Jimmy Kimmel has had quite a bit of success getting celebrities to read mean tweets written about them on his ABC late-night program, striking a comedic nerve by having famous people confront and react to some of the awful things that we awful Internet people have to say about them at any given time. On Sunday, "Jimmy Kimmel Live" applied the bit to the NBA as part of ABC's NBA Finals coverage, having a slew of NBA players and related folks read some of the insulting stuff their adoring public is all-too happy to share in (relatively) anonymous 140-character bursts.

Some are milder than others, though I suppose one's definition of "mild" might vary depending on whether or not one is being accused of performing sexual acts with gazelles. And though Kimmel's show has come under some scrutiny in the past for faking some of the tweets participating celebrities recite, these tweets all appear to be quite real; even a couple that no longer appear to exist were still acknowledged/copped to by the people alleged to have written them. Because why not take credit for this?

Yes, LeBron James' mammoth fourth-quarter rejection of a Tiago Splitter dunk came in the midst of a roaring Miami Heat run that turned Game 2 of their NBA Finals series against the San Antonio Spurs into a blowout victory. No, it wasn't a truly game-changing, momentum-shifting play like, say, Roy Hibbert's man-cave-adorning stuff on Carmelo Anthony that sparked an Indiana Pacers win over the New York Knicks. In the grand scheme of the game at hand, it was a play that didn't really "matter."

But, like, of course it mattered.

It was one of the most singularly impressive athletic feats we've seen in the NBA Finals, a signature moment for James that reminded everyone watching that, when push comes to shove, he's the most dominant physical force in the NBA. It was amazing, and worth rewatching and revisiting today. Often, and in myriad forms.

Here it is in super slow motion, courtesy of the NBA's Phantom camera:

Here it is, over and over again, from a wide variety of camera angles, soundtracked by appropriately apoplectic commentary from the folks who called the game:

Here it is, recast as an NBA BIG commercial by intrepid (and talented) YouTube user wonderpulp:

And here are 10 still shots of the moment of truth, each seemingly more ridiculous than the last:

Stand up, Steve. You're blocking the Beverly Hills Cab Co. logo (Getty Images)

Advertisements, adverts, and ads everywhere. The NBA hasn’t formerly stitched a sponsor’s slogan onto its official jerseys yet, but league is set to run advertisements all over the baseline hardwood and backboard as a trial run during the 2013-14 season. Not as a trial run to see if the ads are too tacky and obtrusive, but to determine the best and most efficient way to draw eyes to the various products and services the NBA aligns itself with promoting.

The decals will go where the NBA has long either allowed teams to place its logos near the team bench, or atop the backboard where the league has advertised its team websites since the 1999 lockout-shortened season. Sports Business Journal broke the news on Monday:

A league source said no specific valuation has been assigned to the new sales areas, but multiyear, multimillion-dollar deals are expected, with teams signing package deals that would provide an advertiser with visibility in both places. One team executive said the deals could range anywhere from mid-six figures to around $2 million annually, acknowledging that the value of the signage will vary widely by market.

Tony Parker can't believe he missed a theatre-award winning ceremony for this (Getty Images)

The Miami Heat tied the NBA Finals at 1-1 with a 103-84 win on Sunday evening, as pro basketball continues to remain as confusing as it does entertaining.

LeBron James had to go all-out, we presumed entering Game 2, because Dwyane Wade’s dodgy knees and Chris Bosh’s shaky confidence were getting in the way of James leading his Miami Heat to consecutive NBA titles. The general league consensus was that the back-to-back NBA MVP had to come through with the sort of startling all-around performance that brings an opponent to its knees, the sort of all-out all-around play that creates a distinction between the very good, and the legendary.

James brought it, for one quick and startling span four minutes into the fourth quarter. Beyond that, though, the Heat All-Star was relatively subdued throughout Miami’s Game 2 win. He finished with 17 points on 17 shots, eight rebounds and seven assists alongside three steals and three blocks. By and large, though, he was content to let both Wade and (especially) Bosh work their way back toward the good graces of those who assumed Miami would take this series. And yet Bosh (a relatively modest 12-point, 10-rebound evening) and Wade (10 points and six assists, missing eight of 13 shots) weren’t exactly up to their All-Star standards in the Game 2 win.

For the first 30 minutes of Game 2 of the NBA Finals between the Miami Heat and San Antonio Spurs, LeBron James was curiously not in the middle of the action. As the league's best and most divisive player, James is typically the top story in any game regardless of his level of play. Yet, due in part to a strong performance from his teammates, including oft-criticized point guard Mario Chalmers, the Heat were able to weather his largely inessential performance and keep pace with the Spurs. For once, LeBron just wasn't the story of the game.

