Phelps cruises to 2 finals in return to pool

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP)—Michael Phelps is back.
The Olympic champion easily qualified for the finals of two events Friday morning at the Charlotte Ultraswim, his first meet since winning eight gold medals in Beijing.
Phelps touched second in the last heat of the 200-meter freestyle at 1 minute, 50.46 seconds, and came back about an hour later to win the final heat of the 100 butterfly in 53.41. In both events, he had the third-fastest time overall, advancing to the evening “A” finals.
This is the first meet for which Phelps was eligible since completing a three-month suspension. He was disciplined by USA Swimming after he was photographed using a marijuana pipe.

West finals give Nuggets reason to shout

DENVER – David Stern’s worst nightmare let the love wash over it on Wednesday night, arms raised, noise crashing down, the raucous and rolling Denver Nuggets rushing into the Western Conference finals. Carmelo Anthony(notes) and Kenyon Martin(notes) and J.R. Smith(notes) traded knowing nods and I-told-you-so laughs. Suddenly, those bad tatts and bad reputations are serious and sobering threats to the commissioner’s television-driven desire of a Kobe-LeBron NBA Finals.
The Los Angeles Lakers are increasingly wobbly, and those chants of “Beat L.A. … Beat L.A.” in the final moments of Game 5 aren’t such a far-fetched idea. It is improbable, yes, but the days and nights of waiting for the Nuggets to implode are over. They’re explosive and hardened and dangerous. They’re the hot NCAA tournament team on a March roll, flexing and preening, feeling like it can do anything.
“They’re a legitimate championship-caliber team,” Dallas coach Rick Carlisle said. “They’ve got a great shot, a real opportunity.”
Mostly, they’ve grown up. Chauncey Billups(notes) walked into the gymnasium and changed everything here. He had a genius 28 points and 12 assists in the 124-110 victory to eliminate the Dallas Mavericks, and now, remarkably, takes his seventh straight team to a conference final.
“Storybook,” Billups said. He has come home to Denver, and restored character and credibility to this uneven franchise.

As much as anything, Denver has Dallas owner Mark Cuban to thank for much of the prism with which the public will judge these Nuggets now. He had to go and use that tired code word that comes with rugged, black basketball players in America: thug.
Martin is a nightmare on the floor, but he’s no thug. Smith can be a clown, but he’s no thug. Anthony has a history, too, but he’s grown up a lot.
Thugs? Listen, they seldom make it to the NBA. When they do, they don’t have staying power. Cuban has long railed against the stereotypes and labels thrust onto NBA players, and he went a long way toward perpetuating them with that sophomoric snap at K-Mart’s mother, Lydia Moore. It’s strange: In hockey, they don’t use that word with physical players. When they have tattoos, it seems, everything changes.
In the end, it fed the public’s worst sensibilities about judging these Nuggets. Stern should be ashamed of himself. He can’t have an owner talking that way. He created a climate in Game 4 in Dallas that was needless and despicable, a free-for-all on the Nuggets and their families on Monday.
Cuban did everyone a favor running off to Vegas to pick up an award for Game 5 because his presence at the Pepsi Center would’ve brought out the worst in everyone. This way, the Nuggets could spend this night celebrating a return to the conference finals for the first time since 1985 without cursing out Cuban.
Nevertheless, Cuban’s apology on his blog was a half-assed embarrassment, self-indulgent and patronizing. It was rightfully unacceptable to the Nuggets, and it should’ve been to the league office, too.
The NBA insisted that it was a closed matter on Wednesday, and a spokesman said, “We are confident that this will be brought to an intelligent close with an adult conversation.” Yes, that’s how this will be resolved with Cuban and Martin. Adult conversion. K-Mart was berating him when they parted ways in Dallas this week. Fines mean nothing to Cuban, but the league office owed everyone a strongly worded reprimand, if not a quantifiable punishment. Owners should be held to a different standard and almost never are in the NBA.
“They called us every name in the book,” Anthony said.
If nothing else, this episode turned out to be a valuable test for Denver. Once, the Nuggets would’ve become consumed with exacting immature revenge. No sucker punches, no brawls, no suspensions. Anthony has come a long way, and now gets a chance to become a genuine superstar in the NBA. He fell far behind classmates LeBron James(notes) and Dwyane Wade(notes) because he couldn’t stay out of trouble and because the Nuggets never won in the playoffs. Last summer, Denver dumped Marcus Camby’s(notes) contract for nothing and Anthony’s Team USA teammates relentlessly teased him.
“I was kind of the joke of the USA team,” he said. “They said that we got rid of all of our guys.”
The NBA’s executive of the year, Mark Warkentien, reshaped these Nuggets and they came of age. As they ran down the corridor to the locker room after the beat-down on the Mavericks, Martin yelled, “Eight more. …We need eight more.”
The Denver Nuggets are thinking about the West finals and beyond now. These bad tatts and bad reputations are the commissioner’s worst nightmare. The Nuggets have reached the conference finals thinking it feels like March and they’re on some kind of a roll.
“I have a feeling we are not going to be messed up by the next round,” Denver coach George Karl said. “People are waiting for us to crack, but there is a smart toughness to this team.”
Beat L.A., they screamed in the Mile High City. Beat L.A.
No one was laughing. Not anymore.

