This headline could have gone in any number of ways. Dr. Richard Kimble-based. Def Leppard drummer/Hysteria pun-full. Perhaps even a Jim Abbott reference. But we’ll keep it simple — just like Rajon Rondo did with his post-game comments describing his grotesque elbow dislocation he suffered and subsequently returned from in the Celtics do-or-diesque Game 3 win over the Heat tonight. “I thought I could try to change the game’s momentum by getting to the ball defensively,” said Rondo. “I only need two legs for that.”

Well then.

If you haven’t seen the injury and want to, here is the brutality in image, GIF and video form.

Matt Moore does a good job expressing how we shouldn’t go overboard on asserting that Rondo’s return won this game for Boston. But this dude is tough as railroad spikes, and this will still be forever known as The Rondo Game. In a way, it’s a microcosm (in terms of importance/immortality) of Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals in which doubtful-to-play Willis Reed limped his way into the starting lineup and hit a few shots early to help propel his Knicks to the title. In reality, if you’re going to credit one man with New York’s 113-98 victory over the Lakers, it must be Clyde Frazier, who put up 36 points, 19 assists and 7 boards. As Clyde famously said, “Willis provided the inspiration while I provided the devastation.”

Sticking to that, tonight, Rondo brought the inspiration while KG most certainly brought the devastation. Garnett’s 28 points (on 20 shots) and 15 boards were a true flashback to his MVP days and, along with a great night for Paul Pierce, gave Celtics fans new hope that the old champs may be able to knock off the young upstarts yet.

Furthermore, more so than being like the Willis/Clyde game, this one may be closer to two memories in Celtics lore: the Larry Bird concussion game and the Cs 1973 Eastern Conference Finals during which John Havlicek separated his shoulder and played a few games essentially one-handed.

In any event, here are a few post-game thoughts from Kevin Garnett on Rondo’s effort.

• “Shorty’s a real tough dude and I seen him play through some hellafied* injuries. I saw his face and I knew he was beat up.”
• “I’m not going through the list of injuries that yall are unaware of … but I’ve seen him play through some horrific injuries.”
• “When he came in, I was just like ‘that’s typical Rondo.’”
• “I dunno what he’s gonna be like when he’s 35, but—for right now—he’s … showing a lot of heart. A lot of grit.”

True grit.

Who knows if he will play in Game 4, but even if he doesn’t and the Heat ultimately beat the Celtics, no one will ever forget this game.

Lastly, below is the most marquee play from Rajon after the injury: him picking Chris Bosh’s pocket with his left hand, something he barely used post-injury, and dunking with his right, the hand he used to snatch one-armed boards, drive to the hoop and throw cross-court bounce passes.

* I wasn’t sure whether this should be “hellafied” like “qualified” and “dignified” or “hella fide” like “bona fide.” AP Style Guide proved no help. Makes more sense with the former, but my first instinct was the latter.

Heat vs. Celtics, Evil vs.Good, free agency vs. the trading market, tampering vs. a little help from your friends, individual Rucker Park basketball vs. championship-level synergy.

Sunday afternoon, it begins — and all we have to do is sit back and watch, pens drawn, narratives abound.

That said, those of us who want to watch a basketball series and not the ultimate battle of clashing basketball philosophies that don’t clash at all are in for a treat as well. Seven All-Stars will take the court Sunday for the start of a four-to-seven-game series. At least 6 future Hall of Famers will play. And if we’re lucky, Hubie Brown will be in the announcing booth, pointing out every important thing we’re watching.

But what exactly do we need to be watching when they tip-off?

I’m glad you asked.

Who’s Guarding Lebron James?

I’ll let Tom Haberstroh take this one, because he’s much smarter than you, me, and everybody.

According to Newmann and Oliver, Pierce checked LeBron 69 percent of the time, with Rajon Rondo, Jeff Green and Marquis Daniels (no longer with the team) filling in the rest. But against Pierce, LeBron shot just 43 percent from the field and his efficiency plummeted to depths rarely seen from him. In fact, LeBron scored 75 points per 100 possessions with Pierce covering him, down from his 93 points per 100 possessions when guarded by all other Celtics defenders.

We’ve seen this going on in previous Lebron vs. Boston series. Though Boston guards Lebron in a team-wide manner, having Pierce spearhead the defensive effort is key – more than ever when the defensive monstrosity that is Jeff Green is the primary second option. Boston needs Pierce in prime shape, hoping that working on Lebron won’t take the same toll it has taken on his offensive game in the past.

Where’s Dwyane Wade?

In four games against Boston this year, Dwyane Wade is shooting 28% from the field. His true shooting percentage isn’t much better, at a disturbingly low 38%. He registered 21 turnovers to 21 assists, and got to the line only 5.8 times a game (after averaging 8.6 for the year). The narrative dictates that Wade is clutch and Lebron is not, that Wade shows up for the playoffs and that Lebron does not, and that Wade is a good person and Lebron is not, but with Lebron’s averages against Boston on par with his season numbers (29, 6.5, 6.5 on 56.2 TS%, albeit 5 turnovers), the onus to show up will be on the former Finals MVP.

Will Rajon Be Rajon?

In three wins against the Heat, Rajon Rondo had 43 assists. In one loss, he had 5. This is obviously a very cut-and-dry way to look at things, with millions of other factors going in to every one of those 4 regular season games, but the difference is simultaneously astonishing and extremely logical. When Rondo is at the top of his game, penetrating at will and finding his teammates, this Boston offense is a completely different beast. When Rondo is not well, the offense boggles down to a 9-7 March or a 4-4 April.

Who Plays Center?

Joel Anthony has risen from national punchline to cult hero, and with good reason. The handless +/- monster has had a strong effect during the regular season series between these two teams, playing fantastic defense on Kevin Garnett in Miami’s blowout April win. In fact, the Celtics have only scored 89.7 points per 100 possessions with Joel on the court, compared to 99.6 when Zydrunas Ilguaskas is out there.

The picture flips on offense. By replacing Joel’s dunk air-balling goodness with Z’s pick-and-pop acumen, the Heat’s offense vs. Boston jumps a staggering 14 points per 100 possessions. Balancing the two centers (perhaps occasionally playing centerless when Boston trots Garnett out to the pivot) will be key for the Heat.

(Just for kicks, in case one of you still thinks Erick Dampier is a valid NBA center: Miami has scored 54.4 points per 100 possessions against Boston with Damp on the floor. It should be noted that this took place for only 6 minutes all season, but hey, why take notice of sample sizes when making fun of Erick Dampier?)

The center position is just as important from Boston’s side as well, if only because of the increasingly unlikely scenario that Shaquille O’neal ever takes the court again. Shaq was a key part of Boston’s torrid start to the season, which included two closer-than-the-score-indicates wins over these same Heat. Miami has no one on it’s roster who can handle Shaq.

Sadly, it seems as if 39 years of humongousness have finally done the Diesel in.

The Supporting Casts

Miami is the big 3 and nobody else, while Boston is a TEAM. Right? Anybody?

This line of thinking should probably go down the drain at this point. Beyond Boston’s 4 all stars, the team has been absolutely atrocious. Adding on to the Jeff Green outlash is just plain cruel at this point, but Glen Davis hasn’t looked much better, and Jermaine O’neal looks about as creaky as the frequent and generic punchlines make him out to be. Delonte West is shooting 27% in these playoffs so far, and while this probably improves considerably, he’s hardly been the model of consistency these past few years. Boston’s fifth  best player might be Nenad Krstic at this point, which says a lot.

Meanwhile, Joel Anthony has been fantastic defensively, and the James Jones/Mario Chalmers combo are shooting a combined 39% from three. Hardly spectacular, but with rest between games and enabling Lebron, Wade and Bosh to play upwards of 40 minutes a game, the Heat don’t really need spectacular. All they need is to drag Boston’s supporting cast down with their’s, which at the moment, seems very plausible.

Who Shows Up?

A simplistic question, without much analytical standing.

Yet, this will decide the series.

Miami has shown a disturbing lack of urgency throughout this season. The reasons as to why now become completely irrelevant – from here on out, Miami runs the risk of it’s season ending. The urgency should accompany that prospect.

Similarly, we have no idea which Boston arrives. The Celtics aren’t as bad as their post all-star play indicates, but expecting them to flip the switch all the way back up, even if they did it last year, is an extreme leap of faith. And as impressive as they looked in the final 2 games against the Knicks, they were also very close to losing twice on their home floor, to the Knicks.

Prediction, Just Because It Has To Be Done

The Heat are not going to blow the Celtics out. Boston is too proud, the defense is too good, and Miami still lacks the cohesion to pull it off. And Boston is not going to blow Miami out, because Miami has the two best players in the series, in a sport where this sort of thing matters. (Don’t give me the “New York had the two best players in the series too!” bit, because we know better.) It will be a close series, with low scoring and high drama. But this Boston team needs too many things to go just right, and unlike last season, when everything did go just right, I don’t think Lebron skips Game 5.

Heat in 7.

Some needs to photoshop this. I don’t know what, but it’s too good of a pic to waste. http://twitpic.com/3d0nuk

Done and done.

And for anyone who was a hip hop head in the 90s, this list is great nostalgia. I never went to The Tunnel myself (only moved to NYC in 2000 and it was shut down permanently within a year), but more so than some of these songs still being great today (many still are), the visceral feeling of first hearing joints like “Simon Says,” “Ante Up,” “Wild Out” and “My Mind Right” is something that stays with you. There’s really no way to describe them other than “banger.” Most importantly, while clicking through this whole list over the past five hours was the first time I’d listened to NORE’s “Superthug” in like five years. Regrettable, I know, but at least it happened.

Thanks, Cipha.

The reason this is being posted on an NBA blog is that Complex did a follow-up post featuring some of the many flyers they used to put out to promote the Sunday Tunnel parties. And one of them was the flyer below for a Sunday night party after the 1998 NBA All-Star Game in Madison Square Garden.

Wonder if Cipha (or anyone else) has any stories from that night. I’d sure like to hear one.

Maybe Arash was there …

Check it early and often.

As long as you remember that formula, you should be good to go in life.

The best finals shooting performance ever? That would belong to Ray Allen, who made his first 7 three-point attempts before missing one to end the half. 7 threes, which — just in case you were abducted from earth 2 days ago and hadn’t seen this — tied an NBA record for an entire game. Ray, ever the humble minimalist, needed only 1 three-pointer in the second half to break the record and got just that.

Yes, Ray bounced back perfectly from his foul-plagued Game 1, single-handedly keeping the Boston Celtics in the game in the first half. It might be weird to read the words “kept in the game,” given how Boston had a 6-point lead at half time, but make no mistake – without Ray’s ridiculous first half, Boston isn’t close. The Cs had no first-half offense other than good ole Jesus Shuttlesworth, who weighed in at exactly half of their points (27 of 54 after two quarters). None. Zilch. Zero. Nada.