This state of affairs did not last long. Running several effective pick-and-rolls as a screener for Chalmers late in the third quarter and into the fourth, LeBron began to have his customarily major impact on the game and helped the Heat turn a close game into a 103-84 blowout. His most thunderous play by far was this dunk-denying block on Tiago Splitter with just over 8:20 left in regulation. Take your pick between this play and Roy Hibbert's similar block on Carmelo Anthony for the best rejection of the postseason.

After the jump, check out an amazing photo of LeBron's reverse-posterization of Splitter, courtesy of the official NBA Twitter account.

When hashtags go historically wrong (Getty Images)

In the hours leading up to Game 2 of the NBA Finals, the Miami Heat franchise decided to outfit its arena’s chairs with thousands of white shirts that read “#LarryLovesMiami,” a reference to the Lawrence O’Brien trophy, which the NBA hands out at the end of every season to that year’s champion.

What the Heat franchise probably doesn’t know is that Lawrence O’Brien, the former Democratic National Committee Chairman and predecessor as NBA commissioner to David Stern, probably didn’t “love” Miami. He may not have even liked it.

O’Brien’s offices at the headquarters of the DNC in Washington D.C. were in the Watergate apartment complex and hotel. Those offices, infamously, were burglarized in 1972 by a group funded and instructed by the Committee to Re-Elect the President – the president in this case being Richard Nixon. After an initial cover-up, it was later revealed that several members of Richard Nixon’s high staff had direct knowledge about the burglaries and wiretapping attempts prior to the break-in. The President initiated the cover-up that followed, and the later revelation of the completely unnecessary illegal break-in (Nixon was well on his way to a landslide win over South Dakota Senator George McGovern, and didn’t need to play dirty) led to Nixon’s downfall and resignation prior to impeachment charges in 1974.

What does this have to do with the Miami Heat handing out shirts? Four out of the five burglars in the break-in of Larry O’Brien’s offices were from Miami. The Watergate break-in was funded in and hatched in Washington D.C., but the preparation for the event was pieced together in Key Biscayne and Miami.

Lawrence O'Brien (Getty Images)Meetings between E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy (who later appeared as a drug kingpin in ‘Miami Vice’), two of the key Watergate burglary tacticians, took place in Miami in 1972; as the two discussed (with, possibly, CIA agent James McCord) the break-in according to Hunt’s sworn testimony.

Four of the five burglars that broke into Lawrence

Besides LeBron-on-Tony, what else should we look out for in Game 2? (Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE/Getty Images)

After a thrilling start to the NBA Finals that saw the San Antonio Spurs take a 1-0 lead over the Miami Heat thanks to the order-within-chaos brilliance of Tony Parker, both teams, their fans and folks like me have had two full days to digest what happened and think about what comes next. We know Dwyane Wade says Game 2 is a "must-win" for the Heat with three games in San Antonio looming. We know all eyes will be on Chris Bosh every time he tees up a shot, on LeBron James every time he chooses to pass rather than shoot, and on both James and Parker whenever they get matched up one-on-one.

But in addition to those subplots — plus the Spurs' ball security and the way each team shoots from the corners, two key pieces I wrote about Friday — what else should we be keeping an eye on as we head into Game 2? Here are three more questions to consider as we get set for tipoff and pray for another four quarters like the ones we got Thursday:

• Can San Antonio keep getting bodies behind the ball to prevent Miami from getting out in transition?

Among other things, the Heat want more of this in Game 2:

NBA Commissioner David Stern presents Chauncey Billups the Twyman-Stokes Award. (Photo via @NBA)

Los Angeles Clippers guard Chauncey Billups became the first-ever recipient of the NBA's Twyman-Stokes Teammate of the Year Award on Sunday, as first reported by Yahoo! Sports NBA columnist Marc J. Spears.

"I pride myself in being a good human being and a good teammate, and obviously this is a Teammate of the Year Award, but I think more importantly, it's about just being a good person," the five-time All-Star and 2004 NBA Finals MVP said after receiving the award.

Billups received the award in a ceremony before Game 2 of the NBA Finals between the Miami Heat and San Antonio Spurs at AmericanAirlines Arena in Miami on Sunday. NBA players selected the 16-year veteran as the inaugural winner of the award, "which recognizes the NBA player deemed the best teammate based on selfless play, on and off-court leadership as a mentor and role model to other NBA players, and his commitment and dedication to his team," according to the league. The NBA will make a $25,000 donation to the charity of Billups' choice in recognition of the honor.

"I can't think of a player who is more deserving and who embodies the virtues of this award than our first-ever recipient," NBA Commissioner David Stern said Sunday. "He is a leader, a selfless player who has rightfully earned the trust and respect of his teammates throughout his career."