6 Thoughts
1) This game was a slog; King James James (with Hubie doing the game on ABC!) was grouchy. He didn't have Dwyane Wade, who was held out with the bruised knee; the series was basically over, but he still had to play this game; and, most annoyingly, he had just spent four days in Milwaukee. He basically ran the "molasses" offense and defense for three quarters, clearly intending to try to win the game with one focused fourth quarter stretch. And then the fourth quarter started...and he won the game with one focused fourth quarter stretch! 30 points, 8 rebounds, 7 assists for KJ on 13-20. Sweep, take a shower, drink a crappy domestic beer, start the plane, and let's get out of here! Let those bruised knees heal! So good to be home! Let it fly!
2) So with Dwyane Wade limited a bit through the first three games, and wisely taking today off, Miami had to get a little more offense from other sources. And by "other sources," I mean "Connecticut's own Walter Ray Allen!" One of the key matchups in this series was the battle of shooters off the bench, Ray against Milwaukee's J.J. Redick. And Ray dominated him, frankly. Redick's minutes got limited all series because he couldn't stay with Ray defensively, and Miami picked on him mercilessly. Today, with Milwaukee clinging to life, at the beginning of fourth quarter Ray made a step-back jumper over Redick, then stripped him on the other end, causing a turnover. After Mario Chalmers committed back-to-back turnovers, the Heat only 3-18 on triples, and the lead down to 2, Rio snuck in on the offensive boards and ripped a rebound away from the Bucks (Emcee somehow grabbed 8 rebounds), and found KJ, who lasered a ridiculous crosscourt pass to Ray for a three. After a stop, KJ drove middle and threw one back out to Chalmers for another triple, Heat by 8, followed in rapid succession by threes from Battier, and then Ray again, then a floater-bump-and-one from KJ: 14 point lead, 5 minutes to go, ballgame, series over, week off! Walter Ray: 16 points on 10 shots, 7 rebounds. Redick: 10 points on 11 shots, one gratuitous shove on Chris "Birdman" Andersen, and one game-stoppage when he was bleeding from the elbow and screamed over at the Heat huddle, "cut those fingernails." Wow - ferocious trash talk! Ray Allen may be old, but he embarrassed J.J. Redick in this series.
3) When Miami was running its "coma" offense in the third quarter, which included Mike Mil-lar missing three wide open triples (is it windy in that building? is the court not level? are the baskets 10 feet high?), you know who saved the day? Udonis Haslem! Jumper. Was. Wet. You wanna see it rain? Let it rain! Baseline jumpers all day from UD in that quarter, just like back in the day, you know, how we used to do it! Scored 9 points in the quarter, and had 2 free throws taken away on a bizarre charging call - 13 on the day for UD on 6-9 and 5 boards in 19 minutes. He picked up Dwyane, and held the fort long enough for KJ to win it with his one fourth quarter surge. But the best part of UD's run? When Hubie Brown, really one of the least eloquent men alive (though I love him), pointed out that "UD loves the midpoint! That spot in between the basket and the sideline, the midpoint jumper!" A "midpoint jumper?" Maybe in 1940 we called that the "midpoint jumper," but since at least 1978, we've called that a midrange jumper! I was kind of tuning Hubie out, but I'm sure he probably called UD "UD Haslem" as some point. Did he get a "Bird Andersen" in there as well? I really should have been playing closer attention. I was just waiting for KJ to spurt. That's what she said...
4) Have you seen the new Hennessy ads starring Manny Pacquiao? It's basically Manny Pacquiao going around doing stuff in especially dark rooms, and then the tag line is "what's your wild rabbit? Don't stop..." What the? What's my 'wild rabbit?" What the heck does that even mean? Wait a second, wait a second. Manny Pacquiao is the super-popular Filipino boxer. And who is a huge Manny Pacquiao fan, and the only coach of Filipino heritage in the NBA? Coach Erik Spoelstra! And nobody has more vague-ish, seemingly unique, coach-speak cliches than Coach Spo! "We need to play to our identity." "That's your truth, not our truth." "Positionless." "We have to respect the process." And most famously: "Don't. Let. Go. Of. The. Rope." What if it turns out that all Coach Spo's "basketball" mantras are just bizarre, meaningless, oblique Manny Pacquiao "philosophies," the mad rantings of a man who gets punched in the head for a living? Mario Chalmers: what is your wild rabbit? Coach Spo is a fraud!
5) BOOOOOOMMMM!!!!!
"And down goes The Jet!!!" ...If someone makes this play into a feature-length film and runs it as a twin-bill with KJ James murdering Terry on that dunk from a few weeks ago, I will bring my whole family and all my friends to see it (popcorn on me), buy the director's cut DVD (one of the DVD extras: "Paul Pierce's Most Awkward Failed Okey Dokes"), and download it off Netflix so that I can watch it on my iPhone all day, every day.
6) I never do this, I never use this blog to advance my own personal life, but just bear with me for one second here...To the sexy young thing working behind the Publix fish counter who sold me jumbo shrimp on sale for $11.99 a pound this morning, and spent several minutes pouring her heart out to me because her boyfriend lied to her about where he was last night: hey, baby, s'up? These shrimps ain't gonna eat themselves, you know? Give me a call, boo. My number's 561-BIG-SEXY. I'll be waiting, gurrllll...
-----
Well, we are off until at least Saturday now. That's good for Miami. Maybe they will get rusty, but if Dwyane's knee, which is definitely starting to be worrisome, can get a little better, it's worth the tradeoff. By the way, no complaints on the knee thing from me - so many big-time stars are out of these playoffs, the completely unlikable Russell Westbrook the latest to go - you just have to deal with what you have to deal with. How's that for deep? Or, try this: the Heat are a "no excuses team" - another classic Spo-ism!...Miami plays the winner of the Bulls-Nets series. Bulls lead 3-1 after a triple overtime thriller yesterday. To all the people who read this blog and either tweeted at me or emailed me to curse me because I guaranteed a Nets series win, and somehow reverse-jinxed the Bulls into the series lead, I have four things to say. One, you can all go to hell. Two, I couldn't have reverse-jinxed the Bulls into the series lead because I really don't give a crud who wins that series - reverse-jinx only works for things that involve the Heat. Three, why is everyone so worried about the Bulls? They barely finished over .500, and their best player is basically playing on a broken foot and can not run or jump. Yeah, they are tough, but they are not good. If Miami can't beat them, or the Nets for that matter, what's the difference? They aren't good enough to win the title anyways in that case. Four: I STILL promise you the Nets will win that series. I GUARANTEE it - the Bulls stink, that team stinks. They've been hella lucky - that turns around starting now. Nets in 7...See you sometime next weekend. If you need me before then, I'll be whipping up my famous Shrimp Diablo, turning the new Black Eye Peas album up, the lights down lowwww, annnnnnd...
-----
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Heat 104 Bucks 91 Heat lead 3-0
6 Thoughts
1) It was ragged, it was disjointed, and it was bizarre, but in the end it was just another blowout win, and the Heat lead the series 3-0. The Bucks are really going to have to pick it up to win in 6, as Brandon Jennings predicted. Also, I'm going to admit something: Coach Spo and King James James know more about basketball than me. Special edition of "let it fly" down in #6, so, shall we? Yes, we shall: Stud Doogie, Let It Fly!
2) For the second straight game, Miami kind of struggled for the better part of three quarters, and for the second straight game you know who turned it around? Kid 'n' Play Junior and The Bird! First reason why Coach Spo is smarter than me: for most of the season, Norris Cole has made me want to suffocate myself to death by smothering my face in a high-top fade. He's super-athletic, seems like an incredibly nice kid, plays as hard as anyone in the league, and his parents have a nice van. But he commits dumb fouls, and worse, he's a point guard with horrific court vision, and bad shot selection. But Spo kept putting him out there, and putting him out there, and down the stretch of the season he played a little better - turned it over a little less, and pushed the three point percentage up to a league average 35%. And he has absolutely sparked this team the last couple of games. Today, he repeatedly got in to the lane and instead of forcing up contested runners, found people around the rim (usually Bird), or camping out behind the three point line (usually Ray Allen). He finished with 7 points on 3-4 shooting, including a personal 5 point burst to start the fourth quarter on a steal and layup, and then a three pointer to put the Heat up 14 and pretty much end the game. He also had 4 assists and 3 steals in his 21 minutes. I always hate Spo for putting him in - but right now Spo is looking pretty savvy. As for Bird: what more can you say? He had 11 points on 5-5 and 6 rebounds in 14 minutes - his two layups in the waning moments of the third quarter, one a crazy, underhanded reverse and-1, sandwiched around a hustling, dunk-saving foul on Samuel Dalembert (South Florida and Eric Reid's own!) who missed both free throws, put the Heat up 10 after 3. He's 13-15 for 31 points and 19 rebounds in the series. Caw-caw!
