Tanks for Nothing

For 59 out of 66 games this season, the basketball didn't bounce the Bobcat's way and, on Wednesday, the ping-pong balls didn't, either. The Charlotte Bobcats hoped last night draft lottery would be a scratch and win scenario, since they had a 25 percent chance of obtaining the number one overall pick. Instead, it became a scratch your head situation, a new nadir for the team that finished with the lowest winning percentage in NBA history (what we like to label as "Silast" place). Ironically, the selection was awarded to the original Charlotte franchise, the New Orleans Hornets, who won triple the amount of games as the Bobcats (21 vs. 7). After Dan Gilbert-gate last year, could this be another conspiracy to compensate a franchise that the league felt it owed a favor to after its star's departure (this time, "the decision" was entirely the NBA's), a thank-you present to a new owner, an attempt to reward a team that tried hard until the season finished (the Hornets won 8 of their last 13 games), in contrast to one that fell faster than Facebook's IPO and cared as little as Mark Zuckerberg about it?

It's doubtful. If the league was going to intentionally interfere, it would've treated the team moving into the nation's largest media market, the Brooklyn Nets, so that they have something more significant to sell than Jay-Z sitting courtside*. Secondly, a shoddy squad still needs a lotto luck: the club with the worst record hasn't been awarded the top pick since 2004. In a draft that's widely regarded as weak - Anthony Davis is perceived as the best building block, a Lego in a class of Lincoln Logs - the Bobcats might've gone from hitting the jackpot to landing jack squat.

*Maybe if he performs at every halftime or they project Tupac's hologram into a front row seat.

'Round (and 'Round) 3

No one can (baggage) claim that Ricky Rubio isn't interested in the NBA playoffs. Here he is - complete with TSA-threatening beard* - catching a game at the airport from the comfort(?) of the luggage carousel. Like an out-of-order airplane, we don't see his viewing method taking off. Nevertheless, we'll give the same advice to Rubio as we do our amigos with satchels traveling through the sky: carry-on.

*George W. Bush taught us all that the face of freedom is freshly shaved.

Spurs Doing the Nasty

Unless you count Manu Giboli going to the ground as he hit a buzzer-beating three to end the first quarter, the Spurs still haven't fallen in the 2012 playoffs. Talking to his team during a timeout in the fourth quarter - and wearing a microphone so those at home could hear him, too - coach Gregg Popovich exhorted, "I want some nasty!" The Spurs obliged, responding with a 39-point final frame. Manu Ginobli (26 points) was slashing like he was Freddy Krueger*. Tallying his highest output of this postseason, Ginobli caught lightning in a bottle against the Thunder, who had surrendered that many points in a quarter on only one other occasion this season.

"Nasty?" We're not so sure the adjective applies. The highest scoring team in the playoffs - and number two throughout the regular season - is offensive in just one sense of the word. The Spurs aren't a mean bunch, but they mean business. They push each other, not their opponent. They take open shots instead of cheap shots. They aren't a dirty group, but they do the dirty work. They absorb charges, make the extra pass, and - most critically of all - listen to their coach, even when he's being critical (in this instance, Popovich was rallying his troops, not ripping them). They make nasty look nice.

*the Thunder can't fall asleep on defense against him.

Oddities and Ends

A little more than a month ago, it wasn't a certainty that the 76ers would qualify for the playoffs. Now, they're one win away from reaching the Eastern Conference Finals. True, they've take advantage of their foe's flaws to arrive at this opportunity - the Bulls were hobbled and the Celtics are creaky - but as squad whose players have the least amount of postseason games under their belts* - shouldn't their opponents have been taking advantage of them? No member of the Sixers is less tested than Lavoy Allen, a rookie second-round draft pick, yet he has scored only two less points in the series than Ray Allen, a potential first ballot future Hall of Famer. That stat sounds like a sick joke, more Joan Rivers than Doc Rivers. Not too shabby for the player ranked the lowest in the league by espn.com back in October (500th, to be exact).

