Nba Finals

Hands down: Mike Flanagan['s death] — J_O_S_H_U_A via Twitter Tim Tebow — Daniel Woldu via Facebook When the Dallas Mavericks beat the overrated Miami Heat in the NBA finals — Greg Durant via Facebook

The player who scored the biggest basket in Baltimore Bullets history turned 68 Thursday. Happy Birthday, Mad Dog. "I can still shoot," Fred Carter, the man with the feral nickname, said from his home in Norristown, Pa. "I can't make the 20-footer, but I'm good from 12 to 15. The range isn't there, but the jump shot is. " The shot was there 42 years ago, too, in the seventh and deciding game of the 1971 NBA Eastern Conference finals....

May 11, 1979: Announced he will make himself available for the NBA draft.May 16, 1979: The Los Angeles Lakers, who acquired the right to draft No. 1 when Gail Goodrich signed as a free agent with New Orleans before the 1976-77 season, announced they reached a contractual agreement with Johnson.June 25, 1979: The Lakers selected Johnson with the first pick in the 1979 NBA draft.Feb. 4, 1980: Became the first rookie to start an NBA All-Star Game since Elvin Hayes in 1969. Scored 12 points in a 144-136 West loss.

When the NBA Finals shift back to Los Angeles, we should hold a big ceremony at midcourt before the game so Jack Nicholson can hand over one of his Oscars to Paul Pierce. Nicholson will probably be fine with it. He has three, after all (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Terms of Endearment, As Good As It Gets). And a thespian like Nicholson can certainly recognize what a beautiful acting job Pierce did in Game 1 of the NBA Finals when he looked as if he needed to have his leg amputated at one moment.

With the NBA conference finals raging on, it's not surprising that several Ravens players have been monitoring the 2-2 series split between the San Antonio Spurs and the Oklahoma City Thunder in the West and between the Miami Heat and the Boston Celtics in the East. Quarterback Joe Flacco said he thinks the Spurs and Heat will advance to the NBA finals. His pick to eventually win the championship? “The Spurs. They were obviously really, really hot, and they're playing a good team with [Oklahoma City forward]

Larry Brown has a message for Allen Iverson : Don't give up. Iverson's former coach said Friday he thinks the 10-time All-Star "still has a passion to play" and shouldn't retire. An online report this week indicated Iverson had decided to end his career after receiving little interest from NBA teams. Brown, who coached Iverson in Philadelphia when he was voted league MVP in 2001 while leading the 76ers to the NBA Finals, said he's been trying to get in touch with him. "Anybody that knows him understands how much he loves to play," said Brown, now coaching the Bobcats.

Tiger Woods' 15-stroke victory at the 2000 U.S. Open was one of the greatest individual performances at a major sporting event. Below are some athletes who previously came up big on sports' biggest stages. Auto racing Al Unser 1970 Indianapolis 500: Leads 190 of 200 laps for the first of his four Indy 500 victories. Baseball Reggie Jackson 1977 World Series, Game 6: Hits three home runs on three swings, as Yankees beat Dodgers, 8-4, to clinch title. Don Larsen 1956 World Series, Game 5: Pitches perfect game, striking out seven, on 97 pitches, as the Yankees beat the Brooklyn Dodgers, 2-0. Basketball Lew Alcindor 1969 NCAA championship game: 37 points, 20 rebounds in UCLA's 92-72 victory against Purdue for third consecutive NCAA title.

MIAMI - They will wonder about the "could-have-beens." They will ponder the "what-ifs." In the end, a season of incredible accomplishment and unprecedented joy will be haunted by heartache for the Miami Heat. Last night, Miami's season of dreams came to a premature end, the combination of Shaquille O'Neal and Dwyane Wade not enough to catapult the Heat past the Detroit Pistons and into the NBA Finals. In the final two minutes of the game, the Pistons outscored the Heat 12-4, turning a one-point deficit into an 88-82 victory, claiming the Eastern Conference finals, four games to three, and earning a return trip to the Finals, where they will defend their 2004 title against the San Antonio Spurs.

Not since Michael Jordan's final championship has an NBA game drawn a bigger audience than last week's seventh game of the Lakers-Celtics series. The Nielsen Co. said Tuesday that 28.2 million people watched Kobe Bryant's Lakers win their second straight NBA Finals. Except for the Olympics, Nielsen said Thursday's game was the most-watched show on network TV in the summer since the finale of the first "Survivor" season in August 2000. •Lakers center Andrew Bynum's injured right knee has been drained for the third time in recent weeks, and he will have surgery next month.