And they paid for it. All game long. They paid for it in the first half, when Ray going nova was just enough for that 6-point advantage, and nothing more; and they paid for it in the second half, when the Lakers suffocated Ray, limiting him to just 5 points, with no other Celtic in enough of a previously established rhythm to count on.

And so it became that, with a bit over five minutes to go in the game, with the greatest three-point shooting performance in NBA Finals history on their side, Boston found itself looking up at a 3-point deficit, on the road, against the defending champs — the same guys who haven’t lost on their home court this postseason. Only this time, Ray was all dried out, and those Los Angeles Lakers came knocking on the Celtics’ door, saying “we’re going to take this game now.”

The only thing LA wasn’t expecting was for Rajon Rondo to answer the door, and say this:

I mean, he probably didn’t call them Dutch, and the crazy part was most likely directed exclusively at Ron Artest, but you get my gist.

Yes, Rajon Rondo took this game over in every which way and drove it home. It wasn’t just the 10 points in the final six minutes (though they surely helped) or the gaudy numbers (19, 12 and 10 – his fifth career postseason triple double). It was the game-long control of the tempo (somebody had to find Ray Allen on those semi-transition three point shots). It was the willingness to have the ball in his hands late in the game, poor free-throw shooting be damned. It was blocking Derek Fisher’s potentially game-tying shot. It was knocking the ball out of Kobe Bryant’s hands to seal the deal with 39 seconds left.

And most of all, it was the ridiculous — yet undeniably true — notion that in a game pitting a team full of savvy, experienced veterans who know how to win against another team full of savvy, experienced veterans who know how to win, the most savvy player, the one who knew best how to win, was the young point guard with arms as long as the Mississippi.

Ironically, the Ray and Rondo show had help from everybody except Boston’s other two stars. Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett were terrible yet again, with Pierce being a nonfactor on offense (2 of 11) and Garnett once again seeing limited action due to foul trouble (24 minutes in which he accumulated 5 fouls to 4 rebounds). In fact, KG’s only meaningful contribution came in a form we haven’t seen from him in a while: absolutely gorgeous passing. Garnett had 6 assists – 3 in the fourth quarter – and repeatedly found his teammates in the lane, taking full advantage of the space created by Allen’s early barrage. Even this comes with a hint of sadness, though, when one remembers that KG used to average 6 assists a game during his peak. Oh well.

The rest of the Celtics, though, were there all night. Nate Robinson had 7 straight points to set up Rondo’s final stretch. Sheed was arguably the best Boston big man on the court before fouls got the best of him. Glen Davis hustled like mad, occasionally getting him a basket. Kendrick Perkins recovered from trying to do too much in the first half, instead settling into a more fitting role of getting the ball near the rim and dunking it/laying it in. Tony Allen managed to play 12 minutes without turning the ball over even once. A fine all-around effort from the green supporting cast.

The Lakers missed that equivalent supporting effort very much. The “other” Lakers were atrocious, ranging from doing nothing (Lamar Odom had 5 fouls in 15 minutes) to taking simply awful shots (Derek Fisher: 2 of 8, JordanShannon BrownFarmar: 3 of 9, Ron Artest: Ron Artest.). Worse than those terrible numbers, they wasted a phenomenal performance by the ever-so-x-factorish Andrew Bynum. Bynum did everything one could ask from him. He scored 21 points without needing the ball in his hands, instead doing his damage off last-second lobs, loose balls and offensive boards. He blocked 7 shots and altered many more. And most importantly, he stayed on the court for an amazing 39 minutes. The Lakers cannot afford to waste games like that from Bynum. With the current state of his knee, you have to fully utilize anything he can possibly give.

Another Laker player who didn’t give his share was Kobe Bryant. Kobe was as out as he’s ever been recently, scoring only 21 points on 20 shots and adding 5 turnovers to boot. And while Laker fans will point to his bogus 3rd and 4th fouls — which clearly weren’t fouls by any stretch of the imagination – the truth is that he just wasn’t there. He didn’t make the shots that he usually makes and didn’t play the smart type of basketball that was there for the entire Phoenix series.

What smart type of basketball? That would be passing the ball to Pau Gasol — and fast.

Pau continued to dominate, scoring 25 points on 10 — TEN!!! — shots, throwing in 8 boards and 6 blocks for good measure. If you’re looking for an explanation as to why the best power forward in the game continues to watch his teammates run their offense without him, there is none. Nothing more to say on this subject.

All in all, you get a series that is much, much closer than it was two days ago — and not just because of the scoreboard. The Lakers have yet again demonstrated a self-sabotaging tendency to waltz away from their optimal game, while 50 percent of Boston’s core stepped up its effort dramatically. This leaves us in a situation where we don’t really know what to expect anymore. The tight officiating, the inconsistent superstars and the wild bench fluctuations mean that this series could go absolutely anywhere.

Last time around, I said that the Celtics need to kick the door open if they don’t want it to close on them. Well, they didn’t kick it, but they applied enough pressure for the Lakers to open it for them. And tough as the 2-3-2 system is for the team hosting those middle 3, the Celts now have homecourt advantage. It’s on the Lakers to play to their strengths and take it back.

If not, they could be left in the dust, wondering why they didn’t give their shaggy Spaniard the damn ball.

Making predictions, breaking down the future and saying things like “this team is done” or “this team is unbeatable” have made a lot of very talented people a lot of money and has given a lot of less talented people a very fun pastime. And in a seven-and-a-half month season, culminating in a two-week NBA Finals, it’s only natural that we look ahead, throwing out bombastic statements, defending them to the death despite their conformation being months away.

But sometimes, we need to remember that the beauty of the game is the game itself, not the conversations around it. And no matter how logical that next step seems, when the basketball is actually played, we always run the risk of getting our socks knocked off.

So allow me to officially apologize to the Boston Celtics for counting them out.

I had plenty of good reasons. The shaky bench. The old age. The effort that just wasn’t their any more. The presence of two (seemingly) far superior teams within their conference

None of it mattered.

None of it mattered because the one, biggest, baddest reason as to why the Boston Celtics were finished turned out to be untrue. For 15 months, it had seemed that Kevin Garnett would never be capable of playing at the level Boston needs to make substantial Playoff noise. And yet, against many people’s (including yours truly’s) favorite for the NBA title, Garnett finally reminded us why he deserved this place in this list , why he is an all-time great even though he was plagued by various Troy Hudsons in his starting line up, and why, when discussing a player of his caliber, you can never count him out until he finally hangs them up.

Overreaction? Tell that to Antawn Jamison. You can probably find him weeping in the corner.

Garnett looked like the KG of old, torching whoever guarded him (though, to be fair, Mike Brown could have been putting random people from the crowd on him and it wouldn’t have been as bad as guarding him with Shaq), consistently banging home that mid-range shot and showing that he is still more than good enough to orchestrate a dominant defense. Throughout the series, Garnett averaged 19 and 8 on 52% shooting – pretty similar to his regular season numbers in 2008 (18 and 9 on 54%). That is nothing near his all-world numbers from earlier in the decade, but it’s just what Boston needed — at just the right time. And that’s before factoring in his effect on defense.

As for the rest of those problems?

Tony Allen played the James Posey offensive spark/defensive stopper role, and combined with Glen Davis’ hustle and Rasheed Wallace coming back to life, the bench wasn’t a concern. Ray Allen continues to ignore the hints he gets from his odometer, Paul Pierce shook off a bad offensive start to the series and came up big in games 5 and 6, while acting as the primary defender on a certain someone whom I shall not name (he’s been named enough already, and if I eventually address his performance this series, it will be a long, thought out process, not half-heartedly thrown-out statements that take the limelight away from the teams who have earned it). And the effort? Apparently, they were just saving that for the postseason. As much as I don’t believe in flipping the switch, Boston proved that they have the championship pedigree needed to do so.

And above all, the masterful Rajon Rondo keeps on blossoming before our eyes, extending the “best PG in the world?!” discussion to, at the very least, a four-man race.

I apologize for focusing so much on the series preceding the one I should be talking about – and, yes, I’ll get to Orlando/Boston in a minute – but this can’t be reiterated enough. Because while the result of Boston’s six-game win over Cleveland was largely attributed to the fallacies of the losing squad (specifically those of a certain someone whom I still shall not name) this couldn’t be further from the truth.

Boston won this. Fair and square. And if their form from the first half of Game 1, Game 2 and Game 4 through Game 6 carries on to this series, they have a heck of a chance to make it back to the NBA Finals.

Of course, to do so, they must stop the team that has been playing the best basketball in the league for quite a while.

For months now, several voices have been ignoring the Magic, giving reasons such as “they’re not as good without Hedo” or “they rely too much on Vince Carter,” while people who actually watched the games half-groaned, half-cried: “Hedo wasn’t that good! They don’t need that much from Vince! STOP IGNORING JAMEER NELSON!!!”

Amazingly, their voices remain unheard in certain circles for reasons I cannot explain. While the Magic’s 8-0 run in the postseason so far is somewhat tarnished by the teams they met – both of which seemed quite content with playing the doormat – it still takes a very good team to capitalize on those “just-happy-to-be-here” feelings. Even though the Hawks’ second-round performance was as apathetic as they come, this was the East’s third-best team. And yet, they were obliterated completely, each and every strength nullified, each and every weakness exposed.

No, don’t let the “we just beat the number one overall seed” hype fool you: these Magic are favorites. And while this series is a whole lot closer than it seemed a few weeks ago, we must still remember that even though Boston’s defense seems to be returning to near-2008 levels, Orlando has been playing a similarly elite defense for two straight years, now — along with far superior offense. In fact, throughout this postseason, the Magic have been number one in both offensive efficiency (a ridiculous 116 points per 100 possessions, which is a full 2.8 points more than the Suns) and defensive efficiency (94.6, which is 2.7 points less than the Celtics).

Then again, these Celtics don’t really give a damn about favorites. That should give us a great match-up in and of itself — a match-up enhanced by the fact that, to my eyes, each team’s weakness is pretty ably countered by the other team’s strengths.

Boston struggles against young, athletic teams? Well, the Magic have their share of oldies, but they don’t get much more athletic than Dwight Howard. With Jameer and Jason Williams running the show, Matt Barnes, Mickael Pietrus and the still-athletic-when-he-wants-to Vince running the wings, and an abundance of three-point shooters trailing, this team should be able to run as much as it wants. Heck, we might even see some Brandon Bass.

The Magic’s weakest positions defensively are point guard and power forward? Well, those two positions are manned by Boston’s two best players, if the Cleveland series is any indication.

Boston has a bench full of question marks? The Magic go a legit 11 deep.