3) Bosh and James: Really, Chris Bosh? In the first half, someone on the Bucks missed a jumper, it bounced off the rim to the sidelines, it probably would have gone out of bounds to Miami, and Chris Bosh ran out there, grabbed it, and passed it to a guard. In the regular season, he would have watched that ball go out of bounds 100 out of 100 times. Nobody has two different levels of play like Chris Bosh! He had 16 and 14 tonight, and most importantly, all series he has done a good job of flattening out dribblers, and contesting plays at the rim. I don't recognize this mobile defensive force: what have you done with The Statue? KJ James - he's smarter than me. For two and half quarters I kept begging him to try to be more aggressive, but he patiently directed the offense from the wing, and only forced his way to the rim for one stretch from the end of the third through the beginning of the fourth, which was enough to win easily. He didn't have to play the last 10 minutes, only 33 overall, and scored 22 on 9-14, with 6 assists, and 5 boards. I'd never take him out, I'd burn him out by late January. He and Spo know better.
4) Wade and Allen: Miami's biggest (only?) problem right now is Dwyane Wade's knee. It is not healthy again. He was great and healthy for a long part of that winning streak, but he banged it against someone near the end (forget who), and he is struggling a little. Tonight he was doing that thing where instead of elevating and shooting, he just throws the ball at the rim while he is running. Annnnd, it did not work - a horrific 1-12 for 4 points. Yet, he battled and did everything else well: had 11 assists, 9 rebounds, and 5 steals. Odd, odd night. And a little concerning. If Miami doesn't win this championship, Dwyane Wade's knee is likely to be at the top of the list of the reasons why...Ray picked him up though, second 20 point game of the series - 23 on 5-8 triples. He's making J.J. Redick look ridiculous - can't get over the screens to chase Ray, and when he tries to cheat, Ray goes backdoor to the rim. Redick made three triples in the first half, but was still basically unplayable because Ray has abused him so hard - Bucks could only play him 17 minutes. Ray now has the record for most career playoff three pointers, with about one million. In a related story, the Celtics now have Jason Terry. They seem pretty thrilled about it, too, all year they can't stop talking about how much better they are with Jason Terry instead of Ray. Enjoy him, Celtics fans - at least for two more games! Before the game, Ray, who started his career in Milwaukee, credited the city with helping him to become one of the all-time greats, basically saying, "it was such a boring place, I had nothing else to do but work on my game."
5) This could have been the last game of the year on Sunsports. If Miami sweeps Sunday on ABC, Sunsports is done. Man, I love Sunsports. I do not like it when they show free throws from, like, through a referee's legs, or when runout KJ dunks get spoiled by the jump cut to the crotch cam, but overall, I love Sunsports. I love all the "Yeah, Baby" shouts from Tony, I love all the "Kaboom-Towns" from Eric Reid. They may be corny, but they are our corny. And I love Heat host extraordinaire, the sartorially-exuberant Jason Jackson. Question: when Jax is filling out his real or hypothetical year-end league award ballots, do you think he would ever consider voting for someone who was not on the Heat? Answer: no. He's not dumb, by the way, who do you think pays him? But most of all, I love Kristen Hewitt, every Heat fan's favorite gal pal. And why do we love her so much? Because she is cute, sweet, has a classic, All-American girl-next-door vibe...and because Johanna Gomez abandoned us halfway through the season! Oh, you think that just because she gave birth, and got a better, more high-profile, and probably better-paying job, that justifies leaving all her little Heat fan boys in the lurch? I'm asking for all my friends, by the way, not myself. I'm soooo over her - I never really liked her that much to begin with, her hair was too shiny, and her smile too bright, and her eyes too big and honest and sweet, and....ummm, where was I? Oh yeah: I'm Team KHew for-everrr now, boy! I love you, KHew!!! See you next year, Sunsports!
6) Well, it was my birthday yesterday, and like every year, M.Minutos got me the Mike Mil-lar Let It Fly package. It includes a generous supply of Let It Fly energy drink (fruit punch); a Let It Fly t-shirt, which I haven't taken off for the last 40 hours; and an autographed Mike Mil-lar basketball card, which I taped to my headboard. I'm Team Mike Mil-lar for-everrr now, boy! I love you, Mike Mil-lar!
How does it taste? Ummm, basically like Red Bull, only if Red Bull was invented by a sweet-shooting small forward who once made 7 triples to win an NBA championship. So: pretty great!
-----
Next game is Sunday, at 3:30. Last Sunday we actually got to play in the evening, so I can't complain too much about this one. I wonder if Dwyane might get the day off to rest for the next series, which is a 2-1 Bulls over Nets "No One Can Score" fest right now. I'm already on record with every reader of this blog as guaranteeing a Nets victory, so they better not make me look like an idiot (easier to do than you might think!). If you need me before Sunday, I'M NOT SURE WHAT I WILL BE DOING BUT I AM SURE I WILL HAVE PLENTY OF ENERGY, AND I WILL BE LETTING IT FLY!!!
-----
1) It was ragged, it was disjointed, and it was bizarre, but in the end it was just another blowout win, and the Heat lead the series 3-0. The Bucks are really going to have to pick it up to win in 6, as Brandon Jennings predicted. Also, I'm going to admit something: Coach Spo and King James James know more about basketball than me. Special edition of "let it fly" down in #6, so, shall we? Yes, we shall: Stud Doogie, Let It Fly!
2) For the second straight game, Miami kind of struggled for the better part of three quarters, and for the second straight game you know who turned it around? Kid 'n' Play Junior and The Bird! First reason why Coach Spo is smarter than me: for most of the season, Norris Cole has made me want to suffocate myself to death by smothering my face in a high-top fade. He's super-athletic, seems like an incredibly nice kid, plays as hard as anyone in the league, and his parents have a nice van. But he commits dumb fouls, and worse, he's a point guard with horrific court vision, and bad shot selection. But Spo kept putting him out there, and putting him out there, and down the stretch of the season he played a little better - turned it over a little less, and pushed the three point percentage up to a league average 35%. And he has absolutely sparked this team the last couple of games. Today, he repeatedly got in to the lane and instead of forcing up contested runners, found people around the rim (usually Bird), or camping out behind the three point line (usually Ray Allen). He finished with 7 points on 3-4 shooting, including a personal 5 point burst to start the fourth quarter on a steal and layup, and then a three pointer to put the Heat up 14 and pretty much end the game. He also had 4 assists and 3 steals in his 21 minutes. I always hate Spo for putting him in - but right now Spo is looking pretty savvy. As for Bird: what more can you say? He had 11 points on 5-5 and 6 rebounds in 14 minutes - his two layups in the waning moments of the third quarter, one a crazy, underhanded reverse and-1, sandwiched around a hustling, dunk-saving foul on Samuel Dalembert (South Florida and Eric Reid's own!) who missed both free throws, put the Heat up 10 after 3. He's 13-15 for 31 points and 19 rebounds in the series. Caw-caw!
