11 Takeaways from Friday Night's Pivotal NBA Action

With the regular season winding down, Friday night's NBA action provided some pivotal swings in the playoff races of both conferences.

The San Antonio Spurs got yet another phenomenal performance from Tim Duncan, as they dramatically sent the Los Angeles Clippers down to the fourth spot out West.

The Minnesota Timberwolves got up to some shenanigans in their surprising win over Kevin Durant and the Oklahoma City Thunder. That result helped the Spurs pick up a full game on OKC in the race for the West's No. 1 seed.

Plus, J.R. Smith helped the Knicks move up to the No. 2 position in the East, and the Los Angeles Lakers suffered a crushing blow without even taking the court thanks to the Utah Jazz's third straight win.

Don't worry, though; Friday's games weren't all about playoff positioning. There were plenty of big individual performances from guys like Paul Pierce and Tobias Harris, too.

Oh, and LeBron James had himself a nice little shooting night in New Orleans.

All in all, it was a busy slate full of head-turning box scores and season-altering final results. Pay attention to Friday's takeaways; you'll want to be fully apprised of all the changes in the standings before tomorrow's action shakes everything up all over again.

Tobias Harris Is the Real Deal

Tobias Harris pumped in a career-high 30 points and grabbed 11 rebounds in the Orlando Magic's 97-92 win over the Washington Wizards.

The big performance marked the highest point of Harris' ongoing "I have arrived" tour, which he's been on since joining the Magic in the deadline deal that sent J.J. Redick to the Milwaukee Bucks. This time, though, his dominant effort helped Orlando snap an eight-game skid.

Harris played well throughout the game, but his mid-range bucket with just over a minute left helped salt away the win.

With March averages of 16.3 points and 8.2 rebounds, the unheralded small forward is making the Magic look like the biggest winners of the trade deadline. More than that, he's proving himself worthy of being a cornerstone in Orlando's rebuilding effort.

Paul Pierce Isn't Going Quietly

Lots of things went right for the Boston Celtics in their key win over the Atlanta Hawks on Friday, but the biggest positive sign was the all-around effort of Paul Pierce.

Fresh off of a sloppy seven-turnover night against the Cleveland Cavaliers, Pierce bounced back with a triple-double that helped down the Hawks. His 20 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists helped the Celtics win their second straight game after losing five in a row.

More importantly, Boston created a little bit more breathing room between itself and the Bucks in the critical race to avoid the No. 8 seed and a date with the Miami Heat in the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs.

Boston now sits two and a half games up on Milwaukee. Plus, the win helped the Celtics pick up a full game on the Hawks, who have already clinched their playoff berth, but now hold just a game and a half lead on Boston.

With Kevin Garnett still sidelined and a cast of inconsistent performers filling out the roster, Pierce's steady play is going to be vital down the stretch. If he's not quite ready to resign himself to a one-and-done playoff exit in a few weeks, his resolve might carry the rest of the Celtics right along with him.

J.R. Smith Has This Whole Sixth Man Thing Figured out

J.R. Smith didn't do much besides score on Friday, but that's OK, because it seems like everyone now understands that he's on the floor to do one thing: get buckets.

And that he did.

The Knicks notched a relatively easy 111-102 win (their seventh in a row) over the Charlotte Bobcats behind 37 efficient points from Smith. He hit 12 of 18 shots, sank both of his three-point attempts and continued his aggressive attacks on the rim, hitting 11-of-12 from the foul line.

All of that scoring wasn't just a good thing for Smith and the Knicks. It also made a little history:

"

J.R. Smith is the first bench player to have three straight games of 30-plus points since Ricky Pierce did it for Milwaukee in Feb. 1990.

— Ian Begley (@IanBegley) March 30, 2013"

If Smith keeps this up when Tyson Chandler returns, New York will look a lot more dangerous in a postseason series.

And now that Knicks moved just a fraction ahead of the Indiana Pacers for the No. 2 spot in the East, they've improved their chances of avoiding Miami until the conference finals.

Andre Drummond: None the Worse for Wear

Detroit Pistons rookie Andre Drummond returned to the court for the first time since Feb. 6, and in 19 minutes, the young big man looked pretty darn good.

