FanHouse FlipMurray

Wally Szczerbiak would appear to be the top NBA free agent left standing. Then again, maybe not.

With the Denver Nuggets having lost out on free-agent shooting guard Flip Murray to the Charlotte Bobcats on Thursday, sources told FanHouse the Nuggets are now looking strongly at small forward Ime Udoka.

Meanwhile, Szczerbiak, who had been linked earlier in the summer to Denver, is still looking for a job.

"Yes, the economy has affected the market, there's no question about it,'' Szczerbiak said in an interview Thursday with FanHouse. "I just have to take my time.''

Free-agent swingman Keith Bogans will sign a one-year contract with the San Antonio Spurs, sources confirmed Monday to FanHouse.

Bogans, a solid defensive player, is being looked at as an heir apparent to Bruce Bowen, who retired recently after being San Antonio's perimeter defensive stopper throughout much of the decade. The Spurs had been grooming Ime Udoka for that role, but they are electing not to bring him back as a free agent after he played two seasons with the team.

Bogans, who will sign a guaranteed deal worth the minimum of $1.03 million, last season averaged 5.6 points for Orlando and Milwaukee. He has a 7.5 average over six seasons.

Perhaps inspired by watching a pair of road teams steal home court advantage on Monday, the Hawks came into Tuesday's game in Cleveland with no fear -- and for at least the first two quarters, the game looked like it'd probably go to whichever team got hot near the end.

Unfortunately for the Hawks, the first two quarters was all the time the Cavs needed to shake off nine days of rust, as Cleveland's modest five-point lead at halftime exploded into a 27-point lead by the final buzzer.

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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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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.

Everyone knows that Flip Murray exists only in flashes. Everyone talks about "streak shooters," but Flip is actually a "streak human." He'll go a good 10, 12 days not even in existence. And then poof! he's the leading scorer for a playoff team for a week.

Flip's alive right now, y'all, racking up 30 points and five assists in a romp over Minnesota Monday night. He's averaging 24 points over his last three games. The three games before that? 23 points ... total.

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.

The Hawks rode a sterling six-game win streak into Cleveland, hoping to add with a booster of confidence, provided (as expected) that the Hawks get a shot at the Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference second round this spring. Cleveland denies your request of a confidence booster, thankyouverymuch, next in line please.

LeBron James went with 22 points, seven rebounds, five assists, three steals and one block. Mo Williams picked the 24 points, seven assists route instead. Flip Murray (22 points off the bench) called a band meeting, but only Joe Johnson (24 points) showed up.

In the Guide today, Ziller noted that the Hawks feature a pretty fierce starting five all of a sudden. The Nuggets' response after tonight's 109-91 Hawks win would probably be something like "Thanks for the update, there, Wild Zill. Any other breaking news you want to clue us into while we wipe the treadmarks off our baby blues?"

The Hawks took on a surging Nuggets squad and after trying to stave them off for a while, finally decided it would be better to simply knock them out and leave them for dead. The Hawks took the lead for good early in the second half on the way to a 55-38 advantage in the final two periods.

Perhaps most impressive was the fact that Josh Smith continues to struggle for the Hawks, scoring only 10 points on 3-8 shooting and the Hawks offense still fired on all cylinders. Of course, Smith's eight rebounds, six assists, 2 blocks and a steal were very reminiscent of... um... Josh Smith. And who needs Smith's points when you have Mike Bibby continuing the Bibbissance shooting 70% from the field and adding 20 points and Al Horford doing the dirty work on his way to 16 and 10.

And that perimeter shooter the Hawks have needed to round out the offense? How about Flip Murray hitting 3 of 4 from the arc off the bench? The Hawks seem to have an answer for the critics this year as opposed to just replying "But we're really athletic!" like in years past.

Earlier this week we heard news out of Atlanta that Josh Smith was throwing things around after being called out by Mike Woodson in practice. Is Woodson already losing his best player before the season starts? Hardly. Smith told reporters the next day that his reaction was orchestrated to get a rise out of everyone.

Practical joke or not, it seems he took the message to heart: he scored the first bucket last night on an alley-oop just seconds after the Hawks won the tip, and he immediately came through on the other end with a block. After the game, I spoke to him about the heightened expectations that come with signing a big contract.

Matt Watson: In the first 30 seconds you came through with an alley-oop and a block. Were you trying to come out and make a statement, or did it just work out that way?

Josh Smith: The lob worked out that way, but I definitely wanted to bring more energy. I know when I create energy from the beginning of the game that it carries on to my teammates. You know, we sat down and had a talk about what [coach Woodson] wanted me to do and I let him know that I was frustrated, because I felt like I was letting my teammates down. I understand that its preseason, but it definitely carries over to the regular season. And I wanted to come out here with great intensity -- you [saw] in the first couple of quarters that it carried on that everybody was active on the defensive end. We looked more active than we did throughout the whole preseason in this one game.

Thanks to the good folks in the Phoenix Suns' communications department, I was courtside for the team's pre-season opener against the Hawks. Being the first game of the pre-season, it was mostly just local media in attendance, who apparently had no interest in Hawks' coach Mike Woodson's post-game remarks. When he came out of the locker room, it was just me, esteemed writer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Sekou Smith, and a media rep for the Suns that were waiting for him. Needless to say, it was the perfect opportunity to ask the coach a few questions about the game (and frankly, it would have been weird if I didn't.) Here are coach Woodson's (very brief) post-game comments:

Brett Edwards: You left Marvin [Williams] out there longer than usual, were you just trying to get him more work?

Mike Woodson: I was trying to get him more work, and I knew I wasn't going to play Joe [Johnson] and [Mike] Bibby many minutes, so, you gotta have one of those guys on the floor, Marvin, or Josh Smith to go along with the new guys. But Mo [Maurice Evans], Mo would have taken up seven or eight minute that Marvin got coming down the stretch probably, if he hadn't gotten hurt.

BE: What happened to Mo?

MW: He got an elbow (points to above his eye), he needed to get some stitches.

BE: The first half it seemed like you guys took a lot of outside shots, which maybe lead to the low field goal percentage?

MW: Which I don't like.

BE: Yeah, did you talk to them about that at halftime?

Rasheed Wallace is a funny guy. From Krista Jahnke of the Detroit Free Press:

Just a funny thing to note about the Pistons pregame introduction. Next time, watch Rasheed Wallace. After they call his name and he gives his love to the crowd, he turns, high-fives a few of his teammates and then chest-bumps the air. Why? Because that's where Ronald "Flip" Murray used to be. He's chest-bumping an invisible Flip Murray.

Murray, of course, spent a season and a half with the Pistons before being released in February and finishing out the season with the Pacers. I never realized Wallace and Murray were so tight, but perhaps he's just a man who loves his routine. Ray Allen could appreciate that.

Other Sheed hi-jinks from last night's win over the Celtics include playfully putting James Posey in a choke-hold in the first half and singing along to the in-arena music by belting out "Paradise City" lyrics moments before in-bounding the ball on one of the last plays of the game. On a less funny note, he also picked up his fifth technical foul of the offseason, which means that he's two away from a mandatory one-game suspension.

Had the Pistons lost, he'd be chastised for "not being focused." Instead, we'll laud him for "staying loose." But really, he's the lone constant -- the only thing that ever changes is how we all perceive him.