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In each of the four NBA playoff games on Saturday one team had the chance to tie/or take the lead in the final seconds of regulation. In each of those cases that team failed to capitalize and took the loss. The Oklahoma City Thunder had a 10-point lead over the Denver Nuggets with :49.3 left in the game. After a furious Nuggets comeback guard J.R. Smith had a heavily contested 3-point field goal attempt fall short as time expired.

The failed field goal attempt means the Thunder now have a commanding 3-0 lead in the series, and the win snaps a 6-game road playoff losing streak. In fact, this is the franchise’s first road playoff win since 2005 when they were still the Seattle SuperSonics.

Kevin Durant led all scorers with 26 points and Russell Westbrook scored 13 of his 23 points in the fourth quarter. Durant and Westbrook have each scored 20-or-more points six times in the same game over the last two postseasons. The Elias Sports Bureau tells us that the only two other sets of teammates that have scored 20+ points in the same game as many times as Durant and Westbrook over that span are Pau Gasol and Kobe Bryant (11) and Paul Pierce and Ray Allen (seven).

Another big contributor in Game 3 was Serge Ibaka who added 22 points, 16 rebounds and four blocked shots. The 22 points matched his career high, while the 16 rebounds were a new career high. Ibaka joined Shawn Kemp as the only players in the Thunder/SuperSonics franchise to score 20 points, grab 15 rebounds and collect 4 blocks in a playoff game since 1991 (Kemp did it twice). The Elias Sports Bureau also says that at the age of 21 years, 217 days old, Ibaka became the youngest player to record at least 20 points, 15 rebounds and four blocked shots in a postseason game. Prior to Saturday, the youngest player to do that in a playoff game was Shaquille O’Neal, who had 24 points, 19 rebounds and five blocked shots at age 22 years and 53 days old against the Pacers on April 28, 1994.

The Nuggets shot just 37.2 percent from the field and missed 15 free throws, in the hard-fought three-point loss. They’ll host Game 4 on Monday, but of the 94 teams in NBA history that were down 3-0 in a best-of-seven series, not a single one has avoided elimination.

Playing in their first game this season without LeBron James (sprained left ankle), the Heat suffered their worst loss of the season, a 130-102 setback to the Nuggets. Their worst previous loss was a 93-77 defeat at the hands of the Pacers November 22.

Dwyane Wade struggled as the Denver defense focused on him throughout the night. Including points scored off of his assists, Wade created 35.6 points per game entering Thursday, but the Nuggets limited Wade to just 24 points created (16 points, eight points off of his assists).

Meanwhile, seven Nuggets scored in double figures, led by 28 from J.R. Smith, who hit a season-high eight 3-pointers.

The Heat have lost nine straight games in Denver.

During their two-game losing skid, the Heat have allowed 120.5 points per game. In the 22 games prior to that -- when they recorded a 21-1 mark -- they allowed just 90.5 points per game.

OTHER NOTES FROM AROUND THE NBA:

• Kevin Love had 35 points and 11 rebounds in the Timberwolves' 109-97 win over the Wizards. It is the seventh time this season Love has topped 30 points and 10 rebounds. The only player with more 30-10 games is Amar'e Stoudemire with eight.

• Russell Westbrook had 32 points to go with 13 assists and 10 rebounds for his fourth career triple-double. Since Westbrook's rookie season in 2008-09 only four players have more triple-doubles: LeBron James (14), Chris Paul (seven), Jason Kidd (six) and Rajon Rondo (six).

• Dwight Howard tied a season high with 39 points, including 17-for-20 from the free throw line. The 17 made free throws ties a career high.

For the second time in a week, one of the best teams in the NBA lost an elite player to injury. The impact of the absence of both Dirk Nowitzki and Kevin Garnett was immediate.

For the Mavericks, it came with a home loss to the Toronto Raptors on Tuesday night. In the case of the Boston Celtics, it came in the form of a 104-92 loss to the Detroit Pistons a day later.

Data from the Elias Sports Bureau shows that the Celtics typically outscore opponents by 14.9 points-per-48 minutes when Garnett has been on the floor this season, and outscored by 3.6 points when he has been out of the game. The difference (18.5 points-per-game better) ranks third among NBA players, trailing only Nowitzki and Steve Nash.

They got burned for 104 points by a hot-shooting Pistons team, one that sizzled from 3-point range for the second straight game. The Pistons followed up an 11-for-19 3-point shooting effort in their last game against the Bobcats by making 10-of-15 3-pointers against the Celtics.

A check of Basketball-Reference.com showed it to be the third time in the last 25 years (and the first time since 2008) that the Pistons had consecutive games in which they made at least 10 3-pointers AND shot 55 percent or better from 3-point range.

Elsewhere, while the Celtics had a rare bad night, the Los Angeles Lakers had a rare (relatively speaking) good one, snapping their three-game losing streak with a 103-88 road win over the New Orleans Hornets. The Lakers shot only 29 percent from 3-point range, but made up for that by making 68 percent of their two-point attempts.

The Lakers have played it to an extreme over the last two games. Tuesday night, they shot a season-low 35.4 percent against the San Antonio Spurs. Their 58.6 percent Wednesday was a season high.

Our nightly look at the most interesting plus-minus numbers also provided a couple of interesting takes from Wednesday’s games.

Miami Heat forward, Chris Bosh, who entered the night leading the NBA in plus-minus, was minus-16 in a 125-119 win over the Houston Rockets. In fact, when Bosh, LeBron James, and Dwyane Wade were on the floor together, the Rockets outscored the Heat, 80-78.

It was a historic win for the Heat. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, they became the first team in NBA history to go 10-0 on the road in a calendar month.

Tyreke Evans was minus-8, but was plus-3 when it counted, sinking his first career NBA buzzer beater, a shot from beyond halfcourt that gave the Sacramento Kings a 100-98 win over the Memphis Grizzlies.

It was the eighth NBA buzzer-beater this season, the first for the Kings since Kevin Martin hit one to beat the Seattle SuperSonics on January 27, 2008.

And Denver Nuggets guard Chauncey Billups may have had the best game of the night by someone other than Wade, going 6-for-6 from 3-point range, and finishing with 36 points in a 119-113 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves.

But the Nuggets were outscored by two points when Billups was on the floor. In contrast, J.R. Smith was just 4-for-16 from the field, but Denver outscored Minnesota by 21 points in his 30 minutes of play.

By D.J. Foster

Chase Budinger is no stranger to being the most athletic guy in the gym. As a top-rated basketball and volleyball prospect in high school, Budinger was loathed by opponents (including your narrator) for being graced with otherworldly athletic ability. The way he could run the floor and soar through the air effortlessly seemed downright unfair, especially from a ground-level perspective.

The playing field in the NBA, of course, is a little more even. Summer league has its quirks, but there are plenty of ridiculously athletic prospects who can jump out of the gym and knock down an open 3 floating around. Budinger fits that billing, but he also has a firm grasp on what it will take for him to rise above the pack. Essentially, Budinger knows he needs to start playing chess instead of checkers.

