The Miami Heat will be without forward Udonis Haslem and center Dexter Pittman for Thursday's Game 6 against the Indiana Pacers after the NBA suspended both players for separate flagrant fouls.

Haslem received a one-game suspension while Pittman will miss the next three games, the NBA announced.

Pittman received a flagrant foul after he came across the lane and used his forearm and elbow to blast the Pacers' Lance Stephenson after a made shot with 19.4 seconds left in Tuesday night's Game 5. Stephenson had taunted LeBron James earlier in the series by flashing a choke signal after James missed a pair of free throws during Game 3.

[Related: Dexter Pittman abides by Pat Riley's code by cracking Lance Stephenson]

Haslem was given his flagrant after he fouled Pacers forward Tyler Hansbrough across the face in Game 5. Hansbrough had hit Dwyane Wade earlier in the game for a flagrant foul. The NBA upgraded all three fouls to flagrant type-twos, but Hansbrough was not suspended.

No one ever covered LeBron James’ back this way in Cleveland. Maybe it was the composition of the Cavaliers' roster, the fact they never carried an old-school Juwan Howard to police the locker room and bench. Maybe it was because James didn’t elicit that kind of loyalty, that kind of two-way protection for his teammates.

When it comes to confrontation, James has always shied away. He doesn’t like it on the floor, nor off it. If the Indiana Pacers believed James was responsible for dispatching benchwarmer Dexter Pittman to obliterate Lance Stephenson on a drive to the basket, they probably have the wrong man. It’s hard to believe Pittman made the decision to get suspended on his own, but privately he isn’t sharing that information.

Tyler Hansbrough hit Dwyane Wade with a hard flagrant foul in Game 5. (AP)Rest assured, Heat president Pat Riley loved Udonis Haslem’s flagrant foul on Tyler Hansbrough and, yes, Pittman’s assault on Stephenson in Game 5. Haslem is suspended for Game 6 and Pittman will miss Miami's next three games, but the hard fouls were

INDIANAPOLIS – Around LeBron James, they tell the stories with admiration of how sometimes it can be difficult to get a message to him in these playoffs. Text messages seem to disappear into a netherworld, whether it's time changes for a meeting or one of the bosses sending a word of praise. James has narrowed his exposure to the trappings of his celebrity on this championship run, made himself scarce, unavailable, with the hopes of becoming devoid of distraction.

After one of the greatest playoff performances you'll ever see – 40 points, 18 rebounds and nine assists – James' legs were buried in a bucket of ice, his eyes buried in the book, "The Hunger Games." Now and then, LeBron lifted his eyes up to talk with a passing teammate, but mostly his lips silently mouthed the words on the pages. If nothing else these days, the NBA's MVP is engrossed.

LeBron James' dominant performance helped lift Dwyane Wade in the Heat's Game 4 win. (AP)It was a picture of calm, composure and certainty. In the end, James delivered the kind of leadership that these Heat needed.

INDIANAPOLIS – Nearly 90 minutes before tipoff of Game 4 of an acrimonious Eastern Conference playoff series, Indiana Pacers guard Lance Stephenson again appeared to be a source of irritation to the Miami Heat.

Miami Heat forward Juwan Howard and Stephenson exchanged sharp words within inches of each other’s faces on the court. Stephenson, who flashed a choke sign at Heat star LeBron James in the Pacers' Game 3 victory, had been shooting with the Pacers on one end of the floor when Howard walked past on the way to Miami's locker room.

It was unclear which player had said something to start the jawing, but Howard was soon warning Stephenson to keep his mouth shut, as Pacers assistant coach Brian Shaw stepped between the players and nudged Howard away from the court. There didn’t appear to be any possibility that the altercation would evolve into violence, but Howard clearly had no use for Stephenson, nor his attitude.

[Related: Dwyane Wade clashes with Miami Heat coach during

LOS ANGELES – The framing of Oklahoma City's Russell Westbrook as the young star with suspect basketball temperament and judgment has been replaced with that of a shrewd, assured star missing a far different denominator: fashion sense. Out of the winning locker room this genius talent bounded late Saturday night, wearing firehouse-red pants and that familiar shirt of Crayola blotches.

His agent, Thad Foucher, stepped back and gave him the once over.

"Why didn't you tell me you were going to wear those pants?" Foucher busted on him. " 'Cause I would've worn my green ones."

Westbrook laughed, and nodded, and walked together with Kevin Durant across the corridor to the interview room. They had completed a final, furious push to wrest away Game 4 of this Western Conference semifinal series, secure a 3-1 lead and a chance to close out the Lakers on Monday night in Oklahoma City. All this does is get the Thunder back where they had been a year ago, the conference final, back to a

LOS ANGELES – Ball in his hands, season on the line, and failure promised Kobe Bryant a summer of scorn. For everything that comes with the responsibility of greatness, Bryant can live with the cutting criticism, the besmirching of his legacy, the volume rising on those determined to diminish him in the context of his contemporaries. In losing, he could live with it all – except allowing that barrage to barricade him behind a wall of hesitancy and reluctance.

“I don’t give a [expletive] what you say,” Bryant told Yahoo! Sports late Friday. “If I go out there and miss game winners, and people say, 'Kobe choked, or Kobe is seven for whatever in pressure situations.' Well, [expletive] you.

“Because I don’t play for your [expletive] approval. I play for my own love and enjoyment of the game. And to win. That’s what I play for. Most of the time, when guys feel the pressure, they’re worried about what people might say about them. I don’t have that fear, and it enables me to forget

SAN ANTONIO – As Tim Duncan left the interview podium inside Quicken Loans Arena five years ago and started his walk down a corridor, LeBron James emerged on his way to deliver an NBA Finals concession speech. Duncan hugged James, and told him the NBA would soon belong to him. Duncan was grateful to have secured a fourth championship before the Cleveland Cavaliers star gobbled them for himself.

In these five years, the world has changed, and James started a movement that transformed the NBA: The pursuit of super teams. The Miami Heat, the New York Knicks and even these Los Angeles Clippers shredded their infrastructures and constructed themselves with starry, top-heavy rosters. This was the big-market championship blueprint that hustled the sport into a work stoppage, that left the two powerbrokers courtside here on Thursday night – NBA commissioner David Stern and Spurs owner Peter Holt – pushing to make that model obsolete in the post-lockout league.

Only, the Heat are

SAN ANTONIO – The Western Conference scouts were sitting courtside, watching the San Antonio Spurs' Tim Duncan take everyone back years with him. This was late in a magnificent performance – the nostalgia pouring out of every spectacular, simple move – when everyone else was dragging, and here the old man had come tearing down the floor on a dead sprint.

"He looks 25 again," one of the scouts marveled, and it was something to behold in the AT&T Center. Duncan had been his old, devastating self for the Spurs, punctuating a 108-92 Game 1 victory over the Los Angeles Clippers with an array of moves and machinations delivered out of his playoff archives.

He's 36 years old, and mid-May in these NBA playoffs should belong to someone else now. The rest of the league kept chasing the formation of super teams, and still coach Gregg Popovich and general manager R.C. Buford believed there was a way to surround Duncan with proper pieces and make the Spurs championship contenders again.