If the Trail Blazers demonstrated anything this season, it’s that they’re not about to let a little challenge throw them off.
Portland has become adept at surpassing expectations. But the ultimate test of the team’s resolve will come Thursday night, when the Trail Blazers face elimination trailing 3-2 in their first-round playoff series against the Dallas Mavericks.
“When you get in these loser-out games, sometimes everybody tries to do it all, and then you get out of character,” guard Brandon Roy said on Wednesday. “So the biggest thing tomorrow is that we stay in character and don’t panic if they get up two points or we’re up two. We need to play within our game plan like we’ve done all season, and we can beat this team.”
Perhaps nothing demonstrates the Blazers’ ability to deal with adversity more than their last win in the series. Down 67-44 in the third quarter, Roy led his team on a stunning comeback for an 84-82 Game 4 victory on Saturday.
Roy, a three-time All-Star who had been troubled by his knees all season and came on as a reserve, finished with 24 points — 18 in the fourth quarter.
For Roy, there was satisfaction in the performance given what he had gone through.
In early December, it became apparent that something was amiss for Roy, the face of the franchise. It was later learned that the cartilage in both of his knees was so depleted that he was nearly playing bone-on-bone.
While the condition is something that will likely dog him for the rest of his career, Roy opted to have arthroscopic surgery on both knees in January. All told, he missed 35 regular-season games.
When Roy returned from surgery, LaMarcus Aldridge had taken over as the team’s top playmaker, and second-year guard Wesley Matthews had taken his spot in the starting rotation. Roy’s minutes were tightly controlled off the bench.
As they had with other key injuries — most notably to centers Greg Oden and Marcus Camby — the Blazers picked themselves up and moved on. They made the necessarily adjustments, and helped themselves by adding forward Gerald Wallace from Charlotte at the trade deadline, to wind up the sixth seed in the Western Conference.
Dallas, the third seed, took control of the series with a 93-82 victory at American Airlines Center on Monday night in Game 5. The Mavs caught the Blazers off guard with the emergence of Tyson Chandler and by going to the zone.
While the Mavericks have seen the steady play of Dirk Nowitzki all series long, they’ve also managed to compliment him with a different player each game, ranging from Jason Kidd to Peja Stojakovic and Jason Terry, and finally Chandler, who had 14 points and 20 rebounds in Game 5.
The Mavericks are hoping to overcome their recent history of wilting in the playoffs.
Since the start of the 2006 NBA Finals — which the Mavs lost in seven games to Miami after taking a 2-0 series lead — Dallas has gone just 2-18 on the road in the postseason.
Dallas has been eliminated in the first round in three of the past four seasons.
“We know what we gotta do. We’re a veteran team. If we don’t have to play a Game 7, then we don’t want to play a Game 7,” forward Shawn Marion said. “That’s our mentality and that’s what we gotta do.”
The Blazers must improve in several areas — and quick. They’ve been unable to deal effectively with the Mavs’ pick-and-roll. They’ve sent Nowitzki to the free throw line too often. And, aside from Roy’s big breakout, they’ve seen too little noise from their own bench.
Portland has never overcome a 3-2 deficit to win a playoff series, and the team has been unable to get beyond the first round for the previous two seasons.
But they certainly have home court advantage.
The Trail Blazers have won each time the Mavs have visited their building this season, twice in the regular season and twice so far in the playoffs.
Portland has won 12 of its last 13 at the Rose Garden. Overall against the Mavericks, the Blazers are 46-18 all-time in Portland, and 8-1 in playoff games.
It’s likely that all eyes Thursday will be on Roy, and whether he can stage another comeback — this time not just to win a game, but to save a series.
“I don’t think it’s any secret that I’ve got to play well. And not only play well, I’ve got to be more aggressive,” Roy said. “When I’m more aggressive it puts pressure on Dallas’ defense to game plan and figure out how to stop me, and then I think it give other guys easier shots.
“My goal tomorrow is to go all-out and be as aggressive as I can.”
Other Thursday Games
Hawks still control their own destiny vs Magic
ATLANTA (AP) — There’s a sign on the wall leading into the Atlanta Hawks’ locker room that says: “We Control Our Own Destiny.”
Indeed, even after a humiliating loss in Orlando, the Hawks remain in control of their playoff destiny against the Magic. They’re still leading the series. They’re still one win away from finishing off the Magic.
Best of all, they’re back at home for Game 6.
“We are still in a great position,” coach Larry Drew said Wednesday after a lengthy film session with his assistants, breaking down a 101-76 rout by the Magic the night before. “We’ve put the ball back in our court, with the possibility to close it out at home. That’s what we plan to do.”
The Hawks won Game 1 in Orlando to steal home-court advantage, and protected that edge with two close wins at home. They had hoped to close out the series on the road, but the Magic were having none of that.
Changing up his game plan, coach Stan Van Gundy ran less of the offense through Dwight Howard, who averaged more than 32 points over the first four games but got little help from his teammates. Running the Hawks ragged with one pick-and-roll after another, Orlando got strong games out of Jason Richardson (17 points) and backup guard J.J. Redick (14 points).
Howard played less than 30 minutes, made only one shot from the field and finished with a mere eight points and eight rebounds. Even so, the Magic dominated from the opening tip, racing out to a 23-point lead by halftime.
“I don’t think it can be one or two guys. Those first four games, it was basically just Dwight carrying us,” Van Gundy said. “We need more people involved. We need to have a lot of people play well.”
Just as Drew is stressing to his team that they still lead the series, Van Gundy wants his team to continue playing with the desperation of a squad that’s facing another one-and-done scenario.
“Our energy and effort has to be at least what it was (in Game 5), if not better,” he said. “My main message was, we’re still behind. My analogy today was it’s like a game when you’re down 25 and then you make a run to get it back to 10. You feel good that you’re playing better, but you can’t celebrate because you’re still down 10 and you’ve got a long way to go before you actually win it.”
After the game, the first thing Van Gundy wrote on the board was: “3-2, we’re still behind.”
“All we did was cut into the lead a little bit,” he said. “We’re still getting our butts kicked. And that’s got to be the attitude.”
The Hawks shot just 36 percent (25 of 89) in their worst performance of the series. Josh Smith was the only starter in double figures with 22 points.
Drew said no one — not even Smith — played up to an acceptable standard.
“I didn’t see the effort I saw in games 3 and 4,” the coach said. “There was a very glaring difference in our effort on both ends of the floor. We watched it some with the players, so they can see. The bottom line is, this is playoff basketball. This is the time where every possession counts. We played against a team that had their back against the wall, and we didn’t respond to their intensity. That was very glaring.”
The Hawks expect Van Gundy to keep calling the same style of offense that worked so well in Game 5, so they’ll have to work even harder to fight through screens and cut down on the open looks the Magic get from beyond the 3-point stripe. They made 11 of 26 on Tuesday night, quite an improvement on their dismal 2-of-23 showing the previous game.
“It kind of threw us off,” Smith said. “The first four games, they were predictable. In Game 5, they ran so much pick-and-roll it was kind of hard to defend with the different coverages we had. It’s nothing but a chess match. I know we’re going to come up with a different scheme, and hopefully it works for us.”
One thing the Hawks don’t want to do is return to Orlando for a decisive game.
“This is pretty much our best chance,” forward Marvin Williams said. “It would be tough to go back down there and steal a win in Game 7.
Looking for any motivational edge they can get, the Hawks ran off copies of a newspaper article written by an Orlando columnist, who called the Hawks “birdbrains” and guaranteed the Magic would rally to win the series after losing Game 1 at home and falling behind 3-1.
Each Atlanta player got a copy in his locker.
“That wasn’t my idea,” Drew insisted. “But I heard the article got passed around. Certainly, you can always use some bulletin-board material. But at this stage of the game, its just about us coming out and being ready to do battle.”
