The more I watch basketball and talk to people involved in the game, the more convinced I am that it’s just not possible for teams with multiple star players to maximize all 90 or so offensive possessions they get in every game. We complain often about Miami’s Dwyane Wade and LeBron James “taking turns,” Oklahoma City’s James Harden working as a glorified decoy at times when he plays with Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, or New York’s Amar’e Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony seemingly having difficulty working away from the ball.

We demand perfection — constant activity, clipboard brilliance, screening, passing and the kind of whirring selflessness that would seem to make any fully engaged Heat or Thunder possession almost unguardable. But lulls happen in games, and they are probably inevitable. Basketball is too mentally and physically exhausting, defenses too good and well-prepared, for every half-court possession to be a masterpiece.

Still, there is a long continuum between extreme stagnancy and perfect five-man activity, and Miami has proved for two seasons now that it is vulnerable when its star-laden offense falls too far toward the stagnant end. The Heat have a better bench this season, but when the pressure is high, their three stars will play more minutes together, and they will have to score effectively in the half court. Two of those stars, Wade and James, have similar skill sets, and neither is a knockdown three-point shooter who can space the floor simply by running around screens. Miami has to be more creative than that.

At its best, Miami is a fast-moving beast with Wade, James and Chris Bosh working off each other to create openings. The Heat are beatable when they go through long stretches of “your turn, my turn” predictability. Coach Erik Spoelstra can stop these funks only periodically by calling a timeout, drawing up a play or two and sending his team back out. The Heat too often looked uninspired in going “just” 19-13 after the All-Star break, including several losses to their main championship competition — teams with defenses that generally chew up predictable, spacing-challenged offenses. Could Miami rediscover the gear it showed earlier in the season?

Bad news for the league: Through two playoff games, it’s clear that Miami is reinvigorated on offense. Good news for the league: It has been only two games against an overmatched Knicks team whose best defender, center Tyson Chandler, suffered a poorly timed case of the flu and whose second-best defender, rookie guard Iman Shumpert, is out for the season with a torn ACL. Still, the early results are encouraging: Miami — which goes for a 3-0 series lead on Thursday in New York — is leaning on some basic actions in which its star players work together on and off the ball, rather than having everyone stand around while James or Wade runs a high pick-and-roll.

None of this stuff is complicated, which makes it frustrating when it vanishes from Miami’s offense. Take the simple cross screen that Bosh set for Wade under the rim on three consecutive possessions during Game 2:

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Chris Bosh could miss Game 3 to be with his wife and newborn baby. (Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images)

Chris Bosh flew from Miami to New York in the wee hours to be with his wife upon the birth of their new baby, and could miss Game 3 Thursday in New York. (David Aldridge reported Thursday morning that Bosh is expected to play, but Miami coach Erik Spoelstra said Bosh will be a game-time decision.)

The appropriate reaction here is to congratulate Bosh and his family, and to commend both him and the Heat for having their priorities in order. Players handle this kind of thing differently; Bosh’s teammate, Shane Battier, famously hit a game-winning three against the Spurs in the playoffs last season and flew back home to see his newborn baby later that day. No two such situations are identical, in terms of timing and family preference, and it would have been perfectly fine for Bosh to skip a playoff game and see his new son.

On the other hand, some Toronto fans still haven’t forgiven Vince Carter for attending his college graduation on the morning of Game 7 of the 2001 conference semifinals against the Sixers — probably because Carter shot 6-of-18 in that game and missed a potential game-winner at the buzzer. Results always inform perception.

Those of us applauding Bosh should theoretically do so in the future regardless of whether the player in question misses a Game 3 with his team up 2-0 or Game 7 of the NBA Finals. Thankfully, we don’t have to confront the dilemma, since the Heat are up 2-0 against a depleted Knicks team with one healthy big man who actually plays like a big man offensively. In other words: While the Heat are very thin up front without Bosh, the Heat shouldn’t need him to beat New York on Thursday and extend the Knicks’ 11-year playoff winless streak.

