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Over the past quarter-century, the NBA has seen the Black Mamba, Larry Legend, His Airness, The Answer, The Truth, The Mailman, King James, Vinsanity, Flash and Magic.

But the Big Fundamental? If ever a nickname was assigned with a firm backhand, this is it.

Kobe Bryant attacks; Michael Jordan soars; Karl Malone delivers.

Tim Duncan? He's a large man who's really good at mechanics! While other stars transcend the game as superheroes, Duncan merely masters it as a craftsman.

An example: In the second possession of Game 4 against the Clippers, Duncan ran a little cross with Boris Diaw on the right side. Duncan's goal here? To upgrade his advantage against his defensive counterpart. Before crossing paths with Diaw, Duncan had 7-footer DeAndre Jordan fronting him. But after the subtle, little action, Duncan had the much shorter Blake Griffin.

Only that wasn't enough.

As the ball worked its way to the left side of the floor, Duncan followed it. Seeing Danny Green pressured against the sideline by Clippers guard Randy Foye, Duncan set a pick for Green on the high side. This not only allowed Green to wiggle out of trouble, but Duncan was also able to peel off to a couple of feet from his favorite spot off the left block -- and now with the 6-foot-4 Foye as his defender.

Duncan had turned the Clippers roster into matryoshka dolls. Every time he took apart one defender, a smaller one would appear.

Green ultimately dished the ball off to Duncan, who caught, squared, shot and swished. From the top of the key, Griffin watched the flight of the ball, stood still for a second, then retreated upcourt. Somehow, he got taken out of the play. But only 150-some-odd games into his career, Griffin could only process and learn.

"The way [Duncan] plays is so methodical, but at the same time he doesn't overthink the game," Griffin said after the game. "That's something I want to get to."

This was a very nuanced parallel Griffin constructed to describe what Duncan does on the court. We usually regard "method" as something that results from a great deal of thought, but here's Griffin drawing a distinction: For all of Duncan's technique, he rarely trips himself up with complexities. He rarely pauses, hedges or becomes paralyzed by choices.

Duncan has distilled the game down to its essentials. Play his left shoulder and he'll turn middle and devastate you with that running hook through the lane, or worse, take it all the way to the hole for the slam. Play his right shoulder and the bank is open.

You've seen all this thousands of times.

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In the most recent issue of Intelligent Life (via The Economist), Ian Leslie writes about how the most accomplished and creative performers in the world get the best results from not, as Griffin said, overthinking.

Leslie contrasts Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer in the fifth set of a semi-final match in the 2011 U.S. Open. Confronting elimination on a match point for Federer, Djokovic unleashed one of the nastiest forehand returns you'll ever see. Typically, players in Djokovic's situation proceed more cautiously. They're more apt to go with a defensive return to guarantee they stay in the match. Djokovic did no such thing.

After it was all over, Federer was exasperated by Djokovic's return:

Djokovic won the game, set, match and tournament. At his press conference, Federer was a study in quiet fury. It was tough, he said, to lose because of a “lucky shot”. Some players do that, he continued: “Down 5-2 in the third, they just start slapping shots …How can you play a shot like that on match point?”

Asked the same question, Djokovic smiled. “Yeah, I tend to do that on match points. It kinda works.”

Federer, one of tennis' all-time greats, will go down as among the most heralded Thinking Person's athletes in history. He's fallen off over the past couple of years, and Leslie wonders if the contrasting reactions of Federer and Djokovic (now the world's top-ranked player, a position held by Federer for years) speaks to something larger:

Perhaps Federer was so upset because, deep down, he recognised that his opponent had tapped into a resource that he, an all-time great, is finding harder to reach: unthinking.

Unthinking is the ability to apply years of learning at the crucial moment by removing your thinking self from the equation.

Malcolm Gladwell addressed this notion in his book, "Blink." Practice, experience -- what athletes commonly call "reps" -- help develop strong instincts. Duncan has them, as does Federer, Djokovic and most other top-flight talents. Gladwell wrote that the best way to achieve maximum results is to deploy those instincts decisively, without deliberation or rifling through too much information at the moment of reckoning. The expertise acquired over years and years will act as a guide. As Federer said, "But, look, maybe he's been doing it for 20 years, so for him it was very normal. You've got to ask him."

That 20 years is key, and it might be one reason why older teams like the Spurs and vets like Duncan seem so poised when the field of contenders is whittled down to a select few in June. We tend to regard those guys in their 30s as "smarter" -- and they might very well be -- but it could be that they're just methodical-without-overthinking because they arrive at big moments with so much experience:

Unthinking is not the same as ignorance; you can’t unthink if you haven’t already thought. Djokovic was able to pull off his wonder shot because he had played a thousand variations on it in previous matches and practice ... The unconscious minds of great artists and sportsmen are like dense rainforests, which send up spores of inspiration.

When you have years of muscle memory from shooting a lifetime of bank shots, you don't have to think -- you just have to act.

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Temperamentally on their respective courts, Djokovic and Duncan couldn't be more different. Djokovic plays to the crowd, while Duncan often seems like he could be in an empty gym. But they both carry that special combination that Griffin aspires to -- the ability to apply method to their decision-making, but without overthinking that process.

If you're an intrinsically thoughtful person, being told not to think so much is really annoying. How do you do it? Leslie turns to Bob Dylan, who famously wrote "Like a Rolling Stone" in no time flat. Dylan referred to the making of the song as a "piece of vomit, 20 pages long." Dylan said this about keeping analysis paralysis out of the process:

Dylan believes the creative impulse needs protecting from self-analysis: “As you get older, you get smarter, and that can hinder you…You’ve got to programme your brain not to think too much.” Flann O’Brien said we should be “calculatedly stupid” in order to write. The only reliable cure for overthinking seems to be enjoyment, something that both success and analysis can dull. Experienced athletes and artists often complain that they have lost touch with what made them love what they do in the first place. Thinking about it is a poor substitute.

Maybe that's Duncan's secret: He's never disconnected himself from his roots in the game. He won't release a primal scream after a dunk, nor will he bask in the afterglow of a win (he will, however, tell you about the virtues of being mellow). But if you watch Duncan closely enough, you'll see a man so comfortable in his method and purpose, that it's impossible to think he doesn't love what he does.

