The Brooklyn Nets just about define the superficial experience. The team was put together by a billionaire owner that promised a championship in spite of a lacking basketball resume, before tossing tens of millions of dollars at a general manager in Billy King who has long made a habit of going after the biggest names available. Part-owner Jay-Z helped shape the team’s look and image, despite only owning a small percentage of the team, and not even making it out of the franchise’s first year before selling his shares. And the team’s arena, the Barclays Center, followed the latest trends with its exterior look in spite of some quizzical glances from Brooklyn natives.

Perhaps they were reacting to the smell of the place.

On Monday Leslie Albrecht at DNAInfoNewYork.com put together a great piece on the canned smells the Center wafts in through its ventilation system. It’s not an offensive or even obtrusive odor, nor an obvious one, but it’s … something. And definitely noticeable. From Albercht’s piece:

As the last few fans rushed through the arena's front doors, the brisk breeze that followed them gave way to a distinct aroma: a fresh-smelling fragrance with citrus notes that some call the arena's "signature scent," in the words of one Twitter observer.

What is the smell? A source familiar with the matter said it's the work of ScentAir, a company that manufactures custom fragrances pumped into the air at theme parks, stores and hotels around the world. The odors function like mood music for your nose. They're meant to enhance the consumer experience and build brand identities.

[…]

Members of the Prospect Nights meet-up group spent a recent evening puzzling over why the Barclays Center "smells like perfume," according to one member. Members weren't complaining about the scent, but it definitely tickled their curiosity.

"It became a topic of conversation and something they wanted to get to the bottom of," said the local resident, who didn't want his name used. "You have this stadium and it's big and metallic and industrial looking, and you have this smell of perfume coming out of it, so it was kind of amusing."

Everything about this Nets team is “kind of amusing,” from the team’s massive payroll, underwhelming style, and presence of both Andray Blatche (NBA-level “amusing”) and Kris Humphries (US Weekly-level “amusing”) working alongside Joe Johnson’s giant contract and Deron Williams blasé “superstar” play.

The canned smells are nothing new, according to Albrecht. Not only do various tourist spots in New York City utilize the work of ScentAir, but teams like the Atlanta Hawks, St. Louis Rams, and Dallas Cowboys have also become clients. I wasn’t aware you could bottle the smell of indifference, but apparently that hasn’t stopped the Hawks from trying.

The Nets have declined comment on the fragrance, and for good reason – even the best of press release mavens would have a hard time accurately describing why, exactly, one would decide to pay to have scented air pumped into Barclays Center, much less describing the scent in un-mockable terms and explaining why it’s fit for the team’s arena.

A new arena at that, one somewhat famous for its high end menu and high class clientele. The natural smell coming from Barclays isn’t going to be like the one I experienced climbing the concrete steps of Chicago Stadium as a kid – all cheap lager, worn in cigarette smoke leftover from a previous era, and the natural odor that tends to emanate from humans when they consume several cups of cheap lager.

No, the Barclays Center should naturally smell like the high end artisanal pretzel rolls and craft brews it offers its patrons, and not some imperceptible, “citrus” (which is a descriptive word all of us go for when we have no idea what a certain wine, cigar, or perfume smells like) odor that the Nets are paying for on top of the four years and $89 million they’ll pay Joe Johnson between last summer and 2016.

It’s their arena, their money, and their ventilation options. We’re just wondering why this ownership group even bothers, for just a first round team.

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• Zach Randolph tried to apologize to Grizzlies for Game 1 effort

Sunday's Game 1 of the Western Conference finals was decided by precision and effort — the San Antonio Spurs had great, heaping helpings of both, while the Memphis Grizzlies came up lacking. The former was most evident in San Antonio's half-court execution leading to wide-open looks and knockdown shooting, with the Spurs shooting 52.6 percent from the floor and a scorching 48.3 percent from 3-point range, setting a franchise postseason record with 14 long balls in a 105-83 Game 1 beatdown.

The latter, though, manifested itself most in the Spurs' ability to stymy big man Zach Randolph. The 31-year-old power forward led the Grizzlies in scoring during the regular season and the first two rounds of the playoffs, but was largely locked up in Game 1, missing his first seven shots, not getting on the scoreboard until 2 1/2 minutes into the fourth quarter and finishing with a whisper-quiet two points and seven rebounds in 28 minutes.

After the game, Grizzlies point guard Mike Conley — whose 14-point, eight-assist outing was overshadowed by a brilliant game from counterpart Tony Parker (20 points on 9 for 14 shooting and nine dimes) — said Randolph came to his teammates contrite following the final buzzer, Sam Amick of USA TODAY Sports:

"He tried to apologize [in the locker room], and we wouldn't accept that. We said, 'It's not you; it's all of us.' He's just saying that he's going to do better, but we've all got to do better defensively, and offensively we've got to move the ball in order to get other guys open like Zach and play our game." [...]

Randolph, who entered having averaged 19.7 points and 9.3 rebounds in the playoffs, was quick to take blame afterward.

"It's just one of them nights, first game of the series for me," he said. "It was just the rhythm of the game. ... But I've got to be better. Like I told my teammates, I've got to be better for them and we've got to be better as a group."

Plenty of credit, certainly, belongs to a Spurs coaching staff lef by Gregg Popovich that designed multiple different looks to fluster Randolph and a San Antonio squad that committed to executing the game-plan throughout the Sunday afternoon contest.

That game-plan included banging with the Memphis bruiser before he ever got near the ball, contacting him early, riding him often and pushing him out of his comfort zones whenever possible, and it began on the first possession of the game, with Kawhi Leonard and primary defender Tim Duncan putting hands on Z-Bo right away:

It also included Spurs help defenders knowing the personnel they were guarding and acting accordingly, as with Danny Green allowing Memphis guard Tony Allen — who A) attempted 24 3-pointers this year and made three of them and B) is missed 36 of his 46 tries from the slot above the right elbow this year, according to NBA.com's shot charts — to roam out high in favor of staying on Randolph's hip alongside Duncan:

Allen wound up getting a kickout and making his shot, but that's still a way less dangerous look for San Antonio's defense than Randolph catching in the paint one-on-one with room to operate.

Ditto for any shot veteran backup Keyon Dooling (5 for 16 outside the paint this postseason) might take, which is why Spurs reserve Cory Joseph basically ignores him and chooses to buddy up with Boris Diaw instead, shading Randolph away from the middle and influencing him into popping an elbow jumper:

San Antonio also made a point of pressuring attempted entry passes and forcing Randolph to catch the ball further away than he might like to, as you can see here with Leonard pushed up on Tayshaun Prince on the left wing and Duncan pressing Z-Bo deep out into midrange:

But while San Antonio repeatedly did good things to mess with Randolph's rhythm and keep him from getting comfortable, as both Conley and Randolph noted, there were opportunities for Memphis to take advantage of the attention Z-Bo drew, and Memphis just missed them.

Take this mid-first-quarter possession, which took place after Grizzlies coach Lionel Hollins — likely very aware of how Green was basically ignoring Allen on offense early — took out his All-Defensive First Teamer in favor of reserve guard Jerryd Bayless, a more reliable and potentially dangerous distance shooter. Well, "more reliable and potentially dangerous" when he's putting himself in a position to help, anyway:

As Randolph makes his move into the paint, where all five Spurs defenders are waiting for him, Bayless is totally wide open out on the perimeter. He's also kind of just chilling and walking back to the other end of the floor:

... which might be a nice display of confidence in Z-Bo's ability to go one-on-five, but is also not the best way to help provide floor-spacing and make-them-pay-for-loading-up offensive pressure relief. Randolph missed the forced attempt, and the ball went out of bounds to the Spurs. (Bayless had a decent enough offensive game in total, going 3 for 7 off the bench for eight points and adding five assists without a turnover, but his on-ball defense also helped facilitate some of Parker's whirling-dervish destruction in the first half.)

Tayshaun Prince committed a similar error midway through the second quarter, when Leonard completely left him alone in the corner to help on Randolph — understandably so, considering he's 0 for 6 on corner 3s this postseason, just 4 for 16 from deep overall and 21 for 73 (28.8 percent) outside the paint this postseason — and Prince responded by not only not spotting up as a threat for a kickout, but actually pointing to Allen, seemingly suggesting that he'd be a better option:

The result, as you might expect, was a turnover.

Randolph didn't do himself any favors, either, with the sure-handed big man dropping a couple of passes down low and failing to make his customary impact on the offensive glass. When Hollins said after the game, “When you're right at the basket, and you miss layups, San Antonio had nothing to do with that," he wasn't specifically talking about Z-Bo, but the shoe fit him pretty snugly, too.

Add it all up — the constant pressure and doubling from all angles, the high-quality work by San Antonio's bigs of forcing Randolph further out or fronting the post (as detailed by CBSSports.com's Zach Harper), Randolph missing chippies and a lack of effective floor-stretching from Memphis' wings — and you've got a recipe for a bad Game 1 and a big-time loss.

Luckily, this isn't anything new for the Grizzlies, who lost Game 1 in each of their first two series this postseason and came back to win eight of the nine subsequent games. And luckily for Memphis fans, Randolph's point guard says he thinks the big man's temperament will serve him well as the Grizzlies prepare for Game 2.

“He's not going to get down,” Conley said, according to Mike Finger of the San Antonio Express-News. “He's just going to get more angry.”

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The minds behind Ball Don’t Lie are going to preview each of the parings in the third round, with Kelly Dwyer going against character for a more genial take, Dan Devine bringing his inimitable mixture of both order and bedlam, along with Eric Freeman’s legendary look inside the reputations of some of the series’ key fixtures.

We begin with the San Antonio Spurs and Memphis Grizzlies.

Which team do you think will win the series, and in how many games? Vote here to let us know what you think.

Kelly Dwyer’s Guide Vocal

For the last 11 games, the span of the team’s run through the 2013 postseason, the Memphis Grizzlies have defended their turf against stars. Now, against the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference finals, the team will be asked to defend against a system. The problem for Memphis is that they don’t even know what system they’re up against.

The Grizzlies boast their conference’s best defense, but that hardly matters to a coach like Spurs head man Gregg Popovich. Though he’s been able to boast the luxury of fielding a rotation that includes Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili since 2002-03, the Spurs have taken on dozens of permutations since that year, in ways that go far beyond roster turnover. The Spurs adapt, effortlessly, and react with execution that pushes the limits of their ability. Even if capitulation is the result — the Spurs haven’t made the NBA Finals since 2007 — this doesn’t mean the team was caught off guard.

It just means there wasn’t enough time between games. As you may have seen last season, when the Spurs dropped four straight against an Oklahoma City Thunder team that was scarily gaining in confidence from contest to contest.

The Grizzlies just topped a version of that Thunder team that didn’t resemble last year’s conference-winning crew in the slightest, as the 2013 version was sadly missing both Russell Westbrook to injury and James Harden to a tax-saving trade. Prior to that, Memphis worked past a Los Angeles Clippers team that strangely decided not to feature Eric Bledsoe as much as expected, while fielding an injured and limited Blake Griffin toward the latter stages of the series. Grit and grind has paired with timing and opportunity, we should remind.

[Related: Grizzlies hang on in Game 5 for 4-1 series win over Thunder]

This doesn’t mean the Grizzlies are ready for their comeuppance.

The Spurs faced a Los Angeles Lakers team that didn’t have the talent to pull off a win at the playoff level and was looking forward to the end of the season by the time Game 2 began. Game 3 of the Western Conference semis saw Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry’s ankle go kablooie once again, and the Warriors star was left to scramble around like a real hamster huey for the next few games — barely able to lift while shooting long, loping jumpers that rarely hit. So apparently the sainted Spurs have backed into things a bit, as well.

Backing into things is Memphis’ advantage, as we know. Zach Randolph has not been the same since the lockout and an early season 2011-12 knee injury limited his all-world abilities, but his iffy shooting percentages from the teams’ regular-season matchups cannot be trusted. Marc Gasol’s chances at overwhelming Tiago Splitter should be in place, but nobody knows what sort of Splitter will show up, or how much Gasol will address the team’s need for fourth-quarter scoring in the actual first and second quarters of the game.

Memphis’ style, super-slow ball with an emphasis on interior play, is well-known. What is less programmable is the team’s pangs and fits since a midseason trade involving Rudy Gay shook up the franchise. The easy out is to assume that the Grizzlies take back to their 2011 ways, upsetting the Spurs in a playoff series without Gay in uniform, grabbing the momentum and home-court advantage while the league’s eyes were turned elsewhere.

The problem with that is that the Spurs are fully focused, this time around, and the team knows it can’t combat these Grizzlies with the same ancient attack it sent out in 2011, and Duncan also knows that he’s in far better shape to handle the Memphis group this time around. In many ways, this late-season version of the Grizzlies resembles the 2011 Spurs, squads that only need a wrench in the works to disrupt much-discussed plans about low post play and high efficiency shots. Perhaps these Spurs — with that depth and that group of youngsters that knows little else beyond executing as Coach Pop asks — are the underdog.

Perhaps that’s how it should be.

PREDICTION: Grizzlies in 6.

Contribute to the Chaos with Dan Devine

For as much as we try to study and analyze every aspect of NBA life these days, in every playoff series, there are unpredictable elements — a player, a tendency, a set, a decision, etc. — that can tilt a moment on its ear, change the complexion of a game or even determine the outcome of a series. For each matchup during this postseason, Dan Devine will look for those X-factors most likely to wreak havoc over the next seven games.

(The phrase "Contribute to the chaos” comes from the song “Twin Size Mattress” by the band The Front Bottoms, which Dan likes a lot.)

San Antonio Spurs: Tiago Splitter being better than Serge Ibaka, at least in context.

Throughout Memphis’ five-game win over the Oklahoma City Thunder, Ibaka struggled to sustain any offensive rhythm without injured point guard Russell Westbrook feeding him a steady diet of open looks. The power forward’s inability to provide scoring helped create a clear matchup win for the Grizzlies despite Ibaka’s sound work on the other end. When Ibaka was on the court in Round 2, Zach Randolph shot 42.9 percent and produced an average of 96 points per 100 possessions, according to NBA.com’s stat tool; when Ibaka sat, Z-Bo’s field-goal percentage rose nearly 11 percent and his individual offensive rating soared to 109.3-per-100.

With Tim Duncan likely to spend most of his time wrestling with Marc Gasol, it’ll be up to Splitter to match Ibaka’s work slowing Randolph while providing more efficient offensive contributions when required. The Brazilian big man actually did a good job on both counts in the teams’ four regular-season matchups. Randolph shot more accurately during Splitter’s minutes than when Tiago sat, but he shot less often, got to the line less often and scored about 3 1/2 fewer points per 36 minutes of court time against Splitter-featuring lineups. And while you can’t make apples-to-apples comparisons given Splitter’s significantly smaller role in the Spurs’ offensive machine, he was really effective in his opportunities against the Grizzlies, using his quickness and athleticism advantages to score 10.3 points in 26 minutes per game vs. Memphis this season and shoot a sterling 73.7 percent from the field when Randolph was on the court.

[Related: Tim Duncan predicts 'ugly' West finals against the Grizzlies]

Another key factor: Z-Bo was way less active on the offensive glass with Splitter around. With Tiago on the bench, Randolph vacuumed 17.3 percent of available offensive rebounds against the Spurs, a rate that would’ve topped Brooklyn Nets glass-eater Reggie Evans’ league-leading season mark. When Splitter played, Randolph came up with teammates’ misses only half as often (8.6 percent), managing just two second-chance points in 81 minutes. When you go back and watch the tape, you begin to see why.

With Mike Conley orchestrating up top or Gasol working from the elbows, Randolph tends to hang down on the baseline. Splitter more often than not does a really good job of not only tagging Z-Bo early, but also maintaining contact with him throughout the possession without letting his attention drift too much toward the on-ball action, which prevents Randolph from getting the kind of openings he so frequently exploits with quick slide-step duck-ins to secure rebounding position. While Randolph’s obviously a bull in the paint, Splitter’s combination of length and strength makes him a better bet to effectively box Z-Bo out than the likes of DeJuan Blair, Boris Diaw and Matt Bonner.

If Splitter can continue to slow Randolph on the offensive glass, make him work for post position, bother him with length on midrange face-ups and maximize his chances to make Memphis pay on the other end, it’ll go a long way toward neutralizing one of the key advantages the Grizzlies hold over most opponents. He doesn’t have to silence Z-Bo; he just has to turn the volume down. If he can’t, Randolph could have the kind of loud series that leaves San Antonio with a splitting headache.

Memphis Grizzlies: Keep Danny Green quiet, because that probably means you’re doing all right defensively.

Most of the rave reviews the fourth-year guard from North Carolina drew in Round 2 focused on his lock-and-trail work on Stephen Curry. But Green was also an important source of secondary offense for the Spurs in the semifinals, averaging 12 points in just under 36 minutes per game, shooting 45.6 percent from the floor and 44.4 percent from 3-point range.

His two worst shooting performances — 4 for 12 in Game 2 and 4 for 13 in Game 4, a combined 4 for 15 from downtown — coincided with the Spurs’ two losses in the series. Green’s shooting has actually been kind of an interesting bellwether for San Antonio all year; he sizzled (48.7 percent from the field, 47.9 percent from deep) in Spurs wins and struggled (35.5 percent, 31.2 percent) in losses during the regular season. It’s continued in the playoffs — 49.2/48.5 in San Antonio’s eight wins, 32/26.7 in their two losses.

This is, of course, more effect than cause. San Antonio doesn’t win because Green shoots well, but Green shooting well indicates good health for the Spurs. Nearly 62 percent of Green’s offensive possessions this season came on spot-up shots or transition looks, according to Synergy Sports Technology. Just under half of Green’s field-goal attempts came as a result of one of those two scenarios; that includes 79.5 percent of his 3-point tries, which he buried at a 43.7 percent clip in such situations.

Generally speaking, Green’s offense stems from either sound Spurs defense that triggers fast-break opportunities, allowing him to leak out to the arc while the opposition worries first about stopping the ball, or from well-executed Spurs half-court offense driven by drive-and-kick work from Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili. When those two things are working, Green gets fed and produces; when those two things are working, the Spurs are incredibly tough to beat.

The Grizzlies are better equipped than most teams to throw a wrench in San Antonio’s works, though, given their talents for disrupting execution (second in the league in defensive efficiency this year), closing off the arc (sixth-fewest long-ball attempts allowed, second-lowest 3-point percentage allowed), stymieing open-court opportunities (fourth-lowest points-per-possession allowed in transition) and locking up shooters (fourth-lowest points-per-possession allowed on spot-up tries). All that makes Memphis the kind of defense tailor-made to keep Green buttoned up; they did just that this season. The duo of Tony Allen and Mike Conley — with some early-season Rudy Gay and Quincy Pondexter mixed in — held Green to just five points in 22.5 minutes per game on 28 percent shooting from the field and 22.2 percent from 3 during their four meetings, his worst marks against any opponent during the regular season.

If Green continues to produce at that level during this series, it will likely be a telltale symptom of a larger infection of the San Antonio offense. If he’s able to get loose like he did against Golden State, it might mean Gregg Popovich and company have found the cure for what’s ailed them against the Grizz these past couple of years, which could well result in a return to the NBA finals.

PREDICTION: Grizzlies in 6.

Eric Freeman’s Reputations Index

An NBA athlete can make great strides in the offseason, improve over the course of the 82-game schedule, and see his fortunes change due to a freak injury. Yet, even in a league where granular analysis reveals untold nuances in a single player’s game, the postseason still determines his legacy. A star can become a legend or be seen as lacking some necessary quality to win; a role player can lock down a lucrative local endorsement contract or search for a new home; a youngster can ascend to a new level of fame or fall into irrelevance. The Reputations Index is your guide to what’s at stake in each postseason series.

Tony Parker: The Spurs have been such a good regular season team in recent years that Parker has been mentioned as a potential NBA candidate (or at least someone who should be “in the conversation,” which usually means he has no chance of winning) at various points along the way. The argument is usually pretty simple: the Spurs are among the best teams in the league and Parker is their best offensive producer, so he should get some recognition.

There is no doubt that Parker is a deserving All-Star and future Hall of Famer, but there’s a sense that he’s not held to the same standards as other players at this supposed MVP level. As Ethan Sherwood Strauss argued in a piece at ESPN Insider during the first round, Parker has not played particularly well in the last three postseasons, seeing his PER drop at least 3.6 Hollingerians from his regular season level in each. This trend hasn’t continued in this postseason so far — he’s actually gone up from 23.0 to 23.3 — but Parker was not a continual force in the Warriors series and shot worse than 43 percent from the field in four of the six games.

Parker only deserves so much criticism for his play, because he’s still a highly effective player who the Spurs can’t leave out. Yet it’s also true that he plays a very different style from the players most widely acknowledged as the best in the league. Like anyone, Parker relies on a few go-to moves, but he also shows less of an ability to improvise when necessary. In his piece, Ethan incisively referred to his play (and, by extension, the entire Spurs offense) as a sort of choreography, a refined set of moves that can struggle in the face of disruption.

The Spurs have proven that it takes a pretty amazing effort to achieve that disruption, but the Grizzlies were very effective in doing so in 2011 (with a worse, or less established, defense than they now have). There’s a sense that, if Parker is to become a fixture in those MVP talks rather than just a casual participant, than he must respond to these difficult circumstances and transcend the disruption. Otherwise, he’s someone no one feels the need to argue about.

Manu Ginobili: Given the Spurs’ reputation as a no-nonsense outfit of restrained professionalism, it sometimes escapes mention that Ginobili is one of the most creative players of his era. If Parker sometimes struggles amid disruption, then Ginobili thrives in it, displaying his resourcefulness and in-the-moment creativity in countless postseason moments. San Antonio tends to depend on him more in the playoffs than in the regular season, and it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which they defeat the Grizzlies without Ginobili having at least a few stellar games.

[Related: Pacers top Knicks, set up East finals matchup with Heat]

Unfortunately, Ginobili was not close to his usual standard against the Warriors, shooting 34.2 percent from the floor for the series. At 35 years old, Ginobili is at a point in his career where he just might not be able to carry the same load he once could. If he can’t put up the performances that get the Spurs to the NBA finals, it’s possible he’ll be someone remembered for past exploits and not feared for the threat he poses at present.

Mike Conley: We’re in a pretty incredible era for young point guards, yet Conley is typically not mentioned among the best of that group. There are pretty clear reasons for that — he’s never averaged more than 14.6 points per game (this season) and 6.5 assists per game (both of the two previous seasons) and he’s not exactly an athletic marvel. Conley is best known as a solid point guard with the ability to score or make a play when needed.

That stance is beginning to change. With Conley serving as the Grizzlies’ top perimeter playmaker and making the All-Defensive Second Team this season, he’s building a greater reputation as one of the more effective leaders at his position. A winner doesn’t need to be the flashiest or most statistically impressive player to get attention. If the Grizzlies make the Finals, and particularly if Conley manages to outplay Parker in a few of those wins, he could join that group.

Tony Allen: Two straight All-Defensive selections have solidified Allen’s place among the best defenders in the league, to the point where it would take a full season of mediocre or downright bad play to remove him from that list. Yet there’s a difference between being one of the best defenders in the league for a few seasons and getting recognized as a generationally great specialist. Bruce Bowen isn’t just a helpful role player — he’ll go down as one of the key defenders of his era. It’s a difference in kind so big that it becomes categorical.

In this series, Allen will likely guard several players, primarily Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker but also Danny Green, Kawhi Leonard, and anyone else on the perimeter who seems to be playing well. There’s enough variety there that he could make several different marks on several different games. He could have the kind of series that gets him closer to that lofty status. Then, he could have the chance to create even more of a name for himself against the Heat.

PREDICTION: Grizzlies in 6.

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When Russell Westbrook went down in Game 2 against the Houston Rockets, the Oklahoma City Thunder knew that their ability to fulfill their championship aspirations would be seriously compromised. It seems as if the severity of Westbrook's loss couldn't communicate just how difficult that path would be.

Despite a late push by the Thunder and several missed free throws by the Grizzlies to give Kevin Durant a chance to tie the game in the final seconds, Memphis escaped Oklahoma City with an 88-84 victory in Game 5 to finish off a 4-1 series win over the West's top seed. They will now move on to the Western Conference Finals to face either the San Antonio Spurs or Golden State Warriors for a chance to move on to the NBA Finals.

Memphis nearly forced themselves to head back home for a Game 6. After building an 80-68 lead with 4:13 remaining, the Grizzlies saw the Thunder go on an 11-3 run over the next 3:46. With their offense stagnating, center Marc Gasol hit a huge, flat-footed 19-footer near the end of the shot clock for an 85-79 lead with 27 seconds left. At the time, it seemed like a dagger. However, Kevin Martin managed to draw a foul within six seconds and hit two free-throws to cut it to four. Zach Randolph split a pair of free throws, and Reggie Jackson nailed a wing 3-pointer to make it a two possession game. With Randolph needing a free throw to ensure no worse than an overtime finish, he instead missed both freebies to give OKC life. Despite scoring 28 points and grabbing 14 rebounds, he had a chance to become the game's goat.

Thunder head coach Scott Brooks has been criticized many times in his tenure for his inability to draw up compelling end-of-game plays, but in this case Durant managed to get a fairly good look from 16 feet with four seconds left in regulation; he missed, however. Tony Allen grabbed the rebound and hit both free throws to ice the game, and the Thunder are now gone fishin' much earlier than they'd anticipated at the start of the postseason.

The miss capped a very trying series for Durant. Without Westbrook, he was asked to take on a nearly impossible burden in carrying the Thunder back to the NBA Finals. That effort manifested itself throughout this series, with Durant playing no less than 43 minutes with major ball-handing responsibilities in each of the five games. Frankly, he looked exhausted, and his shooting percentage suffered greatly. After a 5-of-21 performance in Game 5, Durant shot 15-of-48 from the field in the last two games with no other player managing to score 20 points or more. The Thunder faced an uneasy adjustment to life without Westbrook, their early-game offensive sparkplug, and it's safe to say that no one was able to step up accordingly in his absence. The solution was often just to ask more of Durant, and one player can only do so much.

It did not help that the Grizzlies were to focus the best team defense in the league on one player. With three All-Defensive selections, including primary Durant defender Allen, the Grizzlies were able to hold the Thunder to 36.9 percent shooting in this closeout win. Their imposing defense will face a stern challenge in the conference finals in either the Spurs or the Warriors, but they appear very ready to take on all challengers. With an offense that revolves around Gasol and Randolph in the post, the Grizzlies are something of an anomaly in today's NBA, but that size does not hinder them from playing fluid and punishing team defense.

Given the circumstances of Westbrook's injury, it's fair to wonder how things may have been different if he had not been lost for the playoffs. Yet it's clear that the Thunder would have faced a considerable challenge in the Grizzlies no matter their luck. Memphis is a uniquely talented squad with a clear sense of their own identity. Although they're not the highest seed left in the West, they could be the conference's scariest team at this juncture of the postseason.

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That's Buckets, a very cute puppy who belongs to Memphis Grizzlies swingman Quincy Pondexter, and who recently tagged to a Grizzlies practice that was documented by Sports Illustrated as part of NBA-feature-writing beast Lee Jenkins' not-yet-online regional cover story on the Grizz. Buckets is a Husky, which makes sense, what with Pondexter having played his college ball at the University of Washington.

As if we didn't have enough to love about the Grizzlies, between their brilliantly bruising play, Zach Randolph being a jackin' dude who loves dogs and is scared of cats, Marc Gasol being a super crafty defensive monster and the whole team's love for cramming into elevators, now we've got Buckets. No fair, Memphis. Leave some lovability for the other teams.

Hey, want some more Buckets? Sure you do. We all do.

Just got done getting up some shots.. Couldn't leave home without my son.. 'Buckets' is a natural instagram.com/p/Xa-9Owml79/

— Quincy Pondexter (@QuincyPondexter) March 29, 2013

***

Off to PetCo.. Bane or Buckets? instagram.com/p/XNEbQ7Gl3p/ — Quincy Pondexter (@QuincyPondexter) March 23, 2013

***

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“Team without its second-best player loses close game to a very good team while playing on the road. Film at 11.”

If the Houston Rockets’ surprisingly competitive first round turn against the Oklahoma City Thunder wasn’t convincing enough, then the Thunder’s 2-1 second round deficit entering Monday night should have been more than the proof you needed to appreciate Russell Westbrook’s many talents. The injured OKC guard was badly needed throughout the Thunder’s 103-97 overtime loss in Game 4 of the team’s series against the Memphis, especially with Kevin Durant missing 17 of 27 shots against a world-beating Grizzlies defense.

Westbrook’s finest attribute – making an efficient offensive play when all hope is seemingly lost – would have fit in perfectly for the Thunder on Monday. Scott Brooks’ crew ran out to a 17-point lead in the first half based mostly on Durant’s presence and the sound shooting touch of Serge Ibaka, but the Grizzlies did well to cut the lead down to eight by the half. Oklahoma City roared out of the gate once again to start the third quarter, but Durant’s shooting touch wore down in the face of expert Memphis defense by Tayshaun Prince, Tony Allen, and Marc Gasol (geez, good luck scoring on that), and the Grizz had it tied by the fourth period.

(A quarter that kept up the tie, but not after seeing some of the best and worst from two of the more entertaining teams in the game.)

Derek Fisher airballed both a three-point attempt, a long two-pointer, while missing another three-pointer that hit the front of the rim before hitting the shot clock before (illegally) going in. Zach Randolph did expert work finishing off of broken plays, but he also saw plenty of his shots sent back (five of Zach’s attempts were blocked, on the night), and he was the unfortunate victim of a well-intentioned but ultimately misspent final play in regulation – one that saw him trying to beat Kendrick Perkins off the dribble to win the game at the buzzer. Thunder coach Scott Brooks kept Kevin Martin on the bench in favor of Fisher, while the Grizz countered with a weird 4:20 run of Keyon Dooling’s own.

This isn’t to say that this was a fourth full of folly, friends. Durant was dogged in his approach, and the Thunder did well to space the floor with the three-time scoring champion at the top of the arc, surveying his options. The Memphis defense is just too good and too damn adaptive to be caught off guard, though, as Allen, Gasol, Mike Conley and Prince (that’s three members of the NBA’s top two All-Defensive team, alongside an all-timer in Tayshaun) reacting and cutting off angles down the stretch.

Randolph and Gasol combined for a fantastic interior line in the win. The pair teamed for 46 points, 23 rebounds, three assists, just four turnovers (incredible, considering how much these two had the ball spaced out over 88 minutes), with seven blocks. Prince had his share of timely buckets off of loping improvisations. Conley tossed in 24 while turning it over just once in nearly 49 minutes. Jerryd Bayless and Darrell Arthur were not scurred off the bench, so to speak.

And Oklahoma City, as you’d expect, were just missing that game-breaking element.

It’s true that a made free throw or reversed call could have given the Thunder a win in regulation, and a 2-2 series heading back to OKC. Still, it was apparent against Houston that the defending Western champs just aren’t nearly the same without Russell Westbrook’s derring-do, and that unpredictable approach that RW usually brings to a game was badly needed against a top tier defensive team like Memphis. And this is still with replacement Reggie Jackson cutting expertly (15 points on 6-8 shooting) and Kevin Martin playing efficiently (18 points on 12 shots).

The Thunder has enough to work their way towards a Game 7 in Oklahoma City. Memphis still struggles to score, the referee calls (which were iffy for both teams tonight, despite a veteran crew) could go either way, and Durant’s brilliance could heal all wounds. Wounding all heels from a visiting Memphis group of bashers that would be looking for the series-deciding upset.

This is what happens when a superstar like Russell Westbrook goes down, though. And even if Kevin Durant is more than enough to build a team around, superstars aren’t easily replaceable. Especially in May.

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Heading into Tuesday's Game 2 against the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Memphis Grizzlies knew that despite letting a series-opening win slip through their fingers on Sunday, they still had an excellent chance of leaving Oklahoma with a split, if they could just tie up a couple of loose ends and get bounce-back games from the starting backcourt of Mike Conley (5 for 15 from the floor with only three assists in Game 1) and Tony Allen (three points on 1 for 5 shooting, no steals and some bad off-ball defense that helped Kevin Martin get loose).

The Grizzlies stuck to the script on Tuesday, playing what head coach Lionel Hollins called "kind of our game" — getting the foul line more often (32 attempts, up from 24 Sunday) and making freebies at a higher clip (71.9 percent, up from 58.3), forcing more turnovers (21, up from 10) and scoring off them (29 points, up from 14) — in a 99-93 win that evened their best-of-seven series at one game apiece heading back to the friendly confines of FedEx Forum for Saturday's Game 3.

In a series where the primary storylines have focused on the all-around brilliance of Kevin Durant (another monster game, with 36 points, 11 rebounds, nine assists, a ridiculous chasedown block and a withering crossover-and-flush through the Grizzlies defense) and the continued dominance of Memphis bruisers Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph (39 combined points on 25 shots, 13 rebounds, eight assists, three steals and two blocks), it was Conley who proved to be the real difference-maker down the stretch.

The Ohio State product turned in an "unofficial triple-double", scoring 26 points on 50 percent shooting, grabbing 10 rebounds and dishing nine assists, with potential 10th dimes scuttled on Allen misses twice late in the fourth quarter. He really took over in the second half, scoring 19 on 8 for 12 shooting while looking for his own offense much more after intermission, which Conley said in his postgame interview was something the Grizzlies discussed at halftime as an adjustment to capitalize on Oklahoma City's aggressive defensive pressure on Gasol and Randolph down low.

"It was a conscious effort, I think, by my whole team," he said. "[They] did a great job of getting me open. I think we ran a lot of plays for me. Our big guys set a lot of good screens; we kind of used Zach as a decoy a lot of the time, and they did a great job of buying in and letting me finally get a little groove and get going, and down the stretch I was in a good rhythm."

That rhythm resulted in six points in the final two minutes, including a key right-elbow jumper that gave Memphis a two-possession lead with 1:04 left:

The quiet, unassuming lead guard doesn't necessarily profile as a late-game killer, but it's a responsibility with which he's found himself entrusted more often since Memphis bid farewell to Rudy Gay at the trade deadline.

"For this team, after we lost Rudy, it was tough," Conley said. "We didn't know who was going to be that guy down the stretch and, you know, I've kind of had to assume that role, grow into it and live and learn from it. Sometimes I make shots, sometimes I don't. I'm kind of getting used to it, and tonight was just one of those nights where it fell in. [...]

"If I have to score, I'll score; if I have to be a facilitator, I'll do that," Conley said. "I'm just trying to do whatever it takes to win."

The same was true of Allen, who followed up a quiet Game 1 with a much more active, aggressive and productive Game 2. His shots — including those pesky layups — still weren't falling, as the former Oklahoma State star finishing just 4 for 13 from the floor. But he attacked the basket, grabbing five offensive rebounds and earning six free throw attempts to finish with 12 points, was much more active in the passing lanes to come up with five steals, and late in the game, took responsibility for checking Durant.

After the game, Allen downplayed the decision: "I assume we just got desperate." And while Hollins' concerns about the 6-foot-5 Allen's height disadvantage against the (at least) 6-foot-10 Durant being too great to overcome seemed justified early in the fourth quarter, as Durant scored 10 points in his first 6:20 of final-frame play, Allen and his teammates got the job done late, holding Durant without a bucket in the final 3:18.

"I understand that guy ... he is who he is," Allen said. "You know, he's a prolific scorer — he's the best scorer in the league, obviously — but you know, the things I can do out there probably just cause havoc the best way I can. [...] If we can get the ball out of Kevin Durant's hands as much as possible, that's a plus for us."

Allen was quick to credit his teammates for their role in securing the crucial late-game stops to get out of OKC with a win, shouting out the efforts (often unsuccessful though they were) of wing defenders Quincy Pondexter and Tayshaun Prince, and especially the attentive help of Memphis' Gasol-led back-line.

"When our bigs are more alert of what [Durant is] doing and what he's trying to do, it helps a guy like myself and Q and whoever's guarding him," Allen said. "We got a team-set defense; it ain't about me, it's about the Grizzlies."

To be fair, Tony — it was at least a little about you, as captured in this final-minute steal and runout dunk:

... and in the way you tagged the moment, as relayed by Ronald Tillery of the Memphis Commercial Appeal:

Game 2 flow: Tony Allen just walked by scorer's table and yelled: "First team all defense (expletive)!"

— Ronald Tillery (@CAGrizBlog) May 8, 2013

That's a big reason why Memphis loves its stopper, a big reason why the Grizzlies' backcourt combination — the quietly efficient point guard and the rambunctious havoc-wreaking shooting guard — works so well together, and a big reason why Oklahoma City now heads to the Grindhouse in need of a service break of their own.

Hat-tips to CBSSports.com's Matt Moore on the Conley video and r/NBA on the Allen dunk video.

For most of the first 45 minutes of Sunday's Game 1, the Memphis Grizzlies controlled the pace, the style and the action of their Western Conference semifinals opening matchup with the top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder. But in those final few minutes, it all went away, seemingly quicker than a Kevin Durant rise-and-fire that puts you behind and, eventually, away for good. It must feel like climbing a mountain and find yourself one last push from the summit, then losing your foothold and falling all the way down to the ground below.

"Every player on our team saw this win, and it didn't happen," Grizzlies reserve Quincy Pondexter, who missed a key late fourth-quarter free throw that could have enabled Memphis to tie the game in the closing seconds, told Jeff Latzke of The Associated Press after Game 1. "So, you've just got to move on and not make the same mistakes twice."

But what mistakes are those, specifically? How can Memphis find surer footing and finish the job in Tuesday's Game 2? Let's take a closer look at a few particular areas of interest:

1. #YGTMYFT, bros. That is to say: You've got to make your free throws. The Grizzlies finished the regular season tied with the Chicago Bulls for the NBA's ninth-best mark from the charity stripe (77.3 percent), and basically held steady in their six-game opening-round win over the Los Angeles Clippers (76.2 percent). They shot a woeful 58.3 percent in Game 1; if they make either their season or Round 1 average, they get a four-point swing on the score sheet, which would seem pretty useful in a game they lost by two.

There are two bits of good news. First, making better than three out of four free throws for the past 88 games is a stronger indicator of how good a foul-shooting team you are than one bad outing, so the percentages are likely to bounce back. Second, the guys who missed multiple freebies in Game 1 have all been way better than Sunday's performance — Marc Gasol (4 for 7) shot 84.8 percent this year, Pondexter (2 for 5, including that key late miss) shot 78.7 percent this year and Tayshaun Prince (0 for 2 after taking a hard foul from Nick Collison) shot 73.8 percent this season, though he was sub-60 percent after coming over in trade from the Detroit Pistons. Eight more misses from that group in Game 2 seems unlikely.

Also of note: In the extremely physical opening-round matchup with L.A., Memphis took a postseason-leading 34.3 free-throw attempts per game. They took just 24 free throws in Game 1 against Oklahoma City, fewer than they managed in any single game against the Clippers. It'll be interesting to see if the refs tighten things up a bit as the series progresses, and whether we'll start to see more whistles as the two teams' bruising frontcourts continue to battle.

2. Come back to us, Mike Conley. After being roundly outplayed by Chris Paul and harassed all over the court by Eric Bledsoe in Game 1, Conley came back with a very strong Game 2 (28 points on 50 percent shooting, 13 free-throw attempts earned, nine assists against three turnovers) that kickstarted a big turnaround for his series. The Grizzlies triggerman bounced back to average 18.4 points and nine assists per game in the final five outings against L.A., refusing to shrink from the challenge of matching CP3 and going right at Clippers defenders to help spark the Grizzlies' offense to Round 2.

Conley opened the semifinals with another dud, missing 10 of his 15 shots and managing just three assists against two turnovers in 38 minutes. The 25-year-old point guard has to — has to — be able to outperform the Reggie Jackson-Derek Fisher combination, whether by beating them off the bounce or by working in the pick-and-roll game to lose them, gain dribble penetration and create either paint looks for himself, dump-offs for his bigs or kickouts for shooters like Prince, Pondexter and Jerryd Bayless. If he returns to even average shooting and facilitating form, he should be able to use his quickness to generate some higher-percentage chances and open up more opportunities for his teammates.