3) Bosh and James: Really, Chris Bosh? In the first half, someone on the Bucks missed a jumper, it bounced off the rim to the sidelines, it probably would have gone out of bounds to Miami, and Chris Bosh ran out there, grabbed it, and passed it to a guard. In the regular season, he would have watched that ball go out of bounds 100 out of 100 times. Nobody has two different levels of play like Chris Bosh! He had 16 and 14 tonight, and most importantly, all series he has done a good job of flattening out dribblers, and contesting plays at the rim. I don't recognize this mobile defensive force: what have you done with The Statue? KJ James - he's smarter than me. For two and half quarters I kept begging him to try to be more aggressive, but he patiently directed the offense from the wing, and only forced his way to the rim for one stretch from the end of the third through the beginning of the fourth, which was enough to win easily. He didn't have to play the last 10 minutes, only 33 overall, and scored 22 on 9-14, with 6 assists, and 5 boards. I'd never take him out, I'd burn him out by late January. He and Spo know better.
4) Wade and Allen: Miami's biggest (only?) problem right now is Dwyane Wade's knee. It is not healthy again. He was great and healthy for a long part of that winning streak, but he banged it against someone near the end (forget who), and he is struggling a little. Tonight he was doing that thing where instead of elevating and shooting, he just throws the ball at the rim while he is running. Annnnd, it did not work - a horrific 1-12 for 4 points. Yet, he battled and did everything else well: had 11 assists, 9 rebounds, and 5 steals. Odd, odd night. And a little concerning. If Miami doesn't win this championship, Dwyane Wade's knee is likely to be at the top of the list of the reasons why...Ray picked him up though, second 20 point game of the series - 23 on 5-8 triples. He's making J.J. Redick look ridiculous - can't get over the screens to chase Ray, and when he tries to cheat, Ray goes backdoor to the rim. Redick made three triples in the first half, but was still basically unplayable because Ray has abused him so hard - Bucks could only play him 17 minutes. Ray now has the record for most career playoff three pointers, with about one million. In a related story, the Celtics now have Jason Terry. They seem pretty thrilled about it, too, all year they can't stop talking about how much better they are with Jason Terry instead of Ray. Enjoy him, Celtics fans - at least for two more games! Before the game, Ray, who started his career in Milwaukee, credited the city with helping him to become one of the all-time greats, basically saying, "it was such a boring place, I had nothing else to do but work on my game."
5) This could have been the last game of the year on Sunsports. If Miami sweeps Sunday on ABC, Sunsports is done. Man, I love Sunsports. I do not like it when they show free throws from, like, through a referee's legs, or when runout KJ dunks get spoiled by the jump cut to the crotch cam, but overall, I love Sunsports. I love all the "Yeah, Baby" shouts from Tony, I love all the "Kaboom-Towns" from Eric Reid. They may be corny, but they are our corny. And I love Heat host extraordinaire, the sartorially-exuberant Jason Jackson. Question: when Jax is filling out his real or hypothetical year-end league award ballots, do you think he would ever consider voting for someone who was not on the Heat? Answer: no. He's not dumb, by the way, who do you think pays him? But most of all, I love Kristen Hewitt, every Heat fan's favorite gal pal. And why do we love her so much? Because she is cute, sweet, has a classic, All-American girl-next-door vibe...and because Johanna Gomez abandoned us halfway through the season! Oh, you think that just because she gave birth, and got a better, more high-profile, and probably better-paying job, that justifies leaving all her little Heat fan boys in the lurch? I'm asking for all my friends, by the way, not myself. I'm soooo over her - I never really liked her that much to begin with, her hair was too shiny, and her smile too bright, and her eyes too big and honest and sweet, and....ummm, where was I? Oh yeah: I'm Team KHew for-everrr now, boy! I love you, KHew!!! See you next year, Sunsports!
6) Well, it was my birthday yesterday, and like every year, M.Minutos got me the Mike Mil-lar Let It Fly package. It includes a generous supply of Let It Fly energy drink (fruit punch); a Let It Fly t-shirt, which I haven't taken off for the last 40 hours; and an autographed Mike Mil-lar basketball card, which I taped to my headboard. I'm Team Mike Mil-lar for-everrr now, boy! I love you, Mike Mil-lar!
How does it taste? Ummm, basically like Red Bull, only if Red Bull was invented by a sweet-shooting small forward who once made 7 triples to win an NBA championship. So: pretty great!
-----
Next game is Sunday, at 3:30. Last Sunday we actually got to play in the evening, so I can't complain too much about this one. I wonder if Dwyane might get the day off to rest for the next series, which is a 2-1 Bulls over Nets "No One Can Score" fest right now. I'm already on record with every reader of this blog as guaranteeing a Nets victory, so they better not make me look like an idiot (easier to do than you might think!). If you need me before Sunday, I'M NOT SURE WHAT I WILL BE DOING BUT I AM SURE I WILL HAVE PLENTY OF ENERGY, AND I WILL BE LETTING IT FLY!!!
-----
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Heat 98 Bucks 86 Heat lead 2-0
6 Thoughts
1) Man, the Bucks - they were like a totally different team. In Game 1, Brandon Jennings and Monta Ellis came out jacking, and they tried to race up and down with the Heat a little bit and got chewed up. In Game 2, as a group Milwaukee committed to jamming up the paint and turned the game into a wrestling match on their defensive end of the floor. Further, Coach Jim Boylan somehow convinced Jennings and Ellis to get off the ball a little, and create looks for other people - I know, I wouldn't have believed it either if I hadn't seen it with my own two eyes. They executed beautifully, trailed by only 3 after three quarters, and had the Heat, especially King James James (Hubieism), visibly frustrated...But Bird is the word. What? BIRD IS THE WORD!!! Not only that, Birdman: "I drank a Let It Fly before the game." Yessir, of courseummmm, duh!!! LET IT FLY!
2) Up 3 to start the fourth quarter, Miami was playing hard, but ineffectively. The playoffs are difficult - all the teams are good. Maybe not the Celtics, they stink. But nobody can spurt like Miami (ewww). The fourth quarter started with a James foray to the rim that turned into a rugby match, and ended with Bird Andersen grabbing like the fifth tip, and he powered it back in while taking a hit for a three point play. After a stop, KJ got to the rim while absorbing a body check from Epke Udoh (uncalled): 5-0 run. The Bucks committed a live ball turnover and Norris Cole got out ahead of everybody, got fouled, and made both free throws for a 10 point lead. Right then Milwaukee coach Jim Boylan needed a timeout to regroup, call his best set, and try to hang in the game - there's no NBA coach who doesn't take a timeout there, but he didn't, and the Bucks turned it over again, Cole came steaming down court, eschewed an open KJ James waiting for a pass, tried to flush it left-handed on three Bucks, missed, KJ threw Udoh over the baseline to keep the ball alive, Cole somehow scrambled back to it, and flipped a deft pass to an absolutely, ummm, flying, Birdman, who finished for a 12 point lead (10 points and 6 boards in only 12 minutes for Bird). But still, even with the Trip starting to come apart at the hinges, Jim Boylan didn't call a timeout - JIM BOYLAN HATES TIMEOUTS - and the Bucks didn't score, KJ came down, penetrated, lasered a pass out to Cole, and he drilled a triple, 12-0 in a little over 2 minutes, Heat plus 15: ballgame. Annnnd thennnn, Jim Boylan called a timeout! Bucks never threatened again. After the game, Jim Boylan admitted he did not know timeouts were legal in the playoffs during an opponent's run: "if anyone had said anything at all to me..."
3) Second straight game Miami could not get the threes going. Milwaukee stood around in the paint and dared Miami to shoot from the edges, and again the shooters had good looks, but did not knock them down early, causing the offense to constrict. James, Wade, and Chalmers combined to shoot 15-19 in the first half, but everyone else was 3-17. Ray Allen made back-to-back threes halfway through the fourth quarter to turn the game into a laugher, but even with those, and Cole's earlier 4th quarter triple, the Heat only made 6-19. The Bucks only made 4-18, but Miami is pushed up on them, a lot of those are tough, contested shots. Miami's are open. Gotta knock those down, and free up the paint.