It's a fundamental joy.

The San Antonio Spurs extended their win streak to 17 games (dating to the regular season) in historic fashion.

In Game 3, San Antonio trailed by 22 points after the first quarter, 33-11. That deficit after the first 12 minutes of play is the largest overcome to win a playoff game in NBA history. The previous record was held by the 2008 Celtics, who trailed by 21 against the Los Angeles Lakers after the first quarter (35-14) in Game 4 of the NBA Finals. Like Saturday, that game was also at the Staples Center.

The Spurs trailed by 24 points in the second quarter (40-16), making this the second-largest comeback win this postseason. In the first round, the Clippers erased a 27-point deficit in the third quarter of Game 1 against the Memphis Grizzlies.

The Spurs comeback was highlighted by a 24-0 run in the third quarter. The Spurs made 10-of-15 field goals and did not commit a turnover in turning a 57-45 deficit into a 69-57 lead. The Clippers went 0-for-12 from the field during the Spurs run and were scoreless for eight minutes.

Four different Spurs scored during the run, led by nine from Tim Duncan. On the other side, five different Clippers missed at least one field goal attempt, including four by Blake Griffin.

The Clippers jumped out to a 24-point lead less than 15 minutes into the game, shooting better than 65 percent from the field (17-26). But over the final 33:17, the Clippers made just 20 field goals and missed nine of 14 free throws.

Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili have played 52 minutes together in the series, and the Spurs have outscored the Clippers by 44 points.

Duncan finished with 19 points and 13 rebounds, the 134th double-double of his postseason career. Duncan now is three shy of Bill Russell for fourth on the all-time list.

The Spurs now are 7-0 this postseason, the first time in franchise history they have won their first seven games to start a postseason.

The lone bright spot for the Clippers was Griffin, who scored 20 of his game-high 28 points in the first half. He’s only the second different player to score at least 20 points in the first half of a playoff game in franchise history. Elton Brand did it twice during the 2006 postseason against the Phoenix Suns.

• A 12-year-old kid was suspended from school for having Matt Bonner's likeness shaved into his head. Bonner responded by giving him and his folks free tickets to Game 2 of the Spurs-Clippers series at the AT&T Center on Thursday night.
• There's a ton of insight to glean from Chris Ballard's tremendous profile on Tim Duncan in Sports Illustrated titled, "21 Shades of Gray." You can read about how Duncan isn't much of a Kevin Garnett fan, how Duncan first bonded with Gregg Popovich on the beach at St. Croix and how Stephen Jackson is "humbled" to count Duncan as a friend. Ballard also offers this very telling portrait of what happens when the Spurs call timeout: "When the Spurs call a timeout and you see the San Antonio coaches huddle a few feet from the bench, it's not to hash out strategy. Rather, Pop is giving Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker time with the team. 'You'll see Timmy over there with a young kid, talking about how he should do this or that or what we meant by such and such,' says Popovich. 'I'll come back to the timeouts sometimes and say, "Are we square?" and Timmy will say, "Yeah, we got 'em."' Popovich pauses. 'He commands that type of respect because he doesn't demand it, if that makes sense.'"
• Should Tim Duncan have been a more public celebrity over the course of his legendary career? Would the NBA and the Spurs been enriched had Duncan given us a deeper glimpse of both his interior and external life? Alex Dewey of Gothic Ginobili grapples with these questions and more.
• For years, Popovich has rationed the minutes of his most important players, readily sitting Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker during tough stretches of the schedule. In doing so, Popovich has raised eyebrows around the league and the ire of basketball populists who feel that the Spurs owe it to the ticket-paying public to put the best players on the floor. History sides with Popovich and you don't have to look much farther than the Spurs' current series with the Clippers -- a younger, sprightlier team -- to appreciate Popovich's strategy. But there's also an ancillary benefit to sitting Duncan, Parker and Ginobili periodically: It means that secondary guys get the ball in meaningful spots during games that matter.
• As Zach Lowe of The Point Forward documents in pictures, the Spurs' ability to stretch the floor, mastery of the misdirection, and constant movement have the Clippers' young big men twisted in knots.
• Bill Simmons at Grantland, on the Spurs: "Thank God for the Spurs, an offensive powerhouse that has single-handedly saved the playoffs from turning into a rockfight. They're headed for a second sweep while pacing the league in points per game (103.7), shooting (49.1 percent) and 3-point shooting (42.7 percent). It's the best version of international basketball we've ever seen -- the Spurs might as well be Argentina or Spain, only with superior players. Everything revolves around their slash-and-kick guys (Parker and Ginobili), their 3-point shooters (too many to count) and their versatile big men (Duncan, Diaw and Splitter, all of whom know where to go and what to do). And unlike Nash's high-scoring Suns teams from back in the day, San Antonio can also rebound and protect the rim, which makes them our single most dangerous playoff favorite since the 2001 Lakers. They aren't just beating teams, they're eviscerating them."
• Boris Diaw might best illustrate the strength of the Spurs' system and culture. Here's a guy who, as recently as 12 weeks ago, was a punch line for his conditioning and an irritant to Bobcats coach Paul Silas. Now he's the starting center for the title favorites. When you watch Diaw dig in defensively for the Spurs, it’s a reminder of what a dominant role effort plays in defensive makeup. Prior to landing on the Spurs' doorstep, Diaw hadn't played much defense in years, but here he is grinding away for Popovich in May. On the offensive end, Diaw passes with so much confidence, and his high-low deliveries to Duncan are a reminder of his refined skill set as a big man. Yet another instance of the R.C. Buford telling the league, “If you’re not going to use that guy, we’ll take him.” At 48 Minutes of Hell, Jesse Blanchard has more on Diaw.
• Timothy Varner of 48 Minutes of Hell: "You’ve heard me say it before, but the Spurs’ ability to attract a championship supporting cast was fueled by veterans who signed on for an opportunity to chase a championship alongside Tim Duncan. Duncan was the draw. Not the city of San Antonio. And never the promise of more money. It was always Tim Duncan. Not anymore. The draw is the opportunity to play in Gregg Popovich’s system. It’s Tony Parker. It’s Spurs culture. It’s Pop himself. It’s the confidence that the front office can always shore things up by adding a Gary Neal, Tiago Splitter or Kawhi Leonard. It’s the confidence that the front office will manage its books and never the saddle the team with a cancerous contract. It’s the confidence in the ability to improve through the internal development of guys like Danny Green. The Spurs have it figured out. Players understand this."
• Paul Garcia of Project Spurs on the quiet professionalism of rookie Kawhi Leonard, about whom Popovich once said, "He just does his work and goes home."
• Steve Perrin of SB Nation on Gregg Popovich, the Alchemist.
• Jordan Heimer and I shower the Spurs with much love on the most recent episode of The Clippers Podcast, presented by ESPN LA.

