Heat at Full Throttle to End Thunder Home Streak

Miami finally had its Big 3 of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh reunited, and Oklahoma City's top trio was at its best, too.

Yet none of those stars came away with the biggest shot of the game.

Eddie House hit the go-ahead 3-pointer with 22.2 seconds left, then added two free throws to seal the Miami Heat's 108-103 victory in a Sunday showcase in which their All-Star triumvirate played together for the first time in nearly three weeks.

"Any time Eddie raises and shoots, you think it's going in," Wade said. "He's one of those guys that look for the moment."

Wade scored 32 points, James added 23 points and 13 rebounds and Bosh had 20 points -- and coach Erik Spoelstra pulled the right string by putting House into the lineup during a timeout after Kevin Durant's jumper had put the Thunder up 103-102 with 34.3 seconds left.

Wade missed a jumper from the left wing, Mike Miller snagged the rebound and kicked it out to James, who passed it over to House for a 3 on the right sideline that made it 105-103.

"He's a unique player because he's ready and ignitable without rhythm minutes. Not many players in this league, you can do that," Spoelstra said. "You throw him in, he hasn't played, if he's been sitting for a while, he feels like he's hot."

Durant scored 33 points but missed a contested jumper along the left baseline with 15 seconds left that would've put the Thunder back on top. Jeff Green had 23 points and 11 rebounds, and Russell Westbrook added 21 points and 10 assists as Oklahoma City's top three scorers all reached 20 points for just the third time this season.

It still wasn't enough to match a similar performance from Miami's Big 3, who all eclipsed 20 points in the same game for the 11th time. The Heat are 9-2 when that happens.

"I don't look at it as the 'big three.' They may look at it like that over there, but over here we're a whole group," Durant said.

After House's go-ahead 3, James contested Durant's attempt to tie it at the other end and Nick Collison swatted the rebound toward midcourt. Wade tracked it down and got fouled, hit his first free throw before missing the second, and that rebound was initially awarded to the Thunder after it went out of bounds under the basket with 6.9 seconds left.

James walked back to the huddle saying confidently, "It's our ball" -- and a replay proved him right. The ball deflected off Collison, and House hit two free throws to close it out.

"We don't take moral victories here. We wanted to win that game," Durant said. "We had the game won and we just didn't. Moral victories have been out the door for two years now."

Bosh had been sidelined four games with a sprained left ankle and Wade had missed two of those game due to migraine headaches and a wrist injury. Before that, James missed two games, also with a sprained left ankle. It had been since Jan. 12 since all three played together.

"It felt good to have guys back. It threw us off a little bit early. We hadn't played with each other for a while. But with Chris coming back early, to try to gut it out and go tonight, we needed just to get wins," Wade said. "Hopefully, we can build on it."

The Heat had been scuffling, losing five of six before beating Detroit by a point Friday night on James Jones' disputed block of Austin Daye's dunk at the buzzer. Oklahoma City, meeanwhile, had lost three of four and then needed overtime to beat Minnesota and Washington -- both in last place -- in their last two games.

Wade staked the Heat to their largest lead by spinning away from Westbrook for a jumper along the left baseline that made it 98-90 with 5:51 to play and finished a 13-2 run.

But Wade was still upset after Serge Ibaka blocked his layup attempt on Miami's next possession and drew a technical foul after Green got a fast-break layup at the other end that would start a 13-4 comeback for Oklahoma City.

Westbrook and Durant each hit a pair of free throws to cut the deficit to one, and the Thunder got a chance to go ahead after Bosh's missed jumper on a failed attempt to draw a foul against Durant -- with the same rip move Durant uses frequently to catch opponents reaching in against him.

Durant came around a screen and connected on a jumper from the top of the key with 34.3 seconds left to put Oklahoma City up 103-102. It was one of only two shots Durant made in 10 second-half attempts, with most of his damage coming from foul line. He was 11 for 13 in the second half and finished 16 for 19.

"We had the game won," Durant said. "We played good defense on Wade, he missed the shot and we just couldn't rebound. Eddie House is a big-time, big-game player. He hit a big shot, and that's the game."

