NBA Notes: The Ascent of Boobie

• Daniel Gibson, the Cavs' second-round pick in last year's draft, went nuts Saturday night, scoring 31 points (mostly in the second half) to help the Cavs pull away from the Pistons in Game 6. After Gibson had scored about twenty of those points, someone at TNT did some research on the kid and learned that his nickname is "Boobie." Marv Albert and Doug Collins picked up on this and, by the end of the game, were consistently referring to Gibson as Boobie. Ernie Johnson, when awarding the Cavs the Eastern Conference trophy, asked coach Mike Brown about Boobie's performance. (Since when does the NBA have trophy presentations for conference championships?) The Inside the NBA team during the post-game show used Boobie exclusively when talking about Gibson. I had never heard Gibson called Boobie prior to the second half of Saturday's game; basically, TNT went from zero to Boobie in a matter of minutes.


• Speaking of the Cavs-Pistons series, I must confess that I dozed off at the beginning of the fourth quarter of Game 5 Thursday night. (I dozed off because I was really tired, not because the game was boring; I believe the game was tied when I fell asleep.) I awoke right after the final buzzer of the second overtime and had to settle for highlights of LeBron's coming out party. I still haven't fogiven myself.


• The Pacers hired former Sixers and Celtics coach Jim O'Brien. I'm not convinced that O'Brien is a better coach than Rick Carlisle, but the Pacers need a fresh start, and I'm glad that someone actually agreed to take the job (especially somoene with a career winning record).


• I was thinking yesterday about how much I miss Reggie Miller.


• I was going to say something about Billy Donovan taking the Orlando Magic job, but apparently he's changed his mind.