Sure, it's possible the Spurs can put together a nice effort on their homecourt in Game 5 on Tuesday night and push their series against the Mavericks to a sixth game in Dallas.
And maybe the Spurs could even follow that up with an unlikely Game 6 win on the road and make their first-round series a seven-gamer.
Mavericks vs. Spurs, 9:30 PM ET Dallas leads series, 3-1 | Preview
As teams get eliminated from the 2009 NBA playoff picture, Fork 'Em figures out what went wrong.
Stuff definitely went wrong for the Golden State Warriors this year. The only real question is whether the trouble started when Baron Davis left or immediately afterward.
There will be an eternal debate in the Bay Area about whether or not the Warriors should have kept Davis, or at least made a better effort to keep him. Instead, Davis signed with the L.A. Clippers in July, and the Warriors' 2008-09 was irreparably altered.
Every night there are some stupendous, silly, stupid, or downright outlandish individual lines from around the lig. Doing Lines lets you know which one tops the list.
Tim Duncan is known for many things -- his stellar defense, his killer bank shot, his mastery of the wizard class -- but he's never been the type of dude to rack up triple-doubles. Timmy has two triple-doubles in almost 900 career games ... but he almost added a third Tuesday night in New Jersey.
Duncan finished with a game-high 27 points, a game-high nine rebounds, and a game-high eight assists, as well as four blocks -- which happened to be more than every other Net and Spur combined. An encore performance from Matt Bonner (22 points, 8-10 shooting) helped, but this was Tim Duncan's world.
Art Thompson III used to cover the Clippers for the Orange County Register, until this summer when the Register decided it would no longer cover the Clippers ... just the Lakers. Luckily, AT3 stayed on as an NBA columnist. Folks have a lot of respect for Thompson. He knows the Clips as well as anyone in the mainstream. And he reports this about Maggs:
My sources told me that fomer Clipper forward Elton Brand was so determined not to have a personal friendship ruined with Maggette (the two have been close since they attended Duke together), that Brand did not want to play another year with Maggette, having decided that seven years with the Clippers was enough.
Brand loved Maggs too much to be his teammate. That's just about perfect, right? I'm glad Thompson provided this perspective, because otherwise the critics are acting like Maggette's style is something new. It is not.
Among all the positive developments perpetuated by the 2008 Celtics title, the new liberty of Kevin Garnett's mouth has been perhaps the best. Of course, Ticket has always been a big talker. But instead of merely spitting hate at Anthony Peeler (NEVER FORGET!) or socking Rick Rickert, KG has taken up a role as the NBA's lead whistleblower.
Last week, Edwards keyed us to Garnett's outside opinion on the status of Chris Bosh's mind, in which KG suggested Bosh looks frustrated and may have to look elsewhere when free agency arrives. (Garnett proved himself a soothsayer, as the sacking of Sam Mitchell Wednesday indicates the franchise sees a pressing need to improve before 2010.)
Maggette's selfish play hasn't gone unnoticed by other players. According to sources, after the final buzzer against Boston, Celtics forward Kevin Garnett turned to Maggette and shouted, "Way to get your numbers."
Garnett, the consummate team player, is not afraid to tell the truth. Baron Davis: you're next.
From the perspective of Cleveland and New Jersey, the Knicks went from Jean Grey to Dark Phoenix today. But we won't know if the Great Contract Sell-off of 2008 actually worked for roughly 586 days, so let's focus on the present: the weirdest team in the league just got more gonzo. Don Nelson already starts four two-guards, and now he's acquired Jamal Crawford. Does the trade make you tingle, Nellie?
"I'm stoked, is what I am."
Once Monta Ellis returns and Crawford suits up (the Warriors expect him to be ready Tuesday), I expect you'll be able to describe six of the top seven Warriors in minutes per game as two-guards. Corey Maggette currently mans the power forward position. Stephen Jackson has been alternately running point and sitting at small forward. Anthony Morrow has gotten two starts at the two-guard (with another expected tonight), and Kelenna Azubuike has been alongside him for more than a week.
In the Matt Steinmetz Examiner piece linked above, Nelson notes that Crawford will likely start at the one for now and will share the associated duties with Ellis. Crawford, Ellis, Jackson and Maggette figure to be your starters, with Morrow and Azubuike ready to jump in before the first true power forward or center (Brandan Wright and Ronny Turiaf are each under 18 minutes per game).
Nellieball is getting even more bizarre before our eyes. Andris Biedrins, I hope to ready to keep on rebounding.
NBA Essentials ranks our six favorite stories of the day.