With Amar’e Stoudemire out, the Knicks will start Carmelo Anthony at power forward, an ideal time for Miami coach Erik Spoelstra to go smaller and shift LeBron James to the same position. The Knicks confounded opponents during a late-season stretch in which Anthony played power forward, but the Heat are better equipped than any team to deal with this wrinkle. If Bosh misses the game, Udonis Haslem will play center, and as John Schuhmann notes, that would leave the Heat starting a lineup that has either played about 16 minutes together this season (if Battier starts for Bosh) or one that has played just five minutes this season (if Miller starts for Bosh). The Heat have mixed and matched all sorts of small lineups this season, but the most typical involve LeBron playing with at least one backup as Spoelstra substitutes for Wade and/or Bosh late in the first and third quarters. Read More…

By Nicki Jhabvala, SI.com

Following the Knicks’ Game 2 loss in Miami on Monday, Amar’e Stoudemire took his frustration out on an innocent fire extinguisher outside the visitors’ locker room. Paramedics were called to the scene after he punched the glass-encased extinguisher, ripped open his non-shooting hand and left a trail of blood at AmericanAirlines Arena.

Those who were on hand for the incident shared details — as amusing and strange and horrifying as they were — on Twitter, while those tracking the news remotely chimed in with their thoughts on Amar’e's self-inflicted wound, which will keep him out of Game 3 and maybe the rest of the series. Here are some of the more memorable tweets from Stoudemire’s rage-fueled night, including one from the smashed fire extinguisher itself …

Come at me, bro @amareisreal—
Fire Extinguisher (@AAAExtinguisher) May 01, 2012

What righty throws a rage punch with their left?—
  (@netw3rk) May 01, 2012

"You are really dumb" – Me signing Amar'e's cast—
  (@netw3rk) May 01, 2012

Anyone know how the Knicks did? RT @TrendsNewYork 'extinguisher', 'lockeroom', 'paramedics' & 'lacerated' are now trending in #NY—
Eric Stangel (@EricStangel) May 01, 2012

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Paramedics had to stitch up Amar'e Stoudemire's non-shooting hand after Tuesday's game in Miami because he punched a glass-encased fire extinguisher. (AP)

The Knicks, obviously, cannot go through the NBA season like a normal team. Every team has its share of drama, and much of the craziness that engulfed the Knicks this season was of the good variety, like the rise of Jeremy Lin from nowhere and his transformation into one of the biggest sports stars in the world.

But there has also been much ugliness, peaking with the 24-hour period in mid-March when anonymous sources leaked that Carmelo Anthony had requested a trade, other anonymous sources leaked that Anthony’s teammates were furious with him for hijacking Mike D’Antoni’s offense upon his return from injury, and D’Antoni finally resigned after concluding he would be unable to coach Anthony. Mike Woodson replaced D’Antoni, and suddenly Anthony could be bothered to work hard on defense, even admitting that he was focusing under Woodson at bringing an “energy” he hadn’t played with under D’Antoni.

The drama stopped for a while as the Knicks improved defensively under Woodson and Anthony began hitting an unsustainable number of isolation shots. But it returned in true New York fashion after Game 2 in Miami on Tuesday night, when Amar’e Stoudemire, frustrated by something, punched the glass enclosure of a fire extinguisher, cut his hand, received an unknown number of stitches and left Miami in a sling. He will miss Game 3 and may be done for the rest of the series, which the Knicks trail 2-0.

GALLERY: RARE PHOTOS OF AMAR’E STOUDEMIRE

As I and others have noted repeatedly this season, Stoudemire just hasn’t helped the Knicks, mostly because the Anthony/Stoudemire combination has been a disaster. The Knicks outscored opponents by about 3.2 points per game, but with Stoudemire on the floor, opponents beat them by about three points per 100 possessions. That number got even worse — about four per game — when Stoudemire and Anthony shared the court, per NBA.com’s stats database.

The Knicks have suffered from something of a catch 22 with this pairing: They cannot play the Anthony/Stoudemire duo without Tyson Chandler because it would be defensive suicide. But playing Chandler with the two stars has sabotaged the offense because Chandler and Stoudemire play roughly the same role in any functioning offense — pick-and-roll screener — and are not skilled enough perimeter shooters or off-ball cutters to work a secondary role. Read More…

Mike D'Antoni resigned as coach of the Knicks after three-plus seasons and a 121-167 record. (Andrew Gobmert/Landov)

It’s a stunning move, particularly for a coach who understands that building a successful basketball team requires time, practice, luck and chemistry: Mike D’Antoni has resigned as coach of the Knicks after three-plus seasons in which he coached approximately 27 versions of the Knicks. The last of those was the most promising, with the emergence of a productive point guard celebrity in Jeremy Lin, surrounded by two allegedly top-shelf scorers and a dominating defensive center who doubled as a pick-and-roll finisher supreme.

