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.

Mike Brown and Mark Jackson compare gestures (Getty Images)

Cleveland Cavaliers coach Mike Brown’s continued existence as a hot commodity remains baffling to us, and yet the Cavs wasted no time in securing Brown as their head coach last month just three years after firing him. Weirdly, rumors abounded that the Cavs made quick work of their coaching search, upon firing Byron Scott, because the team was worried Brown would link arms with another team looking for a head man.

Now a report out of Lakers Nation points to Lakers de facto personnel boss Jim Buss as expressing the same worries as he attempted to replace the future brother-in-law (13-time champion, as player and coach) Phil Jackson that he reportedly reviles. Brown was a candidate to take on the Golden State Warriors top gig in 2011, with West acting as a consultant and leading Mike Brown advocate, before the younger Buss swooped in to grab his guy.

From the longtime Lakers go-to guy, Mark Heisler:

An artist's rendering of what the unnamed draft prospect actually looks like (Getty Images)

The NCAA deadline to declare for the NBA draft is on April 16. Because the NBA has its own deadline (rendering the NCAA’s toothless) of April 28, and because an anonymous Reddit poster didn’t actually play basketball in the NCAA last (or any other) year, one particular potential draftee decided to slide his declaration in just before the NBA’s target date.

While possibly a little drunk. And without being on an NBA team’s radar. Or giving his own name.

Via Eye On Sports and Business Insider, and explained by his Reddit activity, here is the letter one enterprising soul sent to the NBA last month, announcing his eligibility in the NBA’s June 27 draft “after a few drinks.”

(Courtesy Reddit)

Andrew Bogut, feelin' fine (Getty Images)

Andrew Bogut has been a revelation during this year’s postseason. Though he looked to be his old, unfortunately gimpy self in Golden State’s playoff-initiating Game 1 loss to the Denver Nuggets nearly three weeks ago, Bogut has sprung back to approximate the sort of all-around terror that we grew to know and love during his time as a Milwaukee Buck. And while that may seem like faint praise, understand that a healthy Buck Bogut meant the world as an angle-eliminating defensive mastermind that could finish around the rim and make the extra pass.

Bogut has come a long way in a year’s time. Last April, the Warriors announced he was undergoing microscopic ankle surgery; a procedure that was later revealed to be a more serious microfracture ordeal, a complication the Warriors (mindful of season ticket sales) declined to disclose. This duplicity led to calls for Bogut to be back by the start of the season, which forced Andrew to return far too early to the team, effectively ruining yet another regular season for the man that hasn’t looked healthy since badly injuring his arm late in the 2009-10 campaign.

All those wasted months and lost seasons had Bogut wondering if it was all worth it. He disclosed as much to NBA.com’s Scott Howard-Cooper recently:

Bogut said he “was getting close” to having to give it serious consideration, but that he was not at the point of having to make a decision. The plan, he said, was to try and finish this season on an encouraging note, work during the summer to return to peak condition and aim for a healthy 2013-14. If that went bad, all options would have been on the table.

Luol Deng, prior to a game that the Chicago Bulls hoped he would play in (Getty Images)

Calling the Chicago Bulls’ 2012-13 a “lost season” is no justification to sit players, deal rotation parts, or take things lighter just because Derrick Rose is recovering from a torn ACL. It’s no excuse to let Rose sit the entire year, or to pass on re-signing Omer Asik, or to run Joakim Noah into the ground. It’s no excuse for either end of the “give up”/”try real hard” spectrum, really, and shouldn’t be an excuse to rest All-Star forward Luol Deng for the rest of the playoffs.

Luol Deng should sit out the rest of the playoffs, though, because there is no reason to push him back in to pro-level competition. As Deng recovers from a major illness and botched spinal tap procedure, the team should make the adult choice here (for once in their recent history) and declare Deng done for the year.

In his first meeting with the press since Deng was sidelined by illness, Deng came correct at Bulls practice on Thursday in discussing the obstacles that have been in place in the days since he was hospitalized.

Chicago Bulls beat writer K.C. Johnson (of the Chicago Tribune) and Mike McGraw (of the Arlington Heights Daily-Herald) relayed Deng’s discussion, via their Twitter accounts:

Deng says he's lost 15 pounds: “I tried to shoot a little bit (today) and I struggled. I couldn’t do it."

— Mike McGraw (@McGrawDHBulls) May 9, 2013

Monta Ellis and Larry Sanders prior to their locker room confrontation (Getty Images)

The Milwaukee Bucks were a combustible mess all season. Worse, they were a boring combustible mess. They didn’t even have the timing or touch to release news about their infighting during the actual season. Instead, a report about a locker room confrontation between defensive maven Larry Sanders and scoring guard Monta Ellis was released nearly two weeks after their last game of the season, dumped on a Thursday afternoon in the midst of the playoffs.

CBS Sports’ Ken Berger broke the news about a near-clash of Milwaukee’s near-titans, and we use the “near” qualifier because the two never came to blows, and 38-win teams don’t really have titans. Here’s Ken’s report:

After the Bucks lost 104-91 to the Heat in Milwaukee on April 25, Sanders vented in the locker room and said in a fiery speech, “We need to start playing together as a team and stop worrying about next year,” according to one of the people briefed on the confrontation. “We need to stop being selfish and start worrying about right now.”

Richard Hamilton preps for absolutely nothing (Getty Images)

Take away the incredible 142 points scored in the Chicago Bulls’ triple overtime victory over the Brooklyn Nets in Game 4 of their opening round series, and you have a severely lacking Bulls offense. With those numbers out of the equation, Chicago is averaging just 88.9 points per game during these playoffs, worked up mostly against a Nets team that has major issues defensively. Kirk Hinrich, signed last summer to hold down the fort while Derrick Rose recovers from ACL surgery, has been out since that Game 4 with a calf injury. Nate Robinson and Marco Belinelli, onetime end-of-the-bench guys, have had to play the hero. Daequan Cook is getting significant minutes in the second round. Chicago needs offensive help, badly.

And through it all, a shooting guard who used to routinely average over 19 points per game sits on the bench. Richard Hamilton has played just over ten minutes during this year’s postseason, and this is coming off of a regular season that saw the 2004 NBA champion start 45 out of the 50 contests he played with Chicago. After a disastrous run in the first game of Chicago’s postseason run (Hamilton turned the ball over, missed two shots, and a miscommunication with teammate Nate Robinson led to another turnover for Nate), Hamilton has been handed “Did Not Play – Coach’s Decision”-status in seven of the team’s eight subsequent games.