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LeBron, Wade combine for 70 as Heat beat Pacers in Game 4

LeBron James scored 40 points with 18 rebounds and nine assists, and Dwyane Wade added 30 points – 22 in the second half – as Miami rallied to even their semifinal series against Indiana with a 101-93 win on Sunday over the Pacers, who had the defending Eastern Conference champions down couldn’t keep them there.

”I felt like I had to do whatever it took to win,” said James, who played all but four minutes.

With All-Star forward Chris Bosh injured and back in Florida, the James-Wade tag team saved the Heat, who will host Game 5 on Tuesday night at AmericanAirlines Arena.

”Me and ‘Bron had it going,” said Wade, who bounced back from the worst playoff game of his career – five points on 2-of-13 shooting – with one of his best, ”We played off of each other very well. We both were aggressive at the same time. That’s beautiful basketball for the Miami Heat when we play that way.” …

Udonis Haslem, playing with a large bandage covering a nasty cut over his right eye that required nine stitches, added 14 points for Miami…

Wade finished with nine rebounds and six assists, erasing the ugly memory of Game 3 when he also had a confrontation with Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, a public dispute that turned into a bigger deal than it probably was because of a two-day break between games. The next day, Wade, who has refused to blame injuries for his recent struggles, visited his former Marquette coach Tom Crean, who is now at Indiana…

Danny Granger scored 20 and Paul George 13 to lead the Pacers. Center Roy Hibbert, so dominant at both ends in Game 3, had just 10 points and was in foul trouble in the second half…

Miami also got a huge lift down the stretch from Haslem, who hasn’t been a factor in the series but made four big jumpers in the final six minutes despite having his head split by an elbow by Indiana’s Tyler Hansbrough.

— Reported by Tom Withers of the Associated Press

James: 40 points, 18 rebounds, nine assists, two blocked shots, two steals.

Wade: 30 points, nine rebounds, six assists, two blocked shots, one steal.

“Both of those guys knew they had to be actively involved,” coach Erik Spoelstra said.

James had 19 points at the intermission, when the Heat trailed 54-46. He was keeping them afloat.

Wade, by contrast, had opened 1 of 8, rekindling fears of a follow-up to his 2-of-13 performance in the Heat’s Game 3 loss.

But then the two did something they had not done much in this series, or to be honest, all that often in their two years as a dual-wing threat:

They choreographed something magical, playing in a lockstep so desperately needed with power forward Chris Bosh, the absentee of the Big Three, out indefinitely since sustaining a lower-abdominal strain in the first half of the series opener.

“Obviously, we’ve come a long way with that,” Spoelstra said. “We used to be a stand-and-watch-each-other team with those two guys.”

— Reported by Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel

The Heat trailed by 10 points when James delivered a difficult bucket with 3:07 left in the first quarter. From there, he scored nine points in a row to end the first period and then began the process of getting Wade involved in the action.

Just like Game 3, Wade was ice-cold in the first quarter. He failed to score the first 12 minutes just as he failed to score in the entire first half in Game 3. A well-timed assist from James helped change everything — the game’s momentum, Wade’s confidence and perhaps the entire series.

It came with 43.7 seconds left in the first half, a bounce pass from James to Wade on a back-door cut that finally set Wade’s mind at ease. Wade finished the play with a powerful baseline drive-and-dunk to cut the Pacers’ lead to five points.

“I told [James] at halftime that I needed that,” Wade said.

— Reported by Joseph Goodman of the Miami Herald

Kobe says Pau Gasol must be more aggressive

The Los Angeles Lakers trudged off the Staples Center floor late Saturday, a single loss now separating them from season’s end, another fourth-quarter collapse once again causing their undoing. They didn’t show much poise in the locker room, either, with Kobe Bryant and Andrew Bynum pointing blame at others for allowing the Oklahoma City Thunder to steal their second victory in three games.

Bryant missed eight of his 10 shots in the final quarter, but shrugged off his struggles by saying his teammates’ lack of aggressiveness “forced” him to take tough shots. He also left no question which teammate deserved the most blame for the 103-100 loss in Game 4.

Pau Gasol.

Bryant faulted Gasol for not playing aggressive enough. It was also Gasol’s turnover that led to Kevin Durant making the winning 3-pointer with 13.7 seconds left.

“Pau’s got to be more assertive,” Bryant said. “He’s the guy they’re leaving [open]. When he’s catching the ball, he’s looking to pass. He’s got to be aggressive. He’s got to shoot the ball or drive the ball to the basket. He will be next game.” …

After a dominant first half by Andrew Bynum on Saturday, the Thunder began fronting the Lakers’ center with Kendrick Perkins. Bryant thought Gasol didn’t attack enough when Serge Ibaka left him to help Perkins.

“He’s looking to swing the ball too much,” Bryant said. “He’s got to take his shot.”

— Reported by Johnny Ludden of Yahoo! Sports

Thunder rally past Lakers, take 3-1 series lead

Kevin Durant stood above the 3-point line and watched the shot clock dwindle in the final seconds of Game 4. When Metta World Peace backed up slightly on defense, Durant hesitated only an instant before launching a 26-footer.

