Mario Gutierrez is incredibly raw so it was easy to expect little from the jockey, but he was the biggest surprise on the day. He masterfully swung his horse out after a mile, sense the pace perfectly, tracked down Bodemeister in the deep stretch, and pulled away to win by almost two lengths.

It was a far more mature, professional race than you would have expected from horse or rider. It was certainly not a fluke.

Career highlights

The colt broke his maiden in his first try last July, and then he was second behind Creative Cause in the Best Pal at Del Mar a month later. He next went to Saratoga to run in the Hopeful against top East Coast runners. That was likely as a prelude to a Breeders’ Cup appearance, but the race was a disappointing sixth and he took the rest of the fall off.

When he returned in February in the Robert Lewis at Santa Anita he was a forgotten horse who went off at 43-1. He won that one impressively, though, and moved into the elite picture on the West Coast.

He didn’t have enough earnings to make the Derby, but his connections took a risk and held him out of action until the Santa Anita Derby. He basically needed to win to get a ticket to Kentucky.

And win he did.

He eked out a nose win over a very game Creative Cause. Even with that win, though, he still wasn’t seen as the top West Coast horse heading into the Derby — or even the top horse out of the Santa Anita Derby.

Jockey: Mario Gutierrez

This is a story right out of a Disney movie.

Gutierrez is a 25-year-old Mexican who had been riding in the minor leagues at Hastings Park in Vancouver. In the offseason of that circuit he had tried his luck on the Southern California circuit.

Things had not gone well, though, and he was about to go back to Vancouver. He was working horses one morning when owner Paul Reddam saw him and decided to give him the mount in the Robert Lewis because the top riders were on horses seen to have a better chance.

Gutierrez won, was promised the Santa Anita Derby mount, and decided to stay in California.

He had won just 14 races all year before the Kentucky Derby and should have been totally overwhelmed by the experience. He rode the race as well as any guy could have, though, and now he’s a Kentucky Derby champion who should have much fewer issues finding good mounts in the future.

The question now is how well he will handle being the hunted man in the Preakness instead of the guy that no one was paying attention to.

Trainer: Doug O’Neill

He’s one of the true characters of the sport — a guy who is easy to cheer for.

This is his first Triple Crown victory, but not his first taste of top three year old action. He had the top two year old of 2005 — Stevie Wonderboy — but he was injured before the Derby. Square Eddie may also have been the Derby favorite if he hadn’t been injured. Great Hunter and Liquidity both ran in the 2007 Derby, but both disappointed.

O’Neill’s biggest horse was the older gelding Lava Man, who won more than a dozen graded stakes before retiring in 2010. He now works as a pony horse for O’Neill, and ponied I’ll Have Another in the post parade at the Derby.

Pedigree

His sire, Flower Alley, was not ready for the Triple Crown trail in 2005, but he matured later to win two of the biggest East Coast races of the summer in the Jim Dandy and the Travers.

He’s early in his stallion career, but I’ll Have Another is a very good start, and there are clear indications that his offspring will have strong stamina traits like he did. The Derby distance was clearly not an issue, and the Belmont should be within his capabilities if he gets there.

Running style

He won his maiden wire-to-wire, but he seems happier when settled just off the pace before making his move at the top of the stretch. That will likely be his approach in the Preakness, though he could be tested if Bodemeister decides to let it fly up front.

If I’ll Have Another is forced to chase him too soon it could be a problem. He moved to the front earlier than ideal in the Best Pal and ran out of gas late.

Prognosis

If all goes according to plans then the Preakness should be a two-horse race.

Personally I think that Bodemeister is the better horse, but this horse has proven that he is very legitimate and will be a factor as well.

He’ll be bet heavily — likely as the second choice — and deserves the attention. In my mind a win isn’t the most likely scenario, but it would be far from a shock. He’ll factor into the stretch drive for sure.

Bodemeister

Losing a race never feels good — especially one as important as the Kentucky Derby. If you are going to lose a race, though, you can’t do it any more impressively than Bodemeister did in the Kentucky Derby.

He is a speed horse, but the Derby was jammed full of speed horses. It was widely assumed that Trinniberg would set a blistering early pace before tiring out before the first mile was done. Bodemeister broke well, though, and found himself on the lead.

Jockey Mike Smith could have held back, but he knew he had the fastest horse in the race and he attempted to run away with the race. The suicidal pace killed the rest of the speed, but Bodemeister held on valiantly and looked like he was going to win it until I’ll Have Another made his last move.

To finish as well as he did in the face of early fractions like that is incredibly impressive.

Career highlights

There’s not much to talk about here because the horse hadn’t had much of a career.

It was well publicized that he was trying to win the Derby without having run at age two — something no horse has managed since 1882. He debuted in January, and broke his maiden in his second try. He wasn’t quite good enough to beat Creative Cause in the San Felipe in his stakes debut.

Next time out, though, he ran by far the most impressive race of the year so far when he ran away with the Arkansas Derby by almost 10 lengths. It was an incredible performance that was good enough to make him the post time favorite in the Derby despite his inexperience.

Jockey: Mike Smith

Smith isn’t getting any younger, and he doesn’t ride nearly as much as he used to. However, for my money there is no one better right now when the stakes are high.

He has won a record 15 Breeders’ Cup races, and has a career Triple Crown, including his most recent win in the Belmont in 2012 aboard Drosselmeyer. He is an absolute master at judging pace, and in his two races aboard Bodemeister he has clearly shown that he and the horse are well matched.

Trainer: Bob Baffert

Like Smith, Baffert is as good as there is right now in my mind. The charismatic king of California race has nine Triple Crown wins, including five in the Preakness.

His most recent win here came in 2010 with Lookin at Lucky. Baffert has been red hot recently, and has obviously done well with this horse.

He’s lucky to be here at all after surviving a major heart attack in March when he was attending the Dubai World Cup.

Pedigree

The easiest way to tell if a horse has what it takes to shine in Triple Crown races is to look for Triple Crown race winners in his pedigree. Bodemeister shines on that front.

Sire Empire Maker was a strong second in the 2003 Kentucky Derby, and then he ended Funny Cide’s Triple Crown aspirations by winning the Belmont after skipping the Preakness. Empire Maker’s sire, Unbridled, won the Derby and the Breeders’ Cup Classic in 1990.

On his dam’s side he has the brilliant Storm Cat and the legendary Belmont and Breeders’ Cup Classic winner A.P. Indy.

In short, this horse is regally bred and has no stamina concerns to go with his unreal speed.

Running style

If you watched the Derby you know what he likes — the lead. He wants to be right on or near the pace, and he likes it to be fast. There is no saving himself for later.

In the Preakness he’s the lone true speed horse, and he shouldn’t have any issue setting the pace he wants to unless a horse decides to take a real risk to throw Bodemeister off his game. That shouldn’t happen though — there isn’t a horse in this field with anything approaching the speed of Bodemeister.

At this point there isn’t a three year old who has proven he can touch his speed.

Preakness Stakes handicapping prognosis

He came out of the Derby well, the pace scenario suits him well in this one, the track suits front- running horses, and he’s the classiest horse in the field.

A lot could go wrong, but it’s never a bad idea to bet on the best horse in the field, and in my eyes Bodemeister is clearly the best. It’s his race to lose, though he will have to beat some strong horses to do so.

