SCOREBOARD
Friday, April 24
Cleveland at Detroit (7 p.m. EDT). LeBron James and the Cavaliers try to take a commanding 3-0 lead in the series. Cleveland dominated the first seven quarters of the series before Detroit showed some signs of life in the fourth period of Game 2.
STARS
Wednesday
-Dwyane Wade, Heat, scored 33 points, including 13 straight to close the first half and a 3-pointer he banked in with 2½ minutes left to finish off Atlanta in Miami's 108-93 victory that evened the series 1-1.
-Courtney Lee, Magic, had a career-high 24 points to help Orlando even its series with Philadelphia with a 96-87 victory.
-Chauncey Billups, Nuggets, scored 31 points to help Denver take a 2-0 lead over New Orleans with a 108-93 win. It's the first time the Nuggets have won the first two games of a playoff series since 1985.
SIGNING FLIP
Flip Saunders signed an $18 million, four-year contract to take over as the Wizards coach and will be introduced on Thursday. The 54-year-old coach and Washington reached an oral agreement more than a week ago. Saunders has a career record of 587-396 over 13 NBA seasons, 10 with Minnesota and three with Detroit.
FIRST-YEAR GREATNESS
Derrick Rose, who led his hometown Bulls to the playoffs and restored hope to a franchise in disarray, became the third Bulls player to win the league's rookie of the year award. He joined Michael Jordan and Elton Brand. Rose led all rookies with 6.3 assists per game and was second in scoring average at 16.8.
WHEN ANIMALS ATTACK
"Spirit," an actual hawk that flies down from the rafters during Atlanta's pre-game introductions, decided to hang around for the start of Game 2 against the Miami Heat on Wednesday night. The bird was perched atop the scoreboard at tipoff, refusing to go to his handler. Then he swooped around the arena while the game was going on, landing on a railing in the lower deck before he settled on the top of the basket at the Hawks end of the court. When the players spotted the bird, they refused to go on. The game was halted with 8:28 remaining in the first quarter until the handler finally arrived, luring Spirit to his arm and carrying him out of the arena to cheers from the crowd -- and several players.
SPEAKING
"I have always liked Lawrence as a coach and been supportive of Lawrence. I know a lot of good things he does as a coach, it's part of it. We've won a certain number of games two years in a row and it's natural we sit down, we always sit down at the end of the year and talk about players, coaches and this is part of it." -- Nets president Rod Thorn on coach Lawrence Frank's future.