First Cup: Friday

First Cup: Friday:

• Paul Coro of The Arizona Republic: "To be the two remaining Western Conference teams, the Suns and Lakers had to excel at what they do best and those superlatives are unscathed. Something has to give now. When the conference finals start Monday, either the Suns' league-best 3-point shooting is going to be taken down a notch - or the Lakers' league-leading 3-point defense will snap. Phoenix can stake a claim to the best-ever 3-point shooting team with a 41.2 percent season that is second only to the 1996-97 Charlotte Hornets, who recorded a 42.8 percent record during a 3-year experiment that shortened the distance to 22 feet. The Lakers gave up a league-low 32.8 percent on 3-point shooting this season. Neither gave ground in getting to this point. Phoenix shot 41.7 percent on 3s in the first two rounds, making 10 per game. The Lakers surrendered 32.3 percent 3-point shooting, allowing six per game. 'We've won games where we didn't have to make a bunch of 3s either,' said Suns coach Alvin Gentry, whose team got this 36-9 run started with 15 games of single-digit 3-point makes. 'For us, it's all about spacing the floor. If they're guarding the 3-point line, hopefully that means there are alleys that we can drive."
• Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times: "It might have been the least memorable Lakers playoff series in decades, a meek five-game loss to the Phoenix Suns, but the off-season it spawned was anything but forgettable. Kobe Bryant stewed and steamed after the Lakers were eliminated in the first round in 2007, sitting at a podium within a few minutes of their ouster and putting owner Jerry Buss and the front office on notice. 'Do something, and do it now,' he decreed. 'Three years,' he said, and the Lakers were still 'at ground zero.' Indeed, it was the third season after the Lakers dealt Shaquille O'Neal, and Bryant had endured all the mediocrity he could handle. He demanded to be traded a few weeks later, a request that led to an unsettling off-season as the franchise lurched and rolled under the weight of its angry superstar. Only when Pau Gasol arrived with a midseason trade the following season did Bryant settle down, the Lakers now on their way to a third consecutive trip to the NBA Finals if they could get past their old friends, the Suns."
• Peter May for ESPNBoston.com: "In the space of six days, the Celtics went from the ultra humiliating, a 124-95 loss at home, to the ultra exhilarating, a rousing victory in Game 6 and a sweep of the last three games of this series. The team won't -- and can't -- dwell on the significance of this achievement, not with the menacing Magic awaiting in less than 48 hours. But when it's all said and done, by eliminating the No. 1 team of the regular season, this might rank as the Celtics' greatest playoff upset since the 1969 NBA Finals. No one foresaw this; not the ESPN panel of experts, none of whom picked the Celtics. Vegas didn't like the Celtics' chances. You had to think the Cavaliers regarded the Celtics as a steppingstone. And now that the Celtics have pulled off the Big One, where does that rate in Paul Pierce's mind? 'I'm really not that proud,' Pierce said. 'Our goal is to win a championship. We didn't say we wanted to come in and beat the Cleveland Cavaliers in the playoffs. Our goal is to win a championship. We can be excited for one night, but we only get excited here when we put a banner up.' "
• Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald: "On a night when a 25-year-old named LeBron James was trying to save face and carry his team to a seventh game, it was a high-mileage power forward, six days shy of his 34th birthday, who did the winning. Unable to play in last year’s postseason because of his right knee, Kevin Garnett appears to me making up for lost fun. He came out to find a change in Cavalier strategy with Shaquille O’Neal guarding him. So KG dropped in all four of his first quarter shots to make Cleveland rethink its plan. When Antawn Jamison moved back onto him, Garnett simply bulled his way inside and took over. 'I really didn’t know what they were going to do,' said KG. 'I thought they would probably trap. This is my 15th year. I’ve seen almost everything possible during a basketball game. But when they put Shaq on me ... my mentality throughout this whole playoffs has been attack, attack - to be the presence; when I get doubled to make a play. So when they put Shaq on me, my thought process didn’t change. It didn’t change at all.' "
• Bob Ryan of The Boston Globe: "Hey, America. Remember the Boston Celtics? 17 titles. The Leprechaun. Red Auerbach and his cigar. The parquet. The banners. Russ? Cooz? Hondo? Larry? A couple of Big Threes? Tradition! Anyway, while all you out there in the Great Beyond tuned in last night to see what fate had in store for LeBron James, the Cavaliers, the city of Cleveland, the state of Ohio, and perhaps even how the balance of power for the next 10 years in the NBA might be affected, for those who care about the fortunes of the Boston Celtics this was Game 6, and nothing more. LeBron was just another villain standing in the way of another Celtics’ championship run. Boston is the only city in America in which people are saying this morning that the Celtics won, and thus will be playing Orlando Sunday afternoon in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals. Everywhere else, LeBron lost. Yup, the Boston Celtics capped off a great series with a great win, controlling play for all but a few minutes, absorbing a fourth-quarter incursion and then running off 10 straight points to ensure a 94-85 triumph and answer all the pre-playoff questions as to their real worth after concluding the season with a lackluster 27-27 record."
