JAMAL CRAWFORD - PRESSURE

His 4-for-18, 11-point night in Wednesday's Game 5 loss at home, seriously ratcheted up the pressure on Crawford to come through in Vinnie Johnson fashion in Game 6 on Friday night in Milwaukee and keep Atlanta playing into May. It's the type of pressure, as Floyd Mayweather likes to say, "that separates those who are talented from those who are God-gifted."

HI - FIVE

Players patting each other on the butt may be funny. But what's not funny is winning games, and the evidence suggests that teammates who touch each other liberally on the court -- high-fives, fist-bumps, hugs, pats and the like -- tend to do that better than players who don't.

Benedict Carey reports in The New York Times:
Michael W. Kraus led a research team that coded every bump, hug and high five in a single game played by each team in the National Basketball Association early last season.

In a paper due out this year in the journal Emotion, Mr. Kraus and his co-authors, Cassy Huang and Dr. Keltner, report that with a few exceptions, good teams tended to be touchier than bad ones. The most touch-bonded teams were the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers, currently two of the league’s top teams; at the bottom were the mediocre Sacramento Kings and Charlotte Bobcats.

The same was true, more or less, for players. The touchiest player was Kevin Garnett, the Celtics’ star big man, followed by star forwards Chris Bosh of the Toronto Raptors and Carlos Boozer of the Utah Jazz. “Within 600 milliseconds of shooting a free throw, Garnett has reached out and touched four guys,” Dr. Keltner said.

To correct for the possibility that the better teams touch more often simply because they are winning, the researchers rated performance based not on points or victories but on a sophisticated measure of how efficiently players and teams managed the ball -- their ratio of assists to giveaways, for example. And even after the high expectations surrounding the more talented teams were taken into account, the correlation persisted. Players who made contact with teammates most consistently and longest tended to rate highest on measures of performance, and the teams with those players seemed to get the most out of their talent.

It's a dynamic that I feel I see playing out in many parts of society. Some people are apparently scared to touch others. Scared of seeming inappropriate. Scared of being uncool. In same-gender settings like the NBA, maybe scared of appearing to be gay. (The exact thing that gives the headline of this post comedy value in some circles.)

But guess what! Being timid is no way to lead. NBA players face a lot of challenges. Intense defenses. Injuries. Grueling schedules. The playoffs. Younger players gunning for their jobs. Careers that could end with the twist of a knee. Pressures off the court to make this much money or support this many people.

Some dude mocking you for hugging a teammate? Forget him. It's just small potatoes. You just can't get hung up on that. Life's too short. It's extremely liberating and powerful to just entirely skip worrying about that kind of eighth-grade insult.

The researchers say they have not yet been able to prove any kind of cause-and-effect -- does the hugging and touching cause the wins?

It's a powerful form of communication that may do a lot to uplift and inspire teammates.

There are many great examples of this, including LeBron James, who clearly lives in the land of 10,000 physical greetings. TrueHoop reader Christopher, who first made me aware of this study, remembers another all-timer: "Think of Magic Johnson's first pro game. Kareem hits the game winner, and the irrepressible rookie won't stop hugging him. ... Kareem's entire shell started to crack a bit that day, but more importantly the nation started to see Magic's HUGE spirit and love of the game."

As a supportive teammate, one of my favorite players has always been Tim Duncan. He's always putting an arm around teammates' shoulders and the like. I once asked him about an episode at Wake Forest. Duncan's teammate Randolph Childress was feeling down. Coach Dave Odom was talking to Childress and Duncan. Childress stared at the floor. As they both listened to Odom, Duncan reached out a hand and lifted Childress' chin, steering Childress' face towards his coach's.

Not just anyone can do that. It's rude and bold, done poorly. But Duncan is exploding with love and support for his teammates. It was intended, Duncan insisted to me later, not to correct Childress for disrespecting the coach in some way (he couldn't even imagine that anyone would think that) but to uplift Childress. To inspire him. To increase his self-confidence. It's not hard for me to believe having a player behaving like that could make a team perform better, over time, by keeping everyone as motivated and connected as could be.

So maybe the researchers will find that the hugs cause the wins. But I'd guess it would also be worth investigating the idea that players who touch each other are just the kind of fearless players who make inspiring leaders. Maybe identifying players who touch each other is a crude way to identify those who aren't sweating the small stuff -- and everyone likes being around people like that.

BELOW IS A LINK TO STEVE NASH AND HOW MANY HI-FIVES HE GIVES DURING A GAME...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koR2efE2alQ&feature=player_embedded

BRANDON ROY - THE LEGEND GROWS

For his next trick, Brandon Roy will make it snow in Phoenix. After that, he’s going to part the Willamette River. Then, who knows?

