Paul Pierce hits game-winner; Nate Robinson nearly kills himself [video]

Check out Paul Pierce’s game-winner against the Knicks. As he takes a victory lap around the court, Nate Robinson tries to jump on his back and, well, watch the video…There’s a good shot of the fall at about the 0:55 mark.

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NBA News & Notes: Robinson, Redick and Brewer

Nate Robinson is reportedly returning to Boston.

Robinson, an unrestricted free agent, has agreed to a two-year deal that will pay him around $4 million per season to return to the Celtics, the Boston Herald reported, citing a league source.

Shortly after Yahoo! Sports first reported news of the re-signing, the Twitter-friendly Robinson seemed to acknowledge the reports of his return by Twittering a song entitled, “Welcome Back.”

Asked by a follower why he chose that, Robinson then Tweeted: “Cuz I’m back n beantown baby yeah.”

Robinson is a talented offensive player and showed some pretty good passing skills when he got some run in the playoffs. He seemed to buy into Doc Rivers’ system and gives the C’s second unit some scoring punch off the bench. I’d expect he’ll play some more now that Rivers (at least somewhat) trusts him.

The Magic matched the Bulls’ offer sheet for J.J. Redick.

As expected, the Magic have matched the Bulls’ offer of three years and $19 million, meaning Redick will stay in Orlando.

In his rookie season, Redick was something of a joke amongst some pundits, but he quietly has turned himself into a capable NBA shooting guard. Offensively, he’s going to stick to what he does best — make open shots. Defensively, he has realized that he’s going to have to put in a lot more effort than he did in college if he’s going to get minutes in the NBA. He is pretty good at chasing through screens and annoying his man.

For the Magic, this was a pretty important signing because Orlando was simply a better team when Redick was playing instead of Vince Carter. At least with Redick, Stan Van Gundy knew what he was going to get.

Chicago strikes out on Redick, turns to Ronnie Brewer.

Sources confirm Bulls.com report that club has agreed to three-year, $12M deal with Ronnie Brewer. Story soon on NBA.com.

The Bulls needed shooters, but when they extended offers to both Kyle Korver and J.J. Redick, it seemed like the two players were a little too similar. Now that Redick is out of the picture, the Bulls can sign Brewer, who is more of a defensive stopper/slasher type. He was good in Utah and showed a lot of promise, but fell out of favor this season when Wes Matthews started to emerge.

Brewer, Korver and Deng will probably rotate at the wing spots. The Bulls might struggle to score when Brewer/Deng are out there as neither player is particularly good from range. But the Bulls will be running their offense through Derrick Rose and Carlos Boozer for the most part.

Glen Davis and Nate Robinson’s funny postgame interview [video]

Want to know how it feels when you’re a reserve and you have a direct impact on the outcome of Game 4 of the NBA Finals? Watch this video of Nate Robinson and Glen Davis. They don’t hold anything back…

There is definitely a different mindset as a starter versus a reserve. As a starter, you expect to be in the game at crunch time and are prepared to play with the game on the line. There will be games where you decide the outcome.

As a reserve, you go in and do your thing, but you’re usually pulled with five or six minutes remaining (or earlier) because the coach wants to get his starters back in. Doc Rivers made the decision to let a unit that featured four bench players continue to play deep into the fourth quarter because they were performing so well. Both Davis and Robinson admitted that they kept looking at the clock wondering when they were going to get pulled.

ECF Game 6: Celtics close out the Magic

Paul Pierce led the way with 31-13-5 and four other Celtics scored in double figures — including a timely 13-point second quarter from Nate Robinson while Rajon Rondo was sidelined with a bad back — as Boston closed out Orlando, 96-84.

I wrote earlier about how the Magic needed to get to the line (30+ times) and shoot reasonably well from long range (8+ threes) and they failed in both areas tonight. They shot just 27 free throws and hit just 6-of-22 threes.

Vince Carter 17-7-3 was more aggressive than in the last two games, but he shot just 6-of-15 from the field and shot just 37% in the series. I think it’s safe to say that the trade backfired on the Magic.

Nate Robinson fails to listen to Doc Rivers [video]

I noticed this during the game and thought it was funny. Such an NBA thing. When I played ball in college, you couldn’t just wander away from the huddle. Maybe you couldn’t hear what the coach was saying, but you had to pretend you could.

No wonder he’s not playing.

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