When the playoffs started back in April, Oklahoma City Thunder center Kendrick Perkins probably imagined he would currently be preparing for Game 7 of the NBA Finals, if not already basking in the glory of a title. That didn't work out for Perk and his teammates, of course, in part because of the season-ending knee injury suffered by Russell Westbrook in the first round. Yet, like anyone facing disappointment, Perkins has had to go on with his life. He is a man of many interests and needs, not just a basketball player.

So, on the night of the best NBA game in many years, Perk decided to sell a dog on Twitter. His first notice was short and to the point:

Hey I have a English bulldog and he to big to be around my youngest child he 10 months got his papers and he got a micro chip.

— Kendrick Perkins (@KendrickPerkins) June 19, 2013

This is an enticing prospect. Sure, the dog is apparently unsafe for very small children, but any other family, couple, or individual without that mitigating factor could be in line for a great dog with some fancy technology built in. Plus, who wouldn't want to do Perk a favor? The bulldog is cheap, right? We're just helping you out?

We paid about 3,000 for him but its not the the money we want to sell him for 1,500 but we will work with you just want a good home for him — Kendrick Perkins (@KendrickPerkins) June 19, 2013

That's a lot of money, Perk. Is there any way I can get a bargain?

I just don't want to sell him but we don't have time for him taking bids now

— Kendrick Perkins (@KendrickPerkins) June 19, 2013

Sure, this makes sense. eBay doesn't allow the sale of live creatures, which makes Twitter the next best option (other than several normal pet adoption channels). But no one will buy a four-figure dog sight unseen? What does he look like?

pic.twitter.com/VDzEtNhNAg — Kendrick Perkins (@KendrickPerkins) June 19, 2013

OK, this is an adorable dog. Check out this underbite!

pic.twitter.com/4Zex36PsT1

— Kendrick Perkins (@KendrickPerkins) June 19, 2013

Surely someone would pay for this dog. Any takers?

Do anybody wants him seriously he needs to be gone by tomorrow — Kendrick Perkins (@KendrickPerkins) June 19, 2013

Gone? Like to a farm upstate? Um, is he at least going to get a home?

They dog sold yall

— Kendrick Perkins (@KendrickPerkins) June 19, 2013

Phew, it looks like this nameless, very cute animal has found a new owner. Hopefully it's a good one. Although, you know, we probably can't know that, since Twitter is an unproven venue for vetting potential pet owners.

We can only guess who won the auction, but I imagine it was @Bballhoffman. "Straw Dogs" is about pets, yes?

(via Deadspin)

Chances are you've heard about the Miami Heat fans who decided to get an early start on their commute when the San Antonio Spurs held a 94-89 lead with 28 seconds remaining in Game 6 of the NBA Finals on Tuesday night. Chances are you've also heard that rumors of the Heat's demise were greatly exaggerated, as a headband-less LeBron James and a pure-from-the-corner Ray Allen authored enough late-game magic to push the game to overtime, where the Heat held on for a 103-100 win that guaranteed a deciding Game 7 for the 2013 NBA championship on Thursday night.

Heat center Chris Bosh played a major role in the comeback win, playing sensational defense in the late stages, grabbing the offensive rebound that led to Allen's corner 3-pointer and coming up with two huge blocks, including one on a last-ditch try by Spurs sharpshooter Danny Green, to seal the victory. And at the Heat's Wednesday practice, the All-Star center didn't mince his words when asked about those who took an early powder from AmericanAirlines Arena when the chips were down:

"For all those guys who left, don't come back for Game 7." - Chris Bosh

— Ryan Wolstat (@WolstatSun) June 19, 2013

He had plenty more to say, too.

"You never give up," Bosh continued. "People gave up on us, and they can stay where they are and watch the game at home."

As we noted after Game 6, many of those who left early tried to rush back into the arena upon learning that the Heat had made a late run to force overtime, only to be turned away by arena workers — and, eventually, Miami police — who upheld the venue's no re-entry policy. Bosh, as you might suspect, had no sympathy for those forced to stay out.

"Yeah, you can't get let back in after you leave," he said. "I know that. Hell, I've been to games. You can't leave a game and then come back. It doesn't make any sense. You left. It's not punishment; that's protocol."

Bosh's teammates took a somewhat softer, more inclusive stance. James said he understood that the Heat had put supporters through the emotional wringer down the stretch.

"I apologize to our fans from last night. But the game is — that's why the game is played all the way to zeros," said James, who scored 18 of his 32 points in the fourth quarter and overtime to help secure the win. "As a fan and people watching at home [...] wow, it had to do a lot to them, both if you were a Spurs fan or a Heat fan or just a general fan of the game. It definitely brought everything out of you that you probably didn't think you had."

Point guard Mario Chalmers struck an appropriately bemused tone.

"To the fans that stayed, thank you," he said, according to CBSSports.com's Royce Young. "To the fans that left, maybe you'll stay in Game 7."

Veteran forward Shane Battier was most welcoming of all.

"The door will always be open for them," he said, according to Young.

This, of course, is a wholly reasonable perspective — there's no reason for the Heat to start lobbing bombs at paying customers before the biggest home game of the season. And yes, as friend Bobby Big Wheel wrote Wednesday at Deadspin, there are all sorts of legitimate real-life reasons for leaving a sporting event early that don't make you less of a fan. I mean, Mr. Wheel's conflation of a random regular-season Penguins/Whalers tilt with a potential elimination NBA Finals game in which the Heat had already made a monster late run feels a bit off to me, but hey, it takes diff'rent strokes to move the world.

Still, it's kind of great to hear Bosh — someone often criticized and derided for being soft, for being aloof/goofy/overly cerebral/insert-not-tough-signifier-here — so plainly and in such a matter-of-fact tone tell the fairweather friends and bandwagon jumpers in his midst to kindly get to steppin'. You bail on us? Good. Who needs you? We're 48 minutes from back-to-back championships. Champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends, and more of the former to go around with fewer glasses to fill.

I'm not quite sure why, but that kind of snarl seems to suit Bosh — especially a version who, twice in the last three games, has been a defensive demon for the Heat, and who damn sure better have earned some stripes in the eyes of cynics by withstanding a first-half hammering from Spurs star Tim Duncan to play his best all-around ball when it mattered most. Let the rest of your teammates play nice and open their arms, Chris; hang onto this tone through Thursday night, huh?

For what it's worth, Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra said he "didn't have any idea about" the fans leaving early at the time, and that he didn't think his players did either.

"We were fully engaged in the moment," the coach said.

As, we hope, he, his team and every single ticket-holder at AmericanAirlines Arena will be come Thursday night. A series this amazing deserves nothing less.

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: SB Nation. A hilarious, must-read column comparing the San Antonio Spurs to various dad-types and I’ve already said way, way too much just go read it, pops.
PF: Toronto Star. Toronto Raptors coach Dwane Casey, who will stick with the team for 2013-14, stops by a local middle school to offer some guidance to seventh and eighth graders.
SF: Raptors.com. New Raptors general manager Masai Ujiri discusses his motivations and early moves behind the first month of his latest regime with the team, including hiring a collective bargaining agreement-expert to the staff. Pretty sound move, in light of the moves made by the previous administration.
SG: AZCentral. Bob Young on why the respective administrations of a coach and general manager hired at different times shouldn’t overlap, and why the Phoenix Suns are smart to hire both general manager Ryan McDonough and coach Jeff Hornacek in the same offseason.
PG: Post-ambles. EXCLUSIVE: ESPN’s Rick Reilly has already written his column in reaction to Thursday’s Game 7 between the Spurs and Heat, and we have your link to it.

6th: SB Nation. Clearly influenced by Rick Reilly, I looked forward to squeezing through Paul Flannery’s take on Game 6 just as I usually look forward to the delicious chorizo that awaits me after I squeezed its spicy sausage out of the tube. It was worth the squeeze.
7th: New Republic. Marc Tracy on LeBron James: “There is also the underexplored problem—analogous to the quandary presented by criticism of great artists (visible recently in the reaction to Kanye West’s new album)—that James is so many levels of genius above us that we are actually incapable of validly analyzing his unprecedented game, in which the skills of a point guard like Magic Johnson are invested in the body of a power forward like Karl Malone and combined with the brain of a coach like Gregg Popovich. We are not smart enough to understand James’ game, and so instead fall back on telling each other fun little stories.”
8th: The Shadow League. Bomani Jones, with his typical ease and touch, brilliantly discusses LeBron James’ “climactic chapter” heading into Game 7.
9th: Clippers.com. The Los Angeles Clippers have actually put together some fair draft choices in their time, and this is honestly a pretty cool slideshow.
10th: Grantland. This is a column about Game 6 of the NBA Finals, written by Zach Lowe, that I bookmarked earlier today. Dan Devine also emailed a link to this column to me this afternoon as a suggestion for this list of things to read on the internet. I, personally, have not read this column by Zach Lowe and am planning on reading it later after I pick up my wife from work. Because this is a column about basketball by Zach Lowe, we all should read it. Preferably by sundown.

Got a link or tip for Ball Don't Lie? Holler at me at kdonhoops (at) yahoo.com, or follow me on Twitter.

The San Antonio Spurs’ system – its routine – has been lauded for years for providing consistent season after season of mindful, winning basketball. The team has been able to mix equal parts adaptability and attention to structure on its way toward four NBA championships, and that system seemed well on its way to a fifth banner in Tuesday’s Game 6 of the NBA Finals before coach Gregg Popovich decided to pull Tim Duncan in the game’s final minute so as to match up with the Miami Heat’s smaller lineup.

A five-point lead quickly evaporated into a tie ballgame, though, as the Heat crashed the offensive boards after two bad three-point misses to reconfigure and toss in two killer treys in the game’s final seconds, as Duncan watched from the sidelines. To hear the Spurs tell it on Wednesday, the lineup was normal, to be expected, and set to return should the same context spring up in Game 7.

Here’s Tim Duncan on the Spurs’ late-game approach in Game 6, via ASAPSports.com:

Not new at all. Something we've done all year. Obviously we were trying to protect the three‑point line. We had a lot of bodies in there to switch and get up on our shooters. Two bad bounces off a rebound, we actually get the stops on the threes and bad bounces right back out for threes.

It is what it is. Obviously, I want to be in there every minute of the game. That's just how we're built. But we've done it all year long. We've been successful with it. And if it comes down to it again, Pop will make the call again.

Pop, earlier in the afternoon, said as much:

It's not that simple. That's not why they got the threes. We were up five when they got their first three. And so reading and switching makes sense just to take away the three.

But on an offensive rebound, it's one of the toughest things in the NBA, to pick up people. And we had one guy who didn't pick up. LeBron shot an air ball, when we were up five. They got the rebound, they got it back to him and he knocked it down.

And then on the last possession we were switching at the three‑point line to take away the three, and Boris Diaw has a little more speed than Tim Duncan, so it makes sense to have him out there reading at the three‑point line. Unfortunately we had two guys that went to LeBron and didn't switch with Bosh, and he went right to the hole. He's the guy who got the rebound.

So it has nothing to do with Duncan.

Coach after coach will be correct in telling you that guarding the three-point line – a major priority in a typical half-court possession – is a frustrating endeavor when an offensive rebound is collected by your opponent. There’s just too many bodies to account for, and the five-man small lineup that’s pitched to stand around the arc for a long range shot in the half court seemingly becomes twice as hard to guard with a loose ball involved, and willing shooters ready to have another go at it.

We’re right to wonder if Popovich screwed up. While I agree that Diaw is at this point quicker than Tim Duncan, and that Duncan’s classic big man defense may seem like a walking anachronism in the face of a small Miami lineup, a defensive stop doesn’t end until you’ve secured the bloody ball. And Tim Duncan is far better than Boris Diaw at securing the bloody ball.

With that in place, those two missteps are on the players on the floor, not the coach on the sideline.

It’s pointless to criticize the Spurs for failing to secure those long, wild rebounds. One was off of an airball, and chucks from three-point range are traditionally the hardest to grab. We also shouldn’t criticize them for failing to foul the Heat while within the three-point circle, as that’s a huge call to make at such a crucial juncture, especially so far away from the Spurs’ bench and the barked out orders.

(Although, it should be noted, for the first time in his career Popovich has decided to choose to have his bench face his team’s offensive side of the court during the second half. Coach Pop dismissed questions about the move in a press conference earlier in the postseason.)

We can blame them, though. Blaming and criticizing are two different things, because while the Spurs’ efforts and instincts were probably above reproach late in the regulation minute of Game 6, their execution was off. Even if Tony Parker did all he could to get a hand in Ray Allen’s face without fouling before Allen nailed the game-tying trey.

Gregg Popovich may seem like a stubborn, intractable sort – but his game plan and adjustments throughout the years betray that stereotype. The guy thinks on his feet, perhaps better than anyone to ever walk an NBA sideline.

He’s sticking with this move, though. And it’s not hard to understand why.

Related NBA video from Yahoo! Sports:

Related coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
• Ray Allen nails huge 3-pointer to send Game 6 to overtime
• Kawhi Leonard posterizes Mike Miller
• Chris Bosh saves Game 6 for the Miami Heat

Hey, it might be a step down from making nearly $6 million a year, but there are worse jobs than being a sidekick, Mike Miller. Ed McMahon did pretty well for himself "You are correct, sir"-ing Johnny Carson for all those years, and plenty of people love Andy Richter at least as much as they do Conan O'Brien. Hell, Tonto even gets top billing in the new "Lone Ranger" movie. It can be a pretty sweet gig if you play your cards right.

Then again, if the only option is being Shaquille O'Neal's sidekick, you might want to hold off on retirement for another year or two. Unless you're eager to dive headfirst into the deep end of a comedy pool chlorinated by underwear gooves and buttface zings, that is. If you are, then go right ahead. I'm sure the water's warm enough that if you put your college roommate's hand in it, he'd pee his pants, resulting in a totally viral clip hosted on the Comedy Shaq Network.

What do you think Miller and Shaq are yukkin' it up over? Best caption wins "Sidekicks," the 1992 film starring Chuck Norris and Jonathan Brandis (not really, but you should totally watch this). Good luck.

In our last adventure: Now you've done it — you've shocked Boris Diaw.

Winner, Legend Killer: "WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP!"

NOTE: Need a Create-a-Caption winner? Why not Zoidberg?

Runner-up, Russell S: Boris Diaw is shocked! — SHOCKED! — to see what Ty did to his house on "Extreme Makeover: NBA Finals Edition."

Second runner-up, D: Has anyone in this family ever even seen a chicken?

SLAM magazine is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, and the institution remains a massive and lasting influence on our basketball lives. That doesn’t mean the publication has been without its missteps over the years, as the mag’s editors were brave enough to reveal in an interview with Miami Heat sharpshooter Ray Allen on Tuesday.

Allen, who is enjoying a day “off” in preparation for the second Game 7 of his NBA Finals career, recently pointed to a 1996 draft feature from SLAM as continuing motivation for the persistence he’s shown since entering the NBA that year, persistence that has paid off enough to make him the NBA’s all-time leader in both regular and postseason three-pointers, and a lifesaver for his Miami Heat on Tuesday night.

From SLAM:

“I’ve had one gripe my whole career about SLAM and I still keep it ‘til this day. It’s probably one of my sole motivators on a daily basis and I don’t know if I ever told anybody this. When that article came out with all of us on the cover [of SLAM 15], it had the (predicted) accolades on the inside. It said most likely to win MVP, most likely to do this. One of them said most likely to fade into obscurity…..and it was me. I was 21 and I knew what obscurity meant, but I had to look it up because I needed to make sure. It pissed me off because I felt I was going to leave my mark on this league.

Whoever wrote that pissed me off and it gave me motivation my whole career. I was like I want to be somebody who I’m going to leave my lasting mark on this league. As much as it pissed me off, it was a good thing because it always made me remember that there were people who thought I wasn’t going to be good. So that was motivation.

Allen, it should be noted, is one of six players from the 1996 draft class to actually play ball in 2012-13, amongst go-to guys like Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash, and barely-clingers like Marcus Camby, Derek Fisher, and Jermaine O’Neal. He’s the only member of his draft class to play past the second week of May.

It’s true that SLAM really boned this one, but this also speaks to the sports media’s changing culture. In a lot of ways, especially in regards to the morning and afternoon shifts on basic cable TV, we’ve gotten a lot worse over the years. In far more instances, though, the scene has become smarter, more confident in its takes, and well-vetted in terms of research and preparation. In 1996, a magazine like SLAM had to do off the wall stuff like calling out busts and creating either/or lists.

In 2013? The same approach would be laughed off of the internet. At least, by those who don’t watch basic cable sports TV during the late morning and early afternoon hours.

So before ripping on SLAM, understand what things were like in 1996 – in the nascent days of the internet, with irreverent sportswriting still finding its legs. And credit Ray Allen, who entered this league in 1996 while being disparaged by some as a shooter and little else, and is still churning along some 17 years later. Saving a defending champion’s season, giving us the gift of a Game 7 of the NBA Finals.

If this is what obscurity means, then we should all be so lucky so as to fade into it.

(Pretty sure this isn’t what “obscurity” means.)

Top Plays: Ray Allen

Pop quiz, hot shot: Which two words does Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra think are the best two words in team sports?

A) Positionless grinding

B) Elite competition

C) Miami Heat

D) Game 7

E) Passionate grinding

F) Physical skirmish

G) Udonis identity

Let's go to the videotape:

That's right: The correct answer is D) Game 7. Congratulations to those who chose wisely. To those who chose poorly, well, as Coach Spo might say, you'll all have to own it together.

Cole, though, didn't play at all, earning his first DNP-CD of the playoffs as Erik Spoelstra relied on Chalmers with support from no-point-guard lineups in which James and Dwyane Wade handled the ball. But that doesn't mean Cole didn't make any awesome contributions on Tuesday night — check out his reaction to the Heat's final offensive possession of the fourth quarter, which ended with Allen's massive 3-pointer to tie the game and force overtime:

Unbridled joy + unfettered athleticism = good Vine. (Seriously: Look how high he jumped. That's an excited young man.)

Cole might not have had a starring role in Game 6, but he was arguably the Best Supporting Actor on one of the greatest, most memorable shots in NBA Finals history. Not a bad consolation prize, huh?

Vine via Ryan Weiss.

For years, LeBron James has relied on an ever-expanding headband to both capture the buckets of sweat that drip off his head during an NBA game and attempt (and fail) to cover up his receding hairline. James' headband has become both a national punchline and a sought-after souvenir, a giant and unavoidable part of the MVP's profile (literally), an accessory and affectation without which it seems odd to imagine James on the court.

And yet, just like that, it went away during the fourth quarter of Game 6 ... yet LeBron soldiered on.

[Y! Sports Fan Shop: Buy 2013 NBA Finals merchandise]

It happened on an offensive rebound and putback dunk of a Mario Chalmers miss at the nine-minute mark of the fourth quarter to cut the Spurs' lead to 80-77:

The moment itself, via an endlessly repeating Vine:

"I don't even remember the play much," James said after the game. "I was just focused on the job, the task at hand, and just trying to be aggressive, just trying to figure out ways I could help the team get back into the game. And you know, I guess the headband was the least of my worries at that point."

The Heat had already begun their comeback before James lost his headband — it started to stir in the waning seconds of the fourth quarter, when a pair of James free throws stemmed an 18-7 Spurs run and cut what had been a 12-point San Antonio lead to 10 heading into the fourth. From there, a big Chalmers 3 on the opening possession of the fourth, a LeBron layup and an instant-classic one-shoe/one-sock 3-pointer by Mike Miller got the game within two possessions and the Heat within hailing distance. Things did seem to pick up after the revelation of 'Bron's (ample) brow, though.

After the terrycloth unburdening and a San Antonio answer on the other end by Kawhi Leonard (who continues to be great in this series, final-minute free-throw miss aside), James got straight to the rim on consecutive possessions and hit one of two layups to keep Miami within three. Then, he fired a crazy bullet pass out of the high post and over the top of Tony Parker to Chris Andersen for a dunk attempt that created two free throws, which Birdman split to make the score 82-80. After that, he came flying off the weak-side to pick up a huge at-the-rim block on Tim Duncan, which he followed up by driving on Duncan, pump-faking him into the air, and going up, under and off the glass to tie the game. James looked lighter, more at ease ... perhaps sleeker and less wind-resistant.

There were dicey moments to come, for sure. After having his stride broken by an offensive foul, a couple of empty Dwyane Wade-helmed possessions, a pair of Heat timeouts and some (but, alas, not enough) brilliant shot-making by Tony Parker, James committed two bad turnovers in an 11-second span that helped put the Spurs up by five, 94-89, with 28 seconds remaining. (That's the deficit that sent quite a few faint-of-heart Heat fans streaming for the exits.)

James bounced back, though, hitting a huge 3-pointer with 20 seconds left to bring the Heat within two, setting the stage for Ray Allen's game-tying triple to send Game 6 into overtime. Once there, he assisted on four of Miami's eight OT points and scored two himself, hitting the go-ahead leaner with 1:43 remaining.

All told, after a fairly shaky first three quarters in which he missed nine of 12 shots, James finished with 32 points, 11 assists, 10 rebounds and three steals in just under 50 minutes of play, posting his second triple-double of these Finals and his fourth career title-round triple-double, and running his career averages in potential elimination games to 31.5 points, 10 rebounds and 6.8 assists per game in 12 contests. Fourteen points, four rebounds, two assists, one steal and the Duncan block came after the headband came off.

They also came — or, a lot of them, anyway — with Wade on the bench and James sharing the floor with Chalmers, Allen, Miller and Chris Andersen. That's the floor-spacing and defensively active five-man unit that crushed San Antonio in the second half of Game 2 but had been mothballed since; after Wade's return for Miller at the 3:48 mark, the Spurs went on a 10-2 run that nearly cost Miami the game.

What kickstarted things was probably the headband, though. Either that or what Heat coach Erik Spoelstra called after the game "an absolute desperation and will." You pick your favorite; I'm going with the one that keeps the sweat out of my eyes.

The big question heading into Thursday's Game 7, obviously, is whether James will succumb to superstition and choose to continue to play without his infamous accessory. I think he should. You don't mess with a winning streak, LeBron, even if said streak is just one game. Also, if you win a championship with your receding hairline struggle uncovered and uncowed — just out there in front of the eyes of God and the world and everyone — then you'll have overcome the source of perhaps the most withering LeBron jokes of all.

It's time, LeBron. Let your freak forehead flag fly, and let the chips fall where
they may.

Vine via Yahoo! Sports Minute producer Blair Johnson. Post-headband highlight video via MAKAVELI719696.

With 31.3 seconds left in overtime and the Heat leading 101-100, Miami inbounds the ball, rags some clock and, after a couple of Heat screens, Dwyane Wade looks away from Ray Allen coming open off a curl to take a stepback 21-footer that misses. (Naturally.) Spurs small forward Kawhi Leonard rebounds the miss with 12 seconds left and bowls it up the floor to Manu Ginobili. San Antonio had a timeout, but coach Gregg Popovich elected not to use it to get point guard Tony Parker (who appeared to be totally exhausted) back on the floor.

[Y! Sports Fan Shop: Buy 2013 NBA Finals merchandise]

Instead, Ginobili — who'd had a rough go of it to that point, with seven turnovers in 34 1/2 minutes — is free to attack Allen off the dribble, and he does, crossing left to get to the middle of the floor and toward the paint ahead of a back-checking Wade. Ginobili gathers, launches into a sea of white jerseys ... and loses the ball, with Allen gaining possession and forcing San Antonio to foul with 1.9 seconds left. Allen would go on to make his two free throws, putting Miami up three; the Spurs' try for the tie came up empty when Chris Bosh made his game-sealing block on Danny Green to close Game 6. (Spurs fans might not be thrilled about that play, either.)

Ginobili and Popovich were absolutely livid on the floor, contending that Allen had fouled the Argentinian by making contact with his right arm on the reach-in that resulted in Ginobili losing possession. Neither player nor coach commented on the play in their postgame press conferences, but teammate Tim Duncan echoed their on-court criticism in his media session.

