The Weekside: Russell Westbrook’s Last Stand

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Joakim Noah may not be good with clothing, but his Chicago Bulls hold sway over the bottom of the Eastern Conference playoff race. Derrick Rose is back for the team that recently pulled off a comeback so miraculous that Rachel Nichols wondered if they sacrificed a chicken at halftime, and they face the Nets tonight.

The Pacers, and their recently returned star Paul George, will be watching closely. If Brooklyn beats the Bulls then the Nets only need to defeat the pushover Magic in their final game of the season to clinch the a playoff berth. But if the Nets lose and the Pacers win out, then Indiana will take the 8th seed.

Adding further intrigue is the fact that, if Chicago beats Brooklyn, then will be guaranteed at least the 4th seed and be out of reach of the Wizards, which are currently in 5th place. And if Washington knows it cannot improve its lot to gain home-court in the first round, the team will likely rest the banged-up John Wall on Tuesday. And who do the Wizards play on Tuesday? Well, the Pacers of course. So if the Nets can’t beat the Bulls, they will be putting their playoff destiny in Indiana’s hands while perhaps ensuring the Pacers have an easier route to making it themselves.

Soon-to-be-MVP Steph Curry is essentially the exact opposite of the Knicks. He recently broke the all-time NBA record for 3-pointers in a season — which of course he already owned — and is now up to 281 long-range makes on the year. He is so good that sometimes he doesn’t even watch to see if his shots go in, and now he has taken that a step further: Not even looking at the rim before he shoots.

The Hawks were once the talk of the league, but now lag behind the Cavaliers as the favorite to come out of the East. And while that popular perception may not reflect reality, there quest to win a ring just got more difficult when Thabo Sefolosha broke his fibula while getting arrested by the NYPD outside of a club.

It was bizarre incident. Though the Hawks player says they were not together, Sefolosha and teammate Pero Antic were arrested after Pacers reserve Chris Copeland, plus two women, were stabbed. Claims have ranged from the Atlanta duo charging at cops to them just trying to keep the gathering crowd from taking photos of the injured Copeland. Video of the arrest shows multiple officers restraining Sefolosha and shoving him to the ground near the crime scene while one appears to hit him with a nightstick.

The Hawks and the NBA players union are reportedly investigating the police behavior, which to these untrained eyes looks like clear brutality and has resulted in Atlanta being a man down for their playoffs.

Everybody hates the Clippers, and though the team is closing the season well — winners of 12 of their last 13 games — they are brewing up some late-season animosity as well. Los Angeles had a testy affair against the Grizzlies this weekend and the Warriors Draymond Green lampooned their “cocky arrogance” for a team that “aint proved nothing.”

We still have no idea what the first-round matchups will be in a congested Western Conference. But we can probably bet that whoever meets the Clippers will have some extra motivation to send them home.

It would be hard for the Knicks to top their own futility this year. We’re talking about a team that is going to finish the season behind the 76ers — a franchise embarking on a multi-year purge of talent so egregious that various executives, players, and media members think rule changes are in order to prevent other teams from mimicking their strategy.

But just when you think New York can’t fall any further, they play a game against the Magic and combine to score the fewest points in a quarter in NBA history. In fairness to Jim Dolan’s squad, however, the Knicks did win the quarter, outscoring Orlando 8-7. So congrats, guys.

You did it.

The Heat haven’t — yet — been mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, but the probability of them making it is close to zero. ESPN’s “Hollinger Odds” have them at 2.8% after wins by the Celtics and Pacers last night.

But just because the team was unlikely to play more than 82 games, it doesn’t mean coach Erik Spoelstra is losing any passion. Just look at him get fired up as, according to Zach Lowe of Grantland, Hassan Whiteside failed to run the proper play.

As the United States thaws its half-century-old hostile relations with Cuba, the NBA has positioned itself to be the first major sports league to go there. Led by international ambassadors Dikembe Mutombo and Steve Nash, the league will host a four-day basketball camp there beginning on April 23.

Though they still have a chance to win 50 games this season, the Raptors strike fear into nobody. They are just 12-15 since the All-Star break (19th “best” in the NBA) while allowing opponents to shoot 46.5% (4th worst). The Wizards are little better at 13-13.

It’s a shame considering how well both teams started the year. But between their lackluster play and the Bulls’ injury concerns, it feels like an inevitable slog until the Cavaliers and Hawks meet in the Eastern Conference Finals.

Many teams are about to be off of our TV sets until next season, and that means future Rookie of the Year Andrew Wiggins won’t be showing off his immense talents much longer. But the young Timberwolf certainly is going out with a bang, unleashing several highlight-reel plays on helpless defenders.

In addition to putting Josh Smith in his place a few weeks ago, Wiggins has unleashed this monster dunk on Wes Johnson, embarrassed the whole Lakers team while going coast to coast, and laid in this finger roll against the Warriors. The last play isn’t even particularly outstanding as much as it just shows how easily the 20-year-old can physically outmatch his older peers. Imagine: He’s going to be older, stronger, and better next year.

The Celtics can’t be stopped. I mean, they will be stopped — quickly and without mercy — in the first round of the playoffs. But they have now won six of their last seven games to all but guarantee their spot in the playoffs. Overall, they are 18-11 since the All-Star break, and they are outscoring opponents by 10.5 points per 100 possessions in April, according to NBA.com. That’s good for fifth best in the league this month.

All hail Brad Stevens, who has taken what looked like a tanking team and turned it into an on-court product that can entertain even the most-title-fetishizing of the franchise’s supporters. No, this won’t lead to any postseason glory, but unlike many of the other teams across the nation that are bilking fans out of ticket money with false promises of future improvement that may or may not ever come, Boston has put a fun squad out on the floor and competed for 82 games.

Not a week can pass on The Weekside without more news about a full-grown-adult millionaire hitting another full-grown-adult in the junk. Fortunately, this week’s update is not a new incident, but merely a follow up on a past indiscretion. Here, we have Dirk Nowitzki commenting publicly on the time Shaun Livingston hit him with a love tap to the down-belows.

Lauren Hill is a basketball player from Ohio who succumbed to a brain tumor last week. Though her disease was inoperable, she never stopped fighting, and her resolve to live life on her terms — not cancer’s — captivated the nation when she made her college debut last November, scoring the first and last points in a win for her Mount St. Joseph University.

The list of those she touched is too long to recount, but LeBron James was one of her many admirers, and the most-famous Ohioan in the land sent her a letter over Twitter after her death.

LeBron doesn’t have to do things like this. But he consistently does. It may seem like a small gesture — and cynics among us may think he is doing it just for #goodguy #branding. There are undoubtedly people battling cancer and young women across the country, however, who were moved that the face of the NBA would share his feelings about someone who inspired so many.

Make no mistake: It is Hill’s story that is uplifting, not anything LeBron wrote.

But the NBA is now populated by a generation of stars who help illuminate positivity and strive to be good global citizens. And that’s something that, I think, Lauren would be proud of.

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