NBA Thursday: Hornets top Heat in East while Spurs beat Blazers out West

A loss against the Heat on Thursday wouldn’t have seemed so bad, though, not after all the wins Charlotte has piled up before this. Charlotte, on the second night of a back-to-back playing a team that has sat above them in the standings all season, wasn’t going to be too disappointed if they couldn’t steal a win on Miami’s home court. When the Heat went up by 15 points in the second quarter, it seemed like this finally be a night where the Hornets just didn’t have it.

The win evens up Charlotte’s head-to-head tiebreaker with Miami, which continues to make things easier for the Hornets if they really want to snag home-court advantage in the first round. Even with the incredible run they’ve been on, that’s no guarantee -- four teams share their 39-29 record, with just two home court spots available. The Atlanta Hawks are heating up too, winners of nine of their last 11, while the Heat have still won seven of their last 10, despite the slip up at home.

Good morning. It’s Friday! Let’s basketball.

SELF-IMMOLATION: As has been well-documented, the Grizzlies are broken. Half their eight- to nine-man active roster consists of D-League call-ups due to injuries. So of course professional loose cannon Matt Barnes put himself in position to get suspended for at least a game due to his actions on Thursday. Here’s an explanation of what happened with a video. Basically, John Henson got hit with a second technical and ejected with 5 seconds left for staring down Barnes after a block. Henson had a hero’s exit to the locker room. About 15 seconds later, Barnes decides to jog down toward the Bucks’ locker room. Reporters disagree on whether Barnes made it in there, but there was no physical confrontation.

was ejected in the closing seconds of Milwaukee’s 96-86 win over the

after a confrontation with Matt Barnes, leading to a bizarre moment where Barnes followed Henson down the same tunnel as they both departed to the locker room.If you’re trying to make sense of what happened, here’s the gist of it.