Chauncey Billups is 6-3, an All-Star guard for the Detroit Pistons. One of his nicknames is “Smooth.”

Kendrick Perkins is 6-10 and 280 pounds of hulking, plodding center for the Boston Celtics. He’s not a bad player, but he’s so nondescript he has no nickname, other than “Perk.” He’s such a banger that it might as well be “Tree” or “Oak.”

So when a defensive mix-up left Perkins covering Billups in the open court of Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals Saturday, you could feel confident that Billups would cross up Perkins on a dribble and whip right past him.

It should happen 100 out of 100 times, even with Billups’ hamstring bothering him. At least if Billups is paying attention.

Naturally, he wasn’t, and Perkins, a man who is averaging 0.3 steals a game in his career, took the ball mid-dribble.

He stole it from Billups like he knew what he was doing. Of course, he didn’t really know what he was doing, evident when Perkins tried to dribble up court only to bounce the ball off his knee and get his feet tangled up like a center is supposed to in the open court.

Must-win situations are not a familiar place for the San Antonio Spurs.

They survived one Thursday night, earning the chance to play in another.

The defending champions beat the New Orleans Hornets, 99-80 in Game 6, staying alive and forcing a winner-take-all Game 7 on Monday in New Orleans.

“That’s what you want to have, an opportunity,” said Spurs point guard Tony Parker. “That’s why Game 6 was huge. We won the game and now we have an opportunity to win a game on the road.”

Manu Ginobili scored 25 points, Tim Duncan had 20 points and 15 rebounds, and Parker added 15 points to tie the Western Conference semifinals.

The Spurs cruised through last year’s playoffs and to their fourth title in nine seasons without ever facing the threat of elimination.

Before Thursday, the last time San Antonio faced a must-win game was 2006, when they were down 1-3 to the Dallas Mavericks, then came back to force a Game 7 and lost in overtime.

Someone is going to have to beat the Celtics in Boston to keep them from winning their 17th NBA title.

Cleveland is hoping for one more chance.

Kevin Garnett had 26 points and 16 rebounds, and Rajon Rondo added 20 points and 13 assists as the Celtics beat the Cavaliers 96-89 on Wednesday night to move within a win of the Eastern Conference finals.

Game 6 is Friday night in Cleveland.

“We know it’s a win-or-go-home situation. We’ve got to approach it that way,” said LeBron James, who scored 23 of his 35 points in the first 20 minutes and then went cold again. “We’re a very good team at home. But a LeBron James team is never desperate.”

Paul Pierce scored 29 points and helped shut James down for much of the second half. The Cavaliers forward had 23 points with 3:50 left in the first half but made just one basket in the next 20 minutes as Boston erased a 14-point deficit and took the lead for good.

ust when it appeared the Los Angeles Lakers needed Kobe Bryant the most, he provided the least.

The strategy, planned or otherwise, worked to perfection.

Bryant scored 26 points despite not attempting a field goal in the fourth quarter, and the Lakers extended the stunning home success by NBA teams in the second round of the playoffs by beating the Utah Jazz 111-104 on Wednesday night to take a 3-2 lead in the Western Conference semifinals.

The Lakers, who never trailed, can advance to the conference finals for the first time since 2004 with a victory Friday night in Utah. But if form prevails, the teams will be playing a seventh and deciding game Monday night at Staples Center, where Los Angeles has a 17-3 record against the Jazz since the arena opened before the 1999-2000 season.

Home teams have won 19 of the 20 games played in the second round. The Lakers are the top-seeded team in the Western Conference, meaning they have home-court advantage through the first three rounds of the postseason.

The Detroit Pistons missed 64 percent of their shots and had a rookie filling in for an All-Star at point guard.

It didn’t matter.

Detroit set an NBA playoff record with just three turnovers and made just enough shots and stops to advance to their sixth straight Eastern Conference final with a 91-86 win Tuesday night over the Orlando Magic in Game 5 of the second-round series.

Richard Hamilton scored 31 points, made victory-sealing free throws late in the game and Tayshaun Prince had a key block to help Detroit eliminate Orlando.

The Pistons are the first franchise to play in six conference finals in a row since the Los Angeles Lakers went to eight straight in the 1980s.

“Now we expect to do this,” Hamilton said. “We’re supposed to be here.”

The Pistons will have a break before facing the Boston Celtics or Cleveland Cavaliers and that will help Chauncey Billups, who missed his second straight game with a strained right hamstring.

Back pain couldn’t keep David West from taking the court with aggression. The San Antonio Spurs couldn’t stop him from dominating.

“Back in the locker room, right before we break huddle and come out to the game, we said, ‘No excuses,”’ West recalled. “Regardless of how I was feeling, I just knew how important this game was for us as a basketball team. I knew I had to play well. I went out there with the intent to play well and things just went my way.”

Did they ever.

West had career playoff highs of 38 points, 14 rebounds and five blocked shots, lifting New Orleans to a 101-79 victory over the Spurs on Tuesday night and a 3-2 series lead.

New Orleans looked impressive in winning the first two games at home but stumbled in San Antonio. Back in the Big Easy, the Hornets cruised again.

“We’ve proved all season long we’re one of the better teams in the NBA,” Hornets coach Byron Scott said. “We had every reason after Games 3 and 4 to fold, but again, being with these guys, they’ve showed this type of resilience all season, so I’m not surprised.”

LeBron James put his mom and then the Boston Celtics in their places.

James scored 21 points, delivering a devastating dunk over a defenseless Kevin Garnett in the final two minutes, as the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the homesick Celtics 88-77 in Game 4 on Monday night to tie the best-of-seven series at 2-2.

Still stuck in a shooting slump, James dominated down the stretch and finished with 13 assists—four in the fourth quarter. The Cavaliers, too, showed that they can play stingy defense, holding the Celtics—the NBA’s best defensive team—to just 12 points in the final period.

“That’s what we needed to do,” said James, whose mother, Gloria, came to her son’s defense in the first quarter after he got tangled with Paul Pierce and Garnett.

Boston dropped to 0-5 on the road in the postseason, a stunning slip for a team that went 31-10 outside their home floor during the regular season. During a short stay in Ohio, the Celtics lost their momentum in the series but will now head home, where they went 35-6 before the playoffs started.

Gilbert Arenas’ season is over. The Washington Wizards’ season isn’t.

Arenas, who missed most of the regular season following knee surgery, decided he was done shortly before the Wizards faced an elimination game Wednesday night in their first-round playoff series against the Cleveland Cavaliers.

With Arenas out, Caron Butler led the way and made a layup with 3.9 seconds left to give Washington an 88-87 victory and pull the Wizards to 3-2 in the series.

“Instead of me blocking the team from success, we just decided just go ahead and shut it down,” Arenas said an hour before tipoff.

Hobbled by a bone bruise, the three-time All-Star played in the first four games of the series but was not the sharpshooting Agent Zero who has led the Wizards in the past.

He missed the past two days of practice to rest the knee, but then decided along with the team trainer that he would not play again this season regardless of whether the Wizards advance.