"Honestly, the last play down the stretch there, it can go either way," Duncan said. "We obviously believe it was a foul going down the middle. We get two free throws and we're talking about something different here, if that happens."

It's a really tough play for the refs to officiate in real time, especially when one (Ken Mauer, yellow arrow) is trailing the play after Wade's shot ...

... and a second (Joey Crawford, also a yellow arrow) is effectively screened off by the bodies of Allen and Ginobili from his vantage point on the right sideline:

The key here is the third zebra, Mike Callahan, whose sightline to the ball is marked by the red arrow in the screencap above. From the baseline angle of the replay shown on the ABC telecast, Allen does appear to make contact with Ginobili's right arm as he tries to strip the ball; and yet, Callahan seems to have a clear view of the reach from his own baseline angle, and still elects to keep his whistle in his pocket.

Then again, maybe Callahan did the in-the-moment moment math on what appears upon further review to be competing violations — a swipe from Allen and a clear traveling violation by Ginobili, who gathers the ball just inside the 3-point line and takes three big, obvious steps into the paint before elevating to attempt a shot, where the arm contact happened — and figured it was better to let the result of the play stand. It seems like a reasonable assessment to me ... but maybe you view it differently.

Do you think Ginobili got the shaft on the no-call? Do you think the walk would've eliminated the call anyway? Do you think it's all much ado about not much at all, since this individual play was not the reason the Heat won nor the cause of the Spurs' loss? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

If the video above isn't rocking for you, please feel free to check out the play elsewhere, thanks to SI.com's Rob Mahoney.

Related coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
• Watch: LeBron James blocks Tim Duncan at the rim
• Slideshow: LeBron James loses headband, leads Heat to victory
• Heat's Mike Miller continues shoeless dominance

Tony Parker has certainly made more ridiculous shots in his lifetime.

The man has made a career out of wild floaters, spinners in the lane, points in the paint that typically belong to big men, and long jumpers that make his head coach cringe. And as obviously injured and winded as Parker appeared to be in the second half of Tuesday’s Game 6 NBA Finals loss to the Miami Heat, many in the moment thought that Parker’s jumper at the buzzer of regulation still had a great shot to go in.

Mainly because this is Tony Parker, noted slayer of giants, that we’re talking about. Alas, it was not to be. Watch:

Parker’s jumper, as ABC color analyst Jeff Van Gundy noted in the broadcast, “wasn’t even close.” It still wasn’t a bad look, considering the circumstances.

San Antonio was without a timeout with 5.2 seconds left in regulation, and mindful of this (following the previous Ray Allen three-point make) the Spurs attempted to immediately push the ball into play while taking advantage of a recovering Miami Heat defense. Referee Mike Callahan, though, decided to stop the ballgame to check to see if Allen’s feet were behind the three-point arc, a move that Spurs coach Gregg Popovich vehemently disagreed with, yelling “you can’t do that” to the refereeing crew as they stopped San Antonio’s attempt at putting the ball into play.

San Antonio – and pay attention to this, all you wack-job NBA conspiracy theorists – then countered with a massively illegal move of its own that the refereeing crew allowed.

[Related: Did Popovich cost Spurs victory in Game 6?]

The Spurs entered Tim Duncan back into the game while Allen’s shot was being reviewed. Teams are not allowed to substitute players during referee reviews, because reviews aren’t technically a dead ball situation.

Think about that. Tim Duncan could have capped a legendary career with a game-winning shot to win the 2013 NBA Finals, and it wouldn’t have even been legal. And there wouldn’t have been anything the referees – considering the NBA’s current in-game rules regarding mulligans – could have done about it.

Once again, put that in your pipe, conspiracy lovers. The Spurs were allowed to re-introduce their best player into the game illegally in the game’s final seconds. This refereeing crew made some significant mistakes in Game 6, but not because they were trying to tilt the action one way or the other. They just screwed some calls up.

[Related: Heat feast on late-game miscues]

More important is the state of Parker, who played more than 42 minutes in the loss with a hamstring pull, and was obviously tripping over his own dragging tongue by the time the third quarter ended. Tony ended up missing all three of his shots in overtime and clanking on 17 of 23 shots overall, and if he’s unable to drive the San Antonio offense in Game 7, then it may not even be worth it for the Spurs to drive to the arena.

Though they will. And Parker will try. And we’ll get a Game 7, to see if Tony can try to nail another game-winner.

(With legal players on the court, this time, we hope.)

Related video from Yahoo! Sports:

NBA Finals coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
• LeBron keys big-time Heat rally
• Watch: Allen's three bails out Miami
• Green's shot blocked at the buzzer
• Mike Miller dominates while shoeless

The Miami Heat entered the fourth quarter of Tuesday night's Game 6 in need of a run to extend their season to one more game. Down 75-65 to the San Antonio Spurs entering the quarter, the Heat responded with five quick points from a Mario Chalmers three-pointer and LeBron James lay-up. A lay-in by Spurs center Tiago Splitter communicated that the visitors wouldn't give up, but the Heat made their statement. They would work through any obstacles to get back in the game.

Of course, teams don't win NBA Finals games simply through hard work and gumption — sometimes it takes a heavy dose of the improbable to get a victory. As Splitter made his basket, Heat wing Mike Miller lost his left shoe while jockeying for rebounding position with Boris Diaw. In order to make sure his team wouldn't play a key possession down a man, Miller carried his shoe back up the court to the offensive end and threw it towards his team's bench.

That's not to say that Miller was in good position to make a player. Anyone who's stepped onto a hardwood floor in socks knows that it can be difficult to maintain balance or traction. Yet Miller gingerly jogged to his spot on the right wing, took a pass from LeBron James, and calmly drilled a three-pointer to cut the lead to 77-73. Gregg Popovich followed up the shot with a timeout, and Miller retreated to the bench to recover his lost sneaker. Meanwhile, the Heat went on to capture the game 103-100 in overtime.

The craziest thing about this shot may have been that it wasn't the first time Miller performed well with one shoe in a big playoff game. In Game 5 of the 2012 Eastern Conference Semifinals, Miller played two defensive possessions without one of his shoes and helped to hold the Indiana Pacers scoreless on both.

All we can assume, really, is that Miller should play with one shoe on every possession for the rest of his career. At the very least, the man has earned himself a high-profile sock endorsement.

San Antonio Spurs sharpshooter Danny Green has had an unbelievable 2013 NBA Finals, setting a new record for the most three-pointers in a championship series and making a much greater name for himself in the process. It's been enough to get the Miami Heat to notice his skills. In the lead-up to Tuesday night's Game 6, big man Chris Bosh said that the Heat would not let Green stay open for the rest of the series.

On the last play of the game, Bosh kept his word. With the Heat up 103-100 and 1.9 seconds left in overtime, the Spurs ran a play to get Green a look from the far corner that would have tied the game. (There were some similarities to Manu Ginobili's game-winning shot in Game 1 of the Western Conference Semifinals against the Golden State Warriors.) However, Bosh tracked the pass, closed out on Green, and managed to block the shot for one of his several big defensive plays down the stretch. The Heat held on to win, and the two teams will meet again on Thursday for a decisive Game 7.

The block was immediately met with some speculation as to whether Bosh had fouled Green. Join us after the jump for a screengrab of the contact (via Erik Malinowski) and more discussion of the play.

In the aftermath, ESPN on ABC commentator Jeff Van Gundy noted that this play would have been called as a foul at any other moment in the game. As this image shows, Bosh got ball up top, but it does not communicate the force with which he hit Green's body. Yet, while the letter of the law suggests this should have been a foul, NBA referees have always called the game based on situation. Simply put, defenders get more leeway on game-deciding plays. That's why Van Gundy also said he liked the non-call, and why most of the outcry after this block was limited to pro-Spurs observers.

Regardless, the result of the play ensures that Bosh's terrific effort in the fourth quarter and overtime will be remembered for some time. Despite his importance to the Heat, Bosh has been derided often for perceived soft play and difficulties protecting the rim. In Game 6, he covered several Spurs all over the court and helped ramp up the Heat's defensive intensity with their season on the line. This block — his biggest play of the night, surely — was just the best expression of his stellar performance.

Related coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
• LeBron James, Ray Allen rally Heat to Game 7 of NBA Finals
• Miami Heat fans leave NBA Finals Game 6 early, not allowed back in for comeback win
• Ray Allen nails huge late 3-pointer to send Heat-Spurs Game 6 to overtime

While arguments about which city's or team's fans often tend to be a dumb, parochial domain, and while it sometimes feels like Miami catches a #BadSportsTown rap that's a bit overstated, I think we can agree that leaving an NBA Finals game before its completion is kind of a bad look. Let alone a game in which your hometown team would be eliminated with a loss. Let alone a game in which your hometown team fought back from seven points down at the start of the fourth quarter, that was a one-possession affair from just inside the eight-minute mark all the way into the final minute, and in which said hometown team held a three-point lead with less than two minutes remaining.

And yet, a number of members of the AmericanAirlines Arena faithful on hand to cheer for the Miami Heat in Game 6 of the 2013 NBA Finals against the San Antonio Spurs did choose to exit with the game still in the balance in the final minute. And based on the escalator shot above shared by ESPN's Bomani Jones late in the fourth quarter — and the commentary of several others on the scene — it was a fairly large number:

Mass exodus. Gotta beat traffic, you know?

— Dan Le Batard Show (@LeBatardShow) June 19, 2013

So many people have left that I'm honestly embarrassed for this city. — Dan Le Batard Show (@LeBatardShow) June 19, 2013

I'm happy for the 2,000 or so Heat fans who left with 30 seconds left. No traffic!

— Dan Wetzel (@DanWetzel) June 19, 2013

Grantland's Rembert Browne captured the outpouring with the Heat down five:

The real fun, though, came after the Heat came back from a five-point deficit in the final 30 seconds of the fourth quarter thanks to some critical Spurs miscues and a massive 3-pointer by Ray Allen to tie the game and send it into overtime. Suddenly, some of those early-exiting fans started to suspect that they'd left something at their seats that they needed to retrieve post-haste. Except, y'know, you're not allowed to do that ... which made some AAA-abandoners unhappy.

Nothing captures the scene quite like the tweets of Victor Oquendo, a reporter with Miami ABC affiliate WLPG-TV, who saw the whole thing unfold while preparing for his evening broadcast:

Fans streaming out...I'm gonna throw up — Victor Oquendo (@VictorOquendo) June 19, 2013

Honestly embarrassing. I'm setting up for my live shot outside the arena, just watching fan after fan exit early.

— Victor Oquendo (@VictorOquendo) June 19, 2013

Now I'm watching horrible, drunk, quitting fans desperately trying to get back in. This is madness. — Victor Oquendo (@VictorOquendo) June 19, 2013

None of them deserve to be let in. They are pounding the glass doors. I'm all for gender equality but I'm only seeing female guards....

— Victor Oquendo (@VictorOquendo) June 19, 2013

Might need to call the big dogs in soon. Just sayin' — Victor Oquendo (@VictorOquendo) June 19, 2013

Cops finally here. Fans still pounding on the doors begging to be let in.

— Victor Oquendo (@VictorOquendo) June 19, 2013

@BrodyLogan @ThisIsChucker same fans screaming about how much they paid for their tickets by the way. — Victor Oquendo (@VictorOquendo) June 19, 2013

@Ms_Mambo not being let in and it's glorious.

— Victor Oquendo (@VictorOquendo) June 19, 2013

The Heat, of course, went on to win Game 6 in overtime, 103-100, setting up a winner-take-all Game 7 at AmericanAirlines Arena on Thursday.

After the game, CBSSports.com's Royce Young spoke with arena staff and fans who stuck around about the premature evacuation:

One worker expressed actual worry and there was a little bit of fear because of the aggressiveness some were showing.

"They were saying, 'I just left! I just left! Please!'" an arena worker said. "They'd run up there, then they'd run back here trying different doors to see if they could get in."

Asked if there was any consideration to open the door, an arena official said that was firmly against policy — the doors are marked in big red letters "NO RE-ENTRY ALLOWED" — and said if the doors were opened, that could only make things worse. [...]

"I was kind of devastated to see so many people leaving," one Heat fan said. "I said, 'they will feel really, really bad when the Heat get back in this game and win.' And they did."

A quick pro-tip for those lucky enough to have tickets to attend just the 18th Game 7 in NBA Finals history: Stick around. You never know what might happen.

Related video from Yahoo! Sports:

NBA Finals coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
• LeBron James, Ray Allen rally Heat to Game 6 victory
• Slideshow: LeBron James loses headband, leads Heat to victory
• Watch: LeBron James blocks Tim Duncan at the rim
• Ray Allen nails huge 3-pointer to send Game 6 to overtime

In a series full of surprises, the San Antonio Spurs shocked NBA fans across the country in Tuesday’s Game 6 by failing to do what they've done so well since the Clinton Administration — execute fundamentals down the stretch.

San Antonio gave up two crucial offensive rebounds in the final moments of the fourth quarter of the Miami Heat’s eventual 103-100 win, leading to two dagger three-pointers from LeBron James and Ray Allen. The Spurs also aided Miami’s cause by missing two big free throws in the final minute of regulation and not calling a timeout down one point with a minute to go in overtime. Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich also curiously sat Tim Duncan late in regulation defensively in order to match up with Miami’s small lineup, and Tony Parker (who had hit a clutch three-pointer late in the fourth quarter) offensively for the final play of overtime.

It was enough for Miami — a team that was down double-digits in the fourth and seemed to have no answer for San Antonio’s long-armed, paint-packing defense — to pull out the win. In a night full of shrugged shoulders and clueless offense, the Heat had all the answers in the fourth quarter and overtime when it came to opportunistic play. And while Miami doesn’t have much to build on Xs and Os-wise heading into a decisive Game 7 on Thursday, it has a Large Hadron Collider’s-worth of momentum as it suits up for the final game of the 2012-13 NBA season.

Despite the missteps on either end, it was a classic game, and perhaps the best NBA Finals contest in years. The Spurs rocked out to an early advantage in the first half based around Tim Duncan’s efficient and decisive work in the paint. The Spurs center made his first eight shots and dove into halftime with 25 points, dominating a Miami defense that seemed hell-bent on stopping sharpshooter Danny Green from getting open looks on the outside.

The roll kept on in the third quarter, except by then Duncan (who finished with 32 points and 17 rebounds) had stepped aside to let Tony Parker (19 points) and Kawhi Leonard (22 points) take over some of the scoring load. The real breakthrough came on defense, though, as San Antonio continually went under screens and clogged the middle so as to bait Heat scorers into turning into Heat shooters. The result was a combined 38 points for Miami in the middle two quarters — hardly the sort of output needed to pull even in an elimination, NBA Finals game.

By the end of the third, though, the Spurs were absolutely gassed. Popovich had no choice but to sit Tony Parker and Tim Duncan for extended minutes to start the fourth period, and as a result the Heat clawed their way back to an eventual two-point lead on a Dwyane Wade lay-in. LeBron James, meanwhile, began to dominate on his own — taking advantage of step-slow San Antonio defense in the recovery zones, making up for a 3-12 start to the game from the field to finish with 32 points on 11-26 shooting, with 11 assists and 10 turnovers.

A quick mini-run from San Antonio, predicated on defense and opportunistic offense of its own (including the aforementioned desperation three-pointer by Parker over tough defense by James) gave the team a five point edge heading into the game’s final minute, and after Dwyane Wade clanged a turnaround jumper it seemed like the title was all San Antonio’s.

The champs weren’t done, though.

After Manu Ginobili split a pair of free throws with 28 seconds to go, LeBron James missed a 26-foot heave in an attempt to cut the lead to two. Mike Miller secured the offensive rebound and immediately dished back out to James, who hit on his second three-point attempt. After Kawhi Leonard was intentionally fouled, the second-year swingman’s first free throw spun in and out. He made the second, but the Heat were down to a one-possession deficit. With Tim Duncan watching from the sideline, James again missed a three-pointer, but Chris Bosh sent his offensive rebound toward Ray Allen, who hit a game-tying three-pointer with just five seconds left. The Spurs could not score to end regulation.

San Antonio had its chances in overtime, but it simply did not have the legs to compete offensively, scoring just five points in the five-minute overtime period. Parker looked especially winded, and while Spurs fans will bemoan a missed foul call that could have sent Manu Ginobili to the line to tie the contest late in OT, the Spurs seemed to receive all of the close calls in what at the time appeared to be the deciding third and fourth quarter. And Manu himself did the Spurs no such favors with eight turnovers in a poor performance.

The Spurs competed in that overtime, though. And while that may seem like slim praise for a team that blew a chance at winning the NBA title in six games, understand that no other team in modern NBA history has entered an overtime period like that with a burden such as San Antonio’s. And though the Spurs eventually fell, most other teams would have fallen in a far more decisive and embarrassing manner after a gut punch like that. This bodes well for their Game 7.

LeBron’s brilliance, Miami’s younger legs, and San Antonio’s closing window does not bode well, however. Then again, this why we play these games. On-paper advantages haven’t done a damn thing for the Miami Heat in the 2013 postseason, so why should things start working that way on Thursday?

We get a game on Thursday, and that’s all that matters. One game to win it all. It’s hard to ask for much more from an NBA season.

NBA Finals coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
• Ray Allen nails huge 3-pointer to send Game 6 to overtime
• Slideshow: LeBron James loses headband, leads Heat to victory
• Watch: LeBron James blocks Tim Duncan at the rim

With just under 20 seconds remaining in the thrilling, back-and-forth fourth quarter of Game 6 of the 2013 NBA Finals, San Antonio Spurs small forward Kawhi Leonard split two free throws to give his team a 95-92 lead. The Miami Heat came up the court without timeouts, and rather than attack the basket in search of a quick, game-extending 2-pointer, LeBron James — who had been huge in the frame, scoring 16 points on 7 for 11 shooting, but had committed a couple of costly late turnovers — rose and fired from 3-point range.

James missed his jumper, but Heat center Chris Bosh — free of opposite number Tim Duncan, who had been taken out of the game in favor of Boris Diaw on the prior possession — grabbed the offensive rebound and kicked it out to the right corner. And if you're talking about the Heat, and you're talking about the corner, you're talking about Ray Allen:

It was Allen's first long-range make of the night, and I think it's fair to say that it couldn't have come at a better time.

Allen's 3-pointer splashed through with 5.2 seconds remaining in the game; the referees triggered an official review, which determined that Allen's feet were behind the line and the shot was worth three points. The Spurs came up empty on their ensuing possession, with point guard Tony Parker missing a 12-foot fadeaway along the left baseline, sending this brilliant Game 6 to overtime tied at 95.

Allen went on to make a major impact in the extra frame, scoring four of Miami's eight points — including two big final-second free-throws — to seal a 103-100 Miami win that ties the Finals at three games apiece and extends this amazing series to a deciding Game 7 on Thursday.

If the clip above isn't rocking for you, please feel free to check out the game-tying triple elsewhere, thanks to sky2847.

Related NBA video from Yahoo! Sports:

NBA Finals coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
• Doc Rivers in limbo after deal with Clippers falls apart
• Danny Green's ridiculous shooting could land him in a rare club
• Jason Collins: ‘You can’t stereotype what it means to be gay’
• The NBPA is in no rush to name a new executive director

But starting in the waning seconds of the third quarter, the Heat started to get themselves going and embarked on a big fourth-quarter push, which reached its apex when the two all-time greats met at the rim in the San Antonio offensive end ... and, like he did earlier in Game 2, James got the better of the exchange:

James came back on the other end to make a driving layup that tied the game at 82, and after all that, we were level. The two teams battled to a stalemate over the next six minutes, too, before San Antonio pulled ahead behind some gorgeous shot-making by Tony Parker, strong defensive play from Duncan and Kawhi Leonard, and free throws by Manu Ginobili. But Ginobili and Leonard bracketing a James 3-point by each splitting a pair at the line left the door open, and Ray Allen kicked it open with a huge 3-pointer that tied the game at 95 and sent it to overtime.

From there, the Heat got the better of the action, with a Chris Bosh block of a last-ditch 3-point attempt by Danny Green nailing down a 103-100 overtime win that extends the 2013 NBA Finals to a winner-take-all Game 7 on Thursday night. It was a comeback for the ages; it's just a shame some folks missed it.

Video via sky2847.

More NBA Finals video from Yahoo! Sports:

NBA Finals coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
• Ray Allen nails huge 3-pointer to send Game 6 to overtime
• Slideshow: LeBron James loses headband, leads Heat to victory
• Kawhi Leonard posterizes Mike Miller

Through the first five games of the NBA Finals, San Antonio Spurs forward Kawhi Leonard has received praise mostly for his defensive work on Miami Heat MVP LeBron James. Yet Leonard has also been very impressive at the offensive end, where he's chipped in four double-figures scoring games and added another option to the Spurs' balanced attack.

Leonard has also had his fair share of athletic highlights. In the first quarter of Tuesday night's Game 6, he had perhaps his best of the playoffs. After a stellar outlet pass from Tim Duncan to Tony Parker, Leonard took the ball on the fast break and exploded over Mike Miller at the rim. Miller did his best to challenge the dunk, but Kawhi has a clear athletic edge in that matchup and took full advantage. The resulting posterization is available for your viewing pleasure above.

Join us after the jump for a GIF of the play, along with some thoughts on a potential offensive foul by Leonard and some words of encouragement from one of Leonard's previous postseason victims.

As you can see from this screengrab (via @badlhoch), Barnes put his hand over Miller's face while completing the jam. The ESPN on ABC broadcasting crew — including retired official Steve Javie — agreed that the referees on the floor were right not to blow the whistle on Leonard, although Heat fans can be forgiven for thinking the rule book does not allow players to push opponents in the face at any point during a game. On the other hand, this call is pretty much never made on dunks, so it is not terribly surprising that the basket stood.

Miller will have to contend with the fallout, most of which will be limited to internet jokes and rumblings. The good news for him is that other players have been in the same position during this postseason. During the Spurs' Western Conference Semifinals series against the Golden State Warriors, Leonard had a similar posterization on rookie Harrison Barnes. Right after the dunk on Miller, Barnes had some words of encouragement:

Happens to the best of us Mike

— Harrison Barnes (@HBarnes) June 19, 2013

Chin up, Miller. Every player gets a chance to reclaim his good name.

More NBA Finals video from Yahoo! Sports:

NBA Finals coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
• Ray Allen nails huge 3-pointer to send Game 6 to overtime
• Watch: LeBron James blocks Tim Duncan at the rim
• Slideshow: LeBron James loses headband, leads Heat to victory

Although the NBA Finals have dominated the headlines for good reason, it's important to remember that the 2013 NBA Draft is now only nine days. For the majority of the league's 30 teams, the draft is still the best way to build a winner, even if the method's success often depends on luck more than anything else. With such little time left to go before teams select players, draft workouts can play a major role in deciding where prospects will end up.

Back in March, around the time of the NCAA Tournament, Kansas Jayhawks freshman shooting guard was considered a potential No. 1 overall pick on the strength of his shooting stroke and scoring skills. A few questionable performances called that rating into question, but McLemore has still appeared to be one of the top two prospects based on his reputation and demonstrable abilities.

However, some lackluster workouts may be adversely affecting his draft position. In his latest mock draft for ESPN.com Insider, Chad Ford has McLemore going fifth to the Phoenix Suns (via EOB). Yet it's the reasons why he's fallen that are most alarming:

McLemore remains in the top 5, but I'm starting to have my doubts. I love the talent. But his lack of preparation for the draft is hurting him. Multiple sources told me that his workout in Phoenix was not impressive; he wasn't in shape, and he struggled to keep up in the workout. I heard similar things in Orlando. McLemore is in a tug-of-war right now between adviser Rodney Blackstock and his agency Rivals. It's kept McLemore out of the gym and for the most part, out of workouts. How much will all of this affect the draft stock? I'm told teams are worried. But how worried? Enough for one of the most talented players in the draft to slide further? If the Suns pass on McLemore, both C.J. McCollum and Michael Carter-Williams are possibilities here.

In other words, McLemore might drop to the Suns not because of any questions about his abilities, but because circumstances may have conspired to keep him from preparing for the draft process. While that situation can raise red flags about McLemore's work ethic, it appears to be the case that an offcourt dispute somewhat outside of his control is getting in the way of things. It's possible that, despite what appears to be an accurate depiction of McLemore's workouts, these events are giving teams an incomplete picture of what he can do on the court.

