So much amazing is happening, and the Shootaround crew is here to help you keep track of it all. You'll find takes on moments you might've missed from the previous weekend, along with ones you will remember forever.

The Black Falcon Has Landed

Jay Caspian Kang: Last spring, when the Golden State Warriors were redefining the acceptable parameters of tanking and Harrison Barnes was redefining the boundaries of how badly I could troll a player on my beloved Carolina Tar Heels, I wrote a series of columns stating the Warriors were doing the NBA a disservice and that Barnes was a bust. Around that time, I recall a friend joking that the best possible outcome would be if the Warriors tanked their way into the middle of the lottery and picked up Barnes. That way, my two beloved hatreds could be intertwined forever. If Barnes ended up being an NBA bust, the specious logic of sports predictions and the Internet record would vindicate me forever.

Minutes after Boston held on for a 92-86 win against the Knicks — nudging the series to 3-2 and squeezing out at least one more home game this season — the Celtics were back in the visitor’s locker room at MSG, breaking down a little dustup. At the end of the game, Jordan Crawford, who hadn’t played a minute, got into it with Carmelo Anthony; fellow DNP’er D.J. White held him back, more or less, while Raymond Felton popped up to slang some words as well. The Internet has already come to a conclusion as to what Crawford said, and, well, it’s not pretty. Let’s just say the comments are in line with, but lack the subtlety of, Kevin Garnett’s famed Honey Nut Cheerios monologue.

“My homeys already texted me like, ‘You ’bout to scrap!’” White said, pulling up his pants while checking his phone. Then, to Crawford in the locker over, good-naturedly: “You started it, and you dipped!” Terrence Williams, who played a surprisingly solid 17 minutes at point guard, piped up: “Q[uentin Richardson] always comin’ in. Where he come from?” And White, by way of cosigning Williams’s disapproval of Richardson’s behavior: “Yeah, with his E.T.-lookin’ ass.” Meanwhile, Rajon Rondo was off to the side eating Chinese takeout, and Avery Bradley just tried to stay moisturized: “Yo, J.C., let me fuck with that lotion.” Crawford didn’t notice, busy getting dressed. (His ensemble included, I swear to God, a different pair of weed socks than the ones he had on the other day. In his defense, Hot Topic does tend to sell novelty socks in pairs.) Williams tried to offer him some alternate lotion, but Bradley stayed firm. “Nah, I'ma fuck with that lotion right there.”

We asked some of our writers to tell us what they're expecting from the upcoming NBA playoffs.

Jay Caspian Kang: Miami will go 16-3 in the playoffs, and one of the losses will come to the Bucks. They'll also lose a game to the Knicks and the last one to the Thunder in the Finals. They're the first team since the first Ubuntu Celtics that's going to legitimately intimidate their opponents. The Nets vs. Bulls first-round series will be unwatchable. In the Western Conference, I think we'll see more than 10 different games in which a player scores more than 40 points. Steph Curry, Tony Parker, James Harden, Durant, and Westbrook will all turn in memorable performances. Oh, and this Western Conference playoffs, as a whole, will trend on Twitter every single night. Just so many great matchups and players there. Every series in the Western Conference will go at least six games, but all the top seeds will advance.

The Celtics have one game left before the All-Star break, and you gotta imagine it can’t come soon enough. After playing the Bulls tonight, Kevin Garnett will head to Houston for the All-Star Game, Rajon Rondo will continue prepping for surgery, and Paul Pierce will drive home, where he’ll be enjoying a relaxing All-Star snubbee weekend by (presumably) playing a whole bunch of Just Dance 2 for Wii. Meanwhile, Danny Ainge will try and make sense of what was about as odd, heartbreaking, and bonkers a first half a team can have.

When Rondo went down, I wrote there wasn’t much of a silver lining: Any relief provided by an uptick in play and a corresponding rash of wins would be tempered by sad chatter that “maybe this team doesn’t need Rondo all that much anyway.” Well, this team, as it has an inclination toward, outdid itself. It wasn’t just an uptick; it was a blood-pumping, shots-fired, kill-’em-all, “is this your pen?”-esque annihilation spree. When the Celtics toppled Denver on Sunday night in triple OT, they muffed out the Nuggets' nine-game winning streak, stretched out their own seven-gamer, and coronated themselves as THE HOTTEST TEAM IN THE LEAGUE [air horn] [air horn] [air horn].

The Dunkin' Donuts Turkey Sausage Wake-Up Wraps are tasting a little bitter in Boston this week. Rajon Rondo’s out for the season, and out with him, in no particular order: all gorgeous, mind-boggling passes whose lanes could have only been spotted by no. 9, having briefly entered the fourth dimension; all team outings to the Roller World in Saugus; and, of course, all rational hopes for another Celtics title run.