– Paul Newberry
Hornets’ Paul undaunted by prospect of elimination
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Two transcendent playoff performances by Chris Paul made the Hornets’ first-round series with Los Angeles far more interesting than the defending champion Lakers would have preferred.
The question now is whether the Hornets’ four-time All-Star can summon another big game back in the Big Easy on Thursday night.
At the very least, Paul welcomes the pressure that comes with a game in which a loss ends the season for his team.
“This is all or nothing for us,” Paul said. “I can’t wait.”
When Paul has been sensational — with his 33-point, 14 assist performance in Game 1 and his triple-double in Game 4 — the Hornets have pulled out a pair of hard fought victories. In the series’ other three games, when Paul has still been exceptional, but short of dominant, the Lakers have won — including twice by double digits.
Now ahead 3-2 in the series, Los Angeles needs only one more win to dispatch pesky New Orleans. If the Lakers own key statistical categories as thoroughly as they did in their 106-90 Game 5 triumph on Tuesday night, the series isn’t likely to make it back to the West Coast for Game 7.
The Lakers restored their dominance inside, outrebounding the Hornets 42-25, which included a 15-3 advantage in offensive rebounds. That led to a whopping 22-2 advantage in second-chance points. Los Angeles also outscored the Hornets 42-30 in the paint.
“We should be able to play like that all the time,” Lakers forward Pau Gasol said. “We needed to play physical and control the boards, and use our bodies. … Our energy was good, and that’s why we won the way we won.”
The Hornets never looked more outmatched in the series, but if that result shook their confidence, they’re not letting it show.
“The great thing about it is now we get to go back to our home court with our fans behind us, and we have to bring the energy,” Paul said. “It’s the elimination game now. We can’t leave anything out there.”
Paul has said throughout his career that he never wants to come out and would gladly play 48 minutes if coaches would let him. Such an approach might have served the Hornets well in Game 5.
The Hornets led by nine when Paul went to the bench to rest in the beginning of the second quarter. The Lakers immediately went on a 10-0 run and the momentum seemed to change for good.
Hornets coach Monty Williams said Paul’s teammates could have helped him by showing more toughness on defense and fouling hard, the way Lakers star Kobe Bryant did when he thwarted a layup attempt by Emeka Okafor with a forearm across the Hornets center’s head.
“At some point, you have to know how to make a playoff foul,” Williams said. The coach then referred to the lack of resistance Bryant met on his thunderous driving dunk in the second quarter, which seemed to energize his team. “We have to learn how to not allow him to get that play off.”
Williams believes the Lakers have been allowed to get away with too much banging inside. He even made a formal protest to the NBA about it after Game 3.
Lakers coach Phil Jackson didn’t seem quite sure what to make of his team being portrayed as the one that hits hardest.
“It was pretty interesting. We’re not usually known for that,” Jackson said. “We’re known as being soft, but sometimes desperation can activate” toughness.
Jackson added that he fully expected the Hornets to respond to their coach’s call for more aggression.
“The game will be feisty, no doubt about it,” Jackson said. “The team that beats the other team to loose balls is going to win the game.”
Bryant, meanwhile, continues to receive treatment for an injury to his left ankle and foot that occurred late in the Hornets Game 4 win. Of course, the Hornets realized by the second quarter of Game 5 that they better not count on the injury slowing the Lakers’ superstar down. Although he played less than 29 minutes in Game 5, he was 8 of 13 shooting for 19 points and showed little lack of explosion on a pair of soaring one-handed jams.
Jackson said Bryant was sore on Wednesday, but added that he did not expect to limit Bryant’s playing time at all on Thursday night.
“This is a game in which we go all-out to win,” Jackson said. “If it’s 40 minutes, we will” play Bryant that long.
– Brett Martel
Conference Semifinals
Celtics practice without knowing next opponent
WALTHAM, Mass. (AP) — The Boston Celtics weren’t fooled when they swept their playoff series. They knew they still had plenty of improvements to make.
Fortunately, they have time — and lots of it.
So it was back to basics, to some extent, when they practiced Wednesday after two days off and before that night’s game in which a Miami win over the Philadelphia 76ers would move the Heat into Round 2 against the Celtics.
While waiting, coach Doc Rivers’ team focused on itself.
“We get a chance to work on our stuff, very similar to training camp,” he said. “When you start in camp, you really don’t have an opponent. You’re really just trying to work on all your stuff and we have an opportunity to do that, with rest. So, that’s good.”
The Celtics finished off the Knicks in four games, concluding with a 101-89 win in New York last Sunday. But they needed last-minute baskets to win each of the first two games and let a 23-point lead shrink to four in the fourth quarter of the finale.
The second unit struggled early in the series, then showed improvement. There were other positive signs.
“It’s great to see us play that well on the road,” Rivers said. “Game 3 was terrific. Game 4 we started out great and then kind of let up a little bit, in my opinion, and it was great to see us gather ourselves on the road with a team that cut it to four. So, those are good signs.”
But the Knicks missed two of their best three players for much of the series. Chauncey Billups sat out the last three games with a strained tendon in his left knee and Amare Stoudemire was limited by a pulled back muscle in those games.
“As much as we won four in a row, it’s still a grind,” Ray Allen said.
Celtics center Shaquille O’Neal won’t practice until Saturday, at the earliest, Rivers said. He has played just 5 minutes, 29 seconds since Feb. 1 because of right leg problems that kept him out of the first round.
The Heat’s Big Three are healthy. And Rivers expected to face LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh — not the 76ers — in the next round.
“Clearly, you look in that direction,” Rivers said with the Heat holding a 3-1 lead before Wednesday’s game, “but you do prep work for both. But, really, for us … we just have to get to doing our defense better.”
The earliest the next series can start is Sunday. So even though Rivers gave his players two days off, several gathered together to work out and play 3-on-3 games.
“Obviously, you watch the games and you’d like to be out there playing,” Allen said, “but it’s something else to have rest this time of year. I don’t think anybody’s tired. It’s just always good to have rest.”
The Celtics allowed the fewest points this season, but Rivers issues repeated reminders that good offense starts with stingy defense that allows his team to run, with speedy Rajon Rondo leading the charge.
Against the Knicks, Rondo regained his attacking style that was lacking late in the season. He averaged 19 points, 12 assists and 7.3 rebounds, second only to Kevin Garnett’s 11.3.
The long layoff gives players acquired in late February a chance to fit better into the flow. Rivers simplified the plays to get them more involved and singled out Jeff Green as one who has showed progress.
“We’re just trying to build a rhythm for ourselves,” said Glen Davis, who finished fourth in this season’s Sixth Man voting. “You aren’t always going to be able to score points. You just have got to play defense, play hard.”
That’s what Jermaine O’Neal has done.
He underwent knee surgery and played just 24 regular-season games. But he was back for seven of the last nine. In the playoffs, he started at center and blocked 10 shots in four games.
“I feel really good defensively,” he said. “Offensively, I think my comfort zone with being out there with the guys and taking shots and getting an opportunity I think that’s coming around, too. … I feel like I still can build off where I left off in the New York series.”
Rivers hopes the entire team can. But he sees the playoff field as a wide-open race to the title.
“I’ve been saying it all year,” he said, “but, fortunately, we’re in the field.”
– Howard Ulman
For Bulls, focus turns toward Eastern semifinals
CHICAGO (AP) — Relax, Chicago. Derrick Rose and the rest of the Bulls are breathing a little easier. They cleared one big hurdle, and now, they’re staring at another one.
That would be Atlanta or Orlando in the Eastern Conference semifinals, after the Bulls disposed of Indiana in a tough first-round series. It’s the next step in what they hope will be a long playoff run after a dominant regular season.
The opening round certainly wasn’t easy. The Pacers hung in until about midway through the third quarter of Game 5 Tuesday, when the Bulls broke open a tight game and rolled over Indiana 116-89 in what turned into the first blowout of the series.