Dwight Howard’s offensive game still tends to be inconsistent (though it’s much, much better than the rep it gets)? Kendrick Perkins is the best Dwight-stopper in the league.

It goes on and on.

And there are so many x-factors. There literally isn’t a single player in the starting lineups that won’t have a crucial role in this series.

For the Celtics: Rondo will have to get to the paint, draw fouls on Dwight, create shots for his teammates, and basically carry Boston’s sometimes struggling offense through those sometimes struggly stretches, while trying to stop the scorching Nelson; Allen and Pierce will be counted on to make shots, whether by creating for themselves and trying – sorry if I sound like a broken record here – to draw fouls on Dwight (mostly Pierce) or by making spot-up outside shots (Ray); KG will need to exploit Rashard Lewis like he exploited Jamison; and Perkins? Well, Perkins is up against Dwight. Good luck with that.

For Orlando: Jameer will have to keep up his ridiculous play, breaking down the Boston defense and generally being unstopable; Vince will have to make sure Pierce doesn’t find a rhythm while fitting in to the offense, scoring when he is needed and deferring when he isn’t; Barnes will need to run through screens after Ray Allen; Lewis will have to make weakside threes and maybe even, god forbid, drive to the hoop against Garnett should he be able to force him out; and Dwight will have to stay out of foul trouble to anchor the defense, while still posing a strong enough offensive threat to shrink in the Boston defense, and maybe even getting Perkins and Garnett into some foul trouble of their own.

And those are just the starters. The series could eventually be decided by the benches or by the coaches or by the refs (hate to bring them up, but this has become an increasingly important factor with Dwight). Anything can happen. Everybody is important.

Which is why I think the Magic win.

When considering everything and anything, they just have more. They are deeper. They are younger. They are healthier. They are just as good, if not better, on defense. They are way better on offense. They have the better coach. They have home-court advantage.

The Celtics made everybody – including me – look like idiots after handing it to the Cavs. They sure could do it again. The difference is that this time, they aren’t facing a team on the brink of a mental meltdown. They are facing the defending Eastern Conference champion. They are facing a team that is playing better basketball — better than last season’s Magic and better than this season’s Celtics.

Magic in 7

Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear.

This series is not.

On paper, this should be a nail biter. The teams split the regular season series. Both won their first round series in 5 games. Both teams are as healthy as they will ever be (and yes, I’m assuming that LeBron’s elbow is fine, because he’s a cyborg and cyborgs don’t feel pain). And while the Cavs are deeper, and had the far superior regular season record, they are also employing a line-up that has played less than 10 games together, including in the playoffs, and lack the championship pedigree of their green opponents. All in all, this evens out.

Until you look at the fine print.

How did Boston got those regular season wins? Well, one was on opening night, against a Cleveland squad playing it’s first game with Shaquille O’Neal in uniform after a shaky training camp, without Delonte West who was battling personal issues. Since then, Cleveland acquired Antawn Jamison, got Delonte back, got Shaq in the mix, and gained two rotation players in J.J. Hickson and Jawad Williams (though the latter might be kind of a stretch), while the Celtics regressed to .500 ball from Christmas Day onward.

The second Boston win came 10 days before the end of the season, after the Cavs clinched the league’s best record, without the aforementioned O’Neal. Cleveland basically rolled over for 3 quarters, allowing Boston to go up 22, before LeBron decided he feels like trying and instantaneously made it a close game, only to lose the game on some questionable decisions – and missed some free throws – in crunch time.

How did Cleveland get their wins?

One was a late February game, one week after Jamison joined the team, which was close for three quarters before the Cavs turned it up in the fourth (notice a trend here?) and won by 20. The other was a mid-March, Shaq-less contest, an 11 point win that wasn’t nearly as close as the score indicated.

“Sure,” you could say, “but how about those first round series? Boston looked much better there!”

Well, the Cavs, playing at first gear, beat a Bulls team despite the Bulls playing two or three of their best games of the season. The Celtics, with extreme motivation, beat a Miami team that consists of Dwyane Wade … and … yeah.

Not to take away from the Boston’s win against Miami – they upped the defensive intensity, and managed to convincingly win a series that many, including yours truly, predicted would be very close. But how does that help them against Cleveland? Letting Wade get his and stopping the likes of Beasley, Chalmers, Haslem and Jermaine O’Neal’s dead body is hardly the same as letting LeBron get his and stopping Jamison, Mo, Shaq and an array of three-point snipers. Besides, just letting LeBron get his could be enough to lose.

Look, I might be selling the Celtics short. I pretty much declared their title chances – for this year – over once Kevin Garnett was ruled out from last season’s playoffs, and my stance didn’t change one bit even when they started the season 23-5. And while I still believe the Celtics as presently constructed to be all but done as far as a title contender, I may be letting that opinion get the better of me.

And yet, the question remains:

When have the Celtics ever given us any indication that they are capable of beating these guys?

Even at full strength, rolling towards a title, a much stronger version of these Celtics needed 7 games and a fourth quarter outburst from P.J. Brown to put Cleveland away. And this was when Cleveland had, maybe, 10% the supporting cast, the Celtics had James Posey (whom they’ve never adequately replaced), and Kevin Garnett was still one of the best players in the league.

So yes, Rajon Rondo will probably have his way with Mo Williams, weaving his way into the paint for numerous floaters and funny looking layups, just like Derrick Rose did before him and Jameer Nelson will do after him. Ray Allen will make some big threes, Paul Pierce will still be Paul Pierce, KG will yell at all sorts of things, be them opposing point guards or stationary objects. Heck, maybe even Rasheed Wallace will get off the bench and show the Cavs that even though he already mailed in a playoff series against them last year, he’s still enough of a bonehead to do it again. You know, all the those Celticy little things we’ve come to know and love.

And after all that is said and done, LeBron will get his ridiculous stat-line, Jamison will get his 18 points without releasing the ball from above his shoulder even once, Anderson Varejao will draw 5 charges and 8 technicals, some kind of dude with an unnecessary J in his name will score a big three and follow it up with a 5 minute hand shake/rain dance, and the Celtics will go home.

I know this sounds bleak, and not very fun. But I promise you, it’s not like that. It will be a fun series. The games themselves should be fairly close – not the defensive slugfest kind of close, but the entertaining kind of close, as these teams have quite regularly produced in the past.

And don’t fool yourself into thinking that this series can’t affect the NBA title. In fact, this is the ultimate Cleveland gut check: for all of Lebron’s greatness, he hasn’t beaten a legit, top tier team in the playoffs since the Pistons in 2007. Unfair as that assessment may be, it’s on him to prove that he can hold up to that pressure. If he doesn’t against Boston, he won’t against Orlando/whoever comes out of the West.

As for the Celtics, this series can dramatically alter their future. If they somehow take this to 7, or even win (which I don’t see happening, at all, but you can never be sure in this league), then maybe they stay course, hope KG’s knee is better after yet another summer off, re-sign Ray Allen, sign another, strong mid-level bench guy (not like Sheed), and take another shot. If they lose in a blowout … well, then maybe it’s time to blow this thing up. (Fun side note: if Allen leaves in free agency, no team is a better fit for him than Cleveland. Nobody.) The whole Ubuntu, heart of a champion mentality of this squad will be put to the test here, even if it seemed like it abandoned them during the season.

And no matter what happens, whether this goes 4 or 7, we’ll get to see two very good teams doing what they do best. You can never go wrong with that. It’s just that at the end of the day, one of these teams is better than the other.

By quite a margin.

And they have Lebron.

Cavs in 5

For such KG apologists, the 2004 Playoffs were a good piece of evidence.

This was the year The Big Ticket made his infamous “Ready for War” pronouncement. Here’s a refresher course into how KG was preparing for his first-ever Game 7 in case yall young’ns don’t remember.

He said, and I quote:

“This our Game 7, man. This it. It’s for all the marbles. I’m sitting in the house, I’m loading up the pump. I’m loading up the Uzi. I got a couple M-16s, couple nines. I got a couple joints with some silencers on ‘em. I’m just loading up clips. Couple grenades. Got a missile launcher with a couple, ya know, missiles. I’m ready for war.”

More relevant to the “Jerk or Not?” discussion, however, was his little altercation with Anthony Peeler of the Sacramento Kings. One knock on Garnett is that he is always more willing to pick on little guys than anyone 6’8″ and over. Anthony Peeler, a former teammate of Kevin’s with the Wolves, certainly fits that bill.

And he just as certainly wasn’t having any of KG’s nonsense, drilling the big fella with an uppercut elbow to the chin after being provoked by some mean-mugging and elbow-swinging by Garnett. The elbow connected something fierce, but more than anything, it’s just impressive that Peeler actually found the time to beat up Hall of Famers, what with all his Onyx shows to rap at and courtroom scenes to film with Omar for The Wire.

Nice work, Tony Peels.

(Enjoy other Ghosts of Playoffs Past here.)

Head over to Red’s Army to listen to this month’s episode.

We discuss how every Playoff series looks after one game and pontificate about Kevin Garnett, both in terms of the most recent incident that got him suspended for a game and, more generally, about whether or not he’s just kind of a dick. (Kelly Dwyer had a State of Union of KG-piece yesterday called “Why We Don’t Like Kevin Garnett Anymore,” which, while interesting and representative of the overall issue, delves way too far into armchair psychoanalysis for my liking.)

We also yell at each other about Amar’e/the Suns franchise, profess our love for Mavs/Spurs and make fun of Adam Morrison.

Ya know, the usual.

Here’s the line-up of this month’s participants:

• Michael De Leon of Project Spurs
• Jeff Garcia of Project Spurs
• Zach Harper of Talk Hoops, Cowbell Kingdom and Hardwood Paroxysm
• John Karalis of Red’s Army
• Glenn Moore of The Dugout Sports Show
• Matt Moore of Hardwood Paroxysm, NBA Fanhouse and NBC’s ProBasketballTalk
• Rey Moralde of  The No-Look Pass
• Jared Wade of here, Eight Points Nine Seconds and Hardwood Paroxysm

Pretty handsome crew. Particularly the last one.

I don’t think I actually speak all that much on the nonbasketball KG stuff in the podcast — mostly because I lack the motivation to care. But, for the record, I think most of the KG backlash is nonsense. He’s most likely a bit of a dick when he plays basketball, sure, but so were MJ, Larry Legend, Reggie and dozens upon dozens of other Hall of Famers. That doesn’t mean you have to like the guy, no, but I’m not exactly sure when we as fans started wanting to watch sports played only by clean-cut, model gentlemen.