4) Because tonight the paint was jammed. Milwaukee sat everyone in the lane and dared Miami to shoot. Additionally, Luc Richard Mbah-a-Moute played KJ James about as physically as you can play him - he contested every bounce of the ball, he climbed all over him, and hounded him into a 6-14 night, 19 points (8 rebounds, 6 assists). In fairness, Miami was also allowed to be physical with drivers - refs did a great job in the fourth quarter when the Bucks got behind and Brandon Jennings went into his patented I-weigh-150-pounds-so-I-am-going-to-propel-myself-into-you-and-hurl-the-ball-at-the-rim-and-fall-down-as-hard-as-I-can offense to try to draw fouls, and the refs put their whistles away. Result: 3-15 night for Jennings, and more importantly, only 4 free throws...The only guy who really had success off the bounce was Dwyane Wade. He claimed after the game that his knee is still not back where he wants it to be, but he looked athletic and strong driving and tossing in layups, and also had two highlight reel dunks: one sailing one-hander off the dribble, and another flying tip-slam over the back of the indifferent Monta Ellis. 21 for Dwyane on 8-14, 7 rebounds. If the shooters make shots, these two will have more room at the rim.
5) Play of the game, runner-up: during garbage time, Mike Dunleavy took a three, the ball hit the iron and bounded up over the backboard, hit part of the stanchion that holds the shot clock up there, and dropped straight down. Everyone on the court stopped playing since that's out of bounds, especially Chris Bosh, who was standing right there and waited for the ball to drop. Instead, Ersan Ilyasova, the one player who didn't realize the ball was dead, darted in, grabbed it, and the Bucks scored when the refs failed to call it out of bounds. During an ensuing timeout, Bosh was explaining to referee Zach Zarba, who made some bizarrely bad calls (brain locked on a JJ Redick over and back in the first half, for example), what had happened, motioning how the ball was going one direction, then suddenly mid-flight changed directions and dropped straight down, in defiance of all known laws of physics. "This is a basketball court, not a classroom," Zarba told him, "do you want me to get my grandfather, Joey Crawford, to come down here and fight you?" Play of the game, winner: when Heat color commentator, the mustachioed Tony Fiorentino, called Bucks forward Marquis Daniels (who pronounces the "s" in his name, so it's kind of like "Maurice") "Marquee," like the signage over a theater. I don't know why this made me laugh out loud, but M.Minutos did, too. I didn't say we are smart or anything...
6) More evidence I am not smart: so every day for the past three weeks I have been experimenting with making protein frappucinos. I don't necessarily like to eat first thing in the morning, but my mom always told me that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. So I have been trying to combine protein (for energy), and coffee (for caffeine) into one drink. By the way, if you look up this sort of thing on the internet, you will find like 6000 recipes, so I know I didn't invent it, thank you in advance for pointing this out. And every day I have been trying to tweak the formula a little bit - add a little more skim milk to the iced coffee and protein power; or add cinnamon; or change the flavor of protein power; or take out the cinnamon, and add a fruit for flavor, etc...Each morning our kitchen island looks like a Jamba Juice, like a Jamba Juice left in the charge of the high school kids who work there after school while the owner is away on vacation in the Keys. M.Minutos hates it, I know. Besides the mess, there is endless pre-7am blending, and I am using all her traveling cups to drink the frappucinos on the way to work. But no matter how I tweak the frappucino recipe, no matter what I do, it's always a little bit off. It's never bad, but it's never that satisfying, either. What I'm looking for is a delicious, nutritious, and refreshing frosty coffee beverage, but what I am getting is mostly "mehhh." Then today, driving to work, I had a revelation: I don't like frappucinos. I don't mean like, "oh, so throughout this process of trial and error, I have learned something about myself: I don't like frappucinos." No. I mean, before I even started this process, I already knew I didn't like frappucinos! I've had them plenty of times, from Starbucks, from Dunkin Donuts, wherever, and I don't hate them, but I don't like them, either. I simply forgot. So all this time I have wasted experimenting with flavors was in vain, because I don't like the concept of the drink to begin with, and further, have always known that I do not...I'd really like to think that I am a smarter person than this, but there is a lot of mounting evidence that indicates otherwise...
-----
Next game is Thursday in Milwaukee. I figure we go to Milwaukee, get one hot shooting night, blow them out, maybe they get one of the two there, and then we come back here and politely finish them off 4-1. I'd be fine with that. If you need me before Thursday, I'll be celebrating my birthday tomorrow - turning 24! Cheers!
-----
1) Man, the Bucks - they were like a totally different team. In Game 1, Brandon Jennings and Monta Ellis came out jacking, and they tried to race up and down with the Heat a little bit and got chewed up. In Game 2, as a group Milwaukee committed to jamming up the paint and turned the game into a wrestling match on their defensive end of the floor. Further, Coach Jim Boylan somehow convinced Jennings and Ellis to get off the ball a little, and create looks for other people - I know, I wouldn't have believed it either if I hadn't seen it with my own two eyes. They executed beautifully, trailed by only 3 after three quarters, and had the Heat, especially King James James (Hubieism), visibly frustrated...But Bird is the word. What? BIRD IS THE WORD!!! Not only that, Birdman: "I drank a Let It Fly before the game." Yessir, of courseummmm, duh!!! LET IT FLY!
2) Up 3 to start the fourth quarter, Miami was playing hard, but ineffectively. The playoffs are difficult - all the teams are good. Maybe not the Celtics, they stink. But nobody can spurt like Miami (ewww). The fourth quarter started with a James foray to the rim that turned into a rugby match, and ended with Bird Andersen grabbing like the fifth tip, and he powered it back in while taking a hit for a three point play. After a stop, KJ got to the rim while absorbing a body check from Epke Udoh (uncalled): 5-0 run. The Bucks committed a live ball turnover and Norris Cole got out ahead of everybody, got fouled, and made both free throws for a 10 point lead. Right then Milwaukee coach Jim Boylan needed a timeout to regroup, call his best set, and try to hang in the game - there's no NBA coach who doesn't take a timeout there, but he didn't, and the Bucks turned it over again, Cole came steaming down court, eschewed an open KJ James waiting for a pass, tried to flush it left-handed on three Bucks, missed, KJ threw Udoh over the baseline to keep the ball alive, Cole somehow scrambled back to it, and flipped a deft pass to an absolutely, ummm, flying, Birdman, who finished for a 12 point lead (10 points and 6 boards in only 12 minutes for Bird). But still, even with the Trip starting to come apart at the hinges, Jim Boylan didn't call a timeout - JIM BOYLAN HATES TIMEOUTS - and the Bucks didn't score, KJ came down, penetrated, lasered a pass out to Cole, and he drilled a triple, 12-0 in a little over 2 minutes, Heat plus 15: ballgame. Annnnd thennnn, Jim Boylan called a timeout! Bucks never threatened again. After the game, Jim Boylan admitted he did not know timeouts were legal in the playoffs during an opponent's run: "if anyone had said anything at all to me..."
3) Second straight game Miami could not get the threes going. Milwaukee stood around in the paint and dared Miami to shoot from the edges, and again the shooters had good looks, but did not knock them down early, causing the offense to constrict. James, Wade, and Chalmers combined to shoot 15-19 in the first half, but everyone else was 3-17. Ray Allen made back-to-back threes halfway through the fourth quarter to turn the game into a laugher, but even with those, and Cole's earlier 4th quarter triple, the Heat only made 6-19. The Bucks only made 4-18, but Miami is pushed up on them, a lot of those are tough, contested shots. Miami's are open. Gotta knock those down, and free up the paint.
4) Because tonight the paint was jammed. Milwaukee sat everyone in the lane and dared Miami to shoot. Additionally, Luc Richard Mbah-a-Moute played KJ James about as physically as you can play him - he contested every bounce of the ball, he climbed all over him, and hounded him into a 6-14 night, 19 points (8 rebounds, 6 assists). In fairness, Miami was also allowed to be physical with drivers - refs did a great job in the fourth quarter when the Bucks got behind and Brandon Jennings went into his patented I-weigh-150-pounds-so-I-am-going-to-propel-myself-into-you-and-hurl-the-ball-at-the-rim-and-fall-down-as-hard-as-I-can offense to try to draw fouls, and the refs put their whistles away. Result: 3-15 night for Jennings, and more importantly, only 4 free throws...The only guy who really had success off the bounce was Dwyane Wade. He claimed after the game that his knee is still not back where he wants it to be, but he looked athletic and strong driving and tossing in layups, and also had two highlight reel dunks: one sailing one-hander off the dribble, and another flying tip-slam over the back of the indifferent Monta Ellis. 21 for Dwyane on 8-14, 7 rebounds. If the shooters make shots, these two will have more room at the rim.
