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• Bob Kravitz of The Indianapolis Star: Let me take you back to May 7, 1989, the day Chicago's Michael Jordan lifted skyward for The Shot over Cleveland's Craig Ehlo, the shot that catapulted his career into the next stratosphere. After the game, Cleveland center Brad Daugherty sat in the Cavs' funereal locker room and shook his head. All he could say was this: "We got beat by greatness." Today, it can be said again after the Miami Heat's 101-93 Game 4 victory over the Indiana Pacers, a game that tied this heated Eastern Conference semifinal series at two games apiece. They got beat by greatness. What else can you say? How else do you deconstruct a game the Miami Heat absolutely had to win, lest they spend the next few months contemplating coach Erik Spoelstra's future and the possible dissolution of the Big Three? LeBron James: 40 points, 18 rebounds (six offensive) and nine assists. Dwyane Wade: After a tepid first half, he finished with 30 points, nine rebounds and six assists. Sometimes, there's not much an opponent can do.
• Greg Cote of The Miami Herald: It might have been a lesson that we saw being delivered in that third quarter Sunday, or it might have been simply a reminder. Either way, it was this: Do not doubt the resolve and power of LeBron James and Dwyane Wade. Just don’t. Trust it instead. Trust it because they have earned your faith. Mostly, trust it because it is all you have. This time it was enough. Astoundingly, stunningly so. James and Wade combined to put on an epic show Sunday, especially in that third quarter that changed everything — everything — and it is why all of the panic and gloom that had been enveloping the Heat went into sudden remission in the 101-93 Miami victory that leveled this second-round NBA playoff series at two games apiece. All at once the Earth has regained its axis and the Heat appears back in control, with two of the three remaining scheduled games back in Miami starting with Tuesday’s Game 5. All-is-hell turns to all-is-well, or close enough for Heat fans.
• Buck Harvey of the San Antonio Express-News: It appeared Sunday the Clippers would extend the Spurs. Blake Griffin needed stitches, and Chris Paul seemed to sew up the rest. The Spurs trailed by five with about five minutes left. Then, with Tim Duncan’s knee holding up, he made two free throws. Found Manu Ginobili on a cut. Tossed in a driving hook over Griffin. Found Tony Parker on a cut. And blocked Paul. What happened? “Perseverance,” Duncan said afterward. “We stuck with it. We kept moving the ball and believing what we were doing.” Parker acted the way Elliott did in 1999. Asked what the sweep meant, he said, “Doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t accomplish anything.” But what about the 18-game winning streak? “Don’t think about that,” he said. He’s right. The last team to sweep the first two playoff series, the Orlando Magic in 2010, didn’t win the title. Still, the Spurs needed to face some playoff tension, because there will be some in the conference finals. Duncan said that. “It was great to have a close game like this,” Duncan said. “Good for our young guys.” But it might have been better for the old guy. Duncan will get a few days off, and nothing will be more appreciative than his knee.
• Vincent Bonsignore of the the Los Angeles Daily News: The loss to the Spurs will sting, but shouldn't linger. And once they realize the gap separating themselves from the elite teams in the NBA requires some tinkering but not a complete overhaul, they will be better-positioned to make decisions that will help close that gap. First and foremost, they need to bring Del Negro back for another year. The decision rests in the hands of general manager Neil Olshey and owner Donald Sterling. The Clippers hold an option on him for next season and they should honor it. It became blasé to knock Del Negro this year. His lack of experience and his rocky two-year stint in Chicago prior to taking over the Clippers made him an easy target for critics who questioned everything from his rotation to his ability to make adjustments and develop young players. But this much we do know: His team played hard for him throughout, and that should mean something. It could have given up against Memphis after the injuries to Paul and Griffin and after losing Game 6 at home to force a long trip back to Memphis and a hostile environment in Game 7. Del Negro had his team up for that challenge, and the Clippers defied odds to beat the Grizzlies on their floor and advance to the semifinals. That stands for something, and it should get Del Negro at least one more season to coach this team under normal circumstances and with a more stable roster.
• Darnell Mayberry of The Oklahoman: All postseason, Oklahoma City has closed out games in grand fashion. The Lakers, in Game 4, simply became the latest victim of the Thunder and its ability to storm back from a fourth-quarter deficit and secure a win. That trait, not Westbrook's explosiveness or Kevin Durant's daggers or James Harden's surgeon-like precision in the pick-and-roll, has been the most impressive thing about the Thunder's playoff run thus far. Oklahoma City is now all grown up. The final five minutes of nearly every Thunder game this postseason has proved as much. Gone are the days when the Thunder would wind up on the wrong end of a blown lead. Now, it's the Thunder that is snatching victories from the jaws of defeat. Four of the Thunder's seven playoff wins have come by three points or less. Another victory was decided by just six points. Of those five wins, the Thunder trailed by 13 points in the fourth quarter of two games, by seven in the fourth period of two others and by one with a minute remaining in the other. The Thunder was the road team in both victories in which it trailed by 13 in the fourth quarter.
• Kevin Ding of The Orange County Register: Pau Gasol believes he's hungry for more titles. If he really was, his baseline level of focus would be higher instead of only spiking high. At a time in his career when Bryant needs more help and not less, this mix of talent has gone sour. Not toxic, mind you, but sour. It's why the Lakers frittered away Games 2 and 4 to Oklahoma City. They don't quite have that old confidence that they deserve to win and will make the key plays that demonstrate to the world how they deserve to win. Consider the recent years besides 2009 and '10, when the Lakers won it all: In 2008, they blew a 24-point lead in the NBA Finals' worst meltdown ever in Game 4, giving the Celtics a sudden 3-1 advantage. In 2011, their Game 1 implosion at home against Dallas erased a 16-point third-quarter lead and a seven-point lead in the final minutes, with Gasol faltering badly down the stretch and the last chance being a missed Bryant 3-pointer bearing an uncanny resemblance to the one Bryant missed near the end Saturday night. Championship teams find a way to win because they aren't afraid to lose. And in that regard, the sweet-hearted, good-intending Gasol is unfortunately the Lakers' No. 1 problem.
• Bob Ford of The Philadelphia Inquirer: Boston played a great first quarter and a good-enough second quarter to hold a 46-31 lead at halftime, and the Celtics must have thought their work for the evening was complete. That is not what teams do when they respect their opponent or anticipate that something other than ordinary effort will be necessary to finish the job. ... They were surprised, because they didn't think the Sixers had it in them to keep fighting on a night they had shot a ridiculous 23 percent from the field in the first half. That's terrible even by the Sixers' shooting standards, which are pretty low on a good day. And, of course, they were wrong to think it was over. But that is what happens to teams that have been champions before. They think the crown is still up there and lesser teams will bow to its glory, or they think there is some carryover effect to having survived these games before. The Sixers are not going to be champions this year and perhaps not any time soon, but they are a dangerous team to underestimate. Assuming they will quit on a game is usually a particular mistake. ... In the back of their minds, maybe even in the front, they figure that they'll still win the series, and that taking real control of it Friday night wasn't worth the effort the Sixers were requiring them to make. The Celts might be right. They probably will still win the series. What is less true than it was before Friday night, however, is that they still deserve to win it.
• Mark Murphy of the Boston Herald: Doug Collins has put it delicately, at least compared to how he wants Kevin Garnett defended. The Philadelphia 76ers coach wants his big men to disrupt Garnett’s timing. Sometimes that has meant trapping the Celtics center, but more often that goal has been met by prodding Lavoy Allen and Spencer Hawes to push Garnett farther out, to make it uncomfortable when he gets the ball. Success has only been limited, but on Friday night in the Celtics’ Game 4 loss, when Garnett nearly had as many turnovers (seven) as points (nine) and only took 12 shots, the ploy paid a huge dividend. Asked yesterday about Allen, though, Garnett was typically unseeing. “It doesn’t matter. All of their big guys are playing physical and bumping,” Garnett said. “You go through side picks and it’s physical. I can’t tell one guy from the next. Spencer Hawes is being just as physical as the young kids. It’s all the same. They’re very aggressive.” But tonight in Game 5, the Celtics can’t afford to have the generous Garnett — the one spreading the wealth — passing nearly as often. The Celtics are 1-3 this postseason when Garnett takes 12 shots or fewer, and 5-1 when he takes 13 or more. Shots are just as important as touches, though according to coach Doc Rivers, an acceptable amount of offense is running through Garnett’s hands.

