NBA owners and players broke off talks for the night after midnight in New York City, but will be right back at it around lunchtime on Thursday.

They talked for more than 11 hours on Wednesday and must made some kind of progress in all that time, right? Still…no deal, although there's a hunch among reporters camped out covering this negotiation for all these weeks that the two sides are closer than they admitted early Thursday morning. "We've sort of stopped the clock and we continue to negotiate," NBA commissioner David Stern said, referring to that Wednesday afternoon deadline he had set for players to accept the owners' ultimatum offer made early Sunday morning. "I would not read into this optimism or pessimism….Nothing was worked out today." The sticky point here: The union is looking at the negotiation's two major components – the split of basketball-related income and the system that would or wouldn't allow veteran free agents to play for the team of their choice – are separate entities that can be swapped one for the other in the haggling. By offering to finally meet the owner's demand for a 50/50 split, the players want concessions on system issues that would things largely as they have been. The NBA wants it all, both components, the Big Win. "The competitive issues are independent of the economic issues and our goal is to have a system where all 30 teams are competing for championships and if managed well, they have the ability to break even or make a profit," NBA deputy commissioner Adam Silver said. "We don't see the ability to break even or make a profit as a tradeoff for the ability to field a competitive team." The players want mostly intact the same system that allowed LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh to join together in Miami and that allowed Carmelo Anthony to force a trade from Denver to New York and caused Utah to send Deron Williams to New Jersey. "Obviously, we'd have a deal done if the right flexibility was being shown," NBA Players Association president Derek Fisher said referring to the league's willingness to compromise on restrictions it has sought to that system. "The fact we don't have a deal let's you know there's still work left to be done on the system. We're going to meet tomorrow to give it our best effort, but we're not sure it'll be enough to get it done... "We can't say there was significant progress made today, but we're going to meet again and see if we can continue to make the efforts at least to try and finish this thing out."
And so Day 132 of the lockout turns into Day 133 on Thursday. "Every day that we lose another game it just enhances the case to make a deal and causes both sides to recognize the damage," Stern said. "We're here, the clock is stopped and we're trying to see if there's a reason why we can get something to go back to our respective sides with." "We're not failing and we're not succeeding," he said about Wednesday's talks. "We're just there." Apparently, Timberwolves players are ready to play. "Outside howling ready for the season!!!!," Wolves forward Michael Beasley tweeted and posted a photo of Wednesday's full moon while the two sides continued to talk late into the night. "Who with me #howlnation" A little later, rookie Derrick Williams tweeted, "Minnesota..we will be there soon!!" With the "clock stopped," Stern said that deadline won't arrive until this current negotiating session ends. If it does without a deal, then he says that "reset" proposal -- a 47 percent split for players and harder cap -- will be the one on table. "We're trying to demonstrate our good faith and I think the union is trying to demonstrate its good faith," Stern said.