Nick Nurse and the Iowa Energy won the 2011 NBA D-League championship over the Rio Grande Valley Vipers with a 119-111 victory on Friday night to win Game 3 of the three-game series.

The Energy outscored the Vipers 38-23 in the fourth quarter to claim the first championship in team history behind 31 points from guard Stefhon Hannah following D-League MVP Curtis Stinson's first half injury. The Energy were also missing Othyus Jeffers, Marqus Blakely, Chris Lofton and Courtney Sims, all of which were missing either due to NBA call-ups or overseas opportunities that offered higher salaries.

Aside from Hannah, Michale Haynes scored 21, Shy Ely had 17, Moses Ehambe dumped in 15, Scott VanderMeer scored 14 and 2010 NBA draft second round pick Stanley Robinson scored 10 points for the Energy. Obviously Energy coach Nurse, as well as assistant Nate Bjorkren, had quite a bit to do with leading the misfit Iowa team to a D-League championship in front of an announced crowd of 9,054 in Des Moines.

For the visiting Vipers, Jerel McNeal led the team with 29 points, 11 rebounds and six assists in a valiant effort. Rio Grande Valley actually had six other players in double figures with Matt Janning (18), Connor Atchley (14), Richard Roby (12), Mouhammad Faye and Jon Scheyer (11) as well as Terrel Harris (10) scoring in double digits for the former defending D-League champions.

Congratulations certainly go out to the Energy coaching staff as well as Chris Finch, Paul Mokeski and the rest of the Vipers coaching staff.

Video from Game 3 is available here at NBA.com.

Since most everyone will be focusing on either the NFL Draft, Game 6 of the San Antonio Spurs vs. Memphis Grizzlies series, the NHL Playoffs, this week's Shark Tank episode (Jeff Foxworthy is back as an investor!) or Kathy Griffin's coverage of the Royal Wedding on the TV Guide Channel, I'm going to lead today's entry off with some excellent news!

The NBA D-League, in partnership with the VERSUS television network, will delay tonight's airing of the championship game between the Rio Grande Valley Vipers and Iowa Energy (which will be played in Des Moines at 7 p.m.) until midnight central time so all of the fans can catch it without interruption from those other pesky primetime shows.

For what it's worth, I think I'm going to pick the Vipers to win simply due to having more NBA caliber talent. I wouldn''t be shocked, however, if Energy coach Nick Nurse is able to get his misfit toys to band together one more time and pull out a victory. In fact, I almost wish that Mustafa Shakur, Jeff Adrien, Othyus Jeffers, Marqus Blakely, Courtney Sims and the rest of the standout players that were with these two teams during the regular season before moving on to greener pastures were allowed to return to their D-League teams for tonight's championship game.

For the rest of tonight's preview, I turn in it over to Jonah Goldberg and the over-informative game notes I received from him in my inbox last night. It's a bit Vipers heavy, but that's only because I didn't receive any game notes from the Energy.

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I wasn't able to watch the game live as the NBA Development League has decided to make the D-League Finals unavailable to watch on any format as the games are happening, but press releases (and the box score) have confirmed that the Rio Grande Valley Vipers forced a deciding Game 3 against the Iowa Energy on Friday.

The final score was 141-122 in favor of Rio Grande Valley in front of the record Energy crowd, but The Vipers actually trailed 74-70 with just over seven minutes remaining in the third quarter before going on a 22-7 run over the next 2:38 to make sure their season wouldn't end on Wednesday night.

The Vipers, who have their basketball operations run by the Houston Rockets, were led by former New Orleans Hornets call-up Jerel McNeal as the guard scored 37 points to go with eight assists while Richard Roby came off the bench to score 28 points. Other players in double-digits for the Vipers were rookie Mouhammad Faye with 16 points and 12 rebounds before fouling out, Terrel Harris scored 16 points as well to go with eight rebounds and seven assists off the bench, Matt Janning and Patrick Sullivan scored 14 apiece while Jon Scheyer rounded out the double-figure scorers by scoring 11 points in 32 minutes.

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Tonight the NBA Development League, the official minor league of the NBA with an innovative system that allows fans to watch all of the games online, will play Game 2 of the NBA D-League Finals between the Rio Grande Valley Vipers and Iowa Energy. If you would like to watch this game live, you can't, but it will be shown tape-delayed on VERSUS around 10 p.m. Central Time (or whenever the hockey highlight show finished up).

I think the Vipers will win this evening, mostly because I like the passion in winner-take-all games, but let us look away from my opinions (since I won't be able to watch this game live, anyway, and am still irked about that) and instead toward what other people are writing!