“It’s really good for us to end this series like this,” Luol Deng said. “We didn’t really want another close game. In the locker room, we know it’s not how you play, it’s whether you win the game. We have adjustments to make.”
The Bulls made major adjustments to get to this point, undergoing a massive overhaul a year ago following back-to-back first-round playoff exits.
With new coach Tom Thibodeau, a rebuilt roster and Rose’s emergence as an MVP candidate, the Bulls stormed to a league-best 62-20 record, matching their best record since the 1997-98 championship season.
Now, they’ve advanced past the first round for only the second time since Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen’s second three-peat.
“Last year, we were just saying, ‘How are we going to win this game? Do we have a chance?’” Rose said. “We really didn’t have a chance. This year, we have a chance to win almost every game that we go in.”
Many figured the Bulls would roll through the Pacers. Instead, they got all they could handle, pulling out the first three games by a total of 15 points and seeing a furious rally at the end of Game 4 fall just short.
Now, they’re taking a breather after getting pushed by the Pacers, with no practice scheduled for Wednesday or Thursday.
For all the angst over the slow starts, the turnovers, the physical play and Rose’s sprained left ankle, this is exactly where the Bulls thought they would be — even if getting there was a little tougher than expected.
The Pacers fouled hard. Their big guards gave Rose trouble, trapping him and throwing the offense out of sync. His ankle injury in Game 4 only added to the angst. So did Carlos Boozer’s struggles, and if there’s a concern going forward, that’s a big one.
As if he wasn’t having a tough enough time in the playoffs, another issue surfaced in Game 5 — turf toe. Boozer heard a pop in his right foot when he scored his lone basket in the second quarter and finished with just two points on 1-of-5 shooting. He also ran into foul trouble again, picking up two quick fouls in the first quarter and his fourth in the third. That gave him 19 in the series, and he sat out the final 18 minutes, 17 seconds.
“We have to try to figure out how we can keep him out of foul trouble,” Thibodeau said. “It’s hard to get into a rhythm when you’re picking up two quick fouls like he is right now.”
The Bulls’ big offseason acquisition, Boozer has been out of sync ever since missing five games in March with a sprained left ankle. In his final 14 regular-season games, he hit the 20-point mark just three times and finished with 14 or fewer eight times.
He went from scoring 17.3 points per game in the regular season to 10.0 against the Pacers, and his shooting dropped from 51 percent to 35.8.
Every game in the opening round was a struggle for Boozer except the second, when he delivered 17 points and 16 rebounds. He had 12 points in the opener and four in Game 3, and even when he scored 15 in Game 4, he hit just 6 of 15 shots.
The fouls certainly aren’t helping the cause. It’s hard to find a rhythm sitting on the sideline, and even if he’s not shooting well, he still draws attention from opponents and takes some of the load off his teammates.
“Whoever we play next, I assure you they’re going to plan a lot to stop Carlos,” Deng said. “Carlos is one of the best low-post scorers in this league.”
And he figures it’ll be a different story for Boozer in the conference semifinals.
“Carlos will get going,” Deng said. “If you look at the games, Carlos is rebounding the ball great for us. Every series is going to be different. Carlos is always working hard. He’s always in there early. His rhythm will come. This series, Indiana did a good job sometimes taking his rhythm away, but this is over with. We’ve got to get ready for how we’re going to get him more involved early and get ready for the next series.”
– Andrew Seligman
Other NBA Capsules
Pacers hopeful after reaching playoffs
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The season-ending disappointment for the Indiana Pacers is different this year. The previous four years ended the same way: the Pacers missed the playoffs, and the immediate future was dim because the franchise was handcuffed financially.
This season, Pacers finally had a breakthrough. With one of the league’s youngest starting fives, Indiana made the playoffs for the first time since 2006 and tested the top-seeded Chicago Bulls before dropping the first-round series 4-1.
“I feel terrible right now,” Pacers forward Danny Granger said after his team’s 116-89 loss in Game 5.
This time, the feeling wasn’t about an unpleasant locker room atmosphere, an underachieving roster, another off-the-court disaster or any of the other problems that plagued the franchise the past five years.
It was about an opportunity lost. The first four games were decided by six points or fewer, and the Pacers won Game 4 at home, spoiling the Bulls’ bid for a sweep.
“We let games get away,” Granger said. “It’s a learning experience.”
The Pacers were within four points in the third quarter of Game 5 before Chicago’s Derrick Rose scored 10 points in the final six minutes of the period to put them away.
“It was the time where you’re going to make it or break it,” Pacers guard Paul George said. “They were hitting their shots and they rose their intensity.”
The Pacers made up for their lack of playoff experience with intensity and confidence.
“Our young guys have a lot of guts,” Pacers interim coach Frank Vogel said after Game 3. “It’s very, very encouraging to the future of this franchise to see these guys compete like they’re competing when it’s on the line.”
Along the way, the Pacers earned Chicago’s respect.
“They didn’t play us like an eighth seed,” Chicago guard Keith Bogans said. “It was toe to toe.”
The franchise still has to figure out if Vogel will get his interim tag removed, and team president Larry Bird is in the final year of his contract. But the Pacers enter the offseason with young talent, playoff experience and significant salary cap space.
Granger, at age 28, is the elder statesman among the starters. Center Roy Hibbert just finished his third year, point guard Darren Collison and power forward Tyler Hansbrough were second-year players, and George was a rookie. All five are under contract for next season.
Vogel took over for Jim O’Brien at midseason, and the 37-year-old guided the team to a 20-18 record and a spot in the postseason. The team got off to a 7-3 start under him before the All-Star break, hit a skid, then closed the regular season by winning 10 of 15 games.
Granger was steady again. He led the team with 20.5 points per game and added 5.4 rebounds per contest. He bumped his scoring average up to 21.6 points per game in the playoffs.
Collison was the key offseason acquisition. The ultra-quick court general finished second on the team with 13.2 points per game and led the way with 5.1 assists per contest. He played his best basketball of the season early in the series against Chicago before going down with an ankle injury.
Hibbert had his moments early in the season, but he fell out of favor with O’Brien. He was revived under Vogel and averaged 15.3 points in February as the new coach tried to restore his confidence and establish him as an offensive centerpiece. He finished the season averaging 12.7 points and a team-best 7.5 rebounds.
Hansbrough was basically a rookie after missing much of last season with health problems. He coulnd’t crack O’Brien’s rotation, but Vogel gave him a chance and he responded.
George broke into the starting lineup late in the season under Vogel. The team’s first-round pick in 2010 added length, athletic ability and some scoring punch to the team.
“He can be great,” Vogel said. “He’s a special talent. When he puts it all together, it’s going to be impressive.”
Brandon Rush led the team by shooting 42 percent from 3-point range. Dahntay Jones returned to the rotation under Vogel and played solid defense against Rose in the playoffs.
Mike Dunleavy, Jeff Foster, T.J. Ford and Josh McRoberts are the key free agents.
Foster was the team’s No. 2 rebounder this season. The 34-year old has spent his entire 12-year career with the Pacers, and proved his value in the playoffs with physical play that made him a target for booing Bulls fans. McRoberts opened the season as the starting power forward, but eventually lost that spot to Hansbrough. His high-flying dunks made the Indiana native a crowd favorite.
Now the Pacers finally have tangible success to carry into the offseason.
“Hopefully we’ll take this into next season and build on it and be in the playoffs next season,” Granger said.
– Cliff Brunt
Warriors promise change, cut ties with coach Smart
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — This was one shot Keith Smart couldn’t make. Maybe nobody could.
The Golden State Warriors parted ways with their head coach Wednesday, the first major fallout this offseason from a new ownership group that has promised sweeping changes to the perennial underachieving franchise.
Smart, the Indiana guard best known for hitting “The Shot” against Syracuse that won the Hoosiers the 1987 NCAA title, spent seven years as an assistant with Golden State before he replaced Don Nelson just before training camp. The Warriors went 36-46 under Smart, a 10-game improvement from the previous season but clearly not enough to appease owners Joe Lacob and Peter Guber.
