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The longer the Indiana Pacers can keep their starting five on the court, the better chance they have to eliminate the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference semifinals.

Indiana’s starting five of Paul George, Danny Granger, Roy Hibbert, George Hill and David West has been the most successful five-man lineup in this year’s postseason. It has a better plus-minus, has scored more points and has a better rebounding margin than any other five-man lineup in the playoffs.

In eight postseason games, Indiana's starting five has outscored its opponents by 79 points and outrebounded them by 68.

During the regular season, George, Granger, Hibbert, Hill and West started just eight games together, and the Pacers were 7-1 in those games. They played just 229 minutes together and outscored their opponents by 72 points.

In the playoffs, they’ve already played together for 176 minutes, and the formula continues to be successful.

This postseason, Indiana’s starting five:

• Has more than double the second-chance points (70) of any other five-man lineup. (Second are the Lakers and Magic with 30.)

• Leads all lineups in points in the paint (152) and points off turnovers (58).

• Has outscored its opponents by 56 points in the paint (152-96), has 30 more second-chance points (74-44) and 18 more fast-break points (42-24).

When George, Granger, Hibbert, Hill and West were on the court in Game 3, they outscored the Heat 68-40.

The starting five shot 52 percent from the field (including 6-of-10 on 3-pointers) and outrebounded the Heat 32-15. That lineup held the Heat to 33 percent shooting from the field and 1-of-10 on 3-point attempts. They also outscored the Heat 13-0 on second-chance points.

Every other Pacers lineup was outscored by nine.

Since the 2008 playoffs, only four lineups have finished with a plus-minus that’s been as good as Indiana’s +79. Three of those teams reached the NBA Finals and two won the NBA championship, including the Mavericks’ lineup last year of Tyson Chandler, Jason Kidd, Shawn Marion, Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Terry.

Statistical support for this story from NBA.com.

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PG Jason Kidd | SG Vince Carter | SF Shawn Marion | PF Dirk Nowitzki | C Brendan Haywood
Minutes Played: 154
Offensive Rating: 107.4 points per 100 possessions
Defensive Rating: 84.6 points per 100 possessions

How it works offensively
It would be insulting to call the Mavericks' offense rudimentary, but when you cue up the tape and watch a stream of possessions with this group of guys, one thing is so readily apparent:

They make basketball easy.

There's rarely a wasted movement or pass, and each time this Dallas unit crosses the time line, it has a singular purpose: It wants to extend your defense -- and it's going to use Dirk Nowitzki to do it.

It all starts with feeding Nowitzki at his favorite spot on the right side of the floor. Ever since Karl Malone retired, we've heard coaches and analysts refer to the "Karl Malone area" just off the mid-left post. Pretty soon, the "Dirk spot" off the right elbow will become commonplace for basketball commentators and geographers.

Most nights, the Mavs have a matchup advantage with Nowitzki, and they'll get him the ball promptly with either a quick entry pass or a pick-and-pop. Against more advanced defenses -- or just to switch things up -- Kidd will run a little misdirection on the left side (maybe with Shawn Marion), while Brendan Haywood frees up Nowitzki by pinning his defender with a down screen.

Once Nowitzki has the ball in his hands, he can feast on a shorter or less-capable defender. He'll bounce off his left foot, kick with his right and drain fadeaways from that spot all night.

Send a double-team at Dirk, and the gamesmanship begins. Nowitzki is 7 feet tall and he's been doing this basketball thing for a while now, so an extra defender doesn't faze him. Send that guy from the top of the floor, and Nowitzki will find Vince Carter or Kidd.

The Vinsanity ended a long time ago, but Carter is still capable of hitting a wide-open shot or attacking a rotating defender. As for Kidd, whose long-range shot is just beginning to reappear after its prolonged absence, he'll either attempt an open jumper or, more often, quickly identify where there's an opportunity.

Marion is the wild card on the floor for this lineup. After many seasons as a freakishly athletic curio with a wonky release on his shot, something interesting has happened -- Marion has become one of the more indispensable two-way players in the game in the half court. When Nowitzki creates defensive chaos for opponents, Marion is often the guy who will read the floor and exploit an opening. Sometimes, it's a backdoor cut along the baseline to the rim, where Kidd, Carter or Nowitzki will find him. Other times, Marion will rub his defender off a teammate at the left elbow, catch the ball on the move and finish.

There are plenty of other reliable options for this unit in the half court. They like to use a pick-and-roll on the left side between Kidd and Haywood, with Carter as a post option against smaller defenders. Haywood gets a few duck-ins because teams are often forced to rotate to Dirk from the baseline, or just choose to take their chances by playing off the center.

This unit still hasn't played 200 minutes together, as Haywood's playing time varies. Ian Mahinmi continues to develop, while Haywood has coped with a series of nagging injuries (he's currently suffering from a mild knee sprain).

How it works defensively
Just so we understand -- the best defensive unit in basketball includes a 38-year-old point guard, an aging Carter (who, even in his prime, never cared all that much about D) and Nowitzki?

Crazy as it sounds, that's right -- there isn't a lineup in the NBA that has played more minutes and given up fewer points per possession than this five-man unit.

So how does this work exactly?

Step 1: Assign Marion to the opponent's most important offensive facilitator -- whether that person is a point guard, slasher, sharpshooter or multitalented power forward. Marion is a lanky and intuitive defender who's hyperaware of where you want to go and how you want to get there. Those long arms shrink passing lanes to the size of a coffee stirrer and he's difficult to post up.

The luxury of matching up Marion one-on-one against the most dynamic player on the floor allows the rest of the Mavericks to stay at home as base defenders. This isn't a fast group, so there's not a lot of gambling and you'll rarely see a lot of aggressive fronting. What this unit does exceptionally well is communicate. Kidd is constantly scanning the floor for potential problem areas and will shout out instructions to Haywood the instant there's penetration.

Carter is an underrated post defender in the half court, and he's more than capable of bodying up against most wings. Size doesn't slump, so while Nowitzki might not earn a lot of votes for the NBA's all-defensive team, he's taller than most of his counterparts at the 4-slot. And though he might never be Kevin Garnett, Nowitzki's pick-and-roll defense is smart and efficient. He doesn't overextend himself jumping out and he's always thinking recovery.

Haywood isn't the planet's most aggressive pick-and-roll defender -- rather than a hard show, the Mavs' coverages seem to have Haywood defending those actions "flat" -- but his big body and long arms buy Kidd, Carter and Marion plenty of time to get back into a play. Haywood is also a quality rim protector who slides along the baseline with relative ease.

This unit will throw the occasional zone at an offense to stifle penetration, but its most defining characteristic is collective smarts. This lineup doesn't make many mistakes. Despite a lack of speed, they rarely foul and manage to amass a ton of turnovers by simply anticipating where the offense wants to go with the ball. When shots go up, fewer than one-fifth of them are collected by the offense for second-chance opportunities.

