THE END OF CIVILIZATION AS WE KNOW IT: After his collision with Houston guard Patrick Beverley forced Oklahoma City All-Star Russell Westbrook to have season-ending knee surgery, a volunteer ball boy for the Thunder with the Twitter handle @MitchellBrwn tweeted, “Patrick Beverly (sic), I’m coming to kill you” and “@patbev21 I’m coming to kill you.”
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Boston Celtics coach Doc Rivers, after two road losses to the New York Knicks, on the notion that a playoff series doesn’t start until a home team loses a game:
“I am positive the series has started because we are down 0-2.”
LINE OF THE WEEK: Stephen Curry, Golden State at Denver, April 23: 42 minutes, 13-23 FGs, 4-10 3-pointers, 0-0 FTs, five rebounds, 13 assists, three steals, one turnover, 30 points in a 131-117 win. The Twitterverse was justifiably hootin’ and hollerin’ about Curry’s unconscious third quarter in Game 4, but he was better for longer in Game 2, a road win that tilted the series in Golden State’s favor. He joined Rick Barry (1975) and Sleepy Floyd (1987) as the only Warriors to do 20-10 in the playoffs.
LINE OF THE WEAK: Dwight Howard, LA Lakers vs. San Antonio, April 28: 21 minutes, 2-2 FGs, 3-9 FTs, eight rebounds, one assist, zero blocks, five turnovers, two fouls, seven points in a 103-82 loss. Howard also was tossed after a second technical foul midway through the third quarter that looked an awful lot like he had decided to call it a night. There were no shortage of candidates for this section, but all the others seemed to be trying.
TRILLION WATCH: A strong week for the heroes of zeros, with Boston’s Courtney Lee etsablishing himself as the leader in the postseason clubhouse with a 4 trillion Tuesday at New York, overtaking the 2 trillions from Milwaukee’s Ish Smith on Thursday vs. Miami and New York’s Quentin Richardson on Friday at Boston. Honorable mention to Oklahoma City’s Derek Fisher, who hoisted a 3-pointer to spoil a 7 trillion Wednesday vs. Houston.
GAME OF THE WEEK: Memphis at LA Clippers, April 30. A pivotal Game 5 in a series where the road team has yet to win, even though the road team was 6-4 in the last 10 games between the teams before this matchup.
TWO MINUTES: If you’re looking for a reason why the Nets are in a 3-1 hole against the Bulls in their first-round series, there’s a really simple explanation. in Game 2, they shot 2-of-19 in the third quarter. In Game 3, they shot 1-of-25 in a 14-minute stretch of the first half. And in Game 4, they went 0-of-7 from the floor and 0-of-4 from the line in a five-minute span of the fourth quarter and overtime. … Another team that lost three straight games was the Celtics, and the explanation is similar. Boston scored a playoff franchise-record low 25 points on 7-of-27 shooting in the second half of Game 1, broke that mark with 23 points on 7-of-36 shooting in 
Game 2 and managed 31 points on 14-of-38 shooting in the first half of Game 3. The Celts had another bad half in Game 4 on Sunday, totaling 30 points on 9-of-29 shooting and blowing a 20-point lead. The only reason they are still taking postseason breaths is because Carmelo Anthony decided – in the absence of suspended second scorer J.R. Smith – that he would revert to hero ball. Anthony shot 10-of-35 with seven turnovers, making him personally responsible for an unheard-of 32 empty possessions (not counting offensive rebounds). Is it ever going to totally click in for Anthony? … In the first two games vs. the Pacers, the Hawks started Kyle Korver on Paul George, who averaged 25.0 points while Indiana held a combined 92-78 advantage in paint points. In Game 3, Atlanta coach Larry Drew started Johan Petro at center, which slid Al Horford to power forward and Josh Smith to small forward and a matchup with George, who managed 16 points on 4-of-11 shooting. It was a nice strategic switch, but the change also could be chalked up to the series shifting to Atlanta, where Indiana somehow has not won since 2006. … During the media session after Game 4 of Clippers-Grizzlies, a reporter left his phone on the table to record Blake Griffin’s quotes. When the phone rang, Griffin answered it and said, “He’ll call you back.” … Three of the seven playoff games in NBA history that have gone to three overtimes or more have happened in the last five seasons: Celtics-Bulls in 2009, Thunder-Grizzlies in 2011 and Nets-Bulls on Saturday. Overall, Chicago has been involved in three of those games, losing to Phoenix in Game 3 of the 1993 Finals, and Brooklyn/New Jersey has been in two, beating Detroit in Game 5 of the 2004 East finals. … The Knicks have failed to score 100 points in their last 44 postseason games since Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals at Indiana on June 9, 1999 – ironically, the worst offensive season in NBA history. It is the longest postseason streak ever and surpasses any similar regular-season streak in the shot-clock era. New York is 17-27 in those games. … With the Bulls winning three straight games in their first-round series, the talk around Derrick Rose possibly playing was rekindled this weekend by – again – brother and manager Reggie Rose. Consider this from Basketball Prospectus: Since 2000, five NBA players have torn an ACL in April. Every one came back at least 1 1/2 months before the following season’s playoffs. The one-year anniversary of Rose’s torn ACL was Sunday.
Trivia Answer: Magic Johnson with 157. … Happy 37th Birthday, God Shammgod. … Almost equally relevatory would have been Jason Collins coming out as a scorer.
Chris Bernucca is the deputy editor of SheridanHoops.com. His columns appear Monday during the season. You can follow him on Twitter.
Just did a little research. ‘Primary residence’ is the qualification for state residence. I think players can pull off that ‘primary’ residences are where their home when not on the ‘road’ works for the IRS. . .
Players can claim income (I believe) in the state where their official home is, even if they travel and live part time outside of that state (I think Jeter pulls this off-pays no state taxes with his monstrosity in Tampa) and I believe Howard still has some pretty nice digs in Orlando, which incidentally also has no state income tax. But yeah, future=ugly only getting uglier. Kobe will not be as good, Nash may as well be glass at this point and Howard is a joker and second best player on a champinship team. . . writing is on the wall. Nice article.
K Love for Pau…lol that’s funny stuff
Here’s the Offseason Plan. 1) Re-sign Dwight, 2) convince Metta to opt out of his contract and resign for more years at a lower price, 3) amnesty Steve Blake, 4) Trade Pau for a package of youth and picks involving either a) Kevin Love, b) Luol Deng, c) LeMarcus Aldridge, or d) Ryan Anderson, 5) sign Monta Ellis for MLE, 6) sign a few veterans for minimum to chase a ring. That is all.