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.