Jrue Holiday labeled a must-win game 6 as the "end of the world," saying game 7 is the sequel, but he has it backwards. It's more likely to be the end of the world for the Celtics because Allen and Kevin Garnett are free agents and chances are as slim as Garnett's calves that both will be back. If the 76ers lose it's fine, since they've already moved up in the world from the streets to the suites and their roster should remain intact, but if the Celtics lose, everyone will wonder what in the world went wrong.

*under their drawstrings would be more accurate

Pretty in Pink Pants

One week ago, suffering through a scoreless first half, Dwyane Wade went off on his coach in game 3 during a timeout, slumping spiraling into shouting. After that, he went off on the Pacers in the three games that followed - piling up 99 total points - punctuated by 41 in a close-out win over the Pacers Thursday. It seems the sideline spat with Spoelstra was cause for more than one kind of eruption from Wade. While Wade's pants were hot pink, his shooting was white-hot: 68 percent. Wade made 17 of 25 shots, all within the flow of the action, as evidenced by the fact that he didn't attempt a single three. Regardless of their reaction to the color of his clothes, the Heat had to be tickled pink by his performance.

Bird is the Word

It's safe to say Pacers president Larry Bird found his team's second straight loss to the Heat H-A-R-D to take. After the game, he put a spell on his team, so to speak, adding a bit of verbal abuse to the physical pounding the Pacers endured at the hands - and elbows - of the hotheaded Heat. He called his squad "soft" and then spelled it for emphasis. Reporters did not follow-up by asking Bird for the word's etymology and he declined to expound on what he meant by the monosyllabic adjective. We expect Bird will follow the Scripps Bee's rules and not spell again until the next round. We're not the newly christened executive of the year, but we don't understand how insulting your players - whether intentionally or impudently - is a shrewd strategy. That's our F-I-R-M belief.

H-A-R-D is how we would define the Heat's fouls, but only because we don't feel like spelling 'malevolent.' If people were searching for additional reasons to hate the Heat, Udonis Haslem and Dexter Pittman provided plenty in game 5. Pittman, who must've studied at the Metta World Peace Institute for Excessive Elbowing*, acted as if he was playing Pit-Fighter, not basketball. Thuggish tactics aren't limited to tyros. Haslem and Juwan Howard, veterans who should know better, have both behaved like bullies, retaliating like raging rogues. What's next, brandishing a lance at Lance Stephenson?

*accreditation pending

All Four Won

Since the Heat's "big three" has been shrunk to a more manageable medium two, it's time to focus on a trio of Texans, one of whom has actually won not one, not two, not three, but four...NBA championships. Through two series, the Spurs boast an unblemished 8-0 record. In other words, they're Spurfect thus far in the playoffs. All told, San Antonio has strung together 18 straight victories, complete with contributions from players both counted out (Boris Diaw, Danny Green) and never before counted on (Kawhi Leonard, Gary Neal). It's been a River Walk in the park for this selfless, surreptitious superb squad.

Stability has been a source of the success. Duncan, Parker and Ginobli have been on the floor for 130 postseason games together, the most of any current threesome in the league. There is an inverse relationship between how impressed we are with their accomplishments and how impressed they are (which is to say, they haven't cleared room in the trophy case). "We haven't done anything yet. We've won two rounds," said the habitually humble Duncan. Parker and Ginobli have echoed those exact thoughts in post-game interviews. Those guys aren't just on the same page, they're on the same sentence, reading it at the same rate of speed. You can tell the gang is Alamotivated to achieve more. Things truly are bigger in Texas (see: Alexis Texas*), ambitions included.

*In this case, we're not providing a link, lest we be charged with corrupting the youth. Do your own dirty work!

