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HoopIdea wants to #StopTheFlop. To spotlight the biggest fakers, we present Flop of the Night. You can help us separate the pretenders from the defenders -- details below.

Atlanta's star forward Josh Smith has one of the unique skill sets in the NBA. He dominates the glass and protects the rim like a center and can handle the ball like a point guard.

He's also becoming a champion flopper.

Before hurting his knee (all best wishes for a healthy Josh Smith in Game 3) in Tuesday night's loss to the Boston Celtics, Smith dove like a stuntman as Brandon Bass attempted to box him out.

You have to respect Smith's willingness to go to the ground. He looks like someone who, eager to join a dance circle, starts doing the worm but forgets how it goes halfway to the ground.

Check the slow-motion replay and you'll see Smith using his excellent athleticism not to sky for a rebound, but to buck and actually leap forward and out of bounds. He lands at the referee's feet, and gets the call.

Everyone knows that players flop for charges and on scoring attempts. But there is no time when there's more contact in an NBA game than during the scrums under the rim, which makes it the perfect time to try and sell a flop, as Smith does masterfully on this play.

Keep your eye peeled for more rebound flops as the playoffs go on, we've already had two this week.

And thanks to Michael Pina for pointing this one out!

When you see an egregious flop that deserves proper recognition, send us a link to the video so we can consider it for Flop of the Night. Here's how to make your submission:

• Alert HoopIdea to super flops with the Twitter hashtag #FlopOfTheNight (follow us on Twitter here).
• Use the #FlopOfTheNight hashtag in Daily Dime Live.
• E-mail us at hoopidea@gmail.com

Oklahoma City Thunder forward Kevin Durant and guard Russell Westbrook have set a new standard of dynamic-duo performance in the NBA.

In an epic double-overtime matchup with the Minnesota Timberwolves on Friday, the two each surpassed the 40-point mark.

This was the second time this season that both scored at least 40 points in the same NBA game. The Elias Sports Bureau noted that no pair of teammates had done that previously in NBA history.

Timberwolves forward Kevin Love and guard J.J. Barea formed their own statistically special tandem. Love broke Kevin Garnett’s single-game record for points in a game with 51 and Barea recorded his first career triple-double, the NBA’s first by a player born in Latin America.

Only one other time in NBA history has a team had one player score 50 points and another record a triple-double in a losing effort. Elias uncovered that Wilt Chamberlain supplied the scoring and Guy Rodgers had the triple-double for the 1962-63 Warriors.

The Thunder have now won 11 straight games against the Timberwolves.

Heat turn it up on defense
The Miami Heat allowed a season-low 73 points against the Pistons. They held Detroit to only 52 points in half court, 29 fewer than in their previous meeting on Jan. 25.

The Heat had some early offensive success inside. Miami scored 34 points in the paint in the first half, matching its most in a first half for the season.

Dwyane Wade finished with a game-high 24 points and was 7-for-10 from inside 10 feet for the game.

Honorable Mention: Feats of the Night
Steve Nash had his 10th game this season with at least 15 assists for the Phoenix Suns on Friday. Rajon Rondo had his fourth such game. Nash and Rondo rank 1-2 in the NBA in 15-assist games in 2011-12.

Atlanta Hawks forward Josh Smith (30 points, 12 rebounds) joined Love, Durant and LeBron James as the only players in the NBA this season with consecutive games with at least 30 points and 10 rebounds.

Plus/Minus Note of the Night
Phoenix Suns center Channing Frye was a plus-15 in a 113-111 win over the Indiana Pacers. No one else on the Suns was better than a plus-5.

Frye was 5-for-7 from the field in the win. He was 5-for-17 and a minus-15 in his two games prior to this one.

A seven-and-a-half minute spurt of brilliance wasn’t enough for the New York Knicks to offset 40 minutes of what was a rough watch in their loss to the Dallas Mavericks on Tuesday night.

Knicks guard Jeremy Lin had his second-worst game as a Knick from a plus-minus perspective. When he was on the floor, despite his 13 points and seven assists, the Knicks were outscored by 11 points. This was a big difference from the 28-point, 14-assist game he had against the Mavericks two weeks ago.

The Knicks made a good chunk of their comeback at the start of the fourth quarter (before the Mavericks' strong finish) with Baron Davis on the floor instead of Lin.

It was also a rough game for Carmelo Anthony, who was 2-for-12 from the field. Video review showed that Anthony was 0-for-5 on jump shots and 0-for-4 on shots around the basket.

Anthony is hitting the former at just a 31 percent clip this season and the latter at 51 percent. In Anthony’s tenure as a Knick last season, he hit those shots at rates of 39 percent and 58 percent, respectively.

The Mavericks had 30 free throw attempts to the Knicks' 23. The Mavericks entered the game sixth-worst in the NBA in free throw attempts per game (21) and had allowed 111 more free throw attempts than they’d taken (the differential ranked fifth-worst in the NBA)

The Mavericks shot 23 fewer free throws than the Thunder in a Monday loss, prompting Jason Kidd to criticize the officiating after the contest.

Of the last nine reigning NBA champs before the Mavericks, none finished a regular season ranked in the bottom 10 in the league in free throw attempt differential.

Bosh return key for Heat
Chris Bosh returned from a three-game absence to help the Miami Heat pummel the New Jersey Nets. The Heat were 18-for-22, a season-best 82 percent from inside five feet, and outscored the Nets by 20 points in the paint. In the three games without Bosh, the Heat shot 58 percent from inside five feet.

The Heat also grabbed 36 defensive rebounds, two short of their season-high against Charlotte on Dec. 28.

Feats of the Night
Josh Smith scored 27 points in a win over the Indiana Pacers.

That's nothing new. The Hawks are 12-0 this season in games when Smith scores at least 20 points.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, that is the best record this season by a player who scored 20 points in at least 10 games this season..