Shouldn’t we spend our time praising genuine role models like Dikembe Mutombo and Dave Bing and save our scorn for legitimate malefactors like Jayson Williams and Donald Sterling? We really need to debate this incessantly? I guess it’s interesting perhaps. He is one of the best 25 players of all time and we do have cool YouTube clips of all his theatrics/transgression. But, really, I don’t have the time nor the inclination to come to any actual decisions about whether or not another grown man yelling and acting a little weird while playing a sport is a negative thing. /soapbox

(Funny photo though, right? It comes us from to the fantastic Doc Funk. The one where he looks at his watch is even better.)

In the Spring of 2007, I was just a young pup in this NBA blogging world. Since then, I have accumulated literally dozens of readers and made untold tens of dollars writing about the NBA, but back then the only people reading this blog were me and Drop Dead Fred. (He didn’t even like it … I just spammed his Gmail account with links to my posts.)

Then, on April 4, 2007, I did a post called “The Top 50 NBA Commercials of All Time” that got linked to from Henry Abbott’s new ESPN version of TrueHoop and a cavalcade of other NBA blogs that probably don’t even exist anymore and, like, 40,000 people showed up. Since my previous high in any day was somewhere south of 4 unique users, it was pretty cool.

Unfortunately, within the year I switched hosting companies and perhaps-due-to-nonpayment (who remembers really?), I lost pretty much all my old content in the transfer. It seemed like a bummer at the time, but honestly the commercial thing and like three other posts were probably the only not completely terrible things I ever did. Still, losing stuff sucks.

HOWEVER, through the miracle of the a tech-smart friend of mine, I was recently able to recover some stuff. And so, mostly because I want to put it back in my archives, I’m re-posting it as it was originally posted verbatim in April, 2007. (Thus, forgive the omission of any spots from the last three years that warrant inclusion.)

Additionally, this may as well be the formal launch of “The NBA Commercial Project,” which will be an attempt to gather links to video for every NBA commercial ever made. We’ll start with just these 50 and build on that. And that’s where I’ll need your help. Head over there and drop links to videos in the comments.

Just do it (wocka, wocka, wocka).

Check the full, original Top 50 after the jump.

[Written on April 4, 2007]

This needs to be prefaced by saying these are only the best that can be found on YouTube. Meaning…No Grandmama, no Nique Pump ads, no Bird/Magic Converse, no “Grant Hill Drinks Sprite,” no Moses Malone rebounding, and, believe it or not, no Derrick Coleman British Knights spots.

Even so, I’m sure there are some glaring omissions. Let me know what I missed.

Now excuse me while I finish my Gatorade, put on my Nikes, and log-on to ESPN on my T-Mobile phone while I head to McDonald’s.

(If you have any audio trouble, try toggling the volume icon on the lower right corner of each entry. If that doesn’t work, just re-load the whole page and you should be good.)

50. Play it Again, Grant

This is only here because of how amazing it is to remember that these guys were both once about as good as it got in their respective positions. Unfortunately, Grant’s ankles fell apart and Dan Patrick turned into a giant douchebag.

49. Kobe’s 81

Looks like he had a pretty good night.

48. AI’s Slow Spin

This loses points for helping popularize the once-underground and cool, and now everywhere and obnoxious And 1 dribbling phenomenon.

47. Dancing Gheorghe

This is just a teaser for the Gheorghe to come later.

46. Timmy’s Delight

[2010 UPDATE: This was a cartoon spot with Timmy and Rapper's Delight playing, but can't find it in English. Here's this some-other-language-version though to give you the gist. And here's the JWill one from the same series. There was a KG one, too, I think.]

Duncan shows more emotion in this 30-second cartoon than he has in his entire NBA career.

45. 100-Foot Rim

Probably not that great all things considered, but I’m giving out bonus points for it being a dope shoe and the early-90s CGI.

44. Big Slam

[2010 UPDATE: Not even sure what I was talking about ... this is a Pepsi Big Slam Shaq one though, even if it's not great.]

The Big Cameo.

43. Spike and Timmy

“Look at the Ugly Knuckleball Action.”

42. TMac’s Tall Tale

Could have been better, but a good effort.

41. Kobe’s Matrix Dunks

It’s almost hard to believe this is even the same guy that wears #24.

40. Jugador Mas Valioso

I was trying to stay away from ads for the actual NBA sponsored by the NBA itself, NBC, ABC or TNT because there are just too many of them and most of them are boring, but when you put a guy who can barely speak English into a spot where the whole premise is him speaking Spanish, you’re making the list.

39. Slam

This is here only because of the little kid and the dunk over Zo.

38. The Greatest

I could have made this with Powerpoint and Cassio’s “My First Keyboard.” Goes to show how easy your job was when MJ was hawking your product. This probably won’t be the last you see of him.

37. Tastefully Done

Not sure why, but watching this one is when I feel the oldest.

36. Don’t Walk

Could of been done a lot better, but making fun of Patrick Ewing earns you points.

35. Magic’s 7-UP Tricks

Think he slept with her?

34. Check

I don’t care if you have a whole army of businessmen, girls in bikinis, fat construction workers and Mexican migrant workers….You’re not stopping The Kid.

33. Yo, Yao

Mocking foreigners is always a good time.

32. Really Wasn’t About the Hat

[2010 UPDATE: Can't find the hat one anymore ... Here's some outtakes though]

Chuckster at his best.

“Is this your dad?”

31. King Kong McGrady

King Kong meets Gulliver’s Travels.

30. Godzilla vs. Barkley

Good luck with that, Big Zill.

29. Can I Kick It?

This is the poor man’s version of that Tiger Woods golf ball juggle commercial. Pretty impressive for a Canuck point guard, though.

28. Dwyane vs. Flash

Do whatcha do.

27. Daruis & Q

Great song + head pounds = #27.

26. Agent Zero

There was 0 percent chance that this wasn’t making the list.

25. Frozen Moment

This one was better at the time than it is now. However……

The Lil Penny remix still holds up just fine. (Don’t worry, more LP to come.)

24. Swingers Dirk

[2010 UPDATE: The Vlade one is still on YouTube ... and probably better anyway]

All these Trophy Love spots were pretty good. This was my favorite. Here’s the ones with JKidd, Nash, Vlade, and Manu & Tony.

23. Umi Says

Mos Def, extended edition (the Jeter appearance cost this one some points).

22. The Glory of The Mustache Days

Click here for more info on the history of the NBA moustache.

21. AI and Jada

Jada kills this Trackmasters sneaker squeak beat.

The A6 Remix, this time with an verse from AI

20. One on One

If Kobe would just embrace the dark side, everyone would respect him a lot more.

19. Not a Role Model

He always was shy.

18. Gheorghe Muresan Cologne

Screw Scorsece, I still can’t believe the Academy overlooked an Oscar for My Giant.

17. That’s a 90-footer

CGI at its best.

16. The Shirt

Exactly what we were all thinking.

15. Zeke the Thief

Speechless.

14. Coulda Dunked … Shoulda Dunked

Three more MJ appearances for the price of one.

13. Nationwide Basketball Society

Easily Diesel’s best performance since Curb Your Enthusiasm. But most of these Ali G/TNT spots were pretty great. Here are most of the rest.

12. The Second Coming

You know it’s good when it convinces you to enjoy a Dip Set track.

The “Kobe Being Kobe” version is 10x better though.

11. Fun Police

[2010 UPDATE: After finding the Cherokee Parks one, this definitely should have 7th. Sincere apologies.]

Unfortunately, these are probably the worst two in the Fun Police series. If I had the better ones in front of me this is probably in the Top 5. Step your game up, YouTube.

UPDATE: Thanks to Sam for hooking us up with a link to the better Fun Police spots. “Your facial expressions when you dunk are VERY limited.”

10. Nasty Dunk

An ad with the Four Best Centers Ever and one of the most hilarious catch phrases of all time gets you an automatic bid to the Top 10.

9. Freestyle

Extended edition. Great stuff.

8. Mars

Money … it’s gotta be the shoes.

This, you cannot do.

What’s the over/under on Spike, 4?10??

7. The LeBrons

“Dunk Contests are Bourgeois”

“You Think Michael Trained in the Pool?”

The First Season

6. Like Mike

If this song isn’t in your head for the rest of the day, please burn your Social Security card and leave my country immediately. You’re not wanted here.

5. Lil Penny

The “Super Bowl Party” is basically the “We Are The World” of sports commercials.

Double Action.

Lil Penny Classic.

The Secret Service couldn’t guard me.

4. Johnny Kilroy

This version (and the video quality) is pretty horrible. Go here for the proper edition with Steve Martin and “The Popcorn Tape.”

3. Roswell Rayguns

I’m just gonna lump these together so they don’t monopolize the Top 10.

Snoop and George Clinton’s Funk Ship.

Dr. Funk.

2. The Showdown

With MJ’s sweater and Bird’s backhair, it’s really hard to leave this out the #1 slot.

1. XXI

On the other hand…’Nuff said.

(Photo by Steve Babineau/NBAE via Getty Images)

But Manu?

He plays a brand of basketball that inspires joy joy feelings in all those around him and Kobe, according to Chris Ballard in his book The Art of a Beautiful Game, likes to repeatedly characterize as “balls to the wall.” Usually, Manu’s greatness comes with the rock in his hands. But this year, dude’s defense has been on full display.

Last night, par examplar, he unleashed this Yeti-like-force block on KG, who now has two huge reasons to be thoroughly embarrassed: the blowout his Celtics suffered at the hands of the old, boring Spurs and being swatted this badly by a slow, white, geeky, balding chump. (via Real Cavs Fans)

And this wasn’t the first time this year Manu has publicly de-scrotumed a future Hall of Famer named Kevin. Here we see Mr. Durant also get got by the Argentine. (Video via Project Spurs … Click through to see KD’s PG-rated response to the block … And my sincere apologies for the Sean Elliot commentary.)

Is that all?

Nope.

Here’s Manu standing on his head to prevent a lay-up attempt by his Eastern Conference SG doppelgänger. If you can’t stand the Heat, Dwyane, better get out of the kitchen.

Am I right?

Lastly, who can forget this Halloween swat?

Anyway, I found a bunch of parallels between the Celtics and the Cleveland Indians from the movie Major League. The one similarity that will not come true is the Celtics actually overcoming anything to win in the end … but a lot of other things are uncanny.

Here’s a taste:

The Cleveland Indians team in Major League was a ragtag bunch put together for one sole purpose: losing. And losing bad enough so that their owner could break her lease with the city and move the team to sunny Florida. It was only once the players learned of her sinister plot that they were able to put it all together and start winning.

They needed an external wake-up call to motivate them to win.

Now, I personally don’t have much faith in this Celtics team. But if ever there was a wake-up call in this year’s NBA, it’s losing to the Nets. At home. Convincingly.

Will that be enough to help Boston hold off Father Time and magically rebuild the ligaments in KG’s knee? Probably not. I think the Celtics are a clear step behind the three legitimate contenders in the East (Cleveland, Atlanta and Orlando).

