Helene Elliott of the Los Angeles Times: “While they dressed, the Lakers watched the Celtics and Cavaliers pound on each other in Boston in a game that became nasty in the second half. All the while the Lakers insisted they weren’t concerned about what was transpiring 3,000 miles away. ‘To be honest I think we don’t really care about them,’ Sasha Vujacic said before the Lakers’ 110-90 rout of the Minnesota Timberwolves at Staples Center. ‘Whatever is going on on the East Coast, obviously you want to get the best record but we will be going at each other in the Western Conference, too. We’re going to let them enjoy their fun, and hopefully when the time comes we’ll be able to face one of those teams.’ The Lakers’ romp and the Celtics’ 105-94 victory over the Cavaliers ensured that the Lakers were the first team to reach 50 wins this season, at 50-12. ‘We’d like to be the first to 60,’ Coach Phil Jackson said.”
Charley Rosen of FOXSports.com: “The Cavs’ offense regressed to the lack of ball and player movement that had been characteristic of Brown’s game plan for most of his tenure on Cleveland’s bench. Coupled with the Celtics’ usual tenacious and disciplined defense, the Cavs were never able to establish any kind of rhythm. Proof of this stagnation is the Cavs only coming up with 17 assists on their 30 buckets, Cleveland’s transition defense was atrocious. Ilgauskas, Anderson Varejao, and even Joe Smith were frequently beaten on cross-lane baseline cuts by Boston’s big men. Although Smith played well in his return to Cleveland, he was also outmuscled and outmaneuvered on defense by Davis and Powe. Smith buried a jumper on the same kind of screen/pop play that had freed Ilgauskas in the first half. In truth, this was the only reliable play that the Cavs ran all game long. So, if the Cavs missed a golden opportunity to take advantage of KG’s injury and create more distance between themselves and the Celtics, they mostly have themselves to blame. Lazy offense. Lazy transition defense. A foolhardy game plan.”
Ken Berger of CBSSports.com: “Before the game, LeBron James was asked if there was anything different about playing the Celtics. His response: ‘I get up for everybody. All you have to do is check my stats.’ So I did. Not a pretty sight. In the past 10 games against the Celtics — seven in their second-round playoff series last season, and three in the regular season this year — LeBron is shooting 38 percent (82-for-216). The King has been held to a peasant-like 35 percent or less in half those games, including Friday night, when he was 5-for-15 for 21 points in the Celtics’ 105-94 victory without Kevin Garnett. Even I can see that’s a trend. It’s a trend that should concern Mike Brown. The Cavaliers coach could only grasp for words and scan his stat sheet for answers after the game when I asked how his team can better cope with the wall of green and white the Celtics have built between LeBron and the basket.”
Brian Windhorst of The Cleveland Plain Dealer: “At one point in the game, the Cavs had 16 points in the paint and had taken 21 free throws. The Celtics had 40 points in the paint and had taken five free throws. That included the flagrant foul Davis gave out to Varejao three minutes into the second half when he clotheslined him on a drive to the basket. Varejao, with 15 points, was the only interior player showing fire. Joe Smith scored seven points with five rebounds in his first game back with the Cavs, and Zydrunas Ilgauskas had 12 points, but both were subpar on defense. When it was all over, the Celtics had 58 points in the paint, 31 assists and shot 54 percent with all those easy interior shots. It was the first time in 17 games the Cavs had given up more than 50 percent shooting. For the record, it was the first time in 13 tries they lost on Friday night this season. In the losses to the Lakers, Celtics and Magic this season, the Cavs have given up an average of 48.9 points in the paint.”
Michael Wallace of the Miami Herald: “‘Right now, I’m just in a groove, and when my jump shots going like it is, I get more confident,’ Wade said. ‘Once you start hitting a couple of shots, you feel like you can’t miss. And when you do miss, you look at the rim like, `what’s going on?’ ‘It’s been that kind of groove for Wade, the league’s leading scorer who came in averaging 29.3 points per game. He has been in that kind of rhythm since the All-Star break. Wade had shot 55.7 percent from the field and averaged 35.7 points, 10.8 assists, 2.7 steals and 1.3 blocks in his previous eight games. But Wade has said repeatedly that he knows his hot streak will eventually come to an end. He hopes it doesn’t come Saturday in Cleveland, where the Heat plays the Cavaliers for the second time this week. Wade scored 41 points in Monday’s 107-100 loss to the Cavaliers, who got 42 points from LeBron James.`I can’t come up with a better way to defend that. We tried running two guys at him earlier, we tried showing him bodies in the zone. He just found a way to do a number on us.’”
Jerome Soloman of the Houston Chronicle: “Listening to the talk this week, you might wonder if Shaquille O’Neal received a pacifier for his 37th birthday. Perhaps Yao Ming re-gifted one of his. Yep, the two big ol’ 7-foot-plus stars gathered on the floor Friday night at Toyota Center to wrap up Whiner’s Week in the NBA. That lesser-known annual celebration comes after All-Star weekend, typically with about 20 games left in the regular season. Shaq (7-1) and Yao (7-6) led the way this week, whining about how they are officiated differently than the normal-size players. ‘It’s not my fault I ate my Frosted Flakes when I was little, and you ate Wheaties,’ O’Neal joked about the little fellas in the league before the Rockets’ 116-112 victory. Yao, following the script, agreed there is a double standard.”
Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel: “‘We’re not really worried about whatever anybody says about Coach,’ Howard said. ‘Why fight with somebody about words? I don’t believe deep down in his heart, he [Shaq] thinks anything bad about me or Coach Van Gundy.’ Awww, how sweet. Dwight thinks Shaq still has a good heart. Good grief, why not just cue up the Barney song? … I love you, you love me; we’re a happy fam-i-ly. Dwight is a great athlete and a dynamic center, but is there any question he needs to get nastier? Exhibit A: The Big Jerk spent much of this week and this season publicly scoffing at the idea of Dwight becoming his heir apparent. And, so, after Dwight’s Magic whipped Shaq’s Suns 111-99 Tuesday, how did Dwight respond to the denigration? By giving Shaq a big, fat hug, that’s how. Gag. Am I missing something? An opposing player ridicules you, and you hug him afterward?”
Marcus Thompson II of the Contra Costa Times: “According to multiple team sources, Warriors coach Don Nelson told guard Jamal Crawford that if he doesn’t opt out of his contract, Golden State would trade him this offseason. This conversation, according to one of the sources, happened a day after the Warriors’ loss at the Los Angeles Clippers on Feb. 23. Crawford said he still has not decided whether he would opt out, maintaining his focus is on “helping us win some games and finish the season strong.” He has two years and just shy of $20 million remaining on his contract after this season. But he has the option to terminate his contract after this season. ‘I’m not even getting into that,’ Crawford said before Friday’s game against the Detroit Pistons. ‘Any conversation I have with the coaches or my teammates will remain private.’ In the same conversation, Nelson informed Crawford that he would give him some games off in part to keep his statistics high, and the plan to rest his other veterans emerged in part to avoid appearing as if he were singling out Crawford.”
Jerry Zgoda of the Minneapolis Star Tribune: “The Wolves embarked on the final 21 games of their season trying to prove they aren’t as putrid as they showed Tuesday against downcast Golden State and, well … Without injured Al Jefferson along for the journey, what do they have to play for these final five weeks? As counterintuitive as it might seem, Wolves coach Kevin McHale says his players need to learn to play at this faster pace he seeks to prepare themselves for their star low-post player’s return next season. How’s that? ‘Ideally, if you have a post player, the best way to play the game is to play fast before he get there,’ McHale said, referring to a big man’s ramble down the floor. ‘Then you play with him and off of him once he gets there. I think the Lakers mastered that.’”
Dave Krieger of The Denver Post: “When the Nuggets flew into Utah early Friday morning after defeating Portland on Thursday night, they led the Jazz and the Blazers by a game and a half. That was the difference between the third seed in the West and the seventh. ‘Over here, one bad week, man, you’re in a dogfight,’ Billups said before boarding the plane to Utah. ‘We had a couple bad games, and we’re in a dogfight. ‘I haven’t been in a race like this in a long time. Two games, three games, in between the third- and eighth-place teams. That’s a week of bad basketball, and you’re looking at playing the No. 1 seed from having home court.’ The Nuggets’ recent slump brought them back to the pack and renewed questions about whether they should be taken seriously. For every brilliant performance, including their defense against the Lakers last week and their offense against the Blazers this week, there has been a night of sleepwalking and knocking over the milk. The Nuggets are trying to learn professionalism on the fly since the Billups trade.”
David Moore of The Dallas Morning News: “The Mavericks do play the pick-and-roll better than they did early in the season. But there is only so much any scheme can do to cover a lack of speed and athletic ability on the perimeter. Antoine Wright is the Mavericks’ quickest perimeter defender. Newsflash: he’s not all that quick. Wright has played well, but he has average athletic ability for a shooting guard in this league. Wright, Jason Kidd and Devean George are the team’s best on-ball defenders on the perimeter. Jason Terry has the speed but not the defensive technique. You may have noticed one player not mentioned is Josh Howard. He was never a great defender, but he was physical and played hard on that end of the court earlier in his career. That edge is gone. Howard seems more concerned with how many points he scores these days.”
John DeShazier of The Times-Picayune: “The Hornets didn’t crumble under the weight of their expectations this season. At no point have they been below .500 or been considered anything less than a respected, formidable opponent. But it’s no stretch to say they buckled at the knees, that they didn’t play their best basketball while the nation intently watched and waited for a new power to emerge. And it’s just as safe to note that now, having been pushed out of the spotlight and placed in the ‘non-serious contender’ category by virtue of their uneven early play, this season’s Hornets are beginning to look a lot more like last season’s Hornets, who also seemed most able to excel while attention was diverted elsewhere. ‘It’s just about playing loose, ‘ said forward David West, whose personal tear has led the Hornets since the All-Star break. ‘You can’t really think about what’s going on (with other teams). You just go out there and compete. We came out of the All-Star break prepared for this stretch.’”