How the San Antonio Spurs got tagged as boring never made much sense to me.

Yes, the Spurs were the proctors who broke up the spring flings thrown by the Seven Seconds of Less Phoenix Suns. For those who like their superstars to dazzle, Tim Duncan's charisma deficit and his mechanical game can be affronts. The Spurs have historically been defensive stalwarts, likelier to grind an opponent into submission, not run it off the court. Those qualities, along with a lack of interpersonal drama, might lull certain fans to sleep.

But boredom, at its very root, can be defined as the absence of choice. Get stuck with a program that uses the same formula to produce the same outcome over and over and over again, and you get bored. If you eat the same stuff every day for lunch, you grow tired of it. The same outings with the same people where you talk about the same stuff -- those experiences can become rote.

We're rarely bored when our expectations are challenged, and the most interesting way to do that is by introducing choice into the equation. Anything can happen means that the range of possibilities is endless.

When the Spurs bring the ball upcourt, that's usually the case. They relied on isolation plays only 7.1 percent of the time in the regular season. (Only the Magic used a smaller percentage of their possessions in iso.) In their first-round sweep of Utah, the Spurs ran isos only 24 times in four games. (The Knicks, in contrast, had 124 such possessions over five games.) Instead, the Spurs did what they usually do to get what they want in the half court -- rely on motion, timing, ball movement and, most of all, choice.

Choice is the overriding principle at work in an efficient offense. Take away that offense's primary objective in a half-court possession, and it will gladly move on to option No. 2. Sniff out No. 2, and a third choice will materialize. And so on.

The Spurs under Gregg Popovich have always understood that NBA defenses are too big and quick to confine your offense to one option. There have to be multiple contingency plans in a given possession; otherwise, you leave yourself vulnerable to chance. A lot of fans like the element of chance in sports -- and perhaps that's one explanation for the Spurs' "boring" rap.

But the Spurs' trademark set -- called "motion weak" -- is anything but boring. It's a magical merry-go-round of basketball possibility, a play that has an endless number of outcomes. When it begins, the players aren't even sure where the ball will land, but they know that if they read the defense and move with precision, a quality look at the basket will surface from somewhere.

Let's take a look:

The play starts simply enough: Tony Parker passes the ball off to a wing player on his right. It might be Danny Green, Manu Ginobili, Kawhi Leonard, Stephen Jackson or Gary Neal. Once the ball leaves Parker's hands, he cuts through to the basket.

If the defense is napping or Duncan has prime position against his defender down on the low right block, the ball can go immediately from the wing to Parker on the move (it'll look like a simple give-and-go) or Duncan for a quick shot. Against bad defenses in January, the Spurs will pick up a couple of easy buckets this way, but deep into the postseason, the Spurs usually will have to put in a little more work.


Whoa! There's a lot going on here!

Very true, so let's break down what each of our chess pieces is doing on the board:

• Tony Parker: Rarely do the Spurs get that easy give-and-go mentioned above, so when Parker dishes the ball off in Picture 1, he dives to the basket, but ultimately clears through, then loops around to the wing on the weak side.
• Tim Duncan: If Duncan isn't fed the ball down low on the right block, he'll use a cross screen along the baseline provided by the Spurs' other wing player (2/3), then set up on the opposite block.
• 4/5 (Boris Diaw, Tiago Splitter, Matt Bonner, DeJuan Blair): The big man who isn't Duncan sets up at the top of the floor, where he'll receive a pass from the wing, then keep the ball moving by dishing it off to Parker once Parker has cleared through. When he dishes the ball off, our 4/5 man will then set a down screen for 2/3, once 2/3 has finished setting that aforementioned cross screen for Duncan. After setting that down screen, 4/5 will head over to the right block vacated by Duncan. On the rare occasion Bonner is the guy at the top of the floor and his defender is elsewhere, he can fire away. But generally, this is merely a transit point for the ball between the strong and weak sides fo the floor.
• 2/3 (Ginobili, Leonard, Green, Jackson, Neal): As mentioned above, 2/3 has two jobs: setting that cross-screen for Duncan, then looping back to the perimeter courtesy of a down screen from the big man.

When this cycle of events is over, the ball is back in Parker's hands on the other side of the floor. Duncan may or may not have a mismatch on the left block, depending on how the defense dealt with that cross screen.

The carousel has slowed down a bit, and Parker has a few options:

• Feed Duncan on the left block, six words that have yielded four championships. Duncan might have a mismatch or have his man sealed off. Whatever the case, Duncan one-on-one in the low post is never a lousy consolation prize.
• Kick it over to 2/3. It's difficult to capture the choreography with still diagrams, but 2/3 will often be buzzing at warp speed with his defender trailing in hot pursuit. If there's ample separation and Parker can hit 2/3 on the move, this can either serve as a catch-stop-and-pop midrange jumper, or 2/3 can keep moving and attack.
• Move into a pick-and-roll with Duncan on the left side. If you're the San Antonio Spurs, there are worse things than a Parker-Duncan two-man game on the left side of the floor with the defense still catching up to all the movement.

The responsibility now lies with Parker and Duncan to make the call. If Duncan moves off the block to set a ball screen for Parker, we move on ...

The final resort of the Spurs' signature set looks like the first strike from most teams -- a simple angle pick-and-roll on the left side with a variety of drive-and-dish options for Parker. He can deliver a bounce pass to Duncan on the move (or a quick dish if Duncan pops, which is increasingly the case these days). Otherwise, Parker can hit the other big man on a duck-in beneath the weakside glass or kick the ball out to either of his wings on the perimeter.