Super Bass*

Nicki Minaj might say Brandon Bass is a helluva guy because on Monday he was pelican fly. He tied a career-high, amassing his age in points, 27, shot a sizzling 69 percent from the field, and singlehandedly outscored the 76ers in the third quarter, 18-16, in Boston's beatdown of Philadelphia that recalled game 3, except with an unexpected source of offense (Kevin Garnett had 27 in that one, Bass 10). His playoff best prior to the game was 19 points, so we can only explain his prodigious and peculiar performance with plagiarized onomatopoeia: boom badoom boom boom badoom boom Bass.

Home, bittersweet home: Over the weekend, Staples Center was overbooked and overcrowded. The last remaining tenants are truly the Kings of Los Angeles. The Clippers, building on the fly, were satisfied to be in the building come May, but in this postseason the Lakers, like a 7-footer standing up, hit their ceiling far too fast. A defiant Kobe Bryant insisted that the Lakers championship run isn't over. "Put your house on it," he urged. Kobe could be correct, provided the team cleans house. In their series against the Thunder, the Lakers play could be classified as a British apartment: flat.

*Yes, we know his name is pronounced like the fish, but like sushi, we were on roll, so kiss our halibut.

Check Your (Red)Head*

Touch the back of your dome. If it feels strangely like the contours of Spurs reserve Matt Bonner's visage, then you're probably Texas 12-year-old Patrick Gonzalez^, who was suspended from school for what administrators deemed a "distracting" 'do. Gonzalez was ordered to remove the portrait of his favorite player - Gonzalez also has auburn hair - from his scalp before he was allowed to return to the classroom. If his classmates are so easily sidetracked, then the school has much bigger problems than its students hairstyles. Believing Gonzalez raised Hell with a razor is shear lunacy.

Gonzalez was forced to shave his head, but his arcane mane wasn't in vain. The Spurs gave him playoff tickets to Thursday's home game and on Sunday, San Antonio completed its second straight series sweep, showing that they're a cut above the rest. For both Gonzalez and the Spurs, facing Clippers was no cause for concern.

*We have yet to confirm that his coiffure was created at Paul's Boutique.
^Unless you're Matt Bonner with your face on backwards.

Degree of Difficulty

No offense to The Big Aristotle, but nothing makes us feel intellectually inferior quite like knowing that Shaq has a Ph.D. He made the successful transition from "What's Up Doc?" to doctorate (in Leadership and Education) that, discouragingly, Fu-Schnickens has yet to accomplish. He earned his diploma from Barry University, which we assume is an institution for ex-hoopsters run by Rick Barry (or, since the school is near Miami, Dave Barry). By graduation, Shaq holds the distinction of being one of a select group of people to break both backboards to mortarboards.

Chris Webber has done well in the booth as a color analyst - he seems more in his element than in the studio where he was muted by the bigger, more established personalities - but there's one word he overuses. Here's a fun game to play the next time he's on air: Every time Webber says "definitely," take a shot of alcohol*. You'll definitely be drunk by the end of the broadcast.

Dan Le Batard might've tapped into the bowels of his brain when he described the Heat's offense without Chris Bosh as "constipated." We guess he's saying Bosh makes the team go. Our solution if the struggles continue: replace the Gatorade with prune juice.

*Something stronger than Smirnoff Ice, you sissy.

Hand Insanitizer

Metta World Peace isn't interested in making peace with James Harden. The erratic elbower, who returned from his seven-game suspension in time to save the season in the Lakers game seven win over the Nuggets* (15 points, 4 steals), said he won't shake Harden's hand because he's a player who comes off the bench, effectively treating the sixth man like an invisible man. Artest acts like this is a long-standing policy of his, but we think his reasoning is: if your hair can't be as wild as your opponent's, at least your comments and conduct can be. Harden may be a substitute, but there's no substitute for manners, Metta. It's probably best for Harden that their mitts won't meet (this isn't playoff hockey, so it's not obligatory), since Purell doesn't protect against crazy.

*of course the Lakers might've been able to end the series earlier had he not tried out his WWE heel move and been available, although it did free him up to appear on late-night talk shows.