I’ll Have Another is obviously a threat, Creative Cause has beaten him before, and Went the Day Well is really coming into his own. There is a good chance that if Bodemeister wins he’ll do it in eye-opening, awe-inspiring fashion.

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The Eastern Conference’s top-seeded team has failed in its first two attempts to double that edge at Madison Square Garden. Given a third shot against the New Jersey Devils, the Rangers are determined to make the most of home-ice advantage in Game 2 of the East finals on Wednesday night.

The Rangers held an optional practice Tuesday at their home rink, the site of a 3-0 win in Game 1 on Monday.

The teams slogged through two periods, and New York admittedly wasn’t at its best coming off its second straight seven-game series. But the Rangers scored three times in the third period and rode their defense and the goaltending of Henrik Lundqvist to victory.

“I don’t know about escaped,” Rangers captain Ryan Callahan said of the win. “We’ve got to be better. We know that. We’ve got areas in the game that we need to improve on and we need to work on. We’ll be ready for tomorrow.”

While no one in the Rangers room could put a finger on what went wrong in Game 2 losses to Ottawa and Washington, New York voiced a determination to break the trend in which it alternated wins and losses through the first four games of the opening two rounds.

The Rangers went win-one-lose-one through all seven games against Washington. New Jersey won four straight against Philadelphia after losing the opener, to end that second-round series in five games. The Devils came back from a 3-2 deficit in the first round against Florida.

A two-game lead could do wonders for the Rangers, if for no other reason than to get a mental break from the constant pressure.

“We don’t look to come out the same way we did in Game 1,” forward Mike Rupp said. “We’re fortunate, but we’ll move forward and make sure we’re better in Game 2. We need this game. It’s a pivotal game, and both teams want it. The stakes are going to be higher and the game is going to be at an even higher pace.

“In the first two rounds, we exchanged wins and losses through the first four games. We’re looking to get away from that. We want to win every game if we can. We obviously would like to string a few more together.”

Not only haven’t the Rangers taken a 2-0 lead, but they haven’t held a two-game edge at any point of either series. The only time they have won two games in a row this postseason was when they rallied from a 3-2 hole and took Games 6 and 7 against Ottawa.

The Devils, who had five days off between the second and third rounds, would be happy to take a 1-1 tie home for Game 3 on Saturday.

“You’re down one game, and they have home-ice advantage,” Devils coach Peter DeBoer said Tuesday. “We’ve been in this spot before. We know we can play better. Credit to them, they got the job done – found a way to get a win. Now it’s on us to respond the right way.”

The Devils will try to quickly figure out how to neutralize the Rangers’ ability to block shots. New Jersey shot 21 pucks that made it through to the net, and they were all stopped by Lundqvist. As difficult as it is to face a premier goalie, New Jersey also had to deal with the frustration of having an additional 26 attempts turned aside before they got close to the net.

“We couldn’t seem to get that first one past him,” Devils captain Zach Parise said of Lundqvist. “The opportunities were there. Some great chances right in front of the net, some good shots from the slot, but he made big saves. Then they got one early in the third, and we couldn’t rebound after that.”

New Jersey frustrated clubs for years with its lock-down, trapping style that was backstopped by goalie Martin Brodeur. Now they are being tested with another maddening form of defense.

“We were blamed for the trap when we were successful at it,” said the 40-year-old Brodeur, who has made 183 consecutive playoff starts for the Devils. “Whatever brings success is what you need to do. I know it’s probably not the most exciting brand of hockey, but it’s really effective.

“They got in people’s heads by doing what they’re doing, and they’re tough to play against because of that.”

The Rangers got a dose of it, too, against the Capitals – the only team in the playoffs that has blocked more shots than they have.

Dan Girardi, who broke the scoreless tie with a goal 53 seconds into the third period on Monday, and fellow defenseman Marc Staal both had a game-high five blocks in Game 1. Callahan, Ryan McDonagh – Girardi’s defense partner – and another defenseman Anton Stralman all had three blocks each.

The Devils had 15 blocks of their own and allowed 28 shots, including one into an empty net with 1:27 left.

“You have to play defense to win,” Rangers coach John Tortorella said Tuesday. “Blocking shots is playing defense.”

DeBoer also vented frustration Tuesday about calls he felt were missed by the officials. He felt that Brodeur was nudged by Rangers forward Derek Stepan as he provided a screen on Girardi’s shot from the blue line that Brodeur said he never saw.

“Looked like a bump to me,” DeBoer said.

He also took issue with a play in which he believed defenseman Michael Del Zotto closed his hand on the puck in the third period. But DeBoer knows the only way to win is for his club to penetrate the New York defense and then solve Lundqvist, who has allowed only 25 goals in 15 playoff games.

“He’s a challenge. He’s a very good goalie,” DeBoer said. “But Ottawa found a way to score on him, so did Washington, so did we during the regular season. We’re going to get goals. We’ve got to concentrate and do a better job on our execution around the net.”

Notes: The Rangers recalled goalie Cam Talbot, defensemen Tim Erixon and Dylan McIlrath, and forwards J.T. Miller, Kris Newbury and Casey Wellman from the Connecticut Whale, who were eliminated from the American Hockey League playoffs on Friday. … DeBoer said defenseman Henrik Tallinder, out since early January because of a blood clot in his left leg, has passed some hurdles and that he and center Jacob Josefson are “getting closer” to returning. Josefson broke his left wrist on April 3 against the New York Islanders, in the Devils’ third-to-last regular-season game, and was expected to be sidelined 4-to-6 weeks.

Chris Bosh and the Miami Heat were relieved by the diagnosis. It’s the prognosis – or lack of one – that’s a source of worry now.

And suddenly, the Indiana Pacers may be even more of a threat.

Bosh strained a lower abdominal muscle in Game 1 of the teams’ Eastern Conference semifinal series, that original diagnosis confirmed Monday after an MRI exam. The team said Bosh is out “indefinitely,” though coach Erik Spoelstra and others say the injury could have been worse.

Either way, Bosh is out for Game 2 on Tuesday, and sounds like he probably won’t play again in this series.

“This season has to be extended for me to play again,” Bosh said. “So that’s what’s on my mind.”

Bosh was hurt late in the first half as he drove for a dunk and got fouled by Indiana’s Roy Hibbert. The foul almost certainly played no role in the injury, as Bosh fell forward to his hands and knees after landing and stayed down for a few seconds. He got up and made his free throw, but dropped to the court again on the ensuing possession, leaving the game for evaluation.

Without Bosh, Miami rallied behind LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, who outscored the Pacers 42-38 in the second half themselves and fueled a series-opening 95-86 win.

“Seeing him yesterday, seeing the pain he was in, you feared the worst,” Wade said as practice wrapped up Monday. “But seeing him downstairs in the training room with a smile on his face – it wasn’t a big smile, it was a little one – but just to see him in there, it was good.

“You never know with these kind of things how long it takes.”

It’ll be an adjustment for Miami, which will likely start either Ronny Turiaf or Joel Anthony at center and keep Udonis Haslem in the opening lineup at power forward – and that trio earned a tip of the cap from Indiana coach Frank Vogel on Monday when he called them “three of the best dirty-work guys in the business.” James will see some time at power forward as well, which isn’t uncommon for Miami anyway.