Notes

• Bosh and Durant received a double technical foul in the first quarter after Bosh hacked Harden to prevent a fast-break basket. Westbrook got one for swinging his fist in the air after being whistled for a personal foul in the final minute of the first half.
• James' eight first-quarter assists were the most in period by a Heat player this season.
• The Thunder were seeking their longest home winning streak since leaving Seattle.

2011 Australian Open Final: Just the Beginning of Something Special, Not the End

This was supposed to be a sports obituary.

Early Thursday, my favorite tennis player, my favorite athlete really, Roger Federer, lost in the Australian Open semifinals to Novak Djokovic. For the first time since I was in high school (which I promise you, was quite some time ago), Federer didn’t hold a single Grand Slam title, and more importantly, hasn’t even made a Grand Slam final since last year’s Australian Open. In Fed’s world, four straight losses before—at the very least—a major final, is four too many.

Granted, there’d been signs of Federer’s decline for a while now, some dating all the way back to 2008. But whenever we counted him out, it always seemed like he bounced back with another dominating title at Wimbledon or the U.S. Open, and once even in Paris.

Finally though, it seemed like the loss in Australia, where for the second time in two majors he couldn’t get by Djokovic, was the nail in the coffin. The guy I had watched grow from quirky upstart with a bad ponytail to the No. 1 player in the world, and ultimately to the best player of all time was officially washed up. Needless to say, it left me more depressed than one of the girls on The Hills if she hasn’t taken her Valium in a week.

But then a funny thing happened: I actually sat down and watched a replay of the Djokovic-Federer match. It wasn’t nearly what I expected it to be.

Then again, this is also why I always feel obligated to watch every match, tournament or game that I plan on writing about. Because a box score or recap only tells a part of the story, seeing everything in living color, with your own two eyes, can often show a different one.

Well, when I sat down to watch the Federer-Djokovic match, I was expecting the worst. I already knew that Djokovic had won in straight sets, and I was expecting it to be ugly. Like Tyson vs. Spinks or JWoww vs. Sammi kind of ugly. Going into the match, we knew that Novak was the younger, sprier and stronger player, and I assumed sitting down and watching a replay would be a two-and-a-half-hour verification of that.

Except that’s not what happened at all. Yes, Djokovic won, but not only was it not one-sided, you could make the case that Federer was the better player through a big part of it. Roger didn’t lose on serve once in the first set, and easily could’ve taken it in the tiebreak.

Then in the second set, he was up 5-2 and cruising, before taking his foot off the gas, and letting Djokovic back in. Within minutes it was 5-5, Djokovic had again seized control, and Federer was left with the same glaze in his eyes my grandma gets when you try to explain the internet to her. Novak cruised in the third, and won the match.

But while all the match reports said one thing, Federer-Djokovic wasn’t the one-sided beat down everyone made it out to be. Instead, it was hard-fought and back and forth for the first 60 percent, before Federer lost focus and control. And even as great as Federer is, you just can’t do that against someone as skilled as Djokovic.

Still, as I took everything in after the match, I couldn’t help but think that my idea for Federer’s obituary was way too premature, because the truth is much better: tennis is in the midst of a golden age.

Looking across the board right now, there appear to be four guys that are head and shoulders above everyone else: Djokovic, Federer, Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal. Sure others have their moments given the right circumstance or surface, but ultimately, after years of “Roger or Rafa,” we now have four guys that you’re comfortable saying, “I could see this guy winning this tournament,” every single tour stop.

What makes things really cool though, and what ultimately makes this the golden age of tennis, is that these four guys are all at slightly different points in their careers. And with that, a cool converging of eras has occurred.

Starting with Federer, he’s no longer the dominant force of nature he was in his prime, when I fell in love with his game. He’s a bit older, and a step slower, and with two young kids, undoubtedly no longer a young man, but instead just a man.

As we saw in Australia, he’s also no longer the guy that can go into Grand Slams, play flawless tennis for long stretches and not drop a set for matches at a time. More increasingly, there seems to be one or two early round matches that give him trouble, and draw him into five sets. Ultimately though, that’s ok. Time stops for no man. Even the Fed Express.