Come April, we constantly hear how it's the veteran teams -- not the most athletic ones -- that win rings. This unit of oldsters illustrates why.

• 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.

Because of his lack of scoring, much has been made about how ineffective LeBron James has been in the fourth quarter of the NBA Finals. However, as James pointed out, his contributions have been made with his defense and playmaking.

In the fourth quarter of the finals, James has scored 9 points compared to Dwyane Wade’s 23. That discrepancy has led to the argument that Wade has been far more effective late in games. However, James also has five fourth-quarter assists that have led to 12 points. Looking at Points Created, James has accounted for just 8 fewer points than Wade on the offensive end. (Wade has three fourth-quarter assists that have led to 6 points.)

But what about the defense? Synergy Sports video tracking looks at the number of times Player X guarded Player Y and can determine how many points were scored in a given matchup.

As Dirk Nowitzki said on Monday: "They keep sticking him on Jet (Jason Terry) in the fourth quarters and he's been doing a good job ... "

The numbers agree.

In the fourth quarter, James has been Terry’s primary defender on seven plays, holding him to zero points on 0-of-5 shooting. James also has been effective on others (Shawn Marion, Jason Kidd), allowing a total of 5 points on 10 plays.

The first graphic (above) is a postseason breakdown of plays, points and points per play averaged by notable Mavericks leading into the Finals.

The second graphic breaks down of the number of plays in which James spent as the primary on-ball defender. Taking each player’s average points per play and multiplying it by the number of plays in which they were guarded by James, we get an expected number of points equal to 8.61.

Since James has allowed just 5 points, his fourth-quarter defense has saved Miami 3.61 points. Wade has saved 2.59 points. In other words, James has been a point more valuable on the defensive end of the floor.

By taking into account James’ value as a facilitator and defender, James’ worth in terms of Net Points is 24.61, compared to 31.59 for Wade. Although the concept of defensive points saved is admittedly rough, it helps quantify a player’s contributions on the defensive end of the floor.

In a game that featured four lead changes and nine ties, the Miami Heat went ahead for good on a Chris Bosh jumper with less than 40 seconds to play to hang on to an 88-86 Game 3 win over the Dallas Mavericks.

Bosh finished with 18 points as the Dallas native finally won a game in Big D after eight previous losses there. It was just the Heat's second win in their last 13 trips to Dallas including the regular season.

Dirk Nowitzki led all scorers with 34 points, including the final 12 for Dallas. He tied the game at 86 with a jumper with 1:40 left, but the Heat would not allow the Mavericks to score again forcing a turnover and two missed shots on Dallas' final three possessions. One of those misses was the potential game-tying field goal by Nowitzki as time expired.

In the final period, Nowitzki did not get much help from his teammates. Jason Terry was 0-for-4 from the field in the fourth and Shawn Marion did not attempt a field goal despite playing all but four seconds in the quarter.

Nowitzki has made all 24 of his free throws in this year's NBA Finals, including 9-for-9 from the line in Game 3. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, that’s the longest streak of consecutive free throws made to begin an NBA Finals since Reggie Miller made his first 25 shots from the line during the 2000 Finals.

Dwyane Wade led the Heat with 29 points and 11 rebounds, making eight of his 12 field goals within five feet. Wade leads all players this postseason with most field goals made from that range.

The Mavericks bench scored just 25 points, the third time this series it has been held to fewer than 30 points. Dallas is now 10-12 this season when its bench scores 29 or fewer points compared to 60-18 when scoring 30 or more.

The Heat are now 27-15 this season when LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh combine to score between 60 and 74 points. They scored 64 on Sunday.

Miami is two wins away from its second title in the last six seasons and history is on the Heat's side. Since the NBA Finals went to the 2-3-2 format beginning in 1985, (when the series has been tied, 1-1) the winner of Game 3 has gone on to win the championship all 11 times.

Since losing to the Miami Heat in the 2006 NBA Finals, the Dallas Mavericks had struggled in the postseason until this year. Three times they lost in the first round - including in 2007 as a one seed. Five years later they have a chance at redemption.

Dirk Nowitzki and Shawn Marion each scored 26 points to lead the way for Dallas in Game 5.

For Marion it is the most he has has scored in a playoff game since 2007. The Mavericks forward was able to do damage in the paint, shooting 7-for-11 from inside five feet after having just 25 attempts from that range in the first four games of the series combined.

For the second straight game, the Oklahoma City Thunder struggled in the last five minutes of the fourth quarter, giving up a late lead. The Thunder were up six points following a Kevin Durant layup with 4:26 remaining, but were outscored 14-4 the rest of the way.

Seven of those 14 points for the Mavericks down the stretch came from Nowitzki. He averaged 11.4 PPG during the fourth quarter during the Conference Finals - the second-most in that round in the last 10 seasons (Amar'e Stoudemire averaged 13.6 PPG in 2005).

James Harden had another big game off the bench with 20 points, five rebounds and five assists. He is the only player in the last 15 postseasons to accomplish the feat while facing elimination on the road.

The problem for the Thunder was that they stopped going to Harden in the fourth quarter. In the first three quarters, Harden touched the ball on 61.2 percent of the Thunder's plays as they shot 73.9 percent on these plays. In the fourth quarter Harden touched the ball just 37 percent of the time and the team shot 37.5 percent when plays ran through him.

Rick Carlisle improves to 10-3 in his career in potential series-clinching games. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Carlisle's .769 win percentage in those games is tied with Tom Heinsohn for the best all-time.

How do you defend a player who has averaged 25.0 points and 10.0 rebounds for his playoff career? That's the question the Oklahoma City Thunder will ask as they face Dirk Nowitzki and the Dallas Mavericks in the Western Conference Finals.
Nowitzki is one of four players to average those numbers for his postseason career. The other three -- Hakeem Olajuwon, Elgin Baylor, Bob Pettit -- are in the Hall of Fame. He's been a part of a Mavericks team that has made 11 straight postseasons, all 50-win seasons, as well.

So how should the Thunder attack such a daunting task that the Portland Trail Blazers and Los Angeles Lakers this postseason couldn't handle?

1. Defend him out to the 3-point line
Nowitzki shot 50.2 percent during the regular season from the field outside the paint. That was the highest percentage in the league among players whose majority of shots came outside the paint and had at least 500 field-goal attempts outside the paint.

Nowitzki shot 49.2 percent in the regular season from 10 feet and beyond. That was the third-highest percentage in the NBA (Al Horford, Elton Brand).

He also doesn’t mind taking mid-range two-pointers on the baseline outside the paint. The Thunder didn’t get the message in the regular season as Nowitzki hit 57 percent of his shots against them in that spot.