Back in the Pool, Phelps Is Mapping a New Course

BALTIMORE — Delivering multiple golds was going to be like labor: an all-out push for the Beijing Olympics, followed by a breather, then another hard push for the 2012 Games in London.

That was the master plan drawn up several years ago by Michael Phelps’s coach, Bob Bowman, and approved by his mother, Debbie, and it worked like a dream. For nine days last summer in China, Phelps could do no wrong as he surpassed the swimmer Mark Spitz’s record with eight gold medals.
With the high-degree-of-difficulty phase of the plan completed to perfection, there seemed like less need for a safety net. Bowman broke ground on his horse farm in northern Maryland and resumed coaching. Debbie Phelps worked on a memoir and welcomed new students as the principal of Windsor Middle School.
For the first time in his life, Phelps, 23, was allowed time and space to broaden his circle of influence and interests.
The idea was to give Phelps room to breathe, not inhale.
In February, a photograph of Phelps holding a marijuana pipe surfaced. Bowman had miscalculated. Swimming would not be the hard part for Phelps. Negotiating his way on land with only his wits to guide him would be more difficult.
For nearly 12 years, Phelps had been hermetically protected from the outside world. From his heart rate to his social activities, nothing went unmonitored.
“I had this monster goal and I achieved it,” Phelps said last week. “To be able to do what I did, my life growing up had to be how it was.”
The blueprint for becoming the most well-rounded swimmer in history turned out to have a built-in flaw. It made Phelps one-dimensional, someone who by his own admission is lost without the structure of his sport.
“The trade-off is he missed some experiences that other people had,” Bowman said. “I guess the question is, what do we do after that? And I think that’s what he’s working on now, expanding his horizons beyond swimming.”
The scope of that task is enormous. Imagine being not yet 25, and pondering how to make the next 50 years meaningful.
“I think there are a lot of things that will still happen to me in life that will excite me,” Phelps said. “The past year was something I wanted my whole life, and I finally got it. I think down the road, there will be other interests and goals that will take over my life.”
Phelps is exploring a couple of avenues. Last year, he and Bowman bought the Meadowbrook Aquatics complex, the base for the North Baltimore Aquatic Club. Their goal is to build a world-class swimming academy like the nearby baseball academy of another Baltimore icon, Cal Ripken. “I can foresee as I sit here the businessman that Michael is becoming and will become the next four, eight years,” Debbie Phelps said.
Then there is golf. Phelps played his first 18 holes a few weeks ago. It was great, he said. He was invisible in plain view, with not a fan or a cellphone camera in sight.
With three high school friends, all avid golfers, as his witnesses, Phelps shot a 115. “I told them, Once I pick it up, it’s going to be on,” he said, laughing.
Phelps was weight training at Loyola College last Thursday when he peered out the window and noticed the rain had stopped and the sun was peeking through clouds. “I’m going to run home and get my clubs and go to the range,” he told Todd Patrick, a training partner.
Bowman and Debbie Phelps see golf as a way for Phelps to expand his network and polish his social skills.
“He can play golf with the C.E.O. of every company in America, probably,” Bowman said. “He can interact with people. I think it’s great.”
After the marijuana photograph surfaced, Phelps could have stopped swimming for good, and he nearly did. But then it would have felt less like a retirement than an exile, and he has never been a quitter.
Besides, “I still love to swim,” said Phelps, who has entered this weekend’s United States Grand Prix event in Charlotte, N.C., his first competition since Beijing. Phelps plans to retire after the 2012 Olympics, never to return. He was stretching when a television tuned to ESPN reported that quarterback Brett Favre was considering coming out of retirement a second time. Phelps summoned Bowman, pointed to the screen and said, “That will never be me.”
When it was Phelps’s turn do pull-ups, he strapped on a 44-pound weighted vest and asked his teammates how many they had done. Then, gripping the bar and grimacing as his arms trembled from the effort, he pushed to do more.
In the pool, Phelps is not weighed down by introspection. Asked if swimming has been more of an expression of his life or a refuge from it, his face went blank and he said, “I’ve never even thought about it.”
It has crossed his mind that he may be remembered by some people more for one marijuana pipe than for all of his Olympic gold.