1. Boston Globe. Kevin Garnett has been invited to those nutty celeb soccer games with Steve Nash, but KG declines because he wants to be a striker, not a goalie. 2. Indy Cornrows. When Danny Granger went to Indonesia this summer, a lady who runs an orphanage Granged donated some money to prayed for his contract extension. That's some good karma. 3. S.F. Examiner, via GsoM. Corey Maggette thinks the fate of the Warriors rest of the shoulders of himself and Stephen Jackson: "We know who the 20-point scorers are on this team and we've got to make sure we do our part." 4. The Painted Area. LeBron James gets in the post against New Orleans, and a world cheers.
5. Memphis Commercial Appeal. Javaris Crittenton can't get off the bench at all. Mike Conley can't get off the bench in the fourth quarter.
6. PLAY Magazine. Reviewing two excellent basketball books by bloggers.
Yesterday we had the overview; today we have the predictions. The Pacific Division appears to be no better than a two-team race, with a third team potentially in the mix, and the last two teams, well, finishing in last. Let's start things off in the cellar and work our way up, shall we?
The Los Angeles Clippers (again, regal) are going to have a tough go of it due to the enormous drop off in talent they have between their starting lineup and the players coming off the bench. In fact, if you want a visual of said drop off, go watch this, and pretend the guy jumping off the building is falling in the space between the talent of the Clippers' starting players and that of their bench players. And the parachute not opening represents the gigantic FAIL that the Clippers can expect this season anytime the bench takes the floor to try and hold onto a lead. It's not going to be pretty, folks.
Up north where the Golden State Warriors play, it won't be pretty either, at least for the first few months of the season. That's because their best player (apologies, Mr. Maggette) decided to engage in low-speed moped riding during the off-season (this still amazes me ... the moped = injury part), which will lead to his absence from the lineup, and an unavoidably bad start for the Warriors.
A season ago, the Pacific Division was able to send just two of its teams to the playoffs, but one of them went all the way to the Finals. And while that's not likely to change this season -- at least the part about the two playoff teams -- each club definitely has its share of intriguing story lines.
Let's start off in Los Angeles, where the Lakers' playoff run last season took place with one of the team's key components on the sidelines. There are always many stories in Laker-land, but a lot of the team's fans seem to be most interested in this one: With the return of Andrew Bynum, do the Lakers have a shot to win 70 games?
Despite the recent flood of positive Andrew Bynum stories hitting the L.A. papers lately (seriously, his P.R. machine is working overtime), I'm not convinced that his addition to the lineup automatically makes the Lakers unstoppable. There's the whole thing about figuring out how to co-exist with Pau Gasol, and how Lamar Odom will perform (likely) playing further away from the basket. When you add in the fact that even if the team was capable of winning 70 games, there's really no motivation to do so, unless someone else is on the same ridiculous pace and it would mean home court advantage.
Individual offense in the NBA comes down to two central pillars: being able to get a shot off, by creating or being available when a pass comes, and scoring efficiently. Many, many players do one or the other well, but not both. Jamal Crawford could shoot every time down if he wanted to, but the final output won't be particularly pretty. Fred Hoiberg routinely appeared near the top of the board in shooting efficiency ... but he had immense trouble creating enough shots to really matter.
Corey Maggette is one of the few current players who can pull off both feats at the same time. More than accounting for a 1+1 higher sum, the efficiency amid high usage serves a sort of multiplier, magnifying Maggette's abilities and making him one of the elite weapons of our day.
One question for the San Antonio Spurs: Now what?
As teams get eliminated from the 2009 NBA playoff picture, Fork 'Em figures out what went wrong.
Every night there are some stupendous, silly, stupid, or downright outlandish individual lines from around the lig. Doing Lines lets you know which one tops the list.
Call it "Crap on Corey Day," or whatever. (I'm going to call it "Mike Bibby and Chris Webber Share the NBA on TNT Set Day," actually.) Earlier, we told you Kevin Garnett's feelings on Corey Maggette. The gist of KG's verbal fist: Maggs is not a team player. Well, there's more where that came from.
Among all the positive developments perpetuated by the 2008 Celtics title, the new liberty of Kevin Garnett's mouth has been perhaps the best. Of course, Ticket has always been a big talker. But instead of merely spitting hate at Anthony Peeler (NEVER FORGET!) or socking Rick Rickert, KG has taken up a role as the NBA's lead whistleblower.
From the perspective of Cleveland and New Jersey, the Knicks went from Jean Grey to Dark Phoenix today. But we won't know if the Great Contract Sell-off of 2008 actually worked for roughly 586 days, so let's focus on the present: the weirdest team in the league just got more gonzo. Don Nelson already starts four two-guards, and now he's acquired Jamal Crawford. Does the trade make you tingle, Nellie? 
NBA Essentials ranks our six favorite stories of the day.