”It left my hand, (and) I was thinking, ‘If this doesn’t go in, it’s going to be a terrible shot,”’ Durant said.

The three-time scoring champ trusts his instincts and his silky-smooth jumper. Neither let him down while he and Russell Westbrook engineered yet another late comeback that pushed a frustrated Kobe Bryant to the brink.

Westbrook scored 10 of his 37 points during a stirring fourth-quarter rally, Durant added 31 points and hit that tiebreaking 3-pointer with 13.7 seconds left, and the Thunder seized control of their second-round series with a 103-100 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers on Saturday night.

Serge Ibaka scored 14 points and the second-seeded Thunder took a 3-1 series lead with a rally from a 13-point deficit in the final 8 minutes, moving one win away from their second straight trip to the Western Conference finals…

Oklahoma City improved to 7-1 in the postseason with a tenacious rally on the second night of back-to-back games against the Lakers and Bryant, who scored 38 points but struggled in the fourth quarter of Los Angeles’ fifth loss in seven games. After Durant put the Thunder ahead with his shot-clock-draining 3-pointer, Kobe couldn’t match it with 10 seconds left…

The Thunder finished Game 4 on a 22-8 run, punctuated by Durant’s dramatic 3-pointer and two late free throws from James Harden, who had 12 points…

Andrew Bynum had 18 points and nine rebounds for the Lakers, who led 92-81 with 7:45 to play before Westbrook went to work with a furious series of drives to the hoop. The UCLA product scored nine points in just over 2 minutes, and Kendrick Perkins capped the 17-4 run on a putback layup with 1:16 left, putting Oklahoma City up 98-96 with its first lead since the first quarter…

Bryant shot poorly in the first three games of the series, but went 10 for 18 in the first three quarters of Game 4 before managing only a 2-of-10 effort in the fourth, including a meaningless bucket at the buzzer.

— Reported by Greg Beacham of the Associated Press

Spurs beat Clippers to take 3-0 series lead

Nothing was going to rattle the calm, cool and collected Spurs. Not even a 24-point deficit.

Tim Duncan scored 19 points, helping engineer a defining 24-0 run in the third quarter, and San Antonio defeated the Los Angeles Clippers 96-86 on Saturday to take a commanding 3-0 lead in their second-round playoff series.

”We didn’t plan on being down that much,” said Duncan, who at 36 is hungry to win the team’s fifth NBA championship and first since 2006-07. ”We stuck with it.”

Led by Tony Parker’s 23 points and his defense on an ailing Chris Paul, the Spurs kept running their plays even as Blake Griffin’s early offensive assault buried them in a huge hole. Griffin missed three shots in the first half, when he scored 20 points and carried his team to a 24-point lead despite a left hip injury and a sprained right knee…

Griffin had 28 points and 16 rebounds, and reserve Mo Williams added 19 points for the Clippers, who face some daunting NBA history heading into Game 4 on Sunday at Staples Center. No team has rallied from a 3-0 deficit to win a series…

Rookie Kawhi Leonard added 14 points and Manu Ginobili 13 to help the top-seeded Spurs win their 17th in a row and improve to 7-0 in the playoffs…

San Antonio led by 11 points early in the fourth before the Clippers got within seven on consecutive baskets by Williams. Gary Neal hit a 3-pointer to launch a 13-9 spurt, capped by Parker’s 3-pointer, that extended the Spurs’ lead to 89-78. Paul, so dominant in the final period during the regular season, was limited to four points…

The Spurs were 9 of 22 from 3-point range, with Leonard hitting three…

The Clippers have lost 29 of 33 games against the Spurs dating to Dec. 1, 2003.

— Reported by Beth Harris of the Associated Press

Kobe Bryant does not seek your approval

Ball in his hands, season on the line, and failure promised Kobe Bryant a summer of scorn. For everything that comes with the responsibility of greatness, Bryant can live with the cutting criticism, the besmirching of his legacy, the volume rising on those determined to diminish him in the context of his contemporaries. In losing, he could live with it all – except allowing that barrage to barricade him behind a wall of hesitancy and reluctance.

“I don’t give a [expletive] what you say,” Bryant told Yahoo! Sports late Friday. “If I go out there and miss game winners, and people say, ‘Kobe choked, or Kobe is seven for whatever in pressure situations.’ Well, [expletive] you.

“Because I don’t play for your [expletive] approval. I play for my own love and enjoyment of the game. And to win. That’s what I play for. Most of the time, when guys feel the pressure, they’re worried about what people might say about them. I don’t have that fear, and it enables me to forget bad plays and to take shots and play my game.”

Deep down, Bryant does care, because the ingesting of the feeding frenzy that comes with his struggles doesn’t so much pollute his air, as it does become oxygen tanks of rage on his back. Eighteen trips to the free-throw line on Friday, and 18 times the ball dropped into the basket. Eight trips to the free throw line in the fourth quarter borne out of a brilliant footwork, an unending array of fakes and, yes, the generosity of a referee’s whistle.