But this Celtics team, which I think at least within our little NBA internet world is now being counted out as a title contender, does bare a striking resemblance to my favorite fake baseball team.

Head over to Hardwood Paroxysm to check out the rest.

In my opinion, the most interesting nugget was a note about KG’s decision to take back-to-back jumpers late in Boston’s loss to G-State last night, despite having two clear mismatches on the guys guarding him (Monta Ellis and Corey Maggette).

Here’s the full breakdown.

Lemon Face – KG Fading Away

After resting on the bench for quite some time, KG entered the game in the fourth quarter with about 6 minutes to go and his team down by 5. About three possessions later, he found himself with the ball being guarded by Monta Ellis. To be completely fair, he didn’t have a ton of time left on shotclock, but that does not forgive the terrible, awkward, off-balance fadeaway he opted to take over a 6?3? guy who weighs less than the sandwich Big Baby ate during half-time. Then, on the next trip down the floor, Garnett again found himself with the ball in the midrange and, again, had himself a nice mismatch, this time over Corey Maggette. What did KG do? He took and badly missed another off-balance fadeaway. Rajon Rondo was able to score the next 6 points for Boston and keep them within a few missed Ray Allen threes from coming back to steal the win on the road, but it’s inexcusable for the Big Ticket to ruin two key fourth quarter possessions — especially when Paul Pierce isn’t playing, Rondo is reluctantly not completely taking over and Ray Allen is shooting like Marquis Daniels. That’s just not a winning formula for the Celtics. In fact, I actually have the formula that proves it.

And, yes, the main reason I’m posting this is just so I can include the corresponding formula that explains why KG should not be doing this. It was devised by Rakim, who we know drops science like a scientist, so you know it’s good.

Most of all, however, you should head over to HP for another 1,000 or so words on who else had great or bad evenings last night. And once you’re there, you can also find another 1,000 words previewing tonight’s games.

(Photo by Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images)

Yet another NBA season is complete and the Los Angeles Lakers proved kings of the mountain. Congratulations and coronations are certainly in order for the team and its King of Kings Kobe Bryant, but, to me, the best part of the 2008-09 season was watching how immense the actual mountain itself has become. The depth of talent across the League and the new generation’s approach to the game is as refreshing as it is impressive, and a new Golden Age of the NBA now seems imminent.

Depending on your individual outlook, the Association’s renaissance began anywhere from two to six years ago, but after yet another great season, there is no denying the fact that the NBA is in a better place now than it has been at any time since MJ stuck that iconic pull-back jumper over Bryon Russell in 1998. Kobe is unquestionably among the all-time elite. LeBron is Haley’s Comet. Chris Paul is the best point guard since Magic. Dwyane is a combination of relentless and universally appealing that we haven’t seen since Jordan. Dwight is an athlete rivaled only by cartoon characters. Duncan is a sage old man. KG is a warrior hoping for one last battle. And dozens of other All-Star caliber players are putting on spectacular shows across the League every night of the season.

Much larger than any individual’s effect on the NBA, however, is that the fact that, not only do these future legends play the game the right way, but the concept that the only style of basketball that can win is team basketball is again paramount. The Jordan Era mythos that great individual players can will their teams to victory has evaporated. Whether that revelation came before LeBron’s highly favored Cavs lost in the Eastern Conference Finals a few weeks ago or back when Kobe’s 35 ppg average earned him little more than awe and a first-round Playoff exit is irrelevant; all that matters now is that every competent GM and, more importantly, every competent fan now knows that no team can contend for a title without a solid four- or five-player nucleus that knows how to play together — and is willing to do so. The days of getting excited when a franchise pairs a few mercurial mercenaries and just rolls the ball out on the court hoping for the best are over. If your team is serious about competing for a title you need a core of talented players who complement each other like Kobe, Pau, Lamar and Ariza just did for the past two months. You need KG, Pierce and Ray Allen. You need Dwight, Hedo and Rashard. You need Carmelo, Chauncey, Nene and KMart. And you need them all on the same page with a focused agenda on winning.

The successful teams in 2009 were built around depth, defense and details. There are very few players remaining on the elite teams in the League who ever seem to put their personal play above the team’s mission. The players who now matter in the League — almost to a man — have learned from the Ghosts of Failure’s past like Stephon Marbury, Steve Francis and Antoine Walker. The other teams and other players in the NBA have gotten too good to beat any of them by going two on five. An indifferent, lethargic tandem of Baron Davis and Zach Randolph can’t even get you 20 wins in this League anymore. And after a decade of watching half the teams in the NBA flounder directly after making high-profile acquisitions — as the 2009 Clippers just did — we now have a League where the Los Angeles junior varsity club is the exception as opposed to the rule.

In many ways, the current Clipper incarnation is like Frito Lay’s failed attempt at putting together a party mix. (Bear with me; I’m not even high.)

I still remember the first time I saw a bag of Frito’s new product “Munchies” when it first came out a few years back. Four of the company’s flagship chips were together in a single bag: Doritos, Cheetos, Rold Gold pretzels and Sun Chips. As a college student who adored three of the four (does anyone really like Cheetos?), this seemed like the best idea in culinary history. (Yes, I considered this cuisine.) Why hadn’t they thought of this sooner?

I eagerly opened the bag and dug in, pulling out a Dorito. Since it was a Dorito — the best chip in the history of chip-makingkind — it was excellent. Next, I grabbed a handful that included a few of the others. Even though each one is a little too big to allow you to shovel multiple pieces into your mouth at once, it’s hard to be disappointed when you can follow up a Sun Chip with a Rold Gold pretzel. It wasn’t long before the whole bag was gone. A handful here and then a handful there gets you through an 8-ounce bag pretty quickly.

But the more I ate, the less impressed I became. Ultimately, these chips didn’t go together. It was just two really cheesy chips and two really bland chips. So between everything having the same tongue-numbing, fake cheese flavor and the fact that they’re all too big to pop three or four pieces into your mouth at once anyway, it was just like eating four different things in an arbitrary order. It wasn’t a party “mix,” but merely a collection of pretty good chips.

If we’re going to compare players to chips (and don’t worry, folks, we are about to) Baron Davis is the Dorito. Both are universally beloved and both have inimitable flavor, but, deep down, you know neither is good for you. Marcus Camby is the pretzel: simple, reliable and underrated. Zach Randolph is the Cheeto; like the chip’s cheese, Zebo’s 20/10 is clearly artificial. Still, like the fond memories we all have of the Chester Cheetah cartoon, Zach’s steady post moves create a ruse that makes you think he’s a throwback low-post scorer who will exceed your initial aversion. Al Thornton is the Sun Chip: solid, yet ultimately nondescript and bland.

Just like Frito’s failed attempt at a party mix (I hope the irony of the name “Munchies” isn’t lost on anyone), these guys do not fit together. They’re just a mismatched group of guys with individual strengths.

The 2009 Magic and the 2004 Pistons, on the other hand, were built like Chex Mix.

Neither team had a flashy superstar whose job it is to “take over” a game. Individually, none of Rasheed, Chauncey, Rip, Tayshaun or Ben Wallace stand out as superstars. The fact that they could not only upset the 2004 Lakers but get to another Finals and make it to six straight Eastern Conference Finals without an alpha-dog seemed preposterous when compared with any other NBA champion since the 1979 Supersonics. Who did these guys think they were? You needed at least one Hall of Famer to run the show or, better still, a dynamic duo.

Much like surprising, enduring appeal of Chex Mix, it turns out that putting together five or six reliable, if unspectacular, players who complement each other’s contributions perfectly might be all you need to do to create a winning combination.

Everyone has always liked Chex, just as they always liked Rasheed Wallace, but no one really thought you could make a great snack out of it — just like no one thought you could win a championship if Sheed was your best player. Rip is as solid as a mini-bread stick, but no one is really getting too excited about either one. And as with a rye chip, no one even knew they liked Chauncey Billups or Ben Wallace — but it turns out all three were great. Throw in a few well-considered spices (Larry Brown, Tay, Memo Okur) and you have the making of one of the more underrated yet universally appealing and highly successful combinations that the world has ever seen.

For years, most teams spent all their energy looking for Doritos. Like Michael and Scottie, it was presumed that any team could contend for a title if it just added some Rold Golds to a bag of Doritos and tossed in whatever other filler it could find. But that paradigm has shifted. No longer does anyone expect a single world-class contributor and one complementary piece to seamlessly mesh together into a winning mix.

The Post-Jordan Era, during which the landscape was dominated by temperamental “stars” whose varying commitment to playing basketball properly left even supposedly good teams running rudderless, is over. With a team focused on two highly paid players, all it took was one sensitive ego or one guy with a limited understanding of how to execute consistently and the whole thing became mediocre at best — or a five-year train wreck at worst. Of course, similar situations still arose this season (see the “Munchies” Clippers) and this will always go on to some degree, but, for the most part, even struggling teams like the Knicks, Wolves and Kings were derailed more so by their talent deficiencies than anything else. And a team like Miami showed that banding together behind an unselfish leader and sticking to a unified concept can allow even a very flawed team to overachieve.

Sure, expansion has led to a more watered-down NBA than the one that existed in the 1980s. We may never see powerhouse teams with as potent starting lineups as the Celtics had with DJ, Danny Ainge, Bird, McHale and Parish or the Lakers rolled out with Magic, Byron Scott, Big Game James, AC Green and Kareem. But teams today, even the middling ones, are mostly back to at least trying to build their foundations around the right combination of players playing good basketball again. The Pacers and the Nets aren’t setting any worlds on fire, but they also haven’t been hijacked by players who take the court just trying to look good first and win second. And Portland, through some astute talent recognition and acquisition, has set itself up to follow the Orlando and Detroit model.

Ultimately, it is unlikely that any of Brandon Roy, Danny Granger or Devin Harris will win an NBA MVP. None of them are Doritos. But their GMs and coaches seem to be fine with that. They seem content to build around these guys and bring in other complementary contributors, who while maybe unable to generate a ton of excitement on paper, will come together well enough to get the job done.

Can it work as well for these middling teams of today as it did for the 2004 Pistons and the 2009 Magic? Who knows. It’s difficult to see any team that doesn’t have LeBron, Kobe, Dwyane, Dwight, KG, Duncan or Melo winning a title in the next several years; ultimately, Doritos will always be the best chip.

But last season, we saw Brandon Roy drop 50 in a game and hit a miraculous walk-off three. We saw Danny Granger make nearly as many game-winning shots as his former teammate who donned number #31. We saw Devin Harris become unstoppable with a full head of steam and learn to pump ice through his veins in the clutch.