Also, Celtics forward Kevin Garnett had 13 rebounds on Tuesday, which gave him 13,100 for his career. With the 13th rebound he passed Shaquille O'Neal for 12th place on the all-time career rebounds list.

Plus-Minus Note of the Night
Charlotte Bobcats backup center Byron Mullens had eight points and 13 rebounds in Charlotte’s 100-84 win over the Orlando Magic. In the 25 minutes that Mullens was on the court, the Bobcats outscored the Magic by 23 points.

This was the 61st career game for Mullens, but the first in which his plus-minus was in double figures on the positive side.

Josh Smith scored 23 points, grabbed 16 rebounds and added eight assists as the Atlanta Hawks defeated the Chicago Bulls to even the series at two games apiece.

Smith became the first Hawks player to have a 20-point, 15-rebound, 5-assist game in the playoffs since Moses Malone, who did it in a loss in 1989. No player had done so in a Hawks playoff win since 1966 (Bill Bridges).

Smith, like the rest of his teammates, saved his best for last as he scored 11 of his 23 points in the fourth quarter.

Atlanta entered the fourth trailing by two with the daunting task of trying to come from behind against the NBA's best fourth-quarter team. (The Bulls had +187 point margin in fourth quarter during the regular season.)

But it was all Atlanta down the stretch as they finished the game on a 16-4 run over the final 4:30 of the game to pull out the victory.

Al Horford (20 points), who shot an efficient 9-for-11 from the field for his fifth career 20-point playoff game, had six points during the Hawks final run.

During that same span, the Bulls only took five field goal attempts thanks to three turnovers, two of which were committed by Derrick Rose.

A quick glance at the stat sheet would make it appear Rose had another stellar game as he notched 34 points to go along with 10 assists, his first 30-point, 10-assist game of this postseason.

However, he needed 32 shots for those 34 points, taking home the rather dubious honor of becoming just the third player in the past 20 postseasons to take 30 field goal attempts and record 10 assists in a non-overtime game.

The others to do so were LeBron James in the 2007 NBA Finals against the Spurs and Kevin Johnson in 1994 against the Rockets. Not coincidentally, both of those players lost as well.

Still the Bulls will likely chalk this loss up to a letdown on the defensive end in the fourth quarter. Atlanta shot 65 percent from the field in the final frame.

Including both the regular season and postseason, the Bulls had allowed opponents to shoot just 41 percent from the field in the fourth quarter, best in the NBA.

According to game footage, the Bulls held the Hawks to only 52 points on possessions in the half court through the first three quarters. However in the fourth, the Hawks scored 31 of their 33 points in the half court, making 12 of their 18 field goal attempts.

The key for Atlanta was getting the ball inside. Of the Hawks 33 fourth-quarter points, 22 came in the paint, with another six coming from the free throw line.

Josh is smooth in Hawks win

Although there were only seven games in the NBA Tuesday night, there was no shortage of great notes.

Take Josh Smith, for example, who scored a season-high 34 points in the Atlanta Hawks' 116-101 victory over the New Jersey Nets.

Smith shot 14-16 from the floor, and over the last four seasons, only three other players have scored at least 34 points on at least 14-16 shooting: Amar'e Stoudemire (this season), Chris Bosh (2007-08) and Kevin Martin (2007-08).

The Hawks shot 60.3 percent from the floor in the win, just the fourth team in the NBA to do so this season.

Atlanta also continues to get it done despite the absence of Joe Johnson, improving to 4-1 without their star. Both Smith and Jamal Crawford had season highs in scoring.

FROM THE ELIAS SPORTS BUREAU: Smith became the first Hawks player with a game of that many points (34) and that high a FG pct (87.5 pct) in more than 55 years, since Hall-of-Famer Bob Pettit scored 34 points while making 12 of 13 shots (92.3 percent) on March 14, 1955.

Pettit’s performance came in a 99-84 win over the Philadelphia Warriors, in a neutral-site game played in Albany, New York. What made the game especially noteworthy is that it was the final game played by the Hawks while representing Milwaukee.

Less than 2 months later, it was announced that the team would move from Milwaukee to St. Louis for the 1955-56 season; it then moved to Atlanta in 1968.

Texas Ten-Step

Meanwhile, the Dallas Mavericks' 105-100 win over the Golden State Warriors gave them 10 straight wins.

It’s the eighth time dating back to the 2001-02 season that the Mavericks have had a 10-game win streak, tied with the San Antonio Spurs for the most in the NBA over that span.

That 10-game win streak was enough to move the Mavericks from fifth to second place in the Western Conference.

Miller time ends

Finally, Andre Miller was suspended for the Portland Trail Blazers’ 106-99 win over the Phoenix Suns after his hit on Blake Griffin in Portland’s last game.

That’s important because it snapped Miller’s streak of 632 consecutive games played, which was the longest active streak in the NBA.

Derek Fisher is now the NBA’s new iron man, having played in his 434th consecutive game in Tuesday night’s Los Angeles Lakers' win. The New Orleans Hornets' Jarrett Jack moves to second, with 309 straight games played.

They hadn't won back-to-back games since this past February, but the Los Angeles Clippers changed that Thanksgiving night with a 100-82 win over the Sacramento Kings. Their victory came three nights after handing the New Orleans Hornets their second loss of the season. The 18-point win was the Clippers' largest margin of victory since outscoring the Minnesota Timberwolves by 25 on December 16, 2009.

FROM THE ELIAS SPORTS BUREAU: Blake Griffin scored 25 points and grabbed 15 rebounds in the Clippers-Kings game on Thursday night, his sixth 20-and-10 game (points-and-rebounds) of the season. He also became the first NBA rookie with a 20-and-10 game on the Thanksgiving holiday since Seattle's Bob Kauffman had 20 points and 10 rebounds vs. Milwaukee in 1968.

