Discuss the NBA Playoffs in our forum

It wasn’t easy, as the Miami Heat had to fight back from a 12 point deficit with 3 minutes remaining to beat Derrick Rose and Chicago Bulls in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals.

The Heat used a 18-3 run to close the game and seal their 83-80 victory. The Heat move on with 4-1 series romp and has sets up another showdown between the Heat and the Mavs.

LeBron James comes into the finals with a 26 points, 8.9 rebounds, and 5.5 assist playoff averages. Dwyane Wade is putting up 23.7 points, 5.3 rebounds, and 4.7 assists.

The Dallas Mavericks closed out the Oklahoma City Thunder in similar fashion, overcoming the more inexperienced team in the last two games of the series, buoyed by Dirk Nowitzki’s newfound leadership, will, and excellent offensive efficiency.

Nowitzki is second in playoff scoring with 28.4 points a game on 51.7% from the field, 51.6% from three, and 92.9% from the free throw line. The 7-0 German doesn’t have the luxury of having a Dwyane Wade, LeBron James, or Chris Bosh.

Instead, Nowitzki has huge support from less-heralded, but effective players in Jason Terry, Jason Kidd, Shawn Marion, Tyson Chandler, and J.J. Barea.

Chicago Bulls reserve center Omer Asik will miss the rest of the playoffs because of a broken left fibula.

Asik, the 7-0 255lb center from Turkey, was injured in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals at Miami. The team says an MRI and CT scan taken before Game 4 on Tuesday confirmed the injury. He tried to play anyway, but lasted just two minutes.

Discuss Turkish basketball in our basketball forum.

The Bulls say the injury will not require surgery and that the recovery time is about six weeks. The Bulls rookie averaged 2.8 points and 3.7 rebounds during the regular season and appeared in 15 playoff games. Asik was drafted with the 36th overall pick in the 2010 NBA Draft.

You’ve likely seen the video highlights of this Taj Gibson going up and over Dwyane Wade with a two-handed slam. Here’s the picture of the Bull’s forward above Wade before cramming it down, posterizing the Miami superstar.

Discuss the Chicago Bulls in our NBA Forum

“It was a very athletic play,” Wade said after game. “I knew I didn’t have a chance when I started back-pedaling when I saw him take off. It won’t be the last time I get dunked on.”

The 6-9 25-year old forward scored 9 points in the game, grabbed 7 rebounds, and blocked 2 shots in the Bull’s 103-82 triumph over the Miami Heat

The 2011 NBA playoffs is a who’s who, a showcase of the NBA’s best point guards.

As of this writing, the the top-scoring guards in the playoffs this year aren’t prolific shooting guards Kobe Bryant, Ray Allen or Dwyane Wade – they’re superstar point guards Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook, and Chris Paul.

(Discuss NBA Playoffs in our NBA Forum)

Interbasket ranks the point guards in this year’s NBA playoffs thus far…

1. Derrick Rose continues his amazing, potentially-MVP year upping his scoring in the playoffs to a Jordan-esque 32.7 points a game, along with nearly 5 assists, 5 rebounds, and 2.3 steals a game as the Bulls take a 3-0 lead over the Indiana Pacers.

2. Russell Westbrook – When you talk about the Oklahoma City Thunder, you are forced to talk about Russell Westbrook,  who is nearly as unstoppable as teammate Kevin Durant. Westbrook is hitting for 26 points per game, 7 assists, and 5 rebounds while shooting 60% from three and nearly 90% from the line.

3. Chris Paul – You, the one that doesn’t live in New Orleans, you almost forgot about Chris Paul, didn’t you?  Not until he whipped that one-handed baseball pass to Aaron Gray, did you remember just how great a point guard the 6-3 bowling ball is.

Paul dissected the Laker’s lazy defense to a tune of 33 points, 14 assists, 7 rebounds, and 4 steals to a game one upset of Los Angeles. For the series, Paul is averaging 25 points, 10.3 assists, and 5 rebounds.

4. Jason Kidd – Remember when Jason Kidd was called “ason” because he had no “J”?  Well, it’s still not pretty, but Kidd has turned himself into a sniper in the Dallas-Portland series, shooting 45% from behind the arc to the tune of 16 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists, and hitting almost 4 threes a game.

5. Rajon Rondo is destroying the New York Knicks. The herky-jerky guard for the Boston Celtics is putting up 18 points, 12 assists, and 8 rebounds including a triple-double that set the franchise playoff record for assists (20). Rondo and Chris Paul are the only players avergaing a double-double with assists.

