Reuters

The Miami Heat self-destructed, and Dwyane Wade hit the button.

Wade, the former finals MVP, was 2-13 shooting and had words with coach Erik Spoelstra as the Heat came apart at the seams and fell to a Pacers team growing in confidence with every minute. Game 3 finished 94-75 — which is pretty reflective of how the game went — and the Pacers lead the series 2-1.

The Pacers are in the Heat players’ heads, and you have to wonder if the Heat can get them out of there before Game 4. Miami players hesitate with decisions, seem to be looking over their shoulder, and their confidence is shaken. Meanwhile the Pacers have Danny Granger and George Hill knocking down threes and Roy Hibbert scoring 19 and owning the paint.

Most fans — and apparently the Heat players — did not realize before this series how good the Pacers were. They do now.

What nobody expected was for the Heat team to buckle at the first sign of adversity. Especially not Wade, who was -19 and jawed with his coach during the blowout. After the game in his press conference, Spoelstra blew off the incident.

“Anybody who hasn’t been part of a team, been a coach, been a player, you have no idea how often things like that happen,” Spoelstra said. “It was during a very emotional part of the game, we were getting our butt kicked. Those exchanges happen all the time during the course of an NBA season… that was nothing, the least of our concerns.”

Which is good, because the Heat have a plethora of concerns.

Without Chris Bosh setting the picks and spacing the floor, the Miami offense has become a muddled mess. That’s not all about Bosh, that’s about how the Heat players responded to adversity. They shot 37 percent as a team, 20 percent from three.

LeBron James played well early, but like the rest of the Heat faded as the game went on, finishing with 22 points on 22 shots. He could not take over and turn the tide. He was so unimpressive, Lance Stephenson was giving him the choke sign from the bench.

The death throes of a coach in a series often come when they start to look deep down the bench for a spark from a matchup that hasn’t really worked for them all season. This game Spoelstra switched up the starting lineup to put Dexter Pittman and Shane Battier in it. Yes, Pittman.

It is another sign that the Heat are in serious, serious trouble in this series, to go with arguing on the bench, the muddled offense, the inability to hit three pointers and general bad play.

The Pacers are far the better team right now. It’s not close. If the Heat didn’t have the guys who should be the two best players in the series on their side we would be calling this thing over. Maybe we should anyway.

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What do Faye Vincent, George Steinbrenner, and David Stern have in common?

They’re each relevant characters in the relocation saga of the Maloof family, owners of the Sacramento Kings, who are increasingly becoming a liability for the NBA.

That’s because Chris Lehane, executive director of arena group Think Big Sacramento and big-time political consultant to be played by Rob Lowe in the upcoming film Knife Fight – mashed those characters together when he sent a scathing letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday. In that letter, he described the Maloofs’ harassment of at least one Sacramento business owner using an ex-FBI agent and asks for a federal investigation into the matter.

On Friday night, CBS13, the local CBS News affiliate, reported that the Maloof Family is employing a former FBI Agent whose purported activities appear designed to intimidate citizens of the Sacramento region who in recent weeks have expressed their concerns about the Maloof Family’s ownership of the Sacramento Kings.

If accurate, the report that the Maloof Family is potentially party to such unscrupulous conduct shocks the conscience at any number of levels.

First, in an era where professional sports organizations have been heavily punished for engaging in “spying” on opposing teams and putting “bounties” on opposing players – the idea that a professional sports team’s ownership group would target its own fans, including prominent and respected local business leaders who are financial supporters of the team, is simply unconscionable.

Lehane then goes in on what happened when Steinbrenner got caught paying Howie Spira, a man with an extremely questionable background, $40,000 to dig up dirt on then Yankee Dave Winfield.

Second, given the history of professional sports owners being severely sanctioned for the use of private detectives involved in comparable activities, it would appear that the Maloofs are possibly exposing themselves to sanctions. Former New York Yankee owner George Steinbrenner was permanently suspended by Major League Baseball for hiring a private detective to dig up dirt on Dave Winfield.

And for the cherry on top, Lehane asks for the federal investigation:

And, third, in deploying a former FBI Agent to engage in what was reported to be acts of intimidation and harassment, various federal criminal statutes are potentially implicated.