Taking it one step further, Griffin and Wilt Chamberlain are the only rookies in NBA history to score 25 points and grab 15 rebounds on Turkey Day. Chamberlain accomplished the feat in 1959.

Elsewhere around the NBA:

FROM THE ELIAS SPORTS BUREAU: Josh Smith had a tremendous all-around game in the Hawks’ easy win over the Wizards on Thanksgiving evening: he had 20 points, 14 rebounds and five assists while shooting 8-for-14 from the floor. Actually, it was the second game in this young season in which Smith has coupled a 20-and-10 game (points-and-rebounds) with at least five assists while shooting at least 50 percent from the floor. The only other NBA players with two such games this season are Smith’s teammate Al Horford and the Lakers’ Pau Gasol.

Here are some notes I collected this weekend and this morning:

• Al Horford's five-year, $60 million extension came as a mild surprise to a number of GMs around the league on Monday. Clearly the Hawks love Horford and the toughness he brings to their front line, but can they really afford him after giving more than $100 million to Joe Johnson this summer?

Several GMs believe the Hawks won't be able to keep Johnson ($18.5 million in 2011-12), Josh Smith ($12.5 million in 2011-12), Marvin Williams ($8 million in 2011-12) and Horford ($12 million in 2011-12) together past this season for financial reasons.

While Horford's new salary won't push the Hawks into the luxury tax, it will put them very close. The move means they won't be able to afford to re-sign Jamal Crawford, or replace him with a similar salaried player next season, without incurring the tax.

That situation is already leading to speculation that GM Rick Sund may be forced to put Smith on the market soon. Sund briefly flirted with trading Smith last summer, before pulling back. While no one is claiming he's been made available yet, a number of GMs around the league expect his name to be in the mix by the February trade deadline.

Williams would be the Hawks' first choice to move, but he didn't get a lot of bites when he was available this summer. That could push them to see what they can get for Smith.

A number of teams, including the Knicks, Nets, Pistons and Suns, have shown interest in the high-flying forward in the past. It will be interesting to see if talks heat up as we get closer to February.

The extension for Horford (along with previous extensions for Kevin Durant and Joakim Noah) essentially takes away the three best restricted free agent prospects from the draft class of 2007.

Still, the restricted class is pretty strong. Greg Oden, Marc Gasol, Thaddeus Young, Rodney Stuckey, Jeff Green, Aaron Brooks, Mike Conley, Wilson Chandler, Brandan Wright, Arron Afflalo, Yi Jianlian and Marcus Thornton haven't received extensions as of Monday afternoon. (UPDATE: Conley signed an extension on Monday night.)

Typically restricted free agents struggle to get big offer sheets, and if they do, their team usually matches. But given the plethora of teams with major cap space this coming summer, that could change.

• The Timberwolves drew the wrong types of headlines on opening night when head coach Kurt Rambis benched forward Kevin Love in the fourth quarter of a tight game against the Kings.

Love was clearly unhappy and it didn't take long for fans to start a "Free Kevin Love" campaign. Love had a rocky relationship with the Wolves last season, too, and this clearly wasn't the way to start off the new season.

However, those who think Love is going to be traded soon are going to be disappointed. Sources say that the Wolves and Love have talked since the game and that going forward, Rambis won't be benching the team's best player in the fourth quarter. While Love clearly could use some work on the defensive end, he's the franchise right now until Ricky Rubio arrives (if he arrives) and the Wolves are going to do more to make sure he's happy.

• Speaking of the Wolves, don't be too hard on GM David Kahn for taking Wes Johnson over DeMarcus Cousins. The Wolves didn't think he'd be a fit next to Love. But that wasn't the biggest reason they passed. There was a bigger concern that Cousins would be too much to handle in the locker room -- especially on such a young team.

Those concerns, according to sources, are already being borne out in Sacramento. While Cousins has played very well in the summer league, preseason and in the Kings' first three regular-season games, there are concerns.

Sources close to the Kings tell me that Cousins has earned his reputation for being difficult. Several players on the team have complained privately about his attitude and he's already butted heads with assistant coaches in practice.

• On draft night, the Knicks caught me by surprise when they took Stanford forward Landry Fields with the 39th pick in the draft. Fields was in our database ranked as the 116th-best player in the draft. He's the first American player ever to be drafted that wasn't in our Top 100 since we started doing this in 2003.

Clearly, I blew it.

Fields has earned a starting position for the Knicks and through three games is posting a very impressive 19.30 PER -- better than both Blake Griffin and Cousins.

How did I (and a number of NBA teams) miss so badly? Our Top 100 is based on the consensus of a number NBA scouts and executives. Fields wasn't mentioned by any of them. He was so off the radar that he wasn't one of the top 60 players invited by the NBA to participate in the Chicago predraft camp. The NBA selects participants based off of rankings by all 30 NBA teams.

But that's not an excuse. One NBA scout, along with a source close to the Stanford team, called me and told me I was sleeping on Fields. I pulled down some tape from Synergy and, frankly, just didn't see it. Had I thought about him specifically for Mike D'Antoni's wide-open system -- maybe. But the truth is I thought he was a good European prospect, not an NBA one.

He's proven me and the rest of the league very wrong in the early going. From all accounts he's a very nice kid who's working really hard. Here's hoping he keeps it up over the course of his career.

I practically grew up at the Omni. I had a more familiar relationship with our chain-smoking usher decked out in her red sateen jacket with the octogonal patch sewn on the sleeve than I did with the administrators who roamed the halls of my elementary school.