"You always have to be thinking on the court," Budinger said. "That was probably one of the biggest things I learned right when I got to the NBA. On the defensive end you have to be in the right spot at the right time, because if you're not there then it's going to be tough."

Long gone are the days of players getting by solely on their athletic ability. After a solid yet unspectacular rookie campaign with the Rockets, Budinger came to Vegas, to loosely quote Jackie Chan, more focused on his focus.

"There were games last year where I should have been more aggressive," Budinger said. "In summer league, I had to be more aggressive."

That level of assertiveness often unseen in his rookie season came out in spades on Wednesday as Budinger led all scorers with 24 points on 9-for-14 shooting. The tell-tale play for Budinger came late in the fourth quarter when for a brief moment he seemed to piece it all together.

It started with an impressive display of leaping -- over a crowd of defenders to snatch a defensive rebound. Then came the aggressiveness when he immediately pushed the ball up the middle of the floor. Lastly came a wonderful show of confidence that manifested itself in a fancy around-the-back dribble and gorgeous no-look pass to a streaking Jermaine Taylor for the flush.

You could almost see the light bulb pop over Budinger's bushy head of hair as he ran back up the court. It was the perfect blending of ability and confidence and of body and mind that the Rockets can only hope Budinger can retain going forward.

• DeMarcus Cousins filled the boxscore with 22 points, including the game-winner, but it's a single technical that's going to raise a few eyebrows in Sacramento. Cousins got mixed up with T-Wolves big man Greg Stiemsma in the first half and earned a quick T from the ref after a little jaw-jackin'. As the Kings went to the tunnel at halftime, assistant coach Mario Elie had some words for Cousins after watching his brush with the Wisconsin big man: "He's trying to get a job, you already have a job. Forget him."
• Ish Smith is a 5-foot-11 point guard who weighs 155 pounds. In his senior season at Wake Forest, he shot a DeAndre Jordan-esque 49.4 percent from the free throw line while converting on 22.2 percent of his three-point attempts. Can a player like that survive in the NBA? Just maybe. Smith showed impeccable court vision, speed, and playmaking abilities, running the Rockets offense more like a seasoned vet than a prospect. Smith had six assists to just one turnover in 29 minutes and went a long way in showing he's not a completely incompetent scorer by going 7-for-8 from the field.
• D-League all-star and former Utah Jazz draft pick Morris Almond continues to get buckets wherever he goes. The 25-year old scored 14 points in just 14 minutes for Chicago in their shellacking of the Clippers, showing off impressive range and a good first step in the process. Almond is too selfish for most offensive systems, but a bad team looking for instant points off the bench could do much worse for themselves.
• The young Clippers can't hit the broad side of a barn right now, scoring just 50 points against the Bulls on 28 percent shooting from the field. Meanwhile, superfan "Clipper Darrell" remained right at 100 percent on his "U-G-L-Y" chants producing laughter from opposing players on the free-throw line.
• The path for Joey Dorsey has already been paved by Raptors' dirty worker and possible future teammate Reggie Evans. Dorsey is a nasty screen-setter and a banger on the block, but similar to Evans, it's his offensive rebounding that could be his meal ticket on the next level. The big man out of Memphis is averaging nearly five offensive rebounds a game in Vegas through his first three games. Dorsey's solid frame and nasty disposition could lend itself well to a Toronto team short on toughness.
• The best musical selection of the day by the DJ at the Cox Pavilion? The SpongeBob SquarePants theme song, played in its entirety. Media row was completely baffled.
• Courtesy of Land O' Lakers, here's David Thorpe on Derrick Caracter: “The guy clearly should have been a first-round pick. A bunch of teams messed up. There’s really no other way of saying it.”
• John Krolik of Cavs The Blog on J.J. Hickson: "Hickson had one of the most dominant performances of Summer League, putting in 34 points on 12-19 shooting from the field. He's really trying to add new aspects to his game, and the results have been fairly mixed. On one possession, he'll drain a smooth step-back jumper. On the next, he'll walk trying to execute a post move or force an off-balance shot over a waiting defender. What really allowed Hickson to dominate was the Cavs' focus on getting out in the open-court. Fast-break basketball has been the buzzword for the Cavs during this summer, and Hickson really thrives in an up-and-down game. He ran the court all day long, and he was usually rewarded with a pass for an easy dunk or layup, either from the break or the spacing the threat of early offense created. He's so much better as an athlete than most summer league bigs are, and it really shows in the uptempo game."
• Jeremy Schmidt of Bucksketball on John Lucas: "In 60 career NBA games, Lucas has hit exactly one quarter of his 3-point attempts. But his last NBA game came in 2007. Since then, Lucas has turned himself into quite a shooter, hitting 44 percent of his threes in a 2008-09 D-League stint and then 45 percent last year with the Shanghai Sharks of the Chinese Basketball Association. Lucas was showing off that refined stroke Wednesday night, hitting all six of his 3-point shots en route to 25 points."
• Joe Gerrity of Hornets247 on J.R. Smith: "Smith surprised the Vegas crowd by not only showing up at the Cox Pavilion, but actually suiting up and playing significant time against the Houston Rockets. Asked why, Smith cited his 'love of the game.' Early on he knocked down a silky smooth three-pointer and a rolled in a sweet reverse-layup in traffic, but that would do it for the Nuggets sixth-man. Despite the lax summer league defense, Smith finished 2-for-12 from the floor (1-for-8 from deep) with four fouls, three turnovers, two rebounds and only a single assist."
• Surya Fernandez of Hot Hot Hoops on Garret Siler: "With Duke guard Jon Scheyer going home due to an eye injury and most of the starters for the Miami Heat summer league roster taking the day off, there wasn't much to take out of the Heat's game against the Detroit Pistons. Well, maybe there was one 'big' reason to watch: The steady play of 6-foot-11, 304 pound Garret Siler who is raising his game with each opportunity. Over on the Pistons end, center Greg Monroe also had a solid game by getting to the free-throw line regularly. Most impressively, both big men kept their turnovers down while remaining active in the paint -- a rarity in summer league where most bigs try to do too much and commit unforced errors."
• John Krolik of Cavs The Blog on Christian Eyenga: "Eyenga is invisible for long stretches of play, but he does have his moments. He had an offensive rebound and putback where he just came from out of nowhere, and a crushing fast-break tomahawk that took the air out of the building. He's a ways away from harnessing his talent, but it's there."
• Kevin Arnovitz on Alonzo Gee: "Never underestimate the power of being the most assertive guy on the floor in a summer league bout. That's how the Spurs' Alonzo Gee was able to dominate the floor in the Hawks-Spurs game. Not only was Gee the focal point of the offense, he was also the guy making sure the 5-man unit was on the same page coming out of a timeout. In transition -- but increasingly in the half court -- Gee can change direction on a dime. Pressuring him out on the perimeter just gives him an invitation to drive. If you play off Gee, he'll bear down, draw contact and finish."