Still, what Federer is—even closing in on 30 years old—is a guy that should be favored against everyone other than Djokovic, Murray and Nadal, and can absolutely lay waste to any of the non “Big Three,” on any given night. That’s exactly what happened in the Australian quarterfinals against Stanislas Warwinka, where what was supposed to be an exciting match, turned into a 6-3, 6-3, 6-1 Federer laugher. It was over before it began and had less drama and excitement than a Friday night in Salt Lake City. Federer might not be able to turn on the fifth gear every night, but can still get there often enough.

That match was also why I believe Federer still has at least one major title left in him. On the right surface, in the right circumstances, is there any doubt Federer can take down seven matches in a row and hoist a championship trophy? It not only seems feasible to me, but probable.

Knicks Top Wizards, End 6-Game Skid

Amare Stoudemire shook the basket with his dunks. Raymond Felton found his shooters on the wings, and knocked down his own shots when left open.

The New York Knicks looked right again, and it sure helped that the Washington Wizards do everything wrong on the road — even something as simple as getting dressed Monday night.

Stoudemire ended a mini-slump with 30 points, and the Knicks snapped a six-game losing streak and dropped the Wizards to 0-21 on the road with a 115-106 victory.

"We knew how important this game was," Stoudemire said. "We all pretty much showed the urgency to get this win."

Felton ended his dismal stretch with 17 points and 15 assists as the Knicks (23-21) avoided falling back to .500 with what would have been their longest skid of the season — and with Miami visiting Thursday. They beat Washington for the seventh straight time at Madison Square Garden and sixth in a row overall, sweeping the series for the first time since going 4-0 in 2003-04.

"Everything was clicking tonight," Felton said. "It was one of our better games."

Nick Young scored 22 points for the Wizards, now more than halfway to the NBA's first winless road mark in an 82-game schedule. They are closing in on the longest road skid to open a season, 29 straight losses by the Dallas Mavericks during the 1992-93 season.

The Wizards are still a long way from the 1990-91 Sacramento Kings, who lost their final 37 road games and finished 1-40.

"I'm not going to lie about that. If you lose on the road, you're going to think about it. You watch SportsCenter, you're going to see what everybody's talking about: you not winning road games. It gets tough," rookie John Wall said. "But for us to get them to stop talking about it, we've got to do what we've got to do on the road and get one."

Wall had 18 points, nine assists and seven rebounds, but the Wizards committed 20 turnovers that led to 24 points for the Knicks.

They also had one wardrobe malfunction. Rookie reserve Kevin Seraphin began the game with his shorts on backward and had to change in front of the bench during a first-quarter timeout as his teammates surrounded him.

Stoudemire had been held to 18 points in each of the Knicks' last two losses after scoring 20 or more in 26 consecutive games, but was 13 of 23 and added nine rebounds.

But the bigger problem lately may have been Felton, who might've wrecked his All-Star hopes by going 23 for 79 from the field in the last five games. He was 7 of 14 Monday and the Knicks turned it over only 11 times.

New York finally put it away midway through the fourth, holding Washington to one field goal in more than 5½ minutes during an 11-4 run that turned a four-point lead into a 110-99 advantage.

Wilson Chandler finished with 25 points and Danilo Gallinari had 17 for the Knicks, who finally got their offense going again after a tough road trip — with some help from the woeful Wizards.

"When we got (Chandler) and Gallo shooting the ball the way they do, guys coming off the bench contributing, Amare doing what he does, me getting everybody the ball, that's when we're at our best," Felton said. "Then our defense was clicking, we were getting rebounds, we were pushing the ball. I think we can play with anybody when we do that."

The Knicks' locker room board noted that the Wizards would turn it over, ranking near the bottom of the league, and sure enough they coughed it up 10 times in the first quarter, leading to 12 points that helped New York build a 33-26 lead.

"You can't turn it over 20 times and beat people on the road," Wizards coach Flip Saunders said.

But down 13 early in the second, Wall went to the bench and the Wizards surged back behind their reserves. Rookies Trevor Booker and recent NBA Development League call-up Mustafa Shakur were on the floor as Washington put up 36 points in the period and led by as many as five before the Knicks tied it at 62 at the half.