LOS ANGELES -- This season didn’t truly begin until Chris Paul got involved in it. After countless days of long, closed-door meetings and rhetoric-soaked addresses, the announcement of a tentative agreement on a new collective bargaining agreement in the wee hours on a cold, late-November night was hailed across the Internet-tethered league instantaneously. But not until trade talks centering around shipping Paul out of the Bayou started up did it really feel like we had returned to the NBA we know and love, where the rumor is far mightier than the jumper.

After the splash, the Los Angeles Clippers never quite made the wall-to-wall-coverage-inducing impact some may have expected, never truly followed in the Miami Heat's footsteps and became the next great microwaved title contender. But almost every step of the way, Paul seemed to be there, even if it wasn’t always at the forefront.

There was Paul in the center of MVP discussions. There was Paul rising up out of nowhere to throttle Twitter feeds with his fourth-quarter explosions. There was Paul when his new team burst out of the gates. There was Paul having to fend off questions about his new team possibly imploding. There was Paul holding his adorable son in the postseason news conference.

But now here we are, just midway through May and with weeks’ worth of basketball left to play, watching Paul walk out of Staples Center one last time in his crisp designer wear, watching him glide away from the NBA for the summer without doing the one thing that, through it all, he ever expressed to give a damn about (besides his adorable son).

“Not really,” Paul said when asked if he took solace in any of the strides the Clippers had taken in his first year much farther west. “It’s cool in order to --. … I mean. I don’t know. I wanna win.”

They came as close as as they have to doing just that in the fourth of four games against the top-seeded San Antonio Spurs, an organization Paul, a master game manager, has lauded for their machine-like efficiency. After being blown off the court in two games in Texas, and having a monster run volleyed right back at them in Game 3, here the Clippers were, down one with 23.1 seconds left, with everything on the line, with the ball in the hands of the player that the team has orbited around since this whole Lob City Experience was set in motion.

After three straight rough outings, through dings and dents to most of his lower half, Paul finally looked like himself (23 points on 9-for-18, 11 assists, 6 rebounds, 2 turnovers), and looked to finish this off like he has so many times before to leave, if not a lasting impression, at least a reminder of his place in the league, his impact on a single team or game.

But after setting himself up at the top of the key and winding the clock down to just 16 seconds left, Paul sped in the paint, Danny Green suctioned to his right hip, barreled into the circle where two more defenders were waiting, lifted into the air, spun the ball around and around to avoid the limbs all over him and effectively finished his wild season-long ride with a Chris Paul cardinal sin: a turnover.

Not another crunch-time bucket or a pass to an open teammate, but a no-shot and a pass to no one in particular.

After one of two Green free throws extended the lead to two, Paul lofted up a runner in the left side of the paint before falling flat on his back, but this was off the mark too.

No trip back to San Antonio or reason to put Paul in the spotlight any longer. Just a 102-99 defeat, a 4-0 sweep, and another impressive victory by the seemingly unstoppable Spurs.

“I think that’s the toughest thing for me, as far as this game goes, to know that I had two opportunities,” Paul said. “We’ve been in that situation all season long. A lot of times I was able to come through. To let my team down in that situation is probably the toughest part of this season and something I’ll think about for a while.”

For the first time this series, Paul looked spry -- his cuts were sharp, his handle was careful (two turnovers after 16 through three games), his ability to wiggle and weave his way through traffic as on-point as it has ever been. Paul, who some say saves his best for the end, just let everything out.

“He has not had that extra burst that he usually has, that extra pop,” Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro said. “[But] we are not in the second round of the playoffs without Chris Paul. He gives you everything he has, all the time; he is as competitive as they come. I cannot say enough about everything he has brought to the team, the organization, to the city, and the fans in terms of competitiveness and what he brings on and off the court.”