At summer league, athleticism is the most commonly cited variable to distinguish NBA-caliber players from the rest of the talent. DeMar DeRozan's athletic gifts established him as a Top 10 pick in 2009, despite an underwhelming one-and-done season at USC. DeRozan displayed his explosiveness and agility for much of the 2009-10 season at varying levels of refinement, finishing his rookie campaign with a Player Efficiency Rating (PER) of 12.58. He showed strength (finishing near the rim) and weakness (playmaking) in the precise areas where you'd expect an athlete to succeed and fail.

Chris Bosh's departure leaves the Raptors with a vacuum in their offense, and DeRozan is probably the only player on the roster with the dynamism to fill that void. But to be the name on the marquee in Toronto, DeRozan will have to graduate from an athlete who can ball to a ballplayer who can leverage his athleticism. If he's going to achieve as a shooting guard, he must extend his range to beyond the arc, where he converted only four shots during his entire rookie season. DeRozan will also need to apply all that athleticism and length against the scorers who are torching Toronto on a regular basis.The Raptors finished dead last in defensive efficiency last season. As he enters his sophomore season DeRozan is well-aware of this opportunity, and the improvement in his game it will require on both ends of the floor.

"If I want to be more effective, I really have to slow down and not only use my athleticism all the time," DeRozan said. "I have to learn how to play different kinds of ways and I'm learning."

On Tuesday, we saw glimpses of DeRozan's learning curve and his expanding game. He scored 23 points, shooting 10-for-15 shooting from the floor. Although he unleashed some ferocious dunks, there was substance and nuance to go along with the aerial effects. DeRozan showed off a tighter handle against pressure, something that hampered his one-on-one game at times last season. That added confidence in his ballhandling allowed DeRozan to make better decisions off the dribble, whether it was spinning away from help defenders or finding a seam.

"Athletes last for [only] so long," DeRozan said. "Being young, I want to develop now so that I can go 50-50 with my game -- skills, then use my athleticism when I have to."

DeRozan still exhibited plenty of that raw athleticism, especially in tandem with Sonny Weems, his closest friend on the team. The two wingmen teamed up on consecutive alley-oops in the second quarter. The first jam came in the half court when Weems snuck behind the Houston defense on a dive to the hoop, where DeRozan found him with a lob. On the next possession -- a break in transition -- Weems returned the favor when DeRozan ran the baseline and met Weems' pass at the rim for the slam.

"That's what young guns do," DeRozan said. "When we came out, Sonny said he was going to go back door and I threw it to him. Then I knew when we were on the fast break together, I knew he was going to throw it up."

DeRozan's primary defensive assignment on Tuesday was staying with Chase Budinger (and occasionally Jermaine Taylor) in Houston's active three-man sets, closing out on the second-year sharpshooter and staying with him in transition. For the most part, DeRozan succeeded on all three accounts. He selectively provided help, but usually opted to stay glued to his man.

"I need to improve my defense, especially going at the 2 position, going against players like Kobe [Bryant], Ray Allen, those type of guys every night."

Evidence gathered at summer league has to be viewed with a jaundiced eye. As DeRozan himself suggests, there's simply no substitute for meaningful NBA games. Matt Janning and Chase Budinger aren't exactly comps for Bryant or Allen, but at least DeRozan acknowledges that the trajectory of his growth as a player will be central to the Raptors' fortunes.

To return to respectability, Toronto will need a superstar -- and there's only one candidate on their roster.

• Yes, that was J.R. Smith out on the floor starting for the Nuggets. You can't find Smith on the published roster, nor on any of the box scores from the Nuggets' first three games here in Las Vegas. So what's he doing here? "I'm just working out," Smith said. "I'd rather play somewhere like this than a high school gym and get hurt." Smith is rehabbing his left ankle. "Of course it's not the NBA season, but it feels good to see some familiar faces and feels good to come out and play."
• James Johnson's teammates spent a lot of time telling Chicago second-year forward where to set up offensively in the half court. When Johnson doesn't have the ball in his hands, he floats purposelessly around the floor. Should he work off the ball to elude his man? Should he go to the ball? Often, Johnson has no idea. On the positive side, Johnson has some impressive ball skills. He has the handle and agility to find seams to the basket -- and the strength to finish. Unfortunately, he doesn't display the desire or wherewithal to make a play when he encounters heavy traffic.
• DeMarcus Cousins posted another strong showing. The numbers were solid -- 19 points and 12 rebounds -- but the breadth of Cousins' game was most impressive. Cousins displayed a lot of polish against the Lakers' squad. Whether he was delivering a nice pass against collapsing defenders to a diving Omri Casspi for a slam, or working Derrick Caracter off the dribble from the top of the arc (finishing with a soft hook off the glass), Cousins revealed finesse to accompany that power. He even drained a jumper from 20 feet and launched a smart outlet pass that led to a bucket on the break for Casspi. Above all, he's still showing signs of becoming a pick-and-roll force. On one possession, he set a high screen for point guard Donald Sloan, then made a beeline to the rim, flushing Sloan's missed shot for a putback. Even on Cousins' misses (he finished 8-for-20 from the field), he unveils a range of skill. There's a whole lot to be explored here.
• If Dan Dickau can play NBA ball, then it seems to make sense that Matt Bouldin should. The big point guard out of Gonzaga can deliver a sharp pass, pressure the ball, fight through screens and make good decisions with the ball in late shot-clock situations. At 6-foot-5, he has NBA size at the position.
• On a high ball screen, the man guarding the screener is charged with the responsibility of letting the man about to be screen know the pick is coming. In the opening possession of the Houston-Toronto game, the Raptors' Joey Dorsey failed to do that and got an earful from the Toronto coaching staff. In a sparsely filled arena on a Tuesday afternoon, that bark reverberated from the rafters. Suffice it to say that, for the rest of the game, you could hear "by yourself!" and "right! right! right!" every time Houston was in a ball-screen set.
• Jonny Flynn interviews Wesley Johnson after Matthews' first summer league game.
• Brian Kamenetzky talks to Lakers' point guard Ibrahim Jaaber.
• Bret LaGree of Hoopinion on Othello Hunter: "Three weeks ago Atlanta Hawks Assistant General Manager Dave Pendergraft called Othello Hunter's season-and-a-half with the team as an experiment they didn't see through. Hunter appeared in just 23 games for 125 minutes with the Hawks. Despite having no immediate need for him, the Hawks assigned Hunter to the D-League for just 3 games during the 2008-09 season. After the Hawks released him in January, he finished the 2010 season in Greece, averaging 10 points and seven rebounds in 23 minutes per game for Ilisiakos. His first stretch of regular playing time since his senior season at Ohio State may have given Hunter the confidence to again demonstrate his strengths on the glass and around the basket. Through four games with the undefeated Denver Nuggets summer league team, Hunter has again produced when given playing time, averaging 13 points and five rebounds in 24 minutes per game while making more than two-thirds of his field goal attempts."
• D.J. Foster of ClipperBlog and ESPN Los Angeles on Patty Mills: "Most 6-foot point guards with diminutive frames would be weary of mixing it up, but Mills isn't your typical guard. Despite his stature, Mills is a scorer first and foremost who actually does some of his best work off the ball. One display of his aptitude without the rock came when Mills hurled himself at a Hornets defender almost twice his size, setting such a thick baseline screen that his own man had to scurry off to help. The suddenly wide-open Mills then floated to the perimeter for a clean 3, bringing his total on the evening to 14 points on 6-for-9 shooting. In Mills, the Blazers look to have another threat off the bench who can pack a punch offensively, whether he's the primary ball-handler or not. With players like Brandon Roy and Jerryd Bayless typically dominating the ball, Mills' abilities away from the play should prove valuable going forward.
• Jeremy Schmidt of Bucksketball on Hasheem Thabeet: "As he often does, Thabeet showed his shot blocking ability, rejecting three shots, but he still looked unsure of himself on offense. 20 seconds into the game he caught a pass and brought it down to his chest, allowing a guard to sneak in to tie him up. Later in the game he grabbed a rebound and again brought the ball down low before watching it get slapped away by a much smaller player. While signs of progress are there, Thabeet was 6-9 from the free throw line and rotated well enough on defense that his coaches were very vocal in their praise from the bench more than once, Tuesday's game reinforced the idea that Thabeet is still very much a work in progress."
• Joe Gerrity of Hornets247 on Quincy Pondexter: "The first-round pick continues to impress on the defensive end. He's active off the ball and has shown the capability to stay in front of his man, something the Hornets desperately needed last year on the perimeter. Under the tutelage of new coach Monty Williams the Hornets are expecting an immediate contribution from Pondexter. Offensively he's a quality finisher and capable of cutting to the hole or hitting a pull up jumper at an NBA level. Before too long he should be in contention with Julian Wright to receive substantial minutes in relief of the aging Peja Stojakovic."