Sure, it seems unlikely that teams built around guys like this could make a run at the title. Then again, it will certainly be more enjoyable to see teams try a new strategy. And, who knows, I never thought an unmemorable cereal could be the foundation of one of the best snack foods of all time either.

(Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)

People in Boston enjoy spending all their disposable income on sports and sports-related paraphenalia so KG ranked first last season, but he has since dropped to #4. Here’s the full top five.

#1 – Kobe
#2 – LeBron
#3 – CP3
#4 – KG
#5 – AI

Yes, that Allen Iverson. In other news:

The Lakers topped the list of most popular team merchandise for the sixth time in seven years. The Celtics, who bumped them out last season, dropped to No. 2, followed by New York, Cleveland and Chicago.

Exciting news day around here, I know.

"Hey Mr. Buss, did we retire #4 yet?"

I both praised one of the best hoops websites on this here planet while making the announcement that Joey of the website Straight Bangin’ is now writing regularly for FreeDarko. And he done tored it up with his first post the other day, which talks about the duality of this year’s Playoffs being both great because we get to watch the Leaders of the New School (Bron, CP3, Flash, Dwight, Deron, Rose, etc.) but also downtrodden because we have to endure the demise of the hallmarks of the post-MJ era (Deeeee-Trooooiiit BAS-KET-BALL, the Spurs, KG, The Answer, Shaq missing on a milk carton and even Timmy to some degree).

Here’s an excerpt:

For as much good as we’ve seen, there’s been an equal amount of bad. At least, for me, there has been. It’s an odd duality well captured by the Celtics, in fact. As sad as it is to watch Kevin Garnett reduced to the world’s most profane, best-dressed cheerleader, Rajon Rondo’s playoff performance has been a sensational counter, offering the sort of boundary-challenging performance we like to celebrate and mythologize. Of course, it likely comes from necessity precisely because Kevin is hurt. I don’t think one necessarily trumps the other, but this year, the bad seems to be a consequence of the good in a way that’s more pronounced than usual.

Kid has game. (Hip hop heads should stay up on Straight Bangin’, too, where he’s been dropping gems like this post about Raekwon for years.)

Furthermore, you should be checking out FreeDarko every day during the Playoffs. They’re cool dudes and they’re staying active.

That’s just cruel. (Screen cap from FanHouse via Ball Don’t Lie)

Among the pre-Shaq implementers were me (@BothTeamsPlayed) and Zach Harper (@talkhoops) of the highly entertaining and thorough site Talk Hoops. After months of exchanging 140-character arguments about Durant vs. Oden (me vs. him, repectively) and discussions about Blue Chips, we figured it was time to completely reverse the trend of shorter, less-thoughtful NBA discussion going on over at Twitter and instead start our own trend of longer, less-thoughtful NBA discussion through e-mail.

Thus, we spent the last 36 hours or so exchanging some e-mails on the current state of the NBA, Tom Cruise’s acting career, the merit of NBA awards, the Stucci Brothers, those black-and-white “where will amazing happen next?” commercials, the greatness of the Denver Nuggets, Sacramento public transportation,  the Celtics’ decision to pick up Mikki Moore and, of course, Stephon Marbury’s head tattoo.

Here what transpired.

Wade,

Yesterday, I tweeted that I was now on the Dwyane Wade for Defensive Player of the Year bandwagon. I stated that I was completely gullible enough to be swayed by his two crucial blocked shots at the end of the Heat’s win over the Pistons.

Now, this could have just been a good sequence against a struggling Detroit franchise that seems to be more apt to shoot themselves in the foot than Billy Hoyle with the pressure of the Stucci brothers breathing down his neck. Or this could be a legitimate claim to something that should be his award with the type of season that he’s had with steals and blocks.

Should a 6’4″ shooting guard who is 13th in the league in total blocks and third in the NBA in total steals be getting more consideration? Should Dwight Howard who only has 101 more blocks than him be a virtual lock for this award? Should LeBron James who tracks guys down on the fastbreak and swarms the passing lanes be a front-runner even though he seems to be unable to get guys like Antawn Jamison to score under 30 points? Who deserves this thing?

Dazed and Confused,
Zach

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Zacharia,

I sort of think the entire whole award discussion thing is dumb, frankly. But I’ll play your little game, Harper.

It’s not so much that I don’t care about trying to determine which players are playing the best defense or which rookies are having the most affect on their teams’ successes, it’s just that I thought the whole point of having 1,500 websites discussing the NBA everyday was to add nuance and unique insight to the world of NBA analysis and fandom instead of having everyone try to arbitrarily and unsuccessfully quantify the same five or six players who we all know are bona fide Hall of Famers and among the Top 100 to ever lace em up. For me, trying to determine who’s playing better right now between Wade vs. LeBron comes down to the same exact thing that that Larry vs. Magic always does: Which one did I see most recently? Possibly not so coincidentally, my Top Gun vs. Days of Thunder and Rakim vs. Jay-Z rankings work on the same principle. (This whole analogy is sort of a lie cause I definitely think Bird is better, however, I reckon you get my point.)

But I digress.

I have a feeling Flash is going to come in second in both MVP and DPOY voting. Wade’s gaudy defensive stats aside, it’s tough for a guard to win the award. How many have ever done it? MJ and GP are the only two I’m positive about and it took each of them half a dozen years or so of perennial All-Defense First-Team status to even really enter the convo. Currently, Flash only has one 2nd-Team All-Defense on his resume. Plus, I’ve watched a lot of Heat games this year and while DWade is certainly one of the best defensive guards in the League when he saddles up and buckles down, his exhaustion from carrying 14 other guys on his back offensively all game does lead to him taking plays off and watching his man hit an easy shot after he failed to fight through a screen.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m sure Dwight takes a play off here and there too. But when you’re 6’11″, have a 96″ vertical and are the most ridiculous athlete in the history of the human civilization, you’re still playing pretty good D even if you’re just standing in the middle of the paint with your eyes closed. Didn’t David Robinson, the guy I’ve been most closely comparing Dwight to physically for years, win a DPOY award under pretty much that same theory?

In more important, yet-still-relevant-to-your-email news, check the second comment from Deadspin’s piece on the ARod photo-shoot in Details.

Let the great experiment begin,
Jared Wade

Days of Thunder and Top Gun: One has cars, one has planes.

Mr. Carry On My Wade-ward Son,

Now hold on just a minute. If arbitrary arguments that attempt to quantify things that probably have no business being decided didn’t exist then you probably would be having this email discussion by yourself instead of with yours truly. With that said, I think having a season-long stream of consciousness about who’s playing well, who’s playing poorly, and who’s playing exceptionally does have some merit. Players “stealing” or being given awards for a good stretch of basketball in March and April really takes away value to that award.

Maybe that doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things but if we’re going to laud Michael Jordan for back-to-back MVPs and Larry Bird for winning three straight then shouldn’t that have more meaning? To me, when history is brought into the conversation of why someone should win an award, the award immediately becomes a popularity contest rather than its original purpose of determining who’s the best in THAT year in that specific category. Now, I know that all of this makes me sound more like a hopeless romantic than Mikey in Swingers, but I think that it does matter in the grand scheme of basketball history.

I don’t want Dirk Nowitzki to be a one-time MVP because the media didn’t want Steve Nash in that rarified air of three straight MVPs. I don’t want the Mark Eatons of the world to have more Defensive Player of the Year awards than the Michael Coopers. I want players to earn the award by actual play on the court instead of numbers in one category.

Dwyane Wade for the most part is a lockdown defender, especially against the top talent in the NBA. Even though one singular play doesn’t win a basketball game, he’s twice won games this past month by making incredible defensive plays in crunch time. When LeBron isn’t playing the passing lanes or stalking a fast break lay-up like women in the greater L.A. area stock Luke Walton, LBJ seems to play defense like he’s Sidney Deane throwing a basketball game to hustle Billy Hoyle. To me that matters (by the way, Doyle McPoyle is probably my favorite, most consistent Deadspin commenter of the current A.J. Daulerio-led era).

Now onto the real topic of discussion that intrigues me from your email. I honestly don’t see how you can put Top Gun and Days of Thunder into the same category. I mean, I know that they’re both Tom Cruise movies from the Golden Age of the DramAction genre. But Top Gun has to be Far and Away (see what I did there with the Tom Cruise movie double entendre?) the better movie. There are lines like one of the ultimate things that every guy wants to say in passing to a girl, “If you don’t mind, I’ll just take a quick shower while you’re finishing up here.” It has the phenomenal singing in the bar scene as Kelly McGillis whilst sitting on a barstool is equally as tall as the Muggsy Bogues-sized Tom Cruise. It has the Anthony Edwards mustache. It has Tom Skerritt! And I’m sure I don’t have to talk about the homoerotic volleyball scene that has been beaten to death time and again. I just don’t see how Days of Thunder can really compete with this.

Sincerely,
Goose
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Misguided film viewer,

Rubbing Is Racing + Robert Duvall + hooker cop.

Mostly, I agree with your award meritocracy talk. I’m just bored of it. And rather than hear more about Dwyane/Dwight/LeBron, I’d rather read stuff about Roger Mason, Jr. or Thaddeus Young that I can’t get on future Peabody-winning shows like Cold Pizza or Around the Horn. But in sum, I just think Dwight is a more important defender than Flash. Dwyane’s prowess disrupts one offensive guy and leads to a few turnovers/easy buckets a game. Supes’ mere presence in the paint disrupts the entire offense. Big guys and shot blockers/adjusters are just always going to be more important due to the nature of the sport.

Moving on…Last time we corresponded you were about to board your dog cause you were leaving town. What’s up with that? Who boards dogs? Don’t you have any friends? Was it at least Badd Newz Kennelz? Too bad Ron Artest doesn’t still reside in Sacto. I’m sure he would have been more than happy to feed and water your dog, who I’m going to assume you named “Spike Bibby.”

There’s also a rumor that you went to Boston. Did you see a Celtics game? I saw the Cs/Sixers around Thanksgiving in the Garden Redux (you know, newer, bigger and much worse) and me and my dad sat next to a group of Martha’s Vineyard firefighters who were celebrating someone in the group’s 30th birthday. Aside from the fact that the concept of a firefighter from Martha’s Vineyard is pretty comical in and of itself, one of these cats was hammered and managed to build quite the friendship with my pops in the seven minutes that I spent buying beer and/or pissing during half-time. He was taking photos of himself with my dad as I got back to our row and, soon after, he was slurringly asking me stuff like “You know you’re dad is a great guy?” and “When are you going to give him some grandkids?” Then with about four minutes left in the 4th quarter, this firefighter sprung up from his seat and ran off to the bathroom where, we were later informed, he threw up in a urinal. Bravest indeed.