And that’s no disrespect to veteran points Jameer Nelson or Andre Miller, or up-and-coming PGs Mike Conley, Ty Lawson, and Jrue Holiday, who is making a splash in this year’s playoffs. Despite being down 0-3 to the Miami Heat, the second year player from UCLA is averaging 17 points, 5 assists and 2 steals.

Discuss the NBA Playoffs in our NBA forum.

Winning Philosophies in Basketball

Last Sunday I watched Regatas Corrientes (Argentina) blow out the Arecibo Captains (Puerto Rico) 89-73 to become the 2011 FIBA America League Champions.

Arecibo was the clear favorite, arriving undefeated for the final game with a loaded team (Daniel Santiago, Larry Ayuso and Danilo Pinnock) against a Regatas team that had lost their previous game and had only a known international star (Federico Kammerichs). It was the first final four appearance for Puerto Rico while Argentina has won 3 of the 4 tournaments (Brazil won the other).

It’s not the first time (nor the last) that the least talented team ends up beating the clear favorite.

To better understand this occurrence, I would like to explain some of the philosophies that winning teams apply.

The Ultimatum Game

Dean Oliver, in his book, Basketball on Paper, writes about the economic experiment known as The Ultimatum Game, to explain how wining teams work together:
In basketball, 5 players try to win a game, and although they could split the credit for a victory evenly, they choose not to. The average team looses as much as it wins, and the players are constantly fighting to take credit in victory or assign blame in defeat. Teamwork starts to deteriorate when teammates (role players) feel that a few players (stars) are being unfairly rewarded. Good coaches know how to recognize this and how to reward those teammates so that they can continue to give their full effort.

According to the book, “Phil Jackson has made a living out of being able to make great talents cooperate fairly with supporting players”, and looking at his career, there is plenty of evidence of why he has mastered such a concept:

As a player, he won two championships with the Knicks in 1970 and 1973; so from an early stage in his professional career, he understood how to develop a winning atmosphere (It didn’t hurt that he learned from one of the greatest coaches, Red Holzman, and from some of the great unselfish winners in Willis Reed, Walt Frazier and Bill Bradley).

As a coach, his philosophy, according to Jerry West in Roland Lazenby’s book The Show, is “to get players really to trust themselves, how to get everyone to share the ball. And in the offense he plans to run, everyone has to do that, or no one’s ever going to score”. Jackson elaborates: “When you have a system of offense, you can’t be a person that just is taking the basketball trying to score. You have to move the basketball, because…you have to share the basketball with everybody. And when you do that, you’re sharing the game, and that makes a big difference”.

According to the book, the Triangle Offense “is a system of team basketball that required stars to share the ball with lesser players”. But Jackson was not the only coach who successfully used that offense.

Tex Winter, Jackson’s long time assistant, is perhaps the person who most understands the Triangle. His Kansas State teams of the late 1950s and ’60s where some of the best teams in the nation (one of his star players from 1954-56 was Puertorrican great Juan “Pachin” Vicens). According to the book, “it was Winter’s K State team that defeated Wilt Chamberlain’s team in the Big Eight Conference in 1958, leaving the gifted giant so frustrated that he decided to leave Kansas early to play with the Globetrotters. For Winter, it was the ultimate victory of team basketball over the brilliance of an individual player”.

But it is not just the Triangle Offense that enables Phil to master The Ultimatum Game; it is also how he deals with his players, as best told by John Salley: “Phil understands the game better than most people. And he expects certain things that he knows his guys can give him. He knows when to push his players, when not to push’em. He knows who to yell at, who not to yell at. He knows who can take it. And he treats you like a man, as opposed to downplaying you, or talking to you like you’re less than him because of his position. He’s a great coach”.

The Secret

In non economic terms, Bill Simmons, in The Book of Basketball, has another theory on how teams win games. According to Isiah Thomas (from the book The Franchise, which chronicles the 1988-89Detroit season):

“It’s not about physical skills. Goes far beyond that. When I first came here, McCloskey (Detroit’s GM at the time) took a lot of heat for drafting a small guy. But he knew that the only way our team would rise to the top would be by mental skills, not size or talent. He knew the only way we could acquire those skills was by watching the Celtics and Lakers, because those where the teams winning year in and year out”.