Stoudemire played the whole third quarter, throwing down a couple of powerful dunks en route to 15 points. The Knicks led 93-91 after a potential tying dunk by Seraphin was ruled after the buzzer.

Notes: The Wizards' reserves stood until they scored their first point, angering the fans behind them. The players were back sitting in time to catch a pass the Wizards fired out of bounds right after they took a 1-0 lead on a technical free throw after a defensive 3-second violation on the Knicks. ... The Knicks' game Thursday against Miami will be on TNT, the first time the network has televised a game from Madison Square Garden in five years. Longtime Knicks radio and TV voice Marv Albert will call the game with Reggie Miller, who thrived at MSG against the Knicks, and Steve Kerr. The studio team will broadcast from the arena and announce the starters for the All-Star game during the pregame show.

Murali to End International Career with World Cup

Muttiah Muralitharan has said he will retire from all international cricket after the 2011 World Cup. The 38-year-old offspinner, who had retired from Test cricket in July last year, will continue to play in domestic Twenty20 competitions.

"This World Cup will be my last outing," Muralitharan said. "My time is up. I have signed up to play for two years in the IPL. I am also looking at similar work in New Zealand and perhaps England."

Muralitharan, who holds the record for the highest number of wickets in both Test and one-day cricket was part of Sri Lanka's World Cup winning side in 1996. He is one of three spinners in Sri Lanka's squad for the 2011 tournament, the other two being left-arm spinner Ranagana Herath and Ajantha Mendis. "This is my fourth World Cup. We won in 1996 and came close in 2007 by reaching the final. This would be a memorable one for me and for Sri Lankan fans."

Since quitting Tests, Muralitharan has played only three international matches - two ODIs and a Twenty20 game during Sri Lanka's tour of Australia in October-November 2010. He has been rested from the side for the first two ODIs of the three-match home series against West Indies which starts on January 31, Sri Lanka's final commitment before the World Cup.

He played for Chennai Super Kings in the first three seasons of the IPL, including their triumphs in the 2010 edition of the tournament and the Champions League in the same year. He was bought by the new Kochi franchise in the 2011 IPL auction for $1.1 million.

In July, Muralitharan had said there were plans in the pipeline for him and former India legspinner Anil Kumble to open a spin-bowling academy in Bangalore. However, while announcing his retirement after the World Cup on Friday, he said he had no immediate plans to start coaching. "There are plenty of coaches and lots of talented people out there. I will take things as they come. For the moment, I am not looking at any coaching stints."

George Lucas Was Just Kidding About That End of the World Thing

Breathe easy, George Lucas fans. Your hero is not crazy after all.

Or is he? The legendary director raised eyebrows Wednesday when actor Seth Rogen recalled a recent conversation with Lucas where the movie maker said he believed the world was going to end in 2012.

"George Lucas sits down and seriously proceeds to talk for around 25 minutes about how he thinks the world is going to end in the year 2012, like, for real. He thinks it," Rogen told the Toronto Star.

But it turns out Lucas wasn't "for real" after all. In fact he says -- through a spokesperson since he's George Lucas -- that he was totally kidding.

"He was not serious when he talked about the end of the world in 2012," Lynne Hale told Wired after speaking with Lucas.

Leaving it there would have been just fine but the rep couldn't do that.

"He is an adamant believer that the world is flat, that Stonehenge was built by aliens, and that the sun revolves around the Earth," the rep said. "These are among the many subjects he commonly discusses at length with Elvis, who he's going to digitally insert into Indy 5 along with a roster of famous dead actors."

Prince and Madonna End Decades-Long Feud

Holiday, celebrate!

Fellow music superstars Prince and Madonna appear to have ended their decades-long feud.

The Material Girl, 52, was among the celebrities cheering on Prince's sold-out Tuesday show at NYC's Madison Square Garden. (Other A-listers in attendance: Jimmy Fallon, Donald and Melania Trump and an awestruck Leighton Meester, whom Prince serenaded onstage.)

During the show, an attendee reports that Prince, also 52, made a good-natured joke about the high price of Madonna's concert tickets. "I know I'm expensive!" he joshed, then making a friendly call-out to Madonna by name.