3. Get Tony Allen engaged early, and keep him there. In Round 1, the Grizzlies perimeter stopper saw time on just about every one of the Clippers' perimeter threats, but he specialized in shutting down Sixth Man of the Year runner-up Jamal Crawford, who was so quiet by the end of the series that you barely realized he was sitting on the bench for the lion's share of the late action of Game 6. In Game 1, many expected he'd pull similar duty on Thunder reserve Kevin Martin ... except Martin got loose for 15 points in the second quarter, much of it coming while defended by Allen, thanks in large part to solid off-ball movement and smart baseline back-cuts to catch Allen watching the ball on the perimeter.

It felt weird watching a defender as attentive and disruptive as Allen get back-cut like that; it seemed to speak to a certain level of distraction or lack of in-game focus. Well, what better way to ensure you've got Allen's full and undivided attention than by giving him a few possessions of one-on-one, on-ball matchups with Kevin Durant? Allen's defended Durant well in the past — I know you remember his "hands behind my back" guarding of KD — and having responsibility for putting the clamps on the best scorer in the world would undoubtedly keep Allen on his toes. It might also be good for coach Lionel Hollins to run something aimed at getting Allen an easy bucket early, since his 0 for 4 start from the floor likely didn't help matters too much. (Then again, Tony plus layups can sometimes equal adventure.)

There's reason for optimism on an Allen bounce-back, too — as Chris Herrington of the Memphis Flyer notes, like Conley, Allen had a rough Game 1 against the Clippers, but bounced back to both play well and play big minutes throughout the rest of the series. Memphis will need him to do both to conbat the scoring tandem of Durant and Martin.

4. Turn up the defensive heat. During the regular season, Memphis forced opponents into turnovers on nearly 17 percent of offensive possessions, the second-highest rate in the league, and scored 17.4 points per game off turnovers, tied for the NBA's ninth-best mark. Oklahoma City was in the middle of the NBA pack in points allowed off turnovers (16.7 per game, tied for 17th among 30 teams) but was near the top of the league in frequency of cough-ups, turning it over nearly 16 percent of their possessions, tied for fifth-most. Memphis wreaked havoc less often in Round 1, and Oklahoma City was more careful with the ball against the Houston Rockets, but still, the relative passivity in Game 1 — just 10 OKC turnovers, which were capitalized upon for 14 points — suggests things moving in a different direction than Memphis might want.

Increased ball pressure and more opportunistic passing-lane intervention — especially by the tandem of Conley and Allen, who finished fourth and sixth in the NBA in steal percentage, respectively — could help disrupt the OKC offense, create some instant offense transition opportunities and shift momentum in what promises to be a raucous Chesapeake Energy Arena for Game 2.

5. Keep going at Serge Ibaka with Zach Randolph on offense. This one isn't really a mistake that needs to be corrected, but rather a point of emphasis that should be emphasized even further — while Ibaka held up pretty brilliantly on the defensive end for the most part, Randolph still got 18 points and 10 rebounds in 37 minutes. On the other end, the Congolese power forward struggled with his jumper, managing just five points and five rebounds on 1 for 10 shooting. That might just be the result of bad luck and missed open looks, but I'm not positive the two aren't to some degree related.

The more body blows Memphis can land on the OKC defense, and especially on Ibaka, with Randolph down low, the less likely it is that Ibaka will have the legs to provide the sort of floor-spacing midrange touch he's showcased so often this season. If he doesn't provide a reliable frontcourt scoring option to complement the wing productivity of Durant and Martin, it gives the Grizzlies' five-men-on-a-string defense a better shot of being able to load up on the wings, and putting themselves in position to once again pick up a road win to leave Oklahoma with a split.

Kevin Durant knocked down a huge 19-foot pull-up jump shot to give his Oklahoma City Thunder a 91-90 lead over the visiting Memphis Grizzlies with 11.1 seconds remaining in Game 1 of the two teams' Western Conference semifinals matchup at Chesapeake Energy Arena on Sunday. The Thunder would hold onto the lead their superstar provided, locking down a 93-91 win to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat and take a 1-0 lead in the best-of-seven series.

Durant's transition opportunity was keyed by a miscue from Memphis point guard Mike Conley, who lost control of the ball while driving to the basket with just under 20 seconds remaining and the Grizzlies holding a one-point lead. After Conley ceded possession, with Thunder guard Derek Fisher getting credit for a steal on the play, Durant snagged the loose ball and pushed it up the court; while Oklahoma City still had two timeouts remaning, coach Scott Brooks declined to call one, preferring to allow Durant to attack the Grizzlies before their stout defense could regroup in a half-court setting. The decision proved to be a wise one, as Durant was able to push retreating defender Tayshaun Prince back on his heels, stop on a dime just above the right elbow, elevate and fire to put the Thunder back in front for the first time since holding a 49-48 advantage just after halftime.

[Also: Reasons why Grizzlies will knock out top-seeded Thunder]

The jumper capped a 12-point fourth quarter for Durant, who led all scorers with 35 points on 13 for 26 shooting on Sunday, but it didn't cap Game 1. After a timeout called by Grizzlies coach Lionel Hollins, Memphis trigged the ball from the right sideline with a chance to re-take the lead, but Durant tipped the inbounds pass; it did find its intended target, center Marc Gasol, but Durant's defense threw a monkey wrench into Memphis' design.

Gasol then missed a window to feed frontcourt partner Zach Randolph down low, passed up a shot opportunity from the right block and kicked out to Conley, but Thunder defender Thabo Sefolosha knifed into the passing lane to earn another deflection. Sefolosha and Conley collided on the play, with Conley heading to the floor along the boundary; as he grabbed possession of the ball and attempted to call timeout, he had one hand out of bounds, and referee Bill Kennedy — who was right on the spot to make the call — awarded possession to Oklahoma City.

Forced to foul, the Grizzlies put Reggie Jackson on the line, and the sophomore point guard who's been tasked with manning the controls for OKC in the absence of injured All-Star Russell Westbrook calmly made two free throws to give the Thunder a 93-90 lead with less than three seconds remaining. After taking their final timeout, the Grizzlies looked for Pondexter — who had gone 3 for 4 from 3-point range to that point, including a double-clutch buzzer beater from just past half-court to close the third quarter — in hopes that the former Thunder draft pick (26th overall in 2010) could come up with one more miracle.

On the ensuing possession — a neat draw-up by Hollins to create some room by using staggered screens — a trailing Jackson smacked Pondexter's right forearm as he let it fly, granting the former Washington Huskies standout three free throws with 1.6 seconds left. But Pondexter, a 78.7 percent free-throw shooter this year, missed the first, eliminating the prospect of Memphis tying at the line.

After making the second to draw within two, Pondexter missed intentionally, and while Gasol wound up coming up with the loose ball, the post-miss scrum ate too much time off the clock, sealing a 93-91 OKC win that allowed the top-seeded Thunder to eke out a win despite opening with a 14-point, 5-for-23-shooting first quarter and trailing by as many as 12 in the second half. But a stellar fourth quarter from Durant (6 for 9 from the field, with many shots contested by as many as two or three Grizzlies defenders, plus four rebounds, three assists, a steal and a block) and cold Memphis shooting (Conley, Prince, Pondexter and Jerryd Bayless combined to shoot 2 for 10 in the fourth) helped Oklahoma City hold serve.

[Also: Don't let him fool you; Derrick Rose is not returning for the playoffs]

Durant finished with 35 points, 15 rebounds, six assists, two blocks, one steal and three turnovers in 44 minutes; he outscored Memphis by himself, 8-7, over the final five minutes of the game. Sixth man Kevin Martin also came up huge with few of his teammates in any kind of offensive rhythm, following up his strong Game 6 against the Houston Rockets by scoring 25 points on 8 for 14 shooting, including a 3 for 5 mark from downtown, to go with seven rebounds in 31 1/2 minutes. Jackson and Fisher combined for 20 points on 7 for 15 shooting.

Gasol and Randolph largely won their frontcourt battle with Thunder bigs Kendrick Perkins and Serge Ibaka, combining for 38 points and 20 rebounds, but a shaky offensive outing from Conley (13 points on 5 for 15 shooting, three assists, two turnovers) and a poor performance at the free-throw line (just 14 for 24) wound up coming back to bite the Grizzlies, allowing a very winnable game and a chance to swipe home-court advantage slip away.

Game 2 tips Tuesday night at 9:30 EDT.

If the clip above isn't rocking for you, please feel free to check it out elsewhere, thanks to SI.com's Ben Golliver.

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Somehow, the NBA survived its regular season and first round of the postseason with enough players to field eight teams, so we’re just going to go ahead and begin the conference semifinals. The minds behind Ball Don’t Lie are going to preview each second-round series, with Kelly Dwyer going against character for a more genial take, Dan Devine bringing his inimitable mixture of both order and bedlam, along with Eric Freeman’s legendary look inside the reputations of some of the series’ key fixtures.

We continue with the Oklahoma City Thunder and Memphis Grizzlies.

Which team do you think will win the series, and in how many games? Vote here to let us know what you think.

Kelly Dwyer’s Guide Vocal

On Friday evening, after having dispatched the Los Angeles Clippers in six games in their first round pairing, social media suddenly started talking up a 2013 NBA Finals matchup featuring the Miami Heat and Memphis Grizzlies. After a first round win.

Didn’t the Grizz, a fifth seed in a transitional year, have the conference semis and finals to work though? Yes, but Twitter had an answer.

The top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder?

“Yeah, Russell Westbrook’s out.”

The league’s most efficient scorer, and likely MVP runner-up, Kevin Durant?

“Yeah, Tayshaun Prince.”

Possible fear, against the conference’s best team?

“Yeah, took ‘em to seven games two years ago.”

Zach Randolph’s terrible regular season showing against the Thunder?

“Yeah, he’s different now.”

The San Antonio Spurs, in the conference finals?

“Yeah, 2011 dude!”

The way that magician floated through the air without wires?

“Yeah, magnets! Those were magnets.”

I understand the giddiness. The Grizzlies are beyond admirable on several levels, and they certainly have the matchups in order. The team defends expertly and it is gaining offensive confidence as it whips the ball around early in a possession -- not merely waiting on a last-second Mike Conley screen and roll or desperate forced pass from Marc Gasol to initiate a hoped-for good look. Los Angeles’ lacking defense played a part, to be sure, but the Grizzlies gained momentum and knowledge over the course of six games in a way that somehow trumped the 26-8 run it ended the regular season with.

And the Thunder are, um, without Russell Westbrook.

This is the man that saved the sort of broken plays the Grizzlies live off of creating, defensively. The man that made the team’s fast break so frightening, even if Westbrook would jump in the air not knowing if a pass or shot would result. For as pell-mell as Westbrook’s game often looked, he afforded the Thunder a reliable option when things went pear-shaped, and the fact that Russ seemed so undaunted in the face of chaos allowed Oklahoma City to feed off his fearlessness.

No amount of Reggie Jackson (gifted though he may be, appreciated to no end by the OKC front office), Derek Fisher, and dishin’ and swishin’ from Kevin Durant can make up for even half of that loss. It’s not about approximating Westbrook’s stats. It’s the idea that someone else is going to try something dangerous when things have come to a head. The Thunder, sadly, don’t have that guy anymore.

Some elements appear to be slightly improving for OKC. Kevin Martin regained his scoring touch and daring ways as the opening round series against Houston closed out. Coach Scott Brooks caught up to the rest of the NBA, circa 2011, and played Kendrick Perkins scant minutes in Game 6. Perkins would seemingly be a boon to help guard Memphis center Marc Gasol in this series, but Marc can see over the top of Perkins (and each of the other Thunder defenders, including the masterful Nick Collison), so his presence isn’t badly needed unless Gasol is set on taking short jump hooks the entire series. Perhaps most importantly, an elongated second round series means Kevin Durant can get the rest he deserves between games, as he attempts to play like two All-Stars at once.

The Grizzlies’ swagger might be too much to overcome, though. This is a team that can win amongst all the deep blues in Oklahoma City, and they have their own All-Star in Zach Randolph that seems ready outwit a player in Serge Ibaka that held him to terrible shooting marks during the regular season. The quick passing and heads-up play from Tayshaun Prince could go a long way toward putting the Thunder defense on tilt, and freed from Chris Paul and Eric Bledsoe’s (thank you, Vinny Del Negro!) clutches, Mike Conley could roll when faced with a second year guard in Reggie Jackson.

Let’s not talk Finals, yet. Let’s appreciate Memphis’ growth in spring, now.

PREDICTION: Grizzlies in 6.

Contribute to the Chaos with Dan Devine

For as much as we try to study and analyze every aspect of NBA life these days, in every playoff series, there are unpredictable elements – a player, a tendency, a set, a decision, etc. – that can tilt a moment on its ear, change the complexion of a game or even determine the outcome of a series. For each matchup during this postseason, Dan Devine will look for those X-factors most likely to wreak havoc over the next seven games.

(The phrase "Contribute to the chaos” comes from the song “Twin Size Mattress” by the band The Front Bottoms, which Dan likes a lot.)

Oklahoma City Thunder: More Nick Collison, please.

Oklahoma City’s first-round series with the Houston Rockets presented some less-than-ideal matchups for the Thunder’s starting frontcourt. Against a guard-heavy Rockets attack without a true back-to-the-basket threat, center Kendrick Perkins’ vaunted low-post defense wasn’t very valuable, especially when Houston went small, limiting the veteran big man to just 15.5 minutes per game in the series and only a brief 4:22 cameo in the series-clinching sixth game. Perkins’ partner, power forward Serge Ibaka, kept his regular-season per-minute scoring, rebounding and shot-blocking output steady, but was somewhat stymied by floor-stretching small-ball Houston lineups that had him chasing the likes of Chandler Parsons and Carlos Delfino around the perimeter rather than hovering near the basket to wreak weak-side havoc on unsuspecting shooters.

A Grizzlies team that prefers to play inside-out through frontcourt stars Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol, then, seems like a much better matchup for OKC’s starting bigs, and a safer environment in which they can log longer minutes. They shouldn’t, though, if doing so means shorter stints for key backup Nick Collison. While the reserve forward/center’s per-minute productivity, defensive efficiency and on/off-court numbers against the league at large have long made him a stat-geek darling, they’ve been especially awesome against Memphis, and especially against resurgent low-block beast Randolph.

In the 44 minutes that Collison and Randolph shared the court this season, Z-Bo’s field goal percentage plummeted from 37.5 percent to 27.3 percent. Randolph was able to use his strength and leverage advantages to take more shots right at the rim, with 14 of his 22 attempts coming within the restricted area, but couldn’t finish to save his life, making only three. He also went 0 for 5 on other in-the-paint attempts with Collison playing, and had more shots blocked (seven) than he did in 71 minutes with Collison on the bench (five). That mirrors the dampening effect Collison had on Z-Bo in the classic Thunder-Grizzlies 2011 playoff series, in which Randolph shot 37 percent from the floor against Collison’s active defense and was a staggering -59 in 131 minutes against lineups featuring Collison over the course of seven games.

This also tracks with Collison’s overall on/off impact against Memphis, which has been massive. In 70 minutes with the Kansas product on the floor this season, the Grizzlies scored an abysmal average of 83.3 points per 100 possessions; in 79 minutes with Collison on the bench, the Grizzlies’ offensive efficiency skyrocketed to 109.9-per-100. To put that into perspective, with Collison sitting, Memphis’ bottom-half-of-the-NBA offense operated at a rate outpaced by only the Thunder and Miami Heat; with Collison playing, Memphis scored like something country miles beneath even the Washington Wizards’ and Phoenix Suns’ league-worst offenses.

This feels like it matters, especially because it’s not just a four-game-season-series phenomenon -- this has been happening for the past few years. It reflects the influence Collison had on Memphis last season, when the Grizzlies scored just under nine fewer points-per-100 with Collison on the floor; two regular seasons ago, when their output declined by a whopping 17.5 points-per-100 with Collison out there; and during their 2011 playoff war, when the Grizzlies’ production dropped by just over eight points-per-100 when Collison checked in.

The impact extends to the other end, too; Oklahoma City has also historically scored more, shot a higher percentage from the floor and drawn more fouls with Collison in the lineup against the Grizzlies. With the Thunder offense flagging and stagnating a bit in the absence of Russell Westbrook, every added bit of shot-making, spacing and creativity helps, and so does anything that can contribute to slowing down a Memphis offense that got on a major roll in its final four games against the Los Angeles Clippers. Collison offers both. Thunder coach Scott Brooks ignores that at his own peril.

Memphis Grizzlies: Jerryd Bayless providing punch without leaving too many openings for OKC counterpunches.

From a broad-strokes perspective, the Grizzlies appear to have advantages on the interior, at point guard (thanks to Westbrook’s absence) and in contributor depth, while the Thunder feature the series’ best player, an edge on the wings and home-court advantage. The difference, then, could come down to the contributions of role players on the margins.

One such player is 24-year-old reserve combo guard Bayless, whose 42.3 percent 3-point shooting mark for the Toronto Raptors last season regressed to his career-average 35 percent this year, but who still showed himself capable of providing off-the-bench pop on multiple occasions. More importantly, he played arguably his best basketball of the regular season against Oklahoma City, averaging 18.3 points per game in three outings against the Thunder, shooting 54.3 percent from the floor, 57.1 percent from 3 and 90 percent from the line, while chipping in 3.7 assists and 2.3 rebounds in 28.3 minutes per contest.

The Grizzlies’ offense was considerably more potent against the Thunder with Bayless on the floor, scoring nearly 16 more points per 48 minutes of playing time than when he sat and posting considerable increases in field-goal percentage (+5.3 percent) and 3-point percentage (+10.5 percent). And while Bayless has never exactly been considered a paragon of offensive efficiency in his five-year career, Memphis did tend to get more high-percentage looks against the Thunder D with him on the floor, taking a larger share of shots directly at the basket (36.6 percent of field-goal attempts in the restricted area, up from 31.9 percent with him sitting) and from 3-point range (22.6 percent of total attempts, up from 14.6 percent with him out).

There is, however, a flipside to Bayless’ output against OKC, and it came (as it often does with undersized, offense-first shooting guards) on the defensive end.

When Bayless was on the bench in the three Grizzlies-Thunder matchups this season, Oklahoma City shot 41 percent from the floor, averaged just under 23 free-throw attempts per 48 minutes and scored an average of 92.3 points per 100 possessions. When Bayless played, Oklahoma City made half its shots, got to the line seven more times per 48 minutes and improved its offensive efficiency by a staggering 19.2 points-per-100 possessions.

This tells us two things. For one, the Grizzlies are way better defensively with Tony Allen and/or Mike Conley on the floor than they are with Bayless out there. (Duh.) For another, the demonstrable offensive gains of playing Bayless didn’t come close to outweighing the defensive losses during the regular season.

Here, though, as with everything else, the Westbrook injury looms large. With all due respect to Reggie Jackson, who averaged 17 points, four rebounds and four assists on 44.4 percent shooting in the final four games against the Rockets, no Westbrook means a decreased threat level in the OKC backcourt. That means a bit more freedom for Lionel Hollins in terms of his defensive matchups.

In starting-lineup units, you’d expect Conley to go man-up with Jackson and for Allen to see a lot of time on Kevin Durant whenever Tayshaun Prince isn’t checking him, but Allen could also be used to float a bit to whichever Thunder threat seems most dangerous at the moment, and it would stand to reason that, much as he did in Round 1 against Jamal Crawford, he’d see action as a second-unit dampener for sixth man Kevin Martin. Off the bench, Quincy Pondexter provides another rangy two-three defender who can match up on more potent scorers, too.

All that could provide opportunities for Hollins to hide Bayless for stretches on OKC’s less imposing offensive types (Thabo Sefolosha, Derek Fisher, maybe even DeAndre Liggins) to minimize the defensive fallout if the Grizzlies find themselves in need of off-the-dribble quickness, secondary ball-handling and (if the J’s falling) some additional floor spacing, which can be huge for Memphis’ offense. While Bayless didn’t have a good first-round series -- he shot 38.3 percent from the floor, 31.8 percent from 3 and had more turnovers than assists -- he was a key contributor in Memphis’ Game 6 closeout, going 6 for 13 from the floor and 3 for 8 from 3-point land to help keep the Clippers’ guards honest and give his bigs room to operate.

When he’s going well, as he was in Game 6, Bayless can be a legitimate game-changer and chaos agent; when he’s not, he can have an equal and very opposite effect. Memphis could really use the former to score four wins against even a diminished Thunder side.

PREDICTION: Grizzlies in 6.

Eric Freeman’s Reputations Index

An NBA athlete can make great strides in the offseason, improve over the course of the 82-game schedule, and see his fortunes change due to a freak injury. Yet, even in a league where granular analysis reveals untold nuances in a single player’s game, the postseason still determines his legacy. A star can become a legend or be seen as lacking some necessary quality to win; a role player can lock down a lucrative local endorsement contract or search for a new home; a youngster can ascend to a new level of fame or fall into irrelevance. The Reputations Index is your guide to what’s at stake in each postseason series.

Scott Brooks: The loss of Russell Westbrook has severely limited the Thunder. Given how OKC utilizes Westbrook, he’s one of the most irreplaceable players in the league, a unique force who jump starts his team in the early part of a game and prohibits opponents from focusing solely on Kevin Durant. OKC has many adjustments to make to stay in the championship picture in his absence, and more often than not those responsibilities fall to the head coach.

A large number of basketball observers don’t necessarily think Scott Brooks is the right man to do that job. While he earns good marks in player management and making sure that everyone understands his role clearly, Brooks is not known as a master strategist or in-game genius. Adjusting to life without Westbrook is the ultimate challenge, something that requires a new conception of individual responsibilities and the entire team’s approach to the game. With teams like the Golden State Warriors and Chicago Bulls having accomplished very impressive things without some of their most notable players, Brooks is flirting with unfavorable (if also unfair) comparisons if the Thunder can’t figure out a way to make things work. Losing Westbrook was about as bad a break as a team can get — it also might end up inspiring deeper considerations of Brooks’s ability to guide his team to a title.

Lionel Hollins: It’s been an up-and-down season for Lionel Hollins, equal parts impressive achievements and public disagreements with his bosses. Each experience is important — for all that Hollins has done as Grizzlies’ coach, there’s a sense that he has to prove himself in perpetuity in order to hold onto his job. Perhaps no team has a better sense of their own identity, and yet the man who helped impart that philosophy to them has had a difficult time being ranked among the best coaches in the NBA.

That could be because the Grizzlies’ signature achievement — their defeat of the top-seeded San Antonio Spurs in the 2011 playoffs — can be (poorly) explained away as an improbable upset rather than the mark of one of the league’s best teams. On the other hand, making it to the conference finals most certainly counts. If the Grizzlies can accomplish that, then perhaps Hollins won’t feel the need to make explicit arguments for his approach any longer.

Walking away and doing pushups is, of course, the most reasonable response in this situation. Perkins and Garcia both received technical fouls, Perkins was slapped with an offensive foul, the Thunder turned it over and Houston continued its 15-0 first-quarter run. Veteran leadership!

The tide later turned, though, as OKC fought back from a 10-point third-quarter deficit to rip off a pair of huge runs (16-2 late in the third, 19-5 for about half of the fourth) and finally stamp down the eighth-seeded Rockets, 103-94. The victory gave them a 4-2 series win and passage to a matchup with the also-victorious Memphis Grizzlies in the Western Conference semifinals.

When the team returned home early Saturday, Thunder fans turned out to greet them at Will Rogers World Airport, a neat "welcome back" tradition that's developed among OKC faithful over the years. Upon de-planing, Perkins — still fresh as a daisy after playing less than 4 1/2 minutes in the clincher, as coach Scott Brooks went smaller earlier and more often (nice to see you again, Nick Collison!) — treated the crowd to some jetway-concrete calisthenics:

We're glad Perk is staying on his pushup game, because the second-round matchup with the Grizzlies — which tips off Sunday at 1 p.m. EDT in Oklahoma City — means tangling with Grizzlies low-post mauler Zach Randolph. And we know Z-Bo's willing to drop and give you 20:

Considering what tends to happen when these two get together, a pushup contest might the best way to determine interior dominance. Not as much fun for us, sure, but definitely safer.

If the clip up top isn't rocking for you, please feel free to check out Perk's workout elsewhere, thanks to Beyond the Buzzer.

Through its first five games, the Western Conference rematch between the Memphis Grizzlies and Los Angeles Clippers had lived up to expectations as the most physical series of the first round of the 2013 postseason. With the Clippers facing elimination at FedEx Forum in Memphis on Friday, we anticipated more of the same — and man, oh man, did we get it.

Game 6 featured 59 personal fouls, 71 free throws, seven technical fouls and one flagrant foul (Chauncey Billups' third-quarter around-the-neck takedown of Mike Conley) ... and that doesn't even cover the really good stuff from the Grizzlies' 118-105 win, which earned Memphis a 4-2 win in their best-of-seven series, punched the Grizzlies' ticket for a Western Conference semifinals showdown with the also-victorious-on-Friday top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder and sent the Clippers to a long summer full of questions, headlined by whether unrestricted-free-agent-to-be Chris Paul will elect to re-up with L.A. or look to ply his trade elsewhere.

But that's enough looking forward for the moment — for now, let's take a quick look back at some of the nuttier stuff from the second half of a very wild and eminently watchable Game 6.

Zach Randolph and Blake Griffin, wrasslin'

The two All-Star power forwards fought ferociously all series, with Griffin getting the best of things in the series' first two games at Staples Center, the tide turning in Randolph's favor when the action shifted to the Grindhouse, and Randolph overwhelming a high-ankle-sprain-hobbled Griffin in Memphis' Game 5 road win in L.A. The nature of their no-quarter-given, head-to-head battle was underlined by the fact that referees saw fit to call double personal fouls on them — which is basically an official's way of saying, "I'm not really sure which one of you started it, but you two totally need to cut it out, because someone's going to get hurt, and I'm not interested in sorting it all out" — in four of the six games in this series.

[Related: End of an era in Boston?]

The fourth and final one came nearly five minutes into the third quarter with Memphis up by 16 after a Mike Conley 3-pointer, when the two big men got tangled up under the basket:

We're not sure if there was a heavyweight title belt on the line — we're going to have to check with Sheed on that — but we're pretty sure Blake got his shoulder up before the three-count. If we've said it once, Z-Bo, we've said it 100 times: You've got to hook the leg, man. We're going to keep an eye on your form from here on out until you get it right.

(Another thing we're going to keep an eye on: Whether the league office decides Randolph's left-hand-to-the-Adam's-apple on Griffin merits something more severe than just the double-personal and the technical foul Z-Bo received at the time. If Stu Jackson and company take a dimmer view of the ostensible chokehold than the refs on scene, it wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility for Randolph to miss the beginning of the next series.)

Griffin clearly wasn't himself in Game 6, with the high ankle sprain limiting him to just nine points and three rebounds in 14 minutes of reserve play coming off the bench behind Lamar Odom. Randolph, meanwhile, continued to be the bull-in-a-china-shop that Lionel Hollins needed, throwing his weight around in the paint and on the right block against overmatched and undersized defenders en route to 23 points on 8 for 12 shooting that gave the Memphis offense its focal point.

Chris Paul ejected

With three minutes left on the clock, Memphis leading 111-99 and the outcome already decided, Clippers wing Caron Butler committed a loose ball foul that sent Grizzlies forward Tayshaun Prince to the charity stripe. After Prince made his first freebie, Paul and Billups chatted at the 3-point arc about their respective responsibilities on the live ball after the second free throw. Billups told Paul he'd go box out the shooter; Paul's task, then, was to head down the lane to help out on Grizzlies center Marc Gasol.

Paul helped a bit too aggressively.

Immediately after the play, Gasol doubled over in pain, leading plenty of Clippers fans (and even some comparatively unbiased observers) to suggest that the big Spaniard was exaggerating the extent of the pain he felt after Paul banged into him. Then again, Gasol is just about six weeks removed from aggravating an abdominal tear, and CP3 did run smack into his midsection, so it's possible Gasol wasn't faking. Either way, getting a running start and plowing straight into an unsuspecting dude is the kind of thing referees tend to frown upon, so the officials slapped Paul with a technical foul ... and since he'd also picked one up midway through the third quarter, that required an automatic ejection.

It's kind of weird to think that the two most desirable players in the upcoming free-agent class, both of whom played in Los Angeles this season, each ended their seasons by being ejected in an elimination game. At least CP3 dapped up his opponents, though.

Zach Randolph ejected

From the "One good turn deserves another" file: Just 32 seconds of game time after CP3 got the gate, Z-Bo got run by Joey Crawford for ... um ... reasons?

Randolph very well might have been yapping up a storm on the court both leading up to and during Conley's free throws. Still, though, following up one star's ejection with another just 32 seconds later in the closing stages of a double-digit win smelled of "let's get rid of the escalators and agitators so nobody will get into a fight" crowd control. (This is probably why Matt Barnes thought he was the one getting tossed during both CP3's ejection and Z-Bo's exit. Take it easy, Matt. You're fine.)

Luckily, after dominating the interior all night and pacing his Grizzlies to a series win, Randolph was able to blithely shrug off the heave-ho, chucking his headband into the raucous FedEx Forum crowd and skipping — skipping! — back to the dressing room, confident in the knowledge that Memphis would live to fight another day. And with Thunder center Kendrick Perkins about to line up across from Randolph, "fight" might be a very, very operative word.

Game 1 of Thunder-Grizzlies — or, as we're going to call it, THUNDERGRIZZLIES — tips off at Chesapeake Energy Arena at 1 p.m. EDT on Sunday. We're looking forward to it, but it bears mentioning: You're going to have a lot to live up to, THUNDERGRIZZLIES. We'll need to see at least two attempted pinfalls for this to feel like an upgrade.

It's become tradition for every NBA playoff team to give its attending fans a t-shirt, towel, or similarly uniform item at each home game. The goal is to create a sea of color coordination, an intimidating front in which every fan's passion multiplies upon everyone else's so that the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. The plan works so well that its efficacy can only be communicated via mixed metaphors.

The Memphis Grizzlies have gotten in on the action for Friday night's Game 6 against the Los Angeles Clippers, a potential closeout game that would put the home squad in the second round for the second time in three seasons. While a playoff promotion is not notable in itself, the Grizzlies' particular choice of item is: towels with the slogan "We Don't Bluff." Check out the photo above via their vice president of basketball operations (and former irredeemable stat nerd) John Hollinger.

"We Don't Bluff" isn't just an empty phrase like "Rama-Lama-Ding-Dong" or "Give peace a chance" — it's perhaps the best encapsulation of the philosophy of All-Star power forward Zach Randolph (and by extension the Grizzlies as a whole). Back in November, Z-Bo and Oklahoma City Thunder center Kendrick Perkins had a heated on-court exchanged that was alleged to have carried over into the locker room after the game. In speaking to reporters after the game, Randolph said these words: "Man, I play basketball. I don't worry about all that. Perk's all right. There's a lot of bluffin' going on the court, that's all, you know. And I don't bluff."

The Grizzlies have used "Grit 'n Grind" mantra for the past several seasons, but "We Don't Bluff" is arguably a better way of putting what makes them such a formidable opponent. This team doesn't back down to challenges, attempts to enforce their style upon the game at any cost, and simply won't quit until the rules of the sport dictate they must leave the court. They mean what they say, and we know this because their actions do most of their talking for them.

Yet, while these shirts have turned "We Don't Bluff" into a positive statement of purpose, using it in this fashion could risk courting controversy in a few days. If both the Grizzlies and Thunder manage to win their first-round series this weekend — both are up 3-2 — they will face each other in the Western Conference Semifinals beginning next week. Even though this slogan has been largely divorced from the context that inspired it, the notoriously gruff Perkins may not take kindly to the franchise using his tussle with Randolph as inspiration for a promotional playoff item. It seems odd, but a simple t-shirt could end up as bulletin-board material.

When the Memphis Grizzlies stormed back from two straight losses at Staples Center to even their first-round playoff series with the Los Angels Clippers at FedEx Forum last week, the lion's share of national attention focused on the return to form of Memphis big men Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol, and deservedly so — after combining to average 29.5 points and 10.5 rebounds per game in losses in Games 1 and 2, the Grizzlies frontline duo dominated the proceedings in Memphis, kicking in 45.5 points and 20.5 rebounds in wins in Games 3 and 4. As has been the case throughout this season, and especially since the trade-deadline jettisoning of Rudy Gay, as Randolph and Gasol go, so go the Grizzlies.

But Randolph and Gasol weren't playing against air in Memphis (although it sometimes seemed like they were). They were playing against a Clippers front line manned by All-Star power forward Blake Griffin and starting center DeAndre Jordan, who largely won the interior battle in L.A. but were overwhelmed by the Grizzlies' physicality in Memphis. That was especially true of Jordan, who was whisper-quiet in Games 3 and 4 — just four total points on 2 for 6 shooting, 10 rebounds and four blocks — with the 6-foot-11 jumping jack managing just two rebounds in 17 minutes in the series-evening loss.

With the exception of general big-man rules like "get a body on him on the offensive glass" and "be aware of his shot-blocking," Jordan's not typically considered the kind of player opposing coaches have to scheme around. But when Grizzlies coach Lionel Hollins was asked how Memphis had stymied Jordan heading into Tuesday's Game 5, his reply laid bare just how invisible Jordan's become:

When asked what the key has been for taking DeAndre Jordan out of his game in Memphis, Lionel Hollins responded, "What is his game?" #zing

— Jovan Buha (@jovanbuha) May 1, 2013

Lionel Hollins on holding DeAndre Jordan to two rebounds: "Nobody holds anybody to two rebounds. You either get them or you don’t get them."

— Ben Bolch (@latbbolch) May 1, 2013

That downgrading might've stung Jordan, but probably not as much as hearing similar criticisms coming from his own coach. And yet, Vinny Del Negro seemed to basically agree with Hollins' assessment of Jordan before Game 5, according to Phil Collin of the Los Angeles Daily News:

"I don't know if crossroads is the right [word] but there's definitely a level you have to play at right now that is much different," Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro said. "He has a much different responsibility now. He understands it.

"I haven't seen the consistency that I like. He hasn't seen the consistency he would like."

That's why, Del Negro explained, he limited Jordan to just 17 minutes in the leveler, leaning more heavily on backup big man Lamar Odom and larger doses of small-ball lineups featuring reserve wings Jamal Crawford, Matt Barnes and Eric Bledsoe. More from Collin:

"I didn't see him controlling the game the way I thought he needed to, and at that stage you have to go with someone you feel can," Del Negro said. "Maybe Ryan Hollins could have played a few more minutes after looking at the tape.

"But those are decisions that are made during the heat of the battle, and you go with your rotation as best you can. At this stage of the game you want to stay with your rotation, but if they're not being productive, you have to look at other guys you have confidence in, that have produced throughout the series." [...]

"Defensively, offensively, being a threat out there on the glass, using his length, athleticism," Del Negro said. "But it's up to him to get out there and earn his minutes and work through anything that's thrown at him during the game."

Jordan bounced back on the boards a bit on Tuesday, snaring eight caroms (including four on the offensive glass) to go with six points and two blocks in 31 minutes of floor time. But the Clippers still dropped Game 5, giving Memphis a 3-2 series lead and an opportunity to close L.A. out at the Grindhouse on Friday.

And with star frontcourt partner Griffin hobbled (and eventually sidelined) by a high ankle sprain, Jordan's continued ineffectiveness was all the more glaring, according to Daily News columnist Vincent Bonsignore:

[...] the Clippers 6-11 center was nowhere to be found again Tuesday, his uncanny ability to vanish into thin air when his team needs him most as predictable as Lindsay Lohan ending up on the wrong side of the law.

Jordan played 16:38 in the first half, but based on his line in the box score it might as well have been a third of that considering the two points and three rebounds he managed.

As invisible as Jordan is, maybe if the Clippers could get any sort of production out of Caron Butler and Chauncey Billups they could compensate for a hobbling Griffin.

That last point is the real key for Del Negro, because the frontcourt crew of Jordan, Odom, Hollins and Ronny Turiaf just won't provide Griffin-replacing levels of productivity. None of them can command the same type of attention on either block, none of them (with the occasional exception of Odom) has anywhere near the same court vision and passing touch to activate perimeter shooters when Memphis swarms, and none of them can reasonably be expected to provide 20 or more points in a win-or-go-home Game 6 in one of the most hostile environments in the NBA. That's not to denigrate those guys as individual players or a collective, per se — there's just a massive, massive difference in talent and skill level, especially on the offensive end, between them and their All-NBA-caliber teammate.

The answers, then, will have to come from those small-ball lineups, in the form of improved punch from the likes of Billups (25 percent from the floor, 3 for 8 from 3-point range over the past three games), Crawford (37.1 percent from the floor, 4 for 11 from distance), Butler (33.3 percent from the floor, 3 for 8 from long range) and Barnes (36.8 percent from the floor, 1 for 7 from deep). The brilliant Chris Paul showed Tuesday he can carry L.A.'s scoring burden, popping for a season-high 35 points on 11 for 24 shooting, and I wouldn't bet against the best point guard in the world imposing his will on the proceedings at the Grindhouse. Still, if the high ankle sprain renders Griffin unavailable for Friday's Game 6, a Clippers offense without one of its two best offensive players and without vastly improved output from its vaunted litany of wing talent figures to once again have a miserable time scratching out half-court points against a Grizzlies defense that, for large swaths of the last three games, has looked as dialed-in, united and suffocating as it's been all season.

If Paul can coax a bit more production out of his crop of small forwards and shooting guards, the onus will be on Jordan to take a quantum leap forward in doing battle with a Grizzlies frontcourt that's eaten him alive over the past week and smells the second round just ahead. Neither his coach nor his opponents' coach seems particularly confident he can take that leap; Clippers fans had better hope they're both wrong.

Oklahoma City 104, Houston 101; Oklahoma City leads the series, 3-0

For the first half of Saturday night’s tilt, it seemed as if the Oklahoma City Thunder would have absolutely no issues moving forward without injured star guard Russell Westbrook, against the Houston Rockets at least. The San Antonio Spurs or Miami Heat are another matter for another month, but early on it appeared as even a Westbrook-less Thunder team was outclassing Houston, especially with Kevin Durant carrying the Thunder to a 26-point lead at one point partway through the second quarter, with 27 first-half points.

The second half commenced, seemingly mid-blowout, and things started to fall apart. You remember LeBron James in Cleveland? Remember how predictable the offense was and how tired James often looked? Sadly, with Westbrook now out for the season, there was some of that going around.

The Rockets roared back, without injured guard Jeremy Lin, by spreading the floor and going with their drive-and-kick game. By nailing 3 after 3 and alternating startlingly poor defensive rotations with some honest to goodness very good ones against OKC, the Rockets came all the way back to take a one-point lead over the Thunder with just over three minutes to go. Just barely clinging on, Durant hit a spectacular 3-pointer (one that bounced three times on the rim, one time nearly over the shot clock, before falling in) and Serge Ibaka saved yet another broken possession with a reverse layup to hold off a Rockets team that just couldn’t hit enough corner 3s to make it work.

There were also a few bad plays by players who should have known better — like Francisco Garcia’s weird intentional foul late in the fourth with Houston down just one point, after the Thunder dribbled 16 seconds off of the shot clock and with the Rockets guaranteed a final possession had they secured a defensive rebound. Or James Harden’s two last-minute turnovers, one coming on a miscommunication with Garcia, who was dealt to Houston in February. Houston’s a good team, but they’re also an eighth seed attempting to work ahead of the curve. Their only chance was to fire away in a small, spread offense, and hope for the best.

As a proving ground for Oklahoma City, even giving credit to Houston’s talent, this was a rough first go.