The Pacers will also be doing some adjusting as well, after spending the buildup to this series preparing for James, Wade and Bosh.

“It changes their team, but we’ve got to understand it doesn’t allow you to play 5-on-4,” Vogel said. “They’ve got great players they can fill in for him. They’ve got different lineups that are sometimes more effective than the lineup with Bosh. Obviously, not having to worry about Bosh helps because he’s such a terrific player.”

Indiana got a look at what Miami will do without Bosh in the second half, when James and Wade dominated the ball. James took 17 shots in the second half, Wade took 13. No other Heat player took more than two shots after halftime.

“If Chris can’t play it’ll be really heavy, heavy pick-and-roll sets for LeBron and D-Wade,” Indiana forward Danny Granger said. “That’s what it was when he went out of the game. They kind of lost their low-post presence so now those guys will dominate the ball even more, which makes my job and Paul George’s job a little difficult, and our bigs, because they’ll set multiple pick-and-rolls every possession.”

Granger’s focus Monday wasn’t entirely on defense, and the extra challenge that’ll come with Wade and James having the ball in their hands more now. Indiana’s top scorer had no points in the first half of Game 1, his lowest since April 10, 2007 – a span of 366 games including playoffs, according to STATS LLC.

Chances are, Granger won’t be taking just 10 shots again on Tuesday.

“I expect guys to always be aggressive against me,” James said. “We’ll see. I’m always ready for a guy to be aggressive, no matter who I’m going up against. So I won’t be surprised by it, if he is.”

Meanwhile, talk of fouls – an issue in this series before it even started, after Vogel said the Heat were the league’s biggest bunch of floppers – continued Monday. And Vogel wasn’t happy about the 31 fouls charged to his team in Game 1 either, but he pointed the blame squarely at those who picked up those calls and not those who made them.

“We understand loud and clear that the officiating didn’t beat us in Game 1,” Vogel said. “The Miami Heat beat us in Game 1. We understand that. Part of winning on the road in the playoffs is overcoming that.”

For the Heat, part of winning anywhere for at least the immediate future will be overcoming not having Bosh, someone who James – the reigning NBA MVP – routinely refers to as Miami’s most important player.

“It’s not the worst thing that could have happened,” Bosh said. “So that was good news. We started treatments and everything, it’s a process and we’ll see how my body responds. … There’s been so many curveballs throughout my career and really throughout this season, nothing would surprise me. I just want to be out there and playing with my teammates.”

As has been the case all season when the Heat dealt with injuries, like ones that kept Wade sidelined and another that kept Bosh out for the final six games of the regular season, coach Erik Spoelstra insisted that his team has enough depth to compete.

“We feel this team was built with a great deal of versatility,” Spoelstra said. “We feel that that is one of our best strengths.”

Metta World Peace made his return from a seven-game suspension in front of a home crowd eager for him to help the Los Angeles Lakers survive a first-round playoff scare and advance with a thrilling Game 7 victory.

His next stop doesn’t figure to be nearly so friendly.

The Lakers start the Western Conference semifinals Monday night at Oklahoma City in the teams’ first meeting since World Peace – formerly known as Ron Artest – gave the Thunder’s James Harden a concussion by hitting him in the head with his elbow.

Oklahoma City has had more than a week to anticipate the matchup after sweeping defending NBA champion Dallas in the first round, giving fans plenty of time to get fired up to welcome a player who became instantly infamous three weeks ago.

“Good, old-fashioned Southern hospitality. That’s the type of reception that I expect that he’ll get, and that’s fair game,” said former teammate Derek Fisher, now a bench player for the Thunder. “The fans will be excited. I’m looking forward to being on this side of these fans this time at this point in the season.

“I can only imagine the amount of energy they have stored up. We’ll have to properly use that energy. Can’t get too caught up in it.”

With Harden leading the way, the Thunder insisted they’re over the incident that happened in the Lakers’ 114-106 double-overtime victory on April 22 in Los Angeles. Instead, they’re focused on reaching the conference finals for a second straight year.

“What can I say? The focus is going out there and doing whatever it takes to win,” Harden said after practice Sunday. “I’m not worried about him or what he has to say.”

World Peace proclaimed after the Lakers’ win over Denver the previous night that he doesn’t shake the hands of substitutions, even his best friends. So Harden, the league’s Sixth Man of the Year, certainly isn’t getting one to go along with the personal apology he never got.

“Shaking hands is, like, so low on our concerns right now, it’s not really an issue,” Oklahoma City forward Nick Collison said.

“I think we’re going to be ready to play.”

Starting center Kendrick Perkins went through Oklahoma City’s practice Sunday for the first time since straining a muscle in his right hip in a Game 4 victory against Dallas eight days earlier.

Collison and Harden said they expect Perkins to play in Game 1, although coach Scott Brooks refuses to make a decision until at least Monday and possibly not until game time.

Perkins was active enough in practice to sweat through his T-shirt, and he appeared to be pain-free during a round of jump shots after practice. He was not made available to speak to reporters.

Beyond providing resistance to the Lakers’ All-Star frontcourt tandem of Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum, he’s also the team’s primary enforcer if there’s another dust-up.

“That’s the only thing that we care about: It’s the first to four who wins the series,” Brooks said. “The subplots, that’s part of NBA basketball. You don’t worry about that. If you focus on that, your attention, your focus is not where it needs to be.

“We understand what happened. It happened. We moved on weeks ago.”

That may not hold true for the sellout crowd expected at Chesapeake Energy Arena.

“That’s not my concern. My concern is playing the game of basketball,” World Peace said on TNT after the Lakers’ Game 7 win.

“Everything else is not really – it’s not important to me.”

Fisher has the unique perspective of having won five NBA titles with the Lakers before they traded him away this season. He bought out his contract with the Houston Rockets and signed with Oklahoma City in late March, and perhaps it was inevitable that he would face his former team now.

He agreed with Kobe Bryant’s sentiment that the series would compare to playing against his brother, although he considered even those to be loaded words.

“Your brother oftentimes was the recipient of some of the hardest blows you ever delivered. I’m sure he’s planning to deliver quite a few, and I’ll be ready to deliver some as well,” Fisher said. “It’s going to be fun to just have to compete against the best. That’s what we want to be.”

Beating the Lakers may be the only way to take all the focus off what happened three weeks ago and put it back on the championship chase.

“Hopefully, he has the same feelings that we all have. It’s a bad play. It should have never happened,” Brooks said. “But we’re focused on playing basketball. It’s not going to be between James and Ron. It’s going to be about us playing good basketball as a team to beat that team.”

PHOENIX COYOTES (3rd seed, West)

REGULAR SEASON RECORD: 42-27-13

2012 PLAYOFFS: Defeated Chicago 4-2 in conference quarterfinals; defeated Nashville 4-1 in conference semifinals

REVIEW: For the first time in franchise history, the Phoenix Coyotes will get a chance to play for a spot in the Stanley Cup Finals.

After disposing of Nashville in five games of a Western Conference semifinal series, the Coyotes, a team that began NHL play as the Winnipeg Jets during the 1979-80 season and moved to Phoenix following the 1995-96 campaign, is in the third round of the playoffs for the first time ever.

