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Ricky Rubio and Derrick Rose both tore their ACL’s this season. Rubio did so March 9 against the Lakers after the Timberwolves entered the day tied with the Rockets for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference. Rose went down with 1:10 remaining in Game 1 of the First Round and the game already in hand for the Bulls.

Which point guard was more valuable to their team’s success this season? Most would probably assume Rose, the reigning MVP, was once again one of the most valuable players in the NBA when he was healthy. But is it possible that Rubio could’ve been a more valuable player than Rose?

RICKY RUBIO
In games Rubio played this season, the Timberwolves were 21-20 and had a chance to make the playoffs for the first time since 2004. Without him, the Timberwolves lost 20 of their final 25 games and finished last place in the Northwest Division.

With Rubio off the court, the Timberwolves were 7.1 points worse per 48 minutes. The Timberwolves offense wasn’t affected as much as their defense was without Rubio. They scored 1.4 more points and allowed 5.7 fewer points per 48 minutes with Rubio on the court.

DERRICK ROSE
Rose missed 27 games during the regular season and the Bulls were 18-9 in those games. They were significantly better at 32-7 with Rose, but they still maintained the top seed in the East without him.

The Bulls were 3.5 points worse per 48 minutes with Rose off the court this season. The Bulls were greatly affected offensively without Rose, but their defense actually improved. They scored 8.2 fewer points and allowed 4.7 more points per 48 minutes with Rose off the court.

SUMMER OLYMPICS
Neither Rubio nor Rose will be able to compete for their respective countries in the 2012 Summer Olympics. Which player’s injury will have a larger effect, Rubio on Spain or Rose on USA?

In the 2010 FIBA World Championship, Rubio averaged 8.1 assists per 40 minutes, the second-highest behind Argentina’s Pablo Prigioni. Spain had to rely heavily on Rubio running the point without Jose Calderon, who injured his leg and didn’t play in Turkey.

Calderon will be an offensive asset, but Spain could be hurt defensively without Rubio. Since Calderon entered the NBA in 2004, nobody has better than his 4.1 assist-to-turnover ratio. This season, the Raptors scored more, shot better and had a much better assist-to-turnover ratio when Calderon was on the court, but their opponents also scored more and shot better while Calderon was out there.

Raul Lopez, Sergio Llull and Juan Carlos Navarro could also contribute for Spain at the point.

Rose led USA in assists per game (3.2) in the 2010 FIBA World Championship. Without him, USA’s point guard options are Chris Paul, Deron Williams and Russell Westbrook. In the 2010 FIBA World Championship, Paul and Williams didn’t play and Westbrook averaged 18.8 points, 5.4 assists and 5.8 rebounds per 40 minutes. Paul (9.1 APG) and Williams (8.7 APG) both ranked in top five in the NBA this season in assists per game (Calderon was 4th and Rubio was 6th).

The Chicago Bulls have been winning with their half-court defense. The Bulls entered Friday’s game allowing 0.78 points per play in the half court, which ranked second-best in the NBA.

This time, it established itself a little earlier than usual.

In its first 12 games Chicago’s half-court defense was holding opponents to 41 percent shooting in the first half and 38 percent in the second half.

Those numbers basically flipped around in a Friday win as the Bulls set the tone by holding the Celtics to just 33 first-half points (all but two in the half court), their third-best defensive effort in a half this season. The Boston Celtics shot just 35 percent in half-court sets in the first half in dropping their third straight game.

Bulls guard Derrick Rose scored 12 of his 25 points in the fourth quarter, including two big three-pointers in the final 7:30 of the game, completely turning around what was a below-average performance in the first three periods.

Entering Friday’s game Rose was shooting 44 percent in the half court and was most successful as the pick-and-roll ball handler, shooting 47 percent.

Rose turned it on in the half court in the final 12 minutes, making as many shots in half-court sets (four) as he did in the first 36.

Rose was just 1-for-6 on pick-and-roll plays in the first three quarters, but made a pair-of-baskets on three attempts off pick-and-rolls in the fourth quarter.

The Celtics are floundering. They are off to their worst start since Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen joined Paul Pierce in Boston in 2007-08.

Boston has struggled offensively during the three-game slide, shooting 42 percent from the field while getting just under 20 points per game off the bench.

Kobe, again
Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant topped the 40-point mark for the third straight game in Friday’s win over coach Mike Brown's former team, the Cleveland Cavaliers.

It’s the seventh time in his career that Bryant has had a streak this long, the first time since doing so for five straight games during the 2006-07 season.

Bryant’s longest streak of 40-point games was a nine-game run in which he averaged 44 points per game in the 2002-03 season.

30/10 for Williams, 30/15 for Love

Deron Williams had 35 points and 14 assists in the New Jersey Nets win over the Phoenix Suns. That is Williams' 13th 30-point, 10-assist game since the 2008-09 season. The only players with more in that span are LeBron James (17) and Dwyane Wade (15).

Kevin Love scored 34 points and pulled down 15 rebounds for the Minnesota Timberwolves. It was his 10th career game with at least 30 points and 15 rebounds, which moves him into a tie for 9th most among active players, despite only being in the league for four seasons.

Plus-Minus Note of the Night
It was a good day for the San Antonio Spurs bench in a 99-83 win over the Portland Trail Blazers.
In the 30 minutes that third-year swingman Danny Green was on the floor, the Spurs outscored the Trail Blazers by 29 points.

