ESPN NBA

What is Pau Gasol worth?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They have options.

Perhaps Bynum would draw a better return.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Because that’s how much he makes.

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

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

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.
Forget Flop of the Night. For the Denver Nuggets, this is the Flop of the Year.

Assuming it was a flop at all -- because this one is tricky.

In the final minutes of a 3-point game, Laker big man Pau Gasol set a pick that on some plays would have been called a foul. He leaned a shoulder into the approaching Danilo Gallinari. The contact looked painful -- that Gallinari had a big reaction is no surprise.

However, if you've learned anything from Flop of the Night, it's that in the minds of a lot of players, there's a playbook for how to deal with this kind of contact in the NBA these days: You exaggerate to get the referee's attention. It often works.

(Gallinari is in the Floppers' Club, to be sure. Video shows him to be among those who'll throw back his head in dramatic fashion while driving, for instance. And as it happens, on the Lakers' very next possession, Gallinari took the court again, this time flying 15-feet backward after mild contact from Bryant's forearm -- while Steve Blake hit a corner 3.)

This was not one of the times it worked. Not only did referee David Jones not call anything, but Gallinari also missed one of his team's most important defensive possessions of the season. Playing 5-on-4, the Nuggets scrambled for a few seconds until Ramon Sessions drained an open corner 3, putting the Lakers up three.

All the while, Gallinari writhed on the floor. Could he have gotten up and played on? Hard to say. But what seems clear is that some of what was going on was sales.

Watch the replay, and it’s clear that Gallinari got rocked.

As he bounces off Gasol’s shoulder, he covers his face, causing Marv Albert to exclaim “Gallinari took a shot to the nose!”

But once he’s on the ground, his hands move to his throat.

In super slow-motion -- Gallinari's legs kick out dramatically as he goes to the ground, an embellishment that Steve Kerr, calling the game live, suggested may have cued the official to dismiss the contact.

"I think sometimes when you exaggerate the officials will kind of give you that motion like ‘I'm not buying it, you gotta get up,'" said Kerr.

"So even if he was bumped around the throat I think his demonstrative action may have cost him the call."

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

Basketball geekery has delved into crunch time in various ways.

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

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

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

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



Some of what we noticed:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Classmates of Kim Jong Il's son, Kim Jong-un, testify that the presumed successor in North Korea wasn't all that interested in politics when he was at school in Switzerland. What really got him going was basketball. "He worshipped basketball players in the NBA. A friend who visited his apartment at #10, Kirchstrasse, Liebefeld, recalls that Kim had a room filled with NBA-memorabilia. 'He proudly showed off photographs of himself standing with Toni Kukoc of the Chicago Bulls and Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers. It is unclear where the pictures were taken. On at least one occasion, a car from the North Korean Embassy drove Pak Un to Paris to watch an NBA exhibition game,' the [Washington Post] said. In class, Pak Un was generally shy and awkward with girls, but he became a different person on basketball court, according to his classmates. 'A fiercely competitive player,' said classmate Nikola Kovacevic. 'He was very explosive. He could make things happen. He was the playmaker.'"
• Michael Pina of Red94 composes a stellar post on the psyche of trade bait. There are those, like Kevin Martin and Chauncey Billups, who take it a little personally. Others, like Lamar Odom, are driven to tears. Then there are Luis Scola, Rajon Rondo and Pau Gasol, who are able to convey detachment -- at least publicly.
• The Heat have pledged to switch up their offense this season by incorporating more fast-break attacks and putting more of a premium on spacing. Beckley Mason of HoopSpeak exchanges with a reader who explains what "the Invert" offense in lacrosse can teach us about defending the Heat.
• Charlie Widdoes of ClipperBlog feels the Clippers gave up too much for Chris Paul, and that staying the course with Eric Gordon and the salary flexibility that would've come with Chris Kaman's expiring contract was the right call.
• Aaron McGuire of Gothic Ginobili on the composition of the reigning champions in Dallas: "So where does that leave you? A short stint with a lineup where Lamar Odom is the primary ballhandler, employing Dirk and Marion as roll men with Delonte and Carter in the wings if the play goes sour? Does the team manage a point-by-committee sort of strategy? And who defends what? Dirk’s defense has gotten better over the years, but at this point Odom is essentially the best defensive talent in the Mavs’ big rotation. Do you cross-match Odom on the opposing center and hope he can draw them out of the paint? Do you keep Dirk at center and live with the terrifying defensive results? I really don’t know, and I’m not sure anyone else does either. And that’s part of what makes this Mavs team so interesting."
• Kris Humphries chalks up impressive numbers on the Wins Produced metric, prompting Andres Alvarez of Wages of Win to ask why the power forward remains unsigned.
• When Boris Diaw was growing up in France, his mom -- a former player -- ordered him not to join the throng of kids who'd storm the scorebook immediately after the game to tally their point totals.
• Watching Al Jefferson's deliberate but effective post game drives Zach Harper to thumbing through periodicals during live play, but Ricky Rubio and Derrick Williams are shiny!
• The amnesty deadline passed and Rashard Lewis is still a Wizard. Lewis is setting up house in Washington, where his daughter has enrolled at nearby Sidwell Friends, where the Obama girls attend school.
• Who would you rather be -- the Lakers or the Clippers?
• Kevin Durant's fans will scour North America for his backpack like it's an afikoman.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Dallas Mavericks return home for Games 3 and 4 of the Western Conference Semifinals against the Los Angeles Lakers. The Mavericks are 3-1 in a best-of-seven series when up 2-0, although the one series they lost was a big one, the 2006 NBA Finals.

