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Despite no longer being in the NBA playoffs, the Lakers still believe they have time to turn their season around and win the franchise's seventeenth championship.

"We haven't lost in weeks," said head coach Mike D'Antoni. "And if you look at the Western Conference, we're in as good a shape as almost anyone. I'm not counting us out until the season is over."

The presumed Western Conference champion, the Oklahoma City Thunder, is on the brink of elimination thanks to Russell Westbrook's injury, the Spurs are as old as the Lakers, the Warriors are inexperienced and star guard Steph Curry is battling injury, and the Memphis Grizzlies are led by Pau Gasol's little brother.

"I like our position," said Lakers point guard Steve Nash. "I'm getting healthier every day and Kobe should be able to walk in a few weeks. We can do this."

New York Knicks sixth man J.R. Smith has re-established himself as a bench player in the second round of the playoffs thanks to shooting 28-percent from the floor and 23-percent from three-point range.

"J.R. did a lot of great things for us during the regular season and there were times I thought maybe he should be in the game right from the opening tip as a starter," said Knicks head coach Mike Woodson. "But now I am positive he is a bench player. In fact, he's the kind of player I'd like to have as a twelfth man."

In addition to missing almost every shot he takes, Smith has also come off the bench to provide the Knicks with turnovers, fouls and mental mistakes.

"I just try to fill up the stat sheet any way I can," said Smith. "I have to make the best of the limited opportunities I have to play. Especially now because I feel like my opportunities to play are going to become increasingly limited."

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."

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."