Number One Stunner

The 76ers are now Big Tymers* after grabbing the Bulls by the horns and flinging them out of the playoffs. For only the fifth time in the history of the Association, an eight seed vanquished the supreme seed. Sure, some of the luster is lost since the feat occurred as recently as last year, when the Grizzlies surprised the west's best Spurs in six, and because the Bulls were weakened without Derrick Rose and their ever-running engine, Jokim Noah. Noah, nursing a sprained ankle, dressed for the game, but never checked in. He probably should have, since his substitutes came up short.

Carlos Boozer, the subject of serious scrutiny due to his $80 million-dollar, had said he was on a mission to silence his critics, did nothing to dispel that he's like Beck - a loser^ - as he made one field goal of eleven attempts. Omer Asik from Turkey was a turkey with the game on the line, missing two free throws that could've put the Bulls up by three points with seven seconds remaining and then fouling Andre Iguodala on a drive with two seconds to go.

Iguodala, also an $80-mill. man, who has been damned with faint praise for most of his career - either as "the other AI" or billed as a "third-banana" at best - calmly sunk the pair of foul shots, as the 76ers advanced to the second round for the first time since 2003, the year before Iguodala, the longest-tenured Sixer, was drafted by the team.

There was no guarantee that Iguodala, who wound up with 20 points on 7-for-12 shooting - accompanied by 7 assists - would hit the foul shots. Like Boozer, he had been called-out for folding when the stakes were high. Secondly, he was shooting a career-low percentage from the free throw line (61.7%). The secret to his success, the source of his serenity in those series-settling seconds: teammate Tony Battie told Iguodala to picture something he loved, so Iguoudala said he envisioned his son.

Both Boozer and Iguodala are perceived as being overpaid, but on Thursday one was overwhelmed by the obstacles placed in his path, while the other overcame them. Overpaid? Perhaps. However, in that moment, Iguodala, his teammates and fans, were overjoyed. It was a feeling long overdue, one you can't put a price on.

Yes, this a reference to a defunct rap duo and a tune from a dozen years ago.
^Another dated music mention, this one even older

Face Value

The mask Kobe Bryant wore after his nose was broken during the All-Star Game was auctioned off on Tuesday. The winning bid, out of 129 total, was $67,100. Kobe donned the protective gear for 11 games, so that works out to $6,100 per contest the buyer paid to own a sweat-stained shroud that, as far as we know, doesn't possess any transformative properties to grant the owner cartoonish powers, as in a certain Jim Carrey flick from our youth - although Kobe was "smokin'" during that stretch, averaging 31.1 ppg and surpassing 29,000 career points with the schnoz shield on (proving that the only thing that could guard him in that span was his own mask). The money went towards Bryant's own eponymous charity, giving a whole new meaning to the phrase 'gross profit.'

Chuck That Chuck (Taylor)

We present the playoff video daily double:
A: Dwyane Wade.
Q: Who throws a shoe?

It took us awhile to find this clip, but not as long as it took Mike Bibby to find his footwear. Between this and Wade's toss of Rip Hamilton out of bounds like he was a discus three weeks ago, maybe Wade is prepping for more than basketball at this summer's Olympics. Watch yourself, Austin Powers, Dwyane Wade can hurl a hightop.

That's Adoraball

Jason Kidd is no longer involved in postseason play, but we've found another kid adept at delivering an accurate - and amusing - assist. Chris Paul's two-year-old son, when prompted, helped his pop in Saturday's postgame press conference, by posing with the piercing look Blake Griffin gives when he's silently signaling for the ball.

We're relieved Griffin saves that scary stare for snagging passes and spares us when peddling Kias because it would freak us out while we were folding linens (let's just say those sheets would be soiled).