Things were far less friendly between the pair, who briefly dated in 1985 and who dueted on "Love Song," a track from Madonna's 1988 "Like a Prayer" album.

Madonna sniped in an interview that Prince was a "little troll," and quipped in 1994 that he wouldn't eat during a dinner date. "He was just sipping tea, very daintily," Madonna said. "I have this theory about people who don't eat. They annoy me."

For his part, Prince slammed Madonna — and her growing brood of children — during a 2007 concert in London, sniping, "I got so many hits y'all can't handle me. I got more hits than Madonna's got kids."

'American Idol' Tell-All Author Says Show Must End Its Megastar Drought

There may be no other TV series that has been written about as much as 'American Idol.' The show that helped pave the way for reality television to become a lasting genre has changed the entire TV landscape and the very nature of stardom. What began as a copycat of a British singing talent competition called 'Popstars' became a pop culture phenomenon unlike nothing that had been seen before.

But since we've turned into an 'Idol'-saturated society, what more is there to say about the Fox hit? Aside from reporting on the progress of each season's contestants, the periodic scandals, the judge shuffle and the day-to-day dramas, there isn't really enough for another entire book about it, is there?

Apparently there is. And its author, Los Angeles Times 'Idol' writer Richard Rushfield, is even so bold as to call his 'The Untold Story.' Untold, indeed. With all the ink spilled on the reality TV sensation, how could that be possibly true?

"There's so much we see, but there's so much that has been untold -- what really goes on behind the scenes and into the making of it, and how it affects the lives of the people involved," Rushfield tells PopEater. "It's an amazing glimpse of what goes on backstage at 'Idol' and the pressures. How 'Idol' came into being has never been told."

And who better to recount those tales than the show's creator himself, the now-legendary British producer Simon Fuller?

When 'American Idol: The Untold Story' readers first meet Fuller, he has just been dumped by a band he molded into an iconic force in its own right: the Spice Girls. Their decision to cut their manager loose for a calmer lifestyle would wind up being one of the most impactful decisions in modern music industry history.

Fuller's idea, initially called 'Fame Search' and then changed to 'Pop Idol,' was to put together a U.K. talent show that would sweep the country's general population for contestants, turn those ordinary people into stars and then give the audience the final say in who wins. 'Popstars' was a similar concept, minus the element of audience control, and it had become a fast hit among British TV viewers.

But Fuller thought his show "could do this much, much better. I saw certain similarities in what 'Popstars' was to what I wanted to do," he told Rushfield. "What I always intended ... was to make it a real-time experience but just focus it on singing."


What debuted as 'Pop Idol' in the U.K. -- to mediocre reviews -- soon became a mind-boggling success before traveling across the pond to the U.S., landing in the hands of media mogul Rupert Murdoch and being transformed into 'American Idol,' one of the biggest TV crazes ever.

Rushfield says his book marks the first time the now 50-year-old Fuller has shared the details of how 'Idol' was born.

"It was not officially sanctioned [by the makers of 'Idol'], but I got a lot of cooperation from the people involved," says Rushfield. "Simon Fuller agreed to sit down and tell about the creation of the show for the first time."

Among other behind-the-scenes tidbits in 'The Untold Story,' Rushfield includes anecdotes about a woman who forms a church using only 'Idol' participants, one pop star hopeful's vicious run-in with nasty (and now departed) judge Simon Cowell and a love triangle among three of the earliest contestants.

"There are a lot of little moments that people will love -- just a lot of stories about what life is like living under the tension and the microscope for this group of kids thrown together and riding this whirlwind," he says.

The book also documents the revolutionary changes 'Idol' brought to the music industry and the creation of pop stars including Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, Chris Daughtry and Fantasia Barrino.

"It opened up the whole process of how you become a star," Rushfield says. "That was Simon Fuller's intention from the start. He very consciously started this as a reaction to what he saw as a closed system in the record labels, with the music industry being more concerned with being cool and edgy than creating acts that would speak to a huge public."

Thanks to 'Idol,' says Rushfield, there is now a parallel but separate path to stardom outside the music industry in which "the record labels don't dictate who the stars are. You go to the audience about who they want as stars."

