Can Thunder, Grizzlies top that?

May 11, 2011  ·  10:20AM

OKLAHOMA CITY – Every player in the Thunder locker room is weary.

The Lakers and Spurs are out.

Every last man on the Grizzlies roster is exhausted.

The Magic and Knicks are gone.

Go ahead. Try to tell us what’s going to happen next.

Conventional wisdom, not to mention statistics provided by Elias Sports Bureau, says Oklahoma City is now in control, because in series tied at 2-2, the team that won Game 4 prevailed 73.9 percent of the time in the past.

But what does that past have to do with the Thunder blowing a 16-point lead in the third quarter of Game 3 and losing to the Grizzlies in overtime? What does the past have to do with the Grizzlies blowing an 18-point lead in the first half and coming back from being 10 points down with five minutes left in regulation of Game 4? What does the past have anything to do with all of the insanity that happened through three mind-bending overtimes?

“I’ve kind of always felt like momentum isn’t a real thing. It’s not a tangible thing,” Thunder forward Nick Collison said. “I think the way this series has gone, you just have to come out and play each game.

“We’ve played great and we’ve played terrible in this series at different times. So we know that we’re capable of winning and we’re capable of dropping a game. Our mindset is we have to be ready to play in Game 5. I’m sure theirs is the same way. The stuff that happened in the past isn’t going to matter.”

If this is a so-called chess match, then the grand masters on the benches are out of moves. Lionel Hollins went small with his Grizzlies. Scott Brooks went small with his Thunder. Hollins went big. Brooks went big. In Game 4, they went until just short of 1 a.m. in what practically became an all-night pick-up game.

 

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Dwight Howard=Key To Lakers’ Future?

May 11, 2011  ·  10:10AM

LOS ANGELES – If there is a rift between Dwight Howard and Orlando’s hometown newspaper and it somehow leads to Howard’s eye wandering this way come free agency in 2012, basketball fans here in Southern California already have the welcome routine down.

As both Howard, writers at the Orlando Sentinel and anyone else that knows anything about the history of the league have already pointed out, this wouldn’t be the first time a Magic superstar center has packed up and relocated to Hollywood. (Shaquille O’Neal‘s how-to-bolt-and-win-titles-in-LA pamphlet is available on Amazon.com.)

As we documented here before, one enterprising Orlando fan already has taken a proactive approach to prevent any kind of Howard exodus with the StayDwight.com campaign.

But if something as simple as Howard’s testy tweet from the other day …

Y does it seem like the writers of Orlando sentinel are tryna push me out of Orlando with dumb articles. It’s annoying. Can I enjoy my summer and get ready for next season in Orlando. Pls. Same thing u guys did to Shaq. Smh

… can set off the sort of firestorm that it did, the next 10-12 months will be a living nightmare for Magic fans worried that Howard will bolt for the big stage that this city provides.

Lakers’ fans are licking their wounds after having their three-peat bid swept away by the Dallas Mavericks in the Western Conference finals, so they need something to feel good about. They need to believe that bigger and better days are ahead now that the Phil Jackson era is over. They need to believe in the dream of Howard in purple and gold. They need to believe that he is the key to their future.

And make no mistake about it, the buzz is real. People won’t stop talking about him out here. I got into a heated debate yesterday with an L.A. native who insisted that not only does it make sense for Howard to pick up where Shaq left off, but that Howard (like every other player in the league) “loves LA, is interested in buying a house here and wants to be a Laker.”

He believed what he was saying so wholeheartedly that he almost had me convinced that what he said was true.

 

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Pluses and Minuses Off the Bench

May 11, 2011  ·  9:58AM

MIAMI – O.J. Mayo is supposed to be a member of the Indiana Pacers right now. But a trade-deadline swap of Mayo for Josh McRoberts and a first-round pick was submitted to the league a few minutes late. That meant Mayo remained in Memphis and was back in the Grizzlies’ rotation after the deadline.

And now, in the playoffs, Mayo has been a critical contributor for his team. Coming off the bench, Mayo ranks seventh in raw postseason plus-minus, helping the Grizz outscore their opponents by 65 points in his 266 minutes on the floor.

In the conference semifinals, Mayo ranks tops among non-Mavs in raw plus-minus at plus-36 in 131 minutes. Though he’s shot just 40 percent from the field in four games against the Thunder, the Grizzlies have been especially potent offensively with Mayo on the floor.

On the other side of the spectrum we have the Celtics’ Glen Davis — a major postseason contributor in playoffs past — who has been in a serious funk in these playoffs. Boston is in a 3-1 hole against Miami in part because their bench has been ineffective. The Celtics are actually outscoring the Heat by 13 points when their four All-Stars (Paul Pierce, Rajon Rondo, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen) are all on the floor.

But Davis is a minus-33 in 77 minutes in this series, which is the second-worst plus-minus mark among non-Lakers in the conference semifinals. In particular, the Celtics have been awful defensively with Davis on the floor.