Parker recorded a career-high 28.4 assist rate this season, far and away the best mark of his career. How did he do that at age 29? By become fluent in situations like these. It takes years to master an intricate offense, even for the most instinctive players. There's a reason we see veteran teams executing best in the playoffs. It's because this stuff is tricky! Running a sophisticated offense requires tens of thousands of possessions in repetition over several seasons with the same guys.

There was a time when Parker couldn't see or wouldn't respond to all the options in the Spurs' offense. He didn't arrive in the league with the vision of Chris Paul or Steve Nash. It took several seasons and some tough love from Popovich, but Parker has arrived in full.

And that's how you build the league's No. 1 offense.

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Information in this post was provided by mySynergy Sports.com.

Coming off a pair of 1st-Round sweeps, the Oklahoma City Thunder and San Antonio Spurs are each on the front end of series against teams coming off a seven-game series.

The Thunder had eight days off prior to their 29-point demolition of the Los Angeles Lakers (one day of rest) on Monday. The Spurs, who will have had seven days off, open their series Tuesday against the Los Angeles Clippers (one day of rest).

Is it possible for a team to have too much time off between series? At what point does "rest" lend itself to "rust"? If recent history is any indication, "rust" is overrated.

Over the last 15 seasons, teams with at least seven days off are now a perfect 6-0 against teams with just a single day to recover. What's shocking might not be the perfect 6-0 record, but the fact that the games haven't even been close.

The average margin of victory in those six games is nearly 25 points per game. The only one of those six games to be decided by single digits was Game 1 of last year's Western Conference Finals in which the Dallas Mavericks beat the Thunder by nine after leading by as many as 16 in the fourth quarter.

Just how important is that extra day of rest for the team with the quick turnaround? Whereas teams with a week off are perfect when their opponents have just a single day to recover, they are just 5-7 when their opponents have two or more days of rest while averaging 23.5 fewer points per game.

The Elias Sports Bureau tells us that over the last 10 years, there were six series played between one team coming off a sweep and the other off a seven-game series. Five of those six series were won by the team coming off the sweep, with the lone exception being the Orlando Magic's elimination of the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2009 Eastern Conference Finals.

Clippers-Spurs Key Notes

- The team that wins Game 1 of a seven-game series goes on to win 78.2 percent of the time (337-94, including the 1st Round this year).

- This is their first-ever meeting in the postseason.

- The Spurs are 26-2 at home against the Clippers since drafting Tim Duncan. The .929 win percentage is tied for their third-best at home against any team over that span (27-0 vs Golden State Warriors; 14-0 vs Atlanta Hawks).

- To say these teams have differing levels of success in the postseason would be a drastic understatement. Despite being in the NBA for six fewer seasons, the Spurs have more NBA titles (four) than the Clippers have series wins (three). The Spurs have more than four times as many series wins (34) as the Clippers have playoff appearances (eight).

- Much of the focus will be on the matchup between Chris Paul (third in MVP voting) and Tony Parker (fifth in MVP voting). The two have faced off seven times in the postseason, with Parker winning four times. Paul has enjoyed the statistical advantage, averaging 23.7 points per game and 10.7 assists per game (19.4 PPG, 5.7 APG for Parker).

Statistical support for this story given by NBA.com.

With more than their share of 30-somethings, the San Antonio Spurs may not seem like a logical choice to have the best transition offense in the league. But after running the NBA's most effective transition attack in the regular season, the Spurs took their full-court game to another level in their sweep of the Utah Jazz in the first round of the NBA playoffs.

San Antonio scored 19.8 points per game in transition against Utah, an increase of nearly four points per game from its regular-season average. And the Spurs pinpoint shooting when on the break (62.2 percent from the floor) allowed them to average 1.30 points per play in transition, an increase from their NBA-best 1.24 transition points per play in the regular season.

But it isn't solely fast-break offense that has San Antonio in the Western Conference semifinals for the 12th time in 15 seasons. The Spurs dominated the Jazz from the 3-point line as well, making 33 3-pointers to the Jazz's nine during the series. While San Antonio made 41 percent of its 3-pointers in the first round, the Jazz shot just 20 percent from 3-point territory, including an 0-13 performance Monday that was the Jazz's worst from beyond the arc in the regular season or postseason since Game 4 of the 2008 Western Conference first round vs. the Houston Rockets.

When a team performs as well as the Spurs did both on the run and from 3-point territory, it's not surprising that they often win by a substantial margin. San Antonio outscored Utah by 64 points in the first round, its second-best point differential ever in a playoff series, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. The Spurs outscored the Denver Nuggets by 67 (664-597) in the 1983 Western Conference semifinals.

Elias also tells us that it's the Spurs' sixth postseason sweep since Tim Duncan's rookie season in 1997-98. Only the Los Angeles Lakers, with seven, have more in that span. For the Jazz, it's the second straight playoff series they've failed to win a game after being swept by the Lakers in the 2010 Western Conference semifinals. Utah's eight-game postseason losing streak is the longest in franchise history.

The least profitable death pool in history might be the one that aims to predict the demise of the San Antonio Spurs. It's been a decade-long exercise that accelerates with each injury to Manu Ginobili, every trade rumor that has Tony Parker being shipped off and every moment when Tim Duncan seems like he might finally succumb to the hands of time. Even those who appreciate the Spurs' longevity and don't care that a lot of fans find the team uninteresting whisper every fall that it might be time to blow the whole thing up, lest San Antonio risk descending into small-market purgatory with an aging core.

Then, while everyone is placing bets on their collapse and is distracted by the league's shiny new objects or sexy sideshows, the Spurs quietly get to work. As the rest of the world has been wrapped up in the Linsanity over the past two weeks, the Spurs have ripped off a 10-game winning streak out of plain view. As metaphors go, the contrast couldn't be more poetic. Lin breathed life into a team in a death spiral, whereas the Spurs never require any rescue missions. Their mode of consistency is every bit as certain as Lin's explosion was improbable. In a league dominated by spectacle, the Spurs toil in anonymity.