Now usually, in this kind of general “elite player out” situation, there’s a silver lining. With the hobbled fellow a totem, the team rallies — all grit and heart and Michael Jordan’s secret stuff — and becomes a scruffy lovable underdog. (You know, like Varsity Blues). And on paper, there’s no reason why that can’t happen. Imagine: Pierce, pumped to still be in Boston despite trade talks, and KG, pumped to be anywhere at any time always ever, lock into a newly spirited level of basketball. Leandro Barbosa, enjoying newfound playing time, does it big for São Paulo. Jason Terry sells his soul to Satan and regains the ability to play basketball. The Celts squeeze into the playoffs, give someone a scare, maybe even win a series.

But this being Rajon Rondo we’re talking about, things can’t be quite that simple.

So much amazing is happening, and the Shootaround crew is here to help you keep track of it all. You'll find takes on moments you might've missed from the previous night, along with ones you will remember forever.

Italian Ice

There’s really no way around it anymore — Marco Belinelli has become the most clutch player in the NBA. It started in Boston less than a week ago. With the Bulls and Celtics tied in overtime, Belinelli put up a twisting, fall-away, physics-defying shot with 3.1 seconds left to secure the win. If it had ended there, I can understand how it might be considered an aberration. But it didn’t. Last night, with the game again tied, Marco dropped in a game-sealing, acrobatic lay-in with only a second left to down the Pistons:

The year in sports, 2012, told in GIFs and riffs.

The Little Giant

Here's a video of Lionel Messi scoring 86 goals in the year of our Maradona, 2012, breaking Gerd Muller's record of 85 goals for club and country in a calendar year.

It's hard to pick just one. There was the cheeky chip against Valencia, a shooting-star free kick against Atletico Madrid, the time he froze the Bayer Leverkusen backline in carbonite like a bunch of German Han Solos, and when he invented the geometry of the future against Granada. I liked when he backed a pickup truck into a compact parking spot on the roof of Zaragoza's keeper's garage, and when he made Philippe Senderos look like Lennie from Of Mice and Men against Switzerland. I loved the free kicks against Uruguay and Real Madrid, and the snapshot against Deportivo La Coruña. Nobody's better at their chosen sport than Lionel Messi is at football, right now. Watching him score 86 goals, either during the games, or in YouTube compilations, for Barcelona or for Argentina, was one of the greatest gifts we received this year. He'll be justly rewarded for these accomplishments with trophies and silverware, but I just wanted to give him my thanks. Watching him play is one of the best things I did with my time this year.
— Chris Ryan

Before Jay-Z took the stage September 28, on the Barclays Center's opening night — before he christened the building, before he consummated his home borough’s ascendance — we got a short video ticking off a selective list of Brooklyn’s accomplishments. “1862: BROOKLYN RAILROAD BEGINS OPERATION” and “1893: BROOKLYN BRIDGE COMPLETED” and “1895: BROOKLYN MUSEUM FOUNDED.” We saw “1913: EBBETS FIELD OPENS” and “1945: JACKIE ROBINSON JOINS THE BROOKLYN DODGERS” and “1949: MARCY PROJECTS BUILT.” And then the jouncy jazz riff playing under the montage cut out for the bone-crunching guitars of “No Sleep Till Brooklyn,” and a string of Brooklyn babies were trumpeted: Basquiat, Biggie, Jordan, Aaliyah, Tyson, ODB, and Adam “MCA” Yauch, born in downtown Brooklyn in 1967. Twenty seconds later — before the montage picked up speed beyond decipherability, as if to suggest the borough’s simply overwhelming success rate — we saw Yauch again, along with The Beastie Boys: “1986: LICENSED TO ILL RELEASED.”

On Wednesday night, in a victory against the Magic, the Bulls’ Joakim Noah tried to feed the people. Up big with seconds left, he chucked up a 3 — just the fifth attempt of his career. If it had rattled in, the Bulls would have cracked 100 points and everyone at the United Center would have gotten a free Big Mac. Sadly, he missed. Even worse, he felt the need to apologize for it. “I regret it a little bit," he’d say after the game. "It wasn't a good shot … I just got caught up in the moment and I was trying to get the people a Big Mac. They really wanted a Big Mac [judging by how loud the crowd was getting] … we didn't even get the Big Mac.” Jo, buddy — you have nothing to be sorry for. Of course they wanted a Big Mac. And of course you should have tried to give it to them. Next time, take 10 3s. Take a million 3s.

Now, in honor of Noah’s valiant effort, Grantland presents A Brief Look at Notable Moments in NBA Free-Food History.

