On the surface, this was sheer torture for Tracy McGrady and the Houston Rockets.

McGrady was brilliant for three quarters Monday night. Despite lacking All-Star center Yao Ming and resurgent point guard Rafer Alston, they were right there with the Utah Jazz – seeking a split of the first two games on their home floor.

But as is always the case, the Jazz pounded the boards, stayed in their face on defense and tormented them with offensive execution. The result was a 90-84 victory to take a commanding 2-0 series lead back to Salt Lake City for the next two games.

McGrady finished with 23 points, 13 rebounds, 9 assists, 3 steals and 2 blocks, but had just 1 point in the fourth quarter and was clearly dead on his feet down the stretch. He got help in spurts from backup point guard Bobby Jackson and rookie Aaron Brooks. Actually, Jackson’s 3-pointer apparently tied the game in the final minute only to have it waved off on a contentious off-the-ball foul called on Luis Scola, with Jazz forward Andrei Kirilenko accused of flopping.

And that was the end of that for the Rockets, who now have lost four consecutive playoff games to the Jazz dating to last spring.

Point guard Deron Williams led the Jazz with 22 points, while center Mehmet Okur added 16 points and 16 rebounds. Okur, Kirilenko and Carlos Boozer combined for 31 rebounds to lead the cause in a game so close there were 10 lead changes and 16 ties.

Despite McGrady’s efforts (16 points, 8 rebounds and 4 assists in the first half), the Rockets couldn’t establish enough offensive punch to hang on to the lead even when they got it. Jackson finished with 18, Scola had 14 and Brooks added 11, but it was never enough. Even a pair of Shane Battier 3-pointers in the final minute of the third quarter merely served as a temporary tease for the Rockets.

In the end, there was little the Rockets could do and it’s only going to get worse now. The Jazz have been vulnerable on the road all year, finishing 17-24. But now the teams head back to Salt Lake, where Utah was an NBA-best 37-4 during the regular season. And with an exhausted and depleted Rockets team, this series looks over.

Sure, Williams has a badly bruised tailbone that took another serious jolt when Brooks flattened him on a screen, forcing him to hobble back to the locker room. Nonetheless, young backup Ronnie Price made big plays – including a clutch 3-pointer at the end of the third quarter – to keep the Jazz in order. And Williams was running the show down the stretch, doing whatever it took to keep the Rockets at bay.

The question now is whether the Rockets have anything left to extend this series beyond the next two games. They were losers in the conference finals to the eventual champion Spurs last spring, and the next two games will show how much the Jazz have matured.

If they complete the sweep, it will speak more of their execution – not of the battered Rockets – and they’ll meet the winner of the Lakers-Nuggets series. Meanwhile, the Rockets will just have to take it - drip, drip, drip …

Quotebook

Jazz guard Deron Williams on winning both games in Houston:

“It's great for us to come out the way we did and not settle for the one victory. We wanted to get both of them, get greedy. We've just got to go back now and take care of business.”

The stud

Cavs All-Star forward LeBron James just missed a triple-double in their 116-86 win over the Wizards to take a 2-0 lead in the series. James had 30 points, 12 assists, 9 rebounds, 2 blocks and a steal. In the two games he’s averaging 31.0 points, 8.0 assists and 7.5 rebounds.

The dud

Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas, also known as Agent Zero or Mighty Mouth depending on your preference, had more turnovers than field goals. Making just 2-of-10 shots, Arenas had just 7 points, 3 assists, 4 fouls and 3 turnovers in just less than 24 minutes. In the first game he had 24 points.

Statbook

The Cavs now have beaten the Wizards in eight consecutive playoff games. … Cleveland center Zydrunas Ilgauskas has averaged 19 points and 10 rebounds in the two games. … Wizards All-Star Antawn Jamison went from 23 points and 19 rebounds in Game 1 to 9 points and 9 rebounds in Game 2. As a team they are 60-of-154 (.390) from the field and 9-of-40 (.225) from 3-point range. … McGrady is 16-of-43 from the field and 1-of-9 from 3-point range in the first two games. … Battier took seven shots in each of the first two games, making all seven in the first game to finish with 22 points, but hitting just three in Game 2 and totaling 7 points. … The Rockets are 10-of-41 (.244) from beyond the arc in the series and 34-of-55 (.618) from the free-throw line, while the Jazz are 12-of-27 (.444) from 3-point range and 27-of-40 (.675) from the stripe. Not coincidentally, Yao is their best free-throw shooter and Alston led the team in 3-pointers. Yao is out with a fractured foot, but Alston is a possibility for Game 3, battling a strained groin.

Tuesday

Now we’ll find out just how serious the Dallas Mavericks are about regaining their mojo and competing to win the Western Conference. After having fallen apart in the 2006 Finals, and getting upset by eighth-seeded Golden State in 2007, the Mavericks blew a 12-point lead at New Orleans Saturday and seem ill-equipped to come back from a 2-0 deficit.

Tonight in New Orleans, the Mavs must deal with their demons and gain a split.

Also, the Phoenix Suns will try to bounce back from their crushing double-overtime defeat at San Antonio, and the Toronto Raptors must figure out how to deal with the Orlando Magic’s monster in the middle, Dwight Howard.

Mavericks (0-1) at Hornets (1-0)

Chris Paul was brilliant in the 104-92 victory, with 35 points, 10 assists and 4 steals to lead the Hornets, who also dominated the interior thanks to the 10 points and 15 rebounds from Tyson Chandler. And after a sluggish start, forward David West had 23 points, 8 rebounds and 4 blocks for the Hornets. Dirk Nowitzki scored 31 for the Mavs, but Josh Howard (4-of-16) and Jerry Stackhouse (2-of-9) were a combined 6-of-25 from the field and Jason Terry produced just 6 points.

Suns (0-1) at Spurs (1-0)

Clutch 3-pointers from Michael Finley and Tim Duncan forced the two overtime periods in the remarkable 117-115 victory in Game 1. Duncan had a game for the ages with 40 points, 15 rebounds, 5 assists and 3 blocks. Manu Ginobili added 24 points for the Spurs, including the game-winning basket on a drive to the glass, and Tony Parker added 26 points and 5 assists. Amare Stoudemire had 33 and 7 rebounds before fouling out for the Suns, with Steve Nash adding 25 points and 13 assists.

Raptors (0-1) at Magic (1-0)

The Magic hit 16-of-20 shots, including 9-of-11 from 3-point range to take a 43-23 lead in the first quarter and never were really challenged on the way to a 114-100 win. Most of the reason was Dwight Howard’s intimidating 25 points, 22 rebounds and 5 blocks. Jameer Nelson had 24 points and 7 assists for the Magic, with Hedo Turkoglu adding 21 points and 6 assists. Anthony Parker scored 24 for Toronto and Chris Bosh added 21.

In a strange convergence of sorts, perhaps the NBA schedule had history and poetic justice in mind for what might be the death march for the Seattle SuperSonics franchise.

As the final three weeks ticked down of the worst season in the 41-year history of the franchise (19-62 going into Wednesday’s merciful regular season finale at Golden State), there was plenty of sentiment and tradition on display. All that Sunday night’s 99-95 win over the Dallas Mavericks lacked was Elton John stopping by KeyArena on the way back from his concert at Washington State University to play “Funeral For a Friend” after the final buzzer.

A near sellout crowd watched what could have been the final NBA game ever in KeyArena, with plenty of people involved in the storied Sonics past on hand, although the key proponents of moving the team to Oklahoma City – owner Clay Bennett, NBA commissioner David Stern and the man who sold them down the river to Bennett, Howard Schultz – were nowhere to be found.

Even at 19, the Sonics one bright spot for the season, Kevin Durant, bemoaned the prospects, hopeful that perhaps winning the rookie of the year would be more than just the final honor for this franchise in Seattle. It would leave something for the history of the franchise and the city, something that has meant a lot to him as a rookie and a fan of the NBA growing up.

