TheSpread.com

NBA Today - May 25
Fri, May 25, 2007
By Associated Press

SCOREBOARD

Friday, May 25

No NBA playoff games scheduled.

STAR Thursday

-Rasheed Wallace, Pistons, scored 10 of his 16 points in the fourth quarter and grabbed 11 rebounds to lead Detroit to a 79-76 victory and a 2-0 series lead over the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Finals.

ON THE LINE

JeBron James missed a shot with 7.9 seconds left, allowing Detroit to escape again with a 79-76 victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers on Thursday night and a 2-0 lead in the Eastern Conference finals. James, who passed up a shot in the final seconds of the series opener, dribbled into the lane and missed a spinning shot in the lane with Richard Hamilton draped on him.

SECOND CHANCE

Micheal Ray Richardson, a former NBA player whose anti-Semitic comments to a newspaper last season drew a suspension from the CBA, was hired Thursday as the head coach of the Oklahoma City Cavalry. Richardson coached the Albany Patroons to the Continental Basketball Association championship series but was suspended after Game 1, when the league began investigating a report that he told the Times Union of Albany he had ''big-time Jew lawyers'''' working for him.

BEHIND BARS

Former NBA player Henry Charles James was sentenced to five years in federal prison after pleading guilty to selling crack cocaine to an undercover police officer last summer. James played in the 1990s for Cleveland, Sacramento, Utah, the Los Angeles Clippers, Houston and Atlanta.

SPEAKING

''Down the stretch, he wanted the ball in a lot of situations. He made some big plays in the fourth quarter.'''' - Pistons coach Flip Saunders about the play of Rasheed Wallace after Detroit''s 79-76 victory over the Cavaliers on Thursday night.