At the time I started attending Hawks games, the population of metro Atlanta was around 2.3 million people, qualifying it as a medium-sized market still in its relative infancy as a major league city -- the Falcons were the first to arrive in Atlanta in 1965. When I attended my first Hawks game in 1981, the team had been in Atlanta for only 13 years. At age eight that meant nothing to me, but for my father, who was born and raised a couple of miles from the Omni, the Hawks were still a novelty. For most of his lifetime, southern cities simply weren't candidates for big-league sports teams for reasons ranging from economics to history. It's not a coincidence that major league teams arrived just after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Those teams have now been in the city for more than 40 years, but Atlanta still suffers from the reputation of being a horrible sports town. The city's pro sports teams -- most notably the Braves -- have trouble selling out postseason games. Even though the Hawks have climbed into the ranks of the NBA's elite and feature an electrifying roster of athletes, they still rank in the bottom half of the league this season in attendance -- behind the Wizards and just a smidgen ahead of the Clippers. The question of support is all the more riddling because Atlanta has become a magnet for multi-national corporations over the past 25 years.

In today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Michael Cunningham reports that the Hawks are frustrated that, many nights, supporters of the opposing team are more vocal at Philips Arena than Hawks partisans:

The marquee teams and stars who’ve visited Philips Arena this season have been too warmly received for Woodson’s tastes.

“It shouldn’t be that way,” Woodson said. “There [are] enough people in this city to support the Hawks. I think we are a fun team to watch. We’ve grown definitely over the years, from the time we started to where we are today.

“Sure, I’d like to see more people in their seats and rooting for our guys.”

Instead, the Hawks have seen fans root for opponents in their house.

... Now Woodson would like for Hawks fans to do their part to make Philips unwelcoming for visiting teams. That’s how it was for the Pistons when Woodson was an assistant coach there prior to taking over the Hawks.

“When you came up in The Palace, you were in ‘Detroitland,’” Woodson said. “They [fans] made the difference in a lot of ballgames that we won. And it needs to be like that here.

Pop-sociologists have all sorts of theories for the general apathy in Atlanta. They cite the temperate climate, which keeps residents outdoors for much of the year. They point out that Atlanta has produced only one championship in the collective 152 seasons that the four major sports have been played in the city. In recent decades, the traffic on the ribbons of highways that snake through the region has become hellacious and a commute downtown at rush hour is an awful experience.

Each of these factors plays a part, but I like Jamal Crawford's theory a little better:

Hawks guard Jamal Crawford makes the case that support for visiting teams is due to the significant number of transplants in Atlanta. Crawford was on the other end of that equation when he played for the Knicks, who were supported by relocated New Yorkers in several cities.

Since I attended my first Hawks game in 1981, that 2.3 million has grown to nearly 6 million people who live in the region. Needless to say, native Atlantans aren't procreating at a frenetic rate. More than a third of the people who moved to the city between 2000 and 2004 were from out-of-state. That domestic migration is a huge factor in the region's growth. Overall since 2000, nearly 50,000 more US-born people from somewhere else in the country are arriving in metro Atlanta each year than leaving. Global migration represents a big part of the population boom, as well -- 13.4 percent of metro Atlanta's population is foreign-born.

There's a logical counter-argument to all of this: More people should mean more fans, irrespective of where they were born, right?

Yes and no.

If you've ever spent time in an older city outside the Sun Belt, you know how central sports teams are to the natives. Bostonians, New Yorkers and Chicagoans have passed down their loyalties from generation to generation. My late grandfather was born at Georgia Baptist hospital in 1916. He was a native Atlantan through and through. He loved his city and its institutions -- but none of those institutions were sports teams. By the time the Hawks arrived in Atlanta, my grandfather was in his early-50s. Few rabid sport fans cultivate visceral attachments to expansion teams as 50-something empty nesters. The serious middle-aged fans I know grew up listening to Red Barber, Jack Brickhouse and Marty Glickman. Those voices were the tour guides to young fandom. My grandfather didn't have that, and it wasn't something he could pass on to me.

By and large, I found the Hawks at school, where a band of nine year olds rallied around Dominique Wilkins, who was arguably Atlanta's second larger-than-life athlete behind Hank Aaron (Steve Bartkowski and even Dale Murphy didn't carry the same kind of charisma). Those of us who were native Atlantans (only about half the class, even in the mid-80s) weren't raised on tales of Earl the Pearl or Bill Russell. The only sports anecdotes my father relayed to me were stories of watching the International League's Atlanta Crackers at Ponce de Leon Park.

So the dynamics in Atlanta go further than even transplants. Natives themselves have a shallower pool from which to draw. Does that excuse Atlanta's lackluster fan support, particular when you consider the Portland Trail Blazers entered the NBA two seasons after the Hawks moved to Atlanta? Does a city need to apologize for its collective apathy toward its sports teams? These franchises aren't institutions like the school board or law enforcement agencies, or even non-profits like museums or the opera -- entities that require civic support to survive. The Atlanta Hawks are an entertainment product whose profits go into the pockets of some very wealthy individuals. Would I like to see my hometown embrace the Hawks the way residents of Salt Lake City and Portland support their teams? Sure. But nowhere else on the commercial landscape do employees bitch about customers not supporting the goods they produce and/or sell. If the foot traffic isn't coming in off the street, then it's up to management to figure out smarter ways to entice those potential customers. The Minnesota Timberwolves are figuring that out. So are the Charlotte Bobcats.

I don't mean to criticize Mike Woodson or any other Hawk who'd prefer that Josh Smith get more applause at Philips Arena tonight than Kobe Bryant. That's a reasonable wish, but it doesn't change the fact that, for a bevy of reasons, the organization is up against some tough conditions. Business is business -- particularly in an exploding market where there are more ways than ever to spend your money.

Hawks fans had to be concerned.

