Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports broke the news today on Twitter that talks started back up between both NBA franchises, and Los Angeles is mainly doing it to increase their chances of having Paul stay during 2013 NBA Free Agency.

Sources say the new deal has the Celtics sending Garnett, Rivers, shooting guard Courtney Lee (or Jason Terry) to the Clippers in exchange for center DeAndre Jordan, the expiring contract of forward Caron Butler and first-round draft picks. Los Angeles plans to move forward without dealing Eric Bledsoe.

Another hole that was thought out to be in this trade was Doc Rivers himself. As Stephen A. Smith of ESPN has noted numerous times on TV today, Clippers owner Donald Sterling is not the type of guy who pays his coaches a ton of money. He’s a cheap man when it comes to those things. Rivers likely will be demanding $7 million or more in salary, and it looks like Sterling is willing to budge now if it means keeping CP3.

I’m expecting a deal to get done pretty quickly between both sides. Los Angeles looks to do whatever they can from preventing Paul to be in another NBA team’s jersey come July.

The Heat were able to keep their composure during the final 2o seconds of Game 6. When everyone gave up, Miami kept themselves in the moment and were able to take home a miracle victory. Bosh doesn’t want those fans ruining the moment again.

“For all those guys who left, make sure you don’t come to Game 7,” he said, via ESPN. “We only want the guys who are going to stay in the building for the whole game. You never give up. People gave up on us. They can stay where they are and watch the game at home.”

Heat players, including head coach Erik Spoelstra, said they saw the footage of the fans trying to get back into the game when they heard that Miami came back. LeBron James admitted he felt a little bad for them.

“I apologize to our fans from last night. But — that’s why the game is played all the way to the zeros. As a fan, and people watching at home, I know it had to — wow — it had to do a lot to them.”

Miami plays the San Antonio Spurs for the decisive Game 7 tomorrow night, as they look to repeat as NBA champions.

According to the Washington Post, Woods will not play but plans to attend the event, which is ran under and supported by his foundation. It will be the third time in the last six years that Woods will not be able to play.

“I have been advised to take a few weeks off, rest and undergo treatment,” Woods said in a statement. “I’ll be ready to go for the British Open, and I’m looking forward to playing at Muirfield” in Scotland, where the next major will be contested in July.

“I would like to extend my regrets to AT&T, our sponsors and the fans in the Washington, D.C., area. The AT&T National means a lot to me and my foundation. It’s especially difficult not defending at my own tournament. It’s going to be a great event, and I look forward to being there to provide my support.”

Justin Rose, who won the US Open, and Masters winner Adam Scott will be appearing in this year’s match. However, it’s still a big blow to see Woods not participate again.

“Any time you have Tiger in the field, it certainly adds to it a lot,” tournament director Greg McLaughlin said. “But we have a very nice field this year and we look forward to a great AT&T National.”

Ginobili played a big role in the San Antonio Spurs’ Game 6 choke job to the Miami Heat, which included eight turnovers on 2-of-5 shooting. Ginobili had one last chance to redeem himself on in overtime on a drive, but failed to deliver.

So far, the 35-year-old has only has had one good game in this series, and that was his 24-point outburst in Game 5 to help lead the Spurs to victory. Other than that, he’s been a non-factor, and that makes it understandable why he’s basically in for his final NBA season.

Ginobili has one last chance to bounce back, and put it in simpler terms that there will be no excuses because there’s no such thing as a Game 8.

“I had a very good game last game, and I just couldn’t maintain it,” he said, via USA TODAY Sports. “I had a career-high in turnovers in a really bad moment. It really makes me feel terrible. … We were a few seconds away from winning the championship, and we let it go.

“I have no clue how we’re going to be re-energized. I’m devastated. But we have to. There’s no Game 8 afterward. We’re going to have to play our best game, even better than today. Shoot better, better defense, less turnovers in my case, but yeah, there’s no secret recipe for bouncing back.”