It was the best plus-minus of Green’s career by far, surpassing a plus-15 as a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers against the Milwaukee Bucks on March 6, 2010.

• Kyle Weidie of Truth About It offers up a multimedia presentation of how Deron Williams tied the Wizards in knots with ball screens.
• The Heat posted unsightly numbers against the Celtics' zone on Tuesday night but, as Zach Lowe of The Point Forward writes, the Heat had a coherent strategy to combat it: "A great example came with about 3:30 left in the game, when the Heat flashed a key potential zone antidote they used a lot: starting a possession with one of their wing stars (Dwyane Wade on this one) as the only person on one entire side of the floor (the left side in this case). That forced the Boston defense to tilt heavily to the right, where James handled the ball on the outside, near all his teammates except Wade. As LeBron dribbled, Chris Bosh flashed from the top of the three-point arc to below the foul line, drawing the man closest to Wade (Dooling) down into the paint, and forcing him to temporarily turn his back to Wade. At that exact moment, LeBron tossed a pass to Wade, who caught it on the move toward the middle of the floor, his momentum taking him the opposite direction as Boston’s defenders, including Dooling, now tilting madly from James’ side of the floor to Wade’s. Wade did not hestitate: With Dooling wrong-footed, Wade drove into the paint, where Dooling fouled him. Without a shot, the play almost vanishes from game logs everywhere, but it represents one key way the Heat can combat a zone; both James and Wade got layups against it out of action just like this."
• Historiographers have identified the origins of sports panic -- the phenomenon dates back to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 17th Century. Is it time to panic in Boston?
• Tony Allen kindly asks that you set up your voicemail already.
• You should buy the full 2011-12 PDF from Basketball Prospectus, but if you want the crib notes from Kevin Pelton -- a single paragraph and projected record for each of the 30 teams -- click here.
• An interview with Clippers vice president of basketball operations Neil Olshey at Yahoo! Radio.
• Be Milwaukee!
• The Trail Blazers are 2-0 and when you take inventory of LaMarcus Aldridge's versatility as a big man and the smart pieces around them, they look primed for a pretty decent season. Tom Ziller of SB Nation: "[T]he way in which the Blazers have played, mixing the tough defense you know Gerald Wallace and Wesley Matthews will bring with the smooth scoring ability of LaMarcus Aldridge and deft shooting of Matthews and Nicolas Batum, mixed with able playmaking from Raymond Felton and Marcus Camby -- despite the caveats and despite the great misfortune of losing Brandon Roy forever and Greg Oden for a while longer, Portland looks like a real contender in the West."
• The Bucks led the Timberwolves 94-84 with under 4:00 remaining. Then Minnesota ripped off an 8-0 run to close the deficit to two points. The lineup on the floor for the Timberwolves? Ricky Rubio, Luke Ridnour, Michael Beasley, Kevin Love and Anthony Tolliver. Zach Harper describes the final play call of a frustrating night for Minnesota: "Finding themselves down three with seven seconds left, they devised a play without much action away from the ball to free up Kevin Love for the game-tying attempt. Love set a down screen for Luke which enabled Luke to catch the ball roughly 35 feet from the basket. Love then set a screen for Wes near the top of the arc and then ran to the other win. Luke took two dribbles passed it to Love and he took a contested 3-pointer with four seconds left. It was one of the most basic plays you would ever find coming out of a timeout and it resulted in Love taking a contested 26-footer to try to tie the game."
• Bret LaGree of Hoopinion on Joe Johnson: "Can still get anywhere he wants on the floor, presuming where he wants to get isn't within 15 feet of the basket."
• Want to talk Pacers-Raps after tonight's game? Visit with Jared Wade and Tim Donahue on Pacers Talk Live at Eight Points, Nine Seconds.
• Ricky Davis will start his NBA comeback as a Red Claw.
• NBA commentators put Google+ hangout to use.

Before Allan Maymin, Philip Maymin, and Eugene Shen introduce their new basketball metric, "Skills Plus Minus," they conjure up the spirit of Steve Jobs, quoting the Apple founder at the top of their paper:

My model for business is The Beatles. They were four guys who kept each other’s negative tendencies in check. And the total was greater than the sum of the parts. Great things in business are not done by one person; they are done by a team of people.

To borrow from the parlance of hoops, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr might not have been the best musicians at their respective positions, but their individual skill sets created magic because those skills complemented each other perfectly.

Harrison's restraint as a guitarist was a perfect shadow for McCartney's sunniness. And Starr's devotion to tempo (even weird time-signatures like "All You Need is Love") punctuated Lennon's moony vocals.

That's called good chemistry and it's the prism through which the authors of "NBA Chemistry: Positive and Negative Synergies in Basketball" look at how NBA teams can make beautiful music together on the court.

Measuring chemistry is tricky
Folks who use hard data to measure success and failure in sports are skittish about ascribing losses to bad chemistry or chalking up winning to good chemistry. That's because chemistry always seems to be a chicken-and-egg game marred by tautology:

Good teams have chemistry. How do we know? Because they're winning -- and winning is the product of good chemistry.

Yet even the most hard-core analysts have an inkling that there are certain players and skills that optimize each other on the floor. You're smart to surround Dwight Howard with perimeter shooters, and smart to pair Chris Paul with a big man who can punish defenses in the pick-and-roll.

