Dirk Nowitzki and Kendrick Perkins scuffled early in Game 2 of the Mavericks-Thunder series Tuesday night, sparked in part by the Thunder center’s shoving his forearm into Nowitzki’s lower back while fighting for position under the rim. The two had been jostling before that, and Serge Ibaka also clipped Nowitzki in the face while challenging a Dirk jumper — an unfortunate thing that happens now and then when defenders try to face-guard shooters.

Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle shouted at Perkins during the incident and was upset in his typically even-handed way after the game:

“It’s playoff basketball. It’s physical,” Carlisle said when asked about the confrontation. “I mean, we don’t like the cheap shots when they give them, and they don’t like them if we give them. That’s the nature of competition.

“Hey, I love hard play, clean, competitive playoff series. You throw the ball up and may the best team win, but the dirty bulls— has got to stop. We don’t want anybody getting hurt out there either way.”

I don’t know what precisely Carlisle is referring to when he talks about “dirty” play. The word dirty brings to mind cheap shots with the potential to cause harm. Does a very large man shoving his forearm into another very large man’s back qualify? What about some raised elbows?

SI PLAYER POLL: DIRTIEST PLAYER IN THE NBA

But dirty could also refer to more subtle rule-breaking, the kind Perkins mastered at the feet of Kevin Garnett in Boston. Folks around the league — mostly outside of Boston — have long complained about Garnett’s occasional moving screens and the extra contact he’s allowed to make when defending the pick-and-roll. Watch Garnett jump out on guards during pick-and-roll plays, and you’ll often see him place both hands on a ball-handler’s hip for just an instant. It’s not a particularly aggressive move — not a shove — but it often has enough of an impact to take that ball-handler wider than he’d otherwise like to go in trying to turn the corner. Garnett has other little tricks, scouts and coaches say, but that’s the main one I notice regularly. Read More…

What made the Clippers’ massive comeback Sunday night in Memphis even more amazing was how slowly it came at first, how impossible it seemed with about four minutes to go, and then how fast it actually happened. The Clippers were still down by 24 with eight minutes remaining, and they turned the ball over three straight times between the 4:20 mark and the 3:16 mark of the fourth quarter, seemingly blowing whatever chance they had of completing the rally against the Grizzlies in Game 1.

To pull off a comeback while playing such imperfect ball requires just about everything else to go exactly right, pretty darn quickly. A dozen little things added up to one historic rally. The Grizzlies’ offense collapsed, in part because coach Lionel Hollins sat Zach Randolph for nearly four minutes down the stretch, an understandable move (Randolph is still trying to get back into game condition and he looked shaky for much of the night) that nonetheless allowed Blake Griffin to guard Marreese Speights while Reggie Evans battled Marc Gasol for every inch of territory. Speights, never a “plus” defender, couldn’t handle Griffin down low on the other end. Tony Allen missed a put-back and was improbably exposed on defense when finally given the go-ahead to take Chris Paul. Other horrible things happened for Memphis.

But if you had to pick one factor that made the game winnable, it was this: The Clippers made a bunch of three-pointers in a really small span of time. Two-point buckets simply wouldn’t do; they needed threes, and they got them, thanks to a complicated mix of factors. Let’s take a look at the Clippers’ last four three-pointers, starting with Eric Bledsoe’s seventh three of the entire season:

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The return of Mike Miller gives the Heat more flexibility to use smaller lineups. (Steve Mitchell/US PRESSWIRE)

It was a mere footnote amid the Heat’s explosion from the perimeter Tuesday against San Antonio, but it’s worth sticking in our collective back pocket: LeBron James played power forward in small lineups last night for 7:52 seconds, nearly five minutes more per game than James has played that role on average so far this season.

A possibly related event: Mike Miller returned from his sports hernia, giving Miami three wing players (Miller, Shane Battier and James Jones) other than James with the size to defend opposing small forwards. Miami is down one superstar wing player in Dwyane Wade, but he is a pure shooting guard, even if his combination of strength, smarts and athleticism makes him capable of defending almost any small forward in a pinch.

The Heat’s offense reached another level last season with James at power forward, scoring a whopping 10 more points per 100 possessions on average than lineups with James at his traditional small forward spot – lineups that scored at an elite level to begin with. Miami’s defense slipped from elite to average with James at power forward, though the results here were all over the map, depending on which four teammates joined LeBron. The lone small lineup to get major minutes with Zydrunas Ilgauskas at center predictably hemorrhaged points, while such lineups featuring either Chris Bosh or Joel Anthony at center were alternatively stingy and sieve-like. That kind of inconsistency is both frustrating and encouraging.

This was a powerful weapon for coach Erik Spoelstra, and one he used to great effect against Boston and Philadelphia during the playoffs before personnel issues forced him to pocket it against Chicago and Dallas. And we hadn’t seen much of it this season before Tuesday night’s whipping of San Antonio. Entering that game, James had played just 5 percent of his minutes at power forward, per 82games.com, and no small lineup had logged more than six minutes and change together. James played nearly 15 percent of his minutes at power forward last season, according to 82games.com. The Heat had in fact been more likely to go “big,” with Battier as the nominal shooting guard aside from LeBron, two big men and a point guard. Read More…

JaVale McGee did something silly on Monday when he tossed an off-the-glass alley-oop to himself on an uncontested fast break during the Washington’s’ loss to the Rockets. Wizards coach Flip Saunders called the play “unacceptable,” accused McGee of chasing a highlight in a classic style-over-substance move and limited McGee’s playing time the rest of the game.

