The NBA features a lot of really close games, because even the worst teams are capable of competing on a nightly basis. It stands to reason, then, that there are also a lot of games that go down to the final possession. And while the percentage of made game-ending shots is much lower than on any other random play in the game, they still go in often enough that teams get one every so often. Certainly, the gaps between them typically don't go on for especially long.

Yet, until Thursday night, the Toronto Raptors hadn't had a game-winning buzzer-beater since December 20, 2006, when T.J. Ford hit a jumper to break a tie against the Clippers in Los Angeles (info via The Point Forward and The National Post). That's a long time to go without one of the plays that makes the NBA the exciting league it is.

Credit shooting guard DeMar DeRozan with ending the streak. With 4.3 seconds left and the Raptors tied 95-95 with the Magic in Orlando, DeRozan took a pass from Jose Calderon, dribbled towards to his left towards the baseline, and hit a ludicrously difficult stepback fadeaway jumper over Glen Davis and an attending Arron Afflalo for a thrilling finish. The shot capped a nice night for DeRozan, who led all scorers with 22 points on 10-17 shooting.

Kyrie Irving and Russell Westbrook are set to wow the All-Star Game crowd (Layne Murdoch/ Getty).

One week after the announcement of the starters for the 2013 NBA All-Star Game in Houston, the league revealed the All-Star reserves during a special edition of TNT's "Inside the NBA" on Thursday night. (Additionally, many of the participants were reported by Yahoo!'s own Adrian Wojnarowski and Marc Spears before the announcement.) As usual, the teams feature a mix of familiar faces, new blood, and surprising snubs.

The West reserves are led by San Antonio Spurs linchpins Tony Parker (fifth selection) and Tim Duncan (14th selection). They're joined by Oklahoma City Thunder dynamo Russell Westbrook (third selection), former OKC reserve and current Houston Rockets star James Harden (first selection), Memphis Grizzlies forward Zach Randolph (second selection), Golden State Warriors power forward David Lee (second selection), and Portland Trail Blazers big man LaMarcus Aldridge (second selection).

The East reserves are highlighted by reigning Defensive Player of the Year and New York Knicks center Tyson Chandler (first selection) and Chris Bosh (eighth selection) of the NBA champion Miami Heat. Their one-day teammates will include Indiana Pacers forward and likely Most Improved Player candidate Paul George (first selection), Philadelphia 76ers point guard Jrue Holliday (first selection), Cleveland Cavaliers point guard Kyrie Irving (first selection), and Chicago Bulls mainstays Luol Deng (second selection) and Joakim Noah (first selection), who have helped keep the team in the thick of the playoff hunt while superstar point guard Derrick Rose works through a lengthy knee rehab.

After the jump, check out more thoughts on the selections, including the biggest snubs.

Even Paul Pierce isn't entirely sure how he does it. (Jim McIsaac/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: The Classical. As a New York Knicks fan, I kind of — OK, not "kind of" — hate Paul Pierce. He's proven ruinous and murderous to my favorite team's fortunes more times than I care to remember. But this "Why We Watch" piece by Red's Army chieftain John Karalis, describing the wizardry, alchemy and mystery of how No. 34 continues to beguile defenses throughout the NBA — including, I suspect, the Knicks' defense tonight — spoke to me. I hate what it said, which is about as pure a recognition of real as I can muster.

PF: BuzzFeed Sports. Our dude Jason Concepcion — a.k.a. @netw3rk — wrote 2,000 words of Los Angeles Lakers fan-fiction pegged to the notion that Mike D'Antoni is a (maybe not-so) hard-boiled detective. It is not suitable for work, but it is after work hours. Have fun, friends.

SF: TrueHoop. There are plenty of off-court/front-office/outside-narrative arguments for why the Los Angeles Lakers stink right now. Beckley Mason offers one legitimate basketball reason — Steve Nash kind of can't guard anybody right now.

The NBA's new flopping policies have worked pretty well (if only because we can now focus on agreed-upon offenders instead of freaking out over a vague threat to the league's integrity). Nevertheless, players still flop, and many of them see it as an occasionally necessary part of winning games.

Take, for instance, Brooklyn Nets guard C.J. Watson, who executed a pretty egregious flop on Minnesota Timberwolves guard J.J. Barea during the fourth quarter of Wednesday night's 91-83 win. With just over nine minutes on the clock, Watson took a slight shoulder bump from Barea and turned it into a case of assault, falling to the floor and earning his team a turnover.

It was notable in part because Barea is one of the league's most notable floppers in his own right. After the game, Watson even admitted that he flopped in part to give Barea "a dose of his own medicine."

Check out that video interview after the jump (via TBJ and The Brooklyn Game).

