Don Nelson on the bench. A portrait of the Hall-of-Famer as a young man. (Vernon Biever, WireImage)

My esteemed colleague Eric Freeman told you last Thursday that Don Nelson, the winningest coach in NBA history and one of the game's most colorful characters over the past several decades, had been named one of the members of the 2012 class of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. In his post, Eric hailed Nelson as a true basketball innovator, a mad scientist endlessly rethinking and experimenting with players' traditional definitions and role assignments, who made significant contributions to how offenses work today.

All of that is true, which is why, despite never winning a championship as a head coach, Nelson's enshrinement in Springfield is well-deserved. But as Boston Globe NBA griot Bob Ryan wrote Tuesday in a column saluting the legendary coach (and five-time NBA champion as a player with the Boston Celtics), Nellie's approach wasn't always so high-minded.

Ryan recounts a story that Nelson told him from the 1976-77 season, when Nelson took over the Milwaukee Bucks midyear to begin his NBA head coaching career. While the 36-year-old Nelson had 14 years of NBA experience and a "good feel for the game," the newly minted Hall of Famer told Ryan that it "took [him] a while to figure out what you were supposed to do at the end of the game."

When the first crisis came, Nellie had an inspiration. Down 1 late at home, he huddled the team, and the dialogue went something like this.

"Who makes the most money here?"

"What did you say?"

"Which one of you guys makes the most money?"

Brian Winters piped up. "I guess it's me."

"Then you're taking the last shot."

It's an immutable rule, one that is taught in preschool and that every person knows — if you let Randy Foye hit eight 3-pointers in 15 tries against you in an NBA game, you are going to lose that game. Well, somehow Rick Carlisle and the Dallas Mavericks forgot that golden rule on Monday night, and Foye made them pay.

The former first-round pick out of Villanova had his best game of the season, scoring 28 points on 19 shots — including an 8-of-15 mark from distance, tying a franchise record for 3-pointers set by Quentin Richardson in February 2004 — in 35 minutes to lead the Los Angeles Clippers past the defending champion Mavs in Dallas. The 94-75 road victory moved the Clips to within a game of the Los Angeles Lakers for the top spot in the Pacific Division ahead of the teams' next meeting at Staples Center on Wednesday night. The teams split their first two matchups of the season.

The win was also the Clippers' sixth in a row, marking the first time since March 1982 that the famously feckless franchise has won six straight. In honor of this historic occasion, I demand that the Clippers' game operations team only play "I Love Rock and Roll" by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, the No. 1 song in the country during L.A.'s last sextuple, when they take on the Lakers on Wednesday night. Seems like a pretty rocking good luck charm.

Hit the jump for more on Monday's Clips-Mavs tilt, including some context for Foye's big night and a couple of monster Blake Griffin dunks thanks to our friends at the Yahoo! Sports Minute.

(Photo courtesy of @elenasaurousrex)

Hey, you've had a long week. You deserve this. No need to log these points on Weight Watchers Online. You're welcome.

Photo via @elenasaurousrex. Hat-tip to former boss J.E. Skeets of The Basketball Jones.

Rodney Stuckey is having the best season of his NBA career. (Getty Images)

The Detroit Pistons haven't been great this season, which is something that you know, because you're reading an NBA blog after 4 p.m. on a Friday. But one of the team's brightest spots has been Rodney Stuckey, the Detroit guard whose nose for the basket and bruising tweener body drew comparisons to Dwyane Wade coming out of college, but hadn't quite lived up to that billing through four-plus NBA campaigns in the Motor City.

After signing a three-year, $25 million contract extension this offseason, Stuckey's proved to be something of a bargain, turning in the best all-around campaign of his career for a Pistons team that, while bad, has certainly shown signs of improvement under first-year head coach Lawrence Frank. Yes, they're 18-32, but they're fighting. They're pounding the rock, just like EVERYONE ELSE.

Stuckey's improved play this season and role in the potential Pistons turnaround were highlighted earlier this week in a nice profile by USA Today's Jeff Zillgitt. In the feature, Zillgitt discusses how Stuckey has for years struggled with seemingly constant change (the Pistons have had four head coaches in Stuckey's five-year NBA career) that hasn't abated persistent losing (despite the uptick, Detroit is headed toward its fourth straight sub-.500 campaign).

"All that stuff took a toll," Stuckey said. So heading into this season, the Eastern Washington product "decided to make a change."

He credits family and friends for his turnaround, and he also went to a psychologist, "just to clear my mind," he said.

"I think it was good for me. It wasn't someone inside my inner circle, and they didn't care," Stuckey said of therapy. "I was going to get the feedback I needed to hear. That really helped out a lot. It was just positive energy. There was too much negative energy." [...]

"There's been times where I've been mad this year where I just calmed down and not let it get to me," said Stuckey, averaging 16.5 points, just a tenth off his career high, and shooting a career best 44.7 [percent].