While the Coyotes have played strong defensive hockey since head coach Dave Tippett took over the team prior to the 2009-10 seasons, Phoenix has taken its game to another level thanks in large part to the goaltending of Mike Smith.

The Coyotes opted to let previous starting goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov leave the desert last summer, as he signed a nine-year, $51 million contract with Philadelphia. Smith, meanwhile, came at a bargain price when free agency began on July 1, agreeing to a two-year, $2 million deal to join Phoenix.

Smith exceeded all expectations in the 2011-12 regular season, going 38-18-10 with a 2.21 goals-against average, .930 save percentage and eight shutouts. The 30-year-old has performed even better in this postseason, posting a 1,77 GAA and a .948 save percentage through 11 games. All told, Smith has stopped 379-of-400 shots sent his way in the 2012 playoffs and has also recorded a pair of shutouts.

While Smith has clearly been the MVP of Phoenix’s run so far, the Coyotes have used a balanced approach to scoring. The Coyotes have 13 different goal- scorers and nine of those players have recorded two or more markers.

Surprisingly, the player leading the way on offense for the Coyotes this spring has been veteran centerman Antoine Vermette, who was acquired from Columbus with little fanfare at the trade deadline. Vermette entered this postseason with only four goals and four assists in 42 career playoff games, but has exploded for five goals and four helpers in 11 games this postseason.

Mikkel Boedker, Shane Doan, Martin Hanzal Taylor Pyatt each have three goals this postseason and Boedker is second to Vermette on the team with seven points. Coyotes defensemen Keith Yandle and Rostislav Klesla also have seven points apiece in this postseason.

Doan, the only holdover left from Phoenix’s days as the Winnipeg Jets, is the heart and soul of this Phoenix club. The team’s longtime captain had never won a playoff series until this season, and at 35 years of age, Doan is still a superb two-way player.

In addition to Doan, Ray Whitney also provides some offensive punch and a veteran presence up front. Whitney recently turned 40 years of age, but he seems to have plenty left in the tank, having led Phoenix with 77 points and a plus-26 rating during the 2011-12 regular season. He has recorded two goals and four assists this postseason, giving him 52 points (21 goals, 31 assists) over 98 career playoff games.

Daymond Langkow is another steady veteran for the Coyotes. The 35-year-old centerman has yet to score a goal in this postseason, but is tied with Klesla for second on the team with five assists.

Of course, Phoenix will be without its most physical forward for the rest of the playoffs, as Raffi Torres is still serving a 25-game suspension for delivering a vicious check on Chicago’s Marian Hossa in Round 1.

Oliver Ekman-Larsson has been the workhorse for Tippett on the defensive side of things, leading all Phoenix players with an average of 26 minutes, 4 seconds this postseason. The 20-year-old also has one goal and three assists during his first NHL postseason.

Ekman-Larsson is normally paired with Michal Rozsival, who hasn’t recorded a point in these playoffs, but is second only to his defensive partner in ice time. Yandle and Derek Morris form another strong pairing for the Coyotes. Morris has one goal and two assists in 11 games this spring.

Klesla and Adrian Aucoin are a pair of veterans that give Phoenix solid depth at the blue line. Klesla was suspended for Game 5 of the Nashville series, but will be available for the start of the conference finals.

As expected, Phoenix has been excellent on the penalty kill in the playoffs, while struggling a bit to score on the power play. The Coyotes have five goals on 31 attempts with the man advantage for a 16.1-percent success rate, but have only allowed the opposition to score four goals on 38 power-play attempts (89.5 percent).

LOS ANGELES KINGS (8th seed, West)

REGULAR SEASON RECORD: 40-27-15

2012 PLAYOFFS: Defeated Vancouver 4-1 in conference quarterfinals; defeated St. Louis 4-0 in conference semifinals

REVIEW: Although the Kings are the eighth and final playoff seed in the West they only finished two points behind Phoenix for the Pacific Division title this season.

Los Angeles certainly has shown its not your average No. 8 team in this postseason, as the Kings have needed just nine games to eliminate the West’s top-two seeds. L.A. ousted the top-seeded Vancouver Canucks — last year’s conference champions — in five games and then posted its first-ever four-game sweep in the second round against second-seeded St. Louis.

Like the Coyotes, the Darryl Sutter’s Kings also are built around their goaltender, but Los Angeles does boast a more dynamic offense than Phoenix.

After garnering a Vezina Trophy finalist spot for his spectacular regular season, Jonathan Quick has continued to play brilliantly between the pipes in the playoffs. Quick is 8-1 with a 1.55 GAA and .949 save percentage, but he has not been as busy as Smith, stopping 260-of-274 shots along the way.

The Kings have relied on 15 different goal-scorers in these playoffs to get to the conference final round for the first time since Wayne Gretzky led the franchise to the Stanley Cup Finals in 1993.

Captain Dustin Brown not only has been the emotional leader for the Kings, but he’s been the club’s best offensive weapon this postseason as well. Brown is leading the team in goals (6), points (11) and plus-minus (plus-9). He’s also first on the team with two short-handed goals and is tied with Jarret Stoll with two game-winning tallies.

Anze Kopitar is perhaps the best all-around forward and is second to Brown this postseason with 10 points on three goals and seven assists. The Slovenian has also developed into an excellent defensive player and is leading all L.A. forwards in average ice time (21:20) in these playoffs.

Another two-way threat for the Kings is Mike Richards, who was acquired in a blockbuster trade with Philadelphia last summer. The former Flyers captain is one of the NHL’s premier penalty killers and has posted three goals and five assists in his first nine playoff games as a King. Richards has 58 points (19G, 39A) in 72 career postseason games.

Jeff Carter, a longtime teammate of Richards in Philadelphia, has the skills to be a top-notch sniper, but the former 40-goal scorer has posted one goal and three assists in this playoff run. Meanwhile, Dustin Penner has exceeded expectations this spring with seven points on two goals and five assists.

Drew Doughty is the leader of the L.A. defense and is averaging a team-high 25:45 of ice time a game in the playoffs. He is also leading the Kings’ blue line with six points on one goal and five assists and is a plus-seven for the postseason.

Doughty is often paired with steady defenseman Rob Scuderi, who often hangs back to allow his partner to push the puck up ice.

Willie Mitchell and Slava Voynov form a strong second pairing for the Kings, but the duo has combined for only three points in nine playoff contests this season. Mitchell has a goal and an assist and is second to Doughty with a plus-six rating.

With four points on one goal and three assists, Matt Greene follows Doughty in playoff scoring among L.A. defensemen. Alec Martinez has recorded one assist while providing depth along with Greene.

The one and only major weakness L.A. has shown in the playoffs is its inability to produce goals on the power play. The Kings were ranked 16th in PP efficiency during the 2011-12 campaign, but they’ve scored just four times on 47 opportunities (8.5 percent) this postseason.

One reason L.A.’s lack of success on the power play hasn’t hurt the Kings is that they’re an excellent penalty-killing team that has offset its lack of production on the man advantage with four short-handed goals this spring. Los Angeles has also killed off 35-of-38 penalties (92.1 percent) in the 2012 postseason.

