Nba Championship

It's obvious why Mike Downey doesn't like soccer--he can't play the game. He always has his foot in his mouth. SHERRY MILLER Los Angeles

Reporting from Dallas -- As Caron Butler stood watching a video tribute from his time when he played for the Dallas Mavericks, the Clippers forward's lips began to quiver. When Dallas Coach Rick Carlisle and owner Mark Cuban presented Butler with his 2011 NBA championship ring he won as a member of the Mavericks, he slowly walked to center court to accept it, his steps measured, his feeling showing. Butler patted his chest and waved to the crowd that gave him a standing ovation at American Airlines Center and then he did all he could to help the Clippers beat the Mavericks, his final potential game-winning three-pointer missing, sending L.A. to a 96-92 defeat.

Game 4 of the National Basketball Assn. championship series between the Lakers and Boston Celtics Tuesday night drew more than 16.5 million television viewers, making it the most-watched NBA game ever, CBS announced Wednesday. The game drew a national Nielsen rating of 18.9, the second-highest ever. The only game with a higher rating was Game 7 of Boston-Laker series in 1984, which drew a 19.3.

Reporting from Miami Dirk Nowitzki threw a fist in the air and flashed the smile he had been waiting 13 years to display. After shouldering much of the blame for years of Dallas disappointments, he will finally have his ring and vindication. Nowitzki and the Dallas Mavericks claimed their first championship with a 105-95 victory over the Miami Heat on Sunday in Game 6 of the NBA Finals. They did it by winning the last three games, including the clincher in Miami. "I couldn't believe it," Nowitzki said when he realized victory was assured.

He missed most of the regular season and the early rounds of the playoffs because he was making a movie in Albany, N.Y., but Jack Nicholson will be in his familiar courtside seat tonight, his business manager said Monday. Nicholson is starring with Meryl Streep in "Ironweed," a movie based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by William Kennedy. He returned to Los Angeles last Saturday, plans to attend the games at the Forum, and will fly back for the games in Boston Garden as well, Colbert said.

All 23 National Basketball Assn. teams played 82 regular-season games, and then there were 40 days and 40 nights of playoffs, just so we could get back to where we left off last season. Boston vs. Los Angeles The Celtics vs. the Lakers. K.C. and his Sunshine Band vs. Showtime. At stake is the championship, some pocket change and a hideous trophy that only former Commissioner Larry O'Brien could love, and then only because it's named for him.

History, which has a way of repeating itself, has given us the Lakers and the Celtics. Again. For the last 11 months, the Lakers have thought of little else, ever since that steamy June night in Boston Garden when the last National Basketball Assn. title was decided. The Lakers lost that one in a seventh game, their chance for a championship falling between the cracks of a parquet floor darkened with age. But now, the Lakers have another opportunity.

In deference to Laker GM Jerry West who has asked for more positive/less inflammatory coverage of the Celtics, we are pleased to report the following moral victories: --The Celtics haven't been beaten by 20 points in this series yet. --No one who wasn't already injured has been hurt. --The ones who were injured are still ambulatory, if marginally. Kevin McHale limped off late in the first half, but he limped back on in the second. --None of them has been taken prisoner. --They're going home.

Early Tuesday evening, the Lakers filing into Staples Center with jaws tight and patience thin, Jerry Sloan's weathered face cringed into the oncoming storm. "They move you around," Sloan said. "They put you where they want to put you." Yes, they can. Yes, they should. And, for once, yes, they did. On a night filled with powerful promise, the bouncing, battering Lakers put Sloan's Jazz where they wanted to in the conference semifinals -- down two games to none, with chances of a series comeback slim and none, after a 111-103 victory.

Gone but not forgotten. No, not the Celtics, silly. Why, it's M.L. Carr. The former Celtic towel-waver supreme may not be a player any more, but he still shows flashes of being a pretty good talker. Have a question? Ask M.L. All right, then, now that the Lakers are up, 2-0, in the championship finals, what's going to happen to that old Gang Green? "I expect them to jump all over those freaks when they get to Boston," said Carr. Freaks? The Lakers?