“I’d be upset about leaving Seattle, but we can’t do anything about it,” Durant said. “We’ve got to play regardless, so today, if they say we’re going to Oklahoma, I guess we’ve got to pack up and go. I always knew what the Sonics were about. Every team I’ve played for I know what happened before – that kind of paved the way for guys like me to come through. Seattle is a legendary city (in the NBA) and a great city to play in, and it would be tough to leave here. If I bring back rookie of the year, that would mean a lot for our team more than myself. To bring that back would be a ray of light for the Seattle SuperSonics."

A quartet of fans decked out in striped prison garb bearing the letter, “OKC, Bennett, Stern and $chultz” was making a lot of noise in one section. The biggest cheer until the Sonics closed out the game with a 10-0 run came when future Hall-of-Famer Gary Payton was recognized midway through the second quarter with a standing ovation.

And when the clock ticked down the final seconds of the game, the scoreboard flashed the face of legendary gunner Fred Brown seated courtside – he of the recent press conference recently presenting a pie-in-the-sky $1 billion complex around a basketball/hockey arena on Puget Sound without a site or money – which is the glaring problem from Stern’s perspective.

Over the last three weeks, the Sonics' wins over the Trail Blazers, Nuggets and the Mavericks have come loaded with incredulous Seattle supporters on the other side.

The Blazers are coached by the man dubbed “Mr. Sonic,” Nate McMillan, who spent the first 19 years of his 22-year NBA career as a player and coach of the Sonics. The success of the Sonics averaging nearly 60 wins during a six-year span in the 1990s was built around Payton, Shawn Kemp and coached by Nuggets coach George Karl. And on this particular Sunday, there stood coach Avery Johnson, who entered the NBA in 1988 as an undrafted free agent rookie signed by the Sonics. He hasn’t left the NBA since, playing 16 years and spending the past three-plus as a coach, becoming the fastest head coach in league history to win 150 games.

“This is really pretty emotional for me knowing that maybe if it had not been for Seattle maybe I wouldn’t be here doing this interview because I had a chance to enter the NBA here 20 years ago,” Johnson said. “And to see and hear all the things going on with the team about possibly moving doesn’t really sit well with me. They have been here for (41) years, obviously had a championship here. I would sure hope that one way or another, that an NBA team one way or another would always have a home here.”

Ironically, because Bennett has so stripped the team of Sonics lore, it has been the opponents better suited to be involved in the history. Karl wore his beloved hand-painted “Space Needle” tie while his Nuggets lost last week in overtime. McMillan went off on a tangent discussing all the reasons why the Sonics shouldn’t leave, while lamenting the business aspect of the game.

“It's just hard to believe that you just drop a franchise and move it,” McMillan said. “And (especially) one that's had as much success as Seattle has had. Since I've been involved in the NBA, and even when I started watching basketball as a young person, the SuperSonics were part of the NBA. So all my life they've been a part of the league. And now, all of a sudden, talking about this organization moving? It's still hard for me to believe that it's going to happen, even though it really sounds like it.”

He knows this is all about money and power. So does Payton, who unofficially retired after last season with the Miami Heat. He came to the game Sunday to show support, and said he was willing to share his financial resources and contacts should somebody ask.

“I can’t even imagine myself if they wanted to retire my jersey for me to even try to go to Oklahoma City,” said Payton, franchise’s all-time leader in points, assists and steals in his 12-plus seasons in Seattle. “That ain’t where I played basketball at. That ain’t where I made my name at. I made my name here. I had great fan support to become the kind of basketball player I was. I can’t imagine that and I’m not really thinking about that. After 41 years, it’s told me a lot. We’ve got to think about coming up with a solution to keep the team here and I’m down for whatever to help make that happen.”

On and on they went Sunday night. Former Sonics player and coach Paul Westphal, shaking his head in disbelief before the game … “What a great city Seattle is. I can’t imagine the NBA without Seattle … it is ridiculous. I can understand any owner has to maximize his profit potential in order to compete I’m sure there is a legitimate argument. But as far as the aesthetics of KeyArena for a basketball game, it’s a great place and the basketball fans here are unbelievable. It just seems that a city of this caliber with the financial possibilities there are that something should be worked out.”

Mavs assistant coaches Brad Davis and Mario Elie remember playing basketball here for other teams, so much of it because the fans and the building were always so raucous.  “I vividly remember the wars coming in here in the playoffs with both the Rockets and Warriors. All I can remember is when Shawn Kemp dunked – you heard thunder for the “Reign Man” in KeyArena. It isn’t like there hasn’t been great support for this team all the years I’ve been in the NBA. It’s just sad.”

But the man who may have some say in the matter before it’s all over is Mark Cuban, the always vocal owner of the Mavericks who went on record Sunday saying he will vote against the move when the NBA Board of Governors convene at the end of this coming week. He talked about how the NBA often does things just to be doing them, chastising the obviously mistaken move of the Grizzlies from Vancouver to Memphis as a perfect example while allowing for the simple fact that since it is Bennett’s team, he has the right to try. He also knows the impact having a man like Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who made a pitch to help renovate KeyArena and buy the team from Bennett, would have on the NBA Board of Governors

“I’ll do what I can to help keep it here… it’s not over until it’s over, so we’ll see,” Cuban said. “I just finally saw some numbers and I’ll vote against it for sure. I just think it’s about Seattle vs. Oklahoma for the NBA, and I don’t think there’s any question after seeing the numbers that it’s Seattle. The only certainty that I have is (the team should be) in Seattle. Would I like to see Steve Ballmer involved in the NBA? Absolutely, positively … he’s crazier than I am, and smarter than I am and he’s got more money than I do and those are all great things for the NBA.

“There’s an equity value of (41) years from a team that you can’t quantify when you discuss a move that has real economic value. When we look at relocation - as best as I can tell - we ask, ‘Is (Oklahoma City) capable as opposed to the best choice?’ I’m standing up and saying I don’t think it’s the best choice. I’m saddened. I’m not perplexed because I’ve been in the NBA eight years now and … welcome to the NBA. That’s why I get in so much trouble because we just do things just to do them sometimes. To me my job as an NBA partner and a member of the Board of Governors is to give feedback on what I think is the best for the NBA. To me what’s best for the NBA looking from every variable is to keep the team in Seattle.”  

 

 

There are a lot of reasons why Kevin Garnett should be recognized as the league’s best defensive player this season. Maybe he’ll get the nod and maybe he won’t. The case on why he should isn’t difficult to make, though, as we trace the history of the award and other possible candidates. History tends to dictate the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year is a shot-blocker first and foremost. Since the award — voted on by the media — began in 1983 with Milwaukee Bucks uber-defender Sidney Moncrief winning the first two years, 16 of the next 23 winners were shot-blockers — including Marcus Camby last year.

That’s not to say the shot-blocker, who's virtually always an exceptional rebounder as well, doesn’t deserve the award. It’s just easier to distinguish the cause and effect, recognizing that it isn’t just that particular stat that makes the difference, but the intimidation factor as well. When you have guys like Camby, four-time winner Dikembe Mutombo and multiple winners such as Hakeem Olajuwon and Alonzo Mourning patrolling the paint, it does allow the rest of the team to play tougher on the ball because he’s back there as a fierce last line of defense.

The same can be said for on-the-ball pressure, with Hornets point guard Chris Paul leading the league in steals, although that rarely predicates the award-winner.

It would make it easy to tab Camby again considering he’s leading the league blocks again and is right up there in rebounds. Young Magic center Dwight Howard will garner a lot of votes, too, since he’s leading everyone in rebounding and is near the top of the league in blocks.

The Lakers’ Kobe Bryant, a fierce one-on-one defender will get his share of votes because he’s so talented and popular overall. Generally speaking, it’s difficult to single out individual defenders. Over the years, other than Moncrief, the awards have gone to great one-on-one defenders such as Michael Jordan, Gary Payton, Dennis Rodman and Ron Artest. There are those who believe the Spurs’ Bruce Bowen has deserved it for years but can’t get the necessary votes because there is a perceived notion of dirty play on his part.