Starting for the first time in his brief NBA career, Drummond scored 17 points on 8-of-10 shooting, grabbed four rebounds and blocked a pair of shots in just 19 minutes.

As one of the few bright, young stars in Detroit's otherwise cloudy future, Drummond's health is easily the most important takeaway from this game. The fact that the Raptors snapped their own five-game skid by easily defeating the Pistons is beside the point.

Neither of these teams are going anywhere this season, so the discussion of wins and losses takes a backseat to the future ramifications for one of the most statistically dominant (albeit in a small sample size) rookies we've ever seen.

It's easy to forget, but before his injury, Drummond was in the midst of posting the highest PER by a 19-year-old in NBA history.

He's got plenty to learn, but at the very least, it looks as though he's healthy enough to continue his growth.

Sometimes, Evan Turner Looks Pretty Good

Evan Turner is a confusing player. He moves around the floor comfortably without ever being in a hurry. His game includes a solid handle and good court vision. Really, that skill set doesn't belong in a player with his 6'7", 220-pound frame.

But for all that, Turner has some pretty awful defensive instincts, has never proved he's a reliable perimeter shooter and has surprisingly limited athleticism. In short, he looks like he should be better than he is, but as his 11.92 PER attests, he's actually a below-average player.

But it's hard to get past how good he can look every once in a while.

His performance on Friday was one of those good ones. In 38 minutes, the small forward put up 23 points, 13 rebounds and four assists. He hit a couple of threes and turned the ball over just once.

Part of the reason Turner looked so solid was the fact that the Cleveland Cavaliers, who Turner's Philadelphia 76ers beat by a final score of 97-87, fielded what looked like a D-League lineup.

Still, with Turner's third year winding down, the Sixers are probably glad to see signs of development in the 24-year-old's game regardless of the circumstances.

Kevin McHale Has Some Interesting Ideas for the Rockets

After trading away their entire power forward rotation at the deadline, the Houston Rockets have been making do with a somewhat gimmicky approach in the frontcourt.

Donatas Motiejunas is a remarkably talented young player, but he's essentially a guard who happens to be seven feet tall. As a stretch-4 who the Rockets can hide on defense, he's a useful piece.

But against the bruising Memphis Grizzlies, it was clear that Motiejunas wasn't the right man to stick on either Zach Randolph or Marc Gasol. Houston's starting power forward scored just fine, hitting seven of his 11 shots for 16 points, but he had no recourse but to foul whichever Grizzlies big man he had the misfortune of covering on the other end.

That realization led Rockets coach Kevin McHale to get a little creative. Unfortunately, his strange experiment backfired in a big way.

Instead of searching for more size, the Rockets went small—like, really small.

Greg Smith played center when Omer Asik rested, and Carlos Delfino logged heavy minutes as the team's power forward. In one ill-fated second-quarter stretch, Delfino and Smith played together. Unsurprisingly, Memphis feasted on the Rockets inside, dumping the ball in to Randolph and playing volleyball on the offensive glass.

McHale's doing the best he can with the unbalanced roster he has, so this shouldn't be viewed as a criticism of his tactics.

But the Rockets have got to be concerned with their inability to match up with the slow-it-down, grind-it-out game they'll see in the postseason. Memphis is a nightmare for Houston, but plenty of other teams can go big, too.

If the Rockets can't figure out a way to play when they're not drilling threes and sprinting up and down the court, they're going to be in trouble.

LeBron James Is Bored

From a media frenzy perspective, LeBron James hardly ever suffers through a dull day. On Friday, for instance, his team's president, Pat Riley, made news by defending James and attacking the complaints of Boston Celtics president Danny Ainge.

"

Pat Riley, in a statement: "Danny Ainge needs to shut the f--- up and manage his own team." - es.pn/14uaLOI

— The NBA on ESPN (@ESPNNBA) March 29, 2013"

Exciting stuff, right?

But it's on the court that the King seems to have run out of challenges. Maybe that's why he turned the Miami Heat's 108-89 win over the New Orleans Hornets into a glorified shooting exhibition.

James scored 36 points, punctuating the effort with a remarkable six-minute stretch during the first half in which he buried six consecutive three-pointers.