“I read Pat Riley’s book Show Time and he talks about the disease of more. A team wins it one year and the next year every player wants more minutes, more money, more shots. And it kills them (sounds a lot like The Ultimatum Game). Our team has been up at the Championship level four years now. We could have easily self-destructed. So I read what Riley was saying and I learned. But it’s hard not to be selfish. The art of winning is complicated by statistics, which for us becomes money. Well, you gotta fight that, find a way around it. And I think we have. If we win this, we’ll be the first team in history to win it without a single player averaging 20 points (Adrian Dantley averaged the most points that season, 18.2, and just played 42 games before being traded). We got 12 guys who are totally committed to winning. Every night we found a different person to win it for us”.

“Look at our team statistically. We’re one of the worst teams in the league. So now you have to find a new formula to judge basketball (These formulas now exist: that Piston’s team ranked 7^th in Offensive Rating, 3^rd in Defensive Rating and were ranked 4^th overall according to Simple Rating System {stats courtesy of Basketball-reference.com}so statistically the Pistons weren’t one of the worst teams in the league). There were a lot of times I had my doubts about this approach, because all of you kept telling me it could never be done this way. Statistically, it made me look horrible. But I kept looking at the won-loss record and how we kept improving, and I kept saying to myself, Isiah, you’re doing the right thing, so be stubborn, and one day people will find a different way to judge a player (They already have with advanced stats like Wins Produced, Win Shares and PER). They won’t just pick up the newspaper and say, oh, this guy was 9 for 12 with 8 rebounds so he was the best player in the game. Lot’s of times on our team, you can’t tell who the best player in the game was. ’Cause everybody did something good. That’s what makes us so good. The other team has to worry about stopping eight or nine people instead of two or three (That Detroit team had 5 players averaging between 13.7 and 18.2 points per game). It’s the only way to win. That’s the way the game was invented. But there’s more to that. You also got to create an environment that won’t accept losing (Between 1988-90 that Detroit team went to 3 straight finals and won back-to-back championships)”.

Simmons understood that the statement made by Isiah revealed the secret of winning basketball (apparently not many people were interested in learning it). When asked by Simmons to reveal to him what the secret was, Isiah told him:

“The secret of basketball is that is not about basketball”.

As an example of how the secret works, Simmons discusses the Adrian Dantley trade. During that 1989 season, Dennis Rodman needed more playing time because of his versatility to play any style and guard any player; but Dantley was not willing to give up some of his minutes.

There was already a precedent on the team of veterans giving up minutes to younger players. When Dantley began withdrawing from the team and complaining to the press, the team traded him for Mark Aguirre. Dantley was at the time the leading scorer for the team and a better player, but Aguirre fit better with The Secret. Suffice is to say that Detroit ended up winning their first championship by sweeping the Lakers (although LA had a lot of injuries in that series).

Based on those Isiah Detroit teams, as well as Tim Duncan’s Spurs and Bill Russell’s Celtics, among many other deserving champions, Simmons concludes that to win an NBA championship a team must have:

1. One great player who raises the competitive nature of his teammates and lifts the team to a better place;
2. One or two elite sidekicks who understand their place in the team’s hierarchy and fill in every blank they can;
3. Top notch role players and/or character guys that don’t make mistakes and won’t threaten the team’s unselfish culture, as well as a coaching staff that keeps those team-ahead-of-individual values in place (again, Phil Jackson and The Ultimatum Game);
4. Stay healthy in the playoffs and maybe catch one or two breaks (this is the most difficult factor).

The Choice

The 1977 Blazers offer another great example of The Ultimatum Game and The Secret. After being in the league for only 7 years, they reached the finals and beat a heavily favored Philadelphia team that was loaded with very talented players like Dr. J, Darryll Dawkins and Doug Collins.

Bill Walton, the MVP of that team as well as the 6^th man of one of the greatest teams ever, the 1986 Celtics, has a great perspective on The Secret. As he tells Simmons in the last chapter of the book:

“It’s not a secret as much as a choice. Look at the forces fighting against that choice. Look at the forces pushing you to make the other choice. It’s all about you. It’s all about material acquisitions, physical gratification, stats and highlights. Everywhere you go, you’re bombarded with the opposite message of what really matters. And you wouldn’t even know otherwise unless you played with the right player or right coach: the Woodens, the Auerbachs, the Ramseys, the Rusells, the Birds. How many people get that lucky? With a truly great coach, it’s not about a diagram, it’s not about a play, it’s not about a practice, it’s the course of time over history. It’s the impact a coach has on the lives around him. The history of life is that most people figure it out. Most of the time it’s too late. That’s the real frustrating part-the squandered opportunities that you can’t get back”.