2. Double-team when the shooters are off the court
The vast majority of double teams on Nowitzki result in passes to spot-up shooters. Often, these passes result in 3-pointers. As the Lakers found out in Game 4, the Mavericks don’t shy away from an open 3-pointer. During the regular season, 27.4 percent of the Mavericks field goal attempts were 3-pointers, the third-highest percentage in the NBA.

However, who do you leave open? Using “effective field goal percentage”, a metric adjusted for three-pointers, the Mavericks have four players who had a higher effective field goal percentage on spot-up shots than the league average of 48.3 percent.

3. Keep him off the free-throw line
Nowitzki is the only 7-footer to rank in the top 100 in NBA history in both free throw percentage (14th) and three-point percentage (86th). He has the highest free throw percentage (87.7 percent) and highest three-point field goal percentage (38.1) in NBA history for a seven-footer.

During the regular season, Nowitzki got to the free-throw line 19 times in two games against the Thunder, missing just once.

With a 101 to 89 win over the Portland Trail Blazers in Game 2, the Dallas Mavericks are now 3-and-16 in playoff games officiated by Dan Crawford since 2001.

Taking a closer look at the game footage, Crawford called eight personal fouls against the Blazers on Tuesday, not including two three-second calls (one offensive and one defensive) and called just four fouls against the Mavericks. The Mavs had a net gain of six points off of the free throws on Crawford’s calls.

All six of the shooting fouls Crawford called against the Blazers, including the defensive three second, sent Dirk Nowitzki to the line for the Mavericks. Nowitzki was 7-for-8 on those free throws.

In fact it appeared Wesley Matthews drew the ire of Crawford in Game 2. Matthews picked up half of the eight fouls Crawford called against the Blazers, with the other four coming from a different player each time.

When he called fouls against the Mavericks, Crawford hit Brendan Haywood with two and Jose Juan Barea and Shawn Marion with one apiece.

If Mavericks have any complaints about the officiating, they should be directed to Ed Malloy, who hit the Mavs with 11 personal fouls and one technical to Tyson Chandler. The Mavericks had a net loss of eight points on Malloy’s calls.

It wasn’t Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Kidd or Tyson Chandler who handed the Cleveland Cavaliers their NBA record-setting 25th straight defeat, but instead the likes of Ian Mahinmi who sent the opposition down an ignominious road.

The Dallas Mavericks were outscored by 16 with Chandler on the floor, outscored by 10 with Nowitzki on the court, and outscored by nine with Jason Kidd a part of the action. But somehow, when Mahinmi was on the court, they outscored the Cavaliers by 22.

Mahinmi scored 11 points, fewer than fellow bench mates Jason Terry (23) and Shawn Marion (17), but his presence was beneficial to a 60-point bench effort.

Coincidence or not, it was an unusual game for Mahinmi, whose 20 minutes were one shy of his season high. He typically sees only a few minutes of action and had more games with a negative plus-minus rating (15) than a positive one (12) this season prior to Monday.

It was part of an odd statistical night in the NBA, one in which Carmelo Anthony scored 50 points, the first 50-point no-assist game in the NBA since Michael Redd for the 2006-07 Milwaukee Bucks.

Anthony didn’t have any assists, but helped his teammates with 11 rebounds and three blocked shots. A check of Basketball-Reference.com shows that he’s the seventh player in the last 25 seasons with a 50-point/10-rebound/3-block game, and he’s in extraordinary company. The others to do that are Hakeem Olajuwon, Patrick Ewing, Michael Jordan, David Robinson, Tim Duncan and Nowitzki.

The evening was also unusual in that the Minnesota Timberwolves beat the New Orleans Hornets for the second time in two meetings this season. Minnesota is unbeaten against New Orleans, but 10-39 against everybody else.

Kevin Love, helped by going 14-for-14 at the free throw line, scored 27 points and had 17 rebounds, his 37th straight double-double, tying Kevin Garnett’s team record.

A double-double in his next game would give Love the longest double-double streak since Moses Malone ran off 44 for the 1980-81 Houston Rockets.

It took a little while to get going, but the additions of Gilbert Arenas, Hedo Turkoglu and Jason Richardson are now having the impact the Orlando Magic desired. The New Jersey Nets aren’t the best litmus test, but the Magic beat them handily on the road last night, 104-88, as the trio combined for 43 points.

Hedo Turkoglu has been impressive in this three-game run. He netted 20 more points on Monday, the third straight game in which he shot 50 percent or better from the field. Turkoglu was 3-for-15 in his first two games back with the Magic.

It also seems like guard J.J. Redick is comfortable with the team’s new additions. He scored 15 points Monday, his fourth straight game scoring in double figures.

This was the second straight game in which Redick did something significant. On Christmas Day, he hit a key shot on a rare isolation play in the final minute of the Magic’s rally against the Boston Celtics. In this game he was a team-best plus-23. Redick was aggressive early, going 3-for-6 from 3-point range in the first half. His 10 shots in the first two quarters were a team high. Redick had only attempted 10 or more shots in a game, seven times prior to Monday.

Elsewhere, with Dirk Nowitzki suffering a second-quarter knee injury, Shawn Marion stepped up scoring-wise for the Dallas Mavericks in their 103-93 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder. Marion was 10-for-29 in his previous three games, but 10-for-15 in this one.

That should help Marion, who entered shooting 43.9 percent from the field in December, avoid his worst shooting in a calendar month since he shot 43.4 percent in April, 2005 (minimum five games played). The Mavericks have won all seven games this season in which Marion scored at least 15 points.

Dallas became just the fifth team since the ABA-NBA merger to win 11 of its first 12 road games. Seven of their 11 road wins have been against teams with a winning record. The 2009-10 Celtics were the last team to start a season by winning 11 of its first 12 on the road. Prior to that, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, the last team to do so was the 1993-94 Houston Rockets.

Lastly, we have the statistical oddity of the night: Jason Maxiell played five minutes and 53 seconds in the Detroit Pistons 105-100 loss to the Charlotte Bobcats. In that time, the Pistons were outscored by 19 points.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Maxiell’s minus-19 is the worst plus-minus for any NBA player who played six minutes or fewer in a game this season, surpassing the minus-18 posted by Philadelphia 76ers center Spencer Hawes in a 123-116 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers on November 5.