He fired away from a standstill, off the dribble and with defenders in his face. It was as if he was trying to find a spot on the floor from which it wasn't comically easy for him to score.

Maybe James will restrict his field-goal attempts to half-court shots for the next week. You know, just for kicks.

After all, with the No. 1 seed and the MVP award all but sewn up, he's going to have to find something to do to keep himself entertained.

Fun Conquers All

Ricky Rubio has made a career out of nifty passes and slick ball-handling. Unfortunately, all of that fun hasn't translated to many wins for his team. Still, it's nice to watch a Minnesota Timberwolves game with the knowledge that despite the lack of success, something fun is probably going to happen.

Well, on Friday, the Wolves mixed fun and success together, knocking off the Oklahoma City Thunder in a 101-93 road win.

And J.J. Barea served up the goofiness, attempting to crawl through Hasheem Thabeet's legs when he was stymied on a botched pick-and-roll play.

Sure, the real takeaways from this game should be the surprising win by the Wolves, the dominant double-double by Nikola Pekovic or the fact that the Thunder dropped to two-and-a-half games behind the San Antonio Spurs in the race for the No. 1 seed out West.

But really, isn't it more fun to giggle as Barea tries to split the wickets on a big man?

Tim Duncan Will Never Stop

There's lots to discuss in the aftermath of the San Antonio Spurs' last-second win over the Los Angeles Clippers.

First, the Spurs picked up a game on OKC, who fell victim to the party in Minnesota. Second, the Clippers dropped into the No. 4 spot with the gut-wrenching loss. And third, Tony Parker went toe-to-toe with Chris Paul, proving he's fully recovered from the ankle injury that sidelined him for three weeks.

Of course, Parker nearly gave the game away when he committed a dead ball foul on Paul, giving the Clippers one shot and the ball with about 30 seconds left.

But there's just no way to ignore Tim Duncan's game-winning and-1 bucket, his season-high 34 points or his otherwise completely dominant effort against the younger, more athletic Clippers big men.

It's amazing enough that Duncan is performing at such a high level, but what's even more incredible is that the Spurs ran a pindown screen to get their 36-year-old big man the ball at the elbow with the game on the line. There are only a few frontcourt players with the brains and talent to handle that situation.

And none of them are 36.

Everyone's Chipping in in Denver

Everyone who picked Evan Fournier to lead the Denver Nuggets in scoring with Ty Lawson out of the lineup, please raise your hand.

Seeing no hands, I'll proceed.

The Nuggets cruised to their 18th consecutive home win on Friday, defeating the visiting Brooklyn Nets by a final score of 109-87.

And in true Nuggets fashion, five players scored at least a dozen points. But Fournier, a rookie averaging 3.1 points per game coming into the contest, led all scorers with 19, including 10 in the fourth quarter.

Denver has gotten the job done without a legitimate "star" all season long, and its depth has been a big reason for its success. But when guys like Fournier step up in such a big way, things start to seem a little unfair.

A deep bench won't matter nearly as much in the postseason, when rotations shrink and there's more rest between games. But the unpredictability of Denver's attack, which now apparently includes potential scoring outbursts from the unlikeliest of sources, will be valuable in any format.

So Utah's Not Dead After All

With the Los Angeles Lakers idle, the Utah Jazz picked up a 105-95 road win over the Portland Trail Blazers. That victory moved the Jazz back over the .500 mark on the season and pushed them back into the No. 8 spot in the Western Conference playoff race.

Utah holds the tiebreaker over L.A. by virtue of having a 2-1 advantage in the teams' head-to-head games this year. With injuries and poor play making the Lakers look as vulnerable as ever, the Jazz appear to be in the driver's seat down the stretch.

And as a matter of fact, the schedule favors the Jazz, too:

"

Jazz back in 8th place, they have 4 straight at home coming up. Lakers have 3 more Road games than Home games left. Jazz have the opposite.

— Haralabos Voulgaris (@haralabob) March 30, 2013"

At times this season, it has looked like nobody wanted to claim the last playoff spot in the West. But the Jazz have now won three straight and are looking much more like a playoff team than the Lakers are.

The race isn't over, but Utah is firmly in the lead and in possession of all of the momentum now.