Paul Pierce, during what could be his final game as a Boston Celtic (Getty Images)

With great players comes great responsibility, and also great intrigue and great drama. Those great players are going to get old, and they need to be replaced nearly as-great players at some point so as to sustain your team’s greatness. No team, for years, has known this better than the Boston Celtics, and yet nobody on the team – from the front office down to the coaching staff to the team’s great players – has any idea what they’re going to do with their potentially franchise-changing 2013 offseason.

Save for Paul Pierce. At least, according to Comcast New England’s Greg Dickerson. Because only about a third of Paul Pierce’s $15.3 million deal is guaranteed for 2013-14, rumors abound that team personnel boss Danny Ainge may want to cut ties with the star to save money, or deal him elsewhere to prop up an aging roster. Which is why Pierce, according to Dickerson, thinks his days in Boston are numbered. Here’s what the Celtics sideline reporter told his viewers on Sunday:

"I don't think they will (bring Pierce back)," Dickerson said Sunday on CSNNE. "And I know that the company that Paul Pierce hangs around in, they do not believe – and I don't think Paul Pierce believes – that he is going to be brought back next year at $15 million.

Kevin Durant, somewhat obscured by all the grit. And grind. (Getty Images)

“Team without its second-best player loses close game to a very good team while playing on the road. Film at 11.”

If the Houston Rockets’ surprisingly competitive first round turn against the Oklahoma City Thunder wasn’t convincing enough, then the Thunder’s 2-1 second round deficit entering Monday night should have been more than the proof you needed to appreciate Russell Westbrook’s many talents. The injured OKC guard was badly needed throughout the Thunder’s 103-97 overtime loss in Game 4 of the team’s series against the Memphis, especially with Kevin Durant missing 17 of 27 shots against a world-beating Grizzlies defense.

Westbrook’s finest attribute – making an efficient offensive play when all hope is seemingly lost – would have fit in perfectly for the Thunder on Monday. Scott Brooks’ crew ran out to a 17-point lead in the first half based mostly on Durant’s presence and the sound shooting touch of Serge Ibaka, but the Grizzlies did well to cut the lead down to eight by the half. Oklahoma City roared out of the gate once again to start the third quarter, but Durant’s shooting touch wore down in the face of expert Memphis defense by Tayshaun Prince, Tony Allen, and Marc Gasol (geez, good luck scoring on that), and the Grizz had it tied by the fourth period.

Tony Allen guards EVERYTHING (Getty Images)

The All-NBA Defensive Team is the perfect honor for a player like Tony Allen. In the grand history of Bobby Jones, T.R. Dunn, and Scottie Pippen, Allen is the type of all-world defender that will never probably win a Defensive Player of the Year award. Because he does his work on the wing, Allen’s in-between game will never be realized along the same lines as someone like, say, teammate and 2012-13 Defensive Player of the Year Marc Gasol. It’s just not in the cards for the in-between guys.

Of course, becoming the Defensive Player of the Year is no quick invite to the All-Defensive Team. For the second straight year, the DPoY lost out on a place with the top team, as Gasol fell to the second (and nearly third) team in favor of Joakim Noah and Tyson Chandler. Noah and Chandler (who took in the same lack of All-Defensive recognition as Gasol did, during 2011-12’s vote), tied for the top spot on in the pivot position on the top team, alongside Allen, Oklahoma City shot blocker Serge Ibaka, LeBron James, and Clippers guard Chris Paul.

Yeah. We’re a little confused too.

Julius Erving takes an inefficient, low-percentage two-pointer (Getty Images)

On Monday, Philadelphia Inquirer scribe Marcus Hayes lent his byline to a column. He talked about Twinkies and Comic-Con, and new Philadelphia 76ers general manager Sam Hinkie. Hinkie, who was hired to replace a very expensive personnel team featuring Rod Thorn, Ed Stefanski, Tony DiLeo, and Doug Collins (a group that could not top 41 wins in six seasons’ worth of trying), has a background that includes time spent working under Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey, who is fond of actually looking at the box scores that they hand you following the game you just watched. And looking at things on his computer, weirdly.

This allowed for the Inquirer to dig in. Here are some selected passages:

Hinkie will be given a sledgehammer and a smartphone by [76ers owner Josh] Harris, a fellow geek. This Old Team could be deconstructed beyond recognition by summertime.

Pretty sure he already has a smartphone.

Tyson Chandler is working through a lot of stuff right now (Getty Images)

After months of looking like the Eastern Conference’s bona-fide Numbah Two behind the Miami Heat, and anticipating a coronated showdown with a Heat team they have blown out twice in the regular season, the New York Knicks are in danger of not even making it out of the second round. The Indiana Pacers have earned a 2-1 series lead over New York, though in typical NBA fashion the Knicks won’t admit to any problems outside of their own particular house. Even if the house is littered with both the sick (Kenyon Martin and J.R. Smith sat out Sunday's practice due to injury), and limping (Iman Shumpert missed the same practice but will play through a bruised knee).

