NBA Teams – Page 1258 – NBA Blog

Melo scores 28, Knicks win Game 5 to stay alive vs Pacers

For the New York Knicks, it was about playing harder, even if not really much better.

Saving their season would be more about effort than execution.

”Tonight it was just one of them days where you just got to leave it out there on the basketball court,” Carmelo Anthony said.

Now they have to do it two more times.

Anthony scored 28 points and the Knicks avoided elimination in the Eastern Conference semifinals with an 85-75 victory over the Indiana Pacers in Game 5 on Thursday night.

Reserves J.R. Smith and Chris Copeland each had 13 points for the Knicks, who trail 3-2 and will need a victory Saturday in Indiana to force a seventh game back here Monday. They are trying to become the ninth NBA team to overcome a 3-1 deficit to win a series…

Paul George had 23 points, six rebounds and six assists for the Pacers. They played without point guard George Hill because of a concussion and committed 19 turnovers…

George battled foul trouble and couldn’t contain Anthony quite as well as he had while the Pacers easily won the previous two games…

David West had 17 points and 10 rebounds for the Pacers, who were trying to reach the Eastern Conference finals for the first time since 2004…

The Knicks went back to their regular lineup, reinserting Pablo Prigioni, after going with a bigger group in Game 4 in a futile effort to match Indiana on the boards. The smaller group did a better job, getting outrebounded only 43-40.

— Reported by Brian Mahoney of the Associated Press

Harrison Barnes gets six stitches in Spurs-Warriors Game 6

Golden State Warriors rookie forward Harrison Barnes needed six stitches to close a cut above his right eye after a hard fall in the second quarter of a playoff game against San Antonio on Thursday night.

Barnes fell hard to the court after leaping to contest a drive from Boris Diaw. After a few minutes on the ground, Barnes was led back to the locker room. Barnes got the stitches at halftime and returned to the court to a loud ovation just before the start of the third quarter.

— Reported by the Associated Press

Memphis Grizzlies on fire in NBA playoffs

The Grizzlies have won eight of their last nine playoffs games, and upended a pair of higher seeds along the way. They have blossomed in the NBA’s elite landscape like a weed, which is to say it’s been pretty darn difficult to get rid of a grit-and-grind team that’s bucking trends in the postseason.

The fifth-seeded Grizzlies’ path to the conference finals was rather remarkable. They lost two straight games to the fourth-place Los Angeles Clippers to start the opening round and then won four straight. Memphis dropped Game 1 against top-seeded Oklahoma City and won the next four contests to capture the West semifinals.

The Grizzlies began their playoff history in Memphis losing their first 12 games. This version of the Griz is 18-13 over the past three postseasons behind the commitment to a core group of Conley, Tony Allen, Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph.

“It’s just confidence,” Randolph said. “It just continues to build and build, and guys continue to get better and better.”

— Reported by Ronald Tillery of the Memphis Commercial Appeal

A look at Trail Blazers offseason needs

If the Blazers keep their lottery pick — and that’s a big if as it appears Olshey will look for willing trade partners — it is likely the team pursues a shooting guard.

The Blazers have four pressing needs this offseason: a starting center, a backup point guard, a high-scoring shooting guard and depth at small forward. With $11.6 million in cap room, a lottery pick and three second-round picks, they have enough assets to probably solve two, maybe three, of those issues this summer.

Olshey has been frank about searching for a starting center either in free agency or via trade. Olshey has also expressed an interest in retaining Eric Maynor as his backup point guard, which will likely come using a $2.6 million exception for teams over the cap.

This draft class is largely considered a down class, but if there is a strength, it is at shooting guard, where Ben McLemore (Kansas), Victor Oladipo (Indiana), Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (Georgia), Franklin and Glen Rice Jr. (Georgia Tech/Development League) as well as combo guards like CJ McCollum (Lehigh) and Carter-Williams.

— Reported by Jason Quick of the Oregonian

NBA draft prospect refuses to give Spurs his phone number

If the San Antonio Spurs choose Deshaun Thomas in next month’s NBA draft, they might have a hard time reaching him to tell him. That’s because when the Spurs asked the former Ohio State star for his phone number Wednesday night, he refused to give it to them.

Thomas said teams asked him plenty of difficult and interesting questions during his interview process at the combine. But the most interesting, he said, was the fact the Spurs’ first question was for his cell phone number and his e-mail address. He gave them the e-mail, but not the phone number.

“I can’t go around giving it out to everyone,” Thomas said Thursday with a laugh. “Now if they want to draft me, I’d be happy to give it to them.”