Those aren't advanced discoveries -- just intelligent observations from watching the Magic lead the world in 3-pointers made over the past few seasons and from seeing David West drain face-up jumper after face-up jumper as defenses try to trap Paul.

An eye test is one thing, but hard data is another. What if we could identify less obvious skills (and the players who embody those specific skills) that, if placed alongside each other on the court, could improve your team's chance of winning basketball games? Is loading up a lineup with the five best available players always the best idea? Could piecing together a unit with specialists create better synergy, even if those specialists might be lesser overall players in our minds?

George Harrison for Jimmy Page?
Would the Beatles have been better off swapping out George Harrison for Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page -- considered by many music junkies to be one of the best rock guitarists ever -- or was Harrison's less dynamic, more understated style a better fit for what the Beatles wanted to accomplish?

We'll never know, but it's hard to find fault with the Beatles' oeuvre. In that same spirit, you could argue that Led Zeppelin would've been worse off with Harrison instead of Page.

In other words, Harrison-for-Page would've been "a trade that hurt both bands."

But how is that possible? If one guitarist -- or point guard, or center, or small forward -- is empirically better than the other, then wouldn't he be a more valuable member of the band or team, no matter what the circumstances?

The essence of Skills Plus Minus -- and the CP3/D-Will debate
In search of some answers, the authors, all of whom work as quantitative traders in the financial world, put their new metric to the test. They describe the basic parameters of Skills Plus Minus:

We introduce a novel Skills Plus Minus (“SPM”) framework to measure on-court chemistry in basketball. First, we evaluate each player’s offense and defense in the SPM framework based on three basic categories of skills: scoring, rebounding, and ball-handling. We then simulate games using the skill ratings of the ten players on the court. The results of the simulations measure the effectiveness of individual players as well as the 5-player lineup, so we can then calculate the synergies of each NBA team by comparing their 5-player lineup’s effectiveness to the “sum-of-the-parts.” We find that these synergies can be large and meaningful. Because skills have different synergies with other skills, our framework predicts that a player’s value is dependent on the other nine players on the court. Therefore, the desirability of a free agent depends on the players currently on the roster. Indeed, our framework is able to generate mutually beneficial trades between teams.

As Shen says, "A player's value to his team depends on the skill of the other players on that team." A sophisticated metric like Advanced Plus Minus (and Regularized Advanced Plus Minus) have been inordinately useful, particularly in identifying which 5-man units work well together. Skills Plus Minus builds on that work by trying to answer the question, "Why?"

What is it about Player X's skills that make him a better fit in a lineup when you sub him in for Player Y, who happens to be regarded as a better overall player?

Unlike Advanced Plus Minus, Skills Plus Minus simulates possessions to account for variables (a possession that starts with a steal produces different results from, say, a possession that begins out-of-bounds). Looking at player attributes is an important ingredient in answering many of these questions. (For an advanced illustration, please visit Dean Oliver's study on beach paddleball, a sport which not only serves as a nice alternative to body-surfing or the construction of sand castles, but offers a good laboratory for this kind of examination.)

In SPM's first case study in their study, the authors tackle one of the more spirited debates in recent years: Would the Hornets or Jazz have won a Chris Paul-for-Deron Williams trade in the summer of 2010? Their discovery:

[S]urprisingly, the answer is YES to both. A Williams-for-Paul swap would have made both teams better off and is an example of a mutually beneficial trade.

The authors broke down Paul and Williams' games using those three basic categories on both ends of the floor: scoring, rebounding and ball-handling. After the data was sufficiently crunched, the findings were interesting:

A Paul-for-Williams swap would've helped both teams.

"We thought that was pretty interesting," Shen says. "It turns out our framework predicts that stealing the ball has positive synergy. So if you have two guys on your team who steal the ball, it will actually generate more steals than if the two players played separately. Chris Paul steals the ball very well -- but his teammates do not. But Utah does. On the flip side, Deron Williams would've fit better on New Orleans because our framework predicts that offensive scoring has a negative synergies because you have to share the ball. On the Hornets, Williams wouldn't have to share the ball with as many teammates."

Which skills are good fits?
The research team pored over a ton of data, ran countless simulations and looked at how many points certain combinations of skills created.

Some of the conclusions are obvious to the basketball fan: Offensive ball-handling and offensive scoring have positive synergies. Likewise, offensive ball-handling has a positive synergy with offensive rebounding because, as the paper explains, "[O]ffensive ballhandling helps a team convert possessions into shot attempts, and offensive rebounding increases the number of possessions over which the ballhandler can protect the ball." In other words, give Chris Paul teammates who can score and others who can generate more possessions on the offensive glass, and his team will thrive.

But offensive ball-handling has a negative synergy with itself. It's not that having a couple of guys who can capablly handle the ball is a bad thing, but your team simply won't be able to extract the full value of those skills because there's only one basketball on the court. If Ball-handling stud A has possession of the ball, by definition Ball-handling stud B doesn't -- and that minimizes his best skill.

Here's a result that initially surprised me: Offensive rebounding has a negative synergy with offensive scoring. That seems counterintuitive, until Shen explained it to me.

"Players who have trouble scoring generate more missed shots than players with high offensive scoring ratings," Shen says. "So offensive rebounding will be more valuable to a team that misses shots because there are more opportunities."

