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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.

• Poland lost its head of state and several other top government officials in a plane crash over the weekend. Prior to the Magic's game at Cleveland on Sunday afternoon, Marcin Gortat wrote Polish President Lech Kaczynski’s name on the tape around his wrist, and the flight number on his shoes.
• A smart recap of Sunday's Lakers-Portland game from Andrew R. Tonry and Portland Roundball Society. You'll find plenty of video reaction from key players -- including a Brandon Roy interview from the training room.
• Kevin Pelton's has posted his picks for NBA All-Defensive team at Basketball Prospectus. Pelton implores you not to laugh at his selection of Brandon Jennings as his choice for second team at the point guard position, and offers up a solid defense of Jennings.
• Some interesting data from Zach Lowe of Celtics Hub about Milwaukee's offense since Andrew Bogut went down: "The Bucks inside game has vanished without Bogut. The missing shot attempts have to go somewhere, and, to the surprise of no one reading this, they’ve gone out further from the rim."
• The Thunder's offense has a tendency to cramp up in the closing minutes. Last night, Oklahoma City trailed Golden State by one point inside of three minutes. NBA Playbook demonstrates how Russell Westbrook was unable to get Kevin Durant the ball, even though Durant was being guarded by Monta Ellis.
• Durant's "sit back and chill" musical selection.
• Scott Schroeder of Ridiculous Upside catalogs the NBA players currently averaging a double-double. Which of these names is not like the others?
• John Calipari: Not a fan of NBA eligibility rules: "I think that one, kids should be able to go directly to the league if that’s what they choose to do and if they go to college, they should stay two years or maybe three."
• Phoenix has been one of the standout teams in the league after the All-Star break, but there are a couple of red flags for Alvin Gentry's squad headed into the postseason. Kelly Dwyer watched the Suns-Rockets game last night and notes: "Houston was able to walk all over Phoenix's interior, and though the Rockets lost, it's clear that whoever the Suns meet in the playoffs is going to have a field day in the paint as long as Amar'e Stoudemire and Channing Frye are patrolling things."
• The NBA has become a mojito league.
• Matt McHale of By the Horns: "I’m here to tell you Joakim Noah is a winner. He goes full tilt every night. He wants it as bad as anybody. The dude is like a lightning storm on the court. Noah has limitations, and there are facets of his game that still need to be improved and polished. But honesty, every team would like to have a player like Noah on their roster. Heck, probably a whole team of Noahs (which is a scary notion, now that I think about it). Somebody who will sacrifice their body for the good of the team and would walk face-first through a Kraken attack to win."
• Mark Ginocchio of Nets are Scorching recounts some of his favorite Meadowlands memories, including Drazen Petrovic's inside-out exploits and Kenyon Martin being called a fugazi.
• John Krolik appreciates that mummifying LeBron James in bubble wrap until next weekend might be the smart way to go for Cleveland, but he's about ready for some meaningful basketball.
• Where do Aaron Brooks and Kevin Martin rank historically among Rocket backcourt tandems?
• NBA player and NBA dad enjoy lunch at ... The Cheesecake Factory.

Posted by Kevin Arnovitz

In Game 5, the Lakers cracked the code on the offensive end. They discovered that the Nuggets were giving them swaths of open space in the halfcourt, much of it the result of double-teams. The Lakers' offense is predicated on spacing and movement, and Denver's pressure had the unintended consequence of opening up the floor. Here's Bryant describing the dynamic Wednesday night:

Kobe Bryant: "I'll just read the defense."(Garrett Ellwood/NBAE via Getty Images)

They cocked their whole defense to me so I tried to beat them with my passing a little bit. They've been so ready to trap me and double team me all over the place so I just stretched the floor out, Pau, they double teamed him on the post too. So all we did was just put the ball in my hands, put the ball in his (Gasol's) hands, make the defense commit and then we made plays from there...

I'll just read the defense. Denver's not going to let me isolate someone and go by them. They're not going to let me play one-on-one. I have to trust my teammates to make plays, and then when those lanes open up, I'll take advantage of them.

The Nuggets trapped Bryant aggressively – probably too aggressively -- and the Lakers made them pay. By Thursday morning, some Nuggets players were openly wondering if they were giving Bryant a little too much respect at the expense of their base defense.

How would Denver respond on Friday night? 

