FanHouse DwyaneWade

LeBron James was named the NBA MVP Monday afternoon. This is, of course, not a tremendous shock.

Game 7 of the Heat-Hawks series on Sunday may determine more than just who advances to the second round of the NBA playoffs.

It could influence the even-more-important free agency thinking of Dwyane Wade.

There were times through the first six games of the series -- and times throughout this regular season -- when Wade must have wondered how much easier basketball could be if he had a co-star.

The issue is still out there. And don't discount how the outcome of Game 7 could affect him.

This One Man Show is getting a little old.

Radio announcers for the home team are supposed to be homers, but Hawks announcer Steve Holman stooped to a new low earlier this week with his over the top calls from Game 5, from sarcastically chiding Dwyane Wade for getting hurt early in the game to blowing out of proportion routine fouls.

On the eve of Game 6, Holman's comments have created a minor furor in South Beach, even as both though the league and the Hawks have (indirectly) admitted that Holman was full of hot air.

MIAMI -- There were apologies, no I-shouldn't-have-done it tone in his voice Friday morning when Hawks forward Josh Smith was asked again about his late-game showboating Wednesday that clearly riled the Miami Heat. In a series that has grown both increasingly physical and combative, Smith was happy to fuel the fire before Game 6 begins Friday night.

Smith used Atlanta's lopsided Game 5 victory and a breakaway layup to demonstrate his crowd-pleasing, between-the-legs dunk in front of the Heat bench with just under four minutes remaining. Smith missed the dunk, disappointing the Atlanta crowd and ticking off the beaten-down Heat players. And their memories are good.

Miami's Dwyane Wade called it, "very insulting.'' Smith said Friday he didn't care what Wade thinks.

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C'mon, man. Quit complaining about the refs.

Here we are, smack dab in the middle of the playoffs and instead of talking about Carmelo Anthony breaking through to the second round or the demise of the San Antonio Spurs, we're talking about officiating.

Hard foul here, flagrant foul there. That one is and that one isn't.

Should Rajon Rondo's last-second clubbing of Brad Miller have been a flagrant? Why was Dwyane Wade's virtually clean block on Maurice Evans' dunk attempt called a flagrant 1? Should Dwight Howard really have been suspended a game for his elbow on Samuel Dalembert?

Cherry Picking recaps the previous day's NBA playoff action.

There's no disputing the importance of Chauncey Billups on the Nuggets -- he revitalized a team many had left for dead after the front office literally gave away Marcus Camby, and his leadership and championship experience helped convince a team of gunslingers to finally accept the challenge of being a respectable defensive team.

That said, after playing a starring role for much of the first-round matchup against the Hornets, it was nice to see Billups take a backseat to Carmelo Anthony, who scored a playoff career-high 34 points, in Wednesday's series-clinching win. Anthony has been the target of undue criticism the last few years for his team's playoff struggles, so the fact that he was able to step up and perform so well when the stakes were at their highest is a nice chance at vindication.

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The Miami Heat made it official on Wednesday. They're the worst team remaining in the NBA playoffs. That's just one conclusion you can draw after Atlanta won Game 5 over Miami 106-91 to go up 3-2 in the series.

How can the Heat be anything other than the worst team remaining when they came into the playoffs as an underdog and, now, Dwyane Wade is not 100 percent? Hey, it's just another way of saying that coach Erik Spoelstra is doing a great coaching job.

Miami was down 23 points at halftime, and the only reason to watch the remaining 24 was to find out who was going to commit the next hard foul and who was going to be on the receiving end of it.

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During Miami's Game 4 home loss to Atlanta, Dwyane Wade was clearly not himself. He was a Kobe-esque 9-of-26 from the field, but his poor shooting wasn't due to the opponent's defense, or playing on the road in one of the toughest gyms in the league.

Wade's problems were due to injury.

It's trophy time in the NBA, and the FanHouse crew has submitted its ballots. Find out which players deserve to take home the hardware and which ones don't, in our NBA Awards series.

Last season, the MVP was a hotly contested two-man race between Kobe Bryant and Chris Paul. People took sides, and seemed to be willing to battle to the death in support of their candidate. This season, however, there's no such drama. One man has flexed his muscle more than the rest all season long, and he's expected to take home the hardware in a landslide.

NBA Playoff 4-5 matchups are often the best of the first round. Usually the two teams are within a few wins of each other. They're not a level of David and Goliath, and both teams are usually mortal enough to make it interesting. Such is the case with tonight's matchup of the Atlanta Hawks and the Miami Heat. As such, we're rocking the live blog action again tonight. Join us after the end of Orlando-Philadelphia for Hawks-Heat. Joe Johnson. Dwyane Wade. Make this happen.

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