Westbrook’s absence was huge. Durant played spectacular ball (41 points, 14 rebounds), and replacement starter Reggie Jackson played well (14 points and just one assist, though he wasn’t used as a passing point guard too often), but Westbrook’s (dare I say) calming influence could have sustained the Oklahoma City blowout.

It wasn’t so much that they missed their leader, or the guy who’s been running their plays for years, or the team’s top passer. It was that they lost a playmaker — someone to jump in the air without knowing if he was going to pass or shoot it. And when you take all the assist, score, and hockey assist-possessions that Westbrook provides (to say nothing of the offensive rebound possibilities he creates after he draws the defensive attention and misses), this is what results. The Thunder can continue to win in this series and the next, but there will be spells like that third quarter.

The pressure is on Scott Brooks. Not Durant, not Jackson, and certainly not Derek Fisher. Brooks has to find a way to make it so one of the more talented performers in basketball history can actually surprise opponents as he executes his way through a play.

***

Chicago 142, Brooklyn 134 (3 OT); Chicago leads the series, 3-1

There is very little to add to this game that wasn’t already discussed in several other posts from today. The Brooklyn Nets are certainly facing a formidable 3-1 deficit, but I’m not ready to completely (there’s always a tiny chance) count them out yet based on the idea that this team can make a three-game run simply by playing bad basketball from here until the end of a potential Game 7.

Throughout Game 4, heady Chicago Bulls defenders treated Nets scorers as if full-on drives to the basket were an actual option for the Brooklyn shooters. As a result, Bulls defenders tried to cover both angles, and Deron Williams, Joe Johnson and, to a lesser extent, Andray Blatche, Brook Lopez and Gerald Wallace answered by pulling up for perimeter looks.

The Nets, Williams especially, want to shoot. They don’t want to drive into the lane and earn free throws, or attack off the dribble. The team is content with sitting back and hoping the 3-pointers or mid-range jumpers do the work for them. It took Nate Robinson, of all people, to figure this out late in Game 4 — his work in crowding Williams late in the contest forced him into a few bad perimeter misses. There’s your hint: Robinson overplayed on the perimeter, and Williams still went for the long jumper.

Talented players making iffy decisions can sometimes win ballgames. Sometimes three in a row, even. I don’t think this is a warming note worth banking on for Brooklyn, but because the Bulls have to play so perfectly just to make up for their lacking offense and injury issues, it’s still worth paying attention to.

Luckily, the Bulls are good at paying attention to details.

***

Atlanta 90, Indiana 69; Indiana leads the series, 2-1

Don’t you hate it when a playoff series completely lives up to its stereotype?

Coming off two fractured, snippy contests in Indiana, the Atlanta Hawks returned to Georgia to both play up to potential, and make it the Indiana Pacers’ turn to endlessly carp to the referees. The Pacer offense was too late to initiate itself in the half court, the movement was half-hearted and the team seemed to expect that Atlanta was going to show up with more urgency on its home floor.

Most teams expect that from the home squad. It’s one thing to be aware of it, and weather the storm. It’s another thing to be swept away by it. And with more bodies to work through (7-footer Johan Petro started the game at center as the Hawks’ frontcourt positions all moved down a slot, with Kyle Korver coming off the bench), the Pacers didn’t really seem to mind letting the Hawks take this one.

Take away David West’s 7 for 14 night, and the Pacers shot just over 22 percent from the field. Allowed to roam somewhat, Hawks forward/center Al Horford switched position spots in the offense with Petro all afternoon and finished with a whopper of a line — 26 points and 16 rebounds. Josh Smith annoyed with his shot selection again (expected, after nailing a series of perimeter tries in Game 2) but his defense was on point. And Jeff Teague continues to find seams in the Indiana defense during transition breaks.

These two teams really are bringing out the worst in each other. Perhaps that can even out in time for a competitive Game 4.

***

Memphis Grizzlies 104, Los Angeles Clippers 83; series is tied, 2-2

Like most of the viewing public, I missed the entire first half of this contest because TNT weirdly refused to toss the coverage of this game to its Turner compatriots at either TBS (the station was showing "Friends" re-runs — could they be any more timeless?) or NBA TV (the network was broadcasting playoff highlights from earlier in the week). As a result, I have no idea why the Memphis Grizzlies managed to put an un-Grizzly-like 33 points in the first quarter (apparently Tayshaun Prince was quite good) or how the Los Angeles Clippers roared back to hold Memphis to just 13 points in the second quarter.

What I do know is that Memphis looked well within its wheelhouse in the second half, with Zach Randolph holding court on either block and Marc Gasol coming through with one of the more impressive games of his career. Randolph helped Memphis out to that early advantage with a 24-point night, but it was Gasol’s 17 second-half points (24 overall) that helped the Grizzlies pull away and tie the series. Thirteen rebounds, four assists, three blocks and just one turnover for Gasol on the night. He also spanked himself in public after hitting a long jumper in the third quarter. It was somewhat appropriate.

The Memphis bench was worryingly outplayed again, with the Clippers attempting to wear down the Grizzlies’ lead with their waves of depth, but by the time the fourth quarter swung around the ball-swingin’ from Memphis was too much to handle. The Clippers weren’t ready for their mixture of movement and muscle, with both 25 assists and 13 offensive rebounds (impressive, considering the Grizzlies’ 51 percent shooting) showcasing that two-pronged attack.

It’s surprising for a veteran team (and veteran players, as Caron Butler and Chauncey Billups combined to miss all 10 of their shots from the field), but the home confines of Los Angeles will do the Clippers good. The Clips came through with an impressive road win over Memphis in the last week of the regular season, but in two postseason contests, the team looks rattled and incapable of communicating properly defensively. That figures to change back at Staples Center.

After a long regular season full of snaps and strains, travails and terrors and 715,973 canned arena demands that “ev-ry-bo-dy clap yo hands,” the NBA’s postseason is set to tip off this weekend. With that in place, the minds behind Ball Don’t Lie are going to preview each first-round series, with Kelly Dwyer going against character for a more genial take, Dan Devine bringing his inimitable mixture of both order and bedlam, along with Eric Freeman’s legendary look inside the reputations of some of the series’ key fixtures.

We continue with the Los Angeles Clippers and Memphis Grizzlies.

Which team do you think will win the series, and in how many games? Vote here to let us know what you think.

Kelly Dwyer’s Guide Vocal

The only way the Memphis Grizzlies are going to have a chance in this series is to reverse the patterns that put them in peril during last year’s postseason, and in the team’s final game against the Los Angeles Clippers last week. Because these two teams are so evenly matched, home-court advantage barely matters in this duel, but that doesn’t mean the coin flip with 50-50 odds won’t land on Los Angeles’ side a disproportionate amount of times.

Grizzlies coach Lionel Hollins can’t give his Los Angeles counterpart Vinny Del Negro any advantages, as the teams flip along. This means each of the basketball tipping points behind February’s Rudy Gay trade have to come out in full force. Tayshaun Prince, who played darn well against the Clippers this season as both a Piston and Grizzly, has to shoot corner 3-pointers and be afforded post-up looks. Ed Davis, who has received inconsistent minutes since coming to Memphis from Toronto, has to be trusted as a rim protector and broken-play finisher.

[Also: Ball Don't Lie Power Rankings: First-round NBA playoff matchups]

And Marc Gasol, who was completely ignored by his teammates during the most important stretches of his team’s most important game of the year — a loss to the Clippers on Saturday, one that saw Gasol take just one shot in the fourth quarter, with no attempts nor assists coming in the final 10 minutes of a game in which he put up 18 points, 15 rebounds and seven assists — has to be a focal point of his team’s offense. The team lost to the Clippers last year by playing an outside-in style of basketball. It lost the Clippers on Saturday by doing the same. And that cannot continue.

The problem here is that it might.

It’s too much of a reach to say that the Clippers have the Grizzlies’ number, not when the Grizz are just weeks removed from downing Los Angeles on their home floor, and a year removed from taking the Clippers to seven games. And while we have a hard time getting behind Del Negro as anything more than a stepping-stone leader for this franchise, even he can see the massive advantage the Clippers have in reserve guard Eric Bledsoe, who has absolutely dominated both Memphis and their lead guard Mike Conley during the fourth quarters of both playoff and regular-season games over the last year.

(You almost wonder if the Grizzlies could somehow find a way to get Tony Allen to guard Eric Bledsoe from guarding Mike Conley. The Grizzlies already play four-on-five offensively with Allen out there anyway, why not commit to it in full?)

If Hollins keeps leaning on Conley to direct his team’s offense late in games against Bledsoe and Los Angeles, the Grizzlies will continue to put up pitiful fourth-quarter numbers, and they’ll be out in the first round again — wasting yet another year as both Zach Randolph and Prince dive deeper into their 30s.

Going to Gasol isn’t a cure-all. The Grizzlies will still struggle to score, the Los Angeles depth continues to impress, and it’s also possible that Blake Griffin (who is working through back issues and did not look good in his team’s regular-season finale on Wednesday) could bust out of his Grizzlies-hounded shell and put together an All-Star-like stretch against a Memphis team he’s struggled against. Chris Paul is perhaps his conference’s best closer, and DeAndre Jordan has proven to be an effective Randolph stopper if Zach starts to heat up and the Clippers decide to cross-match.

Only the little things can push Memphis toward a victory, though. Like wrapping up Jordan to send him to the line, something to which the Grizzlies strangely seem averse. Or pushing Prince behind the 3-point line. Or countering Bledsoe with actual plays in the fourth quarter, instead of screen-and-roll orthodoxy. Trusting players like Davis and Darrell Arthur off of the bench. Not knocking the ball off your thigh and out of bounds on a layup attempt — we’re looking at you, Tony.

The Grizzlies remain one of our favorite teams and favorite NBA stories, working out of one of our favorite towns. So much has to go right for them, though, as they attempt to take down a Clipper team that just seems to have their number in the fourth quarter. We’re not happy with the call, but we’re making it.

PREDICTION: Clippers in 7.

Contribute to the Chaos with Dan Devine

For as much as we try to study and analyze every aspect of NBA life these days, in every playoff series, there are unpredictable elements — a player, a tendency, a set, a decision, etc. — that can tilt a moment on its ear, change the complexion of a game or even determine the outcome of a series. For each matchup during this postseason, Dan Devine will look for those X-factors most likely to wreak havoc over the next seven games.

(The phrase "Contribute to the chaos" comes from the song "Twin Size Mattress” by the band The Front Bottoms, which Dan likes a lot.)

Los Angeles Clippers: Let the Eric Bledsoe-Chris Paul backcourt work.

Bledsoe’s had kind of a hard time finding minutes under Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro, getting just 20 minutes per game this season despite averaging around 15 points, five rebounds, five assists and 2.5 steals per 36 minutes of floor time and making 40 percent of his 3-pointers. Part of this is due to the fact that he’s a backup point guard playing behind the best point guard in the world, and part of this is due to the fact that his coach seems to have pure and true love in his heart for Willie Green, but part of it is also due to matchup concerns.

As the thinking goes, if you’re going to play Paul big minutes — and you’re going to play Paul big minutes — you need to be able to put him on the opposing point guard and pair him with someone who can handle larger two-guards. And while Bledsoe is an athletic marvel and defensive specimen, he’s also just 6-foot-1, making him a bit too small to handle larger two-guards who can score for Del Negro’s tastes. Luckily, the Grizzlies’ backcourt — point guard Mike Conley, defensive-minded shooting guard Tony Allen, hybrid backup Jerryd Bayless and late-season pickup Keyon Dooling — doesn’t include one of those big guards.

That opens the door to the prospect of pairing Paul with Bledsoe for stretches, which should upset Grizzlies fans almost as much as it excites Clippers fans and The Internet At Large, long the most vocal supporters of All Things Eric Bledsoe. After an awesome 82-minute cameo in last year’s playoffs that saw them outscore opponents by nearly 25 points per 100 possessions, Paul and Bledsoe got just 185 minutes together this season ... and those lineups outscored opponents by more than 11 points-per-100, roughly the margin by which the Oklahoma City Thunder have been beating opponents this year. The two-point-guard lineups turned the ball over as infrequently as the league-best New York Knicks while still generating quite a few turnovers, mixing Paul’s ability to orchestrate offensively with Bledsoe’s penchant for devastating defensively and increasing the pace of the game, essentially putting most of L.A.’s most attractive assets in one tidy package.

Given how well Bledsoe defended Conley during last year’s first round, how successful this tandem’s been at scoring every time it’s been used and how Paul’s likely-to-be-increased minutes will offer more opportunities to play with it, it would seem like a really good idea for Del Negro to trot this lineup out and see what comes of it. Especially since, as we look around the rest of the Western Conference landscape — with the Houston Rockets and Golden State Warriors rightly listed as underdogs in their respective series — we don’t see a whole lot of big two guards worth scheming around, meaning that finding out if the Paul-Bledsoe backcourt’s a game-changing move now could pay major dividends in the very near future.

Memphis Grizzlies: Quit turning the ball over, silly.

Throughout the regular season, the Grizzlies were one of the more possession-valuing teams in the league. They turned the ball over 15.2 percent of the time, putting them just outside the top-10 most careful clubs in the NBA, according to NBA.com’s stat tool. They were also one of the league’s best teams at preventing opponents from scoring off their infrequent miscues, giving up 14.9 points off turnovers per game, third-fewest in the NBA; on a related note, Memphis also ranked third in the league in preventing transition scores, giving up 1.03 points per possession, according to Synergy Sports Technology’s game-charting data.

And yet, when they faced the Clippers this year, L.A.’s ball-hawking defense got the better of them. Behind the active hands of starters like Paul and Blake Griffin, and the and pipe-bursting pressure applied by reserves Bledsoe and Matt Barnes, Del Negro’s team created turnovers on 16.8 percent of Memphis possessions (which would give Memphis the worst mark in the NBA over the course of the season) and scored 21 points per game off those turnovers (ditto) in their four meetings, outperforming that 1.03-points-per-transition-possession mark in three out of the four games. (Weirdly, they won the only one in which they didn’t, the last meeting of the season on April 13, and lost the March 13 high-water mark, in which they averaged 1.57 points per transition possession.)

When you’re a middling offensive team — and the Grizzlies are that, ranking 17th in the league in offensive efficiency since the Rudy Gay trade — giving up possessions is a sin in and of itself, and allowing easy buckets the other way only compounds it, especially since Memphis is so good at shutting opponents down in the half court. With primary scoring weapon Zach Randolph struggling down the stretch this season and so much being asked of Marc Gasol on the defensive end, Memphis has to value the rock against the Clippers, keeping the pace measured and minimizing the impact L.A.’s deep, athletic and frenetic bench can have on proceedings in order to be able to punish the Clips with their high-low game on offense and with their ability to snuff out L.A.’s at-times stagnant half-court actions. If they fail to do that, they’re going to have a hard time stealing home-court advantage from a Clips squad that went 32-9 at Staples this year.

PREDICTION: Clippers in 7.

Eric Freeman’s Reputations Index

An NBA athlete can make great strides in the offseason, improve over the course of the 82-game schedule, and see his fortunes change due to a freak injury. Yet, even in a league where granular analysis reveals untold nuances in a single player’s game, the postseason still determines his legacy. A star can become a legend or be seen as lacking some necessary quality to win; a role player can lock down a lucrative local endorsement contract or search for a new home; a youngster can ascend to a new level of fame or fall into irrelevance. The Reputations Index is your guide to what’s at stake in each postseason series.

Blake Griffin: Popularity is not always a mark of a player’s reputation. Based simply on national ad campaigns and All-Star voting, Griffin is among the most marketable, well-liked players in the NBA. Yet basketball diehards have questioned his true skill level for several years. The stats say Griffin is a star — and he is — but there’s a sense that he’s not yet the sort of player an offense can depend on for an entire quarter. The Clippers have Chris Paul and therefore don’t have to count on Griffin quite so much, but that doesn’t mean the opinion is inconsequential as it applies to the team’s viability as a contender.

Griffin is in the process of developing post moves, but he’s still best known as a dunker. If he’s able to present the new aspects of his game on a big stage, and especially against one of the NBA’s best defenses, the conversation surrounding his abilities and limits could change.

DeAndre Jordan: If nothing else, Jordan will be remembered for years for his monstrous dunk on Detroit Pistons guard Brandon Knight earlier this season. The problem for Jordan is that his highlights tend to overshadow his more substantive contributions (or lack thereof). Jordan is a frustrating player: his horrendous free-throw shooting makes him a liability late in games, he blocks shots but sometimes struggles defensively, he finishes alley-oops extremely well but isn’t much of an offensive player, etc. In other words, it’s hard to know exactly what he gives the Clippers — he’s defined mostly in terms of explosive dunks and the potential to become one of the NBA’s best interior defenders.

Jordan has a contract that will pay him eight figures each for two more full seasons, and he’s getting closer to the point where that deal will be seen as either a hopeful mistake or a case of a team accurately predicting a player’s value before he manifested all his talent. Jordan didn’t contribute much in last year’s postseason, and a second straight listless performance could cause more people to ask if the optimism about his career has been misplaced.

Rudy Gay: For a few weeks after his trade to the Toronto Raptors, Gay was considered a very valuable player whose absence would remove the Grizzlies from contention in the West. This line of thinking was flawed for many reasons, chiefly that the Grizzlies had cooled considerably after a hot start and were not getting the offensive production that Gay was theoretically there to provide. That opinion dropped from the popular discourse when the Grizzlies thrived without him, and very few people are arguing that the team will desperately miss him in the postseason.

It might make more sense to conceive of the argument as dormant, not gone entirely. If the case was always that the Grizzlies would miss Gay because they need his scoring to stay relevant in the postseason, then it’s reasonable to expect these opinions to return if they lose to the Clippers due to late-game offensive struggles. That result could bring Gay more positive attention (and also help some Raptors employees keep their jobs). If the Grizzlies are fine without him and handle the Clippers with their elite defense, the immediate negative response to the trade will likely be forgotten in short order.

PREDICTION: Grizzlies in 6.

***

More first-round previews from Ball Don’t Lie:

Eastern Conference

• 1. Miami Heat vs. 8. Milwaukee Bucks

• 2. New York Knicks vs. 7. Boston Celtics

• 3. Indiana Pacers vs. 6. Atlanta Hawks

• 4. Brooklyn Nets vs. 5. Chicago Bulls

Western Conference

• 1. Oklahoma City Thunder vs. 8. Houston Rockets

• 2. San Antonio Spurs vs. 7. Los Angeles Lakers

• 3. Denver Nuggets vs. 6. Golden State Warriors

• 4. Los Angeles Clippers vs. 5. Memphis Grizzlies

NBA video from Yahoo! Sports:

Even when the offense goes stagnant or the defense doesn’t talk, watching a Los Angeles Clippers game can be an abject joy in ways that go far beyond the continued existence of Lob City. Between Chris Paul’s brilliance, Jamal Crawford’s well-honed mix of veteran headiness and rookie-level shot selection, Matt Barnes’ incessant cutting and complaining, and the odd Lamar Odom contribution, the team is a fascinating watch even if Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan aren’t doing amazing things 11 feet off the floor.

You still get the nagging feeling, as the squad readies itself for its first two-year playoff run in two decades, that things won’t really start to matter until 2013-14. That the team’s potential won’t be reached until after the franchise figures out what to do with coach Vinny Del Negro, Jordan’s trade value, the aging role players, and Paul’s free agency. Paul is unlikely to leave Los Angeles, but he could encourage a massive overhaul that could sadly put this year’s model in an NBA purgatory of sorts.

The team feels well on its way to another first-round matchup with the Memphis Grizzlies, a team Los Angeles dispatched in an entertaining but somewhat frustrating first round pairing last year.

The Clippers seemed unable to showcase the sort of conference final-level potential some had pegged them for, and the Grizzlies were working with an injured Zach Randolph (who shot 42 percent in the series), and a possibly too-aggressive Rudy Gay (who also shot 42 percent in the series and led the team in shots per game), while watching as Eric Bledsoe defensively dominated Mike Conley (who shot, you guessed it, 42 percent in the series).

[Also: Top recruits say they would beat Michael Jordan one-on-one in his prime]

In the meantime, before the team figures it all out this July, we can’t help but look at Blake Griffin moving forward.

To the eye test, so many different little things have improved in Griffin’s game. He won’t boast the squared-off and perfect footwork of Kevin McHale any time soon, but he’s become far more efficient in the low post this season in anticipating angles and in choosing which of his pretty good moves to go to over either shoulder on either block. That’s good news, for when those “pretty good” moves turn pretty great. The production test isn’t pretty — by a lot of orthodox metrics, he’s stagnated statistically since his rookie year, but as someone who is often an afterthought in a Paul- or Crawford-led offense, this probably doesn’t concern the 24-year-old too much, just as long as the wins pile up.

Last week Griffin sloughed off any talk of a rift between he and Paul, as written up by the Los Angeles Times’ T.J. Simers, in his usual deadpan style — dryly provoking a fake fight between himself, CP3, and Jordan in the Clipper locker room in full view of reporters before a game.

In talking with Simers following the feigned brouhaha, Griffin did submit that the stresses of an 82-game season, understandably, can wear on any relationship. From Simers’ very good feature:

I had written that Griffin and teammate DeAndre Jordan had grown weary of Chris Paul's voice, while knowing Paul never shuts up on the court.

Griffin dismissed such a suggestion but said he did send a text to Paul with the suggestion they meet before Sunday's game with the Lakers.

"We had kind of a heart-to-heart before the game," he said. "It wasn't anything like we were beefing. It's just that sometimes the frustration of losing can make guys focus almost too much on themselves. I'm not saying he was doing that. I was the one doing it.

[Also: NBA-bound Michael Carter-Williams: I can go No. 1 overall]

"We need to be on the same page, which brings everyone else along and makes us better as a team."

And so rather than tell Paul to shut up, Griffin said, he asked Paul to talk to him more.

"I told him, I need you to come to me and tell me what you are thinking every single play. I might already know what he's going to say and I'll try to tell him before he says it, but I need him. And that's what we did against the Lakers. We were talking all the time and it really worked well."

The Clippers looked fantastic against the Lakers on Sunday, and Griffin even went on to point out to Simers that he “absolutely 100 percent [agrees] with you [that] I need to mature and get better with officials” in their back and forth. Warming words, for a man who still has yet to play 225 NBA games, and one who showed a proper sense of perspective last week in asking that the Clipper franchise not go overboard in celebrating the team’s Pacific Division title.

Grant Hill and Chauncey Billups should be healthy for the playoffs. The extended days off between games will allow Paul’s rope-a-dope style of dominance plenty of room to breathe. The team has second-round experience, this time out, and could even catch an injured San Antonio Spurs team (or, in an even freakier coincidence, those messed-up Lakers) in the second round sometime in May.

On top of that, the team is making franchise history, what with all these wins and the division title. Yes, Larry Brown took the Clips to the playoffs twice in the early 1990s, but those teams ran with mediocre records out of the dark and dinged-up L.A. Sports Arena. This team, even in its purgatory, should be winning fans over … right?

Sort of, writes ClipperBlog’s D.J. Foster, in a must-read piece:

History and perspective have their place in this, but comparing the Clippers to what they used to be instead of what they could be now feels wrong, and history probably shouldn’t be used to validate the current process as a sustainable one.

Winning isn’t often viewed as detrimental, but it certainly can be if it’s an impediment to change. We don’t often associate “best season ever” with “failure to maximize potential” in sports, and part of me does acknowledge that delving into the intangible (potential) over the tangible (wins) might make me appear silly.

But that’s the thing about the Clippers. They are complex and confounding instead of simple and easy. It’s kind of confusing to view Vinny Del Negro as the head coach of the best team in history and simultaneously accept that he could be one of the franchise’s biggest mistakes. We can condemn Donald Sterling for not spending more on staffing, scouting, analytics and coaching, but we can also applaud him for amnestying Ryan Gomes and spending more money on the talent on the floor. Things aren’t cut and dry anymore.

Which has to be frustrating. For fans of a team, it either has to be *the* year, or a lost year. The Chicago Bulls took 2012-13 off. The Miami Heat went all-in to take 2012-13 on. The Oklahoma City Thunder were thought to have taken a pass on 2012-13, until the rest of the league discovered they’d replaced one of the most efficient scorers in basketball in James Harden with one of the most efficient scorers in basketball in Kevin Martin.

[Also: Kobe scores season-high 47 points to lead Lakers over Blazers]

The Clippers worked around the edges last year, lost a general manager, and retained a coach that most ardent NBA followers are uneasy with. Or, unabashedly critical of.

In the meantime, it’s still Lob City. In the meantime, it could be a first-round ouster. In the meantime, this is a team led by a guard that could be his conference’s most devastating fourth-quarter player. In the meantime, we still can’t put a finger on these Los Angeles Clippers.

That’s probably for the best. We can’t let the Clippers get too normal.

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When the Memphis Grizzlies traded Rudy Gay back in late January, the deal's critics were quick to point out that the team had given up its primary late-game scoring option with no clear alternatives. By the conventional wisdom, the Grizzlies had therefore hurt their ability to compete in the postseason, where games are more closely contested and individual talent can make a bigger difference. Even if the Grizzlies were to perform well without Gay, they'd have to answer this question at some point.

[Also: NBA Power Rankings: Heat in control]

On Monday night against the West-leading San Antonio Spurs, Grizzlies point guard Mike Conley made an argument that the team might have enough solid late-game options to render the debate moot. With approximately 30 seconds on the clock and the Grizzlies down 90-87, backcourt mate Jerryd Bayless found Conley wide open on the perimeter for a shot he canned with ease. Then, after a miss by Tony Parker on the ensuing possession, Conley did all the work himself on the game-winner.

With the considerably bigger Danny Green playing quality defense, Conley used a crossover to create a bit of separation, sought out contact, and created enough of an angle to finish a tough layup inside. With only 0.6 seconds left, the Spurs couldn't get a shot off in response, and the Grizzlies came away with the 92-90 win at home.

Conley didn't dominate these possessions like a superstar, but that isn't always a sign of weakness. The 3-pointer was created largely by Bayless and excellent spacing, not a superhuman effort. Conley might not be quite so open in the future, but that's a reproducible play. And while Conley had to fight very hard to get that final layup, his perseverance against very good defense suggests he can do the same in a playoff atmosphere. It's not a dependable play, but it's not an impossible one.

Simply put, the Grizzlies have a variety of options at the end: Conley or Bayless can work off the dribble, Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol can create from inside, and a secondary player like Tayshaun Prince can play the unlikely hero. On Monday, Conley was the main option — his 23 points on 11 of 16 shooting paced the club. It could be someone else in the next game. There's no main option, but that lack of predictability can work to their benefit.

[Also: Miami Heat won't be fined for sitting stars]

In more specific news, this win brings the Grizzlies into a virtual tie with the Denver Nuggets for the third seed in the West at 50-24 (although the Nuggets hold the tiebreaker). The Los Angeles Clippers' home loss to the Indiana Pacers also gives the Grizzlies a 1 1/2-game lead for home-court advantage in a prospective first-round series (although the Clippers would technically have the higher seed by winning the Pacific Division — this rule is as silly as it sounds). The Grizzlies are from a sure thing, but in a crowded conference playoff picture, they're looking much better than the naysayers predicted two months ago.

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Game-winners follow some standard templates: the one-on-one jumper, the pick-and-roll, the drive to the rim that ends in either a lay-in or a kickout to a shooter for an open jumper. There are varying degrees of difficulty and excitement within and across those categories, of course, but the plays usually fall within that range.

Wednesday night, then, represented something of an outlier, because it featured two game-winners achieved by other means: the tip-in.

The first occurred in one of the night's marquee games: a tense, tight matchup between the Oklahoma City Thunder and Memphis Grizzlies, two of the top three contenders in the West. With 13.6 seconds left in overtime and OKC up 89-88, Memphis isolated Zach Randolph in the post. He faced up, tried to drive, and put up a tough runner over Nick Collison and the slow-to-rotate Kendrick Perkins. That left Kevin Durant to box out Grizzlies center Marc Gasol, who muscled into position and tipped the ball in with 0.8 seconds on the clock.

The Thunder still had a 20-second timeout they could have used to both advance the ball and try to draw up their own game-winning response, but as Daily Thunder's Royce Young wrote, "Perk inexplicably inbounded the ball [and] Westbrook launched a 70-foot shot that was wide right." OKC's prayer went unanswered, and the Grizzlies won 90-88.

Watch that play above. After the jump, check out how rookie forward Anthony Davis downed the Boston Celtics in New Orleans.

Let's face it: the circumstances of this winner were much less dramatic. With seconds left and the New Orleans Hornets down 86-85, shooting guard Eric Gordon attacked the basket with little control and attempted a short runner over the always tenacious defense of Avery Bradley. On the rebound, Davis managed to sky over the decidedly more earthbound Kevin Garnett and Jeff Green to give the Hornets an 87-86 win.

It was an athletic play, one that provides a glimpse at the rookie's immense ability and potential. On the other hand, the Hornets are well out of the playoff picture, and a loss for the Celtics could only end up as the difference between the sixth and seventh seed in an increasingly jumbled Eastern Conference playoff picture.

Gasol's play, though, was a pretty big deal. The Thunder are now three games behind the West-leading San Antonio Spurs in the loss column, which seemed an unlikely scenario when Spurs point guard Tony Parker went down with an ankle injury several weeks ago. Meanwhile, the Grizzlies are now a game ahead of both the Los Angeles Clippers and Denver Nuggets in the loss column (though equal in terms of games back) for the third spot in the West. Beyond seeding, they've proven that they pose a significant challenge to both the Thunder and Spurs, the two teams almost everyone has pegged as the conference's top two contenders. It's possible we need to add a third squad to that list.

Yet these plays matter beyond their particular contexts, because they suggest potential changes to offensive strategy in final-shot situations. As teams have learned more about what constitutes a good shot in crunch time, it's become clearer that it's really, really hard to get regular, consistent good looks on the last possession of the game. Taking a shot slightly earlier can give a teammate a chance for a tip-in, just like these ones by Gasol and Davis.

While there's a risk in shooting too early and letting the opponent get an extra possession, there is a way to take an earlier shot in an intelligent way. Why settle for one bad shot — like, say, the attempts from Randolph and Gordon — when the tip-in presents such an intriguing possibility?

[Also: LeBron James takes aim at NBA's longest win streak after rallying Heat by Celtics]

The Memphis center has been taking advantage of an increased number of opportunities to showcase his offensive wares ... like this lovely blind alley-oop feed from the left elbow for a cutting Tony Allen during the second quarter of the Grizzlies' Monday night win over the Minnesota Timberwolves:

Just beautiful, and an illustration of something we've been seeing more and more since Gay was shipped to the Toronto Raptors — the Grizzlies love running offense through Gasol at the elbows, and for good reason.

As Grantland's Zach Lowe wrote last month, Gasol ranks at the top of the league in "elbow touches," according to optical tracking data compiled by STATS through their SportVU system, which I've written about before. (That's the high-tech system where six special high-definition video cameras are installed above an arena's basketball court at different angles to track, capture, record and store information on the location and movement of all 10 players, all three referees and the ball 25 times per second, every second, for an entire NBA game. Right now, 15 of 30 NBA teams have the cameras installed; more are sure to follow.)

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According to SportVU, Gasol is not only one of the league's most frequent targets at the elbow, but also one of its most productive players with the ball there, owing in large part to the "full bag of tricks" he displays while operating from that spot. He can be an eclipsing screener, using his 265-pound frame to open up daylight off dribble hand-offs for drives by Memphis guards Allen, Mike Conley, Jerryd Bayless and Tony Wroten. He's a fantastic high-low player who, at 7-foot-1, can stand tall, see over the defense and dump it down into the low post, working a devastatingly effective high-low game with partner Zach Randolph or picking out cutters working smartly in space off the ball and along the baseline, as Allen did on the alley-oop. And if the defense sags off a bit to clog up his interior passing lanes, he can stick the foul-line-extended midrange jumper at an above-league-average clip, especially as he moves from left to right on the floor. Many more good things can happen for Memphis running offense through Gasol at the elbows than just allowing a 40-percent shooting wing to isolate and attack the basket one-on-one ... and, y'know, it has.

Before the Gay trade, the Grizzlies ranked 22st among 30 NBA teams in offensive efficiency, a stat that measures how many points your offense scores per 100 possessions; Memphis was averaging 100.1 points-per-100, according to NBA.com's stat tool. In 21 games since adding Tayshaun Prince, Ed Davis and Austin Daye to the lineup following the trade, they've moved up to 13th in the league at 104-per-100; over the course of the full season, that would rank just above the Brooklyn Nets as the NBA's 10th-best offense. That's a pretty significant improvement — over the course of the full season, four points-per-100 is the difference between the Nets' No. 10 offense and the Chicago Bulls' 25th-ranked unit.

That's not all due to Gasol, of course; Gay's absence has meant a greater distribution of touches, opportunities and responsibility for other Grizzlies, too. While Gasol's "usage rate" — the share of Memphis possessions that end with him attempting a field goal, getting free throws or turning the ball over — is up (as is his field-goal percentage and as are his per-game scoring, rebounding and assist numbers; he's averaging just under five dimes a game after the trade, which is nuts for a center), the same is true for Conley, who is also "using" more Grizzlies trips, assisting on teammates' buckets more often, turning it over less frequently, and shooting a higher percentage from the floor and the foul line. The upticks for Randolph aren't quite as stark — his scoring's up a half-point and his rebounding's down a half-board per game, and his field-goal and free-throw percentages have dipped a bit — but he, too, is using more possessions, dishing more assists and turning the ball over less often.

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All of these ploys — Gasol at the elbow, Conley in the high screen-and-roll or on off-ball cuts, even a slightly-less-potent-than-before Z-Bo on the block — are far more effective offensive options than Gay's volume-shooting, not-especially-accurate brand of inefficiency. Plus, it's not like the Grizz have been missing Gay defensively — they were tied with the Chicago Bulls for second in the league in defensive efficiency (how many points your defense gives up per 100 possessions) before the deal, allowing 97.5 points-per-100, and they've been second (and actually a tick better) since the deal, too, holding opponents to 97-per-100. (Gasol's a pretty big reason for that, too, literally and figuratively.)

Add it all up and it's hard not to like where the Grizzlies find themselves today compared with where they found themselves a month and a half ago, not only on the balance sheet, where they're no longer responsible for the two years and $37 million owed Gay after this season, but on the court, too. Whether they're good enough to be a legitimate Western Conference contender remains an open question — weekend losses to fellow seemingly-sub-Spurs-and-Thunder-tier-mates the Los Angeles Clippers and the freefalling Utah Jazz give some pause — but if Randolph, Allen and the numbers think the Grizzlies are better suited to compete with top-flight comp now than they were before, I won't argue — just like I'm not arguing with Hollins' decision to run more possessions through Marc at the elbow.

Video via SB Nation's Mike Prada.

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Ronald Tillery of the Memphis Commercial Appeal first reported that the Memphis Grizzlies were "in serious talks" to acquire Pittman — a 24-year-old center taken out of Texas by the Miami Heat in the second round of the 2010 NBA draft — and a second-round draft pick from the Heat before Thursday's 3 p.m. trade deadline. Shortly thereafter, Yahoo! Sports NBA columnist Marc J. Spears tweeted that the two sides had agreed to a deal in which the Grizzlies would pick up Pittman by absorbing the balance of his minimum-salary contract — about $323,000 remaining this year, give or take — using a trade exception created by a previous deal.

This seems, primarily, to be a housekeeping arrangement. The East-leading Heat had a full 15-man roster with Pittman on board and wanted to create a slot to possibly pursue a veteran big man who could contribute to their bid for a championship repeat in a more meaningful way than the little-used third-year center. The Grizzlies, meanwhile, had just 12 players on their roster after their recent deals, had to add a 13th pursuant to NBA rules, and had to flexibility to facilitate Miami's desire for a roster spot. The 2013 second-rounder is the cost of Pittman's freight. (And, considering Pittman's generously listed at 275 pounds, that's some freight.) Miami will also get a traded player exception for sending out Pittman's salary without taking any salary back in return; Pittman's on the books for $854,389 this year. Teams have one year from the time they receive/create their trade exceptions to use them in deal, according to Larry Coon's NBA Collective Bargaining Agreement FAQ.

Memphis received trade exceptions of $2.08 million and $4.2 million in the Grizzlies' Jan. 22 trade that sent shooting guard Wayne Ellington and big man Marreese Speights to the Cleveland Cavaliers in exchange for little-used forward Jon Leuer. According to Tillery, though, the exception in play here came from the Grizzlies' 2012 trade deadline deal that sent swingman Sam Young to the Philadephia 76ers in exchange for a piece of another trade exception (created by a prior Sixers-Grizz deal that sent Speights to Memphis) and the rights to Ricky Sanchez, a 25-year-old Puerto Rican big man drafted in the second round in 2005 who's now playing in Argentina and, according to ESPN.com's Brian Windhorst, is considered unlikely ever to actually come over to the NBA.

The Grizzlies will have the opportunity to retain Pittman next year by extending him a $1.1 million qualifying offer this offseason, if they choose. Maybe they see something in the young big man, who's made just 41 NBA appearances over three NBA seasons (including only four this year), has performed decently this season for the Sioux Falls Skyforce of the D-League, and is probably best known to NBA fans as The Guy Who Elbowed Lance Stephenson in the Throat during the 2012 NBA playoffs. In all likelihood, though, Pittman will remain a sparingly used end-of-the-roster frontcourt player behind the likes of Marc Gasol, Zach Randolph, Ed Davis, Darrell Arthur and the aforementioned Leuer.

HOUSTON — After spending much of Friday's All-Star media session talking with this year's slew of first-time All-Stars about what it feels like to learn you're an All-Star, I figured it'd be neat to ask a few players who've gone through the All-Star Weekend experience before but for whom it's all still relatively fresh — players who've made one or two All-Star teams before, rather than perennial selections — what they remembered about their first trip to the midseason showcase. (Then, I saw an opportunity to ask one of those all-timers, so I did.)

If you'll permit a bit of notebook emptying, a quintet of responses, in brief:

Golden State Warriors power forward David Lee (two-time All-Star, made his first appearance in 2010 while with the New York Knicks): "This is completely different, because the first time I found out as a replacement a couple of days before. Everything was like a blur — I got the call, I was excited [but] at the same time nervous, because it was my first [All-Star] game and it was really just such a spectacle to me. I felt like I was kind of on the outside looking in. Now I really feel like it's been a season building toward this, I feel like I really deserve it, and I'm able to kind of relax and really take everything in this time around."

[Related: First-time All-Stars explain the thrill]

Memphis Grizzlies power forward Zach Randolph (two-time All-Star, made his first appearance in 2010): "You know, I felt I was supposed to be an All-Star a couple of times [before that] ... so, you know. But it was just a blessing. I just take it for what it's worth. Like I said, I'm humbled about it, I appreciate it and I'm thankful for it. And to be in a room with all these other All-Stars and elite players in the league … it's just great."

Oklahoma City Thunder point guard Russell Westbrook (three-time All-Star, made his first appearance in 2011): "It was great, man. I was just taking it all in, just enjoying the moment. You can't take it for granted — you never know when you may make it or you may not again, so you kind of just have to take it all in as is. [...] I mean, now it's different because I kind of know what to expect now — what to expect and what I gotta do and all this stuff. I kind of know what to do already, so it's kind of the same old rundown."

[Also: Ranking the best of NBA's dunk contest]

Portland Trail Blazers power forward LaMarcus Aldridge (two-time All-Star, made his first appearance in 2011): "I was in New Orleans with my team. We were on the road and we had practice, and coach [Nate McMillan] called us all into the locker room, and we all watched [the announcement] live. You know, I think that moment ... it was just big. I felt like all my hard work had paid off. I just got more confidence from it."

San Antonio Spurs center Tim Duncan (14-time All-Star, made his first appearance in 1998): "I remember not playing a whole lot. I remember not playing a whole lot and being angry about it."