Pre-draft workouts are important tests of a player's range of abilities, but it's also fair to question if they should undo months of scouting based on real game situations. Over his single season at Kansas, McLemore impressed with his scoring abilities and was regularly talked about as the player in this draft with the best chance of making an All-Star Game. Teams that focus on a bad draft workout instead might be guilty of a bias towards recent events, or perhaps exaggerate the extent to which poor preparation for the draft carries over to taking real games seriously. It's almost as if teams get too clever for their own good. A single excellent college season is no stellar indicator of a great NBA career, but neither is a lone workout or interview.

On the other hand, Ford's view is just one perspective on the situation. In his latest mock draft (updated Tuesday morning) Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress.com has McLemore going to the Orlando Magic at No. 2, which suggests his stock may not be falling much at all. For teams inclined to take a broader view of the draft process, a bad workout is just one data point among dozens. As is usually the case with the draft, anyone who draws too many conclusions from one piece of information is being a little foolish. As ever, everything is just an educated guess.

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.com. I'm a bit late to the party here, but this Kevin Arnovitz feature on the San Antonio Spurs — how the NBA couldn't figure out how to sell them, how the organization couldn't care less, and how the franchise's commitment to innovation, culture and process make them "the NBA's research and development division" — is the best thing I've ever read about the Spurs. And considering we could be 48 minutes away from them being crowned champions, now seems like a good time to get familiar with how they got here (and keep getting here).

PF: USA TODAY Sports. A nice read from Sam Amick on how Danny Green went from "the guy for whom a D-League owner didn't want to give up Patrick Ewing Jr." to the cusp of a potential NBA Finals MVP nod.

SF: The Onion. "'For all the chatter that’s surrounding tonight’s contest, when everything’s said and done, pens, John Cheever, and whether ferns require direct sunlight just aren’t going to come into play,' said NBA On ABC analyst Mike Breen."

SG: Salt Lake Tribune. As if the Utah Jazz didn't already scream "explosive high-definition entertainment," they're about to install massive LCD video screens above the court so that you can thrill to the mammoth exploits of Gordon Hayward and Alec Burks in crystal-clear HD.

PG: Pounding the Rock. A Spurs fan apologizes to Manu Ginobili for doubting him before Manu's epic Game 5. That's adorable.

6th: NBA.com. Eighteen early-entry candidates for the upcoming 2013 NBA draft withdrew their names from consideration on Tuesday, including highly regarded Croatian teen Dario Saric and attempted preps-to-pros prospect Norvel Pelle. Check out the full list of names you won't hear the Commish pronounce on June 27.

7th: Cowbell Kingdom. Now that he's been hired as the Sacramento Kings' new general manager, former Denver Nuggets vice president Pete D'Alessandro has a pretty big job ahead of him. The first step: building a whole new front office. Jonathan Santiago takes a look at how D'Alessandro might go about doing that.

8th: Knickerblogger. By NBA.com's numbers, the 2011-12 New York Knicks finished the season ranked fifth in the NBA points allowed per 100 possessions; the '12-'13 model, though, finished tied for 16th in defensive efficiency. How did the Knicks drop from the ranks of the defensive elite to below the middle of the pack? David Vertsberger takes a closer look.

9th: Bullets Forever. How does the trade that brought Emeka Okafor and Trevor Ariza to the Washington Wizards from the New Orleans Hornets look, one year later?

10th: Los Angeles Times. As part of the settlement in their lawsuit, Ben Boltch reports that Kobe Bryant and Goldin Auctions have agreed to give 50 percent of the proceeds from the auctioning of several pieces of the Los Angeles Lakers star's memorabilia to the anti-bullying social action campaign The Bully Project, which is pretty neat. Bidding's open, so dig in if you're feeling collect-y.

Got a link or tip for Ball Don't Lie? Give me a shout at devine (at) yahoo-inc.com, or follow me on Twitter.

The NBA Finals are a hot ticket, which means that famous people and their friends are bound to show up in the first few rows to get a firsthand look (and get noticed) at the biggest games of the NBA schedule. On certain occasions, those celebrities end up becoming stories only slightly less attention-grabbing than the play on the court. In Game 7 of the Miami Heat's Eastern Conference Finals, Freezy, the manager of the rapper Flo Rida, was ejected from the arena for apparently talking trash to or around the Indiana Pacers bench. It was a bizarre moment, to be sure, but also the sort of thing that happens sometimes at professional sporting events.

There was no indication that Freezy had become persona non grata at all Heat games. However, it now appears that he will not be able to attend either Game 6 or Game 7 of the NBA Finals at American Airlines Arena, apparently because San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich requested it. From Larry Brown Sports:

During an appearance on 104.3 The Ticket’s “Hochman and Zaslow Show” Tuesday morning, Freezy explained how the NBA contacted him and told him that he would be arrested if he tried to attend Game 6 on Tuesday night.

“They were sending me emails all week and kind threats but I was ignoring them,” he said. “Then I got emails and phone calls from their lawyers telling me I’m not allowed in the building for the next two games. So I’m like, ‘What violation did I (commit)’”

According to Freezy, San Antonio Spurs Head coach Gregg Popovich asked that his crew not be allowed back because they were getting too rowdy in support of the Heat.

“They were just telling me we had too much energy and the head coach complained about it,” Freezy claimed. “Them cats want an easy win. They ain’t used to that Miami Heat support right next to them in their ears.”

Freezy was also asked to leave the arena by the Indiana Pacers during the Eastern Conference Finals, but he said the Pacers were more disrespectful about it than the Spurs.

“The Spurs are just scared,” he explained. “They’re scared of the energy. The Pacers were disrespectful. The Spurs don’t want that building to erupt around them. What I do to cheer for my team is no different than what Spike Lee does in New York or Jack Nicholson does in LA.”

Freezy also put some extended thoughts on the matter on social media. The Instagram photo with his comments contains some NSFW language, so here's a clean version:

JUST GOT A CALL FROM THE NBA KINDLY ASKING ME NOT TO SHOW UP TO THE HEAT GAME TONIGHT!! SPURS HEAD COACH REPORTED ME TO THE NBA SAYING ITS TOO MUCH ENERGY NEAR THE TEAM!!!! THATS SOMEBULLS--- !!!!!

We have no way of knowing exactly what Flo Rida, Freezy, and Co. said near the Spurs bench, but if they really were just supporting their team and yelling in the manner we're accustomed to seeing from fans then this seems like an overreaction. While fans in the first few rows are typically not the most hyped-up people in the building, that doesn't mean they have a responsibility to keep quiet around the opposing bench. As Freezy says, Jack Nicholson and Spike Lee shout all the time. What's especially different here?

The other question, of course, is what Popovich said to get the NBA and Heat officials to bar Freezy from the premises. Because no one is going to reveal that information, we can only guess at the severity of his words. Perhaps he just asked the notoriously irascible Pop standard-issue sideline reporter questions to get on his bad side.

The San Antonio Spurs are 48 minutes away from the fifth NBA championship of the Gregg Popovich-Tim Duncan era. The Miami Heat are 48 minutes away from either hosting a Game 7 for back-to-back titles on their home court or facing an offseason of blistering criticism for what will be perceived as its Big Three once again shrinking on the grandest stage. The stakes of an NBA game don't get much higher than this.

Tuesday's Game 6 is going to answer a lot of questions — here are five that've been rattling around my head for the past two days. Feel free to weigh in on them or share your own big questions in the comments below.

1. Will LeBron James silence his critics?

Nope!

That'll never happen. Never. Ever. Not in a million years. Never, ever, ever, ever, ever. And definitely not after they caught wind of those sneakers.

Even if James shows out and the Heat come back from a 3-2 deficit to win this title, and another, and another, and another, it still won't be enough. It'll never be enough until he has more rings than Jordan — just ask Kobe — and even if he someday gets there, it'll never be enough because he didn't do it the same way, with all that passing and deferring. And while I enjoyed reading Will Leitch's suggestion that a loss could prove liberating for LeBron, that's a pipe dream, a fantasy, an impossibility. As neat a thought experiment as it is, another Finals loss will not spare James from the Jordan comparisons and let us just appreciate him for him; it will just put more oxygen in the lungs of those determined to shout about how invincible James isn't. The outcome of Game 6 can't silence anything. It can only turn up the volume.

Still, it'd be cool for Heat fans if LeBron played real well.

James' history in potential elimination scenarios suggests he will — he's averaged 31.5 points (the highest mark in such games in NBA playoff history), 10 rebounds, 6.4 assists and 4.5 turnovers in 11 career playoff games in which his team's season would end with a loss, shooting 46.4 percent from the floor and 72.1 percent from the free-throw line (on nearly 12 1/2 attempts from the stripe) in just over 45 minutes per contest. Considering he's put up 21.6 points per game to date in the Finals and been held under 20 three times, playing to his back-to-the-wall averages would probably please Miami supporters.

But individual accomplishment matters only so much when your season is on the line, and James' teams have experienced middling results, going 5-6 in those attempts to stave off elimination. His Heat teams have won their last three, though — Game 7 of the 2013 Eastern Conference finals, and Games 6 and 7 of the 2012 Eastern finals. And yet, when we think of James and elimination games, many of us cast our minds back to 2011, the first year of Miami's Big Three experiment, when the Heat couldn't stay alive on their home court in Game 6 against the Dallas Mavericks and the criticisms of James' passivity and inability to "win the big one" grew louder than ever.

At times in this series, James has resembled the somewhat unsure finalist of two years ago. At times, he has looked much more like the best-in-the-world beast who's won an NBA title, two Most Valuable Player awards, a Finals MVP and Olympic gold in the past year. Which form he takes on Tuesday could go a long way toward determining — not determine by itself, he said, suggesting you take another read of recent pieces by Henry Abbott and Tom Ziller — whether this series goes the distance or whether, for the second time in his career, James watches the Spurs hoist the O'Brien on his home floor.

"I have to come up big, for sure, in Game 6," James said Sunday. "But I believe we all have to play at a high level in order to keep the series going. So me being one of the leaders of this team, I do put a lot of pressure on myself to force a Game 7, and I look forward to the challenge."

And we look forward to seeing how he answers it, for better or worse.

2. Will Erik Spoelstra change his starting five again? If so, how?

Gregg Popovich's decision to juggle his lineup by going with Manu Ginobili from the tip paid off handsomely in Game 5, as the formerly struggling Spurs guard got off to a great start (seven points and four assists in 7 1/2 first-quarter minutes) and the San Antonio offense started clicking right from the opening possession (a foot-on-the-line Manu J, naturally). On the other hand, the encore performance for the Heat coach's adjusted starting five didn't go quite as well as its debut.

While a Miami unit that featured floor-spacing shooter Mike Miller rather than defense-and-rebounding power forward Udonis Haslem scored 29 first-quarter points on 61.1 percent shooting in a great and aggressive start to Game 4, that same group sputtered to a 19-point, 6-for-20 opening to Game 5. It also failed to create the defensive havoc (two Spurs turnovers leading to zero Heat points) that had previously helped kickstart the Miami transition game, when six Spurs turnovers created seven Heat points in the first 12 minutes of Game 4. (Apparently, Miller didn't have what Spoelstra called after Game 4 "as impactful a zero‑for‑one game as you can have in The Finals" the second time around, despite similarly missing the only shot he took.)

The final question of Spoelstra's post-Game 5 news conference dealt with whether the Heat coach would put Miller back on the pine and go back to his original starting lineup in Game 6. His brusque answer: "We'll see." Apparently, a trip home and a day off brightened the coach's temperament. Asked the same question during Tuesday's shootaround, he reportedly smiled and said, "We'll find out," which — like Pop's pre-Game 5 "Maybe" — would lead you to believe that a change is gonna come. Should that change really be a move back to the original starting lineup, though?

You can understand Spoelstra looking for a more defense-oriented group after watching the Spurs flambé Miami to the tune of 60 percent shooting and an offensive efficiency (119.4 points per 100 possessions) that looks down piteously on phenomenal, league-best units like the regular-season Heat and Oklahoma City Thunder. And you can understand the thought that going big early might prompt Popovich to counter, matching size with size by swapping Ginobili for Tiago Splitter or Boris Diaw.

But I have a hard time believing Pop's going to be scared away from a unit that worked so brilliantly in Game 5 by the likes of Haslem, and such a move working would seem to hinge on Haslem being able to rediscover the baseline stroke that helped beat the Indiana Pacers in Game 5 of the Eastern finals while returning to bothering Tim Duncan on the low block. Those things are certainly possible ... but, I mean, Spoelstra went away from that unit for a reason.

[Y! Sports Fan Shop: Buy 2013 NBA Finals merchandise]

The Haslem-James-Dwyane Wade-Chris Bosh-Mario Chalmers group had been outscored by more than 18 points per 100 possessions in 43 total minutes over the first three games of the Finals, according to NBA.com's lineup data, and was scoring at an abysmal rate of offensive efficiency that would have ranked so far below regular-season-worst teams like the Washington Wizards, Phoenix Suns and Charlotte Bobcats as to be considered one of the worst offenses of all time. It's also not exactly like Haslem has covered himself in glory in his reserve stints, either; while he did well to make his only shot and grab five rebounds in 10 minutes in Game 4, the Heat were outscored by 20 points in his nine minutes of floor time in Game 5.

That swap, by itself, doesn't seem like an especially compelling answer. So what, then? Maybe replacing Miller with the resurgent Ray Allen, who's fresh off a 21-point Game 5, showing a little extra spring in his step off the dribble and shooting 64.7 percent from 3 in the Finals?

Perhaps — Allen-James-Wade-Bosh-Chalmers outscored opponents by more than 30 points per 100 possessions in 112 regular-season minutes, after all. But that group hasn't been nearly as good in the playoffs, getting outscored by just under two points-per-100 in 59 postseason minutes, and is nearly 13 points-per-100 below par in 21 minutes against the Spurs in the Finals. And despite holding up better than expected in brief defensive stints against Paul George in the Indiana series, Allen's a pretty glaring defensive liability who doesn't figure to substantially improve that group's chances of deterring San Antonio dribble penetration, sticking to shooters on the perimeter or making crisper, faster help rotations to take away open shots.

More likely, Spoelstra and his staff are considering an idea also suggested by Hot Hot Hoops' Matt Pineda — the reinsertion of deposed starter Shane Battier. The Duke product's ability to space the floor while also defending power forwards so James didn't have to was a big part of the Heat's regular-season success, but his awful postseason shooting led to his benching late in the Eastern finals and his de-emphasis through the first four games of the Finals.

Defensively, this makes sense — Miami's allowed fewer points per possession with Battier on the floor than off it in the Finals, and as Grantland's Zach Lowe noted, the Heat's defensive rotations and help have been better with Battier in the mix than with Miller in the fold. But if Battier still can't make San Antonio pay for ignoring him on the perimeter by draining a couple of 3-pointers, Miami could still lose the offense-defense tradeoff of swapping Miller for Battier. The hope, if you're a Miami fan, would be that making a couple of 3-pointers in Game 5 (albeit in six tries) gets Battier going.

There's risk involved with every possible decision Spoelstra can make here — it'll be interesting to see which direction he chooses.

3. Will Danny Green keep getting open in Game 6?

Not according to Bosh, whose comments from Tuesday's shootaround were relayed by NBA.com's John Schuhmann:

“He has a knack for shooting, but he won’t be open tonight,” Chris Bosh said after the Heat’s shootaround at AmericanAirlines Arena on Tuesday. “We’ll see how he shoots it when somebody’s always on him.”

Bosh said that the Heat don’t have to make any adjustments to defend Green better in Game 6 [...].

“It’s just doing what we do,” Bosh said. “Last game, we didn’t do what we normally do. Guys were open and made shots.

“They move the ball too well to have defensive lapses. So we’re going to have to trust what we do.”

And do it a hell of a lot better than they've been doing it, you'd reckon.

There are definitely things Miami must do defensively to keep a tighter leash on Green. More attentive off-ball defense — e.g., not totally ignoring a shooter to allow him to shuffle from the corner to the wing or vice versa while you watch the ball — would represent a great start, as would Green's man staying connected to him on his baseline cuts from one corner to the other.

Ditto for retreating Miami defenders making identifying Green a top priority in any transition situation, and refusing to overhelp on ball-handlers in half-court settings when Green's the shooter in the corner (especially the strong-side corner). Under-control closeouts and hellacious, on-time help rotations would be a plus, too.

As we saw in Games 2 and 4, these are all things Miami can do; that they haven't throughout much of this series has had to do, in part, with what ESPN.com's Kevin Arnovitz rightly called "smugness" by a Heat team so comfortable at relying on its ability to flip the proverbial switch that it's declined to provide consistently top-flight, 48-minute focus even in the championship round against a dynamic and disciplined opponent. A very large part of it, though, owes to that dynamic and disciplined opponent.

The Spurs have repeatedly taken advantage of Miami's breakdowns with the proper pass, the well-timed backscreen and, when the ball lands in Green's hands, the confident rise-and-fire. Also, more than that, they deserve an awful lot of credit for creating those breakdowns, whether with dribble penetration by Ginobili and Tony Parker, aggressive attention-drawing post-ups, strong screens and hard rolls to the rim by Duncan, or smart ball movement by any of a number of Spurs players willing and able to make the right pass at the right time.

At this point, the Heat have to make stopping Green Job No. 1 — they can't reasonably expect to win if he goes 7 for 9 or 6 for 10 from deep, as he did in Games 3 and 5. But it's not like Green needs to be completely smothered — Miami did manage wins in Games 2 and 4, in which he shot a combined 8 for 10 from downtown. They must limit his attempts and make the ones he gets harder to hit, but what can make the Spurs' offense so terrifying is that, as Green told NBA.com's David Aldridge on Tuesday, hugging a shooter in the corner just opens more driving lanes for the likes of Parker and Ginobili; as Parker said after Game 5, "You can't stop everything." The Heat must find a way in Game 6 if they hope to live another day.

4. Can Mario Chalmers and/or Norris Cole give Miami anything?

That would sure figure to help in the whole "stopping anything" department; if nothing else, the Heat's two point guards simply must be less awful than they took turns being in Game 5. Chalmers missed eight of his 10 field-goal attempts and committed a couple of awful turnovers, Cole failed to offer anything offensively and somehow managed to be a -14 in just 6 1/2 minutes, and both proved completely incapable of performing what I expected to be their key pre-Finals job: making life difficult on Parker.

They didn't:

It's not just a Game 5 issue, though. Chalmers was huge for the Heat at a very important time in Game 2, but he's a combined 7 for 29 (24.1 percent) from the floor combined in the other four games, generating just two free-throw attempts in just under 103 minutes while posting more fouls (12) and turnovers (11) than assists (nine). As Sports Illustrated's Chris Mannix noted after Game 5, Chalmers' production was been a quiet bellwether for the Heat all year — he shot 45.4 percent from the floor and 43.8 percent from 3-point range from the line in Heat wins and just 30.6/24.4 in Miami defeats during the regular season, and the trend has held up through the playoffs (46.5/38.2 in wins, 29.3/27.3 in losses).

The splits aren't nearly so dire for Cole, whose performance was fairly consistent (if far from stellar) for Miami this season. But that's just it — after riding an early postseason hot streak in which he looked like a somewhat surprisingly reliable shot-maker, offensive caretaker and defensive hound, especially in the previous two rounds, Cole's come crashing down to earth when spelling Chalmers and tasked with checking Parker. Now he's getting cut to ribbons and shooting just 27.3 percent in the Finals, unable to provide enough of anything to stay on the floor.

It's no wonder, then, that Miami's looked its best at times with no-point-guard lineups featuring the James-Wade-Bosh core alongside wing pairings featuring two of the Allen-Miller-Battier group. Spoelstra was non-committal after Game 5 on the question of whether he'd give longer looks to those groups if his point guards struggle, in part because he understands that the flipside of eliminating faulty ball-handlers and defensive sieves is having to put another wing on Parker for longer stretches. When that wing is Allen, Miller or Battier, Parker's foot-speed advantage turns the pairing into a mismatch nightmare; when that wing is James, it only makes for a heavier, more exhausting load that James will have to carry.

Chalmers and Cole can go a long way toward ameliorating this lesser-of-two-evils choice if either (or, ideally, both) can find a modicum of confidence, consistency and rhythm in Game 6. They don't really have to be great; they just need to not suck.

5. Whither the "Birdman?"

Ever since Spoelstra made the decision to go small by starting Miller in Game 4 and stay small throughout the last two games, the ever-stylish Chris Andersen has found himself out of the Miami rotation, logging two straight DNP-CDs as Bosh and Haslem have soaked up all the minutes at the center spot. Might he get dusted off in Game 6?

On one hand, Andersen's rim protection and pick-and-roll defense (which we saw in the second half of Game 2) would seem attractive for a Miami team that's had difficulty containing dribble penetration and keeping the Spurs from scoring in the paint. Similarly, his ability to score on dump-offs and finish broken plays would appear like an asset for a Heat squad that went 15 for 29 (51.7 percent) on shots attempted at the rim in Game 5, well below Miami's regular-season (67.2 percent) and postseason (64.2 percent) averages in the restricted area.

Then again, when the Heat's offense has struggled in this series, it's been largely a result of a lack of spacing, which Birdman doesn't provide, and Haslem did a better job defending Duncan in the post than he did earlier in the series, which makes Bird a bit of a liability when he and Timmy are the only two bigs in the game. I'd guess that Andersen gets a look only if Haslem struggles, Duncan spends more time than usual off the floor, or San Antonio decides to reverse courses and play two bigs more often. Otherwise, the Bird seems likely to be caged.

If he does get a shot, though, it'd be nice to see it come with Chalmers, James, Miller and Allen — that's the group that helped author Miami's huge Game 2 run, outscoring the Spurs by 17 points in just seven shared minutes. (The unit's not so bad when you swap Cole in for Chalmers, either, outscoring San Antonio by eight points-per-100 in 20 minutes in the Finals.)

***

You might have noticed that all five of the questions above focus primarily on the Heat rather than Pop's squad. That's because I am a Spurs hater who doesn't want to pay any attention at all to San Antonio and how great they've been. Well, it's either that, or it's because after a scary Game 5, Miami's the team that needs to find answers to avoid elimination. Your call, really.

NBA video from Yahoo! Sports:

Related coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
• Doc Rivers in limbo after deal with Clippers falls apart
• Jason Collins: ‘You can’t stereotype what it means to be gay’
• Ex-wife accuses Allen Iverson of abducting their 5 children

It may not strike you at first, what with Manu Ginobili needing until Game 5 to get going and Miami’s Big Three taking turns at being stuck in the mud – but the best thing about these 2013 NBA Finals may very well be the coaching on both sides. In a quick turnaround series that started just days after the Miami Heat finished off the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference finals, running the complete opposite to San Antonio’s extended break after being the Memphis Grizzlies on their end, Gregg Popovich and Erik Spoelstra have put together two masterful efforts on their teams’ behalf.

The question for Spoelstra, who is currently facing a 3-2 deficit in these Finals, is if this is even enough. He’s done his part, as a tactician, to get LeBron James and crew going on both ends. And yet, as it has been since 2010, it may not be enough.

[Y! Sports Fan Shop: Buy 2013 NBA Finals merchandise]

Gregg Popovich doesn’t have nearly the same-sized obstacle. Bit of a self-starter, these Spurs are.

Not only has Spoelstra done his part, but his part may not be over. During Tuesday’s meeting with reporters prior to Game 6 he hinted at possible lineup changes, a move that wouldn’t be out of place in a series that has featured two lineup switches already from two teams that had put together a combined 148 wins before even hitting the Finals stage. That’s equal parts bravery, chutzpah and confidence; an inability to react on the fly remains one of the NBA’s bigger coaching weaknesses, as some coaches still treat it as if it’s somehow a sign of weakness.