One pattern that emerged was that "rare events" (like steals/defensive ball-handling) tended to produce positive synergies, while "common events" (like defensive rebounds) produce negative synergies. How come? Because increasing a team's rebounding rate from 70 percent of defensive rebounds (which would be lousy) to, say, 75 percent (very good) represents only a 7 percent increase. But upping offensive rebounds, which aren't nearly as common as defensive rebounds, from a rate of 30 percent to 35 percent represents a robust 17 percent gain.

The mutually beneficial trades
In addition to the Paul-for-Williams deal, the authors of the study identified 222 potential trades among starters in 2010 that could've helped both teams. Although that seems like a lot, 222 represents only 2 percent of all possible trades.

Some of these trade scenarios, like Paul-for-Williams, are fascinating to contemplate. Others, like Marvin Williams for Daequan Cook, elicit nothing more than a yawn. But on a few rare occasions, the proposed trade is mind-boggling, like sending Amare Stoudemire from Phoenix to Minnesota for Ryan Gomes a couple of years back -- a trade the system says would've helped both the Timberwolves and the Suns at the time.

I asked Shen whether, as a scientist, he was genuinely happy to see the system produce such a novel result or was it frustrating because it might undermine the credibility of the study.

"Amare Stoudemire's reputation is so much better than Ryan Gomes', so the first reaction is 'Can that be right?' Shen says. "But I'd be dishonest with myself if I rigged the system so it doesn't spit that out. For what it's worth, Amare Stoudemire's ratings are not very high. He's rated very close to Ryan Gomes [between 2006-2010]. They have very different skill sets, and the system predicts they would've been a good trading fit. So, I guess, I find it interesting and thought-provoking that the system would generate a trade like that. But on the surface, of course, everyone thinks Stoudemire is better and that would never happen in real life. But I hope it stimulates some good discussion."

I told Gomes about the paper, which not only had him in a mutually beneficial trade for Stoudemire, but also Luis Scola and Udonis Haslem. Gomes got a good laugh out of it but, like Shen, maintained that specific attributes don't get emphasized enough in the NBA.

"Different guys have different skills," Gomes says. "You see it all the time. You might be a bad fit on one team, get dealt, then all of the sudden you play great under a new system with new teammates and a new coach."

The takeaway
Several smart people I communicated with who work with advanced stats had a generally favorable impression of the paper -- though none of them would deal Stoudemire for Gomes. But they unanimously praised the effort and feel that the study represents a natural progression in the discussion of analytics.

Figuring out the component parts of what we know as chemistry or synergy is one of the next great frontiers of this movement. It's not enough to put an exceptional distributor on the floor. To maximize that point guard's gifts, a team must surround him with the right combination of players -- and that combination might not always be the sexiest free agents on the market.

For all his offensive failings, rebounding machine Reggie Evans might be the perfect power forward for a dime-and-steal happy point guard. And is it possible that Thabo Sefolosha, who ranks second among starting 2-guards in defensive rebounding, helps offensive scoring juggernauts Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook in ways that aren't apparent to the naked eye?

In an NBA where the margins of victory are razor thin, every variable counts. And it's becoming increasingly clear that things we've always regarded as assets or liabilities reside in a very gray area.

When players come back from injuries, the idea of rehabbing and working out all the time not being able to equate to “in-game” shape is always confusing.

It makes sense for the most part. When you’re lifting weights, running on the treadmill, taking a spin class or even fighting for that last piece of bacon, you’re using a lot different muscles and using them in different intervals than when you’re on the basketball court. And being able to do that on back-to-back nights or four games in five nights at the NBA level has to take even longer to retrain your body how to recover.

Still it seems weird that the best athletes in the world would essentially be out of shape despite the copious amounts of training they do to get themselves back to being able to play.

If taking extended time off from playing NBA basketball is such a difficult task, are players like Deron Williams and Joakim Noah priming themselves for a big return if the NBA does indeed have another lockout-shortened regular season?

When the NBA returned from its brief absence in 1998, a lot of the players were, for lack of a better term, hefty. There are rumors that Vin Baker came back roughly 60 pounds heavier than before, and Shawn Kemp had certainly seen slimmer days (even though he actually had a very productive 1999 season compared to the previous year). Sure, there were a lot of players that stayed in shape and got themselves ready to go for the brutal grind of cramming 50 games into three months, but a lot of guys also left themselves susceptible to injury by not returning in top physical form.

But with Williams reportedly heading to Turkey as the heir apparent to Allen Iverson and Noah playing for Team France in the European Championships in Lithuania, should more players be taking their cues from these two players and try to stay active in organized basketball?

As of right now, the NBA is full of bored players who are lying down on the ground, taking pictures of themselves “planking” and then tweeting it out to their followers. Since it’s still just July and they have no promise of playing an NBA season this fall, it’s not really a big deal. Guys right now would usually be checking out the Summer League action in Las Vegas or going for a summer vacation to get away from everything.

But with no end in sight to the lockout and threats of owners sacrificing an entire season just to get their way, you have to wonder at what point these players will become motivated to stay in shape.

For a good chunk of August and September, Noah will be practicing with Team France and trying to help them qualify for the 2012 Olympics in London. If the lockout ends in time for training camp in September, he’ll be in better playing shape than most other peers around the NBA.

If the lockout extends beyond September and begins to consume preseason and regular season games, Williams will more than likely head to Turkey and play for Besiktas. Once again, he’ll be practicing with his stepteam and playing in real games. If the lockout ends and brings him back to the NBA for the rest of whatever is left of the 2011-12 season, he’s likely to have the upper hand with conditioning and play at the beginning of the season.

