LeBron James, prior to Wednesday's Game 5 (Getty Images)

Miami Heat 106, New York Knicks 94 (Miami wins series, 4-1)

It's hardly a novel realization, though Lord knows we've attempted to relay as much in the wake of this game, but it stands as a pretty profound one. The Miami Heat are a scary basketball team, as has been the case since the team's opener on Christmas Day, and it's going to take quite a lot to take them out four times in a seven-game playoff term. The New York Knicks attempted this, in early spring, and could only manage to take one game in five tries. And as poorly as New York played at times, this was only about 13 percent their fault.

Our sensible yet heartbroken Dan Devine will have more on his Knicks' future later on Thursday, so for now you're going to have to hear about Ball Don't Lie fawning over the Miami Heat. Not so much resigned to the fact that the team will take the championship — we think there could still be obstacle(s?) along the way in the East, and several teams out west could pick and probe once the Finals hit — but because this team is such an odd monster that we're not exactly clear what is best built to knock it over.

Dwyane Wade prepares to give Mike Bibby a wedgie (Issac Baldizon/ Getty).

The basketball Internet loves to make fun of New York Knicks guard Mike Bibby, whether for his advanced age, his terrible shooting ability despite being on rosters solely to shoot, or his really hilariously slow foot speed. It's hard to know if any basketball fans even like Bibby anymore, except maybe Kings fans who went into a coma in 2002.

Dwyane Wade, who played with a very ineffective Bibby on the Miami Heat last season, is apparently a fan of these zingers. In Game 2 of their series, Wade threw Bibby's lost shoe away from a play during a possession. And, on Wednesday, Wade made fun of Bibby's recent shooting explosion against Miami. From Shandel Richardson for the Miami Sun-Sentinel (via SLAM):

Jeremy Lin, where he belongs for right now. (Getty Images)The New York Knicks head into a do-or-die Game 5 against the Miami Heat on Wednesday night as double-digit underdogs expected to go home on the business end of a gentleman's sweep. There are plenty of reasons for that — the fact that Miami's been a significantly better team over the course of the season, winning six of seven matchups against the Knicks, seems like a pretty good catch-all — but the one most of us have been focusing on since New York's elimination-delaying Game 4 win on Sunday is the sad state of affairs in the Knicks' backcourt.

After losing Iman Shumpert and Baron Davis to season-ending knee injuries, the Knicks' backcourt looks like this:

• Landry Fields, starter. Coming off a real tough year-and-a-half except for that cute glasses thing, posting a robust 7.8 Player Efficiency Rating through the first four games of this series, going to have to guard Dwyane Wade and LeBron James again, shock/horror.

• Mike Bibby, starter. Three days shy of 34 years old, legally dead on defense for three years, shooting 31.3 percent for the series, yet about to play somewhere between 30 and 40 minutes in an elimination playoff game if Knicks interim coach Mike Woodson gets his way, shock/horror.

• J.R. Smith, first guard off the bench. The utterly context-less man, shooting 5 of 24 from 3-point land in this series and yet somehow the Knicks' No. 2 option offensively for like 35 minutes a game, shock/horror.

• And Toney Douglas, second guard off the bench. The Knicks' former starting point guard, whose all-but total failings have rendered him nearly impossible to play for the last three months, to the point where a version of Mike Bibby about whom "Weekend at Bernie's" jokes have now become standard vernacular is a clear first-team choice ahead of him. Shock/horror.

Given that, you can understand why Knicks fans the world over were hanging and hoping and praying on every report that once and former bolt-from-the-blue Jeremy Lin was ahead of schedule in his comeback from surgery to repair a torn meniscus. The Knicks' Sunday win seemed like it might have opened the door for Lin's return if his recovery proceeded apace — even though that prospect was very, very scary from the get-go — but it didn't. Woodson told the media Tuesday that Lin will not play in this series, even if the Knicks win Wednesday night.