• [1st, 11:40] Right out of the gate, the Lakers test Denver's defensive philosophy by getting the ball to Bryant on the right side, free throw line extended. Will Denver run a double-team at Kobe? Not immediately. It's a deliberate, kinda-sorta double-team, with Carmelo Anthony slowly wandering over from the foul line. What's most notable is how intently the backside of the Nuggets' defense is watching Kobe. With Anthony now committed, Kobe kicks the ball up top to Ariza. The Denver rotation is swift, and the Lakers never get a good look, settling for an aborted alley-oop attempt inside for Andrew Bynum.
  

If you're a Nuggets fan, the first defensive set is exactly what you want to see: Pressure on Bryant, but a strong, alert rotation that doesn't give him the opportunity to make a play for someone else. Unfortunately, things begin to disintegrate quickly: 

• [1st, 10:22] Again Kobe at the free throw line extended on the right side, and again he draws a deliberate double-team. This time it's Nene, who ambles over, then returns to the interior as Kobe passes off to Gasol, who has flashed to the foul line. The miscommunication on the Nuggets' part is awful. Nene has returned to Bynum underneath -- but Kenyon Martin has already rotated onto Bynum. So now, the least potent offensive Laker on the floor is being doubled off the ball by Denver. That's all it takes for the Lakers to find the open shot on the perimeter. The ball goes to Fisher, who promptly sends it to a wide, wide open Trevor Ariza beyond the arc.
  

Ariza finishes the night with 17 points on only nine shot attempts. He's the primary beneficiary of Denver's defensive lapses:

• [1st, 3:17]  The Lakers have found a formula they like: Bryant just off the elbow on the right wing, and, again, it's Carmelo creeping over for the double. When Anthony commits, Ariza cuts through to the weak side where he hides behind the Nuggets' zone. For a second, it looks like Billups will pick him up on the rotation, but Jordan Farmar puts a crimp in that plan by floating out to the top of the circle. Billups follows him there, which frees Ariza for a basket cut. Bryant hits him underneath for a reverse slam.
  

Your 2009 Los Angeles Lakers. Gladly accepting their opponent's challenge against their first option to leverage an open shot for their second. They shoot 60% from the floor in the first half with 16 assists on their 21 field goals.

And Mr. Gasol? 

• [3rd, 10:39] The Lakers feed Gasol at the mid-left post, then send a double-team at him, even though he's 18 feet from the basket. The Nuggets' rotation is a mess. With Dahntay Jones doubling Gasol, Bryant retreats to the weak side perimeter. Nene doesn't know whom to account for, and is frantically tagging various Lakers as they swarm around the court. Gasol watches him closely, patiently. Just as Nene settles on Andrew Bynum, he realizes Bryant is alone on the perimeter. The instant Nene breaks for Bryant, Gasol hits the now-open Bynum underneath for an easy slam.
  

The Lakers had ignored Gasol for much of the series, and relegated him mostly to dribble hand-offs at the pinch post when they used him at all -- an absolute waste. When you have the best passing big man in basketball, it's a crime not to utilize that talent. Friday night, they abided.

The Lakers' issues in this postseason has never been about heart, and rarely been about effort. It's a matter of execution, exploiting their vastly superior skill set in a system perfectly tailored to their talent.

Posted by Kevin Arnovitz

Spend some time around the Denver Nuggets this spring and you'll hear how Carmelo Anthony's commitment on the defensive end of the floor has a lot to do with the team's success. When you ask people who know Anthony where that dedication came from, you get an almost uniform response: As a member of Team USA last summer in Beijing, Carmelo rubbed shoulders with the most professional players in the game, and through the Olympic Rehabilitation Program for Uninterested Defenders, he saw the light. He realized that while his offense will always keep him in the conversation for Best Scorer on the Planet, if he was sincere about being a Top 5 player, he'd have to get serious about his defense.

Carmelo Anthony: Two-Way Player? (Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images)

"Is that what they say?" Anthony says with a wry smile. "I always knew how to play defense."

Anthony then explains that the Olympics were important -- particularly his friendship with Kobe Bryant. The conversations he has with Michael Jordan are also helpful, as is his team's decision to make defense a priority this season. More important than anything, though, is the cumulative growth that comes with day-to-day life in the game.

"In the game of basketball you learn a lot each day," Anthony says. For him, that's more important than any single experience.