Granted, there are injury risks for going off to play outside of the NBA, just like there are for players coming back to a shortened season while out of shape. Unless you’re Carlos Boozer, it’s pretty hard to get injured just walking around your house, looking for the next hilarious place to plank from. But being rusty in the NBA isn’t just a potential detriment to your team; it’s also a risk to your health with injury.

Williams and Noah aren’t the only guys exploring their options. Andrei Kirilenko is reportedly offering his services to European teams for the low asking price of $5.8 million this winter. A few teams were courting Amar’e Stoudemire before he decided to stay loyal to the Knicks.

It’s one thing to consider going to play organized, professional basketball away from the NBA and another thing to actually commit to it.

Maybe Williams and Noah will get injured during this venture away from the NBA during the lockout. Maybe they are risking all of their guaranteed money waiting for them when the NBA opens its doors back up and invites us all in again.

But it’s a risk that will most likely keep these two ahead of the pack if we end up with another shortened season.

After the top two seeds in the Eastern Conference -- the Bulls and Heat -- failed to finish their opponents off in Game 4 of their respective series, the Boston Celtics rode a superb defensive effort to pull off a sweep of the New York Knicks.

This marked just the third time in the last 30 seasons the Celtics posted a sweep in a seven-game series in a round before the NBA Finals. Each of the past two times the Celtics rode that momentum and won an NBA Title.

Boston's defense led the way as the Celtics held the Knicks under 100 points in each of the four games. This coming after the Knicks averaged 106.5 points per game this season, second-best in the NBA.

Boston held New York to just 34.1 percent field goal shooting in Sunday's game, and just 38.5 percent for the series, the best field-goal percentage defense by any team thus far through the playoffs.

The Knicks great equalizer throughout the regular season was the three-point shot, however Boston disrupted that as well. New York shot just 32.6 percent from distance in the series, down from their regular season percentage of 36.8, which was eighth-best in the NBA.

The Celtics also shut down the Knicks' transition game during the series. After averaging just under 15 points per game in transition during the regular season, Boston held New York to under 11 points per game in fast-break situation during the series.

Offensively, while Ray Allen and Paul Pierce carried a large share of the load, the series belonged to Rajon Rondo who controlled play and tempo throughout. Rondo had 21 points and 12 assists in the series clincher, his seventh career 20-point, 10 assist game in the playoffs.

Since the 2008 playoffs, his first postseason appearance, only Deron Williams (12) and Chris Paul (8) have recorded more such games in the postseason.

Rondo’s 48 assists led to 110 points for the Celtics in the series. They averaged 27.5 points off of Rondo assists in the first round, up nearly three points per game from the regular season.

One very encouraging sign for the Celtics was the emergence of Kevin Garnett on the offensive end in Game 4. After scoring just 36 points in the first three games of the series combined, Garnett exploded for 26 points, 20 of which came in the second half.

He also added 10 rebounds, snapping a streak of 16-straight playoff games without reaching the 20-point, 10-rebound plateau.

While the offense was a welcome addition, by far his greatest contribution to the series was his defense on Amar'e Stoudemire. The Knicks forward gave it a go in Game 4, and while he scored 19 points, he needed 20 shots to do so, making just five of his field goal attempts.

Stoudemire was not the same after his injury in the series. Game footage showed he was 7-of-11 on isolation plays, scoring 16 points in Game 1. The rest of the series, Stoudemire went 3-of-19 in isolation and scored just 10 points.

For the first time in four tries this season, the Miami Heat figured out the Boston Celtics coming away with a 100-77 win Sunday. It was Boston's worst loss this season who fell to 9-10 in their last 19 games. The win moved Miami a game up on the Celtics for the second seed in the Eastern Conference with two games left to play.

LeBron James scored 27 points while Dwyane Wade scored 14 points and Chris Bosh contributed 13. The Heat's "Big Three" have played 71 games together this season and Sunday's contest was just the third in which only one of them scored as many as 15 points. The two previous games of that kind were both on the road: a loss at Boston on October 26 and a win at Orlando on February 3.

Elsewhere, the Oklahoma City Thunder handed the Los Angeles Lakers their fifth straight loss Sunday 120-106. It's the longest losing streak for the Lakers since they lost seven straight in March 2007. That was prior to obtaining Pau Gasol. It was the most points the Lakers have allowed in a non-overtime game since they allowed 121 to the Suns on November 14.

Meanwhile, Carmelo Anthony's 19-foot jumper with four seconds remaining in the game lifted the New York Knicks to a 110-109 win at Indiana. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Anthony has made five go-ahead or game-tying field goals in the final ten seconds of either the fourth quarter or overtime this season (two for Denver and three for New York), the most for any NBA player. Monta Ellis, Rudy Gay and Deron Williams have each made four such field goals this season.

Finally, Chris Paul was 0-for-6 from the floor and 0-for-2 from the line while handing out ten assists in the New Orleans Hornets’ loss at Memphis. The Elias Sports Bureau tells us it was the fifth NBA game this season in which a player had double-digit assists despite posting a “goose egg” in the point column. Jason Kidd has done it three times and Jose Calderon once.

After 17 wins in 18 games since the All-Star break, the Los Angeles Lakers lost their second straight game Tuesday falling to the Utah Jazz by one point. Kobe Bryant scored 20+ points for the eighth straight game, but had seven turnovers including one on the Lakers' last possession.