The basketball in Miami
The concentration of talent in Miami has created a dramatic storyline the NBA hasn't seen in years. In late October, the narrative will finally give way to live basketball, as the offseason machinations fade into the background. Fans and observers can debate whether a team of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami is healthy for the NBA, and the Heat's first final-possession scenario will likely launch silly arguments about who rightfully deserves to be called "the man" in Miami. Lost in the cacophony of hysteria is the single most fascinating question headed into the 2010-11 season: What will the Miami Heat's 94 or so possessions look like on a nightly basis? How will James play off Wade and vice versa? How do you defend a Wade-James pick-and-roll? Will we see a lineup of Eddie House, Wade, Miller, James and Bosh (talk about the end of positional orthodoxy!)? Will Bosh benefit from the disproportionate attention opposing defenses will have to devote to the perimeter? And how will Bosh handle the more workaday duties of being the big man down low? However you feel about what's transpired since the beginning of July, the experiment being assembled in Miami is a basketball lover's dream. If you find Miami's personnel unlikable, then root like hell for the opposing defense. Either way, you won't be disappointed.

The blueprint in Oklahoma City
The Thunder emerged last season as the most promising young outfit in the NBA. They finished with 50 wins and gave the Lakers their toughest Western Conference playoff series. Then, this offseason, they extended a max contract to Kevin Durant and fortified their bright young core by adding Morris Peterson, Daequan Cook and first-round draft pick Cole Aldrich. In some sense, general manager Sam Presti's decision to essentially stand pat might have been one of the the boldest move of the offseason. Many executives with a talented core and some money to spend would've committed to a high-dollar addition, but Presti stayed the course. He's banking that the maturation of Durant, Russell Westbrook, Jeff Green, James Harden and Serge Ibaka will continue and vault the Thunder over of the scrum in the Western Conference. Is he being realistic? Can the Thunder ride a frontcourt of Green, Nenad Krstic, Ibaka, Nick Collison and Aldrich into the ranks of the NBA elite? Can a team that sustained no major injuries last season decline to add a single major pieces and still pick up 5-10 wins? The answer to these questions will give us an idea of how much "upward trajectory" is worth in the NBA.


The power of Nash
Amare Stoudemire provides us with one of the best controlled experiments in recent years.
Watching him run the pick-and-roll with Steve Nash in Phoenix for eight years, we grew to regard Stoudemire as one of the most prolific power forwards of his generation. In New York, Stoudemire will benefit from the presence of coach Mike D'Antoni, who conceived many of the schemes that enabled him to flourish, but will be without Nash for the first time since 2004. How will swapping out Raymond Felton for Nash affect Stoudemire's game? Back in Phoenix, a 36-year-old Nash will have to replicate what he did during his 2005-06 MVP season when Stoudemire missed virtually 79 games -- cobble together an offense with imperfect parts. How Stoudemire performs without Nash as his dance partner and how Phoenix fares with an offense that will be more reminiscent of their 2005-06 season -- when Nash maximized the versatility of Shawn Marion, Boris Diaw and Raja Bell -- will tell us a lot about Nash's enormous impact on the game he plays as beautifully as anyone.

The defense in Chicago
The Boston Celtics' return to the NBA's upper echelon was predicated first and foremost on their defense. They unleashed a pressurized force field designed and implemented by Tom Thibodeau, and ultimately adopted by other teams around the league, including the Los Angeles Lakers. This June, the Bulls tapped Thibodeau to fill their head coaching vacancy. He joins a Bulls team that put together a strong defensive season last season, finishing 10th in efficiency. Skeptics might look at Derrick Rose -- whose defensive instincts are a far cry from Rajon Rondo -- and Carlos Boozer and conclude that Thibodeau doesn't have the personnel to succeed the way he did in Boston. Yet in 2007, Thibodeau took a quintet that featured Ray Allen (who had a horrendous defensive reputation coming from Seattle), an undisciplined big man in Kendrick Perkins, a second-year point guard in Rajon Rondo who'd started only 25 games and made them one of the best defensive units in basketball. With Joakim Noah anchoring the interior, the lanky tandem of Luol Deng and Ronnie Brewer on the wings, Boozer's sharp basketball IQ and Rose's gifts, Thibodeau should have the tools to sculpt a top-5 defense. If the Bulls buy in, we'll have a better understanding whether Thibodeau's kind of tactical expertise is transferable -- and an inkling of just how dangerous the Bulls could be.

The reign in Los Angeles
A calm has set in over Los Angeles, where the Lakers went about their offseason business with all the fanfare of a routine annual checkup. While the rest of the basketball universe was focused in on LeBron James and south Florida, the Lakers quietly added veterans Steve Blake, Matt Barnes and Theo Ratliff and re-upped head coach Phil Jackson. Even when the Lakers were stringing together three consecutive titles at the beginning of the millennium, there was always a swirl of intrigue surrounding the club. That's no longer true, as the Lakers have assumed a posture of professional incumbency the league hasn't seen in quite some time. Will the Lakers ride the precision of their system, the collective experience and poise of their core and the natural attributes of their defense to a fourth straight Finals appearance? Barring serious injury, is there anything that can disrupt the Lakers' rhythm? Is a successful formula ever in danger of becoming predictable?

The patience in Portland
Before the Oklahoma City Thunder became next year's model, the Portland Trail Blazers were on the brink of creating something special. The sketch of a winner was stenciled on the Rose Garden floor -- an all-powerful wing primed to take big shots, a talented power forward oozing with finesse, a defensive and rebounding force in the middle and smart supporting players who embraced their roles. Injuries and disruption turned the 2009-10 campaign into a holding pattern, but the pieces are still in place for the Trail Blazers to achieve. Health remains a concern, as Greg Oden will try to return from a fractured left patella. But if the big man can log 2,000 minutes, Portland should be able to complement their Top-1o offense with the kind of dogged rebounding and efficient defense that made them a popular No. 2 pick headed into last season. The question those with an affection for Portland don't want to ask is, how bright is the team's future if he can't?

The possibility of youth
The appeal of the league's top-rated rookies runs much deeper than individual performance. Their presence can ripple beyond whatever spot on the floor they happen to occupy. Blake Griffin not only has the power to explode to the rim every time he touches the ball, but he also has the potential to transform Baron Davis into the joyful point guard the world fell in love with in the spring of 2007. John Wall's well-honed instincts won't just fill up the box score, but also could revive a fan base in Washington that was teased with meaningful basketball a few years ago, only to watch their franchise return to the wilderness. DeMarcus Cousins could become the Kings' more formidable presence in the frontcourt since Chris Webber left, but more important, he and Tyreke Evans have a chance to redefine what big-small combos can do in the rapidly changing pro game. "Upside" is a word thrown around a lot in June, but watching that potential unfold produces unique findings. And that's why we watch.