“It was a stupid mistake, and I’ll live with that for the rest of my life,” Phelps said, adding, “If people look down on some of the things I’ve done or they think less of me, I can’t control that.”

So much is out of his hands now. Between swims at a recent practice, Phelps asked Bowman if he had ever eaten at the Sullivan’s steakhouse here. “No,” Bowman replied, “but I know you have.”
Phelps pushed off the wall for another swim. “How did you know that?” he asked upon finishing. “Well,” Bowman said, “you went there with 14 friends, you had the New York strip, you shared your seafood platter with all your friends, and everyone seemed to be having a good time.”
Phelps’s jaw dropped. Bowman told him the visit to Sullivan’s had popped up on his Google alert, which he uses to keep track of what is written about Phelps. “Wherever you go,” Bowman reminded him, “it’s news.”
When Bowman found out about the incriminating photograph, taken at a private party at the University of South Carolina in November, he was furious. “That’s about as bad a judgment as you can use,” he said.
Bowman said he was not swayed by Phelps’s explanation that he believed he was among friends. He reminded Phelps that he could no longer be certain who had his back.
“Michael wants to know people and open up to them a little bit, but it just doesn’t work,” Bowman said. “You just have to approach everybody with skepticism, which I think is sad.”
Bowman scoffed at the idea that Phelps got off relatively easy. United States Swimming, the sport’s national governing body, suspended him for three months, based on circumstantial evidence, not a failed drug test.
“Why don’t you try to have everybody in the world know about one of your private moments that you’re embarrassed about,” Bowman said. “Can you imagine that anywhere you go in the world, everybody has talked about it and has an opinion on it? I think that’s a pretty high price to pay.”
Should it matter that Phelps earned tens of millions of dollars as a pitchman? With every contract he signed, he was essentially agreeing to embody America’s best image of itself — the can-do spirit, the purity of purpose, the noblesse oblige.
“Just because you make a lot of money, that doesn’t require you to be perfect 24 hours a day,” Bowman said. “That doesn’t automatically make you a superhero.”
Many times over the past few months, Debbie Phelps has wanted to scream, “Will you let my kid be human?” But that’s just it. The original master plan, while brilliant, made no provision for Michael’s being mortal.

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Boeheim the Coach Outdone by Boeheim the Fund-Raiser

Tears were in Jim Boeheim’s eyes that night. “How can we ever top this?” he asked his wife, Juli.