Only a rare playoff appearance was likely to save Smart’s job.
“I wouldn’t say it was impossible,” Warriors general manager Larry Riley said of Smart’s challenge. “But it was difficult. We all know that.”
The new brass managed to hastily put Smart in place even before the NBA officially approved the sale of the Warriors last year for a record $450 million from longtime owner Chris Cohan. Smart was only given a one-year contract with a team option for next season, and he was often labeled a fill-in candidate charged with overseeing the transition.
The coach met with Lacob and the basketball operations staff in the morning and was told he wouldn’t be retained.
“It’s a very complex decision and not an easy thing to do. No one likes to make changes that affect someone’s life,” Lacob said a few hours later, speaking before the unveiling of a refurbished court bearing his name at Haight Elementary School in nearby Alameda. “It’s something we felt that we really had to do. We really want to strive to be a great team and we felt that we could improve ourselves.”
The new owners have vowed to restore the franchise to past glory with splashy signings and playoff performances. The Warriors have made the postseason just once since 1994; yet fans in the basketball-crazy Bay Area remain some of the most loyal and vocal in a market saturated with sports teams.
Golden State already had decided to keep Riley as GM. The team also hired longtime NBA agent Bob Myers a few weeks ago to be the assistant general manager and Riley’s eventual successor. The new coach will decide whether to keep the assistants on staff.
Lacob said Riley and his staff will make the choice on a new coach, with his input. While Lacob would prefer someone with previous NBA head coaching experience, that won’t be a requirement. He declined to say whether the Warriors are interested in former Utah Jazz coach Jerry Sloan or NBA analyst and former Knicks and Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy — two names who have surfaced already.
Others sure to receive attention include former Cleveland Cavaliers coach Mike Brown and Lawrence Frank, the one-time New Jersey Nets coach who’s now the top assistant with the Boston Celtics — where Lacob previously held a small stake in the team.
Lacob would like to move swiftly in finding a new coach and acknowledged the front office has a short list of potential candidates.
“We’re going to look for someone with, certainly, experience, someone with a lot of great ability to relate to players,” Lacob said. “We’re going to look at a number of people and try to make the best choice we can to be the best we can.”
Smart had little time to deliver them a winner.
He declared from the moment he began that he would put his own stamp on the bench no matter how long his tenure lasted. He walked around the locker room before training camp asking for a handshake from each player, signaling a pact that they would allow Smart to coach them and be involved in their lives.
In the end, all those efforts weren’t enough.
Smart was still left with the same pitfall as so many of his predecessors: working with a flawed roster that, even at its best, was no playoff contender in the deep Western Conference. Smart juggled the undersized guard combo of Monta Ellis and Stephen Curry with mixed results, and the lack of a true inside presence again left the Warriors exposed.
“At some level, and certainly I know some people will say this that he deserved another year, that he didn’t have a full roster, and there’s some truth to that,” Lacob said. “But we felt that we could be better. I think to some extent ownership wanted more so to have their guy in.”
Smart often took a hardline approach with Curry, even benching the second-year starting point guard late in a few games. Their relationship was never perfect, but Smart was still well liked by players — including Curry — and front-office members until the end.
The 46-year-old Smart kept the run-and-fun offense Nelson once perfected, leading to some dazzling outputs and upsets, including a three-game winning streak in April over the Los Angeles Lakers, Dallas and Portland. But the defensive effort was never there, and a six-game losing streak in late March that knocked the Warriors out of postseason contention spelled the end of Smart’s tenure.
“It’s difficult because of the personality of a guy like Keith Smart, the quality of the individual that he was and the fact that he’s totally professional,” Riley said. “In that regard, there’s some difficulty associated with it. The other side of it is we’re making a decision to move forward.”
– Antonio Gonzalez
Knicks bringing back Billups for next season
NEW YORK (AP) — The New York Knicks are bringing Chauncey Billups back for next season.
The Knicks announced Wednesday that they are keeping the veteran point guard, deciding his leadership outweighs the savings they would have earned by waiving him this week.
The Knicks would have been obligated to pay Billups only $3.7 million if they cut him within five days after the season. Instead, he will be on the books for $14.2 million next season, when he will run a team in its first full season with Amare Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony together.
“Chauncey, Amare and Carmelo are a great nucleus, as we continue to look to improve our team going into the offseason,” team president Donnie Walsh said in a statement. “Chauncey is an extremely talented and experienced point guard — we are very happy to have him back.”
The Knicks acquired Billups along with Anthony from Denver in February. He averaged 17.5 points with the Knicks but battled a pair of injuries, missing six games with a bruised left quadriceps in March, then straining a tendon in his left knee during Game 1 of the playoffs and missing the final three games of New York’s loss to Boston. Walsh said those injuries weren’t long-term concerns.
Billups will be 35 in September and said this week he hoped to return to New York for his 15th NBA season. After playing most of his career at 215 pounds, Billups said Monday he planned to come in at 210 next season to better handle the pace of Mike D’Antoni’s system. he insists he has plenty of basketball left.
“My body has been great,” Billups said. “I’m 34, not 39. My first five years I didn’t play that much anyway, unfortunately, but my body is fine.”
There wouldn’t be many point guard options this summer better than Billups, a former NBA finals MVP who is a top late-game performer. He didn’t take long to prove it in New York, hitting a go-ahead 3-pointer with 1:01 left in a win at Miami on Feb. 27, just four days after his Knicks debut.
But the sweep by Boston was an unusually early exit for the five-time All-Star, who reached the conference finals seven straight years with Detroit and Denver from 2003-09, and said he wanted to be around when the Knicks brought championship-caliber basketball back to New York.
“Getting swept in the first round, I don’t do this,” Billups said. “This is not fine with me, so I like to play later in the season, I want an opportunity.”
– Brian Mahoney
WNBA
Jackson to skip part of 2012 WNBA season
SEATTLE (AP) — Reigning WNBA MVP Lauren Jackson will skip the first half of the 2012 WNBA season to focus on training with the Australian national team in preparation for the London Olympics.
The Storm say the agreement announced Tuesday came after negotiations with Jackson’s representatives and Basketball Australia.
Jackson has three Olympic silver medals playing for Australia, losing all three times to the United States in the gold medal game. Jackson will join the Storm after the Olympics, which are scheduled to end on Aug. 11, 2012.
Jackson has played her entire WNBA career for Seattle and led the Storm to a second league title last season. She is also a three-time league MVP.
International
Pitino will not coach Puerto Rico national team
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Louisville’s Rick Pitino will not coach Puerto Rico’s national team, citing scheduling conflicts in announcing his change of plans Wednesday.
The Cardinals’ coach had agreed in December to coach Puerto Rico in a pre-Olympic qualifying tournament late this summer and had hoped to have his Louisville team play the Puerto Rican national team as part of a foreign trip. But the NCAA shot down that proposal because Puerto Rico is Commonwealth of the United States and is not considered a foreign country under NCAA rules.
An acceptable site for the foreign trip where both teams could visit simultaneously could not be arranged. The addition of a second tournament also conflicted with his duties at Louisville.
“I was so looking forward to coaching the Puerto Rico national team, but too many conflicts arose,” Pitino said. “It is a great disappointment that we cannot take on the challenge to help them qualify for the Olympics.”
Pitino had planned to coach the Puerto Rico in the 2011 FIBA Americas Championship basketball tournament in late August. Puerto Rico must finish among the top two teams to advance to the 2012 Olympics in London.
Pitino’s announcement came a day after Kentucky coach John Calipari said he was considering an offer to coach the Dominican Republic national team in the same tournament.
If the Trail Blazers demonstrated anything this season, it’s that they’re not about to let a little challenge throw them off.
