NBA

The news is passed along from Bourbon Street Shots, a True Hoop affiliate of the ESPN Network. One report from Venezuela indicates Vasquez will need 12-to-16 weeks for recovery, and it's possible this impacts Vasquez's ability to play in the FIBA tournament in late August. Vasquez dealt with ankle injuries late in the year, but there has been no word on any sort of surgery or procedure to date. Stay tuned, we shouldn't have to wait too much longer to know more.

There is no indication of anything serious, and the MRI is just designed in order to monitor his recovery after he's dealt with a calf injury during the playoffs. We don't expect Parker to miss any time, but we're putting him on the injury report just in case. Parker reported improvement in the calf, but also noted it was the worst bruise of his career. "The calf is doing better," he said. "I'm turning the corner."

According to the source, Smith is "likely" to have his knee drained at some point during the next two weeks. While this would certainly help to explain Smith's struggles in the playoffs, we're not buying into the idea that the knee was solely responsible for his shortcomings. He's expected to be fine well in advance of training camp.

This isn't the first we've heard of the Mavs' reported interest in both Howard and point guard Chris Paul. In fact, Dirk Nowitzki said he's willing to play salesman to the two free-agent stars and is also open to taking a substantial pay cut next summer to make the financials work. Both Howard and Paul would have to leave a year and several million dollars on the table to sign with Dallas, but the lure or playing for a title next to Dirk might be enough to win them over.

He is questionable to return. It's shaping up to be a rough night for Chalmers since he sustained some sort of leg injury in the first half. Norris Cole will handle the majority of the point guard duties, but the Heat have tons of flexibility with LeBron fully capable of running the point.

He got to the basket for a relatively uncontested layup not once, but twice in the last 10 seconds of the game with Roy Hibbert on the bench for each of the last two possessions of overtime. LeBron was a ridiculous 78.3 percent on shots at the rim during the regular season, so Frank Vogel has some explaining to do to leave the middle wide open in the clutch moments of the game. This was the ninth playoff triple-double of LeBron's career and he's come a long way from his naysayers claiming he can't close games. Game 2 will be Friday night, so clear your schedules.

Frank Vogel sat Hibbert on the last two possessions of the game and he's going to catch a lot of criticism for that call. Both times LeBron got an extremely easy bucket and Indiana's weak-side help was non-existent. Vogel said in the post-game conference that he put a switching lineup in, hoping to force a jump shot for LeBron. Hibbert only finished 10th in the Defensive Player of the Year voting, which looks like an injustice after tonight. Miami might be planning to attack Hibbert more in Game 2 on Friday to get him in foul trouble.