• I like Phoenix over Portland in a tough, 7-game series, but Michael Schwartz of Valley of the Suns aptly points to a huge concern for Phoenix: "I’m not sure if the Suns have a plan to keep Camby off the boards, but they sure need one. When the Suns win the rebounding battle, they often win the game, and believe it or not they out-rebound their opponents. Controlling Camby is one of Phoenix’s biggest keys to the series in my mind."
• Daryl Morey to Jason Friedman on elite free agency movement this summer: "I actually think they’ll all go sign-and-trade. Even the teams with room often will sign-and-trade into the room and get something back from the team. A free agent is picking where he wants to go more or less, so he eventually tells the team, 'I want to go there,' and the team doesn’t want to lose him for nothing, so they try to work out some sort of arrangement."
• For those who believe Shawn Marion lacks that killer instinct. (Hat Tip: Two Man Game)
• Orlando-Charlotte might be the series with the lowest Q Rating, but it's a chance to watch a chess match between two of the more cerebral coaches in basketball. Eddy Rivera of Magic Basketball talks with Queen City Hoops' Brett Hainline about what the Bobcats need to do to compete with the Magic. Kelly Dwyer of Ball Don't Lie makes a pointed argument that the Magic can't afford to have Rashard Lewis go M.I.A. if they want to be playing in June.
• Few teams have a less certain future than the Chicago Bulls, writes Matt McHale of By the Horns: "Rose and Noah are the foundation of the team. Beyond that, anything is possible. The Bulls are going to be rebuilt over the summer. In the end, this season has been about developing Derrick, Joakim, and even Taj. To that extent, the season was a success."
• At Basketball Prospectus, Kevin Pelton and Bradford Doolittle offer all kinds of great stuff headed into the first weekend of the postseason. In the Lakers-Thunder preview, Pelton touches on my biggest concern for Oklahoma City: "When Durant has the basketball and the starting lineup is on the floor, only Jeff Green (33.3 percent) is any kind of threat from beyond the arc, which will allow the Lakers to offer help to Artest." As vulnerable as the Lakers seem right now, their proficiency for overloading defensively in the half court is still very, very strong. A team like the Thunder which doesn't shoot well from the perimeter and has few ball-movers can have a lot of trouble against that kind of strong-side pressure.
• The 1st Annual Tarence Kinsey Award goes to ...
• Liberty Ballers itemize what's gone wrong in Philadelphia.
• Darius Soriano of Forum Blue & Gold jots down a playoff wish list that includes more insults from Ty Lawson and traffic paralysis in central Los Angeles sometime in mid-June. As someone who uses Figueroa Street as a primary north-south thoroughfare, I'll concur on the first and punt on the second.
• Bethlehem Shoals and Tom Ziller apply Bill James' log5 method to prognosticate the first-round playoff series. Bulls fans, look away.
• You'll need at least $200 for a seat in the lower bowl at the Ford Center in Oklahoma City next Thursday night for the Thunder's first home playoff game.
• How a New England transplant and die-hard Red Sox fan came to love the Thunder and started to warm to the NBA.
• Zaza Pachulia isn't impressed with Mo Evans' spring fashion.

• The Spurs have been opting for a lot of small-ball lineups this season, to mixed results. Timothy Varner of 48 Minutes of Hell is "surprised to see that small ball treats San Antonio well, and more often than people want to admit," but also wonders whether the decision to put four perimeter players on the floor doesn't compromise the Spurs defensively: "It’s hard to funnel the guards into shot-blockers when they’re sitting on the bench..."
• The people have spoken on LeBron-Kobe.
• Kevin Durant describes Derrick Rose's dunk in Phoenix last night as "NBA live 2004-ish."
• Kevin Garnett returned to the floor for Boston last night. Zach Lowe of Celtics Hub notes that, after the game, KG was looking for feedback from teammates on his pick-and-roll defense: "One of the 25 best players ever, a member of the 20,000-point club ... comes back from an injury and he’s concerned most about…how well he’s jumping out to cut off penetration on screen/rolls? If Amaré Stoudemire made screen/roll defense, oh, I don’t know, the 27th-highest priority on his list, he might be someone people talk about as a great all-around player and franchise cornerstone."
• Kyle Weidie of Truth About It visited with Wizards' guard Mike James, who's been unhappy this season with his lack of playing time. James tells Weidie that, amid the disappointment, there's been one highlight: "James said the lone bright spot for him this season was when he played against the Pacers. Not because he actually got to play in an NBA game, but because he got to be on the court with A.J. Price, his basketball protégé with whom he often speaks. James and Price share a hometown in Amityville, NY, and James hopes that someone was able to capture a picture of the two on the floor together back on that early November night."
• New Orleans has had depth issues in recent seasons, but last night the reserves sparked the Hornets. Niall Doherty of Hornets247: "No coincidence that Darren Collison, Marcus Thornton and Julian Wright were all on the floor for both those stretches. Individually, all three of those guys had some great plays tonight, but it was a whole different ballgame when they were out there together. It was some Captain Planet, by our powers combined-type ish."
• What would you have said a year ago if someone told you that a Grizzlies-Thunder matchup would be the gem of a busy Friday night slate of games in January 2010?
• Portland Roundball Society chronicles how the Trail Blazers almost pulled off an improbable upset in Boston: "Andre Miller and Martell Webster led the Blazers on a near-heroic comeback to force overtime. Each showed steely nerves, scoring five points apiece as the regulation clock wound down."
• How do a team's offensive efficiency and defensive efficiency influence each other? Bret LaGree of Hoopinion asks, "How much is a team's offensive efficiency related to how often they force turnovers or how well they rebound defensively? Conversely, does a team's defensive efficiency reflect its ability or inability to score on a high percentage of its offensive possessions and thus get its defense set?" Brett Hainline of Queen City Hoops offers some insight from the Bobcats' look in Atlanta last night: "On Atlanta's 6 steals, they scored on 5 of those possessions, with one play being one of their and-ones, so 11 points on those 6 chances."
• Paul Pierce yuks it up with the Boston media (via Green Street).
• Shawn Marion hearts NY.
• Dan Feldman of PistonPowered digs through media archives to see if there's a deeper history to the exchange that occurred last night between Detroit head coach John Kuester and Tayshaun Prince.
• Devin Harris is unlikely to play when the Nets look for their fourth win of the year in Salt Lake City tonight. Keyon Dooling will get the start in his place, according to Dave D'Alessandro. Dooling tells D'Alessandro that Terrence Williams -- who will move into the backup point guard role while Harris is sidelined -- has "been the best player in practice. His talent is through the roof."
• Incredibly, the Raptors ride their zone defense to a comeback win over Milwaukee. That might say more about the Bucks' dearth of guys who can shoot the ball from the perimeter than the Raptors' strategic wizardry.
• The next time I complain that it's 54 and rainy in Los Angeles, remind me to click on this.