“In the pressure situations, you’ve always got to want to go to the line,” Bryant told Y! Sports. “You can try to avoid contact, because you don’t want to go to the free-throw line in those pressure situations. Me, I enjoy it.”

— Reported by Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports

Kobe Bryant lets his guard down after mismatch with Derek Fisher

After the Lakers’ 99-96 win, Bryant and Pau Gasol exchanged a few laughs about that stretch while sitting next to each other on the interview podium.

Gasol was asked by a reporter if he was surprised that Bryant scored so easily on Fisher.

Before Gasol could complete a sentence, Bryant interrupted.

“Surprised,” Bryant said incredulously. He then dropped his head down, laughing.

“Dude, come on, Fish is like 5-2,” Bryant said of the 6-foot-1 guard.

Gasol attempted once again to give a diplomatic response.

“He did a great job scoring on Derek tonight when he had the opportunity to,” Gasol said.

— Reported by Melissa Rohlin of the Los Angeles Times

Greg Oden recently underwent a controversial knee procedure

In an effort to revive his NBA career, Greg Oden recently underwent the controversial knee procedure that superstars Kobe Bryant and New York Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez say helped prolong their careers, according to sources.

Oden, whose career with the Portland Trail Blazers was derailed by four knee surgeries, had the noninvasive procedure done in New York two weeks ago to accelerate the healing process on his left knee, which was operated on in February.

“Greg had long planned to have this procedure done,” one of the sources said. “He thought he’d wait until his knee was completely healed, but the doctor said Greg would get the greatest benefit by doing it now because it would help his recovery.”

Bryant underwent the procedure, known as Orthokine, in Germany last offseason to relieve pain in his right knee and left ankle and returned to have a historically productive year in this, his 16th NBA season. Under Bryant’s advice, Yankees superstar Rodriguez flew to Dusseldorf to have the procedure done in December. Gilbert Arenas also had the procedure done.

— Reported by Chris Broussard of ESPN the Magazine

Brian Scalabrine hopes to continue NBA career

Paul Pierce glanced across the dressing room before yesterday morning’s shootaround and spotted Brian Scalabrine, microphone in hand, interviewing Greg Stiemsma.

“Smooth transition,” said Pierce. “Smooth transition.”

Scalabrine is still technically a reserve forward for the Chicago Bulls, a designation that will last at least until the end of next month when his contract runs out. And while he still plans to play, it is clear that even after retiring from active duty, we will not have seen the last of the former Celtic.

“I’ll play in the NBA as long as I can,” said Scalabrine, who’s working the Celts playoffs for CSN now that the Bulls have been eliminated. “I’ll get cut one day. That’s just the only way I can really go. To just retire would be like quitting to me. They’ll have to kick me out.”

At 34, he has had ample time to consider his hopes and options. During his five years in Boston, Scalabrine seemed to go back and forth on whether he’d pursue coaching. But that now seems like his direction.

— Reported by Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald

Suns assistant Bill Cartwright will not return

The Suns plan to match offers to restricted free agent Robin Lopez in July but would have someone different mentoring the center if he returns next season. After four seasons with the Suns, assistant coach Bill Cartwright’s contract will not be renewed.

Cartwright was hired by then-General Manager Steve Kerr, a former teammate, and then-coach Terry Porter in 2008 to help Amar’e Stoudemire’s defense, rebounding and post-up game.

— Reported by Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic

Kobe leads Lakers past Thunder in 99-96 thriller

With their Game 2 collapse still fresh in their minds, the Los Angeles Lakers avoided a sequel with the only game plan they’re confident will work against the younger, faster Oklahoma City Thunder.

They got slow. They got into the paint. And they got to the free-throw line 42 times, incredibly making all but one of those shots.

Kobe Bryant knows it isn’t pretty. He also knows it’s probably the only way the Lakers can pull the high-flying Thunder down to their level.

Bryant scored 14 of his 36 points in the fourth quarter, and the Lakers rallied late for a 99-96 victory in Game 3 on Friday night, cutting the Thunder’s second-round series lead to 2-1…

The Lakers were close to a historically insurmountable playoff deficit when the Thunder went ahead 92-87 with 3 minutes left. Instead, they finished on a 12-4 run, scoring six points on free throws in the final 33 seconds and earning the chance to even the series in Game 4 on Saturday night…

”We continued to work, even when they got the lead a couple of times in the fourth quarter,” said Pau Gasol, who had 12 points, 11 rebounds and six assists…

Durant scored 31 points before missing his last shot for Oklahoma City, which seemed poised to move to the brink of its second straight trip to the Western Conference finals. Instead, the Thunder lost for the first time in the postseason – but they didn’t exactly appear shaken by their late struggles…

Westbrook and James Harden scored 21 points apiece for the Thunder, who couldn’t match the Lakers’ late-game execution after soundly out-executing the Lakers in Game 2…

Bynum had 15 points and 11 rebounds for the Lakers, who got 12 points apiece from Ramon Sessions and Steve Blake. The Lakers still got uncomfortably close to an 0-3 deficit, which has never been overcome in NBA history.

— Reported by the Associated Press