"The more time you spend in the league the more you learn player tendencies," says Idan Ravin, who has trained Anthony along with several other top NBA players. "He has a great eye for details and can recognize player patterns quickly."

There's a nice illustration of this toward the end of Game 5 of the Nuggets' series with Dallas: 

• [4th Quarter, 2:29] Denver is up 10 points, as Dallas brings the ball up, needing to score to stay in the series. The Mavs run a two-man game on the right side with Josh Howard and Dirk Nowitzki. Howard holds the ball with Carmelo playing off him a little bit. Then Nowitzki runs interference by slipping between Howard and Carmelo -- so now Dallas has the mismatch they want: Nowitzki/Carmelo. Howard feeds the ball to Nowitzki just off the mid-right post, his back to Carmelo, who bodies up on him tightly.
  
  Trying to back Carmelo into the paint with his right shoulder, Nowitzki takes three dribbles with his left. On each dribble, Carmelo absorbs a blow to the chest by Dirk's shoulder. Dirk picks up his dribble, then pivots on his right foot, trying with his patented ball-fake to deke Carmelo -- only Carmelo doesn't bite. Feet set and ready, chest out, arms extended upward, Carmelo stays grounded. Dirk goes to his contingency plan -- a full 360 twirl on his pivot foot, hoping to get Carmelo to yield him some space for an up and under. Again, Carmelo holds his ground. Only when Dirk falls back for a fadeaway does Carmelo lunge, getting a full hand in Dirk's face. The shot is no good. 

Although Nowitzki has made a career of hitting that fadeaway, even after defenders have done a solid job on both the initial backdown and the up-and-under attempt, the best stoppers understand that the percentages play best for the defense when Nowitzki takes his shot of last resort.

According to both Ravin and Nuggets' assistant coach Chad Iske, Anthony has become a cinephile in recent months. "On the defensive end, he's been paying more attention to film studies and what guys do," Iske says. "He pays more attention to detail, whether he's on the ball or on the help side." 

Denver forced three shot clock violations in the third quarter of Game 2 against the Lakers Thursday night, and Anthony was instrumental in each sequence. Here's one example: 

• [3rd Quarter, 7:07] Carmelo's capacity to help off Trevor Ariza is crucial to Denver's defensive success in the series. Here the ball starts in Ariza's hands out on the wing. Ariza passes the ball off to Derek Fisher in the left corner, then clears along the baseline. Carmelo follows Ariza only as far as the middle of the key, though Ariza lands in the right corner.
  
  Carmelo is now officially a help defender on the play, as Fisher kicks the ball to Kobe Bryant on the left wing, guarded by Chauncey Billups. Carmelo has a lot to worry about. Pau Gasol is set up at the elbow just in front of Kobe. If Kobe penetrates and blows by Billups, Martin is going to have to leave Gasol open at the elbow to provide help on Kobe. (Want to know how Gasol gets so many open looks at the elbow? That's why!). If that happens, it'll be Anthony's job to move over to Gasol to make sure Pau doesn't get that open look.
  
  But wait ... Ariza has just drifted to the top of the arc, and is now only a skip pass away from a wide open look. He's still primarily Carmelo's responsibility, even as Gasol and Kobe need monitoring. As Kobe readies himself to drive left, Martin moves off Gasol. Bryant sees this, but Carmelo sees Bryant seeing this. Just as Kobe darts the ball to Gasol, Anthony zips into the passing lane, knocking the ball away. By the time the Spalding finds its way back into Kobe's hands, the shot clock is about to expire. Kobe heaves a desperation 3-pointer that Anthony gets a piece of.
  
  Anthony navigates the Ariza-Gasol help axis to perfection and it's his help, as much as anything, that allows Denver to force the turnover.   
  

This sort of recognition by Anthony crops up in conversation about his defensive improvement. Nuggets' guard Dahntay Jones is Anthony's counterpart on the wing much of the time. He says that Anthony's defensive effort has definitely intensified, but the overall improvement has a lot to do with Carmelo's awareness of his teammates -- and the fact that those teammates are much better individual defenders than in years past. 

"His awareness of where his help is on the floor is much better," Jones says. "When you have better defensive pieces around you, it makes things easier. You gain a lot of confidence by being with guys who can help you out defensively."

When you have a situation like the possession above, with Billups shading Bryant right, then Martin anticipating the driving lane, it simplifies life for Anthony as a help defender -- as it would any help defender.