MATCHUP

This is the first time the Kings and Coyotes will meet in the postseason, but the Pacific rivals did face each other six times during the 2011-12 campaign.

The Kings and Coyotes split the season series and three of the meetings went past regulation. All told, L.A. outscored Phoenix by a 13-12 margin, but nine of the 25 goals scored over the six battles came when the Coyotes posted a 5-4 shootout victory in the final regular-season clash between the clubs on Feb. 21.

A key player for Phoenix in this series is forward Radim Vrbata, who led the Coyotes with 35 goals during the regular season, but has posted only two goals and two assists in 11 games this postseason. Vrbata was the best player for the Coyotes against L.A. this season, recording five goals and seven points over the six encounters.

Brown and Kopitar each posted five points in the season series against the Coyotes, while Carter has yet to face Phoenix as a member of the Kings.

Smith and Quick compiled nearly identical numbers against each other’s teams this season. The Coyotes netminder was 3-1-1 with a 1.75 GAA in the series, while Quick was 3-1-2 with a 1.78 GAA.

In a series where the goaltenders are expected to be the best players for both teams, goals will be precious in this year’s Western Conference finals.

Both teams have played their best hockey over the last few months, but L.A. has a clear advantage in terms of offensive firepower and that should be the difference in the series.

Oops.

Instead, the Nuggets forced the first Game 7 of these NBA Playoffs with a dominating 113- 96 victory that really wasn’t that close. I’d like to use in my defense that Bryant had a major stomach bug and was vomiting all day, but he still managed to score a team-high 31 points and shoot 57 percent from the field. The problem was that his teammates managed to hit only 37 percent of their shots.

Saturday is the first winner-take-all game for the Nuggets since losing to Utah in Game 7 of the 1994 Western Conference semifinals. Denver can become just the ninth team in NBA playoff history to rally from a 3-1 series deficit. The last was the 2006 Phoenix Suns, who just so happened to do so against the Lakers.

Story lines

Ty Lawson was the story for Denver on Thursday with a career playoff high 32 points on 13- of-18 shooting. Lawson connected on all four of his three-pointers in the first quarter – Lawson had made just two three-pointers in the first five games but was 5-for-6 from long distance on Thursday — as the Nuggets jumped to a 23-8 lead and never trailed. Lawson said that he flew out his personal shooting coach from Las Vegas to Denver on Wednesday night and whatever they did obviously worked.

I did think the Nuggets had a good chance in Game 6 if JaVale McGee had another big game – both of Denver’s previous two wins came when he exploded – but he had just two points to go with five fouls in 20 minutes.

The real story was the disappearance of Lakers big men Andrew Bynum, who hasn’t been the same since saying close out games were “easy”, and Pau Gasol. It almost looked like neither guy cared Thursday as Bynum was 4-for-11 for 11 points and Gasol was ridiculously bad, going 1-for-10 from the field for three points and just three rebounds, his lowest total of the season. (Kobe had more IV bags before the game and at halftime, four, than Gasol had boards). Both Bynum and Gasol were called out by Coach Mike Brown and Kobe, and deservedly so. Reporters asked Kobe if his teammates matched his heart, and he said: “No. Of course they didn’t.”

I can’t believe I am writing this, but it could be that Metta World Peace saves the Lakers’ season. Peace was suspended seven games by the NBA for elbowing Oklahoma City’s James Harden in the penultimate game of the regular season, meaning he can now return for Game 7. You can’t count on much from Peace, but you can count on his intensity and that’s something the Lakers badly need right now.

The former Ron Artest is still a very good defender as well and L.A. also needs that as Denver is looking like the top-scoring team in the league again by totaling 215 points in the past two games. Peace should be able to shut down the likes of Danilo Gallinari and Corey Brewer, as they combined for 30 points from the small forward position on Thursday.

It’s going to be a quick turnaround for whoever wins this game as Game 1 of the Western semifinals begins Monday night at Oklahoma City.

Key trends

Los Angeles opened as a six-point favorite with the total at 196.5 on NBA odds. Denver was 22- 11 ATS on the road this season – 2-1 this series – and 19-13-1 on the ‘over/under’ away from home (2-1 this series). L.A. was 16-17 ATS at home this season and 18-15 O/U.

Denver is 5-1 ATS in its past six games when scoring at least 100 points in their previous game. The Nuggets have covered just six times in their past 20 games after a win. The Lakers are 4-0 ATS in their past four games after a double-digit loss. L.A. is just 3-12 ATS in its past 15 games

as a home favorite. The under is 8-3 in the past 11 meetings at Staples Center. Denver has covered in five of the past eight games in L.A.

Predictions

I have no idea how Bynum will react to being publicly called out – he’s still very immature. But I do expect Gasol to respond. The last time he was in this type of situation he bounced back with 19 points and 18 rebounds as the Lakers beat the Celtics in Game 7 of the 2010 Finals.

Whichever team is ahead after the first quarter is in good shape. In five of six games, the winner of the first quarter has won the game, and the initial period has often been a rout as it was Thursday. I don’t see Denver shooting 50 percent from long range again (10-for-20 in Game 6) as the Nugs were just 20-for-87 (22.9 percent) on three-pointers in the first five games. I also don’t expect Denver to be so turnover-free again. It didn’t commit a turnover in either the first or third quarters of Game 6 and thus was plus-23 in those two periods.

Add all that up, plus Peace’s return and the likely home-court calls from the referees and this is a Laker victory. But six points is too many. So take the Nuggets and the under.

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They will make it two with a win Friday against Memphis, while the Grizzlies can host Game 7 on Sunday with a victory.

The top-seeded San Antonio Spurs, who have been off since sweeping the Utah Jazz on Monday, await the winner.

Betting story lines

Memphis stayed alive by dominating the Clippers in the post in Wednesday’s 92-80 victory, the most lopsided result of what has been an extremely close series. Actually the Grizz should already be in the conference semifinals as they have outscored the Clippers overall. Memphis’ two wins have come rather convincingly (the other by seven) and their three losses have come by a combined four points, with one in overtime.

Grizzlies big men Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph were the difference in Game 5. Through the first four games of the series, Gasol and Randolph combined to average just 22.8 points, but on Wednesday they totaled 42 points on 56 percent shooting from the field. Gasol, mostly a non-factor in L.A.’s past two wins, scored 12 points in the first quarter and Randolph hit his first six shots in scoring 15 points while grabbing five rebounds as Memphis led 36-22 at the end of the first quarter (while shooting 71 percent). The Grizzlies led 57-42 at halftime, eventually by as many as 24, and the result never was really in doubt. Overall the Grizzlies outscored Los Angeles 48-26 in the paint and had a 42-35 edge in rebounds.

Clips point guard Chris Paul has been by far the best player in this series, but he was fairly well controlled in Game 5. Paul finished with 19 points, six rebounds, four assists and four steals but had just five points and one assist in the first half — he jammed the middle finger on his shooting

hand in the first quarter. The Grizzlies chose to mix up defenders rather than double-team Paul.