• Lang Whitaker will be live-blogging the draft Thursday with Brandon Jennings at SLAMonline: "No player had a crazier Draft night last year than Brandon — remember him showing up late to shake David Stern’s hand? — and only one or two rookies had better first seasons than Brandon. Few of the Draft 'experts' you’ll hear from on Thursday night (including myself) actually played in the NBA. But none of them averaged 15.5 ppg and 5.7 apg and led their team to the Playoffs last season."
• The Mies van der Rohe Award for roster minimalism goes to ... the Miami Heat. After dealing away Daequan Cook to Oklahoma City on Wednesday, Miami has only two players under contract for the 2010-11 season -- Mario Chalmers and Michael Beasley. They also have a boatload of cap space to re-sign Dwyane Wade and add possibly two additional marquee names.
• Chalmers will be doing some important work in Lawrence, Kansas today: "The Mario V. Chalmers Foundation is donating $25,000 to LMH Endowment Association to establish the first 'Mario’s Closet.' Mario’s Closet will be a specialty shop for a variety of free or low cost accessories for cancer patients. Lawrence Memorial Hospital will operate Mario’s Closet and is anticipated to open in Winter 2010."
• Kevin Pelton of Basketball Prospectus says the deal makes a lot of sense for the Thunder: "Cook is hardly a typical contract dump. His salary for next season ($2.2 million, per Sham Sports) is perfectly reasonable, and Cook brings to Oklahoma City a skill (perimeter shooting) that is still in relatively short supply there. The Thunder has a chance to look at Cook next season and see if he can return to usefulness as a reserve; if not, Oklahoma City can cut bait at the end of the year with no further obligation."
• Peter Keating revisits the D.R.A.F.T. Initiative developed by Jordan Brenner and Tom Haberstroh. Keating adds: "[K]eep an eye on Al-Farouq Aminu. He's from Wake Forest, the school whose players have most surpassed draft-day expectations. He's a sophomore, the best-producing class among early picks. And he's one of the top small forwards in a draft top-heavy guards and big men, so a team that grabs him around No. 7 or 8 could get great value."
• If you watched enough ACC basketball last winter, then you know big, savvy guard Greivis Vasquez is a prime candidate for 2010 draft sleeper. John Hollinger's Draft Rater projects Vasquez as the 10th best pro on the board. Vasquez worked out for the Magic on Monday. Ben Q. Rock of Orlando Pinstriped Post broke down Vasquez's game, and enumerates why he'd be a particularly good fit in Orlando if he's still available.
• Lest we forget how well Evan Turner performed at Ohio State in 2009-10, Ed Weiland of Hoops Analyst spells it out nicely: "[T]his was almost a historic season by Evan Turner in how truly impressive it was. I can’t imagine how overboard the hype would have been if this season had been accomplished by a player from Duke or North Carolina. Turner scored like the best SGs, rebounded like a PF and passed like a PG. There wasn’t anything here not to like."
• Ted Leonsis, Homer, LeBron James, Aaron Rodgers and Gilbert Arenas all in one place.
• The salary cap and on-court implications of Corey Maggette's arrival in Milwaukee.
• Kansas Jayhawks Cole Aldrich and Xavier Henry are making the most of their time in New York City, which included a visit to Sean John: "So swanky was the experience that at one point, when Aldrich and his girlfriend, KU student Britt Claflin, were in the back picking out the suit’s particulars, a woman emerged from the suite and said, 'Mr. Aldrich would like a cranberry juice.' Within seconds, a bartender chipped the ice, popped the top and served up a refreshing beverage."
• Evan Turner in pleated khakis, Al-Farouq Aminu in Urkel eyewear and Luke Babbitt in Naomi Wolf-inspired earth tones.
• Roland Lazenby on the prospect of Phil Jackson's retirement: "All across the NBA you can hear coaches breathing a sigh of relief. If Jackson retires, there'll be no pressure to meditate and read books."
• If you see an impatient J.R. Smith or DeAndre Jordan in line at the Apple Store, today is your lucky day.
• NBA Elite 11 will have some new features that will improve upon NBA Live: "'That's why when we started this year, we addressed the two biggest problems people have with basketball games. Number one: losing control of your player. If you played the basketball games the past few years, you know that there are times when you get locked into these animations and you have no control over your player as these long animations play out.' With 'NBA Elite 11,' Littman and crew think they've solved that problem by separating the upper body from the lower body with the use of the two analog sticks."

DENVER -- The Denver Nuggets have a secret arsenal of nearly unstoppable plays. There's only one hitch headed into Game 5:

Acting head coach Adrian Dantley isn't sure he can get his team to run them.

That's because the Nuggets see themselves as a certain kind of basketball team with an anti-system. Mike D'Antoni has 7-seconds-or-less. Phil Jackson has The Triangle. Jerry Sloan has The Flex. And Dantley has inherited from George Karl what he's referred to more than once as "random basketball."