This year, we’re going a different direction, giving the nod to a team-defense guy who is making everyone around him better: the Celtics’ Garnett. That’s not to say Garnett hasn’t been acknowledged as a great defender before. He was voted first-team All-Defense six years in a row by the coaches until slipping to second team the past two seasons. KG has never been voted the top defender by the media and this time around he should.

Ironically, his overall individual defensive statistics — 1.3 blocks, 1.4 steals and 9.4 rebounds — are below average over the breadth of his career. But the spidery arms, great hands, superior defensive knowledge and instincts of the 6-11, 240-pound Garnett have made the Celtics the best defensive team in the league this season. His help defense has given everybody else on the team more confidence and enhanced the team’s overall defensive IQ.

Heck, Celtics center Kendrick Perkins has more blocks than Garnett. But KG’s presence has given the young starter the freedom and confidence to come from the weak side and becoming an increasingly effective shot-blocker.

It’s hard to say how the rest of the voters will go in this instance. Camby will get a lot of votes again, so will Howard considering how much he and the Magic have risen in the NBA consciousness this season. And certainly neither would be the wrong choice.

Nonetheless, the reason Garnett deserves this is the same reason he will attract a lot of votes for Most Valuable Player too – he does so much to make the other players better with his consistent presence – his overall impact is incalculable.

To be sure, coach Doc Rivers and his staff deserve a lot of credit for transforming this team on the defensive end into a powerhouse that is leading the league in field-goal defense and defensive scoring average But none of it would have been possible without the towering president of “The Big Ticket,” in the middle of the fray to control things.

That’s why in my book, Garnett stands alone as the 2008 Defensive Player of the Year.

These are interesting times for coach Nate McMillan and the Portland Trail Blazers.

Really, who would have believed they’d be better than .500 when April 1 rolled around? Particularly after 7-foot, No. 1 overall draft choice Greg Oden had microfracture knee surgery before training camp that wiped out his rookie season.

Perhaps only McMillan and general manager Kevin Pritchard, who began overhauling this team together in the summer of 2005.

McMillan thinks they should be even better. “Why not five or 10 games over .500; why only three or four?” he chuckled half-seriously. “You look at this year and we’ve done some good things. We could have done even better. Right now we have a winning record and that is the goal, to finish with a winning record. It’s going to be difficult to do it, but we’ve got to show improvement. We’ve got to keep getting better because the goal is one day soon to win the championship.”

But this past week (eight days, really) is a perfect microcosm of his erratic young team's season. They entered the final stretch with a 36-33 mark and then ...

* They went 2-3, shooting just 40 percent for the week and dropping to 38-36. But they played ferociously on the boards, with center Joel Przybilla grabbing a franchise record-tying 26 rebounds in one of those games.

* Both of his second-year stars -- Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge -- missed games with injuries.

* Oden got cleared from microfracture knee surgery to practice lightly with the team, only to be caught playing pickup ball at a local gym late one night. Nothing happened, but everyone went haywire at Blazerland over what could have gone wrong.

* And although still in a state of disbelief, McMillan may have just coached his last game in Seattle, where his jersey hangs in the rafters after 20 years as a player and coach.

McMillan is focused right now on the team playing out the season hard. They're doing that, but they are also tired. He was pressed by a reporter about resting Roy on Monday, the night Aldridge sprained his ankle and essentially missed a game-and-a-half. Three nights later, Roy strained a groin muscle and now is out indefinitely.

“For us, this year is still about conditioning (mentally and physically) for us,” McMillan said. “Condition our guys to play (it out). We’ve challenged them in a sense. We’re playing teams this week with below .500 records. But then in April, we’re playing some teams … we’ve got Dallas, we’ve got Houston, we’ve got Phoenix, we have the Lakers; I want to see where we are against these teams in April. We’re not talking about shutting it down. If anything, the focus is how you mentally and physically get stronger and keep yourself ready to go. You’re battling a situation where teams are out of the playoffs, people do start to think about the summer. We’re trying to definitely not go that way.”

They had to do it because Roy and Aldridge aren’t used to this. Last year they finished at 21-61 -- second worst in franchise history -- with the youngest team in the NBA. Then in the off-season they got rid of troublesome but gifted Zach Randolph, then lost Oden, and started the season 5-11.

That wasn’t a surprise. What followed was -- 13 wins in a row and 17 in 18 games -- allowing them to leapfrog right into an erratic Northwest Division race. They stayed there until early February, and then went into a slump, Roy was named to the West All-Star team -- he actually played in both the freshman/sophomore game and the All-Star game -- and came out the other end, excited, humbled and exhausted. Here was a 6-6 guard who just overwhelmed everybody with his maturity during his Rookie of the Year campaign ... and then somehow managed to build on that.

“Nobody was surprised we started slow,” Roy said. “There were a lot of other guys getting acclimated to their new roles because Zach did a lot to make this team go. So we took out his 20 and 10, and we had to make that up. Eventually we learned. We got better. LaMarcus has grown into that role. I improved. I just think we just did a better job of coming together as a team. Losing Greg definitely was tough. A lot of guys did their part of stepping up and we gained confidence.

“But then we got tired after the All-Star break (lost 9 of 11) and it started to hit us that the season may be over when it came to making the playoffs. But Nate came in and said we’re going to condition ourselves to prepare for 82 games. We’re doing a good job of that so far. We’re staying focused and we’re coming out to win every game. We want to finish over .500.”

Meanwhile, Aldridge was getting accustomed to being the guy in the post. He had raised his numbers to almost 18.0 points and 7.4 rebounds on the strength of nine consecutive games of 20 or more points before the ankle injury. The former Texas star was blocking some shots in the process, but more importantly figuring out what it means to have the team run the ball through him in the post on every key possession.

“Trying to be a go-to player every night is tough,” Aldridge said. “You might go off one or two nights in a row, and then a team will double-team you in different ways. You have to learn how to read what’s coming and how to pass out of it. That’s a big part of what I’m going through right now.

It was tough at the start of the year when Greg went down. But coach told us that it wasn’t an excuse to have a bad season. There was no reason for us to stay down because the players that we have in the room are good enough to win games, so we should go out and play with confidence. And that’s what we did. A lot of guys stepped up this year and we have a good record. We’ve done better than anybody thought we would, but we also have to finish strong.”

It won’t be easy, but it will set a tone for next season when Oden immediately becomes the top rookie-of-the-year candidate. Plus they’re hoping to coax the best shooter in Europe, 6-6 Rudy Fernandez, acquired in a 2007 draft day trade from Phoenix, to the roster next season. That’s not to mention whatever lottery pick they have as well. The search is on to find the point guard to run this young team filled with talent as they’ve dickered with Roy (a natural shooting guard), Steve Blake, Jarrett Jack and Fernandez’s buddy -- supremely talented but inconsistent Sergio Rodriguez.

There also is the matter of small forward, currently manned by Martell Webster, another Seattleite and a high lottery pick from the old regime out of high school. He still has to develop into more than just a streak shooter at small forward, but he isn’t even 22 yet. On the other hand, Travis Outlaw, only 23, has become one of the best sixth men in the league. They’re hoping to keep hot-shooting free agent James Jones, while Przybilla’s gained experience and stature will only benefit Oden in the long run.

These days it’s about the gut check. In a conference where a team will win 48-50 games this season and not make the playoffs, it doesn’t figure to get any easier very soon. His objective is to get his guys to play through the tough times, so if they are in that 50-win vicinity next season – they’ll better be able to handle it. The learning curve is still there, but it has shrunk rapidly. For a storied organization that had sellouts every night for generations before falling off the map five years ago, the Rose Garden is filled with fans and energy again. It seems to be only a matter of time until they’re competing to win the West again.