As efficient as the Hawks have been offensively this season, they sometimes contract the sniffles in the fourth quarter. The ball stagnates as all eyes turn to Joe Johnson.

Against Orlando Wednesday night, the Hawks put together a steady third quarter during which they build a double-digit lead. After Mike Bibby drains a 3-pointer on the left wing with 10:22 remaining the fourth quarter, the Hawks lead by nine -- but then fall into a slumber.

They don't hit another field goal until the 1:38 mark, as that 9-point lead is whittled down to three.

Just over a minute later, Vince Carter deadens the crowd when he nails an off-balanced, contested bomb from beyond the arc.

Game tied.

The Hawks must race the ball up the length of the court with no timeouts and 9.9 seconds left on the clock:



Watch the play again. How does Josh Smith get free for the follow?

Ask Rashard Lewis.

The All-Star Game is a collection of the best basketball talent in the world, but it rarely produces anything resembling the best basketball. Counter-intuitive as that might seem, the reasons for this annual letdown are fairly obvious. Chauncey Billups recited some of them following the lackluster 2007 All-Star Game, everything from fear of injury to exhaustion from the weekend's festivities.

Could there be other factors that keep this collection of talent from playing beautiful, or even watchable, basketball? In a highly functional basketball unit, do certain players need to defer to other players, something that's difficult to demand of the world's premier scorers? Are teams loaded with this kind of firepower vulnerable to the pitfalls that might have doomed USA Basketball in 2002, 2004 and 2006?

These questions got us thinking: Is it possible to assemble a roster of non-All-Stars that could challenge the teams taking the floor in Dallas on Sunday?

We asked the bloggers in the TrueHoop Network to participate in our high-grade parlor game.

In sculpting our roster, we came up with a few basic questions. What kind of players would you look for? Do you tap the best of the remainders who were left off the rosters (snubs like Josh Smith and Nene)? Knowing you're outgunned, is it better to adopt the principles of guerrilla warfare and engage in a less traditional brand of combat? To that end, are there specific skill sets you should look for?

A few criteria and common themes emerged:

Defense and Rebounding

• Bret LaGree of Hoopinion: "Defense and rebounding would ... be vital, both to limit the efficiency of the All-Stars and to rebound as many missed shots as possible. If the non-All-Stars give the best offensive players in the world many second shots, it's hopeless."
• D.J. Foster of ClipperBlog: "I want them to grab every defensive rebound, I want them to get tons of turnovers..."
• Matt Moore of Hardwood Paroxysm envisions a team whose tactical goal is "DEATH FROM HYPER-LONG-ATHLETIC DEFENDERS FROM ABOVE."

Is it realistic to believe that there are defensive stoppers who can contain the most prolific scorers in the game? Probably not, which means we should look for a very specific brand of defender.

• Rahat Huq of Red94: "In a game like this, you don't necessarily want guys who are great individual defenders. No one is going to shut down those all-stars in combination ... You need the best help defenders in the game. These guys can't be left alone on an island."'

We asked David Thorpe to chime in. He told us that, in thinking about defense, it's ill-advised to worry about "'who's going to guard THAT guy,' because defense in the modern NBA is a five-player gig, so that's the wrong question." With the right coach and coverages, anyone with enough athleticism and commitment can play good team defense.

On Offense
Our team won't have the capacity to create shots the way the All-Stars can, so they better be efficient, says Matt Moore. "You're creating a team that takes shots at the rim and at the arc. Most at the rim. Very much so at the rim." When the Houston Rockets are clicking on the offensive end, they do this proficiently without a single player who approaches All-Star status.

Meta-Factors
"Intangibles" are abstract, unsatisfying and impossible to measure, but there's no denying that our players need to embody certain qualities to knock off the big boys.

• Henry Abbott: "If you look at the best lineups in the NBA, they almost all include role players (like Anderson Varejao). But when picking the best teams, it's very hard for coaches, GMs or anybody else to pick a role player over a multi-talented star. So they take the star. Anyone read Malcolm Gladwell's book "Outliers"? After 10,000 hours people are candidates to become masters at something. I'm thinking you want people who have their 10,000 hours in doing boring things that lead to wins, like playing D. Stars don't have more hours in their days. They have to spend a lot of time on other stuff."
• Rahat Huq: "You want players who 'impact winning,' which entails deflections, making quick rotations, pushing pace effectively, never making mistakes -- all the things that impact the outcome in the aggregate. The only way to beat an all-star team is through some sort of synergism. You'll have to play a virtually flawless game."

Toppling the All-Star teams is an uphill battle, but not impossible. Here's the group we've recruited to get it done:

Starters

Jason Kidd (PG)
If mastery comes from 10,000 hours of practice, then Kidd is the wily veteran to run point for our squad. Darius Soriano of Forum Blue & Gold: "I'd want a point guard who could push the ball and make the right decisions on both the break and in the half court."

Andre Iguodala (SG)
Defense? Rebounding? The ability to finish at the rim? It's all right here. Iggy's outside shot presents a bit of a concern, and makes him an imperfect selection. The sum of the parts, though, gives our team too many important ingredients to pass over.

Andrei Kirilenko (SF)
There was a groundswell of support for Kirilenko, whose ability to make plays from anywhere, cover multiple positions, protect the rim and provide help defense, make him a classic insurgent against a team of All-Stars.

Josh Smith (PF)
Ryan Schwan of Hornets247 likes Smith and Kirilenko as a forward tandem. "Kirilenko and Smith will cover each other and everyone else on the floor with quick-footed athletic defense."

Lamar Odom (C)
Not a traditional center by any stretch, but a trio of Odom, Kirilenko and Smith just might be skilled, long, springy and athletic enough to defend an elite front line. Spencer Ryan Hall of Salt City Hoops is as enamored with the playmaking potential of the Odom-Kirilenko combo as I am. "Give me Odom at the 5 just to watch him and Kirilenko together." Thorpe adds that the defensive strategy of Kirilenko-Smith-Odom would be "to press and trap baseline and corner catches and generally make it a scramble game. Blitzing ball screens will be effective too."