• Marla Ridenour of the Akron Beacon-Journal: "Was this goodbye? After a 94-85 loss to the Boston Celtics on Thursday night in TD Garden eliminated the Cavaliers from the playoffs, fans were left to ponder that question about favorite son LeBron James for what could be months. The Cavs' Game 6 loss might have been James' last in a Cavaliers uniform and he fueled the speculation by not waiting long to shed it, ripping off his jersey in the tunnel leading to the locker room. With the season ended, he's now a free agent. While James recorded a triple-double with 27 points, 19 rebounds and 10 assists, he also committed nine turnovers and hit only 8-of-21 shots. But he showed no effects from his right elbow injury when he tried to rally his team with back-to-back 3-pointers early in the fourth quarter that closed the deficit to four. Eventually, the Cavs were doomed by 22 turnovers and 38 percent shooting, 5-of-17 from 3-point range."
• Dennis Manoloff of The Plain Dealer: "Only In Cleveland. Only In Cleveland can a team finish with the best record in back-to-back regular seasons, and have the MVP on its roster, and not even make the finals of its sport. How else to explain what happened to the Cavaliers the past two seasons? 2008-2009: Best record in the league, MVP, out in the conference finals. 2009-2010: Best record in the league, MVP, out in the conference semifinals. I'm fairly certain this never has happened in the NBA. ... I tell people who aren't from Cleveland: You can't possibly understand. Don't try to understand, because you can't. It's not about a jinx or a hex or a curse. There are no ghosts. It's just what happens to pro sports teams in Cleveland, at least since 1964. They can't win it all."
• Brian Windhorst of The Plain Dealer: "Let's have some stone-cold realism now. The Celtics were the better team in the series, which isn't breaking news. They had a better plan, better poise, way better execution. If the Cavs had given better focus and better effort in Games 2, 4 and 5, then they might have had a chance to stretch it out. But none of the four losses were truly close. Game 5 will be the scar from the series and, no matter what anyone says, it will hang over the top of LeBron James for a long time. He will have to shove it away with a championship and that doesn't seem all that close right now. Now for the harsh, real stuff. The Cavs were closer to beating the Orlando Magic last season than they were the Celtics this season. This is regression. Playing the way they did against the Bulls and the Celtics, they would not have beaten the Magic this season. Or the Lakers. Or probably the Suns. Right now the Cavs maybe, maybe are the fifth-best team in the league, and James and Shaquille O'Neal are headed for free agency. ... So the brutal truth is this: Say what they want, the Cavs are a great regular-season team. But no more. Following them for seven years now and trying to be as truthful as possible along the way, I missed it. I thought it would work in a series, too. But obviously I was wrong with my predictions. So were the Cavs with everything in their planning and preparation."
• Michael Wilbon of The Washington Post: "It's inexplicable that in the final minutes, with the clock ticking down, the Cleveland Cavaliers would just let it all expire. No fouls, no desperation, no three-point heaves. They just let it go, the season and perhaps the future. Tick, tick, tick, gone. A wrap. The end. No stopping the clock, no one last timeout. If they didn't give up they certainly gave out. Wow. They weren't ready to win a championship, as it turns out, not the great LeBron James and not the Cleveland Cavaliers. They played hard enough through most of the game, even cutting a 12-point deficit to four on James's daring back-to-back three-pointers. It looked then as if he had the stuff of Magic and Bird, of Jordan and Duncan. But the outburst was brief, a sputter. This can't be about only LeBron James; an entire coaching staff and locker room full of players paid a lot of money let this happen. Mark Jackson, the ESPN analyst who played forever in this league, said at the end of the telecast of Game 6 that he was disappointed that the Cavaliers appeared to quit before it was over, simply surrender. They were, once again, dispirited in those final few minutes, defeated, overwhelmed."
