ESPN NBA

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:

On this edition of Flop of the Night we go back to Friday and Game 3 of Lakers-Thunder to give James Harden special recognition for this improbable flop of Lakers guard Steve Blake (video).

Here's what flopping expert Shane Battier said about noted Luis Scola: “The more hair you have, the better. My boy Luis Scola, he’s got that long hair and when it gets sweaty and he starts flopping and flailing, it looks like he’s getting murdered out there.”

New theory: James Harden’s enormous beard acts in much the same way.

Harden has a history of playoff flops -- this one against the Dallas Mavericks had Jeff Van Gundy and Mike Breen chuckling -- but the audacity of this acting job is truly admirable.

Midway through the fourth quarter, Blake finds himself trailing Harden around a ball screen. That's where Harden wants to keep Blake, so he blatantly hooks him with his off arm to prevent Blake from getting back in good defensive position.

Then, perhaps sensing that foul is about be called on him, Harden suddenly lurches forward and throws his arms -- and beard -- in the air, while Blake remains absolutely stationary. What's so amazing is that usually a flop comes in reaction to something the other player does, whether or not the contact is genuine. But here, Blake is just a prop in Harden’s performance.

It’s worth noting that the referee who made the call had a terrible angle on what actually happened. He just saw Harden’s reaction and gave him the benefit of the doubt. This is exactly the kind of flop that an instant remote review system could set straight in a matter of moments.

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

LOS ANGELES -- Laker Sentimentalists weren't happy about it. Shipping Derek Fisher and a draft pick to Houston for Jordan Hill seemed like an unceremonious send-off for the man who enshrined "0.4" into the storied history of the franchise.

Hard-bitten realists countered that clearing a slot for a younger, more able point guard like Ramon Sessions was the right move for a team that had grown older and slower. There were only faint remnants of the Triangle offense in Los Angeles under the new Mike Brown regime. The days of Fisher feeding the ball to the pinch post, then clearing out to the corner were over. What the Lakers really needed was a more resourceful point guard, someone who could initiate offense in a pick-and-roll with Pau Gasol, Andrew Bynum and Kobe Bryant. Steve Blake wasn't doing the job, he of the 8.55 Player Efficiency Rating (PER) and 37.7 field goal percentage. A change was clearly in order.

Sessions, long a favorite of stat heads, had consistently produced during his four-plus seasons in the league -- a career PER of nearly 17, impressive assist rates and an ability to manufacture trips to the line. Sessions would provide the Lakers' best hopes of hanging around the ranks of the elite of the Western Conference.

Maybe, said the Fisher partisans.

Sessions -- with spells from Blake -- might be able to hold things down for the Lakers at the point on a sleepy night in March against Sacramento, but would there be big-game production when the Lakers needed timely shots, the kind of buckets Fisher had produced time and again? Toiling in obscurity, as Sessions did in Milwaukee, Minnesota and Cleveland, is one thing, but playing meaningful games in late spring for the league's marquee franchise is an entirely different matter, a job mastered by Fisher, but altogether foreign to Sessions.

Blake performed reasonably well for Portland in the Trail Blazers' first-round loss to Houston in 2009, but was an nonentity for the Lakers last season in two rounds and, prior to his Game 7 heroics, was largely seen as a lost cause for the Lakers -- a solid character guy, but one carrying an outsized contract.

The Fisher loyalists had their suspicions about Sessions confirmed over the Lakers' first nine playoff games this postseason. After a solid Game 1 outing against Denver, Sessions became inefficient, then downright tentative as the series against the feisty Nuggets wore on and grew more tense. By the time Game 7 rolled around, Sessions never saw the court in the fourth quarter.

Enter Blake, who was the Game 7 hero and Brown's go-to man at the 1 during the tight close of Game 2 against Oklahoma City on Wednesday night. When Blake missed a wide-open corner 3 to win the game for the Lakers, he received death threats to his family over social media. Between Sessions' struggles and Blake's miss, grumbles about the Fisher trade -- however irrational -- bubbled to the surface.

On a personal level, Sessions and Blake each entered Game 3 in Los Angeles badly in need of redemption. More imperatively, the Lakers weren't going to dig themselves out of a 2-0 hole against Oklahoma City without some passable play from their platoon of point guards.

Both Sessions and Blake delivered. Sessions started for the Lakers and scored six early points, displaying his best skills. Sessions is intuitive, the kind of player we often say "has a feel for the game." In the first quarter, he scored on a sharp basket cut from the weak side, working a two-man game with Bynum for his floater, then sprinting out in transition the instant the Lakers secured a steal on the Thunder's side of the court.