On Saturday afternoon, San Antonio notched that 10th consecutive victory with a 103-100 overtime win against the Los Angeles Clippers at Staples Center. The victory was bizarre, practically gifted to the Spurs when the Clippers botched an inbounds pass leading by three points with only 9.5 seconds remaining in regulation. The ball landed, serendipitously, in Gary Neal's hands. Neal squared up at the top of the circle, and sent the game into overtime with a 3-pointer.

Despite the strange circumstances, the win was, in many ways, a trademark Spurs performance -- workmanlike and predicated on systematic precision. When Tony Parker wasn't penetrating, he was buzzing around twin baseline screens to tip the balance of the Clippers' defense that was run ragged by the Spurs' ball movement. The Clippers have had success recently switching their big men onto ball handlers in the pick-and-roll, but the Spurs have made a living turning the tables on less experienced opponents. San Antonio sniffed out the Clippers' defensive game plan and made a mockery of it. Parker generated three scores in fewer than two minutes toying with backpedaling Clippers forwards.

The game's most pivotal possession came in overtime when, once again, the Clippers switched on a Parker-Duncan pick-and-roll. With Chris Paul now guarding Duncan on the left block, the Clippers sent a full platoon of help defenders to buffer their diminutive point guard. Duncan has been reading double- and triple-teams for an eternity from the post. All it took was a zippy baseline pass to Gary Neal in the weakside corner for a 3-pointer that put the Spurs up 101-98 with 25.4 seconds to play.

San Antonio has been prospering on its core competence for nearly a generation, but rarely receives anything but a groan from rabid NBA fans outside central Texas. Stylists bemoan the Spurs' adherence to fundamentals as boring and a betrayal of the league's new era of supreme athleticism. The Spurs foiled the Suns squad that was everyone's second-favorite team during the Seven Seconds or Less regime, denying the basketball world a new championship paradigm, and have never been forgiven.

The Spurs' critics loathe that Duncan has stubbornly clung to a monastic public persona. His on-court success is rarely punctuated with an expression of any sort, and the only time he gets excited is when the NBA offices decree that he must go business casual with a sportcoat when sidelined. Ginobili was booed during introductions on Saturday in Los Angeles, presumably for his flopping. Parker is a point guard every bit as dynamic as the league's supernovas, but is rarely claimed by the cool kids. Then there's Popovich, who openly flouts the league's rugged schedule each season by resting his stars at will, denying the ticket-paying public the as-advertised product.

All the while, the Spurs chug ahead, staving off mortality. In a league where coaches operate in fear, a meticulous Popovich wins games choreographing sets that rely on execution rather than one-on-one play. The front office plucks an all-world backcourt of Parker and Ginobili in the NBA draft with the 28th and 57th picks respectively. Lesser players become greater ones by subscribing to a system built on leveraging the strengths of those who have few. Coaches around the league have appropriated Popovich's greatest hits. Watch Philadelphia and others run the "Motion Weak" set, which the Spurs rode to their most recent titles. See team after team run a wedge play fashioned by the Spurs for Duncan to free up their own power forwards. Imitation might be the most sincere form of flattery, but few teams can approximate the Spurs' sturdiness.

On Sunday, the NBA will be enraptured by Jeremy Lin and the Knicks as they host Dallas at America's basketball cathedral. More than 1,500 miles away at the AT&T Center, the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo will feature a Donkey & Mule Show as the Spurs soldier on to Salt Lake City, where they'll continue their nine-game road trip in obscurity -- respected by many, but unloved by most.

A snapshot look at an abbreviated NBA schedule on Thursday:

Lakers win, but it wasn’t easy
The Los Angeles Lakers won one the hard way in Boston.

The Lakers went 1-for-15 (6.7 percent) from 3-point range in their overtime win over the Boston Celtics. The last time they shot worse than that and won on the road was on December 16, 1999 (won at Atlanta, 95-88, despite going 0-5).

The Lakers have won four straight games in Boston, the last three by one point, and the last two coming in overtime.

Kobe Bryant snapped a streak of three straight games in which he shot under 40 percent from the field (he was 11-for-24 in this one) and scored 27 points.

Kevin Garnett, who was 19-for-27 from the field in his last 2 games, was 6-for-23 in this one. As noted in the Daily Dime, the 17 misses were his most in a game since December, 2004.

Feat of the Night
Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry scored 36 points while going 13-17 (77 percent) from the field.

A check of Basketball-Reference.com shows that the last Warriors player to shoot that well and score that many points was center Rony Seikaly on December 30, 1994. Seikaly totaled 38 points on 12-14 (86 percent) from the field in a loss at the Mavericks.

Also of note: Steve Nash had his 12th game this season of at least 10 points and 10 assists. At age 38, leads the NBA in 10/10 games, with one more than 21-year-old Ricky Rubio and 27-year-old Deron Williams.

Streakbusters
Kevin Garnett and Tim Duncan had their streaks of 14 and 13 consecutive All-Star selections come to an end when they were not picked to the All-Star team on Thursday.

The Golden State Warriors extended their streak of consecutive seasons without an All-Star selection to 14. Their last All-Star representative was Latrell Sprewell in 1996-1997.

Plus-Minus Note of the Night
The Houston Rockets won again with their bench in a 96-89 win over the Phoenix Suns.
Each of the five Rockets starters had a plus-minus of -13 or worse. But all five subs that head coach Kevin McHale used finished with a +17 or better.

Reserve point guard Goran Dragic was a +27 against his former team, the best plus-minus tally of his 232-game career. He finished with 11 points and tied a career high with 11 assists.

This was the second straight big game for the Rockets bench, which scored a season-high 66 points in a win over the Portland Trail Blazers on Wednesday.

Kevin Durant showed himself to be the ultimate scoring option for the Oklahoma City Thunder in their dramatic win over the Dallas Mavericks on Thursday night.

Here’s a rundown of some of our noteworthy research nuggets from his buzzer-beating shot, the first in the NBA this season.

• It was the third game-winning buzzer-beater for the Thunder since the team moved to Oklahoma City, the seventh by the franchise in the last 10 seasons.

Durant's others came on Nov. 16, 2007 against the Hawks and Jan. 22, 2011 against the Knicks. His three game-winning buzzer-beaters since the start of the 2007-08 season are tied for the most in the NBA in that span.