But even the fiery point guard didn’t have enough in him. And even if he did, the Spurs and his injured legs had already done a number on his series: 3-for-13 shooting in Game 1, 8 turnovers in Game 2, 5-for-17 shooting in Game 3. Even if he had pulled a win out of a hip pocket, the odds of turning it all around, to turn the league upside sound again with a four-wins-in-four-days comeback were too big for even a star of Paul's stature.

Yet while Paul wasn’t up for a moral victory, is never up for a moral victory, the impact on teammates, on the franchise, on the NBA will surely have a lasting impact, even in the loss.

“Not only from the way he plays on the court -- that’s a given. Everybody sees how good he is and the things he does. But it’s when he comes and talks to you about a certain situation, you learn the game through his eyes and see what he sees," Blake Griffin said. "He’s constantly in communication with all the guys and that’s the way you get better, especially with somebody that’s going to have the ball in his hands for your team.

“He’s the quarterback out there, so for us to be on the same page is great. I learned a lot from him this year. Not only on the court, but the way he thinks about the game and how to approach certain situations.”

It’s not a win now, but, with a year-wiser Griffin by his side again, the odds of an even more Paul-centric season grows the closer we get to next fall.

There have been more than 3,000 postseason games in NBA history, but only once has a player scored 40 points, grabbed 18 rebounds, and recorded 9 assists in a game. At least until Sunday.

The Elias Sports Bureau tells us LeBron James joined Elgin Baylor as the only players in postseason history to register 40 points, 18 rebounds and 9 assists in a game as the Miami Heat evened their series with the Indiana Pacers at two games apiece. Baylor posted his 40-18-9 game in a Los Angeles Lakers win over the Detroit Pistons in Game 1 of the 1961 Western Division Semifinals.

Betweens points scored and assists, James had a role in 62 of the Heat’s 101 points Sunday. That’s the highest such percentage (61.4) for James in any game this season.

But Miami’s performance was far from a one-man show, as Dwyane Wade scored 30 points one game after being held to five points on two-for-13 shooting. James and Wade became just the fifth set of teammates to have a 40-point game and 30-point game in a road playoff win in the last 20 years.

After trailing by eight at halftime, James and Wade combined to outscore the Pacers 43-39 over the final two quarters. And after much was made of the Pacers rebounding edge in Game 3, it’s worth noting that James and Wade also had more rebounds than Indiana in the second half in Game 4 (19-18).

The Heat’s big two were dominant at the rim, outscoring the entire Pacers team on shots inside of five feet (32-26). Wade made six of his seven shots inside five feet after attempting a season-low one shot from that distance in Game 3.

Indiana’s eight-point lead through two quarters was the largest blown halftime lead for the Pacers this season. They fell to 15-1 when leading by eight or more entering the second half in 2011-12.

The two teams will meet in the all-important Game 5 Tuesday night in Miami. In NBA history, teams to win Game 5 of a series tied at two go on to win the series 83 percent of the time.

LOS ANGELES -- The conversation between Thunder coach Scott Brooks and star pupil Kevin Durant that led to the lanky, “6-foot-9” forward checking the 6-6 Kobe Bryant down the stretch was a short one. Mostly because it wasn’t so much a discussion as it was an order.

“He said, ‘You get 'em,'" Durant recalled, laughing. “I had to go guard him. I couldn’t tell Coach no. I didn’t want to back down from the challenge.”

With Durant’s long limbs all up in his face and the Thunder big men fronting in the post, Bryant fired off 10 shots in the fourth quarter and connected on only two. He didn’t make any of the four shots he fired up with Durant guarding him; his only points against the OKC forward came on two free throws after Serge Ibaka fouled him on a closeout.

Up 11 early in the fourth after Bryant surged for 15 third-quarter points on 5-for-7 shooting, the Lakers as a whole shot just 31.8 percent in the final period and were held to just two field goals over the final 4:28, with the second a meaningless Kobe jumper as time expired.

Bryant took seven of his team’s nine attempts from the floor over the game’s final five minutes as a stiff Thunder defensive stand forced L.A. into a one-man show (a tragic comedy, of course), and helped seal a 103-100 victory and a commanding 3-1 series lead.

“He wants to guard him,” Brooks said. “We like putting Thabo [Sefolosha], James [Harden] and Kevin on him. It was about three and a half minutes to go, and I made the decision. I thought that was the right thing to do at the time. Kobe was making shots like he always seems to do, but I thought Kevin did a good job of using his length and bothering him.”

Harden also had success guarding L.A.’s big gunner, as Bryant shot 3-for-12 with Harden as his primary defender. But the third-year guard said he thought the switch from a bushy beard to the extend-o flyswatters Durant calls arms in Bryant’s face paid off.

Despite the results, Kobe wasn’t buying that defense.

“It was pretty much the same thing, except in the fourth quarter they crowd me and they shrink the floor,” Bryant said. “The driving lanes close off. [Serge] Ibaka’s more active coming off of rotations.

“But when you have the ball with the shot clock going down, it’s tough to get everybody in the right spots. So ...”

In his postgame tirade -- albeit one in a familiar cool-and-collected manner, his barbs sounding as laid-back as a Dirk Nowitzki news conference -- Bryant openly called out the Lakers’ big men for not being aggressive enough in the post, Pau Gasol in particular. With the burly Thunder walling off the strength of the Lakers’ offense, there was no other choice but to fire it up, in Kobe’s mind (on top of his usual beckoning instincts to try to save the day).

The Lakers’ frontcourt trio of Gasol, Andrew Bynum and Jordan Hill combined for just three rebounds and four shots in the final quarter, with Gasol hoisting up a whopping zero. After he hit four of 10 shots through the first three quarters, the only stats Gasol registered were two fouls and one whopper of a turnover with 33.9 seconds to go.

Bryant called for a more aggressive frontcourt. Lakers coach Mike Brown essentially concurred, but he also knew what they were up against.

“They had athletic, active bigs,” Brown said. “They’re long and athletic guys so they’re fronting our post and pulling over from the weak side, and it’s going to be hard to feed Bynum or Gasol or anybody on the front side of any play.”

While Ibaka and Kendrick Perkins did the dirty work -- including five rebounds from Perkins in the fourth quarter alone -- Durant took the spotlight, long before his late dagger essentially sealed the Lakers’ fate.