Conclusion

No matter the concept, there is a proven way for teams to win.

It probably was naive of my part to underestimate an Argentinean team, when they have made the choice over the last decade of using these wining philosophies, while Puerto Rico has not.

NBA All-Star Manu Ginobili slams down 2 of his 16 points on Carlos Boozer in last night’s loss to the Chicago Bulls.

Behind a career-high 42 points from Derrick Rose, the Bulls sent the Spurs into the all-star break with their 10th loss of the season – still the San Antonio Spurs hold the league’s best record by a few games.

Luol Deng and Great Britain won’t know until the middle of March if they will have an automatic spot at the London Games.

On the weekend of March 12-13, FIBA will announce at their Central Board meeting in Lyon, France, if the British teams will be granted automatic qualification for London 2012.

The Chicago Bulls (discuss) star is right now giving everyone a glimpse of what he would do for Team GB at the Olympics if they do compete at the Games.

The 25-year-old had 26 points, six rebounds, five assists and two steals on Tuesday as the Bulls won 106-88 at the Los Angeles Clippers.

Deng hardly put a foot wrong as the Bulls improved to 34-14.

They are second in the Eastern Conference with Miami, also 34-14, in third.

Deng made nine of 17 shots from the floor, including three of six from long range, and also sank all five of his attempts from the free-throw line.

Read the full article at FIBA.com.

Coach Vincent Collet has confirmed that Joakim Noah will not play in the FIBA World Championship for Les Bleus.

(Follow the World Championships in our World Championships of Basketball Forum)

France had been waiting to learn the outcome of contract negotiations between Noah and the Chicago Bulls but now Collet has closed the door on the center playing in Turkey.

“I was pessimistic and now I can tell you it’s a done deal,” he said. “We must turn the page. That is what I have done.”

Last year, France waited all summer in the hope that Noah could join their EuroBasket campaign, but ended up without him.

This year, Collet has the advantage of being able to plan without him. France have been drawn in Group D where they will face defending world champions Spain, FIBA Oceania winners New Zealand, FIBA Americas Championship semi-finalists Canada and wild-card teams Lithuania and Lebanon.

Read the original article at FIBA.com.

Kevin Seraphin, the first international player selected in the 2010 NBA draft, has signed with the Washington Wizards.

(Discuss Kevin Seraphin in our French Basketball Forum)

The Wizards acquired him in a draft-day trade with the Chicago Bulls that involved also bringing in Kirk Hinrich in exchange for the  rights to Vladimir Veremeenko of Belarus, a second-round draft pick in 2006

The 6-foot-9 forward from French Guyana was selected with the #17 pick

Serpahin spent the last four years playing for Cholet Basket – the French franchise also had the 20-year old under a new three-year contract, so the Wizards had to negotiate a buyout.

Seraphin signed a four-year deal that guarantees about $2.7 million the first two years, with Washington holding options for the third and fourth years – typical of an NBA rookie contract.

Ömer Aşık, a 7-0 center from Turkey, was drafted in the 2008 NBA draft by the Portland Trailblazers and has since been traded to the Chicago Bulls.

(Discuss Turkish Basketball in our forum)

A native of Bursa, Turkey, the 24-year old center (he just turned 24 on July 4th) has been playing in Europe, most recently playing with Fenerbahçe Ülker – the major sports club in Istanbul, of the Turkish Basketball League.

Omer represented in the 2007 and 2008 Turkish All Star Game.

Asik has somewhat been injury prone in the last few years. Aik had knee surgery to repair torn ligaments in 2008-09 season and then in December 2009 he missed two months due to a broken collarbone.

Barring anything unforeseen, Asik will be representing Turkey in Turkey this summer during the 2010 World Championships of Basketball.

And if all goes well, Asik will be on the Chicago Bulls roster joining fellow Turkish rookie pivot  Semih Erden, who signed with the Boston Celtics, for this coming NBA season.

Update:  On Monday, July 12, Omer Asik officially signed with the Chicago Bulls

For more about Omer Asik, go to Omer Asik can be big for Chicago Bulls, Turkey.

Bogdan Tanjevic doesn’t mince his words when the subject of Ömer Asik comes up. The veteran coach works with Asik at Fenerbahce, and with Turkey‘s national team.