Tyson Chandler took the lead between Games 3 and 4, talking to the New York Daily News’ Frank Isola about a fractured offense that has looked both stagnant and timid at times, two words that certainly would not have been used to describe the Knicks at their offensive best during the early stages of the 2012-13 season. Chandler has struggled terribly in this series on both ends, as the possibly-injured center has been bested by Pacers big man Roy Hibbert throughout the back and forth, so he took great pains to not single any teammate out by name.

Still, the message is clear. The team has to find away to get back to its motion-influenced, highly effective Heat-thwarting offense. Even before the team takes on the Heat. From the Daily News:

“Honestly, we’re doing it to ourselves,” Chandler said on Sunday. “I watched the tape myself and there are open looks. We have to be willing passers. You have to sacrifice yourself sometimes for the betterment of the team and for the betterment of your teammates.

Carmelo Anthony disagrees with one of his five personal fouls (Getty Images)

INDIANAPOLIS – This is the seventh time that the Indiana Pacers and New York Knicks have faced off in a playoff series, and in each of the previous matchups the sporting world was treated to tough, defensive-minded basketball that was occasionally difficult to watch. Toss Saturday night’s Game 3 between the Knicks and Pacers into that time capsule, because the two squads managed to test the patience of even the most hardened NBA postseason fans with this clutch and grab session. The Pacers prevailed by an 82-71 score, but not before treating a nationally televised audience to basketball that seemed like it should have been interspaced with Chandler Bing sightings in the advertising bumpers.

The most recent version of the New York Knicks never seemed to fancy itself as a defense-heavy-outfit, not with pointed acquisitions to acquire the likes of Carmelo Anthony, J.R. Smith, and Raymond Felton on their ledger over the last three seasons. Still, the team at least hoped to retain some sort of defensive presence in the postseason due to the participation of 2011-12 Defensive Player of the Year Tyson Chandler in the rotation. Chandler’s ongoing back issues, however, appear to be limiting the presence of the once-dominant defender. And though New York held Indiana to 82 points in the Game 3 loss, that seemed to have more to do with Indiana’s inability to string a hot offensive quarter together, and not New York’s sterling D.

And it certainly wasn’t due to the presence of Chandler. The Knick center seemed dwarfed by Pacer big man Roy Hibbert all evening, and though Tyson’s end-game averages of nine points, three blocks and five fouls in just under 30 minutes were somewhat respectable, he paled in comparison to his Pacer counterpart, as Hibbert tossed in 24 points and 12 rebounds.

Roy Hibbert has racked up nearly 113 minutes over his last three games (Getty Images)

It’s as if the second round pairing between the Indiana Pacers and New York Knicks couldn’t be any more mismatched. New York City’s population tops the entire state of Indiana by over two million people. The Pacers work as a tough, unshowy defensive-minded outfit that doesn’t even bother to make its mark with flashy things like big blocks and quick steals. The Knicks focus on movement and long range accuracy at their best, and “look at me”-styled isolation feats of daring in its lower moments. The Knicks are full of veteran players who performed some of their best NBA work back when the league was on NBC. The Pacers’ most recognizable player is best known for his work on an NBC sitcom that eked (fabulously, I should add) its way to a sixth season.

We get it, Obvious Storyline Guy, the Pacers and Knicks are total opposites. And as the series shifts to a best-of five with three potential games taking place in Indiana starting in Saturday’s Game 3, one other stark difference is about to take center stage. The Pacers may have blown their best chance in Game 2 at extending to a 2-0 series lead when it went to its bench in third quarter, most infamously when Indiana coach went with the hard-working forward Jeff Pendergraph for one short stint. Pendergraph somehow chalked up a plus/minus of -5 in just 74 seconds of play, as New York began to pull away to eventually blow out the Pacers in the win.

Now, the deeper Knicks may be getting an unexpected bon mot in the form of former All-Star Amar’e Stoudemire, who has been cleared to play 10-15 minutes on Saturday, his first action in over two months. Stoudemire has worked his way through two frustrating, injury-plagued years as New York’s hoped-for second option next to Carmelo Anthony, but in this scenario he’ll be working as a go-to bench scorer working up against a Pacers pine unit featuring types like, well, Jeff Pendergraph.

And it may not even take Stoudemire’s possible game-changing presence to influence Pacer coach Frank Vogel into going heavy with his starters’ minutes with the series in Indiana.

The video above is basically the quick-hit, short-take, brief summation of the Miami Heat/Chicago Bulls Eastern Conference semifinals. Without dismissing either team’s significant talents, the block that 5-9 Bulls guard Nate Robinson came through with against four-time MVP LeBron James in the third quarter of Miami’s 104-94 Game 3 win on Friday night was symbolic. The move dramatically came out of nowhere to stop one important shot, but the distraction hardly mattered in the end as Chicago’s stones failed to fell Goliath, and the defending champion Miami Heat took a 2-1 series lead.

The Heat regained the home court advantage by waiting out a Bulls attack that simply could not keep up offensively in the second half, while falling prey to opportunistic three-point bombs on the other end of the court. Heat reserve Norris Cole scored 18 points off of the Miami bench, knocking in 3-3 three-pointers to drag his long range mark to 8-8 in the conference semis, while James hung tough despite what was a miserable start to his evening.