NBA guys hug weird. (Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

When the New York Knicks visit the TD Garden to take on the Boston Celtics in a nationally televised game on Thursday night, it'll be the two Atlantic Division foes' first meeting since the Jan. 7 contest in Manhattan that saw stars Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Garnett engage in a heated and highly publicized physical and verbal battle. The ongoing trash talk, allegedly initiated by the Celtics big man, got the New York forward off his game, resulting in a poor Anthony finish that helped Boston score a road win and led to scuffles both on the court and off it. Speculation about what insult(s) raised Anthony's ire has raged for two weeks, and with the teams set to renew tensions in Boston tonight, it seems unlikely that anything else will be the primary topic of conversation in the hours before game time.

After learning that they'd each won starting frontcourt spots for the Eastern Conference All-Star team last week, Garnett said he believed he and Melo "are fine" and didn't "anticipate any friction" moving forward. Anthony, for his part, echoed similar sentiments this week, according to ESPN New York's Ian Begley:

"It's no bad blood, no grudges between us (or) anything like that," Anthony said after practice on Wednesday. "I don't hold no grudges or have any bad blood towards the guy." [...]

Anthony doesn't anticipate any carryover from his confrontation with Garnett.

"On my end, there's nothing left over," he said on Tuesday.

Of course, whether or not the individuals involved in the initial imbroglio harbor any residual ill will, Anthony still must face the partisan TD Garden crowd, which is sure to be champing at the bit to lob cereal-based gooves at him and, while not especially vicious, has a reputation for being a tough NBA crowd, as Tim Rohan of The New York Times writes:

The New Orleans Pelican logo has been released. It is an angry, angry bird.

Here is what it looks like:

(Courtesy nba.com/hornets)

Color me a little disappointed, and this is from someone that truly likes the new “Pelicans” name. We’ll get to that batch of disappointment later, though, because firstly we should let the soon-to-be former New Orleans Hornets describe why they did what they did with the new Pelicans logo.

The team’s website points out that the lettering in the logo was inspired by street signs that dot the city’s French Quarter. The team will retain the very NOLA-ish Fleur de Lys symbol both in the main logo (up top) and in an alternate logo that replaces the head and beak of the bird inside the flower. The blue in the logo stands for the state of Louisiana, the gold represents the glittery nature of the city of New Orleans, and the team’s summation for choosing the color red bled down to, basically, calling the color very scary.

Come at me, bro. (Jemal Countess/Getty Images)

Just about everything's been going the Brooklyn Nets' way of late — they've won nine of their last 10, they're 12-2 since firing Avery Johnson, they've made multiple improvements on both sides of the ball under P.J. Carlesimo and they've drawn to within a half-game of the New York Knicks for first place in the Atlantic Division. Brook Lopez, Deron Williams, Joe Johnson, Kris Humphries ... it seems like every player in black and white's got an extra spring in his step and some extra snap on his jumper.

Everyone except Jerry Stackhouse, that is. In 17 appearances under Johnson, the 38-year-old veteran had been a surprisingly effective option off the Brooklyn bench, scoring 6.4 points in 17 minutes per game and hitting an above-league-average 36.1 percent of his 3-pointers, including a 43.9 percent (18 for 41) mark on corner 3-pointers. Since Carlesimo's Dec. 28 takeover, though, Stackhouse has been bumped down the depth chart, making nine appearances and averaging just 10 minutes per contest, and he hasn't given Brooklyn much, shooting just 19.2 percent from the floor, 14.3 percent from 3 and missing nine of his 10 corner tries.

As the team has risen, Stack's stock has fallen, and when some Nets fans let him know as much on Twitter on Wednesday, the 18th-year pro decided to fire back. From Nets Daily:

Dan Majerle tells Alvin Gentry that things will work out, while Gentry disagrees (Getty Images)

When Alvin Gentry and the Phoenix Suns decided that they’d had enough of each other last week, all signs pointed to either venerated longtime assistant coach Elston Turner or longtime Phoenix Suns legend and assistant coach Dan Majerle taking the job. Certainly not Director of Player Development Lindsey Hunter, who was just a few years removed from playing and without the longtime bench status earned by those two Suns fixtures.

Somewhat out of nowhere, Suns GM Lance Blanks chose Hunter. And almost immediately – as in, minutes after rumors spread about Hunter’s ascension – reports out of Phoenix indicated that both Turner and Majerle had stormed out of Suns practice, frustrated at losing out to someone with significantly less coaching experience. On Wednesday, Majerle went on record with his frustrations with the Suns franchise, and their choice of a new head coach. From the Arizona Republic’s Paul Coro, who has done fantastic work in covering a failing franchise:

“It’s been a hard pill to swallow,” Majerle said. “The first thing that disappoints me is usually in a situation like this, the lead assistant gets the job and that is Elston (Turner) with his 14 years of experience. Once he didn’t get it, I thought I deserved it. The thing I keep hearing management say on the radio is that hiring me would’ve been the popular and easy thing to do. I earned it. I deserved a shot if it’s not going to be Elston. I coached 5 and a half years. I coached the summer leagues. I didn’t need a favor. Picking Elston would’ve been the easy thing to do.”