Portland has become adept at surpassing expectations. But the ultimate test of the team’s resolve will come Thursday night, when the Trail Blazers face elimination trailing 3-2 in their first-round playoff series against the Dallas Mavericks.
“When you get in these loser-out games, sometimes everybody tries to do it all, and then you get out of character,” guard Brandon Roy said on Wednesday. “So the biggest thing tomorrow is that we stay in character and don’t panic if they get up two points or we’re up two. We need to play within our game plan like we’ve done all season, and we can beat this team.”
Perhaps nothing demonstrates the Blazers’ ability to deal with adversity more than their last win in the series. Down 67-44 in the third quarter, Roy led his team on a stunning comeback for an 84-82 Game 4 victory on Saturday.
Roy, a three-time All-Star who had been troubled by his knees all season and came on as a reserve, finished with 24 points — 18 in the fourth quarter.
For Roy, there was satisfaction in the performance given what he had gone through.
In early December, it became apparent that something was amiss for Roy, the face of the franchise. It was later learned that the cartilage in both of his knees was so depleted that he was nearly playing bone-on-bone.
While the condition is something that will likely dog him for the rest of his career, Roy opted to have arthroscopic surgery on both knees in January. All told, he missed 35 regular-season games.
When Roy returned from surgery, LaMarcus Aldridge had taken over as the team’s top playmaker, and second-year guard Wesley Matthews had taken his spot in the starting rotation. Roy’s minutes were tightly controlled off the bench.
As they had with other key injuries — most notably to centers Greg Oden and Marcus Camby — the Blazers picked themselves up and moved on. They made the necessarily adjustments, and helped themselves by adding forward Gerald Wallace from Charlotte at the trade deadline, to wind up the sixth seed in the Western Conference.
Dallas, the third seed, took control of the series with a 93-82 victory at American Airlines Center on Monday night in Game 5. The Mavs caught the Blazers off guard with the emergence of Tyson Chandler and by going to the zone.
While the Mavericks have seen the steady play of Dirk Nowitzki all series long, they’ve also managed to compliment him with a different player each game, ranging from Jason Kidd to Peja Stojakovic and Jason Terry, and finally Chandler, who had 14 points and 20 rebounds in Game 5.
The Mavericks are hoping to overcome their recent history of wilting in the playoffs.
Since the start of the 2006 NBA Finals — which the Mavs lost in seven games to Miami after taking a 2-0 series lead — Dallas has gone just 2-18 on the road in the postseason.
Dallas has been eliminated in the first round in three of the past four seasons.
“We know what we gotta do. We’re a veteran team. If we don’t have to play a Game 7, then we don’t want to play a Game 7,” forward Shawn Marion said. “That’s our mentality and that’s what we gotta do.”
The Blazers must improve in several areas — and quick. They’ve been unable to deal effectively with the Mavs’ pick-and-roll. They’ve sent Nowitzki to the free throw line too often. And, aside from Roy’s big breakout, they’ve seen too little noise from their own bench.
Portland has never overcome a 3-2 deficit to win a playoff series, and the team has been unable to get beyond the first round for the previous two seasons.
But they certainly have home court advantage.
The Trail Blazers have won each time the Mavs have visited their building this season, twice in the regular season and twice so far in the playoffs.
Portland has won 12 of its last 13 at the Rose Garden. Overall against the Mavericks, the Blazers are 46-18 all-time in Portland, and 8-1 in playoff games.
It’s likely that all eyes Thursday will be on Roy, and whether he can stage another comeback — this time not just to win a game, but to save a series.
“I don’t think it’s any secret that I’ve got to play well. And not only play well, I’ve got to be more aggressive,” Roy said. “When I’m more aggressive it puts pressure on Dallas’ defense to game plan and figure out how to stop me, and then I think it give other guys easier shots.
“My goal tomorrow is to go all-out and be as aggressive as I can.”
Other Thursday Games
Hawks still control their own destiny vs Magic
ATLANTA (AP) — There’s a sign on the wall leading into the Atlanta Hawks’ locker room that says: “We Control Our Own Destiny.”
Indeed, even after a humiliating loss in Orlando, the Hawks remain in control of their playoff destiny against the Magic. They’re still leading the series. They’re still one win away from finishing off the Magic.
Best of all, they’re back at home for Game 6.
“We are still in a great position,” coach Larry Drew said Wednesday after a lengthy film session with his assistants, breaking down a 101-76 rout by the Magic the night before. “We’ve put the ball back in our court, with the possibility to close it out at home. That’s what we plan to do.”
The Hawks won Game 1 in Orlando to steal home-court advantage, and protected that edge with two close wins at home. They had hoped to close out the series on the road, but the Magic were having none of that.
Changing up his game plan, coach Stan Van Gundy ran less of the offense through Dwight Howard, who averaged more than 32 points over the first four games but got little help from his teammates. Running the Hawks ragged with one pick-and-roll after another, Orlando got strong games out of Jason Richardson (17 points) and backup guard J.J. Redick (14 points).
Howard played less than 30 minutes, made only one shot from the field and finished with a mere eight points and eight rebounds. Even so, the Magic dominated from the opening tip, racing out to a 23-point lead by halftime.
“I don’t think it can be one or two guys. Those first four games, it was basically just Dwight carrying us,” Van Gundy said. “We need more people involved. We need to have a lot of people play well.”
Just as Drew is stressing to his team that they still lead the series, Van Gundy wants his team to continue playing with the desperation of a squad that’s facing another one-and-done scenario.
“Our energy and effort has to be at least what it was (in Game 5), if not better,” he said. “My main message was, we’re still behind. My analogy today was it’s like a game when you’re down 25 and then you make a run to get it back to 10. You feel good that you’re playing better, but you can’t celebrate because you’re still down 10 and you’ve got a long way to go before you actually win it.”
After the game, the first thing Van Gundy wrote on the board was: “3-2, we’re still behind.”
“All we did was cut into the lead a little bit,” he said. “We’re still getting our butts kicked. And that’s got to be the attitude.”
The Hawks shot just 36 percent (25 of 89) in their worst performance of the series. Josh Smith was the only starter in double figures with 22 points.
Drew said no one — not even Smith — played up to an acceptable standard.
“I didn’t see the effort I saw in games 3 and 4,” the coach said. “There was a very glaring difference in our effort on both ends of the floor. We watched it some with the players, so they can see. The bottom line is, this is playoff basketball. This is the time where every possession counts. We played against a team that had their back against the wall, and we didn’t respond to their intensity. That was very glaring.”
The Hawks expect Van Gundy to keep calling the same style of offense that worked so well in Game 5, so they’ll have to work even harder to fight through screens and cut down on the open looks the Magic get from beyond the 3-point stripe. They made 11 of 26 on Tuesday night, quite an improvement on their dismal 2-of-23 showing the previous game.
“It kind of threw us off,” Smith said. “The first four games, they were predictable. In Game 5, they ran so much pick-and-roll it was kind of hard to defend with the different coverages we had. It’s nothing but a chess match. I know we’re going to come up with a different scheme, and hopefully it works for us.”
One thing the Hawks don’t want to do is return to Orlando for a decisive game.
“This is pretty much our best chance,” forward Marvin Williams said. “It would be tough to go back down there and steal a win in Game 7.
Looking for any motivational edge they can get, the Hawks ran off copies of a newspaper article written by an Orlando columnist, who called the Hawks “birdbrains” and guaranteed the Magic would rally to win the series after losing Game 1 at home and falling behind 3-1.
Each Atlanta player got a copy in his locker.
“That wasn’t my idea,” Drew insisted. “But I heard the article got passed around. Certainly, you can always use some bulletin-board material. But at this stage of the game, its just about us coming out and being ready to do battle.”
– Paul Newberry
Hornets’ Paul undaunted by prospect of elimination
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Two transcendent playoff performances by Chris Paul made the Hornets’ first-round series with Los Angeles far more interesting than the defending champion Lakers would have preferred.