The big news heading into Game 6 is the health of Paul and Blake Griffin, who had 15 points and 11 boards in Game 5. Paul strained his right hip flexor in the game and Griffin injured his left knee. Both Griffin and Paul missed some time in the fourth quarter but returned to the game – however, they both looked visibly uncomfortable. Paul, who in the fourth quarter clearly was hobbling and holding his midsection, said after Game 5 he would play in Game 6. He missed six games during the regular season and the Clippers were 3-3 in his absence. An injured groin kept him out of the Clippers’ regular season finale, a loss to New York that cost L.A. the No. 4 seed over Memphis (and won’t that be huge if there’s a Game 7).

Griffin’s injury looked worse; it happened when he drove the lane on Gasol in the third quarter, drawing a foul before landing awkwardly on his left leg, which flexed backwards. The Clippers called the injury a hyperflexed knee before diagnosing it as a sprain. Griffin was to have an MRI on the knee Thursday in Los Angeles. It should be noted that it was a left knee injury that forced Griffin to miss what would have been his rookie season. He played in every regular season game last season and this season (153 straight, including playoffs). Griffin said the knee stiffened up on the court after he returned Wednesday, but the pain felt different than the left patella fracture that kept him out for his rookie year.

Key trends

The Clippers opened as 2.5-point favorites with the total at 182.5 on NBA odds. L.A. was 17- 16 ATS at home this season (1-1 this series) and 14-18-1 on the ‘over/under’ (1-1 this series). Memphis was 13-20 ATS on the road this season and 10-23 on the O/U.

Memphis is 1-5 ATS in its past six road games and 1-5 ATS in its past six games after a win. The under is 9-2 in the Grizzlies’ past 11 road games. The Clippers are 7-3 ATS in their past 10 games following an ATS loss. But overall the Clippers have covered just two of their past nine games. The home team (and favorite) is 5-2-1 ATS in the past eight meetings in this series.

Predictions

The Clippers already are saying Friday is their Game 7, so if they lose it you almost have to expect a Memphis win back home Sunday. In the second half of their home playoff games in this series, the Grizzlies have been up by as many as 27 points in Game 1, 13 points in Game 2 and 24 points in Game 5.

The good news for L.A. is that Memphis was 0-2 in the regular season against the Clippers at Staples Center and also lost Games 3 and 4 of this series there. But the Grizzlies are experienced in must-win games thanks to last year’s solid postseason run, while the vast majority of the Clippers aren’t. Paul has only won a single playoff series in his career and obviously this is the first postseason for Griffin.

I am writing this before Griffin’s MRI has come back, but I like Memphis to cover if not win regardless – for sure to win if Griffin sits Friday. Also take the under.

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The Denver Nuggets have crept back into their series with the Los Angeles Lakers by outrunning and outgunning their older opponents.

The Nuggets will try to run them ragged again Thursday night in Game 6 back in Denver, where the mile-high altitude can be a big fatigue factor for a team long in the tooth like the star-studded Lakers.

It worked great at sea level Tuesday night with elder statesman Andre Miller feeding raw 7-foot center JaVale McGee, whose athleticism and mind-boggling array of dunks made L.A.’s two 7-footers look like they were moving in slow motion.

And Denver coach George Karl is counting on the altitude helping the Nuggets contain Kobe Bryant, Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol to force a Game 7 back in Los Angeles. He said there’s wear and tear at 5,280 feet even if visitors downplay it or even deny it.

“My hope, I don’t know if this is true or not, is that fatigue will come our way,” Karl said. “The running of the game, the tempo of the game, and the pace, the way we play. They’re getting tired of hearing it, and you’re probably tired of hearing it, but our only chance to beat them is run them and play with tremendous energy and intensity. Maybe somewhere along the way, we’ll make some 3s.”

The Nuggets avoided elimination with a 102-99 win in Game 5 thanks to McGee, who had 21 points and 14 rebounds, and Miller, who scored 24 points and dished out eight assists before making his biggest contribution: guarding Bryant on the Lakers’ final, futile possession.

McGee repeatedly sped past the slower Lakers for breakaway buckets, and even when he wasn’t beating them to the hoop, he was muscling his way around the paint for his usual repertoire of jaw-dropping baskets, then sprinting back downcourt to help rookie sparkplug Kenneth Faried put a big roadblock in the Lakers’ path.

“JaVale’s a huge target and he’s athletic,” Arron Afflalo said. “As we all know, Andre likes to throw those high-lob passes and backdoor passes. It makes for a good combination.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever coached a guy like this,” Karl said. “He has the moves of a 6-6 player. The guy reminds me a little bit of Connie Hawkins with his long, unfolding one-handed stuff. But he has a long way to go to become Connie Hawkins.”

He’s off to a good start in making a name for himself with his underrated post game, undoubtedly boosting his value in free agency this summer.

“Usually, I’m nowhere near the playoffs,” said McGee, who spent his first 3 1/2 seasons with the Washington Wizards before coming to Denver in the Nene deadline deal. “My last game of the year is usually at the end of the regular season in April.”

May suits him very well, as does Denver’s up-tempo style.

“He attacked off the glass,” Bynum said. “That is what was causing me problems, personally. Other than that, he gets balls in transition. We’ve got to get back.”

Gasol said the Lakers were frustrated because “we didn’t bring the energy that was required to put this team away, and they did. They played more desperate than we did and with more energy.”

So, instead of preparing to face the Oklahoma City Thunder in the conference semifinals, the Lakers have to make another trip to Denver to try to put away these speedy, scrappy Nuggets.

Fueling the Nuggets’ jetpacks Tuesday night was Bynum’s comment about how closeout playoff games can sometimes be easy. He made no such declarations heading into this next elimination game.

“We need some more things to put on the bulletin board,” Ty Lawson said. “That definitely helped us out. We’ll probably just put that up again and pretend we never heard it before.”

Neither team practiced Wednesday. The Nuggets stayed overnight in Southern California rather than hopping a red-eye home.

“We didn’t want to take that trip where you went to bed at 4 o’clock in the morning and you wake up and feel awful for a day,” Karl said.

Karl also wanted his players to get over their happiness rather quickly and start focusing on Game 6, something the Lakers and their fans weren’t expecting.

“I’ve been in this position before,” Bryant said. “I know a lot of guys on the team haven’t been in this position before, so it’s important to remind them, `Yeah, this (stinks), but it’s not the end of the world.”‘

So, the Nuggets have momentum on their side and they’ve got the deeper roster with fresher, younger legs. The Lakers have experience and talent, rings and All-Star resumes.

Who will feel the heat?

“I think the pressure’s on them now,” Lawson suggested.

Not so fast, suggested Karl.

“We’ve got to beat a championship-caliber team with three All-Stars. Our pressure is the same,” Karl said. “The momentum of the series and the pendulum is kind of tilted to us a little bit, but I always believe … the team that’s down 3-2 is the one that still feels the pressure.”

He’s just hoping it’s the Lakers who are breathing hard again Thursday night.

If the numbers are to be believed, then the New York Knicks’ season is about to end. Of the other 101 teams to lose the first three games in a best-of-seven NBA series, none ultimately prevailed and only 10 managed to stave off elimination twice.

That doesn’t mean the Miami Heat are leaving anything to chance.