 

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Doc may take a timeout

May 11, 2011  ·  9:58AM

MIAMI – Maybe, with Kendrick Perkins in the middle and Rajon Rondo with two healthy elbows, the Heat would be facing elimination tonight instead of the Celtics.

As it is, Boston is staring at three wins to stay alive, a tough task, and keeping Doc Rivers as coach, tougher still.

As ESPNBoston.com writer Peter May pointed out, Rivers could be coaching his last game on the Celtics bench tonight, and it is the rare example where a coach would leave on his own free will. Really, now: When’s the last time a playoff team begged a coach (besides Phil Jackson) to stay, and offered him millions, and the coach said no thanks I’d rather take some time off? And be better off for it, in the long run?

Yes, this is a wonderfully unique situation Rivers finds himself in. He almost left last summer, but after speaking with his family, decided to return for this, the final year of his deal. Rather than accept an extension, Rivers said he will have another pow-wow with his folks first, and I suspect the conclusion will be quite different this time.

If you’re Rivers, why return to the Celtics? They’re a good organization, make no mistake. But in the big picture, a break will do Rivers better. He can make up for half his income by doing TV, and Rivers is terrific behind the mic or in the studio. He can allow his batteries to recharge. He can watch his son, Austin, play as a freshman at Duke and his youngest child, Spencer, finish up high school. He can allow the NBA owners and the union to hammer out a labor contract first, which could change the dynamics of certain teams.

And then: He can become the hottest free agent coach in recent years, if not in history.

 

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Forman thrilled by ‘team’ Exec award

May 10, 2011  ·  7:42PM

CHICAGO – Pat Riley, president of the Miami Heat, “won” the biggest free-agent bonanza in NBA history when he got LeBron James and Chris Bosh to sign with his team, while getting Dwyane Wade to re-up rather than leave. Gar Forman, general manager of the Chicago Bulls, went after both James and Wade, then had to turn his attention and salary-cap space to Carlos Boozer and a group of role players on the open market.

But Forman’s team managed to win the most games in the NBA (62), while producing 2010-11′s Most Valuable Player and Coach of the Year. That was good enough to earn Forman a share of the NBA Executive of the Year Award, sharing the honor with Miami’s Riley.

Forman and Riley each received 11 votes. Chicago’s vice president of basketball operations, John Paxson, was third with three votes in balloting of the 30 teams’ executives. So Forman was correct in calling it a “team award” — the Chicago front office combined for 14 votes.

His most satisfying move heading into this season? “The decision to hire [coach] Tom Thibodeau has been a grand slam,” said Forman, who has been with the Bulls for 13 seasons and moved into his current post in May 2009. “Tom has been a perfect fit for this team. Our players were dying for that type of accountability and discipline.”

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Next Mavericks Game: The Waiting Game

May 10, 2011  ·  5:26PM

DALLAS – The hottest team in the playoffs has the chance to cool off, which is bad. Or much, much more time than Opponent TBA to prep for the next series, which is good. Or both.

The Mavericks finished off the Lakers so fast that the new, enviable issue is whether Dallas will lose a great rhythm by having too much down time before facing the Thunder or Grizzlies in the Western Conference finals. That would have been the case anyway, only now Memphis and Oklahoma City are going into a couple dozen overtimes and in a 2-2 lock that makes a seven-game series seem very possible.

The Mavericks have not played since completing the Lakers sweep on Sunday and at the soonest won’t play again until a week later, the earliest the West final could start here. If Oklahoma City-Memphis goes seven, though, the next round won’t start until Tuesday night, also at American Airlines Center.

“It means we get some rest, which is good for us,” coach Rick Carlisle said when asked what 4-0 against the defending champions means for the Mavs. “The challenge now, we’ve got to manage this period of time. But I don’t see a problem with that.”

Naturally, none of the players do either.

“If I was young, I would say, ‘Yes, we need to keep playing,’ ” said Jason Kidd, the 38-year-old point guard who isn’t playing like it. “But I’m a little older now. The big thing is to rest, regroup and understand that we get to watch who we’re going to play next. Do a lot of studying and make sure we’re prepared.”

The Mavericks were off Monday and had an optional workout Tuesday, which most players attended. They go back to full practices Wednesday for the rest of the week. Meanwhile, the Thunder-Grizzlies winner will only have a one-day turnaround to ready for Dallas, either going from Game 6 of this series on Friday night to Game 1 of the West final on Sunday afternoon or Game 7 on Sunday to Game 1 on Tuesday.

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Co-Execs of Year? Need new ballot

May 10, 2011  ·  2:34PM

CHICAGO – Chicago’s Gar Forman and Miami’s Pat Riley each got 11 votes, among the 30 cast, to share the 2010-11 NBA Executive of the Year Award. But the Bulls’ John Paxson was third with three votes, one more than San Antonio’s R.C. Buford.