Well, given that, I asked Duncan if he expected this year's game — helmed by Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich, who's famously shown a willingness to sit his stars in the past and might want to give Duncan an easy Sunday night — to unfold like his first one did, letting him come full circle.

"Yeah," he said. And then Tim Duncan laughed — a brief laugh, but a perceptible one, which was a pretty neat surprise.

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As someone that has been visiting NBA message boards since the late 1990s, I can tell you that the yearly “I bet [insert owner/general manager] visits here and steals our ideas”-threads are routine. Because NBA fans like us tend to bring up the same obvious signings, deals, or hirings as those who run front offices, you’re bound to get one “TDotRapz92” that thinks the team swiped his or her idea.

There’s no evidence that new Memphis Grizzlies owner Robert Pera swiped any ideas from Grizzlies fans by visiting a popular team message board. For one, personnel decisions aren’t his call. And secondly, the two Grizzlies moves the team has made since Pera’s new front office of Jason Levien and John Hollinger took over dealt with some pretty obscure players and less than obvious machinations.

Still, Pera does follow and did recently chime into his team’s official message board. And when he plopped down for a visit last week, no Grizzlies fan believed him. From a Grizzlies.com thread entitled “Do You Guys Think The Front Office Get Ideas From Us,” started on Feb. 4:

More (rightfully) dismissive replies followed before ‘BeBoutBidness’ and ‘LilFrontOffice’ pointed out that Pera was awarded “All-Star” status (usually given to a poster with a massive amount of posts) after just one message on the board – a sign that this might not be some joker that was quick to grab the “Robert Pera” handle.

And then, in his first meeting with local media in three months on Tuesday, Pera admitted to following the team’s message board. If not grabbing ideas from it as the thread he replied to posited. Rightfully, the thread was bumped up almost immediately.

The Grizzlies, you’ll remember, were the team that admitted to signing guard Gilbert Arenas last season after then-personnel boss Chris Wallace saw the idea on a fan’s blog. And we write “admitted to” because, even on a minimum salary, Arenas was a terrible acquisition that took possessions away from players that could do more productive things with them. This is why the team’s current front office, obsessed with efficiency while having to work under the constrains of the financial terms Pera’s predecessor in Michael Heisley signed players to, is trying to work around the fringes instead of going for the biggest name possible.

“Going for the biggest name possible” is a trademark of all message boards. At least once per summer you’ll find a poster sending out an exploratory Allen Iverson or Kenyon Martin thread, or wondering if they’ll have enough in place to lure LeBron James in 2014, and that’s fine – because this is what some message boards and blogs are for. By and large, though, the advice of former Bulls personnel chief Johnny “Red” Kerr should be heeded above all: “If you listen to the fans, you end up sitting next to them."

Of course, Kerr was literally talking about what side of the coin to choose in a coin flip before the 1979 draft. The current Grizzlies front office is attempting to ignore fans while taking on tougher, more elaborate decisions. Which is probably why a search of “Jon Leuer” before Feb. of 2013 on this particular board produced no results. Pera and co. aren’t stealing, they’re just listening. Observing, but not reacting – as we’re sure most team front offices do in the wake of winning streaks, losing swoons, trade rumors, and big moves.

The rumored next big move for Memphis was thought to be a potential deal including Grizzlies All-Star Zach Randolph, but Levien shot that down on Tuesday. From the Memphis Commercial Appeal:

“There was never a serious discussion or dialogue around trading Zach Randolph. I can say that categorically. We’re really proud of him for going back to the All-Star Game.”

It was probably always possible that the new front office could deal Randolph, but it would have had to take a monster offer to blow Memphis away.

With that said, and with our respect for Randolph as a player and person coming in the highest regard, it should be noted that we’re sure few teams were really banging on Memphis’ door to deal for a player that will turn 32 in the offseason, and make $34.3 million over the next two seasons. Even if he is an All-Star, and boasts that rarest of NBA possessions – a fluid and at times dominant low post game.

It’s best for the Grizzlies to keep him. And, considering the price, probably best for other teams to back off.

Unless someone on a message board has a suggestion.

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As a good chunk of the East coast digs itself from out of a snowstorm and most of the country braces for at least another month of cold conditions, monthly bills remain a frightening concern for thousands of American families. Especially if you’re a single mother, attempting to go to school, work, juggle responsibilities with children, and make the pretty significant jump from a homeless shelter to place of your own.

Charlotte Bobcats center Brendan Haywood, in one of the finer plays of the NBA’s year, has decided to help over a dozen local mothers working through the same concerns. On Sunday, as the mothers met at the Salvation Army to update each other and Salvation Army workers on their latest move, the parents watched in puzzlement as the Bobcats’ mascot Rufus and several banks of media cameras showed up out of nowhere. From the Charlotte Observer:

Rochelle Monroe watched as her children played with Rufus as she wondered what the gathering was really about.

“They said they were going to give us help,” she said. “I don’t know what they mean.”

Just after 3:30 p.m., Haywood appeared to tell the women that he understood their struggle.

“I know it’s hard going day to day making ends meet,” Haywood said to the women. “One of the hardest things when my mom was trying to stretch that dollar was paying bills.”

Haywood then revealed that he would be paying their electric bills for a year, urging the women to “take this gift and have a great year.”

The room erupted into cheers with some high-fiving each other and others hugging their children.

Haywood grew up nearby in Greensboro, in a single parent home. He worked his tenacity as a player into a North Carolina scholarship and NBA career, ending up back in North Carolina last summer after being waived by the Dallas Mavericks – his second pairing with former teammate and current Bobcat owner Michael Jordan. Jordan, who grew up in the state after being born in Brooklyn, has done significant charity work in the area despite tightening the belt recently with his small market team.

Not that it matters, but Haywood is making around $9 million this year in combined salaries from the Mavericks and Bobcats. This is still a significant donation, though.

Memphis Grizzlies All-Star Zach Randolph recently made his own donation, to the tune of $20,000, to families that saw their services shut off in the dead of winter. From FOX Memphis:

"Come from single parent home, mom was on welfare, struggled myself so I know what it's like," Randolph said. "Been fortunate, blessed. Just like to give back because I think this something the Lord has served me to do, give back, brings me blessings in other ways. I'm here to tell you you're a blessing to me."

Randolph donated $20,000 to Metropolitan Inter-Faith Aswsociation (MIFA) to be allocated to 100 homes in the Memphis area, as part of their MLGW Plus-1 program, which is a program administered by MIFA to pay utility services for those in need.

This isn’t the first time Randolph has done this. He’s performed the same action for four consecutive years, paying the bills for a series of families that saw their heat turned off every January. And in his first months in Memphis he did the same thing during a sweltering Tennessee summer, when just as many families couldn’t afford air conditioning. The NBA, upon handing Randolph the Kia Community Assist Award, also detailed some of his other community work:

Randolph was very active in the community during the holidays this season. He provided 900 boxes of food to families of students at two Memphis area high schools, Carver High and Booker T. Washington High. Randolph purchased the boxes and personally distributed them to the students. Each family received a turkey or ham, stuffing, macaroni and cheese, cranberry sauce, green beans, and corn bread mix.

Randolph also distributed more than 100 coats to kids for the winter season at Cummings Elementary School, in partnership with the Memphis Police Department and Grizzlies sponsor City Gear, and teamed up with teammate Tony Allen to sponsor a holiday shopping spree for 200 kids from the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Memphis. He also sponsored 100 kids from the Salvation Army Angel Tree Program in his hometown of Marion, Indiana, providing each child with a $100 gift card.

Fine work, big men.

Sometimes these stories just write themselves. The Memphis Grizzlies are coached by a notoriously anti-advanced stats Rudy Gay fan in Lionel Hollins. The team’s front office is composed of two men in Jason Levien and John Hollinger that tend to shockingly pay as much attention to actual numerical production as to what they see on the court as they copiously watch game after game. Their interests coincided with an upcoming luxury tax burden that would afflict the Grizzlies should they retain all of the team’s most prominent players -- Zach Randolph, Marc Gasol, Mike Conley, and Rudy Gay -- beyond this year.

The new front office decided to part with Gay, citing his inefficient scoring and impact (shot selection, and number of shots) in turning the Grizzlies into the worst fourth quarter team in the NBA. Rudy Gay was much-loved by both teammates and coaching staff that don’t have to figure out how to build a winner while working around a luxury tax in one of the NBA’s smallest markets, and the team has done nothing but pout while losing two of three since the deal.

Following Tuesday’s embarrassing loss to the Phoenix Suns, coach Hollins decided to rant about his team’s supposed lack of center depth in the wake of deals sending Marreese Speights to Cleveland and Hamed Haddadi (since waived by the Raptors) to Toronto. As he vents, he makes little sense. From the great Memphis Commercial Appeal columnist Geoff Calkins:

Explaining the loss, Hollins twice pointed out that when Gasol got in foul trouble, he couldn't put in another big to match up with Luis Scola and Marcin Gortat.

"One of the issues that I have is that neither Darrell or Ed (Davis) are fives. We don't have another big guy. We weren't able to play big and have two bigger people across the board because we don't have a bigger guy to put in the game."

Complete and utter twaddle.

Hollins would understand this if he weren’t too busy complaining about the well-compensated team he was given to coach for years that had to be broken up due to flexibility concerns, or if he’d bother to do even rudimentary research on two of his most recent additions.

Ed Davis played nearly a third of Toronto’s minutes at center this season, and has done fantastic work at the position. He’s 6-11 and spindly and the son of a longtime NBA center and in a lot of ways more suited to guard someone like Luis Scola or the burly-yet-perimeter-based Marcin Gortat than Gasol is – and Gasol is an all-word defender. And guys that skim the NBA while obsessing over getting to coach a supposed star in Rudy Gay don’t know that Jon Leuer is strong and fluid enough to play extended minutes at power forward against someone like Luis Scola. Any simple lookup to see what Jon Leuer did in Milwaukee last season – two weeks after Memphis dealt for him – would relay that news.

Or that promise. Or that hope; which Hollins seems like going out of his way to diminish because complaining, as has been the case since his time as a player, seems to come more naturally to him. This is a time to cheer up, as you lose a beloved co-worker. This is a time to act as the force that brings a broken-up locker room together. Because that’s what coaches do. They’re supposed to let out sighs far away from where the players can hear them.

This is supposed to be the opportunity -- for the team that had the second-worst offense in the NBA with Gay and Speights from the first week of December up until now and the worst fourth quarter offense in the league throughout the season -- to try and do what was right, and get it together.

By working through Randolph and Gasol. By utilizing Tayshaun Prince not as a pick and roll guy, but sending him to the corner for three-pointers. By not putting a pall on the locker room by kvetching over deals that were made to eliminate the problems created by, again, one of the league’s worst offenses WITH Rudy Gay and the league’s poorest fourth quarter offense WITH Rudy Gay. And Speights. And Haddadi, who Hollins saw fit to play all of 87 minutes all year … but is suddenly needed so, so badly against the fearsome Phoenix Suns frontline that had lost 24 of 33 games entering Tuesday night’s game.

Of course, this is the coach that presided over a team that gave Zach Randolph just one shot in the fourth quarter, because (as Zach pointed out) “that’s what coach wants.”

Lionel Hollins is playing the martyr role, which is a shame because he could be the sort of leader that puts this team over the top. Everybody knows you’re not happy with the recent trades, Lionel. But if you give the moves your best shot and actually listen to what these front office nerds are saying, and it fails? Then you’re afforded the chance to prove everyone wrong, and not look like an old school stereotype.

Lionel Hollins will have to try, first. And in only playing Ed Davis nine minutes in a loss and giving Zach Randolph just one shot in a game-changing fourth quarter, it’s hard to tell exactly what Hollins’ motivations are at this point.

The Oklahoma City Thunder put a 17-point beatdown on the Memphis Grizzlies on Thursday night, riding a white-hot start (32 points on 12 for 15 from the floor in the first quarter, including 11 on 5 for 6 by Russell Westbrook) and dismal Memphis shooting (13 for 51, 25.5 percent, in the first half) to a 24-point lead at intermission that, save for a pair of post-Westbrook-freakout third-quarter runs, was never seriously threatened. There are plenty of reasons why OKC blew Memphis' doors off — chief among them being that this is what OKC does when Westbrook hits jumpers, because Kevin Durant's reached "doesn't really have off nights anymore" status — but some talking heads pointed to the absence of Rudy Gay, the Grizzlies' leading scorer, who was traded Wednesday night to the Toronto Raptors in a three-team deal. (Not having the three players Memphis received in return — Tayshaun Prince, Ed Davis and Austin Daye — available to play didn't help matters, either.)

There's been plenty of debate as to Gay's relative value and just how big an impact his departure will have on the Grizzlies' chances in the Western Conference playoffs, but one thing that's not up for debate is that Gay's max-level contract — which will pay him $37.2 million over the next two seasons — was the driving factor in moving him. A luxury-tax averse team in a relatively small market like Memphis needs to maintain both fiscal discipline and financial flexibility in its roster construction, which is hard to do when you're paying Gay, Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol eight-figure salaries, so they made a deal.

Everybody gets that, including Grizzlies coach Lionel Hollins ... and, in a pregame interview with TNT's Craig Sager, he sure didn't seem to like it, as the Oklahoman's John Rohde noted:

Memphis coach Lionel Hollins explaining why the Grizzlies traded away five players, including leading scorer Rudy Gay: “When you have champagne taste, you can't be on a beer budget. It's a small market and I understand the economics of being in a small market."

As many (including me) joked when TNT aired Hollins' comments, this makes it seem like the coach is unaware of the existence of Miller High Life, The Champagne of Beers, which seems like a shame. Beyond that, though, this also makes it seem pretty clear that the coach is very unhappy with losing Gay, a player whom he called "a big part of my success as a coach here and I feel I was a big part of his success." That certainly tracks with the tack he took three weeks ago, as relayed by Mike Monroe of the San Antonio Express-News:

Here’s what he told reporters before sending his team out for its dramatic 101-98 home victory over the Spurs:

“I like my team. We’re 23-10. Why would I want to break up a 23-10 team?”

Then came the none-too-subtle threat.

“If they break up the team and get rid of everybody, I’ll coach them until the season’s over,” he said. “Then I’ll make a decision about what I’m going to do.”

As others, like SB Nation's Mike Prada, have noted, that 23-10 mark was built largely by the Grizzlies' hot 12-2 start, after which they went a not-exactly-scorching 17-13 before the Gay trade. Plus, there's a pretty strong argument to be made that Memphis' top-four-in-the-West record has much more to do with a defense tied with the Chicago Bulls for second-stingiest in the league behind the Indiana Pacers (a defense anchored by Gasol down low and the pairing of Mike Conley and Tony Allen up top, not Gay) than its bottom-10 offensive unit, on which Gay scored the most points by taking the most shots, despite making a touch under 41 percent of them. Viewed through that lens, trading Gay — as well as the likes of Marreese Speights, Wayne Ellington and Josh Selby — might not necessarily constitute "breaking up" the team. (It's also maybe worth considering that the most successful stint in Hollins' career — Memphis' run to the Western Conference finals two years ago — came with Gay out of the lineup.)

That said, we get what Hollins is saying, because emotion exists in sports (just ask Westbrook) and so does loyalty, and Hollins has had Gay throughout his entire career. But the "beer budget" line, plus the comments from San Antonio, plus last month's swipe at statistical analysis-driven decision-making, which came on the heels of Memphis adding the most famous statistically focused basketball writer in the world to an organization that's beefed up its analytics focus as part of a shifting front office approach under new owner Robert Pera ... it's all coming together to make some — including Straight Outta Vancouver's Kevin Lipe — wonder if Hollins, who is in the final year of a three-year deal he signed in April 2010, "is trying not to get a contract extension."

The ramped-up rhetoric could be sound and fury signifying nothing, but it's also likely "not endearing to those who still have a coaching decision to make for next season," as the Memphis Flyer's Chris Herrington writes:

There are so many factors in play in that decision: Can Hollins and the new regime have a good working relationship going forward? Will new ownership be willing to give Hollins the kind of raise he's arguably earned if he's retained? Does this team need a new hand at the wheel to refashion its offense? Can the organization really risk parting with a proven winner and strong locker-room leader and venturing into the unknown? Remember, Marc Iavaroni once looked like a great hire.

From the outside looking in, the prospects of Hollins' return certainly look shaky. Having Gay traded after a public plea-of-sorts to keep the team together and then responding in a nationally televised setting in a way that seemed critical of the new regime isn't necessarily a determinative act. But it certainly casts more doubt where there was already plenty.

As Herrington goes on to note, it also affords the opportunity for Hollins and his players to ease a lot of tension and resolve a lot of issues by winning some games. As soon as all the players involved in Wednesday's trade pass their respective physicals, they'll be eligible to join the team, which will fill out Memphis' bench and should give its rotation a boost; getting five of six at home heading into the All-Star break should help, too, as should a February schedule that includes eight sub-.500 teams and just three prospective playoff squads. But if the Grizzlies' offense continues to sputter even against the league's lower lights and Hollins' dismay at the dismissal of Gay persists, even more changes could be coming soon to Memphis.

When the Memphis Grizzlies dealt three solid players and a draft pick to the Cleveland Cavaliers for little-used Jon Leuer last week, the general consensus around the league was that the Grizzlies had effectively nickel-and-dimed their way out of having to deal forward Rudy Gay. After all, the team was no longer set to pay the luxury tax, and the Grizz needed all the scoring they could get. And Rudy’s a scorer, right?

In Memphis’ eyes? No. The team’s new front office has never been smitten with Gay’s work, taking plenty of shots to score a middling amount of points, while offering precious little else in terms of defense, rebounding, passing or putting opponents into the penalty. Even without the luxury-tax restrictions influencing movement, the two years and more than $37 million remaining on Rudy Gay’s contract after this season is far too steep a price to pay for his production. If you’re going to make $17.88 million, as Rudy will next year, you should at least be averaging 17.88 points per game while shooting an acceptable percentage.

Instead, Memphis is dealing Gay’s 17.2 points per contest and 40.8 shooting percentage to the Toronto Raptors. The team will also give up fan favorite Hamed Haddadi (who will be waived by Toronto), and receive promising forward/center Ed Davis from Toronto. The Raptors will send guard Jose Calderon to Memphis, and the Grizzlies will re-route the pass-first distributor to Detroit in exchange for Tayshaun Prince and Austin Daye. In all, nobody seems happy.

This is how the NBA’s various interests work. Detroit badly needs a distributor, and despite his many misgivings, Calderon is one of the NBA’s best and he owns an expiring contract that will help the Pistons get far under the salary cap this summer. Memphis saves a huge amount of cash while being able to distribute Gay’s 16.4 shot attempts per game amongst more efficient players, and Toronto … well, we have no idea what the hell Toronto is doing.

We know why the Raptors want Rudy Gay. He looked like a real comer back in 2006, but he’s done absolutely nothing besides look the part of an All-Star while offering the production of an average player. When you factor in the history that suggests he’ll be taking shots away from players who do more productive things with the ball offensively, this average turn might trend down into the realm of the negative. Toss in his maximum contract and … another winner, Bryan Colangelo!

[Related: Heat to give Chris Andersen another 10-day deal]

While giving up that rarest of commodities — a versatile big man with scoring touch working off a tiny rookie contract. Davis has significantly improved in 2012-13, averaging 14.5 points and 6.8 rebounds for every 36 minutes he plays while shooting 55 percent. Because he takes five more shots over the 36-minute term, a function of play-calling differences between Memphis and Toronto, Rudy Gay averages 16.9 points per 36 minutes, with 5.8 boards. While making more than $14 million more than Davis will this season.

Memphis will also take in Prince, whose iffy contract we detailed two weeks ago here at Ball Don’t Lie. Prince has improved markedly on his post-up work this season, though he was always a stalwart in that area, so his skills can work for the right team. On the Grizzlies, though? His loping post work won’t find much room with Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol manning the paint.

Unless Prince is asked to focus solely on that most coveted of shots — the corner 3-pointer. Prince is shooting 43 percent from long range on the season, but he’s below average from the top of the arc. In the corner, though, Tay has hit well over half of his attempts on the year. Daye, also acquired from Detroit, actually shoots below average from the corner, but is over 61 percent from behind the stripe from the longer side of the arc. If the Memphis coaching staff emphasizes production from these areas, the team’s offense will improve in spite of the loss of Gay’s scoring average and 40 percent shooting.

Not only did Gay eschew the easier 3-pointer by over a 5-to-1 margin in terms of attempts, but he’s made just 3 of 19 from that spot all season. It’s like this guy was made to act as a John Hollinger talking point. You can almost see Brad Pitt spitting chaw into a cup while the newest Grizzlies personnel adviser talks up usage rate.

Detroit gets another chance to get it all right. The team seemed on the verge of blowing up its 2004 championship core in '08 when it traded for Allen Iverson’s expiring contract. But soon after, GM Joe Dumars signed Richard Hamilton to a contract extension, and it became apparent that the team was dealing for Allen Iverson, and not “Allen Iverson’s expiring contract.” The franchise did have cap space the next summer, but blew it on the acquisitions of Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva, while several seasons of ownership roadblocks followed.

As it stands, the team alternates between one of the least and most watchable squads in the NBA, depending on coach Lawrence Frank’s rotations. Jose Calderon, even if he is “Jose Calderon’s expiring contract,” will help the Pistons not only become more watchable, but aid in a last-ditch playoff push. The Pistons are 4 1/2 games out of the last spot in the East, with both Boston and Philadelphia reeling. Prince and Daye made no impact on the team’s future plans, so this is an immediate step up, even if the Pistons have to watch as Kyle Singler and Calderon are routinely burned on the defensive end.

And Toronto? Again, we have no idea.

Once Aaron Gray and Linas Kleiza pick up their player options for next season, the Raptors will be over the luxury tax featuring a core of Gay, DeMar DeRozan and Andrea Bargnani. Three players that nobody seems to covet outside of the offices of Raptors GM Colangelo. Of course, the team could decline to keep Kyle Lowry’s non-guaranteed contract around, but that would leave the Raps with absolutely no point guards outside of John Lucas III — so named because he’s (and this isn’t a shot) always the best third-string point guard in the NBA.

Think of this deal for Toronto in terms that exclude specifics. The franchise had a competent point guard with a massive expiring contract and a very talented 23-year-old center who is working on a rookie deal paying him less than half of the NBA’s average salary. They turned those assets into Gay, who they’ll pay more than $37 million to over the next two years. Missteps don’t come much more obvious than this.

The deal doesn’t answer all the questions for Memphis. The team is still terrible offensively, and it needs shooting desperately, even if Prince and Daye are used appropriately. There are three weeks left until the NBA’s trade deadline, and the Grizzlies’ new front office still has quite a bit of work to do in order to remedy the team's faults.

Until then, the fault shifts to the Toronto Raptors' front office. Again.

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

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

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

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

As with every season, the first-time selections are arguably the most exciting inclusions. While Harden is the only first-timer in the West, his ascendance in Houston this season has been incredibly fun to watch, particularly given the questions that surrounded his ability to become a star after several seasons as a high-impact third option with the Oklahoma City Thunder. In the East, Irving and George have emerged as two of the most consistently thrilling players in the NBA. Elsewhere, Holliday has been instrumental in establishing the Sixers in the playoff race after the trade of Andre Iguodala and somewhat unexpected loss of the injured Andrew Bynum. And Noah has simply been one of the most effective big men in the league for the last few years, a player long deserving of his All-Star spot.

Thursday's announcement is also a big deal for the Golden State Warriors, a franchise that hadn't had an All-Star since Latrell Sprewell in 1997. That was the longest active drought in the NBA and a regular sore spot for the team during that time. Lee's selection will become a source of great pride, particularly for the ownership group that invested a lot of money and marketing energy in him when they signed him to a six-year contract in 2010.

Unfortunately, the Warriors also boast the biggest snub of 2013: point guard Stephen Curry, arguably the team's best and most important player this season. Most analysts expected Curry to make the squad, particularly if only one Warrior was going to make it. In the end, he was passed over, although that didn't stop him from congratulating Lee on Twitter.

The other biggest snub in the West was Grizzlies center Marc Gasol, one of the best two-way big men in the league so far this season. Gasol can't match his teammate Randolph's scoring and rebounding stats, but he's been more crucial to the style of play that's helped Memphis to the NBA's fifth-best record.

The biggest snub in the East was Brook Lopez, the very productive center of the Brooklyn Nets. Shockingly, no Nets were selected for the All-Star team despite their owning the third-best record in the conference. It's possible that East coaches were not particularly big fans of the players' perceived coach-killing of the now-deposed Avery Johnson, although it's hard to speculate on that front too much. Otherwise, the East selections were pretty solid, although it's certainly possible to make a case that Boston Celtics veteran Paul Pierce deserved his 11th selection.

It's worth noting that TNT analyst Charles Barkley argued hard for New York Knicks enigma J.R. Smith and Los Angeles Clippers gunner Jamal Crawford, largely on the strength of their teams' great records, their scoring averages, and the idea that both may never again get a solid chance to make an All-Star team. However, that take ignores that both players are one-dimensional players hitting below 42 percent of their shots this season. They are key to their teams' success, certainly, but not quite at the level we associate with All-Stars.

By the way, BDL's own Kelly Dwyer made his own reserve selections last week (East here, West here) and disagreed on five of the 14 official selections. Yet the lesson here isn't that the coaches screwed up in their picks — it's that there are many deserving players around the league. We're lucky to be in an era when that's the case, because it certainly hasn't been a constant in NBA history.

A number of respected NBA sources came through on Tuesday morning to announce the first major deal of the NBA’s trading season, and the first transaction made by the Memphis Grizzlies since a new ownership and front office team took over in December. ESPN’s Brian Windhorst first reported that a deal sending Memphis forward Marreese Speights, guard Josh Selby and a draft pick to Cleveland for Jon Leuer was in the works. Yahoo! Sports’ Marc J. Spears then reported that the deal was finished, and that Wayne Ellington would also be heading to the Cavaliers. Memphis-area radio host and Grizzlies hound Chris Vernon then reported that the pick heading to Cleveland was a 2015 first rounder, protected to the top five of the draft.

Vernon then reported what we knew had to happen. The Grizzlies, under the roster minimum for players, would be considering signing a gaggle of offense-first types on minimum salaries: Bill Walker, Delonte West, and (eventually, he’s currently playing overseas) Sasha Vujacic.

The immediate fallout was the correct assessment that this was a salary cap move, and little else, for the Grizzlies. It’s a manageable one, though, especially considering the potential new additions the Grizzlies will be taking in.

Memphis entered the day $4 million over the luxury tax mark, with rumors swirling that the team would move a high salaried forward in Rudy Gay that doesn’t mesh with the new front office’s administration’s ideals regarding production. With no obvious answers in the trade market available, and facing a luxury tax bill that wouldn’t work in Memphis’ small market, the team then worked around the fringes to lose over $6.2 million in 2012-13 salary. Because Cleveland is below the salary cap, they could take in the higher salaried Speights and Ellington (Selby and Leuer’s contracts are a wash) along the way.

Now under the tax limit, the Grizzlies have added a player in Leuer and reportedly are about to acquire three players in West, Walker and (again, eventually) Vujacic that reek of pay for play perfection. None are stars, but Leuer’s per minute stats in Milwaukee last year were very good, he’s a rotation player, while the three potential free agent signings can help rescue a Grizzlies offense that has been amongst the worst in the NBA since the beginning of December.

Amongst the worst in the NBA despite the presence of scorers in Gay and Zach Randolph, mind you. It wasn’t working, and you don’t pay the luxury tax for something that isn’t working. Unless you’re the Los Angeles Lakers, of course.

Speights and Ellington are passable players. Speights may run like a bull in the china shop sometimes but he was once a favorite of Grizzlies Vice President of Basketball Operations John Hollinger. Still, his terrible marks from the floor (just under 43 percent, working mostly as a center) weren’t enough to make up for his good-enough rebounding. Ellington – and we don’t mean this as a mean joke – actually developed an NBA-level skill this year as he hit for over 42 percent of his three pointers, but he does such little else that it’s hard to justify both paying the luxury tax and missing out on luxury tax payments from other teams just because he’ll sometimes drop a 3-6 night from long range. Quincy Pondexter’s return to action will help in regards to the perimeter.

If Grizzlies fans and Memphis coach Lionel Hollins badly wanted to finish the year with Rudy Gay on board, they likely got their wish. This doesn’t preclude a trade involving Gay, not with a month to go before the Feb. 21 trade deadline, but this is a reaction to the paucity of options and trading partners out there. We’re sure the rest of the NBA overrates Rudy and wouldn’t mind dealing for him, but not with two years and over $36 million left on his deal after this season.

Which means the Grizzlies are likely delaying the inevitable. Even with Speights, Selby and Ellington off of next year’s books, Memphis will be just a few million under the luxury tax in 2013-14. And that’s without signing the irreplaceable Tony Allen, retaining Jerryd Bayless (who is sure to opt out of his contract), or filling out a roster that only has seven guaranteed contracts on it. Don’t look for cheap help in the draft, either, as Memphis traded away its first round pick for the rights to a few months of Shane Battier in 2011.

Which means Rudy, or possibly Randolph, will be on the blocks all over again. And by then, with the roster trimmed to the team’s four big money making players and little else, there won’t be a Marreese Speights deal to save them.

Of course, this could be exactly what the new front office – with a chance for one last go with the old crew and coaching staff, and no midseason fixes on the table – are after. We can’t blame them.

In case you missed it, the folks at Beyond the Buzzer did not:

Five things that stood out to me during the six-minute segment:

1. It's pretty great that Z-Bo's rocking the Vancouver Grizzlies hat.

2. It's very great that the producers felt they needed to add subtitles for Randolph's talking-head sequence.

2. I instantly wanted to make sure to keep tabs on Lucky's/Little Z-Bo's well-being, because I hate how scared he looked after the ordeal he went through.

3. "Off parole! Zach Randolph! Rescuing dogs! Memphis!" is a very great string of excited stuff to get to yell into a TV camera.

4. Villalobos founder/pit bull trainer Tia Torres calling the Memphis Grizzlies power forward "exactly the kind of athlete that kids should look up to as a hero," which, no matter how many stories you read about how he's grown and matured over the years, will probably never stop seeming at least marginally crazy.

In conclusion: If you come into contact with any dogs this weekend, be nice to them, y'all. And if you come into contact with Zach Randolph, observe the same guideline.

You’ve done it, NBA fans. You’ve done hired the hitmakers – your 2013 NBA All-Star Game starters. Kevin Garnett, LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade and Rajon Rondo out East; with Kobe Bryant, Dwight Howard, Chris Paul, Kevin Durant and Blake Griffin out West. Two sterling crews, with 10 players that truly deserve not only the All-Star nod, but the starting designation. After weeks of worry about Andrew Bynum or Jeremy Lin taking a slot, this was a fantastic outcome.

Now that you’ve nailed it, fans, we hand the baton to NBA coaches to fill out the rest of the All-Star roster. And those coaches, apparently too conflicted to check a few boxes, will no doubt hand that baton to their assistant coaches. Who will then utilize per-game stats and name recognition to send seven reserves to Houston for the game on Feb. 17. Weird, seeing as how they tend to watch more game film prior to a Tuesday morning shootaround than most of us do all week.

To help these coaches in their quest to get it right, we humbly present our choices for the Western bench. Three front court, two back court, and two wild card selections are asked of the voters. Our picks are listed after the jump.

Guards: James Harden, Houston Rockets. Russell Westbrook, Oklahoma City Thunder.

So, James Harden finally got big minutes and a ton of shots and a starting nod on a team that badly needs his offense. Of course his numbers are going to jump to ridiculous levels. Obvious stuff, right?

Except that the Rockets are a top-10 offensive team, even while working through an opening month where Omer Asik and Jeremy Lin worked as offensive zeros. Except that Harden’s assist ratio has shot up, and his overall shooting efficiency has nearly remained the same as it did working against reserves in Oklahoma City as it has against starters in Houston. And that’s without the benefit of a training camp, as Harden was dealt following the NBA’s exhibition season. On the fly, he’s been brilliant.

His former backcourt mate from Oklahoma City keeps chugging along. At times, Russell Westbrook is the best thing under the size of 6-8 that this game has to offer. At other times, he’ll jump in the air to pass or take a bad shot or … wait, that pass just connected to a cutting Nick Collison. And that jumper went in. Never change, Russell.

Frontcourt: Tim Duncan, San Antonio Spurs. Marc Gasol, Memphis Grizzlies. Serge Ibaka, Oklahoma City Thunder.

The NBA was correct to abolish the idea of a center as a thing on All-Star ballots, either as starters or reserves. But look at the names on my ballot: Tim Duncan, Marc Gasol, Joakim Noah, Dwight Howard, Tyson Chandler, Brook Lopez, and Al Horford. Maybe this reveals my predilection for pivotmen, but do any of these names not strike as All-Star worthy?

Duncan and Gasol are probably the two best big men in the West, right now. Duncan’s ability to dominate on both ends isn’t merely impressive because of his age or his play over the last two seasons, it’s impressive full stop. And Gasol is a killer defensively. He’s not quite where Duncan was in 2005 – orchestrating the defense without fouling or overreaching, but in 2013 it’s still a sight to behold (and on a Memphis team that badly needs it). Just watch this guy off the ball for a game. It’s an experience, even if the Grizzlies’ offense results in a 15-point loss.

Ibaka has turned it around. He’s done all we can ask for over the course of a limited offseason that was interrupted with Olympic play. The guy has turned into a defensive presence that also blocks shots; last year he was only the latter end of that description. And any time he doesn’t pull up for that open 18-footer he’s hurting his team – his perimeter play is that good.

Wild-cards: Tony Parker, San Antonio Spurs. Stephen Curry, Golden State Warriors.

More like wild-guards am I right?

(I’m very sorry.)

Curry, and I’d write this regardless of the heavy heart that you can’t help but have after news of his most recent ankle sprain hit, has looked brilliant this year. There’s a reason for that – the guy has been healthy. Players don’t, out of nowhere, just start jumping a little higher or driving with more confidence just because they’re a year older. It’s because he’s healthy. Or, sadly, was healthy. Hopefully things will be different for Curry by Feb. 17.

Parker is in his prime, and playing like it. He’s working up a career year, he’s slashed his turnovers, and have you noticed that he takes a three-pointer once every other game? And makes one once every five or six games? The guy can dominate games offensively without having to utilize what has turned into the NBA’s most important shot.

Also considered: LaMarcus Aldridge, Portland Trail Blazers. Nicolas Batum, Portland Trail Blazers. Paul Millsap, Utah Jazz. David Lee, Golden State Warriors. Zach Randolph, Memphis Grizzlies. Al Jefferson, Utah Jazz.

There appears to be a whole lot of talented power forwards in the Western Conference.

Aldridge has enjoyed an All-Star season, but his slow start may have hamstrung his chances. Batum has been fantastic. I’m still uneasy about his contract, but he’s proved me wrong in innumerable ways while contributing to a playoff-bound Portland team in areas that don’t show up in the box score. Millsap, as always, is struck down by his minutes allotment. David Lee’s defense is still subpar, but his ability to initiate the Warriors' offense while also scoring off broken plays is one of the bigger reasons Mark Jackson’s crew seems destined for the postseason. Zach Randolph has improved after an injury-plagued 2011-12 season, but Memphis’ six-week offensive swoon has limited his chances in my eyes. And Al Jefferson, while mighty beastly, still can’t guard the chair you’re sitting in.

Please don’t read standing up.

During his 12-year NBA career, Zach Randolph has made it abundantly clear on a number of occasions that he's not scared of anybody on the basketball court. The 6-foot-9, 260-pound Memphis Grizzlies power forward has gone toe-to-toe with some of the league's biggest and baddest dudes over the years, including, most recently, Oklahoma City Thunder center Kendrick Perkins; their November clash resulted in ejections, a $25,000 fine for Randolph and one of the season's great quotes: Z-Bo telling Memphis radio host Chris Vernon, "I'm good with these hands, man. I'm a jackin' dude." (There's also the off-court and past stuff, which only bolster Z-Bo's never-scared bona fides.)

But as a wise man — either Winston Churchill or Jim Carrey in "Me, Myself and Irene," not sure which — once said, just because a man rocks doesn't mean he's made of stone. As he's matured, Randolph has more frequently shown a softer side, engaging in heartwarming charitable endeavors like donating $10,000 last summer to save a pit bull that had been trapped for days in a Memphis drainpipe. Randolph's giving actions and interactions with the rescued pit bull — later named "Little Z-Bo," which is the best — will be featured Saturday on an episode of the Animal Planet reality series "Pit Bulls and Parolees."

[More NBA: Dwightmare II: Wake up, Lakers; trade Dwight Howard now]

But as Randolph told ESPN Playbook's Sam Alipour in an interview pegged to the episode's Jan. 11 premiere, his love for dogs (he owns several and acts as a spokesperson for the Memphis Humane Society) doesn't extend to all furry, four-legged creatures. Nor, it seems, does his fearlessness:

Like you, I’m a dog lover. On a possibly related note, I feel, in my heart of hearts, that cats are evil. Feel me?

Naw, you’re right: You can’t be both a dog lover and a cat lover. I’ve got a crazy phobia about cats. For some reason, I’m always thinking they’re going to scratch me. If a cat walks up, I’m going, “Oh no, this dude about to scratch me — I know it!” Cats scare the hell out of me. I love animals, but I’m no cat lover. Guys usually aren’t.

Interesting. Then maybe you can help me out. My buddy, Mike Garrett, an otherwise normal, single, young man, is very seriously considering buying a cat. He won’t listen to me, so maybe he’ll listen to Z-Bo. Mike’s crazy, right?

Oh, man, tell him to buy a dog! [Laughs.] Yo, I’m serious, tell your friend — tell him right now: You don’t need no cat, Mike. Buy a dog.

Yeah, Mike. Buy a dog. Zach Randolph said you should buy a dog, so you should definitely buy a dog. Like, right now. Seriously, ask Ruben Patterson and Louis Amundson what happens when you don't do what Zach Randolph wants you to do. You should get this done as soon as possible. Do you need to borrow some money? Just let me know, dude.

Though I myself own a cat, I understand that Z-Bo's position is a common one, and I respect it. Most dog owners I know think that cats are kind of the worst; frankly, many cat owners I know think they are the worst, due to their predilection toward clawing up your stuff, waking you up in the middle of the night by knocking stuff over or scratching at your bedframe, hissing at unfamiliar houseguests, licking their butts in front of company and occasionally hacking up hairballs. Yes, dogs do many gross and unappealing things, too, but they tend to do it with a friendly personality that most cats can't muster. I don't share the feeling that cats are evil, irredeemable creatures that are the worst, but I can understand it. (Also, not all apartment buildings let you have dogs, guys.)

[Also: Grizzlies' Rudy Gay leaning on NBA friends amid trade speculation]

Perhaps more importantly, I don't judge Z-Bo's fear. People are scared of all kinds of things; Damian Lillard, for example, fears statues, and it hasn't stopped us from respecting his Rookie of the Year credentials. Admitting your fears is the first step to overcoming them, reaching a new level of personal maturity and becoming a better, fuller you; I, for example, am afraid that if I make fun at Zach Randolph for being scared of creatures that are about 1/100,000th his size, I will be pounded into jelly by Zach Randolph. See? Facing your fears is important.

I only hope that, as Zach continues his journey of emotional growth, he can find it in his heart to spare a bit of love for creatures like, for example, young Doc Devine-[REDACTED]. I have no doubt that the heart of Z-Bo is big enough for all creatures, be they great, small or scratchy.

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Memphis 94, Golden State 87

Even before the game, you sort of assumed that Golden State would come ready to bang in the team’s pairing with Memphis. If things hold up from here until April, the two squads will meet in the first round of this spring’s playoffs. On top of that, the Warriors are coming off of a blowout loss on Saturday to the Los Angeles Clippers followed by three days off between games — an eternity in the NBA. So why were the Grizzlies, coming off of two wins, the hungrier team in the first half?

