Steve Merril’s Starting Five, a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of NBA and college basketball. Steve uncovers the juicy quotes that relate to the pointspread wars – who cares who wins the game? We only care about who covers!

1. The Spurs? Have you ever heard of them? Not many people have according to Pop. San Antonio has the best record in the NBA at 46-9; better than the Celtics (40-14), Heat (41-15), and Lakers (38-19) (Fakers after losing in Cleveland last night). ‘They’re sexier than we are,’ Popovich said when asked why the Spurs get no attention. ‘It’s usually been like that in San Antonio,’ Popovich added. ‘We’re kind of far away from everything else.’ What is he smoking? The Spurs have been one of the most popular teams in the NBA for the last decade. Timmy D could care less: ‘I don’t look at the radar, so I don’t know what’s going on,’ Duncan said. ‘I’ve got better things to do.’ LOL.

2. Don’t Hate the Player, Hate the Game: The Bulls host the Spurs tonight on TNT, but after practice on Wednesday, Kyle Korver wasn’t being asked about San Antonio. The Bulls beat the Bobcats 106-94 on Tuesday night thanks in part to Korver’s 15 points on 5 of 5 shooting including 3 triples. Charlotte’s Stephen Jackson foolishly said this after the game: ‘Everybody knows he can’t do anything else but shoot.’ We got news for ya Jack-ass, you win basketball games by shooting the ball in the basket! ‘A lot of people told me about it,’ Korver responded. ‘Whatever. Don’t leave me, then.’ A little defense never hurts, Stephen.

3. Roddy B: Dallas cashed another NBA ticket for us last night in their 116-100 win over the beat-up and fatigued Kings. ** Shameless plug ALERT ** We actually went 2-0 in the NBA last night and we’re on a nice 25-11 NBA run! The Mavs welcomed back Roddy Beaubois last night; his first game action all season. Beaubois is a key second-unit guy for Dallas; he scored 13 points in 20 minutes in his seasonal debut. Owner Mark Cuban was impressed: ‘I don’t think Roddy B has yet to be branded. Hopefully, he’s going to be a rich man’s Roddy B. Hopefully, I’ve got a lot of good reasons to pay him.’ Say what you want about Cuban, but the guy’s got passion and very deep pockets! Heck, he even made a tequila deal with Turtle on Entourage. Cuban’s episode was titled, ‘Sniff Sniff Gang Bang.’

4. UCLA-D: The Bruins are playing some serious defense lately. UCLA has held 5 consecutive opponents and 8 of its last 10 under 40% shooting from the field. The Bruins are a perfect 11-0 this season when holding opponents under 40%. They play at Stanford tonight; UCLA has quietly gone 15-3 over their last 18 games. That winning run began after a 4-game losing streak between late-November and early December. Overall, UCLA is 18-7 on the season and still on the proverbial NCAA tournament bubble.

5. ESPN’s Overhead Sham: Did you see ESPN”s overhead camera view the other night during the Mississippi St/Kentucky game? If not, count your blessings because you probably would have threw-up your dinner. Watching a basketball game through a camera sitting atop a speaker in the rafters just didn’t work, and according to the World Wide Leader, the experiment is over. Xavier head coach Chris Mack summed it up best. ‘ESPN, please make it stop! This is going to give people vertigo.’

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