For the past two days, the Heat have stewed over and stared at the tape of what went wrong at Madison Square Garden on Sunday, when a litany of things – 11 missed free throws, 16 missed 3-pointers, two blown double-digit leads, giving up a 19-2 run in the third quarter and having all that capped by a botched play at the end of regulation – added up to an 89-87 loss that extended the Knicks’ season.

When the teams’ Eastern Conference first-round series resumes Wednesday night, the Heat expect to be sharper.

“You carry it with you 24 hours, you go over what needs to be done, you correct it and you get rid of it,” Heat forward LeBron James said. “That’s not saying that you don’t care about it but you’ve got to move on to the next game. You can’t let it linger too much and carry that game into Game 5. So Game 4 for us is over. We’re preparing for Game 5 now.”

Miami leads the best-of-seven 3-1, and needs only a home win Wednesday for a ticket to the East semifinals.

According to STATS LLC, seven teams rallied from down 3-0 in a series before losing in six games, and other three extended things all the way to Game 7 before succumbing.

“That’s the exciting part for me,” said Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony, who carried New York with 41 points – the most from anyone yet in this postseason – in Game 4. “I mean, history is definitely not on our side right now. But we believe and we’re confident that we want to go down there and win this basketball game and bring it back here. We get this one, who knows what can happen.”

Of course, not only are the Knicks dealing with long odds, they’re doing so with a short bench.

Iman Shumpert tore a knee ligament in Game 1, and Baron Davis left Game 4 with a catastrophic knee injury – dislocated kneecap, two torn ligaments and a torn tendon. Shumpert won’t play for months, Davis is out at least a year, and the Knicks ended speculation Tuesday by saying Jeremy Lin’s recovery from knee surgery will not allow him to play in the rest of the series against Miami regardless of how long it goes.

“If he’s not ready to go based on how he’s feeling, we’ve got to respect that and move on,” Knicks interim coach Mike Woodson said.

Amare Stoudemire returned for Game 4 after slicing open his left hand by striking a metal-and-glass case holding a fire extinguisher moments after the Knicks dropped the second game of the series.

At the time, the odds of him and the Knicks playing again in Miami didn’t look good. But here they are, and Stoudemire spent part of Tuesday saying how his team has a chance “to do something special.”

“I just don’t want to look at that fire extinguisher at all,” Stoudemire said. “But getting a win in Miami would be huge for us.”

The Knicks know exactly what to expect from the Heat. The Heat can’t say the same about the Knicks, given how the absence of Shumpert and now Davis will lead to probably some unconventional lineup choices by Woodson at times.

“They’ll bring something different so we’ve got to be prepared, in a sense like it’s a regular-season game,” Heat guard Dwyane Wade said. “It’ll be a little tougher. Five games in, everyone pretty much knows each other’s offensive package a little bit. You can throw a couple wrinkles in but you kind of get to the point now where you start to know what guys are going to do.”

So it’ll likely be Mike Bibby starting at the point for the Knicks in Game 5, which happened only four times in the regular season. Bibby was 6-for-40 – 15 percent – from the field in fourth quarters this season, including playoffs, before hitting a 3-pointer that gave New York an 84-81 lead with 1:23 left Sunday.

If Davis hadn’t gotten hurt, Bibby might never have gotten the chance to make that shot, especially if Woodson had gone with his instinct to have J.R. Smith at the point down the stretch.

“Then I never would have seen the big shot that Bibby hit, if I had done that,” Woodson said.

That shot was almost forgotten when Sunday’s game ended, first because of a shot-clock-winding-down 3-pointer by Anthony over Shane Battier with 54 seconds left to play that gave New York the lead, and then how Wade lost the ball briefly before missing a 3 of his own on the final play of the game.

“Without getting too descriptive on what we were looking for, at the end of the day we had an open lane on that drive,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “We’ve seen Dwyane make those plays time and time again over the years. We’ll live with that. In the paint he lost the dribble, but it was a pretty good opportunity to attack the rim. But it became a broken play and we know what happened from there.”

The Washington Nationals were all set to welcome back their star third baseman after a 13-game hiatus, hopefully getting a jolt to their inconsistent offense.

Now with another key piece of their lineup going down, Ryan Zimmerman’s return has become all the more necessary.

Zimmerman is expected to play two days after Jayson Werth suffered a broken wrist when Washington visits the Pittsburgh Pirates in the opener of a three-game set Tuesday night.

The Nationals (18-10) have gone 7-6 with Zimmerman sidelined because of right shoulder inflammation, batting .228 in the games he missed as opposed to .246 with him in the lineup.

Zimmerman took batting practice before a 9-3 loss to Philadelphia on Sunday that ended a four-game winning streak and said he felt good to play Tuesday.

In the sixth inning, though, Werth broke his left wrist attempting to make a sliding catch. He’s expected to miss significant time, just as manager Davey Johnson was ready to have Werth, Zimmerman and former Pirate Adam LaRoche in the lineup together again.

LaRoche, who has a team-best 17 RBIs and has missed the last four games with a bruised right oblique, also hopes to play Tuesday.

“All of a sudden we seem to be getting a little more healthy and then boom, another one of our main guys goes down,” Johnson said. “We’ve dealt with it before, we’ll deal with it again.”

Zimmerman went 0 for 3 in a win over Miami in his last game April 20, but hit .375 with a homer and five RBIs in the five previous contests.

“We’re a resilient team,” Zimmerman said. “Anytime anyone gets hurt it’s tough, but it’s part of the deal. It’s a long season and we’re going to have to go through adversity. This team has the talent and the capability to do that.”

Werth had been hitting behind star rookie Bryce Harper, who went 2 for 3 with a double Sunday and stole home after the Phillies’ Cole Hamels intentionally hit him with a pitch. Harper has batted .308 in his eight games.

Zimmerman has gone 1 for 13 in his last four against the Pirates (12-16), who fell 5-0 to Cincinnati on Sunday and scored four runs while dropping two of three in the series.

“You can’t get hot in one day,” manager Clint Hurdle said. “I saw some big swings up there. … We start swinging big, we’re working to the other team’s advantage.”

A.J. Burnett (1-2, 8.04 ERA) will attempt to shut down the Nationals, though he’s coming off one of the worst outings of his career.

Burnett allowed 12 runs and 12 hits in 2 2-3 innings of a 12-3 loss to St. Louis on Wednesday, with his ERA ballooning from the 1.38 mark he entered with.

The right-hander hasn’t faced Washington since June 27, 2006, when he threw a six-hitter in a 6-0 win while pitching for Toronto. Burnett is 3-0 with a 1.98 ERA in his last five starts against the Nationals.

He’ll be opposed by Edwin Jackson (1-1, 3.69), who allowed four runs in six innings and didn’t get a decision in a 5-4 win over Arizona on Wednesday.

The right-hander has gone 4-0 with a 3.13 ERA in five starts against Pittsburgh.

With or without Rostislav Klesla, the Phoenix Coyotes have the Nashville Predators backed into a corner in their Western Conference semifinal series.

The upstart Coyotes are up 3-1 in their best-of-seven series and can advance to a conference finals matchup with Los Angeles with a victory over the Predators on Monday night. The Kings completed a four-game sweep of St. Louis on Sunday.

But the Coyotes are mixing confidence with caution. They had a chance to close out their first-round series against the Chicago Blackhawks at home but lost in overtime in Game 5. Phoenix went on to a dominating 4-0 triumph on the road in Game 6.