• It’s only the second come-from-behind such shot for the Thunder in that span (meaning the shot came while trailing in the game), the other being Jeff Green’s against the Warriors on Jan. 21, 2009.

• Durant is the fourth player in the last 30 seasons to start a season by scoring at least 30 points in his team's first four games. He joins elite company, as noted in the chart on the right.

• In the last four seasons, Durant has 101 games in which he scored at least 30 points, the most in the NBA in that span.

• Video review shows that Durant has opened the season by making 9 of 18 shots in catch-and-shoot situations. Last season, Durant shot 43 percent on catch-and-shoots, fifth-best on his own team.

• Through four games, Durant has scored 125 points. The other starters for Oklahoma City have combined to score 135 points.

• This is the fourth game-winning buzzer-beating 3-pointer for the Thunder/SuperSonics franchise in the last 10 seasons. That matches the most of any team in that time period, tied with the Wizards, Kings, Knicks and Lakers.

• The last NBA regular-season game with two go-ahead 3-pointers with less than three seconds remaining also involved Durant and the Thunder.

It was Jan. 2, 2009 (Nuggets at Thunder), when Kevin Durant hit a 3-pointer with 2.7 seconds left to put the Thunder ahead before Carmelo Anthony hit a 3-pointer with 0.1 seconds left to give the Nuggets the win.

The Thunder had four wins after that game as well. The loss made them 4-30 for the season.

• The Mavericks lost on a buzzer-beating shot for the second straight season (Arron Afflalo beat them last February). Prior to Afflalo’s shot, the Mavericks went three seasons without allowing a buzzer-beater.

• The buzzer-beater may not have happened had the Mavericks made some of their easier shots early in the quarter. Dallas was 0-for-9 in the paint in the final 12 minutes of the game.

• The loss dropped the Mavericks to 0-3, making them the second defending champion to start a season 0-3. The Elias Sports Bureau notes that the other is the 1969-70 Boston Celtics, the season after Bill Russell retired.

Other statistical highlights
Howard dominates
Dwight Howard finished with 24 rebounds Thursday versus the Nets, two shy of his career high.

It was his 49th career 20-rebound game, the most among active players.

Plus-Minus Note of the Night
The San Antonio Spurs were outscored by 28 points with Tim Duncan on the floor on Thursday night.

His minus-28 is the third-worst plus-minus he's had in any regular-season game in his career, surpassed by a pair of minus-29 games against the Lakers (in the 2003-04 and 2010-11 seasons).

In a couple of weeks, we'll start hearing the inevitable chatter about hot seats in the NBA. The formula for who rides the hot seat is pretty reliable. The coach's team has underperformed and his critics believe he has been given ample time to succeed. His contract can't be too onerous because most teams don't enjoy subsidizing the salaries of broadcast commentators, which is the landing spot for many departed coaches.

There's a certain allure to death pools and elimination reality shows, but there are far more interesting sideshows this season than the guillotine. Some of the coaching ranks’ highest achievers have fascinating challenges in front of them:

Tom Thibodeau, Chicago Bulls
Challenge: Use the Bulls' ball-moving big men
Among the unintended consequences of winning 62 games and coach of the year in your inaugural season as a head coach are the expectations that bubble to the surface in Season 2. That's Thibodeau's burden as the Bulls try to topple the Heat for the East's crown.

The Bulls' defense can't get much better than it was in 2010-11, but their offense finished the season as the league's 12th-most efficient. Derrick Rose is a domineering point guard who thrives in isolation and in high pick-and-rolls, so it's tempting to leave well enough alone and allow the MVP to do his thing. But there's something missing from the Bulls' half-court offense, deficiencies that became glaring against Miami (and at times, against Atlanta and Indiana) last spring.

The Bulls' personnel is simply too skilled, too versatile and too big not to finish as a top-10 offense. In Carlos Boozer and Joakim Noah, the Bulls feature two of the best and smartest passing big men in the game. Their ability to create opportunities out of the high post should give the Bulls a ton of options. Then there's Rip Hamilton, Ronnie Brewer and Luol Deng -- three wings who have the capacity to run a combined 25 miles of cuts, curls and flares over the course of a game.

With a team populated with this combination of talent, there's really no excuse for stagnation. Can the Bulls find their groove this season?

Gregg Popovich, San Antonio Spurs
Challenge: Life in a world in which Tim Duncan doesn't warrant a double-team
There's still no better technician in basketball than Popovich, and last season's 62-win regular season was a testimonial to that.

So much of what the Spurs have been running over the past decade or so revolves around the Spurs' guards looking for Duncan on the block early and late in sets. Traditionally, defenses have been so attuned to Duncan's presence that either A) they end up leaving seams through which Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili can glide to the rim or B) they front Duncan, which leaves the back door open or C) they're forced to double-team Duncan on the block, which opens up clean looks on the perimeter for the Spurs' snipers.

The Spurs have been adjusting to a world in which Duncan's rim rum, deep seal and quick spin no longer compose the league's most deadly attack, and haven't missed a beat. They finished second in offensive efficiency last season by putting more of a premium on spacing and creating double gaps for dribble penetration. Watching that process continue this season will make for compelling basketball.

Erik Spoelstra, Miami Heat
Challenge: Keeping the faith
There isn't a coach in the NBA who took a more sober look at his playbook during the offseason than Spoelstra.

As narrated by Tom Haberstroh last week, the Heat's cerebral head coach went on a coaching tour that included a couple of visits with the architect of the Oregon Ducks' spread offense -- which is played on the gridiron. Take that spread offense, add a few parts Rick Adelman and a dash of John Calipari, and you have the Heat's new high-octane offense that has racked up a scintillating 207 possessions in two games against slow-pokes Dallas and Boston.

The Heat's early success must be liberating for Spoelstra, as his team has taken to the change in philosophy like pigs in slop. Spoelstra is one of the league's most resourceful coaches -- a coach whose strength has always been preparation, precision and tactical strategy. But what happens if the Heat struggle?

Spoelstra thrives on order, and might be tempted to impose a little of it on his team. The trick for him will be finding that equilibrium between structure and freedom, a place where the Heat can still exploit teams with speed and athleticism but have a sense of purpose when the game situation demands it. That will mean remaining faithful to the principles of pace and space and keeping his foot off the break -- but also figuring out how to slip wrinkles into the offense so that it doesn't fly off the rails.

