No, for real — that headline is true. Check out this game story (and accompanying photo) from the Milwaukee Bucks' win over the Seattle Supersonics on Jan. 25, 1972, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's third year in the league (click the image for a larger version):

For those who don't feel quite like reading the fine newsprint, here's Milwaukee Journal scribe Bob Wolf's account:

As far as the visiting Seattle Supersonics were concerned, the only amusing thing about the basketball game at the Arena Tuesday night was that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wore his trunks backwards.

Aside from that one little slipup, the Milwaukee Bucks were a fearsome lot as they dismembered one of the better teams in the National Basketball Association, 123-91. [...]

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A look around the league and the Web that covers it. It's also important to note that the rotation order and starting nods aren't always listed in order of importance. That's for you, dear reader, to figure out.

C: The Point Forward, 8 Points, 9 Seconds and SB Nation. Rob Mahoney, Brett Koremenos and Mike Prada all come to the defense of Indiana Pacers coach Frank Vogel — or, at least, explain the reasoning for his decision-making for removing Roy Hibbert for the Miami Heat's last two offensive possessions of Game 1, including LeBron James' game-winner.

PF: TrueHoop. Kevin Arnovitz considers several other options Vogel had that would have kept Hibbert on the floor for those fateful final 2.2 seconds.

SF: Miami Herald and SB Nation. Amid all the parsing, picking and probing of the Pacers coach and his choice, Dan LeBatard and Paul Flannery would like us to stop second-guessing for a second and just appreciate how remarkable and ridiculous LeBron's game-winning finish really was.

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It seems like Nick Gilbert brings a lot of luck to the NBA Draft Lottery for the Cleveland Cavaliers. For the second time in three seasons as the franchise's lottery representative, the teenage son of Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert has brought home the top pick in the draft. The Cavs, who finished the 2012-13 season with a 24-58 record, entered the lottery with the third-best chances of snagging the first selection at 15.6 percent.

The Orlando Magic, the league's worst team at 20-62, were forced to settle for the second pick. However, the biggest losers of the lottery were the Charlotte Bobcats (soon to be the Hornets), who dropped to the fourth spot after posting a 21-62 record, just one game better than the Magic. They were supplanted in the top three by the Washington Wizards, who entered the process with a 30 percent chance of jumping from the eighth pick into the trio of lottery spots.

While the Wizards will benefit the biggest boost of any team in the lottery, the Cavaliers are the clear winners of the event. In 2011, they won the top pick and selected Duke point guard Kyrie Irving, who earned his first All-Star selection this February in his second season. This June, Cleveland will have the chance to choose between Kentucky shot-blocker Nerlens Noel (currently rehabbing a torn ACL) and Kansas shooting guard Ben McLemore. Given the presence of 2012 first-round pick Dion Waiters, the Cavs will likely opt for Noel, although that is merely an educated guess with the draft more than a month away.

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Marc Gasol didn't have a monster Game 5 against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday, finishing making just five of his 13 field-goal attempts and grabbing a non-eye-popping seven rebounds in 41 minutes. But the burly center was there when the Memphis Grizzlies needed him most, with six of his 10 points — including a huge 19-footer with 27 seconds left — and two of his three blocks coming in the fourth quarter. And run back the tape on Kevin Durant's closing-seconds miss — check out which 7-foot-1 Spaniard is lurking just beyond the restricted area, ready to pounce on a drive and influencing Durant into pulling up.

Gasol's Game 5 numbers might not have been stunning, but his performance throughout the Western Conference semifinals was everything Memphis could have asked for and more — 19.4 points, 8.4 rebounds, 2.8 blocks, 2.4 assists and 1.6 steals in 41.9 minutes per game, shooting 48.6 percent from the field and 81.8 percent from the foul line, and anchoring a withering defense that held Durant and the Russell Westbrook-less Thunder to a paltry 94.3 points per 100 possessions, a mark that would've ranked below the Washington Wizards' league-worst offense during the regular season. He was a star, full stop, on both ends of the floor, and is as big a reason as any why the Grizzlies ousted the West's top seed in five games to advance to the Western Conference finals for the first time in franchise history.

But he also knows just how good his Grizzlies are, that they were supposed to beat the wounded Thunder, and that Memphis' job isn't done yet. His postgame choice of pop-culture touchstone to illustrate that knowledge was pretty amazing, according to ESPN.com's Ramona Shelburne:

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A look around the league and the Web that covers it. It's also important to note that the rotation order and starting nods aren't always listed in order of importance. That's for you, dear reader, to figure out.

C: Blank on Blank. The PBS Digital series that exhumes lost interviews and animates the conversation offers a cool spin on an 1992 chat between Ann Liguori and legendary big man Wilt Chamberlain about the peaks and valleys of being a giant. (Hat-tip to SB Nation's Tom Ziller.)

PF: SB Nation. With a pivotal Game 5 on tap Tuesday night, Drew Garrison looks at how the Golden State Warriors were able to exploit the San Antonio Spurs' pick-and-roll coverages late in their Game 4 win, and how San Antonio can tighten up their defense to help take a 3-2 lead in their best-of-seven series.