Kobe Bryant and Derek Fisher are friends. (Getty Images)

Part of understanding that the NBA is a business is also being able to maintain friendships when circumstances shift. Derek Fisher may not like the way the Los Angeles Lakers handled his exit, and Kobe Bryant may miss his old teammate. But both understand that front-office dealings are out of their control, and that while in-season rivalry is ephemeral, the kind of friendship that lets you sneak up behind someone and surprise them with laughter-eliciting shoulder touches is eternal. Let's try to remember that as we smile our way into the weekend, friends.

Then again, maybe it's the conversation, not the shoulder touch, that's got both Kobe and Fish smilin'. What's transpiring here? Best caption wins a reminder that you're my best friend. Yes, you. Good luck.

In our last adventure: That's some good leanin', Chris Paul, Blake Griffin and Steve Nash.

Sacramento Kings owners George, Gavin and Joe Maloof. (Getty Images)Just one month ago, Joe and Gavin Maloof stood hand-in-hand with Kevin Johnson at center court of the Power Balance Pavilion, all wide smiles and exultation. Cheers rained down on the owners of the Sacramento Kings and the city's mayor, as Kings fans gave them a hero's welcome to celebrate a tentative deal to fund a new downtown sports and entertainment complex that would include a new arena for the Kings. It was one of relatively few good nights in the drama-filled relocation saga that has surrounded the franchise in recent years, and the Maloofs were eager to be lauded as benevolent rulers — when they took the floor to thank the fans for their support, the Kings game operations staff played "My Hero" by the Foo Fighters.

Well, the Maloof family probably looks considerably less heroic to Kings fans today. One month after agreeing to the framework of a deal, the owners now reportedly have serious concerns about Sacramento's ability to get the arena built in time for the start of the 2015 NBA season, are "disputing that they have a firm agreement" to aid in the building of the complex, and have not taken the nuclear option — packing up the Kings and moving them out of Sacramento — off the table.

At issue are "a slew of pre-development and construction costs" that must be covered to get the ball rolling on the project. The Maloofs' share of the bill weighs in at about $3.26 million, the first $200,000 of which must be paid quickly. Lance Pugmire of the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday that the Maloofs — who had previously asked for clarification on which element of the arena partnership (the Kings, arena operator AEG or the city of Sacramento) would be responsible for picking up the pre-dev tab — don't want to pay their end. In fact, they don't acknowledge that it's "their end" at all.

Carmelo Anthony is playing with a groin injury. (Getty Images)

The New York Knicks beat the hell out of the Orlando Magic on Wednesday night, a fact that pleased me, a Knicks fan living in Brooklyn, to no end. Steve Novak continued to be Mobb Deep's people's champ, rookie Iman Shumpert had his best game as a Knick, and Carmelo Anthony fought through his groin injury to give interim coach Mike Woodson's team exactly the kind of star turn it needed to take the will of the Eastern Conference's No. 3 seed.

A lot of writers noticed the fact that 'Melo had one of his best games of the season despite battling through injury. One of them, ESPN New York's Ian O'Connor, wrote Thursday in praise of Anthony's performance, detailing how gritting out the groin injury not only dovetailed with "the city's no-pain, no-gain ethos," but also could help the beleaguered small forward "win back New York's complete trust."

Amare Stoudemire was out, and so was Jeremy Lin. Tyson Chandler would have to wrestle Dwight Howard with a bum wrist, and Baron Davis would have to run the point with a sore hamstring and other achy, breaky parts.

Anthony couldn't possibly sit this one out. [...] It's almost April, and Anthony knows he'll go down as the face of an unmitigated disaster if he doesn't at least carry this team to May. [...]

"I just want to step up," Anthony said. "That's it. I've got to take on that responsibility to try and win these basketball games."

None of these things are wrong. A Knicks team without two of its best offensive options and whose best player — and if you have any doubt that Tyson Chandler is the Knicks' best player, you haven't been watching at all this season — had to bang with a force of nature all night needed not only all hands on deck, but also the kind of commanding offensive performance that 'Melo can provide.

With less than a month remaining in the regular season, the Knicks need wins and the New York offense needs a focal point; with Stoudemire sidelined for at least two to four weeks with a bulging disk in his lower back, responsibility for both will fall to Anthony. And after looking like a hatchetman on the heels of the intra-Garden war with ousted coach Mike D'Antoni — no matter how many times the star forward says it didn't go down like that, that's the way it has been and will be perceived — the only way for 'Melo to clean the dirt off his rep is to play the conquering hero, whether his groin's barking or not, because history's written by the victors.

Here's the thing, though:

Chris Paul, Blake Griffin and Steve Nash look back. (Getty Images)

Check out the noses for the ball on these three, huh? Turned completely the wrong way and leaning away from the ol' leather pumpkin. Great basketball IQ, guys. Championship-level stuff, I tells ya. Oh, brother.

Best caption wins another lap, and I swear we'll keep runnin' 'em until Paul, Griffin and Nash decide they'd like to get their heads in the game, because this kind of sloppy practice sure as shootin' ain't gonna beat McKinley High! Good luck.

In our last adventure: The hope of a new generation lives inside Rodrigue Beaubois' eyes. (Unfortunately, he has just been whistled for a foul.)