* Although he swears that he “doesn’t want Mo’s job,” Larry Brown indicated that he wants to be back on the bench. “I miss the game, sitting here,” said Brown. “I am pretty confident I will [coach] in some capacity, whether it’s an assistant coach, or involved in a franchise in some way, or possibly get back to [head] coaching. I don’t feel really good about the way it ended [in New York].”

* It’s fair to say that the fans in Utah’s EnergySolutions Arena get all over Chris Paul. “The fans make this one of the hardest places to play,” he said. “You never know what you are going to hear from them.” Could anything they say be printed in the paper? “You probably can’t. But I’d like to think the fans in Utah love me.”

* While the original “General” called it quits last night, the Little General was hi-fiving and hugging his players after the Mavs held off the Magic. “I wanted the men to know that I’m in their corner,” Johnson said. “I’m out there fighting. I think I stood up tonight more than I’ve stood up the whole season, just letting them know that if we’re going to go down, then I’m going to go down with them.”

* When asked if he believed the Knicks were giving it their best last night, Sam Cassell responded with an honest, resounding, no: “No, I don’t see that. I don’t see that aspect of it. I don’t see it.”

* The Sixers wasted a 32-14 lead in the first quarter, as the Hawks mounted a furious comeback and ultimately took this one, 96-91. “It was like I looked at the clock and we were up 20, turned around to get some Gatorade and we were down one,” said Willie Green. “We knew they’d make a run, but obviously not that kind of run. We couldn’t get back on top.”

* Suns rookie D.J. Strawberry talks about coping with his father’s addiction and how he sought to create his own identity through hoops instead of baseball. “I never wanted to deal with it,” D.J. said recently. “I didn’t want to go to school the next day. I just wanted to avoid it. I wanted it to go away.”

* Note to Sam Mitchell: don’t try to run a zone against the Suns. “Once we saw they were going to be in it (a zone), I think we got really comfortable with what we could do and started expanding our lead a bit,” Raja Bell said. “When they’re in that zone, you’re going to find yourself with a lot of good looks when you have guys like Steve (Nash) and Amaré, who make teams suck in like that.” The end result? Bell hit 7 triples, Leandro Barbosa hit 5 and the Suns combined for 16 total en route to a 118-104 win.

* Isiah Thomas specifically warned against choking the game away with carelessness and turnovers during the half - and that’s exactly what the Knicks proceeded to do. “I cautioned our team at halftime,” Thomas said. “I told them the one thing that we cannot do is have an excessive amount of turnovers that lead to transition baskets. We had 20 turnovers, which led to 25 points. That is tough to deal with.” The Knicks fell 103-94.

* Chris Kaman might have offered the best perspective on the Clippers/Knicks showdown: “They’re a struggling team just like we are,” Kaman said. “It’s like a toilet bowl game or a dust bowl game. Two bottom teams fighting.”

* Jarrett Jack fumbled a 2-on-1 fast-break with less than 30 seconds left in OT. “I guess I was moving faster than the ball was, and it got away from me,” said Jack. His miscue allowed Allen Iverson to sink the game-winner with 0.9 seconds left. “I felt like I had missed all of them before that,” said AI.

* Minny battled back from a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit, but couldn’t get over the hump in Houston. However, some Wolves looked at the bright side, comparing last night’s performance to a blow-out loss to the Rockets without T-Mac weeks before. “We got blown out [in Houston],” Al Jefferson said. “And that was without T-Mac. We were playing like garbage then. We’re playing well now.”

* Josh Smith had 9 blocks last night, completely altering the face of the game. “When a guy has nine blocks it changes the game dramatically,” Maurice Cheeks said. “Even when he doesn’t block a shot, he has guys thinking about it when they shoot, and that can mess up your offensive rhythm. He only blocked nine shots but he altered many more.” Only nine, Mo?

* In his first game back after just one practice, T.J. Ford played 17 minutes in the Raptors’ 114-82 win over Miami. “The biggest thing is that I am healthy, I’m not hurt, I’m not playing hurt,” Ford said. “I think that’s the difference [from] a couple of months ago, when I came back - playing injured.”

* A little bit of nostalgia on Bobby Knight’s 1987 championship team at Indiana.