What does "random basketball" mean? That's Dantley's description of how the Nuggets perceive themselves offensively -- a team that flourishes by pounding you with dominant one-on-one play in the half court and with breakneck transition buckets. Dantley isn't the only one to make that general characterization. When asked about the Nuggets' woeful assist total of 13 following Game 4, Chauncey Billups conceded, "We aren't really a high-assist team. That's not how our offense is made."

It's true that Denver runs a more individualistic half-court offense than Utah does and, as Carmelo Anthony pointed out today, that plan of attack has served them well for several seasons. In fact, Denver isn't exactly struggling offensively in this series. The Nuggets' offensive efficiency of 110.9 points per 100 possessions is an improvement on their regular season efficiency of 108.7. But after walloping the Jazz in Game 1 of the series, the Nuggets have posted a more modest efficiency rating of 104.7.

A stubborn devotion to "random basketball" is one of the reasons Denver's offense has fallen off since Game 1, and there's something obtuse about the Nuggets' unwillingness to construct coherent possessions in the half court against Utah. When the Nuggets choose to run deliberate sets, they're shredding the Jazz -- particularly on the pick-and-roll.

To illustrate, let's go back to Game 2. The Nuggets are coming off an emphatic 126-113 win. Fesenko has taken over as Utah's starting center after Mehmet Okur was lost for the season with a torn Achilles tendon in Game 1. The vibe is that the Jazz are done. Denver comes out of the opening jump with three straight Carmelo Anthony-Nene pick-and-rolls, and all of them produce points:

• Anthony gets the ball above the right elbow where he gets a little screen from Nene. It's not a Kendrick Perkins-grade screen, but it buys Anthony space away from C.J. Miles to dribble right and begin his attack. Anthony elevates for a jumper at 17 feet, draws the foul on Miles and drains two free throws.
• This play could've been ripped from the Phoenix Suns playbook. Another screen for Anthony from Nene at precisely the same spot. This time, Anthony puts the ball on the deck, drives right and dishes to Arron Afflalo in the right corner. Afflalo drives right by Wes Matthews into the paint. Fesenko is the last line of defense here. When he commits, Nene cuts behind him. Afflalo hits Nene on the move to the rim for an easy lay-in.
• This possession is just cruel and prompted me to write in my game notes, "UTA can't defend this." Same pick-and-roll with Anthony as the ball-hander at the same spot. This is Nene's best screen of the three and draws the switch the Nuggets are salivating for: Fesenko backpedaling against a driving Anthony in open space. When Anthony, who is driving right, sees that the bulk of the Jazz help defenders are on that side of the floor, he switches left, then finishes untouched at the basket. This is the moment I truly believed the series was over.

According to Synergy Sports, the Nuggets have choreographed a pick-and-roll -- then hit the roll man -- 17 times in this series. The results:

• Nine made baskets
• Six trips to the free throw line
• Two missed shot attempts

That's an 88.2 percent success rate.

Those 17 possessions in sequence is an impressive reel of video. Ball-handlers/passers include Billups, Anthony, Ty Lawson and J.R. Smith. All the Nuggets bigs are represented among the roll men. Whatever the scenario, the Nuggets score on 15 of the 17 opportunities, which leaves you with one question:

Why are the Nuggets running this action only four times per game?

One explanation might be that Jazz defenders are effectively trapping the ball-handler, making a pass through the double-team treacherous. But that's clearly not the Jazz's strategy when defending the pick-and-roll, even when Anthony is the ball-handler -- which brings us to another interesting bit of data:

Anthony has been the ball-handler on nine pick-and-roll sets. On those nine possessions, he's 7-for-7 from the field, with two turnovers.

Overall, only four teams this postseason are doing better work off the pick-and-roll, but with the exception of the Lakers and Utah (the two most orthodox systems in the bracket), no team is running them less frequently than the Nuggets. Instead, Denver is relying on isolations, post-ups and spot-ups, where they're generating ho-hum results -- less than one point per possession.

I asked Dantley about the success Denver had running the pick-and-roll and why the team wasn't deploying them more readily.

"We looked over our offensive stats and we definitely score more on our pick-and-rolls," Dantley said.

Then why doesn't he call for them more often over the course of the game?

"That's the way we play," Dantley said. "We've had more success right now with the pick-and-roll, more than 'random,' but our basketball team is known as a 'random' basketball team."

At some point, doesn't a team have to recognize what works? And whatever the identity of the team might be, shouldn't the team conform to what's working?

"That's what we've told them," Dantley said. "Whether they do it every time, that's a different story. Statistically, we tell them every game, 'Hey, run the pick-and-roll. Run drags. We've had success with that more than "random" basketball.'"

Given that success, will that be the plan Wednesday night in Game 5?

"I'm agreeing with you," Dantley said. "Statistically, we've had success on pick-on-rolls. We've told them that. We want them to do that tomorrow. Hopefully they do it. But, the last five years, we do more 'random' than we do pick-and-roll."

Dantley's comments suggest that there's a serious disconnect between acting head coach and the team's on-court personnel. It's not unusual for a team to fail its coach as a sin of omission. Both Jerry Sloan and Dantley are certain to tell their players to crash the boards tomorrow night, but one of their two teams will do a subpar job. That coach will be disappointed and very possibly angry. But that's much different than a coach laying out a very specific set of strategic imperatives, and the players on the floor not heeding those instructions. If you take Dantley's remarks at face value, he's implying this is what's been happening with the Nuggets, and he has no assurances that dynamic won't continue in Game 5.

The Wounded Animal
The loss of Mehmet Okur to a ruptured left achilles tendon has exacted both an emotional toll on the Jazz and left them with young third-year big man Kyrylo Fesenko as their starting center in Game 2. "Wounded animal" was a characterization used more than once in the circuit of interviews at the Pepsi Center on Monday morning. "A wounded animal is a dangerous animal," Nuggets guard Chauncey Billups said. "[The Jazz] still have some players who can beat you. They have some players who really weren't getting an opportunity to play and now they will get that opportunity, and they're going to be hungry." "They're backed up into a bit of a corner," Nuggets guard J.R. Smith said.

Adjustments on Anthony
The understanding from both squads is that Utah will combat Carmelo Anthony much more physically. "They're try to get me frustrated, try to beat me up a little bit," Anthony said. "I know it's coming. I just want to get ready for it and stay composed, not let them try to get in my head, which I know they'll try to do." C.J. Miles will assume the bulk of the defensive work against Anthony. "We can't let him be the initiator every time," Miles said. "Wesley and I sat down and talked about yesterday before practice about how we want to play him -- just try to get up and force him further out on the floor. He likes that mid-range area. He made a lot of jump shots last game and we want to make him take longer shots. We want to be up on him and make him take more than one or two dribbles to get into his moves and his shots." On a different note, Adrian Dantley made reference both on Sunday and today that, in some respect, Anthony has caught a break in this series by not having to face off against Andrei Kirilenko. Asked to comment on his coach's assessment, Anthony replied, "Next question."