Not Erik Spoelstra, who popped Mike Miller into the lineup before winning Game 4, or Popovich, who threw Manu Ginobili into the starting mix before Game 5’s triumph. Miller’s turn as a starter (probably) ended with a thud, as he missed the only two shots he took in the two final games in San Antonio, but the point is the permutation – because the overall results aren’t in yet, and because the fat lady ain’t sung a note, yet.

Meanwhile, both teams’ offense continues to shift. Tony Parker is still dominant at times and working wonders against the Heat, but his attack is nothing like the single-minded offensive derring-do we saw Tony showcase against the Memphis Grizzlies. Tim Duncan set plenty of screens in that series, but he’s taken that sideshow to a ridiculous degree in the Finals as Danny Green has gone wild from the outside.

Miami hasn’t been as successful on that end, but this isn’t to say Spoelstra hasn’t mixed things up a bit. Dwyane Wade was asked to score and create from completely different spots on the floor in Game 4 than he was in a middling Game 3, and though those attempts may all look mid-rangey to the shot charts, the angles and looks Wade was given made all the difference in his 32-point night. On top of that, Chris Bosh has slowly been eased back into his offensive game by being asked to focus on fronting and creating havoc defensively, leading to that eureka/”oh, wait, I’ve got skills and can score, too”-moment when Bosh gets the ball on the other end.

What Spoelstra can’t do, after asking his players to go to their personal preferred spots, is find a way to get them into the spots that the coaching staff would prefer. This is why the Spurs have a 3-2 lead, and this is why Miami’s season could end on Tuesday.

Spo has had to watch helplessly as Dwyane Wade floats on defense, refuses to close out on shooters, or fails to show up at all on that end by complaining about a call on the previous possession. Spoelstra can’t physically drag LeBron James into the low post, or into moving quickly without the ball early in a possession – making LBJ a terror to guard even if he doesn’t touch the ball for the entirety of the possession.

The sorts of winning elements that allowed Miami to down both Boston and Oklahoma City last year and run 27 wins this year just haven’t been in place consistently in this series. That’s on the players, not the staff that watches five times as much game tape as they do.

By now, this is Miami’s modus operandi. They never play well with a lead or a tie in place, and the team always seems to wait until its backs are against the proverbial wall before it lunges ahead. That worked against Boston (too old to keep up) and Oklahoma City (too green, and unwilling to change). And it worked against Chicago and Indiana.

These are the Spurs, though. They’re different. They’ve always been different, even when going out in the first round.

Criticism aside, these are both heady and enjoyable times. We may only get 48 more minutes of this sort of expert coaching in the 2012-13 season. Enjoy it, while it still stalks the sideline in real time.

NBA video from Yahoo! Sports:

Related coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
• Doc Rivers in limbo after deal with Clippers falls apart
• Danny Green's ridiculous shooting could land him in a rare club
• The Hype: How much would you pay to punch someone?

Nearly three years ago, LeBron James was roundly criticized for his hubris in talking up not just one but several Miami Heat championships in the wake of his signing with the team, in a move that may have actually been the least tactless of all the antics that LeBron and crew gave us in the summer of 2010. After all, that’s what you’re supposed to tell your fans. You’re supposed to cop to being in it to win it.

[Y! Sports Fan Shop: Buy 2013 NBA Finals merchandise]

Kix and the City, via Trey Kerby at The Basketball Jones, has come up with a pretty impressive find that walks hand in hand with that prediction. Or, foot in foot, if that would somehow be possible. Nike has created a pair of low-top sneakers for LeBron that actually say “2-Time Champion” on right heel insert and “11-12 12-13” (referring to the seasons that LeBron’s Heat would presumably take the title) on the left insert. It’s a pretty audacious and bodacious claim, what with Miami currently down 3-2 to the San Antonio Spurs prior to Tuesday’s Game 6.

Via Mr. Marin at Kix in the City, take a look:

Again, we kind of like the hubris. These aren’t the shoes that LeBron is going to be strutting around in during Game 6, and as Trey noted this pair could just be a one-off – thus saving the potential embarrassing recall situation if the San Antonio Spurs take either Game 6 or 7. Wins that could turn Miami’s championship run into an unanticipated one-off.

NBA video from Yahoo! Sports:

Related coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
• Manu Ginobili answers call, changes script in Game 5 Spurs win
• Danny Green still on fire, claims NBA Finals record
• Doc Rivers in limbo after deal with Clippers falls apart

Becoming the most popular non-native NBA player in the world's most populous nation isn't easy, but Bryant's done just about whatever he can to accomplish that goal. So it's not that surprising to learn, thanks to Lakers fan Eddie Robles, that there appears to be a sculpture celebrating Bryant in the Chinese province of Guangzhou:

Now China has a full backcourt of stationary art champions. Stephon Marbury, you need no longer walk stand perfectly still forever alone.

We don't know precisely what precipitated the commissioning, building and placement of the towering Kobe, although we do know that Guangzhou's got a famous sculpture park featuring a wide variety of pieces of both ancient and contemporary figures, so it's possible that a local artist was looking to fete one of his/her pop-cultural heroes and found a nice public spot to display the honorific. Of course, it could also be the result of some behind-the-scenes work by the Kobester to, years after the fact, finally get even with former teammate/rival and Li Ning endorser Shaquille O'Neal for having his own statue in China. The Mamba never forgets, after all; he just waits.

The early reviews on the sculpture's likeness to the 15-time NBA All-Star have been mixed, with some folks digging the facial features and others wishing there was a bit more attention to detail below the neck. Either way, this seems like a fairly reasonable jumping-off point for the inevitable statue of Bryant that will one day join Magic Johnson, Jerry West, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Chick Hearn as Lakers legends immortalized in bronze outside Staples Center. (Followed years later, if Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak gets his way, by one of Dwight Howard.) It's always nice to have an example to work off, you know?

One suggestion to future sculptors, though: Really try to work the Kobe death stare in there. Even Kobe seems to like that idea.

Hat-tip to Lakers Nation.

NBA video from Yahoo! Sports:

Related coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
• Doc Rivers in limbo after deal with Clippers falls apart
• Y! Sports Fan Shop: Buy 2013 NBA Finals merchandise
• Danny Green's ridiculous shooting could land him in a rare club
• Ex-wife accuses Allen Iverson of abducting their 5 children

In her filings, Tawanna Iverson claimed that Allen Iverson requested and received permission to take the children, who range from 3 years old to 16 year sold, on a trip to Charlotte, N.C., from May 22 through 26, but didn't return the kids on the 26th; Tawanna suspected they never actually went to Charlotte, but rather stayed with her ex-husband in an Atlanta hotel. A subsequent return scheduled for June 4 was scuttled when Allen Iverson didn't show up at the agreed-upon Target, according to Tawanna Iverson.

We knew Allen Iverson had countered by filing documents denying his ex-wife's charges; now, via TMZ, we know he offered a denial in person in court last week, as well:

Allen appeared in Fulton County court in Georgia last Wednesday and told the judge his ex-wife had full access to their kids during their stay at the hotel ... and therefore he wasn't doing anything wrong. We're told Tawanna also testified that she could have picked up the children from Allen but didn't want to drive 45 minutes to his location.

After A.I.'s testimony, the judge decided the former Philadelphia 76ers star didn't deserve to be thrown in jail — despite his ex-wife's request before the hearing. The kids [...] were returned to their mother following the hearing.

The site also reports that Allen and Tawanna Iverson have "worked out some of their issues" and that Tawanna, who received sole legal custody of the children in the couple's divorce settlement, has begun to allow Allen to spend more time with the children. He was apparently doing just that on Monday, when he spoke with Jeff Hullinger of Atlanta's WXIA-TV as he and his children (who are deliberately not shown in the video below) walked to his car in the parking lot of the Sheraton Suites Galleria in Atlanta:

"They say I stole my own kids?" Iverson asked Hullinger, who offered to show the former All-Star the court documents filed by his ex-wife. "All right."

"Is that not true?" Hullinger asked.

"That's up to you to believe," Iverson responded. "I'm not going to comment on it. If that's what you believe, and that's what people think I'm crazy enough to do, then so be it."

As Iverson got into his Maybach after getting his children buckled into the car, Hullinger asked if felt he was being treated fairly in the matter.

"I ain't never treated fairly," Iverson said with a laugh. "I don't expect to. I don't expect to be."

With that, Iverson drove off.

NBA video from Yahoo! Sports:

Related coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
• Y! Sports Fan Shop: Buy 2013 NBA Finals merchandise
• Danny Green's ridiculous shooting could land him in a rare club
• The Hype: How much would you pay to punch someone?

Tony Parker is playing through a grade 1 hamstring pull that, were we in the midst of the NBA’s regular season, would keep him out a couple of weeks so as to avoid a potential career-altering tear of the hamstring. Parker, mindful that this 2013 Finals run could be the last of the Tim Duncan era in San Antonio, has put his future on the line to try and lead the Spurs to their first championship since 2007, and the fourth of Tony’s career.

[Y! Sports Fan Shop: Buy 2013 NBA Finals merchandise]

Former Spur and current San Antonio broadcaster Sean Elliott has rankled some ardent NBA League Pass watchers with his homerish takes on his Spurs and his often rude and dismissive musings about the opponents at hand. League Pass followers haven’t had to fire up the NBA LP for two months now, as the national broadcasters have taken over the airwaves, and yet that hasn’t stopped Elliott from putting his foot in mouth yet again. This time, pointlessly trashing all of France while clumsily attempting to talk up Tony Parker’s toughness while he plays with that painful hamstring pull.

From the San Antonio Express-News:

“Everything that they've said about French people doesn't apply to him,” said Elliott, a former Spurs star who helped the team win its first NBA title in 1999.

“It just doesn't apply. He's as tough as they come. And I promise you, if he was in a bigger market, they would be comparing him to a guy like (former NBA star) AI (Allen Iverson), who took the hits and fell all the time.”

Yeah, maybe next time we can find a way to laud one of the better point guards of the last 25 years without denigrating an entire country. Maybe it’s best – and remember, this is a person in Elliott that talks for a living – to appreciate Parker’s combination of brilliance and grit without needlessly dismissing the toughness of a country that has helped to hold off marauders for centuries while sustaining its own culture and heritage.

This Express-News column was supposed to be a tidy feature about Elliott, the man who once helped the San Antonio Spurs on its way to the 1999 championship while working with a kidney that needed to be surgically removed, pumping up the toughness of a player in Parker who could be risking a career-threatening injury by playing in these Finals. Even if Elliott was joking, giving a half-cocked smile while repeating the same nonsense about the French that his funny uncle (or whomever) once passed on to him years ago, this was still a stupid, awful thing to say.

We get it, we get it. Freedom fries, berets, dismissive attitudes and all that hilarious stuff. Maybe a refresher course on the French Resistance and the brave soldiers that dove arm in arm with Allied forces at Normandy could help Elliott develop a better idea about being “as tough as they come.” It’s not, as Elliott alluded to, about playing like Allen freaking Iverson.

And if you are going to joke about the supposed lack of toughness in the French … at least make it funny. This one failed on both levels.

NBA video from Yahoo! Sports:

Related coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
• Doc Rivers in limbo after deal with Clippers falls apart
• Danny Green's ridiculous shooting could land him in a rare club
• Jason Collins: ‘You can’t stereotype what it means to be gay’
• The Hype: How much would you pay to punch someone?

If a position of leadership stays open for months, it's typically seen as a major problem indicative of overarching issues with an organization. For the NBPA, however, it might be a sign of improved practices. In mid-February, the players' union voted out longtime executive director Billy Hunter, who lost favor after several reports of nepotism and questionable investments. The move was seen as the first step towards making the NBPA a better organized, more effective union, trading Hunter's ostensible corruption for more professionalism and new ideas.

Four months later, the union still hasn't selected a new leader. Yet, according to Jerry Stackhouse, the NBPA's top-ranking vice president, that's part of a larger plan. From Hank Kurz Jr. for the Associated Press (via EOB):

The focus is on getting more players involved in union activities, said Jerry Stackhouse, an 18-year NBA veteran and first vice president of the union.

The nine-member executive committee is hoping to get former players to help make the union's importance known to the current membership. The committee is also finding out what current players consider their priorities.

''We want to build a great union, but first we have to have our players,'' Stackhouse said at the University of Virginia, where the NBPA held its 20th Top 100 Camp for high school stars this week. ''Before we go talking about a search firm, we want to know: What do the players want?

''Then we can hire a search firm and say, 'We want someone that can do A, B and C.''' [...]

The idea that Hunter ran the union without many players knowing what was going on also prompted the executive committee to decide the best thing for the players is a more transparent approach.

On the surface, this is a sensible move for the union. Hunter controlled so much over such a long period of time that the NBPA now requires a deep consideration of its aims and practices, both because it's difficult to replace someone who held a ton of power and because Hunter's leadership style proved quite problematic. A hands-on appraisal of everything union members want makes sense, given the circumstances.

In a broader sense, it's also how a union should be run. Although lockouts and power struggles are typically put in terms of the individuals in charge, unions derive their power from the collective. In conception, they exist to serve the needs and desires of the members, to turn their ideas into something more powerful via collective expression. Put bluntly, a union has no reason to exist if the members have no ability to communicate to (or through) leadership. In many ways, this conversation with the players should happen regularly, not just before the union plans to hire its highest-ranking official.

Looking ahead, we can assume that a players' union that listens to its players and informs them of developments on a more regular basis will be more powerful in future collective bargaining situations. In previous years, the NBA has been able to get its way largely because the NBPA has lacked cohesion and proved prone to internal disagreement at a time when they should be at their greatest consensus. If this plan works, ownership could have a stronger negotiating partner the next time the two sides meet. That could result in more difficult negotiations, but over time it's a good thing for the strength of the league and the people it employs.

Related coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
• Doc Rivers in limbo after deal with Clippers falls apart
• Y! Sports Fan Shop: Buy 2013 NBA Finals merchandise
• The Hype: How much would you pay to punch someone?
• Dirk Nowitzki thinks flopping is part of the game

With only two games (at most) left in the NBA season, basketball fans everywhere have ramped up the intensity of their cries against flopping. These are the most important games on the league's schedule, and any attempt to gain favor by nefarious subterfuge is seen as a crime against the sport. There have been several suggestions on how to stop it, from increasing the severity of penalties to handing out technical fouls or other forms of punishment on the court. No matter the proposed fix, it's a common belief that something must be done.

At least one high-profile player does not believe flopping is such a glaring issue. According to Dirk Nowitzki of the Dallas Mavericks, the NBA can never get rid of flopping entirely, because it has a place in the game. From Eddie Sefko for The Dallas Morning News (via PBT):

“We’re never going to get rid of it,” he said recently. “But you got to limit it. It’s part of sports. It’s part of winning. Some people are smart and do a little extra thing to kind of sell the call. To me, that’s part of sports.

“You don’t want the obvious ones, the really, really bad ones. I think we’d love to get rid of those.

“But if somebody really does get shoved or hit a little bit, just to sell it a little for the referees so it does get the call, I don’t have a problem with that. I think that’s part of the game.”

In other words, Nowitzki is happy to help the referees see what maybe their eyes may have missed in the course of action on the court.

There's a fairly clear way to take Nowitzki's comments negatively, to assume that he's not serious about the flopping epidemic and wants a place in the game to trick referees into giving him foul calls. Yet it's also possible to see Dirk's response as a more serious effort to treat flopping as a measurable phenomenon rather than a nebulous threat to the integrity of the league. Instead of lumping all exaggerations of contact into the same category, Dirk notes that players do sometimes flop out of necessity, because referees wouldn't blow their whistles for fouls otherwise. It's an embellishment, but it serves to highlight something that exists.

If flopping is a problem, then it's fair to consider not only how it can be stopped, but if various proposed solutions diminish the problem or just perpetuate the same issues and root causes. By defining flopping as any attempt to embellish contact, rather than something more obvious like wholesale invention of contact where none exists, the NBA has ensured that the only way it can stop the problem is by calling out everything. Because the league doesn't want to suspend seven players per game, it hasn't enforced things so glaringly. This selective enforcement has created a system in which fans have reason to complain because they're told that these actions are problems. While certain players have been marked out as floppers, the new rules have mostly served to create the impression that the NBA isn't serious about stopping flopping.

In other words, the current terms of the War on Flopping dictate that it will never end. Nowitzki's take, while potentially a half-measure, at least attempts to define the problem in ways that can lead to improvement. As is, the NBA is really just giving fans more reasons to let their distaste for flopping obscure the quality basketball on the court.

NBA video from Yahoo! Sports:

Related coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
• Doc Rivers in limbo after deal with Clippers falls apart
• Y! Sports Fan Shop: Buy 2013 NBA Finals merchandise
• Danny Green's ridiculous shooting could land him in a rare club
• Ex-wife accuses Allen Iverson of abducting their 5 children

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: SB Nation, Eye on Basketball and The Point Forward. Maybe, like Tony Parker, you're wondering how Danny Green keeps getting such wide-open looks from 3-point range this late in his record-setting NBA Finals. Mike Prada, Zach Harper and Rob Mahoney each went back over Green's shots in search of the answer.

PF: TrueHoop. I dug this riff on how randomness, luck and the unforeseen have impacted, are impacting and will impact the NBA Finals, and not just because I personally have no idea what the hell's going to happen from night to night when the San Antonio Spurs and Miami Heat play (which, incidentally, is what's making this so fun).

SF: HoopSpeak. With Monta Ellis reportedly (and unsurprisingly) poised to opt out of the final year of his contract with the Milwaukee Bucks to pursue greener pastures in unrestricted free agency, let's revisit this fun thought experiment Ryan Weisert explored last week — what if, instead of being determined to "have it all," Monta just stopped shooting 3-pointers entirely?

SG: The Shadow League. I'm using a context-appropriate late pass to recommend checking out Khalid Salaam's column arguing that basketball fans on the whole don't appreciate what Manu Ginobili does and can do quite as much as we should because he isn't black. Whether you agree or disagree, it's an interesting lens through which to view this particular element of the annual "Why don't we care about the San Antonio Spurs?" debate and you might come away with a different perspective on where Manu slots in among the wing scoring peers of his generation.

PG: GQ. Friend of the program Bethlehem Shoals on the Spurs becoming Tony Parker's team and how both the squad and its leader make the fantastical seem mundane: "Are miracles just a matter of context or are we numb to them if they're happening all around?"

6th: Daily Thunder. Royce Young identifies the one player whose status and summer might determine the future of the Oklahoma City Thunder in both the short- and long-terms, and no, it's not an off-the-crutches Russell Westbrook: "If the Thunder think Jeremy Lamb is the real deal, and more importantly think he’s ready, the Thunder don’t need Kevin Martin, and they should focus entirely on drafting big."

7th: The National Post. Eric Koreen catches up with the mothers of Spurs guard Cory Joseph and Heat center Joel Anthony — who are just the second set of Canadians to appear on opposing sides of an NBA Finals series, joining Rick Fox and Todd MacCulloch, who did so twice — about their paths to the championship round. My favorite part? Erene Anthony's memories about what Joel would have done had a professional basketball career not been an option.

8th: Sports Illustrated. A smart post-Game 5 read from Chris Mannix about how the continued struggles of the point-guard tandem of Mario Chalmers and Norris Cole are killing the Heat.

9th: Grantland. George Gervin tells Zach Lowe about how "nobody ate on Ice" and man, that is just such a great turn of phrase that you have to go find out what the hell it means.

10th: ESPN New York. Jared Zwerling catches up with Reggie Evans for a Father's-Day-themed piece in which the Brooklyn Nets power forward talks about strengthening his bond with his three children and rebuilding his relationship with his father, who spent parts of Evans' youth incarcerated for selling drugs.

Got a link or tip for Ball Don't Lie? Give me a shout at devine (at) yahoo-inc.com, or follow me on Twitter.

According to TMZ, his ex-wife, Tawanna Iverson, has filed court documents accusing the former Philadelphia 76ers star of refusing to return their five children, of whom she has sole legal custody, after a planned vacation that might never have actually happened:

Tawanna Iverson just filed legal docs claiming Allen recently asked for permission to take their five kids on a short vacation to Charlotte, N.C., from May 22nd-May 26th (and Tawanna agreed) but when May 26th rolled around, the children hadn't been returned.

The kids range in age from 3 to 16 years old.

In the docs, Tawanna says she tried to set up an exchange on June 4th at a neutral location — a nearby Target store — but A.I. never showed up.

Tawanna — who has sole legal and primary physical custody of their children — now believes Allen never took their kids to Charlotte at all ... and is currently keeping them at a Sheraton hotel in Georgia. [...] She now wants the court to force him to return the kids ... and punish him as well, even suggesting the judge lock him up in jail.

TMZ also reports that Allen Iverson has filed his own documents denying his ex-wife's claims.

Tawanna Iverson received custody of the children in February as part of the couple's divorce proceedings, which ended their 11-year marriage. The presiding judge in the case ordered Allen Iverson to see a psychiatrist and attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings for a year, and granted him visitation rights only under specific conditions, including that he not drink alcohol within 24 hours of a visit.

"[Iverson] does not know how to manage the children," the judge wrote in the case's final decree. "[He] has little interest in learning to manage the children and has actually, at times, been a hindrance to their spiritual and emotional growth and development."

Allen Iverson called the ruling "one-sided" in a subsequent statement and appealed the decision. His appeal was denied in March, according to Kent Babb of The Washington Post.

After losing custody of the children in the divorce settlement, Iverson also lost his $4.5 million Atlanta mansion to foreclosure, failing to keep up with his payments and defaulting on the mortgage. It was just the latest in a long line of off-court failings for the former All-NBA guard, who hasn't played professional basketball since a brief stint with the Turkish club Besiktas in 2010, and whose persistent post-career struggles Babb chronicled for the Post back in April.

“He has hit rock bottom, and he just hasn’t accepted it yet,” former 76ers teammate Roshown McLeod told Babb.

Those who suggest they know exactly what's going to come next in the life of Allen Iverson are probably kidding themselves. Let's just hope it includes his kids being safe and OK.

NBA Finals coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
• Photos: Manu Ginobili steps up in critical Game 5 win for Spurs
• Manu Ginobili answers call, changes script in Game 5 Spurs win
• Danny Green still on fire, claims NBA Finals record
• Danny Green's ridiculous shooting could land him in a rare club

Much-traveled NBA guard Nate Robinson won the hearts and minds of many during the 2013 playoffs by keeping his plucky Chicago Bulls in game after game of their unlikely postseason run. The 5-9 guard may disappoint some of those new followers, though, with his recent conversion to the dark arts. That's right, Nate Robinson is a sorcerer, now. Able to shape-shift his way through glass at any number of fast food burger joints.

Watch:

(Honestly, how strange would it have been to watch Robinson set up that video in person? Jumping weirdly while within the restaurant, jumping weirdly outside it, maybe needing 14 attempts to get the Vine just right.)

Nate Robinson's shirt also has a picture of an astronaut on it. Enjoy your day off between NBA Finals games.

"I don't care. [...] Cool. Cool." — Miami Heat center Chris Andersen describes his style in a brief chat with All Ball's Lang Whitaker.

Fellow big man Brad Miller surely agrees; others, however, might not.

No, for real, Boris Diaw — you just logged more than 27 minutes for the first time in 2 1/2 months, you kicked in four rebounds, three assists, a block and some very good defense on LeBron James, and played a pretty important role in a 114-104 Game 5 win that puts your San Antonio Spurs just 48 minutes away from raising the O'Brien. We kind of can't believe it, either, but here we are.

Sure, we all know for real that Boris was protesting a foul call, but let's be blog game Willy Wonkas and entrench ourselves in a world of pure imagination. What do you think Diaw's so distraught about? Best caption wins a metric ton of Everlasting Gobstoppers (not really). Good luck.

In our last adventure: Chris Bosh is forever twirling, twirling, twirling his finger toward freedom.

Winner, Tyler: "Can I ... Can I try that again?"

Runner-up, Kenny!: "Wingardium Leviosa."

Second runner-up, Stephon: "Orange Whip? Orange Whip? Three Orange Whips."

Thanks, @Jose3030.

Coaching introductions don’t come much more inauspicious than this. The Detroit Pistons have been flailing as a franchise since dealing away Chauncey Billups in 2008, and general manager Joe Dumars has been through five head coaches since that year. As a response to five straight dreary and ultimately losing seasons, and with his job possibly in danger under new’ish owner Tom Gores, Dumars had to make a splash with someone that could be his final coaching hire.