“If somebody had told me before the season we’d have this record right now, I’d think we’d be in great position to make the playoffs,” Roy said. “But hey, the West is tough this year. We can’t point any fingers at anyone but ourselves. It’s all about winning more games next year. We have to continue to build. There are a lot of guys getting more experience. LaMarcus is continuing to blossom as the scorer, we’ll have Greg. These games are just as important as any of them so next year when we come in, we’ll be even stronger as a team.”

The big squeeze is on the Dallas Mavericks.

It isn’t as if we didn’t see this coming considering the past month or so, especially after Sunday’s knee and high ankle sprain to All-Star forward Dirk Nowitzki. But the way they came apart Thursday night at Denver to the Nuggets, coupled with the Golden State Warriors coming from behind to handle the Portland Trail Blazers, the fight for the final two spots of the Western Conference is tighter than the Mavericks at the free throw line these days.

The Mavs (45-27) now lead the Warriors (44-27) by a half game and the Nuggets (44-28) by one game as we head into the final 2½ weeks of the season. Should the Mavericks slip out of the top eight, it would be the first time since 2000 they will have failed to make the playoffs, and the first full season since Mark Cuban became the team’s owner in January of 2000 that they will have fallen into the lottery.

And with Nowitzki’s status still very iffy going down the stretch, all eyes continue to focus on point guard Jason Kidd, acquired in late February. Kidd and the Mavs were outstanding in the first half against the Nuggets' porous defense, racing to a 70-60 lead and plenty of second-chance points. More to the point, Kidd had 13 points, 11 assists and 4 steals by halftime.

They were beating the Nuggets up and down the floor, beat them badly on the boards (23-16), and had them on the ropes if only they continued at that pace.

But the second half was a different story, and the Nuggets blew it open in the third quarter. No doubt coach George Karl jumped all over the frontcourt for lack of rebounding, and they turned it around with a 25-16 advantage, forced the Mavericks into bad shots (2-of-13 from 3-point range), and let their high-powered duo of Allen Iverson (31) and Carmelo Anthony (32) take control of the game. The Nuggets even got the huge emotional boost of Nene coming into the game with a little more than a minute left – his first appearance since undergoing surgery for malignant testicular cancer on Jan. 11.

The 118-105 loss makes them 0-9 against winning teams since Kidd has come aboard (10-9 overall). He finished the game with 19 points, 15 assists and 5 steals, so it had nothing to do with his numbers, nor Josh Howard scoring 30 points just two nights after pouring in 32 in a win over the Clippers. They’re just dying for Dirk, the 2007 MVP and cornerstone of their franchise.

Making matters worse, seven of Dallas’ final 10 games are against plus-.500 teams, with six of those 10 games on the road – where they are 15-20 this season. And two of their next three games are against the Warriors, at Oakland on Saturday and in Dallas on Tuesday, with a road game at the Clippers in between on Sunday. As if those games won’t be vital enough, they hit the road next weekend with games at the Lakers and at the Suns. To put it mildly, that five-game stretch will go a long way toward deciding their fate.

Meanwhile, the Nuggets, with a 15-21 road record, split their final 10 home and away, but only three of their five road games are against winning teams. A four-game road trip from Feb. 6-11 begins at the Sonics and Clippers, but finishes with the Warriors and Jazz before they end the regular season at home against the Rockets and Grizzlies.

After a sluggish start Thursday night against the Blazers, the Warriors gradually picked up a head of steam behind their explosive trio of Stephen Jackson, Baron Davis and Monta Ellis to put away the battered young team with a 111-95 victory. But it doesn’t get any easier with six of their final 11 games on the road - although they are an impressive 20-15 on foreign hardwood. Nonetheless, five of their next six games are away from Oracle Arena, beginning at Denver Saturday night. The Mavs come in on Sunday, and then they head out for games at San Antonio, Dallas, Memphis and New Orleans in six days.

The good news for the Warriors is four of their final five games are home, where the Oracle has become the place to be after a generation of lost fans. There will be no empty seats.

So how does it break down? Well, short of something traumatic happening, it would be wise to bet the ranch on the Warriors moving into seventh by some time next week and staying there. The real battle will be for the eighth spot between the wobbling Mavs and the defensively-challenged Nuggets.

Nobody seems to know the status of Nowitzki at this point because it’s so early in the healing process. And even if he does come back for the final week, he’ll be really vulnerable to re-injuring the high ankle sprain – let alone the knee. Can Kidd, Howard and Jerry Stackhouse provide enough leadership and firepower for the Mavericks to hang on in his absence under the most trying of circumstances?

That’s highly debatable, particularly the way they managed just 35 points in the second half against the Nuggets Thursday night.

We’ll also find out the real fit under the most trying circumstances of Iverson and Anthony in this race to the finish for the Nuggets. It’s the total commitment to team and not the individual that will tell the tale. Iverson has proven himself. Anthony has not. We still have to find out if Karl can get this often wild-eyed bunch to defend at crunch time of these games.

Ultimately the Nuggets have just been way too inconsistent all season to say they will beat out the Mavs for eighth … so indeed it’s a tossup between Denver and Dallas for the final playoff spot as they’re coming down the back stretch.

It also leaves us with a situation that was previously unfathomable and now seems likely - somebody winning 50 games will not make the playoffs for the first time in NBA history.

As a wise man once said … that ain’t right. 

 

 

The Billionaire Boys Club of Seattle has convened, and decided they don’t want the Sonics to move and last week put on the table what figures to be at least $500 million to make their point.

So why does it appear that Microsoft chairman Steve Ballmer, Costco chairman Jim Sinegal, Western Wireless co-founder John Stanton and Seattle downtown developer Matt Griffin and the revival of the Seattle Center in the process are inconsequential with this magnanimous gift?

There are a number of reasons, ranging from what could be a personal vendetta from NBA commissioner David Stern after being shot down by Washington politicians in 2005, to lame and short-sighted politics in the city and the state.

It could be both.

Either way, a lawsuit by the city preventing a buyout of the final two years of the KeyArena lease that goes to trial in June may end up being the only reason the team stays in Seattle two more seasons before bolting to Oklahoma City in 2010. And unless something changes in a hurry, that move would be the worst injustice of a professional franchise moving since the Browns moved from Cleveland to Baltimore in 1996.

But the difference is only Browns owner Art Modell was the villain in that case, and Cleveland was almost immediately promised an expansion team to fill the void and retain the name, colors and history. Seattle has just the opposite with the attitude Stern has taken.

The list of villains here begins with Stern, and his relationship with former owner and Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz, who never gave local ownership a chance in 2006; and ultimately Oklahoma City billionaire Clay Bennett, another Stern crony who overpaid for the team just to put OKC on the map. Keep in mind Stanton, who owned 20 percent of the team in Schultz’s bloated group, wanted in with the new ownership, but Bennett nixed it, wanting only Oklahoma City ownership.

Even worse, Bennett refused to discuss a remodel of KeyArena, and when it was apparent the politicians wouldn’t give him land and build him the Taj Mahal on Lake Washington for $500 million, he applied to move to Oklahoma City.

Now everyone is raving about the $121 million promise of a remodel to the Oklahoma City Arena, but the proposed $300 million to KeyArena isn’t worth a look? Does it not matter that Seattle is the 12th largest media market in the country, has a 41-year history supporting the Sonics and Oklahoma City is the 45th largest market?

This smells fishier than the salmon toss at Pike Place Market

Making matters worse, despite lucking into the second pick of the lottery to draft college player of the year Kevin Durant, Bennett ordered a stripping of the franchise to save money and rebuild. They pushed out most of the people in the organization pre-Bennett, and they have a virtual lock on the worst record since their inception in 1967. All of these transactions look more like a transparent attempt to chase fans away to justify the move every day.