On Wednesday, Lin spoke with members of the media in Miami, including Howard Beck at the New York Times, to give his perspective on why that ahead-of-schedule return stalled out while he was working out on Monday:

"I tried to take off, tried to plant, just go full speed at 100 percent," Lin said Wednesday, as the Knicks prepared for Game 5. "It didn't feel right. It felt pain when I tried to take off."

Lin said team doctors told him, "I need to be able to just trust the knee. And right now there's some tightness and soreness. And I need to get that out obviously before I can be 100 percent."

Yes, he does. And screw anyone who suggests otherwise.

Greg Oden, in 2009 (Getty Images)

In a "shocking" interview, former No. 1 pick and ex-Portland Trail Blazers center Greg Oden said that bad influences in his life caused him to drink too much a couple of years ago, that he remains befuddled  people are so infatuated with him because he played only 82 NBA games in five potential seasons, and that he may have rushed back too early from his various knee ailments after listening to a Portland medical staff that has been discredited in some outlets.

This is a candid, evocative interview from former AAU teammate and professional [storm]-stirrer Mark Titus, but I hardly think any of the revelations could be termed as surprising. A must-read, to be sure, but who is actually taken aback in discovering that Oden is frustrated, bemused and, in some points, regretful of the series of unfortunate events that have befallen him since the Trail Blazers selected him first overall out of Ohio State in 2007? Here's one particularly noteworthy passage:

It's almost like a cloud has been following Greg since high school. He even had bad luck with the 2007 draft, landing in the same class as Kevin Durant. Experts spent two months comparing them and picking apart Greg's résumé, which didn't stop Portland from selecting him with the first overall pick. That summer, his right knee started bothering him and doctors determined that he needed microfracture surgery. Greg's rookie season was over before it even began. Portland fans, who endured the injury-ravaged careers of Bill Walton and Sam Bowie, freaked out. What those fans didn't know was that Greg's heart was still aching because of [best friend from high school, Travis Smith]'s death; he was already headed down a destructive path of drinking and "doing things I shouldn't have been doing" (his words at dinner). The knee surgery only made things worse.

Kobe Bryant reenacts his favorite scene from "Vanilla Sky" (Ned Dishman/ Getty).

Hey, remember in March when Kobe Bryant wore a mask?! He had a clear one, and then a black one that made him look like a crimefighter, and finally decided to play without it. Throughout the entire ordeal, we laughed, because Kobe is such a serious competitor that any accessory that makes him less cool becomes pretty hilarious.

For Kobe, though, the mask was just a tool he needed to perform — he held no special attachment to it, comedic or otherwise. So, with an eye towards helping the community, he decided to put the plastic mask up for auction on eBay to benefit the Kobe and Vanessa Bryant Family Foundation's Youth Homelessness Initiative. Apparently Lakers fans care about their Kobe memorabilia, because the mask sold for a hefty sum. From Kevin Ding for OCRegister.com:

The Denver Nuggets, fresh off a trip to mysynergysports.com. (AP)

The Los Angeles Lakers were mad at a lot of things following Tuesday night's Game 5 loss to the Denver Nuggets — dropping a closeout game on their home floor, giving new life to an opponent angered by a certain center's "arrogance," watching JaVale McGee torch their frontcourt and then chuck away his game ball like it ain't no thang, and having to go home and pack for another trip to Denver. (Although, as ESPN.com's J.A. Adande noted Tuesday night, it's supposed to be nice there, so that's a plus.)

One thing that angered the Lakers probably flew under the radar for the fans in the stands and the viewers at home, though — the fact that one Nuggets assistant reportedly made like "Get 'Em, Girl"-era Cam'ron during a critical late-game stoppage in play.

From Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times:

The Lakers were privately seething after seeing the Nuggets use a laptop computer in their huddle during a 20-second timeout with 19.9 seconds left to play.

The computer apparently belonged to an assistant coach sitting behind the bench with it. NBA rules forbid the use of such devices in the huddle, which won't change the final score but can carry a hefty fine of up to $250,000.

