The Morning Walkthrough is a set of links to Boston Celtics articles throughout the internet, designed to get your day started the right way.

Sam Jones

Mark Murphy, Boston Herald – “Though Jones won 10 NBA titles as a Celtic, he believes the current team has the potential to surpass all of the old teams. ‘This might be the best Celtics team of all time,’ he said. ‘They’re big, and then you have the shooters outside — Ray Allen and Paul Pierce. You have this guard, Rajon Rondo, he’s unbelievable. These players all contribute to the success of the Celtics. So I truly believe they could win it all. Every time I look at this team I’m amazed at how well they play once they get it going.’”

A. Sherrod Blakely, CSNNE – “Jermaine O’Neal, who has appeared in just 11 games this season, had similar thoughts on the team’s handling of injuries this season. ‘If you want to be a championship-caliber team, you really can’t have excuses,’ he said. ‘The conversation coming into the season, was how deep we are. So do we say now, ‘Kevin’s out for a while, Rondo’s been out,’ do we now say, ‘we should lose?’ No, we shouldn’t say that. All of us have been in positions where we know what it takes to win. Look around our locker room, we’ve got guys who have been around, been in some big-time positions. We just have to do our job better. No excuses.’”

Mark Murphy, Boston Herald – “He’s not close to offensively being the Jermaine O’Neal of old — one of the best-scoring big men in the league — but that’s not in his current job description. Defense and rebounding, two areas where he’s made sound contributions during the last four games since returning from an 18-game absence, remain his areas of demand. ‘That’s an area I’m familiar with,’ he said. ‘At the same time, we know where our bread is buttered. We still have Paul (Pierce) out there, we still have Ray (Allen), and we have to do a better job of getting them open. As far as the low post and being more involved in the offense, I don’t want to get into that because it’s outside what the team is trying to do and what Doc (Rivers, the C’s coach) is asking me to do,’ he said. ‘His conversation hasn’t changed. If it changes I’ll look into that, but it’s not a problem for me.’ Rhythm may be another matter, but that’s to be expected. ‘It’s coming,’ he said. ‘I’ve only practiced two or three times in two months, so this has probably been the toughest stretch in my career of trying to find it. When you focus to do the things that Doc asks, it’s a difficult transition, but you have to do it. I don’t really think about it. We just have to be willing to do whatever coach asks us to do. I try to be better than I was the game before. I don’t know what to expect. You don’t want to set a goal that puts you outside of what the team needs you to do. I just try to be better the next game and build off what I did in the previous game.’”

A. Sherrod Blakely, CSNNE – “There weren’t a lot of positives the Boston Celtics could take out of their 83-81 loss to the New Orleans Hornets. But the play of Jermaine O’Neal was certainly one of them. While O’Neal hasn’t come close to playing at the level he has displayed throughout his career, there’s no mistaking his progress. Friday’s loss was indeed another step in the right direction for O’Neal, who had a season high in minutes played (33) in addition to scoring nine points, the most he has scored since returning last week after spending the previous six weeks out with a sore left knee. ‘JO the last three games … he was fantastic,’ said Celtics coach Doc Rivers. ‘He’s playing great; he’s doing exactly what we want him to do.’”

Mark Murphy, Boston Herald – “‘It’s a very competitive league right now. We won 14 out of 15 and we did not even gain one game against Boston,’ Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. … ‘In the last four years, their record from the beginning of the year to Christmas is the best of all time,’ he said of the Celtics. ‘That’s staggering, that really is. You think about all the great teams and the dynasty of the Bulls … and they didn’t have a stretch like that during a four-year run. And Boston, when you think of it from their perspective, the only thing that’s derailed them has been injuries the last four years.’”

Julian Benbow, Boston Globe – “Now they’ve lost Kevin Garnett to a strained right calf, and again they’ll have to get the most out of what healthy bodies remain. ‘You get used to playing a certain way, and you come in here and expect everything to be together like it always is, then sometimes somebody moves your cheese a little bit,’ said Ray Allen. ‘That’s the kind of position we’re in, where we have to figure it out, and it’s a new challenge. When Delonte went out, that was a new challenge and it forced us to play one way. Then Rondo went down and we had to change again. Now, it’s Kevin.’”