Meanwhile, Stern has spent the past 18 months bashing Seattle every chance he gets despite the list of failing franchises from the most recent moves (see Vancouver to Memphis, Charlotte to New Orleans and a Charlotte expansion franchise). In case he hasn’t noticed, the NBA franchise model is broken and it is becoming apparent that most owners lose money until they sell the franchise. When the San Antonio Spurs ownership group contends they can’t afford to continue without a new building when they sell out virtually every game and annually go deep into the playoffs, then something is seriously wrong.

Consequently, these actions reek of a setup -- dating back to when Stern and Schultz went to Olympia to plead their case for a new building in 2005 and came away empty-handed. Never mind the $200 million-plus offer for a remodel at the time. The biggest problem the ownership has had all along has been a bad lease and a deteriorating team under Schultz’s watch and Wally Walker’s basketball guidance. A remodel, a new lease and a different ownership group to reconstruct the team has always been the easy answer once it was apparent Schultz was a phony with his "five years to a title" and "public trust" promises in 2001 when he bought the team with 57 partners. In the process, Schultz and Walker had alienated the entire basketball community.

After the rebuff, Stern didn’t just get mad, he wanted to get even.

Consequently, instead of offering up the team to local ownership – obviously there is no lack of money or interest in the Seattle area - Stern began working in the backroom to find Schultz a buyer. San Jose was the initial target and Oracle software billionaire Larry Ellison, but it was too close for comfort to the Warriors in Oakland. Instead, he came up with Bennett, a former minority owner of the Spurs and a key contributor to the success Oklahoma City had hosting the Hornets for two seasons in the wake of Hurricane Katrina chasing them from New Orleans. And just for the generosity of offering him the team, Bennett overpaid Schultz with $350 million for a team valued at more than $100 million less that required a lot of work.

In Stern’s eyes that allowed for Bennett’s over-the-top demands to the Seattle market as a precursor to move. Worse yet, Bennett began a continuous string of alienating media faux pas, including his partner Aubrey McClendon admitting to a business newspaper that they always planned on moving the club to OKC anyway. McClendon was fined by the NBA. Bennett attempted to buy out the final two years of the lease to no avail and sued the city. Seattle countersued, and now the Sonics and Seattle have a court date in June to decide whether or not they can leave next season.

So that brought us to this week and Ballmer’s group offering the city and state the $150 million gift (plus at least $350 million to buy back the team with initial phone calls to Bennett already made). Washington governor Christine Gregoire met the offer with open arms, but refused to give traction to a special session or a push to the legislature which ends its session Thursday.

Now the offer is sitting in limbo, even though the city council has signed off on its $75 million portion of the tab, and the state’s portion would only require the continuation of a hotel, rental car and restaurant tax that is already scheduled to run through 2016. It’s been simplified so much by the gift of cash, even the political naysayers say they are on board. They just don’t want to take to the time to officially sign off on it now. That poses a problem since the NBA relocation committee goes to Oklahoma City on March 25 and the Board of Governors will vote on the move three weeks later. This is no time to dawdle.

Saturday, hundreds of Sonics fans descended upon the state capitol in Olympia urging the legislature to approve the offer. It’s time for the politicians to wake up and realize this is not only good for the Sonics, but the renovation of the sad state of the Seattle Center property around the iconic Space Needle. Immediate approval would perhaps create a circumstance that stops the NBA’s Board of Governors dead in their tracks before rubber-stamping yet another bad move. That doesn’t guarantee Bennett will sell in lieu of losing millions of dollars should he be forced to stay two more years. It is a start, however.

That way, if the NBA wants Oklahoma City to have a team so badly, they can give them one on their own accord with expansion -- just leave the Sonics alone.

Considering all the turmoil surrounding the Sonics -- continuous moving of players, a 16-43 record and the incessant commentary about whether they’re staying in Seattle or moving to Oklahoma City -- Kevin Durant deserves to be lauded for living up to his billing as the consensus preseason rookie of the year.

Once the Blazers' Greg Oden went down with microfracture knee surgery before the season even began, the expectations for Durant were immense. Although the circumstances surrounding the team have precluded success, there was some anticipation that he could hasten their improvement. It hasn’t happened, along with Atlanta’s Al Horford, he’s been consistently the most productive rookie.

But as so many of the rookies from the lottery have run smack into the proverbial wall in the final third of the season (not to mention their languishing teams), the final pick of the lottery – Al Thornton – has picked up a head of steam despite the seemingly inevitable implosion of the Clippers down the stretch.

Thornton, the 6-8, 220-pound forward from Florida State, has raised his numbers to 11.5 points and 4.1 rebounds on the strength of averaging 17.8 points and 5.8 rebounds over the past 17 games. Twice he has scored 33 points during that time and he’s had 23 or more points seven times.

And Thornton isn’t the only rookie from the bottom of the lottery to step up recently, as Thaddeus Young has played a role in the resurgent Sixers move into the seventh spot of the Eastern Conference. While the Sixers have won 12 of their past 17 games, Young, also a 6-8, 220-pound forward but from Georgia Tech, has averaged 10.8 points and 6.1 rebounds.

That’s not to minimize how Durant has lingered near 20 points a game all season, nor the way Horford has been on the verge of a averaging a double-double for the erratic Hawks the entire season. But this is the time of year when you learn a lot about rookies, and what kind of mental toughness they have now and for the future.

Meanwhile, we would be remiss not to recognize the great job free agent Jamario Moon has done for the Raptors, along with Luis Scola for the Rockets and Juan Carlos Navarro for the Grizzlies, but they’ve all played professional basketball for several years. This review is about how the young players are learning to deal with their first season playing with the big boys.

In other words, this is all about grading the impact the lottery picks have had on their respective teams – keeping in mind most of these guys are on teams that are still trying to figure out how to win games on a consistent basis with young players.

So this is what we’ve got so far, and we’ll check back after the season is over – which won’t be long for at least 10 of the 14.

1. Greg Oden, Portland Trail Blazers, 7-1, 270, C: The word on Oden needing major surgery came down a month before training camp even began. The affable 7-1 center remains at the core of what the future bodes for the Blazers, who were the surprise of the NBA before the first of the year and are still above .500. Just competing without Oden, with another lottery pick in the offing come June, he’ll have his shot at rookie of the year next season with a team on the rise. Grade: Incomplete.

2. Kevin Durant, Seattle SuperSonics, 6-9, 220 G-F: The Sonics have been a mess all season, but Durant has somehow managed to average around 19.4 points and 4.1 rebounds from the beginning. His shot selection has improved some from early season launching, but the team hasn’t helped him any with the revolving door not only on the floor, but on the roster. The usage of his quickness, long arms and great hands on defense has been gradually improving and helped the Sonics on occasion. Grade: B.

3. Al Horford, Atlanta Hawks, 6-10, 245, F-C: The Hawks looked like they were headed in the right direction in December – playoff-bound for the first time in nine years. But they’ve fallen apart since then. Not Horford. He’s been a rock, and arguably more consistently effective than Durant, although not as flashy. Over the past 17 games, he’s averaged 10.9 points and 10.1 rebounds – as opposed to his season average of 9.6 points and 10.0 rebounds. Tough physically and mentally, he’s been surprisingly consistent on a terribly inconsistent team. Grade: B-plus.

4. Mike Conley, Memphis Grizzlies, 6-1, 175, PG: Drafted by a team that already had three point guards, this never made sense from the beginning, and the slim and young Conley wasn’t physically ready at the beginning of the season to run the team. But his minutes have picked up considerably since the first of the year as the woeful Grizzlies packed it in anyway. He’s averaged 10.8 points and a shade less than 5.0 assists the past 17 games during which the Grizz have managed to win just three – which isn’t that much better than the 9.3 points and 4.6 assists for the season. He’s got great floor awareness, quickness and delivers the ball well … unless they ruin him. Grade: C.