"He's always been a pretty good individual defender," Nuggets head coach George Karl says. "It's his off the ball situations, his transition situations, his conceptual situations where he got lost a little bit in the past. But he's cut those mistakes in half."

Individual defense is difficult to quantify, but I consult Aaron Barzilai to get a feel for what his  +/- numbers can tell us about Carmelo's D.

"Anthony seems to have been a liability in 2007-2008 but not in 2008-09," Barzilai says. "Maybe that's the story, he quietly became at least a neutral player on defense in the regular season."

By liability, Barzilai means that the Nuggets were a little more than five points per 100 possessions worse defensively with Anthony on the floor in 2007-08. This season, though, it was a wash. (The numbers don't s
how any appreciable improvement from the regular season to the playoffs). The numbers indicate that it might be a little early to start talking NBA All-Defense selection for Anthony, but a five-point bump in defensive adjusted +/- suggests real improvement, provided the trend holds for another season or two.  

At the other end of the evaluative spectrum, I ask a scout for an NBA team to tell me if he's seen the improvement in Carmelo's defensive game we hear so much about during the broadcasts.

"It's there. Carmelo's buying into a role," the scout says. "You see it when it comes to containing dribble-penetration and as a weak side defender off the ball. That's one of the reasons his steals are up. Is he becoming a lockdown defender? No. But he's grasping the team concepts in terms of defensive rotations, and that's the big thing." 

This postseason has been a revelation for those who've been eager for Anthony to arrive as the complete package. Offensively, he's always been a deadly scorer, but over the past month, there seems to be a new polish to his game. He's not just explosive; he's heady. And those prolific numbers we're seeing every night are as much a product of guile and artfulness as they are brute instinct. To the naked eye, it appears as if this evolution might be surfacing in Anthony's defensive game. The transformation could take another couple of seasons to fully materialize, but if it does, Anthony -- who will turn 25 next Friday when the Lakers and Nuggets are scheduled to meet in Game 6 -- might finally claim his place among the NBA pantheon. 

Forget about Kobe -- the Nuggets have their hands full with the Lakers' seven-footers. Orlando needed to learn how to win -- it took them all of 72 hours. And Rick Sund deserves an "Atta Boy," in Atlanta.  

Jeremy Wagner of Roundball Mining Company: "You can talk about Kobe Bryant all you want, the Nuggets biggest concern should be how they can handle [Andrew] Bynum and [Pau] Gasol. With the starters on the floor Kenyon Martin is going to have to guard one of them and he has a serious length disadvantage against both. Most likely Kenyon will be guarding Gasol and for all his defensive desire and talents he is in a big hole ... Pau can shoot his 15-18 foot set shot over Kenyon at will and when he goes into the post his jump hook will be impossible for Kenyon to stop. Nene is relatively better equipped to cover Bynum than Kenyon is for guarding Gasol, but Bynum still has a significant length and weight advantage over Nene. On the other hand, Nene has done a decent job against Gasol in the past so will Denver choose to stick Kenyon on Bynum and double the heck out of him should he get the ball in the post thus creating one major mismatch instead of two less than desirable matchups?"

Zach Lowe of Celtics Hub: "This Celtics team could not play championship-caliber defense consistently. Their defensive numbers slipped a bit against Chicago, a mediocre offensive team, and it was likely, if not inevitable, that Orlando was going to score on Boston at least once or twice in this series. And the Celtics could not rely on their offense and their three-point shooting to carry them, as they did against the Bulls. Orlando's defense was the best in the NBA this season by some metrics. The tendency will be to look for what the Celtics did wrong -- to ask why Doc Rivers waited so long to try a small lineup, to wonder why Ray Allen shot so poorly until Game 7, to ask why the Celtics defenders had so much trouble guarding Mickael Pietrus tonight, why Eddie House couldn't get free, and on and on and on. The reality is that Orlando is a very good basketball team that presents major match-up problems for Boston sans [Kevin] Garnett."

Bret LaGree of Hoopinion: "Considering both the ownership situation and his brief tenure I'm going to give Rick Sund the benefit of the doubt for the time being. I don't believe that's simply a matter of being fair. By signing Flip Murray and Maurice Evans for a combined $4 million he earned the benefit of the doubt. The veteran pair combined to ably back up three positions while helping to accelerate the team's transformation, one which started following last season's trade for Mike Bibby, from an offense incapable of making three-point shots into a more diverse and dangerous team to guard."