The complete text of the letter can be found here. It goes on to identify federal harassment statutes that could apply to the use of a private investigator, it poses the question of whether or not a federal law enforcement official was impersonated, and to tie a bow on things Lehane points out that the act occurred in Sacramento and the Maloofs reside in Las Vegas – creating a jurisdictional argument to be made in favor of federal prosecution.

Even though this seems jarring when taken at face value, unless there is a real smoking gun that could translate into serious charges against the Maloofs this is just a way to shine a light on their behavior. It’s more likely the audience here was really Stern and the other 29 NBA owners.

Furthermore, the real reason why Lehane brought the Steinbrenner incident into focus is the “best interest of the league” clause found in each of the major sports’ constitutions and by-laws. Vincent used the clause to give Steinbrenner a lifetime ban for the Spira incident (among other factors), though Steinbrenner later exerted enough pressure to be reinstated after two years of riding the pine.

There has already been some talk, some published and most of it unpublished, that Stern could or should use the NBA’s version of the best interest clause to force the sale of the team or nicely encourage ‘the boys’ to negotiate in good faith with Sacramento. The motivation is simple. The Maloofs don’t appear to have the money to run an NBA team, the NBA doesn’t need another Sonicsgate, and the NBA itself has gone to great lengths to preserve the Sacramento market.

The questions (in order) are, however, can he do it, will he do it, and at some point does he have to do it?

According to the Marquette Sports Law Review, the commissioner’s office is installed within the framework of a “monopolistic business association,” shielding the NBA from being bogged down by litigation so long as the commissioner’s office provides “due process” for disputes between players, owners, and the league itself. The office is supposed to act as a disinterested reviewing body with the power and independence to sanction players and owners alike. This body gives the owners the ability to ‘obviate judicial interference,’ which is a fancy way of saying the courts stay out of their business on a multitude of legal issues. From the league and owners’ perspectives, a commissioner can resolve certain conflicts faster and more effectively (read: cheaper) than the courts can.

This “due process” is also an important mechanism required for the league to avoid antitrust suits in relocation disputes. If you recall during Stern’s press conference just hours after George Maloof and his antitrust attorneys torched the Sacramento deal, he said “I am very sensitive of the rights of the Maloofs to do what they did.” That’s because in past relocation disputes, leagues have lost cases because they did not give owners, such as Al Davis and Donald Sterling, an appropriate forum and process to apply for their relocation requests. As distasteful as the Maloof’s actions were, honoring the application and due process of a relocation request is paramount and the likely motivation behind Stern’s comments.

This doesn’t mean, however, that the Maloofs get to unilaterally hurt other NBA owners or the league as it considers their relocation request. Moreover, the ‘best interest’ clause sits side by side with antitrust law to determine how much, if at all, the Maloofs can hurt the NBA and its other owners with their relocation activities. While all of this gets fleshed out inside of Stern’s due process, not to mention outside of the due process with all of the various arm-twisting that goes on behind the scenes, it’s the due process itself that upholds the commissioner’s office as a viable mechanism to obviate judicial interference.

And none of that interference may be as important to obviate as the monopolistic protection the NBA receives as it leverages limited supply (teams) against tremendous demand when it threatens to leave cities if public subsidies are not provided for owners.

These subsidies are a billion dollar item on the balance sheet over multiple years, and it is in the best interest of the league to ensure that it places its best foot forward in how it markets its product to municipalities and their taxpayers.

Should any NBA owners be found to be negotiating in bad faith during arena discussions, as it appears the Maloofs may have, the association could be found liable for losses derived from a failed negotiation – in this case over $500,000 for Sacramento and thousands of hours of time by its city staff and representatives. And because of the tax dollars at play nationwide, both lawmakers and the courts will look to the commissioner’s office to see that due process is being carried out on behalf of all parties, from owner to taxpayer.

As if the overall issue of the Maloof’s relocation wasn’t enough, it was learned earlier this week that the proprietor of a Sacramento website called Ransacked Media both personally met with the Maloof’s private detective and later released confidential emails between NBA attorney Harvey Benjamin and George Maloof. While all leaks are not created equally, if it is found that the Maloofs materially harmed the league’s ability to negotiate with future municipalities because they leaked this information it is just more trouble for Stern and the 29 other owners to consider right now. And it can’t reflect well that discussion of the team’s television deal with Comcast was made available for the masses, as Benjamin put it “We agree regarding Comcast, but no one thought it would be wise as a public matter to put this in a public document.”