5. Jeff Green, Seattle SuperSonics (from the Boston Celtics), 6-9, 235, F: Acquired in the Ray Allen as the yang to Durant’s yin, he’s been yanked in and out of the line all season by coach P.J. Carlesimo, so it’s been difficult to get a read on what Green can do. He’s smart, tough and strong, but he’s been a typically erratic rookie on an even more erratic team. Green seems destined to be the starting small forward on this team for many years, with Durant sliding back to shooting guard – although some believed Green would fill out to be a power forward. As it is, he’s been right around 9.0 points and 4.9 rebounds all season. They wanted a solid character role player and got him. Grade: C.

6. Yi Jianlian, Milwaukee Bucks, 6-11, 235, F: A controversial pick from the beginning, Yi made it clear he didn’t want to go to Milwaukee, but eventually caved when they wouldn’t trade his rights. He played well in the preseason, responded once the regular season began as well. But the slim 7-footer has hit double figures only twice over the past six weeks, and really began the big fade after the first of the year. Averaging just 7.4 points and 3.8 rebounds over the past 17 games, the fade has dropped his average below the solid double figure scoring and 6-plus rebounds he was averaging into January to 8.9 points, 5.3 rebounds and dropping. Grade: C-minus.

7. Corey Brewer, Minnesota Timberwolves, 6-8, 185, G-F: The Wolves expected instant impact from one of the key components of the two-time defending NCAA champion Florida Gators, but are still waiting. He’s been given plenty of opportunity, but can’t manage to get his numbers above 5.8 points and 3.8 rebounds. He is a superb defender, with great quickness and hands, which helps a lot on a bad team like the Timberwolves. But he’s got to develop a more consistent jump shot – always in question at Florida too – while getting to the rim when it is there. The latter will come with time, but his shot needs work. Grade: C-minus.

8. Brendan Wright, Golden State Warriors (from the Charlotte Bobcats), 6-10, 200:  It was hard to figure how Wright would break into the Warriors lineup this season for any number of reasons considering how deep they are on the wings, plus coach Don Nelson’s history of letting rookies sit. Essentially, that’s been the story for the long, skinny and athletic North Carolina product. He’s played in only 22 games all season for the 36-22 W’s, but has averaged 7.2 points and 5.0 rebounds in the six game he’s played over the past month. However, something must be happening because Nellie has played him the past two games and he’s averaged 12.5 points, 7.0 rebounds and 2.5 blocks. He’s perfect for the system and it will be interesting to see how the final six weeks pan out – he should be handed the minutes Grandpappy Chris Webber is getting. Grade: C.

9. Joakim Noah, Chicago Bulls, 6-11, 235, C-F: Aggressive on the floor and outspoken off of it, this season has hardly been a picnic for Noah or the Bulls. He was in and out of the lineup before Scott Skiles was fired and it’s only been slightly better with Jim Boylan. But the dealing of Ben Wallace has opened the door for him to be the center, period. He’s averaged 7.8 points and 5.7 rebounds in the six games since the big trade, which isn’t really measurably better than the 5.3 points and 4.8 rebounds for the season. This season has been a disappointing mess for them, and we’ll get a better take on him next year. Grade: C

10. Spencer Hawes, Sacramento Kings, 7-0, 245, C: Questions about his knees bore out right away when he was sidelined early in the season, and his lack of strength overall explained why so many told him coming out after his freshman year was too soon. But he is a very skilled basketball player with great hands, touch and passing ability. What we don’t know is if he can hold up physically as the Kings center of the future when Brad Miller is finished. Most of his appearances have been token, averaging just 3.5 points and 2.4 rebounds – slightly better (4.9 and 2.9) over the past 17. Nobody will question his talent, but he has a long way to go to prove his body can handle playing in the NBA. Grade: C-minus.

11. Acie Law, Atlanta Hawks, 6-3, 195, PG: Allegedly, the Hawks finally got their point guard after opting not to take Deron Williams, Chris Paul and even swing guard Brandon Roy in the previous two drafts. But it just hasn’t worked for them, as Law has struggled all season with a chronic wrist problem that needs to be resolved in the offseason. An overachiever at Texas A&M, you’ve got to love his attitude and work ethic, but he’s a long way from proving he can consistently run a team. And that’s why they trade for Mike Bibby, who still has plenty of tread left on his tires. Law’s average of 4.6 points and 2.3 assists for the season is reflective of any portion of the season – probably half of what they wanted and needed from his as the 11th pick. Grade: C-minus.

12. Thaddeus Young, Philadelphia 76ers, 6-8, 220, F: A lot of people liked Young coming out of Georgia Tech – smart, athletic and very coachable. But he was so young and seemingly raw …it was hard to figure he would contribute much this season.  But he’s one of those guys with great work habits and continues to improve as a result of that ethic. His contribution was minimal until after the first year, since then he has blossomed in the rotation. Over the past 17 games, Young has averaged 10.8 points and 6.1 rebounds, including a stretch of 10 games during which he reached double figures in scoring. Besides, he’s extremely quick and thriving when coach Maurice Cheeks has them press – averaging 2.0 steals a game over the past 10. Grade: B.

13. Julian Wright, New Orleans Hornets, 6-8, 225, F. Ironically, he has suffered the same fate as Brendan Wright, struggling to find minutes on the playoff-bound Hornets. Nonetheless, it doesn’t translate to two Wrights making a wrong. The former Kansas star has played in only 34 games, 11 over the past two months – managing to average just a couple of points and a rebound. With the lack of depth the Hornets have, he should have been able to earn some minutes by now. It’s a wasted year for him, without question, when he could have been raising his game to another level and helping the Jayhawks compete for a national championship.  Grade: D.

14. Al Thornton, Los Angeles Clippers: 6-8, 220, F. Thornton had such a great preseason for the Clippers – particularly since Elton Brand was sidelined with an Achilles tendon tear. And with Oden out for the year, he became the sleeper pick for rookie of the year. But once the regular season started, he rapidly lost his effectiveness and minutes. But injuries kept hurting the Clippers, and coach Mike Dunleavy turned back to Thornton again around Christmas. Gradually, he regained the confidence of the preseason and started putting up numbers to get his season’s averages up to 11.5 points and 4.1 rebounds. But it’s the nearly 18 points and 6 rebounds of the past 17 games that have turned everyone’s head. He’s a tough guy and will only get better. Grade: B.

Now that the dealing season is over, with big names flying around the Western Conference like a trading card convention, we’re tired of sorting it out.

One thing's for sure, nobody has been bemoaning the Von Wafer for Taurean Green trade. Neither the fans nor media of the Trail Blazers for unloading Green; ditto for Nuggets-lovers and their crew of analysts for giving up on Wafer. It didn’t draw a blip on the NBA map, nor should it. The Blazers were purportedly in some heavy talks for Jason Kidd, but they fizzled in the wake of Kidd’s public commentary about wanting to go to Dallas. And since the Blazers came down to earth a few weeks ago from their stunning run with young star Brandon Roy wearing out, they can slide back down to the top of the lottery and decide which players they are keeping when Greg Oden mohawks his way back to the basketball court from knee surgery for next season.

The Nuggets are a different story -- tied for the eighth spot in the West.

A year after acquiring Allen Iverson, his partnership with Carmelo Anthony hasn’t turned into the disaster of selfishness that so many predicted. They both started for the West in the All-Star game and 2007 defensive player of the year Marcus Camby continues to pile up tons of blocks and rebounds. On the other hand, it hasn’t exactly turned the Western Conference on its ear either. The Nuggets are a nice team that coach George Karl hasn’t quite put his finger on yet as their inconsistency reveals.

To be sure, injuries have continuously crushed them -- particularly to Nene and Kenyon Martin. The former is set for chemotherapy in the wake of testicular cancer and the latter has battled his way back from a second microfracture knee surgery with as much effectiveness as could be expected. Karl figured to finally have a point guard when they signed journeyman Chucky Atkins as their offseason investment. But Atkins has played in all of nine games due to a sports hernia, and backup Anthony Carter missed almost a third of the season with a fractured hand.