• Richard Schapiro of the New York Daily News: "LeBron James' hometown mayor ratcheted up the rivalry between Cleveland and New York Thursday, ripping the Big Apple as a place unfit for any self-respecting Ohioan. 'Who the hell would want to live in New York?' Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic told the Daily News. 'I think what he has here is a real connection to people. I hope he always remembers that, because there's a lot of things in life that are more important than an extra million or two.' The Cavaliers' power forward is the reigning two-time NBA MVP -- and set to hit the open market as a free agent July 1. The Cavaliers' season ended Thursday night in a 94-85 loss to the Celtics. Plusquellic conceded he's quaking over the possibility James will flee Akron's scruffy suburbs -- where the NBA great still owns a home -- to play on the world's biggest stage. 'For sure, I'm worried about him leaving,' Plusquellic said. 'You don't want to lose a guy like that. He means so much for this community.' "
• Rick Morrisey of the Chicago Sun-Times: "In the last five years, the Bulls have won as many regular-season games as they've lost. Those of you who insist you've seen improvement might want to stare hard at that for about an hour. There's no getting around the mediocrity. Rose and Joakim Noah can only take this team so far. So a hint of a suggestion that LeBron might entertain a thought of playing for the Bulls? Good enough for me. Imagine what the United Center would sound like with basketball, not marketing gimmicks, inducing cheers. Anyone who has stood by the Bulls the last 12 years would no longer have to question his sanity. A tag team of James and Rose would be the picture of reason. Can you imagine if Bulls vice president John Paxson pulled this off? First getting Rose with a 1.7 percent chance of winning the draft lottery and then James deciding against all reason to join the Bulls? It would be definitive proof that God loves Paxson. Before this, all we had to go on was that he went to Notre Dame. The James fantasy is a win-win for everyone not from Cleveland. Now all we need is for it to be true."
• Mike McGraw of the Daily Herald: "LeBron James is almost certain to consider a new location and the Bulls will no doubt be high on his list. They can offer a city James loves and already have two young stars in place. Chicago could conceivably give James his the best chance to win a title in the next few years. Then again, he might look at Kobe Bryant as an example. Bryant won three titles with a young O’Neal, then struggled until the Lakers added Pau Gasol to the front line. James could create an East Coast version of the inside-outside combo by convincing Chris Bosh to join him in New York. But James has the power to do whatever he wants. How about re-signing with the Cavs for two years, giving this group another chance to pull together in the playoffs, then jumping to the Nets in time for the move to Brooklyn? Teaming up with Dwyane Wade in Miami doesn’t seem like a great fit -- one ball for two superstars. James did get to know most of the key free agents while playing with the national team the past few years, so personal relationships could help direct his decision. Something seemed to go wrong with the Cavs' chemistry in the past few days, but James didn't talk about it. James returning to Cleveland could have been a foregone conclusion. Now there is no telling what the summer will hold. The Bulls figure to be prepared for anything."
• Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun: "The season ends and the speculation begins: It is that sad, that simple, for LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers. No team won more games than the Cavs during the season and no player dominated the way the James, the NBA’s Most Valuable Player - but when it mattered most, the Cavs hardly looked the part of contender and James seemed a shadow of an MVP. And in the star obsessed world that is the NBA, the six-game loss of the Cavs to the Boston Celtics will pass: The defeat of LeBron James, though, will be discussed, debated, dissected, and then debated and discussed and dissected some more."
• Michael Wallace of The Miami Herald: "The Miami Heat had gigantic expectations Wednesday when it officially opened a recruiting campaign to encourage star guard Dwyane Wade to stay with the team. Apparently, those goals weren't big enough. Soon after launching a fan-friendly website and marketing blitz designed to flatter Wade, the site crashed because of excessive traffic. The Heat quickly shifted to a larger server that would accommodate www.wewantwade.com leading to the July 1 start of NBA free agency. Until then, Miami will likely have to wait along with many other league cities to learn of Wade's decision. 'I thought it was hilarious,' Wade said of the surprising approach from a franchise that has largely been low-key in promoting players. 'But I appreciate it. I do. I really do.' In addition to the website, which gives fans pointers on how to show their support when they see Wade in public, the Heat also plans to plaster tributes and photo images of the six-time All-Star on billboards and banners all across South Florida. Wade appreciates the attention, but has said there is a simple way to make sure he re-signs with the Heat: Go out and get him some more help."
• Geoff Calkins of The Commercial-Appeal: "Say this for Grizzlies coach Lionel Hollins: He doesn’t shrink from hard questions. I thought of as many as possible. I posed them over lunch earlier in the week. Only twice did Hollins ask to go off the record. The rest was open and free-wheeling. He does not think O.J. Mayo can play point guard. He does not think Hasheem Thabeet is a bust. He does not like the lame questions he often gets after games. He does not understand why anyone would be intimidated by him. ... The man just signed a new three-year deal with the Grizzlies. Next to owner Mike Heisley, he may be the most influential person in the organization. He’s also blunt. Refreshingly so. But, then, don’t take my word for it."