Doug Smith, Toronto Star – “Making a brief stop at home between a pair of three-game road trips, they got precious little good news on the injury front heading into Sunday’s game against the Boston Celtics. Andrea Bargnani, who missed the holiday week trip to Memphis, Dallas and Houston, has been ruled out for the Celtics game, and Jerryd Bayless, who sprained his ankle in Dallas and lasted only eight minutes Friday night in Houston, is doubtful for the Celtics. Sonny Weems will also miss the game and the long-term injured Raptors — Peja Stojakovic and Reggie Evans — are still not available. ‘We go with what we’ve got, it gives other players an opportunity,’ coach Jay Triano said as the injury toll mounted. If there is good news, it looks like starting point guard Jose Calderon will be available, but team officials are still saying his availability will be determined at game time. If there is one saving grace, it’s that the Raptors, who went 1-2 as they limped through the road trip, will be meeting a Boston team suffering through its own spate of injuries.”

Got a tip? An article you think should be included? Send an email to jayking@celticstown.com or hit me up on Twitter @CelticsTown.

The Celtics play the Cavaliers tonight, one game before Lebron James visits his old basketball home for the first time. All of which means you’ll be hearing far too much about James in the next few days.

The Cleveland media repeatedly asked the Cavs if they were overlooking Boston, only the Eastern Conference’s best team. Shaq has already been asked about Lebron’s return, and he said two things: first, he doesn’t worry about the game. He just wants to know if Lebron will throw the powder in the air beforehand. And second, if Shaq’s return to Orlando was a six on the vengeance scale of one to ten, Lebron’s return to Cleveland is a twelve.

I’m sorry you have to hear about James all the time. I really am. But I’m also going to discuss him here, in this space. In other words, I will now contribute to the problem I just apologized for. This is where I apologize for the second time in the same paragraph.

My beef is with Adrian Wojnarowski’s latest piece on Lebron. I get that Woj finds Lebron to be everything wrong with sports. I understand that. In a way, I agree with it. But there comes a time when we need to stop blaming everything on Lebron. There comes a time when the other people in the Heat organization should take a little flak, too. Not everything is Lebron’s fault. Not everything that goes wrong should be blamed on the two-time defending MVP.

Look, I love Woj’s work more than life itself. I’m currently re-reading “The Miracle of St. Anthony” for the 1,113th time (estimate only), and I consider it one of the greatest pieces of sports journalism ever penned. But Woj has a tendency to pin all of Miami’s problems on Number Six, and sometimes it just isn’t fair.

Woj’s latest column on the Heat mentioned a quote from Dwyane Wade that threw Erik Spoelstra under the bus, while not directly throwing Spoelstra under the bus. “I’m not going to say he’s ‘my guy,’ but he’s my coach,” Wade said. Wade, keep in mind, is a former NBA Finals MVP, one of the five best players in basketball, and owner of a personality strong enough to be his own man. Yet Woj felt free to blame James for Wade’s apparent sour attitude toward Spoelstra.

As much as ever, the Heat need Wade to influence James. Only now, it’s clear James is influencing Wade. With Udonis Haslem out for the regular season, the locker room misses one of its vital voices. Now, Wade is struggling on the floor and James is the devil on his shoulder, whispering that he doesn’t need to be accountable, that there’s an easy fall guy for everyone: Spoelstra.

Sure, Wade is the one who wouldn’t back his coach, but it’s Lebron’s fault. This was always going to be Lebron’s fault, if anything failed, no matter what it was. Lebron is the two-time MVP, and he’s the one who risked his legacy by teaming with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. If the Heat fail, regardless of how well Lebron plays, that failure will always rest on his shoulders. And so it was that Woj, in a piece preaching how James should be more accountable, offers Wade a way to escape accountability altogether: just blame Lebron.

One gets the feeling Woj would also blame Lebron for the BP oil spill, World War II, and Angelina from the Jersey Shore, if he could.

I’m not saying Lebron has zero fault in this whole mess. It’s very possible he leaked the ESPN story about Miami players doubting Spoelstra, as Woj claims. It’s very possible he returned his cold french fries to a renowned chef — wait, what? It’s very possible he doesn’t respond well to the word “no.”