So the Nuggets figured to make a move heading into the Feb. 21 trade deadline. The other eight teams all made additions -- certainly more significant than the infamous Taurean Green.

Why not? They figured to be players in the Kidd sweepstakes as well before the Mavs proved to be the only serious player. There was incessant talk about acquiring Ron Artest to buffer their frequently lame defense. At the very least, the Memphis Grizzlies had both super-shooter and versatile Mike Miller and tough little second-year point guard Kyle Lowry available.

No dice, but why?

Nobody has ever called Karl shy about making deals. Heck, he’s more inclined to be the riverboat gambler type. The same goes for general manager Mark Warkentien, whose personnel savvy has made a major impact in success at not only Denver, but Portland, Cleveland and Seattle as well over the past couple of decades.

The biggest issue, of course, was getting somebody else to buy off on the huge contract of Nene considering his history of injuries and now the unknown of cancer. Frankly, that was a given. The bigger question is why they didn’t pull the trigger on Artest, with Linas Kleiza and Eduardo Najera going to the Kings in return.

Evidently, owner Stan Kroenke was willing to continue opening his very generous pockets for Artest, and Warkentien had come to a tacit agreement with Kings president Geoff Petrie. Not only is Artest one of the best defenders inside and outside in the league, but he can score in the post and on the perimeter. And while he brings all of that to the table, his backpack is also filled with bizarre stories that have disrupted not only his family and teams along the way … but the entire NBA.

The thing is, he’s always been on his best behavior at first blush – which would have been a huge impact for the Nuggets down the stretch. Anthony was unusually vocal about wanting the deal done and reportedly was visibly upset when it didn’t happen.

Najera is a tough nut with an expiring contract and a solid reserve for defense and rebounding. Kleiza was the guy in question. A 23-year-old 6-8, 235-pound forward, he is a great streak shooter who runs the floor. He is popular with the fans and in the organization … a solid guy and a good contributor. He'd also have trouble defending a stop sign.

Consequently, the Nuggets are in trouble and they know it. There are nine teams playing .600 ball in the Western Conference, and they are deadlocked with the Warriors at 33-22. In all likelihood, one of them will make the playoffs, the other will not. The Rockets have leapfrogged them both in the midst of their 12-game winning streak. They have obviously found their mojo under first-year coach Rick Adelman.

Granted, they are only 5½ games out of first, too, and anybody could drop like a rock for myriad reasons. But things could get worse for the Nuggets before they get better. Despite Camby’s presence and Iverson’s ball-hawking, their defense appears to be getting worse. They’ve lost three of their last four -- allowing an average of 119.2 points in road losses at Orlando, Chicago and Milwaukee (though there was a solid home win over Boston sandwiched in between). Over the past month, they have held only one opponent under 100 points.

And they’ve got to be more effective on the road. With the title-contending Pistons coming to town Monday night -- and fresh off a resounding 30-point win at Phoenix -- the Nuggets have to re-establish themselves. They are 22-6 at home and 11-16 on the road -- meaning 14 of their last 26 games down the stretch after Monday won’t be in the friendly confines of the mile-high Pepsi Center.

The organization made its choice -- the solid citizenship and occasional bursts of scoring from Kleiza over the mercurial impact of Artest. Now it’s up to Karl and the leadership of Iverson and Anthony to spur this team back into the mix. We now know that they aren’t good enough to be sleeper contenders in the West … bad losses at Milwaukee and Chicago reiterated that. But do they have enough to make the playoffs and possibly upset somebody in the first round? Sure, that’s doable.

Maybe Taurean Green will be the difference.

The next thing we’ll hear is that Al Gore will be speaking at the NBA All-Star Game next week in New Orleans to discuss the effect of global warming in the Western Conference.

It’s no longer as hot as it was just a few weeks ago. Now it’s scorching. We still have the same questions as we had a few weeks ago: Are the Spurs too old to get it together late in the year as they always have? Are the Mavs just too soft to ever win the West? And really, are the Hornets serious contenders or just the flavor of the regular season?

But those questions have become afterthoughts in the wake of the past week.

Last Friday, the Lakers acquired Pau Gasol for three packs of cigarettes, a plane ticket to anywhere in the continental United States, and free Gatorade for a year.

This week the Suns unloaded the incessant whine of Shawn Marion and ineffectual Marcus Banks for what’s left of the mammoth center previously known as Shaquille O’Neal.

Now what do we do?

With Kobe Bryant playing at an MVP level and the rest of the Lakers growing up around him fast, the addition of Gasol not only compensates for having lost blossoming young center Andrew Bynum, it makes them legitimate contenders to win the West in whatever state Bynum returns from his left knee injury in the spring. Unlike last season, when they went belly-up when injuries struck, this year they’re dealing with it. The addition of Gasol will lighten the scoring load on Bryant, open up the floor for the multi-dimensional Lamar Odom, and create more open perimeter shots for the dangerous long-range shooting of Derek Fisher, Jordan Farmar, Sasha Vujacic and Vladimir Radmanovic.

It’s a lot trickier with the Suns adding O’Neal to the mix and there are far fewer guarantees that it will work. Sure, Marion was a pain in the butt with his constant complaints about his role, his contract and status in the pecking order. But he had a lot to do with why the roadrunner offense of Mike D’Antoni took them to the conference finals a couple of times. Sure, Steve Nash is the driver, Leandro Barbosa the burner, and Amare Stoudemire the closer, but Marion did everything else but wash dishes.

It’s easy to see where fledgling GM Steve Kerr is coming from by adding Shaq – to have the big body they’ve lacked to match up with the Spurs, Jazz and Nuggets inside. But just how does the Big Fella fit into D’Antoni’s offense? He’s more apt to stay on one end of the floor like the old Iowa girls basketball games than run with Nash, and just how does he fit in the pick-and-roll, or pick-and-pop out halfcourt game with Nash? He doesn’t. So this leaves the onus on D’Antoni to make it work. This will be interesting but still raises the obvious question of why they dumped Kurt Thomas’ $8 million contract and two first-round draft choices to Seattle before the season for nothing. They’d have been far better off going for it with the perfect fit of Thomas and not mortgaging future picks as well, considering Shaq will be 36, Nash 34, Grant Hill 35 and Raja Bell 31.

Meanwhile, the defending champion Spurs are wondering how severe the bone spur is on Tony Parker’s left heel, and if treatment can allow him to come back in a few weeks and finish the season in the kind of fashion that allowed him to be Finals MVP last year. They’re on their “Rodeo road trip” that annually bonds the team and have won three in a row after losing the first two. It’s hard to fathom the Spurs – with Parker, Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili leading the way – won’t be there in the end. And let’s face it, they’re also the best-equipped mentally to win on the road if they don’t regain the home court as the season progresses.

In the event you haven’t noticed, last year’s fodder in the conference finals for the Spurs – the Jazz – have won 10 in a row and are 16-2 since they acquired Kyle Korver for Gordan Giricek. Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer are as dynamic as any duo in the West, and even if they do lack a legit big guy to defend in the middle, there is enough toughness and size to compensate and grab another Northwest Division title. The question is if their interior defense can handle a Duncan or Stoudemire (and now Shaq and Gasol) to win a conference championship.

As for the Mavs, well, this high-powered scoring machine led by Dirk Nowitzki, Josh Howard and Jason Terry just isn’t as good as it was. They are 12-12 on the road this season compared to 31-10 last year, which speaks volumes. All you had to do was see Boston’s feisty little point guard Rajon Rondo steal a rebound away from Nowitzki for a bucket late in the Celtics' six-point win over the Mavs to see what’s wrong. The skills are there. They just aren’t tough enough.