THE FINAL WORD
Cavs the Blog: John Krolik revisits the Cavs-Magic regular season matchups.
Orlando Magic Daily: Much respect for Mr. Paul Pierce.
Daily Thunder: Thabo Sefolosha -- the next Shane Battier?

(Photos by Noah Graham, Brian Babineau, Scott Cunningham/NBAE via Getty Images)

Look, I know, I do it too. In the heat of the moment, any one of us might say something childish that we regret. There's a little playground, I suspect, in just about everyone who loves sports.

But that's it. A bad moment. Then you apologize, and move on like an adult.

The key thing is that you want all parties, including yourself, to preserve dignity. 

On the other hand, if you don't let it drop, at some point, everyone just looks childish.

For instance, thanks to the reporting of Chris Tomasson on Hoopshype, here's the latest from the playground spat between Kenyon Martin on Mark Cuban.

Martin:

"He's a coward. He couldn't face it ..."

Cuban: 

"Will he apologize to the wife of our staff member that he called a '(expletive) fat pig' immediately after Game 3? Will he apologize to fans that he threatened to, and I'm paraphrasing here, '(expletive) beat the (expletive) down' during Game 4? Or to the fans he walked by after Game 4, (Martin) cursed and gave the finger to? Will he take responsibility for what he said and did? Is there some reason he has not?"

Martin:

"Me and my mom ain't going to lose no sleep if we don't talk to Mark Cuban. We're going to lay our head down and sleep well every night. I'm still playing right now. (Cuban's) got time to think about all that. I got games to win right now. So give (Cuban) time to think about (what he might do)."

Boys!

In general, in life, if you go looking for trouble, you will find it. So long as Mark Cuban and Kenyon Martin both want to find the flaws in each other's behavior, they will never be disappointed. With each instance of finding more flaws, one or the other will be proved righter and righter. And they can carry that pride and righteousness to their graves.

Or, they can embrace one of the essential lessons of education and history, which is that feuding is stupid and leads to a society not unlike the Middle Ages. People tend to be much happier, and have better lives, when they make it their business not to find ways to not like each other, but instead find ways to work together.

(This is a conversation I had recently with a five-year-old.)

Cuban started this whole thing by needlessly dragging Kenyon Martin's mom into a conversation about players being violent.

Did you see that video of Kenyon Martin the other day? It's on YouTube. After a game, he screamed at Mark Cuban, on camera, calling him a f----- (derogatory word for a homosexual) m----------- (you figure it out).

This is not something you get to say in 2009. It's depraved, and it's wrong. And in case you didn't get or didn't believe the memo: The idea that homosexuality is a generic put-down ended with eighth grade graduation. 

But look around the sports media, and oddly nobody said anything about it. Martin got more or less a free pass on that. 

What does that tell you? 

To me it is a powerful sign that people expected poor behavior from him anyway. Oh, one of the most famously cranky and overheated athletes said something really stupid and aggressive? That is very dog bites man. Opinions of Kenyon Martin were low enough, to begin with, that nobody muster the energy to act surprised that Martin went there.

But then here comes Mark Cuban! Rushing to Martin's rescue.

He's not the only one who can act like a fool! I am Mark, and I am rash, petty and angry too!

Cuban showed he knows what good adult behavior is by saying all the right things on his blog, but even Cuban himself is now admitting he made a mistake with a public apology that wasn't paired with a fig leaf extended in private. Which tells us it's not just a case of losing his mind for a minute. It was a case of taking the time to know the right thing to do, and then just not doing it properly.

We all do these things. But eventually, it's tiring to throw tantrums. It's tiring be treated like a child. It's tiring to lack credibility. It's tiring to act like a fool and, even more tiring to realize that nobody gets surprised when you do.

I can't believe Mark Cuban and Kenyon Martin aren't tired of this already. But I suspect they're close to exhaustion. Anyone know a good lullaby? When kids get this cranky, a nap is usually a good idea.

It's Backwards Day: The vaunted Denver defense leaked like a sieve Monday night. LeBron was merely mortal in Cleveland's close-out game. And the Celtics did in Game 4 what NBA teams rarely do -- win without the three-ball. 