Maybe it was the layoff, which may not seem like much in length but likely felt odd in the every-other-day NBA. Whatever the reason, it took until the third quarter for the Warriors to body up on Memphis and start forcing the team out of its offense, and as a result a delightfully entertaining game resulted. Not pretty, to be sure (perhaps the contest’s most pivotal player, Marc Gasol, missed eight of 12 shots) but certainly one we would mind revisiting seven times this spring.

It’s hard to tell what the difference was. The continually confused-for-each-other Jarrett Jack and Jerryd Bayless both struggled off the pine for their respective teams. Marreese Speights and Darrell Arthur shot well off of Memphis’ bench, but Carl Landry broke out of a shooting slump to match their work. And overall, considering the opposition, each set of starters played well.

Rudy Gay hit the game-breaker late in the fourth quarter, a terrible step-back 2-pointer with his foot just about on the line that somehow went in. It was typical Rudy — he looked great all game, driving around and generally playing the visual role of the do-it-all stud, but he didn’t really change anything and in some ways was no help when Memphis’ offense stalled. He needed 19 shots to score his 18 points, and even if Gay weren’t making a massive salary right now you can see why the Grizzlies are attempting to deal him for someone that can both make and value a 3-pointer from the corner.

Beyond that, for Memphis? Big ball. Zach Randolph sweating his way through the paint. Gasol attempting to orchestrate things, especially in that first half. Sound work that gives you hope, as they attempt to round out this roster while pulling themselves out of a December swoon.

Denver 108, Orlando 105

The Orlando Magic continue to acquit themselves well. They play hard and truly attempt to compete athletically with opponents night in and night out, but this team just doesn’t have the spring to make it work. And even when the team does have the spring — say, Josh McRoberts flying to his right for a possible throwdown in the lane — it’s often mitigated by, say, Josh McRoberts attempting to force a behind-the-back pass to a teammate instead of going for that dunk.

Denver wasn’t great shakes themselves, but playing at home and working behind Kenneth Faried’s manic play kept the Magic at bay. Faried seemed to jump twice before the Magic or even his hoppy teammates could get off the ground once; his 19 rebounds may have been inflated by a few chippies of his own that rolled in and out, but he was the edge in a game that saw neither team really stay on track for too long.

And though Andre Iguodala continues to have a miserable year offensively — he missed nine of 13 shots in the win and is just over 60 percent from the free throw line this season — he still outplayed the player he replaced in Arron Afflalo. The difference here is that Afflalo (unlike Iguodala) was often asked to be the go-to guy late in this contest, and his familiar right side post-ups didn’t have much success against the longer and more athletic Dre Iguodala.

Toronto 90, Philadelphia 72

It was the last game of a long and tough road trip for Philadelphia, and it showed. The team wanted no part of attempting to execute offensively against Toronto on Wednesday, and while we credit the Raptors for pushing things on that end, Philly is due its share of the blame.

Credit Toronto for not only playing like a team that wanted to be there, but one that continues to give us something as fans trying to figure things out from a TV screen. These guys are enjoying themselves, and they made a midseason game against two teams that could wind up in the lottery a fun one. Extra passing, confidence in penetration and strong interior play led the way.

It’s true that the Raps had lost two in a row entering this contest, but there weren’t any slumped shoulders in this one. Ed Davis (17 points, nine boards) continues to prove he belongs, DeMar DeRozan broke out of his shooting slump to hit for 8-15 from the floor, and Amir Johnson seemed to be everywhere on both ends.

Nineteen points, 12 rebounds, five assists and just three fouls in 40 minutes of play for Johnson. This marks a step up for the big man, who has regressed this season in averaging 5.7 fouls per 36 minutes this year after improving significantly in that realm over the last two years. There’s still room to bounce back, of course. Johnson is having a very good turnaround year in 2012-13, and he won’t turn 26 until after the Raptors’ season ends this spring. Because they’re not making the playoffs.

Boston 87, Phoenix 79

Distressing signs again for Boston tonight — the team continues to play terrible ball on both ends without Kevin Garnett facilitating things, Jason Terry cannot be asked to play the role of a typical point guard even off the bench, and the squad looks old and unathletic — but there were just enough sound movements needed to pull out a smallish comeback win.

The story here is Jared Sullinger’s 12 points and 16 rebounds, fine work for the slowly improving rookie, and Terry’s timely scoring once Boston found a way to use him as more of a wing instead of a table-setter. Beyond that, it was a dreadful run for Paul Pierce and Brandon Bass. Both are basically asked to score and little else, until the playoffs hit, and together they worked up just 14 points on 18 shots in nearly 50 minutes of combined play.

Phoenix is reeling and tired, and Jared Dudley had a rough night in particular, missing four of his five 3-pointers and 11 of 17 overall. Buy low, Memphis.

San Antonio 108, Los Angeles Lakers 105

There’s no secret here, and nothing worth a massive column explaining woes away. The Los Angeles Lakers do not pay attention to detail away from the ball defensively, and that goes for both former All-Defensive team members (veterans whom we wouldn’t blame for being beat off the dribble, but whose high school-level breakdowns away from the dribble we won’t excuse) and their sitting center. Toss in the fact that Mike D’Antoni’s offense hasn’t featured Steve Nash enough, and you have a five-game losing streak and a San Antonio Spurs team spitting mad that they didn’t beat the Dwight Howard and Pau Gasol-less Lakers by 15.

Also, Mike, Steve Nash is a career 43 percent shooter from behind the arc. Kobe Bryant is a career 33.7 shooter from long range who has given us years worth of studies and data to back up the point that the shot you drew up for him in the final seconds (easily-defended hero ball) will almost always be a losing proposition.

Following this Spurs win, four different Western teams have either tied or bettered the East-leading Heat’s .697 mark.

Milwaukee 104, Chicago 96

I don’t like going down this typical, sportswriter-y route, but Nate Robinson was seen laughing on the court after the Chicago Bulls went up 15 points in the second quarter of this contest, and no Chicago Bull should ever chuckle at a 15-point lead in a Derrick Rose-less era that sees them struggle to put up 15-point quarters. The Bulls barely managed that in an ugly 16-point fourth, and Bucks guard Brandon Jennings responded to Robinson’s smirks and apparent trash talking by going on one of those runs we see every two weeks or so from Brandon — 35 points on 5 for 10 shooting from deep.

Robinson was clearly felled by cramps toward the end of this loss, but with Kirk Hinrich injured and Marquis Teague ineffective, he was on the court for most of Chicago’s second-half failures. The real culprit was inefficient offensive play from Chicago — the team stopped going through Joakim Noah as a facilitator offensively and as a result, Carlos Boozer (22 points and 11 rebounds) saw his production tail off. The Bulls treated Larry Sanders like the Garry Shandling-version and not like the guy who leads the NBA in blocks per game and percentage of shots blocked. Perhaps Marco Bellineli is aware of Sanders (seven blocks in the win) now.

Frankly, Jim Boylan’s offense looks … um, “uncomplicated?” Not a lot of structure, but on nights that Jennings goes off like this, it hardly matters. The problem is that Jennings just isn’t this type of player all that often.

New Orleans 88, Houston 79

One night after dropping 125 points on a rested Lakers team, the Houston Rockets barely made it into the fourth quarter of this win with half of that total. Then they topped that, somehow, by only scoring 10 in the fourth quarter of this loss. New Orleans just looked tougher and quicker in the win, and rode an unlikely hero’s touch to the victory.

Hornet Roger Mason Jr. had scored just 11 points in all of 2013 before exploding for 17 in this win, with 15 coming in the fourth quarter. He probably could have had a few more points in that ledger had he not put his foot on the 3-point arc for three of his makes.

This is beside the point: Roger Mason Jr. just outscored possibly the NBA’s hottest team by his lonesome in the fourth quarter, and also hey by the way Roger Mason Jr. plays in the NBA in 2013.

Too many extra possessions for NOLA — Houston turned it over 22 times, and the Hornets grabbed 16 offensive rebounds in the win.

Utah 112, Charlotte 102

Al Jefferson continues to make defensive mistakes, but the Charlotte Bobcats simply do not have the offensive contributors needed to take advantage of these sorts of potential advantages. Also, it helps that Jefferson took advantage of his positive potential advantages in this win, scoring 26 points on 15 shots. And I’m not sure if he had the ball in his hands for 26 seconds all night.

Thirty assists on the night for Utah, as the Jazz seemed to have found a workable formula in the wake of Mo Williams’ absence. Replacement Jamaal Tinsley notched eight dimes in this win, but he’s not dominating the ball and his teammates are quick with skip passes.

It’s nice to see Alec Burks’ minutes continue to stay in the double figures. It’s nice to see anything with the name “Alec Burks” in it. That name could have worked as a character in "The Thin Man."

Cleveland 99, Atlanta 83

It’s a cliché you’ll hear us use in July during the offseason, in October as we ready our season previews, or in June as we celebrate the end of the playoffs. “A random Wednesday in January in Cleveland,” in reference to those anonymous one in eighty-twos that are hard to get up for. The Hawks, in Cleveland on Wednesday, gave us the go-ahead to use that cliché for another year at least. The team could not handle Cleveland’s movement on offense, and actually seemed flustered against a lacking Cavs defense working without the injured Anderson Varejao.

The Hawks had their moments, an extra pass here or quick post-up for Josh Smith there, but by and large it was a fractured outing, with Cleveland setting the pace.

Kyrie Irving is a living, breathing moment that is worth the price of League Pass even if he misses a third of the season with rashes/Third-Nose Syndrome/Adam’s Apple Fatigue. The kid managed 33 points in 33 minutes on just 15 shots, turning the ball over twice in spite of playing yo-yo with it all night while adding three steals and four assists on a team that can’t shoot.

Dion Waiters shot poorly and may need the entirety of this season to get into both NBA shape while understanding that he has quickness enough to survive on this level. You can drive, Dion. They’re actually not allowed to touch you along the way. Even if you’re a rookie. Keep trying to get into that lane.

Tristan Thompson (11 points and 16 rebounds) continues to look aggressive, but Leonard Cohen after two Valiums and a double-brandy could have looked aggressive against the Hawks on Wednesday. In January. In Cleveland.

Oklahoma City 106, Minnesota 84

Don’t dismiss Oklahoma City’s ever-improving defense, but the Minnesota Timberwolves look terrible offensively without Kevin Love or a fully healthy Ricky Rubio, despite the pleasant spacing that continues to hold place in Rick Adelman’s offense. With plenty of missed shots to get the Thunder going, OKC could pull away on broken plays and transition chances. Even when Russell Westbrook was getting caught in the air or the spacing wasn’t right, the Thunder still had enough to keep the Wolves at arm’s length all night.

Pity, because given good health, this pairing could have been something special, a nice halfway look against a great opponent at a Timberwolves team looking to make the postseason for the first time since Oliver Miller played in Minnesota.

Los Angeles Clippers 99, Dallas 93

They’re all gutting, I suppose, but this loss had to really get to the Dallas Mavericks. Not only were the Clippers playing terribly by their own standards, with unforced errors and work on both ends that just wasn’t clicking, but the Mavericks were winning the game. Not just taking advantage of Los Angeles playing poorly, but causing the Clippers to collapse in all the wrong places.

Then the shots started drying up, some broken plays worked in Los Angeles’ favor and the Clippers cleaned up their act on both sides of the court. Another breezy win for the Clips, and another loss for a Mavericks team that may have to win 33 of 46 games to close out the season in order to make the postseason.

It seemed all about the broken plays for each team in this game. Dallas continually appeared to force the Clippers into the one-on-one play that has long been a bugaboo for Vinny Del Negro-coached teams, and for a while, the Blake Griffin post-ups and extra passes that may have resulted (going into the hands of someone like Caron Butler on a 4 for 13 shooting night) didn’t work out all that well. By the fourth, though, the onslaught was on, as the Clippers made quicker decisions with the ball and stopped turning it over (though I’m falling short of crediting one for the other; Los Angeles was just too daffy in the first half and I don’t blame that on isolation play).

Dallas’ work down the stretch was not as successful, with lots of missed shots from players with names you’ve heard for years and no real answer once Los Angeles took Darren Collison’s dribble penetration away from the proceedings. A disappointment, considering how close it had been, for so long.

Thank you for reading.

Early Tuesday morning, BDL's Eric Freeman brought you the story of how an on-court squabble between Kevin Garnett and Carmelo Anthony during the Boston Celtics' Monday night road win over the New York Knicks escalated into a near-incident after the game, with Anthony waiting to confront Garnett outside the Celtics' team bus. Nothing wound up coming of it, though, and the two players eventually went their separate ways.

Now, thanks to the all-seeing eye of TMZ, we can see exactly how much nothing transpired, in a grainy and shaky video featuring Anthony and Garnett both separated and surrounded by a mass of humanity. No throwdown, no fisticuffs, no donnybrook — just some people who were not KG or Melo being pushed and shoved, some yelling and arguing. Not quite a clash of the titans, but that's probably for the best for both Celtics and Knicks fans.

Here's the tale of the tape, from TMZ:

The incident went down in front of the Celtics team bus inside Madison Square Garden -- just a short time after things got physical between the two NBA superstars on the court.

In the video, both men can be seen yelling and approaching each other aggressively as security scrambles to keep them apart. [...]

Eventually, security was able to separate the big men ... and KG boarded the team bus.

What exactly inflamed Anthony's passions so much remains unclear; Garnett didn't speak to reporters following Celtics practice on Tuesday, and while Anthony did, he didn't get into specifics about the on-court trash talk. (Plenty of outlets have run with one version of events that they claim sparked the fire, but, as far as I can tell, that version is unsourced and has no verifiable basis, so "remains unclear" seems like a much more reasonable tack to take.)

The Knicks' leading scorer did say, however, that Boston's defensive leader went above and beyond with his comments, and that the two eventually did hash it out over the phone, according to Brian Mahoney of The Associated Press:

"There's certain things that you just don't say to men, another man," Anthony said. "I felt like we crossed a line, but like I said, we both had an understanding right now, we handled it the way we handled it. Nobody needs to know what was said behind closed doors, so that situation was handled." [...]

The NBA is investigating and has video evidence. It could decide to penalize Anthony, who said he shouldn't be suspended.

"Nothing happened for me to be suspended," he said. "I wanted to talk to KG. I think it was something we both needed to get off our chest and see what really the problem was. No altercations, it was just some words and a conversation that we needed to have."

Whether Anthony's initial false starts at having that "conversation" result in league discipline remains to be seen. Memphis Grizzlies power forward Zach Randolph received a $25,000 fine after a league inquiry into his postgame trip through a set of FedEx Forum double doors separating the Grizzlies' side of the locker room area from the visiting team's section, where he presumably sought Oklahoma City Thunder center Kendrick Perkins, after the two were ejected for an on-court argument back in November. Randolph didn't receive a suspension, though.

The Knicks' next game comes Thursday against the Indiana Pacers, who rank fourth in the Eastern Conference and are coming off a statement win over the top-seeded Miami Heat on Tuesday night.

Since being traded to the New Orleans Hornets before last season, though, the Venezuelan point guard hasn't had quite so much luck — heading into Monday night's matchup, he'd yet to snag a W against the men in black in six tries since coming to Louisiana, including two losses earlier this season. So after the Hornets knocked off San Antonio, 95-88, on Monday night, Vasquez was pretty pumped to join Fox Sports New Orleans' postgame coverage:

The broad smile Vasquez flashed after he thanked his deity of choice for a "huge win" for his 9-25 Hornets apparently carried over from the day before, because he knew that this time he'd be running with the just-back-from-injury Eric Gordon, according to Darrell Williams of The Advocate:

New Orleans Hornets point guard Greivis Vasquez couldn’t stop smiling after Sunday’s practice at the Alario Center.

Vasquez has seen the Hornets (8-25) lose many games like Saturday night’s at Dallas, close ones that came down to the end. However, the Hornets were able to win 99-96 on a three-point play by shooting guard Eric Gordon with 4.7 seconds to play in overtime. [...]

Both games [earlier this season] against San Antonio were close, but Vasquez noted the Hornets didn’t have Gordon, whose return is part of a fully healthy roster for the first time this season.

“We didn’t have a closer,” Vasquez said. “We have a closer now. Now it’s going to be a game. [...] there’ll be a payback (Monday).”

Vasquez's words proved to prophetic. After a Gary Neal jumper cut what had been an 11-point Hornets lead to just three points with 7:31 remaining in the game, Gordon took over, scoring six straight New Orleans points to stem the Spurs' run and get the game back under control; San Antonio wouldn't get within seven again.

All told, the much-maligned shooting guard went 4 for 6 from the floor for eight points in the fourth quarter, capping a game-high 24 points on 9 for 22 shooting in 32 1/2 minutes in his fourth game and second start after missing the first 30 games rehabilitating his injured right knee. His jumper's not right yet — he's shooting just 35.4 percent from the floor and 18.8 percent from distance at the moment — but he's on his way back, and starting to once again feel comfortable late in games again, as he told The Associated Press:

"That's one of the key things I do best when it comes to late-game situations or if anything gets tough," Gordon said. "I like to take guys one on one and I'm able to get a shot off and get a good shot. I look forward to that.

"I love those situations," he said.

Clearly, Vasquez — no slouch himself on Monday, scoring 14 points on 6 for 10 shooting, dishing 11 assists against three turnovers, grabbing three rebounds and snagging a pair of steals, as his breakout season continues — loves it, too.

Video via CBSSports.com's Matt Moore.

Heading into Monday night, only one team had notched wins over both the reigning NBA champion Miami Heat and defending Western Conference champion Oklahoma City Thunder this season — the bruising Memphis Grizzlies, owners of the NBA's fifth-best record. Now, however, the Grizz have been joined by ... the cellar-dwelling Washington Wizards, owners of just five NBA wins this year. Zach Randolph and his pals have Wizards rookie Bradley Beal — and one of the oldest tricks in the book — to thank for the company.

With 12.2 seconds left in the fourth quarter of a 99-all tie — which, of course, was pretty surprising, given that Monday's affair matched up the NBA's best team, the 26-7 Thunder, and its worst, the 4-28 Wizards — the No. 3 pick in the 2012 NBA draft took a handoff from big man Kevin Seraphin and dribbled up top against ace Thunder perimeter defender Thabo Sefolosha. While the remaining three Wizards flattened out along the baseline, Seraphin came up to set a high screen for Beal, resulting in a switch that put gave the Florida product a mismatch against slow-footed center Kendrick Perkins. He attacked the mismatch, crossing left and getting to the top of the key, where he was met by both Perkins and a recovering Sefolosha. As he rose for a potential game-winner with 3.3 seconds left, both Thunder defenders flew at him to block the shot.

Except, y'know, he didn't shoot it:

Man, it's great when Wizards play-by-play man Steve Buckhantz has the chance to break out the "DAGGER!" Thanks for that, rook.

After gaining some breathing room with a timely pump-fake, Beal leaned in, elevated and sank a 16-footer with three-tenths of a second left on the clock to seal a 101-99 upset and send District denizens home happy.

[Also: Carmelo Anthony confronts Kevin Garnett after Knicks-Celtics game]

The game-sealing jumper tied Beal with teammate Martell Webster for the Wizards' game-high of 22 points; the two combined to shoot 9 for 13 from 3-point range in the win, which Washington earned without leading scorer Jordan Crawford and low-post focal point Nene, both of whom missed the game with injuries.

The front-line duo of Emeka Okafor and Kevin Seraphin combined for 31 points and 17 rebounds to make up for Nene's absence, much-maligned 2011 lottery pick Jan Vesely (10 points, seven rebounds) and just-back-from-injury point guard A.J. Price (four points, five rebounds, five assists, one steal, one turnover in 16-plus minutes) provided sparks off the Wizards' bench, and Beal and Webster handled the scoring load. It was Beal's fifth 20-point game of the season and the third in his last five outings; the five 3-pointers were a season high for a player who was labeled a marksman coming out of the SEC but has struggled with his shot (36.7 percent from the floor, 32.3 percent from 3-point range) for a Wizards offense that, thanks in part to the continued absence of injured point guard John Wall, ranks as far and away the NBA's worst.

According to Bullets Forever's Amin Vafa, Wizards coach Randy Wittman said after the game that he drew up the final possession for his rookie guard, who had gone 6 for 16 from the floor and admitted to being exhausted down the stretch of a contest that saw him play a game-high 44 minutes and 46 seconds:

"We knew they were doing some switching with their bigs late," Wittman recalls.

The coach goes to his rookie and tells him to make a play.

"We wanted to try to get Perkins matched up on Beal at the end."

"The play in itself was just for me to have a high pick and roll with Kevin [Seraphin]," remembers Beal. "[Kendrick Perkins and Thabo Sefolosha] tried to switch, but there was a miscommunication, so Sefolosha backed off me and kind of created a lane. "So I just took the floater ... It rolled off my fingers the right way, and thankfully it went in."

Running the moment over and over again in his mind, the playmaker himself was trying to figure out exactly what happened.

"It was instinctual in itself for real, because I didn't know what I was going to do to be honest with you," Beal says after the game. "Coach told me to go make a play, and I was like, 'I don't know what to do.' But I knew Perkins was going to go for it for sure. With the time going down like that, he was going to contest the jump shot."

He did, and the 19-year-old rookie made him pay with a veteran move, spoiling what was expected to be something of a joyous homecoming for Kevin Durant. The Thunder star and D.C. native was disappointed at how his Thunder responded to the challenge of facing the team with the NBA's worst record, according to The Associated Press:

"We let them stick around, because we're not taking them serious enough," Durant said. "We can't do that, man. We can't do that."

After starting the game with laconic defense that enabled the Wizards to come roaring out of the gate behind strong starts from Okafor and Webster (16 points on 6 for 9 shooting in the first quarter) and take a 10-point lead after 12 minutes, Durant and his mates woke up in the second, with the All-Star forward, big man Serge Ibaka and sixth man Kevin Martin combining for 27 points on 11 for 15 shooting to push OKC to a two-point halftime lead.

[Also: Dirk Nowitzki doesn’t sound excited about the Mavericks’ future]

Durant went quiet for quite a while after intermission, though, failing to make a field goal between the 9:17 mark of the third quarter and 2:03 remaining in the fourth, as the Wizards — who, quiet as its kept, rank 12th in the league in defensive efficiency, according to NBA.com's stat tool — threw multiple defenders at him and repeatedly harassed the three-time scoring champ, blocking three of his field-goal attempts. The rest of the Thunder couldn't carry the load on Monday, combining to shoot 5 for 20 in the third quarter, headlined by an unsightly 1 for 7 frame from point guard Russell Westbrook — that allowed the Wizards to regain control of the game and take a five-point lead into the final three minutes.

Durant eventually woke up, scoring four points in 27 seconds to draw the Thunder within one and hitting a 3-pointer with 36 seconds left to knot the game at 99; he finished with 11 in the fourth and a game-high 29 points, eight assists, seven rebounds and three steals — you know, an off night. But despite his late effort and Ibaka's 26-point, 11-rebound double-double, the Wizards had just enough to win, thanks to Beal's final-second poise. I guess now it makes some sense that OKC (allegedly) wanted him in a James Harden deal, huh?

If the clip above isn't rocking for you, feel free to peruse the dagger elsewhere, thanks to CBSSports.com's Matt Moore.

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The NBA obviously frowns on on-court fights and altercations, and in many cases they suspend players for it. But the league reserves a special kind of disapproval for incidents that spill over from the court and into other basketball-associated areas. The idea — usually a good one — is that players should know how to control themselves away from the intensity of competition. That's especially true of stars, the guys who are supposed to represent the league to casual fans and the rest of the world.

So Carmelo Anthony can probably expect a suspension pretty soon. With nine minutes remaining in the fourth quarter of the Boston Celtics vs. New York Knicks game at Madison Square Garden, Garnett and Anthony got into a shouting match on the court after a particularly physical possession. Both players were given technical fouls and separated by teammates. It was a heated argument but certainly not the sort of play that earns severe punishment.

[Also: Rajon Rondo suspended for bumping ref]

However, that was only the start of the night's activities. After the game, reports surfaced that Anthony waited outside the Celtics' locker room after the game and got into another (non-physical) altercation with Garnett. That story has not yet been confirmed. What we do know for sure, though, is that Melo also waited for KG outside the Celtics' bus, because CSNNE.com captured video of it. Watch the video above (via The Point Forward).

After the jump, check out the various reports from the scene, video of the play that earned both players their technicals, and analysis of the aftermath.

First, let's take a look at the double technicals:

As you can see, it's a very physical play, but also the sort of thing that Garnett does on a regular basis. He gets players angry by any means necessary, and if he said something over the line here then that doesn't make the incident especially from different what Garnett does several times every single game. He makes a habit of trash talk. He is, as @BeanTheGod mentioned on Twitter, a habitual line-stepper.

But did Melo visit the Boston locker room for some unfriendly post-game banter? Here's the report from Al Iannazzone for Newsday:

Anthony left the Garden without speaking to the media, and the Knicks wouldn't confirm the initial report that he was outside Boston's locker room. When Woodson was asked about it, he cut off the question before it was asked. "I don't know anything about that," he said. "I'm not even going to comment on that. If you want to talk about the game, we can do that."

Celtics coach Doc Rivers was a little more forthcoming. "I'm going to let you all figure that one out," he said. "I'm going to stay out of that. If it was the playoffs, I'd tell on him. But since it's not, I'm just going to be quiet."

Everyone was quiet in both locker rooms, but the NBA will investigate. Anthony could be fined or suspended, depending on what the league finds out.

Those comments certainly suggest that Melo did show up, but if no one involved will confirm it in public then we won't really know until the league comes up with an official verdict. Of course, that may never come in any form other than a more severe suspension.

[Also: Lakers' Jordan Hill out at least a week with hip injury]

The reports of the bus-stop incident are a little more forthcoming. From Frank Isola of the New York Daily News on Twitter:

Five NYPD officers, MSG security and Mike Woodson were near the bus to make sure the scene did not get out of control, the New has learned.

According to the eyewitness, Garnett didn't understand why Carmelo was waiting for him near the bus.

Mike Woodson played a big role in making sure that Carmelo left peacefully. Garnett wasn't looking for trouble and got on the bus.

We don't know the threat level of these post-game arguments, but the fact that Anthony apparently couldn't leave well enough alone suggests that he'll be hit with a suspension. Of course, that's not a certainty, because the NBA only gave the Memphis Grizzlies' Zach Randolph a $25,000 fine for confronting Kendrick Perkins of the Oklahoma City Thunder after a game in November. Plus, Anthony didn't get physical with Garnett, and that's the only action that ever earns an automatic suspension.

It was a rough night for Melo on the whole — he shot 6-of-26 from the field and struggled mightily in the Knicks' 102-96 loss. Earlier in the day, he earned Eastern Conference Player of the Week honors, and this presumably wasn't how he'd hoped to celebrate the fairly meaningless award.

We must now wait for the NBA to conduct its investigation into the matter and decide upon a punishment. And while there are very few precedents for a player visiting the opponents' locker room and bus to continue an argument after a game, it's worth remembering a 2002 fight that can at least ensure us that things could have been worse. Back then, Chris Mills of the Golden State Warriors literally blocked the Portland Trail Blazers' bus from leaving The Arena in Oakland (now Oracle Arena) after a fourth-quarter punch from Bonzi Wells. On Monday, the Celtics were stopped only by Manhattan traffic.

Original video of the double techs via EOB.

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When the NBA released the first returns in fan voting for the 2013 NBA All-Star Game in Houston two weeks ago, Miami Heat forward LeBron James had received more votes than any other player, barely edging Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers by 1,929 votes. In the second round of returns, though, the Black Mamba has turned the tables on the King, surging to the overall lead with 974,444 votes to James' 970,314.

While the top two vote-getters swapped places, the prospective starting fives for both the Eastern and Western conferences remained the same. In the East, Carmelo Anthony of the New York Knicks (891,759 votes) and Kevin Garnett of the Boston Celtics (328,716) are in line to start alongside James up front, with a potentially explosive (in more ways than one) backcourt of the Heat's Dwyane Wade (645,875) and the Celtics' Rajon Rondo (574,272). Out West, Kevin Durant of the Oklahoma City Thunder (924,898), Bryant's Laker teammate Dwight Howard (616,150) and Los Angeles Clippers forward Blake Griffin (489,795) continue to make up the frontcourt, with Bryant and Clipper point man Chris Paul (542,564) set to man the guard spots.

Hit the jump for some items of note, plus the full results for the frontcourt and backcourt positions from the second round of 2013 All-Star Game voting:

EASTERN CONFERENCE

Frontcourt

1. LeBron James, Miami Heat: 970,314
2. Carmelo Anthony, New York Knicks: 891,759
3. Kevin Garnett, Boston Celtics: 328,716
4. Chris Bosh, Miami Heat: 308,194
5. Tyson Chandler, New York Knicks: 260,000
6. Paul Pierce, Boston Celtics: 171,601
7. Joakim Noah, Chicago Bulls: 129,331
8. Josh Smith, Atlanta Hawks: 111,260
9. Anderson Varejao, Cleveland Cavaliers: 99,955
10. Amar’e Stoudemire, New York Knicks: 90,996
11. Shane Battier, Miami Heat: 88,800
12. Andrew Bynum, Philadelphia 76ers: 84,939
13. Luol Deng, Chicago Bulls: 76,400
14. Brook Lopez, Brooklyn Nets: 67,991
15. Jeff Green, Boston Celtics: 52,785

Backcourt

1. Dwyane Wade, Miami Heat: 645,875
2. Rajon Rondo, Boston Celtics: 574,272
3. Deron Williams, Brooklyn Nets: 309,778
4. Kyrie Irving, Cleveland Cavaliers: 258,193
5. Ray Allen, Miami Heat: 195,142
6. Monta Ellis, Milwaukee Bucks: 71,287
7. Raymond Felton, New York Knicks: 66,745
8. Jrue Holiday, Philadelphia 76ers: 56,683
9. Jason Terry, Boston Celtics: 52,833
10. Brandon Jennings, Milwaukee Bucks: 49,122

WESTERN CONFERENCE

Frontcourt

1. Kevin Durant, Oklahoma City Thunder: 924,898
2. Dwight Howard, Los Angeles Lakers: 616,150
3. Blake Griffin, Los Angeles Clippers: 489,795
4. Tim Duncan, San Antonio Spurs: 299,434
5. Pau Gasol, Los Angeles Lakers: 197,377
6. Kevin Love, Minnesota Timberwolves: 189,949
7. Omer Asik, Houston Rockets: 131,002
8. Rudy Gay, Memphis Grizzlies: 125,562
9. Serge Ibaka, Oklahoma City Thunder: 111,963
10. Marc Gasol, Memphis Grizzlies: 99,271
11. Zach Randolph, Memphis Grizzlies: 97,778
12. LaMarcus Aldridge, Portland Trail Blazers: 97,090
13. Dirk Nowitzki, Dallas Mavericks: 93,491
14. Metta World Peace, Los Angeles Lakers: 85,279
15. Chandler Parsons, Houston Rockets: 78,235

Backcourt

1. Kobe Bryant, Los Angeles Lakers: 977,444
2. Chris Paul, Los Angeles Clippers: 542,564
3. Jeremy Lin, Houston Rockets: 496,133
4. James Harden, Houston Rockets: 283,691
5. Russell Westbrook, Oklahoma City Thunder: 232,074
6. Steve Nash, Los Angeles Lakers: 166,262
7. Tony Parker, San Antonio Spurs: 111,032
8. Ricky Rubio, Minnesota Timberwolves: 96,466
9. Stephen Curry, Golden State Warriors: 78,380
10. Manu Ginobili, San Antonio Spurs: 70,813

ITEMS OF NOTE:

• Garnett has opened up a bit of breathing room on Bosh for the East's final starting frontcourt spot. Two weeks ago, only 7,522 votes separated the Celtics and Heat centers; today, that lead has expanded by 13,000 votes. (And, weirdly, exactly 13,000 votes.) The distancing hasn't coincided with representatively strong periods of team and individual play — KG's averaged just 11.5 points and seven rebounds a game and shot only 43.2 percent from the floor over the past couple of weeks as Boston's dropped four of six, while the Heat are on a six-game winning streak and Bosh is popping for 15 a night on 57 percent shooting — but then again, Celtics fans turn out in droves for these sorts of things. (Exhibit A: Jeff Green's return appearance in the top 15 in All-Star voting for Eastern Conference frontcourt players ahead of the likes of Al Horford.)

• Lin would need a big push, but he's gaining on CP3. We noted the absurdity of Lin ranking so high in the first round of All-Star returns; since then, he's actually narrowed the gap between himself and Paul, from 55,284 votes two weeks ago to 46,431 as of Thursday's results.

Yes, the Rockets point guard's been good these past two weeks, averaging 13.6 points, 6.6 assists, 2.9 rebounds and 1.6 steals per game as the Rockets have gone 6-1 — with legit wins over the New York Knicks, Memphis Grizzlies, Chicago Bulls and Minnesota Timberwolves — and worked themselves into an ahead-of-schedule playoff contender that currently sits sixth in the crowded West. Still, the fact that he's more than 200,000 votes ahead of his backcourt partner — who's fourth in the league in scoring and one of only two NBA players to be averaging more than 25 points, five assists and four rebounds per game this season — remains crazy, popularity contest or no.

• Huzzah for reason! Varejao — the league's leading rebounder, at more than 14.4 boards per game, who is playing balls-out for 36 minutes a night — has finally leapfrogged Bynum and Stoudemire — neither of whom has logged a solitary second of floor time this season — in All-Star voting. Ditto for Holiday — an emerging two-way star who, before missing four games with a foot injury, was arguably the second-best point guard in the Eastern Conference — surpassing Terry (a defensive sieve whose scoring is down) and Jennings (who, while performing well enough for a Bucks team sitting a half-game out of first place in the Central Division, hasn't been as good as Holiday on either end this season).

• Well, hello there. It's nice to see Curry and Parsons make their first appearances on the West's leaderboard. Curry, of course, deserves recognition far more than Parsons does — Steph's ninth in the league in scoring, 10th in 3-point accuracy, top 20 in both assists and steals per game, and leading the way along with David Lee for a better-than-expected Warriors team, while Parsons is merely an improving, sound-performing piece of an overall intriguing Rockets team who (probably) benefits from Houston's massive overseas fan base — but still, it's nice to see some new blood in the mix.

The 62nd NBA All-Star game will air live from Toyota Center in Houston on TNT at 8 p.m. ET on Sunday, Feb. 17, 2013. Set your DVRs now so that you won't forget, and let us know what you think of the voting to-date in the comments, on Facebook or on Twitter.

NFL video from Yahoo! Sports:

The NBA announced Thursday the first returns in the fan vote for the 2013 NBA All-Star Game, and in news that will shock precisely no one, LeBron James of the Miami Heat and Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers stand above their peers as the leading vote-getters in their respective conferences at present.

Joining James in leading the race to start in the frontcourt — remember, no "forwards" and "centers" this year — are Carmelo Anthony of the New York Knicks, who has received 573,112 votes, and Kevin Garnett of the Boston Celtics, who received 218,246. James' teammate Dwyane Wade (430,925) and Garnett's buddy Rajon Rondo (382,613) are in line to start in the backcourt.

Out west, it's looking like an L.A.-heavy starting unit, as Bryant is slated to team with Los Angeles Clippers point guard Chris Paul (353,603) in the backcourt, while their respective teammates Dwight Howard (434,168) and Blake Griffin (307,855) man two of the frontcourt spots. Oklahoma City Thunder star Kevin Durant (605,965) is in line for the third.

Hit the jump for a full breakdown of the top vote-getters in the first round of ballot-casting, a few takeaways and more.

Coming off a stellar 2011-12 season that saw him win recognition as the league's most valuable player following both the regular season and NBA Finals, James — the top overall vote-getter with 641,348 votes — has carried that brilliant play into the 2012-13 campaign. He ranks fourth in the NBA in points per game (25.5), 18th in rebounds per game (8.6) and 12th in assists per game (6.8), while posting career highs in field-goal, 3-point and rebounding percentage and leading the league in Player Efficiency Rating for the 14-6 Heat, who enter Thursday's play sitting atop the Southeast Division.

While his Lakers have struggled to a 9-13 record out of the gate, Bryant — second overall behind James with 639,419 votes — has performed sensationally on offense for coaches Mike Brown, Bernie Bickerstaff and Mike D'Antoni. Like James, the 34-year-old Bryant has turned in career highs in field-goal and 3-point percentage, and is getting to the foul line more often than he has in five years en route to leading the NBA in scoring at 29.2 points per game. In the absence of injured point guards Steve Nash and Steve Blake, Bryant has also taken on more responsibility as a facilitator, handling the ball more than he's used to and dishing assists (slightly) more often than he did a year ago.

Should voting patterns hold, this would mark Bryant's 15th selection to the All-Star Game, which would tie him with former Laker teammate Shaquille O'Neal for the second-most NBA All-Star appearances all time behind fellow L.A. legend Kareem Abdul Jabbar (19). James is on pace to make his ninth All-Star Game.

As our Eric Freeman discussed last month, fans can vote their favorite players to this year's All-Star Game through social media networks like Facebook and Twitter, as well as large Chinese services like Sina Weibo and Tencent QQ, through the NBA Game Time applications on their smartphones, by texting the player's last name to 6-9-6-2-2 ("MYNBA") or by visiting the online ballot on any wireless device. You can get all the details on the myriad ways to cast your vote at the NBA's official ballot site.

Here are the results for the frontcourt and backcourt positions:

Eastern Conference

Frontcourt

1. LeBron James, Miami Heat: 641,348
2. Carmelo Anthony, New York Knicks: 573,112
3. Kevin Garnett, Boston Celtics: 218,246
4. Chris Bosh, Miami Heat: 210,724
5. Tyson Chandler, New York Knicks: 151,744
6. Paul Pierce, Boston Celtics: 114,735
7. Joakim Noah, Chicago Bulls: 73,366
8. Josh Smith, Atlanta Hawks: 69,344
9. Andrew Bynum, Philadelphia 76ers: 68,596
10. Amar'e Stoudemire, New York Knicks: 64,266
11. Shane Battier, Miami Heat: 59,419
12. Anderson Varejao, Cleveland Cavaliers: 57,336
13. Luol Deng, Chicago Bulls: 48,450
14. Brook Lopez, Brooklyn Nets: 47,940
15. Jeff Green, Boston Celtics: 36,080

Backcourt

1. Dwyane Wade, Miami Heat: 430,925
2. Rajon Rondo, Boston Celtics: 382,613
3. Deron Williams, Brooklyn Nets: 211,426
4. Kyrie Irving, Cleveland Cavaliers: 155,989
5. Ray Allen, Miami Heat: 130,016
6. Monta Ellis, Milwaukee Bucks: 47,650
7. Raymond Felton, New York Knicks: 37,974
8. Jason Terry, Boston Celtics: 36,147
9. Brandon Jennings, Milwaukee Bucks: 35,610
10. Jrue Holiday, Philadelphia 76ers: 35,193

WESTERN CONFERENCE

Frontcourt

1. Kevin Durant, Oklahoma City Thunder: 605,965
2. Dwight Howard, Los Angeles Lakers: 434,168
3. Blake Griffin, Los Angeles Clippers: 307,855
4. Tim Duncan, San Antonio Spurs: 189,577
5. Pau Gasol, Los Angeles Lakers: 139,868
6. Kevin Love, Minnesota Timberwolves: 112,922
7. Omer Asik, Houston Rockets: 88,178
8. Rudy Gay, Memphis Grizzlies: 85,279
9. Serge Ibaka, Oklahoma City Thunder: 68,285
10. LaMarcus Aldridge, Portland Trail Blazers: 66,290
11. Dirk Nowitzki, Dallas Mavericks: 63,056;
12. Marc Gasol, Memphis Grizzlies: 61,716
13. Zach Randolph, Memphis Grizzlies: 59,916
14. Metta World Peace, Los Angeles Lakers: 59,167
15: Anthony Davis, New Orleans Hornets: 53,779

Backcourt

1. Kobe Bryant, Los Angeles Lakers: 639,419
2. Chris Paul, Los Angeles Clippers: 353,603
3. Jeremy Lin, Houston Rockets: 298,319
4. James Harden, Houston Rockets: 196,108
5. Russell Westbrook, Oklahoma City Thunder: 143,437
6. Steve Nash, Los Angeles Lakers: 118,073
7. Tony Parker, San Antonio Spurs: 69,983
8. Ricky Rubio, Minnesota Timberwolves: 54,744
9. Manu Ginobili, San Antonio Spurs: 47,800
10. O.J. Mayo, Dallas Mavericks: 36,495

OK. then: A few takeaways.