The 86-85 loss was the Lakers' first loss at STAPLES Center against the Jazz in their last 18 meetings including the playoffs. Prior to Tuesday, New Year's Day 2006 was Utah's last road win against the Lakers. The Lakers have lost back-to-back home games for the first time since January 28-30 when Sacramento and Boston defeated them. The loss also dropped L.A. 3 ½ games back of the San Antonio Spurs for the top spot in the Western Conference.

The Jazz also ended an eight-game losing streak. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, it’s the first time in 44 years that an NBA team ended a losing streak of at least eight games with a road win against the Lakers. In February 1967 the Bulls took an eight-game losing streak into the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena and defeated a Lakers team that featured Jerry West and Elgin Baylor, 133-119.

Meanwhile the other L.A. team, the Clippers, defeated the Memphis Grizzlies 82-81. Blake Griffin scored 15 points and grabbed 14 rebounds for his 60th double-double this season. He joins Shaquille O'Neal as the only players since the NBA/ABA merger with 60 double-doubles in their rookie season. O'Neal had 68 back in the 1992-93 season with Orlando.

Also, the Washington Wizards have won three consecutive games for the first time since April 2008, a span of 244 games. This after beating the Detroit Pistons 107-105. The Elias Sports Bureau tells us that was the most consecutive games without a three-game winning streak in NBA history. The previous record was held by the 76ers, who went 243 games without winning three in a row from October 1971 to March 1974.

Finally, Deron Williams had 21 assists for the Nets Tuesday night, his fifth career 20-assist game, his first with New Jersey. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, only one other active player has had a 20-assist game for two different teams: Andre Miller had one for Cleveland (Dec. 15, 2001) and one for Denver (Dec. 8, 2006).

While most of the excitement in March is usually reserved for college basketball players, Carmelo Anthony provided a little of his own, and in the process showed exactly why the New York Knicks gave up so much to acquire him.

After being held under 30 points in each of his first seven games with the Knicks, Anthony (31 points) eclipsed the 30-point mark for the second straight game.

He reached that plateau on his go-ahead field goal with less than one second remaining which broke a tie game and lifted the Knicks past the Memphis Grizzlies.

Over the past three seasons Anthony has proven to be one of the most clutch performers in the NBA. He has made eight field goals in the final 10 seconds of games in which his team was tied or trailing by fewer than three points.

Those eight field goals are tied for the second most in the NBA over the last three seasons. Anthony has been efficient as well, converting on 50 percent of those opportunities.

He is now 4-for-6 in such situations this season (1-for-1 with Knicks). Even more enlightening though is what other Knicks had done in these same type situations this season.

Other Knicks have combined to go just 1-for-7 field-goal shooting in such situations. Raymond Felton (1-for-2), Wilson Chandler (0-for-2) and Danilo Gallinari (0-1), the key pieces in the Anthony trade, struggled under those same conditions.

Elsewhere around the NBA:

• Al Jefferson did one half-second better than Anthony, as the big man’s tip-in buzzer-beater led the Utah Jazz past the Toronto Raptors. His 34 points were most in a game by a player with a buzzer-beater since Kobe Bryant had 39 on New Year's Day 2010.

Jefferson scored all 34 of his points from the field, going 17-of-24 from the floor. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Jefferson is the first player to score as many as 34 points in a game without making either a three-pointer or a free throw since the Rockets’ Hakeem Olajuwon scored 48 points (24-for-40 from the floor) in a loss to the Nuggets on Jan. 30, 1997.

• What else is new? Kevin Love extended his double-double streak to 52 games. He notched 10 points and 12 rebounds in the first half alone, the 14th time during the streak he recorded a double-double in the first half.

For the second straight game, Channing Frye hit the game-winning shot for the Phoenix Suns, this time a three-pointer with 6.6 seconds left in overtime to lift the Suns to a victory at the New Jersey Nets.

It was only Frye’s second career game-winning shot, with both coming in the last two days. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Frye is just the sixth player since the 2005-06 season to make two game-winning field goals with under 10 seconds remaining in consecutive games.

He is the first since Manu Ginobili did so this season against the Milwaukee Bucks and Denver Nuggets. Of the six players who have accomplished the feat, Frye is the only one to have both game-winning field goals come in overtime.

While Frye stole the final number, it was Deron Williams who was the star of the show in his home debut for the Nets.

Williams recorded 18 assists, giving him 47 over his first three games with New Jersey. That's an NBA record for the most assists by a player in his first three games with a team, passing Guy Rodgers who had 44 in his first three games with the Bulls.

It's already the second time in three games with New Jersey Williams has registered at least 17 assists; in 439 career games with the Jazz, Williams recorded eight such games.

Elsewhere around the NBA …

The Chicago Bulls won their 41st game, matching their win total from last season. They are the fifth team this season to match last year’s win total.

Blake Griffin recorded his 39th 20-point, 10-rebound game this season, currently the league leader in this category. If Griffin records another 20-point, 10-rebound game he will become the first player since Shaquille O'Neal to have at least 40 such games in their rookie season.

O'Neal had 52 such games during the 1992-93 campaign, but did not lead the league. According to the Elias Sports Bureau you have to go all the way back to Elvin Hayes for the San Diego Rockets in 1968-69 to find the last rookie to lead the league in 20-point, 10-rebound games.