He decided to go with former Trail Blazers and 76ers coach Maurice Cheeks. First, the internet yawned. Then it set to digging in to research, and it didn’t like what it found.

Cheeks was second in command at Oklahoma City, working for a team that made the Finals last year while appearing well on its way toward defending its Western Conference crown this year before an injury to Russell Westbrook got in the way. This sort of status usually serves to align for a successful hiring, what with types like Tom Thibodeau doing so well after working next to Doc Rivers in Boston, and San Antonio’s Mike Budenholzer recently taking to Atlanta in what was a well-regarded hire.

The Thunder coaching staff has earned its fair share of criticism over the years, though, and while nobody will be able to tell just how much influence Cheeks had over those decisions gone awry (to say nothing of the ones that went well), at least he has his coaching past to lean on.

That might not be a good thing.

Cheeks went 284-286 in eight years coaching the Trail Blazers and 76ers, and while those teams weren’t championship contenders along the same lines as the Thunder, it isn’t a sparkling resume. Worse, as news of Cheeks’ hiring hit the media in Portland and Philadelphia, some old and unflattering skeletons started to amble their way out of the closet.

Here’s one laundry list of misdeeds, from Comcast Sportsnet’s Dwight Jaynes:

Well, I've covered the NBA since the days when Jack Ramsay was roaming the Blazer sidelines in paisley pants. And I don't think since that time I've seen a coach as poorly informed, as casual about his duties and as lazy as Cheeks. NBA head coach? He should have been charged with identity theft. This is a guy who... :

... sometimes within an hour of game time couldn't tell you the starting lineup of the team he'd be facing on a given night.

... after a game one night famously (I used to play the tape of this on my radio show) needed prompting to understand how standings worked -- you know that complicated thing where if two teams have the same number of wins but one team has fewer losses? Yeah, there was a problem with that.

... didn't listen to assistant coaches who knew way more about the game than he did.

... spent a large portion of the game yukking it up with fans behind the bench rather than paying attention to the game.

... got outcoached on a nightly basis, especially at the defensive end.

As Jaynes states, he has been covering the Trail Blazers for nearly four decades now and has seen quite a bit of coaching turnover, but he pulled no punches in calling Cheeks the “worst Blazer coach ever.” Jaynes even credits Cheeks’ brilliant National Anthem-saving move from 2003 – possibly the coolest thing we’ve ever seen anyone do on a basketball court – for helping Cheeks stay employed moving into the tumultuous 2003-04 season.

Following that critical take, Dan Feldman of Piston Powered dug in to remind us all of the night that Cheeks seemed unaware that 76ers Allen Iverson and Chris Webber were going to pass on playing on a particular contest in the 2005-06 season, having to be told by a reporter that AI and C-Webb had deigned to show up to the game. Various accounts from the time make Cheeks look somewhat off in his leadership while discussing the incident with reporters.

Not the finest introduction, to Piston nation. Still, Dumars isn’t hearing any of it. And loaded with cap space as the free agent season begins in July, he made a point to let Piston fans know that the team could be on the receiving end of some one-sided deals this summer. One-sided on the Pistons’ behalf, for once, as teams attempt to shed bigger contracts with the Pistons as trading partners. From the Detroit Free Press:

“It’s already started,” Dumars said at the introductory news conference for new coach Maurice Cheeks. “The phone calls for that have already started. The calls have already started because those teams are already facing it.”

Dumars made his mark in the NBA upon fully taking over command of the Pistons in 2001 by taking on these sorts of contracts via trade. It was a smart move that was somewhat ahead of its time, and paired with coach Rick Carlisle, he created a deep, winning team on the cheap.

The problem this time around is that Dumars is facing a league that has caught up with him, and many of the teams that are looking to dump big salary are looking forward to the boffo free agent summer of 2014 – a summer the Pistons could trade their way out of, if they make a series of imprecise, win-now moves in order to save jobs. Detroit is on pace to have plenty of cap space in 2014, even if the team extends Greg Monroe, but a whiff of an offseason that runs closer to the lost 2009 free agent signings of Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva could set the franchise back once again.

Detroit can’t have that, but the team seems hesitant to cut ties with Dumars. Understandably so, considering he was the NBA Finals MVP in 1989, a starter on the Detroit championships from that year and 1990, and the architect of the much-beloved 2004 champs.

Detroit Free Press columnist Drew Sharp thinks that part of the pressure on Dumars, and by extension Cheeks, is a product of the times. And although we’ve seen some major coaching turnover over the last few weeks, both Cheeks’ coaching record and Dumars’ work since the team’s defeat in the 2008 Eastern Conference finals has been far less than stellar. If anything, while working through a change in ownership, the Pistons have been more than patient.

Dumars and Cheeks are good guys, and we’re rooting for this to be the coaching call that goes right. Mainly because Detroit Pistons fans, after too many years of this mess, deserve much better than a couple of well-liked good guys. It’s time to start piling up wins again.

Since Tony Parker's final-seconds heroics in Game 1, every game of the 2013 NBA Finals has been decided by a monster second-half run. In Game 2, it was the 33-5 (or 35-9, if you prefer) bolt that gave the Miami Heat a series-evening blowout. In Game 3, it was four separate post-intermission spurts — 7-0, 11-0, 13-0 and 11-0 — fueled by historic 3-point shooting that put the San Antonio Spurs back on top.

In Game 4, it was a Dwyane Wade-and-Chris Bosh-led 14-4 fourth-quarter rip that turned a tight game into a breezy 16-point win. And in Game 5, it was a monstrous 21-2 storm that saw the Spurs hit eight of 12 tries while the Heat missed eight straight shots to turn what had been a 75-74 Spurs lead with 3:05 left in the third quarter into a 96-76 San Antonio advantage with 8:51 remaining in the fourth.

"Once we got it back to one, we felt that we had weathered the storm," Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said after the game. "Then we missed a couple of shots that we normally are accustomed to making, and then it just snowballed down the hill from there. And we couldn't control it."

So what happened during that six-minute, 28-second stretch? Here, in no particular order, are five pretty big reasons why the game tilted entirely in San Antonio's direction and sent the Heat back to Miami in need of elusive back-to-back wins — which is pretty funny, when you think about it — to save their season and win the title:

• Manu went nuts. It was his first start in more than a year and his finest game in perhaps even longer, and Ginobili was especially excellent in the late third and early fourth.

He worked defenders Ray Allen and Norris Cole for nine points (and a lovely assist to Tiago Splitter) in just 5:04 of floor time, and while you can quibble about the defense if you want, by and large this was just a matter of Ginobili doing evil things to the Heat on an array of tough drive-and-hang floaters with both hands:

The stellar performance at such a pivotal point in the game sparked the 18,581 fans in attendance to serenade the venerated reserve with chants of his name, which the 36-year-old Argentinian legend said after the game he really appreciated.

"I was having a tough time scoring, and I needed to feel like the game was coming to me, and I was being able to attack the rim, get to the free‑throw line, and make a couple of shots," he said. "So it felt great when I heard that — to feel that I really helped the team to get that 20‑point lead, it was a much‑needed moment in the series."

• Boris Diaw played good defense on LeBron James. No, for real. On paper, the league MVP would seem like a matchup nightmare for the Spurs' slightly pudgy, not-super-swift-of-foot third big man. This is especially true when you consider that some of San Antonio's most ardent fans have taken to calling Diaw "The Land Walrus." That is not a moniker that inspires a ton of confidence when it comes to stopping the best basketball player in the world.

And yet, there Diaw was, shuffling his feet to keep James from blowing past him on moves toward the paint. There he was, getting a hand in James' face on short jumpers in the lane. And there he was, bodying up on the baseline to keep LeBron from turning the corner for a layup and forcing him into a short jumper. All told, James managed just one point on a split at the free-throw line in the six minutes he was checked by Diaw, missing all four of his field-goal attempts.

To some degree, this seemed it might have been a matter of suboptimal decision-making by Miami — while we've been clamoring for James to work out of the post more often this series, the 6-foot-8, let's-call-it-250-pound Diaw has the bulk and strength to anchor against him there, so he may have been better served trying to draw Diaw out to the perimeter and take him off the bounce.

And Diaw didn't do the job 100 percent on his own — check out how tuned-in the San Antonio defense was when James would make his move toward the middle, with all four Spurs helpers having a foot in the paint, Tony Parker digging down from up top and the other three defenders all ready to converge:

Still, the credit goes to the man in the arena, and Diaw's defensive work in this critical stretch might just force us to take Parker's skills as a talent evaluator more seriously.

"Boris is a pretty good defender — he looks awkward, but he gets the job done," Parker said of his close friend and longtime French national teammate. "I think it gives a different look for LeBron [...] I think Boris, we have confidence in him that, for a couple of minutes, he can do a good job."

And do it irrespective of whether or not he really knows what he's going to do — asked by Grantland's Zach Lowe after the game if he had a specific plan for guarding James, Diaw just said no and laughed. Still, plan or no plan, Diaw and the Spurs wound up with the last laugh on Sunday.

• Nobody else from Miami could get free either. The Heat managed only four non-LeBron shots during the run — Dwyane Wade had two not-very-good shots blocked/deflected by Ginobili and Tim Duncan, Tiago Splitter got a piece of a Ray Allen driving layup attempt and Shane Battier chucked a half-court heave at the end of the third quarter. They also had a pair of awful turnovers leading to empty possessions — one when Chris Bosh couldn't handle a good pick-and-roll feed from James, the other owing to both a bad dump-off pass by Norris Cole and poor hands by Udonis Haslem, which pretty perfectly encapsulates the rough nights of two players who were a combined -34 in 15 total 1/2 minutes of floor time.

The two cough-ups called to mind Spurs coach Gregg Popovich's post-Game 4 comments about the deflating effect of turnovers on an offense:

"Because it's not just [that] you gave them another possession; people forget you lost your possession," Popovich said. "You might have scored one, two or three points, or four, I guess in rare situations. But you didn't score, and the other team oftentimes — especially the better the team you play, like Miami — you turn it over and they're going to score. It's basically a dunk or a layup at the other end of the court. So it's always a swing of four points, at least, and that's what really takes its toll."

In this case, those two miscues cost Miami two chances to answer San Antonio baskets, helping turn a seven-point lead into a 12-point lead by the end of the quarter that would only increase after the start of the fourth. More than that, though, as SB Nation's Tom Ziller notes, the six-minute slog (much of which came with Wade and Bosh on the bench) was emblematic of a Heat issue that's persisted throughout the playoffs:

But here's the thing: with Wade and Bosh sitting, and with a fairly offense-deficient line-up on the court with him for most of the run, LeBron didn't really have any better options than to try to drive on Diaw. Who on the court was LeBron supposed to run even a pick and roll with? Haslem with LeBron as the ball handler? That's a recipe for getting trapped. Cole with LeBron as the screener? That's a recipe for a Cole pull-up. [...] the game as a whole was a microcosm of the Heat's postseason: stunning defensive struggles and total mystery as to which non-LeBron Heat scorers will step up.

Wade (25 points on 10 for 22 shooting, 10 assists, four turnovers), Allen (21 points, 4 for 4 from 3-point range) and Bosh (16 points on 7 for 11 shooting) were generally quite helpful in this regard. But in perhaps the most critical moments of the season, they were either unable or unavailable to offer a lift, all but dooming Miami to a 3-2 deficit.

In a lot of ways, Alvin Williams is Mr. Raptor. That could be construed as a diss sent Toronto’s way, but there just aren’t a whole lot of other candidates. Chris Bosh and Tracy McGrady both sped out of town via the free agent route. Vince Carter forced a trade in 2004, Antonio Davis jumped to Toronto too late to carve out some sort of Antonio Davis Era, Marcus Camby was traded before he could ever develop, and Andrea Bargnani really never panned out.

Williams was traded to the Raps in a deal that sent the initial face of the franchise – 1995-96 NBA Rookie of the Year Damon Stoudamire – to Portland in 1998. He worked through the Vince Carter era, developing into a starting-level point guard and sticking things out for years before being bought out in 2006 to make room for the oh-so famous Fred Jones free agent acquisition. Williams returned to the team in 2009 as an assistant coach, though, and since 2010 he’s worked as the team’s Director of Player Development.

And now, with new Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment CEO Tim Leiweke running the show, Williams has been let go. Not exactly a league-shifting move for the Raptors, but one that seems a little needless, and wrought with poor PR potential. From the Toronto Star’s Doug Smith:

In what I think is a terribly short-sighted move that will rankle as many people as anything he does, Leiweke has told Alvin Williams that his services are no longer required.

Yep, the chief executive officer of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment – on the job for less than a month – has jettisoned one of the great guys ever associated with the franchise and a man who wanted nothing more than to spend his entire career with the organization in some way, shape or form.

Alvin had spent last season scouting for the team, based out of Philadelphia, but he was far, far more than just an employee picking up a cheque.

He loved the organization and the city, he was a link to some of the best times the team has ever had, he is a great guy who’d show up every now and then and sooth some antsy players, offer a unique perspective and be a valued confidant to many.

Fired. Not by the general manager who never spoke to him, but by a CEO who seems hellbent on getting his fingers in every decision at some level.

We’re hardly in a position to tell MLSE how to run their team, but the Raptors are not at a loss for funds to fill the front office. The biggest reason new general manager Masai Ujiri (a super-loyal executive who deliberated for two weeks over Toronto’s substantially larger contract offer before leaving Denver) is running the Raptors right now is because Leiweke and co. whipped out their chequebooks. And according to Smith Ujiri didn’t even get to make this call, or presumably figure out what Williams was bringing to the table.

It doesn’t appear to be a suitable ending for Williams and Toronto, even if Alvin Williams wasn’t really working out of Toronto. It’s understandable that Leiweke wants to clean house entirely in the wake of what has been a wasted half-decade of basketball in Toronto, but this is also the guy that decided to re-sign the architect of that wasted run – Bryan Colangelo – to a nebulous front office gig last month.

Clinging to past personnel for posterity’s sake is often the sure way to the lottery. But was all this necessary? Early indications out of Toronto, surrounding the much-loved Williams, appear to suggest otherwise.

Related coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
• Y! Sports Fan Shop: Buy 2013 NBA Finals merchandise
• Doc Rivers in limbo after deal with Clippers falls apart
• The NBPA is in no rush to name a new executive director

See? Told you so.

Green's first 23 3-pointers set an NBA record for most 3s made during an NBA Finals, and he's still got at least one more game to go — or, if you're a hopeful Miami Heat backer, two more — to put the record further out of the next man's reach. In a series that's seen wild shifts in momentum, execution, narrative and results from game to game, Green's scintillating shooting has been one constant throughout — he's been so locked in from beyond the arc that his 24-point, 6-for-10-from-deep shooting performance in San Antonio's Game 5 win actually dropped his 3-point percentage for the series, from 67.9 percent (19 for 28) headed into Game 5 to 65.8 percent (25 for 38) afterward. (What a slacker.)

To hear Green tell it, his historic flow is merely the outgrowth of being very fortunate and having three All-World teammates, with Tim Duncan drawing Miami attention on the interior and gifted facilitators Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili finding him on the perimeter.

"I've been getting lucky," Green said after the game. "I was moving around a lot. Our transition helps us, our pace. Tony penetrating and Manu penetrating, making the defense collapse is the reason why I've been getting open. Luckily, a couple have dropped for me."

"A couple." Let it never be said that the 25-year-old out of North Carolina gets a swelled head in moments of all-time shotmaking brilliance, huh?

"Right now, everything is working well for me," he said. "I'm feeling truly blessed right now."

Parker, for his part, seems shocked that the blessings haven't gone bye-bye yet.

"I can't believe he's still open at this moment of this series," Parker said after bouncing back from a quiet Game 4 second half to score a game-high 26 points on 10 for 14 shooting in Game 5. "They are still trapping me and doubling Timmy, and Danny is wide open. He's shooting the ball well — if you are going to leave Danny wide open, he's going to make threes."

As Erik Spoelstra has learned, much to the Heat coach's chagrin.

"He's getting some open looks, and he's making some contested looks," Spoelstra said after a Game 5 loss in which his Heat were repeatedly picked apart and beaten by excellent San Antonio ball movement. "But the open looks are the ones that are killing us."

Green thinks Parker and Spoelstra might be overstating things just a bit — "I don't think many of my shots are that wide open" — but didn't necessarily say they were wrong.

"Some of [the looks], yeah, I'm surprised," Green said, before immediately returning to crediting his teammates.

"Tony, Timmy and Manu are doing a great job of sucking in the defense," he said. "Us pushing the pace and be able to move the ball and give us open looks. When that happens, it gives ourselves a better chance to score offensively."

Or, as Parker put it: "You can't stop everything."

The Heat barely stopped anything on Sunday, as San Antonio shot 60 percent from the floor en route to 114 points, the fourth-highest total Miami's given up this season and the second-most in a non-overtime affair. (They gave up 116 to the Denver Nuggets back in November, but they won that game.) And while the evening's big story was Ginobili turning back the clock with a performance for the ages, Green's hellacious rhythm might be setting the stage for one of the more unlikely stories in recent NBA history: Danny Green, NBA Finals MVP, which would make him the first second-round pick to win the award since Dennis Johnson in 1979.

"He's been unbelievable," Duncan said. "I hope he doesn't wake up and keeps playing this way."

Related NBA coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
• Celtics, Clippers resume talks on megadeal involving Kevin Garnett and Doc Rivers
• Three keys to 21-2 run that sparked Spurs' Game 5 win over Heat
• Manu Ginobili answers call, changes script in Game 5 Spurs win

After a fantastic final-second layup by Tony Parker to close out the second quarter and send the Spurs into intermission with a 61-52 lead over the visiting Miami Heat in Sunday's pivotal Game 5, ABC's cameras found Duncan choosing to take a moment away from any halftime talk about adjustments and coverages to grab a seat out in the hallway and hang with his children, daughter Sydney and son Draven, whom you might remember from his refusal to give Dad a goodbye kiss during last year's Western Conference finals:

Nothing like taking the premise of a recent Onion story and putting it into real-life practice. (Thanks for the head's up, Daniel Dale.)

This was actually the second TV appearance of the evening for the young masked Duncan. Just after Spurs sharpshooter Danny Green (who'd later set an NBA Finals record for 3-pointers made in a series) finished his halftime interview with sideline reporter Doris Burke, the red-hot shooting guard ran off the court and back toward the locker room — only to come very close to clocking an unaware Draven:

The child-avoiding spin was just one of many smooth moves Green made en route to another huge night that saw him score 24 points and make 6 of 10 3-pointers.

The star of the evening, though, was Ginobili, who responded to criticism of his poor early-series play with his best game in months in his first start of the season — 24 points on 8 for 14 shooting to go with 10 assists against just three turnovers in 33 minutes of brilliant shotmaking, sharp passing and grand-stage bell-answering in a 114-104 Game 5 win that brings the Spurs within one win of the fifth title of the Duncan-Gregg Popovich era.

And after Manu had spent the evening running roughshod over the Heat all over his longtime home floor, his twin sons, Dante and Nicola, followed suit, running unshod on the court in their pajamas to celebrate the win:

One-hundred percent adorable, pretty safe so long as neither mini-Manu tries to dunk, and definitely an amazing way to cap a pretty amazing Father's Day for Manu, Timmy and the rest of the Spurs.

Top video via @cjzero. Vine via Pablo Torre. Bottom photo via Dan McCarney of the San Antonio Express-News.

Related NBA video from Yahoo! Sports:

NBA Finals coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
• Manu Ginobili answers call, changes script in Game 5 Spurs win
• Danny Green still on fire, claims NBA Finals record
• Danny Green's ridiculous shooting could land him in a rare club

The NBA Finals is often decided by one or two huge performances from role players, but San Antonio Spurs wing Danny Green's shooting against the Miami Heat is unprecedented. With 9:39 remaining in the third quarter of Game 5, Green knocked down his 23rd three-pointer of the series, breaking Ray Allen's record for the most threes in an NBA Finals.

[Related: Danny Green's ridiculous shooting could land him in a rare club]

Green ranked seventh in the league this regular season with a 42.9 percent mark from beyond the arc. His shooting in the NBA Finals has been considerably better. Through the first four games of the series, he had made 19-of-28 long-range shots (69.8 percent). At the time of his record-breaking shot, Green had somehow done even better in Game 5, hitting four of his first five three-point attempts. That means Green converted on 23 of his first 33 tries — just better than two-thirds — to get the record.

Allen, the most prolific three-point shooter in NBA history and now Green's opponent as a member of the Heat, set the previous mark of 22 threes in six games in 2008 as a member of the Boston Celtics against the Los Angeles Lakers. Allen needed 42 attempts for his record, which underscores just how amazing Green has been this series.

[Y! Sports Fan Shop: Buy 2013 NBA Finals merchandise]

Directly after Green set the record, Allen expressed his dismay at losing the record. After the jump, check out a screengrab of Allen's face (via @jose3030):

That's about all there is to say, Ray. Green has been downright nasty in these first five games.

The next target for Green is the record for most threes in a playoff series. The current record of 28 is held by Allen (set in 2001 as a Milwaukee Buck against the Philadelphia 76ers) and retired Orlando Magic sharpshooter Dennis Scott (set in 1995 against the Indiana Pacers). The way Green is playing, we could need to rewrite the record books once again very soon.

Related coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
• Jason Collins: ‘You can’t stereotype what it means to be gay’
• The NBPA is in no rush to name a new executive director
• Ex-wife accuses Allen Iverson of abducting their 5 children

In a purely literal sense, Game 5 of the 2013 NBA Finals isn't a must-win, no matter what any member of the San Antonio Spurs or Miami Heat tries to tell you — with the series tied at two games apiece, whichever team drops Sunday night's contest will still have two shots at staying alive and hoisting the O'Brien once the series shifts back to South Beach. On the other hand, though, as NBA.com's John Schuhmann noted, of the 10 times the Finals have been tied 2-2 since 1985, the team that won Game 5 has won the series seven times. On balance, then, it would seem like a better thing to win Game 5 than to lose it; that much is not in question.

But there's an awful lot of stuff that is in question as we head into the matchup between LeBron James' Heat and Tony Parker's Spurs. Here are seven running through my head as I wait for tip:

1. Can Parker play full speed for the full game?

After suffering a grade 1 strain of his right hamstring in the second half of San Antonio's Game 3 win, Spurs fans were concerned that Parker would be unable to hit the gas in Game 4. The All-Star point guard promptly allayed those concerns, hitting four of his first five shots to score eight points with two assists and a steal in the first six minutes of Thursday's contest.

He looked great throughout the first two quarters of Game 4, seeming comfortable and confident, getting to his preferred spots on the floor and showcasing the absurd shotmaking ...

... and draw-and-dish playmaking ...

... that have made him one of the league's premiere point guards, scoring a team-high 15 points to go with six assists and three rebounds to help the Spurs head into halftime tied at 49. Not unlike Heat star Dwyane Wade through the Finals' first three games, though, Parker all but vanished in the second half, missing all four of his shots and going scoreless as the Heat pulled away en route to a series-tying 16-point win.

Going back over the second half, Parker's quiet play seemed to have less to do with any tentativeness or hobbled form and more to do with really good Heat defense.

Miami's guards did a great job forcing their way through the myriad screens San Antonio sets for Parker on the ball. The Heat bigs did good work in varying their coverages, sometimes showing hard to force Parker to pull the ball out and try to make a pass behind the trap (where Heat helpers were almost invariably on time and on target with their rotations) and sometimes dropping back a step to corral the ball and keep him from getting a clear path to the rim. And in the relatively rare instances where Parker was able to gain the paint, he'd find a lot of long arms between the ball and the backboard, and he didn't have as much luck finishing in traffic as he had earlier in the game.

While Miami deserves the bulk of the credit, some of the second-half struggle, to be sure, owes to the hamstring injury. Parker acknowledged after the game that he "got fatigued a little bit" after halftime, and while he didn't appear to be much the worse for wear while on the ball, he wasn't exactly threatening working off the ball in the second half.