5) Play of the game, runner-up: during garbage time, Mike Dunleavy took a three, the ball hit the iron and bounded up over the backboard, hit part of the stanchion that holds the shot clock up there, and dropped straight down. Everyone on the court stopped playing since that's out of bounds, especially Chris Bosh, who was standing right there and waited for the ball to drop. Instead, Ersan Ilyasova, the one player who didn't realize the ball was dead, darted in, grabbed it, and the Bucks scored when the refs failed to call it out of bounds. During an ensuing timeout, Bosh was explaining to referee Zach Zarba, who made some bizarrely bad calls (brain locked on a JJ Redick over and back in the first half, for example), what had happened, motioning how the ball was going one direction, then suddenly mid-flight changed directions and dropped straight down, in defiance of all known laws of physics. "This is a basketball court, not a classroom," Zarba told him, "do you want me to get my grandfather, Joey Crawford, to come down here and fight you?" Play of the game, winner: when Heat color commentator, the mustachioed Tony Fiorentino, called Bucks forward Marquis Daniels (who pronounces the "s" in his name, so it's kind of like "Maurice") "Marquee," like the signage over a theater. I don't know why this made me laugh out loud, but M.Minutos did, too. I didn't say we are smart or anything...
6) More evidence I am not smart: so every day for the past three weeks I have been experimenting with making protein frappucinos. I don't necessarily like to eat first thing in the morning, but my mom always told me that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. So I have been trying to combine protein (for energy), and coffee (for caffeine) into one drink. By the way, if you look up this sort of thing on the internet, you will find like 6000 recipes, so I know I didn't invent it, thank you in advance for pointing this out. And every day I have been trying to tweak the formula a little bit - add a little more skim milk to the iced coffee and protein power; or add cinnamon; or change the flavor of protein power; or take out the cinnamon, and add a fruit for flavor, etc...Each morning our kitchen island looks like a Jamba Juice, like a Jamba Juice left in the charge of the high school kids who work there after school while the owner is away on vacation in the Keys. M.Minutos hates it, I know. Besides the mess, there is endless pre-7am blending, and I am using all her traveling cups to drink the frappucinos on the way to work. But no matter how I tweak the frappucino recipe, no matter what I do, it's always a little bit off. It's never bad, but it's never that satisfying, either. What I'm looking for is a delicious, nutritious, and refreshing frosty coffee beverage, but what I am getting is mostly "mehhh." Then today, driving to work, I had a revelation: I don't like frappucinos. I don't mean like, "oh, so throughout this process of trial and error, I have learned something about myself: I don't like frappucinos." No. I mean, before I even started this process, I already knew I didn't like frappucinos! I've had them plenty of times, from Starbucks, from Dunkin Donuts, wherever, and I don't hate them, but I don't like them, either. I simply forgot. So all this time I have wasted experimenting with flavors was in vain, because I don't like the concept of the drink to begin with, and further, have always known that I do not...I'd really like to think that I am a smarter person than this, but there is a lot of mounting evidence that indicates otherwise...
-----
Next game is Thursday in Milwaukee. I figure we go to Milwaukee, get one hot shooting night, blow them out, maybe they get one of the two there, and then we come back here and politely finish them off 4-1. I'd be fine with that. If you need me before Thursday, I'll be celebrating my birthday tomorrow - turning 24! Cheers!
-----
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Heat 110 Milwaukee 87 Heat lead 1-0
6 Thoughts
1) It was a little ragged, a little rusty. The regular rotation hasn't played together much the last few weeks. The Bucks are quick, Miami turned the ball over a little, and anytime your game is reffed by Bennett Salvatore, it's going to be a disjointed, foul-filled affair with a lot of weird calls, and everyone on both teams is going to be frustrated. But we've played one playoff game, and we're still the champs (#Champs), so I guess it's going ok. Okay? OKAY? YEAHHHH, IT'S OKAYYY: PLAYYYYOFFFS, STUD DOOGIE ARE YOU WITH ME??? LET'S GO (KJ James), LET'S GO GET IT (Gabrielle Union), and LET IT FLYYYY (Mike Miller)!!!
2) It's playoff time, and that means KJ James takes it to a different place. And that place is the paint. He shot, I believe, 2 jump shots all night (1-2 triples). He eschewed the midrange jumper to either pound the rim, or move the ball to open shooters. On the one hand, Milwaukee's defense stinks. On the other hand, Miami turned it over 19 times, shot it miserably from the edges even though they got open looks for their best shooters (Battier, Allen, and Chalmers a combined 3-16 on threes), and still scored 110 points and were never really challenged in the second half. KJ: 27 points on 11 shots (9-11)! Bucks guard Brandon Jennings scored 26 on 20 shots, and Monta Ellis scored 22 on 19. So, you know, James was a little more efficient than those guys. KJ also had 10 rebounds and 8 assists, and frankly, was pretty mellow during the game - they didn't need him to take over except for one brief stretch at the end of the third quarter, and he only had to play 35 minutes. He's good.
3) Chris "Birdman" Anderson puts a lot of activity into his 16 minutes every night. Tonight he scored 10 points on three violent dunks, one little putback from an inch away, and 2 free throws; plus had 7 rebounds; plus had one sweet return pass to James for a 3 point play; plus performed about 6 different variations of the "Birdflap," including one where he power-dunked a Ray Allen "Allen-Oop" float-pass (20 for Ray off the bench) while getting fouled, looked into a sea of flapping Heat fans, put the arms out, but left them hanging, never flapped down, kept the landing gear up, soared to the free throw line, and made the freebie. First-ever use of "freebie" in this blog, by the way - hate that word. Heat fans love Bird - he can play, he's a wackadoo, and a lot of Heat fans have a lot of bad ink of their own, they can sympathize! Heat playoff crowds are bananas - I think only OKC is consistently as loud and geared up as The Trip. Ahh, maybe Madison Square Garden as well. Definitely not Boston, those people are depressed from years of Rajon Rondo and Kevin Garnett sucking out their souls. And it's like, if you have a loud, "big event" crowd that is prone to freaking out, the Dwyane Wade and KJ James Show brings a lot of dunks to freak out about, there were already a lot of opportunities for Heat fans to lose their junk every night. And then they added the Birdman! It was only Game 1 of the playoffs, and that building was wild - there's a high-pitched whine simmering all night long, just waiting to ignite. Miami crowds definitely come late - but they know how to party.
4) As everyone who reads this blog knows, I guaranteed Chris Bosh would make 50 triples this season. Annnddd, he made 21, so I was super-close, just missed. He only needed to double his actual total, and then make 8 more, and I would have been right there. But, honestly, he can drill that shot, especially from the corners - he made several huge ones in last year's playoff run. During the regular season, they really just didn't run sets that spaced him out to the corner - they have so many shooters, they didn't need him to do that. Soooo, of course tonight the Heat comes out and immediately starts running sets that put him in the corner, and he instantly makes 2 quick triples, and 3-4 for the game. Over the course of 82 games, at that pace, he would have made 246 threes - I knew he was punking me!!! Again, the moral of the story? Never bet on anything that relies on Chris Bosh to do something...
5) Brandon Jennings predicted Milwaukee would win the series in 6, but in fairness to him, I saw one of the interviews in which he said it, and he was laughing. It was a fairly typical Brandon Jennings night, he dribbled around like a wild man, took a ton shots, made a bunch, missed a bunch, and the Bucks lost. Overall, though, the night was a success for him: nobody closed South Beach. It's still there, everything's open, he's good to go.