"I just tried to push the ball a little bit more," Sessions said. "In this offense, it's not traditional where you have the ball in your hands a ton off pick-and-rolls. I just tried to find angles and ways I can be aggressive and get baskets."

Sessions denied that he was bottled up in Oklahoma City, but the evidence suggests otherwise. Sessions had absolutely no luck attacking the Thunder's bigs on the pick-and-roll. The Thunder aren't a top-5 defensive squad, but they got their pick-and-roll coverages down at home and neutered the best part of Sessions’ game. And if the Lakers’ point guard -- whoever he is -- can’t effectively initiate the pick-and-roll, then he’s relegated to spot-up duty, which isn’t Sessions’ strength, one reason why Brown opted for Blake, a better perimeter shooter.

Sessions worked well on Friday night with both big men -- a pick-and-roll early with Bynum, a dribble hand-off with Gasol. The fluid play translated into 12 points (5-for-9 shooting from the field) and four assists in 28 minutes, the most he's played since Game 6 of the Denver series. After a frenetic couple of nights trying to dodge the Thunder's corralling big men, Sessions navigated the half court nicely. His drive-and-kick to Metta World Peace on the final possession of the first half resulted in a clean 3-pointer that gave the Lakers a 50-47 lead at intermission.

Brown ultimately chose Blake as his point guard for the closing stretch, as Blake recovered from that excruciating miss at the end of Game 2. He finished with 12 points on 4-for-5 shooting from the field. He single-handedly erased a five-point Oklahoma City lead midway through the fourth quarter on consecutive possessions, the first on a pull-up jumper on the left side, the second a 3-pointer to tie the game after moving left of a Bryant screen.

"I thought Steve Blake's two shots were big," Brown said. "He came off the pick-and-roll and shot his pull-up. He was aggressive and knocked that thing down. He came off the pick-and-roll a second time and knocked down a 3."

Sessions and Blake have no shot at matching Russell Westbrook's production. They're unlikely to write themselves into the annals of Lakers history as Fisher did. But if Blake can hit from the perimeter, he'll be sufficient. And if Sessions can attack the Thunder's defense in the middle of the floor with aggressive actions, deliver the ball to Bynum and Gasol at their spots, make some smart plays off the ball and keep Bryant happy -- essentially much of what he accomplished in the regular season -- he'll get to experience something he never could while playing out the string in the league's most remote outposts.

In his playoff career, the Los Angeles Lakers’ Kobe Bryant is 7-for-27 on game-tying or go-ahead shots in the final 24 seconds of the fourth quarter and overtime. That’s a field goal percentage of 25.9, which is below the league average of 27.2 percent, and pales in comparison to his teammates over that span. Other Lakers are 9-for-21 (42.9 percent) on such shots, even after Steve Blake's miss in Game 2 against the Oklahoma City Thunder.

In his 16-year career (including postseason), Bryant has made 71 of 226 field goal attempts (31.4 percent) in one-possession games in the last 24 seconds of the fourth quarter and overtime. That ranks 57th among 114 players who have at least 30 attempts in those situations over that span. The league average is 31.6 percent on such shots over that span.

So, should Blake have taken the last shot?

According to Synergy, Blake was 40-for-88 (45.5 percent) on unguarded catch-and-shoots during the regular season. In the playoffs, Blake was 12-for-23 before his final shot. (In Game 2, he was 1-for-4 on those shots before the last attempt.)

According to NBA.com, Blake was 29-of-74 (39.2 percent) on corner 3's this season, including the playoffs, including 16-for-35 on 3-pointers from the right corner. (Both numbers include the final miss in Game 2.)

Blake now is 12-for-24 in the playoffs on unguarded catch-and-shoots. The league average in this year's playoffs on these shots is 38.9 percent. Blake’s 50.0 shooting percentage on unguarded catch-and-shoot attempts is tied for seventh among 43 players with at least 10 such field goal attempts this postseason.

During the regular season, the league average on unguarded catch-and-shoots was 40.6 percent, so Blake was above average in the regular season as well.

No matter how you look at it, it was a pretty good percentage shot considering the situation.

-- Statistical support for this story provided by NBA.com. Alok Pattani contributed to this post.