The only other rookie in the shot clock era to have led the league in 20-point, 10-rebound games was Wilt Chamberlain, who did so with 71 such games during the 1959-60 season.

One thing is for certain in Chicago. Face a divisional opponent and chalk up a "W". The Chicago Bulls are now a perfect 12-0 against Central Division teams after an 83-75 road win over the Milwaukee Bucks. They are the only team in the league with a perfect division record.

Elsewhere in the East...

One night after playing just six players in a loss to the Philadelphia 76ers, nine Detroit Pistons saw time as they snap a three-game losing streak. Rodney Stuckey, who did not play Friday, scored a game-high 28 points. Detroit's bench scored 38 points including 16 from Charlie Villanueva. The Utah Jazz lost despite shooting 59.5 percent from the field. That's the highest field goal percentage by a losing team this season.

The New Jersey Nets suffered another bad loss and have now dropped nine straight to the Houston Rockets. Deron Williams dished out 17 assists in his second game with New Jersey, after racking up 12 against the San Antonio Spurs in his Nets debut on Friday night.

The Elias Sports Bureau tells us that in the history of the NBA, that’s the highest assist total by any player in his first two games with a team. The old record was 26 assists, last done by Kenny Anderson in his first two games with the Charlotte Hornets back in January of 1996.

Despite Williams’ 29 combined assists, the Nets lost both games. For some perspective, Williams had a total of 36 games of 15-or-more assists with the Jazz, and the team went 30-6 in those games, with none of the losses came by a margin of more than five points.

Moving out West…

The Los Angeles Clippers, playing at home for the first time since February 2, jumped out to a 13-point lead in the second quarter, but the Boston Celtics came back and eventually topped the home team 99-92. The Elias Sports Bureau says it was the first time this season that the Celtics have won a game after overcoming a deficit that large; Boston had been 0-6 in games in which it fell behind by 13-or-more points.

Despite the loss, Blake Griffin went for 21 points and 11 rebounds for his 50th double-double of the season. Griffin is the eighth rookie to have 50+ double-doubles since the NBA/ABA merger.

And finally, the Dallas Mavericks won their fifth straight game and 15th of 16 overall. In the win, Jason Kidd took only one field-goal attempt (a first-quarter three-pointer, which he made) and no free-throw attempts, but contributed 14 assists and eight rebounds.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, it was the first time in NBA history that a player had collected that many assists and that many rebounds in a game in which he had a combined total of no more than one shot from the floor and the foul line.

The Los Angeles Lakers earned their first overtime win of the season in large part to Kobe Bryant who finished with 32 points and 11 assists. Bryant joins Deron Williams and Russell Westbrook as the only players this season with multiple games with at least 30 points and 10 assists.

This was Bryant’s fourth 10-assist game of the season and in doing so he recorded his 5,005th career assist. He becomes the third player in Lakers history to eclipse the 5,000 assist mark with the team, joining Magic Johnson and Jerry West. Bryant also became the seventh player in NBA history to register 25,000 points, 5,000 rebounds and 5,000 assists.
Bryant’s teammates didn’t do too bad Tuesday night either as Lamar Odom finished with 20 points and a season-high 20 rebounds. It was Odom's second career 20-20 game. Pau Gasol added 26 points and pulled down 16 rebounds.

The Elias Sports Bureau tells us that it had been exactly 38 years since two Lakers had at least 20 points and 16 rebounds in a game. On February 1, 1973, Wilt Chamberlain had 25/19 (points/rebounds) and Bill Bridges went 20/16 in a win at the Phoenix Suns.

The most interesting note of the day came from the Lakers opposition, the Houston Rockets.

Guard Kevin Martin, who leads the NBA in free throws made, was 10-11 from the free throw line. He attempted AND made every single free throw for the Rockets. The last player to attempt all his team's free throws in a single game (min. 10 attempts) was Steve Francis on April 8, 2002 at the Orlando Magic (went 7-11). The last player to make all his team's free throws in a single game (min. 10 attempts) was Bill Cartwright on November 13, 1979 vs the Washington Bullets. Cartwright was 11-11 while the New York Knicks as a whole went 11-13.

Elsewhere around the league, two hoopers notched career highs of their own.

LaMarcus Aldridge scored a career-high 40 points and grabbed 11 rebounds. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, only two other Portland Trail Blazers starting forwards ever had 40/10 (points/rebounds) in a game. Maurice Lucas went 46/17 at the Boston Celtics in January 1979, and Zach Randolph had two such games in 2007: 42/12 in January and 43/17 in March, both against the Memphis Grizzlies.

Jason Smith, making his first NBA start at center, shot 9-11 (81.8 percent) while playing just 25:12 in the New Orleans Hornets win over the Washington Wizards. Only one other starting center in Hornets' history has ever shot 80 percent or better in a game while attempting at least 10 field goals and playing fewer than 26 minutes. Kenny Gattison was 10-12 (83.3 percent) in 20 minutes in a Hornets' 141-134 loss at the Cleveland Cavaliers on April 9, 1992.

The Miami Heat continue to find ways to win. Sunday they won by relying heavily on the Big Three. LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh scored a combined 96 of the team's 107 points which equates to 89.7 percent.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the last time a trio scored that high a percentage of its team's points was on January 15, 2008 when Carmelo Anthony, Allen Iverson and J.R. Smith combined to score 90.3 percent of the Nuggets points.

LeBron James scored a season-high 44 points to go with 34 from Dwyane Wade. It marked the first time in Heat history that one player went for 40 or more points while another went over 30.