Meet Kyrylo Fesenko, Starting Center
The 23-year-old big man has played a total of 408 minutes in the 2009-10 season. By virtue of Mehmet Okur's season-ending injury, Fesenko has been thrust into Utah's starting lineup. Opportunity or liability? Fesenko was a bit reticent, clearly nervous, but cautiously excited about the chance to play. As he began his response to the first question, Fesenko quickly excused himself to spit out his gum. "Just trying to be respectful," he said sheepishly. He then spoke about the huge chance he has to contribute to a team that desperately needs a defensive presence in the middle. "It means a lot to me," Fesenko said of the opportunity. "It means that coach really trusts me. I don't know, I'm speechless." Fesenko will have the daunting task of trying to contain Nene defensively. "The biggest challenge is that he's very quick," Fesenko said. "All his spin moves. That's going to be very tough for me. I've played against him and I fouled out in about 10 minutes." Fesenko also appreciates that he's not alone. He doesn't need to match Okur's offensive output and his primary responsibility will be helping to wall off the paint from a Denver team that destroyed the Jazz inside in Game 1. "I think I'm ready," Fesenko said. "I feel very confident about tonight's game. I might not score 45 points, but I know that I'll bust my ass on defense." Jazz coach Jerry Sloan said that Fesenko should embrace the starting role. "That's what you hope for as a player," Sloan said. "This is about as good a setting as you would want to have an opportunity to play and play well."

I just learned the Nuggets went years under Doug Moe, starring Alex English, with hardly any dunks at all.

But for a team with a lost dunker's decade, they sure do well in the conversation of greatest dunks of all time. There's the whole catalog of David Thompson's Nugget dunks to consider, and then three of this season's best dunks: Carmelo Anthony on Paul Millsap, Ty Lawson on D.J. Mbenga and J.R. Smith on the moon.

All of that is re-capped nicely, and well worth your read, in a monster jam of a post over at Denver Stiffs.

And let me weigh in right here to say that the 'Melo dunk, mostly for its sheer audacity, is my favorite by any player in the NBA this season.

Wayne Winston is a professor at Indiana University and for the last nine years he has been Mark Cuban's stat guru for the Dallas Mavericks. Winston's recently published book "Mathletics," explains much of his work -- complete with formulas and spreadsheets. This is the first in a series of TrueHoop posts in which Winston explains the surprising things he has learned about what works and what doesn't in the NBA.

Imagine you live on an island, with 13 people, and one of them is murdered.

Murderers are usually found (or not) by assembling all the available clues and seeing if they point to anybody. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't.

"Letting [Ben Gordon] go is just beyond stupid. It's ridiculous," says Winston. "And who'd they pick up to replace him? Jannero Pargo?" (Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE via Getty Images)

Another way to look at this one, however, would be to say, look, we know one of these 12 people did this thing. Let's try to find out what everybody was doing at the time of the murder, and then we can start making smart guesses at who was responsible.

This is a messy analogy for the state of basketball statistics.

A team loses a game. That's your murder.

The box score is the trail of clues. John Hollinger's PER is the embodiment of what can be learned from that. 

But there are some cases where PER doesn't tell it all -- maybe you have no suspect! We all know that some chunk of what matters in basketball doesn't make it into the box score. 

So there are people like Winston who instead favor saying we know all the players from both who were on the court while the loss occurred. Let's try to break the game apart, into little pieces, to see who gets the blame.

The result is adjusted plus/minus. Winston is one of many -- others include Dan Rosenbaum, Aaron Barzilai, Stephen Ilardi -- who basically look at the scores of games, and then use complex formulas to assign credit and blame for that happened to individual players.

It's often derided as an imprecise process, but it's worth noting that Winston, Barzilai and Rosenbaum all work for NBA teams. Winston has his detractors, but he's adamant, and often convincing, that such work can yield fascinating results:

The many new kinds of basketball statistics tend to fall into two groups. There are things that we can, with certainty, ascribe to individual players. Those things are mostly in the box score, or PER. But you put them all together, and a chunk of the game is missing. Then there's stuff we know the team does -- the final score, and the increments of it we see in +/- and adjusted +/-. The trouble there is that it's hard to know how to assign what the team does to an individual player. It's murky in both camps. But you're an adjusted +/- guy, right? Why?
Basketball is half offense and half defense. I don't think I have to prove that mathematically. It's got to be true. The box score is not half offense and half defense. I think that's where the box score breaks down.

The nice thing about adjusted +/- is that it's half offense and half defense. I think if we can estimate offense accurately, and most of the adjusted +/- stuff that is out there for offense agrees with the rest of the world.

It's on the defensive ratings I think that we disagree with whatever people think. And defense is half the game, I would argue even more, because you're only as strong as your weakest link. If you've got a guy who can't guard somebody, they'll just go at him all night long. In that sense, defense may be more important than offense.

We're trying to measure how you help a team win. There is noise in that system. But during the season, you can't change your roster very easily.

Winston's insight in action, against the Spurs in 2006: "Devin Harris had a great rating against the Spurs, and Tony Parker had a lousy rating ... So they started Devin Harris in Game 2 and won by 20." (Garrett Ellwood/NBAE/Getty Images)

But I have an infinite number of stories about lineups and how it can help you.

The best example is about the Spurs/Mavericks series. Del Harris came to me before Game 2 (of the 2006 Spurs vs. Mavericks series). I love him to death, he's a wonderful person.

Boy, he's a genius. When he was working with the Mavericks, he'd always ask me questions. He always knew the right question to ask. The numbers, by themselves, mean nothing.

In the regular season, Adrian Griffin was terrible against the Spurs. They had a terrible offensive rating, which means they couldn't score when he was in.

So Devin Harris had a great rating against the Spurs, and Tony Parker had a lousy rating in those games. The coaches sort of knew that Devin Harris could handle Tony Parker, but this gave them a metric to prove that.

So they started Devin Harris in Game 2 and they won by 20. 

Then we can do head-to-head -- when one guy is on the court against another guy. When Marquis Daniels was on the court against Manu Ginobili, the Mavericks lost by a point a minute. So in Game 7, they didn't play Daniels. Del Harris told me "we don't know why this happens, but since you tell me Marquis Daniels is getting creamed, we didn't play him."

This is where there's a really old debate with scouts and the data people, that's in Moneyball and everything else.

I don't think either person is right, by themselves. Well, the data is one factor that you should look at.

The flaw with adjusted +/- is that there's noise in the system. But there are flaws in any system. Red Auerbach said K.C. Jones' team won every scrimmage. His PER sucks. There has got to be something missing.

Kevin Martin always has a fantastic PER meanwhile, but every year his defense is terrible. 

So, I don't mind looking at PER. If we mess up, PER would probably get it. But PER messes up a lot because it just doesn't do defense.