On Tuesday night, I sat at a bar booth smugly explaining to a couple of Miami Heat pals that they were deluded. I threw out the terms Boston was offering to re-sign Ray Allen — two years for $12 million, doubling what was then reported to be Miami’s offer — and took a pull on my beer and declared, definitively, that there was no way upstanding gentleman Ray Allen was leaving Boston for less money. By Saturday afternoon, I was being mocked with texts of doctored photos of Ray Allen rising up for that immaculate jumper of his in a Heat jersey. And as I licked my wounds, I didn’t think much about how his defection would impact Danny Ainge’s offseason plans, or what kind of minutes he’d be getting in Miami. Instead I thought, so should I hate Ray Allen now?

So much amazing is happening, and the Shootaround crew is here to help you keep track of it all. You'll find takes on moments you might've missed from the previous night, along with ones you will remember forever.

Flash of Greatness

There's something really "Evil Genius" about Dwyane Wade. But up until Tuesday night, I only thought about the "evil" part. He (allegedly/rumor has it/come on, he totally) puppet-mastered Chris Bosh and LeBron James's free-agent moves from a condo in Beijing, his knee was drained during this season's playoffs, and I'm pretty sure he participates in nightly Dothraki horse-heart-eating to get himself into fighting shape. He threw Mike Bibby's shoe during the Heat-Knicks series. Every story needs a villain, and when you see Wade it's "Say Hi to the Bad Guy" time. Just look at his facial hair.

But after Tuesday night's game, I recognize the genius part, too. With about four minutes left in Game 4, Oklahoma City was on an 11-2 run when Mario Chalmers, somewhat regressing to the mean(io), threw a pass behind Shane Battier, out of bounds.

Miami needed one of their superstars to step on the brakes, to stop OKC's momentum. And that's when Dwyane Wade, a player known for his flash-bulb-popping feats of athleticism, put on his "not f'ing around crew" face and went to work.

So much amazing is happening, and the Shootaround crew is here to help you keep track of it all. You'll find takes on moments you might've missed from the previous night, along with ones you will remember forever.

Hail the Conquering Hero

Sometimes noise is better than words, so I won't say too many. You heard all the rumors, the Dominican Republic, broke, uncoachable, China, the gambling, the drinking. He's not gonna make the flight to Philly. It'll be a distraction. And then there he was, wearing a Lou Williams jersey, hat to the side, smile on his face and tears in his eyes. The fan with boxing gloves, raised in glory, because even if he didn't practice, he always fought. God, I even love the Joey Crawford hug, for some reason.

So much amazing is happening, and the Shootaround crew is here to help you keep track of it all. You'll find takes on moments you might've missed from the previous night, along with ones you will remember forever.

'Rondo Was Extremely Serious'

That was Doc Rivers’s assessment of his point guard’s demeanor going into Game 3 in Philadelphia. It ended with Rajon Rondo scoring 23 points (13 in the first quarter), doling out 14 assists, and losing just one turnover. So, yeah, you could say Rondo was serious. After Game 1 — in which he messed around and got a triple-double — the Celtics point guard complained of not getting his nap before the game and how it negatively affected his performance. Rondo looked … well-rested Wednesday night.

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So much amazing is happening, and the Shootaround crew is here to help you keep track of it all. You'll find takes on moments you might've missed from the previous night, along with ones you will remember forever.

From the Cradle: Evan Turner

This late-game, game-deciding layup came right after Kevin Garnett tried to turn Evan Turner's face into an ottoman. Most men would've needed to go to their happy caves, talk to their spirit animals, find their chi, whatever. Evan Turner? It's almost like no one gave him the memo. He's not scared because he doesn't know he's supposed to be. There he is waving his hands, asking for the ball, per usual. But after seeing this ball fake on Rondo and his Keith Byars imitation past Paul Pierce, I'm wondering: Maybe he should stop asking. He should start demanding. — Chris Ryan

So much amazing is happening, and the Shootaround crew is here to help you keep track of it all. You'll find takes on moments you might've missed from the previous night, along with ones you will remember forever.

Hero of the Night: Andre Iguodala

In the end what this Sixers team needed — after their regular-season hymn to the joys of team basketball — was a hero. In the absence of that, they turned to Andre Iguodala. And last night, that was just enough.

All season long, Iguodala seemed like the graduate still haunting his college campus bars, showing up at parties. Hell, audit some classes! Why not? Here's why not: This turf belongs to a new set of kids now. Namely, Holiday, Turner, Lou, and Thad. Iguodala was always a bridge from the Iverson-era Sixers to whatever was going to come next. This season, it felt like "next" had finally arrived.