Ronald Tillery of the Memphis Commercial Appeal: “For a team that had more questions than answers through the first half of the season, the Grizzlies are becoming less of an enigma. The franchise — following a coaching change in which Lionel Hollins replaced Marc Iavaroni — figuratively visited the NBA’s lost-and-found and came away with two essential items: a discernible brand of basketball, and credible point guard play.Shifting to an up-tempo offensive style that’s predicated on ball-hawking defense, along with emerging second-year point guard Mike Conley, hasn’t produced many wins. But in terms of team building, player development and coaching this season, the youthful Griz, who host Philadelphia tonight, are no longer running in place. Their 16-44 record is two games better than that of last season’s team, but what’s more important is how the Griz are going about building a foundation.”
Sekou Smith of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Hawks coach Mike Woodson benched starting power forward Josh Smith after halftime, the result of a heated disagreement between the two in the locker room during the break. Smith refused to comment after the game, and Woodson said it was a ‘coach’s decision’ and that Smith’s status for tonight’s game against Detroit would be determined later. ‘That was coach’s call,’ Hawks captain Joe Johnson said. ‘This is coach’s team. Whoever he wants to play plays, and if he doesn’t want you to play, you don’t play.’ Smith had 13 points, four rebounds and two blocks before leaving the game after playing only 21 minutes. But whatever transpired in the time it took the Hawks to get in and out of the locker room after halftime, changed everything. ‘Josh played well in the first half,’ Mo Evans said. ‘It didn’t have nothing to do with his basketball playing abilities. It’s the off-the-court, internal stuff that causes all the drama.’”
Frank Isola of the Daily News: “In a recent NBA player’s poll Stephon Marbury and Ron Artest ranked first and second respectively as players you’d least want to have as teammates. While the results in Sports Illustrated were not surprising, I also don’t think it’s any coincidence that Marbury and Artest are both products of the New York City basketball hype machine. Ask most NBA players about New Yorkers in the league and they’ll roll their eyes and either dismiss them as over-rated and/or crazy. We like to think of ourselves as the center of the basketball universe but the days of the league being dominated by great New York City players are a thing of the past. Where have you gone Lew Alcindor? We just don’t make them like we just to. If you had to rank the best New York players currently in the NBA, it’s not a very deep and talented list, especially if you remove Elton Brand (Peekskill) as well as the good New Jersey players like Andrew Bynum, David West and Al Harrington and Long Island’s Mike James and Wally Szczerbiak. Also, guys that were born in New York, like Carmelo Anthony, don’t make the list because they spent their formative years in another city.”
Ken Belson of The New York Times: “With the recession deepening, the Nets said Friday that next year’s season-ticket holders would be able to pay for their tickets in 10 monthly installments, with the Nets picking up the last payment. Season-ticket holders wholose their jobs will have their money refunded, the team said. ‘At the end of the day, we know we’re a want, not a need,’ said Fred Mangione, the Nets’ senior vice president for ticket sales and marketing. He said ticket prices would either stay the same or be cut by as much as 10 percent. The Nets’ ticket policy is similar to the one announced by the Minnesota Timberwolves on Tuesday.”
The Minneapolis Star Tribune: “McHale retired from playing in 1992. He made $1 million one season. Somebody once asked him to justify it. ‘I just sat there and tried to think of something interesting to say,’ said McHale, who said his father never made more than $17,000 a year working in Iron Range mines. ‘And finally I said, ‘I can’t. They offered it to me and I took it.’ That was the only explanation I had.’ Nine players started this NBA season with a $20 million salary or more, led by Kevin Garnett’s $24.75 million. The New York Knicks’ — the Knicks! — payroll surpassed $94 million. On the Wolves alone, Brian Cardinal and Jason Collins earn $6.3 and $6.2 million. Wolves owner Glen Taylor last fall became the new NBA Board of Governor’s chairman, which means he’s the owner most entrusted with the money. ‘I’m very concerned for pro sports,’ he said. ‘I could talk about banks or health care or the media business. I don’t think pro sports is protected in any sense.’ Taylor foresees a day when NBA superstars still earn millions, but not the common player.”
Jonathan Abrams of The New York Times: “In some games, a basketball player seems incapable of making a wrong move. The decisions are quick and decisive. In others, he is errant and ineffectual. But why? Paul Baard, a sports psychologist at Fordham University, has studied the link between cognition and athletic performance. He related the inconsistency of sports to everyday life by describing the person who can maneuver easily through a crowded subway stop one day, then bounce off people like a Ping-Pong ball the next. ‘Our brain processes things so rapidly that you can’t distinguish between cognizant and reactive,’ Baard said recently. ‘Cognition is in place and it’s a form of thinking, but it’s a rapid thinking that you can’t really articulate.’ In basketball parlance, unconscious is the term used most often to describe a shooter who cannot seem to miss. The label is accurate, though not completely, according to many N.B.A. players, who during the course of a game are faced with countless split-second decisions: to shoot or pass or cut or pick or drive.”