• Not sure you can defend the inbounds play that produced Jamal Crawford's cold-blooded game-winner from 28 feet any better than Phoenix did. Bret LaGree of Hoopinion notes the irony: "Phoenix's defense of Atlanta's final inbounds play was far and away the best thing they did, collectively and individually, in the game's final moments."
• An incredible scene in Oakland last night, as the Warriors ran out of players. Golden State of Mind explains: "When Curry fouled out, the refs were forced to invoke the little-known NBA Rule No. 3 (Section 1A), which basically states that the last player to foul out stays on the court and continues to play, but if he fouls again the other team receives a technical free throw in addition to the usual free throws. Joey Crawford mentioned to the broadcasters that he'd never seen this happen before in his 33 years as a ref."
• Tell you what: A 2-7 postseason encounter between Dallas and Oklahoma City would be a fun ride. For those who love to watch the collision of the immovable object and the unstoppable force, there might not be a better one-on-one matchup than defender Shawn Marion vs. scorer Kevin Durant.
• Kings rookie Jon Brockman defends his man-purse and ranks Philly cheesesteak joints.
• The Rockets continue to struggle, but Rahat Huq of Red94 can't find it in himself to get too upset: "I view this season as house money – if the team plays well, like they were before the new year – I’ll get in on the fun and think of the playoff possibilities ... This is a basketball team in transition with at least a 75% chance of having a completely different dynamic next season (whether simply by Yao’s return or also via trade.) So why should I be overly concerned about what’s taking place on the floor, other than from a player development perspective?"
• The fans at Madison Square Garden know Pallacanestro Brutto when they see it.
• Andrea Bargnani: Lights out.
• The Bobcats' season might not amount to more than a low seed in the Eastern Conference playoff bracket, but their defense is going to give them a chance to win every night. Friday in Charlotte, they held the League's third-ranked offense to an 87.4 offensive efficiency rating.
• The Trail Blazers played the perfect basketball game against Orlando at the Rose Garden. Andrew R. Tonry of Portland Roundball says Magic forward Matt Barnes was livid afterwards: "Orlando guard-forward Matt Barnes was cursing up a blue streak in the Orlando locker room to a couple of Magic beat reporters. It was almost soul searching. Barnes' tone was hushed, but it didn't hide his absolute disgust. He was unguarded and shockingly honest -- rare qualities in an NBA locker room."
• The Clippers played a competitive first half against the Lakers, but without Chris Kaman defenses can pressure Baron Davis. That grinds the Clips' offense to halt, which is what the Lakers did as they outscored the Clippers 73-36 in the second half.
• It was 2004 all over again in Detroit.

One of the simple ways of experiencing basketball is by talking about it with people who share your love of the game. One of the people I enjoy rapping with is John Krolik of Cavs the Blog and SLAM Online. The best conversations are the ones that produce interesting questions, then aim to answer them. Here are some of those questions about the NBA John and I have been bouncing around in our last couple of conversations:

As guys get freakier and more athletic, are we witnessing an end to positional orthodoxy?
JK: We're definitely seeing a lot of blurring in positional lines, particularly outside of the center position. One thing in particular I like is the rise of the true combo guard. Early in the decade, we got a lot of alleged "combo guards" who were really just superpowered bench gunners given control of teams with mixed results; Stephon Marbury, Steve Francis, et cetera. (Iverson is Iverson.)

But now we're really starting to see effective players who are a cross between the one and the two in a good way, and they're being complimented with other multi-skilled guards rather than going with a strict point guard/shooting guard backcourt. In San Antonio, they put Tony Parker, who's a great scorer for a point, next to Manu, who's a great playmaker for a shooting guard, and things went well. The double-combo backcourt of Mo Williams and Delonte West turned Cleveland's backcourt from a disaster area to a huge strength last season. Even Jason Kidd, the truest of points, is playing with JET and JJ Barea, and has even become adept at knocking down catch-and-shoot 3s off of other people's assists. Phil Jackson's won only 10 championships using an offense that doesn't require a traditional point. And so many young combo guards are coming in with tons of talent: Tyreke Evans, Russell Westbrook, Brandon Jennings and even John Wall, who should definitely be put next to a guy who can pass and shoot when he comes into the league so that he can spend some time in each game going on guilt-free scoring rampages. Wall might be the combo-guard messiah.

KA: This is a beautiful trend because it's created a much more diverse range of basketball styles. Very few teams around the league look alike, even though many of them run much of the same stuff. The fact that so many players can do so many different things on the floor creates an exponentially greater number of things a team can do schematically. On many teams, shots on the floor can be drawn up for almost any player at any spot! Part of this can be attributed to athleticism. One the things that made a power forward or a center a big men was his ability to perform big men tasks -- rebounding, shot-blocking, the ability to routinely get high-percentage shots close to the rim. Today's NBA perimeter players have the athleticism to do a lot of that -- and many of the bigger guys in the league have perimeter skills, as well.

This seems like a nice segue to ...

Do traditional big men have a future?
KA: Whether you chalk it up to the prohibition of hand-checking or the stylings of Mike D'Antoni's Phoenix Suns teams (I'd argue that former rendered the latter), the professional game has undergone a seismic shift over the past decade. Perimeter play has taken over. Today's power forwards have big guard games and two of the top three players in 3-point attempts are 6-foot-10. It's a world gone mad, but you can't complain about the product on the court. The NBA has never been more fun to watch, and we're just getting started...

...or are we?

Trends have a way of feeling permanent while they're being experienced, but they rarely last forever. At some point, laws of macroeconomics take over. Right now, there aren't more than a handful of big men in basketball who have refined post moves and can drain a running right-handed hook with consistency. Teams don't value those attributes as much as speed and 3-point shooting. But as more and more players have the ability to drain 100-200 3-pointers per season at a 40 percent clip, the demand will shift. Kids who arrive on the NBA's doorstep with the ability to dominate the game inside with uncanny efficiency will be shopping skills that few teams will be able to defend.

JK: I'd say the hand-check rules imposed an artificial set of circumstances that forced a change, so I don't think we'll see the pendulum swing all the way back to where it was. But I think guys are finding out that even though big men need to be faster and more skilled than they used to be and can't count on getting minutes just because they can score with their backs to the basket and do nothing else (i.e. Eddy Curry), the post-up game is still a valuable weapon. Look at the Lakers. Andrew Bynum, when he's engaged, defends the rim, gets rebounds and is quick enough to find room and finish off of others, but also posts up. Pau Gasol plays the high-post, runs the floor, gets rebounds, passes beautifully and can knock down the mid-range jumper, but also has a wonderful post game. And of course Kobe can and does do just about anything that's possible for a basketball player to do, but also utilizes the post game.

I'd say that the post-up specialist won't be in vogue again in the foreseeable future, but more and more bigs and wings who can do what's demanded of them in the post hand-check NBA are going to find that the actual post game is still a hugely valuable weapon, especially as fewer and fewer teams know how to defend it.

