First-time NBA finalists Miami and Dallas will begin their championship series on Thursday after beating the Detroit Pistons and the Phoenix Suns, respectively, in the conference finals.

Two Dallas Morning News columnists review the hard 26 years that Mavs fans have endured to reach this pinnacle. "Winford Boynes tossed in 21 points, Tom LaGarde grabbed 14 boards, and the Mavericks beat San Antonio by 11," Tim Cowlishaw writes. "I was in a half-full Reunion Arena that night 25 years and nearly eight months ago when Dallas joined the world of big-time pro basketball. Of course, that wasn't the biggest news of the day in Dallas, certainly not to a reporter for the Daily Oklahoman. The University of Texas beat the Sooners, 20-13, at the Cotton Bowl that afternoon in 1980. This would be one of many Dallas events to overshadow the city's new basketball franchise for years to come."

Adds David Moore, "I haven't been present for everything that has happened to the Mavericks through the years. But I've been around long enough to remember Brad Davis' bell bottoms and Jay Vincent's lime green leisure suit. I was in training camp the day coach Dick Motta cut a player during stretching exercises. This is a franchise that has seen Keith Grant rise from equipment manager to general manager and coach Quinn Buckner alienate everyone around him. There was Derek Harper dribbling out the clock against the Lakers, then handling his mistake with enough class to win everyone's admiration. There was Rolando Blackman's pure jump shot and Sam Perkins' smooth style."

This year's Mavs team is a different breed: A roster acquired by billionaire owner Mark Cuban and melded into West champions by Avery Johnson is favored against the Heat. Dallas swept the season series, embarrassing Miami, 112-76, at home in February. But Miami won its next 10 games, has gone 34-15 overall since then and is 12-5 in the playoffs (as are the Mavs). Miami Herald columnist Greg Cote looks back at that rout four months ago, and its aftermath. "The season pivoted that night, beginning its remarkable journey from that depth to a height this 18-year-old franchise has never reached," Mr. Cote writes. "Frustrations had been building inside all season as the Heat drifted and sputtered and clanked. That night turned a pressure valve; everything that been held corrosively inside and needed to come out did so with a cathartic hiss after the game."

A big part of the catharsis that has healed the Heat this year is a healthier attitude from coach Pat Riley and veterans Shaquille O'Neal and Gary Payton, Mike Wise writes in the Washington Post: "This is what happens when the anger-management guard, the big, distracted kid who likes to eat and the great dictator all make adjustments. You get a different team and a different league."

Some quick words on the conference-finals losers: The Pistons, after squandering a franchise-best 64-win season with a lethargic playoff performance, need to escape "a delusional world smoking the hubris pipe," Drew Sharp writes in the Detroit Free Press.

The outlook in Phoenix is much more positive after the Suns unexpectedly fell just two games short of the finals despite injuries. Coach Mike D'Antoni's "system of up-tempo basketball was validated by the Suns' remarkable playoff push," Dan Bickley writes in the Arizona Republic. And ESPN.com's Bill Simmons says former Denver Nuggets coach deserves credit for inventing the system, though he tried to implement it with a team that wasn't good enough to make it work.

A customized motorcycle that honors the Texas Rangers right down to its badge-shaped wheels went on display Friday at the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame & Museum in Waco.

The maker hopes to sell 100 machines at more than $50,000 each, with a percentage of each sale going to the museum.

The unveiling marks a big weekend at the museum on Lake Brazos that includes a Ranger reunion and a groundbreaking today for a $2.6 million expansion.

At Friday’s ceremony, the public could view the bike, which is due to be whisked away to Dallas today for publicity photos to appear in motorcycle magazines, museum director Byron Johnson said. It will return to Waco for a month. “It’s really a work of art,” he said of the pro-street cruising bike, painted to feature the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame logo and symbols of the Texas Ranger service.

The brake and clutch levers resemble the levers of Ranger-favorite Winchester rifles; and riders will sit on handmade “saddle” seats made by Harris Leather & Silverworks. LDT Customs, of Vanderpool, Texas, has received licensing permission to build the motorcycles.