It was not the night in April 2003 when Boeheim coached Syracuse to a national championship. Of that occasion, Juli recalled this week: “I couldn’t wait to get my hands on him and hug him. I asked him, ‘How do you feel?’ He said, ‘Relieved. Let’s go home.’ “
The night Boeheim broke down was in April 2000, after Syracuse held its first “Basket Ball” gala to raise money for Coaches vs. Cancer. Juli had organized the event, Jim had put his name behind it, and they both had recruited nearly everyone they knew to buy seats and get involved. The Boeheims, novice party planners, were nervous about the turnout until about 650 people arrived and moved Jim to tears.
As No. 3 Syracuse faces No. 2 Oklahoma in the N.C.A.A. tournament on Friday night, Boeheim is on the verge of another major accomplishment: 800 career wins, a milestone that only seven Division I men’s basketball coaches have reached.
For all that he has achieved as a coach, Boeheim has earned as much respect for his work on behalf of cancer charities.
Syracuse, the first program to hold a Coaches vs. Cancer gala, will host its 10th “Basket Ball” this spring and has raised $2.8 million from the previous nine. In all, the Boeheims have helped raise $4.5 million for the central New York chapter of the American Cancer Society since the mid-1990s.
“It just tells you his heart and what kind of man he is,” Missouri Coach Mike Anderson said. “He makes a coach like me look up to him and try to do some things in the same capacity.”
Boeheim routinely responds to requests to talk with cancer patients, especially those with prostate cancer, which he had in 2001. He visits patients, speaks on behalf of the American Cancer Society and regularly invites children with cancer to his practices.
“We’ve all been involved with losing people with cancer, so it’s been something we’ve become dedicated to,” he said.
Jim Satalin, the national director of Coaches vs. Cancer for the American Cancer Society, said the contributions go beyond money.
“Not only have they been great with the gala here and raising millions of dollars,” he said. “But they’ve been instrumental in recruiting other coaches and coaches’ wives.”
The former Missouri coach Norm Stewart founded Coaches vs. Cancer, but Boeheim is credited with driving the organization to a new level, Satalin said. St. Joseph’s Coach Phil Martelli described Boeheim as a pioneer.
“He acknowledges the fact that we are very lucky,” Martelli said. “He would say to coaches, ‘With this job comes responsibilities of coaching and recruiting, but you also have a responsibility to give back.’ “
Martelli and five other college basketball programs in Philadelphia have combined to form an arm of Coaches vs. Cancer and to hold their own gala. Succumbing to their competitive natures, Boeheim and Martelli often trade barbs over who is raising the most money. And Boeheim cannot help but gripe that Martelli’s group now usually trumps Syracuse’s.
“He’s always whining about that, not that he doesn’t whine about everything,” Martelli said. “He’ll say it’s not fair because I have six schools.”
Boeheim’s 9-year-old daughter, Jamie, has been quietly tracking her father’s course to 800 wins this season, constantly asking her mother if they can throw a party when he reaches the milestone. “I’m thinking, oh my goodness, I don’t know if he’d like that,” Juli Boeheim said. “He doesn’t want to talk about it at all.”
But if you talk to him about the American Cancer Society, Boeheim will give his heartfelt advice. He reminds everyone to have regular cancer screenings. That, he said, is what helped him survive.

Howard gives Magic shot of confidence

ORLANDO, Fla. – The Orlando Magic didn’t just send a late-season message to the defending champion Boston Celtics on Wednesday night. They left them with a not-so-subtle reminder for their almost-inevitable second-round playoff matchup.
Dwight Howard has grown big enough and strong enough to force his will on even the best teams, and the Celtics are the latest contender to realize as much. With Howard delivering another of his Superman performances, the Magic led from start to finish before fighting off a late Celtics charge, pushing them into a virtual tie for the second best record in the Eastern Conference.
The only question now for the final three weeks of the regular season is whether the Celtics (54-19) or the Magic (53-18) get the home-court advantage when they meet again in a seven-game series.
After the 84-82 loss to the Magic, the Celtics insisted that they don’t really care about the court because they can win anywhere. The Magic carried a decidedly different tune.
“It would be great to have home court because I’m sure we’ll see them [Celtics] again,” Howard said. “And I’m confident that we can beat them. I’m confident we can beat any team in the league if we play like we can.”