McGee didn’t really understand why the whole thing was such a big deal, according to this post from SB Nation’s Mike Prada, who was at the game:

“Apparently, if you get a fast break and you throw it off the backboard in the third quarter and you’re 1-11, you’re not supposed to do stuff like that,” McGee said, seemingly sarcastically. “I felt like I was trying to get the team hyped and trying to make a good play, so I felt like we did that, and we went on a run from there.”

McGee has a point, according to Prada and his SB Nation colleague Andrew Sharp, both sharp (sorry) NBA observers. McGee’s showboating works as a convenient shorthand symbol for everything wrong with the Wizards, even if it has nothing to do with what is wrong with the Wizards. You can draw a line between McGee’s dunk and his occasional botched rotations, shot block-chasing and epically ill-advised goal-tends, but the line is not as clear as the screamers would have you believe. You can draw another line from McGee’s theatrics to Andray Blatche’s shoot-first, shoot-second, shoot-third mentality,  Blatche’s lazy defense, Jordan Crawford’s egregiously bad shot selection and Nick Young’s love for the long two-point jumper. But you’d be stretching things at least a bit. Read More…

Kevin Garnett is getting old now, but he’s still Kevin Garnett, which means he’s doing ridiculous things like this in preseason games:

Honestly, I couldn’t do a better impression of Garnett’s cartoonish trash-talking if I tried. Yes, this is stupid and probably unsportsmanlike, and it’s doubly and triply crazy because it happened in a preseason game and at the expense of yet another Raptor. Garnett once pulled the same clapping-an-inch-from-your-face-and-screaming thing at a startled Jose Calderon, and he got on all fours and barked like a dog at current Raptor Jerryd Bayless when Bayless was still in Portland. Read More…

“Sesame Street” is smarter and funnier than about 99 percent of current programming for adults, so I smiled today when I saw Amar’e Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony hanging with Grover. (After all, I did dress up as The Count for my first couple of Halloweens as a toddler. And I was adorable.) The trio, dressed in Knicks warmup gear, use basketball to teach the definition of “compare.”

Some very important observations: Read More…

By Nicki Jhabvala, SI.com

NBA players will start missing paychecks because of the lockout and the cancellation of November games. As a result, some have wisely sought out second jobs, while others have scaled back their lavish lifestyles.

But for those still looking to cash in on their basketball fortunes, up-and-coming hip-hop group Pac Div has offered a history lesson — in bling. The Southern California rap group stars in this video for Phiten, a purveyor of titanium-fused accessories, in which it gives a handful of players a powerful lesson on the evolution of diamonds and gold and all things shiny. You know, just the types of things NBA players who are locked out and who have been advised to downplay during the work stoppage need right now.

Among those willing to sit it on the educational seminar were Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh, Eric Gordon and rookie Derrick Williams … who has yet to officially sign with an NBA team. This should go over well.

By Nicki Jhabvala, SI.com

Remember when NBA players were cast in awkward yet incredibly amusing commercials during the 1998-99 lockout? Well, today’s locked-out players have stepped it up notch with their TV appearances, mainly with their shoe ads. And since we already hyped Adidas’ cool bullfighting-themed spot for Derrick Rose’s adiZero Rose 2 shoes, we had to do the same for Nike’s new Jordan Brand ads that were unveiled this week.

During Monday Night Football’s telecast, Jordan Brand debuted its new commercial with Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul and Dwyane Wade, who are out to prove that basketball doesn’t stop just because the NBA is locked out. You know, especially when they can take on some of the top ballers in the country at the Flamingo Senior Recreation center, the NOLA Inter-Parish league and the Jewish Under-40 League:

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By SI.com Staff

Bryant Gumbel raised eyebrows with comments he made on HBO’s Real Sports on Tuesday. In his closing monologue, Gumbel said NBA commissioner David Stern wants to be seen as a “modern plantation overseer” and is trying to show that he can keep “hired hands in their place.” The racial connotation and comparison to slavery generated plenty of response among media and fans. Some said the HBO host went too far in his criticism. Others said his statements were taken out of context and, if anything, Stern deserves to be called out. (Through HBO, Gumbel declined SI.com’s interview request on Wednesday afternoon.)

Here are some of the many reactions to Gumbel’s controversial words:

• Henry Abbott, ESPN.com: Gumbel’s comment matters, and not as an isolated attack on Stern.  It’s important as a real subtext of the talks going on right now. Since writing the other day that part of what’s motivating players is an urge to reconcile exploitative white owner/black player relations of the past, I have heard from any number of sources from the players’ side of the talks saying, essentially: “Exactly.”  Gumbel’s argument might be an awkward one for the NBA, but it’s hardly one that can be ignored.

• Charles Barkley, on the Dan Patrick Show: I thought [the comments] were stupid. Disrespectful to black people who went through slavery. When [you're talking about] guys who make $5 million a year.

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By Nicki Jhabvala, SI.com

Since the NBA is locked out and his deal with Italian club Virtus Bologna is still up in the air, Lakers star Kobe Bryant decided to return to class. Or rather, he decided to speak to University of California-Santa Barbara students this week about his 15-year pro career. As The Washington Post‘s Michael Lee reports, Kobe fielded questions about everything, from his only MVP award in 2008 and … wait for it … wait for it … Kwame Brown. Yes, that Kwame Brown.

The Wizards’ No. 1 overall pick in 2001 who has since become known as one of the biggest draft busts and one of Michael Jordan’s biggest front-office mistakes, Brown was traded to the Lakers six years ago and spent 2 1/2 season in L.A.

But when Bryant was asked to reflect on his former teammate, he didn’t talk about his lackluster NBA career or the many boos he received at home games. Oh no. What Bryant remembered most was Brown’s final game with the Lakers. Let Kobe explain: Read More…