“I’m a motorcycle enthusiast who grew up in Texas, and I wanted to build a custom bike. They’ve become so popular these days,” said Fred Hathorn, president of LDT Customs. “I wanted something with a Texas flair, and the Texas Rangers kind of go hand in hand with people’s image of the state. Plus, it’s an organization that I really respect.”

Hulking Jim Thome. Rugged Manny Ramirez. Brawny Adam Dunn. "The thought of these big macho men, swinging pink bats to help women with breast cancer ... what a novel idea," Louisville Slugger president John Hillerich said Tuesday.

Derek Jeter, David Eckstein and Marcus Giles are among dozens of players who intend to try them Sunday. This is the first time pink has been approved for bats - dyed at the Louisville Slugger factory, they're usually black, brown, reddish or white.

Kevin Mench was among several Texas players who wanted their mother's names burned on the bats. The Rangers slugger, who homered in seven straight games earlier this season, also planned to have a bat for his grandmother, who died from breast cancer.

"My mom is the glue of our family, and I just want to do something to thank her for all that she has done," Mench said before Tuesday night's game against Minnesota. "At the same time, we are raising money for a great cause."

Howard Smith, senior vice president for licensing for MLB, said the idea for the pink bats struck a chord with commissioner Bud Selig and other executives. The question was how many players would use the sticks.

"It takes a big man to swing a pink bat in a major league game," Smith said.

More than 400 bats were being made for 50-plus players. David Ortiz, Jim Edmonds, Mark Teixeira, Michael Young and Hank Blalock were also on the list.

The Louisville Slugger factory started making the bats last week. Players were still placing orders as of Tuesday, and bats will probably be made and shipped overnight until Thursday or Friday.

"The response has been phenomenal," Hillerich said.

The bats posed something of a logistical problem for Louisville Slugger. Each player uses a different model and size, so coloring, branding and shipping them for Sunday's game has been a challenge, company spokesman Dan Burgess said.

Along with the pink bats, players and all on-field personnel will wear pink wristbands and a pink ribbon for breast cancer awareness on their uniforms. The pink ribbon logo will appear on the bases and on commemorative home plates, and the lineups will be written on pink cards.

The bats, along with the home plates and lineup cards, will be autographed by the teams and will be auctioned off later with the proceeds going to the Breast Cancer Foundation.

Hulking Jim Thome. Rugged Manny Ramirez. Brawny Adam Dunn. "The thought of these big macho men, swinging pink bats to help women with breast cancer ... what a novel idea," Louisville Slugger president John Hillerich said Tuesday.

Derek Jeter, David Eckstein and Marcus Giles are among dozens of players who intend to try them Sunday. This is the first time pink has been approved for bats - dyed at the Louisville Slugger factory, they're usually black, brown, reddish or white.

Kevin Mench was among several Texas players who wanted their mother's names burned on the bats. The Rangers slugger, who homered in seven straight games earlier this season, also planned to have a bat for his grandmother, who died from breast cancer.

"My mom is the glue of our family, and I just want to do something to thank her for all that she has done," Mench said before Tuesday night's game against Minnesota. "At the same time, we are raising money for a great cause."

Howard Smith, senior vice president for licensing for MLB, said the idea for the pink bats struck a chord with commissioner Bud Selig and other executives. The question was how many players would use the sticks.

"It takes a big man to swing a pink bat in a major league game," Smith said.

More than 400 bats were being made for 50-plus players. David Ortiz, Jim Edmonds, Mark Teixeira, Michael Young and Hank Blalock were also on the list.

The Louisville Slugger factory started making the bats last week. Players were still placing orders as of Tuesday, and bats will probably be made and shipped overnight until Thursday or Friday.

"The response has been phenomenal," Hillerich said.

The bats posed something of a logistical problem for Louisville Slugger. Each player uses a different model and size, so coloring, branding and shipping them for Sunday's game has been a challenge, company spokesman Dan Burgess said.