(The Dallas Mavericks host the Los Angeles Lakers, Wednesday at 9:30 ET on ESPN)

Last month, the Lakers scored a season-low 73 points, but still managed to beat the Mavericks, 73-70. Although 73 points is low for the Lakers, their offense has struggled all season to score.

Last season, the Lakers averaged 101.5 points on 94 possessions per game. This season, they rank 22nd in the league in scoring (93.3 PPG) even though they are averaging 93 possessions per game.

The Lakers’ 102-90 loss on Sunday against the Phoenix Suns typified their offensive struggles, especially behind the arc. They shot 3-of-18 on 3-point attempts, and for the season the Lakers are shooting 30.1 percent from 3-point range -- down more than 5 percent from last season.

They shot 1-of-16 (6.3 percent) on 3-point attempts in a road loss to the Kings on Dec. 26, and failed to make a 3-pointer on 11 attempts in a road loss at Portland on Jan. 5. It was the first time Los Angeles failed to make a 3-point shot in a game since Nov. 16, 2003 against the Miami Heat.

Derek Fisher and Metta World Peace are posting career-low percentages on 3-point attempts, and Kobe Bryant, Steve Blake and Matt Barnes are shooting below their career marks as well.

Beyond their shooting struggles, the Lakers have not been able to run this season. They have the fewest transition points (330) in the league and average only 10.3 transition points per game. Only 8.6 percent of the Lakers’ plays have come in transition this season, second-fewest in the league behind the Orlando Magic.

Bench production has been another area of concern after the departures of Lamar Odom (14.4 PPG last season) and Shannon Brown (8.8 PPG last season). The Lakers have the fewest bench points in the NBA this season, 21.5 bench points per game, compared with 28.2 last season.

All of the Lakers’ offensive struggles have been magnified in road games where they are 5-11 this season, compared with 14-2 at the Staples Center.

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.

The Los Angeles Clippers are trading Marcus Camby to the Portland Trail Blazers for Travis Outlaw, Steve Blake and cash.

All the players have expiring contracts.

For the Blazers, Camby remedies an enormous basketball problem: The total lack of centers since injuries to Greg Oden and Joel Przybilla. It also puts a bounce in the step of a team that has also endured injuries to Brandon Roy, Nicolas Batum, Rudy Fernandez and, to a lesser extent, LaMarcus Aldridge.

On ClipperBlog Kevin Arnovitz once wrote the definitive story on Marcus Camby's defense. Arnovitz is a Clipperologist with an analytical mind. I'm a Blazer fan with a blog that needs some smart thinking about this trade. Here's the conversation we just had:

Abbott: OK, so big picture. When you first hear of this trade, as a Clipper fan and a hoops geek, what's your thought?

Arnovitz: The Clippers have officially surrendered the 2009-10 season. That's not to say that the deal is ill-advised, but I think anyone who has watched the Clippers closely this season knows that Marcus Camby has been essential to any success they've had on the court.

Abbott: That being said, why trade his expiring for other expirings?

Arnovitz: We'll know more about the specifics of the cash changing hands once the deal is official, but Portland's cash represents real savings for the Clippers. I also think we're learning that short-term rentals can get you one of two things (1) marginal players with expiring deals (2) impact players with longer deals. At the end of the day, the Clippers decided that they didn't want to compromise their cap space ... but the opportunity to net a couple of million dollars was attractive.

Abbott: Before we get to talking about Outlaw and Blake, tell me what I can expect, as a Blazer fan. We should be having a party, right?

Arnovitz: Camby is one of those guys who polarizes basketball junkies. Some think he's one of the game's best defenders. Others believe that he's completely overrated as a defender and point to his pick-and-roll defense as evidence. (He has a tendency to drop back on virtually every screen.) After watching him closely for a couple of seasons, I now fall into the first camp: He's tremendously effective. The Clippers were 7.7 points per 100 possessions better with Camby on the floor. He leads the league in rebounding rate. He's also a good facilitator in the high-low game, and leads power forwards (his nominal position as a Clipper alongside Chris Kaman) in assist rate. The kids in the locker room look up to him and the coaching staff thinks he hangs the moon.

Abbott: I noticed on Basketball Value that adjusted plus/minus suggests Camby's not only an elite defender, but also one of the Clippers' best offensive players.

Arnovitz: Yes. He knows how to move the ball from the top of the perimeter. And he is a master of the offensive tip.

Abbott: By the adjusted plus/minus metric, he's a top 30 NBA player.