Parker had been logging heavy minutes for San Antonio throughout the postseason, averaging just under 39 minutes per game in the second round against the Golden State Warriors and 39 1/2 minutes in the Western Conference finals against the Memphis Grizzlies, and playing 39 1/2 minutes in the Spurs' Game 1 Finals win in Miami. But he's averaged just under 31 minutes per game over the past three outings, and said at Saturday's practice he didn't know if he'd be able to go more than 30 minutes in Game 5 while dealing with the injury: "We'll see tomorrow, I guess, huh?"

He also noted that, while grade 1 is the mildest level of strain, under normal circumstances, it would've sidelined him for a stretch.

"My hamstring can tear any time now, so if it was the regular season, I would be resting like 10 days," Parker said. "But now it's the NBA Finals. If it gets a tear, it's life."

Two days of ice, massages, rest and treatment have reportedly helped, as Parker said at Sunday's shootaround that he's "good to go" for Game 5. Still, if he's unable to play heavy minutes at a high level at his customary pace, more will be required of San Antonio's secondary ball-handlers, including the struggling Manu Ginobili, combo guard Gary Neal (who's been great working more off the ball in this series), little-used backup Cory Joseph and possibly even Nando De Colo, whom Spurs coach Gregg Popovich took out of mothballs for a four-minute stretch in Game 4.

"If he can't play at full speed, others will have to pick up the slack, and they will or they won't," Popovich said Friday.

If they won't, San Antonio might be in quite a bit of trouble against a Heat team eager to earn consecutive wins for the first time since May 15 (the clinching Game 5 of the Eastern Conference semifinals against the Chicago Bulls) and May 22 (Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals against the Indiana Pacers).

2. Can Miami's defense keep forcing the Spurs into turnovers?

In Game 1 and Game 3, the Spurs committed 17 combined turnovers, leading to 25 Heat points. In Game 2 and Game 4, they coughed it up 36 times, leading to 42 Heat points. Not surprisingly, they won the former and lost the latter.

On one hand, turnovers forced and points scored off them tend to serve as indicators of how well a defense is functioning — if the Heat are able to force miscues and capitalize off them, that usually suggests their pick-and-roll trapping, back-line rotations and early help are on point, and since those are the basic tenets of their defensive system, that usually means the opposition's in for a long night. On the other, though, they're also signposts to an offense's struggles and a critical element in any story about a defeat, because as Popovich notes, turnovers deflate an offense just as much as they bolster a defense.

"Because it's not just [that] you gave them another possession; people forget you lost your possession," Popovich said. "You might have scored one, two or three points, or four, I guess in rare situations. But you didn't score, and the other team oftentimes — especially the better the team you play, like Miami — you turn it over and they're going to score. It's basically a dunk or a layup at the other end of the court. So it's always a swing of four points, at least, and that's what really takes its toll."

The Spurs' 19 turnovers in Game 4 came in all shapes and sizes — Tiago Splitter's game-opening backcourt violation, Kawhi Leonard dribbling the ball into LeBron James' chest on a fast break, Danny Green setting a (questionable) moving screen on Chris Bosh, Tim Duncan rolling to the rim and charging into a planted and waiting Wade, telegraphed-and-intercepted cross-court passes by Green and Boris Diaw, sloppy flip passes by Parker and Ginobili that didn't find their intended targets, and on, and on. You name it, the Spurs booted it in Game 5, with many of the poor decisions, execution errors and passes thrown either a split-second too early or too late owed to the Heat being able to get back to being themselves.

"Our focus has been getting to our identity, which is an aggressive, disruptive defensive team," Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said Friday.

"When they go to that next level or that next gear defensively and aggressiveness‑wise, you better be prepared for it and try to take advantage of it by moving the basketball, not playing in a crowd, that kind of thing," Popovich said. "Our two losses against them, we haven't done that very well."

"We have to understand that their identity is to play aggressive defense and they gamble and they're going to take a lot of chances with steals and blocks," Parker said Saturday. "We just have to be smarter with our decisions."

When the decisions are smarter, the ball movement crisper and the passes delivered on time, on target and ahead of Heat rotations ... well, that's when Game 3 can happen. The Spurs were far from flawless in that game, committing 13 turnovers that turned into 17 Heat points, but San Antonio's passes were quick enough and accurate enough often enough to turn the AT&T Center into a shooting gallery.

"Who gets to who more often? Sometimes the margin for error is a centimeter difference of our activity and their precision," Spoelstra said. "The way they move the ball and their execution, their precision — you have to be absolutely connected and on point defensively at all stages or not only they'll beat you, but they'll embarrass you."

If Miami gets the same level of defensive focus, commitment and execution — especially from Wade, who (as I noted Friday) was much more attentive, opportunistic and precise with his rotations on Thursday, and Bosh, who was absolutely everywhere, especially in that second half — then it's going to be awful difficult for San Antonio to get back to that embarrassment-causing offense in Game 5 without shuffling the deck a bit.

"Obviously, their defense was rotating kind of perfectly and knowing exactly what we were going to do, so you have to change things up," Duncan said Saturday. "You have to change the pace of things, the way you do things, and in that way it kind of keeps them on their toes. More than them understanding exactly what they're going to do, I think that's what we have to do in this upcoming game."

Parker's health/activity and whether the Spurs can get their precision passing game going are the two biggest things that I'll be watching for in Game 5, but as you'd expect in a game this big, there are plenty of other ones, too — here, quickly, are a few more:

3. Can Wade approximate what he offered in Game 4? As Kelly noted earlier Sunday, Wade's the offensive bellwether for this Heat team; as Bosh said, when Wade gets loose, Miami's damn near unstoppable.

Given how up-and-down (and, really, down) Wade's been for these past few months, expecting another 32-point, six-rebound, six-steal, four-assist outing would seem foolhardy, but now that we know he's capable of that kind of performance with his bone-bruised right knee, a return to the languorous misfiring of Games 1 through 3 would just be unacceptable. Whether or not his jumper's falling, Wade again needs to press the paint in search of contact, make off-ball cuts with malicious intent, stay locked in on the defensive end and rotate hard enough to spook the Spurs into mistakes. With so much on the line in Game 5, those aspects of the game are non-negotiable.

4. Can Ginobili answer his critics as Wade answered his? It's probably a bit much to ask the 35-year-old Argentinian legend to pop for 32 points, considering he hasn't done that in a little over a year. But after a subpar Game 4 (five points on 1 for 5 shooting with two turnovers in 26 minutes), a very quiet Finals to date (just 7.5 points per game on 34.5 percent shooting, and a 3 for 16 mark from 3-point land) and some head-scratching decisions and mistakes as the Spurs' secondary facilitator, any semblance of a threatening offensive game — threatening to Miami, I mean — would represent a major leap forward for the Spurs' long-venerated sixth man.

Spurs fans are desperate for a flicker of the pace and sharpness that made Manu a nightmarish cover as recently as Game 3 of the Western finals, when he scored 19 points on nine shots against the Grizzlies and made repeated forays into the paint to earn trips to the line, when that all-time court vision resulting in five assists with just one turnover, when the irrepressible spark caught fire and engulfed Memphis rather than resulting in self-immolation. After Game 4, Duncan suggested that Ginobili might need to let the blaze burn rather than trying to keep it under control.

"I think he's just trying to be incredibly unselfish right now," Duncan said. "I think he's trying to make the right play at the right time. He's trying to make the right pass, make the defense move instead of looking more for his own. [...] We need him to be a little more aggressive, be a little more selfish, maybe, and hopefully we can find him a way to get him to do that."

5. Can San Antonio adjust to the Wade-Bosh elbow pick-and-roll that gave them so much trouble in Game 4? I'll defer on the breakdown to Rob Mahoney of The Point Forward, but one of the key offensive differences for Miami in Game 4 was running Wade-Bosh ball screens on the elbows rather than up top with Bosh rolling hard to the basket rather than popping out for midrange jumpers. The shift leveraged Wade's passing ability, Bosh's underrated skills as a finisher around the basket and the quickness/speed advantage Bosh has over Spurs defenders like Duncan and Diaw to get the two All-Stars more looks moving toward the basket. How will Popovich respond to snuff out the action and get the Heat back outside the paint?

6. Can the Spurs create more 3-point looks? Two nights after setting a record for 3-point makes in an NBA Finals game with 16, the Spurs managed just 16 attempts from deep (a series low) in Game 4, as the Heat ran San Antonio shooters off the line with strong rotations and the Spurs ran themselves off the line with poor passing. We know Green (a scorching 19 for 28 from distance), Neal (12 for 22 from long range) and Matt Bonner (only 1 for 4 in the Finals in limited minutes, but a 44.2 percent mark from 3 during the season) can catch fire if given opportunities, but we also know that they can sometimes struggle to make the right reads and decisions when forced to put the ball on the deck by a timely closeout. Figuring out how to just let those shooters shoot without having to think will be huge for San Antonio on Sunday.

With the Heat's smaller lineup swarming shooters, space to rise and fire is tough to come by — Grantland's Zach Lowe caught a nice little staggered screen design the Spurs used a couple of times in Game 4 to get open looks for Green, and Pop's going to need to figure out some more ways to engineer some breathing room. I'm betting the Spurs will need to get back above 20 3-point attempts, and probably well over that mark, to have a real strong chance in Game 5.

7. If Miami stays small, will San Antonio continue to match? Putting Mike Miller into the starting lineup for Udonis Haslem didn't have a major effect on the score sheet — Miller took just one shot in 21 minutes in Game 4, missed it and later smiled about being a "decoy" — but it did signal a stylistic shift by Miami and create a bit of matchup uncertainty for San Antonio, who abandoned the Splitter-guards-Wade gambit after 47 seconds.

The Heat played only one big man at a time throughout the entire game — Bosh played just under 38 minutes at center and Haslem played just over 10, with James and Shane Battier splitting power forward duties, and formerly critical reserve Chris Andersen not seeing a second of floor time. San Antonio mostly matched that look, with their standard two-big lineup of Duncan and Splitter sharing the floor for just three minutes and other two-kind-of-big lineups (Duncan-Bonner, Diaw-Splitter, Bonner-Splitter) logging just a little over eight minutes of total floor time. The only two-big lineup that Pop stayed with for a stretch was the Duncan-Diaw pairing, which performed pretty well and helped the Spurs go on an 11-2 late-second quarter run.

If Spoelstra elects to keep going small with Miller in the starting lineup, Bosh at the five and LeBron at the four, will Pop similarly shift Splitter to the bench in favor of, say, Neal? (You could understand de-emphasizing Splitter at this point, considering he's shooting 38 percent from the floor and serving as the Finals' primary embarrassment magnet.) Will Pop go back to Duncan-Diaw in an attempt to, as Miller put it Saturday, "be big and small at the same time, like I said, if that makes any sense?" Or will he stick with Splitter, trusting that the 28-year-old Brazilian, who's been so important for San Antonio defensively this season, will be able to hold his own on that end while fighting through the early-series struggles he's experienced on the other side of the court?

Honestly, I have no idea what the answers to any of these questions will wind up being — this series has felt like one long, continuous subversion of all of our expectations, which is what's made it so amazingly fun to watch. Here's hoping Game 5 continues to make us all look stupid and leave us grinning like idiots in its wake.

We’ve been down this path before. Dwyane Wade’s All-Star-level play is crucially important to the Miami Heat. When he cuts and slashes with ease like he did in Thursday’s 32-point outing in Game 4, scoring in the lane and disrupting the passing lanes on defense, Miami is just about unbeatable. When he misses on runners, bricks his jumpers, and looks a step-slow on the other end of the court? The Heat are quite vulnerable. This has been obvious to any set of eyes during the last two postseasons.

Thanks to Chris Herring of the Wall St. Journal, though, we now have a qualification of how much Dwyane’s regular season-typical 20 points per game help the Heat out. Wade, who turned into “Flash” in Thursday’s Game 4 despite a nagging knee injury, may just be the biggest X-factor in NBA playoffs history.

From Herring:

The Heat have won 42 of the 46 games this season in which Wade scored 20 points or more.

According to Stats LLC, only four players in the past 25 seasons have logged better winning percentages in such scenarios: Chicago's Scottie Pippen (1996), Detroit's Joe Dumars (1989 and 1990), San Antonio's Tony Parker (2003) and Boston's Robert Parish (1986). Each of those men won NBA titles in those years.

Context is crucial, and telling in this instance.

Pippen battled a heel and back injury throughout 1995-96, and while he remained perhaps the league’s best defender, his scoring acumen (especially in the playoffs) suffered. Joe Dumars was an All-Star guard during Detroit’s two title runs, but the 1989 NBA Finals MVP was working on a team thick with contributors who needed the ball. Tony Parker, in his second season during 2002-03, was a wildly inconsistent performer with much to learn, and Robert Parish’s offensive contributions in 1985-86 were out and out gravy for the best Boston Celtic team of the Larry Bird era.

The most direct comparison can be made to Pippen. Wade and Scottie serve two completely different roles defensively (Pippen was not a roamer by habit, and you’d never catch his head turned on that end), but they both worked as clear Number Twos to the best player of that particular era. They were also the second scoring option on top-heavy teams full of role players, because while the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls won an NBA record 72 games during that season, the team really only had three players (Pippen, Michael Jordan, and Toni Kukoc) that could create their own shots.

This year’s Heat also ran down a significant milestone, winning a remarkable 27 games in a row during the regular season, and they’re not to be dismissed just because they’ve split the first four with a championship-caliber San Antonio Spurs team during this year’s Finals. They still are just as top-heavy as those Bulls, and a significant chunk of that top has fallen off quite a bit since the postseason started. In his piece, Herring details just how far Wade has dropped since the playoff decals hit the floor:

Wade entered Game 4 averaging just 14 points per game, a seven-point drop from his regular-season average. That wasn't just a small concern, it was a historic one: If it held through the end of the playoffs, and the Heat win anyway, it would mark the steepest fall for a second-leading scorer on a title-winning team in NBA history.

The Heat should “win anyway.” The Spurs are a fantastic team with a brilliant coaching staff leading the way, and the odds are pointing toward San Antonio taking Game 5 in their final home performance in a remarkable season. This is still a best-of three series with two to be possibly played in Miami, though, and the Heat earned that advantage with a marvelous regular season. And in what has been somewhat under-reported, the defending champs have worked through a remarkably strange postseason – facing a sub-mediocre Milwaukee Bucks squad before taking on an odd, shape-shifting Chicago Bulls team just before hitting up a batch of Indiana Pacers that still have quite a lot to figure out.

Then there’s the Spurs, who seem to change rotations and outlooks daily, a team that started Game 4 by guarding Wade with Tiago Splitter, the ultimate diss sent the way of a player that had been the go-to first quarter offensive focus for Miami for the previous couple of games.

It wasn’t just Wade that reacted to that batch of disrespect with improved shooting and increased efficiency. San Antonio could have put all-world defender Kawhi Leonard on Dwyane to start, and it may not have mattered – Miami’s game plan was just as big a factor in Wade’s Game 4 revival as anything else. The Heat put their shooting guard in parts of the court that acted as his comfort zone, as the runners that rimmed out in the previous game were now being launched from familiar parts of the paint. It’s true that Wade had good looks in Game 3, but they weren’t looks he was used to. The Heat went out of their way to change that in Game 4.

San Antonio was aware of this by the time garbage time hit in Game 4, and you know they’ve had a counter in place since their heads hit the pillows in the wee hours on Friday morning. Wade and the Heat are no doubt aware of the San Antonio reaction, and they’ve had a counter to that counter in mind since around the same time.

So what makes the bigger dent? The smart and precise unstoppable force or the intelligent and anticipatory immovable object? Well, that’s what makes these NBA Finals so damn interesting.

One thing we do know? Dude’s gotta score 20 points. Dwyane Wade has to find a way to get his, once again.

The Chicago Blackhawks are gearing up for Game 2 of the NHL Stanley Cup Final on Saturday night, attempting to win its second championship in four years after taking a 1-0 lead over the Boston Bruins on Wednesday. That 2010 NHL title was the team’s first in 39 years, and though the team maintained a significant playoff presence during that dry spell, a reputation for cheapness tended to continually get in the way of the Blackhawks finding enough to seal the Stanley Cup deal.

The late Blackhawks owner Arthur Wirtz was considered to be the architect of that parsimony, but a chaotic early 1970s sporting scene also added to the weirdness. Around this time the AFL had merged with the NFL, the ABA was providing a counter to NBA basketball that was thriving in some markets, and the upstart WHA was attempting to unseat the NHL. With only so many nickels to throw around, Blackhawks left winger Bobby Hull was growing more and more frustrated with his salary in Chicago, and reached out to the WHA’s Winnipeg Jets as a free agent.

What does any of this have to do with basketball? There are rumors that continue to this day that the Blackhawks were set to trade Hull to the Los Angeles Kings and Lakers’ ownership group, helmed by Jack Kent Cooke, sending Los Angeles Lakers center Wilt Chamberlain to the Chicago Bulls. An unprecedented, two-league deal that the great Bob Verdi explains:

As rumors grew about Hull’s discussions with the WHA’s Winnipeg Jets, Cooke, who always thought big, thought really big. Wirtz owned the Stadium where the Bulls played and was in the process of securing a majority stake in the franchise itself. The Bulls were averaging only about 11,000 per date in Chicago, and the Kings desperately needed a marquee player in Los Angeles.

Instead of tempting fate by allowing The Golden Jet to escape the NHL and provide the WHA instant traction, Cooke had an idea: He would trade superstar Chamberlain to the Bulls, and Hull would join the Kings. That would help both teams and both leagues, and might doom the WHA before it ever established credibility.

Would such a transaction have been possible? It would have been dramatic, for sure. Cooke never denied the proposal and Wirtz never acknowledged it, but those two giants of industry usually achieved their objectives. Cooke and Wirtz were movers and shakers.

Of course, the deal never materialized. Hull signed with Winnipeg and ended up spending the rest of his career in the WHA. The Blackhawks would make up for this separation years later by constructing a statue of Hull outside the United Center, across the street from where the Chicago Stadium once stood. He currently serves as team ambassador, though some disagree with his continued employment in that field.

Wilt, meanwhile, spent one more season playing for Jack Kent Cooke in Los Angeles, shooting a monstrous 72.7 percent from the field and leading his team to the NBA Finals. After a contract disagreement in the 1973 offseason, though, Chamberlain signed on to play for the San Diego Conquistadors.

Because the Lakers filed an injunction, hoping to have their reserve clause on Wilt hold up, Chamberlain was forced to sit out the 1973-74 ABA season. In a desperate attempt to profit from his presence, the “Q’s” (as they were known in local newspaper circles, in order to save headline space) made Chamberlain their coach. Wilt showed up for, well, some of his team’s games, sometimes wearing sandals on the sideline, as future Bulls coach and then-Conquistadors assistant Stan Albeck was forced to do most of the head coaching during that 37-47 (84 games, to be two better than the NBA) season, on a team helmed offensively by Bo Lamar and Stew Johnson.

This … this is how sports were back then. Remind yourself of this the next time you think Metta World Peace’s tweets are the signs of end times.

Chamberlain retired in 1974, and Hull did the same some five years later. The Bulls, Blackhawks, and Kings would not go on to make their league’s final rounds until the 1991, 1993, and 1993 seasons respectively.

That drought may never have existed, and things might have been far different, had the NBA and NHL allowed for the Strangest Trade Ever.

Although his Los Angeles Lakers were bounced from the playoffs many moons ago, NBA All-Star Dwight Howard continues to grab headlines. On Friday, the soon-to-be free agent has already earned attention on this very page for having regular communication with Houston Rockets forward Chandler Parsons and texting with fellow free agent Chris Paul about teaming up South Beach-style after hitting the open market. With the NBA Finals now more than half-finished, it's time to ramp up the rumors and speculate wildly.

Howard is a full person, though, and not just a basketball player deciding on his future professional home. He has goals, desires, and curiosities that cannot be defined solely by his athletic abilities. And that's why he's going to voice a turkey in an animated movie about time-traveling turkeys.

It's called "Free Birds" — not "Time Turkeys," sadly — and here's the synopsis from IMDb (via Deadspin):

Two turkeys from opposite sides of the tracks must put aside their differences and team up to travel back in time to change the course of history - and get turkey off the holiday menu for good.

I find it a little hard to believe that any Hollywood studio would make a movie that ends with turkey not being served at Thanksgiving, but maybe the Dream Factory will have some surprises in store for audiences. Or maybe it's a very serious film about turkeys excepting their fate and submitting to wholesale slaughter. The director also made "Jonah Hex," so he knows what it takes to create a hit!

Howard's role is likely small — he's billed thirteenth, behind stars Owen Wilson, Woody Harrelson, and Amy Poehler and noteworthy supporting cast Keith David and Colm Meaney — but he is no amateur. As our Dan Devine noted way back in September, Howard has done voiceover work on the Disney Channel series "Kick Buttowski" as a superhero facing off against a villain voiced by "Pardon the Interruption" host Tony Reali. (This is all true, I swear.) He has what it takes to bring real depth of feeling to the character of Cold Turkey (whose name is a pun, in case you didn't notice).

Howard has received some criticism in recent seasons for not appearing sufficiently invested in his basketball career, almost as if he'd prefer to be a well-liked celebrity to a widely respected champion. Those two public images aren't mutually exclusive, but this news probably isn't going to help Howard's cause.

On the other hand, he will probably be more likely to receive another invitation to the Kids' Choice Awards to get slimed. So, you know, maybe the tradeoff is worth it.

Related coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
• Tony Parker hopes to be '100 percent' for Game 5 of NBA Finals
• Chris Paul, Dwight Howard teaming up?
• Judge says Michael Jordan's $5M lawsuit is 'greedy'

Years ago, Michael Jordan established himself as a dogged competitor that didn’t mind how many bridges he burned or feelings he hurt on his way to getting what he wants. The latest news about the six-time champion and Basketball Hall of Famer, though, is a bit of a low point. In layman’s terms, he’s suing a grocery chain that dared congratulate him in an advertisement that also sold a few steaks. Jordan appeared in court this week to attempt to prove why such a lawsuit is necessary.

When Jordan was elected into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2009, and prior to the wildly inappropriate speech he gave in the induction ceremonies, local Chicago grocery chain Dominick’s released an ad congratulating Jordan on his accomplishment, while pointing out that, while you’re at it, you can use your Dominick’s card or a coupon in the ad to take in the tasty two dollar savings on a “Rancher’s Reserve Steak.”

The ad can be seen here:

Michael Jordan, because he’s Michael Jordan, somehow found out about this and was infuriated enough to initiate a lawsuit against Dominick’s for $5 million. Luckily, thus far, the suit has just about been laughed out of federal court.

From the Chicago Tribune:

Jordan was allowed to avoid attention Wednesday by entering the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse through its underground parking garage and then taking a private elevator to U.S. District Judge Milton Shadur's 23rd-floor courtroom.

Shadur, who has ruled that Dominick's is liable for a 2009 magazine advertisement that used Jordan's name without permission, wanted the owner of the Charlotte Bobcats to appear in person to hear the judge's views on what reasonable damages would be, according to court transcripts. He rejected a demand from Jordan's attorney that the president of the grocery chain also appear.

"I think it would be a constructive use of time to see whether some element of sanity cannot be introduced into this matter," Shadur was quoted as saying in a transcript of a May 22 hearing.

"I thought the demand was greedy," Shadur said of Jordan, who is seeking $5 million in damages for a one-page ad that ran in a Sports Illustrated commemorative issue celebrating Jordan's induction into the Hall of Fame.

Jordan was able to sneak into the courtroom after a legal battle pitched by MJ’s representation, hoping to keep the most prominent member of this lawsuit away from the proceedings. Shadur, in court testimony from May 22, asked Jordan’s lawyer if he was “allergic to the notion that he somehow ought to participate in a lawsuit that he brought?"

Kind of liking this Judge Milton Shadur-guy, at this point.