So far, Ginobili has only been averaging 10.5 points on 42-percent shooting (22-percent from behind-the-arc, 4.2 assists, two rebounds and three turnovers per game. This is his last chance to redeem himself. It’s his last chance at winning another NBA championship.

Will he step up?

The Los Angeles Clippers have gone back into trade talks with the Boston Celtics to entice Paul to stay, but the team looks like they’re still in play to get Howard if they want to do a Blake Griffin type of deal. However, according to the Black Mamba, Howard will stay with the purple-and-gold while Paul stays with the Clippers.

“There’s always so much talk going on, especially with big-name guys going here, going there, but that happens once in a blue moon,” the Lakers star said, via ESPN Los Angeles. “I think at the end of the day, everybody stays.”

Both players are going to unrestricted free agents, and there have been rumors of them teaming up elsewhere on teams such as the Atlanta Hawks, Dallas Mavericks and Houston Rockets. However, Bryant is looking to do whatever he can to keep Superman on his team, as he plans to pitch to him when July approaches closer by.

“I spoke to him maybe a couple weeks ago, just to check in with him, see what he was doing, see what he was up to, see how his summer was going. But I haven’t spoken to him since. I know he’s got a big decision to make and I’m sure he’ll take the visits and talk to the players from the teams that he’s considering. We’ll touch base a lot more.”

The Lakers barely made the playoffs with a starting lineup that had Steve Nash, Bryant, Metta World Peace, Pau Gasol and Howard. However, the team was able to get things going towards the end of the season, with a strong chemistry building. However, with Bryant’s season coming to an end with his torn Achilles, we never really had a chance to see how this Los Angeles squad could have performed in the postseason.

According to ESPN, as many as five teams could be wearing the new short-sleeve jerseys as alternates for around as many as 12 games during the 2013-14 season. The Warriors introduced the new look this season, as the short-sleeve jerseys appeared in three games.

“We are interested in doing more short-sleeve jerseys when it makes sense,” said Patrik Nilsson, president of adidas North America.

Adidas is the official sponsor of the NBA, and according to ESPN, they pay roughly $35 million a year to fund apparel to the league.

Personally, I’m not a big fan of these uniforms, but maybe it was just the Warriors. We’ll see what the other teams will look like in these.

Banks beat Mitchell by a second-round stoppage in their first meeting back in November. Banks will enter the ring with a solid record of 29-1-1 with 19 KOs while Mitchell’s mark is almost identical at 25-1-1 with 19 KOs.

Mitchell, a former college football player, has all of the tools, including good size and power, but apparently his weak spot is his chin. Well, at least that was seen in was in the first meeting with Banks. This is Mitchell’s chance to redeem himself and show he was caught cold in November, but it’s also possible he could suffer the same fate.

Mitchell, who hails from Brandywine Maryland, isn’t exactly a young man anymore at 31 years of age so this is an important bout for somebody who was recently considered to be one of America’s top heavyweight hopes. He’s stronger and bigger than Banks, but it didn’t help him in the first fight even though he had a 24-pound weight advantage over him. Mitchell turned pro in 2008 with his biggest wins being against Chazz Witherspoon, Timur Ibragimov and Taurus Sykes.

Banks is from Detroit and fights out of the Kronk Gym. He’s actually a year younger than Mitchell. He was a three-time champion as a national amateur and has been a little underrated as a pro. He’s got a lot of skill and smarts inside the ring and showed in the first fight that he’s got pretty good power and can overcome certain physical disadvantages. He’s got an inch height on Mitchell, though, at 6-3 to 6-2. Their reach is about the same at 76 inches.

Banks turned pro back in 2004. He’s also been promoted to head trainer for heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko after the death of his former trainer Emanuel Steward near the end of October. Steward was also Banks’ trainer.

Banks started out as a cruiserweight and moved to the heavyweight division a few years ago after Tomasz Adamek stopped him in the eighth round in an IBF cruiserweight title bout in 2009. Adamek has been his toughest opponent to date, and he’s also fought a few other decent boxers such as Saul Montana and Travis Walker. However, other than that, most of his opponents have been journeymen.