So we're saying if you're talking box score based stats, you're going to miss defense ...
A lot of it. Not all of it, a lot of it. You're also missing things like taking the charge. Saving the ball going out of bounds, the pass that leads to the assist. Nobody knows what percentage of basketball is not in the box score, but that determines which side of the debate you're on.

But looking at the lineups, you can see a lot.

"In every playoff series," says Winston "there's what I call the team's kryptonite. For the Mavericks against Denver last year, it was Chris Andersen and J.R. Smith." (Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)

For instance, in every playoff series, there's what I call the team's kryptonite. There's two or three players on the
court that the other team can't handle.

For the Mavericks against Denver last year, it was Chris Andersen and J.R. Smith. When those two were on the court, the Mavericks got killed.

So what we do is we play detective. We look at every minute those guys are on the court. What worked? 

That's the type of stuff that we do. 

My prediction is that the Bulls are going to stink this year. Ben Gordon and Brad Miller were their best players. They let Ben Gordon go to the team they need to beat for the playoffs? Why'd they do that?

He wanted a lot of money.
Well, he's worth it.

Letting him go is just beyond stupid. It's ridiculous. And who'd they pick up to replace him? Jannero Pargo? I looked at their lineups, and I guess that they're expecting that Luol Deng can play his position. If he's healthy -- and I don't know if he's healthy.

You gotta mine the data. Because sometimes you're helpless. Denver -- I knew that would be bad for the Mavericks last year.

And Golden State [when the top-ranked Mavericks famously lost to the upstart Warriors, in 2007], I knew that would be bad for the Mavericks. The only hope the Mavericks had was to go small, and they did in Game 1 and lost that game. They got a lot of heat for that, but it was probably the best thing they could do.

Dampier is on the team so you can beat the Spurs and you can beat Shaq. And they beat the Spurs really easily. They had no trouble. But against the Warriors, small was better.

Did you advise the Mavericks to go small against the Warriors?
I show the numbers to the coach and they make the decision.

Against the Hornets, I would have certainly gone small. Against Golden State I would have gone small.

In Game 1 they just came out flat. Baron Davis hit like two half-court shots in that series. The Mavericks played horrible. And that series ... I do think it had a long-term effect, the hangover from that. The team didn't go back to being as good as it used to be.

How can you possibly fix something like that?
You can't. That's the whole thing. One of the holy grails of stats is predicting how well a player will do next year.

More from Winston on TrueHoop tomorrow.

Posted by Kevin Arnovitz

• Mark Cuban puts the kibosh on Dirk Nowitzki playing for the Germans in the European championship.
  
• Dave Berri is much more bullish on the Rockets in 2009-10 than most observers, and appraises the team from -- no surprise -- a very Berrian persepctive: "... wins are about more than scoring.  And when we measure these players contributions to wins (via Wins Produced), we see that Houston has fewer problems than people believe.  Consequently, I think it's possible that Morey's considerable reputation is about to become further enhanced." 
  
• Courtney Lee is still smarting over the trade from Orlando to New Jersey, says former teammate Dwight Howard. 
• Kurt Helin of Forum Blue & Gold on Magic Johnson's post-Laker life in Los Angeles: "After Magic left the Lakers he did not leave Los Angeles, he invested in it. He invested in the urban, poor neighborhoods that nobody else would, and got big name companies to join him (but not without considerable work). He showed corporations they could make money in areas that before they had feared to tread, and while those floodgates have never truly opened, they are more open now than they have been."
• Brian Grant has never been to a hockey game, but he's built a strong friendship NHL lifer Brent Peterson, now the Nashville Predators head coach. Both men suffer from Parkinson's disease.
• Quentin Richardson is in perpetual motion. Somehow this no longer seems so far-fetched.
• I like this piece by Shoals on J.R. Smith and representational issues that arise when we size up ballers. 
• Another senseless death, this time in Milwaukee over ... a car. 
• Suns rookie Earl Clark was a big basketball card collector as a kid, and just handed down his collection to his nephew. 
• Charley Rosen gives us (in alphabetical order) his best NBA defenders. Not on the list? Dwight Howard and LeBron James.  
• In honor of Sunday's premiere of "Mad Men," John Krolik of Cavs the Blog puts together power rankings for the year's best ads. 
• Clippers center and Texan DeAndre Jordan is an avid fan of Kornheiser and Wilbon ... and, apparently, our friends to the north. From DJ's twitter feed: "PTI! I'm waiting on the Canadian flag wave! That's my favorite part of the show!"

J.R. Smith had been accused of using pro-gang language on his Twitter account.

Who knows if that's really what happened.

Whatever had been happening won't be happening any more, as Smith has shut down his Twitter account.

Jeremy from Roundball Mining Company makes a great point about a missed opportunity:

J.R. could have taken this opportunity and used it to spread the news that he does not support gangs and would never again do anything that could be construed as supporting gangs. Unfortunately, there was a problem with that route. It would have required an apology or at least the act of admitting a mistake or error in judgment.

In place of trying to make a difference in the lives of young people who deal with the pressures of gang life he basically ... took his Twitter account and went home.

The Mavs look like they'll avoid the dreaded 8-hole in the West, but the Pistons succumb to the Bulls and will have a weekend date in Cleveland. Meanwhile, the Sixers and Hornets have tough decisions to make about a couple of struggling shooters.  

Rob Mahoney of Two Man Game: "What a game, what a game, what a game. In recent weeks, we've seen the 'Race for 8′ transform into a 'Race to Avoid 8′, and, by definition, a race to avoid the Lakers. The Utah Jazz, who sit just one full game behind the Mavs, were nursing a huge lead against the Clippers, and with two minutes and thirty seconds remaining, the Mavs were down five points to the Timberwolves. Heavy stuff. But from that point on, the Mavs committed few mistakes. They got exactly the offensive looks they wanted, and capitalized on most of them. They locked down defensively, and ceded a single basket due to unfortunate circumstance alone. Two and a half minutes, a 9-2 run, and nearly flawless execution.  In the biggest moments of this game and possibly of the season, the Mavs did not disappoint. Shot after shot, stop after stop, all culminating in a defensive stop by Dirk [Nowitzki]/Erick Dampier and a huge go-ahead bucket by Jason Terry with 0.2 seconds remaining."

Ryan Schwan of Hornets247: "There is much made about the idea that Peja [Stojakovic] isn't having plays run for him, that he's being mis-used, that he should be sent in motion. So I kept track of plays where Peja was moving his feet, clearly having had a play called for him. There were twelve in the game.  One, [Chris] Paul saw an opening and short-circuited the play, diving to the basket and scoring.  Twice Peja got free off a single pick as [Shane] Battier got momentarily lost, and got two nice open shots. Three times, Peja ran off a set of three staggered picks, resulting in a nice open shot, a hurried deep three, and Paul being unable to get the pass to him because he was covered too well. Six times, he ran off a pair of picks and couldn't get open at all.  For those of you keeping score, that's 12 plays for three open shots and an opening for Paul. If that's the return, I'm not sure it's worth the investment. And if the investment continues to be made, he needs to do better than 0-4 shooting (1-7 for the game, including shots off plays that weren't designed for him as a primary option)." 