6) Movie Review: My boys came home from school earlier in the week begging to see "42." They already know about Jackie Robinson - 10 year old O.Minutos because he has already memorized everything about sports, ever; and 8 year old P.Minutos, who does not like sports, because O.Minutos is constantly telling him everything about sports, ever...So we went yesterday evening. It's a pretty hacky movie - I think if you've seen the previews, you pretty much know the movie's perspective. Predictably, old white dudes save the day by allowing Jackie to play baseball, especially Harrison Ford, portraying Brooklyn Dodger owner Branch Rickey. When this movie went into production, do you think they were like, "well, white people save the day, so who's the whitest man alive? Exactly: Harrison Ford!" The movie is made remotely endurable by the performance of the dude playing Jackie Robinson - at the risk of upsetting M.Minutos again, he's some black guy. I've never seen him before. But he's excellent, very charismatic. Also, the fact that the movie is concentrated only on the two or three year period when Jackie is breaking into major league baseball helps - there's no syrupy, apocryphal backstory of his childhood. Still, all the characters, even Rickey and Robinson, are one-dimensional, and the cinematography and soundtrack are uncreative and uninteresting. Highlight of the film: when St. Louis Cardinal Enos Slaughter intentionally cleated Jackie in the back of the leg, and O.Minutos and I simultaneously started waving our hands around in the theater, simulating a yellow card...Lowlight of the film: when some of the white players on the Dodgers have to teach Robinson how to use eating utensils - that seemed a little over-the-top and racist, frankly...On the whole, this is a good movie for children, and old white people who would like to feel better about themselves, and who, en masse, erupted into applause at the end of the showing we attended. I'm very white, so I guess I'll give it a 10 out of 10...
-----
Game Two is Tuesday night in Miami - same night as Celtics-Knicks Game Two, unfortunately, so I won't be able to hate-watch that one ("there are no winners in this series, only losers...")...If you need me before then, I'll be hitting fungoes to the boys while screaming racial epithets. Just like every day...
-----
1) It was a little ragged, a little rusty. The regular rotation hasn't played together much the last few weeks. The Bucks are quick, Miami turned the ball over a little, and anytime your game is reffed by Bennett Salvatore, it's going to be a disjointed, foul-filled affair with a lot of weird calls, and everyone on both teams is going to be frustrated. But we've played one playoff game, and we're still the champs (#Champs), so I guess it's going ok. Okay? OKAY? YEAHHHH, IT'S OKAYYY: PLAYYYYOFFFS, STUD DOOGIE ARE YOU WITH ME??? LET'S GO (KJ James), LET'S GO GET IT (Gabrielle Union), and LET IT FLYYYY (Mike Miller)!!!
2) It's playoff time, and that means KJ James takes it to a different place. And that place is the paint. He shot, I believe, 2 jump shots all night (1-2 triples). He eschewed the midrange jumper to either pound the rim, or move the ball to open shooters. On the one hand, Milwaukee's defense stinks. On the other hand, Miami turned it over 19 times, shot it miserably from the edges even though they got open looks for their best shooters (Battier, Allen, and Chalmers a combined 3-16 on threes), and still scored 110 points and were never really challenged in the second half. KJ: 27 points on 11 shots (9-11)! Bucks guard Brandon Jennings scored 26 on 20 shots, and Monta Ellis scored 22 on 19. So, you know, James was a little more efficient than those guys. KJ also had 10 rebounds and 8 assists, and frankly, was pretty mellow during the game - they didn't need him to take over except for one brief stretch at the end of the third quarter, and he only had to play 35 minutes. He's good.
3) Chris "Birdman" Anderson puts a lot of activity into his 16 minutes every night. Tonight he scored 10 points on three violent dunks, one little putback from an inch away, and 2 free throws; plus had 7 rebounds; plus had one sweet return pass to James for a 3 point play; plus performed about 6 different variations of the "Birdflap," including one where he power-dunked a Ray Allen "Allen-Oop" float-pass (20 for Ray off the bench) while getting fouled, looked into a sea of flapping Heat fans, put the arms out, but left them hanging, never flapped down, kept the landing gear up, soared to the free throw line, and made the freebie. First-ever use of "freebie" in this blog, by the way - hate that word. Heat fans love Bird - he can play, he's a wackadoo, and a lot of Heat fans have a lot of bad ink of their own, they can sympathize! Heat playoff crowds are bananas - I think only OKC is consistently as loud and geared up as The Trip. Ahh, maybe Madison Square Garden as well. Definitely not Boston, those people are depressed from years of Rajon Rondo and Kevin Garnett sucking out their souls. And it's like, if you have a loud, "big event" crowd that is prone to freaking out, the Dwyane Wade and KJ James Show brings a lot of dunks to freak out about, there were already a lot of opportunities for Heat fans to lose their junk every night. And then they added the Birdman! It was only Game 1 of the playoffs, and that building was wild - there's a high-pitched whine simmering all night long, just waiting to ignite. Miami crowds definitely come late - but they know how to party.
4) As everyone who reads this blog knows, I guaranteed Chris Bosh would make 50 triples this season. Annnddd, he made 21, so I was super-close, just missed. He only needed to double his actual total, and then make 8 more, and I would have been right there. But, honestly, he can drill that shot, especially from the corners - he made several huge ones in last year's playoff run. During the regular season, they really just didn't run sets that spaced him out to the corner - they have so many shooters, they didn't need him to do that. Soooo, of course tonight the Heat comes out and immediately starts running sets that put him in the corner, and he instantly makes 2 quick triples, and 3-4 for the game. Over the course of 82 games, at that pace, he would have made 246 threes - I knew he was punking me!!! Again, the moral of the story? Never bet on anything that relies on Chris Bosh to do something...
5) Brandon Jennings predicted Milwaukee would win the series in 6, but in fairness to him, I saw one of the interviews in which he said it, and he was laughing. It was a fairly typical Brandon Jennings night, he dribbled around like a wild man, took a ton shots, made a bunch, missed a bunch, and the Bucks lost. Overall, though, the night was a success for him: nobody closed South Beach. It's still there, everything's open, he's good to go.
6) Movie Review: My boys came home from school earlier in the week begging to see "42." They already know about Jackie Robinson - 10 year old O.Minutos because he has already memorized everything about sports, ever; and 8 year old P.Minutos, who does not like sports, because O.Minutos is constantly telling him everything about sports, ever...So we went yesterday evening. It's a pretty hacky movie - I think if you've seen the previews, you pretty much know the movie's perspective. Predictably, old white dudes save the day by allowing Jackie to play baseball, especially Harrison Ford, portraying Brooklyn Dodger owner Branch Rickey. When this movie went into production, do you think they were like, "well, white people save the day, so who's the whitest man alive? Exactly: Harrison Ford!" The movie is made remotely endurable by the performance of the dude playing Jackie Robinson - at the risk of upsetting M.Minutos again, he's some black guy. I've never seen him before. But he's excellent, very charismatic. Also, the fact that the movie is concentrated only on the two or three year period when Jackie is breaking into major league baseball helps - there's no syrupy, apocryphal backstory of his childhood. Still, all the characters, even Rickey and Robinson, are one-dimensional, and the cinematography and soundtrack are uncreative and uninteresting. Highlight of the film: when St. Louis Cardinal Enos Slaughter intentionally cleated Jackie in the back of the leg, and O.Minutos and I simultaneously started waving our hands around in the theater, simulating a yellow card...Lowlight of the film: when some of the white players on the Dodgers have to teach Robinson how to use eating utensils - that seemed a little over-the-top and racist, frankly...On the whole, this is a good movie for children, and old white people who would like to feel better about themselves, and who, en masse, erupted into applause at the end of the showing we attended. I'm very white, so I guess I'll give it a 10 out of 10...
-----
Game Two is Tuesday night in Miami - same night as Celtics-Knicks Game Two, unfortunately, so I won't be able to hate-watch that one ("there are no winners in this series, only losers...")...If you need me before then, I'll be hitting fungoes to the boys while screaming racial epithets. Just like every day...
-----
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Heat 105 Magic 93
6 Thoughts
1) 66-16. That's crazy. 31-0 when they make 10 or more triples (12-29 tonight, 6-9 from Mike Mil-lar). 37-2 in their last 39. It's all crazy. Last time this regular season: please, I beg of you: Let It Fly!