• The Jeremy Lin joke everyone made is on its way to becoming a real thing. At the time of Lin's offseason move from the Knicks to the Rockets in restricted free agency, one of many very popular lines tossed around was, "Well, we know who's going to get one of the starting guard spots on the Western Conference All-Star team, because he's going to get the 'I'm big in China' vote that Yao Ming always used to get."

Now, after 19 mostly unremarkable games — plus two pretty great ones — despite ranking 10th in the West in scoring among point guards (and tied for 21st among all nominal West guards), ranking 15th among Western guards in assist-to-turnover ratio, shooting 40 percent from the floor and ... and I'm just wasting my breath. because it's pretty clear that Jeremy Lin hasn't played at an All-Star level for the Rockets this year, and it's likewise clear that, given his national and international popularity — and the fact that he's received more than 100,000 more votes than teammate James Harden, who's fifth in the NBA in scoring — that doesn't really matter. Barring some thumb-on-the-scales stuff from the commissioner's office (which would seem counterintuitive, since many fans clearly want to see Lin there), Lin's looking like a sure bet to represent the host city Rockets; we'll just have to grin and bear it.

• Being injured and famous seems like a pretty good gig. Andrew Bynum, Amar'e Stoudemire, Dirk Nowitzki and Ricky Rubio have combined to play zero minutes this season, and they have more than 250,000 combined votes. Luol Deng, Jrue Holiday and Joakim Noah have played more minutes than all but two players (Durant and DeMar DeRozan) this season, and they have less than 160,000 combined. I guess working hard don't beat hardly working.

• Here are five guys who need better publicists:

Varejao — Leading the league at nearly 15 rebounds per game while also posting career-high scoring numbers, organizing the Cavaliers on defense and doing absolutely everything for a team that struggles with him but would be 100 percent lost without him. Maybe the third-best all-around frontcourt player in the league this year; after LeBron and KD, whichever one of Andy or Duncan you wanted would be OK by me. Still, though: That good.

Holiday — The second-best point guard in the East so far, thanks to Kyrie missing so much time and D-Will missing so many jumpers. (Let's consider this a half-vote for Thaddeus Young, too, who's been a steady offensive contributor and a defensive wrecking ball in the Philly frontcourt as a full-time starter for the first time in three years.)

Stephen Curry — A possible top-10 MVP candidate for his work to date with the 15-7 Golden State Warriors now that he's finally healthy, but still next-to-no fan profile.

David Lee — Along the same lines: 19 and 11 with 3.5 assists a night, 13th in the league in scoring, fifth in the league in rebounding, improved a bit on defense as part of the Warriors' overall rise up the defensive ranks, a star performance for star salary on one of the league's best teams, but has yet to move the needle.

Al Horford — Same as it ever was: 16 and 10 with three assists, a block and a steal, strong post defense against opposing fours and fives, quick enough to team with Smith to wreck opponents' front lines and a deft enough passer to use the inside-out game that's helped activate Atlanta's shooters en route to their somewhat surprising 13-6 start, but continues to toil in relative national obscurity.

• Tim Duncan is this close to getting out of going. The first step's done — you're not in line to start. Now just start dropping hints in every city you go that you haven't been feeling so great, that you think Kevin Love is looking great and that for your money Serge Ibaka's been the best big man in the West this year, and hire some interns to vote for all of the guys below you multiple times a day every day for the next month. If you can drop yourself down the voting list and convince enough people that you're starting to slow down, you might just make it out safely. Then, it's "Dungeons and Dragons" and street-racing time!

• Jeff Green? I mean, I guess he's at least played, which gives him a leg (sorry) up on some of those aforementioned sidelined dudes ... but, um, seriously? Way to support the ball cub, Celtics fans. Keep drinkin' that green Kool-Aid.

The 62nd NBA All-Star Game will air live from Toyota Center in Houston on TNT at 8 p.m. ET on Sunday, Feb. 17, 2013. Set your DVRs now so that you won't forget, and let us know what you think of the voting to-date in the comments, on Facebook or on Twitter.

And also wondering why Zach was wearing goggles — perhaps rehab goggles, for when he hits the pool as he recovers from the ligament tear he suffered last season — during the exercise? Could not understand. Did laugh a lot, though. Many times. Watch:

Then, a little bit of research revealed that those weren't just typical goggles or a goof, but something called "Impairment Goggles." Utilized by drivers instructors in order to inform those who think they can beat a DUI test just by moving with libation-aided confidence that they probably aren't going to be able to walk that proverbial line.

Here's a review of the driver's education tools from one instructor at Driver's Ed Guru:

When I put them on, I was immediately disoriented. These goggles induce double (sometimes triple) vision and extreme blurriness. At first, you'll find it almost impossible to perform the simplest activities like picking up a pencil in front of you. However, with practice, you can achieve some semblance of coordination. However, the experience is ultimately frustrating and an excellent learning opportunity for new drivers.

"With practice," you can achieve some semblance of not acting a stumbling goofball. As you can see, Randolph was afforded no such practice.

This, somehow, makes this all the more impressive. Randolph is a 6-11 guy with aching dogs, as he just finished his team's own basketball practice, asked to walk a straight line after putting on a pair of goggles that immediately skew your equilibrium in the same way that polishing off a six-pack would. Noting that a six-pack would do less to the relative balance of someone Randolph's size is a pointless exercise, haters, because the goggles are intended to disorient no matter the makeup of the student.

The fact that Randolph was just a step … or five … out of line is both a good warning shot (read: don't attempt to do anything but eat pretzels after you drink that six pack) and a good reminder of Randolph's solid balance.

And ever-increasing off-court balance, as he's had his issues with the real version of this in a past he's desperately trying to walk calmly away from.

It's been one week since the ground-shaking confrontation between Memphis Grizzlies power forward Zach Randolph and Oklahoma City Thunder center Kendrick Perkins, a titanic face-off that featured Perk calling for a postgame meeting by the bus, Z-Bo promising to beat Perkins' posterior, a pair of ejections and an alleged back-room "altercation" that launched scores of tweets and an NBA investigation. The result of that league-office inquiry? A $25,000 fine for Randolph for "confronting" Perkins, no discipline for the OKC big man, a bunch of completely reasonable questions as to what exactly makes DeMarcus Cousins "confronting" Shawn Elliott so much worse than Z-Bo's tête-à-tête with Perk, and not much in the way of explanation.

Luckily, we have Randolph himself — that famously uncomplicated bastion of clarity — to help sort things out. In a must-listen (and slightly NSFW, via some coarse language) appearance on "The Chris Vernon Show" on 92.9 FM ESPN Radio in Memphis on Tuesday, Randolph offered his take on the "altercation," clarifying first that there was no "altercation" ("Man, nah, I didn't whoop his ass," though Randolph just laughed when asked if he had planned to do so), explaining what specifically the $25,000 fine was for (going through a set of double doors separating the Grizzlies' side of the locker room area from the visiting team's section, where the Thunder dressing room was) and detailing the genesis of the dust-up between he and Perkins (he thinks Perkins got mad because Randolph woofed a bit after teammate Marc Gasol absolutely worked Perk in the post on a prior possession).

OK, so we know why things started, we know why Randolph was fined and Perkins wasn't, and we know that nothing really happened. But let's take a forward-looking view — what did each man take away from the confrontation? Randolph's words, as transcribed by Thunder beat writer Darnell Mayberry of the Oklahoman, were unsurprisingly awesome:

Do you think Perkins got the point? Do you think he probably thought 'This guy's a maniac?'

(laughs) I don't know. Perkins know me, so he know what's up.

Could you whoop his ass?

(laughs) I'm good with these hands, man. I'm a jackin' dude. I'm pretty good with these hands, so …

If we could all make sure we remember "I'm a jackin' dude" when we fill out our ballots for the Quote of the Century Awards, that'd be great. Thanks.

Randolph went on to attribute his hand skills to his rough upbringing in Marion, Ind., where he said he and his brother had to fight "every day [they] came out the house."

How many have you lost? If I'm going to give you a record, right? Like a boxer, I'm going to give you a record.

You know what, I'm going to say about 30 ... 28-2 or 28-4. I'm going to tell you this, because I used to fight the older guys. You know, I used to fight older guys. You know, the older guys got to chastise you and make sure you ain't backing down. So me or my brother, we never backed down so we used to have to fight older guys.

And if you're not sure what kind of impact that childhood practice had on Z-Bo's fists, ask Ruben Patterson.

Still, as much fun as it is to hear Randolph talk about how easily he could turn himself into a weapon of mass destruction, NBA fans of every tribe — be they grit-grind Grizz lovers or full-throated Thunder supporters — will probably be glad to hear that Z-Bo chalks this all up to a learning experience:

It won't happen again. I ain't gonna lose no $25,000 again. I'm done with all that bluffing on the court, because them guys do a lot of bluffing. [...] We don't do no bluffing, man. (Laughs).

That's good. The NBA's more fun when dudes who average 17 points and 14 boards on an endless array of jab-steps, up-and-unders, pivots and lefty fadeaways without ever leaving the ground actually get to play in the games, rather than sitting them out for calling another dude's bluff. I'd be lying, though, if I said I didn't find watching Z-Bo just a little more fun because I know he could make that call.

When the Memphis Grizzlies and Oklahoma City Thunder square off, Memphis power forward Zach Randolph and Thunder center Kendrick Perkins tend to see a lot of one another, and for two of the NBA's reputed stone-cold, hard-bitten, low-post bangers, that kind of familiarity can breed contempt. Back in May 2011, after Z-Bo had roasted Perk in Game 1 of their Western Conference semifinals playoff series, Perkins refused to agree with teammate Kevin Durant's assessment that Randolph was the best power forward in the league, while Randolph told FoxSports.com's Chris Tomasson that Perkins is "too slow" to guard him and that "all Perk can do is foul me."

Perkins got the last laugh in that playoff series, as the Thunder dispatched the Grizzlies in seven games, but Randolph had the upper hand during Wednesday night's marquee Western Conference matchup between the two fast-starting squads, posting 20 points on 8-for-14 shooting (many at Perk's expense) to go with 11 rebounds and two steals in Memphis' convincing 107-97 road win in OKC. All those jab-step serve-ups got Perk a little heated, it seemed, and with Memphis up 11 and 2:05 left in the game, the beef began to broil:

If you listen closely, you'll hear Perkins yell across the lane to Randolph, "I'll meet you by the bus," followed by Randolph yelling, "I'll beat your ass." Listen even closer and you will hear the moment the entire basketball-watching world went, "Ohhhhhhh, [EXPLETIVE]."

Referee Ken Mauer decided he'd had enough of that tough-guy-back-and-forth and decided to give the two big men the gate. From there, we'll let John Rohde at The Oklahoman pick up the narrative thread:

After the two players were separated, Perkins ran off the court in front of the Thunder bench and into a hallway, where he had another altercation with Randolph outside the postgame interview room next to the Thunder locker room.

The players were separated by Oklahoma City police officers. People in the postgame interview area heard something being slammed against the door.

Security members huddled briefly thereafter to discuss the matter, but no action was taken against either player.

Initial reports of a police investigation resulting from the off-court tête-à-tête were promptly squashed, seemingly remanding this to a brief, height-of-passion scuffle among titans that ended when the final buzzer sounded (or, at least, got tabled until the next time Memphis and OKC meet). It came as a bit of a surprise, then, when ESPN.com's Marc Stein reported on Thursday afternoon that the NBA plans to take its own look into the incident.

[NBA Power Rankings: Knicks move into first place]

Exactly what form of discipline could result from such an investigation remains unclear — the NBA rulebook gives the commissioner's office leeway to levy "a fine not exceeding $50,000 and/or suspension" against players who are involved in physical altercations and/or judged to have thrown a punch on the court, but the lines are a bit blurrier when it comes to things that take place off the court; the situation only gets blurrier, one would presume, when police and security on the scene ostensibly say there was nothing to get exercised about here. Then again, the NBA's fresh off forcing DeMarcus Cousins to take a two-game siesta for allegedly acting hostile toward a color commentator, so maybe "people in the postgame interview area [hearing] something being slammed against the door" is enough of a smoking gun to keep Z-Bo and Perk in suits for the rest of their natural-born lives, irrespective of what Johnny Law thinks.

I feel pretty confident, though, that the NBA's investigation will turn up just as little smoke as the one conducted by the police on-site did. For one thing, as I joked Wednesday night and SB Nation's Tom Ziller joked Thursday morning, Chesapeake Energy Arena continues to stand, and the area surrounding has not been reduced to a rubble-filled crater. And for another, in answer to a postgame question as to whether he and Perk had buried the hatchet, Randolph offered this revelatory bon mot, courtesy of Rohde at the Oklahoman:

"Man, I play basketball. I don't worry about all that. Perk's all right. There's a lot of bluffin' going on the court, that's all, you know. And I don't bluff."

About as perfect an encapsulation of Z-Bo as has ever been uttered. Here's hoping for his sake, though, that the NBA doesn't learn he did anything more than bluster on Wednesday; with the rhythm the Grizz are in, they can ill-afford to see one of their twin towers miss any time.

[Fantasy Basketball '12: Play the official game of NBA.com]

Oklahoma City fans, on the other hand, might just welcome a Perkins suspension. When Perkins sits, OKC's scoring 110.7 points per 100 possessions and allowing just 92.4-per-100, according to NBA.com's stat tool; when he plays, they score 97.9-per-100 and give up 100.7-per-100 on defense. That means they're about 18 points per 100 possessions better than their opponents when Perkins isn't playing, and they're about 3 points-per-100 worse than the opposition when he plays. Maybe a forced vacation for Perk would make Scott Brooks take a closer look at those numbers.

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Four minutes into the fourth quarter of their Sunday matchup, after some traded possessions with the Heat down nine, Ray Allen had just swiped a Jerryd Bayless pass and was streaking up the court for a transition layup. It would've cut Memphis' lead to seven with plenty of time left — and if he got fouled on the trip, it could've made it a two-possession game — and in an "everybody makes a run" league, is precisely the sort of swing that can make three strong quarters disappear, tightening coaches' collars and reducing everything to a half-dozen minutes of held breath.

Luckily for Memphians, Bayless' horse runs a little bit faster than Allen's.

The mistake-erasing chasedown was quickly translated into a big-time 3-pointer by Wayne Ellington (who made seven long balls en route to a 25-point night, both career highs), marking a five-point swing that pushed the Memphis lead up to a dozen. From there, Grizzlies swingman Rudy Gay made his presence felt, rebounding a missed Dwyane Wade runner and draining a long jumper (which is the kind of shot we still wish he wouldn't take, but hey, it went in) before putting an exclamation point on the proceedings:

So, to review: A Heat steal that could've cut the deficit to six turns into a 7-0 run keyed by a huge block, a huge 3-pointer, a sick shake move on LeBron James and a massive tomahawk of a dunk that put Memphis up 16, and this all happened in the space of about 75 seconds. Pretty good run, Grizz.

Memphis continued to pour it on down the stretch to finish off a convincing 104-86 home victory, led by Ellington's 25-point outburst, Gay's all-around contributions on the wing (21 points on 7-for-17 shooting, eight rebounds, five assists, four steals, two blocks), a steady outing from point guard Mike Conley (18 points on 7-for-11 shooting, nine assists against just three turnovers) and another double-double from low-post beast Zach Randolph (18 points, 12 rebounds). Chris Bosh (22 points on 12 shots, eight rebounds) and James (20 points, 10 rebounds, six assists, two steals) paced the Heat, while Dwyane Wade (just 3-for-15 from the field for a season-low eight points) struggled against Memphis' tough perimeter defense.

The win over the defending champs was the Grizzlies' fifth straight W since their season-opening loss to the Los Angeles Clippers. They've held the opposition to 94 points or less in all five, posting an average margin of victory of 12.6 points. They're tied for eighth in the league in offensive efficiency and ranked fourth in defensive efficiency through six games, and they're not sweating their competition at all — witness the answer Gay gave to a question about their upcoming schedule, via The Associated Press:

[Zach Randolph] called this ''a statement game'' for the Grizzlies. They visit Oklahoma City, the defending Western Conference champs, on Wednesday night before hosting the undefeated New York Knicks on Friday. When asked about the Grizzlies having the Thunder and Knicks, Gay had a quick answer.

''They have us,'' he said.

We're sure the Thunder and Knicks are just thrilled about unwrapping that present.

If the video clips above aren't rocking for you, feel free to peruse the block-and-three and Rudy rim-rocker elsewhere, thanks to our friends at the National Basketball Association.

For the first time in two years we'll have an orthodox, full-length NBA season to look forward to. No lockout nonsense, and precious little obsession as to whether or not LeBron James will ever win the big one. He's won it, already, and our sanity as NBA followers is probably better off as a result. However big that shred of sanity is remains to be seen, following yet another offseason that once again proved that the NBA is full of Crazy McCrazytons that appear to take great delight in messing with us continually.

As a result of that offseason, and the impending regular season, why not mess with Ball Don't Lie's triptych of Kelly Dwyer, Dan Devine and Eric Freeman as they preview the 2012-13 season with alacrity, good cheer, and bad jokes.

We continue with the right as rain Memphis Grizzlies.

Kelly Dwyer's Kilt-Straightener

For a team that has spent precious little time as the overlooked underdog, an NBA junkie's fave dragon (Favrgon), the Memphis Grizzlies  might be looking down the barrel of something scary if they can't make some noise next May. A first round exit at the hands of a very good Los Angeles Clippers squad last May came on the heels of a second round run in 2011, and while this team has third round or even Finals potential (given a series of productive matchups), the cap figures and age issues surrounding the club don't portend well for years of keeping the band together.

Mostly because the nearly $47 million spent on Zach Randolph, Rudy Gay, and Marc Gasol this season will jump to nearly $50 million and then nearly $52 million in the two years following. A potential new ownership group might be fine with paying tax-level dollars just to keep this current roster running, but even in New York or Los Angeles this payroll (in the mid-$70 millions next season even if Tony Allen isn't retained) would be tough to live with. For a team still trying to develop depth, it's damn near in the way.

Which is why 2012-13, sadly, has to be so telling for both the franchise, the players involved, and the fans. A team with two All-Star caliber bigs, a game-changing defender in the back court, and two still-improving sub-stars at small forward and point guard should be able to do terrible things to even the Lakers and Heats of the world; but if Memphis doesn't impress this postseason the hard sell for one or more max studs could be on the move.

A shame, but reality in any market. Get to work now, then.

Because of the payroll concerns, internal development was Memphis' finest offseason addition; even more so than acquiring the sound work of scoring guard Jerryd Bayless. The addition of potentially 82 games of the recently-mindful Zach Randolph, whose drop off last season likely had more to do with his sluggishness after having to miss 38 games following a knee injury than it did turning 30 just two weeks into the NBA's 2011 lockout. Randolph has been flat-footing his way towards 20 and 10 for ages, and while the onset of NBA-advanced age might limit his side to side defensive work, all those caroms he grabs on that end will help make up for that production.

That's assuming the opponents can get a shot off, as the team will probably rank at the top once again at causing turnovers. Of course, that's assuming LeBron James doesn't decide to make everyone cry and lead the NBA with 7.9 steals per game.

Due to tax concerns, O.J. Mayo's inconsistent (but much needed) touch at shooting guard is off to Dallas. Mayo was no star, average in just about every area down to his 36.4 three-point shooting, but as a minutes sopper he'll be missed even if Bayless completely makes up for his production. Teams still treat Mayo as if he was the lights out shooter they were introduced to in the first part of his rookie season; and they won't be racing out in the same way with Bayless.

We really hope the Grizzlies don't over-rely on former Minnesota Timberwolf Wayne Ellington, even if he might be the team's best long range shooter at this point — Bayless' sound  marks on 104 attempts in Toronto last year scream "fluke" when you consider that he's been a below average shooter from behind the line since 2008. Marresse Speights has lovely touch, sometimes. Darrell Arthur, regrettably, is sometimes not injured.

From there, you have Mike Conley and Rudy Gay, 25 and 26 respectively, adding another chunk of all-around excellence to the foundation that Randolph and Gasol set.

Based on Randolph's return and the seven-game playoff run, I'm not as concerned with Gay finding lanes hard to slash through in 2012-13. Though he rarely passes after putting the ball on the floor, it doesn't feel (to this outsider) as if Gay is guilty of forcing things after not receiving a look for too long, and Conley's continued ascension as an improving penetrator and passer will aid a team that is just looking to stay out of the NBA's lottery (The Lower 14) in terms of overall offense.

The Grizzlies, more or less as presently constructed, might stay together for years beyond July of 2013. Even if another first or second round loss is in the cards, the new ownership may respond to the city's commitment to the team, and take on this frontcourt's pay at a loss. On the opposite end of that spectrum of weirdness is something just as odd — things could be chopped up this February.

The point, as it's been for decades, is to listen to what the city of Memphis is telling you. This is a team worth embracing, and this certainly is a team worth watching as much as you possibly can. For months, or years.

Projected record: 50-32

Fear Itself with Dan Devine

It is tonally appropriate that the NBA season tips off just before Halloween -- because on any given night, each and every one of the league's 30 teams can look downright frightening. Sometimes, that means your favorite team will act as their opposition's personal Freddy Krueger; sometimes, you will be the one suffering through the living nightmare. In preparation for Opening Night, BDL's Dan Devine considers what makes your team scary and what should make you scared.

What Makes You Scary: A vision, only barely glimpsed, finally becoming realized. Back before the start of last season, NBA observers in some circles wondered whether the feel-good Grizzlies, who'd stormed their way to within a win of the Western Conference Finals after losing star small forward Rudy Gay to a dislocated left shoulder behind the bruising tandem of center Marc Gasol and power forward Zach Randolph, were going to face an identity crisis (sorry, Eric) and possibly take a step backward once they had their full complement of frontcourt talent. The fear was that reintroducing a wing scorer who would take touches away from either Randolph or Gasol (but mostly Z-Bo) down low would mess with the rhythm and flow that Memphis had established down the stretch, moving them away from an inside-out attack that had proven successful in knocking off the top-seeded San Antonio Spurs and pushing the Oklahoma City Thunder to the limit.

As it turned out, injury again largely took the bat out of coach Lionel Hollins' hands, only this time it was Randolph who'd find the pine, as a torn medial collateral ligament in his right knee kept the big man sidelined for 38 of the lockout-shortened season's 66 games; even after his comeback, he was largely relegated to reserve duty, making just eight starts and rarely looking like the world-breaking low-post force he'd been a season prior. Gay, on the other hand, was the picture of health, making 65 starts, averaging 19 points, 6.4 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 1.5 steals in 37 minutes per game, and, save for a steep drop in his 3-point accuracy (39.6 percent pre-injury in '10-'11, 31.2 percent last year) looking like the near-All-Star-level three he'd been before succumbing to injury.

All told, the team's expected starting five -- Gasol, Randolph, Gay, defensive menace Tony Allen at shooting guard and steadily improving point guard Mike Conley -- played just 155 minutes together over the course of 17 games, according to lineup data available in NBA.com's stat tool. That's even less than the 184 total minutes (spread over 30 games) the five shared in 2010-11.

It's a shame, because 339 minutes over the course of two seasons really isn't very much to be able to analyze or use as reliable predictors of future performance. Still, though: Um, have you looked at those minutes?

Back in 2010-11, the Gasol-Randolph-Gay-Allen-Conley group produced an average of 105.9 points per 100 possessions, 1.5-per-100 better than the team's overall mark and one that would've ranked among the 10 most efficient offenses in the NBA over the course of that full season; the offensive gains more than offset a slight defensive slide from 102.5-per-100 allowed on the whole to 103-per-100 allowed by this group. The unit grabber a higher percentage of offensive and defensive rebounds than Memphis' season rates, shot better from the field and 3-point range, dished more assists and snagged more steals per 48 minutes, and fouled less frequently. Doesn't seem like a unit that had that much trouble co-existing, right?

The numbers last season, though, were downright ridiculous -- 110.1 points scored per 100 possessions (9.1 better the full season) and just 93-per-100 allowed (5.9 better). That means that the Grizzlies' starting five, on average, outscored its opposition by 17.1 points per 100 possessions, which is, y'know, a lot -- last year's best efficiency differential belonged to the Chicago Bulls, who outscored opponents by an average of 9.3-per-100. The rebounding numbers all went up by an absurd degree -- 35 percent of available offensive rebounds (better than league-leading Chicago), 82.3 percent of available defensive rebounds (better than league-leading San Antonio) and 57.9 percent overall (better than league-leading Chicago) -- and their True Shooting and Effective Field Goal percentages would've been right around top-five in the NBA.

Obviously, the small sample sizes at play here prevent us from taking these numbers too seriously, extrapolating these out and predicting something like a West-winning performance. But with Randolph back to 100 percent, Gasol providing his now-customary brilliant post work on both ends, Gay (26) and Conley (25) continuing to develop and just about to enter their athletic primes, and Allen in about as round-peg-in-a-round-hole role as exists in the NBA as Hollins' designated disruptor, I wouldn't be surprised at all if this unit continued to put a serious hurting on opposing lineups if given the chance to actually run together a bit. Here's hoping they get that opportunity.

What Should Make You Scared: Floor spacing ... or, more to the point, the lack thereof. When your primary offensive weapons are post players who do their best work with their backs to the basket or slashers who do their best work when they've got room to drive and lanes through which to penetrate, spreading and balancing the floor is paramount ... and Memphis isn't great at it.

The Grizzlies ranked 27th among 30 NBA teams in 3-pointers made last year, 28th in the league in 3-pointers attempted and tied for 25th in 3-point percentage ... and the guy who led them in makes and attempts, O.J. Mayo, will suit up for the Dallas Mavericks this season. Only one returning Grizzly, point guard Conley (a team-leading 37.7 percent), shot better than league-average from deep last season, and while Mayo's ostensible replacement, Jerryd Bayless, hit a blistering 42.3 percent of his triples in Toronto last year, Memphis fans might want to temper their expectations -- before making 44 of his 104 3-pointers last year, he'd hit just 85 of 265 (32.1 percent) in his three-year NBA career, so the lockout-shortened season might have been an outlier for him.

The Grizz will hope it was also an outlier for Gay, whose long-range accuracy fell off a cliff last year -- Tom Lorenzo of Grizz blog Straight Outta Vancouver, for one, would prefer it if Rudy would just stop shooting from that far away -- and former Minnesota Timberwolves guard Wayne Ellington, who shot just 32.4 percent from deep last year after hitting at a 39.6 percent clip through the two previous years. One potential wild card to keep an eye on if the Grizz have trouble spacing the floor: Second-year second-round pick Josh Selby, who shot 64.7 percent from deep in Summer League and 50 percent in preseason, and could get a look as Memphis' fourth guard if either Bayless or Ellington struggle early.

The issue wasn't just the 3-ball, though. Memphis last year took the league's 12th-most "long twos" -- shots from between 16 and 23 feet away, widely regarded as the least efficient shot in the game -- and finished 21st out of 30 in field-goal percentage on such shots, according to Hoopdata's shot location statistics. For teams with sharpshooting big men -- think Kevin Durant and Serge Ibaka in Oklahoma City, Kevin Garnett and Brandon Bass in Boston or Dirk Nowitzki in Dallas -- inverting the offense, allowing bigs to step out on the floor and letting them fire away can serve as a legitimate means of drawing opposing big men out of the paint, creating room for wings and guards to post up on smaller defenders or openings into which they can penetrate. If you don't have excellent outside-shooting bigs, though, such attempts to reverse-engineer spacing can lead to an offense bogging down. That happened to Memphis a lot last year, helping explain their tie for 20th in the league in offensive efficiency.

That said, don't be surprised if Memphis keeps firing those long twos. After returning from injury, Randolph never really got his touch back; he shot 30 percent between 16 and 23 feet way last year after hitting 37 percent from that distance in '10-'11 and 42 percent from there in '09-'10. Gasol's number was better than Z-Bo's, and right around league average for centers last year (38 percent), but still represented a drop-off (44 percent in '10-'11, 40 percent in '09-'10). Reserve big Marreese Speights has consistently shown he can knock down the deep jumper when it's served up (47 percent last year, 42 percent in '10-'11, 44 percent in '09-'10) and power forward Darrell Arthur showed improved range during his strong '10-'11 campaign (39 percent), too.

If Randolph and Gasol return to form, Speights holds fast and Arthur's stroke stays sweet after returning from the left-leg stress fracture he suffered prior to training camp (which followed an Achilles tendon tear that cost him all of last season), the Grizz look to have one of the best midrange-shooting frontcourt rotations in the league, which could improve spacing and get their offense out of the bottom 10 in the league. If they don't, though, opponents will likely again be able to load up in the paint without much fear of outside reprisal, leading to more stagnant possessions, another bottom-of-the-league offense and little hope for advancing far in the competitive Western Conference playoffs.

Eric Freeman's Identity Crisis

There is no more important asset for a basketball team than talent, and yet the more loaded squad does not always win. What we've seen in recent seasons isn't only that the best team wins, but that the group with the clearest sense of self, from management down through the players, prevails. A team must not only be talented, but sure of its goals, present and future, and the best methods of obtaining them. Most NBA teams have trouble with their identity. Eric Freeman's Identity Crisis is a window into those struggles, the accomplishment of realizing a coherent identity, and the pitfalls of believing these issues to be solved.

On Friday, when discussing the Indiana Pacers, I said that there's no shame in being a good playoff team with no substantive shot at a title. That's not only true because circumstances sometimes allow a team to contend out of nowhere. On a very basic level, an organization can do a lot with a steady period of postseason appearances. Fans have fun, players build reputations, and pretty much everyone in the front office holds onto a job. It's all pretty darn positive.

The Grizzlies, now heading into their third season of being a very good, fairly limited team, are proof of that. After 2011's surprising first-round upset of the Spurs and last spring's hard-fought series against the Clippers, Memphis looks primed for at least a few more seasons of postseason relevance. On top of that, they do it with verve, combining old-school toughness with the kind of brash confidence we associate with the modern NBA. There are few frontline combos as capable and fun to watch as Rudy Gay, Marc Gasol, and Zach Randolph. Add blog favorite Tony Allen and the ever-improving Mike Conley, and you're looking at a team to be reckoned with.

However, as the rest of the West improves, it looks more and more likely that the Grizzlies will top out as a No. 4 or No. 5 seed. In practice, that means the Grizzlies are most likely to read as "dangerous" rather than "dominant" or "relentless." They're really good, but they're only ever to achieve so much.

For the Lakers or Heat, that's not enough. But Memphis until recently looked like a franchise that might have to move to another city due to diminishing local interest. A few playoff appearances, along with a prospective owner committed to finding local support, could end up keeping the Grizzlies in town. That's a major achievement, in many ways more important than making the conference finals.

The Grizzlies know what they are, and they also know what they're likely to be for the foreseeable future (unless, that is, they deal Gay, which is always within the realm of possibility). That makes them a tough team to handle, as well as a tremendously fun one. And even if they never win more than a playoff series in any particular year, they can know that they've accomplished a lot. Judging success, as always, depends on circumstances and available options just as much as the final result.

Certain players around the NBA have not entirely undeserved reputations as bad apples. For many years, Memphis Grizzlies Zach Randolph was one of those guys, based on several gun-related charges and various examples of a lack of maturity while playing for teams that included the Portland Trail Blazers and New York Knicks.

In recent years, though, Z-Bo's stellar play for the Grizzlies has burnished his reputation into something a little more attractive to the casual fan. Randolph hasn't been a model citizen in that time — an arrest for an alleged role as a massive marijuana supplier and a party gone very wrong have been in the news — but there's at least an acknowledgment that he's not all bad all the time.

Within the last month, Z-Bo has shown his best side while taking care of a rescued pit bull in Memphis. The official NBA YouTube page produced a video (available above), and Scott Carroll of The Memphis Commercial Appeal has more details:

Memphis Grizzlies forward Zach Randolph followed close behind as a wary young pit bull was carried out of the Memphis Animal Services Shelter on Friday. Uncurling from the arms of an animal services employee, the dog was placed in a crate bound for New Orleans' Villalobos Rescue Center, a veterinary facility specializing in pit bull care. [...]

"It's remarkable that he's still alive," Randolph later said of the stray pooch.

The dog was found July 9 in a drainpipe near the Shelby Farms Green Line trail at Waring Road -- scared, weak and suffering from heartworms and several skin infections. MAS officials said he had been trapped there for several days. After hearing about the dog and contacting Villalobos' owner Tia Torres, whose work is the subject of Animal Planet's "Pit Bulls and Parolees" reality TV show, Randolph said Friday that he donated $10,000 to the center to cover Little Z-Bo's continued physical and emotional rehabilitation, and will give more if needed.

The breed is close to Randolph's heart, he said. "I've got eight or nine of them, and I breed them and sell pups," he said. "And I take them to shows." [...]

"The pit bulls have a bad reputation currently ... as being a fighter. And that's because that's what they are trained by some people to do," he said.

Saving one pit bull is obviously a drop in the ocean when it comes to solving the world's problems, or even those afflicting dogs, but we still must congratulate Randolph for his actions in this case. It'll be good for his reputation, of course, but it's also an issue dear to his heart.

Also, I think we can agree that Little Z-Bo is one of the best names for a dog possible. Hopefully he will make a friend named "Little Marc Gasol" in New Orleans, and they can dominate the paint of dog basketball games for the foreseeable future.

On Thursday night, the NBA released its full schedule for the 2012-13 season. Yahoo!'s own Marc Spears has noted some of the biggest matchups, including the customary high-impact games on opening night (Oct. 30) and Christmas Day. But the strength of the NBA season is that there can be several very watchable games full of storylines and intrigue on any given night. Below, check out 10 not-so-marquee games worth your time.

Washington Wizards at Cleveland Cavaliers, Oct. 30. The other two opening night games (Celtics at Heat and Mavericks at Lakers) are big ones, particularly given the history between those teams over the past two postseasons. However, fans shouldn't sleep on this contest available on League Pass (which, as usual, will have a free preview for the season's first week). The Wizards have retooled around John Wall with rookie shooting guard Bradley Beal and veterans such as new center Nene and have hopes of making the playoffs, while reigning Rookie of the Year Kyrie Irving has shown that the Cavs aren't terribly far from a post-LeBron resurgence. At the very least, watching this game will be a great way to spend an hour before TNT takes over the night.

Charlotte Bobcats at New Orleans Hornets, Nov. 9. Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist are different players with different strengths, but their becoming the first two college teammates to be selected with the NBA draft's first two picks means that they'll be tied together for the rest of their careers. This game marks their first matchup of their pro careers. It's early enough in the season that both players can't be expected to wow us too much, but it's hard to imagine a more intriguing rookie matchup in 2012-13. Expect a few highlights that will make fans very optimistic about the future.

Denver Nuggets at Memphis Grizzlies, Nov. 19. Sometimes NBA games don't need special storylines to be watchable — they just require two very good teams likely to produce a watchable game. The Nuggets and Grizzlies are exactly that. Both teams will expect to make the playoffs this season, and they're also deep enough that a different player can star on any given night. The key matchup in this one should be in the frontcourt, where the Nuggets will hope improving youngsters JaVale McGee and Kenneth Faried can keep the Grizzlies' Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol in check.

Minnesota Timberwolves at Portland Trail Blazers, Nov. 23. Brandon Roy retired last December with the goodwill of the Blazers behind him; injuries kept him from having the Hall of Fame career the fans hoped he'd have, but he always represented the team in an inspiring manner. Now that he's back in the league with the Wolves, it remains to be seen how Portland will welcome him as a visiting player. It'll likely be a warm reception, but there should also be a bit of awkwardness. (Note: This game is also notable as the first time Blazers forward Nicolas Batum will play the team he desperately wanted to sign with this summer.)

Houston Rockets at New York Knicks, Dec. 17. For some unclear reason, Jeremy Lin's return to the city that spawned Linsanity will air on NBA TV, not one of the more readily available cable networks. Nevertheless, it's hard to imagine a more buzzworthy matchup between two teams that have won a combined one playoff series in the last 12 years. New York will almost surely cheer the still-popular Lin, and maybe even stage an informal protest if the Knicks struggle without him over the season's first month. (The reception for new Rocket and former Knick Toney Douglas will probably be less enthusiastic.)

Orlando Magic at Brooklyn Nets, Jan. 28. As options dwindle, it looks increasingly likely that Dwight Howard will not be traded before the start of the season. That makes his two trips to Brooklyn this season important, especially as opportunities for Nets fans to show him some love and put pressure on Orlando GM Rob Hennigan to make a deal. The first visit takes place on Nov. 11, but the recent extension for Nets center Brook Lopez means that he can't be used in any trades until January. The second game, then, could carry a lot of weight as the trade deadline draws nearer. If the Magic decide to trade Howard at all, this game could be the first against his old team or the last time he plays in his preferred destination before switching sides.

Los Angeles Lakers at Phoenix Suns, Jan. 30. Steve Nash is as widely liked as any player in the NBA. However, his departure from the Suns for the supposed rival Lakers might not sit well with many fans in Phoenix, particularly as they enter what should be a very difficult season. Many fans should cheer Nash upon his return, but it's possible that this game will mark one of the few times that NBA fans actually boo him. Either that, or the crowd will beg him to come back and save the franchise again.

Denver Nuggets at Washington Wizards, Feb. 22. Over 3 1/2 seasons with the Wizards, JaVale McGee was as ridiculous a player as we've seen in the NBA in quite some time — if a week went by without a laughable gaffe, it was considered a success. In just a few months in Denver, he established himself as a potential All-Star center, a guy with enough promise to earn a considerable contract extension this summer. If McGee continues to improve, this game could serve as a reminder to the Wizards that a dysfunctional environment might have arrested his development. And while the Wizards intend to make the playoffs this season with a new-look roster, the wounds of the prior era might not be entirely healed.

Miami Heat at Chicago Bulls, March 27. Derrick Rose is going to miss most of the season as he recovers from the ACL tear he suffered in the first game of the playoffs, and the Bulls have little chance of contending because of it. Yet, with Rose likely returning some time in March, Chicago can still hold some hope that they can sneak into the postseason and make some noise as a dangerous low seed. If Rose returns in time for this matchup with the reigning champs, we could get a good sense of the extent of his recovery and how much more he has to go to recapture his All-NBA form.

Los Angeles Clippers at Sacramento Kings, April 17. This is the last night of the NBA season — it's possible that the Clippers won't play their most important players with playoff seeding locked up, and the Kings should be a lottery team despite having an exciting frontcourt with DeMarcus Cousins and Thomas Robinson. This game is worth everyone's time, though, because it could be the last one in Sacramento. As the Maloof family continues to look for ways to move the franchise and the city's options dwindle, a change could come sooner rather than later. It's an awful situation, particularly due to shady dealings and broken promises on the parts of the Maloofs. Their great fans deserve much better. And if the NBA does say goodbye to Sacramento, the least we can do is pay them our respects.

Way back in March, BDL's Kelly Dwyer wrote a post detailing the NBA's interest in putting advertisements on their teams' jerseys. He spoke for all of us here in noting that the idea is crass and distasteful to anyone more focused on the sport of basketball itself than on the bottom lines of multinational conglomerates and their partners within the league. Sadly, jersey sponsorships are very much a step in the continued businessification of the sports world, and the time to make a meaningful stand against the movement was probably 20 years ago when every arena in the world traded its municipal name for that of a corporation. Some battles are lost well before they begin.