Of the current young up-and-coming teams, which ones are for real and which ones will provide an entertaining illusion of success?
KA: When sizing up a team's future prospects, the first thing I ask myself is, "Can I imagine this team ranking in the top half of the league defensively?"

Oklahoma City is the quintessential upstart squad. They're fun, charismatic, dynamic, athletic ... and not all that impressive as an offensive unit. It's the Thunder's defense that's led them to a 17-14 record this season. So long as tough, lanky defenders like Russell Westbrook and Thabo Sefolosha are patrolling the perimeter (and James Harden too), opponents are going to have a tough time scoring against them. With that Kevin Durant angle pick-and-roll as the anchor of their offense, they're a good bet to win a playoff series sometime soon.

Brandon Jennings has sparked any and all attention the Bucks have received this season, but Milwaukee's frontcourt of Andrew Bogut, Ersan Ilyasova and Luc Mbah a Moute have put up gritty defensive numbers. Mbah a Moute comes as no surprise, but I was shocked by Bogut's stats, until I looked at his figures under Scott Skiles last season -- also really, really good. Once they get a (healthy) shooting guard who can play drive-and-kick off the Jennings-Bogut pick-and-roll, the Bucks could be dangerous under a coach who was booted from his last gig in Chicago after assembling the league's top-ranked defense and the Eastern Conference's 3rd best record the previous season.

Sacramento's lousy defensive numbers don't concern me right now. They strike me as a team that's going to experience a major overhaul over the next 18 months, and a big part of that metamorphosis will be acquiring some pieces around Tyreke Evans who can defend. I have less faith in Memphis, Minnesota, Golden State and, to a slightly lesser extent, Philadelphia, who all have rosters riddled with defensive ciphers.

JK: I think Oklahoma City wins a playoff series when their backcourt clicks into place, and that's close to happening. I love Westbrook's game and think he has a ton of potential, but he just needs to be more disciplined. He pushes the ball, plays great defense, and does all these little things, but then he'll throw up a bad jumper, brick a full-speed reverse layup, or make a silly pass, and his true shooting percentage and turnover rates are way off of where they need to be because of that. It'll be interesting to see if the answer there is Harden maturing to the point where he can play 30-35 minutes a game and cover some of Westbrook's weaknesses with his shooting, playmaking and ability to create off the drive. (Combo guards!) But I think that young frontcourt is the envy of a lot of teams in the league, Sam Presti keeps getting valuable pieces without giving up much, and I'd call the future very bright there.

For Sacramento, the short-term question is how Tyreke is going to work with Kevin Martin. They might cancel each other out or become absolutely unstoppable together, although they might need to do the latter to make up for Martin's suspect defense. But Thompson, Hawes, Casspi, and even Brockman all look like keepers, and Tyreke has given every indication that he can be built around.

In Milwaukee, I think they should be having serious brainstorms on how they can hide Mbah a Moute on offense so they can keep him on the floor longer, maybe even looking for a stretch four so they can put Mbah a Moute closer to the basket offensively and use him like Detroit used Ben Wallace. He's that good defensively.

I agree with you about the rest of the teams, although I give Memphis some upside because I think it's a bit too early to completely give up on Hasheem Thabeet as an impact player defensively; if Orlando could build a defense around Howard and four perimeter guys, there's a chance Memphis can as well. (A chance, mind you.)

What is it about Stan Van Gundy that we like so much?
JK: I think we've got a pretty narrow view of how to evaluate coaches, because we don't see the vast majority of what they do and we're trained to look for their failures and not their successes. Coaches almost exist to be fired, and every time they make a mistake with their play-call or substitution, it'll get talked about the next day.

I think the biggest job of a coach isn't to call timeouts strategically or be a genius with his in game substitutions. (Although both are definitely important, especially the latter.) I think the job of an NBA coach is to set up a system that best utilizes the talents he has available to him, and that's where Stan Van Gundy comes in, especially last season. Of his five starters, he had three guys with below-average defensive reputations, Dwight Howard, and a rookie.

Instead of trying to have everyone play straight-up or stick Rashard Lewis at the three, he evaluated what he had -- the best shot-blocker in the league and more quickness on the perimeter than most other teams had. So he stuck Lewis at the 4 and never looked back, and built a defense around running other teams off threes and keeping Howard at home under the basket. What happened? The Magic gave up the second fewest made baskets at the rim, the second fewest made 3s per game, and more shots from 10-15 feet and 16-23 feet than any other team in the league. They also had one of the league's three best defenses in terms of efficiency.

Offensively, he had Dwight Howard, who can catch and finish with the best of them but isn't a great post player, more shooting and playmaking at the forward spots than most anyone, and a bunch of guys who can shoot threes. So he had Howard look for catches at the rim, ran 3/4 screen-rolls, and had his players shoot a bunch of threes rather than try to do what everyone else was doing. Van Gundy's failures last season were there for the world to see, but what he did extremely well was more subtle.

KA: I like his press conferences, too. The irony of Van Gundy is that popular perception sometimes paints him as inflexible. But as you said, no coach sculpted a more sensible system for his personnel last season than Van Gundy. He did a full appraisal of his talent, saw where he had edges over his opponents at each position (ballhanding at the 3, shooting at the 4, mobility at the 5) and designed his offense to exploit those advantages.

This isn't to say there's anything wrong with building an elite team by first implementing the system, then by populating that system with players whose talents most conform to it. Whatever works, by all means. Just win. But the ability to create a system around a disparate collection of talent that was brought together randomly is in many ways even more impressive.

Should LeBron James be playing more power forward?
KA: Despite James’ size, strength and efficiency on the glass, Mike Brown has him firmly situated at the small forward slot. In fact, you have to go pretty far down the list of Cleveland’s 5-man lineups to find units in which James is playing power forward. But in the six lineups that feature James surrounded by one traditional big man and three smaller players for at least 10 minutes, the Cavs outscore their opponents 96-83 (prorated for 48 minutes).

Those numbers are enough for me, but let’s think about it in practical terms. We’ve already discussed how positional dogma is a thing of the past in an NBA that’s much smaller than it was 10 years ago. When thinking about how to best maximize LeBron in the half-court, wouldn't you prefer that he drag a bigger defender out to him in order to create more space on the floor for your offense? And defensively, wouldn’t a team like Cleveland, whose primary weakness has been its plodding frontcourt, be better served by having LeBron cover Rashard Lewis on Orlando’s pick-and-pop or Boston’s bigs on the Celtics’ rotating screen-and-rolls? Doesn’t it make more sense to challenge Stan Van Gundy and Doc Rivers to match up with a more athletic lineup? And wouldn’t Cleveland benefit from more transition opportunities?

Would team rebounding suffer? When you look at those aforementioned six lineups with LeBron at the 4, the answer is no. Apart from the political stickiness of limiting the minutes of the Cavs' veteran big men, I have trouble seeing how making the Cavs a more athletic team around LeBron comes with much downside.