• Owning an NBA team might not be as miserable as some make it sound. University of Chicago economist Kevin Murphy, who is consulting the players union, speaks about the glory of equity in an interview with NBA.com's Steve Aschburner: "There are a couple of things that are really attractive. One is, historically, you’ve seen franchises appreciate in value and that appreciation has more than outstripped any cash-flow losses that you’ve had. And if you’re in the right tax position, it’s actually pretty good because you’ve got a tax loss annually on your operating and you’ve got a capital gain at the end that you accumulate untaxed until you sell it and then pay at a lower rate. So you get a deferred tax treatment on the gains and an immediate tax treatment on the losses, that’s not a bad deal."
• The Milwaukee Bucks never stop working, but they're fundamentally a poor offensive club. If that's going to change, an inefficient Brandon Jennings will need to improve his shot from long-range, learn how to draw some fouls and figure out how to finish.
• A legal battle between Michael Beasley, his former agent and an AAU power broker grows uglier. Beasley's third-party complaint against Curtis Malone, his old AAU coach, reads: "In summary, Third-Party Defendant, in concert with [Bell Sports, Inc.] corrupted every mechanism of honest guidance Beasley had in his life to assist him to pursue the best NBA agent available, which seriously deprived Beasley, both economically and otherwise." Dan Wetzel of Yahoo! Sports has more.
• Do you remember whom the Trail Blazers got for Sam Bowie in 1989? He wasn't Michael Jordan, but a very, very nice piece nonetheless.
• The sale of the Atlanta Hawks to Alex Meruelo might be on the verge of collapsing because Meruelo doesn't have sufficient resources. How was Meruelo going to finance the sale? By borrowing from the sellers. There's mounting evidence that this a lousy template for the sale of a big-league sports franchise. We present the Los Angeles Dodgers as Exhibit A, but there are others.
• In a piece that cites the $33.5 million in public funds the city of Indianapolis coughed up to the Pacers (termed a "forgivable loan"), but makes no mention of the nearly identical amount the team paid to Mike Dunleavy Jr., T.J. Ford, James Posey and Jeff Foster in 2010-11, Anthony Schoettle of the Indianapolis Business Journal tells Pacers fans to root for the owners in CBA negotiations.
• Even those who want fewer games on the NBA schedule feel the quality of play suffered during compressed 1998-99 season. Was the frenzied, abbreviated free agency period that followed the settlement also a factor? Kelly Dwyer of Ball Don't Lie: "The 1998 free agent class, in terms of sheer numbers, was the largest ever; and instead of 29 teams taking their time as they worked through the hundreds that were available, the league and its players were forced to take fewer than three weeks to figure out where about half its workforce was going to play for the next few years." The free agency and player movement blitz that will be launched by a resolution is going to be a blast for NBA fans. General managers will have to recruit, react, pivot, hedge and react again in a split second. Is that a good thing? When you're staffing an office or choosing where you want to work or go to school, is your process better served with a careful evaluation of the candidates or a close consideration of how you think you'll fit in? Or is everyone better off by rushing into partnership? Which model do we think produces better personnel decisions?
• No arguments whatsoever with J.J. Redick's food trinity.
• Evan Turner learns that pet ownership isn't always what it's cracked up to be.
• This could be a fun artistic exercise for Heat haters and lovers alike.
• A.C.L tears: not just for pro athletes and aging amateurs anymore.
• Trey Kerby of TBJ pays a visit to 48 Minutes of Hell to talk about Tim Duncan, Matt Bonner and wedding parties on the 4-Down podcast.
• Riot police and demonstrators clash outside the Oakland apartment of Ethan Sherwood Strauss of Hoopspeak. His account of Wednesday night's events is full of nuanced imagery and observation -- and also this: "A certain neuroses prevents me from subsuming my personality into any collective emotion. It’s rooted more in an intense fear of getting manipulated than any grand, righteous code."

He's done it 11 times in his regular-season career, but just once before in the playoffs until Sunday. With 27 points, 13 rebounds and 15 assists, Chris Paul recorded his second career triple-double in the postseason.

The Elias Sports Bureau tells us Paul joined Hall-of-Famer Oscar Robertson as the only players with 25 points, 10 rebounds and 15 assists in a playoff game. Robertson accomplished that feat twice, once in 1962 against the Detroit Pistons and again in 1964 against the Philadelphia 76ers. Paul was also a perfect 11-11 from the free throw line, something Robertson did too in that 1964 game when he was 12-12 on free throws.

It's just the sixth triple-double in the postseason against the Lakers in the past 20 seasons. Paul joins Rajon Rondo, Tim Duncan, Steve Francis and Jason Kidd, who did it twice. Paul has 60 points, 20 rebounds and 29 assists in the Hornets' two wins this series, coming within three rebounds of a triple-double in Game 1.

Although all five Lakers starters scored in double figures, none had more than 17 points. Kobe Bryant led the team with 17 points, but all came after halftime. It was the first time since May 25, 2004 that Bryant failed to score in any half in a postseason game. Kobe was 0-7 from the floor in the first half and finished 5-18 for the game. He made just 23 percent of his shots from beyond 10 feet and was 0-3 from 3-point range.

Another story of the game was second-chance points. The Hornets had 20 while the Lakers had four.

The Hornets have won 11 of their last 14 home playoff games dating back to 2004, but have never won a playoff series that went to at least six games. Meanwhile, the Lakers are 25-8 all-time when tied 2-2 in a best-of-seven series.

First ever playoff victory (check). First ever home playoff win (check). First ever playoff series victory…not quite yet. However after the Memphis Grizzlies defeated the San Antonio Spurs they moved one step closer to accomplishing that goal as they took a 2-1 series lead.

The Grizzlies are just the seventh No. 8 seed to be up 2-1 in a series since the playoffs expanded to 16 teams during the 1983-84 campaign. This is only the third time its happened since the first round expanded to a seven-game series in the 2003 playoffs.

Memphis still has some work to do though as of the six different No. 8 seeds to lead a series 2-1, only two of them went on to win the series.