Arnovitz: I think that's a fair assessment. My favorite Camby moment of the season: After his 25-rebound performance against Chicago last month, I asked him if rebounders can get into a "zone" the way scorers can. His response: "Sometimes you feel like the ball is like a magnet. But with me, it's not about just going out there and getting it. I study my opponents a lot. I study the projectile of the basketball, try to get myself in a good position to rebound shots." Henry ... I love a center who studies projectiles.

Abbott: You just like that he's a little geeky.

Arnovitz: Who wouldn't want a center who studies projectiles?

Abbott: Geeks win championships!

Arnovitz: Yes they do!

Abbott: OK, so we had talked about something like this a while ago, and you had your eyes on Martell Webster. Who is not in this deal. Is that a disappointment?

Arnovitz: Sigh. Absolutely. The Clippers are in a funny place, in that -- for a losing team -- they're rock solid at four positions. Small forward is the missing piece and there was an expectation that a deadline deal for Camby might allow them to fill that hole in the long-term. In my fantasy world, Webster (or Luol Deng) was that guy.

So tell me about Mr. Outlaw.

Abbott: I have thought about that player way too much, and will struggle to keep this concise. But some ideas: When he came into the NBA he could not shoot A LICK. Every time he started to, he'd coil and spring in the most bizarre fashion -- some guys lean right or left when they shoot. He would get his upper body going in both directions before he landed, which is really amazing.

It is to everlasting credit, however, that the guy has learned to become a very special kind of shooter. Few NBA players go from never being allowed to shoot to having repeated plays called for them with the game on the line. And every single player who ever makes that leap is, you can guarantee it, a hard worker. Which matters. Outlaw is frank that he really wants to be a star. That's his motivation, and I believe he'll keep working hard because of it. He's a real-deal long athlete, he has this ability to score. He's also everybody's best friend, and to my eyes an important part of why the Blazers have generally been a cheerful team.

However, he is not the most aware player. Some players are really quick thinking, but that's not him. The exact cluelessness that makes him impervious to crunch-time pressure also makes him a liability in complex defensive schemes. His defense has gotten much better, and the sky's the limit for his individual D. But you know how Boston so cleverly rotates to keep everyone covered with help? Hard to picture him thriving in that system. And, there was a game the Blazers lost when Brandon Roy was doubled in the corner on the big play, and he seemed to have no plan. Afterward, we learn that Outlaw was supposed to have cut down the lane, but for some reason didn't. Which was too bad.

Arnovitz: In your eyes, do the Blazers instantly become a potential Northwest Division champion now that they have a top-shelf center who can protect the basket?

Abbott: They're five games behind Denver, with intimidating Utah and Oklahoma City in between. This is an amazing division, now and for many years to come. At the season's outset, when the Blazers were all healthy and training camp was something to dream on, the team made news by rigorously refusing to admit to any goal beyond winning the division. It seemed so modest at the time. Now they have been so hurt -- Roy is the ballgame, and he hasn't played in weeks with a tricky hammy that could act up any time. Even with Camby, they still only have one real center -- it's easy to see that they could finish second or third in the division and still declare the season a success.

To me the more important accomplishment is they are now certainly once again a team with the potential to make things interesting in the playoffs.

Arnovitz: And the logjam at forward ... this clearly eases that?

Abbott: Right. For Portland, a big part of the analysis is that while one can love Outlaw, when healthy he was only going to play limited minutes, during which time a good player like Nicolas Batum, Martell Webster or Rudy Fernandez would be on the bench. Camby brings his production in place of Juwan Howard and Jeff Pendergraph. Both are total gamers who have been fun to watch, but are playing out of position and out of their primes.

Arnovitz: In that spirit, I’d tell disappointed Clippers fans something else: They’re going to see a lot more of DeAndre Jordan, and I think that’s a good thing. Jordan will take his lumps and occasionally embarrass himself, but his development is vital for the team’s future. The void left by Camby will potentially give Jordan an intensive two-month boot camp as a rotation NBA center. They’ll also see a bit more of the irrepressible Craig Smith, who can score 1-on-1 from the block in bunches.

Abbott: If you have a player who goes by "Rhino," you ought not cage him.

Arnovitz: Precisely.

Abbott: Now, let me play Steve Blake's agent for a second.