— Reported by Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon Journal

Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson says sale of Kings is close

Mayor Kevin Johnson arrived home today and said the group led by Silicon Valley executive Vivek Ranadive was close to finalizing a deal to buy the Sacramento Kings.

“It’s going to be close to being signed in the next day or two,” the mayor said at Sacramento International Airport. “I’ll be surprised if we get past the weekend. I feel very confident about that.”

Ranadive is in talks to buy the Kings from the Maloof family after the NBA on Wednesday rejected the franchise’s proposed move to Seattle. NBA Commissioner David Stern said the league was working to close the deal by the end of the week.

Speaking by phone, Kings co-owner George Maloof said negotiations with Ranadive are “going on fine.”

— Reported by Ryan Lillis, Dale Kasler and Tony Bizjak of the Sacramento Bee

Knicks in tough spot vs Pacers

Only eight teams in NBA history have climbed out of a 3-1 hole to advance.

“I’m very disappointed to be in the position that we’re in,” [J.R.] Smith said. “We’re still not out of it. We’re still in a good position to where we can still make some noise.”

The Knicks feel good because they’re home, where they have gone 34-12 this season, playoffs included. The Knicks also believe the shots that didn’t fall in Games 3 and 4 in Indiana — they missed 102 of 158 attempts — will drop in the Garden.

But just being home won’t necessarily address their inconsistent defense and the way they have been dominated on the boards by Roy Hibbert and the bigger Pacers.

Hoping to change that, Woodson started Kenyon Martin at power forward and brought guard Pablo Prigioni off the bench in Game 4. Indiana still outrebounded the Knicks, 54-36. The Pacers’ starting frontcourt grabbed 35 alone. Woodson likely will return to his usual starting five of Prigioni, Raymond Felton, Iman Shumpert, Anthony and Tyson Chandler Thursday night.

— Reported by Al Iannazzone of New York Newsday

Tom Thibodeau is glad Bulls were cautious with Derrick Rose

Chicago Bulls guard Derrick Rose was ruled out of the team’s 94-91 loss in Game 5 of an Eastern Conference semifinal against the Miami Heat, meaning he officially missed the entire season after undergoing ACL surgery on May 12, 2012.

Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau said the team was right to take a cautious approach with its star this season.

“If we were going to make a mistake, we wanted to make the mistake on the side of caution,” Thibodeau said. “We feel good about where he is. He has the whole summer to build more confidence and that’s the important thing. As we said when he first had the surgery, we weren’t going to rush him back, and we held to that. I think it was the smart decision.”

Rose was given an 8-12-month prognosis for a return by the surgeon after the operation and passed the 12-month mark on Sunday.

— Reported by ESPN Chicago

Derrick Rose return never happened this season

Al Capone’s vault is no longer the biggest hoax in Chicago history.

Welcome to the top spot, Derrick Rose’s “Return.”

After the inspiring adidas “Return” documentary advertorial that started the season of our discontent, and all the time wasted, I mean spent, monitoring and predicting and debating the date of Rose’s return and then ruminating on the murky reasons why it didn’t happen, it’s mercifully over.

The Miami Heat finished off a 4-1 series victory in the Eastern Conference semifinals Wednesday, so it’s officially official that Rose will not return this season. I don’t need a source to verify it.

Rose is now free to shoot around in private, rather than before games, and stash the playoff suits until his next GQ cover shoot. He can continue his training at the Berto Center and in Los Angeles, and prepare for a long-awaited return to action next fall.

He will be ready. We will be ready. Let the healing begin!

— Reported by Jon Greenberg of ESPN Chicago

Knicks need J.R. Smith shooting slump to end

Could Thursday night be J.R. Smith’s last game as a Knick?

Smith, the sharpshooter who has been in a prolonged slump, said Wednesday after practice that he’s not thinking about his future beyond Thursday’s Game 5 of the Knicks-Pacers series. That’s a good thing, because the game is the first out of a possible three win-or-go-home contests for the Knicks.

If the Knicks don’t find a way to come back from their 3-1 deficit, it is likely almost everyone’s future with the team will be up for discussion.

About the same time he won the Sixth Man of the Year award at the end of the season, Smith said he planned to exercise his right to opt out of his contract. Soon afterward, things started to go downhill for him. Over the last six games, dating back to Game 5 of the Knicks’ first-round series against Boston, Smith is shooting 26-for-91 (28.5 percent) from the field. After going 7-for-22 in the Game 4 loss at Indiana, Smith blamed himself for the fact the team was on the verge of elimination.

— Reported by Barbara Barker of New York Newsday