The question now is whether the Hornets’ four-time All-Star can summon another big game back in the Big Easy on Thursday night.
At the very least, Paul welcomes the pressure that comes with a game in which a loss ends the season for his team.
“This is all or nothing for us,” Paul said. “I can’t wait.”
When Paul has been sensational — with his 33-point, 14 assist performance in Game 1 and his triple-double in Game 4 — the Hornets have pulled out a pair of hard fought victories. In the series’ other three games, when Paul has still been exceptional, but short of dominant, the Lakers have won — including twice by double digits.
Now ahead 3-2 in the series, Los Angeles needs only one more win to dispatch pesky New Orleans. If the Lakers own key statistical categories as thoroughly as they did in their 106-90 Game 5 triumph on Tuesday night, the series isn’t likely to make it back to the West Coast for Game 7.
The Lakers restored their dominance inside, outrebounding the Hornets 42-25, which included a 15-3 advantage in offensive rebounds. That led to a whopping 22-2 advantage in second-chance points. Los Angeles also outscored the Hornets 42-30 in the paint.
“We should be able to play like that all the time,” Lakers forward Pau Gasol said. “We needed to play physical and control the boards, and use our bodies. … Our energy was good, and that’s why we won the way we won.”
The Hornets never looked more outmatched in the series, but if that result shook their confidence, they’re not letting it show.
“The great thing about it is now we get to go back to our home court with our fans behind us, and we have to bring the energy,” Paul said. “It’s the elimination game now. We can’t leave anything out there.”
Paul has said throughout his career that he never wants to come out and would gladly play 48 minutes if coaches would let him. Such an approach might have served the Hornets well in Game 5.
The Hornets led by nine when Paul went to the bench to rest in the beginning of the second quarter. The Lakers immediately went on a 10-0 run and the momentum seemed to change for good.
Hornets coach Monty Williams said Paul’s teammates could have helped him by showing more toughness on defense and fouling hard, the way Lakers star Kobe Bryant did when he thwarted a layup attempt by Emeka Okafor with a forearm across the Hornets center’s head.
“At some point, you have to know how to make a playoff foul,” Williams said. The coach then referred to the lack of resistance Bryant met on his thunderous driving dunk in the second quarter, which seemed to energize his team. “We have to learn how to not allow him to get that play off.”
Williams believes the Lakers have been allowed to get away with too much banging inside. He even made a formal protest to the NBA about it after Game 3.
Lakers coach Phil Jackson didn’t seem quite sure what to make of his team being portrayed as the one that hits hardest.
“It was pretty interesting. We’re not usually known for that,” Jackson said. “We’re known as being soft, but sometimes desperation can activate” toughness.
Jackson added that he fully expected the Hornets to respond to their coach’s call for more aggression.
“The game will be feisty, no doubt about it,” Jackson said. “The team that beats the other team to loose balls is going to win the game.”
Bryant, meanwhile, continues to receive treatment for an injury to his left ankle and foot that occurred late in the Hornets Game 4 win. Of course, the Hornets realized by the second quarter of Game 5 that they better not count on the injury slowing the Lakers’ superstar down. Although he played less than 29 minutes in Game 5, he was 8 of 13 shooting for 19 points and showed little lack of explosion on a pair of soaring one-handed jams.
Jackson said Bryant was sore on Wednesday, but added that he did not expect to limit Bryant’s playing time at all on Thursday night.
“This is a game in which we go all-out to win,” Jackson said. “If it’s 40 minutes, we will” play Bryant that long.
– Brett Martel
Conference Semifinals
Celtics practice without knowing next opponent
WALTHAM, Mass. (AP) — The Boston Celtics weren’t fooled when they swept their playoff series. They knew they still had plenty of improvements to make.
Fortunately, they have time — and lots of it.
So it was back to basics, to some extent, when they practiced Wednesday after two days off and before that night’s game in which a Miami win over the Philadelphia 76ers would move the Heat into Round 2 against the Celtics.
While waiting, coach Doc Rivers’ team focused on itself.
“We get a chance to work on our stuff, very similar to training camp,” he said. “When you start in camp, you really don’t have an opponent. You’re really just trying to work on all your stuff and we have an opportunity to do that, with rest. So, that’s good.”
The Celtics finished off the Knicks in four games, concluding with a 101-89 win in New York last Sunday. But they needed last-minute baskets to win each of the first two games and let a 23-point lead shrink to four in the fourth quarter of the finale.
The second unit struggled early in the series, then showed improvement. There were other positive signs.
“It’s great to see us play that well on the road,” Rivers said. “Game 3 was terrific. Game 4 we started out great and then kind of let up a little bit, in my opinion, and it was great to see us gather ourselves on the road with a team that cut it to four. So, those are good signs.”
But the Knicks missed two of their best three players for much of the series. Chauncey Billups sat out the last three games with a strained tendon in his left knee and Amare Stoudemire was limited by a pulled back muscle in those games.
“As much as we won four in a row, it’s still a grind,” Ray Allen said.
Celtics center Shaquille O’Neal won’t practice until Saturday, at the earliest, Rivers said. He has played just 5 minutes, 29 seconds since Feb. 1 because of right leg problems that kept him out of the first round.
The Heat’s Big Three are healthy. And Rivers expected to face LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh — not the 76ers — in the next round.
“Clearly, you look in that direction,” Rivers said with the Heat holding a 3-1 lead before Wednesday’s game, “but you do prep work for both. But, really, for us … we just have to get to doing our defense better.”
The earliest the next series can start is Sunday. So even though Rivers gave his players two days off, several gathered together to work out and play 3-on-3 games.
“Obviously, you watch the games and you’d like to be out there playing,” Allen said, “but it’s something else to have rest this time of year. I don’t think anybody’s tired. It’s just always good to have rest.”
The Celtics allowed the fewest points this season, but Rivers issues repeated reminders that good offense starts with stingy defense that allows his team to run, with speedy Rajon Rondo leading the charge.
Against the Knicks, Rondo regained his attacking style that was lacking late in the season. He averaged 19 points, 12 assists and 7.3 rebounds, second only to Kevin Garnett’s 11.3.
The long layoff gives players acquired in late February a chance to fit better into the flow. Rivers simplified the plays to get them more involved and singled out Jeff Green as one who has showed progress.
“We’re just trying to build a rhythm for ourselves,” said Glen Davis, who finished fourth in this season’s Sixth Man voting. “You aren’t always going to be able to score points. You just have got to play defense, play hard.”
That’s what Jermaine O’Neal has done.
He underwent knee surgery and played just 24 regular-season games. But he was back for seven of the last nine. In the playoffs, he started at center and blocked 10 shots in four games.
“I feel really good defensively,” he said. “Offensively, I think my comfort zone with being out there with the guys and taking shots and getting an opportunity I think that’s coming around, too. … I feel like I still can build off where I left off in the New York series.”
Rivers hopes the entire team can. But he sees the playoff field as a wide-open race to the title.
“I’ve been saying it all year,” he said, “but, fortunately, we’re in the field.”
– Howard Ulman
For Bulls, focus turns toward Eastern semifinals
CHICAGO (AP) — Relax, Chicago. Derrick Rose and the rest of the Bulls are breathing a little easier. They cleared one big hurdle, and now, they’re staring at another one.
That would be Atlanta or Orlando in the Eastern Conference semifinals, after the Bulls disposed of Indiana in a tough first-round series. It’s the next step in what they hope will be a long playoff run after a dominant regular season.
The opening round certainly wasn’t easy. The Pacers hung in until about midway through the third quarter of Game 5 Tuesday, when the Bulls broke open a tight game and rolled over Indiana 116-89 in what turned into the first blowout of the series.
“It’s really good for us to end this series like this,” Luol Deng said. “We didn’t really want another close game. In the locker room, we know it’s not how you play, it’s whether you win the game. We have adjustments to make.”
