both of which measure a player’s overall value to his team.

The one thing to be wary of- Lin had eight turnovers in Monday’s win, tied for the third-most by anyone in a game this season.

Kobe passes Shaq

Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant passed Shaquille O’Neal into fifth place on the NBA’s all-time scoring list in a loss to the Philadelphia 76ers. Bryant now has 28,601 points after scoring 28 on Monday.

The chart on the right shows the four players that Bryant has left to catch if he hopes to become the NBA’s all-time scorer.

Bryant had a rough second half in this game, going just 2-for-12 from the field.

Bryant entered the game averaging a league-best 7.3 points per game in the fourth quarter, but he went just 1-for-10 from the field in the loss.

Howard, Bynum, Cousins statistically linked together
Dwight Howard had his second game of at least 30 points and 10 rebounds this season in the Orlando Magic’s overtime loss against the Los Angeles Clippers. He’s one of five players with multiple 30/10 games, along with Kevin Love, Kevin Durant, Blake Griffin, and LeBron James.

In defeat, Lakers center Andrew Bynum joined Howard as the only players with multiple 20/20 games this season. Howard leads with five.

Also, Sacramento Kings center DeMarcus Cousins had his fourth game this season with at least 19 rebounds. The only player with more such games this season is Howard, who now has six.

Plus-Minus Note of the Night
The Houston Rockets got good contributions from their bench in a 99-90 win over the Denver Nuggets.

Courtney Lee, Jeff Adrien, Patrick Patterson, and Chase Budinger all were plus-9 or better.

Lee and Adrien were each plus-15. Lee’s plus-minus was one shy of his best such effort this season. Adrien’s was one shy of his career best, and his second positive plus-minus in eight games played this season.

1. There was an air of certitude coming from Pau Gasol following the Lakers' 96-91 win over the Clippers. It wasn't quite an "I told you so," but he spoke like a man who felt vindicated. Gasol went 9-of-13 from the floor for 23 points and added 10 rebounds and four assists. "We made sure we used a little more of our interior game so it would open things up for our exterior game," Gasol said. "That's just the way it works." Gasol said the coaching staff drew up a couple of more plays to ensure he'd get the ball in the post so he could attack.

He didn't screw around. From the very outset of the game, he ran down to the box like a man possessed. If he didn't establish position against Blake Griffin on one block, the Lakers would run a cross-screen to free him up for a deep entry catch on the other. We saw a show-and-go against Reggie Evans, a smooth shot-fake and dribble-drive against a recovering Griffin (courtesy of a nice pocket pass from Kobe Bryant off a well-executed pick-and-roll) and a strong seal along the baseline for that nice pass in traffic from Metta World Peace (though, according to Kobe, that was Ron Artest out there on Wednesday night).

"I made myself aggressive," Gasol said in a television interview immediately after the game. The phrasing was telling.

2. Chris Paul suited up for the first time since these two teams met 10 days prior, but his 26 minutes suggested he isn't yet 100 percent. The Clippers' offense, which had been humming with machine-like efficiency before Paul was sidelined with a strained left hamstring, sputtered in the second half.

If you're the Clippers, what kind of shots are you generally looking for? Opportunities for Griffin at close range; Paul optimizing space to get a clean jumper or a smooth driving lane to the rack; maybe Caron Butler as a weakside release after the defense tilts the floor; kickouts for Billups that result in open 3-point looks or a chance for him to draw contact against an imbalanced defender.

The Clippers didn't generate anything of the kind in the fourth quarter. Down two with 1:40 to play, Paul buzzed in and out of traffic and drew Andrew Bynum on a mismatch. He backed Bynum out, but with only three seconds left on the shot clock Paul launched a 26-footer. The Clippers' next two shot attempts were blocked at the basket, which effectively sealed the game, but the trouble for the Clippers started long before that.