Now, I know this just sounds like a mildly interesting anecdote about a drunken Masshole, but astute readers will realize that the subtext of a story about puking in a urinal contains an apt metaphor for Boston’s Starbury acquisition.

This, then, leads me to my actual question. When you look at the optical illusion in the tattoo on the side of Steph’s dome (for reference, it’s the same image as the logo on the upper left of Starbury.com), what do you see first: The star or the number three? I have not yet tested my theory, but I’m guessing there is psychological correlation between a person’s answer to this question and his or her answer to whether he or she first sees the gypsy lady or the beautiful senorita in that similar optical-illusion picture. I think Freud could have become an even householdier name had he taken up this research. One thing’s for sure: someone needs to take up this cause.

Yours truly,
The Guy Still Tryna Convince Dwyane He’s My Cousin

What do you see first: The number three or a star?

Mr. King of Queens,

You can’t just throw the hooker cop out there without considering that Val Kilmer in Top Gun would have done ANYTHING to be Top Gun in his class. He would have done unspeakable acts in film that now get you Academy Award nominations just to win that commendation. Some call that a friend with benefits, some call that a take-no-prisoners sort of go-getter, but I call that prostitution. So I’ll see your hooker cop and raise you the only moment in movie history where Meg Ryan seemed worth a damn.

Maybe boarding dogs is a West Coast thing that you easterners just don’t seem to do. Perhaps, it’s the reverse of liking Bruce Springsteen or giving a damn about hockey. It’s just something we do. I have plenty of friends that I could probably coerce into watching my dog at my house or at their respective house. But much like a child, it doesn’t mean that I trust the dog will come out of this unscathed. As I build this budding internet super-stardom, I can’t risk any unfavorable incidents/headlines like “owner of mediocre basketball website allows friends to watch his dog: death toll rising.”

If Ron Artest was still in town, I definitely would have left the dog with him. He still is attached to this city because he still calls into a local nighttime radio show about once every two weeks. I’m almost positive that he would have made his 10-year-old son, who’s well known for throwing elbows and playing with that inherent Artest Family Crazy Look in His Eye at a fourth grade level, learn some responsibility by ignoring my dog for a week. I would have gladly allowed my dog to come out of the Artest ranch, looking like an emaciated version of a 14-year-old Darius Miles. Sadly, my dog’s name is Brown Bear and not Spike Bibby. I would have named him after Mike Bibby but my dog can actually stop a mildly dangerous crossover and I don’t think he deserves to be beaten on a daily basis.

And you’re right; the rumors are true. I DID go to Boston a couple of weeks ago. It was my second time in the Northeast area of this country after visiting New York last summer. I was able to watch the Celtics (sans Rondo, Scal, Tony Allen, and KG) go up against the Orlando Magic on a Sunday afternoon. I’ve been procrastinating on a piece about my experience at a Celtics game with their fans and environment for quite some time and now it appears to be gaining as much questioning about its existence (on a relative scale) as Bill Simmons’ rumored NBA book has garnered. And I got to see the Stephon Marbury starting debut in person and even caught a glimpse of that vaunted tattoo.

Personally, I never even noticed the fact that it also looked like a “3″ until roughly a month ago. So I’ll definitely fall into the logo category of whatever psychological breakdown that brings about. And I think we should figure out this breakdown right here instead of waiting for smarter and more qualified people to tackle this issue. I would assume that people who see the logo are the same people who see the gypsy. Gypsies try to trick common folk into giving too much for an item and/or service. They’re great at sales and preying on the gullible. I’ve also heard that their tears can cure things. So it’s safe to say that they’re just like logos and brand name companies that try to get people to accept their items by paying more for them than what they cost to make. So maybe that means people like me are more gullible than the people who see the 3/senorita. Now, I’ll leave it up to you to figure out the other side of this correlation.

But I will throw in this twist: I was on the train a couple of days ago, heading home from work. This woman who I later overheard was from Reno (about three hours and another state away) had made her way down to Sacramento. She didn’t look like she was homeless but she didn’t look far from it, especially with her tendencies towards someone who loves her some crystal meth. She sat down next to this woman in front of me who was an Asian woman that could have been anywhere from 25- to 35-years-old. I was listening to podcasts much better than mine at the time so I didn’t pay much attention to it until I figured out that this potentially homeless woman was crying to this Asian woman and giving the sob story of her life.

The Asian lady had a very creepy smile that could have just looked that way because she was trying to fake interest in the crazy stylistic musings of the crying woman. As the story continued from the transplanted resident of Reno, it eventually led to the younger woman shedding her creepy smile in favor of hugging a complete and dirty stranger that she flat-out didn’t know and wouldn’t know after she got off at her train stop.

I was completely horrified by this on many levels. One, I’m anti-social and hate small talk with people that I will never see again (i.e., in elevators, public transportation, etc.). And two, I have a certain level of cleanliness that I require from someone I don’t know before I’ll even think about touching them. But the third level is something that I’ll pose to you in a similarly related way to the Marbury question you posed to me. Why are “normal” people unlike myself willing and able to completely accept people that they don’t know into their lives if even for a brief moment despite the considerable evidence against them?

Why would a Boston fan base welcome with open arms and defend the validity of a Mikki Moore signing when he’s clearly shown that unless Jason Kidd is playing alongside him that he’s not worthy of being in a regular NBA rotation, let alone for a team that is contending for their second title in as many years? Why would any fan base welcome/hug this seemingly and deservedly homeless NBA player without questioning it?

All the best,
The King of Buying Ladies a Zircon

(AP Photo/Duane Burleson)

Jeopardy Security Guard,

I’m not saying Days of Thunder is better, just that they’re both fantastic. Same movie; different vehicles.

I know nothing about dogs, so I can’t help ya out there. It was mainly just a means to the end of talking about Ron Artest and Spike Bibby. It’s very unfortunate, however, that you missed Scalabrine. The sheen of the jumbotron lights off his soft, pasty arms illuminates the building in a way that could never translate to HD. I have no further insight on the Starbury logo/sultry senorita debate other than mentioning the fact that it must be very humbling for Coney Island’s Finest to wake up every morning and stare at the number three inked into his skull only to go to work and put on jersey with the number eight on it. Do you think he asked Ainge whether or not the franchise would make an exception and allow him to wear the late, great Dennis Johnson’s #3? I like to think Steph asked Danny in a text that said: “think i ca n rock that nmbr 3!?!?? ”

RE: Mikki Moore, I suppose you can lump me in with those that thought it was a good move. Then again, I’m one of those people who always respond to statements about how good Kevin Martin is with a “Look, man, you don’t hafta tell me” even though I never watch the Kings play. So I can’t say I really know much about Mikki’s abilities post-2006. He seems like a poor man’s Leon Powe in many ways, although I guess he is bigger. I dunno. Still seems like it was a good pickup even if it wasn’t a coup d’etat or anything. Since Christmas, I’ve thought the main reason the Cs can’t beat LeBron is because they literally didn’t have a single backup center or backup point guard on the bench. By picking up Mikki and Steph, you’re certainly not matching the absurd depth of the Lakers or Utah, but you at least addressed your key needs – even if it’s like tryna fix the hole in the Titanic with spackle.

Speaking of Utah and LA, the Western Conference is pretty awesome. Throw in SA, Houston (now first in the Southwest) and Denver, and that’s five fairly legit teams plus the flawed promise of NO, POR, Dallas and PHX. I’m excited about the fight for right to lose to LA in the First Round. Seems like a game of musical chairs that’s going to leave some unfortunate folks on the sidelines on the last day of the season.

But I guess what it really comes down to is: Can anyone beat LA?

With Manu hobbled again this year and Utah only now getting all its players on the same floor at the same time, I say no.

Farewell,
Wade

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J-Wade,

I don’t know about you, and maybe I’m just a stickler for the little things like this, but does the grammatical abortion that is today’s texting and tweeting style make you want to grab a small child and punch them in the throat? I would bet just about anything that if Steph actually sent a text to Danny Ainge about wearing #3 for the green then he definitely sent the exact text that you just typed, “think i ca n rock that nmbr 3!?!?? ”  I’m not expecting a dissertation or someone’s thesis whenever I get a text message or throw on the ol’ Tweet Deck but the least they could do is use the proper form of their, there, they’re or your and you’re. Am I perfect with the grammar? Not at all. But a missed comma here or there is nothing like what is slung up on the internet at a rapid rate.

As for the Celtics and their moves, I disagree with them. I understand the reason for them and you’re right that they had to add something to their void at backup center and point guard. But I feel like they panicked with the Mikki Moore signing and it screwed them out of a chance at Joe Smith. The Marbury one I understand a little bit more. Personally, I say develop Gabe Pruitt over the last season and a half and you don’t have that problem. And unless they could convince Jannero Pargo to come back to the States to play ball, Marbury was the only chance. It just felt like they made a move because they felt they had to and not because it was the right move to make. Last year, P.J. and Cassell were the correct moves to make. Marbury may have been the only choice at point but Mikki was the worst choice for a big man. Joe Smith or Drew Gooden seem to make much more sense.

Now, let me attempt to answer your question, “can anyone beat LA?”

In short, the answer is yes. In the long version, the answer is a little more complicated than that. I believe that a healthy Utah Jazz team with a full head of steam could be just as dangerous in the playoffs as the Lakers. The Jazz were in the Western Conference Finals just a couple of seasons ago and they actually have a better and deeper team now than they did. The problem with them is that they’re as reliable to be healthy as Bill Walton was (or so I’m told). And we don’t know that they will be on a roll when they make the playoffs. So they’re a maybe.

I don’t take the Rockets seriously because they’re the Rockets. A team featuring Ron Artest with Von Wafer in the rotation is not legit to me. I love the addition of Kyle Lowry because the internets tell me he’s a really good, young point guard. And of course, I love Shane Battier and Luis Scola as the role players on that team. But the Rockets have more holes than Carl Landry’s leg (too soon?) on offense and I just wonder who’s going to be their crunch-time scorer in the playoff games. Yao? He doesn’t really seem to be able to assert himself in the final minutes of a game. Ron Artest? He thinks he’s a better shooter than Larry Bird and actually said recently that he thought that the Kings were title-worthy when he played here in Sacramento. So Houston is definitely out.

Denver is coached by George Karl so I think that it’s safe to say they’re out of the Western Conference title chase. Even if Chris Anderson is fixing his hair after every blocked shot.

Portland’s too young. Phoenix is too skittish. Dallas isn’t a real basketball team. And New Orleans can’t give Chris Paul any help.

But that does leave San Antonio and they have a legit shot. They still execute better than just about any other team and when Manu Ginobili is the guy at the end of games, it’s hard to beat them in a seven-game series. They have enough depth to challenge the mighty depth of the Lakers and they have plenty of closers on that team to make big shots. They’re more than good enough defensively. And they have the experience to get past the Lakers. I think they can and I think they’re basically a coin flip at this point. But that has more to do with my assertion that the Lakers are mentally weak in pressure situations.

