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NBA commissioner David Stern said today that he is "absolutely tickled to death" that the Memphis Grizzlies, up three games to one on Kevin Durant and the Oklahoma City Thunder, "probably believe they're going to advance out of this round."

"It's just the dearest thing," said Stern. "I almost want to pinch Marc Gasol's fat cheeks."

Despite Memphis looking like the clearly superior team through the first four games of the series, Stern says he has put out the order to his officials that "under no circumstances" are the Grizzlies to close out the series.

"Both Los Angeles teams lost in the first round, Brooklyn lost, Boston lost, Chicago is on the way out, the Knicks are losing. I can't lose all of those big markets and a star of Kevin Durant's caliber," said Stern. "I mean, let's be reasonable here. I didn't build this league to where it is by giving people NBA Finals featuring the Memphis Grizzlies and Indiana Pacers. Nobodies versus nobodies. Not a chance."

Sergio Garcia fell out of contention at The Players Championship on Sunday on hole No. 17 when he hit two shots into the water. He then hit his drive on No. 18 into the same lake.

"I felt it was unprofessional for the lake to be there," said Garcia. "That water could be anywhere. Water covers two-thirds of this planet, yet it had to be there on the final two holes of a tournament I'm playing in? Come on. It's not the nicest lake on the earth."

Garcia was especially miffed because the lake didn't swallow any of Tiger Woods' shots.

"I don't want to make a big deal out of this, but it does seem like there is preferential treatment on Tour for Tiger," said Garcia. "He hits shots and they just happen to land on the green. But I hit shots and there is a big tree trunk in the path of my ball or a bunker or some water. I mean, at the very least it's suspicious."

In a decades-long study that looked at collegiate and major professional sports across the world, researchers revealed today that really shitty teams tend to believe that they never get any calls from officials.

The 55-year study, the longest running study in history on sports team and referee interaction, was a joint effort conducted by Harvard, Stanford and Oxford universities.

"The shittier the team, the more it tends to believe the refs are against them," said Roger Vance, a Harvard professor who announced the study's findings. "It was like this across all sports, and all levels of play, and every country. While good teams sometimes feel targeted by officials, shit teams inordinately blame refs for everything that goes agains them."

Fan behavior was also tracked by the researchers.

"As much as shitty teams complain about officiating, the fans of shitty teams complain exponentially more," said Vance. "In fact, we almost quit doing the study several times because we found these people to be so annoying."