All signs say Lebron James a spoiled, narcissistic baby who has rarely, if ever, been held accountable for his own mistakes.. But in trying to hold him accountable for his own misdeeds, let’s not also blame him for the mistakes of others. There are a lot of things to blame on Lebron James. Dwyane Wade’s opinion of Erik Spoelstra is one thing that just isn’t Lebron’s fault.

And Spoelstra? It’s nice that he is standing up to Lebron, like Mike Brown never did. It’s nice he’s telling Lebron “no” sometimes. But if Spoelstra expects to keep his job, and to keep from losing his own locker room, he should figure out a way to make his talented team work. That, not just repeatedly saying “no”, is what coaches are supposed to do.

After the Miami Heat’s loss to the Dallas Mavericks yesterday, the Heat staged a players-only meeting. Lebron James said he and his teammates aired their thoughts about the team’s 9-8 start. Chris Bosh told Yahoo!, “We were just looking at each other and being honest.”

They were honest? Well, the truth hurts. The following account of last night’s meeting may or may not be fabricated.

*****

Bosh: “First, guys, I just want to apologize. I know I’m not who you thought I was. I’m a little bit of a fraud.”

Joel Anthony: “I want to apologize, too. I’m not a fraud, but I am a thief. The pay me $18 million and I can barely make a layup. Also, I’m a 6’9 center who averages 3.1 rebounds per game and has no chance defending a halfway-decent big man.”

Dwyane Wade: “Fall down seven times, stand up eight. And after you stand up that eighth time, make sure you surround yourself with superstars who make you play worse.”

Bosh: “Are you calling me a superstar?”

Wade: “Ah, right. I meant ‘surround yourself with a superstar’ — singular — ‘who makes you play worse.”

Bosh: “Alright, that’s more like it.”

Lebron: “What should I do, Dwyane? Should I shoulder-bump Erik Spoelstra? Should I call Mo Williams and tell him I’m sorry? Should I be who you want me to be?”

Carlos Arroyo: “What are you guys all upset about? This season’s going perfectly. I’m shooting 61.9 [bleeping] percent from three-point range!”

Udonis Haslem: “Oh, Carlos.You clowns are a whole bunch of studio gangsters.”

Eddie House (giving himself the middle finger): “I told everyone before the season, middle finger to all the haters. And I’m a hater — I HATE playing with you bums.”

Erick Dampier: “Never fear, Erick Dampier is here! I am your savior!”

Lebron: “Ericka, we’re only speaking the truth in this meeting.”

Dampier: “Oh. Well, in that case, at least I’m better than Joel Anthony.”

Anthony: “Touche.”

Lebron: “What should we do? Should we fire Spoelstra? Should we beg Riley to return to the bench? Should we just clear the deck and start over? What should we do?”

Haslem: “I vote fire Spoelstra.”

Wade: “Yeah, me too.”

Team (in chorus, except Zydrunas Ilgauskas, who remains quiet): “Fi-re Spoel-stra! Fi-re Spoel-stra! Fi-re Spoel-stra!”

Lebron: “Big Z, what’s wrong? Do you actually want Spoelstra to stay?”

Ilgauskas: “God no! Who would want that? I’m just worried by a comparison I’ve heard a lot recently. I don’t look like Voldemort from Harry Potter, do I?”

[Team remains quiet]

Ilgauskas: “Guys?”

[Silence remains]

Ilgauskas: “GUYS?”

Wade: “So, umm, we’ve decided to fire Spoelstra. We’re making progress. The next step: learning how to play together.”

Lebron: “I don’t want to play with you anymore. Playing with you is like playing getting the kiss of death from a dementor. It just sucks the life right out of me. I miss Anderson Varejao and Anthony Parker, and Mo Williams. And I don’t want to be a point guard. And I don’t want to be a power forward. And I don’t want to play 44 minutes against the Boston Celtics. I just want to laugh and have fun. Is that too much to ask for?”

Bosh: “Yeah, this isn’t what I bargained for either. [Bosh pauses, thinking about what the season was supposed to bring.] Maybe I should have stayed in Toronto.”

Wade: “Yeah, that would have been better. Then we could have picked up Carlos Boozer, or kept Michael Beasley, or actually signed a point guard who’s worth a damn.”

Arroyo: “But I’m shooting 61.9% from threes!”

Wade: “File one under ‘fluke’.”