It is now time to get even more used to the idea of ads on jerseys, because it could be only a season or two away. At a meeting of the NBA's Board of Governors on Thursday, the owners discussed how best to implement these sponsorships. After the meeting, deputy commissioner Adam Silver gave a sense of their plans at a press conference. From Ken Berger of CBSSports.com:

NBA jerseys almost certainly will feature small sponsorship patches on the shoulder area in two years, a move that league officials estimate could generate $100 million in revenues per season. [...]

"I think it's fair to say that our teams were excited about the opportunity and think there is potentially a big opportunity in the marketplace to put a two by two patch on the shoulder of our jerseys," Silver said.

Silver later corrected himself, saying the patches would be 2.5 inches-by-2.5 inches. They would feature the names of companies -- think McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Kia, Apple -- and would put the NBA in lock step with international sports leagues whose player uniforms routinely are adorned with ads. WNBA teams already have sponsorship logos on their jerseys, but the NBA would be the first of the four major American pro sports leagues to take the plunge.

"My sense is that every team is in favor of doing this in some form," Silver said.

[Adrian Wojnarowski: Andrew Bynum could derail Dwight Howard trade]

It is no great surprise that the same group of 30 men who started the lockout last summer — during which these potential jersey profits may or may not have figured into financial discussions — would be in favor of making at least eight figures from a small patch on jerseys. Their assumption, I'm sure, is that fans will eventually get used to it, just as they got used to stadium name changes and sponsored timeout entertainment and $14 beers. This particular march of progress started long ago, and it's not going to abate unless every fan reads Marx and decides a bloody uprising is the best case scenario. (I call a spot in the vanguard!)

However, until the proles rise, we should probably at least hope for advertising that makes sense. With that in mind, I have suggested the best possible jersey sponsorship partners for each NBA franchise. Read on and witness the wonders of corporate synergy.

Boston Celtics: Geritol. I don't entirely know what Geritol is, or what it does. But I do know that only old people use it, and the Celtics are likely to appeal to the more mature set this season. What better way to reach out to older fans than to sell them something only they understand. It's like a secret club!

New York Knicks: Jaguar. A luxury item that falls apart and needs parts replaced regularly.

Philadelphia 76ers: Geno's Steaks and Pat's King of Steaks. It might seem odd to have two famous rival cheesesteak shops share space on the Sixers' uniform, but it's really not so different from putting two centers into the starting lineup. Plus, both make your body (or team) sluggish.

Toronto Raptors: Molson. It might seem unlikely for the NBA to allow beer logos on its jerseys. However, it is a little-known fact that Canadians are only allowed to drink beer and eat poutine, as decreed by their moose prime minister. Therefore, Molson was the only logical choice for this spot.

Brooklyn Nets: The New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority. There is much excitement about the Nets playing games in Brooklyn, as well as jokes about their players hobnobbing with buzzbands and dressing like designer hobos. The truth, however, is that everyone associated with the franchise will live in Manhattan and spend very little time living like a character from "Girls." They will all need unlimited-ride subway tickets, and the MTA is here to exploit that.

[Video: Derrick Rose makes first public statement since knee surgery]

Chicago Bulls: Jenga. Without Derrick Rose at full strength, the Bulls could have a hard time staying among the league's elite. In Jenga, removing just one piece can make the whole structure fall apart. Also, it is very cheap, just like Chicago's free-agent pickups this offseason.

Cleveland Cavaliers: Quicken Loans. Around the time of the housing crisis, Dan Gilbert's Quicken Loans came under fire for its predatory loaning practices. Nevertheless, Gilbert took the moral high ground during LeBron James' poorly conceived departure from Cleveland. Is there any reason he'd stop now and avoid giving one of his businesses more attention, especially with the Cavs looking much improved?

Detroit Pistons: Ford Taurus. A solid, affordable car from Detroit that neither inspires nor offends. A vessel that gets you from place to place, and little more. Who needs personality?

Milwaukee Bucks: Target crewneck undershirts. Head coach Scott Skiles is a man of simple tastes. He will not allow his team members to advertise anything that calls attention to itself.

Indiana Pacers: Miracle Whip. A few years ago, the Pacers were like mayonnaise — boring, plain, and a potential health risk. Now, they're good, and hip, and basically like Miracle Whip, which promotes itself as anything but ordinary. I've never had it, but I can only assume they lace their product with LSD.

Miami Heat: Polo Ralph Lauren. A high-class aesthetic for all. Elitist style manufactured for a class slightly below, though affordable enough to seem attainable.

Atlanta Hawks: The Nelly album "Suit/Sweat." The Hawks are trying to remake their image into that of a professional, Spurs-like organization after years of being poorly run. They want to be businessmen. Unfortunately for new GM Danny Ferry and the others who run the organization, they can't say goodbye to their partying ways just yet. They must balance their personalities, just like on this classic album by the master of American hip-hop.

Orlando Magic: Excedrin. Because this Dwight Howard headache isn't going to end anytime soon.

Washington Wizards: Pull-Ups Training Pants. The Wizards have hopes of making the playoffs this season and have constructed their roster accordingly. The problem here is that teams usually don't suddenly become postseason contenders, especially when their most important player (John Wall, in this case) is still learning how to be a top dog. Pull-Ups are a useful between-stages item and will help fans understand exactly what they are watching in DC.

Charlotte Bobcats: Bobcat Goldthwait. It might seem natural for owner Michael Jordan to use his eponymous Nike brand on his team's jerseys, but he would never align himself with such a terrible team. However, because the Bobcats are so bad, they cannot attract any companies and must settle for a funny-voiced yet interesting comedian/actor/writer/director.

Oklahoma City Thunder: "The Avengers" on Blu-Ray/DVD. Mark Ruffalo, who plays the Hulk in the Marvel blockbuster, is a big enemy of hydrofracking, an energy-company practice advocated by OKC co-owner Aubrey McClendon. In order to prevent future complaints, McClendon will allow Ruffalo to advertise his movies on Thunder uniforms.

Denver Nuggets: Skittles Riddles. The Nuggets' strength is in their depth, but that means they often don't know which player will be their best scoring option on any particular night. Skittles Riddles are just as delicious as regular Skittles, except the buyer doesn't know which flavor is which. What a delightful surprise!

Utah Jazz: The Natural Resources Defense Council. EnergySolutions, the company after which the Jazz arena is named, is the largest nuclear waste company in the country. With the NRDC on hand, the Jazz will show the world that they are not ecological terrorists, and that Enes Kanter will not randomly sprout a third arm during a February game against the Houston Rockets.

(Note: The original entry for the Jazz was a hack-ish, outdated joke about the Jazz franchise being really white. Thanks to the Jazz fans on Twitter who set me straight.)

Portland Trail Blazers: Windows 7. This operating system replaced Vista, a high-profile flop for Microsoft. Windows 7 is a marked improvement, but still not considered cool by anyone who lives in Portland. By connecting it to the beloved Blazers, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen will increase that market share if it kills him.

[Related: Kevin Love pleased 'bad blood' is gone from T'wolves locker room]

Minnesota Timberwolves: Gillette. The shave company's new ad campaign features hip young endorsers like Andre 3000 and Gael Garcia Bernal discussing how best to sculpt their facial hair. Wolves stars Kevin Love and Ricky Rubio so far only have pretty standard beards, but their hair is still ripe for advertorial exploitation.

Los Angeles Lakers: Steve's $4,000 Sweatpants Emporium. No clothing store in Los Angeles makes as much money as Steve's, your one-stop shop for ridiculously expensive casual wear that makes you look like a schlubb in style. It's the essential element of any Angeleno's uniform.

Los Angeles Clippers: The American Civil Liberties Union. As stipulated in one of his housing discrimination settlements, owner Donald Sterling must use the ACLU logo for jersey sponsorships.

Phoenix Suns: Gucci. During lockout negotiations, owner Robert Sarver said that his wife told him to bring the mid-level exception back to her in a designer handbag. Now all Suns fans can luxuriate in the joy of owning a high-priced bag, or at least enjoy thinking about their owner's wonderful marriage every time they watch their favorite team.

Golden State Warriors: Globoozle.com. Joe Lacob comes from the world of venture capital, where even the stupidest ideas for companies earn millions of dollars in funds. Globoozle.com is the world's first website that combines social media, traveling, and home ownership so that vacationers can spend their entire trips tweeting about what it'd be like to live in that particular city based on very basic appraisals of properties in the area. Nobody in Silicon Valley knows how this service is valuable, but they're excited about it anyway.

Sacramento Kings: Taco Bell. An absolutely horrible meal that still tastes quite delicious, in its way. That makes it a perfect pairing for a bad team with DeMarcus Cousins and Thomas Robinson in the frontcourt. Plus, game times will perfectly coincide with Fourth Meal for fans watching on the East Coast.

Memphis Grizzlies: Curves. While most fitness chains try to beat their clients into shape, Curves preaches becoming comfortable with your body. As most people know, Grizz star Zach Randolph is a little pudgy. Sometimes, that extra heft helps him play his best.

[Related: Rockets GM Daryl Morey goes off on Houston reporter]

Houston Rockets: The Columbia House Music Club. As many music choices as you want, as long as you play by strict rules, with the potential to pay lots of money for very little in return. There are options, but only so many.

Dallas Mavericks: AXS TV. Mark Cuban is the founder of AXS, originally known as HDNet, the first network to air all its programs in high-definition. Despite the name change, they still show the same four concerts and reruns of "JAG" they always did. The Mavs have a new look, but chances are they're not going to do much better than they did in 2011-12. On the other hand, that one lady on "JAG" sure is pretty.

New Orleans Hornets: Tweezers. Look, I know a unibrow is distinct, but at some point a man gets too old for that look.

San Antonio Spurs: Milk. Wholesome, delicious, and good for you. What's not to like?

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There are a lot of quirks behind NBA contracts that are, frankly, way over our head. Despite the pompadour. We can kind of understand why Jeremy Lin would potentially cost the New York Knicks in upwards of $40 million through a combination of salary and tax penalties in the 2014-15 season, but will instead only cost the Houston Rockets 8 1/2 million that particular season. We don't believe the clearly Jerry West-planted tale about him overpaying Brian Cardinal just to shut team owner Michael Heisley up, which is so wrong in so many ways, and we still don't understand why the Portland Trail Blazers decided to match Nicolas Batum's giant contract terms, as established by the Minnesota Timberwolves.

What we do get, because longtime NBA salary analyst Mark Deeks explained it so well, is that Memphis Grizzlies big man Zach Randolph is going to get a nice little pay bump towards the end of his contract, just because the Grizz tried to skirt the difference between the quite similar "early termination option" and "player option" in 2011:

As I understand it - based solely upon a combination of supposition and analogous precedent - there exist two options. Firstly, the league can perhaps modify the contract in order to make it accord with its own rules - that is to say, adjusting the level of guaranteed compensation within the option year to equal that of the season before it. This solution, were it to happen (or to be even be possible) would mean $1.3 million more going to Zach, and $1.3 million less in future salary wiggle room for Memphis.

[…]

While the Grizzlies may have made a mistake in drafting the contract, it is not that big of a faux pas. It is not as embarrassing as it may seem. Put simply, errors happen all the time. Just because a team knows all the rules, it doesn't mean they consistently remember them all when it comes to applying them. The human element exists. Whilst usually addressed in the formative stages, mistakes do happen - see also, Matt Barnes to Toronto - and it is the prerogative and jurisdiction of the league office to catch them. In this instance, they did not, and so while the Grizzlies accidentally flouted the rule, teams unintentionally do that often. It is still the job of the league office to approve them. By doing so on a contract that does not adhere to the rules, the league may have denied itself any remedy.

As Mark mentioned, this isn't a killer for Memphis, and they're more than happy to contribute to the bank account of a go-to stud that has turned his game around with the Grizzlies. A game that, as Deeks mentioned earlier in his column, will age gracefully because of Randolph's considerable basketball smarts and no overreliance on athleticism to get his 20 and 10 on.

The Grizzlies do attempt to cut corners, though, as they should. They're a small-market team, and while Heisley has paid out big salaries and the resultant luxury tax before, he's also attempted minor machinations while paying rookies and keeping other forms of payroll tidy. A figure like $1.3 million may not mean much by itself, but in a 2014-15 season that will see the Grizzlies paying just under $60 million to Randolph, Rudy Gay, Marc Gasol and Michael Conley Jr. alone? Suddenly that number turns into real people money, and not just what Zach probably spends on muscle cars.

Also, if you read all of this on an NBA blog in the middle of July, it's probably time to re-assess your aversion to other sports.

(But thank you for reading.)

Another draft has come and gone, and another batch of judgment must be offered up. We spare no feelings with our draft grades as we lay waste to the flotsam and jetsam of an NBA panel gone mad with power, while replete with obvious and odious failures.

Actually, no, we're kind of cool with most of the picks, as you'll see in our rankings. In a limited draft filled with limited chances for trades by teams with lots of holes to fill, draft position counts for quite a bit. Until these teams really screw up with these players in terms of development or over-praise/play, the slates are just about clean and the feelings are warm. Seriously, nobody's really screwing up badly, here. That's what free agency is for.

Click the jump for our grades for each of the NBA's 30 teams.

Atlanta Hawks

Additions: John Jenkins, Mike Scott.

Grade: C+

Jenkins is an elite shooter at the college level, and though the Vanderbilt product won't be putting a Hawks team over the top in that area (Atlanta was fifth in the NBA in 3-point shooting last season), he appears to be good value for being taken 24th overall. Good value, I suppose, in how favorably you compare his skills with Doron Lamb, who was taken 42nd overall by Milwaukee. I just wonder if the Hawks really needed a good shooter, with other actual "good players" available.

Scott was a big banger with good stats at Virginia, but you better bang and have good stats playing in a senior season that started three months after your 23rd birthday. Still, for a second-round pick? Not bad.

Additionally, both players have names that sound like the sort of generic white dude names video game programmers would give unlicensed baseball video game player names to.

[Related: Marc J. Spears: Winners and losers from NBA draft]

Boston Celtics

Additions: Jared Sullinger, Fab Melo, Kris Joseph

Grade: A

Boston may have disappointed its fans by failing to either move up in the draft (to potentially grab Austin Rivers) or swing a big trade for a vet, but the reality is that neither the move up was feasible, and the trade options were limited with Kevin Garnett still mulling retirement through the weekend. In place of that, the team did quite well.

Take Sullinger's worst case scenario: Let's say he needs significant back surgery that leaves him out for the entire 2012-13 season. This means the Celtics, in whatever form we see them in by that time, will suit up a healthy, lottery pick-level talent in 2013-14. And if Sullinger's back holds up this upcoming season? Then Boston got a steal. Melo will have quite a bit of work to do to adapt to man-to-man NBA defense, and his foul rate will be off the charts this season, but he's a 7-footer who wants to defend. Hard to beat that in the 20s.

Kris Joseph, who was 23 in his last year at Syracuse, comes less heralded. He is a good athlete, though.

Charlotte Bobcats

Additions: Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Jeff Taylor

Grade: A

Really, what were the Bobcats going to do? Once the team knew it was slated to pick second in a one-man draft, its fortunes were all but assured. And the trade down options, while not awful, weren't enough to pull the trigger in a depth-acquiring deal. Kidd-Gilchrist may never be a star. He may never fill out to more than a defensive-minded Calbert Cheaney-type; but he's a mindful (eh!), spirited player who is going to work for you. I still think Bradley Beal was the better, and perhaps safer, pick. But MKG's ability to improve year to year could mean great things for Charlotte. Calbert Cheaney could be the absolute lowest notch on his Potential Belt.

(You'll have to pardon me. We're all short of sleep.)

Taylor's inclusion has drawn criticism because he's a rangy defender much in the same mode as Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, but when you have absolutely nothing on your roster of note, you don't really care about drafting for need in the second round. Take who you have rated the highest; and if it's a defender like Jeff Taylor, you could do a lot worse.

Overall, we refuse to lower this team's rank just because the lottery balls didn't settle Charlotte's way. And on a Bobcats team that has been tough to follow even when it was winning, MKG is someone to get behind.

[Related: UK becomes first team to produce No. 1, No. 2 pick in same draft]

Chicago Bulls

Additions: Marquis Teague

Grade: A+

We weren't blown away by Teague's play in his lone year at Kentucky, but the Bulls managed to do a remarkable thing with the 29th pick: Chicago drafted for need, and possibly picked up the best player on the board at this point.

Teague is an astonishing athlete who can get into the lane to play the drive and kick game. He'll also be rudely welcomed into the flop and charge game at the NBA level, but another year of seasoning (and way more shot attempts) under John Calipari would have potentially put him in the 2013 lottery. In Teague, Jimmy Butler, Nikola Mirotic, and Charlotte's eventual first-rounder that the Bobcats owe Chicago, the Bulls are putting together a nice little core of youngsters taken with afterthought draft picks.

(Sorry, Taj Gibson, but you don't count. You can probably remember what it was like to hear Kris Kross for the first time.)

Cleveland Cavaliers

Additions: Dion Waiters, Tyler Zeller

Grade: C

You'd like to give this one an "incomplete." At best, you'd like to bow to the sorts of people who spend their entire lockout-induced time off and then lottery-bound regular season paying attention to NCAA hoops and charting out just who to take with the fourth and (after a trade with Dallas) 17th overall picks in the draft. You don't want to be flip in a few paragraphs after the people who are paid to do this spent months preparing.

Waiters was a surprise, though. He had some great individual workouts, but great athletes tend to do that. Darko Milicic did that, but so did Rajon Rondo. Waiters was a tough as nails wing who struggled to stay on the court during his last year at Syracuse, but perhaps the NBA style (and all those resultant free throws) is exactly what he needs. Some guys are just born to play in the NBA, and his NCAA production doesn't matter.

Zeller is attempting to break the decades-long streak of wasted draft picks on 7-footers in the middle of the first round. If he's a capable rotation player, or eighth man, then at 17th overall this was a fine selection, mainly because that position is so hard to fill. The Cavs need depth badly and all those traded second-round picks could have possibly helped that, but the second round is a crapshoot. Zeller's no guarantee either, but we appreciate Cleveland's moxie.

Wherever it takes them, I suppose.

Dallas Mavericks

Additions: Jared Cunningham, Bernard James, Jae Crowder

Grade: B

It was another weird, fun, and interesting draft night for the Mavericks. The team made a surprising move back down the first round to both save a little cash on that guaranteed contract, and pick up some second-rounders along the way. The team took a chance on Jared Cunningham with that guaranteed pick, a whippet-thin speedster who has intriguing athleticism but a whole lot left to figure out. Still, to get someone with that upside that low in the first round was a solid move. If he flames out, who cares? Twenty-fourth pick, limited salary.

James was obviously the story of the night behind Anthony Davis, a 27-year-old Air Force veteran who served three international tours. His age and frame make him a possible rotation player once he gets his NBA legs under him during his rookie year. Crowder is a banger that might not be much taller than Cunningham.

All three could contribute nothing, but the risk-taking and context has us approving Dallas' night.

Denver Nuggets

Additions: Evan Fournier, Quincy Miller, Izzet Turkyilmaz

Grade: B

For a pretty-good team working with some pretty uninspiring draft picks, the Nuggets turned in a night that features quite a bit of upside. Even if we don't see any of these players any time soon.

Fournier is a skinny 6-foot-7 guard who might not make the NBA for years. From the clips I saw on Thursday it's clear he has NBA-level athleticism, and the touch is there, but he needs to add some NBA strength to that NBA height. A first-rounder on the guy may have been dodgy, but we haven't seen as much of Fournier as Denver has. Right, Denver?

YEAH, DENVER!

The same goes for Miller, who was highly regarded coming out of high school but struggled in his lone college season after attempting to recover from an ACL tear. We don't know why Miller didn't stick it out for another year at Baylor to improve his status, but sometimes these things don't come down to basketball. The knock on Miller is that he shoots too many jumpers, but good touch mixed with fear over re-injury can do that to a player. All the other physical hallmarks, provided his knee returns to full strength, appear to be there.

Turkyilmaz is a 7-footer who has a ways to go before he can consider an NBA career.

[Related: Anthony Davis is selected first overall in the 2012 NBA draft]

Detroit Pistons

Additions: Andre Drummond, Khris Middleton, Kim English

Grade: A

Interesting, potential-filled draft for Detroit. English can play. He can shoot, and in the NBA if you can shoot, you can play. Simple as that. Middleton's frame and game remind of a guy who is going to be in the NBA for a few years, and with a second-round selection that's hard to beat, and not slim praise. On top of that, Middleton has yet to turn 21.

Drummond is the biggest coin flip in the draft. He's the biggest anything in the draft, mixing that massive 7-6 wingspan and dominant potential with a history that suggests he might fritter it all away. That he'll lure fans in and put together that week or even month of double-double play and engaged defense (because that goes beyond shot-blocking; and the Pistons badly need someone paying attention on the inside with Greg Monroe around) before falling backward. As fans of sound center play, we're dying for Drummond to work out. We're hoping he falls closer to Bob Lanier than Reggie Harding. We hope Ben Wallace sticks around for another year to show him how it's done, before and after practice.

We've seen this buildup before, though. Please let the payoff be different this time, Andre Drummond.

(Pistons had to take him, though. Had to.)

Golden State Warriors

Additions: Harrison Barnes, Festus Ezeli, Draymond Green

Grade: B+

Barnes seems the epitome of the safe pick, but really who else were the Warriors going to grab at No. 7? Outside of Austin Rivers, Barnes was the only sure thing left in the draft at that point, and even taking a chance on Andre Drummond seemed a bit much. He adds to Golden State's most notable shooting skill set, and he won't flake out when a long trip out East allows the team one day off before it has to take on the Lakers at Staples Center. Golden State got a starter. End of that story.

Grabbing a thick big man like Ezeli at No. 30, with guaranteed contract in hand, seems like a very Warriors move. The size, though? As it does every June around this time, it has us arguing things away even though we should know better.

Everyone seems to be raving about Draymond Green's all-around skills and smarts while still wondering what position he's going to play, as some sort of hybrid forward with good instincts and shot-making ability. Isn't it odd how the most fundamentally sound prospects out there always seem to stay out of the realm of the orthodox when it comes time to add them to the NBA? It's probably why I cover this league.

Houston Rockets

Additions: Jeremy Lamb, Royce White, Terrence Jones

Grade: B

To start, any deal involving Dwight Howard was never going to happen. Managing to swing three middling picks into two higher lottery picks and turn that into the NBA's best center wasn't going to happen even if Howard actually met with new Orlando GM Rob Hennigan last week and told him he wanted a new team by Bastille Day (Dwight's been watching a lot of History Channel of late). Toss in the fact that the Rockets never got those picks, and that Howard never met with his new GM, and you have a deal that was never even considered.

What the Rockets did pull out were three name players who, I'm sorry, were fantastic grabs for their spots. Factoring in what appears to be a needless Samuel Dalembert trade (Jeremy Lamb wasn't going to be there with the 14th pick? That should be up for consideration) does knock their ranking a bit, but this was a good haul.

Lamb won't come in and have Rocket fans ready to forget (or, eventually sign off on dealing) Kevin Martin, but he can score at this level. Royce White can do just about anything at this level; now it's up to the NBA to figure out what to do with his many talents. Terrence Jones smacks of a Keon Clark-type; but if you can get a good coach to work Jones into something special — and in Kevin McHale, the Rockets have a good coach — he could pan out. All for picks taken from 12 to 18.

We're dropping a grade because of the Dalembert deal. Phoenix wouldn't have taken Lamb, with its draft-for-need philosophy, and neither would Milwaukee with Monta Ellis and Brandon Jennings on board.

Indiana Pacers

Additions: Miles Plumlee, Orlando Johnson

Grade: C-

(Not going to make a joke about his name. Your name is "Kelly," so you have absolutely no room to talk. Yes, he sounds like one of Gene Hackman's students, and not players, in "Hoosiers." Yes, he probably has a brother named "Augie." But just stop there, Kelly.)

Though we knew months ago that this could be Larry Bird's last year with the Pacers, and were aware a day before his final media conference that he was stepping away, watching Bird leave the podium after that cheerful presser was somewhat affecting. Lump in my throat affecting, actually. Even though Bird stated that he would be running Indiana's draft one last time.

And then he drafted Plumlee.

"Oh sure," the contrarians cried while hoping Bird didn't go out like this, "the Pacers dropped a lower-rung first-round pick on Jeff Foster over a decade ago. That worked out well, didn't it?"

Except that Foster combined to average 25.5 points/rebounds per game in his senior year, nearly double Plumlee's 13.7. And he's on the books, guaranteed money, for the next two years. Yes, this was a low pick — but there were better ones out there. At positions Indiana could have used help with.

Prove us wrong, big man.

Los Angeles Clippers

Additions: Furkan Aldemir (and, essentially, Sam Cassell in 2006 and Chris Paul)

Grade: A

The Clippers dealt away their rights to Minnesota's selection at 10, which was used on Austin Rivers, that they received in a deal that netted them one year of borderline All-Star play from Sam Cassell in 2006; and an eventual sweetener to send NOLA's way to grab Chris Paul.

Aldemir is a rebounder who we may never see, taken in the second round.

Also, Sam Cassell and Chris Paul. And they didn't have to pay Marko Jaric.

[Related: 2012 NBA draft pick-by-pick analysis | Slideshow]

Los Angeles Lakers

Additions: Darius Johnson-Odom, Robert Sacre

Grade: B

The Lakers attempted to find their defender at point guard with Johnson-Odom, but I'm not as convinced.

Sacre is a big dude who doesn't appear to have NBA-level athleticism. He's also a 7-footer who played stateside and was selected 60th overall, so even if he plays just a week in the NBA, how can you criticize a pick like this?

(Scott Machado? OK, whatever. Fine, guy.)

Memphis Grizzlies

Additions: Tony Wroten Jr.

Grade: B

With a lower rung first-round pick and a whole lot of rotation to fill out, the Grizzlies went crazy. And we love it. Wroten Jr. apparently takes chances with his passing and penetration, and while that's the last thing you want to hear regarding a team that doesn't feed Zach Randolph nearly enough at times, that sort of pell-mell style can aid the Grizzlies in second quarters.

Calling this a "risky" pick doesn't make sense to me, unless you're in love with Quincy Miller or Doron Lamb, because this was a 25th overall selection that won't make much money. For now, I dig it.

Marquis Teague could have been considered, but I don't think he was "Grizzlies" enough for Memphis.

Miami Heat

Additions: Justin Hamilton

Grade: C

I don't completely agree that Hamilton is an NBA-level player, not even on the end of the bench. I do agree that whoever the Heat grab with their eventual first-round pick acquired from Philadelphia will be better than who the Heat were going to grab with the 27th overall pick in Thursday's draft, and that they did well in dealing with Philly.

(That is to say, I trust the Heat with an 18th pick next year in a worse draft more than I trust them to take Arnett Moultrie, who Philadelphia selected.)

Hence, another grade like this.

Milwaukee Bucks

Additions: John Henson, Doron Lamb, Samuel Dalembert

Grade: A+

Out of nowhere, in adding three guys that I'm not particularly fond of overall, the Bucks may have had the best draft north of New Orleans. Which is saying something, because just about everything is north of New Orleans.

The Bucks didn't draft for need at 14, even with defensive specialists Epke Udoh and Luc Mbah a Moute on board, and grabbed a lottery-level shot blocker in Henson. Lamb was a huge find in the second round, and here's hoping the Bucks hang onto him instead of jettisoning Lamb like they did the similarly-styled Voshon Lenard years ago.

And trading down two spots to pick up Dalembert? A starting center? Works for me.

Again,  these don't have to be blockbuster deals or picks. It's all about context, and afforded the chances at the players they dealt for or selected? The Bucks did a fantastic job.

Minnesota Timberwolves

Additions: Robbie Hummel, Chase Budinger

Grade: B

Hummel is to be commended for working through two different ACL tears, but I'm not as convinced he's a lights-out shooter as some have pegged him. You need legs and strength to consistently get open and nail a shot that is nearly 24 feet from the hoop, and Hummel's going to have his work cut out for him to be more than just camp fodder.

"Work cut out for him." Good thing he's Robbie Hummel.

You can argue the relative merits of the 18th pick Minnesota traded for Budinger, one the Rockets used to pick up Terrence Jones. There could have and probably will be better players that were available at that spot than Budinger, in the long run. But Chase fills a need at the wing and he's a known commodity as an NBA vet. That's good value for 18, in any draft.

Brooklyn Nets

Additions: Tyshawn Taylor, Ilkan Karaman, potentially Gerald Wallace

Grade: D+ (raised a grade if New Jersey declines to pay Gerald Wallace into his 30s)

The Brooklyn Nets' first draft was a very New Jersey Nets-type of draft, right down to holding the draft in the same building the Nets just left a few months ago, to the ringing ears of the lustily booed David Stern.

The Nets traded their lottery pick, in a panic, to Portland last March for Gerald Wallace. Wallace is a fine player that we highly respect, but out of sorts on a rebuilding team (even if the Nets retain Deron Williams) and a potential flight risk as a free agent. Because the Nets can't possibly save any face on this, we've already begged them to not try to make up for this bad deal by burdening themselves with a Gerald Wallace deal for the next few years, but that hasn't stopped GM Billy King before.

Tyshawn Taylor has potential and was regarded as a first-rounder by many outlets, but his decision-making needs work.

Karaman is an athlete and rebounder who might not come over.

New Orleans Hornets

Additions: Anthony Davis, Austin Rivers, Darius Miller

Grade: A+

Davis will clearly be a star and then superstar for years to come. We might fret that he needs to play alongside an offensive-minded center at times, someone to hold while Davis flies in from the weak side, but that's about the only limitation I can see right now. Kevin Garnett and Tim Duncan did just fine with Rasho Nesterovic, despite the protestations of those who weren't paying attention.

Rivers is an odd fit in New Orleans next to Eric Gordon, but that's not the point right now. Rivers was a college freshman, and he's a ways away from needing to be a good fit next to Gordon, who might not even be on the Hornets next season. You take the best player you're comfortable with, regardless of position, and move from there. And the Hornets did a fantastic job. They now have the enviable task of combining the talents of two scoring guards that can dish.

Also, they drafted perhaps the two most famous participants in Thursday evening's proceedings. This will help, at the gate.

Darius Miller is a shooter with a chance to make the team.

New York Knicks

Additions: Konstantinos Papanikolaou

Grade: C

The Knicks dealt this pick to Houston two years ago in an attempt to make up for Isiah Thomas' miserable run as GM and for a chance to sign LeBron James. They've made mistakes since then, but what did you expect New York to do back in 2010? The pressure was on.

Papanikolaou is a defender who may never come over, but New York took a chance at 48 with nobody of significance left on the board that would have helped the team in 2012-13.

Oklahoma City Thunder

Additions: Perry Jones III

Grade: A+

Jones would have been a great pick for any team a dozen or so spots higher, so for him to fall into the lap of a Finals participant at 28 was fantastic for both sides; if not Jones' agent.

His game needs refinement, but all potential injury or motivation issues will be shoved aside when he enters a training camp full of young men nearly his age who are going to be smarting from a Finals gone wrong. And though the Thunder are stacked, that bench could use a little help, and Jones will have his moments even in his rookie year on what should be a 60-win team.

[Adrian Wojnarowski: Thunder offer four-year deal to coach Scott Brooks]

Orlando Magic

Additions: Andrew Nicholson, Kyle O'Quinn

Grade: A

Ryan Anderson is a terrific player, and Nicholson certainly wasn't drafted to replace Anderson in any meaningful way, but perhaps it's time to try a more typical power forward type next to Dwight Howard? Assuming Dwight … y'know.

Not as a starter, mind you, because we've been hyping Anderson for years. Just in the mix.

Nicholson has all you need from a big four, and though he lacks a bit in the rebounding department, the Magic have a guy to help with that. He's a long, aggressive scoring type that will turn 23 a month into the season and be able to help early on.

O'Quinn is a banger, and little else but camp fodder at this point. He's a big banger, though, so he'll be around.

Philadelphia 76ers

Additions: Maurice Harkless, Arnett Moultrie

Grade: B

The Philadelphia 76ers went out and got themselves two more Philadelphia 76ers. Two more guys with revving motors that look to score and bound around and show off that coveted athleticism that the 76ers seem to buy by the truckload every summer.

Moultrie is a scoring four with legitimate size at that position, more help if the 76ers decide to use the amnesty clause on Elton Brand. Harkless is still finding a way (he just turned 19) to turn all that athleticism into actual production (in the box score or otherwise), and you can't say the Sixers don't have a type.

Using a future first-rounder to trade for Moultrie dips our grade a little.

Phoenix Suns

Additions: Kendall Marshall

Grade: B

The Suns were the first — or, depending on how you judge a few other squads, the only — team to pick for need. Marshall is a pass-first sort of dude with a lot to work on, and it's possible he might be asked to work in Steve Nash's place sooner than the kid ever could have expected. Marshall's long arms and loping style remind me a bit of Mike Conley, even if his game never will (for reasons good and bad).

[Related: Adrian Wojnarowski: Suns will pursue Celtics' Ray Allen]

He may have been a reach, but even with Nash around the Suns need a point guard.

Portland Trail Blazers

Additions: Damian Lillard, Meyers Leonard, Will Barton

Grade: B

A strange draft. Big centers taken where Leonard was selected almost never pan out, but if the team utilizes him as six fouls and gravy in the second quarter, then they may have found something. Still, several much better basketball players were taken ahead of Leonard.

It's hard to say as much about Lillard, who we like; though we are wary that he'll never get over being a waterbug scorer instead of a playmaker. If he were heading to a different team (one that isn't working with a power forward that needs the ball), I'd probably be more enthused. As it stands, though, he could put his head down and fight for Rookie of the Year votes.

Barton was an odd find in the second round. He's actually a very good shooter and scorer and it was strange to see him drop so low in even this shooting guard-heavy draft.

Sacramento Kings

Additions: Thomas Robinson

Grade: A+

Perfect pick, perfect timing. Robinson may never be an All-Star, but that's what DeMarcus Cousins is for, and Robinson will be his brutal helper as the Kings try to bang their way back toward respectability.

(That didn't sound right.)

Best — every year a power forward gets taken high in the lottery and is expected to show all sorts of touch and handle on the fly. Robinson won't work with those expectations, though he has that talent, in his first year. Again, that's what Cousins is for, and we really hope there's no on-court chemistry hiccup that we're missing as we regard their respective games.

San Antonio Spurs

Additions: Marcus Denmon

Grade: A-

He's a combo guard and a 59th pick, so most pundits are saying wonderful things about the Missouri Tiger heading to the Spurs. If his name were Marquis de N'Mon, some scribes would be readying themselves for a Spurs/Heat Finals next year.

For now, this dude is a tough tweener that will have a shot at making the Spurs next season. Pretty good take for his draft slot.

Toronto Raptors

Additions: Terrence Ross, Quincy Acy, Tomislav Zubcic

Grade: C

Skinny, athletic wings just don't thrill me; they're fun to watch on the odd lob or put-back, but guys like DeMar DeRozan just never did it for me. And, so far, the Raptors.

While I'm not going to be flip and tell you that the Raptors just went out and drafted another one, Ross' skills are similar, his handle just as poor. We're hoping, like Toronto, that this gets spun around and I'm terribly wrong.

Acy will have a hard time working his game with his frame (6-6) in the NBA, while Zubcic remains an interesting prospect but not a contributing player at this point.

Utah Jazz

Additions: Kevin Murphy

Grade: B

Someone who can shoot, picked up in the low 40s? Always worth your time. This guy looks a lot smoother than, say, Quincy Lewis. Though we're sorry for bringing that up, Jazz fans.

If Murphy plays even a scintilla of efficient NBA basketball in 2012-13, then this pick will have been a winner.

Washington Wizards

Additions: Bradley Beal, Tomas Satoransky

Grade: A

Beal was Washington's obvious choice, provided his availability, when the team went hard at starting forwards Emeka Okafor and Trevor Ariza earlier in June. His overall skill set has you wondering if he'll end up as the best thing to come out of this draft that isn't named "Anthony Davis," and once he gathers NBA strength he'll be an all-around force to be reckoned with. A smooth one, at that.

Tomas Satoransky is a basketball player. I love the draft.

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Get ready for a whole lot of this. Memphis Grizzlies owner Michael Heisley says his team is "not looking to trade Rudy Gay." He says his team is not "shopping him around." In case we needed help with our punctuation, he added a "period" to his on the record comments. Of course, as he should, and as is completely correct, Heisley stopped short of saying that his team isn't going to trade Rudy Gay. Because this is how these things work, and we shouldn't freak out unduly if the Grizz end up trading Rudy Gay.

So while we'll quote Heisley at length, as he discusses his plans with the team's borderline All-Star, we promise not to troll so hard when we go back to this quote when another team steps up with an offer for the Grizzlies wing scorer:

"Yes, people have called us to ask about Rudy," Heisley said. "Obviously, we need to seriously look at strengthening the team. But Rudy is the only player we have who can get his shot any time and any place on the floor. You can't afford to get rid of him and not bring in somebody who can do more. I think Chris [Wallace, the GM] has to be open-minded about everybody on the roster. But I don't know how else I can say this: There is no plan to trade Rudy Gay."

There is no plan to. The team is not "looking" to trade him. They're not shopping him around.

But if some team wants to make an offer, if some team is "looking" to trade for Rudy Gay, then you can bet the Grizzlies will listen. Because listening and looking are not the same thing. That's what I tell my wife, at least.

Rudy is set to make nearly $51 million over the next three years of his contract, assuming he picks up a player option in 2014-15 that he'd be a silly-billy not to. We, like the Grizzlies, respect the heck out of his game and his drive and what he brings to a Memphis team that is looking to attempt to make it back to the second round of the playoffs in 2013, and possibly beyond. The talent, with Gay around, is good enough to pull that off.

The team is realistic about its roster's limitations, though. And without being cheap in terms of payroll of dismissive of Gay's overall game, the Grizz understand that a deal involving Rudy could net the team some of the rotation parts it needs in order to establish some depth. The Grizzlies did well to compete in the first round in 2011-12, surviving in a tough season played mostly without Zach Randolph either on the court or at full strength, but it badly needs help at all positions off the bench. And that's not even getting into the fact that they are paying franchise player cash for a worker (in Gay) that is at best going to fight for a coach-voted placement on the All-Star team.

Still, the rumored options don't make a heck of a lot of sense. Because though we still think of the Grizzlies as a young and up and coming team, the reality is that a lot of these players are about to hit their prime, so a swap of Gay for a lottery-level youngster doesn't really scan well with us. Nor does the idea of the Charlotte Bobcats turning their second overall pick into a 26-year-old about to make an average of $17 million a year over the next three seasons without making an All-Star team out East scan well, either.

Though this is exactly the scuttle that Fox Sports Ohio's Sam Amico is reporting. Here's his take, from a source:

"Michael is sick of hearing the talk about being a less-than-stellar evaluator of talent, and who can blame him? He's sick of his team getting throttled," said a Western Conference executive. "You couldn't fault him and his front office for just plugging the dyke for a year. Signing some veterans might do that."

That GM makes a valid point, as anyone who scans the Bobcats' roster can see there are holes everywhere. Former coach and current analyst Jeff Van Gundy even stated recently that they don't have a top-15 player at any position, which would be hard to argue.

Because the Bobcats are so far under the salary cap, a deal involving that pick and a throw-in (scoring wing Reggie Williams, perhaps) would work, technically. And the idea of Michael Kidd-Gilchrist filling that Grizzlies hole at off guard is a little alluring, but why would even a desperate Bobcats squad do this?

(Because they're the Bobcats, perhaps?)

Until the draft, though, on June 28? It's all silly scuttle and rumors. We're not telling you to dive into your hovel until then, but you should stride with a cautious stride as you follow from a safe distance. Between now and draft night, we won't mislead you.

We're not "looking" to, at least.

