men's pro basketball

ATLANTA -- The series may be four games old and neither team owns a critical victory but right now the Atlanta Hawks seem to have the Boston Celtics back on their heels. After two momentum-filled wins at Philips Arena, it is the Hawks who probably can't wait to get the Celtics back on the floor in Game Five Wednesday night at TD Banknorth Garden in Boston.

The NBA Most Valuable Player ballots are all in and presumably being counted by now, so nothing that happens in these playoffs will change any voters' minds. But Kobe Bryant's performance Wednesday night, in Game 2 of the Los Angeles Lakers' first-round series with Denver, serves as a vivid illustration of why he should, and probably will, win his first MVP award.

Earlier this week, Boston Celtics coach Doc Rivers gave a little plug for James Posey and his role as the team's super sub this season.

New e-mails released as part of a federal court filing in New York by the city of Seattle on Thursday suggest the NBA may have suspected the Oklahoma City-based Sonics ownership group violated a "good faith best effort" stipulation in its sales agreement when the group purchased the team in July 2006.

We have watched Paul Pierce grow up. We have watched him come to Boston, a California kid by way of the University of Kansas, who inexplicably fell to the Celtics with the 10th pick in the NBA Draft in 1998. And from the beginning, he could score. Oh, how he could score.

The lead attorney for the city of Seattle and several Seattle politicians are now willing to negotiate a settlement in the lease dispute with the Sonics ownership group if those talks include the promise of a replacement franchise by the NBA.

I'll tell you who should chip in to build a new arena for the Seattle SuperSonics. Jim McIlvaine. Calvin Booth. Jerome James. Vin Baker. Patrick Ewing. Kenny Anderson. Danny Fortson. Those and many others should cough up multiple millions as a performance rebate for money stolen while on the Sonics' payroll.

Where's the dunce cap? Mitch Kupchak is sitting in the vacant stands at Staples Center hours before his Los Angeles Lakers would win the West again. He was wearing a suit and a smile but no dunce cap.

LOS ANGELES -- The Los Angeles Lakers are back on top in the Western Conference. Or, as their fans consider it, Manifest Destiny. Those "M-V-P" chants Kobe Bryant has heard for years in Staples Center apparently are about to finally become accurate.

As the clock ticks toward an NBA vote to relocate the SuperSonics to Oklahoma City, the good citizens of Seattle are doing what every city does when facing a franchise exodus.Fighting back. Kicking and scratching and clawing. Marquess of Queensberry rules be damned. This is the corporate version of street fighting. And here's the latest.Mister Coffee wants his Sonics back.