As for the Lakers, they’re 2-16 when down 2-0 in a best-of-seven series. Only three teams in NBA history have lost the first two games at home and come back to win a best-of-seven series, most recently done by the 2005 Mavericks. The last NBA champion to be swept was the Heat. Miami won the title in 2006, then got swept by the Bulls in 2007.

After an explosion of dunks in the first round against the New Orleans Hornets, Kobe Bryant has no dunks -- or layups -- in the first two games against the Mavericks. Whether it's his ankle or the Dallas' defense, Bryant has drawn only three shooting fouls, two of which occurred within 10 feet of the basket.

But Bryant’s history has shown that when he is facing an uphill climb, he’s going to try to shoot his way out of it.

He’s trailed 2-0 in a best-of-seven series seven times previously. In the ensuing Game 3s, Bryant averaged more than 27 field-goal attempts compared to an average of 20.2 overall.

Lakers coach Phil Jackson has stared at 2-0 deficits before, but success hasn’t always followed.

The Hall-of-Fame coach has a 2-5 series record when his teams have fallen behind 2-0 in a best-of-seven.

On defense, the Lakers have not had an answer for Dirk Nowitzki. He’s made 9-of-16 shots when guarded by Pau Gasol and 8-of-16 when Lamar Odom’s been on him.

The defensive problems Nowitzki has caused the Lakers will only seem to worsen with the absence of Ron Artest, who was suspended for Game 3 for his late-game flagrant foul on J.J. Barea.

Artest was used sparingly as a defender on Nowitzki in the first two games of the series, defending him for a total of five plays this postseason.

But on each of those plays, Nowitzki posted-up Artest, going 2-for-3 from the field, drawing a foul and committing a turnover with Artest on his back.

One thing to keep an eye on is if the Mavericks bench will continue to outplay the Lakers bench. The Mavericks are averaging 35.0 bench points per game in this series, the most among any team in the conference semifinals. The Lakers reserves, meanwhile, have averaged just 18.5 points in two games.

The Los Angeles Lakers length was supposed to be a problem for opponents in the playoffs.

But people forget about the length of the Dallas Mavericks.

The Lakers (Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol) and Mavericks (Tyson Chandler and Dirk Nowitzki) were the only teams that regularly started two 7-footers during the regular season.

The Mavericks' size has caused problems for the Lakers, who typically had height advantages at the power forward and center positions of about an inch per player. In the Western Conference semifinals against the Mavericks, however, the Lakers' advantage has been reduced to about two-tenths of an inch. The Lakers played about 40 percent of their regular-season minutes with an overall average height advantage greater than half an inch. Against Dallas in this series, it’s been only 27 percent of the minutes with that advantage.

The Lakers' lineups that have had an average height smaller than the Mavericks have struggled, getting outscored 43-25 in the first two games.

When the Lakers have had a net height advantage of one player, they’re outscoring Dallas, 92-80. If the Lakers have no net height advantage, they’ve getting outscored 109-83. The Lakers cannot stop the Mavericks or score on them with no net height advantage.