“Asik is somebody that is the biggest improvement in Turkish basketball in probably the last 20 years,” Tanjevic said to FIBA.com. “He learns so quickly and shows a great mentality and toughness. He’s probably the toughest player in the team.”

(Discuss Turkish Basketball in our forum)

That assessment is certainly something for Turkish basketball fans to get excited about ahead of the 2010 FIBA World Championship.

Asik played for Turkey’s senior team for the first time last summer in Poland. A 2.14m center, the 23-year-old started and averaged 12.8 points and 6.3 boards per contest – numbers that were second on the team only to Ersan Ilyasova.

There weren’t many players better than him for the first five games of the tournament, when Turkey went undefeated with victories over Lithuania, Bulgaria, Poland, Spain and Serbia.

Most of the attention on Turkey before EuroBasket 2009 had been reserved for Hedo Turkoglu and Ilyasova, and for good reason.

The two players were coming off big seasons with their respective teams.

Turkoglu had reached the NBA Finals with the Orlando Magic, while Ilyasova had helped Barcelona capture the ACB title.

But Asik made everyone sit up and take notice in Poland, including Turkoglu.

“Asik is so athletically strong,” Turkoglu said. “He’s still young as a basketball player. He started a little late playing basketball. I think he started when he was like 15 or 16. But he’s a hard worker and tries to get better every time. He just listens, and watches DVDs, (game) films.”

“He’s the kind of guy that looks like he’s hungry.”

A Very Bright Future
Asik will have the perfect stage to show what he’s made of this summer when he competes at the FIBA World Championship.

Turkey host the tournament and play their Preliminary Round games against Greece, Russia, Ivory Coast, China and Puerto Rico in Ankara.

If, as expected, they advance to the next stage of the competition in Istanbul, Asik could will help Tanjevic’s side go up against other powerhouse sides.

They could end up facing a Team USA side loaded with NBA players.

Why is that significant?

Asik was the 36th overall pick in the 2008 NBA Draft by Portland.

A good FIBA World Championship should take Asik, who has a wingspan of 2.24m, closer to his dream of playing in the NBA.

“What I like about him is that he’s setting goals for himself,” Turkoglu said. “He wants to play in the NBA himself. He’s close to reaching his goal.”

The Chicago Bulls now own Asik’s draft rights.

The club appreciates young, European talent, as demonstrated by their approach to give Great Britain‘s Luol Deng and France‘s Joakim Noah plenty of playing time.

Turkey has already given the NBA three outstanding players in recent times with Turkoglu, who is now with Toronto, Utah’s Mehmet Okur and Milwaukee’s Ilyasova.

“Hopefully he’ll come there and will become one of us, too,” Turkoglu said.

Read the original article at FIBA.com.

This week’s quick international roundup of the player performances during the last few days. This post includes discussion about Yi Jianlian‘s return to the New Jersey Nets, Pau Gasol‘s extension, Luol Deng and Joakim Noah’s contributions to the Chicago Bulls, J.J. Barea’s career year, and Žalgiris Kaunas fills their head coach position.

• Yi Jianlian returned to the New Jersey Nets last night. The 7-0 Chinese forward came off the bench and scored 22 points, grabbed 8 rebounds, in 30 minutes.  Even with Yi, the Nets weren’t able to pull out their third win this season, ultimately losing their 27th game to Minnesota 103-99.

• Is the Jordanian basketball league going to be cancelled? The Premier league may be cancelled so as Jordan can properly prepare their National Team for the 2010 World Championships (discuss).

• Pau Gasol agreed to a three-year extension with the Los Angeles Lakers. No doubt the league-leading Lakers understand the importance of the 7-0, 29-year old Spanish superstar. The Lakers started out 8-3 without Gasol, and are 15-1 since Gasol returned to the lineup. For the season, he is averaging 17 points and a career-high 12.6 rebounds per game.

• Joakim Noah grabbed a career-high 21 rebounds against the New York Knicks, unfortuanately the Bulls lost their second straight 88-81.

• In the last five games Luol Deng has averaged 23 points on 51% shooting, almost 9 rebounds, and 3 assists, all are above his career averages. Deng scored 21 or more points in each contest. The Bulls are 2-3 in the last five.

• Iranian Superlague club Pasargad Shiraz hired Hossein Owji as their new coach (via Basket-Spot).

• José Juan Barea is having a career year for the Dallas Mavericks. The 6-0 guard from Puerto Rico is averaging 9.9 points, 4.0 assists, 2.3 rebounds, and shooting 44.6% from three. Barea has started the last 8 games and the Mavs have won six of those games.