The judge hasn’t completely ruled out handing damages to Jordan, as Dominick’s (which is not just a mom and pop store, but the most prominent grocery chain in the Chicagoland area) clearly did use MJ’s occasion to make a band pun on cuts of steak in order to sell their wares. Jordan’s famous Jumpman logo wasn’t involved in the ad, nor were logos from the NBA, Chicago Bulls, or Charlotte Bobcats, but the company was piggybacking off of the eyeballs sent Jordan’s way in order to sell a few steaks as summer wound down in 2009.

But for $5 million? Just because that’s MJ’s current going rate? This wasn’t exactly a shoe company ad, destined to be seen by millions.

Judge Shadur appears to agree with me. From the Tribune:

Shadur has said Dominick's is liable for an advertisement that was "ultimately stupid and really totally without common sense," but the judge also held that Jordan has tried to make a "legal mountain" from a "legal molehill," according to transcripts.

The case is ongoing. And pretty stupid, especially when you consider the fact that Michael Jordan was the guy that paid Ben Gordon $12.4 million to play basketball last year.

(Hey kids, if you really want to to tick off Michael Jordan, you can print this post out and clip the full ad to your walls!)

(A much appreciated hat tip to Holly MacKenzie for sending this our way.)

NBA video from Yahoo! Sports:

Related coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
• Tony Parker hopes to be '100 percent' for Game 5 of NBA Finals
• Chris Paul, Dwight Howard teaming up?
• Chris Bosh fined $5K for flopping

The NBA announced Friday afternoon that it has fined the Miami Heat center $5,000 for violating the league's anti-flopping policy during Game 4 of the 2013 NBA Finals. Since this is the first season in which the NBA has levied fines against players who exaggerate or simulate contact to draw fouls, the decision earns Bosh the dubious distinction of being the first player ever fined for flopping in an NBA Finals game.

The penalized play took place at the 6:07 mark of the second quarter of Miami's big 109-93 victory over the San Antonio Spurs on Thursday. Here it is, for your viewing pleasure:

Well, duh.

While his fine is a Finals first, Bosh becomes the eighth player to receive a flopping fine this postseason. He joins Derek Fisher, Jeff Pendergraph, J.R. Smith, Tony Allen, LeBron James, David West and Lance Stephenson.

The league hasn't yet hit a player with a second flopping fine during the playoffs. A repeat offense would trigger a $10,000 fine in accordance with the NBA's stricter postseason flopping punishments. Third and fourth violations would cost $15,000 and $30,000, respectively.

While the second-quarter flop and subsequent non-halftime-buzzer-beating dunk weren't exactly highlights for Bosh, the All-Star big man bounced back to turn in his best game in more than a month, scoring 20 points on 8 for 14 shooting, grabbing 13 rebounds, blocking two shots, grabbing two steals and playing stellar defense in 38 strong minutes as the Heat evened up the best-of-seven Finals at two games apiece.

Game 5 tips off Sunday night at 8 p.m. ET.

Video via Beyond the Buzzer.

Related coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
• Tony Parker hopes to be '100 percent' for Game 5 of NBA Finals
• Chris Paul, Dwight Howard teaming up?
• Erik Spoelstra, Gregg Popovich speak out against coaching turnover

We're still a little over two weeks away from the start of NBA free agency, but the stove's already begun to heat up when it comes to the eventual destinations of the two most coveted players on the market this summer, Los Angeles Lakers center Dwight Howard and Los Angeles Clippers point guard Chris Paul.

Like All-NBA pals LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh before them, the two friends and All-Stars have chatted in the past about joining forces upon hitting free agency, but for a variety of reasons — Howard didn't want to join Paul's New Orleans Hornets, Paul didn't want to come to Howard's Orlando Magic, Howard wouldn't commit to eventually joining Mark Cuban's Dallas Mavericks and Paul balked at going to Texas without assurances of Howard's eventual presence, etc. — the link-up never took place. Now, with both players facing unrestricted free agency come July 1, they've apparently resumed the Marvel Team-Up discussion.

ESPN.com's Chris Broussard cites sources who say Howard and Paul "have been in consistent contact recently about the possibility of becoming teammates next season," exchanging text messages about the prospect of joining forces as free agents:

"They would love to play together if somebody can make it happen," one of the sources said.

The Atlanta Hawks could make it happen. Atlanta, which is Howard's hometown, has the cap room to sign both players to maximum-salaried contracts.

Let's stop there: This isn't true. It could be, given some elbow grease and wrangling, but strictly speaking, it isn't. Grab your calculators, kids — we're about to get nerdy, with some help from salary cap wizards Larry Coon and Mark Deeks.

While the Hawks would clearly love to have both Howard and Paul on board and have only $22.5 million in guaranteed contracts on the books for next season, cap holds for the team's potential free agents — including Josh Smith, Jeff Teague, Devin Harris, Kyle Korver, Zaza Pachulia, Ivan Johnson and a host of others — gobble up large chunks of that room. So what appears to be about $36 million in salary cap space is actually quite a bit less.

Smith's nine-year veteran maximum cap hold would disappear upon signing with another team. But in order for Atlanta to get far enough under the cap to be able to make the two prospective max offers, they'd have to renounce their rights to all of those pending free agents (including restricted free agent Teague) and waive the non-guaranteed contracts of DeShawn Stevenson, Shelvin Mack and Mike Scott ... and that still wouldn't be quite enough.

Atlanta would also have to carve out more room in some combination of moves with their remaining existing non-Al Horford assets — rehabilitating guard Lou Williams, who's set to make $5.23 million next year; rising sophomore guard John Jenkins, owed $1.26 million for '13-'14 on his rookie deal; their two first-round picks in the 2013 NBA draft — to get far enough under the cap to offer max-level deals to Howard, a nine-year veteran whose full max would pay him just over $20.5 million next year, and Paul, an eight-year vet whose full max will start at $18.7 million.

In sum: In order for Atlanta to actually realize its maximum possible cap room, Ferry would have to get rid of everyone on the Hawks roster except Horford plus what ESPN Insider Kevin Pelton projects would be Jenkins and one of their two first-rounders.

From there, he'd have to convince Howard to get past "not [being] particularly fond of the idea of returning to" his hometown of Atlanta and convince Paul to get past the Hawks choosing Marvin Williams over him in the 2005 draft (which is something Hawks fans, understandably, have not gotten over themselves). But that's language arts rather than math — just in terms of number-crunching, there are a quite a few hoops to jump through before CP3 and Dwight wind up wearing Hawks uniforms.

And, as Pelton notes, Atlanta's "far and away the most realistic situation" for the pairing ... even if it's not where the dynamic theoretical duo would like to team up, if they had their druthers. More from Broussard:

The preference for both players would be to play together for the Clippers, according to the sources. Because the Clippers don't have enough cap room to sign Howard as a free agent, it would take a sign-and-trade deal with the Lakers to make it happen.

And that's unlikely to happen because the Lakers, with $79.6 million in salary already committed for next season without a new deal for Howard, are over what's referred to in the collective bargaining agreement as "the apron" — the mark $4 million above the luxury tax line. One of the restrictions put in place for free-spending teams that go above "the apron" is that they can't take receive a player in a sign-and-trade unless the deal winds up bringing their cap number down below the apron, which, with the luxury tax line projected to fall at $71.6 million next year, would slot in at $75.6 million.

So in order for the Lakers to be part of such a deal, they'd have to wind ways to shed even more payroll in the process in addition to losing their starting center without being able to bring back comparably high-priced assets — while the spitballed Blake Griffin and Eric Bledsoe package Broussard mentions is attractive from a talent perspective, that pair's owed more than $16 million for next year, which doesn't help with apron-tanking. And they'd have to do it all for the privilege of allowing the guy they've repeatedly prioritized as the next face of the franchise to walk across the hall and play for their neighbors in their gym. That doesn't seem like it's going to happen, either.

Again, it's not impossible that Howard and Paul could wind up wearing the same uniform next season — if some executive (most likely Ferry, or perhaps Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey, who's apparently got a swingman who's tight with Howard) is willing to wheel, deal, slash, burn, beg, borrow and steal his way through the roster contortions necessary to create enough space to be able to offer the two All-Stars max deals, or is able to convince both of them to take less than the max to join up, then it could happen. It's just that it's much more likely that the only time they'd wear the same colors would be by making another trip to the All-Star Game to play for the West after Paul re-ups with the Clips and Dwight takes that extra $30-plus million to stay with the Lakers.

Besides, all the extra bread they'll make by staying separated can pay for, like, 100 cell contracts with unlimited text plans. Then they can talk about whatever they want, whenever they want. (Dwight only wants to talk about "Man of Steel," though.)

NBA video from Yahoo! Sports:

Related coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
• Tony Parker hopes to be '100 percent' for Game 5 of NBA Finals
• Chris Bosh fined $5K for flopping
• Judge says Michael Jordan's $5M lawsuit is 'greedy'

It’s of little consolation to Chicago Bulls fans, a day ahead of the one-month anniversary of the team’s final game of the season, but for the first time in quite a long time Derrick Rose seems to be recovering from his ACL tear at an expected rate. The injury, which took place during the first game of the first round of the 2012 playoffs, cost Rose the entire 2012-13 season amid much consternation about the motives behind him sitting out.

According to Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau, though, Rose is right where he’s supposed to be in terms of rehab. Even if the Bulls aren’t where they’d hoped to be – playing for an NBA title in the second week of June. From ESPN Chicago’s Jon Greenberg:

"I worked him out about a week ago," Thibodeau said in a phone conversation Thursday. "It was great."

[…]

"Watching the way he's moving now, there's a confidence," Thibodeau said. "[Reporters] may not have been able to see the total work he was putting in. But he was putting in an enormous amount of work each and every day. He just never got to the explosiveness he was comfortable with. I think he's there now. He feels great, and that's the most important thing."

Thibodeau went on to defend Rose’s decision to sit out the season, pointing out that Rose maintained from Day 1 that he wouldn’t return until he was ready to, and Rose simply wasn’t ready to be tossed into the fire with an oft-injured playoff toward the latter stages of a limpy regular season, and a banged up postseason. Rose would have been asked to act the savior for these Bulls in March, April and May, even if the franchise gave him all the support it needed while attempting to persuade observers that they weren’t pushing him to save the season.

Rose doesn’t work any other way. It was always going to be full bore with him, playing 40 minutes and dominating the ball, and the half-measure routine just wouldn’t have worked out.

Thibs signed off on as much in his interview, telling Greenberg that “it was a smart decision to wait,” and that in late-season practices with the Bulls Rose “also wasn't able to make the kinds of plays he likes to make.”

That should be enough for Rose’s critics. If it isn’t, and you haven’t already shot down to the comment section, try this on for size.

We’re still technically within the confines of the 2012-13 NBA season, but to Bulls fans (and I count myself as one), the team’s 2012-13 season seems like it took place ages ago. It was frustrating, as the months went on, to wonder what might have been – but the team’s fortunes were set in stone as soon as the MRI results came back for Rose in April of 2012. There would be a minor rebuild, the championship aspirations would have to be put on hold, and the team was going to reconfigure its roster even if Derrick returned for 20 games or so.

And now it all feels like yesterday’s news. Last year’s news, really.

The side benefit of that patience? Derrick Rose gets to return under his own terms. He doesn’t suffer a crisis of confidence created by late-season play that could have lingered throughout the summer. As it stands, he’ll enter 2013-14 with nostrils flared, and his last memory as an active player will be of leading the team that tied for the best record in the NBA in 2011-12 to a potential title. And not some thrown-together playoff run featuring Nate Robinson and Nazr Mohammed for long stretches.

The reward Bulls players, coaches, and fans will receive for gutting their own way through 2012-13 will be a fully healthy Derrick Rose, confident in the support around him, making his own decisions. It will be worth the wait.

NBA video from Yahoo! Sports:

Related coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
• Tony Parker hopes to be '100 percent' for Game 5 of NBA Finals
• Erik Spoelstra, Gregg Popovich speak out against coaching turnover
• Andre Iguodala to opt for free agency

The Atlanta Hawks, Houston Rockets, and Sacramento Kings were all recently fined by the NBA for tampering. Various outlets under each team’s umbrella (a ticket promoter, a team website, the new coach of your Sacramento Kings) mentioned upcoming free agents Dwight Howard and Chris Paul in innocuous, but still understandably penalty-worthy incidents. The NBA can’t have teams discussing players on other teams, because until July 1, Dwight Howard and Chris Paul are still technically members of the Los Angeles Lakers, and Los Angeles Clippers. They still have two more checks coming their way.

NBA players, however, can say whatever the heck they want, to whoever will listen. They can talk up opposing players as potential free agent targets to any media source available without risking a fine from the NBA. Heck, they can even text a player endlessly, or camp out at the dude’s house so as to beat their own general manager to the punch once July 1 rolls around.

This is what Houston Rockets forward Chandler Parsons, a Florida native and buddy of Dwight Howard’s, seems inching toward. Here are some quotes from his appearance on CBS Sports’ ROME on Thursday, as lovingly transcribed by ClutchFans, starting with his reaction to Jim Rome asking if he thinks the Rockets have “a shot at” acquiring Dwight Howard as a free agent:

“I think so,” said Parsons. “I’m good friends with Dwight and we talk. When he’s healthy and when he’s playing, he’s the best center in the NBA.”

Parsons and Howard developed a relationship back in Orlando, Chandler’s hometown and the city where Dwight played for the Magic for eight seasons. Chandler added that he talks to Dwight “a lot” and that started even before this recruiting process began.

“I remind him how good we could be together and how it would be fun to play with him and what he could do with our nucleus,” said Parsons.

[…]

“It’s a decision (Dwight) has to make and he’s got a lot to think about,” said Parsons. “But I don’t see why he wouldn’t pick Houston with the excitement we got down there. We got a young team.”

I wouldn’t call what Parsons said “brazen,” but in light of the recent fines, it is a little strange to see a player so outwardly talking up a player on another team.

The Hawks were censured for sending out a ticket advertisement that sold fans on the idea that the Hawks could have Howard and/or Paul on their team next season, which is both inaccurate and misleading, and probably the most grievous misdeed as the Hawks would be taking money from ticket buyers inspired by this premise weeks before they could speak to either player. The Rockets mentioned both players on their website, ho hum, and rookie Sacramento Kings coach Mike Malone was fined for saying this at his introductory press conference:

“Obviously, Chris would look pretty good in a Sacramento Kings uniform without a doubt,” Malone said with a smile yesterday when asked if he could use his clout with Paul to convince the superstar to consider the Kings come free agency. ”But he’s a great friend, somebody I had a great relationship with in New Orleans. We stay in touch.

“He’s got a lot of his own things going on right now,” Malone added. ”And as I told him recently, I care about him, I hope he’s okay and whatever decision he makes is best for him and his family, I’ll always be rooting for him.”

The “recently” bit probably did Malone in, as he would have been working as a Golden State Warriors assistant coach at the time.

Parsons can say whatever he wants to Jim Rome on ROME (full disclosure, I appeared on the show five times last year and Jim and his staff were wonderful, even providing me with delicious unsweetened iced tea), though, and this is probably for the best. Players don’t sign other players, and the NBA would have to go to illegal NSA-level lengths to suss out any form of pre-free agency period communication. Stu Jackson can’t really start reading the private Twitter direct messages of NBA players. We don’t blame the guy for not wanting to.

And if Parsons (who will make just under $2.8 million between 2012 and 2015, easily the biggest bargain contract in the NBA) does manage to sway Dwight, offering his favorite candies and really nice texts? Rockets GM Daryl Morey better put pen to paper for a massive extension for Chandler as soon as Dwight’s paperwork goes through.

Oh, wait. That’d be tampering. Never mind.

Related coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
• Tony Parker hopes to be '100 percent' for Game 5 of NBA Finals
• Chris Bosh fined $5K for flopping
• Andre Iguodala to opt for free agency
• Judge says Michael Jordan's $5M lawsuit is 'greedy'

Former Denver Nuggets coach George Karl has never been shy about going on record to discuss, well, anything. His last few separations from former NBA teams have resulted in a series of interviews about how daft the administration above him was, including fallouts with general managers Wally Walker in Seattle, and newly-appointed GM Larry Harris in Milwaukee.

The Denver Nuggets, who fired Karl last week, don’t have a GM. They don’t even have a newly-appointed GM. What they do have is Josh Kroenke, the team president, former University of Missouri men’s basketball player, and son of owner Stan Kroenke. Even before former Nuggets GM Masai Ujiri left the team to run the same position in Toronto, Josh and Stan were calling the shots – refusing to approximate the respectable contract offer made by the Raptors to the 2012-13 Executive of the Year, and the man who ran their bloody basketball team.

Stuck in a weird state, the Nuggets fired Karl soon after Ujiri split. And Karl thinks this is, well, stupid. Or “stupid,” as he said in quotes to both Kroenke and the Denver Post’s very un-stupid Benjamin Hochman:

Upon being fired last week, Nuggets coach George Karl told team president Josh Kroenke, "I think I should tell you, I think it's very stupid."

And from the question and answer session between Hochman and the 2012-13 NBA Coach of the Year award-winner:

I felt like Masai (Ujiri, the general manager) and Josh were over here, and I didn't feel very equal."

Q: What does "feel equal" mean?

A: "In the past, Stan (Kroenke, the team owner) would listen to all of us. I know I can be fired and the voices behind closed doors can be against me. But this year, I just felt that at the end, for a team that had so much success, unity and karma, I felt that Masai and Josh drifted into a direction that was difficult to understand."

Q: What's an example of that?

A: "It's hard to say. It's just communication, them getting mad about what I said in the paper more often than makes sense. Snippy texts about things. The whole thing it comes down to — you've got a great coaching staff, a coach who loves coaching the team, a city that loves the team." (Karl gently pounds the table.)

Hochman went on to quote Karl as saying that he wasn’t given a minutes’ expectation for younger players like JaVale McGee, as has been rumored, and that while he didn’t outright demand a contract extension, he warned the Nuggets that nasty “things could happen” if he had to go into 2013-14 working with one year left on his deal.

Related video from Yahoo! Sports:

Karl didn’t elaborate from there, he didn’t say if the “things” could constitute a coaching staff revolt, or the players negatively reacting to a lame duck situation with their coach, or a bloodied horse’s head left in a Denver-area Wal-Mart’s bedding section. Whatever the guesswork, Karl will be paid by the Nuggets during that lame duck year, but he won’t be coaching a team he led to 57 wins this year. At this point, we don’t know who will be coaching that team, much less leading its personnel department.

The interview also confirms from Karl what Yahoo! Sports’ Marc J. Spears reported on Thursday – he’ll interview with the Memphis Grizzlies for their open coaching gig, while the Los Angeles Clippers have had preliminary discussions with the coach, who doesn’t “want to coach a rebuilding team.”

As I wrote last week, in a vacuum, dumping the Executive of the Year and alienating the Coach of the Year before firing the Coach of the Year is “very stupid.” Josh Kroenke, despite his basketball past, is already up for quite a bit of scrutiny because of his age, position with the team, and ties with his father. It’s not fair to Josh in the slightest, for all we know he could develop into one of the top basketball minds of his generation, but it’s just fine for NBA observers to be watching this situation more carefully than others.

Kroenke’s side is understandable, though. We don’t agree with the Ujiri release, but if he was instructed by ownership not to make a competitive bid, his hands were tied. And with Danilo Gallinari only undergoing torn ACL surgery this week on an injury that he suffered over two months ago, there’s a good chance the Nuggets would have to punt their chances at 50 wins again during 2013-14. You don’t want a cranky Karl around for that, limiting minutes for developing players (even if they don’t really ever “get it”) and talking up contract extensions.

Stupid or not, it was probably for the best if all sides moved on, at this point. All seem to be heading in that direction, thankfully.

More NBA coverage from Yahoo! Sports
• Tony Parker feeling better, hopes to be '100 percent' for Game 5 of NBA Finals
• It turns out that Dwyane Wade's 'bum knee' is just fine
• Spurs need more from struggling Manu Ginobili
• Dwyane Wade of old shows up to spark Heat past Spurs in Game 4

After he juuuuuust missed beating the halftime buzzer with a big-time dunk that could've given his Miami Heat a two-point lead heading into intermission, Chris Bosh appeared to be looking for the officials to hit the flatscreen for a replay review to make sure he didn't release the ball in time. This, despite the fact that he was literally staring at the red lights on the backboard as they went off to signal the end of the second quarter. Still, I guess it doesn't hurt to double-check.

Then again, maybe Bosh wasn't looking for a replay — maybe the finger gesture captured above by our longtime/just returned friend @Jose3030 was intended to say something else. What do you think the Miami big man was communicating? Best caption wins a neat and appropriately titled Mark Knopfler tune. Good luck.

Our last adventure was a million years ago in NBA playoffs time and it is Friday, so I hereby declare you all winners. Congratulations!

Related coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
• Chris Bosh fined $5K for flopping
• Andre Iguodala to opt for free agency
• Tony Parker hopes to be '100 percent' for Game 5 of NBA Finals

I'm not entirely sure how to feel about this, to be honest with you. On one hand, I think it's cool that JaVale's response to coming across someone who could surely use a C-note more than he could is to peel one off. On the other, making a point of filming yourself performing an act of charity and then sharing it with your 117,000+ Twitter followers makes the whole enterprise seem at least a little less selfless, right?

Then again, maybe the pro of simply doing something nice for someone outweighs any self-promotional con; then again, if the point of this is for us to walk away thinking, "Man, JaVale's a really good guy whose acts of kindness in no way seem self-serving or calculated," then this is kind of a swing and a miss, right?

While I'm wrangling with these sorts of questions, though, McGee's wondering something else:

RT @JaValeMcGee34 I WONDER WAT THAT HOMELESS guy GONE DO WIT THA MONEY!

— Pierre McGee (@JaValeMcGee34) June 14, 2013

Amid the multiple crummy (and, for all I know, possibly accurate) responses you'd expect that question to engender, there was this one, which I loved:

@JaValeMcGee34 buy your peak shoes then make the league!

— Eric Caro (@sapocaro) June 14, 2013

Now that would be a story worth writing, reading and filming. We'd need more than six seconds to tell it, though.

NBA video from Yahoo! Sports:

Related coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
• It turns out that Dwyane Wade's 'bum knee' is just fine
• Spurs need more from struggling Manu Ginobili
• Nuggets focus coaching search on Lionel Hollins, Brian Shaw

On Thursday afternoon, I found myself wondering if Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra would look to curb Dwyane Wade's minutes in Game 4 after three straight games where the All-Star shooting guard came out hot, petered out after halftime and played often lackadaisical defense that helped contribute to the San Antonio Spurs' offense finding rhythm, wide-open 3-pointers and two wins in three tries. On Thursday evening, Spoelstra rode with Wade even longer — 39 minutes, 55 seconds, after not cracking 36 minutes since Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals — and the All-NBA Third Teamer responded with his best game in a loooooooong time.

Wade's brilliant 32-point, six-rebound, six-steal, four-assist performance helped key a 109-93 Heat win that tied the NBA Finals at two games apiece, quieted all us skeptics (however briefly) and might have eliminated the argument that Wade can't be Wade with his right knee jacked up. As you might expect from a monster performance in a huge, high-leverage moment, Wade did some really cool stuff in Game 4. Here's the five I thought were the coolest — feel free to weigh in with yours in the comments.

1. Jumping into the passing lane to swipe Danny Green's pass, avoiding Manu Ginobili, going up-and-over Gary Neal and finishing with a dunk.

The anticipation of the never-should've-been-thrown cross-court feed, the stop-on-a-dime inside-out dribble to move around Ginobili in the open floor, the burst to give himself a one-on-one with Neal in the frontcourt, the footwork to outmaneuver a backpedaling Neal and the ball skills to maintain control and finish with authority on the break to give your team a nine-point lead in the fourth-quarter of a must-win game ... yes, all that is very, very cool stuff.

Let's see that finish and mean-mug in slow motion, thanks to the NBA's Phantom camera:

I believe the word that best describes what happened to Neal there is, "Yoink." Wade had some other words for it after the game.

"I knew I was on when I took it over the guy's head and dunked it on the break," he said. "That was a little vintage right there."