The Bulls made major adjustments to get to this point, undergoing a massive overhaul a year ago following back-to-back first-round playoff exits.
With new coach Tom Thibodeau, a rebuilt roster and Rose’s emergence as an MVP candidate, the Bulls stormed to a league-best 62-20 record, matching their best record since the 1997-98 championship season.
Now, they’ve advanced past the first round for only the second time since Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen’s second three-peat.
“Last year, we were just saying, ‘How are we going to win this game? Do we have a chance?’” Rose said. “We really didn’t have a chance. This year, we have a chance to win almost every game that we go in.”
Many figured the Bulls would roll through the Pacers. Instead, they got all they could handle, pulling out the first three games by a total of 15 points and seeing a furious rally at the end of Game 4 fall just short.
Now, they’re taking a breather after getting pushed by the Pacers, with no practice scheduled for Wednesday or Thursday.
For all the angst over the slow starts, the turnovers, the physical play and Rose’s sprained left ankle, this is exactly where the Bulls thought they would be — even if getting there was a little tougher than expected.
The Pacers fouled hard. Their big guards gave Rose trouble, trapping him and throwing the offense out of sync. His ankle injury in Game 4 only added to the angst. So did Carlos Boozer’s struggles, and if there’s a concern going forward, that’s a big one.
As if he wasn’t having a tough enough time in the playoffs, another issue surfaced in Game 5 — turf toe. Boozer heard a pop in his right foot when he scored his lone basket in the second quarter and finished with just two points on 1-of-5 shooting. He also ran into foul trouble again, picking up two quick fouls in the first quarter and his fourth in the third. That gave him 19 in the series, and he sat out the final 18 minutes, 17 seconds.
“We have to try to figure out how we can keep him out of foul trouble,” Thibodeau said. “It’s hard to get into a rhythm when you’re picking up two quick fouls like he is right now.”
The Bulls’ big offseason acquisition, Boozer has been out of sync ever since missing five games in March with a sprained left ankle. In his final 14 regular-season games, he hit the 20-point mark just three times and finished with 14 or fewer eight times.
He went from scoring 17.3 points per game in the regular season to 10.0 against the Pacers, and his shooting dropped from 51 percent to 35.8.
Every game in the opening round was a struggle for Boozer except the second, when he delivered 17 points and 16 rebounds. He had 12 points in the opener and four in Game 3, and even when he scored 15 in Game 4, he hit just 6 of 15 shots.
The fouls certainly aren’t helping the cause. It’s hard to find a rhythm sitting on the sideline, and even if he’s not shooting well, he still draws attention from opponents and takes some of the load off his teammates.
“Whoever we play next, I assure you they’re going to plan a lot to stop Carlos,” Deng said. “Carlos is one of the best low-post scorers in this league.”
And he figures it’ll be a different story for Boozer in the conference semifinals.
“Carlos will get going,” Deng said. “If you look at the games, Carlos is rebounding the ball great for us. Every series is going to be different. Carlos is always working hard. He’s always in there early. His rhythm will come. This series, Indiana did a good job sometimes taking his rhythm away, but this is over with. We’ve got to get ready for how we’re going to get him more involved early and get ready for the next series.”
– Andrew Seligman
Other NBA Capsules
Pacers hopeful after reaching playoffs
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The season-ending disappointment for the Indiana Pacers is different this year. The previous four years ended the same way: the Pacers missed the playoffs, and the immediate future was dim because the franchise was handcuffed financially.
This season, Pacers finally had a breakthrough. With one of the league’s youngest starting fives, Indiana made the playoffs for the first time since 2006 and tested the top-seeded Chicago Bulls before dropping the first-round series 4-1.
“I feel terrible right now,” Pacers forward Danny Granger said after his team’s 116-89 loss in Game 5.
This time, the feeling wasn’t about an unpleasant locker room atmosphere, an underachieving roster, another off-the-court disaster or any of the other problems that plagued the franchise the past five years.
It was about an opportunity lost. The first four games were decided by six points or fewer, and the Pacers won Game 4 at home, spoiling the Bulls’ bid for a sweep.
“We let games get away,” Granger said. “It’s a learning experience.”
The Pacers were within four points in the third quarter of Game 5 before Chicago’s Derrick Rose scored 10 points in the final six minutes of the period to put them away.
“It was the time where you’re going to make it or break it,” Pacers guard Paul George said. “They were hitting their shots and they rose their intensity.”
The Pacers made up for their lack of playoff experience with intensity and confidence.
“Our young guys have a lot of guts,” Pacers interim coach Frank Vogel said after Game 3. “It’s very, very encouraging to the future of this franchise to see these guys compete like they’re competing when it’s on the line.”
Along the way, the Pacers earned Chicago’s respect.
“They didn’t play us like an eighth seed,” Chicago guard Keith Bogans said. “It was toe to toe.”
The franchise still has to figure out if Vogel will get his interim tag removed, and team president Larry Bird is in the final year of his contract. But the Pacers enter the offseason with young talent, playoff experience and significant salary cap space.
Granger, at age 28, is the elder statesman among the starters. Center Roy Hibbert just finished his third year, point guard Darren Collison and power forward Tyler Hansbrough were second-year players, and George was a rookie. All five are under contract for next season.
Vogel took over for Jim O’Brien at midseason, and the 37-year-old guided the team to a 20-18 record and a spot in the postseason. The team got off to a 7-3 start under him before the All-Star break, hit a skid, then closed the regular season by winning 10 of 15 games.
Granger was steady again. He led the team with 20.5 points per game and added 5.4 rebounds per contest. He bumped his scoring average up to 21.6 points per game in the playoffs.
Collison was the key offseason acquisition. The ultra-quick court general finished second on the team with 13.2 points per game and led the way with 5.1 assists per contest. He played his best basketball of the season early in the series against Chicago before going down with an ankle injury.
Hibbert had his moments early in the season, but he fell out of favor with O’Brien. He was revived under Vogel and averaged 15.3 points in February as the new coach tried to restore his confidence and establish him as an offensive centerpiece. He finished the season averaging 12.7 points and a team-best 7.5 rebounds.
Hansbrough was basically a rookie after missing much of last season with health problems. He coulnd’t crack O’Brien’s rotation, but Vogel gave him a chance and he responded.
George broke into the starting lineup late in the season under Vogel. The team’s first-round pick in 2010 added length, athletic ability and some scoring punch to the team.
“He can be great,” Vogel said. “He’s a special talent. When he puts it all together, it’s going to be impressive.”
Brandon Rush led the team by shooting 42 percent from 3-point range. Dahntay Jones returned to the rotation under Vogel and played solid defense against Rose in the playoffs.
Mike Dunleavy, Jeff Foster, T.J. Ford and Josh McRoberts are the key free agents.
Foster was the team’s No. 2 rebounder this season. The 34-year old has spent his entire 12-year career with the Pacers, and proved his value in the playoffs with physical play that made him a target for booing Bulls fans. McRoberts opened the season as the starting power forward, but eventually lost that spot to Hansbrough. His high-flying dunks made the Indiana native a crowd favorite.
Now the Pacers finally have tangible success to carry into the offseason.
“Hopefully we’ll take this into next season and build on it and be in the playoffs next season,” Granger said.
– Cliff Brunt
Warriors promise change, cut ties with coach Smart
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — This was one shot Keith Smart couldn’t make. Maybe nobody could.
The Golden State Warriors parted ways with their head coach Wednesday, the first major fallout this offseason from a new ownership group that has promised sweeping changes to the perennial underachieving franchise.
Smart, the Indiana guard best known for hitting “The Shot” against Syracuse that won the Hoosiers the 1987 NCAA title, spent seven years as an assistant with Golden State before he replaced Don Nelson just before training camp. The Warriors went 36-46 under Smart, a 10-game improvement from the previous season but clearly not enough to appease owners Joe Lacob and Peter Guber.