At that stage in the game, Denver was clinging to a 99-96 lead and in the midst of weathering a furious Laker comeback fueled by a stretch of hot shooting by L.A. star Kobe Bryant. Bryant had just missed a potential game-tying 3-pointer, which was rebounded by McGee, who was then fouled, triggering an out-of-bounds play on the near sideline. That's when Denver took the timeout in question.

The $250,000 fine would definitely be hefty, which explains why Nuggets executive vice president of basketball operations Masai Ujiri reportedly "worked to clarify the mater with the NBA [Wednesday] morning," according to Christopher Dempsey of the Denver Post. Ujiri probably could have just chilled out, though; NBA spokesman Tim Frank told Ball Don't Lie on Wednesday afternoon that what the Lakers accuse the Nuggets of doing is "not against the rules."

[Related: Pizza And Beer With Metta World Peace For Game 5]

"It is permissible to use a laptop or tablet (i.e., iPad) for the purposes of accessing, using or presenting statistical and scouting information to players and coaches during games," Frank told BDL in an email Wednesday. "This can include video or photographs of prior games."

Where the "hefty fine of up to $250,000" would come into play here remains unclear.

The Boston Celtics missed an opportunity to close out the Atlanta Hawks on Tuesday night, dropping an 87-86 road affair that gives Atlanta the chance to knot their first-round series in Boston on Thursday night. Near misses like the one Boston had at Philips Arena tend to stick in a player's craw, especially when the player singlehandedly got his flagging team back into the game and conjured a chance to win it out of thin air, only to see it end in a trap, a turnover and a loss, extending a series that player felt his team already had won.

So, yeah, Rajon Rondo — whom NBA fans know to be a quiet, reserved and occasionally volatile sort as it is — was a little bit salty when he spotted a cameraman filming him after Boston's Tuesday night loss:

While waiting to take the podium for his postgame media session, Rondo noticed a cameraman filming his idle chatter. The point guard pointed at the cameraman (which, if I was the cameraman, would probably have me thinking, "Oh, crap") before walking over to voice his displeasure.

"Listen — how many times I'mma tell you?" Rondo asks. "You are not filming me. I told you to quit filming. Do not film me. I'm not doing an interview right now. I just told you."

The progression is simple — Emotional Dude fresh off a tough loss wants to have a couple of moments with some people close to him before he steps up to the podium and talks about not having his best performance and his team dropping a winnable playoff game; Emotional Dude sees a camera encroaching on those moments; Emotional Dude responds in an emotional fashion; Emotional Dude comes off looking like kind of a jerk, especially after "Inside the NBA" host Ernie Johnson tags the encounter with a terse "Whatever."

Jameer Nelson in the waning moments of his team's final game (Getty Images)

The Orlando Magic would fascinate me endlessly, even if it weren't for the ongoing Dwight Howard saga or the fact that they might soon fire one of the best coaches in the NBA just to appease a player who took 80 percent of the season to decide that he wanted to play for the Magic for one more season, while still refusing to sign a contract extension along the way.

See, the Magic make no sense. The two best players in the franchise's regular-season run in 2008-09, the one that led to the team making the Finals, were drafted by former GM John Weisbrod. Now, Weisbrod was smart to draft Dwight Howard ahead of NCAA superstar Emeka Okafor, and good to go after fellow NCAA superstar Jameer Nelson later in that draft, but just about every other move he made as Magic GM was terrible. Young traded for old. Good traded for worse. Big traded for small. Everything you're not supposed to do, save for picking Howard and Nelson. Weird résumé, that.

So then current GM Otis Smith takes over, and because the team starts to win behind Howard and Nelson, you tend to ignore his missteps along the way. Like attempting to hire Florida's Billy Donovan, before settling on Stan Van Gundy once Donovan went back on his agreement with the Magic to coach the team. Or the drafting of Fran Vazquez. Or the Rashard Lewis contract. All of this stuff was swept under the rug because the Magic — through Howard, Nelson and SVG — were winning.