FanHouse JR Smith

Home Delivery is your morning roundup of last night's action in the NBA from a fantasy perspective.

The first thing I thought of while watching the Warriors-Cavs game was: The Seven Samurai. And the tag-line for the film is nearly perfect -- "The Seven Warriors Who Became the Seven National Heroes of a Small Town." OK, so maybe we can take out "national heroes of a small town" and replace those words with "fantasy contributors for one evening."

Last night the Warriors went into Cleveland with just seven active players. Each, however, posted double-digit point totals, with Monta Ellis leading the way -- 23 points, eight assists, and three steals. Anthony Morrow looked pretty good himself, dropping 18 points and hitting four of his seven three-point attempts. All in all, you can't go wrong this week adding Morrow, Anthony Randolph, Stephen Curry or Corey Maggette. I'm still not sold on Mikki Moore or Vladimir Radmanovic, but I'm sure that will change over time.

The NBA has established itself as the most successful league to integrate itself with social media. The league itself is one of recognizable stars, so it only makes sense that these players further their personal brands through means like Twitter and... ahem... UStream. It's a great opportunity for players to connect with their fans in a meaningful way, on their own terms. As long as they use it responsibly and don't do anything to draw undo negative attention to themselves, it's nothing but a win-win.

In completely unrelated news, Michael Beasley did something that doesn't look too bright right now. Why, do you ask?

It's pretty much put up or shut up time for Denver Nuggets coach George Karl and his team. Karl has been saying much of this Western Conference finals series that he believes his team is better than the Lakers.

Point guard Chauncey Billups maintains the Nuggets have outplayed the Lakers for most of the series except for the closing-out of games part.

The Nuggets, however, are running out of time. They need two straight wins over the Lakers or little of what they say or believe will matter. Five questions heading into Game 6:

Despite suffering their worst loss of the postseason two days earlier in Denver, the Lakers re-asserted themselves as the best team in the West -- if not the entire league -- with a 103-94 win at home over the Nuggets. They now hold a commanding 3-2 lead in the series, needing just one more win over the next two games to return to the NBA Finals.

The Lakers have been maddeningly inconsistent the last several weeks, but Wednesday's win did preserve one positive streak: they've yet to lose consecutive games in the playoffs. Granted, they've yet to win consecutive games against the Nuggets, but the way the schedule works out, they don't need to.

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Three games into the Western Conference finals and we know a couple of things for certain:

One, that the Nuggets are giving the Lakers all they can handle; and, two, Lakers fans don't like it when you say their team feels like an underdog.

Here are five questions heading into tonight's Western Conference Game 4:

FanHouse previews every round of the NBA Playoffs.

Every team of the West has looked invisible next to the Lakers. But Denver and Dallas -- both of which dominated first-round opponents who ranked far more highly in preseason polls -- believe they can beat the Lakers. First, they have to get through each other. The series begins Sunday.

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.

Denver needed a win to clinch the Northwest title over Portland. Sacramento, fresh off a disappointing last-second loss to the Spurs, provided the muse. The Kings actually stuck around for three quarters and change. Then, J.R. Smith happened.

Smith scored 45 points, 23 of them in the fourth. In total, he shot 11-of-18 from 3-point range, blowing out the fire emanating from his hand by the end of the joint. In the last eight minutes of the game, Smith helped the Nuggets turn a six-point lead into a 20-point victory. The Northwest belongs to Denver.

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.

J.R. Smith took 14 field goal attempts for Denver last night. Thirteen of those came from behind the arc. He made eight, for a decent 57% shooting clip. But figure the three-pointer's bonus, and holy cow! that's 24 points on 14 shots. He added four FTs for a total of 28. Nuggets win, and remain in pole position for the No. 2 seed.

Deron Williams had 18/10 for the Jazz, and C.J. Miles had his best night in about six weeks with 19 points. It took Carlos Boozer 23 shots to get 15 points. That's a whole lotta misses.

The Nuggets tied up one loose end up re-signing restricted free agent J.R. Smith on Friday. This was expected, but after practically giving Marcus Camby away for free, it was hardly set in stone. GM Mark Warkenstein sounds pleased with his obligatory glowing soundbite:

"We're extremely delighted to have J.R. back," said Warkentien. "His blend of off-the-charts-athleticism and long-range shooting ability is rare, especially for someone his age. We believe his best basketball is still to come."

Did Smith get a good deal? Right now it's impossible to say. Like most teams, the Nuggets have refused to disclose any terms of the contract, not even the length, and no other outlet is filling in the blanks. (Update: The Denver Post reports it's a three-year deal.) But we do know this, courtesy of the Rocky Mountain News:

As of a month ago, Smith said he hasn't gotten an offer from the Nuggets, other than the option to return next season for the $3.04 million qualifying offer. He turned down a three-year extension offer in October worth about $10 million, and there have been no indications the Nuggets are willing to offer a lot more.

My guess? Smith signed for something close to $5 million a season for 2-3 years (Update: It's three years, $16.5 million, per ESPN's Marc Stein). He's only 22 years old, but I doubt he'd want to agree to a longer deal, especially considering the only thing stopping him from getting Ben Gordon money (ie, $10 million plus a year, which Ben Gordon may or may not even get) is minutes. Smith averaged 23.0 points per 36 minutes last year; Gordon, just 21.0. And considering Smith is three inches taller and just as dangerous in the lane as behind the three-point line, there's no question he has loads more long-term upside.

P.J. Brown is now a Celtic. P.J. Brown has also never won an NBA Championship. It stands to reason that he would like to win one, which also explains his recent decision to ink with Boston. Of course, it seemed at least reasonably likely that the Chicago Bulls would have a shot at the title, given all the young talent they had acquired. This, of course, was faulty logic, because between a mix of bad signings and the numbness in John Paxson's trigger finger, Chi-town has found themselves on the outside looking in of the contender circle. Brown may have more appropriate words for the team than any angry columnist or frustrated blogger ever could though.

The 15-year veteran has built a strong reputation as a consummate professional. So instead of going into detail about why he was unhappy last season in Chicago, he preferred to avoid the issue.

'I really don't have any comment on the Chicago Bulls,' he said.

See, if you're in a situation where a team hasn't let you down, but just fell short because of bad luck, yet everything, personnel-wise within the organization went well, then you drop something like "The Chicago Bulls are a great organization; I really enjoyed my time there, but now I'm a Celtic and looking forward to trying to win a championship for the great city of Boston." Or some run of the mill yada like that. Instead, Brown said nothing. And to me, it sounds like a really sarcastic nothing the kind meant to imply that if he had hung around Chicago any longer or kept being asked about it, he would probably have something less kind to say about the moves the team made (like dealing Tyson Chandler for P.J. himself and J.R. Smith). So, uh, reporters, keep asking.