JK: The short answer is that I'm extremely confused as to why LeBron doesn't get more time at the 4 position, at least for around 10 minutes of his time on the floor. I understand some of the reasoning behind not giving him significant minutes down there. The Cavs show hard on every perimeter screen, which would require LeBron expending more energy on the defensive end than the Cavs are comfortable with, especially in the first three quarters. And of course, the Cavs don't want LeBron in foul trouble under any circumstances. And generally speaking, the Cavs' big men are better players than Jamario Moon, who typically plays the 3 in the Cavs' small-ball lineup. But LeBron getting the ball in the 10-15 foot range and making his move from down there is absolutely deadly, and that small-ball lineup should definitely be something used more often to keep opposing teams on their toes.

What confuses me more than anything is that while the Shaq/Varejao frontcourt has some offensive issues and the Shaq/Hickson frontcourt has some serious defensive issues, a Shaq/LeBron frontcourt hasn't been tried at all this season, and I mean at all. I suppose the reasoning is that LeBron would be forced to expend way too much energy on the perimeter defensively as Shaq sags to the paint on pick-and-rolls (LeBron's never gotten minutes at the four alongside Z either), but with the Cavs supposedly looking for a "stretch 4" at the deadline to make life easier for Shaq, it's odd that they haven't at least tried using LeBron in that role.

How Real is Dallas?
KA: Little known fact: Of the 50 5-man units that have played together the most this season, two of the top three in overall efficiency belong to the Dallas Mavericks. Whether it's Jason Terry or J.J. Barea at the shooting guard, the Mavs' big names are absolutely crushing their opponents on both ends of the floor. Dallas is a Top 5 defensive squad and features one of the game's great shotmakers in Dirk Nowitzki. They also have tremendous flexibility to match up with opponents on either end. They can play old-school or new-school. Want to tease the Mavs with small ball? That's fine, because they're perfectly good going with three guards and moving Shawn Marion and Nowitzki into the frontcourt. Want to try to outmuscle them? Erick Dampier may have an outsized contract, but he's also one of the better basket protectors and garbage collectors in the league. Opponents shoot a measly 57.4 percent at the rim against the Mavs -- only Boston, Cleveland and San Antonio are better.

More than anything, the Mavs strike me as a team composed of professionals. These are serious basketball players led by a serious coach. Is it possible that a squad with so many thirtysomethings breaks down physically over the course of an 82-game season? Perhaps. But where some see brittleness, I see experience. In fact, I see shades of the best San Antonio Spurs squads. I see a team that truly understands its collective talents and limitations and puts a premium on execution.

Can they compete with the Lakers in late May? I'm not sure anyone in the Western Conference can, but Dallas -- with its length, smarts, and perimeter prowess -- might just be the toughest competition the Lakers encounter.

JK: Dallas has a ton of talent, Dirk is right up there with the best players in the league, and the team defends. My caveat would be that they're thinner than people think, and much more dependent on Dirk. As of December 26th, Dallas was +11.6 points per 100 possessions with Dirk on the floor and a stunning -16.5 points per 100 with Dirk on the bench. As bad as LeBron and Kobe's benches are, their teams are only -8 when they sit, to offer some perspective.

A lot of that has to do with Drew Gooden; Gooden's plus-minus is -23.1, and as someone who's watched a good deal of Gooden in his life, I can tell you that's not random noise. Drew Gooden is the anti-Battier. I'm also not a huge J.J. Barea fan. He's fun to watch and works fairly well with Kidd offensively, but I believe you were the one who said he plays defense "like a man frantically searching for his car keys," and the plus-minus numbers support the theory that Barea's somewhat of a defensive liability. Dallas can play with anyone, especially when Dirk's on the floor, and if they do something to get a better backup for Dirk than Gooden and hide Barea's defense a little better (maybe play more Beaubois, who's gone through growing pains and will probably continue to do so, but has lockdown defensive potential), I'd call them a true force to be reckoned with in the West. If not, I'd say they have a solid puncher's chance of knocking the Lakers off their Western Conference throne.

How do we begin to make sense of adjusted plus-minus?
JK: Outside of the obvious conclusion, which is "no one stat or metric, no matter how advanced or intricate, is ever going to come close to saying everything about one player," I have two thoughts on adjusted plus-minus.

The first is that I get how the basic +/- you see in box scores and 82games.com's version of plus-minus work, but I still don't totally understand how advanced plus-minus works, and that's a problem. I mean, I get the theory, that it adjusts for having good or bad teammates or playing against good and bad opponents, but how exactly does it define "good" and "bad"? Is "good" based on the other guy's adjusted plus-minus, or is the value of others derived from something like Player Efficiency Rating? Aren't both approaches problematic? Right now, adjusted plus-minus is sort of "He's good. Trust me," which I have trouble swallowing as a fan and certainly can't use to convince friends or readers of a guy's value.

The second problem is one that will get fixed over time, which is that we still don't really know how to read plus-minus type stats yet. We know with a stat like field goal percentage that a shooting guard is going to have a lower field goal percentage than a center, but we also know that the guard is probably shooting more 3s, shooting his free throws better and taking tougher shots than the center. We know how to read that stat.

But because plus-minus is one number and so nebulous, we don't know which plus-minus numbers to take with a grain of salt and which ones not to. I'll bring up the semi-infamous Durant example here. Durant had terrible +/- ratings for his first two seasons, but has been incredible in year three. Was the Durant phenomenon ever even real, or did Durant actually improve this year in ways the stats didn't see? If we want plus-minus metrics to be as legitimate as the box score ones, we have to stress-test it like we have the conventional numbers that came before them.

KA: I'm drawn to adjusted plus-minus because I'm desperate to find any metric that will approximate a player's defensive value, something we just don't have the tools to do right now. I'm more faithful than I probably should be given the lack of stress tests you talk about. Your point is well-taken and I'd add that stats like these are only valuable to the extent that they're predictive. There will always be players who make colossal jumps or experience unusual crashes in productivity, but apart from outliers, a stat must be dependable enough to offer a clear -- if general -- estimation of what that player is worth in the past, present and likely future. I've begun to spend more time examining the adjusted plus-minus numbers of 5-man units rather than individuals, in part because it seems more practical.

I suspect we'll know a lot more in three to five years than we do now. The metric's practitioners (and the people who trust them) will have a better sense of where the numbers skews, what those number might miss and the kind of noise those numbers create. In the meantime, I'll continue to watch the 2-year figures (and eventually 3-year, and 4-year). Any system that values Dwyane Wade, LeBron James, Chris Paul, Steve Nash and Kobe Bryant as the five best players in the NBA has to be on to something, right?