He has not been great this year. Andre Miller has been better, especially since his argument with Nate McMillan. Since then Miller has been remarkable, and I was telling people all All-Star Weekend that it did not ring true that Miller was done in Portland. However, coming off an injury Blake's shooting numbers are a little down. But over the last several years, Blake has been a very good shooter. He's that best of things: A player the other team will leave in the corner -- he's usually the fourth or fifth best offensive player -- but who will also stick the open 3 when the ball is swung. He's not done. But for a shooting slump, he'd still be everyone's darling. And to those who say he can't lead an up-tempo team, David Thorpe says hogwash: He ran one of the fastest offenses in NBA history in Denver in 2006.

He's an intense dude. A workout maniac. Sometimes in crunch time I feel like he goes into intensity overload. At the line, with the game on the line, his face does not portray cool confidence. However, I think you want a passionate worker like that. Everybody in the Blazer organization loves having him around, and it wouldn't shock me if he was a Blazer again some day.

Arnovitz: The Clippers are in an interesting spot with regards to their third guard. Sebastian Telfair has a player option of $2.7M next season. The Clippers would clearly like to move him -- and were reportedly hoping to do so in a package that included Camby. Telfair should be back from injury fairly soon. When he returns, would the Clippers banish him to the end of the bench in favor of Blake in an effort to induce Bassy to seek employment elsewhere next season?

Abbott: Battle of the former Blazer guards. Boy, oh, boy, if they did that, it would be a real condemnation of Telfair, to bench him at the exact moment they are apparently trying to be up-tempo.

Arnovitz: On the other hand, the Clippers don't have a lot of depth at guard, and it's likely that Blake could see some time at the 2 behind Eric Gordon. Final thought: Clippers fans are accustomed to finding faint silver linings and here's one that surfaced out of this transaction. Early reports had Marcus Camby very, very upset that he was being dealt from the Clippers -- who are 10 games under .500 -- to Portland, a potential playoff team with arguably the league's most supportive fan base. That's a far cry from "Get me outta here!" -- something players might have said in seasons past. Camby is regarded as the utmost professional and he was very comfortable as a Clipper.

Abbott: Couldn't it also be that he just liked Spago?

Arnovitz: Now he can go to Voodoo Doughnut!

Posted by Kevin Arnovitz

Henry has delved into the work of John Huizinga and Sandy Weil with great detail. To review, Huizinga and Weil explored whether there's any validity to the conceit that a shooter can "get hot." Through extensive research and data-crunching, their study concluded that there's essentially no such thing as a "hot hand."

Whether you subscribe to the research, or believe that a shooter can feed on the sheer accuracy of his stroke, we can all agree that good shooters drain shots not because "they're hot." That rationale is as tautological as saying that I made the perfect omelet this morning because "I'm a good cook." 

A good shooter is successful because he performs very specific mechanical tasks that increase the probability that the ball will fall through the iron. That's where a shooting coach like the Trail Blazers' John Townsend comes into the picture. 

Wendell Maxey of Hoopsworld has a nice account of Townsend's busy summer traversing the country to work with Jerryd Bayless, Steve Blake, Dante Cunningham, and Jeff Pendergraph.

Townsend discusses his gentle approach in the context of Steve Blake, emphasizing that the best moment for instruction isn't always when a guy is missing ... but rather when he's on. 

"When I got to work with him, he was already a pretty good shooter. He just wants to go up and shoot it. He doesn't want to think about it. I didn't make any changes. I just told him when he's on, why he's on.

"The stuff I do with guys and their shooting is, I wouldn't take your shot and change it. But if you are shooting and there is a stretch where you can't miss; why is that?" John continued.

"There's something different that you are doing for your particular shot. You have to pick and choose your spots. If a guy is off, I might leave him alone. But when a guy is on, that's when I tell him this is what you are doing well.  Guys are going to listen to that instead of overhaul things. I'd be a fool to do that. But a change of the feet or positioning of the hands -- and if they like it -- after that I might just leave them alone. I try to think of two things that they can hone in on that will make them a straighter shooter or better feel."

Re-reading these comments from Townsend ("if you are shooting and there is a stretch where you can't miss; why is that?"), I instinctively return to the "hot hand" debate.

Is Townsend lending credence to the "hot hand" theory? Or is he, more precisely, concluding that on the occasions when a shooter appears hot, that accuracy can be attributed to very specific mechanical features in his shot rather than an abstract sense of momentum?

Maxey has a follow-up post at Beyond the Beat, chock full of longer quotes from Townsend on his teaching technique: 

On working smarter not harder:

"I used to work with Tony Delk way back when. He had to make twenty-five shots from seven spots. So I said, 'what's the reason for this?' And he said he wants to make twenty-five. So I said, 'eventually what's happening is your first fifteen are great. Your next five are okay, and then you struggle with the last five. So why don't you just do ten and do a great ten, and if you feel good then go back around'. He said he never thought about it like that. A great ten is better than a mediocre twenty-five." 