3. Griffin had a prolific night from outside the paint, shooting 6-of-10 beyond 10 feet. Like most defenses, the Lakers yielded Griffin space at midrange to limit his dribble attacks. He used his agility to propel into a spin move and then launch a turnaround jumper. Building on the confidence of his stroke, Griffin later went to a step-back jumper over Gasol. The midrange game presents a dilemma for Griffin. He isn't a high-percentage shooter from distance, but he also knows it's a shot he needs to make with some proficiency if his game is going to evolve to the next level. On Wednesday night, the Lakers' length inside might have been a motivating factor or he might have simply felt comfy from outside.

4. Bryant threw the ball away early looking for teammates against pressure, but credit him for finding Derek Fisher repeatedly along the arc. Fisher was the constant beneficiary of a Clippers defense that paid little or no attention to its floor balance defensively. The Lakers pounded it inside, and any incursion into the paint drew the entire Clippers defense. Fisher faded to the perimeter and was on the receiving end of some skip passes from Bryant with serious altitude.

5. It’s very hard for the Clippers to generate much offense when they have some combination of DeAndre Jordan, Solomon Jones and Reggie Evans as their frontcourt. Crazy as it sounds, Griffin is the Clippers' stretchiest big man not named Brian Cook. You have to wonder at what point the Clippers will look to add a more offensively minded big man, because they're barely treading water when the combined range of their power forward and center is roughly the length of a Twix bar. The Clippers can opt to go small against certain opponents, but against the Lakers, Trail Blazers, Thunder and most of the top teams in the West, it’s just not a feasible scenario, which means they're stuck with an anemic unit on the floor for considerable stretches.

Chris Paul's most dynamic play of the night occurred a moment before his most consequential one, after which he limped off the floor.

The Clippers led 91-82 just inside of five minutes to play. They'd weathered a torrent of Kobe Bryant, who'd gone off for 21 points in the third quarter and added a couple of more baskets in the fourth. Paul held the ball up top on the right side, isolated against Darius Morris. Paul had assumed the scoring role for the Clippers and was looking to take another bite out of the Lakers' rookie. The Clippers had done much of their work in isolation over the course of the night.

Blake Griffin darted toward Morris' right shoulder, then took a 90-degree left turn down the right edge of the lane. Andrew Bynum shaded Griffin while backpedaling into the lane, maintaining his presence between Paul and the rim. Paul accelerated the instant Griffin got a step beyond Bynum, then elevated in traffic and directed a laser-beam pass to Griffin beneath the right side of the glass.

"That’s something that he creates with how good he is off the dribble," Griffin said. "So I have the easy job.”

In the photograph at the top of this post, you can see Paul dish the ball just behind Bynum to a waiting Griffin. After the image was snapped, Griffin did what Griffin typically does when he's holding a basketball alone in close proximity to a rim. With his slam, the Clippers stretched their lead to 11 points.

It wasn't just that the bucket extended the Clippers' lead to double-digits with fewer than five minutes remaining in the game. The sequence was as impressive as any play that requires lobs or hydraulics. It displayed the symbiosis the team will need to profit from all of its talents. At that moment, the Clippers looked like a competent team that understands how to put its best players in the most logical spots, then execute. This is the defining quality of any winning basketball team, and Paul can conjure it on command.

On the next Clippers possession, Paul drained a fading jumper, came up limp with a strained left hamstring, then checked out of the game, not to return. He will be evaluated tomorrow, until which time there will be a collective holding of breath.

With the Clippers' 102-94 win over the Lakers, the branding exercise will now give way to something more substantive. The intracity rivalry will continue to provide a nice overlay above Los Angeles' basketball landscape, and Lob City clearly has staying power no matter how much the Clippers might publicly try to disown it. (They shouldn't, but that's a different klatch for a different day.). The atmosphere isn't going anywhere, but the takeway from the win seemed less that the Clippers had defeated their civic rivals and more that the Clippers had beaten their stiffest competition in the Pacific Division, and a team they might be fighting for a high seed in late April.

The Clippers have clearly shifted their attention to more practical concerns. They seem to have little interest in any narrative that resides in some historical or symbolic realm. No one denies the Clippers' past failures; Griffin and DeAndre Jordan don't seem to care and the veterans can't be bothered. The unanimous sentiment seems to be, "OK, but what does that have to do with your readiness as a professional basketball player?" When the Clippers jawed with the Heat and the Lakers, they did so without any regard to identity. It was just business, and the Clippers are now getting down to work.