Three things about that:

• He didn't even know which Spurs player was defending him on the play, so I guess Neal didn't become a household name in Game 3;

• This means Wade didn't know he was "on" until four minutes into the fourth quarter, at which point he had 28 points on 60 percent shooting, six rebounds, five steals, three assists, one block and no turnovers, which you'd think might have tipped him off vis-a-vis being "on" a little earlier;

• He did the same thing last week to Indiana Pacers guard Lance Stephenson:

So maybe it's, like, instant vintage. Word to Raphael Saadiq.

2. Meeting Tiago Splitter at the rim to send back his second-quarter layup attempt.

At least it wasn't the most severe block Tiago's suffered at the rim in the series. And amazingly, it wasn't even really the most embarrassing block on Splitter of the night — getting packed by Shane Battier has to hurt even worse than getting rejected by the best shot-blocking guard of all time, even if said best shot-blocking guard of all time scarcely seemed able to get up off the floor in Games 1 through 3. Boy, it was nice to see that lift back, though, huh?

3. Crossing up Green to get to the paint for a hang-and-finish over Tim Duncan.

I dig the three fundamentally cool elements of this — the slightly longer linger on the cross to get Green on the wrong side of Chris Bosh, the strong finish despite the in-air collision with Duncan and the hang time to recalibrate following contact and put an accurate shot on the glass. Chaining those things together in the time it takes most of us to decide to put one foot in front of the other is pretty great.

But I also think it's cool that, after a series that's seen the Spurs repeatedly go under pick-and-rolls with Wade as the ball-handler and Wade repeatedly pound the ball rather than making a quick decision or let that quick decision be a too-soon long jumper, Wade went early in the possession while San Antonio was reacting to the transition screen, saw an opening against the big man, went right at it and was rewarded for his aggression. It's indicative of the change in approach that marked much of Miami's Game 4 win, with Wade one of its principal practitioners.

4. Attacking Duncan on a perimeter switch, weaving his way to the basket and finishing a tough reverse layup for an and-one.

Again, the acrobatic reverse using the rim to avoid the shot-blocker is great. But so's not settling for the jumper, resetting the possession and, after receiving the ball back from Mike Miller, going right at Duncan to force him to adjust and make decisions. Cool aesthetically and cool strategically.

5. TIE: Making a great baseline cut behind Ginobili for a settle-things-down early layup and stopping himself from helping off Kawhi Leonard in the left corner, then boxing out Splitter.

OK, so these aren't necessarily great showcases of the scoring touch and athleticism that Wade showed off on Thursday, but they're still pretty cool in a "basketball nerd" sense.

Throughout this series, as I wrote earlier Thursday, the Spurs tasked with checking Wade have been sagging off him in a major way, refusing to believe that someone who shot 31.5 percent outside the restricted area through the first three rounds would routinely beat them with jumpers. Often, he's viewed this sign of disrespect as an invitation to make San Antonio pay by doing exactly what they want him to do — take uncontested jumpers that he wasn't making (just 5 for 19 from midrange through the first three games) — rather than make more concerted efforts to find paths to the basket.

That's exactly what he did here out of a Heat timeout, using Ginobili's poor situational awareness and ball-watching to cut unmolested from the right corner along the baseline to the hoop. Once there, James found him with a bullet pass for a layup over the contest of Duncan, who was a step late in reacting after having had to contend with Bosh's hard roll to the rim coming off a high screen with Norris Cole.

The nice draw-up out of the timeout accomplished two things. In the micro sense, it stopped an 8-2 San Antonio run that briefly made Game 4 seem like merely an extension of the second half of Game 3. In the macro sense, after a couple of early Wade jumpers (one make, one miss), it signaled an understanding by Spoelstra and Wade that the best way to get Wade going would be to use the space the Spurs afforded to make smart decisions and build up a head of steam toward the rim rather than hang back for look-better-than-they-really-are shots. Wade's next three shots came within eight feet of the basket, and he continued to press the paint all night long.

Again, this play wasn't particularly sexy, but it was noteworthy in that it represented two specific defensive improvements in areas in which Wade's been lacking this series — his tendency to offer unnecessary help that leaves San Antonio shooters wide open in the corner and his inattentive work on the defensive glass that's allowed Spurs wings (mostly Leonard) and bigs (mostly Duncan, although Splitter grabbed four offensive boards in Game 3) to cruise in for put-backs and possession-extenders.

As Leonard moves along the baseline from right corner to left, Wade keeps his left foot in the paint and takes a step forward because he sees Ginobili feeding Splitter out of a Heat trap of a Spurs high screen-and-roll. But Cole's already stepping up to meet Splitter and Bosh is already recovering to get to him, meaning Wade's becoming the third man in an unnecessary triple-team that leaves one of San Antonio's better marksmen (albeit one who's 0 for 5 from the corners in the Finals) wide open.

Thankfully, where Wade might have taken another step toward the ball to try to trap Splitter into a turnover earlier in the series, he recognizes it and takes a step back toward Leonard as Splitter raises up with apparent interest in dumping the ball to the corner. Credit Cole, too, for stepping in quickly with his arms up to make Splitter hesitate, and Bosh to recovering to Splitter's right hand, making the Brazilian go left to put the ball on the floor, which gave Wade an extra split-second to get back.

With the initial action blown up by good Heat rotations, Splitter now dribbles into a handoff for Leonard, which Wade fights around with Bosh stepping up to take the ball-handler. As Leonard pulls up for a contested paint jumper, Wade doesn't watch the shot, as he's done often in the series, but rather quickly gets his hip into Splitter, driving him two steps toward the baseline and clearing a path for James to swoop in for the rebound to end the possession.

Miami won because of the big stuff — James and Wade knocking down shots, Bosh being huge on the defensive end, the Big Three finally scoring together at the same time — but the smaller stuff matters, too, and Wade specifically addressing things he's been bad at helped make Miami a much tougher out on Thursday.

Videos via the NBA, Beyond the Buzzer, sky2847, the NBA and, um, me.

So go ahead and have a team-branded slice for breakfast. I won't tell anyone if you don't.

This insanely large and ornate Spurs-themed pizza — which not only features the Western Conference champions' logo and the Larry O'Brien Trophy, but also artfully deploys what appears to be pepperoni, ham, olives and green peppers to include the Spurs' wild-eyed Coyote mascot — comes to us courtesy of Big Lou's Pizza in San Antonio.

According to the restaurant's Facebook page, ESPN requested a specialty Spurs pie when they were in the area shooting footage for their Finals broadcasts, and noted ginormous gastronomist Carlo — who I believe was behind a similarly gargantuan Gig 'Em-centric pie made to celebrate Johnny Football's Texas A&M team back in January — was all too happy to oblige.

"We don't offer this pizza for sale," the restaurant's Facebook page notes. "It actually was given to all employees as well as people dining in to eat on site."

And "eat on site" they did:

Sure, the game didn't work out quite they way they wanted it to, but I suspect pre-haircut Kirk Hammett and his pals still had a good time. I mean, they got to eat a giant pizza. That's a pretty good deal no matter what's happening in sports.

Hat-tips to r/NBA and SI.com's Jimmy Traina.

Related coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
• Spurs need more from struggling Manu Ginobili
• Jason Kidd was the best choice for Nets
• Grizzlies to interview George Karl for head-coaching job

Sometimes these bad scripts just write themselves. Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, much maligned throughout the 2013 playoffs, came to play in Game 4. As a result, the Miami Heat regained home-court advantage over the San Antonio Spurs with a win on Thursday night, downing the Western champs by a 109-93 score.

Wade was aggressive throughout, having his way with a switching and too-slow San Antonio defense, creating mismatches and ringing up 32 points on 14-of-25 shooting. Bosh, as many of us hoped, strayed away from settling for jump shots early and worked to ease into the game; the undersized Miami center starred on defense and ended up finishing with 20 points and 13 rebounds Meanwhile, LeBron James was able to pick his spots on his way toward 33 points and 11 boards of his own.

And though San Antonio had its chances in the second half, it could not make up for a lost early advantage (the Spurs led by 10 at one point) in the first quarter, and an inability to counter Miami’s quick play on both ends. Worse, the Spurs shot their own chances to pieces with a series of mistakes that championship teams can’t make in the second week of June.

The Spurs finished with 18 turnovers, and while Miami’s trapping and talking defense is to be credited several times before admonishing San Antonio for its mistakes, San Antonio telegraphed several passes to the corner and to cutters. Meanwhile, San Antonio missed eight free throws on the evening – a number that doesn’t seem like much to care about in a 16-point Miami win, but this was a one-possession game with 90 seconds left in the third quarter, and San Antonio could have used a nice cushion-y lead to put the fear of a 3-1 series deficit in Miami’s hearts entering the fourth.

Instead, the Spurs stuck with a big lineup, and watched as the Heat rode a worn-out LeBron James and reborn Wade to a furious start to the final period. By the time James sat two and a half minutes into the fourth quarter, the Heat were up by seven points, and the attack didn’t stop with James on the bench. Wade dove toward the rim in transition, he took advantage of a sagging defense off of the screen-and-roll, and he slowly loped his way toward the rim to use his touch on his way toward his first 30-point game in nearly three and a half months.

San Antonio's turnovers, which led to transition leak outs, led to this end – but the Heat did put an emphasis on getting to the rim even when San Antonio wasn’t tossing the ball away.

Miami took advantage of those easy initial looks after the Spurs coughed it up in the first half and developed a rhythm, and by the time the fourth rolled around Miami knew it could get into the Spurs defense and find enough daylight to finish. Shooter Mike Miller started the game as burly forward Udonis Haslem (five fouls in 10 minutes) came off the bench, but Miller’s contributions (he missed his only attempt, a 3-pointer) weren’t needed as the Heat eschewed the 3-point shot (missing eight of 11 until James hit a needless bomb in Miami’s final possession) in the win. All while Bosh was everywhere defensively, helping clog the lane and goading both of the Spurs' big men in to extra passes.

Perhaps most impressively, the Miami coaching staff earned whatever plaudits you want to send its way.

The spacing was fantastic, in Game 4, for Miami. Wade was eased into spots on the floor that he felt comfortable, James was afforded better movement to work with while in the screen-and-roll attack, and the team was obviously told to make a quick judgment call on whether to shoot, pass or drive up on receiving the ball in the halfcourt. Because San Antonio couldn’t load up, defensively, the Heat got what they wanted for most of the game.

Toss in the points in the paint, the points off of turnovers, and San Antonio’s inability to get much going outside of its 8-of-16 3-point shooting, and you had all the ingredients for a double-digit win. Miami swallowed up San Antonio’s spacing while initiating good movement of its own, and, yes, it always helps to have three contributors playing like All-Stars all at once.

Things are about to get nasty. Miami has to sustain momentum all the way until Sunday night’s Game 5, while San Antonio is about to work through a hellacious two days “off,” full of practice and game reviews and coach Gregg Popovich pointing out exactly where you were supposed to go on that play, dummy.

Things are also about to get happier. It’s now a best-of-three series between the league’s two best teams, with both having proven that they can win on the others’ home court. Good times all around – all we could ask for is a few more contests tacked on before the season takes its final bow.

More NBA coverage from Yahoo! Sports
• Dwyane Wade of old shows up to spark Heat past Spurs in Game 4
• Miami's big three has best game of playoffs as Heat ties series with Spurs
• Grizzlies to interview George Karl for head-coaching job
• Nuggets focus coaching search on Lionel Hollins, Brian Shaw

Miami Heat big man Chris Bosh has had a very frustrating NBA Finals, getting many open shots and failing to make a satisfactory number of them for various reasons. In the first half of Thursday night's Game 4, Bosh managed to find his way into the paint a little more than he had in the first three games of this series. His first-half line of eight points and four rebounds wasn't overwhelming, but it does show that he might be finding his way into this series.

On the other hand, getting involved in the interior may have earned Bosh his most embarrassing moment of the 2013 postseason. With three seconds remaining in the first half and the score tied at 49-49, Bosh took the ball on the left elbow and got Tim Duncan to bite on a pump fake, thereby opening up a lane to the hoop. Naturally, Bosh took it and looked to have an open look at a basket that would have given the Heat a two-point halftime lead. Except, instead of going up for a lay-in that would have allowed him to get the shot off before the buzzer, Bosh exploded for a powerful two-handed slam. He finished it, of course, but not in time to beat the horn. Oh, and as you can see from this GIF, he was basically eye-level with the red lights that informed him of his mistake:

Bosh has been a consistent target of derision for most of his Heat career, and this moment certainly isn't going to help matters. It was more than a little reminiscent of the classic video game NBA Jam, in which players would freeze in mid-air if they failed to get their acrobatic dunks off in time (via @RadTattoosCorp). Unfortunately for Bosh, he won't be able to hit the reset button on this one.

The story of the NBA Finals so far has been the San Antonio Spurs' neutralization of LeBron James, the best player in the NBA and an earth-scorching basketball force. After a historically great season, it's been curious to see LeBron play so ineffectually. While he has looked passive at times, James has encountered a Spurs defense with an extremely effective plan to stop him.

It figures that Gregg Popovich, his assistants, and their players have worked out these tactics and strategies over the course of many practice sessions. In doing so, they've depended on someone who's managed just 15 garbage-time minutes in the first three games of the series. From Reuters (via PBT):

Heading into the 2013 Finals, McGrady took on the role of simulating LeBron James in practice to help his team prepare for the best-of-seven series against the Miami Heat.

"That was before this series even started, just simulating a little bit of what LeBron does on the basketball court," said McGrady, whose Spurs lead the best-of-seven series 2-1.

"I'm just doing the best I can and contributing in whatever fashion I can for this team to prepare themselves to win a championship."

On the surface, this is pretty funny: McGrady is 34 years old with his best years well behind him. There's no way that he can accurately mimic LeBron's combination of athleticism and strength — not that anyone can — particularly given the fact that T-Mac hasn't played close to an All-Star level in several seasons. It's as if the Spurs asked him to remember what he once was and translate it to the best of his current abilities.

From another perspective, though, the Spurs are lucky to have someone who could even pretend to be able to serve this role on the scout team. In his prime, McGrady had a varied enough skillset to come across as a proto-LeBron. He was tall, agile, predisposed towards starting possessions on the perimeter, capable of running an offense, an adept passer when he chose to be one, etc. T-Mac always use his size more in terms of his length than power, but he's familiar with having an athletic advantage over his opponents. He has enough experience in a role similar to that of James to approximate it with some confidence.

This is not to say that LeBron would be torching the Spurs if not for T-Mac. However, it does serve as evidence that apparently inconsequential players can play a big role behind the scenes. We typically praise low-minutes veterans in terms of their locker room presence. McGrady shows that they can contribute to wins on the basketball court, too.

Basketball fans often have a tendency to fixate on the importance of the NBA Finals, the conclusion of the basketball season and the most widely respected indicator of success in the sport. Yet, no matter how much we argue about a player's legacy or the strategic battles of a series, we're still looking at grown men playing like a child's game for millions of dollars. In the grand scheme of things, they've all already won. There are much more important issues in the world, and sometimes it helps to be reminded of that.

Kudos, then, to the Miami Heat for helping to raise awareness of sexual abuse during the playoffs. From Laken Litman at For The Win:

[Mike Miller is] shooting 80% from three-point range for the Miami Heat and averaging 9.7 points per game. Watching Miller rise and fire, you might catch a glimpse of the teal band around his right wrist. The wristband reads ‘42 million.’

That’s the number of survivors of childhood sexual abuse per year. The other side of the bracelet reads “Lauren’s Kids”, a foundation the Heat have supported for the past three years. [...]

Lauren Book is the founder of Lauren’s Kids and a Heat fan.

“It’s amazing to see them wearing the bands because when I was an 11-year-old kid, I didn’t think anyone cared,” Book said. “No matter what happens on the court, all of them are champions off it. They have hearts of gold.”

The Heat's actions to support Lauren's Kids fairly common around the NBA — each team and player usually has a few preferred charities — but that doesn't make them any less worthy of attention. The team is using their very public platform to spread a positive message, even if just in a casual way.

It's a reminder that, while we usually focus on measurable basketball accomplishments around this time of year, the sport can be used to express more general concepts and causes that affect people in all walks of life.

Legendary center Patrick Ewing recently agreed to become the associate head coach of the Charlotte Bobcats, working under new 'Cats head coach Steve Clifford, with whom Ewing served long stretches as an assistant coach with both the Houston Rockets and Orlando Magic. The decision to join Clifford's staff also means that Ewing will now (kind of) be on the same team as longtime nemesis Michael Jordan, whose Chicago Bulls waged annual battles with Ewing's New York Knicks throughout the 1990s.

Before Jordan and Ewing ever reached the professional level, though, they very nearly became teammates at the University of North Carolina ... until the Ku Klux Klan ruined the prospective future Hall-of-Fame team-up. (As the Klan so often does.)

During a visit to Dan Patrick's nationally syndicated radio show on Thursday to discuss his gig with the Bobcats and he was to see newly minted Brooklyn Nets head coach Jason Kidd lock down an NBA head coaching job mere days after his retirement, the talk turned to Ewing's feelings about linking up with Jordan, which led the big man to discuss their missed collegiate connection.

The story begins with Ewing — then a much coveted recruit who'd played his high school ball for Cambridge Rindge & Latin School in Cambridge, Mass. — taking a trip down south to visit Chapel Hill:

Ewing: You know, I was close. I was close. North Carolina was a very good school, but when I went down there, they put me in that Carolina Inn and there was a big Ku Klux Klan rally in North Carolina when I was there. And I was like, "You know what? I'm not coming down here. I'm staying my butt back in Boston."

Patrick: So the reason why you didn't go, or the main reason, is the KKK had a rally going on at the time?

Ewing: Big rally, man.

Ewing also told Patrick that found himself bugged out (nailed it, via being a professional writer) by the nighttime sounds he encountered down south:

Ewing: And you know in North Carolina, you hear all the crickets? So they had me, stuck me in that Carolina Inn, and nights down in North Carolina, it gets pitch black, and I'd hear all the crickets. And I'm jumping, and I'm like, "What the heck?" So I said, "No, no, I'm going back."

I don't have any inside information here, but I'm guessing the crickets probably weren't quite as big a sticking point for Ewing as the KKK. Just a hunch.

Ewing's revelation that he listed UNC's proximity to domestic terror conventions a "con" in his recruitment analysis comes a couple of months after another New York Knicks great and Hall of Famer, Earl "The Pearl" Monroe, shared a similar story about kiboshing a trade to the Indiana Pacers because, upon visiting Indiana, the Pacers' black players told him they carried guns for self-protection because “they got Ku Klux Klan everywhere around here outside Indianapolis and in the city, too.” Monroe's trip to Indiana took place in 1971; Ewing's visit to North Carolina took place in 1980.

While stories like Monroe's and Ewing's certainly help remind us of just how much the world has changed over the past few decades — and, regrettably, also underscore those instances in which it appears it hasn't — they also tend to lead fans' minds to interesting thought experiments and flights of fan-fiction. I mean, had there not been a KKK rally on the weekend that Ewing traveled to North Carolina, would he have committed to join up with Dean Smith's program?

Would a freshman Ewing have supplanted Sam Perkins as the go-to big man in Carolina blue? If he and Jordan had formed an unstoppable one-two punch in college, would their pro careers have unfolded any differently? If they'd become friends as teenagers, would they have tried to link up in the pros? Would John Thompson's Hoyas still become the NBA's premier big man factory, drawing recruits and producing pros like Alonzo Mourning and Dikembe Mutombo, if not for the success the school enjoyed with Ewing in the middle? How would the landscape of college hoops history be different if the '82, '84 and '85 national championship games didn't feature Ewing on the Hoyas? And so on, and so on.

As it turned out, such questions exist only in the realms of fiction and (perhaps) Earth-2-style alternate realities. As Ewing told Patrick on the radio, even if his trip to Carolina had gone smoothly, he was probably headed to D.C.:

Ewing: But you know, my first choice was Georgetown. That was my last visit. My second choice was UCLA, and that was my first visit. North Carolina was a great school and they had an outstanding coach in Dean Smith, and they had some outstanding talent. But even Dean Smith told me, "Patrick, if you're not going to come to North Carolina, you should go to Georgetown. Coach Thompson's an outstanding coach and you will learn a lot from him."

It's weird to tell someone to thank the KKK, so I won't. But Hoya fans, just be aware that your favorite school's hoops history could've unfolded very differently if not for a bunch of people being the worst.

Hat-tip to The Big Lead.

How many more NBA games have to be ruined by a block or charge call gone terribly wrong in the final moments of the contest? How many more years do we have to put up with an errant block or charge call, whistled in the last two minutes of the game, completely changing the course of natural action, lost forever and above overturning due to NBA rules?

Can’t think of many instances of that? Me neither. Referees usually swallow their whistles late in games, refusing to bail out both offensive player and defender in the final minutes of a close game, and rare is the instance of a block or charge call so severely shifting the course of action that it warrants league officials beating their chests or the referees stopping the flow of a close game to go scope out the play on tape.

That hasn’t stopped the NBA’s Competition Committee from giving us more time for TV timeouts attempting to get every call correctly, as NBA vice president of basketball operations Stu Jackson is going through with a plan to allow instant replay review for block/charge calls that typically (even with the advent of the semi-circle underneath the basket) come down to judgment calls. From the Associated Press:

''This is significant,'' Jackson said at an NBA Cares event to celebrate a new learn and play center at Wheatley Middle School. ''It's our first foray into utilizing instant replay for a judgment call. It at least cracks the door open.''

(IT’S THE MIDDLE OF SUMMER: CLOSE THE DAMN DOOR YOU’RE LETTING ALL THE HOT AIR IN.)

Jackson went on:

''We've always taken the stance that we want to look at ways to expand instant replay review, just because it makes sense,'' Jackson said. ''The referees themselves have supported it because they just want to get the plays right. We're constantly looking for ways to utilize review.''

We know you are. And we also know that this is the latest version of the frustrating, circuitous nonsense that led to a point where you have to stop a basketball game in the final minutes to see if a block/charge judgment call was called “correctly.”

It’s because Stu Jackson and the league’s front office want EVERYTHING called. For years defenders have been rewarded for running over to get in front of a opposing player, ignoring both fundamental and entertainment principles (who doesn’t like to see a guy try to jump to block a shot, instead of positioning themselves motionless underneath a player?), with endless charge calls. Now we have to stop a game for a few minutes to let these referees, equal parts fearful of their job reviews and full of bluster, watch a replay over and over?

Now, as I mentioned above, we're not going to be seeing incessant replays late in games because of block/charge calls, because the league's refs tend not to whistle such calls late in contests, and the spread-out nature of isolation ball late in close contests make defenders hesitant to dive in front of the rim while leaving their man wide open elsewhere. These aren't reviews for the sake of reviews, they'll only happen when referees have already decided to check to see if the players were in the restricted area on a blown charge call that should be overturned into a block.

An NBA spokesman estimates that the league only had five or so of those restricted area checks in 2013-14, so there's not a lot of room to overturn judgment calls if that volume holds up, assuming the Competition Committee gets what it wants.

That's not, as a fan and as someone who has had to write about this for too long, my issue. This entire system of block/charge encouragement needs to be done away with.

What the NBA and its refs won’t do is get down to the heart of the matter, and admit that every time a player falls down (or connects with another player), it doesn’t have to be a foul. It can just be a thing that happened, nothing to belabor over or blow a whistle at. That isn’t to say that there aren’t defenders out there who are well in place seconds before a defender leaves his feet, taking proper charges. Or that there aren’t block calls that deserve to go against those that are lined up out of place.

The changes to hand-checking calls in 2004 made the NBA a better place. And even that restricted circle, though it does encourage players to stand just in front of it to take a "charge," did away with a series of blown charge calls in the two seasons' prior to its establishment in 1997-98.

What I’m saying is that the NBA has created a culture that has done away with actual defense – even if the actual defense in the NBA is the strongest and smartest that it’s ever been. Because teams can earn a possession just by running up underneath a player and the NBA league office’s influence, all players are encouraged to do something that was once left for those without the athleticism to contest a shot in midair.

And now we want to waste more time reviewing these things?

I think an absence of a system, rather than further review of it, would make the game more entertaining and more accurately called. But what do I know? I’m not Stu Jackson. My resume doesn’t boast the sort of career-long triumphs he’s enjoyed.