Still the Grizzlies now have proven they can beat the Spurs in the playoffs with Manu Ginobili in the lineup. In fact it was Ginobili who had the ball in his hands at the end of the game with a chance to tie, but was unable to even get a shot off.

Much like its Game 1 victory, Memphis was led by their frontcourt tandem of Zach Randolph (25 points) and Marc Gasol (17). The duo combined for 42 of the teams' 91 points, and outscored their counterparts Tim Duncan (13) and Antonio McDyess (8) by 21 points.

In the two wins for the Grizzlies this series, Randolph and Gasol have outscored Duncan and McDyess 91-to-40. However in the Grizzlies Game 2 loss the duo combined for just 23 points, only outscoring Duncan and McDyess by two.

Looking ahead to Game 4, the Spurs may have found a better way to match up with the Grizzlies front court, particularly Randolph.

After Randolph scored 14 points (6-11 FG) against McDyess and DeJuan Blair in the first half, Duncan shifted over to guard the Memphis forward for much of the final two quarters.

He held Randolph to seven points in the second half, helping the Spurs make up a nine-point halftime deficit before falling by three.

Like they did in Game 1, the Spurs struggled to make jump-shots in Game 3. San Antonio was tied for fourth in the NBA during the regular season, making 40.2 percent of its jump shots. In its two losses this series, the Spurs were held to just 30.8 percent.

Credit Memphis for closing out on shooters in the series as the Grizzlies allowed opponents to make 38.8 percent of jump-shots in the regular season, tied for 16th in the NBA.

The Grizzlies defenders really bothered the Spurs on three-point field goals as they went just 2-for-15 from beyond the arc in Game 3. During the regular season the Spurs were the NBA's best three-point shooting team making 39.7 percent of their attempts.

After opening up the playoffs with a 46-point, 19-rebound performance and a loss, Dwight Howard put together another monster game scoring 33 points and grabbing 19 rebounds as the Orlando Magic defeated the Atlanta Hawks to even the series.

According to Elias, Howard is just the third different player since 1988 to have 75 points and 35 rebounds in the first two games of a postseason series. The only others to do so were Shaquille O'Neal, who did it twice (2000 vs Pacers, 2001 vs Kings) and Hakeem Olajuwon (1988 vs Mavericks).

It was Howard's fourth 30-point, 15-rebound game in the playoffs since 2007. That ties his with Tim Duncan for the most in the NBA during that span. In fact Dirk Nowitzki is the only other player to record multiple such games since 2007, having done so twice.

Howard started off tonight's game slowly. He had six touches in the post in the first quarter, but was only able to turn that into two points. Instead the Hawks interior pressure forced him into four turnovers.

Howard exploded in the second period scoring 20 points, his playoff career high for a quarter. He did most of his damage from the free throw line, making 10-of-13 attempts.

As Howard went Orlando went, as they turned a six-point first quarter deficit into a 12-point halftime lead. They were able to turn it around thanks to their dedication on the offensive glass which created opportunities on a night where they would shoot only 34.6 percent.

On the season the Magic ranked 16th out of 30 teams in offensive rebound percentage, grabbing 26.1 of its missed shots. On Tuesday, game tape showed the Magic grabbed 43.5 percent, their fourth highest mark of the season.

The scary thing for the Hawks, who will take the series back to Atlanta tied 1-1, is that the Magic have yet to make there three-point field goals.

Orlando, who attempted more three-pointers than any NBA team this season, was able to steal this game despite shooting only 21.7 percent from three-point range.

During the regular season Orlando was just 6-13 when shooting under 30 percent from three. Through the first two games of the series Orlando is shooting just 24.4 percent from three.

For a team that shot 36.6 percent from behind the arc on the season it can only get better from here, meaning the Hawks could be in for a long series.

The NBA playoff picture became a little clearer after Wednesday’s action. Three of the eight spots in the Eastern Conference are locked up: the Orlando Magic will be the No. 4 seed, the Atlanta Hawks will be the No. 5 seed and the Indiana Pacers will be the No. 8 seed.

Yes the Pacers, who have flourished after their mid-season coaching change, clinched their first playoff appearance since 2006, when Rick Carlisle was coach and Jermaine O'Neal was their leading scorer. The Pacers clinching along with the New York Knicks clinching earlier this week means that two of the six longest active streaks without making the playoffs will end this season. The Memphis Grizzlies could become the third team to end a long postseason drought as they haven’t seen the playoffs in four seasons, but they have a tight hold on the Western Conference's No. 8 seed.

Speaking of the Knicks, they are now just one win away from clinching their first .500 season since 2000-01. The nine-year drought is the longest in franchise history and longest active streak in the NBA.

There were a few more clinchings on Wednesday and they all came from out West.

The San Antonio Spurs clinched the West's No. 1 seed after the Los Angeles Lakers fell to the Golden State Warriors. During the Tim Duncan-era the Spurs have held the No. 1 seed five times including this season. On three of those occasions the Spurs have at least made the Conference Finals and twice have taken home the NBA title. On Wednesday, the Spurs also became the first team this season to reach 60 wins. It is the fourth 60-win season in team history and third since drafting Duncan in 1997. The only other teams with three 60-win seasons in that span are the Lakers and Dallas Mavericks (three each).

The Oklahoma City Thunder clinched the Northwest Division title for the first time since 2005 when they were the Seattle SuperSonics and Ray Allen was their leading scorer.

The New Orleans Hornets defeated the Houston Rockets and clinched a playoff spot for the third time in the last four years. The victory moved the Hornets into sixth place in the West, ahead of the Portland Trail Blazers by a tiebreaker and one game ahead of the Grizzlies.

And finally, the Miami Heat suffered a five-point loss to the Milwaukee Bucks, but LeBron James reached a personal milestone in the defeat. James eclipsed the 2,000-point mark for the seventh straight season. Every other NBA player who has scored 2,000 points in seven or more seasons is in the Basketball Hall of Fame. The only season James failed to reach 2,000 points was his rookie season (2003-04).

Earlier this season, James notched 500 assists and tonight joined Oscar Robertson as the only players with six seasons of at least 2,000 points, 500 rebounds and 500 assists. In fact, only six players have ever recorded even one such season.