Well, it’s public now.

Clearly, there are questions surrounding the Maloofs’ end-game strategy and why they would want to own a basketball team amidst serious concerns about their finances. The NBA’s owners told us repeatedly over the summer that very few teams are making money. As the Kings have been among the league’s lowest spending teams for years, they’ve shown that they can’t or won’t spend the money needed to be a title contender. By some reports the Kings are enjoying an approximate $10 million revenue sharing stream and while ticket sales and sponsorships may hold steady for now, the chance for another PR blunder to destroy whatever goodwill is left in Sacramento remains high. As for that revenue sharing, Stern alluded to the fact that the owners could always vote to change their mind about the Maloofs’ continued receipt of their share.

Politically, the Maloofs have all-but destroyed any chance of getting a publicly-funded arena in Sacramento that would meet the needs of the NBA and the city. Their solution to renovate the current arena is an obvious attempt to produce evidence in an antitrust lawsuit, as they will likely seek public funds that will be denied because the current arena is nearing the end of its useful life. Putting any money into it, let alone public money, has been decried as ludicrous by every third-party that’s not a puppet for the Kings. But the family will say they did all they could to make a deal work in Sacramento and that everybody else let them down.

So after burning every bridge in California’s capitol, the only option on the table for the Maloofs that doesn’t include them financing their own facility is to move and/or sell the team. And none of the options to keep the team present the Maloofs with a tremendous financial advantage over this last deal that the NBA negotiated alongside them.

Moving a team to Anaheim, for example, will return at least a $300 million relocation fee as the result of infringing upon the Lakers and Clippers’ markets and render the family upside-down in their investment without some serious help. Seattle just reached a Memorandum of Understanding agreement on Wednesday with investor Chris Hansen that is pending, and the city’s investment of up to $120 million for an NBA-only arena will need to clear all the red tape that Sacramento’s did. Regardless, Hansen isn’t spending over $500 million to roll out the red carpet for the Maloofs. Otherwise, you can add Vancouver, Louisville, Columbus, and Kansas City to the list of cities whose names have landed on the radar, and none of them provide the Maloofs a path to improve their financial standing or support their entertainment holdings. All they provide is a lukewarm bidding war to raise the sales price of the team.

Talking with sources close to the negotiations, it’s clear that many of them are done trying to understand what the Maloofs are doing right now. Exasperated would be the appropriate word. Did the Maloofs threaten an antitrust suit and did the NBA respond by threatening a relocation fee in Orlando? Did the Maloofs leave Orlando with an agreement in principal only to decide days later to leverage their antitrust rights? Are they buying time in hopes that a game-changer comes through the pipeline? Has all of this simply been an exercise in selling the team? Does it even matter at this point? The damage is done. Sacramento has spun its wheels for a family with all questions and no answers, and could very well be left without a team if nothing is done about it.

Now, in their apparent pursuit of evidence for an antitrust case, it appears they may have crossed more lines and bitten off more than they can chew. Whatever their motives may be – they continue to encumber the league’s standing with customers, cities, its own owners, and eventually with lawmakers and the courts.

The appropriate question for the league and its owners is – at what point does the behavior become a recognized liability and at what point do they figure out that holding the line isn’t the smartest play.

Ultimately, it’s in the best interest of the league that they figure this out quickly. Billion dollar subsidies don’t grow on trees.

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AP

The good news is it went well.

Derrick Rose had successful knee surgery on Saturday to repair his torn ACL, reports Aggrey Sam at CSNChicago.com. Rose also received platelet-rich plasma therapy during the operation in hopes of speeding recovery.

The question now is how long he will be out.

Rose was told it will be an eight-month rehab, reports the Sun-Times. For those of you who don’t have a calendar up in front of you, this would bring Rose back right around the first of the year, a couple months into the NBA season. Which is in time for him to build up his conditioning, shake off the rust and get right by the time the playoffs start.

For a lot of teams being without their star for the first couple months of the season could be a disaster, but the way the Bulls play without Rose they should be fine and in the upper half of the East. Then it all becomes about being right for the playoffs, and the Bulls deserve some good Karma in that category after this season.

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LeBron James opened a window Thursday into how he views a game even when he’s not playing . . .

And it’s remarkably similar to how he views it when he is.

