Gerald Wallace wonders where it went. (Nathaniel S. Butler/NBA/Getty Images)Gerald Wallace played 31 1/2 minutes on Saturday night without taking a shot. It didn't register as a super big deal at the time, because there was other stuff to talk about — namely, his current team (the Brooklyn Nets) beating his former team (the Charlotte Bobcats), point guard Deron Williams (32 points and six assists) continuing his post-All-Star surge, Reggie Evans posting his league-leading eighth 20-rebound game of the season and the Nets adding a half-game to their lead over the Chicago Bulls for the East's No. 4 seed (they added another on Sunday, thanks to the Detroit Pistons).

As has been the case for most of this Nets season, Wallace flew under the radar a bit in the immediate aftermath of the game, even though he'd clearly passed up some open looks en route to ending the game with just one point after splitting a pair of free throws. That changed a bit after the fact, though, as the 30-year-old small forward discussed the circumstances behind the rare gun-shy game — just the fourth time in nine seasons since becoming an NBA starter he'd failed to take a shot and only the second such game in which he'd played more than 12 minutes — with Tim Bontemps of the New York Post.

The oh-fer served as the nadir of a dreadful post-All-Star stretch for Wallace, and he pulled no punches in his self-assessment — he's flat-out shook when he gets the ball these days:

“My confidence is totally gone,” Wallace told The Post Saturday. “I’m just at the point now ... I’m in a situation where I feel like if I miss, I’m going to get pulled out of the game, you know what I’m saying? So my whole concept is just that you can’t come out of the game if you’re not missing shots.

“I think I lost the confidence of the coaching staff and my teammates. So my main thing is those guys can score, so instead of thinking about it so much, just trying to focus on defense, try to move the ball and get those guys shots.”

Smile time in Houston. (Dan Lippitt/NBA/Getty Images)

A look around the league and the Web that covers it. It's also important to note that the rotation order and starting nods aren't always listed in order of importance. That's for you, dear reader, to figure out.

C: ESPN. Beckley Mason does a whale of a job taking two seemingly disparate narrative strands — "Man, the Houston Rockets are INCREDIBLY enjoyable to watch with all that run-and-gun, pell-mell-to-the-rim and dot-the-I-3-point-popping offense" and "The Houston Rockets' offensive strategy is the actualization of all the stuff's being talked about at the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, which is, y'know, less enjoyable" — and weaving them into an excellent story about finding the right star and coach, getting players to take ownership and responsibility for having fun, and putting theory into practice. I'm pretty sure that Beckley had a lot of fun writing this story; it comes through in the fact that it's a really fun story to read.

PF: Grantland. Let's get visual: Kirk Goldsberry breaks down the critical improvement in John Wall's jumper from the right elbow, which is A) the most important recent development in the Washington Wizards franchise and B) a really, really welcome sight for anyone who's been waiting to see the No. 1 overall pick in the 2010 draft break out and become what we all hoped he could.

SF: Red's Army. Hey, Boston-area people: Two weeks from today, on April 19, Voltage Coffee & Art in Cambridge will host "In the Paint," a basketball-themed art show featuring work by the super-talented and wonderful folks behind the hoops art blog Double Scribble. Tickets are free, but $5 donations are requested; proceeds from the show will go to the Boston hoops charity Shooting Touch. Good stuff, fun stuff, cool stuff, helpful stuff — check out the Red's Army link for more details, and go check it out on April 19.

High karate. (Mark D. Smith-USA TODAY Sports)

Russell Westbrook would totally be the best karateka in the world if only he didn't hate plain black belts BECAUSE HE LOVES CLOTHES, GET IT?????

Best caption wins Tribe x Lou Reed, because it's a sunny Friday afternoon in New York City and I love you all very deeply. Good luck.

In our last adventure: The volume on Nate Robinson explaining himself starts at 11, I bet.

Bango can only throw up his hands in despair. (Mike McGinnis/Getty Images)

Busting your roommate's chops about his favorite team: It's all fun and games until it turns into a urine-fueled topless fight in a Greenfield, Wisc., apartment complex parking lot at 2 a.m. (Just like my father used to say.)

The blank-stare-inducing tale comes to us from David Cotey of Greenfield, Wisc., Patch, who informs us that a 20-year-old woman called Greenfield police last Friday to report that "her 19- and 18-year-old roommates were in a fistfight outside their apartment." What sparked the square-off? Apparently, the Milwaukee Bucks' 113-103 home win over the Los Angeles Lakers (emphasis mine):

When a police officer arrived, he saw two shirtless teenagers facing each other with fists raised and ready to fight. The officer ordered them to cease, but they simultaneously lunged at each other and exchanged blows.

The fight lasted for only a few seconds before the men listened to the officer’s demands to end the fighting.

The woman told police the three of them and a fourth roommate, a 30-year-old man, went to the BMO Harris Bradley Center earlier that evening to watch the Milwaukee Bucks take on the Los Angeles Lakers. The 19-year-old man would not boo the Bucks, leading the 30-year-old and 18-year-old, both Lakers fans, to verbally harass him and call him names, the woman told police.

Once back at the apartment, the 30-year-old urinated in a garbage can in the 19-year-old’s bedroom.

