AP – The Los Angeles Clippers reached an agreement in principle with Vinny Del Negro to become the team’s head coach.

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The Suns advance to the Western Conference finals for the second straight year. They will face a deep, high-payroll Mavericks team that has found more of a defensive presence under coach Avery Johnson. The Suns don’t have the depth and they don’t have the balance. They try to get their perimeter, high-octane offense going — with as many fast breaks as possible, of course — and blow past you.

They did so last year in downing the Mavericks in a thrilling second-round series, 4-2. That they’ve gone as far as they did last year is a great achievement for coach Mike D’Antoni, Steve Nash, Shawn Marion and the rest of the Suns. But you have to wonder whether the lack of an inside game will mean this is as far as they can go this year.

There’s nothing like a four-day gap between games for a team with tired legs. The Suns, who had been struggling just to stay even with the Clippers in their second-round series, had everything working in an impressive 127-107 rout of the Los Angeles Clippers in Game 7 Monday in Arizona.

“I guess the rest was good for us,” said Shawn Marion (30 points), speaking of how the Suns hadn’t played since their loss Thursday night in Los Angeles. At that point, the Suns had played 13 games in 26 days in the playoffs.

With fresh legs, the Suns hit 15-of-27 three-pointers; the Clippers were 0-for-4, meaning the Suns outscored them 45-0 from behind the arc. “We don’t shoot them if we aren’t making them,” Clippers coach Mike Dunleavy said. The Suns stayed even with the Clippers on the boards. In their four wins, they were out-rebounded by 3.3 boards. In their three losses, they were killed by an average of 19.7 rebounds.

The Western Conference finals get underway against Phoenix with the first of two games at American Airlines Center. The Suns won the season series, 2-1. It’s a rematch of the last year’s conference semifinals, won by Phoenix, 4-2. Former Mavs point guard Steve Nash justified his MVP award with a breathtaking series against his old team.

The Mavs are in the conference finals for the third time ever and first since 2003, when San Antonio defeated them three years ago. Dirk Nowitzki missed the last three games of the series with an injured knee.
Sportsbook odds predict Dallas to win the series, but we will see nice and high scoring matches on this series.

Lakers stave off elimination in Game 6 and now LA will host Game 7 with a chance to earn their second consecutive NBA Championship. See the full box score of the game here: bit.ly * Photo Credit: Description: Ron Artest (far left), Kobe Bryant (center), Josh Powell (far right) [Note: Powell is not in this cropped version of the original photo] of the Los Angeles Lakers and Rasual Butler (#24) [Note: Butler is not in this cropped version of the original photo] of the Los Angeles Clippers during a 2009–10 NBA game. Date: 18 October 2009, 19:47 Source: “IMG_1317″ Flickr bit.ly Secondary Source: “Ron Artest37.jpg” Wikimedia Commons bit.ly Author: Mister536 bit.ly Permission: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license bit.ly #

The Utah Jazz and the Phoenix Suns will both be trying to pick up a win on Thursday night at 10:30pm EST when they battle at the US Airways Center in a game that can be seen on TNT. NBA odds makers have the Suns listed as 1.5-point favorites against the Jazz while the game’s total is sitting at 213. Carlos Boozer led the way for the Jazz with 20 points, six boards, and four steals in their 108-104 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers on Monday night. Los Angeles cashed as 6.5-point NBA basketball betting home underdogs, while the game played OVER the 202.5-point total set at online sportsbooks.

The Jazz netted 34 fourth quarter points behind 24 total points from Eric Gordon but couldn’t pull off the win after knocking down a 17-point deficit. Andrei Kirilenko scored 13 points in 29 minutes after sitting out the past three games with back spasm. “We had a good comeback,” Boozer said after the game. “That’s a good team with the new additions they’ve had, and they played very well tonight. We did not have control of this game, and we knew that from the beginning.” Heading into tonight’s basketball betting game on TNT, the Jazz are 38-22 straight up on the season, 36-21-3 against the spread as underdogs in NBA odds and 6-4 after playing the Clippers. Bet the Jazz +1.5 as road underdogs against the Suns with up to 155% in total bonuses and a 110% poker bonus.

The Suns took over in the second half and cruised to a 127-101 victory over the Los Angeles Clippers on Wednesday. The Suns covered the 4-point spread in NBA odds while the 228 points sailed OVER the posted total of 210.5. Amare Stoudemire netted 30 points with 14 rebounds for a double-double for the Suns to win their second straight game. Channing Frye added 23 points and Jason Richardson chipped in with 22 points behind a 39 point romp in the third quarter for the win. “That was the whole purpose of coming out strong in the third quarter. We wanted to really jump on them and try to create the big lead and allow the starters to get some rest for tomorrow — which we did,” Stoudemire said after the game. Bet the Suns -1.5 as home NBA basketball betting favorites against the Pacers with up to 155% in total bonuses!