• Over the course of the season, the Mavericks were the team with the lowest rate of attacking the paint off the dribble, about 10 fewer times per game than the Miami Heat and Oklahoma City Thunder, the leaders in attacking the paint off the dribble during the regular season.

The Mavericks scored 37.1 percent of their points in the paint in the regular season, the lowest percentage in the NBA. In the playoffs, that percentage has decreased to 35.5; however, the Mavericks have been making their perimeter shots in this series which has neutralized one of the Lakers’ advantages – their length and ability to defend in the paint.

With the Lakers spread out and not able to pack in the paint, it’s opened up passing lanes for Dallas. In this series, 14 of the Mavericks’ 17 layups or dunks in their halfcourt offense (82 percent) have been assisted. (The league average during the regular season is about 60 percent.) Also, all 15 of Dallas’ made 3-point shots in the halfcourt have been assisted.

The two-time reigning champion Los Angeles Lakers have dug quite a hole in their series against the Dallas Mavericks after dropping the first two games at home.

Unlike Game 1, when they coughed up a big lead, Wednesday the Lakers were caught playing catch-up.

There would be no Laker comeback as the Mavericks held them to 32 second-half points, their lowest total in the second half of a playoff game since 2004. Dirk Nowitzki led the way for Dallas with 24 points, his ninth straight playoff game with at least 20 points.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, only three teams have come back to win a seven-game series after losing the first two games at home (2005 Mavericks, 1994 Houston Rockets, 1969 Lakers).

A key to the series so far has been the Lakers lack of scoring from close-range.

Andrew Bynum didn't get many opportunities in Game 1, and Game 2 wasn't much different. Bynum was on the floor for 78 possessions and had a touch on just 15 of them (19.2 percent), despite shooting 8-of-11 and scoring 18 points. In the second half, Bynum totaled just three touches on 33 offensive possessions, excluding offensive rebounds.

Gasol, on the other hand, might be losing touches for not going inside more. The Lakers shot 6-of-16 (37.5 percent) and averaged 0.72 points per play when Gasol had a touch outside the paint. When Gasol had a touch inside the paint, the Lakers shot 7-of-10 (70.0 percent) and averaged 1.31 points per play. Fewer than half of Gasol's touches came inside the paint.

Kobe Bryant also struggled to penetrate the Mavericks defense. Against the New Orleans Hornets this postseason, Bryant averaged seven field goal attempts within 10 feet of the basket and shot 58.1 percent on those attempts. In two games against the Mavericks, Bryant has shot just seven times within 10 feet, going 2-of-7 (28.6 percent) on those shots.

Instead the Lakers put up 20 three-point attempts, but made only two as they missed their first 15. In the past 20 seasons, no team has attempted 20 three-pointers and shot as low as a percentage as the Lakers did Wednesday (10 percent).

The Mavericks' depth has also been a big difference maker this series as their bench has outscored the Lakers' bench 70-37 through two games. On Wednesday, J.J. Barea scored 12 points to match the entire Lakers' bench by himself.

With his miss on a potential go-ahead 3-pointer in the final seconds of the Los Angeles Lakers' Game 1 loss to the Dallas Mavericks, Kobe Bryant now has missed his last five game-tying or go-ahead postseason field goal attempts in the final 24 seconds of the fourth quarter or overtime.

This from the player who often has been called the best closer in the game.

Here’s a closer look those last five misses:

2009 First Round: Game 3 vs Jazz
With the Lakers trailing 88-86 in the fourth quarter, Bryant misses a long 3-pointer that would have put the Lakers ahead with about a second left in the game. The Lakers lost by that score.

2009 NBA Finals: Game 2 vs Magic
Tied at 88, Bryant's short jumper is blocked by Hedo Turkoglu with less than one second to play in the fourth quarter. The Lakers would go on to win in overtime, 101-96.

2010 First Round: Game 6 at Thunder
Down 94-93 in the fourth quarter, Bryant misses a 13-foot jumper with about a second left, but Pau Gasol tips in the miss with about a half second left to give the Lakers the lead. They hold on to win, 95-94.

2010 Conference Finals: Game 5 vs Suns
With the score tied at 101 in the fourth quarter, Bryant shoots an air ball on a contested 3-pointer with a couple seconds left, but Ron Artest collects the rebound and banks in a shot at the buzzer to give the Lakers a 103-101 victory.