The Blazers and Rockets played a close, professional ballgame. This series is going to be well worth watching. Nothing would surprise me.  

1. It is an enduring quality of Greg Oden's game, and body, that around him people fall down in pain. Just happens a lot. Tonight it happened to Dikembe Mutombo barely two minutes into his shift. The play looked innocuous, but the results are a little scary. Frank Isola said on NBA TV that the scene where Mutombo was being examined was "emotional," and while it's being reported as a strained knee, he's on his way to Houston to be examined by doctors tomorrow. It occurs to everyone how rare it is to see that man lying on the floor injured, and everyone seems to be concerned, especially knowing that at 42, there is little room for error. TV commentator Mike Barrett put voice to the worry: That for a man of Mutombo's age, a knee injury could be career-ending. Fingers crossed that's not so. UPDATE: The Oregonian quotes Mutombo: "I'm going to need surgery. For me, basketball is over. I cried so much about it when I was laying on the floor."
2. Ron Artest's confidence in his own offensive arsenal was one of Portland's better weapons tonight. Several times he fired up the kinds of prayers that would get lesser NBA players benched. On a play in the final minutes of the first half, little Portland point guard Steve Blake was switched onto mountainous Yao Ming. But Artest never noticed and chucked up a contested 3 that missed. His shot selection, on bad nights, seems, to me, to be unprofessional. And of course his GM told that story about wanting to talk to Artest about his shot selection, but Shane Battier advised him not to, saying "you can't cage a pit bull." It occurs to me that most pit bulls actually do live within fences.
3. Twice in this one game Nate McMillan did something he did only once all season: He played Joel Przybilla and Greg Oden together. That seemed to be an acknowledgment that this series is something of an arms race -- with the biggest, strongest players controlling the paint. It's also an acknowledgment that Joel Przybilla, while wily and effective, looks tiny next to Yao Ming. He might not get a put-back over Yao all series. At least this way Portland gets a similar size mismatch elsewhere under the hoop, for instance where Greg Oden is tangling with Chuck Hayes.
4. If you're looking for hot hands ... LaMarcus Aldridge made six straight in the second quarter, and Aaron Brooks closed the game with a 3, a 2, a 3, and then a 32-foot 3 off the dribble. They were all within the last 30 seconds, and they were all 100% money.
5. A key factor in this game was the period that the Rockets spent without a center on the floor. Mutombo was out injured, and Yao Ming had four fouls. While Yao got away with a few no-calls, the fourth one ... the one that sent him to the bench ... was 90% audacious flop by Joel Przybilla.
6. Brandon Roy scored 42 points, one of the biggest point totals in Blazer playoff history. And David Thorpe called it! From his pre-game analysis of Game 2: "Now that Roy knows exactly how Houston wants to defend him, he can put together a strategy to have a huge game. It does not look like any Rockets player can contain him. It would not be a surprise if he scored 40 points in Game 2."
7. As Spike Lee and Kobe Bryant discuss, NBA coaches don't hide their play calls. Opposing advance scouts (like the Rockets' Pat Zipfel) sit on press row and take down every call all season. By the time of the playoffs, all of the coaching staff and half the players know what a team is going to do before they even set up. The whole trick is just execution, or adding new little wrinkles here and there. Which is why you don't see coaches opening their jackets to hide the secret hand signals they're sending in. Only, I did see Nate McMillan doing that tonight. Clearly. I suspect it's something to do with Shane Battier, who I saw yelling at teammates about Portland calls more than once. For what it's worth, the play where I saw this most clearly started with Battier checking in with 2:47 left. It ended up being nicely broken up by the Rockets' defense, and Brandon Roy was forced into a tough 3 after some ball fakes with a hand in his face. Which he hit, to give Portland a 96-90 lead.
8. Four new themes tonight, which changed things from Game 1: 1. That whole fronting Yao Ming thing works. Tonight he ended up 3-6 from the floor, and the Rockets often just didn't know how to get him the ball. 2. Ron Artest is not as effective on Brandon Roy as he once was, and it seems Battier is the better Rocket at containing Roy. 3. LaMarcus Aldridge can now score against Houston. 4. Rick Adelman was out of timeouts down the stretch.