One of the main edges the Heat held over the Trail Blazers was in transition offense, getting 25 points on the run compared to just 10 for Portland. That's nothing new for James and Wade as they are the league leaders in transition points this season - and by a comfortable margin.

Unlike their previous game against the Milwaukee Bucks when Wade and James struggled to finish from point blank range (combined 4-18 FG within five feet), the duo was an extremely efficient 14-20 from within five feet Sunday.

Miami has now won nine straight games overall and 13 straight on the road. According to Elias, the last team to win 13 straight on the road was the 2000-01 Philadelphia 76ers. The all-time record for consecutive road wins is 16 by the 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers.

There was a Kevin putting up monster numbers in the TD Garden on Monday night. But it wasn't Garnett, and this Kevin couldn’t do enough to lead his team to victory.

Minnesota Timberwolves forward Kevin Love continued his monstrous season, his 24 rebounds breaking Dikembe Mutombo’s decade-old record for most rebounds in a game on Boston’s floor.

But as has been the case since the trade for Kevin Garnett, Boston prevailed, 96-93, thanks to big games from Paul Pierce and Rajon Rondo (16 assists). The Celtics are now 7-0 against the Timberwolves since the Garnett deal, winning three times when he didn’t even play.

And since that trade, we remind you that the Celtics have the best record in the NBA. The Timberwolves have the worst.

Love may have had the night’s biggest number, but Celtics guard Von Wafer may have quietly outdone him. Wafer had 10 points and six rebounds in 15 minutes in the win. More significantly, the Celtics outscored the Timberwolves by 16 points with Wafer on the floor (they were outscored by 13 with him on the bench, and coincidentally guard Ray Allen was minus-13 for the game).

The plus-16 for Wafer was the fourth-best plus-minus in his 136 NBA games, the best since a plus-20 for the Houston Rockets in a 107-97 win over the Toronto Raptors on March 3, 2009. Monday's game was Wafer’s sixth straight with a positive plus-minus rating.

Elsewhere in the NBA:
• LeBron James matched his season high with 38 points and Dwyane Wade added 31 in the Miami Heat’s 96-82 win over the Charlotte Bobcats. They're the first pair of Heat teammates to score 30-or-more points in the same game since Wade and Mario Chalmers last season. The Heat have won 11 straight road games, the first team to do that since the 2007-2008 Rockets won 12 in a row.

Charlotte missed 18 consecutive shots in the 2nd and 3rd quarters, the longest such streak in franchise history, as well as the longest in the NBA this season, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

• The Golden State Warriors couldn’t hold a halftime lead against one of the NBA’s best for the second straight game, losing 110-90 to the Orlando Magic. In their last two games against the Heat and Magic, the Warriors have outscored their opponents by 23 points in the first half, but have been outscored by 50 points in the second half.

• Deron Williams had his 13th 20-point/10-assist game of the season in the Utah Jazz’ 102-97 win over the Detroit Pistons. His 20-10 total is four more than any other player in the NBA (Raymond Felton of the New York Knicks ranks second with nine).

• Speaking of the Knicks, they learned that they’ll have deal with basketball life without Danilo Gallinari beginning when they host the San Antonio Spurs on Tuesday. Gallinari will be out for up to three weeks with a knee injury.

With Gallinari on the floor this season, the Knicks have shot 48 percent from the field. When he’s been on the bench, they’re shooting just 43.1 percent. The Spurs defense figures to be a tough challenge. San Antonio has held its last four opponents to 37 percent shooting from the field.

The Dallas Mavericks snapped the Utah Jazz’s 7-game win streak making it the third time this season they’ve snapped streaks of seven or more games. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, it’s the first time in franchise history that they’ve snapped three streaks of seven or more games in a single season. The last teams to do so were the Hawks, Pistons and Lakers, all during the 2008-09 season.

• At 11-9 the New York Knicks record is over .500 after 20 games for the first time since the 2001-02 season. Amare Stoudemire led the way with 34 points, his third straight 30-point game, which is the fifth time in his career he's strung together streaks of at least three straight 30-point performances.

More from Elias: Stoudemire has 491 points and 174 rebounds in 20 games for the Knicks. He's the first player in Knicks history to score that many points and haul in that many rebounds in his first 20 career games with the team. Honorable mention goes to Bob McAdoo, who had 483 points and 244 rebounds in his first 20 games with the Knicks.

• The Denver Nuggets beat the Los Angeles Clippers on Friday despite making 12 LESS field goals. One major reason is because they went to the free throw line 59 times. The last team to take that many free throw attempts in a game was the 2006-07 Knicks, who went to the line 63 times against the Detroit Pistons on Dec. 27, 2006.

• Kevin Garnett had 17 rebounds, all on the defensive end of the floor, in the Boston Celtics' win over the Chicago Bulls. He's the first Celtic to have that many rebounds and no offensive rebounds in a game since Larry Bird on Feb. 25, 1990 against the Nuggets. It was also the second time in KG's career that he's had 17 defensive rebounds and no offensive boards in a game.

• Rajon Rondo had 19 assists, five shy of his career high that he set back on Oct. 29. In the last three seasons, the only other players who have had multiple games with at least 19 assists in the same season are Steve Nash and Baron Davis.

The last player with three games with at least 19 assists in the same season: Deron Williams and Chris Paul during the 2007-08 season.