So clearly, you think the Lakers are hands down the likely winners of the West. What is keeping the rest of the West from challenging them and why are the Spurs not the team that can beat them?

Till later,
Mateen Cleaves’ Worst Nightmare

Roger Mason, Jr. explains green to kids who were born blind.

Talk Hooper,

Yes on the grammar issue. I edit people’s tweets before I re-tweet, have been known to drop semi-colons in text messages and can’t recall ever replacing a word with its numeric equivalent.

I agree on the Jazz. If Kobe and Co. are going to stumble, it’s most likely going to be in Salt Lake. The front-court depth is insane: Booz, Millsap, AK, Memo, CJ Miles and Matt Harpring. How does that even happen in the watered-down, thirty-team era? Even that pseudo-foreigner Kosta Koufos dude can play a little bit. I’ve been rather impressed with Ronnie Brewer all season too and I think he’s going to impress a lot of people in the Playoffs. Korver is cash and Deron is Deron. I mean, that’s a solid, solid team.

But have they played together enough? That’s my concern. Plus, as good and deep as that frontcourt is, who is stopping Pau? Aside from the undersized Millsap, none of those guys play any D to speak of. It’s just hard to see Boozer being ready to grind as hard in the paint as he’s going to need to do for Utah to really threaten LA after only playing like thirty regular season games.

I thought the Spurs had a shot as of a month ago. I was riding shotgun in the Roger Mason bandwagon before he was even hitting game winners every other day and I think Matt Bonner is legitimately legit.

But it all comes down to Manu’s ankle.

I really think he never recovered from the Olympics injury and now can’t get healthy enough to go 35 mpg for 20 games in the West Playoffs. Don’t get me wrong: Tony Parker has been truly transcendent this season and that is maybe the most underreported story of the year, but if Manu can’t take over consistently for long stretches, I just don’t see it.

As for other Western Conference “contenders,” I’m sure Denver has no legit shot but I really like watching them. A lot of it is how they play and the relative inconsistency of the team’s players each night. But more so, it’s just their personnel.

I wouldn’t say I actually like all the guys they have as actual human beings or anything, but everyone from Melo, Chauncey and JR Smith to Birdman, Nene and K-Mart has a career story arc that I find intriguing. They’re all sort of real-life underdogs — even Melo, who has somehow gone through an unparalleled, seven-year transition from phenom (‘Cuse) to overrated (first couple years) to underrated (DWade’s 2006 Playoffs obliterating all “Big 3 from 2003″ talk) to overrated (like three months later after strong Team USA showing) to underrated (now). Plus they have my boy Linus Kleiza, who I think has a Hedo Turkogluesque chance to blow up in like three years and make everyone say, “Is that the former 8th man from Denver?” Throw in Renaldo Balkman’s ability to generate Zeke nostalgia and it’s a jambalaya of enjoyment.

Speaking of Playoffs, how do you feel about the black-and-white commercials? I’m pretty into em. Manu’s bald spot is somehow even better sans Technicolor. Although I’m not sure how they picked a Kobe moment from that Suns series where he decided not to come out of the locker room for the second half of a Game 7 like four days later. The NBA ad wizards made up for that though by doing one with Joe Johnson though.

Until luego,
Jared
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Mr. Both Teamer,

With the commercials, I couldn’t be happier. They’re cheesy as hell, some of the footage seems dated (see Kobe wearing #8) and I’m pretty sure that by tweaking the old piano music from last year on Garageband that I could have come up with the new song, but other than that I’m completely on board with them.

Although here are a few moments for the players involved I think they should have chosen instead:

LeBron James: LBJ taking about 15 minutes to consider throwing the playoff games after being offered $50 million by a Vegas casino. I know the guy is “all about winning” but I think that when he says that, he thinks that the word winning actually means money.

Kobe Bryant: I’d like the over the shoulder view of him firing up his MacBook Pro, clicking on a link that has Shaq in the title, seeing that Shaq is curious how Kobe liked the taste of an orifice, and then chucking the laptop across the room. Then the final five seconds could be him wearing a Jordan jersey and staring at the mirror.

Chris Paul: Telling his teammates that they have no marbles like Tanaka in Major League II and then frustratingly walking away from the huddle before the TV timeout was over.

Kevin Garnett: I can’t get enough of him leveling Zaza Pachulia with that screen in last year’s playoffs. But I’d really like to see him barking at Jerryd Bayless or wagging his finger in Calderon’s face. That minus the Technicolor would be watched by me over 100 times per day.

Joe Johnson: I’d like to see him in black and white, trying to send messages back and forth between Mike Woodson and Josh Smith. With moments like Josh Smith saying, “Will you please tell a CERTAIN SOMEONE that his play calling isn’t featuring me enough?” Then we get a close-up on Joe Johnson rolling his eyes.

Paul Pierce: I’d like KG to be cooking everyone dinner at Paul’s house, then Ray Allen pulls out a knife to help make the salad and Paul Pierce goes running upstairs in sheer terror.

Dwyane Wade: I’d like him sitting in on a meeting with Erik Spoelstra and Pat Riley as Riles introduces the new coach and gives a breakdown of the roster in a Power Point presentation. Then Dwyane Wade asking if Ashton Kutcher was there, waiting to punk him before he pushes the table over and storms out of the room. Last five seconds would be him wearing a Knicks jersey while staring in the mirror with a sheepish grin on his face.

As for the Nuggets, I can’t think of a more unlikely group of guys to hang out with. It seems like it would be like a season of The Real World that never stops. Carmelo would be the one with a checkered legal past. He can’t quite stop himself from looking for fights at the bar but keeps telling people that he’s a changed man from what he used to be. Chris Anderson is obviously the comedic value of the show and the former drug user who does things like eating a whole tub of licorice in a night to keep himself from using drugs again. Nene is the token foreigner who doesn’t quite fit in but always has a pretend smile on his face like he knows what’s going on. Kenyon Martin would be the person that ends up breaking his leg during some bar fight or tearing his knee on the group vacation halfway through the season. J.R. Smith would be the young person that nobody can stand but he does some pretty remarkable things at clubs so everyone keeps him around. And Sonny Weems is just fun because everyone loves saying his name.

I completely enjoy this Nuggets team and can’t stop myself from watching every game they play just for the Chris Anderson factor. How has nobody made a reality TV show about this guy’s daily events? I’d love to see confessional-type interviews where he talks about his blocked shots or why he doesn’t have a drinking problem. I’d love to see his familial interaction. I’d love to see if he has any brothers and if so, how he acts around them. And I think the reason that he works on this team and why everyone seems in place is because of the acquisition of Chauncey Billups. Nobody liked playing with Iverson. No one would ever say so because I assume A.I. is a guy that people are still kind of afraid of. Nobody quite knows who is involved with his inner circle and how big their probation reports are. So replacing him with someone like Billups who can be a coach on the court means that everyone is relaxed and they know that they don’t have to rely on George Karl to make crunch-time decisions.

Is he the biggest coaching mistake waiting to sink his playoff team? Are there other coaches that will screw their team more than him?

Signing off,
Zach Harper

Everyone loves Birdman -- even announcers afraid of tattoos.

Zach,

Most people seem to hate Karl. I don’t think he’s a particularly good coach, but I’m not sure he’s going to kill em all by himself. They have plenty of poor decision-makers, injury-prone frontcourt players, inconsistent role players and streaky jumpshooters that should be able to handle that all on their own.

As for Chris Anderson, his success this year really is a great story. It’s like a less hyped, less dramatic, less unbelievable version of the Josh Hamilton triumph last year. The only thing that’s really unfortunate is that Birdman didn’t get a re-do on the dunk contest this year. I think he could have attempted more dunks in the first round of the dunk contest than Josh Hamilton hit home runs in the first round of the derby. But despite that poor attempt at a joke, I’m serious about his comeback. It’s been great to watch this season.

One other thing about Chris Anderson happened last night during the Suns/Nuggs game (which was tremendous…I love me some Jared Dudley). The Suns announcers were flummoxed by the fact that Chris had so many tattoos, yet none on his legs. And after carrying on for a few minutes of tattoo conversation that was roughly as interesting as listening to a couple of gym teachers comparing/contrasting vinyl siding installation strategies, one of the guys said (paraphrasing) “But even though he has all those tattoos, everyone you talk to says he’s just the nicest guy.”

If that doesn’t sum up the generational disconnect between the old NBA guard and the young bucks currently playing, I don’t know what does. Essentially, the announcers trying to explain to me what’s going on in an NBA game are fearfully looking at guys with tattoos like they’re James Dean rocking a red leather jacket. And I’m not one to really go to the race well, but it sounds like there was a clear assumption that JR Smith and Kenyon Martin were not “the nicest guys.” Since K-Mart and JR are probably pretty big dunces of civilization, I guess it’s not the greatest example, but the whole episode pretty much made me want to mute the broadcast and put on some Bun B.

Or a Talk Hoops podcast.

I mean, that thing’s good. I just caught up on the last month or so last week and not only did I get to hear a great story about you seeing a vagrant jerk off on the Sacramento subway, but I also learned that Sacramento has a subway. That right there is what we in the Boogie Down Bronx call edutainment. Keep up the good work on that.

What I’m saying is: You can be my wingman any time.

Stay classy,
Wade

He hates the Celtics. You know Vujacic does, but Ariza really does and always has. He even hates the Red Sox and the Patriots. Ariza, 23, and Pierce, 31, are both Inglewood cats who grew up near The Forum and loving the Lakers, and whereas Pierce has made a nice life for himself in Boston, Ariza would rather break his foot all the way through than ever be a Celtic.

And more than just hating Boston, Ariza especially hates Kevin McHale.

Ariza really has a thing for Boston, to the point that he joked he was getting post-concussion headaches again from talking about what I caught him doing before the game in Minnesota.

Ariza had a white No. 32 Celtics jersey and a Sharpie marker in his Lakers locker, and he had gotten Kevin McHale’s autograph on it.

What the …?

No way did Ariza want it for himself. He was just too good [of] a friend to say no to the request for a favor. He was, in fact, too sickened by the whole process to do it himself, so he asked a Target Center locker-room attendant to go get the signature from the guy far more famous for being a Celtics legend than the Timberwolves’ coach.

“I’m ashamed,” Ariza said. “I am. I’m ashamed.

Ironically, Boston-hater Trevor Ariza can likely consider Celtic patriarch Kevin Garnett a compatriot in the “Sickened by the Mere Idea of Kevin McHale Club.”

Latrell Sprewell is not only a member; he’s the player president.

Kevin teaches Kevin how to do the Harlem Shake.