Reserves

Kyle Lowry (G)
Henry Abbott makes the strong case for the efficient Lowry off the bench, where he's excelled for Houston. "[He] fights like a dog and gets to the line like crazy, while also making his team's defense better."

Jamal Crawford (G)
Thus far, we don't have any pure shooters. As Zach Harper of Cowbell Kingdom points out, Crawford has his flaws, but is worth signing up. "I'm not sold on him completely here but if he's hot, it doesn't matter who is guarding him." Just ask the Boston Celtics. Anthony Morrow finishes a close second for the role of sharpshooter off the bench.

Manu Ginobili (G)
"Manu Ginobili HAS beaten All-Star teams, in international competition," writes Henry. He gives the squad one guard who can truly probe the defense in the half court.

Tyreke Evans (G)
We don't care how you classify him positionally. We just know he can score on any perimeter player in the league when he's disciplined and keeps the ball moving in the half court.

Hedo Turkoglu (F)
Critics will knock his defense, but he did just fine on Orlando's shutdown squad last season. In a talent pool that's bereft of big wings, Turkoglu is a good choice for his flexibility as a pick-and-roll practitioner. Imagine what he and the guy just below could do as a tandem in the second unit to that effect.

Nene (F/C)
Jeremy Wagner of Roundball Mining Company describes his assets this way: "A big man who can score on the block, face up and hit the 15 footer or drive and is a very good passer. Plus he has as good of a chance to defend both Tim Duncan and Dwight Howard as anyone." If Nene is unavailable, we like the indefatigable Carl Landry.

Anderson Varejao (F/C)
We don't need him to score, we just want him to annoy the hell out of max-contract superstars. When that pest makes his team's defense inordinately better, crashes the glass and collects the garbage, we'll find the minutes. Joakim Noah was a strong contender for this 12th man slot.

Gregg Popovich (Coach)
"You don't deserve anything. You just go play. You start thinking about what you deserve and what you don't deserve and it just makes you soft. You just go play the game." -- Gregg Popovich, May 2006.

The counter argument
Leave it to M. Haubs of The Painted Are to be the hard-bitten realist. For him, this is a fun, but ultimately futile, exercise. The talent on the All-Star rosters is just too much to contend with, no matter how much synergy our team can muster and no matter how much precision it can deploy. He also challenges the premise that the USA Basketball teams that struggled in the early part of last decade failed because they were overstaffed with scorers:

I have to say that as much as people wanted to blame Team USA's underachievement from 2002-06 on lack of shooting or role players or some mystical qualities, the dirty little secret about the ultimate redemption in 2008 was talent - they brought a roster filled with All-NBA players, which they had not really done since 1996. The teams that Manu beat in '02 and '04 were not really All-Star teams -- those teams had too many role players, not too few.

I'm really not trying to be the poop in the punch bowl here, but I will take CP3, Kobe, Melo, Dirk and Timmy, with Nash, D-Will, Durant, and Pau off the bench, and you can try to beat me with your collection of role players. And please, by all means, try to press and speed up the tempo; I have Chris Paul and Steve Nash.

In reality, I would suggest that you lobby hard to play the game under FIBA rules, with unlimited zone defense to clog the lane and a shorter three-point line for a better puncher's chance, and I'd recommend that a college coach like Coach K be forced to be the game coach for the All-Stars.

We've given you our roster, please tell us yours.

After being toasted for most of the season's first two months as the newest inductee into the Eastern Conference elite, the Hawks lost in miserable fashion to a Cleveland team Tuesday that dispatched them in four games in the conference semifinals last spring. Atlanta didn't score for the first 8:48 of the fourth quarter.

Exactly 24 hours later the Hawks had a chance to redeem themselves, albeit in a much more hostile environment on Cleveland's home floor. Coming off the mortifying loss Tuesday night, an Atlanta win was improbable, though not impossible.

The Hawks came to play. They led by 12 at halftime, and answered each Cleveland run. The Cavs clawed back in the fourth quarter, and the final five minutes was a see-saw affair shaping up as a regular season classic with big shots by Joe Johnson, LeBron James and Mo Williams.

With 1:58 remaining in the game and Atlanta leading 99-98, Mo Williams misses an awkward runner that doesn't draw iron. Al Horford comes down with the ball.

Watch the sequence and pay attention to the shot clock.

It doesn't reset as the Hawks bring the ball upcourt for arguably their biggest possession of the season:



Hawks head coach Mike Woodson spends a few minutes lobbying the game officials. With no dead ball between Josh Smith's rushed attempt to drive to the hole against an artificially short clock, and Varejao's putback on the other end that gives Cleveland the lead, there's no reasonable resolution if you're Atlanta other than rewinding the clock to 1:57 and giving the Hawks the ball for a full possession.

Of course, that would mean nullifying Cleveland's ensuing bucket, something I can't imagine would sit too well with the Cavs.

When I was a young Blazer fan, one of my favorite players was center Caldwell Jones. He had been playing forever, including for the Sixers in the 1977 NBA Finals against the Blazers, and exuded a certain kind of class. He was skinny, even-keeled and goateed.

Once as a young child, thanks to a weird coincidence (that got a journalist friend yelled at by the team P.R. people) I got to sit courtside on press row for a few minutes of an actual game. Jones stood right in front of me while inbounding the ball.

In 1987, the Blazers added a role player called Charles Jones.

Problem.

Oh, Charles Jones was, I'm sure, a perfectly good guy, but let's think about clothing here for a second.

