Five things last night in the NBA reminded us

Some nights spent watching the NBA result in learning new things about teams, players, coaches and the game of basketball in general. Other nights are spent realizing that things we thought we knew aren't really true, and sometimes, like last night, five hours of ball simply reminds us of things we should have already known.

For example...

The Spurs are still here
Something about the injuries they've dealt with, the way they've struggled against other elite teams this season and the focus on either Miami/Oklahoma City or new additions to the true contender echelon like Indiana, Houston and the Clippers, almost gave San Antonio a bit of an underdog feel there for a few minutes.

Then last night happened, as the Spurs discombobulated the Heat in ways perhaps no one else has this season, especially in that fourth quarter, and we quickly realized that this team is now healthy again, they're suddenly within a half-game of first place OKC in the West and within one game of Indiana for first overall. Through it all, again, here the Spurs stand in early March, with as good a chance at home court advantage throughout the playoffs as anyone right now.

The Heat are still human, but that's okay
Miami looked sloppy and just plain bad for parts of Thursday's Finals rematch in San Antonio, and they haven't led at all in their last two games, but they've lost a couple of road games to two legitimate title contenders (Yes, the Rockets are legit). It's really not that big of a deal.

Their recent eight-game winning streak didn't turn into a 27-gamer and LeBron's jumper has gone cold since dropping 61 against the Bobcats, but something tells me they'll be okay.

The Suns will not go away
The Suns may fall short in their unlikely playoff race, they may end up taking a backseat to more veteran teams like the Mavs and Grizzlies come April, but they're not just going to fall off before then. This team will be there until the bitter end, and last night's thrilling rally past the West-leading Thunder was just another reminder of that.

It also reminded us that somewhere along the way this season, between Goran Dragic emerging as one of the league's five best guards, Gerald Green becoming the type of sharpshooter who can drop 40 on the Thunder, the Morris twins becoming world beaters and Jeff Hornacek becoming a Coach of the Year favorite, the Suns undoubtedly became the funnest team in the Association.

Oh yeah, and Eric Bledsoe is expected back within the next week.

Russell Westbrook is as polarizing as ever
Westbrook was already polarizing in the sense that despite being a top-10 NBA player when healthy, fans wondered aloud whether his seemingly 'selfish' play was taking away from Kevin Durant's potential, and therefore from OKC's potential. The Thunder playing arguably their best ball of the season and Durant the best of his career with Russ on the shelf this season didn't help, nor did the Thunder's brief struggles when Westbrook first rejoined the team, but it's not hard to realize that Oklahoma City is better with two great players as opposed to one.

Still, on Thursday Westbrook was OKC's best player, posting 36 points on 13-of-22 shooting to go with nine rebounds, nine assists and four steals, and yet much of the Russ-discussion postgame on twitter was about a couple of bricked, ill-advised jumpers he took down the stretch.

L.A. belongs to the Clippers
The Clippers have been the better team for two seasons now, and it's been obvious for months that for the first time since the Clips moved to California, they were going to make the playoffs in a season when the Lakers did not. But if ever there was a game to drive home the point that Los Angeles is their town now, good God, was this ever it, as the Clippers handed the Lakers the purple and gold's worst loss in franchise history.

Let's just let the tweets do the talking:

The final rebounding tally was 64-33.

It was 104-58 late in the third quarter when Doc Rivers sat his stars.