That version of the Knicks lasted 10 games, losing eight, before D’Antoni apparently decided he had had enough of the mess a whole bunch of factors conspired to create. His resignation comes amid a classic New York day of anonymous back-biting, with sources close to the team leaking all manner of controversy to the city’s three main news outlets: that Carmelo Anthony, whose return from injury marked the start of that fatal 2-8 stretch, had requested a trade after Monday’s loss in Chicago; that D’Antoni had lost control of the locker room, whatever that really means; and that Anthony had alienated his teammates by breaking from D’Antoni’s offense, screwing up New York’s spacing, calling his own number and (more often than not) missing bad shots.

The Knicks failed across the board over those 10 games. Their offense, terrible all season, mostly sputtered. The Knicks rank 23rd overall in points per possession, and even at the height of Melo-less Lin craze, they were scoring only at an average rate against a weak schedule. Their defense, ranked a very strong 10th overall in points allowed per possession, was even stingier without Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire around, and it carried the Knicks during the blissful seven-game winning streak that captivated the world. That defense has predictably regressed upon the return of one lazy defender (Anthony) and one willing but powerless one (Stoudemire); the Knicks have allowed a points per possession mark worse than the league’s 30th-ranked defense (New Jersey) in each of their last four games, though two of those came with Tyson Chandler sitting due to injury. Read More…

Jeremy Lin and Carmelo Anthony have yet to click, but it's still early in the Knicks' development. (Matthew Emmons/US Presswire)

You could see the story playing out in advance before Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni re-inserted Carmelo Anthony and Jeremy Lin for Josh Harrellson and Baron Davis with 3:57 left Tuesday in Dallas after a motley mix of bench players and one starter (Amar’e Stoudemire) had cut the Mavericks’ 14-point fourth-quarter lead to two. You knew that when Dallas made its run, almost mathematically inevitable, a pseudo-controversy would spring up over whether D’Antoni should have left “the bench” in, and whether the Anthony/Lin pairing is doomed.

You knew this would be so even though the hero of the bench, Steve Novak, remained on the court for another 90 seconds as the Mavs scored eight straight points to basically clinch the game. You knew the ensuing controversy, fueled by Anthony’s postgame comments about his changing role, would (in some corners) be devoid of the complicated context within which it actually exists.

Some of that context:

• The Knicks’ blissful Linsanity stretch — eight games in which Anthony essentially didn’t play because of injury — featured a schedule filled with lottery teams and home games. The schedule has gotten slightly more challenging and road-heavy since then, and New York has predictably struggled.

• During the non-Anthony portion of Linsanity, the Knicks scored 100.85 points per 100 possessions, according to Hoopdata. That would rank about 14th in the NBA. The Knicks, in other words, played average offense against a weak schedule with Lin as the offensive centerpiece.

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The Knicks cut into the Nets’ lead during the middle of the fourth quarter Monday night using a lineup that did not include Jeremy Lin or any traditional point guard. Then Lin came back into the game, and the Knicks, needing to play almost perfect offense in order to have any chance to win, did this with 5:20 left in the game:

The skill level of the five New York players on the floor here is so high that this set is dangerous even though the three players surrounding the initial Lin/Tyson Chandler pick-and-roll — Carmelo Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire on the left side, J.R. Smith in the right corner — do not move at all as that play unfolds. Despite that lack of motion, there is a brief moment when Stoudemire is open on the left baseline as Kris Humphries slides into the paint to help on Chandler. And any possession that ends with Melo isolating on Anthony Morrow counts as a well-used possession. Still, you can’t help but ask for more, just as we asked for more off-ball motion from Miami’s stars all of last season.

The challenge of re-integrating Anthony into the Lin Knicks centers on two things: Read More…

J.R. Smith electrifies fans with his shooting -- and aggravates coaches with his shot selection and defense. (US Presswire)

You have to love the Knicks. They’ve won seven consecutive games, possess the league’s sixth-stingiest defense (in terms of points allowed per possession) and have scored at an elite level with Jeremy Lin on the floor (in a limited sample size, of course). Landry Fields is finding his game (if not his three-point shot, at least consistently), Tyson Chandler is playing All-Star ball on both ends of the court and Carmelo Anthony is due back from a groin injury any day now. Things are generally humming.