Roy is legend.

First, I stood in the Trail Blazers locker room while Roy unwrapped both taped ankles after Portland’ 96-87 victory over Phoenix in Game 4 on Saturday. He also had a giant bag of ice wrapped around each knee. And when the Blazers guard walked across a small pool of water on the wet tile floor beyond his locker, I looked down at his feet.

You know, just to be sure they were actually touching the tiles.

Roy’s gritty and inspired performance eight days after undergoing arthroscopic surgery on his right knee is the stuff of legend.

Let’s see. The promise that he would try to play. The series of text-message pleas Roy made to his coach, and team trainer Jay Jensen. The "Rocky" theme music that blared from the public address system when he checked into the game. The clutch shots. The critical victory.

Every bit of it.

Legend.

Roy played 27 minutes, scored 10 points, and gave a city a collective case of the chills. He made the Suns account for him, and they paid dearly for it. Best of all, while it was obvious to anyone watching that he was not quite himself, Roy showed rare restraint for an NBA star and didn’t attempt to do a single thing that he wasn’t capable of pulling off.

Blazers assistant Dean Demopoulos said after the game, “He’s the best I’ve ever been around.” And owner Paul Allen, who was consulted pre-game on the decision, walked down the hallway and out of the arena with a delighted and wonderous look in his eye. And teammate Jerryd Bayless, whose locker is beside Roy’s, leaned in to me after the game so his star neighbor couldn’t hear him and said, “I told him before tipoff, ‘Brandon, I don’t know if you should do this.’

“Then, he went and ended up being huge for us.”

That fine moment when Roy checked into the game on Saturday undeniably lifted the Blazers. It raised a city to its feet. In fact, as Roy sauntered onto the scene, I scanned press row at the line of sourpuss media who have covered decades of basketball and think they’ve seen it all (myself included) and I saw something I’ve not ever seen before.

Smiles.

This was theater at its finest, baby.

In the recovery room, post-surgery, Roy shocked everyone when he held his leg up for all to see, bent it at the knee, and said, “Look, I have full range of motion already.” That evening, he walked up a flight of stairs at his house, pain-free. And within a couple of days, Roy was on the treadmill, had no swelling, and passed every strength test the team threw at him.

Then, he started begging to play.

You may already know Roy is tough. You may even know that Roy shocked everyone by coming back prematurely from a far more serious knee surgery his junior year at the University of Washington. That time, Roy popped into the second half of an upset of then-No. 12 North Carolina State just three weeks post-surgery and scored 10 points. But what you probably don’t know is that Roy refused all pain medication post-surgery.

Trainer Jensen said: “He took no medication.”

I know. I know.

We’re used to professional athletes playing it safe with their bodies. The world of athletics is filled with men who wouldn’t dare come back a day before anyone expected them to be present.

Roy isn’t afraid.

So maybe the Suns should be.

ROY JONES JR

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDWnMXzgeZo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWcY0tt0xQo - Longer version

A 'Melo Season - Maya Moore

The UConn women think Maya Moore can duplicate the feat of another fab freshman (Carmelo Anthony) and lead them to a title.

CONNECTICUT WOMEN'S basketball coach Geno Auriemma is one of the sport's great needlers, an unapologetic wise guy who plays all sorts of mind games to motivate his best players. Before the season he called Maya Moore into his office to test the mettle of his prized freshman. "I really don't know if we are going to be able to win a championship this year with you," he told Moore. "You would have to have a Carmelo Anthony--like freshman year for us, and I really don't know if you have that in you." Moore just stared at her coach with steely eyes. "She gave me a look that said, O.K., that's my next project," Auriemma says. "Obviously, I think she is capable of that. She can't do it by herself, but if we are fortunate enough to be in the championship game, she will be the leading scorer in that game. I guarantee that."

Through Sunday, Moore was averaging a team-high 17.5 points a game and 7.0 rebounds and was shooting 55.7% from the field—including 44.0% from behind the arc—for the top-ranked Huskies (24--1). The 6-foot forward has scored in double figures in all 25 games, with nine games of at least 20 points. "I don't think there is a player in America who has had an impact on her team greater than the impact Maya has had on ours," Auriemma says. That has been by necessity. Auriemma put Moore into the starting lineup nine games into the season after junior guard Kalana Greene was lost with a season-ending right ACL tear in December. Four weeks later senior guard Mel Thomas suffered the same injury. "[Maya] has had to be counted on even more," Auriemma says. "I've told her, 'You have to impact the game right from the first possession.'"