“We locked in on the defensive end,” Brooks said. “Kevin played the passing lane, and he was active with his hands. Kevin’s a great defender -- that’s what makes him a special player. He can play both ends of the floor.”

LOS ANGELES -- The dais here in the bowels of Staples Center has lately served more as a stage for a budding stand-up routine than a postgame news conference.

In each of the Clippers’ two home wins in their first-round series against the Memphis Grizzlies, Blake Griffin and Chris Paul dolled themselves up, sometimes in suits with more pieces than a Lego pack, and with Paul’s adorable son on his dad’s lap, they would begin rolling out yucks like they were auditioning for a buddy comedy.

But the vibe for Saturday’s postgame greeting with the media was about as funny as a funeral. A banged-up Griffin, who didn’t rise from his seat afterward so much as he slowly detached himself from it, even came dressed in a black jacket.

Paul, however, was nowhere to be found this time.

Just another time that CP3 has gone MIA in the Clippers’ second-round series with the Spurs.

“I don’t know what Chris will say, but I don’t know if he’s 100 percent Chris Paul,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said after the Spurs took a commanding 3-0 series lead with a 96-86 victory.

Paul -- who skipped the bright lights and cameras for a good, old-fashioned media scrum in the Clippers’ locker room after another very non-#podiumgame (12 points on 5-for-17 shooting and 11 assists) in Game 3 -- swatted any concerns that the strained right hip flexor suffered over a week ago in Memphis, on top of other dings and dents he might have collected along the way, limiting his game.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Paul said. “I’m all good and well.”

But in general, he doesn’t disagree with Pop -- something’s not quite right.

“I’m just missing, I’m just missing,” he said. “It’s the toughest thing right now, but I’m fine [physically].”

While Griffin has gotten better offensively by the game, scoring 26 points on 62 percent shooting this time around after a 20-point performance in Game 2, Paul is averaging a very mortal-looking 9.3 points and 8.3 assists in 37 minutes per game. But Paul, who averaged 19.8 points and 9.1 assists a game in the regular season, isn’t one to always wow with his raw numbers. The proof that the league’s pre-eminent game manager is struggling can be found in his middling efficiency.

While he shot only 46 percent from the field in Round 1, Paul’s shooting percentage has dipped to 31 percent after a second game in the 20s. And while his showed more care of the ball after coughing it up eight times in Game 2, Paul already has totaled 16 turnovers.

Even in the fourth quarter, when he is supposed to be at his best, Paul hasn’t had much go right, as he’s shot just 2-for-8, with both makes coming in Game 3.

(Then again, there hasn’t been much to play for that late in the game these days.)

“Trying to, trying to,” Paul said when asked why he hasn’t made a Paul-like impact on the series. “But a lot of those shots in the lane and stuff like that, they're just coming up short, and missing.”

San Antonio was particularly effective limiting Paul’s impact on the pick-and-roll, the bread and butter of the point guard’s game. Paul was the ball handler on the pick-and-roll nine times in Game 3, according to data logged by Syngery Sports, and the Clippers came away with points on only three of those possessions.

The Spurs easily collapsed on Paul when he ran it early on with DeAndre Jordan, one of the team’s biggest offensive black holes among a patchwork post rotation. And while he had more success with Griffin as his partner, it often came off Paul pull-up jumpers from midrange, a shot the Spurs are likely OK with conceding.

Paul also struggled in isolation, missing all four attempts, perhaps a telling sign that the burst and quick-cutting ability that his game thrives on aren't where they should be.

“Chris is battling,” Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro said. “Chris is giving us everything he has. … We’re not in this position without Chris, in terms of being in the playoffs and everything he means to the team and this organization. He gives you everything he has.

“I’ll go to battle with him every day of the week.”

He’s still battling. Soon, though, there may not be much left to fight for.

“Devastating,” Paul said. “We had an opportunity to put this thing [to] 2-1. We let it get away. I’ve gotta play better. At the end of the day, I’ve got to play better. If not, we’re gonna be in trouble.”

The San Antonio Spurs extended their win streak to 17 games (dating to the regular season) in historic fashion.

In Game 3, San Antonio trailed by 22 points after the first quarter, 33-11. That deficit after the first 12 minutes of play is the largest overcome to win a playoff game in NBA history. The previous record was held by the 2008 Celtics, who trailed by 21 against the Los Angeles Lakers after the first quarter (35-14) in Game 4 of the NBA Finals. Like Saturday, that game was also at the Staples Center.

The Spurs trailed by 24 points in the second quarter (40-16), making this the second-largest comeback win this postseason. In the first round, the Clippers erased a 27-point deficit in the third quarter of Game 1 against the Memphis Grizzlies.

The Spurs comeback was highlighted by a 24-0 run in the third quarter. The Spurs made 10-of-15 field goals and did not commit a turnover in turning a 57-45 deficit into a 69-57 lead. The Clippers went 0-for-12 from the field during the Spurs run and were scoreless for eight minutes.

Four different Spurs scored during the run, led by nine from Tim Duncan. On the other side, five different Clippers missed at least one field goal attempt, including four by Blake Griffin.

The Clippers jumped out to a 24-point lead less than 15 minutes into the game, shooting better than 65 percent from the field (17-26). But over the final 33:17, the Clippers made just 20 field goals and missed nine of 14 free throws.

Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili have played 52 minutes together in the series, and the Spurs have outscored the Clippers by 44 points.

Duncan finished with 19 points and 13 rebounds, the 134th double-double of his postseason career. Duncan now is three shy of Bill Russell for fourth on the all-time list.

The Spurs now are 7-0 this postseason, the first time in franchise history they have won their first seven games to start a postseason.

The lone bright spot for the Clippers was Griffin, who scored 20 of his game-high 28 points in the first half. He’s only the second different player to score at least 20 points in the first half of a playoff game in franchise history. Elton Brand did it twice during the 2006 postseason against the Phoenix Suns.

LOS ANGELES -- It’s almost as if the basketball universe is baiting us. Begging us, daring us to bring it up one more time.

Who should get the ball in the clutch?

For the Oklahoma City Thunder, the answer -- for better or worse, despite the other budding star players at their disposal -- has often been a simple one: Kevin Durant.