Over the past week, the Clippers have identified their deficiencies and begun the process of addressing them. Doing so against quality opponents isn't easy and the Clippers haven't been flawless by any means, but there's discernible progress against the league's elite in the Clippers' weakest two areas: rebounding and team defense.

The Clippers subjected Portland to its worst rebounding performance of the season, held their own against Miami (ranked fourth in rebounding), then pummeled the Lakers, who own the league's second-best rebounding rate. Reggie Evans has 29 rebounds in 73 minutes, while Griffin and Jordan have renewed their commitment on the glass. Griffin fronts most of his covers in the Clippers' defense and he frequently has the itch to leak out, which makes sense considering what he's capable of doing if he's the first man downcourt on a break. Over the past week, he's multitasking better, taking care of his base defensive assignments and still finding his way to the glass. Jordan, too, has made strides.

After wretched losses to San Antonio and Chicago, the Clippers have crafted a bend-not-break defense. They don't have premier perimeter stoppers to throw at the game's most lethal wing scorers, but Caron Butler fought through screens and pin-downs on Saturday and limited Bryant's separation early. When Bryant became too much for Randy Foye, the Clippers did what Utah didn't the other night -- send a second perimeter defender on a double-team. The Clips have also intensified their focus on ball denial and have diversified their coverage schemes. Griffin and Jordan have been more alert, decisive and punctual when they pick up secondary assignments during a defensive possession. As a result, those gaps in the half court that had the Clippers scrambling on defense at the start of the season have suddenly contracted.

Saturday's game against the Lakers fulfilled its promise as a native turf war, but by the end of the night, the chippiness, jaw jut and the lofty notions that a regular-season game in January 2012 could reframe history were relegated to the periphery. For the Clippers, the wins over Miami and the Lakers mark the end of the surface intrigue.

This is now a basketball project.

The pick-and-roll is one of the most basic and difficult plays to defend in basketball. It’s also an accurate litmus test for how well-coached and well-practiced a defense is. In the NBA, if you can consistently stymie your opponent’s pick-and-roll attack, you can win a ton of games. Case in point: The Lakers are 0-2 in part because their offense is a mess, and in part because they are having real difficulty defending the pick-and-roll.

Thus far this year Los Angeles is surrendering a generous 1.32 points per possession (PPP) to the ballhandler in the pick-and-roll. You might remember Chris Paul and J.J. Barea eviscerating the Laker big men (no thanks to Derek Fisher) in last year’s playoffs, but LA actually defended pick-and-roll ballhandlers well over the course of the 2010-11 season (.74 points per possession allowed). That was not the case Monday night, when Marcus Thornton, Jimmer Fredette and Isaiah Thomas used ball screens to routinely find open jump shots and lanes to the paint.

Defending the pick-and-roll is so tricky because it demands not only the right personnel, but a disciplined scheme. Indeed it takes better timing and orchestration to defend the pick-and-roll than it does to score out of it. Thornton has been shooting pull-up jump shots off of ball screens for a decade. Mike Brown and Pau Gasol just met.

The Lakers are integrating a number of new rotation players and a coach charged with replacing an icon. Growing pains on both sides of the ball are to be expected, especially with a shortened preseason and training camp. But L.A. should take heart knowing that the return of Andrew Bynum should make solving these long-term challenges much simpler.

Players who can protect the rim and also possess the foot speed to show and recover on pick-and-rolls are an incredibly rare and valuable commodity. Kevin Garnett is the master at this maneuver. His fundamentals are flawless: he barks out orders when a screener approaches then shows great lateral quickness to cut off the ballhandler before retreating like a mad man into the paint with his hands high in order to obscure passing angles to secondary options.

The Celtics’ famous defense is built around their big men’s ability to contain the ball on the pick-and-roll, but it takes a special athlete and smart game planning to do that.