It's a shift that has faced its share of criticism from those who believe 'Idol' has lowered the bar, churning out a less talented pool of pop singers than the industry was doing before it came along. Rushfield dismisses that gripe, just as he dismisses similar complaints about how reality shows have dumbed down television.

"I think we have a broader pool of stars," he tells PopEater. "While it might have been more polished before, it was more of a narrow spectrum. People who say that have contempt for the audience and contempt for who the audience chooses ... and they vastly overrate the quality of who we were seeing on television and in the music industry."

As one of the earliest reality shows to strike it big, 'Idol' has been credited with turning traditional programming on its head.

"There's a reason television was so vulnerable: It had become formulaic and stale, and people were ready to tune out those programs," Rushfield says. "'Idol' has done a lot to reinvent television from a pretty desperate place before that."

Still, nearly a decade after its U.S. debut, 'Idol' is facing a critical turning point, with some even sounding the show's death knell. The departure of two of its three original judges -- first Paula Abdul, then Simon Cowell -- the failed Ellen DeGeneres and Kara DioGuardi stints on the panel and the replacement judge choices of Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez have put many on edge about 'Idol's' future.

So has the fact that it's been awhile since the show delivered on its fundamental vow to create a pop star from scratch season after season.

"The jury is out" on the show's future, Rushfield says. "Even bigger than the change in the judges -- which is in itself huge -- 'Idol' has not in several years produced a megastar, not since Chris Daughtry. ... That has to happen again. That's what they promised."

But 'American Idol' has proven resilient so far and has continued to capture the public's imagination because of what it represents.

"They go out into America, find people where they live, bring them to Hollywood and confer upon the winner this huge prize, which is genuine stardom," Rushfield says. "It's the closest thing to the story of the American dream that we have in entertainment."

'American Idol: The Untold Story' is in bookstores and available on Amazon right now.

'Hannah Montana' Coming to an End -- We Review Episodes We'd Like to Have Seen

If you hear the chokey echoes of a tortured mass sob reverberating around the world this Sunday, don't worry -- it's just the sound of tweens everywhere mourning the loss of small-screen icon 'Hannah Montana.'

After four years on TV, two movies, eight albums and an incalculable amount of glittery pink merchandise, the Disney Channel hit is ending its run.

Like many of her Disney contemporaries, the show's star, Miley Cyrus, has arguably become more famous in recent years for her behavior off-screen than for her on-camera parts, but she, too, was once a bright-eyed, buck-toothed young starlet making family-friendly fare with all of her clothes on.

So how will it end?

The New York Daily News reports that Hannah/Miley's big finale will center on her character's decision to either attend college or pursue a movie career. Only time will tell which choice she will make, but in the meantime, we review the episodes that should have made it to air.

1. "Look-Alike"
After many years spent skirting the issue, neighbors and acquaintances come clean about knowing that Miley and Hannah are the same person. "You put on a blonde wig and you expect us to forget what the rest of you looks like?" asks neighbor Mrs. Alvarez. "That stuff may have worked for Superman, but we're not idiots, Miley."

2. "Miley Gets a Cell Phone"
"Come on, let's just take a few photos, it'll be fun!" says her ex, Jake Ryan. "It's not like anybody's going to see them."

3. "Robby Ray Admits to Loving Miley More Than Jackson"
While Miley and her brother have previously debated the issue in the jocular way that siblings often do, dad Robby Ray admits Miley is the favorite when Jackson leaves the house a mess after a party. "I'm sorry, that's just the way it is," Robby tells Jackson. "She's been paying our bills since she was 14 and you're a 33-year-old who still lives at home. What did you expect?"

4. "Miley Seeks Treatment For Disturbing Dreams About Her Dead Mother"
Healthy grief takes many forms, but believing that you're talking to your long-deceased mother while caught in a time warp isn't one of them.

5. "Miley's Friends Procure Hallucinogens"
After trying some of an unknown substance obtained by her friends, Miley awakes to find her reality permanently altered. "Where's all my Hannah stuff? Where are my gold records?" she asks her father, quizzically. "Who's Hannah?" he replies.