Although James Harden has recently emerged as a late-game shot-creator, the Thunder often keep it simple, riding Durant with the game on the line. Other than Carmelo Anthony, Durant took more shots than any player in the regular season in the clutch (fourth quarter or overtime, less than five minutes left of a game, within five points or fewer of the lead) on a per-48-minute-scale -- according to 82games.com, more even than Kobe Bryant.

And with a potentially back-breaking Game 3 hanging on the balance, they did just that.

Down three with 9.8 seconds to go with no timeouts to spare, Durant came off a screen and retrieved the ball from Russell Westbrook at the top of the key. Sandwiched between all 7 feet of Pau Gasol in front of him and Steve Blake to his left, Durant pulled up with under seven seconds to play and a few feet away from the arc, and let it fly.

The ball rimmed out, and Serge Ibaka, never hearing the pleading of an open Westbrook behind him, went back up with it and was rejected by Andrew Bynum.

LeBron James was lambasted for passing it off to Mario Chalmers for the Heat’s final shot in their Game 2 defeat to Indiana. Questions were also raised when Blake, not Bryant, was the one hoisting up the Lakers’ final attempt in a Game 2 loss in Oklahoma City.

But the Thunder gave the ball to their star in the time the star was supposed to shine brightest.

And there we had it, finally: Hero-ball in all its glory.

“We didn’t have timeouts. That’s about as best as you can get without timeouts,” Thunder coach Scott Brooks said after the Lakers’ 99-96 victory. “They did a really good job of forcing [Durant] out. [Metta World Peace] does a great job of forcing Kevin off of his spots. We have to do a better job of fighting them off.”

Two possessions earlier, when there was more time, the Thunder again went to Durant. Only, like the stars before him in these conference semifinals, Durant, too, made the basketball play.

With the Thunder down one with 33.8 seconds left, Durant fought off two screens and nudges from World Peace and retrieved the ball halfway between the 3-point arc and the midcourt line with 14 seconds on the shot clock. After a deft crossover left World Peace trailing behind, Durant surged down the lane with room to breathe and no one in his path except for Gasol, who took one step toward him, looking to close the door.

But instead of pulling up, like he has so many times for the Thunder in these late-game situations, Durant dished it off to an open Ibaka on the right baseline.

Ibaka hesitated slightly, giving the defense enough time to crash down on him. He took one dribble to his left, watched World Peace fly by, and let an midrange jumper go over Bynum’s outstretched arms.

The shot was off the mark, and World Peace came out of the scrum with the ball, and soon, he was headed to the line for two more free throws to tack on to the Lakers’ 42 on the night.

But the decision to hit an open Ibaka, a 42 percent shooter from 3-9 feet, was not off the mark.

“I trust my teammates, no matter if they miss 20 shots in a row,” said Durant, who finished with 31 points. “A few times, I threw the ball to Perk under the rim. I trust him. Serge, I trust him shooting that corner jump shot. And Russ, a few 3s that rimmed out for him.

“But I was just picking and choosing my spots. I got into the paint and wanted to take a good shot. They were tough defensively, but I got to the spots that I wanted to get to. Sometimes I should’ve shot when I passed it, but like I said, I believe in my teammates.”

Who should get the ball in the clutch?

According to the guy that takes them more than most, it doesn’t really matter.

LOS ANGELES -- Laker Sentimentalists weren't happy about it. Shipping Derek Fisher and a draft pick to Houston for Jordan Hill seemed like an unceremonious send-off for the man who enshrined "0.4" into the storied history of the franchise.

Hard-bitten realists countered that clearing a slot for a younger, more able point guard like Ramon Sessions was the right move for a team that had grown older and slower. There were only faint remnants of the Triangle offense in Los Angeles under the new Mike Brown regime. The days of Fisher feeding the ball to the pinch post, then clearing out to the corner were over. What the Lakers really needed was a more resourceful point guard, someone who could initiate offense in a pick-and-roll with Pau Gasol, Andrew Bynum and Kobe Bryant. Steve Blake wasn't doing the job, he of the 8.55 Player Efficiency Rating (PER) and 37.7 field goal percentage. A change was clearly in order.

Sessions, long a favorite of stat heads, had consistently produced during his four-plus seasons in the league -- a career PER of nearly 17, impressive assist rates and an ability to manufacture trips to the line. Sessions would provide the Lakers' best hopes of hanging around the ranks of the elite of the Western Conference.

Maybe, said the Fisher partisans.

Sessions -- with spells from Blake -- might be able to hold things down for the Lakers at the point on a sleepy night in March against Sacramento, but would there be big-game production when the Lakers needed timely shots, the kind of buckets Fisher had produced time and again? Toiling in obscurity, as Sessions did in Milwaukee, Minnesota and Cleveland, is one thing, but playing meaningful games in late spring for the league's marquee franchise is an entirely different matter, a job mastered by Fisher, but altogether foreign to Sessions.

Blake performed reasonably well for Portland in the Trail Blazers' first-round loss to Houston in 2009, but was an nonentity for the Lakers last season in two rounds and, prior to his Game 7 heroics, was largely seen as a lost cause for the Lakers -- a solid character guy, but one carrying an outsized contract.

The Fisher loyalists had their suspicions about Sessions confirmed over the Lakers' first nine playoff games this postseason. After a solid Game 1 outing against Denver, Sessions became inefficient, then downright tentative as the series against the feisty Nuggets wore on and grew more tense. By the time Game 7 rolled around, Sessions never saw the court in the fourth quarter.

Enter Blake, who was the Game 7 hero and Brown's go-to man at the 1 during the tight close of Game 2 against Oklahoma City on Wednesday night. When Blake missed a wide-open corner 3 to win the game for the Lakers, he received death threats to his family over social media. Between Sessions' struggles and Blake's miss, grumbles about the Fisher trade -- however irrational -- bubbled to the surface.

On a personal level, Sessions and Blake each entered Game 3 in Los Angeles badly in need of redemption. More imperatively, the Lakers weren't going to dig themselves out of a 2-0 hole against Oklahoma City without some passable play from their platoon of point guards.