Look for Mitchell to be more cautious this time around. He respects Banks’ power and skills and the first fight’s going to play on his mind. He’s going to have to make sure he gets a couple of rounds under his legs to gain some confidence. However, Banks may just go out and try to take him out early. If it worked for him the first time, he might try it again. If he gets caught, the worst that happens is a loss and a third bout between the two.

There are a lot of possibilities here, but look for Banks to stop him again for a second straight win over Mitchell.

The 31-year-old veteran Wlodarczyk has an impressive record of 47-2-1 with 33 KOs while Chakhkiev is undefeated in his young career so far at 16-0 with 12 KOs to his name.

Wlodarczyk is on a pretty good roll at the moment, as he hasn’t lost since May 2007. His last defeat came at the hands of American Steve Cunningham by the way of majority decision. Wlodarczyk likes to keep his guard up pretty high and takes all incoming shots quite well with a solid chin. He stands 6-1 and has pretty good power of his own.

Chakhkiev is now 30 years old and he won a gold medal for his home land at the 2008 Summer Olympics. He’s a strong southpaw who is 6-feet tall and turned pro back in 2009. He’s got good power, fast hands and moves his head out of danger pretty well. He’s relatively inexperienced as a pro, but his amateur background more than makes up for it.

Wlodarczyk can be outboxed, and we’ve seen examples of this against Francisco Palacios and Danny Green. He also lets himself get outworked on occasion, but he still rarely loses a fight. He proved against Green and Palacios that he’s never out of a fight, no matter how badly hurt he seems to be. Wlodarczyk is able to dig down deep if he’s behind on the scorecards or hurt.

The best way to rectify this dangerous situation, though, is to make sure he puts in a consistent effort right from the opening bell and not take any rounds off. Chakhkiev has a lot of skill and if he’s allowed to dictate the pace of the bout the champion will find himself in trouble once again. If he does get behind the eight ball, Wlodarczyk may find it to be too big of a hill to climb to come back against his Russian challenger.

Chakhkiev is a little younger, faster and powerful. He’s also a more skilled boxer then Wlodarczyk. Still, this is going to be a tough bout to win. The challenger will need to land harder and faster combinations and more of them. He may try to use his superior boxing skills rather than get into some sort of slugfest. This means he’ll try to keep Wlodarczyk unsettled and off balance as much as he can be moving in, landing punches, and then moving out of range.

Since Wlodarczyk can take a good punch this fight should go the distance, but there’s a good chance there’s going to be a new champion at the end of 12 rounds.

For the latest odds on this and other bouts please visit http://sports.visitorium.com/bet365/

After looking like the 2011 Finals version of LeBron James for three quarters, the real LeBron finally showed up in the fourth quarter, scoring 18 of his game-high 32 points in the final quarter as the Miami Heat avoided elimination and forced a Game 7 with the Spurs on Thursday night.

It was an amazing game all the way around, and according to James, it’s the best game he’s ever been a part of.

“It was by far the best game I’ve ever been a part of,” James said, via USA TODAY Sports. “The ups and downs, the roller coaster, the emotions, good and bad throughout the whole game. To be a part of something like this is something you would never be able to recreate once you’re done playing the game. And I’m blessed to be a part of something like this.

“And I’m happy about the way we dug down and was able to get a win. It didn’t look like we could muster up at some point in the game.”

Karen Anderson of WBZ-TV in Boston is reporting that Hernandez has not been ruled out as a suspect in the murder investigation.

One of Hernandez’s associates was found roughly a mile from his North Attleboro home. Anderson also reports that Hernandez currently is not cooperating with authorities.

State police detectives returned to Hernandez’s home Wednesday morning. They knocked on the door and no one answered. After making a brief phone call, they left without talking to reporters.

WBZ-TV also reports that the victim is Odin Lloyd, 27, of Dorchester. Odin played semi-pro football with the Boston Bandits.

His body was found by a jogger, who told WBZ-TV that “when police arrived, they said it appeared Odin had been shot somewhere else and dumped in the industrial park roughly a mile from Hernandez’s home.”