Mario Chalmers: “I’m not half bad, Dwyane.”

Wade: “No offense, Mario, but this is for players only.”

Lebron: “What should we do? Should we remind you we’ve never done this before? Should we pretend we still have confidence in each other? Should we tell you we don’t deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as the 1996 Bulls? Hi, Mike. [Lebron winks, eats a Ballpark Frank.] What should we do?”

Wade: “We should hope Pat Riley has answers.”

Udonis Haslem: “No, guys. I’ve got a better idea. Voldemo– I mean, Zydrunas: We need the elder wand.”

After tonight, Wade's got two rules. 1) Don't call him Flash. And 2) Don't ever, ever bring up tonight's game.

Erik Spoelstra’s voice was pleading, his tone desperate, and his team in a big hole. He stood in the locker room addressing his team, after witnessing the 61-46 first-half shellacking. The Celtics had outclassed the Heat in every facet of the game, and Spoelstra was forced to resort to begging. He begged his players to trust their teammates. He begged them to let go of their egos. He told them they would need each other in the second half. Begging, begging, begging, trying somehow, anyhow, to urge his team to a comeback.

The speech worked, kind of. Miami showed some fight after halftime, making Boston’s win a much closer 112-107. The Heat played better and they worked harder. They even gave Boston a (brief and small) scare. But they still didn’t play as a team. They relied on one man, Lebron James, to lead the comeback.

As it has all too often this season, the Heat’s offense resorted to one-on-one play. If there was some sort of synergy between the Three Amigos, I didn’t see it. Tonight was Lebron’s turn, the next game it might be Dwyane Wade’s. The next might even be Chris Bosh’s (Ha!). But the Miami Heat have yet to figure out how to capitalize on all the talent that relocated to South Beach this summer. They have yet to learn how to play as a team.

They need only study tapes of the Boston Celtics. When the Heat called isolation plays and pick-and-rolls, the Celtics swung five touch passes within seconds. When the Heat devolved into a one-man show, the Celtics continued to find the open man. In Boston, in Miami, it doesn’t matter – The Celtics are a team; the Heat just a bunch of individuals. There is plenty of time for the Heat to find chemistry, to gel. But the Celtics already have, for the past three years and some change. And when the Celtics’ five men play as one, and when they limit turnovers, and when they shoot like the ball has magnets for the rim, they are likely to put on a clinic.

The Celtics received contributions from everybody. Ray Allen was like the fire-bullet throwing character from Mario 3. At one point, after yet another three dropped through the nets, he simply smirked at Reggie Miller, as if to say, “Yeah, I’m going to pass your all-time three-point record sometime soon. What’s up?” Paul Pierce took advantage of his opportunities, scoring an efficient and silky smooth 25 points. Rajon Rondo continued to pile up assists like he is playing NBA 2k11. Glen Davis didn’t score well, but attacked the glass to make up for it. And that spin move he had around Haslem? Oh, so pretty. And that tip-in on the fast break? Lucky or not, that was unbelievable. I’m telling you, these guys were beautiful to watch.

Also? We no longer have to qualify Kevin Garnett’s performances with “he looked like his old self.” He IS his old self, or at least something damn close to it. His hands are everywhere. He attacks the glass. He makes a difference on both ends. Every night.

Even Nate Robinson got in on the act. Sure, I wanted to kill him after he entered the game then immediately fouled a jump-shooter and picked up a technical (even if the technical wasn’t earned). But after that? Robinson was great. Game-changing, even. He dished a couple sweet passes. Called upon the tear drop to end a Heat run and keep them at bay. Finished an explosive dervish to the hoop over Joel Anthony. He’s not out of my doghouse just yet, but he started working on it.

And Marquis Daniels? Your stats (2 points, 2 rebounds) say you did almost nothing. But that’s why I watch these games. To see your admirable job on Lebron. The way you cut him off on the baseline and took a charge. The way you denied him an inbounds pass in the full court and forced a time out. You were great, Marquis, and don’t let the box score tell you otherwise.

I could probably go on talking about individual performances all day, but that wasn’t what this win was about. It was about team. It was about five guys helping each other out, getting each other’s backs, making each other better. The Celtics are already a team, the Heat aren’t one yet, and that was the difference in this game.

