NBA

The selection of Dirk Nowitzki as the NBA's Most Valuable Player is not official, announced or even confirmed. What is confirmed, though, is that if the honor goes to him, a heavy dose of dishonor will come with it. It's not his fault. Seriously. The stipulations for the NBA MVP voting are the same as they were when the first was awarded in 1956. It's a regular-season award. Nowitzki had a worthy regular season. However, this is the only league that could justify awarding this prize after the playoffs are done.

Good morning--Kobe Bryant --No one in the NBA can take matters into his own hands the way you do.

BOYDS -- There's a dripping baby bottle in the rental car cup holder and a basketball sliding around in the back seat. Steve Blake is driving to the gym to work out with his wife. Then it's back to his Montgomery County basketball camp followed by dinner with mom and dad -- last night was spaghetti -- at their chain hotel. Yes, regular guys do occasionally make it in the NBA. They do sometimes win an NCAA championship, as Blake did at Maryland in 2002, and marry a cheerleader (Blake did that, too)

New York -- His career on the brink of oblivion, Terence Morris took the first steps toward basketball revival in Jerusalem last winter. The University of Maryland product, who helped the Terrapins reach the Final Four for the first time in 2001, bounced around the NBA and the NBA Development League and competed for a team in Greece over the past five years, playing sparingly. In December 2006, his agent, Mike Kneisley of Washington-based The Neustadt Group, worked out a deal with Hapoel Jerusalem, a well-regarded Israeli club that was looking for a power forward for the remainder of the season.

This column originally was going to be an observation about how the commissioners of each major professional sport were experiencing the worst of times. All faced present or brewing scandals, attacks on their own or their sport's integrity, fan outrage or indifference, and various combinations of them all. But in the past couple of days, one leader has excused himself from his colleagues' pity party. David Stern, you and the NBA are off the hook. And you will never be able to thank LeBron James enough for rescuing you. James is the name on everyone's lips and the athlete on everybody's mind.

Overall No. 1 picks in the NBA draft can't hide. Some are more visible than others. Then there is LeBron James. James, who made the jump from high school to the NBA, pulled on a No. 23 jersey - fully knowing its significance - and lifted an entire city, not just a franchise, onto his back. Tonight, Ohio's favorite son will play on basketball's grandest stage, when he leads the Cleveland Cavaliers in their first NBA Finals appearance, against the San Antonio Spurs. At 22, James is not the youngest player to reach the Finals, but perhaps he is the youngest to do so with so much pressure and so many expectations on him. Since James entered the NBA in 2003, he has lived with comparisons daily.

EASTERN CONFERENCE DETROIT vs. ORLANDO CLEVELAND vs. WASHINGTON TORONTO vs. NEW JERSEY MIAMI vs. CHICAGO WESTERN CONFERENCE DALLAS vs. GOLDEN STATE PHOENIX vs. L.A.LAKERS SAN ANTONIO vs. DENVER UTAH vs. HOUSTON

WASHINGTON -- Going from one NBA tryout to the next as he has, the faces and places have been coming at D.J. Strawberry so fast for the past couple of weeks that it took a moment the other day for him to recall just who had given him the best piece of advice he has received recently. "It was somebody in Phoenix," Strawberry said. "Was it [Steve] Kerr?" a reporter asked, referring to the Suns' new head of basketball operations. "He [Kerr] said something, but it was someone else," Strawberry said.

NEW YORK -- They were here a little more than 23 years ago, being eliminated in the first round of the ABA playoffs and wondering whether the franchise would participate in another professional basketball game.Well, the San Antonio Spurs were one of four teams to make the cut in 1976, becoming a member of the NBA. And last night, they were crowned league champions with a 78-77 win over the New York Knicks before a sellout crowd at Madison Square Garden.The Spurs won the best-of-seven NBA Finals, 4-1, completing a postseason in which they went 15-2, tied for the second-best playoff run in NBA history.

When Lamar Odom was drafted last June by the Los Angeles Clippers, it seemed a perfect fit. The player who took more baggage with him to the NBA than any college star in recent memory was picked by a team that has had as many bad actors in its 15-year history as the cast of an Aaron Spelling production.Odom and the Clippers are trying to change their respective images: his as a obscenely talented 6-foot-10 head case who slipped to fourth in the draft after failing to show at a pre-draft camp in Chicago; theirs as one of the NBA's losingest, and most laughable, franchises.

ORLANDO, Fla. - -The Orlando Magic is riding high after its Game 3 NBA Finals victory Tuesday night at Amway Arena, but history remains against the team as it continues its series against the Los Angeles Lakers. Since the NBA moved to its current 2-3-2 NBA Finals format during the 1984-85 season, the team scheduled to host the middle three games - as the Magic is - has won the championship six of 24 times. Only two teams, the Detroit Pistons in 2004 and the Miami Heat in 2006, have swept the middle three games at home.

