Lebron

Where are those puppets when we need them? The Montagues and Capulets, who feuded in "Romeo and Juliet," didn't have little stocking surrogates talking trash, although anything could happen in the next movie version. The Lakers and Boston Celtics did their own taunting, up close and personally. Even as friends, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird lived to grind the other in the dirt, as after one Celtics win in the Forum when Bird, sitting on the team bus, saw a disconsolate Johnson slink by. As Bird said later, "I thought, 'Suffer, you unprintable.

EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS 1. Miami vs. 3. Indiana Season series: Pacers, 2-1. Key stat: Miami leads the NBA in field-goal accuracy during the playoffs, making 49.1% of its shots, while holding opponents to a league-low 40.9% shooting. Outlook: As usual, the drama between these teams started before the series opener. Indiana Coach Frank Vogel irritated Miami with his comment about the Heat's being "just the next team that's in our way," one year after he accused Miami's players of being the NBA's most egregious floppers.

Reporting from Miami There was plenty of partying Thursday night on South Beach. Surprisingly it wasn't because the Miami Heat finally won a game. An annual music convention kicked into gear with internationally renowned DJs spinning into all hours of Thursday night, but the action a few hours earlier guaranteed that the Heat snapped a five-game losing streak. Photos: Lakers vs. Heat "It feels good to win a game with the way we've been losing games," guard Dwyane Wade said after Miami's 94-88 victory over the Lakers at American Airlines Arena.

Kobe Bryant is Los Angeles' highest-paid athlete, followed by a couple of Dodgers who fans might say haven't earned their money, in a list compiled annually by Sports Illustrated. Bryant was fourth nationally in rankings that combine estimates for salary, winnings and endorsements this year. Boxing champion Floyd Mayweather was the runaway leader at $90 million, followed by NBA most valuable player LeBron James at $56 million and New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees at $47.8 million.

Money well spent? Former Lakers great Magic Johnson, on his efforts to boost the intrigue surrounding the NBA's dunk contest: "Please, LeBron, get in the dunk contest. I'm going to put up a million dollars. A million dollars from Magic to LeBron. Please get in the dunk contest. I go every year. I want to see you out there. A million to the winner. " That answers that Minnesota Coach Rick Adelman, when asked whether there was a point when he gained more trust in Timberwolves forward Derrick Williams: "Well, Kevin Love's broken his hand twice.

Now to see just whose age this is . . . As Little Kobe and Little LeBron, the muppets Nike calls its "MVP Puppets," announced in their latest commercial, in which they play "SportsCenter" anchors, the rivalry is back on! And just in time for Christmas! With ESPN and Nike as core NBA sponsors, what are the chances Little Kobe and Little LeBron become the first muppets to anchor a real "SportsCenter" between now and the Lakers' Christmas game against the Cavaliers? Nike debuted the muppets last spring, alongside its "Dream Season 23 & 24" documentary, in which narrator Justin Timberlake mused: "As these friends grow closer to a showdown, you have to wonder, what are they thinking?"

Lakers fans, if all you're hearing is LeBron, LeBron, LeBron, Celtics, LeBron, LeBron's elbow, Phoenix, San Antonio, LeBron, don't be insulted, be proud. Or, as TNT's Kenny Smith says, "Chill out, Lakers fans, and don't get worked up. It's a compliment if we're not talking about the Lakers. It just means we don't expect the Utah series to be too tough." The Lakers lead the series, 2-0, with Game 3 set for Saturday night in Utah. And as Smith suggests, there's a different feel to these second-round playoff games.

Rather than argue who's "better" between Kobe and LeBron, let's just say their styles dominate differently. At 6-8, 250 pounds, LeBron is more of a power player, while the more slender and agile Kobe is more finesse. It's similar to Shaq or Kareem -- pick your poison! Personally, in crunch time, I'll go with the better shooter, passer, and free-throw shooter: Kobe. He remains the ultimate assassin for that final play -- mangled fingers and all. Rick Solomon Lake Balboa :: Someone should wake Phil Jackson up so he can explain to young Andrew Bynum that he needs to calm down and have no more 42-point, 15-rebound games or else he will be traded away -- probably to Miami -- because nobody is allowed to take the spotlight away from the great Kobe!

