From NBA.com…

Lakers guard Steve Blake was driving to the basket, only to have Jason Terry shove him out of bounds. Matt Barnes tried to get into the mix and shoved Terry. Mavericks assistant coach Terry Stotts, who tried to restrain Barnes, was then shoved into a courtside spectator by Barnes, who kept screaming “get off of me.” When the dust settled, Terry, Blake, Barnes and Mavericks center Brendan Haywood were ejected. Minutes later the game had to be stopped when a spectator was kicked out of Staples for fighting and then another spectator tried to run onto the court, but was tackled by security before he could. In the final two minutes of the game, Lakers guard Shannon Brown was ejected when things got chippy between him and Mavericks forward Brian Cardinal.

If the Lakers aren’t able to catch the Spurs, there’s a good chance that these two teams will meet in the second round of the Western Conference Playoffs. If that’s the case, it looks like it will surely be a testy series.

There was a wild one late last night in Los Angeles. Check out the highlights:

The loss puts the Suns at 35-34, three games behind Memphis for the #8 seed in the West, but they’re just two games behind the Grizzlies in the loss column. Unfortunately, the Suns don’t face the Grizzlies down the stretch, so it will be tough to catch them. It looks like Steve Nash and Co. will miss the playoffs this year.

I know, I know…when doesn’t Kobe think he was fouled? (ESPN)

“[Dwyane] Wade fouled the s— out of me,” Bryant said with his feet dipped in a bucket of ice water after the game. Bryant was referring to the 3-pointer he attempted with 1:06 left and the Lakers down 90-88.

“It was clearly evident,” Bryant said. “They missed it. … He fouled the hell out of me, they just missed it.”

“I couldn’t make that, he hit my whole arm,” said Bryant, who had made his previous two 3-point attempts at the time, including a long 28-footer to tie the score at 88. “That’s why I went so short. … I should have been shooting three free throws.”

Even with all of his other personality quirks, the thing that most drives me nuts about Kobe is his constant interaction with the officials. Nine times out of 10 if he loses the ball or misses a shot, he’ll have something to say or a nasty look for the ref. It’s almost as if he thinks he’s too good to fail on any particular possession without the defender doing something illegal to stop him.

The league has tried to cut down on all of the griping this season by implementing new “respect the game” rules for technicals, and for the most part I think it has worked. But Kobe is still Kobe and these comments prove that.

Maybe I’m being too nostalgic, but I don’t remember Michael Jordan or Larry Bird constantly complaining to (or about) the officials.

The little things that were going wrong down the stretch for the Miami Heat during their five-game losing streak didn’t go wrong tonight. Dwyane Wade had eight of his 20 points in the fourth quarter and the Heat got a few breaks on the defensive end — Zydrunas Ilgauskas’ non-goaltend, the no-call on Wade’s baseline reach-in on Kobe and LeBron’s box-out flop against Artest — and Miami was able to get one giant monkey off its back.

After a fairly nightmarish game against the Blazers on Tuesday (along with some fairly inappropriate grumbling about the quality of his looks), Chris Bosh came up big, posting 24 points and nine rebounds, outplaying Pau Gasol, who posted 20 points and five boards. Mike Miller (12 points, seven rebounds) was also big off the bench and Mike Bibby (six points) chipped in with two key three-pointers in the second half.

For his part, LeBron James (19 points, nine assists, eight rebounds) didn’t shoot the ball all that well, but his near-triple-double was crucial to the Heat’s success. He made a great decision with 2:49 to play with the Heat nursing a one-point lead. After Wade retrieved his own miss, he kicked it out to LeBron, who had a wide open three, but was 0-for-3 on the night. Instead of taking the open shot, LeBron waited for Wade to get open on the baseline and found him for the easy score. It was a mature play to pass up his own so-so shot to create a great shot for his teammate.

Kobe had 24 points, but after making his first four shots, he went just 4-of-17 for the remainder of the game. Wade did a nice job of staying in his grill and forcing him to take tough shots.

This is a huge win for the Heat, who can finally stop answering questions about why they’re playing so poorly. They host the Grizzlies on Saturday while the Lakers have to visit the Mavericks in Dallas.

The New York Daily News reports that a possible move by the Sacramento Kings to Anaheim is likely to be opposed by the two teams already in the L.A. area.

The move to Anaheim will be opposed by the Lakers and Clippers, who see it as an encroachment on their territory. But sources close to the Maloofs say they’re willing to pay the two L.A. teams whatever it takes to relocate. That would be in addition to the league’s relocation fee of $30 million.

Anaheim Honda Center and Ducks owner Henry Samueli is prepared to help the Maloofs with the financing, offering a $100 million loan. Samueli tried to buy the team last year.

I live about six miles from the Honda Center and I’d love to see the Kings play there. I go to about one or two Clippers/Lakers games a year, and I’m thinking about getting season tickets to see the the Anaheim Kings (or whatever they end up calling themselves), so I don’t see the Kings as major competition for the Lakers or Clippers. If either franchise (especially the Clippers) were serious about courting Orange County, they’d move to Anaheim. As it stands, the 45-mile trek into the city (oftentimes during rush hour) is more than most OC folks can handle.

Orange County has more than 3.0 million residents, while Los Angeles County boasts 9.8 million residents. The OC’s population is greater than the metro areas of these current NBA cities: Denver (2.5 M), Portland (2.2 M), Sacramento (2.1 M), Cleveland (2.1 M), Orlando (2.1 M), San Antonio (2.1 M), Charlotte (1.7 M), Indianapolis (1.7 M), Milwaukee (1.6 M), Memphis (1.3 M), Oklahoma City (1.2 M), New Orleans (1.2 M) and Salt Lake City (1.1 M).

In short, there’s plenty of room for a third team in SoCal, though the best move would be for the Clippers to head south. That isn’t going to happen as long as Donald Sterling is the owner, and he isn’t likely to sell anytime soon, so I don’t blame the Maloofs for trying to capitalize on a move to Anaheim.

The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (talk about a dumb name for a baseball team) were #5 in average attendance in 2010 and 2009. The Anaheim Ducks have been in the #15-#25 range over the past four seasons.

Orange County will support a professional team if it’s good. Southern Californians are notoriously front-running, and will only go out of their way to support a winner. A team that loses like the Kings have this season is unlikely to outdraw Sacramento or Las Vegas, but Anaheim has a respectable arena and the Maloofs are finding that they have a lot of support from Samueli, who owns the Ducks and the Honda Center.

So the Clippers and Lakers may oppose the move, and why not? There’s no downside for them. If they put up a stink, they’ll at the very least get some extra cash out of the deal to grease the wheels.

But it’s not fair to basketball fans in Orange County, who would like a local team to root for that wouldn’t require an hour-plus white knuckle drive to see in person. It’s nonsensical that a metro area this populous and spread out has two teams sharing an arena when there’s a comparable arena in Anaheim.