As he watched the closing seconds Game 2 of Lakers-Thunder from his Indianapolis hotel room, what caught James’ eye was not Kobe trying to break slightly free in the lane, but rather how much Russell Westbrook was cheating off Steve Blake in the right corner.

“He got caught peeking in the paint, and left a very good shooter open,” James said following Thursday morning’s shootaround at Bankers Life Fieldhouse.

So Metta World Peace made the pass that LeBron saw from a high-definition distance.

For James, it was no different than the Heat going to Mario Chalmers for the final shot of their Game 2 loss to the Pacers, or even deferring to Dwyane Wade for a layup attempt late in that Tuesday loss to Indiana.

“I think it was a great play,” he said of the shot that came up short for the Lakers. “Ron Artest made the perfect play, and [Blake] just missed it. You make that shot, you miss it, the storyline gets changed.”

Ah, the storyline. No sooner did Blake miss then James was well aware of what would ensue.

“I thought it was a great play,” James said. “You guys know my answer. I thought it was a great play.”

And that’s the thing, he truly believes it was a great play, just as he was so comfortable in standing by how the Heat played the closing seconds in the Game 2 loss to the Pacers.

You may not agree with his superstar approach, but there is no doubt, as you listened Thursday, that he would do it the same way again.

And have the Lakers do it the same way they did Wednesday night in Oklahoma City.

It is why he is not Kobe, but closer, perhaps, in the Lakers’ lineage to Magic.

“I’m not going to get too much into it. You guys know I’ve been there before,” he said. “I thought it was a great play.”

Ira Winderman writes regularly for NBCSports.com and covers the Heat and the NBA for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. You can follow him on Twitter at @IraHeatBeat.

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Getty Images

I pointed this out on twitter earlier this week — if you read just one basketball story (not on PBT) this week, it should be Chris Ballard’s profile of Tim Duncan. This is what the best of sports writing looks like, and Ballard has killed it with a few pieces these playoffs.

But I will share the juiciest part of the Duncan piece with you — he can’t stand Kevin Garnett. Which makes me want a Celtics vs. Spurs NBA finals all the more.

It’s not hard to imagine the intense-but-reserved Duncan clashing with the intense-in-your-face Garnett. Here is what Ballard wrote.

In fact, Duncan hates Kevin Garnett. Hates him the way liberals hate Sean Hannity. This information comes from very reliable sources, who talk about how KG has made a career of trying to punk Duncan, baiting him and slapping him and whispering really weird smack into his ear. They talk about how funny this is, because the worst thing you can do as an opponent is piss off Duncan. Then, as Malik Rose says, “he f—— destroys you.” Duncan’s lifetime numbers versus Garnett’s teams, by the way: 19.4 points per game, 11.6 boards and a 44–17 record, including the postseason.

Duncan is diplomatic about the topic. Asked if perhaps all those years battling Garnett have softened his feelings for the man, led to a Magic-Larry type of kinship, Duncan leans back on the couch in his hotel room and grins. There is a pause. A longer pause. Finally he says, “Define kinship.”

Come on basketball gods, you robbed us of Derrick Rose these playoffs. You’ve made us suffer through the first two games of Indiana Boston. You’ve exacted your pound of flesh. Can you at least give us Duncan vs. Garnett now? Please.

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Reuters

Ty Lawson is at the heart of the Denver Nuggets’ future. That much was clear as the Nuggets played gutty, fun basketball and pushed the Lakers to seven games — Lawson averaged 19 points a game on 51.4 percent shooting and added 7 assists per game as the point guard.

After his fourth year in the NBA Lawson is now up for a contract extension and both sides want to work one out that keeps Lawson playing in the mile high city, reports the Denver Post.

Asked about possibly getting a contract extension from the Nuggets this summer, Lawson told The Denver Post: “It’s definitely a goal. I want to be here long term. I’m pretty sure my agent and Masai (Ujiri, the Nuggets’ executive vice president of basketball operations) will talk this summer.”

Asked Sunday about Lawson, Ujiri said: “He’s going to be a big part of the Denver Nuggets. We’re excited. Ty is going to grow even more. He made a little jump, and he’ll continue to make jumps as he gets older.”

Lawson will be back with the Nuggets either way, he either works out an extension or comes back for a fifth season then will try out the market as a restricted free agent next summer.

But if you’re committed to a guy and want to make him happy, you do the extension (they can talk about it after July 1). Denver has already done that with Danilo Gallinari (four-years, $42 million). I expect we’ll see the same here.