Both Sessions and Blake delivered. Sessions started for the Lakers and scored six early points, displaying his best skills. Sessions is intuitive, the kind of player we often say "has a feel for the game." In the first quarter, he scored on a sharp basket cut from the weak side, working a two-man game with Bynum for his floater, then sprinting out in transition the instant the Lakers secured a steal on the Thunder's side of the court.

"I just tried to push the ball a little bit more," Sessions said. "In this offense, it's not traditional where you have the ball in your hands a ton off pick-and-rolls. I just tried to find angles and ways I can be aggressive and get baskets."

Sessions denied that he was bottled up in Oklahoma City, but the evidence suggests otherwise. Sessions had absolutely no luck attacking the Thunder's bigs on the pick-and-roll. The Thunder aren't a top-5 defensive squad, but they got their pick-and-roll coverages down at home and neutered the best part of Sessions’ game. And if the Lakers’ point guard -- whoever he is -- can’t effectively initiate the pick-and-roll, then he’s relegated to spot-up duty, which isn’t Sessions’ strength, one reason why Brown opted for Blake, a better perimeter shooter.

Sessions worked well on Friday night with both big men -- a pick-and-roll early with Bynum, a dribble hand-off with Gasol. The fluid play translated into 12 points (5-for-9 shooting from the field) and four assists in 28 minutes, the most he's played since Game 6 of the Denver series. After a frenetic couple of nights trying to dodge the Thunder's corralling big men, Sessions navigated the half court nicely. His drive-and-kick to Metta World Peace on the final possession of the first half resulted in a clean 3-pointer that gave the Lakers a 50-47 lead at intermission.

Brown ultimately chose Blake as his point guard for the closing stretch, as Blake recovered from that excruciating miss at the end of Game 2. He finished with 12 points on 4-for-5 shooting from the field. He single-handedly erased a five-point Oklahoma City lead midway through the fourth quarter on consecutive possessions, the first on a pull-up jumper on the left side, the second a 3-pointer to tie the game after moving left of a Bryant screen.

"I thought Steve Blake's two shots were big," Brown said. "He came off the pick-and-roll and shot his pull-up. He was aggressive and knocked that thing down. He came off the pick-and-roll a second time and knocked down a 3."

Sessions and Blake have no shot at matching Russell Westbrook's production. They're unlikely to write themselves into the annals of Lakers history as Fisher did. But if Blake can hit from the perimeter, he'll be sufficient. And if Sessions can attack the Thunder's defense in the middle of the floor with aggressive actions, deliver the ball to Bynum and Gasol at their spots, make some smart plays off the ball and keep Bryant happy -- essentially much of what he accomplished in the regular season -- he'll get to experience something he never could while playing out the string in the league's most remote outposts.

People, economists tell us, misunderstand no phenomenon as badly as chance. Faced with random events, sheer naked happenstance, we concoct elaborate and unnecessary post-hoc explanations for what’s happened, what we’ve seen. We reject truth in favor of narrative.

We're inventors of meaning.

So, when faced with a basketball team that went 1-8 in the regular season in games decided by four points or fewer and 5-18 in those decided by under eight, let lead after lead slip away, and earned just an eight seed in the postseason despite posting the Association’s fifth best scoring differential, rather than chalk it up to bad luck, the random fluctuation of a complex system, a person is liable to conclude that the team just doesn’t know how to win.

And if the same team turned it around in the playoffs, went, say, 4-1 in games decided by seven points or fewer, won twice by a single point, and pulled off multiple double-digit comebacks, we’d grant that they’d learned. Matured somehow. Changed.

The Sixers, it turns out, are people too.

“We’re more poised at the end of games now,” offered Thaddeus Young, giving an explanation for how the same Sixers that struggled so mightily in the highest leverage moments of the regular season had just pulled off another in a series of increasingly unlikely postseason wins -- a 92-83 victory they managed despite falling behind 14-0, trailing 46-31 at the half, and missing 34 of their first 43 shots.

“[In crunch time] we’re playing with a lot of control, a lot of patience,” Young, who scored 12 points -- none bigger than a finger roll that, with 10:30 remaining, tied the game for the first time since Paul Pierce hit a jump shot 17 seconds in -- went on. “We’re letting things come to us and we’re not forcing anything.”
"We’re running [our plays] to a T, and everybody is cutting hard, and even if you’re not getting the ball you’re cutting it and taking another guy with you. We’re all making sacrifices for each other.”

Rookie Nic Vucevic, whose seen his minutes shrink in the second season, and spent the entirety of Game 4 on the bench, saw the same dynamic.

“We lost a lot of close games early in the season, but I think we’ve learned from that. Gotten more mature ... we trust ourselves,” Vucevic said.

It’s possible that a fundamental change may have passed; that some grand thing separates the Sixers who ended the regular season 15-22 from the team that sits two wins away from a berth in the Eastern Conference finals.

After all, after hitting the fewest free throws per game in NBA history in the regular season, the Sixers are averaging a Thunder-esque 25.3 attempts from the stipe in the playoffs, including 36 on Friday.

And a defense that buckled at the tail end of the first 66 games has returned to form, allowing a paltry 86.9 points per to the less-than dynamic but still game Celtics and Bulls.

Or maybe it’s that Spencer Hawes has relocated the stroke that made him the early favorite for comeback player of the year. Or the tightened rotation -- more Evan Turner and Lavoy Allen; less Vucevic and Jodie Meeks -- has given Philadelphia an added athletic dimension.

Or maybe Doug Collins’ hands-on approach -- the one that was brilliant, just the right touch, when they were winning and overbearing, much too much of a college style, when they weren’t -- has become brilliant again.

Or maybe ... not?

“I haven’t changed anything,” shrugged Andre Iguodala, who a week after hitting a pair of free throws to end the Bulls’ season, connected on two fourth quarter 3-pointers --the first for the tie, the second for an 88-83 lead -- that history may judge did the same to Boston’s.

“We know we’ve been there before and we feel we can get out of those situations, but I’m the same player I’ve always been. We’re the same team. You’ve got to get better, of course, become a better person, a better teammate, but I just try to stay who I am.”

Who the Sixers are is probably this: a good team, whose luck is starting to even out.

