David Whitley of the Orlando Sentinel: “The NBA is drowning in a sea of red ink. And blue ink and black ink and green ink. And pictures of animals, insects, fish, fowl, barbed wire, spider webs, cartoon characters and at least one pair of praying hands holding a gun. We’re talking tattoos. If you don’t have one, you’re pretty much a nobody. As an avowed nobody, I’d like to thank Dwight Howard. In a sea of ink, he remains strong enough to swim against the tattoo tide. ‘It’s not happening,’ he said. ‘Number 1, it’s not what I believe in. And No. 2, I consider myself a role model.’ Not that you can’t be a role model and have a tattoo. They have become so socially acceptable that the pope probably has one (praying hands, no gun). But Howard is pretty old-school for a 23-year-old. When we think tattoos, we still see hairy-armed sailors, Hell’s Angels and Charles Manson’s forehead. That said, if a tattoo makes you happy, go for it. ‘They look good,’ Howard said. ‘But they’re not for me.’ Some of his best friends have tattoos. In fact, Howard might not have any friends if he held tattoos against them.”
Ronald Tillery of the Memphis Commercial Appeal: “His scoring average and shooting percentages have declined since the season began. For so long, the NBA’s honor bestowed upon the top rookie seemed so close that the voting could have realistically ended in a tie. Chicago’s Derrick Rose appears to remain a frontrunner while other candidates have emerged. Meanwhile, Mayo’s had little to say lately. A major reason is he has been victimized by his own success. To a man, Mayo’s teammates and coaches can’t help but notice an obvious pattern by the Grizzlies’ opponents. ‘When we play teams, their first thought is to take away O.J.,’ Griz coach Lionel Hollins said. ‘Unfortunately for O.J., he started out so well that people are focusing on him.’ Over the past 21 games, Mayo’s shot better than 42 percent just three times.”
Buck Harvey of the San Antonio Express-News: “They were playing in Japan in 2006, at the World Championships, and the Argentines should have taken it easy that day. They were matched against New Zealand. But they never take it easy while playing basketball. So Luis Scola dove for a loose ball, and he hit the court with such force that he lost teeth. The next day Manu Ginobili laughed and went looking for bite marks in the wood. They were good friends and better teammates, and in those days they thought they might also play together in San Antonio. But then came the trade. Outside of a few moments last season, they were the only ones with regrets. Ginobili and Scola had dinner Saturday night at a San Antonio restaurant, and they didn’t talk about what could have been. They’d been over that ground too many times. So had the media and fan message boards, especially after a game early last season. Then Scola stuck 20 points on the Spurs, and Gregg Popovich reacted accordingly. ‘It kills me to have him on that team,’ Popovich said. ‘Enough to make you spit.’”
Ailene Voisin of the Sacramento Bee: “Beno Udrih’s days as the Kings’ starting point guard are numbered. Count the games remaining in the season. Add a few games in the opening weeks of 2009-10, while his successor scoots along on training wheels. And there you have it. The search is on. Tyreke Evans. Jonny Flynn. Eric Maynor. Tony Douglas. Ty Lawson. Darren Collison. Possibly Ricky Rubio. The list of potential draftees will expand as the NCAA Tournament continues, extending to the European Final Four and the pre-draft workouts in Chicago. But win or lose the NBA lottery and lucking out with the No. 1 pick would ensure the selection of Oklahoma stud Blake Griffin upgrading the Kings’ backcourt isn’t a need, it’s a disaster plan. Udrih isn’t the answer. He is one frustrating question after another. How could he have such a solid 2008-09 and such a lousy encore? Why the fleeting bursts followed by sluggish, sloppy performances? How could he be in such poor condition this late in the season? And how will he respond when an eager, quicker point guard is drafted this summer, then darts into training camp determined to devour his playing time?”
Britt Robson of Secrets of the City: “The biggest cause for concern the past few weeks has been the regression of Randy Foye. During the halycon days of January, when the Wolves were spurting to 10-2, there was a legitimate question of whether the Wolves’ best player was Jefferson or Foye. Freed from his point guard duties, Foye had truly blossomed, confounding defenses by hitting long-range jumpers with regularity and then defying the close-outs with penetration that results in layups for either himself or a teammate. Okay, we all thought, so he isn’t a point guard, but if you let him settle into a rhythm, he is a dynamic playmaker out of the backcourt and an ideal complement to Jefferson. Then scouts began to suss out Foye’s marvelous array of attributes and correctly noted that the best corrective was to thwart him with size. As a 6-4 off-guard, he suddenly had to contend with the Mike Dunleavys, Joe Johnsons, Brandon Roys, Shane Battiers, Rasual Butlers and Thabo Sefoloshas of the world. In other words. a lot of teams regularly deploy a two-guard who is at least 2-3 inches taller than Foye and surmounting them has taken a toll, as has Jefferson’s absence, which has waylaid Foye’s complementary game more than anyone on the roster but Kevin Love.”