About two weeks ago, Derek Fisher gathered together his teammates and told them to look around the room. He warned all the Lakers that if they don't reach their goal of winning a third consecutive NBA championship, next season the faces on the team could look quite different. Fisher pointed out that the possibility of the Lakers' management making changes was realistic because it happened to him during his first tour with the Lakers. "We discussed that buttons will be pushed," Fisher said after practice Thursday.

Even Joe Smith had to laugh, saying he had "lost count" of how many NBA teams he has played for over a 16-year career. That would be 12 since the Lakers acquired him from New Jersey on Wednesday in a multiteam trade that sent Lakers guard Sasha Vujacic to the Nets. Smith was an observer at the Lakers' optional practice Thursday after he took a physical in the morning. He also got a quick tutorial on the triangle offense as the team prepared to play the 76ers on Friday night.

David Stern smiled as he helped hand out championship rings before the Lakers' season opener, but he wasn't as player-friendly a few minutes earlier. The NBA commissioner made it clear that increased enforcement of technical fouls was here to stay, telling reporters in a pregame news conference Tuesday that players needed to be on their best behavior this season. No more complaining. "The spirit of it is that our players don't do that in elementary school, in junior high, high school, college, and then they get their master's [degree]

The last time Spain ruled the world it did so from the gun deck of a galleon. Then the Spanish Armada was sent to the bottom of the English Channel and the country has spent the last 4 1/2 centuries playing catch-up. Even Chicago Cubs fans haven't had to wait that long to cheer a winner. All of which makes this summer's Spanish sporting renaissance that much more remarkable. In the last two months, Spanish athletes have won two Grand Slam tennis titles, an NBA championship, a Formula One crown and the Tour de France.

The Miami Heat is an excellent choice for LeBron James. It gives LeBron a great chance to win the NBA championship ... just as soon as Kobe retires. PJ Gendell Beverly Hills It's a good thing LeBron doesn't play football; they would never be able to find a helmet big enough to squeeze his head into. Shel Willens Los Angeles LeBron James now has a chance to win a championship playing with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh — a feat that no more than 70% of the players in the NBA could accomplish.

Derek Fisher and the Lakers have reached an impasse in contract negotiations, and the free-agent guard has flown to Miami to meet with Heat President Pat Riley on Saturday to see whether a deal can be reached to Fisher's liking. Fisher departed Los Angeles on Friday for Miami, said a source close to Fisher who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, because he wants to play for a team that has a shot at winning the NBA championship. The source said Fisher would like to remain with the Lakers and that negotiations are amicable, but that Fisher wants to explore his options, especially now that Dwyane Wade, LeBron James and Chris Bosh have joined forces on a Heat team some consider one of the favorites to win the NBA title.

If the Los Angeles Lakers beat back the Boston Celtics and win the NBA Championship, the team has offered to pick up the tab of a city parade, a Lakers spokesman said Friday. The offer should spare the city from the controversy that erupted last year over the use of public funds to pay for a parade after the Lakers beat the Orlando Magic for the team's 15th NBA championship. Eventually, private donors stepped in to cover half the city's $1.8 million in costs for police protection and other services.

At least 45 people have been arrested in the wake of unrest that followed the L.A. Lakers' NBA championship victory last week — double the number picked up last year when rioting followed the team's win. But that could be just the beginning. Los Angeles Police Department detectives are now carefully reviewing hundreds of images taken from police videos, business surveillance cameras, TV news footage, Twitter pictures, Facebook pages and other social media sites, looking for more evidence of criminal behavior.

Serenaded by the drone of hovering helicopters, Lakers fans thronged their championship team's parade on Monday and partied like it was 2009. A crowd estimated by police at 65,000 to 70,000 lined Figueroa Street, screaming for Kobe, hoisting cameras and small children and matching the Lakers' repeat victory from last year with a repeat of their own gold- and purple-adorned revelry. "Did you see him with the trophy? That's him! Kobe Bryant!" cried Kevin Tran, 35, after training his high-powered binoculars on the Lakers' NBA Finals MVP. Bryant abandoned his four-ring hand display of last year in favor of grasping the gold trophy and shaking it for fans as the parade vehicles departed from Staples Center on their two-mile trek to USC. By the time they got to 23rd Street, Lakers guard Shannon Brown was patting the trophy while Bryant held his youngest daughter and waved Miss America-style to the crowd.