• A 12-year-old kid was suspended from school for having Matt Bonner's likeness shaved into his head. Bonner responded by giving him and his folks free tickets to Game 2 of the Spurs-Clippers series at the AT&T Center on Thursday night.
• There's a ton of insight to glean from Chris Ballard's tremendous profile on Tim Duncan in Sports Illustrated titled, "21 Shades of Gray." You can read about how Duncan isn't much of a Kevin Garnett fan, how Duncan first bonded with Gregg Popovich on the beach at St. Croix and how Stephen Jackson is "humbled" to count Duncan as a friend. Ballard also offers this very telling portrait of what happens when the Spurs call timeout: "When the Spurs call a timeout and you see the San Antonio coaches huddle a few feet from the bench, it's not to hash out strategy. Rather, Pop is giving Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker time with the team. 'You'll see Timmy over there with a young kid, talking about how he should do this or that or what we meant by such and such,' says Popovich. 'I'll come back to the timeouts sometimes and say, "Are we square?" and Timmy will say, "Yeah, we got 'em."' Popovich pauses. 'He commands that type of respect because he doesn't demand it, if that makes sense.'"
• Should Tim Duncan have been a more public celebrity over the course of his legendary career? Would the NBA and the Spurs been enriched had Duncan given us a deeper glimpse of both his interior and external life? Alex Dewey of Gothic Ginobili grapples with these questions and more.
• For years, Popovich has rationed the minutes of his most important players, readily sitting Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker during tough stretches of the schedule. In doing so, Popovich has raised eyebrows around the league and the ire of basketball populists who feel that the Spurs owe it to the ticket-paying public to put the best players on the floor. History sides with Popovich and you don't have to look much farther than the Spurs' current series with the Clippers -- a younger, sprightlier team -- to appreciate Popovich's strategy. But there's also an ancillary benefit to sitting Duncan, Parker and Ginobili periodically: It means that secondary guys get the ball in meaningful spots during games that matter.
• As Zach Lowe of The Point Forward documents in pictures, the Spurs' ability to stretch the floor, mastery of the misdirection, and constant movement have the Clippers' young big men twisted in knots.
• Bill Simmons at Grantland, on the Spurs: "Thank God for the Spurs, an offensive powerhouse that has single-handedly saved the playoffs from turning into a rockfight. They're headed for a second sweep while pacing the league in points per game (103.7), shooting (49.1 percent) and 3-point shooting (42.7 percent). It's the best version of international basketball we've ever seen -- the Spurs might as well be Argentina or Spain, only with superior players. Everything revolves around their slash-and-kick guys (Parker and Ginobili), their 3-point shooters (too many to count) and their versatile big men (Duncan, Diaw and Splitter, all of whom know where to go and what to do). And unlike Nash's high-scoring Suns teams from back in the day, San Antonio can also rebound and protect the rim, which makes them our single most dangerous playoff favorite since the 2001 Lakers. They aren't just beating teams, they're eviscerating them."
• Boris Diaw might best illustrate the strength of the Spurs' system and culture. Here's a guy who, as recently as 12 weeks ago, was a punch line for his conditioning and an irritant to Bobcats coach Paul Silas. Now he's the starting center for the title favorites. When you watch Diaw dig in defensively for the Spurs, it’s a reminder of what a dominant role effort plays in defensive makeup. Prior to landing on the Spurs' doorstep, Diaw hadn't played much defense in years, but here he is grinding away for Popovich in May. On the offensive end, Diaw passes with so much confidence, and his high-low deliveries to Duncan are a reminder of his refined skill set as a big man. Yet another instance of the R.C. Buford telling the league, “If you’re not going to use that guy, we’ll take him.” At 48 Minutes of Hell, Jesse Blanchard has more on Diaw.
• Timothy Varner of 48 Minutes of Hell: "You’ve heard me say it before, but the Spurs’ ability to attract a championship supporting cast was fueled by veterans who signed on for an opportunity to chase a championship alongside Tim Duncan. Duncan was the draw. Not the city of San Antonio. And never the promise of more money. It was always Tim Duncan. Not anymore. The draw is the opportunity to play in Gregg Popovich’s system. It’s Tony Parker. It’s Spurs culture. It’s Pop himself. It’s the confidence that the front office can always shore things up by adding a Gary Neal, Tiago Splitter or Kawhi Leonard. It’s the confidence that the front office will manage its books and never the saddle the team with a cancerous contract. It’s the confidence in the ability to improve through the internal development of guys like Danny Green. The Spurs have it figured out. Players understand this."
• Paul Garcia of Project Spurs on the quiet professionalism of rookie Kawhi Leonard, about whom Popovich once said, "He just does his work and goes home."
• Steve Perrin of SB Nation on Gregg Popovich, the Alchemist.
• Jordan Heimer and I shower the Spurs with much love on the most recent episode of The Clippers Podcast, presented by ESPN LA.

There's been lots of speculation as to why Dwyane Wade was so painfully ineffective in Game 3 -- including reports that he may actually be in pain.

On the NBA Today podcast, Bucks forward Luc Richard Mbah a Moute attributed some of the Heat star's struggles to the absence of Chris Bosh.

Later in that same podcast, David Thorpe notes that Wade simply looks like he's lost a step, and Paul George is doing a great job of using his incredible length and quickness to cut him off in isolation sets.

But Wade is also one of the best in the league at using pick-and-rolls to feast on defenses, and it's on those opportunities that his lack off aggressiveness is truly puzzling.

Perhaps we should doff our caps to Pacers coach Frank Vogel for designing a sharp strategy to neutralize the dynamic wing on this action.

Or maybe not.

Over on Pacers-themed blog Eight Points, Nine Seconds, Jared Wade goes to the tape, and finds no such wizardry.

An overwhelming majority of the times that LeBron, Wade and Chalmers have dribbled off a high screen, they have found themselves open. The guy defending them is busy fighting through the screen and the big man, as previously mentioned, is hanging back five feet in “free-safety/rim protection” mode. So they are open. It’s just that they are open in a way that they are unaccustomed to being open.

That has generally not deterred LeBron from being effective. He has still found many ways to score and create for teammates. Most impressively, he has resorted to a little running floater in the lane that I have hardly ever seen him take. It really is amazing. To deal with an unfamiliar way of being defended, he has basically created an entirely new weapon.

