FanHouse DahntayJones

FanHouse previews all 30 NBA teams in advance of the 2009-10 season.

Not long ago, the Indiana Pacers were said to have a character problem, what with players such as Stephen Jackson, Ron Artest and Jamaal Tinsley. That issue, we know, has been taken care of.

Now the Pacers have a talent problem. As in, not enough of it.

There's no other way to say it, really: the way that Dahntay Jones has chosen to play against Kobe Bryant in the last two games of the Conference Finals has been dirty. The first play in that video clip is the intentional trip from Game 4; the second is a two-handed push in the back from Game 3. The former wasn't even ruled a personal foul at the time, but the latter was upgraded to a flagrant-one a day later.

Bryant took the high road when asked about it post-game, while Kenyon Martin proudly (but not surprisingly) welcomed Jones to the "dirty player" club.

After LeBron James hit that magical shot to down Orlando in Game 2 on Friday, many wondered if Kobe Bryant might have noticed, and have something similarly special in store for us when his team hit the floor in Denver for Game 3 out west.

As it turns out, he did.

Bryant's thee-pointer with just over a minute to play gave his Lakers the lead for good, and he finished the Nuggets off at the free throw line by hitting five of six down the stretch to give L.A. the 103-97 victory.

Carmelo Anthony, who averaged 35 points over his last five playoff games, led the Nuggets with just 21.

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Cherry Picking recaps yesterday's NBA playoff action.

Three-point shots often play a critical role in an NBA playoff contest. But in Denver's win over the Lakers in Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals, the threes that were made (and missed) by both teams came at such key moments, that they ended up defining this game.

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FanHouse previews every round of the NBA Playoffs.

The Lakers took long enough, but they finally dispatched of the pesky Houston Rockets, and were able to advance to the Western Conference Finals. And now that they've gotten there, they'll face a team that has been patiently waiting for them over the last six days: the two-seeded Denver Nuggets.

Denver has arguably been every bit as hot in the post-season as the undefeated Cleveland Cavaliers. But their style of play is simply a bad matchup for this Lakers team.

If it's true the two most important positions in basketball are the point guard and the center, than the L.A. Lakers are going to be in for a doozy of a Western Conference final.

OK, so technically the Lakers haven't quite advanced that far yet. But after their 118-78 Game 5 blowout win over the Rockets, is it really going out on a limb to say L.A. is going to get there? Ditto for the Denver Nuggets, who lead the Mavericks 3-1 in the conference semifinals and have two cracks at putting them away on their home floor to close out the series.

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There really are no words to describe the Hornets' 58-point home loss on Monday, in what was unquestionably a must-win playoff game against the Nuggets. But embarrassing, humiliating, inexcusable, and unconscionable are all good places to start.

After trailing by 22 points at the break, there was no fight in New Orleans to start the third quarter, and they managed just 11 points in the period while Denver continued to play as if it were Game 7 of the Finals.

Part of the blame for the second half lack of effort falls on Byron Scott, but a more than equal share should also fall on the shoulders of Chris Paul. Either way, give Denver their due for providing teams with a blueprint for how to defend one of the league's best point guards.

Less than eight minutes into Saturday's Game 3, the Hornets were down 16 points to the Denver Nuggets. But thanks to a big-time effort by point guard Chris Paul, the Hornets overcame that deficit and ended up hanging on for a two-point win.

Conventional wisdom suggests the Hornets are right back in the series, now down just two games to one. But they've still got a lot of work to do and many obstacles and challenges to overcome.

In fact, the Nuggets still have plenty of reasons to be optimistic, while the Hornets' margin for error remains small. In short, the Hornets still have some problems ... and here are five of them:

NBA Guide gives you a daily look at all the games that matter ... and some that don't.

Houston at New Orleans, 8 PM ET

The Rockets visit Louisiana in a truly handsome match-up for fans of speedster point guards running slow-like-poison offenses. At some point in the near future, perhaps April or next Christmas, pockets of bastardly revolution calling for the ouster of Byron Scott in the name of a fully unleashed Chris Paul will sprout. I'd join, were I a revolutionary bastard. But I'm cool with the mundane Paul-to-Peja so long as cohabitation with Paul-to-Chandler is plausible.

A report from the US Airways Center in Phoenix, where the Timberwolves faced the Suns on January 16th.

Suns' head coach Terry Porter spent almost 20 minutes with the assembled media prior to Friday night's game against the Timberwolves, and with good reason. There was a lot to talk about, and it mostly had to do with his team coming off of a tough overtime loss the night before in Denver.

Porter felt that there should have been a foul called on the final play of regulation, one where Grant Hill went to the basket but was tripped by the Nuggets' Dahntay Jones. He admitted that his team sent tape of that play (and a few others) to the league for review, and talked about the Hill play in particular, before discussing whether or not instant replay in that situation might be something the league should consider.