According to a person familiar with ownership dynamics, the so-called "original" hard-line teams were Atlanta, Charlotte, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Memphis, Philadelphia, Washington, Portland and Minnesota. There has been growing support in recent weeks for the hard-liners' position that Stern has given up too much in the negotiations -- thus, the ultimatum and subsequent shift to a more severe proposal if the players fail to accept the deal on the table by the close of business Wednesday.

Horford’s 24 points came mostly in the post, where the Cuban big men were completely overmatched. But he did have a handful of buckets on the move and on the break. The highlight was a fast-break alley-oop throw down off a toss from Edgar Sosa midway through the second quarter.

After that 1-for-5 start, Horford connected on 11 of his final 13 shots. He added nine boards to his 24 points.

"You only get one shot, the Indiana native says of seizing his unexpected post-season opportunity. "I was excited. I was finally getting to play after not playing for awhile. I was just trying to hang with [Rose]. I think the world saw me"

Congrats to Mark C.&entire Mavs org. Mavs NEVER stopped & now entire franchise gets rings. Old Lesson for all:There are NO SHORTCUTS. NONE.

The Hawks had some meetings before Rick Sund headed off for Chicago but they weren’t detailed discussions about the team’s direction. The Hawks essentially are on the sidelines waiting to see what happens with the CBA. It’s hard for them to make plans that could become moot under the new rules.

Should Hawks trade Josh Smith

"We've shown we can play with anybody, and some nights we can play with nobody."

Quote To Note:

"As far as Jameer, that's kind of a slap in the face to us and our organization for him to come out and say something like that. I'm sure he's a great guy and everything, but at the end of the day, that's uncalled for. You can say whatever you want, but you have to be able to back it up. We were out there, we were ready to play. That's the matchup we wanted, and we got it. And we just stayed quiet about our business. We came out here and we handled it."

—Al Horford on Jameer Nelson's blatant disrespect for the Hawks when he told Derrick Rose that he would see him in the second round of the playoffs.

"In the last four years, the toughest environment we’ve played in, the most hostile, probably was Atlanta,"

"A lot of their players are already claiming they are already going to make the second round, so that gives us a little added motivation, too," Smith said. "If that doesn’t get you geared up, I don’t know what does."