2) Surprise: Dwyane Wade played! Felt he wanted to break a sweat, get his legs under him a bit (Shane Battier and Udonis Haslem also played some after a few nights off). He played 23 minutes and scored a crisp 21 points on 9-15, and had 10 assists. He looked very bouncy, which is a great sign: had a monster first quarter dunk, and got up and swatted a layup try from 7 footer Nikolas Vucevic in the third quarter. Last year, Dwyane was bothered by a sore knee throughout the playoffs, but was able to will his way to big games, and huge athletic plays when the Heat needed them. If he can be a little more spry this time around, it can only help. Let's just quickly check in on the career resume, because it's looking pretty good: he's been to the Finals three times, and won twice. He was the Finals MVP in 2006, and probably played the best individual Finals series in the history of the league. He's been an All-Star a million times, and won a scoring title. He's been on a team that won 27 straight, the second-longest streak ever, and on a 66 win team (only 12 other teams have done that). He'll never win an MVP - he had the bad fortune to come into the league at the same time as KJ James. He's the best shot-blocking guard in the history of the NBA. He holds virtually every Miami Heat career record, he's one of the most iconic players in league history, and has endorsements with pretty much every company on Earth that makes commercials. This year, at age 31, he had one of his best seasons. He started slowly after getting the sore knee cleaned up in the offseason, but finished up averaging 21, 5, and 5 - only 3 other players did that (KJ, Kobe, and, ugh, Russell Westbrook). He also shot 51% from the floor as 6'3" guard, which was Top 20 in the league, and was 6th in steals. Career resume is strong: he puts that on CareerBuilder.com, he's definitely gonna get some interest. Dwyane Wade: Thanks for a great season, a great career, and love you, boy!
3) There was no defense in this game, it was a glorified scrimmage. So why wasn't the score higher? Because it was secretly the worst free throw shooting game I have ever seen! Orlando: 11-25! Miami: 9-19! That's a combined 20-44! That's worse than Dwight Howard, that's late-career Shaq-level right there! I blame Orlando, they dragged us down!
4) Awards: Obviously KJ James is going to win his 4th MVP. There isn't even a case to be made for another guy, except for the case that ESPN's Marc Stein made about halfway through the year, which was basically, "You can't just give KJ the MVP for being the best two-way player in the league by far, because if that's the standard, he's going to win it every year." Ummmm, duh-uhh!!! No one has ever accused Marc Stein of being a super-deep thinker. But, man, Coach Spo has a chance to be Coach of the Year. It looks like it will be either him, or George Karl. I love Spo, even if he is a bit of a kill-joy at times - he was definitely an R.A. in college. But to me, the Coach of the Year should be Mike Woodson. The Knicks had a phenomenal year - they won 54 games, and the Atlantic division (how bad is the East? only the Heat and Knicks won 50 - that's ridiculous). People thought they would be aiggghht, and they not only exceeded expectations, but did so with a ton of injuries. Yes, you expected all the old dudes to get hurt, but Melo only played 67 games, Tyson Chandler played 66, and Raymond Felton 68 (and that doesn't account for the Amare Stoudamire cameo). That's pretty great, and they did it playing a style unlike any of Mike Woodson's previous teams. They put Melo at the 4, played two and sometimes three point guards at a time, whipped the ball around the perimeter, and launched threes (#LetItFlyNY). They're the definitive #2 team in the East, and I don't think a lot of people expected that coming into the season. I hate them, but they had a great season. Finally, one of these three guys is going to win the NBA's 6th Man of the Year: Jamal Crawford, J.R. Smith, or Jarrett Jack. You're putting together a basketball team: how many of those guys do you pick before Shane Battier? Probably J.R. Smith, yes, I agree. The other two guys? No chance, not even close. Basketball isn't always about countable numbers...
5) Playoffs start Sunday against Milwaukee. We don't really make predictions here, that's not what we do. In a small one-game, or one-series sample size, weird things can happen, but Miami is the best team in the league, so all things being equal, they should have an excellent chance to win the championship. The path to the title looks like Bucks, Nets, Knicks, then old friends the OKC Thunder. It's 16 wins for a back-to-back. The Heat just concluded the most enjoyable regular season in the history of basketball. Enjoy this ride, people, it's about to get serious - buckle up and enjoy this ride! Personally, I can't wait! I have a chubby!
6) Parenting techniques: M.Minutos and I have two boys, 8 and 10 years old. One thing we have never been too hung up on is swearing. M.Minutos doesn't really swear anyways, but I'm liable to drop an F-bomb at any moment. I watched Mike Beasley start for two years for the Heat - no one could survive that without using the F-word. I used to curse in this blog, but then I stopped - it was one of the only "editorial" changes I've ever made. When ESPN opened its Grantland website, and the writers there were allowed to use curse words, I realized how absurd it came across. But, at home, I will sometimes swear in front of the boys (but not at them - "hey, do your f-ing homework!"). And they are smart kids, they know it isn't appropriate to use those words in public, and they don't. So I'm not going to freak out if one of them plays the original "F- You" version of Cee-Lo's song, or, like tonight, one of them is plowing through my ipod in the car and puts on "Natural Born Killaz," by Ice Cube and Dr. Dre, in which, as O.Minutos pointed out, "they use the f- word four times before the song even starts." Or, when P.Minutos, for his turn on the ipod, played a song by the punk band "F*cked Up," just for the name of the band - the song he played doesn't even have any curse words (much to his chagrin, I'm sure). That's all no big deal to me. In fact, I think cursing is just a way to convey emotion, and it has a time and place. Now that they are old enough to understand that, I think it is okay for them to explore that form of expression...By the way, I use the same parenting technique with heroin...
-----
Looking forward to a little break until the playoffs begin Sunday afternoon. Of course we play on Sunday afternoon, why wouldn't the league ruin a weekend day in the city with the best spring weather in the country? If you need me before Sunday, you can go f- yourself.
-----
1) 66-16. That's crazy. 31-0 when they make 10 or more triples (12-29 tonight, 6-9 from Mike Mil-lar). 37-2 in their last 39. It's all crazy. Last time this regular season: please, I beg of you: Let It Fly!
2) Surprise: Dwyane Wade played! Felt he wanted to break a sweat, get his legs under him a bit (Shane Battier and Udonis Haslem also played some after a few nights off). He played 23 minutes and scored a crisp 21 points on 9-15, and had 10 assists. He looked very bouncy, which is a great sign: had a monster first quarter dunk, and got up and swatted a layup try from 7 footer Nikolas Vucevic in the third quarter. Last year, Dwyane was bothered by a sore knee throughout the playoffs, but was able to will his way to big games, and huge athletic plays when the Heat needed them. If he can be a little more spry this time around, it can only help. Let's just quickly check in on the career resume, because it's looking pretty good: he's been to the Finals three times, and won twice. He was the Finals MVP in 2006, and probably played the best individual Finals series in the history of the league. He's been an All-Star a million times, and won a scoring title. He's been on a team that won 27 straight, the second-longest streak ever, and on a 66 win team (only 12 other teams have done that). He'll never win an MVP - he had the bad fortune to come into the league at the same time as KJ James. He's the best shot-blocking guard in the history of the NBA. He holds virtually every Miami Heat career record, he's one of the most iconic players in league history, and has endorsements with pretty much every company on Earth that makes commercials. This year, at age 31, he had one of his best seasons. He started slowly after getting the sore knee cleaned up in the offseason, but finished up averaging 21, 5, and 5 - only 3 other players did that (KJ, Kobe, and, ugh, Russell Westbrook). He also shot 51% from the floor as 6'3" guard, which was Top 20 in the league, and was 6th in steals. Career resume is strong: he puts that on CareerBuilder.com, he's definitely gonna get some interest. Dwyane Wade: Thanks for a great season, a great career, and love you, boy!
3) There was no defense in this game, it was a glorified scrimmage. So why wasn't the score higher? Because it was secretly the worst free throw shooting game I have ever seen! Orlando: 11-25! Miami: 9-19! That's a combined 20-44! That's worse than Dwight Howard, that's late-career Shaq-level right there! I blame Orlando, they dragged us down!