Howard had 24 points, 21 rebounds and four blocked shots, including the final one when Paul Pierce drove the lane and tried to steal the game with 4.9 seconds remaining. For good measure, Howard forced Pierce into an altered 3-pointer at the buzzer that didn’t come close.
“Dwight was just incredible, unbelievable,” Magic coach Stan Van Gundy said. “He was tremendous. When we look at the film, we’ll learn some things. When you have to gut out a win like that, it only gives you more confidence and resolve that you can do it again.”
Howard has been unbelievably good all season, even though he won’t finish even among the top three in the MVP balloting. Like the Magic, his acclaim has been slow to come. This was his eighth game this season with at least 20 points and 20 rebounds. The rest of the league combined has totaled only six 20-20 games. No other player has done it more than once.
Howard also has 10 games in which he had at least 15 rebounds and five blocked shots, which explains why he’s close to becoming just the fifth player ever to lead the league in both categories in the same season.
“When he first came into the league, he beat people with pure athleticism. Then he started beating them with skill,” Magic coach Doc Rivers said. “When he gets the whole package together I hope I’ll be doing television.”
If and when they meet the Magic again in May, the Celtics will hold the advantage in four of the five starting positions. Point guard Rajon Rondo, now in his third season, will blow past Rafer Alston. Shooting guard Ray Allen will school rookie Courtney Lee. Paul Pierce will score on small forward Hedo Turkoglu almost anytime he wants. And Kevin Garnett should toast Rashard Lewis.
Yet Howard makes it all even. Four to one doesn’t sound fair unless that one is Superman. The key to the series will be keeping Howard on the floor and out of foul trouble. If he stays clean, the Celtics may have trouble getting past the second round because they have no one to guard him. Nobody else does, either.
For the Magic, who haven’t been past the second round of the playoffs since Shaquille O’Neal left in 1996, Wednesday was a breakthrough victory. The teams split their four regular-season meetings. The Magic also are even with Cleveland in the season series.
“We’ll see this team again. To get to our goal, we’ll have to go through Boston and Cleveland,” said Rashard Lewis. “But we welcome that challenge.”
Garnett, in his fourth game back after missing a month with a muscle strain in his right knee, played only 17 minutes. But as Van Gundy quickly pointed out, the Magic dominated the game when Garnett was playing, giving them a 10-point advantage with him on the floor.
Van Gundy loved the win, loved the way his team out-defended the best defensive team in the league, and he didn’t like any suggestion that it was tainted because by Garnett’s less-than-full contribution.
“All I know is, we’ve beaten a lot of the teams that everyone thinks are better than us,” he said. “The perception of us does not always match up with reality. We’re not feared defensively, but I’ll put us up against anyone in the league when it comes to being ready to play night in and night out.”
Howard had his double-double in the first quarter, the fourth time this season he has done it so quickly. He ended the third quarter with a flurry that was typically Dwight-like, but so unlike anyone else in the league. Spinning to the basket, Howard took a lob pass from Turkoglu that was thrown near the top of the backboard, catching it between Kendrick Perkins and Glen “Big Baby” Davis, putting both into his poster dunk.
Then he raced down court to block a buzzer-beating shot by a surprised Rondo.
Howard, 23, has turned this franchise into a contender again, allowing the Magic to assemble a team of shooters that capitalizes on his inside presence. Even on a night when Turkoglu made only 3 of 18 shots, and the Magic scored only 14 in the final period, they beat the defending champs.
The victory also was further evidence of how the Magic have withstood the loss of All-Star point guard Jameer Nelson. They’re now 14-4 since Alston arrived, proving that a great center can overcome a myriad of other problems.
“With Dwight, my job isn’t as difficult as you might think, even coming in the middle of the season,” Alston said.
Howard, now in his fifth NBA season, has never been past the second round of the playoffs, and he likely won’t get there this year unless the Magic can get past the Celtics. After Wednesday, they have more reason to believe they can.
“I don’t think this team lacks for confidence,” Van Gundy said. “People can say what they want about us, but this isn’t the BCS. People aren’t voting to see who plays for the championship. That’s decided on the court. And I like that.”