So are Forman and Riley really co-winners? Or did Chicago deserve the trophy by virtue of getting more votes than the Heat?

The award, voted on by executives of the league’s 30 teams, wound up with a muddled result because it remains a simple ballot in an increasingly complex world. These days, there aren’t just “general managers” who make all the personnel moves for an NBA team – there are, and have been for quite a while now, people holding a variety of titles who handle those duties, sometimes in multiples in the same front offices. The days of one-man shows like Red Auerbach making the trades, scouting prospects, scheduling flights and paying the beer vendors are ovah!

 

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Bynum Apologizes, Clears Air On Barea

May 10, 2011  ·  2:18PM

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. – Lakers center Andrew Bynum needed a couple of days to sit back and reflect on the way he finished his season before addressing the topics that the basketball world wanted to know about. But he knew immediately after watching what his forearm shiver did to Mavericks guard Jose Barea in the fourth quarter of Sunday’s Game 4 loss in Dallas that he had to step up and do the right thing.

“Before I take any questions I want to make a statement about a couple of things,” he said Tuesday morning in a cramped interview room off of the Lakers’ practice court. “I want to apologize for my actions at the start of the fourth quarter of Game 4 against Dallas. They don’t doesn’t represent me, my upbringing, this franchise or any of the Lakers’ fans out there that want to watch us and want us to succeed. More importantly, I want to apologize to J.J. Barea for doing that. I’m just glad that he wasn’t seriously injured in the event. All I can say, now that I have looked at it, and it was terrible, is it definitely won’t be happening again.”

Bynum was immediately ejected from the game. But he stripped his jersey off on his way off the floor. It was one of the most shocking moments in a shocking series that saw the two-time defending Lakers come apart as their three-year reign atop the Western Conference ended in a sweep and a 36-point beating in Game 4.

He’s been roasted here in Southern California by fans, the talking heads on sports radio and most vehemently by former Lakers greats like Magic Johnson and James Worthy, who have not held back in their disdain for his actions. Bynum offered up little defense of himself in the wake of the controversy he started with that blow to Barea’s rib cage while the 5-foot-10 point guard was in mid-air.

“After I saw it,” Bynum said again, “it was definitely embarrassing.”

The NBA agreed, suspending him for five games at the start of the next season on Tuesday and fining him another $25,00o the jersey stunt.

 

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OKC’s Westbrook gets the point

May 10, 2011  ·  11:49AM

Russell Westbrook took 33 shots Monday night, and the sun still came up Tuesday morning in Oklahoma City.

It came up, in fact, with the happy news for many that the Thunder had survived and outlasted the Grizzlies in Memphis in a grueling, tremendous, ultimately giddy 133-123 triple-overtime performance at the FedEx Forum. For a lot of OKC fans, the hour had grown too late — a 3-hour, 52-minute marathon on top of an unusually late tipoff time — so for those with early commutes, highlights and recaps might have been the way to go.

Westbrook launching 33 field-goal attempts, in and of itself, would have brought shrieks and glares from the Thunder faithful under normal circumstances, same as the 30 shots he jacked in Game 4 against Denver in the first round. But triple overtime isn’t normal circumstances. Neither is 51 minutes played, the 40 points Westbrook scored or the three turnovers — just three! — he had when his night turned to morning and, finally, ended.

This wasn’t an out-of-control Westbrook but a doing-what-it-takes effort, according to SI.com’s Chris Mannix:

The point guard’s erratic play has been a debated storyline throughout this series. But with Tony Allen and Shane Battier draped all over [Kevin] Durant for most of the game, Westbrook went on the offensive. Few of his 40 points (on 15-of-33 shooting) came easy; most ended with an airborne Westbrook crashing to the floor. He added [five] assists and [five] rebounds to his final line, which, most important, showed just three turnovers in 51 minutes.

“I played point guard for a long time in this league and I know when things don’t go well, the coach and the point guard always get the blame,” [Thunder coach Scott] Brooks said. “We needed his scoring. I thought [Westbrook] was terrific.”

 

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Celtic green? More like Old Yeller

May 10, 2011  ·  11:12AM

On a lovely spring night, you take the family out to the park, spread a blanket, break out the food and throw a tennis ball a hundred times or more for Betsy, the trusty Labrador Retriever that has been there through it all. The kids’ arrival, their first days off to school, the camping trips, Christmas mornings — Betsy is family. Furrier, sure, and counting seven for every one of our years, so she’s a bit grayer now, a little long in the tooth. But family.

Then, you turn your head for just an instant and – wham! – here they come: Dobermans. Three of them from out of nowhere, descending on Betsy.

Sorry if the metaphor is a little rough. Old Yeller was rough that way, too. But that was the image that stuck watching the Boston Celtics lose Game 4 against the Miami Heat, watching them invariably go down in their Eastern Conference semifinal series now that Boston trails 3-1.

 

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