Now that Joe Smith is a Hawk, what will it say on the back of the his jersey? Yes, it matters. (Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE via Getty Images)

If NBA teammates have the same last name, a common solution is to add a first initial to one or both jerseys.

How's that going to work this time, smart guy?

Charles, as it happens, was 12 years younger, three inches shorter, not as decidely skinny and lacking distinctive facial hair. If you were paying attention, there was little worry he'd be confused with Caldwell.

Nevertheless, somehow (there should be an inquiry) it was decided that while Caldwell's jersey would continue to say "Jones," Charles would play with "C. Jones" on his back.

I'm hardly one of those O.C.D. people who likes everything symmetrical, tidy and just so. I can tolerate some randomness in life. (Exhibit A: my desk.)

Can you feel my pain a little when I tell you that this bothered me?

That "C," I lectured imaginary Blazer personnel in my mind, "doesn't do anything. 'Caldwell' starts with just as much of a 'C' as 'Charles' does. In what way does having one 'C' on one jersey clarify anything? The whole idea is to make the players easy to identify. We're still stuck where we were before: If you know what they look like, or their numbers, you know which is which. If not, you're sunk. Which is precisely where we'd be if both uniforms ... said simply 'Jones' which would at least have the advantage of being tidy, consistent and logical."

In any case, after a season, Charles Jones left the team, and I admit I had a small sense of relief.

It's in that context that this morning, I got an e-mail from TrueHoop reader Lionel. The subject line was "Joe/Josh Smith." He writes:

So what do their names of their jersey numbers read this upcoming season since they both play with ATL.

Smith?
J. Smith?

Since they both are Jo. Smith?

Will Joe Smith have his whole name on the jersey?

Oh crikey.

Little did Lionel know he had contacted the right guy. Within a minute I had called a Hawks' P.R. guy and gotten voicemail. So I called another, with the same result. I called the main switchboard and asked if anybody was around who could help me right now, and was connected to the voicemail of a third. So I forwarded Lionel's e-mail to the first two guys and said a little prayer. ...

Which was answered just about three hours later. A fantastic piece of news from the Hawks' brilliant Jon Steinberg:

Ha. Both guys will just have Smith on their backs! No first initials, etc.

And yet some people -- isn't it amazing? -- still long for the good old days.

The Magic bask in the warm glow of their ECF upset, while Cleveland is forced to do some serious soul-searching. The Sixers opt for a tried-and-true choice to propel them forward. And what should the Knicks do about their fan favorites -- both free agents?

Zach McCann of Orlando Magic Daily: "The NBA Finals never seemed possible. Too much went wrong this season. But this team grew up in the playoffs and evolved into an elite team that won't quit, that won't go down without a fight under any circumstance. Not all championship teams are that way at the beginning of the season. It takes some tough times (struggling against Philadelphia in round one). It takes adversity (Jameer Nelson's injury). It takes inner-conflict (Dwight Howard's touches). It takes growth (Courtney Lee's emergence). It takes seemingly insurmountable odds (down 3-2 to Boston). It takes adjustments (Rafer Alston). It takes unity. It takes teamwork. Now, the Magic are right there. The ultimate dream is no longer a dream. It's now a goal."

John Krolik of Cavs the Blog: "This was one of ours. And we lost. It still hasn't sunk in for me yet, but it's just so painful. The Cavs won't get many more chances like this. So, what happened? Nobody thought we would lose this series. Nobody ... This was a tough matchup for this team. All the talk will be about what else the Cavs could've done offensively, with LeBron [James] accounting for nearly half the offense and all, but the problem was the Cavs' defense getting cracked. The Cavs had nobody to defend Dwight Howard, and that opened up this insane perimeter game. Everyone was ready to make the extra pass and the open shot, and that's just ridiculously hard to defend when you have one guy who demands two defenders ... There's at least one more go-round with LeBron and Co., and all signs point to many more. But you get so few years. So few. I don't know what else to say. I want answers. I want vindication. I want validation. I want a smoke. I even want to see my ex again. I'm going to get none of those things. There will be lots of things said about this team. The trick is to not listen to them. This is a great player. This was a great team. They did great things. They brought so much joy. The memories they made will last forever."

Matt Moore of Hardwood Paroxysm: "Mike Brown's gotta be saying to himself, 'I worked a roster to defend Paul Pierce and Rajon Rondo. I can battle Pau Gasol and Kendrick Perkins. My team can dominate Rasheed Wallace and neutralize Josh Smith. We've got Kevin Garnett in a series of uncomfortable situations. And what do I get? Rashard freaking Lewis' ... While Mike Brown was pretty abused on both ends of the floor in this series, tonight wasn't on him. What was he going to do? Double Howard? He kicked it out for the rotation three. Don't double? Howard killed whoever was on him. Foul him? He hit free throws. There wasn't much Brown could do tonight. The Magic weren't hot, they were just playing to their fullest potential. Which is kind of what you want to do in the Conference Finals in a home elimination game."

THE FINAL WORD
Philadunkia: The Sixers play it safe with Eddie Jordan. 
Knickerblogger: Truth-squadding Will Leitch's platform for the Knicks. 
48 Minutes of Hell: How borderline prospects view the D-League.

(Photos by Phelan M. Ebenhack, Elsa, Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images)

The Lakers made their strongest adjustment of the series Wednesday night. The Magic's simple adjustment in the conference finals? Draining open looks. And Tyrus Thomas should adjust his game by launching fewer two-point jumpers. 

Kurt Helin of Forum Blue & Gold: " One thing the Lakers did much better was handle the aggressive double teams and traps of Denver. Especially when it happened to Pau Gasol, he had been kicking it out for a three, which the Laker guards had been mostly missing. Tonight it was Kobe [Bryant] trapped in the corner passing to Gasol single-covered in the post. Or, if Gasol was doubled in the post he could hand off to the cutter going right by him. The Lakers moved without the ball when there was a double, and that led to layups. And, that is something that can happen in Denver. That was not about friendly home rims, it was about effort and willingness to take the punishment to be the aggressor."