Auriemma says the 18-year-old Moore is the most-prepared freshman he has ever coached, two-time Naismith Award winner Diana Taurasi included. When she arrived in Storrs last May, Moore asked for game tapes of UConn's 10 toughest Big East opponents. ("Just to get that mental edge," Moore says.) Moore was the national player of the year last season at Collins Hill High ( Suwanee, Ga.), where she won three state titles as the Eagles went 125--3 in four seasons. Still, she takes nothing for granted. She is the last player to leave the floor at every practice, shooting extra free throws and three-pointers. Her goals are at once simple and ambitious. "Hopefully after each year and after my four years in college, I'll have given something that people have never seen before," she says.

A devout Christian, Moore is as serious about academics as she is about basketball, finishing her first semester with a 3.85 GPA (four A's and one B—"World Regional Geography," she says, laughing, of the course that was her kryptonite).

Her only weak performance on the court came against Rutgers, which held her scoreless in the first half of UConn's lone defeat, a 73--71 loss on Feb. 5—though Moore did score 15 second-half points. Scarlet Knights coach C. Vivian Stringer nevertheless was impressed. "Best player in the next decade," says Stringer. "Strong, powerful, poised. Can dribble, shoot, rebound. She can do it all, and she's only a freshman. I mean, a freshman! Three more years of that?" Stringer simply shakes her head.

Ready For Moore

Last season Connecticut forward Maya Moore put together the most magnificent freshman campaign in women's hoops history. Now the hypercompetitive Husky has set her sights on a national title

November 17, 2008

WHEN CONNECTICUT forward Maya Moore saw the Thanksgiving turkey—or rather, the decorated outline of freshman guard Caroline Doty's left hand—drawn on assistant coach Shea Ralph's office whiteboard last month, she couldn't resist. Moore picked up a marker, outlined her own left hand, added colorful gobbler flourishes and wrote beside both birds, whose turkey is best? If the results of the polling were unreliable ("Maya got more votes, but she was standing right there, so the count could be skewed," says Ralph), the contest itself, which wasn't a contest at all until Moore got involved, is instructive. "Maya wants to be the best at everything, and I mean everything," says junior center Tina Charles. "Video games, grades, who's first in the mile—you name it. She takes every opportunity to show what she can do."

What the college basketball world saw Moore do last year was turn in arguably the most spectacular freshman season in the history of women's hoops. Made a starter after junior guard Kalana Greene tore her ACL in the eighth game, the 6-foot Moore led the Huskies to a 36--2 record and their first Final Four appearance since 2004, averaging a team-high 17.8 points and hitting 42.0% of her three-pointers. She was second in rebounding (7.6 per game) and blocked shots (1.6) and third in assists (3.0). She became the first freshman, male or female, to be named Big East Player of the Year and was runner-up to Tennessee forward Candace Parker in AP Player of the Year voting.

And Moore did all that while maintaining a 3.85 grade point average. "I believe Maya will be the torchbearer who carries the game to another level," says DePaul coach Doug Bruno, for whom Moore played on two USA Basketball squads. "She's taken the torch from Parker, who took it from Diana Taurasi."

Ask the cognoscenti what sets Moore apart, and there is surprising consensus. It's not her deadly shooting, her nose for rebounds, her on-court savvy, her absurd athleticism—she dunks for fun but has yet to attempt one in a game—or even her competitive drive, which Bruno compares with Michael Jordan's. It's her ceaseless effort. "We talk about shooters being in the zone, but her work ethic is in the zone," says TV analyst Debbie Antonelli. "I've never said that about another player except Tamika Catchings. [About] how many kids can you say: They never take a play off?"

For UConn coach Geno Auriemma, however, Moore's distinguishing trait is a blazing confidence that reminds him of Taurasi, the force behind the Huskies' last two titles, in 2003 and '04. "Like Diana, Maya has this incredible self-belief: As long as I'm on the court, we can win. As long as there is time left on the clock, we can win. If there's a play that has to be made, I'm going to make it," he says. "She might make eight threes in a row or get seven offensive rebounds in a row, and the other players will just look at her [in awe]. Yet there is just enough dorkiness in her that you can't put her on that pedestal. She'll do an impromptu cheer and everyone will look at her like she's a [goofball]. She's a normal 19-year-old kid, which is a good thing. Otherwise you'd start to think she's a 29-year-old who snuck into college."

IT'S NOT just Moore's game that suggests she's well beyond her teens. It's her distaste for "going crazy" in college, her refusal to take anything for granted, her attention to detail. In the preseason Ralph assigned each guard a certain number of shots to take each week. At the end of the first week she received a text from Moore breaking down her shots taken and percentages made from seven feet, 15 feet, the three-point line and off the dribble. "It said, My goal, without defense, is this percentage, and for threes it's this percentage," says Ralph. "I only asked her to take shots. But that's the kind of kid she is; she wants to see improvement."