• Žalgiris Kaunas filled the open head coach position left by Gintaras Krapikas with former Lithuanian national team coach Ramūnas Butautas. The 45-year old Lithuanian is the son of Stepas Butautas, former Soviet player that won silver in the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki.

This week’s quick roundup of the player performances around the world during the last few days. This week includes discussion about Aleksandr Marić’s monster month, Dirk Nowitzki to the 2010 World Championships of basketball, Tyreke Evans and the Sacramento Kings’ amazing comeback over the Chicago Bulls and more…

• The Sacramento Kings found themselves down 33 points, 83-50, with 6 minutes left in the third quarter, but would go on outscore the Chicago Bulls 52-15 the rest of the way to pull out an amazing comeback win. The King’s comeback was led by Ime Udoka, who scored 15 straight in the fourth quarter to get Sacramento rolling. Rookie sensation Tyreke Evans, who was selected over Ricky Rubio, led the Kings with 23 points. Udoka ended with 17 and Beno Udrih added 16 points. Luol Deng led Chicago with 26 points.

• Dirk Nowitzki to the World Championships? After Pau Gasol indicated that he might skip next year’s event and Yao Ming’s intention to represent China, Nowitzki chimed in about his participation. The 7-0 German was quoted by German daily “Sueddeutsche Zeitung” after he was informed about the wild card Germany had received : “Super. This wild card gives us a great perspective for the coming years. I thank FIBA and look forward to the summer of 2010.” (via TalkBasket)

• 6-11 center Aleks Marić, former Nebraska Cornhusker, was named the Euroleague’s MVP for the month of December. The Serbian-Aussie had a dominating month for Partizan Belgrade; winning EL MVP for three of the four weeks in December which included an amazing performance against Efes Pilsen in which he tallied a 49 performance index rating.

• Andrew Bogut tallied 31 points and 18 rebounds, both season-highs, in an 84-81 win over the Indiana Pacers last night. The 7-0 center from down under hit 14 of 19 shots and blocked three shots.

• It’s only one game, but ballyhooed Sudanese forward Ater Majok was a non-factor in his first game for UConn. The 6-11 high-energy 22-year old scored just one point and had two rebounds in 16 minutes in a win over Central Florida.

• Acie Law played just 9 seconds when the Charlotte Bobcats played the New York Knicks, but had his one and only shot swatted by 6-10 Danilo Gallinari to seal the win for the Knicks, 98-94.  Gallinari scored 21 points in that game, but missed a couple free-throws that allowed the Bobcats to hang around. Gallinari has started the last two games after coming off the bench the last five.

• Former Michigan State star guard Drew Neitzel left French club Chalon. The performances of the guard did not satisfy the coaching staff, especially defensively (Basket-Spot).

It’s been a rough couple of games for Joakim Noah.

First Noah was involved in a shouting match with the NBA’s biggest star, LeBron James. The 6-10 son of French great Yannick Noah, believed James was over celebrating when Cleveland held a comfortable lead over the Chicago Bulls.

The third-year player called out James from the bench, calling LeBron a “bitch” and calling out his posturing as“f****** old.”

The following game, as the Toronto Raptors held 20+ lead midway through the third quarter, a frustrated Noah punched the ball striking a photographer.

If the photographer wasn’t there, the ball would have flown into the stands, possibly hitting a fan.

Though the photographer was not injured, Noah was ejected from the game after receiving his second technical of the game. Yesterday, NBA executive vice president of basketball operations, Stu Jackson announced that Noah is fined $15,000 dollars for his act of frustration.

“He has to control his emotions.” said Bulls Head Coach Vinny Del Negro. “We’ve talked about that. I wasn’t sure the first technical was warranted. But the second one, he was frustrated. He has to understand how important it is for him to be on the court for us.”

Noah would end up with 9 points and 7 rebounds in 18 minutes of play. The Bulls would go on to lose to the Toronto Raptors by 32 points, 110-78. Discuss the fiery, emotional Joakim Noah in our forum.

Here’s a pic of LeBron James‘ controversial dance moves during the Cleveland-Chicago match last night.

James’ off-court moves overshadowed his on-court accomplishments when the Chicago Bull’s Joakim Noah took exception to the King’s celebrations and posturing. What do you think of Lebron’s moves last night? Discuss LeBron’s and Cleveland’s celebrations i our forum.