M. Haubs of The Painted Area: "Make shots. For all the analysis, sometimes basketball just boils down to something so simple: Can you make your open shots? Simply making or missing open threes has been a key factor not only in the Magic-Cavs series, but in the entire Orlando postseason ... In the First Round, Orlando struggled to outlast an inferior Philly team in part because they only hit .346 for the series, while the Sixers -- who were the worst 3pt-shooting team in the regular season at .318 -- outshot them from distance for the series at .368. In the Conference Semis, both the Magic and the Celtics (who were 1st in the NBA in 3pt% at .397) suffered colossal shooting slumps until Orlando broke through with a 13-21 performance on threes which keyed the Game 7 blowout in Boston. To that point, Orlando had been just 43-141 (.305) for the series (the C's were just .289 for the entire series). Now, mercifully for Magic fans, the tide has finally turned, as they have connected on an average of 10.5-24.5 (.429) 3's in Conference Finals, including 17-38 in Game 4, and they've done it against a Cleveland team that ranked 1st in 3pt FG% defense at .333."

Bret LaGree of Hoopinion: "Al Horford's season is fairly straightforward to recap: He's a delight to watch on both ends of the floor, he's not a big enough part of the offense, and that fact combined with the time he missed due to injury might have obscured the encouraging and, one hopes, significant improvements he made in his second year in the league ... Horford didn't improve his numbers because his team made better or more frequent use of him. Al Horford improved because he improved his skills and decision-making. I'm worried about the long-term production of Joe Johnson, Josh Smith, and (if they return) Mike Bibby and Flip Murray, but I'm confident that Al Horford gives the Hawks a fairly untapped offensive resource which could build upon his solid rebounding and defensive play to create an excellent NBA player. He's the closest thing to an untouchable player on the roster and the most likely member of the current roster to be on a Hawks team that reaches the Eastern Conference finals should that accomplishment ever come to pass."

THE FINAL WORD
Orlando Magic Daily: ORL is bottling up the Cavs' supporting cast.
By the Horns: Tyrus Thomas -- off the mark.
Celtics Hub: Probing Kevin Garnett's knee.

(Photos by Kevork Djansezian, Nathaniel S. Butler, Kent Smith/NBAE via Getty Images)

LeBron and Kobe might be the two best players in the conference finals, but it's the teams with the deeper 2-through-8s that are making the strongest statements. Would the Suns do the unthinkable and deal the face of their franchise? And how will the Celtics replenish their roster?

John Krolik of Cavs the Blog: "A guiding [military] principle is that every soldier, no matter what the rank, should know the mission, and, at all times, should be qualified to make decisions when the chain of command breaks down. Every player on this Magic team is prepared to make the play, make the shot, at any time. Go under one screen, cut off one option, two options, and the man with the ball in his hands is ready to make the shot. The Cavs team is still looking for LeBron [James] to provide guidance, to make the play. The Magic are functioning as a unit ready to take a good shot at any time, whenever it presents itself. That's not risky basketball, live or die basketball. That's how the game should be played. 5 players, all dangerous and waiting to make the play if it presents itself. Rafer Alston is the best example of this; the Cavs were sagging hard on Rashard [Lewis] and Hedo [Turkoglu], going under Rafer and not helping off them in any circumstance. Rafer was ready to make the shots, and he did. Absolutely monstrous. That's the play the defense allows, and the play that got made. You live with it, except now you're down 1-3 and really not living with it."

Zach McCann of Orlando Magic Daily: "To use a baseball analogy, Rafer Alston was the starting pitcher tonight, scoring 26 points in regulation and forcing the Cavs to adjust to his hot shooting hand. Rashard Lewis was the set-up man, scoring 10 fourth-quarter points and sinking a 3-pointer with 4.1 seconds left that ultimately forced the game into overtime. And the closer? None other than Dwight Howard, who bullied the Cavs on his way to 10 points in the overtime period. Count a win for Alston, a hold for Lewis and a save for Howard ... Howard was magnificent, carrying the Magic in overtime and establishing himself as a go-to, crunch-time guy for the first time in his career ... And oh yeah, he sunk two pressure-packed free throws with 21 seconds left to seal the deal."

Kurt Helin of Forum Blue & Gold: "There are no easy answers for the Lakers, no simple Xs and Os adjustment that changes the series. Maybe Phil [Jackson] just goes back to his set regular season rotation and stops searching. But the fact is, it is a coach's job to put players in a position to succeed - then the players have to make plays. What the rotation is doesn't matter if guys are not stepping up. I don't think the game four loss to Denver was like the game four lost to Houston -- I think the Lakers tried. But guys that were hitting shots and making defensive plays in the regular season are not now, and as an optimistic by nature person I want to find another reason other than that these guys shrink in the brightest of lights. After last season in the Finals I thought this was just a maturity thing, that the experience would toughen them up. And it did [Pau] Gasol, who is playing much better. [Trevor] Ariza is giving us all we can really expect out of him. But the other guys? The time for excuses is gone. Best of three for a trip to the NBA Finals. It doesn't get much bigger than this. It is time to step up or the Lakers are going home."

THE FINAL WORD
Hoopinion: Pop Quiz -- Which player made the lowest percentage of his two-point jump shots this season?
Queen City Hoops: Is Gerald Wallace secretly a power forward?
Valley of the Suns: Should PHX consider trading Steve Nash?
Celtics Hub: Boston's troublesome spreadsheet. 

(Photos by Nathaniel S. Butler, Gary Bogdon, Jed Jacobsohn/NBAE via Getty Images)