For every postseason matchup, Ball Don't Lie's resident dummy will offer a topically appropriate entry from the best-selling series of "Deep Thoughts" books written by legendary humorist Jack Handey, plus some of his own original thoughts on the playoff series. The combination will cost you literally nothing; we suggest you use the savings to purchase one of Mr. Handey's life-changing books.

No. 1 San Antonio Spurs vs. No. 5 Los Angeles Clippers

"If you lived in the Dark Ages, and you were a catapult operator, I bet the most common question people would ask is, 'Can't you make it shoot farther?' No. I'm sorry. That's as far as it shoots."

Here's to Blake Griffin, last year's most venerated turned this year's most denigrated, who attempted 91 shots in 248 total minutes over seven games played against the Memphis Grizzlies, with just 13 coming outside the paint.

Of those baker's dozen, he made just three — two long corner jumpers at the start of Game 6 that made everyone watching say, "Oh, well, if he's going to hit that, then Memphis is going home tonight" and a 14-footer in the first quarter of Game 7. That's it; everything else came within 10 feet of the basket. That's very much in keeping with what we've seen from the former No. 1 overall pick in his two full seasons in the league — of the 2,398 field goals he's attempted during two regular seasons with the Clips, 1,690 (70.5 percent) have come in the paint, according to NBA.com.

The temptation is to say, "Well, of course — all he does is dunk on fast breaks." But while a lot of Griffin's field goals have been slams (406, according to CBSSports.com's Dunk-O-Meter) and a lot of his attempts have come in transition (362, according to play-type analysis from MySynergySports.com), a lot of them also come off post-up attempts. And while no one's going to call Griffin a wizard on the low block, the fact remains that he does get into the paint, he does get the shots up, and he does get his points, averaging better than 20 points a night in each of his first two seasons and 18 a game on 52.7 percent shooting in the opening round, with the lion's share of his shots coming right in the teeth of the Grizzlies defense.

Heading into Round 2 against San Antonio, Griffin's not going to be banging bodies with bruisers like Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph, but rather matching up against an array of defenders he can both overpower and outmaneuver — guys like Tiago Splitter, Boris Diaw, DeJuan Blair, Matt Bonner and even Tim Duncan. As CBSSports.com's Matt Moore noted Tuesday in a great breakdown of how the Spurs defended Griffin during their three regular-season meetings, San Antonio's best success "came in playing off Griffin in the pick and roll, allowing him the catch, and daring him to take the mid-range jumper." Blake's not unwilling to pop it to stretch the defense, but doing so is ostensibly playing with his weak hand; any possession that results in a Griffin attempt from mid-range is one with which Spurs coach Gregg Popovich will likely be pleased.

Interestingly enough, the Spurs also fared comparatively well when Griffin actually got to the rack. While the All-Star power forward averaged 21.7 points and 12.7 rebounds on 52.9 percent shooting in L.A.'s matchups with the Spurs this season, he made only 17 of his 29 attempts at the rim (58.6 percent), according to Hoopdata's shot location statistics, a far cry from his 73.7 percent season average, and the Clips lost two of the three games. So even if Blake gets to his spot — read: the rim — there's no guarantee he'll convert at a rate significant enough to swing the balance of power all by his lonesome.

Still, if you're Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro, you'd probably be pretty thrilled if the series unfolds in a way that results in Griffin getting about 10 shots at the tin a night. If Blake's getting to the rim that frequently, it likely means the Clippers are either getting out in transition with regularity — and that's not something the Spurs defend particularly well, ranking 20th among 30 NBA teams in points allowed per transition possession during the season, per Synergy — or that Griffin is winning his one-on-one matchups on the block so convincingly that the Spurs will eventually have to consider at least shading a help defender toward him, if not bringing help outright, which is not something the Spurs want to do.

If the Spurs have to start accounting for Griffin as a legitimate threat to score in the post — and again, we're not saying he's a post player as much as he is an athletic marvel who can win individual matchups against multiple types of defenders — then that could change the shape of the Spurs' half-court defense. It could open passing lanes for Blake — a good passer for a big who's averaged about 3.5 assists per 36 minutes as a pro — to outside shooters like Randy Foye, Nick Young and Mo Williams, or present clearer angles of attack for Chris Paul, who will likely be worked into a pretty solid lather from attacking the hell out of the Spurs already.

You'd already expect San Antonio to struggle with Paul's efficiency in the pick-and-roll game — they rank dead-last in defending ball-handlers on the pick-and-roll, according to Synergy, while the Clippers behind Paul were the league's third-best offense at the ball-handler producing points and the seventh-best at hitting the roll man for a bucket — and for Popovich to know that a steady diet of high ball screens for CP3 is coming, and to try to tailor his defensive schemes (keyed, in all likelihood, by wing defenders Danny Green and Kawhi Leonard) toward mitigating them. If Griffin can win in the post, hit more than 23 percent of those wide-open jumpers he'll likely see and give San Antonio trouble plugging a second source of leaks in the half-court, then San Antonio can't load up on L.A.'s pick-and-roll game, which could mean a field day for Paul, which could mean that this series becomes veeeeeery interesting.

All that said ... personally? I don't see it. I think Griffin will put up admirable lines and settle somewhere around 20 and 10 for the series, but I expect that array of San Antonio defenders will hold strong enough often enough to keep Griffin from running amok enough to swing the decision four times.

I believe that the Spurs will win the tempo battle referenced Tuesday by 48 Minutes of Hell's Timothy Varner and force the Clippers to play fast more frequently than L.A. will be able to induce the opposite, and I think that's a dangerous game for Del Negro's team. And I think that the unholy offensive run the Spurs have been on for the better part of the past five weeks — they've won 14 straight and posted an offensive rating (an estimate of how many points you score per 100 possessions) better than 110-per-100 in 12 of them — will continue against a Clippers defense that ranked 18th of 30 in defensive efficiency this season and frequently struggled to contain a nothin' special Grizzlies offense in the first round. Irrespective of the relative weakness of their opening-round opponent, I think San Antonio's the best team in this postseason, and I think they're advancing in style.

PREDICTION: Spurs in five.

Los Angeles Clippers 82, Memphis Grizzles 72 (Los Angeles wins series, 4-3)

Fatigue was obvious from the outset in this game. Fans are correct to eagerly look forward to Game 7s, because the possibility of a winner take all 48-minute term between two evenly matched teams will always be enticing, but familiarity can breed something more than contempt in these types of battles. It can breed tired legs, lack of innovation, and obscure game-changers.

The Clippers and Grizzlies have played each other 10 times since Jan. 26, and as a result of that (and both teams' aggressive, bruising play) this game was hardly a beauty to behold. Toss in the fact that the squads had finished play just about 36 hours ago in Friday night's Game 6, and the various important parts that were playing through injury, and the whole thing was kind of a letdown.

[Related: Derided coach Vinny Del Negro sounds off after Clippers' Game 7 win]

There were encouraging signs on Los Angeles' end, and not just because the team survives to live another day. The Clippers will be locked into an every-other-day schedule until the space between Games 3 and 4 of their impending series with the San Antonio Spurs gives the Clips' two days "off." Because of this, the group is not going to get much time off to rest Chris Paul's various midsection injuries and Blake Griffin's recovering knee, and the team is going to need the bench to step up.

And, as you and your brood likely saw in Sunday's nationally televised Clippers win, that bench stepped up.

A double-double, leadership and two blocks from Kenyon Martin in about 25 minutes. Nine points on nine shots for Mo Williams, and while that might not seem like much, it's quite the improvement for a player that had missed 31 of 46 shots in the four games leading up to Game 7. Nick Young hit five free throws off the bench and made 2 of 3 3-point attempts. Eric Bledsoe continues to be a stud in limited minutes, and boy howdy is that Reggie Evans irascible.

We'll have more on the Grizzlies on Monday, but it's pretty obvious where this team went wrong — the game wasn't played in the first week of the season. Zach Randolph tried, but he's clearly a shadow of his former self as he still rehabs from a New Year's Day knee injury that more or less ruined his season. Grizzlies fans are probably ruing the deal that sent Greivis Vasquez away to New Orleans earlier this year, especially with his replacement (Gilbert Arenas, 2-8 shooting on the series with one assist) obviously out of the loop and O.J. Mayo struggling to find open looks and connect on bad looks (he missed 10 of 11 shots in this contest) off the pine.

[Related: Clippers survive brutal first-round series against the Grizzlies]

And though the Clippers are banged up, this is probably the best move for those of us wanting to see competitive teams moving forward. This is probably a year in waiting for Memphis, and the Clippers (full of younger players but featuring contributors like Martin and Evans and especially Paul, despite his age, that have to win now) are on the make. Judged by your tweets, you don't enjoy the team's propensity to flop like mad, but the Grizzlies team that beat the Spurs last year doesn't exist, right now. And the Spurs, fully healthy, aren't the same.

It was a fine showing by a crew that knew what it had to do — with Kenyon Martin taking the lead. To show up and battle for a game that started at 10 in the morning, local time, just a day and a half following a tough Game 6? This is impressive stuff.

There are a lot of showy elements to these Clippers, but this was some out and out game. Good to see, ugly though it may have been.

***

Miami Heat 95, Indiana Pacers 86 (Miami lead series 1-0)

Roy Hibbert stands 7-2, and he was an All-Star this year. He was matched up against a Miami Heat front line that lost Chris Bosh to injury (a possibly severe injury, because abdominal strains take ages to both heal from and overcome), and he managed to contribute 17 points and 11 rebounds in under 29 minutes on Sunday, without turning the ball over.

So why couldn't the Indiana Pacers go to their big man more often, especially in the deciding fourth quarter? Probably because the Miami Heat are really, really good.

The Pacers can adjust, and free one of their clear matchup advantages up for more looks in the low post, but the Heat's brand of sticky defense and aggressive fronting turned Game 1 into a shrug-your-shoulders situation. Not every loss depends on the losing team declining to embrace the obvious, and what clearly works. Sometimes, shock horror, really great teams force really good teams out of their position atop the catbird seat.

Indiana has to play better. We're not excusing them in the slightest, because the group's perimeter-happy approach and refusal to match Miami's intensity in that fourth quarter decided this game. Danny Granger and Paul George were not happy with their offensive contributions (a combined 2-15 from the floor, wow), it tempered their defensive instincts, and in the fourth quarter (when it came time out race out with the stampeding Heat in transition) both players' inaction made those open lanes all the more penetrable for the Heat dashers.

It seems like nitpicking, in the face of the class of the East taking down a third seed in a relatively competitive game, but the Pacers are good. The Pacers are good enough to steal a win or two in Miami at some point in this series, just as much as the Heat are great enough to dismantle Indiana in four straight.

And little bits of let-ups hurt. Indiana, just a little, let up.

Miami? Not so much. LeBron James was an absolute killer, finishing with 32 points, 15 rebounds, five assists, just one turnover and two steals. Also was so dominant defensively that I actually spent dead ball timeouts wondering what he would look like going up against some of the NBA's all-time greats in their respective primes, and how in the hell they would even get a shot off. Yes, James is a prat who has failed two of his teams in the clutch before. But holy cow is this guy great at basketball.

[Related: LeBron James' brilliant destruction of Pacers can't mask his maddening habits]

Dwyane Wade (29 points, four assists, ho-hum) is as well, and the Heat's moving parts did well to collapse when they had to. More reps, more familiarity, more frightening things for the NBA — even if this game entered the fourth quarter knotted at 70-70.

The Bosh injury looms large. Your best follows on Twitter are right to point out that, crazily, LeBron James is a better power forward than Chris Bosh is at this point. That's no knock on Bosh, a true All-Star, because James is just that freakish. But as is always the case, it's not about who replaces Bosh, it's about who replaces the replacement for Bosh. So while James might see 32 minutes at the power forward spot for the rest of this series after replacing the starting lineup's ostensible replacement, it's the Mike Millers and Shane Battiers of the Heat's world that have to step up in James' wing absence, and nail shots.

A good luxury to have, either way. Stupid Heat.

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Memphis Grizzlies 90, Los Angeles Clippers 88 (series tied, friends, at 3-3)

It's been a nasty series, full of flops, strange possessions, dodgy officiating, and low scoring. But it's also been, by many accounts, the best series in the first round. It's the Grizzlies and Clippers — now 100 percent lottery free — and it's going to seven games. And we couldn't be happier.

The Grizzlies prevailed in Game 6, but this game really did come down to the obvious absence of the Chris Paul we all know and love and sometimes pick series' based on how well he'll play. The Clippers won't make such excuses (save for the team's coach, perhaps), but Paul really was a shell of himself on Friday night, especially in the fourth quarter when the Clippers needed him most. Paul finished with 11 points on nine shots with five rebounds, seven assists, three steals and three turnovers. Not a terrible line in the slightest, but a far cry from the sort of MVP-level production that the Clippers need to make a difference in these playoffs.

No excuses, there, but Paul's limited mobility wasn't even made up for by a tough and determined performance from Blake Griffin. Griffin was also hobbled, and it showed, but he still put together a 17-point night with six assists and five rebounds. And it wasn't enough, because the Memphis Grizzlies made damn sure of it.

To start, the Grizz put together a 40 percent offensive rebound rate, and when you're allowed the chance for a do-over on nearly half the shots you miss, you're going to have a sound shot at the win. One particular passage in the fourth quarter was rightfully brought up several times by the ESPN crew, as Zach Randolph (who still doesn't really look like "Zach Randolph," as he still works around his knee injury from last winter) pulled in two offensive caroms for a put-back that halted a Clipper run and chipped into what was then an eight-point Los Angeles lead. That might not seem like much, if you missed the game, but eight points felt like a major obstacle at that point — something neither team could seemingly combine to score over the last half quarter of the game.

The Grizzlies did, though. Outscoring Los Angeles 22-9 at one point to come back, pull away, and extend their season.

Our Eric Freeman was right when he pointed out that the Clippers may have been better served going with Eric Bledsoe down the stretch. I can't fault Vinny Del Negro in the slightest for going with a gimpy version of one of the finer point guards in NBA history in the fourth quarter, there's no way anyone sits CP3 for Bledsoe and there's also a good chance the second year guard slides back to his averages even during his great game (14 points, six assists, one turnover), but it sadly probably was the better move to stay with Bledsoe over Paul.

Even though, as we should re-state, this is not at all a criticism of Vinny Del Negro; despite our history of doing just that, incessantly. That'd be like criticizing someone for walking into a spot that lightning was about to hit.

While we hand-wring over the Clipper fortunes gone wrong, it's best to point out that the Grizzlies absolutely took this game. Mike Conley ran a steady ship, Tony Allen pulled that gorgeous yin/yang nonsense, and Marc Gasol and Randolph dragged Memphis into a seventh game that will actually be in Memphis. Forty-one points on 17-33 shooting combined for the two, with 25 boards and four blocks. Too big and too much; and for all the talk that Reggie Evans seemed to get during this Game 6, the Grizzlies' twin towers made the biggest difference in this game.

(Also, Hamed Haddadi had three rebounds, two points and a block in less than three minutes of action in the fourth quarter. Everything's Grizz.)

We get another game. Which is just brilliant.

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

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

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

Mainly because of LeBron James. Dwyane Wade had all the pretty plays on Wednesday night, thrilling us and reminding us with his wraparound passes and clever drives, but LeBron's all-around play continues to astonish. The educated fan, as is the case with most art, tries to find some sort of paradigm that reminds, some attempt to link James with the past, and it's OK to guess. But somehow, even nearly nine years since the Cleveland Cavaliers won the rights to select him first overall in the NBA's draft lottery, James continues to evolve, surprise and defy comparison. And apologies for blathering on so much following the appropriate dismissal of a limited and injured team in the first round.

James is almost starting to look like Julius Erving, but with some odd Kevin Garnett-ish mixture of defensive know-how mixed in. He's not some outright scorer, a Jordan or Kobe bent on taking down an entire defensive scheme even with all eyes fixated on him. He can, and has, but often doesn't peer over the defense, picking out teammates over and over again like Magic Johnson. His team, though top-heavy with Wade and Chris Bosh (19 points, seven rebounds, zero turnovers in his start at center), isn't good enough for that.

No, James is some monstrous power forward from hell at this point. We'd still like to see him post up more, but even in his (still, sadly, but also excitedly) formative stages, James is dominating in weird areas. He's so good that — even after a 29-point, eight-rebound, seven-assist night — we still feel as if he's scratching the surface. We're not unreasonable, there.

That's 40 percent of the story. The other 60 percent is filled with his defensive exploits, and we promise that we're not just 40 percent of the way into this recap. We'll finish soon.

James obviously shirked away from the spotlight last June against the Dallas Mavericks. Perhaps he got it in his head that his team needed to lose at that stage before it could win, or he just martyr'd his way out after a year of incessant (and deserved) criticism. And while the Mavs won that series way more than Miami lost it, it's hard to see the 2012 version of LeBron James letting Dirk Nowitzki do what he did last June. It nearly goes without saying that Carmelo Anthony certainly doesn't take the sort of heady shots built off intelligent spacing that Nowitzki does, so Carmelo (35 points on 31 shots; the Knicks needed his 35 points but not those 31 shots) was an easier guard, but that doesn't take away from how scary James can be in that role as a defensive stopper.

He destroyed Paul Pierce in the playoffs last year. Shut down Derrick Rose. Manhandled his regular season foes in 2011-12 and made life hellish for Carmelo Anthony. All at once, LeBron James is adding to his legacy, while making his 2011 Finals turn look all the more inexcusable. Growing before our eyes, while pissing us off more and more about the way he pissed away the Finals away last year, even if we were all rooting for the Mavs.

This was step two. Regular season done, Knicks gone till November. Step three bounds into action soon with the upstart Indiana Pacers. This is going to be fun.

***

Memphis Grizzlies 92, Los Angeles Clippers 80 (Clippers lead series, 3-2)

Accustomed though we may be to attempting to find every bit of wrong and wrong-er and wrong-est from behind this keyboard, it's impossible not to fall in love with this series.

The Clippers are full of big names, big salaries and potentially overrated and outmoded performers. Their coach? We have issues with him. The Grizzlies appear, at times, to be lost in the moment, failing to recognize what made them so dangerous down the stretch of 2010-11, and what gave them home-court advantage (!) in the first round of the playoffs a year later, despite significant injuries to the team's frontcourt. Lionel Hollins, the team's rightfully celebrated coach, has made some curious choices since their playoff run started a week and a half ago.

And yet, a frantic Grizzlies win kept this thing alive, and we couldn't be happier. Plenty of chippy play and needless flops, again, but both teams appear to have had their way with this first-round set of referees. And the drama and shot selection and goofball rotation choices and out-and-out nonsense that we're getting from both sidelines isn't taking away from what has become a fantastically refreshing series between two teams that nobody was expecting to see in the second week of May — even if the lockout pushed that schedule ahead a wee bit.

The Grizzlies won this game because the team came out undaunted. It understood that ball movement, spacing and interior work run through the great Marc Gasol would put the Clippers in a hole. Not to pick on someone that has been picked on quite a bit, but the Grizz continually went at Blake Griffin defensively, and as a result the group was up 14 points after the first 12 minutes.

From there, of course, things fell apart. Memphis went away from Gasol, the literal and figurative weight of Zach Randolph got in the way of him acting as a potent offensive threat as the game went on (he's a big dude, and he hurt his knee in a way that made it so he couldn't really stay in NBA shape; this isn't a criticism), and Rudy Gay's hero ball instincts took over even though he made one nice jump hook and one game-clinching lay-in late as the Clippers attempted to come back.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles' spacing took a beating as the desperate Grizzlies tried to close off angles and take Chris Paul off the island he seemed to delight in living upon in the team's previous series wins. Mo Williams nailed some tough jumpers in the second half, but he was 4 of 12 during that span and 8 of 21 overall on his way to 20 points. The Clippers were forced into 24 3-point attempts, but only culled 21 points out of them. Caron Butler took 10 shots and scored eight points.

In other words, the Clippers played the Grizzlies. In Memphis.

Game 6 comes next, with the Grizzlies attempting to keep their hope of matching last season's second-round appearance alive, and Lionel Hollins' group will have quite a bit to improve upon to pull things out. The ball has to work inside-out. The team has to be ready for a crew of referees that will think home-team-first and reason-second. It's only natural, all those jump shots and referee reactions to that initial feint, and the Grizz have to be aware of this heading in.

If the team remembers that it has been there before, and that the underbear title was swept away some 12 months ago, they might have a shot.

Strike that. They should have a shot. Give us a game, men. And then a seventh game.

Memphis Grizzlies 105, Los Angeles Clippers 98 (series tied, 1-1)

After a miserable night of basketball that saw the Pacers and Spurs win by a combined 54 points, a reasonably competitive Clippers-Grizzlies contest was a needed tonic -- but hardly much to behold. It was sometimes fun to watch as Tony Allen and Zach Randolph worked their way back to respective health, and Chris Paul featured his typically pugnacious ways, but the back-and-forth never truly delivered.

You think Memphis cares? The Grizzlies hung in this one quite well, forcing 20 Clippers turnovers and essentially beating Los Angeles to every crease, or every either-way call. Paul was fantastic for most of the game, totaling 29 points on 17 shots (our man hit 4 of 6 threes) with five steals. He also turned the ball over five times to just six assists, and it was O.J. Mayo that absolutely hounded CP3 into oblivion.

Relatively speaking, of course. Chris Paul, for the most part, was still Chris Paul.

But kudos to Mayo -- "Eric Bledsoe didn't do a good job of keeping him out of the lane," said the typically teammate-gracious Chris Paul following the Clipper loss -- who matched that sterling defense with 20 points of his own. Marreese Speights had 11 points off the Memphis pine as well. And though the depleted Clippers bench tossed out Nick Young and Mo Williams dropping 11 points apiece, those two were terrible defensively in this loss -- on and off the ball.

Inspiring, but unsurprising for the Grizzlies? Rudy Gay finished broken play after broken play with those in-between shots. He went 9 for 13 and scored 21 points for Gay.

If the Clippers think a hometown crowd is going to push them over the edge as the series moves to Los Angeles, they're in for a rude surprise. Nothing against El Lay or Clippers fans, but this is the sort of series where these things just do not matter.

***

San Antonio Spurs 114, Utah Jazz 83 (San Antonio leads series, 2-0)

It's one of those nights where nothing seems to go right.

Where you think you've finally caught up, but you forgot about [insert Spurs trailer here, because every one of them seemed to get an easy bucket] streaking. I don't know if it was the early start, one that saw the Jazz playing at five in the evening Utah-time, or if I should relay the obvious joke about how the ancient Spurs are well versed in enjoying an early dinner.  In the playoffs, though? I don't want to try to make a point that tells you the Jazz weren't ready for this game, or that they weren't enthused. They … they just got their asses kicked.

All the highlights will show are those extra Spurs passes and streaking finishes, but it was the out-of-nowhere defense from San Antonio -- a team that atypically was just ahead of the middle of the pack in terms of defensive efficiency this season -- that made life hellish for a Jazz team that seemed to be down 30 by the time the sun went down over the East Coast of the country. In what seemed reminiscent of San Antonio's ability to force teams into low-percentage mid- and long-range 2-pointers half a decade ago, the Spurs seemed intent on forcing the Jazz to try and finish a foot or four away from the rim. And the Jazz clearly were out of luck in that regard. Whether or not this will sustain for the next game or rest of the series (presuming the referees let it continue past this round) is up for debate, but on Wednesday the Jazz could not buy one.

Let's not dismiss the Spurs offense, while we're fawning. The Spurs made 10 of 22 3-pointers, and the 28 assists on 47 field goals actually feels like the sort of stat you'd expect from a road scoring crew, and not San Antonio's home cooking. Maybe it was the head swivel, between this contest and the Orlando Magic-Indiana Pacers tilt, but it just appeared as if some Spur was leaning in for a layup every time your eyes dashed over, and usually off a great dish.

Credit San Antonio for its quick decision-making and willingness to try to put this away early, but sometimes you'll get a malaise game at the strangest time. It's certain the Spurs are both more talented than the Jazz, and that they match up quite well with Utah (this is, by far, the worst matchup for Tyrone Corbin's crew). But this also was an unrepresentative 48 minutes.

San Antonio is this good. The Jazz aren't that bad, and while the Spurs are more than capable of making even playoff teams look "that bad," I just don't feel like this was the case on Wednesday.

The Jazz, of course, have just two more games to prove me wrong.

***

Indiana Pacers 97, Orlando Magic 74 (Indiana leads series, 2-1)

This slogfest actually featured a comeback, an honest-to-goodness run from the Magic to keep things interesting once the Pacers decided to stop forcing Orlando into driving all the way to the hoop. For a few minutes there, late in the first half, it appeared as if the Pacers would be letting the Magic all the way back into Game 2 by playing the typical percentages.

Usually, you want these Magic to eschew the interior flush or long-range bomb, but this is a different team than you're used to. This is a squad working without Dwight Howard and, apparently, Ryan Anderson (16 points on 31 percent shooting and 14 rebounds in two postseason games after averaging around 16 points and eight rebounds in the regular season). Without those two in place, this is a squad that is left to a litany of long twos, a shot that few teams successfully win games with.

Early on, though, the Magic made the long twos. Even Glen Davis. And they made a game out of it. And with an hour and a half to go before the Grizzlies and Clippers tipped off, we were excited about things for a spell. Until the Pacers realized the Magic really can't score on the interior any more, and that they are more than capable of covering all Orlando angles when the team was left up a creek without its All-Star in Howard and near-All-Star in Anderson. And their respective paddles, I suppose, if you really want me to follow through on this.

The Pacers eventually prevailed by taking advantage of delayed transition buckets — getting out on the break, surveying the matchups, making the extra pass and letting the team's scorers finish. Nothing that was whippet-quick, and there was no exacting half-court brilliance, just enough timely scores to outscore the Magic by 15 at home and pull away. Danny Granger was ahead of the pack, hitting five threes in nine tries, and he was a needed finishing touch in a game that seemed to feature a whole heck of a lot of finishing touches that you never thought would be appearing in an important playoff game.

Orlando's starting frontcourt rebounded the ball six times on Wednesday, by the way. In a game with 96 combined field-goal and free-throw misses to go around.

There will be different games on Thursday. We promise.

With just over 25 seconds left, Paul started his move, driving right on Allen, who seemed to have pretty good position — he stayed outside CP3's right foot, directing Paul back across his body toward Memphis' big-bodied interior, and actually influenced Paul into picking up his dribble. But as Paul raised the ball above his head, Allen reached in looking for a tie-up and instead fouled the point guard. Paul hit two free throws with 23.7 seconds left, Rudy Gay's attempt for a game-winning answer fell short, and the Clippers took a 1-0 lead.

After the final buzzer, we got the thrill of victory, in the form of Chris Paul's postgame fashion tips for TNT's Craig Sager:

... and we also got the agony of defeat, as Allen took to Twitter to take the blame for failing to shut Paul down:

Big ups to Tony Allen for taking the hit on that late fourth foul, but as you probably figured, that play's not the reason the Grizzlies' 27-point lead evaporated. There's plenty of blame to go around. There's definitely blame for Rudy Gay, who missed 4 of 6 fourth-quarter field-goal attempts, barely even tried to close out in transition on the corner 3-pointers that Clippers reserve Nick Young nailed to take nine points off the lead in 60 seconds, and waited way too long to attack with the Grizzlies down one on the final possession.

There's blame for Zach Randolph, who was scoreless in the fourth, going 0 for 3 with a turnover and failing to make an impact when Memphis desperately needed someone to calm things down. On that score, there's also blame for coach Lionel Hollins and point guard Mike Conley for eschewing the game plan that built the lead and continuing to run the game through Marc Gasol in the low post; there's blame for the rest of the Grizzlies for settling for jumpers rather than continuing to work inside out and attack; and, yes, there's blame for Allen for fouling when he didn't have to and couldn't afford to.

There's blame for everyone, and of course, there's also heaps of credit for a Clippers team that everyone watching expected to roll over and die with 15 minutes left in this game, but didn't, and now has home-court advantage once again. Perhaps best of all, there's also less than 72 hours until we get to watch these two teams do it all again in Game 2 on Wednesday night. Wear something nice when you're watching it, though. CP3 sees everything.

The 66-game regular season, mercifully, is over. The NBA jam-packed 66 games into a space where 50 usually went, and the result was a strange five-month run that had us talking about rested legs and oddball rotations more than we spoke of learning and growing and all that typically mindful stuff that comes to our heads when discussing the NBA. The playoffs start on Saturday, though, and the brains behind Ball Don't Lie are ready to break down the first-round matchups.

[Related: Yahoo! Sports' predictions for the 2012 NBA playoffs]

We continue with the Memphis Grizzlies and Los Angeles Clippers.

***

From your pal, Kelly Dwyer

Hey. It's Kelly. That wasn't fun, was it? The silly lockout, the terrible season, the Dwight Howard. It's OK, though. It's over now. That is a bird chirping in the distance, I made a pretty good sandwich for your lunch and we don't have anything to do when you get home from work but watch a series of basketball games played by players that are rested, well-instructed, and mindful of what town they're in.

You're going to feel better, now. Your pal insists on it.

We pinned a whole heck of a lot on Chris Paul this year, and though the Clippers guard can be a notorious sourpuss, he's responded. Even in a season that clearly didn't create a whole heap of magic between the laser-accurate passer and his would-be sidekick in Blake Griffin, the Clippers still grew and developed enough to nearly take the Pacific Division from the Los Angeles Lakers, and almost earn the home court in this series. We're OK with "almost." You tried your best.

And now, based solely on Paul's ability to take over the second and fourth quarters of games, we're looking back to the man that the San Antonio Express-News' Mike Monroe expertly penned an MVP-endorsing ode to late last week. Griffin's still-developing footwork could shift things, as could the foul-drawing ability of Rudy Gay (who missed Memphis' playoff party last season), but the onus is still on Paul to be the tilting factor.

It's OK, though. He's into that. He nearly led a clearly lacking New Orleans Hornets club to a series win over the Los Angeles Lakers, and now that he's engaged and healthy with the Clippers (not to say that CP3 took time off with NOLA; we wouldn't say that on such a pretty day!), it's time for Paul to work his way past Memphis' depth and home-court advantage.

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There is a problem in Paul's way, and that's the long arms of Grizzlies guard Mike Conley, who is a potential favorite for All-NBA Defensive first team. But Paul can't look at Conley as a "problem," friends, he has to regard him as "a potential solution." Sure, Chris only shot 39 percent against the Grizzlies this year, with Los Angeles taking two of three contests, but he can use Conley's aggressiveness against him. Let the floor tilt to Paul's side, only for dimes to result.

Memphis did earn that home-court advantage, and the Clippers were pretty terrible on the road this year, but this is the spring. This is a time for rebirth, new ways, a cleaned-out shed and cramming for finals. Experience pitched with intelligence, discovering things about yourself that you'd never considered before.

You know, all that crap.

That was rude, but we're just 12 months removed from those little cubby bears in Memphis turning into big, mean Grizzlies and making a go of it all the way to the second round. Who among us is to discount the Clippers before they make their own growth spurt? Sure, the team was far more heralded than last year's Grizzlies, showing up on national TV seemingly every third night, but that doesn't mean the team doesn't have a soul worth leaning toward. And a first-round win would mark the first time in Vinny Del Negro's career that …

Shoot. Perhaps we should rethink this.

Actually, no. In all seriousness, this is Chris Paul's group. And while I think the Grizzlies have a legitimate shot at getting to the Finals this year (I don't want to discount a team that great; we love the Grizz), and the fact that Conley plus Tony Allen will be abject horror for Paul to work through, he can break plays and run sets in the same style that kept his Hornets teams somehow afloat. Or much in the same way Derrick Rose kept V.D.N.'s Bulls competitive in their two first-round losses in 2009 and 2010.

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Are we making it stupidly simple by pointing to the series' best player as the tipping point? Sure. But Paul gets to the line, and he develops solid late-game looks even if the screening footwork of his bigs in Los Angeles isn't as pronounced as it was during Paul's time spent with David West in New Orleans. And as much as we respect those Grizzlies, we admire the heck out of Paul, and his rope-a-dope style.

Clippers in six.

***

'Deep Thoughts' and Cheap Thoughts with Dan Devine

For every postseason matchup, Ball Don't Lie's resident dummy will offer a topically appropriate entry from the best-selling series of "Deep Thoughts" books written by legendary humorist Jack Handey, plus some of his own original thoughts on the playoff series. The combination will cost you literally nothing; we suggest you use the savings to purchase one of Mr. Handey's life-changing books.

No. 4 Memphis Grizzlies vs. No. 5 Los Angeles Clippers

"Many people don't realize that playing dead can help not only with bears, but also at important business meetings."

Shouts to Flop City. Vinny Del Negro might think it's a misnomer, but DeMarcus Cousins, Greivis Vasquez and anyone who's gotten near Chris Paul knows the deal.

Whether or not the Clippers actually try to take any dives against this batch of bears, how effective they are at getting to the line could be a key factor. While the Clippers are awful at the line -- especially, as we've covered, their big men — and shot the league's second-worst percentage for the season, their ability to draw whistles contributed to success earlier this season. In L.A.'s two regular-season wins over the Grizz, the Clippers shot 60 free throws to Memphis' 45, going +8 from the line in the victories. When Memphis won the teams' final meeting 2 1/2 weeks ago, they out-attempted the Clips at the line 20 to 18. If the refs call these games tight, the Grizzlies' aggressive on-ball defense could work against them, allowing Paul's penetration and Blake Griffin's work near the basket to put Memphis in the penalty early.

If the officials let the two teams play and the Grizz can color within the lines the same way they did during the season — the only Memphis regular who posted a foul rate higher than 3.9 per 36 minutes was late-season addition Gilbert Arenas — then the half-court matchup should be fascinating to watch. Paul and Griffin working the high screen-and-roll against some defensive combination of Tony Allen, Mike Conley and Marc Gasol is the stuff of hoop nerds' dreams.

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Can Paul — so good at creating fluid offense and controlling games with that steady dribble, pacing the Clips to the league's second-lowest turnover percentage — hold steady against the swarming Memphis D, which causes cough-ups at the league's highest rate? Will Zach Randolph — brought along in limited minutes as a second-unit scorer in 24 games since returning from a right MCL tear — be able to regain the form of his epic 2010-11 postseason run, bully the Clippers' front line on the block and take control? Will Randy Foye's hot shooting (41.4 percent from 3-point land since the All-Star break, 44.3 percent in April) continue to give the Clippers' offense shape, spacing and punch from the off-guard spot? Is Rudy Gay, lost to injury during the Grizzlies' run last year, going to hit the ground running in his first postseason appearance?

Both teams closed the season strong; Memphis was 16-4 in their final 20 games, L.A. was 14-6, though that includes losses in its last two. Both teams were dominant at home (26-7 for the Grizz, 24-9 for the Clips) and sub-.500 on the road (15-18 and 16-17, respectively). When things are as evenly matched as this series seems to be, matters often come down to which team can perform best with its weaker hand; in this case, Memphis' offense vs. the Clippers' defense. I believe in the Grizzlies' bottom-half-of-the-league offense more than I believe in the Clippers' bottom-half-of-the-league defense. Plus, if this comes down to a Game 7 — which it very well might — the Clippers will have to make one last business trip to the FedEx Forum, where no amount of playing dead will save them.

PREDICTION: Grizzlies in seven.

***

Five Predictions for Los Angeles vs. Memphis, From the Sensible Eric Freeman

1. Chris Paul will be the best player on the floor in every game.
2. Blake Griffin will score enough to remain a budding star, but he'll seriously struggle defensively against Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol.
3. We will all feel dumb for ever wondering if Rudy Gay's return would upset the Grizzlies' chemistry.
4. It might not go the longest, but this series will be the most entertaining of the first round.
5. Grizzlies in six.

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Heading into the final night of the NBA's slapdash lockout-shortened 2011-12 season, we know which 16 teams will be playing for the Larry O'Brien Trophy come this weekend, and we have four matchups set. In the Eastern Conference, the third-seeded Indiana Pacers will take on the No. 6 Orlando Magic, who clinched their seeding with a 102-95 Wednesday win over the Charlotte Bobcats, while the No. 4 Boston Celtics will square off against the No. 5 Atlanta Hawks. Out west, the San Antonio Spurs (the conference's top seed for the second straight year) will face the eighth-seeded Utah Jazz, while Chris Paul and Blake Griffin will lead the Los Angeles Clippers into a 4-5 matchup with last year's postseason darlings, the Memphis Grizzlies.

That's what we know. So what don't we know? Well, for starters, who's going to have home-court advantage in C's/Hawks and Clips/Grizz? Who are the Chicago Bulls, Miami Heat and Oklahoma City Thunder going to face in the first round? Where do the defending champion Dallas Mavericks fit into the mix?

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By the end of Thursday's slate, we'll have the answers to those questions and more. Let's take a brief look at which games mean what in terms of playoff positioning Thursday night.

Dallas Mavericks vs. Atlanta Hawks and Denver Nuggets vs. Minnesota Timberwolves

These games matter because: As it stands, Denver (37-28) holds the No. 6 seed in the Western Conference, while the Mavs (36-29) sit a game back in seventh. A Denver win over the flagging Wolves would lock down that finish, setting the Nuggets up for a first-round series against the Pacific Division champion Los Angeles Lakers and putting Dallas in line to open against Oklahoma City in a rematch of last year's Western Conference finals. A Dallas loss to Atlanta would do the same.

If Rick Adelman's squad can pull the upset, though, that leaves the door open for Dallas to move up to sixth with a win, because while Denver and Dallas would share 37-29 marks, the Mavs own the head-to-head tiebreaker between the two teams by virtue of winning three of four regular-season matchups with the Nuggets. That'd send George Karl's team back to OKC for a rematch of last year's first-round #THUNDERNUGGETS extravaganza, while Dirk Nowitzki and company would look to summon the shooting onslaught they used to sweep the Lakers out in the second round a season ago.

[Related: Timberwolves coach Rick Adelman would love a roster upgrade]

The game also has huge implications for Atlanta. While the Hawks can't move up from the No. 5 line on the East's bracket, they can take home-court advantage for their first-round series with the Celtics if they finish with a better record than Boston; they enter the final night of the season at 39-26, one game ahead of Doc Rivers' crew. If Atlanta beats Dallas, they'll start the postseason at Philips Arena.

But if they don't ...

Boston Celtics vs. Milwaukee Bucks

This game matters because: ... then the combination of an Atlanta loss and a Boston win knots the teams at 39-27, which would give the Celtics the home-court edge in Round 1 because Boston is a division champion and Atlanta isn't. If the Bucks can pull the upset, though, Boston won't see the TD Garden until Game 3.

Philadelphia 76ers vs. Detroit Pistons and New York Knicks vs. Charlotte Bobcats

These games matter because: They'll determine the 1 vs. 8 and 2 vs. 7 matchups in the East. A Knicks win over the Bobcats would lock them into the No. 7 seed and a date with the Heat no matter what Philly does, as New York won the season series between the two teams; a Sixers loss to Detroit would do the same, guaranteeing Doug Collins' crew a trip to Chicago. The combination of a Philadelphia win and a New York loss, though, would invert matters, pitting the 76ers against the Heat and the Knicks against the Bulls when the playoffs begin.

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Memphis Grizzlies vs. Orlando Magic

This game matters because: After the Clippers lost a road game to the Knicks on Wednesday night to drop to 40-26, Memphis (40-25) now holds a half-game lead for the No. 4 seed out west, putting them in line for home-court advantage in their series with the Clips ... provided, of course, Memphis can beat the Magic on Thursday. If Zach Randolph and company lose, though, the Clips will regain the fourth seed by virtue of beating the Grizz twice in three tries during the year.

***

That rundown still leaves seven other games on the Thursday night docket, each with their own storylines unfolding (including, most notably, lottery ping-pong ball implications and the race for the scoring title). For more on what else is at stake on the season's final night, we leave you in the very capable hands of NBA.com's John Schuhmann.

Just one more night, y'all. Then, we can all start growing our playoff beards.

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