Along with the pink bats, players and all on-field personnel will wear pink wristbands and a pink ribbon for breast cancer awareness on their uniforms. The pink ribbon logo will appear on the bases and on commemorative home plates, and the lineups will be written on pink cards.

The bats, along with the home plates and lineup cards, will be autographed by the teams and will be auctioned off later with the proceeds going to the Breast Cancer Foundation.

Winning an NBA championship can be a wonderful thing. Winning consecutive championships is 10 times more impressive.

The NBA playoffs opened this weekend with 16 teams still in the chase for the 2006 title, but only one - the San Antonio Spurs - with a good chance to rearrange its place in basketball history.

The Spurs already have won three titles (1999, 2003, 2005), but they never have repeated, the only blotch on an otherwise dynastic run with Tim Duncan at power forward. Is health the reason the Spurs have been unable to repeat? Does the championship grind take too much out of him?

"Coach (Gregg Popovich) told us at the very beginning, 'We need to repeat,'" Spurs guard Tony Parker said. "That's been the goal."

The playoffs begin with the Spurs and the Detroit Pistons - opponents in the 2005 NBA Finals - as the top-seeded teams in their respective conferences. Both are expected to play for the championship again. It was the Pistons who derailed a potential repeat for San Antonio in 2004, and it was the Los Angeles Lakers who did it in 2000.

The Spurs/Sacramento Kings was just one of the four first-round, best-of-seven-game matchups that began Saturday. The other four start today. Although top-seeded teams such as the Spurs rarely break a sweat in the opening round, the Kings could make it uncomfortable for the defending champions.

The Miami Heat, who lost to Detroit in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals last season, believe they can replace the Pistons in the NBA Finals this season. They started their run at home Saturday against the Chicago Bulls.

In the East, other opening-round matchups are the Milwaukee Bucks and Detroit, Indiana Pacers and New Jersey Nets and the Washington Wizards and Cleveland Cavaliers. In the West, it's the Los Angeles Lakers and Phoenix Suns, Denver Nuggets and Los Angeles Clippers, and the Memphis Grizzlies and Dallas Mavericks.

Free throws

• Detroit's Rasheed Wallace will tell you it's all about the 'ships.

That's championships, for those who don't speak Rasheed. The Pistons have the best record in basketball, the home-court advantage throughout the playoffs and something to prove. "This is what we've been waiting for," Wallace said. "It's here, and now we're ready."

• Everyone knows Miami's Shaquille O'Neal is a jokester. But does anyone really believe he was playing possum during the most mundane regular season of his career, conserving energy to be fresh for the playoffs. "I'll be there when it matters," O'Neal said over and over. It matters. And we will point out that Shaq's postseason scoring average has dropped for five consecutive seasons. That's no joke.

• The ascension continues. Cleveland's LeBron James, at the tender age of 21, has led his team to the playoffs for the first of many times.

His regular season was spectacular, as he became the fourth player to average more than 31 points, seven rebounds and six assists for a season. But James knows his legacy will be shaped by what he does in the postseason. "We can't just get there and lay an egg," he said. "We have to win by any means necessary."

Series oddities

• Phoenix took the regular-season series against the LA Lakers 3-1. All three of the Lakers' losses came on the tail end of back-to-backs.

• San Antonio's two victories over Sacramento during the regular season were by a combined total of four points.

• Detroit took the season series with Milwaukee 3-1, even though the teams scored the same amount of points.

• Indiana took the regular-season series with New Jersey 2-1, but Ron Artest was in uniform for one victory and the Nets' Vince Carter went out with a hamstring injury early in the other.

Yao Ming, the Rockets' All-Star center and leading scorer among the active players, broke his left foot Monday in the first quarter of an 85-83 loss to the Utah Jazz. With the playoffs well out of reach and just four games remaining, Yao's fourth season in the NBA appears to be over.