Jeremy Wagner of Roundball Mining Company: "The Nuggets' defense has slackened against Dallas ... They are not playing with the cohesiveness they did against the Hornets. When there is penetration the help is either late or non-existent. After forcing the Hornets and Mavericks to score from the perimeter for the first six games of the postseason the Mavericks are starting to earn some easy buckets. Tonight Dallas actually outscored Denver in the paint 42-36 ... If Dallas is going to shock the world and come back to win this series it will be on the back of Dirk Nowitzki. No Nugget player has been able to deal with Dirk apart from Chris Andersen for one quarter in game one and Kenyon Martin for one quarter in game three. The decision not to double Dirk would seem to have worked as Dallas has not gone crazy from behind the three point line and Denver is up 3-1 in the series. I think you can make a good argument that not doubling Dirk is actually not working. The Mavericks are not killing the Nuggets from behind the arc, but from the charity stripe. During the regular season Dallas averaged .274 free throws per shot attempt. Against the Nuggets Dallas is shooting .430 free throws per shot attempt."

John Krolik of Cavs the Blog: "LeBron [James] actually looked human tonight, or something approximating it: He got what I refer to as the 'gritty' 27/8/8, never really getting out on the break, stringing together jumpers, or finding himself able to slice through the defense at will in the half-court (only 4-8 from inside the immediate basket area), instead hitting an open three here or there, leaking out early to get two cheap dunks, cutting backdoor and looking for lobs, getting a layup on Mo [Williams]' going baseline and finding him cutting on counter-movement (MY FAVORITE PLAY EVER), and saying 'f*** it, you're going to have to foul me because I'm not going to stop going towards the rim until I die' to get some free-throws in tight moments. His passes also weren't of the spectacular three-point line feed for a dunk variety, but were simple passes out of traps on the pick-and-roll and down low. It was just playing the right way mixed with energy, that otherworldly athleticism, and a sense of the flow of the game. The highlight reel isn't going to be as nice and his PER is no longer broken, but it was an extremely effective game that got us the win, which does make 8 double-digit playoff wins in a row. I'll take that."

Zach Lowe of Celtics Hub: "The Celtics beat the Magic on Sunday despite making just one three-pointer. How rare is that in the NBA? This season, teams sunk either one or zero three-pointers 57 times and went 17-40 in those games. As for the C's, they've hit one or zero from deep just twice in the last two seasons combined -- once in a January win at Orlando (in which they hit none) and again in a loss at Milwaukee in March. So Sunday's win was a very, very rare thing for both Boston and the league in general."

THE FINAL WORD
Hoopinion: Stop talking about the Hawks' effort when talent and tactics are the issues.
Two Man Game: Dirk takes over.
Raptors Republic: Trying to rationalize the Jay Triano hiring. 

(Photos by Glenn James, Andy Lyons, Fernando Medina/NBAE via Getty Images)

The Denver Post's Chris Dempsey describes a period after last season when George Karl and his assistant Tim Grgurich decided to drop their running and gunning ways while getting back to the defense-first approach that had once been a hallmark of Karl teams.

They also decided to be much more involved with players during the off-season, as they had once done. Dempsey says the coaches divided up the roster, and kept in closer touch with everyone. George Karl got Nene (he says they cleared the air in a dinner where "not all nice things" were said) and Kenyon Martin.

Karl, who had past run-ins with Martin, thought he'd be the toughest to get on board with the changing philosophy he wanted to implement -- more discipline, improved professionalism, better leadership, and a focus on defense on the court.

He was wrong.

"The guy that jumped in really quick, was Kenyon," Karl said. "We thought Nene and Kenyon were the hardest guys. Kenyon basically said this is the only way we can survive. And as soon as he got back (for training camp) we met and he said 'You're not going to have any problem with me. I'm going to be your leader.' He jumped in and basically called himself out.

"We had our first (team) meeting of the season and he said 'I've been a problem for coach, but it's not going to happen anymore, and I'm going to be the policeman.' Our off the court activity was part of it, too."

Martin admitted he had a bad attitude much of his time with Karl, and that a lot of it was due to frustration with having to deal with two microfracture knee surgeries that limited his ability to play at the level he was accustomed. His knees hurt. His pride hurt. He took it out on Karl and others in the organization on a near daily basis.

Martin knew he had to change.

"I had to get out of my own way," he said.