Soccer Costa Rica beats U.S., 3-1, in World Cup qualifier Alvaro Saborio scored 79 seconds in, the second-fastest goal against the United States in a World Cup qualifier, and host Costa Rica coasted to a 3-1 victory Wednesday night in San Jose. Celso Borges added a goal in the 13th minute, and Pablo Herrera sealed the victory for 41st-ranked Costa Rica when he made it 3-0 in the 69th. Landon Donovan scored the U.S. goal when he converted a penalty kick in the second minute of second-half stoppage time.

Basketball Tisdale, ex-player, musician, dead at 44 after cancer fight Wayman Tisdale, a three-time All-American at Oklahoma who played 12 seasons in the NBA and later became an award-winning jazz musician, died Friday morning in Tulsa after a two-year battle with cancer. He was 44. After three years at Oklahoma, Tisdale played in the NBA with the Indiana Pacers, Sacramento Kings and Phoenix Suns. The 6-foot-9 forward, with a soft left-handed touch on the court and a wide smile off it, averaged 15.3 points for his NBA career.

COLLEGE PARK - -Maryland basketball guard Greivis Vasquez is set to attend an NBA pre-draft camp in Chicago this month, but those who know the player say he has not decided whether to leave school for his senior season. Vasquez declared for the draft three weeks ago. After leading the Terps last season in scoring, rebounding and assists, Vasquez has attracted the interest of a number of NBA clubs, including the Washington Wizards. But the 6-foot-6 guard from Caracas, Venezuela, remains enrolled at Maryland, and he has preserved his option to return next season by not hiring an agent.

Rose's 36 carry Bulls past Celts in OT nba Derrick Rose scored 36 points in his playoff debut and helped the Chicago Bulls do something not even Michael Jordan could: beat the Boston Celtics in the postseason. Rose had 11 assists to go with his career high in points, and Tyrus Thomas made a jumper from the corner with 51 seconds left in overtime to lead the visiting Bulls to a 105-103 victory over the defending NBA champions in Game 1 of their best-of-seven first-round series. Rajon Rondo scored 29 points and added nine rebounds and seven assists for Boston, which was without Kevin Garnett and without much help from the rest of the Big Three.

Who will be the Adam Morrison of this version of March Madness? The Joakim Noah? The Sean May, the Emeka Okafor, the J.J. Redick, the Shane Battier ... You get the point. Some player in the NCAA tournament will either elevate himself into the heavens or ride a wave of adulation that was built pre-tournament - and by the time he lands, he will be not only a college legend, but also the talk of the run-up to the NBA draft. Except the landing will come far short of the same level of pro stardom that he enjoyed in college.

1 NBA, Part 1: Some Christmas Magic. Playing against some Christmas Hornets (noon, ESPN). 2 NBA, Part 2: In the Spurs-Suns game (2:30 p.m., chs. 2, 7), Steve Nash might sit out to rest for Boxing Day tomorrow (being that he's Canadian). 3 NBA, Part 3: This is the marquee matchup, Celtics-Lakers (5 p.m., chs. 2, 7), so why did the NBA schedule it during dinner time? 4 NBA, Part 4 : Just in case you didn't eat yet, here's the Christmas turkey: Wizards at Cavaliers (8 p.m., TNT)

Celtics@Lakers 5 p.m. [chs. 2, 7] It's a rematch of last season's NBA Finals and pits the two teams with the league's richest histories. Coupled with the Spurs-Suns game at 2:30 p.m., the doubleheader marks the beginning of this season's NBA coverage on ABC. Magic Johnson will make his debut on the network's pre-game show at 2 p.m. Mike Breen, Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy call the Celtics-Lakers game.

After missing all of last season because of knee surgery, Portland Trail Blazers center Greg Oden injured his foot in his first regular-season NBA game and will be sidelined for two to four weeks. The team said yesterday that separate scans confirmed Oden has a mid-lateral foot sprain. Oden was injured in the first quarter of the Blazers' 96-76 season-opening loss to the Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday night. "I was trying to go get a rebound, and kind of came down on Derek Fisher's foot on like the third play of the game.

Etan Thomas is a strong man with strong opinions, a politically active poet with an awesome set of dreadlocks. Throughout his NBA career, there was never a reason to question his desire, his passion, his heart. So it was humbling and ironic a year ago when, on the eve of training camp, doctors informed the Washington Wizards center that he needed open-heart surgery. As soon as possible. "When they told me, I was kind of in disbelief," Thomas said. "Because, like, I feel fine. I was just working out the day before."