New York Times, June 21

I hate to say it, but this is almost my least favorite kind of puzzle. There are no plays on words and no clever theme to uncover, really, because the cleverness is kind of self-contained in the smug clues.

“Famous Last Words” gives you some amusing (purported) final thoughts — “My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go.” (1- and 13 Across) — but no deeper connection between any of the answers. (The wallpaper guy was OSCAR WILDE.)

Of course GROUCHO MARX is always funny (27 Across, “Die, my dear? Why, that’s the last thing I’ll do!”) and emperors like CALIGULA are always imperious (46 Down, “I live!”). And live he does, incidentally, through at least one movie and a song by Macy Gray that bear his name.

I’ll admit to be temporarily tricked by “Eva is leaving” (48 Down), which I initially filled in as EVA GABOR before I realized it was EVA PERON. Somehow, I think my first answer might have been appropriate as well.

I’m also going to take issue with 34 Down, “It has 10 branches: Abbr.” Having grown up in California, I’ve never heard the University of California system referred to as UCAL, as the answer would have you believe. Cal is UC Berkeley; the rest of the system is referred to as the UC system. And branches? It’s not a bank. Campuses would be more accurate.

For the record, my least favorite type of puzzle is the long quote that goes across four or five rows of the grid. You are stuck with clues like, “Quote, part 4,” which are not only completely useless but fail to provide the layered challenge of the best puzzles. Oh well. Now watch — that’s going to be the theme next week, just to spite me.

Questions or comments? Twitter me @crosswordkathy

Merl Reagle, June 21

I thought at first that this would be a typical doubled-letter kind of theme, with answers like BOOKKEEPER and the like.

But it turned out to be much more clever than that — although why Merl ran this AFTER basketball season ended is a little curious. Maybe he thought the Lakers would need more than five games to beat the Magic.

The theme answers are names of NBA teams: MAGIC WIZARD (17 Across, “Merlin”) is a little redundant, but it incorporates the names of the Orlando team (the Magic) and the Washington team (the Wizards). Same with SUN KING (20 Across, “Louis XIV’s nickname”), for the Phoenix and Sacramento teams; CELTIC WARRIOR (102 Across, “Fifth century tough guy), for Boston and Golden State; and, in an impressive long one, SUPERSONIC TRAILBLAZER (60 Across, “Chuck Yeager?”), for Seattle and Portland.

However, the Seattle Supersonics don’t actually exist anymore; they moved to Oklahoma City and became the Thunder.

Another quirk that got me curious was that, at least in my version of the puzzle in the Philadelphia Inquirer, the theme clues were all bolded. Usually just a question mark at the end of the clue, or the fact that the answer is long, is enough to indicate the answer is part of the theme. Maybe since some of them were so short (SUN KING, for example), Merl felt like he needed to emphasize they were part of the theme.

Questions or comments? Twitter me @crosswordkathy