No matter how great Lebron was, and he was special tonight, he couldn’t mask his team’s deficiencies. The Heat still have miles to travel to attain the level of chemistry the Celtics have now spent 319 games developing.

At one point in the game, the TNT camera focused on Pat Riley taking notes. I only hope he was taking notes on the Celtics. His Heat could certainly use those.

Doc's still year to year.

Doc Rivers downplayed a Yahoo! report that he was considering signing a contract extension that would make him a “career Celtic.” (ESPN Boston)

“That was a question I was asked and, really, I don’t even think on those terms, to be honest,” said Rivers. “I’m year to year, that’s how I am. The question was asked: Where else would you rather go? I said, I don’t think you can go to a better place than here. It’s a great setup, [the Celtics organization] is phenomenal.”

Rivers also disputed the notion that he’s on Pat Riley’s radar to become the next Miami Heat coach should Erik Spoelstra faulter. (ESPN Boston)

“I’m not getting into that,” said Rivers. “The only guy on [Riley's] list is [current Miami coach] Erik [Spoelstra] and that’s the only guy that should be there. I’m not going there. That’s a stupid conversation, it really is.”

Heat reporter Ira Winderman wonders who Adrian Wojnarowski’s “sources” are that tell him Rivers is on the short list to replace Spoelstra should Spoelstra fail to win a title right away. (South Florida Sun Sentinel)

Having dealt with Riley now for 15 years, I’m not so sure there are “sources” when it comes to Pat. Cadavers? Possibly. Bodies floating at the bottom of the Miami River? Perhaps.

What is this, Don Riley? Winderman acts like 1) Riley knows who the source is. There’s a reason sources remain anonymous, right? And 2) Riley goes around tying bricks to sources’ feet or threatening death upon their families.

Anyway, there aren’t many things that could make me dislike Doc Rivers, but signing with the Heat is one of them. It’d be like Johnny Damon signing with the Yankees. I’ll never forgive Damon for that. He might as well have killed my dog and then spat on my mother. Traitor.

The Celtics have gotten rid of their morning walkthrough, but that doesn’t mean we have to. Here are a few Celtics links, and maybe even an NBA link or two, to help wake you up and get you focused for the day.

He doesn't look so bad, does he?

Chris Gasper, Boston Globe – “Essentially, what the Celtics have been presented is a do-over of the 2009 playoffs, but with Garnett a go and Cleveland standing in for Orlando. The team is virtually identical because the additions of Rasheed Wallace, Marquis Daniels, and Nate Robinson have had no impact. Last year, the Celtics were ousted in the second round by Orlando in seven games. If that happens at the hands of Cleveland this year, then their run has run its course, and they’re the 1991 Detroit Pistons, who coincidentally went 50-32, to LeBron’s Michael Jordan. We were hard on the Celtics because we expected so much of them, but now they’re in a position to finally fulfill those expectations. Bring on LeBron.”

Bill Livingston, Cleveland Plain Dealer – “Hopes will have to wait that the Big Shillelagh will immediately break out the whuppin’ stick on the Boston Celtics, who begin their second-round series with the Cavs Saturday night at The Q. It was Celtic reserve Glen “Big Baby” Davis whose perfectly legal play on the ball led to Shaq’s torn thumb ligament — and whose tugging on the thumb afterward was both repulsive and typical of the Celtics. After the Bulls had been sent to their rooms, O’Neal fielded questions about Davis’ play with blandness. The two do share a background of playing for LSU, but old college ties mean nothing now. ‘Nothing bothers me,’ said the Big Serenity. ‘I don’t think [that the play was dirty]. I’m just glad I got my thumbs back. You need your thumbs. Your thumbs are very, very important.’”

Julian Benbow, Boston Globe – “Jamison averaged 19.3 points in Cleveland’s five-game first-round series against the Bulls, and he took nearly a third of his shots from 3-point range (7 of 23). He was spelled by Varejao, the sixth-year power forward who plays as if he’s never heard of inertia, making a living off hustle plays and feasting on the Celtics during the regular season by being quicker to get to open spots on the floor. It’s a matchup problem for the Celtics’ big men, who will have to flip the switch from guarding the post to jumping out to the perimeter, chasing Cleveland’s pseudo-bigs. Glen Davis put it this way: ‘Imagine if you had to bump Shaq [coming off a pick-and-roll] and then close out on Antawn Jamison when he just hit two in a row. Or with Rashard Lewis, you’ve got to bump Dwight [Howard] and get out to Rashard and force him left instead of right. You’re closing out to him and he can make you do anything he wants to, really. You’ve just got to have a feel for the game and just got to have a will to do a lot of things out there on guys like that.’”