Dan Feldman of Piston Powered: "With a 91-88 loss to Chicago, Detroit will have the eighth seed and a first-round matchup with Cleveland ... [I]t's a shame that's Detroit's fate. In their biggest game of the season, the Pistons played the best they have in a while. Detroit and Chicago were evenly matched. They fought from start to finish, dove all over the court, played physical - and most importantly, played well. The game looked like a four-five matchup in the first round.
The Bulls are playing their best basketball of the season. They've won five in a row, nine of 11 and 12 of 15. And the Pistons are still 8-5 when Richard Hamilton and Rasheed Wallace both play and Allen Iverson doesn't. That clip would give the Pistons 50 wins over the course of a full season and put them comfortably in fourth place in the East. To make matters more impressive, eight of those games were against playoff teams (including two wins over Orlando and one over Boston). And most of those games were on the road."

THE FINAL WORD
Roundball Mining Company: J.R. Smith explodes.
Philadunkia: Falling out of love with Willie Green.
Two Man Game: Deep thoughts on the Mavs' bench.

(Photos by Glenn James, Rocky Widner/NBAE via Getty Images)

Posted by Kevin Arnovitz

Welcome to All-Star Saturday night. 

Since my spirit is dampened by the exclusion of Steve Novak from the Three-Point Shootout, and I've never forgiven the judges for robbing Dominique Wilkins of the 1988 Slam Dunk crown, I thought it would be a good idea to bring in some help for tonight.

Rob Mahoney of The Two Man Game and John Krolik of Cavs the Blog will be joining me for the evening's festivities. 

Since Rob "refuses to acknowledge the existence of the Shooting Stars competition," we're going to start our coverage with the Skills Competition. 

Follow along, won't you...

KEVIN ARNOVITZ: Welcome...

KEVIN ARNOVITZ: So I just got back from the 3D studio in the bowels of the arena which, I have to say, makes this competition a lot more interesting

JOHN KROLIK: End of shooting stars...well, Detroit's season hasn't gone the way they wanted it to, but I'm sure the fans are just as happy with this.

KEVIN ARNOVITZ: Also visited the practice court where the 3PT participants were warming up.  Bibby looks strong

JOHN KROLIK: I've got Kapono. Until proven otherwise.

JOHN KROLIK: I like Parker, then Mo in the Skills comp. It's all about that mid-range J. If Rose hits it, it's his.

ROB MAHONEY: My heart says Roger Mason, but my brain just beat up my heart and told me to pick Kapono.  Seems like a no-brainer.

KEVIN ARNOVITZ: I like Harris in Skillz..Mason in 3P...but, as I said, Bibby was stroking it on the practice court 10 mins ago

JOHN KROLIK: Mason will win if it comes down to the last shot. Dude's an assassin, right down to the name.

KEVIN ARNOVITZ: Minus the little swastika on his forehead, natch.

JOHN KROLIK: Playlist so far: Brittney Spears, John Legend. I'm intrigued for the night.

ROB MAHONEY: I once heard that Roger Mason killed a man.  No - AN ARMY OF MEN.  Ruthless, truly. 

JOHN KROLIK: I'm still steamed my boy OJ didn't take HORSE home. Dude hit some sick shots.

KEVIN ARNOVITZ: Just to review Rob's skills reforms.: Could they block two shots at the same time? Who could steal it from Chris Paul first? If all players were given a ball and a finite space, who would be the last man standing with an active dribble? Could they block a shot launched out of a machine like a clay pigeon?

ROB MAHONEY: I actually missed HORSE entirely.  I heard it was kinda lame.  Any consensus?

JOHN KROLIK: Could Rudy surprise us in the Dunk Contest tonight?

KEVIN ARNOVITZ: Rudy is my bottom-dweller for the sole reason that he played THU nite in Oakland, Last night in the Rook/Soph game....So he's on a back-to-back-to-back [hat tip: Henry]

JOHN KROLIK: HORSE-Nobody was hitting at first, then guys hit some 40-footers, Rick Barry Free Throws, backwards, OJ went from the stands, but then Durant closed it out by just raining threes, which was a bit anti-climactic. Still liked it overall.

JOHN KROLIK: My bottom-dweller is Nate-I just don't think he's got 3 contests worth of dunks in him.

ROB MAHONEY: Rudy will disappoint only because no one expected anything from him, the rumors of awesome soccer-inspired dunks surfaced and got all of our hopes up, and then we'll inevitably be disappointed because well, he's Rudy.

JOHN KROLIK: Harris is going too slow around the guys.

ROB MAHONEY: Devin Harris has to slow down for the cameras to capture him.  It's all part of the plan, John.

KEVIN ARNOVITZ: A Sham-mockery

JOHN KROLIK: The difference is effort, Mo.

ROB MAHONEY: The real reason Mo Williams wanted to be in Phoenix for this weekend: SKILLS CHALLENGE, YO.

JOHN KROLIK: BALLBOYGATE! The NBA All-Star conspiracy against Mo Williams continues.

KEVIN ARNOVITZ: Vintage Rose.  Perfect, except for a missed J. 

ROB MAHONEY: LeBron will now carry out his vendetta against ball boys everywhere.

ROB MAHONEY: How does Derrick Rose coast through the challenge and still smoke everyone?

JOHN KROLIK: And goodbye, Tony Parker.

KEVIN ARNOVITZ: The PHX fans are pleased

ROB MAHONEY: We'll just forget that I picked Tony to win.  Cool?

JOHN KROLIK: My friend put 20 bucks on TP and 10 on Mo. He is displeased right now.

JOHN KROLIK: Not really playoff intensity in the 1st round of the skills challenge.

KEVIN ARNOVITZ: The problem with this event is that all the elasticity is in the jump shot...[and, to a lesser extent the passing].  So it's really a foul shot shooting contest.

ROB MAHONEY: When is the Gerald Wallace/Josh Smith/Andrei Kirilenko skills challenge?  I'm ready to have my world turned upside down.

KEVIN ARNOVITZ: 1st Place:  $35,000
2nd Place:        $22,500
3rd Place:          $9,000
4th Place:          $9,000

JOHN KROLIK: You Gotta Get Anthony Randolph and Julian Wright in there too.

ROB MAHONEY: Derrick Rose was HUNGRY for that Skills Challenge title.  Finished it nicely with a sweet dunk -- the best thing I've seen in the last two hours.

(Read full post)

Rudy Gay is battling a left hip flexor strain, which means the dunk contest has a new entrant: The Nuggets' J.R. Smith.

He'll compete against Dwight Howard, Rudy Fernandez, and Nate Robinson. 

And you know what? I think Smith can win this thing. He is, at times, a shocking athlete. Howard and Robinson are the favorites, but at some point the judges will have seen enough of those two.