Calhoun avoids answers about report

Connecticut basketball coach Jim Calhoun declined to directly answer questions Wednesday in the wake of a Yahoo! Sports report documenting improprieties in the recruitment of former guard Nate Miles.
Calhoun met with media for 15 minutes at the University of Phoenix Stadium, site of the NCAA West Regional, and read from a prepared statement. Then he fielded questions but said he hadn’t seen the story in its entirety.
Yahoo! Sports reported that Josh Nochimson, a former Huskies student manager turned sports agent, provided Miles with lodging, transportation, meals and representation from 2006 to 2008. UConn’s basketball staff was in constant contact with Nochimson during a nearly two-year period up to and after Miles’ recruitment. Five UConn coaches traded at least 1,565 phone and text communications with Nochimson, including 16 from Calhoun.

Former UConn assistant Tom Moore told Yahoo! Sports he knew Nochimson and Miles had talked, also a violation. As an alumnus and former associate of the men’s basketball program, Nochimson is defined by the NCAA as a representative of “athletic interests.”
The NCAA plans to investigate the matter. UConn officials said earlier Wednesday that they would conduct their own probe. Moore’s current employer, Qunnipiac University, will also examine the situation.
After the news conference, in a stadium hallway, Calhoun was again questioned about the report.
“Right now all I know is that some words were written about us,” Calhoun said. “We should react to that and have someone else look into it. I’m not going to do that. The university administration is going to do that.”
Pressed further, Calhoun gritted his teeth.
“I haven’t read [the report],” he said. “I’ve been given pieces of exactly what was said.”
Calhoun was asked to respond to those “pieces.” Calhoun opened his mouth and began to speak, but the words never came. Instead he was whisked away by media relations director Kyle Muncy.
“He can’t answer any more questions,” Muncy said.
Calhoun shrugged and walked away.
Connecticut, the No. 1 seed in the West Region, takes on No. 5 Purdue on Thursday.
Calhoun said he learned of the report around 5:30 a.m. when athletic director Jeff Hathaway called him.
Calhoun’s first public comments about the story – or, as he incorrectly called it, the “blog” – came during a previously-scheduled news conference that was supposed to focus on the Huskies’ game against Purdue.
Calhoun, 66, appeared rattled and focused his comments on issues not mentioned in the report. He talked at length about how Connecticut had done everything in its power to ensure that Miles would be eligible before signing him to a national letter of intent, and about how Connecticut wouldn’t have to forfeit any games as a result of the allegations, because Miles – who was expelled in October – never played a game for the Huskies.
The Yahoo! Sports story focused on excessive phone calls, illegal benefits and contact between coaches, Nochimson and Miles.
Calhoun said over the course of his 37-year career that he has had no NCAA violations.
When Calhoun walked onto the court for shoot-around Wednesday, the mood seemed solemn. The players appeared to mope through drills and the 200 or so fans in attendance, for the most part, sat in silence.
“I woke up excited to be here, and then I turned on the TV and it ruined the mood,” said Tana Hart, a Connecticut fan who lives in Phoenix. “I just don’t understand why all of this had to come out now, during the NCAA tournament.”
Calhoun said he met with his team Wednesday morning to tell them to pay no attention to the story.
“I told them that [the] university is taking care of it,” Calhoun said. “As far as we’re concerned, we’re here to beat Purdue. If you vary from that, you will look back and say, ‘I was worried about something that really didn’t affect me one way or the other, and we let an opportunity slip by.’ ”
The Huskies said they aren’t concerned about the situation becoming a distraction.
“We don’t let stuff like that bother us,” forward Jeff Adrien said. “We’ve been through a lot of ups and downs in our lives. We know how to block it off. We are mentally tough.”