Bullets owner Abe Pollin and fan Barry Silberman (as the hasn't-sung-yet fat lady) hoist the O'Brien in June 1978. (AP)

It seems sort of hard to believe, given how unsuccessful the Washington Wizards franchise has been for years — 23 losing seasons and just one trip past the first round of the playoffs in 30 years — but once upon a time, the then-Bullets ranked among the NBA's premier organizations. They made the playoffs for 12 straight years between 1968 and 1980, bulling to the NBA Finals four times behind stars Earl "The Pearl" Monroe, Wes Unseld, Elvin Hayes, Phil Chenier and Bobby Dandridge. In 1977-78, coach Dick Motta made “the opera ain't over until the fat lady sings” his team's rallying cry and the Bullets lived by its precepts to the season's end, coming back from 3-2 down to the Seattle SuperSonics to win Games 6 and 7 and earn the franchise's first (and only) NBA title.

The Wizards will celebrate the '77-'78 squad on Saturday, honoring the 35th anniversary of the title team's triumph when the Wiz take on the Indiana Pacers at Verizon Center. There'll be pregame festivities, a halftime ceremony and replica championship rings for game attendees — it sounds pretty great, especially considering all the years that Washington's brass kept distancing itself from the "Bullets" name and history after re-branding in 1997.

Just how far did Wizards management remove itself from the good ol' days and the bad (according to some) ol' name? Far enough that the enduring symbol of the franchise's crowning achievement was lost for years ... and, according to Dave Sheinin of the Washington Post, nobody even noticed.

Tony Parker sits, stews and ponders. (AP/Sue Ogrocki)

At no point during Thursday's 100-88 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder did Tony Parker resemble Tony Parker, the brilliant scorer and facilitator who has led the San Antonio Spurs to the top of the Western Conference and was being talked up as an MVP candidate just six weeks ago. He looked steps slow and ill at ease, lacking explosiveness and seeming unable to get to spots on the floor he typically reaches with no problem. Part of the credit there belongs to an OKC defense that boasts enough length, athleticism and discipline to pack the paint, clog driving lanes and recover to contest perimeter jumpers ... but that pretty clearly wasn't all that was going into Parker's 2-point, 1-for-6-shooting performance. Something else was up.

And if I could see that, you know Spurs coach Gregg Popovich could, too. That's why he sat Parker for the final 7:08 of Thursday's game, and why he's more than a little worried about his 30-year-old triggerman, according to Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News:

"I saw him come across half court actually limping at one time, so that's when we pulled him," Popovich said. "I said 'Tony, you’ve got to stop, so we can figure out what it is.' He just couldn't go."

[Also: Denver likely loses Danilo Gallinari for season]

Heading into the game, Parker was dealing with a laundry list of bumps, including a bone bruise in his left ankle leftover from a sprain suffered March 1.

Popovich doesn’t believe what plagued Parker in OKC was necessarily that, but a previously unreported injury to his shin.

"My feeling is tendonitis, something in his shins or whatever, from the way it looked on the court, but I don’t know," said Popovich, who described himself [as] "very concerned" about his star guard's health.

"We thought he had just kind of recovered from his ankle, so this was something new tonight with his leg," Popovich said. "I just don’t know what it is right now."

Kevin Durant and Tim Duncan headline Thursday's big showdown. (D. Clarke Evans/NBA/Getty Images)

A look around the league and the Web that covers it. It's also important to note that the rotation order and starting nods aren't always listed in order of importance. That's for you, dear reader, to figure out.

C: Eye on Basketball. Ahead of Thursday's marquee matchup between the top two teams in the Western Conference, Matt Moore breaks down how the San Antonio Spurs' offense against the Oklahoma City Thunder has been different this season than it was during the two teams' 2012 Western Conference Finals series (which, you'll recall, the Thunder won in six) ...

PF: The Point Forward. ... and Rob Mahoney details the massive role Tim Duncan has played in the Spurs' much-improved defense, which will be critical in stopping Thunder stars Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook.

SF: Daily Thunder. Royce Young riffs on recent comments by ESPN's David Thorpe about the "joyless" basketball the Oklahoma City Thunder have played of late, marked by Durant reportedly taking his efficiency concerns to extremes, coach Scott Brooks' seemingly nonsensical preference for veteran Derek Fisher over sophomore Reggie Jackson despite Fisher's decrepit play, and more. Will bubbling turmoil lead to a flat OKC performance against a Spurs squad playing without Manu Ginobili and Stephen Jackson, continuing the Thunder's trend of subpar performances against elite Western competition?

Days after his son Earvin "E.J." Johnson III made headlines for being filmed walking down a Los Angeles street holding another young man's hand, Magic Johnson sat down with TMZ for an interview about learning his son was gay — a moment that came when E.J. was 12 or 13 years old.

"We've known for a long, long time that my son E.J. was gay," the Los Angeles Lakers legend said. "It's interesting, you know, when you're his parents — we finally had to sit down and talk about it, and I told him, 'Look, I'm going to love you regardless. Just let me know: Are you or aren't you?' And finally, he just said, 'Yes, I am.' [...] Because he wasn't going to to come to me with it.

"[...] It was, I think, a hard conversation only because he was so young, and what do you tell him at that age? What do you say to him?" Johnson continued. "But other than that, I told him, 'Hey, we are here to support you, and we're going to love you no matter who you are and what you do. We just want you to love yourself and just make sure that you have all the information.' And that's what I wanted to give him — just provide him with advice and guidance."