Lawson is not a max deal guy but he can get some long-term security and Denver can lock down Lawson for five years at what might be below market rate in a couple years (if Lawson keeps taking steps forward). While the numbers will be different, think of what Danny Ainge did in Boston locking down Rajon Rondo at a price he could no longer get.

Some work needs to be done to fill out the rest of the Nuggets roster if they are going to take the next steps forward, but Lawson will be part of that future.

JaVale McGee, on the other hand, is a restricted free agent this summer and it will be interesting to see what the market will bear for him.

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AP

Here is our daily look around the NBA — links to stories worth reading and notes to check out (stuff that did not get its own post here at PBT) — done in bullet point form. Because bloggers love bullet points.

• How much respect does Vinny Del Negro deserve for the job he’s done coaching the Clippers this season and playoffs? Adrian Wojnarowski at Yahoo says more than he is getting. After a first round win I can’t see the Clippers making a change this summer, but that is different than saying he is the coach who can take this team to contender status.

• The NBA has rightfully rescinded the technical Reggie Evans of the Clippers got for giving Blake Griffin a high five (follow the link to see the video, I was there and we couldn’t figure it out).

• Thaddeus Young is a go for the Sixers on Monday night in Game 2 against Boston despite shin (or ankle, depending on who you ask) issues.

• Where is O.J. Mayo going to be playing next season?

• There are rumors out there the Pistons are looking to move Ben Gordon.

• The Indiana Pacers players would not discuss the foul disparity from their Game 1 loss to the Heat.

• Stephon Marbury was honored with a statue in Beijing over the weekend for leading his team to the Chinese Basketball Association title. Dennis Rodman flew out to honor him. I would love to have been at that party.

• The NBA viewership is skewing younger — that’s good for marketing. There are companies that will pay to reach a younger, multi-cultural, tech-savvy audience.

• A look at the Knicks season through New York Post covers.

• Shareef Abdur-Rahim left Cal after one season for the NBA, but he has gone back and will get his college degree on Monday. Good for him. He is currently an assistant GM with the Kings.

• A documentary on the Kings past and future in Sacramento will be released online Tuesday.

• Don Nelson got his college degree over the weekend, too. Just 50 years later than planned.

• Apparently LeBron James‘ son is now a Heat executive.

• NBA referee Bennett Salvatore is being roasted… no, not on a spit like some of you want. It’s for charity.

• Making ice cream with the Raptors’ Amir Johnson.

• You can now hire evil clowns for your child’s birthday party (via NPR).

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So what do the Los Angeles Lakers need to do to improve in Game 2 vs. the Thunder?

A brief list:

1. Do not be terrible

2. Defend jumpshots better

3. Have Pau Gasol act like an NBA player

4. Work the ball inside to draw more contact and get to the line

5. Again, do not be terrible.

That pretty much covers it.

The Lakers were annihilated in Game 1 by a Thunder team that had an offensive rating above 130. That’s on par with the offensive efficiency of the Death Star. Thermonuclear weaponry does less damage. They need a complete and total change in Game 2 to survive. They need to challenge on the perimeter pick and roll more, attacking the ball handler and on the pull-up jumper. They need to rotate better to find the shooters. They left Kevin Durant open in the corner for three at one point, for crying out loud.

The ball has to go to Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol more. Gasol can get his shot over Serge Ibaka when he wants it. He’s got to be aggressive and not just wilt away from the action. Kobe Byrant had an off game, but most of his looks were shots he makes at least at a 40 percent clip most nights. It’s unlikely he’ll have another night like that. Ramon Sessions was a hot mess, and needs to set the tone with aggressiveness. He need to push the ball, but has to do so without messing with the Lakers’ slow-it-down pace.

Have I mentioned they need to not play terribly?

For the Thunder, just do that. What you did in Game 1, just do more of that. Because that worked well. They need to hit shots it the big key. When their mid-range game is wet, there’s just no way to stop their offense. They have too many weapons. James Harden needs to have a more efficient night, and Kendrick Perkins and Serge Ibaka need to do a better job on rebounding, but that may be unavoidable. Bynum and Gasol are just too big.

This is a big game. If the Lakers make a strong showing, it can give them momentum going back home to try and wrangle control of this series. A win, and no one will remember Game 1, all of a sudden the Lakers will be in position to steal this series by holding serve. But another blowout loss, another destruction at the hands of the Thunder?