“We’re aware it’s not going to come easy,” said Phoenix center Antoine Vermette, who played in the Stanley Cup finals for Ottawa in 2007. “We’ve been there just a couple of weeks ago. They’re going to play desperate. That’s what we saw with Chicago. You’ve got to come hard. They’re not going to give it to you.

Klesla had a hearing with NHL officials Sunday regarding his Game 3 hit on Matt Halischuk. There was no word of what punishment, if any, he faced.

“I’m planning to have him in,” coach Dave Tippett said after the Coyotes practiced Sunday. “We’ll deal with that when it comes down. We haven’t made contingency plans yet. Obviously, we have people available to play, but from looking at it I have a hard time thinking it will be a suspension.”

Speaking after practice and before the hearing, Klesla declined to get into the specifics of his case. Video replays showed that he appeared to grab Halischuk’s jersey before slamming him into the boards. Klesla received only a minor penalty for boarding.

“We’ll see what’s going to happen,”‘ he said. “I’m going to talk to them and explain what I saw and go from there. I’m preparing to play.”

The Predators went through an intense one-hour practice in Nashville on Sunday before flying to Arizona.

“There’s nowhere to hide. It is what it is,” Nashville coach Barry Trotz said. “I think during the series we’ve played well but not well enough to be up 3-1. We haven’t buried our chances when we’ve had lots of chances. We put ourselves in this position, and we’ve got to dig ourselves out.”

After a two-game absence, forwards Alexander Radulov and Andrei Kostitsyn are expected to be back for Game 5. They were suspended for Game 3 for violating team rules, then were scratched from Game 4 because Trotz didn’t want to mess with a lineup that played so well in Nashville’s 2-0 Game 3 victory.

The players’ offense was sorely missed in Nashville’s critical 1-0 home loss Friday night in Game 4. It was the second shutout of the playoffs for Phoenix goalie Mike Smith.

“We’re getting opportunities and just not burying them sometimes,” Predators forward Mike Fisher said. “We need guys to step up and get the job done and that’s the trick we’re going to need. Just have a solid game.”

Teams have come back from 3-1 deficits in the playoffs, just not very often.

“I feel everybody knows if you take this game it’s a new series,” Nashville goalie Pekka Renne said. “We have a chance to come back after that and obviously don’t want to go too far ahead. That’s just the situation we’re in.

“You have to stick with your teammates, stay close to each other and believe in that foundation we’ve been kind of leaning toward the whole season. I think that’s our backbone and we have a pretty resilient team.”

Game 3 featured a number of pileups in front of the Phoenix net, with the Predators slamming into Smith. In one case, the puck crossed the line but the goal was waved off by the referee behind the net, saying the whistle had blown. The call was upheld after a video review,

It’s a tactic that’s worn thin on Coyotes center and team captain Shane Doan.

“It’s something we’d like to stop,” he said. “I mean, you notice that they do it every single time. It’s something that Smitty’s good at battling through but we’ve got to stop it.”

So how do you stop it?

“You’d hope the refs will see it,” Doan said. “It’s usually (Patric) Hornqvist that’s kind of doing it, trying to throw shots at Smitty all the time. You hope that from game to game it’s able to be seen. But at the same time we’ve got to do it more to theirs (Renne). If it’s going to not be called, you have to do it to theirs.”

The Atlanta Hawks seemed to have found the answer to their injury woes: a rejuvenated Tracy McGrady, who was putting together a playoff game reminiscent of his youth.

But then McGrady rolled his right ankle, crumpled to the ground and limped off the court. Although he returned in the second half, he did not make another basket and the Celtics held on to beat the depleted Hawks 90-84 in overtime Friday night to take a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series.

“Tracy played well for us prior to him turning his ankle,” Hawks coach Larry Drew said. “We’ve been a team that has had adversity throughout the season, like everybody else, and it says a lot about your team when they can step up in the playoffs short-handed and still put themselves in a position to win the game. We certainly had our opportunity. We just fell short.”

The Hawks were already without top centers Al Horford and Zaza Pachulia when forward Josh Smith went out late in Game 2 with a strained tendon in his left knee. Still, Atlanta seemed to cobble together an effective lineup, employing such little-used reserves as Erick Dampier and Jason Collins while giving more minutes to McGrady.

“I knew I would have to get some production from other players,” Drew said. “I thought Erick Dampier came in and gave us some big minutes. He’s a guy that hasn’t been playing much at all for us. This is just a situation that I really needed another big body and he came in and gave us some really good minutes.”

McGrady is a seven-time All-Star and two-time NBA scoring champion who averaged more than 20 points in eight straight seasons before injuries curtailed his production. He managed just 65 games total over two seasons before bouncing back with 72 last year and then 52 – all of them off the bench – in this lockout-shortened, 66-game season.

Before the series-opener against Boston, he hadn’t appeared in the playoffs since 2008, scoring 40 for Houston in a first-round series against Utah. But he had 10 points and four rebounds in the second quarter alone before going up for a 3-pointer and coming down on Rajon Rondo’s heel late in the half.

McGrady went to the floor, tried to get up then fell back down. He was helped off the court, but he returned for the second-half warmups and re-entered the game soon after.

“It’s sore,” he said after the game. “Rondo was closing out on me, he just happened to come right up under me and I landed on his foot. It was a little extended, but I’m going to get some treatment and I will be ready to go for Sunday.”

McGrady had not played more than 30 minutes all season, but even with the injury he totaled 40:46, including overtime. He was 0-for-5 shooting in the second half and overtime, making just a pair of foul shots.

“He was playing big in that first half until he got hurt,” Hawks forward Joe Johnson said. “In the second half, he just gutted out, he gave us what he had and that’s all you can ask from him.”

As the Hawks seem to be losing more and more players, the Celtics are getting theirs back.

Rondo came back after serving a one-game suspension for bumping a referee and had his seventh career playoff triple-double with 17 points, 14 rebounds and 12 assists. And Ray Allen returned for Game 3 on Friday night, his first appearance since April 10.

“Being back on the floor I felt alive,” Allen said. “I felt like I was back in my own skin and it was a great feeling.”

Allen received a standing ovation when he checked into the game in the first quarter, and he quickly made a short jumper. He finished with 13 points in 38 minutes, picking up more playing time after Avery Bradley injured his shoulder in the third quarter.

“Just having him out there really picked us up because we haven’t seen Ray in a jersey in so long,” Celtics forward Paul Pierce said. “Just having him out there, you heard the reaction from the crowd when he checked into the game. Stuff like that brings so much energy to the ball club, to have a guy that’s so vital come out there and give us a big lift. It’s huge having him out there, especially tonight with Avery going down.”

Celtics coach Doc Rivers said Bradley has had the problem all year, but usually they are able to snap it back into place. Rivers gave his team the day off Saturday, even though it was their only chance to practice for Game 4 on Sunday night.

“They’re exhausted. … That’s unusual for us in the playoffs to take a day off, but they need one,” he said. “I was really worried going in the overtime, just looking at Paul, Kevin, and Rondo. They didn’t look that fresh. And honestly I looked at the other team; they looked pretty bad, too. So that made me feel a little bit better.”