The Lakers big men lack that elite quickness, but historically they’ve more than made up for a deficit in speed with a surplus of size. Though departed 6-10 forward Lamar Odom had the requisite quick feet, the real catalyst of the Lakers pick-and-roll defense has been the pairing of Gasol and Bynum. The specific luxury of clogging the lane with an active 7-footer while the other shows on the screen and roll is why the Lakers were an elite defense last season.

The presence of that big man, whether it’s Bynum or Gasol, sinking back into the paint to pick up the roll man allowed the Lakers' other big men to be more aggressive on ball screens. Odom’s absence hurts, but Josh McRoberts is a similar combination of quick feet and long arms. Bynum, on the other hand, is irreplaceable.

Of course it’s not all up to the man defending the screener. That on-ball defender must also help by forcing the offensive player a certain direction and then slithering around the screen to recover to the ballhandler. Fisher is in his 16th NBA season and spends his evenings defending players who hadn’t yet learned what a pick-and-roll was when Fisher entered the league. Though backup point guard Steve Blake is no Tony Allen, he is more suited to harassing opposing point guards than Fisher. Neither is a strong defender, but both are heady and active enough to be adequate when paired with a smart and coherent system.

But the Lakers' defensive system is still very much a work in progress. While the Clippers ran successful Blake Griffin and Chris Paul pick-and-rolls while the other three Clips stood around aimlessly, defending the pick-and-roll always demands the awareness and discipline of five players. And that means it takes practice and conditioning to do it wel l-- two things that are in short supply this early in the season. But Brown is up to the task. In Cleveland he coached a top defensive team that gave up only .81 PPP to pick-and-roll ballhandlers despite Shaquille O’Neal and Zydrunas Ilgauskas -- two of the league’s least reliable away-from-the-basket defenders -- lurching about on defense like enormous zombies for long stretches every game.

Brown needs a chance to ingrain his system, that will take time -- perhaps time the Lakers don’t have given this season's abbreviated practice schedule. But more than anything, L.A. needs Andrew Bynum back. That will happen starting Saturday against the Denver Nuggets. Until the Lakers have control of Brown’s system, they can at least control the paint with sheer size.

Since Kobe Bryant became a regular starter for the Los Angeles Lakers in 1998–99, the Lakers have fallen behind 2–0 in five previous playoff series. The Lakers were 4–1 in the pivotal "must-win" third games of those series with Bryant leading with way with 32.4 points per game.

Friday it was a different story as the Lakers fell to the Dallas Mavericks marking the first time the Lakers have trailed 3-0 in a best-of-7 series under Phil Jackson.

Dirk Nowitzki finished with 32 points on 12-for-19 shooting from the floor as he notched his 10th straight playoff game with 20-plus points. Nowitzki feasted on Pau Gasol offensively as 27 of his 32 points came while being guarded by Gasol. This continued a series-long theme as Nowitzki is now 16-of-19 from the floor for 40 points against Gasol in the series.

The Mavericks bench once again outscored the Lakers bench, this time 42-15, led by Jason Terry (23) and Peja Stojakovic (15). Stojakovic contributed 11 of his 15 points in the fourth quarter.

Speaking of the fourth quarter, the Mavericks outscored the Lakers 20-7 in the final five minutes of the game. For the series, the Lakers have now been outscored by a combined 27 points in the fourth quarter.

As mentioned above Bryant has averaged over 32 points per game in Game 3 when trailing 2-0. Friday he had just 17 points, which is tied for his second-lowest output this postseason. Andrew Bynum was the lone bright spot as he led the Lakers with 21 points and 10 rebounds, but finished with just three points in the fourth quarter.

Phil Jackson and the Lakers not only find themselves in a huge hole, but also in very unfamiliar territory. The Elias Sports Bureau tells us that this is the first time in 65 playoff series as a head coach that Jackson has lost the first three games of a postseason series. Game 4 is Sunday in Dallas and the Lakers will try to avoid becoming the sixth defending champion in NBA history to get swept in a best-of-7 series (2007 Miami Heat, 1996 Houston Rockets, 1991 Detroit Pistons, 1983 & 1989 Lakers).

And in case you were wondering, none of the 98 NBA teams to trail a series 3-0 have come back to win.