Mark Murphy, Boston Herald – “There is the Davis who made all of the hustle plays Tuesday night, from drawing two huge second-half charges on Dwyane Wade and Udonis Haslem to grabbing most of the big rebounds down the stretch. And then there’s the young player who is still a little too intoxicated by the memory of his game-winning 20-footer in last May’s Game 4 in Orlando. That’s the player who doesn’t always make the extra pass. But he seems to be coming around. ‘He’s just got to stay there,’ coach Doc Rivers said. ‘We tell all of our players this: ‘You don’t need a parade out there every game. You’ve just got to continue to play. And then your body will work when it’s all said and done. Then you can have the festivities.’ And that’s Baby in a nutshell. He is so talented, and his IQ is ridiculous. It really is. But he lets up at times. He starts thinking about what he’s done well, instead of just keep playing. And he’s a young kid still. That’s the maturity part that is growing. And I think it’s getting better and better. He has proven over the long haul, though, that in big games he tends to play well. He did it in college and he’s done it here.’”

Steve Bulpett, Boston Herald – “‘I’ve maintained that I like this team,’ Rivers said. ‘You know, when we were struggling, no one wanted to hear that. I got that. I understood that, but I knew what I had, and I knew that my goal was to get them healthy. And if that meant . . . you know, I didn’t want to lose games, but you had to take that risk during the regular season. We had to choose health over anything, and I understood that. The first thing Erik (Spoelstra, the Miami coach) said was, ‘Boy, you had a hell of a fight trying to keep these guys healthy.’ And I said, ‘It was brutal.’ But it was the right move. It was. I mean, you had to. That’s our only chance. So now we’re healthy, we’re rested and we’re ready.’”

A. Sherrod Blakely, CSNNE – “”You definitely had your doubts at times because of the inconsistent play, injuries just seem to be mounting and mounting,” said Pierce, who was sidelined for 11 games this season. But he’s not griping. In fact, he embraces those times as moments that showcased this team’s character and resiliency. ‘The losing teams tend to point the finger, go to the media, says this guy need to do this better or do that better,’ Pierce said. ‘And we never held grudges with one another.’ Kevin Garnett also addressed some of the struggles Boston has endured this season, and it’s impact on the team moving forward. ‘If you want something to happen, you have to gather everybody and it’s a group effort,’ Garnett said. ‘But if you want something to work, you have to actually grab everybody, get everybody on the same page and work towards that goal.’”

Paul Flannery, WEEI – “The Cleveland Cavaliers have the best record in the NBA and the best player in the world on their roster. Of course this was the exact same scenario for the Cavs last season, and they ultimately lost to Orlando conference finals. General manager Danny Ferry bolstered his team with additions big (Shaquille O’Neal and Antawn Jamison) and small (Anthony Parker, Jamario Moon) and found improvement from within in young forward J.J. Hickson. Noted Celtic killer Anderson Varejao had the best season of his career, Mo Williams continued to shoot over 40 percent from 3-point range, effectively ending the necessity for Daniel Gibson to get playing time, and Delonte West re-emerged as a key third guard. Then, there is LeBron James, who has shattered the best player in the league argument and seems poised to truly rule the world if he can deliver a championship to his hometown team before engaging in the most frenzied free-agent courtship the league has ever known. Ah, but the Celtics have other ideas.”