Like the Mavs, the Hornets are just a half-game behind the conference-leading Suns going into Thursday’s games. Point guard Chris Paul is a bona fide MVP candidate at this point, and David West earned his spot on the All-Star squad with Paul and coach Byron Scott. A case could be made for center Tyson Chandler, too. They are not a fluke. But they are woefully thin on the bench, while they await an answer to see if aggressive forward Chris Andersen will be reinstated after being banned two years for violating the NBA drug policy. If they stay healthy, they’ve got a shot, but it’s hard to believe their youth and bench allows them to stay where they are right now. Still, they’re impossible to ignore.

The Nuggets are always dangerous with the trio of Allen Iverson, Carmelo Anthony and uber-defender Marcus Camby. Kenyon Martin is making the interior stronger, too, with his remarkable comeback from microfracture surgery on each knee in consecutive years. They even have solid guys coming off the bench. But they still haven’t resolved their point guard situation, and there is an erratic feel to this team that prevents them from reaching the elite level. There remains talk of getting Clippers point guard Sam Cassell via trade or buyout, and that might be the quick fix they need. They’ll be more dangerous with him. Without a deal, they’ll be more of an annoyance than a serious threat.

The same goes for the Warriors, who along with the Nuggets will work hard to fend off the Trail Blazers and Rockets for those final two playoff spots. The Warriors are that vintage Don Nelson team that will run you out of the gym on a given night and even pulled off that mighty upset last season of the Mavs, exposing them forever more. But the Warriors aren’t legit contenders, and if injury-prone star point guard Baron Davis goes down, they’re likely to be the first to drop out of the top eight.

The Blazers have been one of the great stories of the year,with emerging star Brandon Roy and the team’s toughness in coach Nate McMillan’s image, but they’re just too young and will be a much more significant contender next season provided rookie center Greg Oden recovers from microfracture knee surgery.

And the Rockets are still the same -- dangerous with Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady, but lacking anything else to be serious contenders. They still haven’t resolved their inadequate point guard situation and nobody else contributes to the cause consistently on the offensive end. In other words, they’re not a defensive team and they’re not a good offensive team. They just … are.

So that leaves us with the Spurs, Suns, Lakers, Jazz, Hornets and Mavs as the top six, and we’ll whittle that down to the Spurs, Suns and Lakers as the top three. As shaky as the Spurs have looked this season, it’s still hard to believe they won’t be there in the end because of their consistency, defense and the championship-caliber plays Duncan, Ginobili and Parker always make when it matters most.

Adding O’Neal to the Suns is just so bizarre, we’ll have to see it to believe it. It should help Stoudemire to have more freedom at his natural power forward position. Moving Marion gives Hill more freedom offensively, too. But this is going to take a while to digest. It will be a huge test for D’Antoni and Nash to make the adjustment to the offense, but on defense, O’Neal clearly gives them a huge presence that, again, will give Stoudemire more room to roam and become an even more effective weak-side shot-blocker.

Meanwhile, the Lakers still loom. For everything Gasol brings, he is still soft defensively despite shot-blocking ability. They really need Bynum back to be the kind of force overall that can win the West. And the big question is when and what he’ll be like when he does return. The prognosis was for eight weeks, which means he could be back in five weeks, but keep in mind he’s only 20 years old, never had an injury before and his game is still very young in development. How much will this injury set him back mentally? Of course, the wildcard is having Bryant as the superstar to carry the team when all else fails, and Gasol is a solid 20-point scorer who will allow Odom to be even more effective.

Yeah, the Lakers can win it this season. But even if Bynum does manage to pick up where he left off by playoff time, can they beat a healthy Spurs team in a seven-game series? Don’t count on it.

Sometimes it only requires a little tweak to figure out what throws everything out of whack. In the case of the Utah Jazz, it’s almost as if coach Jerry Sloan marched them en masse to a chiropractor for a visit.

Moments later, general manager Kevin O’Connor paid the bill … problem solved.

You see, nobody could have thought the back-page trade of Gordan Giricek and a No. 1 draft pick to Philadelphia for Kyle Korver could be so significant to turning the Jazz around. In fact, tossing in the draft choice seemed a bit much for a pretty one-dimensional shooter like Korver.

But sometimes we forget when assessing deals that occasionally it is every bit as much about the subtraction as it is the addition, and sometimes more. The result has been a 12-2 run since the deal, a six-game winning streak overall and 10 in a row at home after Wednesday’s win over the Knicks. Consequently, they’re now alone atop the Northwest Division.

That wouldn’t have surprised anybody coming into the season, but nobody could have anticipated the circuitous route it would require.

With a young team coming off a trip to the Western Conference finals, a Northwest Division title and a 51-win season, expectations were high for the Jazz coming into this season. With an All-Star-caliber duo of point guard Deron Williams and power forward Carlos Boozer – eminently capable of double-doubles on a nightly basis – they constantly drew comparisons to John Stockton and Karl Malone, plus they had all the pieces around them to be a serious contender in the stout West.

And they were seemingly fine, beginning the season at 7-2, with second-year guard Ronnie Brewer inserted into the starting lineup and All-Star-caliber stat-filler Andrei Kirilenko apparently over the psychological issues that weighed him down a good portion of last season. Oh, sweet-shooting center Mehmet Okur was nicked up a bit, but that seemed to be only a temporary hurdle. He’d be back, grabbing rebounds and draining treys. That’s not to mention the rugged duo of Matt Harpring and Paul Millsap giving opponents whiplash off the bench.

They certainly missed guard Derek Fisher, who was sympathetically let out of his contract by owner Larry Miller so he could move to Los Angeles where his infant daughter’s cancer could be treated. Not only as a terrific player, but as a leader, Fisher left a hole. But Sloan figured moving Brewer into the starting lineup and bringing Giricek off the bench would help their depth – plus relatively young journeymen Jason Hart and Ronnie Price could be developed in the backcourt as well.

But none of it struck Giricek very well. He viewed himself as a starter, or at least deserving of major minutes. Sloan, in his inimitable way, viewed him as someone who needed to earn his minutes and contribute or he wouldn’t play at all. And anyone who has been around the NBA understands it’s easier to fool with Mother Nature than Jerry Sloan.

The problem began to rip away at the team internally, affecting the chemistry on the floor and the general attitude in the locker room. After a solid start, they lost 14 of their next 23 games, falling to 16-16 – including a stunning 3-11 decline. With the Nuggets inconsistent with injuries but solid enough to win with explosive scoring, and the Trail Blazers one of the great stories of the season with a sensational run, the Jazz had fallen off the map into third place.

So they shipped out Giricek, presumably with Sloan heaving his bag at him out the door. On came Korver. Suddenly, the air was cleared. Giricek had been averaging less than 4.0 points a game and twice as many headaches. Korver’s hustle and superior shooting eased the pain. He’s averaged 9.9 points, dives after loose balls and at least tries to defend with the intensity demanded by Sloan. Meanwhile, Giricek is producing even less for the Sixers and is mulling over offers to play in Europe.

Okur is now back and healthy, Williams has had five consecutive double-double games – averaging 19.1 points and 9.5 assists while improving his shooting to .515 from field. Boozer is in All-Star form at 22.4 points and 10.6 rebounds, Kirilenko remains a fantasy player’s dream boxscore-stuffer in points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks, while Brewer continues to raise his level of play just as they imagined when drafted him in the first round out of Arkansas in 2006.

The result is they’ve won 12 of 14 overall and posted the longest home winning streak in nine years, showing the kind of confidence that pushed them into the 2007 conference finals in the first place. It would take hours to decipher whether it’s because of what Korver brings to the table as opposed to Giricek, or just a matter of addition by subtraction.

But from the Jazz point of view, who cares? It worked.

As if things weren’t bad enough for the New Jersey Nets and their deteriorating relationship with point guard Jason Kidd, he came out full throttle this week with what everybody seemed to know:

“I want out!”

A lot of good that does Nets president Rod Thorn now, when it comes to moving a soon-to-be 35-year-old point guard scheduled to make more than $41 milli