"Maybe it's the best thing for me, and when I come back I'll be stronger," Yao said while wearing a protective boot in the locker room after the game.

Yao planned to have the broken bone in his foot examined Tuesday in Houston, and will find out whether he'll need surgery. The Chinese star said he thought he hurt it when Utah's Mehmet Okur kicked him in the side of the foot.

Yao limped through a few more minutes, but had enough shortly after Utah's Andrei Kirilenko appeared to step on Yao's injured foot while the two were going for position under the basket.

Yao beat Kirilenko for the offensive rebound and made the layup, then bent over and rubbed his left foot before going to the line and converting the three-point play with 4:35 left in the first quarter.

Yao limped off the court 44 seconds later, leaving the Rockets without their top two scorers. McGrady has been out since early March with a bad back.

"I hope I'm the last one," Yao said of the injuries to the Rockets.

Yao was having his best season since coming over from China in 2002. He averaged nearly 23 points and 10 rebounds and was second only to McGrady in scoring for the Rockets. Yao missed 21 games earlier in the season after having surgery to clean out an infection on his left big toe.

Yao said the contact with Okur was accidental.

"It was a fight for position," Yao said. "It happens on the court."

Yao had five points, two rebounds and a block in 8:31 before leaving the game and the rest of the Rockets to wrap up a grueling, six-game road trip. And even without Yao, Houston rallied from an 11-point deficit and had several chances in the final minutes to win it.

Utah's Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer both went 1-for-2 on free throws in the final 1:11, leaving the Rockets within range until the final play. Juwan Howard made a shot at the buzzer, but it was too late to count.

After reviewing the play, referee Joe Crawford ended the game by shouting "No good!" toward Houston coach Jeff Van Gundy and the Rockets.

"Whoever's in or whoever's out, we just keep plugging away," Houston's David Wesley said.

The Jazz won their third straight and improved to 38-39, getting within 2 1/2 games of the Lakers and Kings, who are tied for the last two playoff spots. It may be too much ground to make up for Utah, which would lose a tiebreaker to Sacramento.

Utah coach Jerry Sloan said if Howard had gotten the shot off a few tenths of a second sooner and not stepped inside the 3-point line, Houston would have gone home with a victory.

"I didn't know who was still trying to make the playoffs," Sloan said. "They looked like the team that wants to be in the playoffs and we looked like we don't want to be there."

Howard finished with 25 points and Rafer Alston scored 20 for the Rockets. They were the only Houston players to score in double figures, although the short-handed Rockets came close to all but knocking Utah out of the playoff race.

Boozer went 1-for-2 from the free-throw line with 4.3 seconds left and Houston's Chuck Hayes, who had just missed two free throws at the other end, pulled down the rebound on the second shot and Houston called timeout.

Alston dribbled at the top of the key and got a late pass off to Howard in the corner in front of the Jazz bench. By the time Howard caught the ball and took a step toward the basket, the buzzer had sounded and Howard didn't get the ball off in time.

"Unfortunately, at times things don't work out your way and tonight we came out with a lot of fight, start to finish, unfortunately we just couldn't pull out the victory," Howard said.

The Red Sox were behind from the first inning, losing their second game of the season to the Texas Rangers, 10-to-4.

Phil Nevin’s three-run homer put the Rangers ahead 4-to-0 in the first, when the first four batters reached base.

New Sox leadoff hitter Coco Crisp had three hits and a stolen base. After his leadoff single in the sixth, he scored on a double by David Ortiz. Those hits sandwiched a spectacular defensive play by All-Star shortstop Michael Young.

Young went deep in the hole toward the third-base line to backhand Mark Loretta’s grounder, then threw him out at first on a close play.

Boston manager Terry Francona was on the steps of the dugout and looked as if he was going to come out to argue the call, but didn’t after seeing the replay on the big screen.

Brad Wilkerson, the Rangers’ new leadoff hitter, was 3-for-5, scored three runs and homered leading off the sixth against DiNardo. Rod Barajas added a two-run homer in the seventh against David Riske.