Amare Lends a Hand

What's the sound of one hand clapping? It's a query that has confounded Chinese philosophers for centuries*. On Sunday, we believe we learned the answer: Amare Stoudemire congratulating himself. Stoudemire, with his hurt hand wrapped up, made sure the Heat didn't wrap up the series, by posting 20 and 10, but here's where we really have to (ahem) hand it to him: Stoudemire shot a superb 8 of 13 from the field. Another fellow named Carmelo chipped in with 41 points in 41 minutes, with only one turnover, to stave off elimination (and snap the franchise's ultra unlucky 13-game home playoff losing streak), secured only after the Dwayne Wade missed a step-back shot to win it at the end. Anthony and Stoudemire accounted for 61 of the Knicks 89 points, as no other player reached double-digits. As has been the case with the Knicks all season, any cause for celebration quickly changed into cause for concern, as Baron Davis dislocated his kneecap. The series doesn't resume until Wednesday, at which time Jeremy Lin may return to the lineup. The Knicks will need - excuse the expression, Amare - all hands on deck if they are to win another game. The upper hand still belongs to the Heat. Here are the other applause worthy performances from the weekend:

1. April showers might bring May flowers, but May Thunder brought Mavs' blunders. Their main mistake was allowing James Harden, who recently was added to the Olympic roster, to have the ball in his hands. Russell Westbrook can be cornered into taking bad shots, on occassion Kevin Durant can be comparably confined, but not Harden. He has the patience of a purity ring-wearer and picks his spots to score. Execution triumphed over experience as the defending champs were summarily swept like dust off a doorstep. Lamar Odom wasn't with the Mavericks long, but he suitably symbolized the squad's shortcomings: disinterested, distracted, dilatory. Maybe he does deserve a portion of the playoff payout.

2. We're in awe of Spencer Hawes. The Sixers center followed-up a 21-point, 9-rebound performance in game three with a team-high 22 points - on 9 of 11 shooting - and 8 boards in a pair of wins, as 76ers have collected three consecutive victories against the banged-up Bulls. Yes, Derrick Rose was lost to injury in the first game and Joakim Noah went down in the third contest, but it still is an eighth seed against a number one, the team in the playoffs with the least wins (35) versus the one with the most(50) now holding a two-game advantage. Chicago native Evan Turner (19, 7 and 6 assists in game 2, plus 16 and 9 in game three), a high school rival of Rose's, was scolded with the "be careful for what you wish for" warning for saying before the series that he'd rather face the Bulls than the Heat, but he might have the last laugh. If so, the Sixers snicker will sound specific: "Ha-Hawes."

*Then again, Confucius couldn't comprehend the match-up zone.

Rond'oh!

All of the amazing action of the playoffs since Saturday - Durant's clanging but clutch game-winner, Andrew Bynum's bevy of blocks and triumphant triple-double, the captivating Clippers comeback (or the Grizzlies grand gagging) the Mavs misfiring when it mattered most on Monday - will be overshadowed by the brainless behavior of Rajon Rondo and Amare Stoudemire, leaders who were so livid they had lamentably large lapses in judgement.

Rondo lost it while going for a loose ball with under a minute remaining the game. The call didn't go the Celtics way, so while complaining he clapped his hands close to the official, received a technical, then conspicuously caused contact with the ref, leading to his ejection and a subsequent suspension for one game. He likely cost his team tonight's contest, with Ray Allen not expected to return yet, probably putting the Celtics in a 2-0 hole that will be a challenge to climb out of.

As for Stoudemire, he too couldn't control his temper. His injury is equally self-inflicted and ironic. He couldn't extinguish the fire burning inside him, so he punched a fire extinguisher case outside of the locker room after the loss, lacerating his left hand, which required stitches. His team is already down two-zip - maybe he thought that deficit constituted the "emergency" that the text on the plate of glass warned about* - it looks like he'll miss a minimum of one game, which means brooms are at the ready in Miami and it's not because the Heat are preparing to play a game of Quidditch. Unlike Rondo, Stoudemire claimed culpability for his careless conduct, tweeting, "I want to apologize to the fans and my team, [I'm] not proud of my actions." We feel your pane, Amare.

*attempting to put out the Heat literally