SF: All Ball. Lang Whitaker revisits "The Reggie Miller Show," a real thing that actually existed, because someone out there knew all along just how enjoyable Reggie would be to watch and listen to on television. (Featuring a young Conan O'Brien!)

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In the spring of 2012, after a disappointing second round ouster, then-Los Angeles Lakers coach Mike Brown met with Kobe Bryant to discuss initiating a Princeton-styled offense for 2012-13. With capable big men Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol already on the team, Brown set to hire former Washington Wizards coach Eddie Jordan, a noted Princeton expert and former Laker player, to be his lead assistant, with Bryant’s full blessing.

Things kind of fell apart from there.

The offense was thrown for a loop when the team acquired Dwight Howard and Steve Nash later in the summer, as the Princeton eschews the sort of ball domination that makes a player like Nash so effective. After a winless preseason and 1-4 start to the regular season, Brown was let go as head man. Former Suns and Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni, owner of offensive sensibilities that fly directly in the face of the notoriously slowed Princeton O, was then hired. Jordan, sent to the end of the bench, ended up taking a gig to help resurrect the flailing and failing Rutgers NCAA men’s basketball team.

And while Eddie appears happy at his alma mater, like a lot of people he seems a little frustrated at a Laker year gone sour. And with a front row seat’s worth of perspective, he talked to the Washington Post’s Michael Lee at length about how the whole experience soured him for the NBA:

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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.

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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 begin with the New York Knicks and Indiana Pacers.

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

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Kenyon Martin told his New York Knicks teammates to dress for a funeral on Wednesday and J.R. Smith swore the Knicks would've closed things out if he'd played in Game 4. But the Boston Celtics are leaving Madison Square Garden very much alive after scoring an impressive 92-86 win in Game 5 of their best-of-seven series, and given the horrendous night Smith had, Knicks fans might've preferred he take this one off, too.

"We was going to a funeral, man, but it looks like we got buried," Smith said after the game. "I'm done with this black stuff."

The Celtics, though, aren't done. Not after Jeff Green scored 18 points, 10 of which came in the fourth quarter, to lead five Celtics in double figures in the win, which saw Boston take a page out of New York's playbook by shooting a sterling 11 for 22 from 3-point range to cut New York's series lead to 3-2. The Knicks, on the other hand, bore very little resemblance to the team that boasted the league's third most efficient offense during the regular season, shooting just 5 for 22 from distance and 39.5 percent from the floor overall to produce at a rate (95.8 points per 100 possessions, according to NBA.com's stat tool) that would've ranked below the Washington Wizards' league-worst unit this year.

The win made the Celtics just the 11th team in 103 NBA playoff series to fight back from an 0-3 deficit to force a Game 6, which will take place at what figures to be a rocking TD Garden in Boston on Friday.

Only three have pushed it to Game 7. None have won the series. Celtics coach Doc Rivers wouldn't mind changing that.

"I mean, I think that would be wonderful, and someone's going to do it and I want it to be us, obviously, since that's the situation we're in,'' Rivers said before the game, according to Brian Mahoney of The Associated Press. ''Someone will do it, and I really want to be a part of that.''

While Green's efficient scoring night — 5 for 8 from the floor, 2 for 2 from deep (both of them late in the fourth, keeping the Knicks at bay) and 6 for 6 from the line — topped the score sheet, it was the Celtics' veterans who really keyed the victory.

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One day after becoming the first openly gay active male athlete in major American pro sports, Jason Collins sat down with TNT's "Inside the NBA" to discuss his monumental announcement, the decision-making process behind it and how it felt to wake up Tuesday morning and, in the words of host Ernie Johnson, "not have anything to hide."

"It was amazing," the 12-year NBA veteran said. "It was a truly overwhelming experience — humbling, the amount of support I received. I'm truly blessed to have the people that I have [who] have my back, and just support me and lift me up."

[Also: Before Jason Collins came out the closet, there was Justin Fashanu]

Collins told Johnson, Barkley, Kenny Smith and Shaquille O'Neal about a variety of topics, including coming out to his twin brother Jarron ("It was, uh, an interesting conversation"), whether he thinks his announcement will have an impact on other sports and leagues ("I hope it will encourage others to live an honest and genuine life [...] it's important for everybody to make decisions in their life that makes them happy and to be honest") and how long he wrestled with the decision to make his sexual orientation public.

"It took me a while," he said. "It was a process. But I knew that going through last season, that I wasn't going to keep living my life in the closet. I knew that once my regular season ended with the Washington Wizards, that after the season was over, I was going to make this announcement and also tell everybody, you know, I can still play in this league. I want to still play in this league. I still have a love for the game, and I still feel that I can offer an NBA ball club that veteran leadership. And I think I've proven by doing this that not only will I talk the talk, but I'll walk the walk, and I think everybody in the league respects that."

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