• Sean Keeler of the Des Moines Register has a pretty nice rundown of the relationship between Energy head coach Nick Nurse and Vipers head coach Chris Finch.  What he's missing, however, is any mention of Vipers assistant coach Paul Mokeski. A coach with quite a bit of coaching experience following his 12-year NBA playing career, Mokeski is an assistant alongside Nurse with the Great Britain National Team and should certainly get some consideration for head coaching jobs around the D-League next season (or assistant jobs in the NBA).
• Jonah Goldberg of the Vipers sent along the best stat I've ever had sent along to me by any former cellist that is now a Director of Communications (ever!): There has been a three-second violation called 0.88 times per game during the playoffs. During the regular season, there were 1.56 per game. There has been one called during Vipers games this post-season, against Connor Atchley in Game 1 of the Quarterfinals at Bakersfield (4/8/11). The Vipers opponents have yet to be called for one. I wonder how that statistic will affect this game!
• Daniel Artest, brother of Los Angeles Lakers forward Ron Artest, interviewed Iowa Energy point guard -- and D-League MVP -- Curtis Stinson for The No-Look Pass yesterday. In it, Stinson tells Artest the following when asked to describe his game: "But I think i have a Chauncey Billups game without the 3-point shot. I'm an all-around player that likes to fill up the stat sheet."

Earlier this week, ESPN TrueHoop's Henry Abbott opined that the NBA Development League's goaltending rules are an "absolute no-brainer" and something he believes that the NBA should adopt. I, on the other hand, am not so sure this would be such a wise idea.

Abbott brought that up on the heels of Game 1 of the Denver Nuggets vs. Oklahoma City Thunder (#THUNDERNUGGETS)  game earlier this week due to the controversy that surrounded Kendrick Perkins rather blatant -- but uncalled -- offensive interference of Russell Westbrook's jumpshot late in the game (video here).

The exact D-League rule Abbott's referring to was something I originally summed up back at FanHouse:

The NBA Development League plans to alter its rules this season to incorporate the FIBA-like goaltending rules, meaning that once the ball strikes the rim, players will be allowed to either swat the ball off the rim or tip it in, unlike the NBA's current rules that state that an imaginary cylinder exists that has the basket as its base and touching the ball while any part of it is in this cylinder -- and still has a chance to go in -- is a violation.

Watching last night's D-League game between the Rio Grande Valley Vipers and Reno Bighorns, however, made me think that the goaltending rule might be good the way it is as long as it's officiated correctly. I'm not against new and exciting rules, it just seems that the below play shows that the offensive interference/goaltending/no-call rule is a bit too open to interpretation, leaving a bit too much in the hands of the officials.

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The NBA D-League Finals could be determined tonight when the Rio Grande Valley Vipers head to Nevada to take on the Eric Musselman led Reno Bighorns in Game 2 of the three-game D-League Playoffs semifinal series.

If the Vipers win tonight, they'll host the Iowa Energy in Game 1 of the D-League Finals on Easter Sunday before heading to Iowa for for Game 2 on Wednesday and Game 3 next Friday, if necessary. If the Bighorns win tonight, they'll have to win again tomorrow, too (because it's a best-of-three series, you see).

The match-up to watch tonight is Reno's big wings with quite a bit of NBA experience in Marcus Landry and Bobby Simmons versus RGV's small wings with (a tiny bit of) NBA experience in Matt Janning and Jon Scheyer.

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The Iowa Energy are headed to the NBA Development League Finals after dispatching the Latavious Williams (and Larry Owens)-less Tulsa 66ers on Monday night to take the series 2-0. The final score was 107-94, but an 85-69 deficit at the end of the third quarter made it seem like Tulsa was just hoping to get it over with while playing their final stanza of the season.

In a somewhat extremely surprising performance, Energy center Scott VanderMeer led the Energy in shot attempts (21), points (19), rebounds (18) and blocks (5) after earning 10 DNP-coach's decisions early in the season while stuck on the bench behind Courtney Sims. VanderMeer is just barely on the fringe of the NBA radar after being invited to play at the Portsmouth Invitational after his four-year career at Illinois-Chicago ended before finding a roster spot on his home-state Indiana Pacers' Summer League roster in 2009 (I wrote about how he'd eventually be a D-League backup way back then!).

The Energy actually had five other players score in double figures as D-League MVP Curtis Stinson finished with 19 points and 13 assists, Stefhon Hannah added 18 points, Moses Ehambe scored 17 points, Michael Haynes had 15 and Kenny Taylor finished with 14 to round out the double-digit scorers.

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Tonight's game between the Iowa Energy and Tulsa 66ers could answer quite a few questions: Will Curtis Stinson be named this year's D-League MVP? Will Nick Nurse finally be awarded the D-League's Coach of the Year award? Will the Energy finally advance to the D-League Finals? Do the Tulsa 66ers regret trading Moses Ehambe? Is Marcus Lewis the most underrated big man in the D-League? Is Scott Schroeder really this awkward? I expect at least a few of those questions to be answered tonight.

That's basically my preview of tonight's game -- sorry -- so let's get into the matchup to watch:

Energy point guard Curtis Stinson versus the entire 66ers Jerome Dyson, again.

As I wrote in my Game 1 preview, Stinson has arguably been the best point guard in the D-League over the past three seasons, but has never received an NBA look. Part of that is probably due to the fact that he's unable to control his emotions, he can't shoot from distance and the fact that he's been atop -- or near -- the leaders in turnovers over the past three seasons. Still, as the starting point guard on the best team for three straight seasons, one would think the NBA might give him a look. In the first round, Stinson averaged an amazing 32.3 points, 9.0 assists and 7.3 rebounds while willing Iowa to victory.

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