So, of course, the Knicks on Friday were set to sign J.R. Smith, one of the league’s most mercurial players, to a one-year deal worth the prorated portion of their $2.5 million “room” cap exception.  (Update: Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports reports that the deal includes a second-year player option worth around $2 million, which has little impact on New York’s 2012-13 cap situation). He chose the Knicks over the Clippers, who could have used the 6-foot-6 Smith, if only for his legitimate shooting-guard size. Los Angeles had only the veteran’s minimum salary to offer.

Smith has been frustrating over the last few seasons precisely because you can see the player he could be if he just eliminated all the needless chaos that blurs an otherwise fine game — the ill-advised heat-check shots, the gambling on defense, the out-and-out wandering on defense that causes him to lose track of shooters. You want to shout at Smith, “Just do a little less, and you’ll find more!” But he has never done it, and he’s 26, about to start his eighth NBA season after a stint in China.

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Spacing is precious to an NBA offense, especially one as bad as the Knicks. That’s why smart fans might have cringed when they saw this on New York’s first possession Wednesday against the Kings:

You see Jeremy Lin passing the ball to Landry Fields on the left side, but if you look at the right edge of the paint, Lin’s most common pick-and-roll partner, Tyson Chandler, is rolling right into Amar’e Stoudemire’s space. One play like that, right after the opening tip, and you find yourself asking some of the same questions we asked about the pre-”Linsanity” Knicks: Can the pieces fit? Why is Stoudemire, one of the greatest pick-and-roll finishers ever, so neglected on New York’s pet play?

The Knicks quickly found a solution, but even that solution is a reminder — perhaps an encouraging one — of how much work is left to be done with an offense that still ranks 24th in points per possession and has sputtered badly in three of the last four games. The Knicks, for all the Lin mania, are winning with defense; they rank fifth in points allowed per possession, their best ranking of the season and one that does not fit the common perception that Mike D’Antoni cannot coach defense.

Indeed, perhaps the best Lin-related news is that a very good New York defense has been even better with Lin on the court. The team’s best work has come against shaky competition, including games against three of the league’s four worst offenses, and it’s possible the absence of Carmelo Anthony and Stoudemire helped New York’s defense reach another level. But we have no evidence that Lin is hurting New York’s stingy defense. That’s a good start.

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Jeremy Lin has scored 53 points and dished out 15 assists in the Knicks' last two home wins over the Nets and Jazz. (Steven Freeman/NBAE via Getty Images)

All season, Knicks fans have been tracking every update on when Baron Davis, the presumed savior at point guard, might finally be able to step onto the court and organize an offense that has ranked 20th or worse in points per possession almost all season — a stunning thing for a team built around two scoring stars. Davis suffered another setback in his recovery from a herniated disk Monday, but New York fans have already forgotten that setback happened. Jeremy Lin — a 23-year-old undrafted point guard from Harvard, one of the few Asian-Americans to reach the NBA and a cast-off of two Western Conference teams — has arrived to save the Knicks’ season. And to serve as one of the league’s most powerful marketing vehicles.

Lin has played 80 mostly dazzling minutes over New York’s last two games — home victories against New Jersey and Utah. Those 80 minutes are more than he received all season before Saturday’s game against the Nets. Those 80 minutes make up nearly one-third of the time the Warriors gave him last season before dumping him to free up salary space in a failed pursuit of the Clippers’ DeAndre Jordan. They represent 80 more minutes than the Rockets, one of the league’s savviest franchises, gave Lin before waiving him on Christmas Eve.

And in those 80 minutes, Lin has scored 53 points, dished out 15 assists and led the Knicks to back-to-back wins in which they scored at a points-per-possession rate above the league average. New York had accomplished that feat in back-to-back games just once before “Linsanity” set in. He has attempted 9.3 free throws per 36 minutes as a Knick, a mark that would rank behind only LeBron James and Dwight Howard if Lin had enough minutes to qualify for such leaderboards. He has assisted on 47.2 percent of New York’s baskets while on the floor, trailing only Steve Nash.

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