Only a rare playoff appearance was likely to save Smart’s job.
“I wouldn’t say it was impossible,” Warriors general manager Larry Riley said of Smart’s challenge. “But it was difficult. We all know that.”
The new brass managed to hastily put Smart in place even before the NBA officially approved the sale of the Warriors last year for a record $450 million from longtime owner Chris Cohan. Smart was only given a one-year contract with a team option for next season, and he was often labeled a fill-in candidate charged with overseeing the transition.
The coach met with Lacob and the basketball operations staff in the morning and was told he wouldn’t be retained.
“It’s a very complex decision and not an easy thing to do. No one likes to make changes that affect someone’s life,” Lacob said a few hours later, speaking before the unveiling of a refurbished court bearing his name at Haight Elementary School in nearby Alameda. “It’s something we felt that we really had to do. We really want to strive to be a great team and we felt that we could improve ourselves.”
The new owners have vowed to restore the franchise to past glory with splashy signings and playoff performances. The Warriors have made the postseason just once since 1994; yet fans in the basketball-crazy Bay Area remain some of the most loyal and vocal in a market saturated with sports teams.
Golden State already had decided to keep Riley as GM. The team also hired longtime NBA agent Bob Myers a few weeks ago to be the assistant general manager and Riley’s eventual successor. The new coach will decide whether to keep the assistants on staff.
Lacob said Riley and his staff will make the choice on a new coach, with his input. While Lacob would prefer someone with previous NBA head coaching experience, that won’t be a requirement. He declined to say whether the Warriors are interested in former Utah Jazz coach Jerry Sloan or NBA analyst and former Knicks and Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy — two names who have surfaced already.
Others sure to receive attention include former Cleveland Cavaliers coach Mike Brown and Lawrence Frank, the one-time New Jersey Nets coach who’s now the top assistant with the Boston Celtics — where Lacob previously held a small stake in the team.
Lacob would like to move swiftly in finding a new coach and acknowledged the front office has a short list of potential candidates.
“We’re going to look for someone with, certainly, experience, someone with a lot of great ability to relate to players,” Lacob said. “We’re going to look at a number of people and try to make the best choice we can to be the best we can.”
Smart had little time to deliver them a winner.
He declared from the moment he began that he would put his own stamp on the bench no matter how long his tenure lasted. He walked around the locker room before training camp asking for a handshake from each player, signaling a pact that they would allow Smart to coach them and be involved in their lives.
In the end, all those efforts weren’t enough.
Smart was still left with the same pitfall as so many of his predecessors: working with a flawed roster that, even at its best, was no playoff contender in the deep Western Conference. Smart juggled the undersized guard combo of Monta Ellis and Stephen Curry with mixed results, and the lack of a true inside presence again left the Warriors exposed.
“At some level, and certainly I know some people will say this that he deserved another year, that he didn’t have a full roster, and there’s some truth to that,” Lacob said. “But we felt that we could be better. I think to some extent ownership wanted more so to have their guy in.”
Smart often took a hardline approach with Curry, even benching the second-year starting point guard late in a few games. Their relationship was never perfect, but Smart was still well liked by players — including Curry — and front-office members until the end.
The 46-year-old Smart kept the run-and-fun offense Nelson once perfected, leading to some dazzling outputs and upsets, including a three-game winning streak in April over the Los Angeles Lakers, Dallas and Portland. But the defensive effort was never there, and a six-game losing streak in late March that knocked the Warriors out of postseason contention spelled the end of Smart’s tenure.
“It’s difficult because of the personality of a guy like Keith Smart, the quality of the individual that he was and the fact that he’s totally professional,” Riley said. “In that regard, there’s some difficulty associated with it. The other side of it is we’re making a decision to move forward.”
– Antonio Gonzalez
Knicks bringing back Billups for next season
NEW YORK (AP) — The New York Knicks are bringing Chauncey Billups back for next season.
The Knicks announced Wednesday that they are keeping the veteran point guard, deciding his leadership outweighs the savings they would have earned by waiving him this week.
The Knicks would have been obligated to pay Billups only $3.7 million if they cut him within five days after the season. Instead, he will be on the books for $14.2 million next season, when he will run a team in its first full season with Amare Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony together.
“Chauncey, Amare and Carmelo are a great nucleus, as we continue to look to improve our team going into the offseason,” team president Donnie Walsh said in a statement. “Chauncey is an extremely talented and experienced point guard — we are very happy to have him back.”
The Knicks acquired Billups along with Anthony from Denver in February. He averaged 17.5 points with the Knicks but battled a pair of injuries, missing six games with a bruised left quadriceps in March, then straining a tendon in his left knee during Game 1 of the playoffs and missing the final three games of New York’s loss to Boston. Walsh said those injuries weren’t long-term concerns.
Billups will be 35 in September and said this week he hoped to return to New York for his 15th NBA season. After playing most of his career at 215 pounds, Billups said Monday he planned to come in at 210 next season to better handle the pace of Mike D’Antoni’s system. he insists he has plenty of basketball left.
“My body has been great,” Billups said. “I’m 34, not 39. My first five years I didn’t play that much anyway, unfortunately, but my body is fine.”
There wouldn’t be many point guard options this summer better than Billups, a former NBA finals MVP who is a top late-game performer. He didn’t take long to prove it in New York, hitting a go-ahead 3-pointer with 1:01 left in a win at Miami on Feb. 27, just four days after his Knicks debut.
But the sweep by Boston was an unusually early exit for the five-time All-Star, who reached the conference finals seven straight years with Detroit and Denver from 2003-09, and said he wanted to be around when the Knicks brought championship-caliber basketball back to New York.
“Getting swept in the first round, I don’t do this,” Billups said. “This is not fine with me, so I like to play later in the season, I want an opportunity.”
– Brian Mahoney
WNBA
Jackson to skip part of 2012 WNBA season
SEATTLE (AP) — Reigning WNBA MVP Lauren Jackson will skip the first half of the 2012 WNBA season to focus on training with the Australian national team in preparation for the London Olympics.
The Storm say the agreement announced Tuesday came after negotiations with Jackson’s representatives and Basketball Australia.
Jackson has three Olympic silver medals playing for Australia, losing all three times to the United States in the gold medal game. Jackson will join the Storm after the Olympics, which are scheduled to end on Aug. 11, 2012.
Jackson has played her entire WNBA career for Seattle and led the Storm to a second league title last season. She is also a three-time league MVP.
International
Pitino will not coach Puerto Rico national team
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Louisville’s Rick Pitino will not coach Puerto Rico’s national team, citing scheduling conflicts in announcing his change of plans Wednesday.
The Cardinals’ coach had agreed in December to coach Puerto Rico in a pre-Olympic qualifying tournament late this summer and had hoped to have his Louisville team play the Puerto Rican national team as part of a foreign trip. But the NCAA shot down that proposal because Puerto Rico is Commonwealth of the United States and is not considered a foreign country under NCAA rules.
An acceptable site for the foreign trip where both teams could visit simultaneously could not be arranged. The addition of a second tournament also conflicted with his duties at Louisville.
“I was so looking forward to coaching the Puerto Rico national team, but too many conflicts arose,” Pitino said. “It is a great disappointment that we cannot take on the challenge to help them qualify for the Olympics.”
Pitino had planned to coach the Puerto Rico in the 2011 FIBA Americas Championship basketball tournament in late August. Puerto Rico must finish among the top two teams to advance to the 2012 Olympics in London.
Pitino’s announcement came a day after Kentucky coach John Calipari said he was considering an offer to coach the Dominican Republic national team in the same tournament.
Day one of the ninth installment of Basketball without Borders Africa tipped-off today with an opening press conference at King Edward VII School in Johannesburg, South Africa. Under cloudless blue skies, Amadou Fall, NBA Vice President of Development – Africa, greeted the guests, campers, NBA legends and coaches, and media and set the tone for an exciting first day of camp.