After her senior year at Collins Hill High in Suwanee, Ga., Moore asked Connecticut assistant Jamelle Elliott if she could audition for the 2008 Olympic team. "If there was an opportunity, she wanted to take advantage," says Elliott. "This kid is always thinking about what's next."

Moore's sense of purpose was evident early. When she was eight, she set aside the other sports she was playing to focus on basketball. That same year the WNBA was launched. "That's where I got my passion for the game, watching the WNBA on TV," says Moore. " Cynthia Cooper, Raise the Roof, We Got Next, I was into all of it."

At 10 she established Maya's Mobile Car Wash to earn money for the drum set that she still plays in her mom's basement. At 12 Maya was born again. She credits her deep Christian faith for that quality others call confidence and she calls inner peace. "Everything you see me involved in flows from my faith," she says.

Moore's father is Mike Dabney, a star guard on Rutgers' 1976 Final Four team, but he wasn't a part of her life growing up, and she prefers not to discuss the connection that she only began to develop with him recently. "We have a growing relationship right now, so it's good," she says. Kathryn raised Maya, her only child, as a single mom, moving from Jefferson City, Mo., to Charlotte when Maya was 11 to take a job promotion at a phone company and "get better basketball opportunities for Maya," she says. When the company downsized, Kathryn found work at a bank and transferred a year later to suburban Atlanta. "My mom showed me how important it is to surround yourself with opportunities and make the most of them," Maya says.

Three years before she finished her career at Collins Hill High, with three state titles, back-to-back Naismith National Player of the Year awards and a 125--3 record, Moore had narrowed her choices to UConn, Tennessee, Duke and Georgia. She chose the Huskies after her junior season in part because she knew her weaknesses would be exposed every day under Auriemma's watch. "I came to the right place for that," she says with a chuckle, adding that she has agreed with 99% of the things Auriemma has yelled at her about. "All your mistakes are on tape. The coaches will say, 'And here you turned the ball over. Let's watch it again!'"

NOT ALL the tape from that historic freshman season is game footage. Moore, who for all her poise and maturity harbors a well of endearing wide-eyed enthusiasm, brought a video camera on road trips. "I heard we had a charter to almost all our away games, and I was like, I've never been on a chartered flight! I'm going to record it!" she says.

Jaded she's not. At the McDonald's All-American game, in which she played as a junior and senior, Moore was the first player to leap off the bench and hand other players water. Her Connecticut teammates have found her refreshing too. "Maya puts everybody at ease," says Dixon. "If you're upset, Maya will make you laugh it off."

A self-taught drummer, Moore pounded out rhythms on lockers and walls to get her Collins Hill and Georgia Metros AAU teammates chanting before games. At UConn she hums and beats on the walls of the cold tub she sits in after practices. "She's always making up cheers and songs," says teammate Kaili McLaren. "And the crazy thing is, when she sings, it actually sounds good."

Greene predicts that Moore will sing the national anthem on senior night a few years hence, but that's a long way off, and Moore has a lot of work to do in the meantime. There are national titles to chase, good grades to keep up—she's interested in either broadcast journalism or sports marketing—and teammates to serve. (Auriemma has named her a captain, making her just the second sophomore so honored, after senior guard Renee Montgomery, in his tenure at Connecticut.) And there is the continuing refinement of her game. "I want to be one of those players who you watch on film and say, 'Where's the weakness?'" says Moore. "I want to be one of those players like Jason Kidd, who is always in tune with the game and sees several plays ahead. I want people to know something good is going to happen when the ball is in my hand."

Last year, when Moore played primarily on the perimeter, people already had that expectation. This year she'll be asked to spend more time in the paint. Moore has been working hard on her post moves. "Now that she has another task in front of her, it's not a question of whether she'll be great at it," says Elliott, "it's only a question of when."

What Makes a Champion?

What makes one person a champion and the other one not?

Schwarzenegger:

"It's drive. It's the will. There are certain people that grow up with a tremendous hunger and it's usually kids that have struggled when they were young. When you grow up comfortable and in peace and happiness, all those things will produce a very balanced person and a good person, but it will not create the will and determination and hunger that you need to be the best in the world."

Garnett

A note in Bruce Jenkins' San Francisco Chronicle column today tells me all I need to know about Kevin Garnett's character:

All season, Garnett has insisted that Paul Pierce be the last Celtic to take the floor during pregame introductions. And when he's asked to participate in a postgame news conference, Garnett invariably brings a teammate with him.