Jessica Camerato, WEEI – “‘My role since I’ve been here really hasn’t changed. I can just be a little bit more vocal now that I’ve been here for a while,’ Finley explained. ‘I just didn’t want to come here right away and be the loud mouth of the locker room. But now the guys feel a little more comfortable with me. I’m able to pull guys to the side, tell them different situations, especially in these playoff series that are important, not only to them, but to our team. And they’re listening and they’re being receptive, and that’s been good.’ The 37-year-old is happy to share the veteran wisdom he has accumulated over the last 15 years, and the C’s are just as happy to receive it. ‘Mike is big,’ said Ray Allen. ‘Most people don’t realize the things that he’s saying, just his advice, just some of the things that he says coming out of timeouts, coming to the bench. You can always tell he wants to win. Even though he came here later on in the season, he’s invested now in what we’re doing. So he’s always making sure, ‘Look for this, this is what’s going to go down,’ or, ‘Ray, you need to do this,’ or ‘Paul you need to make sure …’ So that’s great coming from the bench and you know that he’s fielding us more information so when we go out there, we’re prepared.’”

Charles F. Gardner, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – “Keep counting ‘em out, all you National Basketball Association experts. These Milwaukee Bucks will just keep fighting to the end. The Atlanta Hawks found that out the hard way on Wednesday night in Game 5 of the teams’ Eastern Conference series, as the Bucks got off the mat to grab a stunning 91-87 victory at Philips Arena. The Bucks have won three straight games against the third-seeded Hawks while taking a 3-2 lead in the first-round series, and Milwaukee can eliminate Atlanta in Game 6, scheduled for Friday night at the Bradley Center. Bucks forward Ersan Ilyasova showed his trademark hustle while grabbing offensive rebounds, and Milwaukee went on a dazzling 14-0 run in the final 4 minutes to erase an 82-73 deficit and end the Hawks’ 14-game home winning streak. ‘This is by far the biggest win of the season,’ said Bucks guard John Salmons. ‘We’ve still got business to take care of, so we’ve got to stay with it.’”

Mark Bradley, Atlanta Journal-Constitution – “This was the Falcons blowing the lead against Danny White and Dallas in January 1981. This was Mark Wohlers hanging the slider to Jim Leyritz in October 1996. Only it wasn’t. It was worse. Those opponents were top-class. The Hawks just blew a 13-point lead and probably a playoff series to Milwaukee, which is a No. 6 seed missing its All-Star center. They trail 3-2 in a series they led 2-0. They face elimination on the road, a place they’ve won once in 11 tries over the past three postseasons. Yeah, theoretically they could still pull this out, but how can you win in the Bradley Center when you can’t hold a nine-point lead inside the final four minutes with the series lead on the line? How can you put this colossal choke — I hate that word, but it applies here — behind you? Up nine, and here’s what happened: Josh Smith missed a dunk by hitting the ball on the underside of the backboard; Jamal Crawford short-armed a layup, the first of his five misses down the stretch; the Hawks watched as Ersan Ilyasova grabbed every loose ball and Joe Johnson fouled out on a charge. Nine points up with 3:55 left, the Hawks saw the lead disappear in 116 seconds. I say again: One hundred sixteen seconds. There are no excuses for this game, this series. The team with the better players is the one with one foot out the exit door. The Bucks have two chances to win once. The Hawks are down to their final shot.”

Benjamin Hochman, Denver Post – “Help? Melo got it. Selfish? Not the Nuggets, at least not this night. Game 6? A reality. For one night, all was right with the Nuggets, who played poised and possessed Wednesday during a 116-102 victory over Utah at the Pepsi Center. Overcoming the loss of Nene because of a knee injury, Denver forced Game 6 to be played Friday in Salt Lake City, with the Jazz leading the first-round playoff series 3-2. A source familiar with the situation said the Nuggets are fearful Nene tore the ACL in his left knee. He is scheduled to have an MRI on Thursday.”

J.A. Adande, ESPN – “Not only did Anthony receive the assistance from his teammates he all but Bat-signaled for from the dais last Sunday, he delivered 25 points and 11 rebounds. He managed to involve his teammates without too much dropoff of his own from his 39-point, 11-rebound Game 4. Sure the point total declined, but the number of turnovers also went from nine to one. A team official told Anthony he was as proud of him as he’d ever been after this game. If the Nuggets are going to exit the playoffs, apparently their disappearance won’t be traced back to Anthony. He already double his double-double total from all of last playoffs (anyone else craving In-N-Out Burger after that sentence?). And he’s put up a better resistance to elimination. In Game 6 of the Western Conference Finals against the Lakers last season, in what turned out to be the finale of his breakthrough playoffs, Anthony scored 25 points but shot only 35 percent and grabbed two rebounds.”

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