L&E Cosmetic : Good morning. The Spurs are a disgrace to basketball.

That and more in Wednesday's NBA newsletter. SUBSCRIBE.

Good morning. Let's basketball.

DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES? Basketballing is something the Spurs did not do very well on Tuesday, as San Antonio lost to the Knicks. The New York Knicks. At least we got Pure, Unadulterated Popovich out of it. Silver linings. The loss shuttled the Spurs -- who were creeping deadly close to gaining a top-4 seed -- back to No. 7 in the crazy tight West playoff race.

SURVIVAL: Anthony Davis hit a clutch mid-range jumper to secure a critical Pelicans victory. They are now tied for No. 8 but own the vital head-to-head tiebreaker with the Thunder. This race is going ALL THE WAY down to the wire.

NOT-SO-MUCH: Memphis continues to flag, losing by 10 to the Pistons. Yikes, Memphis.

MORE SCORES: The Clippers and Rockets won to complicate things. Here's all the action in our NBA Scores hub.

MARCH MADNESS FOR NBA SNOBS: Flannery and I discuss how we approach the NCAA Tournament as fairly dedicated NBA snobs. We also share our favorite March Madness memories.

MVBEARD: Jason Patt's MVP Rankings has James Harden on top by a hair.

MVBROW: Ken Berger investigates Anthony Davis' MVP case.

ELFRID UP: Looking at the development of Elfrid Payton.

THE MARC GASOL ALL-STARS: Zach Lowe picks his most fun-to-watch players in the league.

RIGHT: Serge Ibaka's knee procedure will likely keep him out for the remainder of the regular season.

YOU CAN'T TEACH HEIGHT VOL. 354: Scott Howard-Cooper on Robert Upshaw, who has had some issues but is a potential first-rounder via being tall and skilled.

THIS WILL BE INTERESTING: Right as Stephen Curry wraps up his own MVP case, Klay Thompson will miss 7-10 days.

SCHEDULE CHECK: John Schuhmann looks s at each team's strength of schedule remaining to assess whether anyone has an edge.

NICE WORK, NUGGETS: Denver is resting not-very-old players for not-very-good reasons.