Phoenix is 5-0 against the spread in NBA odds for their last 5 games at home and 7-1 straight up for their last 8 games. Utah is 7-1 against the spread in their last 8 games when playing on the road against Phoenix and 19-5 straight up in their last 24 games. The NBA basketball betting total has gone OVER in 5 of the Suns last 6 games when playing Utah while the Jazz are 7-1 against the spread in their last 8 games when playing on the road against Phoenix. Vegas odds at the Hilton sportsbook have the Phoenix Suns -1.5 favorites against the Utah Jazz with a betting total of 213.

AP – Mike Dunleavy and the Los Angeles Clippers parted company for good Tuesday, barely a month after he relinquished his head coaching duties to focus solely on being general manager.

AP – Mike Dunleavy stepped down as the Los Angeles Clippers’ head coach Thursday, retaining his job as general manager.

AP – Blake Griffin’s first season with the Los Angeles Clippers is over before it even began.

AP – Amare Stoudemire led seven Phoenix players in double figures with 26 points and the Suns beat the Los Angeles Clippers for the sixth straight time in a 124-93 rout on Friday night.

AP – Blake Griffin’s broken kneecap has reminded the Los Angeles Clippers’ No. 1 draft pick it’s not always a good idea to play through pain.

Former UNLV guard Wink Adams made his debut with the New York Knicks this afternoon at the NBA Summer League.

But it was a forgettable 68 seconds in the first quarter against Detroit inside the Cox Pavilion. Adams, wearing a blue No. 3 Knicks jersey, committed two fouls and turned it over once in his short stint. In 68 seconds of action in the second quarter, he had a defensive rebound.

Adams finished with two defensive boards, two personal fouls, a turnover and an assist — and he missed his only shot — in seven minutes.

He did not play in the Knicks’ game Tuesday against Memphis. If it doesn’t work out with New York, he told the Sun that teams in Australia, Germany and Turkey have contacted his agent, Noah Croom, about securing his services for the 2009-10 season.

Thumbs up on Jennings and Randolph, down on Casspi

12:40 p.m.

We’re officially at the halfway point in the NBA Summer League, as the sixth of 10 days tips off at the top of the hour.

So let’s cut to the all-summer team. It won’t look like our final all-star list, because some teams, have only played once and others have three under their belts.

The Milwaukee Bucks and Houston Rockets are the only undefeateds, at 3-0, and the Los Angeles Clippers, Memphis Grizzlies and San Antonio Spurs are all 2-0.

(Note to Clippers owner Donald Sterling: throw the all-white Malibu bash this weekend. It might not get better than this for the next eight or nine months.)

After long consultation and maneuvering, Ryan Greene and I have deliberated on the best players so far:

PG – Brandon Jennings, Milwaukee

The kid from L.A. is all right. He vowed to come here and direct the Bucks to a 5-0 record, and they’re two victories away from that mark. He averages 15.3 points, 8.3 assists and 4.7 steals.

SG – Jodie Meeks, Milwaukee

The Kentucky product is scorching the nets, shooting 60 percent. He leads the Bucks with 16.7 points a game.

SF – Anthony Randolph, Golden State

“Slim” was the 14 th pick in the 2008 draft by the Warriors and is blossoming in Vegas, where he’s second in scoring (26.8 ppg). His powerful lefty finishes are the stuff posters are made of.

PF – Blake Griffin, Clippers

Fourth in the Summer League with 10.5 rebounds a game, also averaging 21.5 points.

C – DeAndre Jordan, Clippers

Texas A&M product has drawn comparisons to Dwight Howard. The second-round draft pick from a year ago is averaging 18.5 points and 8.5 boards. His given name, by the way, is Hyland DeAndre Jordan, Jr.

Sixth Man

PG – Tyreke Evans, Sacramento

The fourth pick in the draft last month, Evans averages 24.3 points and 7.7 boards. He has more turnovers (16) than assists (14), but that doesn’t mar his electricity.

MVP

We are heavily leaning toward Randolph, but we will be closely watching Nick Young, the former USC Trojan who blasted out of the gates with 36 points on Tuesday in Washington’s first game

Bust

SF — Omri Casspi, Sacramento

He is trying to become the first Israeli to make it in the NBA, has been entirely overwhelmed at stretches. He’s shooting 33 percent, and averaging 6.3 points and 3 rebounds. He’s getting pushed around, which has hurt him even on easy inside shots.

Attendance strong

Tournament director Warren LeGarie said attendance is up 40 percent from last year. He said more than 5,000 were in the Mack for Blake Griffin’s debut, and Tuesday’s figure was north of 4,500. For the five days, average attendance has been more than 4,000.

Game of the day

At 5:30 p.m., inside the Mack, the D-League Select team will try to go 2-0 against Evans and the Sacramento Kings. The D-Leaguers are the minnows of the Summer League, the guys who have the most difficult upstream swim to make names for themselves in the league. By beating Minnesota on Monday, they’ve started turning heads.