Kobe Bryant took a lot of shots (31) and made very few (nine) in the Lakers' humiliating 106-101 loss to Washington. Coach Mike Brown critiqued some of Bryant's shot selection after that game, but said Friday he was fine with Bryant shooting "if they're good shots. " "Don't get me wrong, that's a lot of shots, and you hope that it's spread out more [among players], but Kobe's been taking a lot of shots his whole career and he's had success with it," Brown said. "If he's open, I'm OK with him taking it. That's how I was with LeBron [James]

RANKINGS, COMMENTS THROUGH SATURDAY LeBRON HASN'T LEFT THE BUILDING YET 1. CLEVELAND (27-8) Including win after donning paper party hats for LeBron's birthday --really -- they're 7-0. (4) 2. LAKERS (26-6) At this pace, Kobe will lock up MVP by March 1 and need IV fluids rest of way. (2) 3. ORLANDO (24-9) With defenses taking him away, Howard down to 9.0 shots, 17 points a game. (3) 4. BOSTON (24-8)

LeBron James is getting his fourth Most Valuable Player award - and the only mystery left is whether the vote was unanimous. The Miami Heat star will be introduced Sunday as the award winner, according to a person familiar with the results and who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the league has not publicly announced this year's recipient. James will become the fifth player with at least four MVP awards, joining Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan, Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain.

To loosely paraphrase Newton's laws of motion, for every NBA postseason award there is an equal and opposite honor. So in addition to LeBron James as the game's best player, may we humbly submit DeSagana Diop as its worst? The Charlotte Bobcats center has somehow appeared in 22 games this season, making one start, despite averaging 0.7 points and making a robust 29.6% of his shots. If he played 36 minutes per game at his current production level, he would still average only 2.5 points.

LeBron James had been resting a strained right hamstring for a few games, but after returning this week he was in rare form following a victory over the Boston Celtics on Friday night. James returned to play April 6 after missing three games to help the Miami Heat defeat the Philadelphia 76ers, 106-87, setting a franchise record with 60 victories. He scored 27 points in the win. On Friday night, James had 20 points, nine assists and six rebounds in a 109-101 victory over the Celtics.

Carmelo Anthony may not be as overpaid as Forbes thinks he is. On the same day the financial magazine named the New York star the league's most overpaid player, the NBA revealed that Anthony has the league's top-selling jersey, moving up from No. 4 in his first full season with the Knicks. The Forbes list is based on the wins-produced as it compares with a player's salary, but a player can benefit a team in more ways than can be reflected in the win-loss column. And if anybody with the Knicks is upset about that report, they're crying all the way to the bank.

NBA stars Kobe Bryant and LeBron James, among others, have weighed in on the Rutgers scandal. Mike Rice, Rutgers' former basketball coach, was fired Wednesday amid a public outcry over how he treated students in a video aired by ESPN. In the video, Rice can be seen pushing, hitting and throwing basketballs at players while verbally abusing them.   Tweeted Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant: That's not #coaching that's a power trip #rutgersbasketball . At a minimum it's horrible coaching #coachdontbully - Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant)

Let's get physical LeBron James was pushed and pulled, prodded and shoved. And then there was what happened to him on the court against the Chicago Bulls. The Miami star who spoke out about several hard fouls during the Heat's streak-stopping loss to the Bulls on Wednesday may have received a harder smackdown on the airwaves afterward. Said Danny Ainge, the Boston Celtics president of basketball operations: "I think that it's almost embarrassing that LeBron would complain about officiating.

Santa baby, As usual, I'll be spending Christmas morning in front of the fireplace, flicking in credit card receipts and users manuals . . . bad ties the kids gave me . . . holiday newsletters with sentences like: "It's so hard to believe that Braymer is already in his third year at Cambridge. . . . " So I just wanted to say thank you, Santa. Thank you for the Christmas Day Lakers game, the little moment of pixels and light after all the other gifts are gone. I love the Christmas Day game.

Pat Riley, president of the Miami Heat and formerly coach of the Lakers, released a statement Friday that Celtics General Manager Danny Ainge needs to "shut the [expletive] up and manage his team" after Ainge made comments critical of Heat superstar LeBron James. Ainge had called out James for complaints over hard fouls committed by the Chicago Bulls in a 101-97 loss that ended the Heat's 27-game winning streak, which is the second longest in NBA history to the 1971-72 Lakers' 33 consecutive victories.

Wednesday morning, hours before the Bulls applied the brakes to the Heat's run at history, Chicago Coach Tom Thibodeau was asked if he had mentioned Miami's 27-game winning streak. "What streak?" Thibodeau said. Indeed, on a night in which the only Derrick Rose appearance came via a bobblehead doll and Joakim Noah, Richard Hamilton and Marco Belinelli also sat with injuries, the Bulls made history disappear. The second-longest winning streak in North American major professional sports league history is over thanks to a 101-97 victory that, out of nowhere, rekindled talk of a lengthy Bulls' postseason run. Heat, meet grit.