That big red “Panic” button is going to start glowing red hot, screaming “PUSH ME!” to everyone in Hollywood.

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We remember the original Dream Team — the pros sent to the 1992 Barcelona Olympics including Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Charles Barkley and others — just rolling teams. The won the Olympic gold medal by an average of nearly 20 points a game and had the opposing teams asking for autographs afterward.

But a new documentary about the 20th anniversary of that team (to air on NBA TV June 13) also talks about and has footage of the game they lost.

It wasn’t a game so much as a scrimmage in La Jolla, Calif., against a group of college stars featuring Grant Hill, Chris Webber and Bobby Hurley, among others. The footage shows the speedy little point guard Hurley slicing into the teeth of the USA defense and carving the dream team up pretty good. However, USA head coach Chuck Daly had the scoreboard turned off before reporters were allowed in the gym.

Current Team USA head coach Mike Krzyzewski said he thinks Daly threw the game with a purpose. From the AP:

“He threw the game. You know, Chuck threw the game,” Krzyzewski, then a U.S. assistant and the current head coach, said on the documentary. “If you look how much Jordan played and how he subbed guys in, not picking up, not making any adjustments, he knew what he was doing.”

The reason — to let the Dream Team know they could be beaten. To let them know they were not invincible. But Daly would have had to throw it because no other team on the planet at that time could have beaten the dream team. They were as invincible as a team may ever have been.

I wouldn’t be nearly as confident that the Team USA heading to London this summer, 20 years later, will be as invincible. Thanks in part to the worldwide phenomenon of the Dream Team, the rest of the world is starting to catch up to us in basketball.

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Reuters

It seems weird to say after two games that have felt like Sahara Desert of watchable offense, but going into Game 3 both Boston and Philadelphia are thinking about locking down their defense.

But that speaks to the mindsets of why these teams are here.

Boston is struggling to score with Paul Pierce and Ray Allen dragging bum legs around the court, so finding a way to get Rajon Rondo going or squeeze more points out of Kevin Garnett matters. (Is it time to use Pierce more as an at-the-arc shooting threat because of how he is moving?) But what they really need to do is find a way to cut off what Philadelphia is doing well this series — dribble penetration and getting to the line.

Jrue Holiday got in the lane and had six shots at the rim in Game 2, sparking the scoring Philadelphia got. Holiday had just as many shots at the rim as Rajon Rondo, but Holiday can also knock down the three (4-6 in Game 2) and that balance threw off the Celtics defense. Evan Turner also was creating offense off dribble penetration. It meant Philadelphia took 21 free throw attempts to Boston’s 9. (Philly had 20 free throw attempts in Game 1, also.)

It’s not that the Celtics played bad defense — they gave up just 87.2 points per 100 possessions in Game 2 — but with their offense dragging like and anchor their defense has to be better. Which means better individual defense, staying in front of their man, and in particularly it means Rondo winning his battle with Holiday by a wider gap.

Boston also needs to own the boards — Indiana grabbed the offensive rebound on 26.8 percent of their missed shots in Game 2. That will be a key stat in Game 3 because with two struggling offenses second chances like that can swing games.

Back at home, the Sixers can look for a boost from role players — Thaddeus Young has not yet found his groove this series but they need them. Lou Williams is not exactly a role player, he led the 76ers in scoring this season, but they need and expect better than 3-13 from him in Game 3.

But when they spoke they spoke about defense, specifically about not letting Pierce or Allen get in a groove. That duty again will fall to Andre Iguodala. Philly has taken away many of the easy buckets from the Celtics and if they continue to do that Boston will continue to struggle to put up points.

The biggest surprise in this series has been Lavoy Allen, the Sixers bench big man who has played good defense on Kevin Garnett and pitched in 10 points last game. If he keeps it up at home the Sixers are in a good spot.

They are in a good spot in general — Philly played Boston even on the road, showed poise and out-executed them at the end of a close Game 2, and now they come home. The pace of these games has been a little faster than Boston played this season and if Philly can up that a little more, get a few more easy transition buckets, they will be hard to beat.

There’s no reason to think Game 3 will not be a close, low-scoring affair like the last two games. But the Sixers come home after a confidence-boosting road win and if they can build on that this series could turn sharply in their favor.

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