Friday Bullets

• Laker trainer Gary Vitti tells Lakers.com's Mike Trudell about Kobe Bryant's right knee, which sounds like it's due for a busy offseason: "His is an articulating cartilage problem. The way I describe that to people is that if you look at the end of chicken bone where it’s nice and white, well, that’s not bone, it’s cartilage. Sort of like a Teflon surface that when two bones come together, that cartilage is there so that bones don’t rub on each other. Now, the fact that it’s nice and white tells you it doesn’t have a good blood flow to it, and that means it cannot heal or regenerate. So, over time, as that cartilage wears away, you end up with osteoarthritis. Kobe doesn’t have an arthritic knee, but he has a knee that has some joint degeneration to it. His issues and his age are such that it eliminates some procedures, like microfracture and that type of things. But he is a candidate for certain other things, and we know all the procedures all around the world that are available to him, and the appropriate decisions will be made, he’ll have the best care."
• Convincing evidence that coaching matters more on defense than offense (Insider).
• The Rockets have reportedly offered their head coaching position to Kevin McHale. One factor: those who played for him as the Timberwolves' coach generally rave.
• Good call. Zach Lowe of the Point Forward on the Mavericks guarding the Heat:� "This might be the moment they finally miss Caron Butler."
• Russ Bengtson: "It’s not a hard and fast rule or anything, but if the best photo of you they can find for your basketball card is you getting boxed out, you’re probably not going to have a very long NBA career. Happy birthday, Stuart Gray."
• Locked out NBA players could be kept from their national teams because of insurance blah blah blah. Players want to play and fans want to watch. Selfish of NBA owners to shut that down to protect their investments. 'Cause they're not investments, they're humans and ... basketball players.� As if, you know, playing basketball is something you could reasonably expect a basketball player not to do -- while you're not paying him, no less.
• The Chris Bosh vs. Carlos Boozer matchup mattered.
• Vegas says Heat, but Monte Carlo says Mavericks.
• Ted Leonsis remembers his first job. I appreciate the line of conversation, but it has just a hint of walking uphill both ways to school.
• Jason Terry's tattoo is really glad the Mavericks made the Finals.
• Derrick Rose is a special dude. Honestly, just hats off to that guy. He spews love of the game, love of his team, and doing things the right way with just about every breath. Classy. We're lucky that we'll be watching him for a long time.
• On HoopSpeak, Ethan Sherwood Strauss does not believe in giving Bulls fans some time to grieve, and is serving up a quick and pointed post-mortem: "Despite all the bricks, turnovers and crunch time gaffes, Rose was failing correctly. He was screwing up actively, dominating the ball. We tend to respect the guy who takes shots and D-Rose lobbed an average of 24 of them. Of course, all that chucking compounds the '35 percent from the field' issue. The superstar might well have better helped his team as a passive 'role player,' only shooting when absolutely necessary. But I wonder: Would media members be making excuses for Rose had he hurt his team less by taking far fewer shots? Or would they rip him for not 'going down swinging'? A year ago, LeBron James suffered an infamous failure versus the Boston Celtics. His 'Game 5' was a tepid 14 field goal attempt, 15 point absence of a performance. Though James added seven assists and six rebounds, his passivity stoked outrage. Though James had a much better series than Derrick Rose just had, we won’t remember it that way. He failed incorrectly, leading to a dreaded 'quitter' tag. I wonder, would James have been judged less severely had he taken 30 shot attempts in that blowout?"
• The Thunder's ten-best 2011 playoff moments.
• A strong case that, for the sake of his reputation, Mike Brown would have been better off taking the Warriors job. I get the argument, and think it makes all kinds of sense, but to me the bigger point is that if your thing is coaching in the NBA, coaching the Lakers is a good gig. The risks are intensified, but in this job, you live for that, right?
• High payroll teams make the Finals.
• What the Bulls should have done in crunch time, in video.
• Matt McHale of Bulls by the Horns: "Seven seconds later, LeBron tied the game with a step-back 3. It was contested. It was -- to be completely fair and honest -- a bad shot. But it went in. This is where I point out that Miami started 3-for-12 from downtown … then James and Wade went 3-for-3 from beyond the arc in less than a minute."

Source: http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/29663/friday-bullets-181

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