LeBron has also consistently found other ways to ensure that the Heat’s pick-and-roll attack — one of the most vital aspects of Miami’s offense — continues to be productive regardless of how it is defended.

In striking, baffling, puzzling contrast, Dwyane Wade has shown no such ability to adapt.

The video above is a horror flick for Heat fans.

Throughout the series, he has been confounded while coming off the screen with the ball. He has turned it over repeatedly, missed pull-up jumpers, missed floaters, missed layups, thrown poor passes and generally just been useless leading the pick-and-roll in all three games.

There really is no good way to explain exactly why such a talented player is having so much trouble making the right decision when he finds himself virtually unguarded dribbling off a screen. In this respect, two Wades are baffled.

In the clip above, just look at how many little hiccups there are in his attack and how indecisive his actions generally look. LeBron’s hesitations, on the other hand, are measured, change-of-pace moves that help create more space to attack.

Dwyane's hesitations just look like a guy who is clueless on what to do next.

It doesn't sound good, but we've seen this number before from Wade.

He struggled to do much of anything against the Celtics -- a team renown for its consistently excellent pick-and-roll defense -- throughout the regular season last year, then torched them on 52.5 percent shooting in five games during the playoffs.

For all the speculation about LeBron James' mental makeup, Wade's inconsistent effort (not to mention that blown layup at the end of Game 2) has largely gone uncriticized. The hometown hero with a ring to boot, Wade has escaped the sort of inspection many feel LeBron demands.

Maybe Wade just needs a day off to uncork another vintage performance.

But if the Heat can't recover from his current funk? Then, for the first time since he and James joined forces in Miami, it may be Wade who has to do the explaining.

From HoopIdea to Indiana Pacers coach Frank Vogel to NBA commissioner David Stern, flopping has been a topic of conversation during the NBA playoffs.

So this week, Five for Friday spotlights HoopIdeas from Twitter, ESPN comments, Grantland and Google+ that detail how the league can address flopping, and how anti-flopping rules would be enforced.

DO AWAY WITH THE BLOCK/CHARGE CALL

We need to start thinking about block-charge calls in an entirely different way. We need to realign the incentives for players on the court. We need to discourage any play that forces the referee to make a call. We need to urge players to play the game as if the officials weren't there, and not require such taxing use of their imaginations to do so. We need to do as much as possible to restore basketball to its purer, less whistle-prone, origins. We need to let the game breathe. -- Eamonn Brennan on ESPN’s College Basketball Nation Blog

BUILD A FLOP COMMITTEE

How about the NBA creates the proposed Flop Committee? If you accrue flops during the season, you start the next game with an automatic foul. And that keeps going every two flops after the first six. — Sam, New Orleans

Simmons: I'd go even further — once you get to 10 flops for the season, after every ensuing flop, you start the next game with TWO automatic fouls. -- From the April 20, 2012 Bill Simmons Mailbag on Grantland

PENALTY FOR "EMBELLISHMENT"

Whenever a player exaggerates the contact between he and another player, the referee can call a foul on the player who exaggerated the contact regardless of who committed the actual foul. This would surely discourage excessive flopping. Also, it would have an immediate impact on the game the exaggerated contact occurred, as opposed to a review process which would produce a punishment at a later date. -- Chris Nichols (A similar rule is already in place in the NHL)

ENFORCE FLOPS AS TEAM VIOLATIONS

Treat flops like 3 second violations. Offensive flop -- turnover. Defensive flop -- 1 free throw and the ball. -- Adam Schleman from the TrueHoop Comments

PENALIZE FLOPS LIKE ILLEGAL DEFENSE

They should [penalize flopping] like the illegal defense, except shoot free throws on the first flop. -- Keith Schoultz via Twitter.

Check out previous Five for Fridays: May 11 | May 4 | April 27 | April 20 | April 13 | April 6 | March 30| March 23 | March 16 | March 9

JOIN THE CONVERSATION

You can give us your ideas and talk with us and other fans in the following places:

• Twitter: Go to @HoopIdea and tweet to us with the hashtag #hoopidea

• Google+: Go to our HoopIdea Google+ page and discuss

• TrueHoop: Read our HoopIdea posts here and contribute on the conversation page

• Email us at hoopidea@gmail.com

And for the truly ambitious: Shoot a short video of yourself explaining your HoopIdea, upload it to YouTube and share the link with us on Twitter or Google+.

Why can't Dwyane Wade score? Are the Heat done? If they lose to the Pacers, will they break up the team? Who's going to win the West? Who's going to win the East?

And, most importantly, who are the best NBA players who can't jump?

Serious playoff insight from Luc Richard Mbah a Moute and David Thorpe on NBA Today.

The NBA's most distinctive super fan says he uses different tricks to get good seats in every city. Most of the tricks have to do with who he knows, Jimmy Goldstein says in GQ.

In San Antonio, Goldstein tells Myles Brown (whom you may know from the TrueHoop Network's A Wolf Among Wolves) he knows everybody, and when he's in town they simply add an additional amazing seat just for him.

Other news of his friendships from around the league:

Tony Parker and I have been good friends. We run into each other in France and we always have a little chat before the games. He opened a nightclub in San Antonio now that he wants to take me to after the games, that kind of thing.

I have friends on every team and every team thinks I'm there to root for them. I try to put on a neutral stance as much as possible when I go to the games, with the exception of the Lakers games. The Lakers players are all aware that I root for the other team. With the exception of Kobe, they seem to take it pretty well.

Every now and then Kobe surprises me by walking up to me shaking hands and giving me a nice smile. But for the most part, he ignores me. He doesn't look at me and even went to the extent of telling Pau Gasol not to say hello to me. He's never explained why.

Pau and I were very good friends before he got traded to the Lakers. After he became a Laker, he's standing at the baseline during the Lakers warm ups and he would never say hello. Finally, during the All Star Weekend a couple years ago, when I ran into him and he wasn't putting on his "Laker face" so to speak, he gave me a big hug and apologized for not being friendly to me at the games, but told me that it was because Kobe asked him not to be friendly to me.