2011 Conference Semifinals:
Game 1 vs Mavericks
Trailing 96-94, Bryant misses a three-pointer with about two seconds left that would have given the Lakers the lead. They would go on to lose by that score.

For his postseason career, Bryant is 7-for-25 (28.0 percent) on potential go-ahead or game-tying field goal attempts in the final 24 seconds of the fourth quarter or overtime. The league average on these shots over Bryant’s career (since the 1997 playoffs) is about 28.1 percent.

The last time Bryant made a field goal in this situation was Game 1 of the 2008 Western Conference Finals against the San Antonio Spurs. Tied at 85, Bryant made a 10-footer with 23.9 seconds left as the Lakers went on to win, 89-85.

After 10 losses in as many road games against the Lakers in the playoffs, the Dallas Mavericks took care of business Monday winning Game 1 of the Western Conference Semifinals at the Staples Center, 96-94.

The Lakers had a chance to pick their match-up against Dirk Nowitzki nursing a one-point lead with 20 seconds remaining, and elected to go with Pau Gasol. Prior to the play, Nowitzki was 5-for-5 against Gasol, 5-for-11 against Lamar Odom and 1-for-6 against all other Lakers. Gasol fouled Nowitzki on the inbounds, sending him to the line and giving the Mavs a lead they would not relinquish.

Nowitzki finished with a team-high 28 points and 14 rebounds. It was his eighth straight playoff game with 20+ points and the seventh time in his last eight games with 25+ points.

Kobe Bryant scored 36 points in the loss; he now has at least 30 points in Game 1 of five consecutive playoff series. That’s the longest such streak in franchise history. George Mikan (1949-1950), Elgin Baylor (1961-1962) and Shaquille O’Neal (2000) scored 30 or more points in Game 1 in each of four consecutive playoff series for the Lakers.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Bryant is the first player to score at least 30 points in five consecutive Game Ones since Michael Jordan did that in seven straight playoff series, spanning the 1997-98 playoffs.

The Lakers are 0-2 in Game Ones this postseason. The Elias Sports Bureau also tells us it's the first time the Lakers have lost Game 1 in back-to-back series of the same postseason since May 1998, and the first time since 1972 that they have lost Game 1 of consecutive playoff series in the same postseason at home.

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.

Entering this postseason, there have been 175 instances in which a best-of-seven series was tied after two games. When the home team won Game 3, it went on to win the series 70.1 percent of the time. When the home team lost Game 3, it went on to win the series only 16.7 percent of the time. That being said, this Game 3 was crucial for the Los Angeles Lakers and New Orleans Hornets.

In true superstar fashion, Kobe Bryant came to play and recorded his second 30-point game this series and 80th of his career. That’s the second-most all-time behind Michael Jordan who did it 109 times. This is really nothing new for Bryant who has excelled in Game 3s when tied 1-1. Over the last three seasons he’s averaged 33.3 points per game while leading the Lakers to four victories -- all on the road -- in that situation. In fact, Bryant's team are now 7-1 on the road when the series is tied heading into Game 3.

Another “big” key (figuratively and literally) to the Lakers victory Friday was the reemergence of Pau Gasol. He averaged just 8.0 points per game in the first two games and made only 20 percent (2-for-10) of his field-goal attempts in Game 2 alone. That was his lowest field goal percentage in any of his 82 career postseason games. Game 3 was a different story as Gasol had 17 points and 10 rebounds, taking advantage of his opportunities outside five feet. Gasol was just 2-of-14 from that distance in the first two games but shot 44.4 percent (4-of-9) in Game 3, including his second 3-point make of the season.

The Hornets battled but had 14 turnovers and have now turned it over 30 times the last two games after having just three in the Game 1 win. Chris Paul led New Orleans with 22 points and 8 assists. Paul has assisted or scored on 52 percent of the Hornets total points in these playoffs (142-of-273). That is the highest percentage for any player in this year’s postseason, ahead of what Derrick Rose has contributed to the Chicago Bulls (45.5 percent).

Game 4 is Sunday and if the Hornets hope to stay alive they’ll have to do something they’ve never done in their franchise’s history. They are 0-9 in any length series when facing a 2-1 deficit.