A. Sherrod Blakely of MLive.com: “Allen Iverson has played most of his career with a collection of bumps and bruises. So when his back injury occurred around the same time as coach Michael Curry’s decision to have him come off the bench, speculation centered that his extended absence coincided with perceived disappointment. ‘That’s hilarious,’ Iverson said in an interview with Booth Newspapers on Sunday. ‘My health is the most important thing, that was the whole thing. I know people are going to say that. I’ve been a warrior my whole career and I pride myself on that. But it (the back injury), it is what it is.’ Iverson has been bothered by a sore back for quite some time. But he said it was not until he started to feel numbness in the back of his legs that he become nervous about it being a potential career-ending injury. ‘I’ve never been 100 percent my whole career,’ said Iverson, a 10-time All-Star. ‘It’s just the fact that it is my back, and me having numbness in my legs and everything … that was the whole thing.’ As far as coming off the bench, Iverson said his injury and being a reserve are two separate issues.”
Dave Feschuk of the Tortonto Star: “It has been more than three years since Bryan Colangelo arrived in Toronto, since the Raptors’ coaches and players and big brains began talking and talking and talking about playing up-tempo basketball with high-volume shooting. And yet it was only yesterday at the Air Canada Centre – three seasons after since-deposed coach Sam Mitchell broached the idea of the club ideally taking around 100 shots a game – the Raptors finally got up 100 regulation-time shots in a game. If Toronto’s 100-76 win wasn’t proof that go-go basketball is a strategy of unparalleled genius – and, given that the elusive milestone was only reached in a game against the woeful L.A. Clippers, it wasn’t – at least the high-quantity gunning brought a buzz to the Raptors locker room. The locker-room talk, of course, wasn’t about the style of play but of the style of the players. Last night, after all, was a big one in Raptorland for reasons more pertinent than the final score. Chris Bosh, the resident all-star, had invited a few hundred of his closest friends to his self-described ‘25th Birthday Gala’ at the Maro nightclub in Liberty Village. So the smell of post-game cologne seemed a little more pungent than usual. The post-game primping took a little more time than usual. The post-game interviews were a little more giddy than usual. ‘(Bosh) has had a birthday party every year I’ve been here,’ said Joey Graham, the fourth-year forward. ‘And they’ve gotten better and better. There’s more glitz and glamour at his parties.’ The parties get better and better and the seasons, sadly, get worse and worse.”
Ken Berger of CBSSports.com: “When it comes to his future, LeBron James’ words are always subject to interpretation. Sometimes three, four, or eight interpretations. As he does every time he visits the New York metropolitan area, which will soon turn its eyes to the annual LeBron-a-thon now that the Knicks have faded from the playoff picture, James once again stoked the 2010 flames Sunday night with a comment about perhaps playing against friend and rival Dwyane Wade in practice someday. This was either an innocent comment or a well-placed one, depending on how you interpret it. Every time he passes through, James manages to do something spectacular, generate headlines or both. But when it comes to his team, LeBron doesn’t parse words. You don’t need a palm-reader, crystal ball, thesaurus or a scholar well-versed in the quatrains of Nostradamus to figure out what the King is talking about when the topic is the Cleveland Cavaliers. So there was nothing vague or obtuse about James’ comments after the Cavs were eliminated in seven games by the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference semifinals last May. The Cavs’ front office and coaching staff got the message: Get LeBron some help, or else.”
Michael Wallace of the Miami Herald: “Along with looking for more energy and effort, Heat coach Erik Spoelstra also wants to hear more talking on the court from veterans. Leading by example wasn’t quite getting the message through. That might have changed with Sunday’s 101-96 win against Detroit. Spoelstra said younger players need to do a better job of following the lead set by Dwyane Wade, Udonis Haslem and Jermaine O’Neal. ‘We’ve talked about [how] we want our communication to go up on the court — and nothing should be personal,’ Spoelstra said. `But the elder statesmen, the captains, and the veterans should have a voice. It should be out there — where it’s not [always] coming from the coaches.’ Team captains Wade and Haslem have both said in recent days that the younger players need to understand the sense of urgency required in the team’s playoff push.”
Marc Berman of the New York Post: “Founded in 1946, the Knickerbockers will honor the glory of past decades tonight in an elaborate halftime ceremony and ignore this decade. It’s better that way.There isn’t much to honor about the current decade. There’s a dark piece of irony to tonight’s proceedings. On the night the Knicks celebrate the 1940s, ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, they will face Orlando and potentially clinch the losingest decade in franchise history. With Patrick Ewing on the Orlando bench as an assistant coach, a fifth straight loss tonight against the Magic will seal the Knicks’ eighth straight losing season. It’s the first time in any decade the Knicks have posted eight sub-.500 seasons.”
Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle: “Even in Sunday’s win, they had seven pretty mediocre minutes in the fourth quarter. But there is a toughness about them, a resilience, that has taken them past the midseason travails to their second-half turnaround, and past their struggles on Sunday and to the win. ‘I think they always had an attitude,’ Rockets coach Rick Adelman said. ‘This group this year has responded game in and game out.’ They would probably prefer that things not be so difficult. On Sunday, when the Spurs fronted Yao, the Rockets attacked on the weak side and did seem to make some progress. Kyle Lowry put in a pair of drives. Aaron Brooks hit a jumper. Yao tipped in a miss before his late, game-winning passes. It was still a pretty rocky way to the win. That, however, seems to be the way these Rockets do things. It is never easy, but they persevere. ‘It shows we’ve come a long ways,’ Battier said. ‘There were still four or five plays we could execute a lot better and we know that. But to come in here in San Antonio, a place few teams can eke out a win, it speaks volumes to how far this team has come.’”
Jody Genessy of the Deseret News: “With the playoffs rapidly approaching and his team back to full strength — not counting a shiner here or some still-getting-into-shape legs there — Jazz coach Jerry Sloan knows one thing is for certain. Some players won’t see as much time on the court as they’d prefer. And his duty of parceling out playing time during a part of the year when the depth chart often tightens up, he predicts, will bring about another certainty. ‘I’m not going to make everybody happy,’ Sloan said at practice Sunday. The 21-year Jazz coach just hopes the three or four players whose playing time might be inconsistent at best remain professional and prepared. ‘Hopefully, they understand that,’ Sloan said. ‘It’s not anything personal other than I have to make decisions based on what I think gives us the best chance to win.’ Learning how to deal with hit-and-miss action, Sloan continued, is part of basketball.”
Brian Hanley of the Chicago Sun-Times: “Judging by the fervent talk-radio reaction, many fans would say no to Deng being handed his starting job at small forward if he comes back. And judging by the way John Salmons has been playing, who could argue? Salmons is averaging 20.1 points since the Bulls acquired him from Sacramento on Feb. 19, and he has averaged 28 points on 63.1 percent shooting in the last four games. Salmons has an inside-outside offensive game that has been lacking with Deng, and his defense also is above what Deng has shown. Deng — who also missed eight games with an ankle sprain and three with a hamstring strain — is averaging 14.1 points on 44.8 percent shooting, his worst numbers in both categories since his rookie season. The Bulls are 5-5 without Deng and have taken a one-game lead in the race for the final Eastern Conference playoff berth. The new running Bulls are averaging 105 points in Deng’s absence — a pace that would rate among the NBA’s top offenses if extended over a full season. Quite simply, without Deng, the Bulls are playing their best basketball in two seasons.”
David Moore of The Dallas Morning News: “Too often this season the Mavericks pout on defense when shots don’t fall. Shots didn’t fall against the Hawks or Pacers. And there was no pouting. The Mavericks overcame a 17-point deficit in Atlanta and remained competitive deep into the fourth quarter because they fought on defense. The Mavericks rarely win when held to less than 44 percent from the field, yet they beat the Pacers while shooting 42.2 percent because their defense was strong. Forget about concocting ways to avoid the Lakers. Road wins and defense must be the Mavericks’ focus in the waning days of the regular season. That and getting Howard back on the court. ‘If we want to beat anybody in the playoffs, we need a healthy Josh,’ forward Dirk Nowitzki said. ‘There’s no question. We need his slicing, his ability to do something on the weak side.’”
Celtics Hub: “The C’s are forcing fewer turnovers this season-14.6 per game, down from about 16.1 last season. And the numbers have gotten worse lately. In games after the halfway mark of the season, C’s opponents are turning it over just 12.4 times per game–a number that would rank 28th in the NBA were it the Celtics’ season-long average. (See the C’s game log for the game-by-game stats). Put another way: The C’s have forced 15 or more TOs in 28 games this season, but only seven since the midway point of the campaign. (They forced 15 or more 44 times last season, so they’re going to miss that mark by a lot). Is there reason to worry? Maybe. That 12.4 per game number scares me, since turnovers both prove the defense is at its best and produce easy baskets on offense. But there are mitigating factors. The obvious one is the spate of injuries, especially the knee strain that took out the C’s best havoc-creator (KG) for a month. As the bench got thinner, maybe Doc and Tom Thibodeau urged the remaining players to dial the risk-taking back a bit on defense to avoid foul trouble. Maybe the healthy guys just didn’t attack as much because they were tired from playing more minutes.”