4) Awards: Obviously KJ James is going to win his 4th MVP. There isn't even a case to be made for another guy, except for the case that ESPN's Marc Stein made about halfway through the year, which was basically, "You can't just give KJ the MVP for being the best two-way player in the league by far, because if that's the standard, he's going to win it every year." Ummmm, duh-uhh!!! No one has ever accused Marc Stein of being a super-deep thinker. But, man, Coach Spo has a chance to be Coach of the Year. It looks like it will be either him, or George Karl. I love Spo, even if he is a bit of a kill-joy at times - he was definitely an R.A. in college. But to me, the Coach of the Year should be Mike Woodson. The Knicks had a phenomenal year - they won 54 games, and the Atlantic division (how bad is the East? only the Heat and Knicks won 50 - that's ridiculous). People thought they would be aiggghht, and they not only exceeded expectations, but did so with a ton of injuries. Yes, you expected all the old dudes to get hurt, but Melo only played 67 games, Tyson Chandler played 66, and Raymond Felton 68 (and that doesn't account for the Amare Stoudamire cameo). That's pretty great, and they did it playing a style unlike any of Mike Woodson's previous teams. They put Melo at the 4, played two and sometimes three point guards at a time, whipped the ball around the perimeter, and launched threes (#LetItFlyNY). They're the definitive #2 team in the East, and I don't think a lot of people expected that coming into the season. I hate them, but they had a great season. Finally, one of these three guys is going to win the NBA's 6th Man of the Year: Jamal Crawford, J.R. Smith, or Jarrett Jack. You're putting together a basketball team: how many of those guys do you pick before Shane Battier? Probably J.R. Smith, yes, I agree. The other two guys? No chance, not even close. Basketball isn't always about countable numbers...
5) Playoffs start Sunday against Milwaukee. We don't really make predictions here, that's not what we do. In a small one-game, or one-series sample size, weird things can happen, but Miami is the best team in the league, so all things being equal, they should have an excellent chance to win the championship. The path to the title looks like Bucks, Nets, Knicks, then old friends the OKC Thunder. It's 16 wins for a back-to-back. The Heat just concluded the most enjoyable regular season in the history of basketball. Enjoy this ride, people, it's about to get serious - buckle up and enjoy this ride! Personally, I can't wait! I have a chubby!
6) Parenting techniques: M.Minutos and I have two boys, 8 and 10 years old. One thing we have never been too hung up on is swearing. M.Minutos doesn't really swear anyways, but I'm liable to drop an F-bomb at any moment. I watched Mike Beasley start for two years for the Heat - no one could survive that without using the F-word. I used to curse in this blog, but then I stopped - it was one of the only "editorial" changes I've ever made. When ESPN opened its Grantland website, and the writers there were allowed to use curse words, I realized how absurd it came across. But, at home, I will sometimes swear in front of the boys (but not at them - "hey, do your f-ing homework!"). And they are smart kids, they know it isn't appropriate to use those words in public, and they don't. So I'm not going to freak out if one of them plays the original "F- You" version of Cee-Lo's song, or, like tonight, one of them is plowing through my ipod in the car and puts on "Natural Born Killaz," by Ice Cube and Dr. Dre, in which, as O.Minutos pointed out, "they use the f- word four times before the song even starts." Or, when P.Minutos, for his turn on the ipod, played a song by the punk band "F*cked Up," just for the name of the band - the song he played doesn't even have any curse words (much to his chagrin, I'm sure). That's all no big deal to me. In fact, I think cursing is just a way to convey emotion, and it has a time and place. Now that they are old enough to understand that, I think it is okay for them to explore that form of expression...By the way, I use the same parenting technique with heroin...
-----
Looking forward to a little break until the playoffs begin Sunday afternoon. Of course we play on Sunday afternoon, why wouldn't the league ruin a weekend day in the city with the best spring weather in the country? If you need me before Sunday, you can go f- yourself.
-----
Monday, April 15, 2013
Heat 96 Cavs 95
6 Thoughts
1) norris cole show...What?...Norris Cole Show...What?...NORRIS COLE SHOW!!! NORRIS MUTHERF*CKIN COLE, YOU MUTHERF*CKER!!! In his home state, with his family watching him in person: 43 minutes, 16 points, 11 rebounds, 9 assists, and one game-winning strip of Cavalier All-Star point guard Kyrie Irving at the buzzer! NORRIS COLE SHOW!!! LET IT FLY!!!
2) Here's who didn't start: the entire starting lineup, nor Shane Battier. All of them skipped the game (preventative maintenance). Here's who did: Norris Cole, Rashard Lewis (19 points), Joel Anthony (5-5 from the floor, 11 points, 9 boards, 2 blocks), Mike Miller (11 points, 3 triples, 8 boards, and 3 assists in 26 minutes), and...wait for it....Juwan Howard!!! More on Juwan in #3. That group had never been on the floor together for even one second this season, and halfway through the first quarter, Miami was down nearly double digits, and it looked like they would struggle to score 65 points. What happened? Can't you read? Norris Cole happened! Norris Cole Show! That's 65-16 on the season with one game to play. Only 16 teams have ever won 65 games in a season. 36-2 in their last 38. 15-1 on the second night of back-to-backs. Mannnnn...
3) Juwan Howard: first of all, he's 100 years old. Second of all, it's his 19th NBA season, and the guys on the team still call him "Seventeen," because when he first got here, it was only his 17th NBA season, he was a whippersnapper. He only came back to the team to fill the last roster spot a few weeks ago - it was either sign him as an extra big, or make television host Jason Jackson the third point guard. Juwan showed signs tonight with a sweet 2nd quarter turnaround over young Cavs' jumping jack Christian Thompson- wait, what? Oh, Tristan Thompson, ok, huge difference...But in the third quarter, for one several minute stretch, Juwan turned the clock back to earlier in his career, that period from 1977-1981 when he was one of the best 4s in this league. He cut to the rim, received a pass, took a hit from Thompson and finished to give the Heat their first 3 point lead. Then, iso'd against Thompson on the left block, faked baseline, and spun back middle for a velvety-smooth jump hook - "Hey, Rook - you ever hear of the Fab Five?" Then on the other end, West Palm Beach-bred small forward Alonzo Gee got loose to the rim and thought he had a dunk...until Juwan PUT HIM DOWN! "Hey, Rook - how's the floor feel on your back?" Neither of those guys are rookies, by the way, but in my mind Juwan calls everyone "Rook." Then, he iso'd at the elbow, a bunch of Cavs sucked to him -they had to, he was tearing them apart - and he immediately spit it to Mike Mil-lar for a hair-trigger three to put Miami up 6. Finally, he iso'd at the elbow again, turned and faced, and suddenly darted a pass to a cutting Joel Anthony who, improbably, caught it, and somehow, even more improbably, banked in a dunk while getting fouled and made the free throw for a 9 point lead! Then Juwan came out for oxygen. Still, the Heat never relinquished that lead. Juwan's been in this league a minute, you rooks...
4) Play of the game: halfway through the second quarter, Dion Waiters dunked a ball on Birdman Anderson so hard that it scrambled every egg in the nest!...That's dumb, right? Sorry, it was a glorified scrimmage, what do you want from me?
5) We hadn't really noticed who the refs were early in the game - too busy tracking Juwan Howard's every move - and then one of them made a bad call, and M.Minutos said something like "what is wrong with you, Tom Washington," and I said, "I'm not sure if that is Tom Washington," and she said, "yes it is, I'd recognize the delusional shine on Tom Washington's head anywhere." And she was right, it was Tom Washington. One, Tom Washington is terrible. Two, my wife can recognize NBA referees from the shine on their heads, in an instant, from a long camera angle. This is exactly the life I imagined for myself as a kid!
6) I grew up in Connecticut. I went to Boston College because, for a kid from Connecticut, making your way to Boston was pretty much the goal, that was pretty much the best thing you could do. That city took such good care of me. I love it with all my heart. The people there are the best. They pretend like they don't care about you - Boston kids are not outwardly emotional and busting balls is an art form - but deep down they do, and they always made sure I was safe, even when I made bad decisions. I love that city, and I can only be surprised that everybody doesn't love it, and the people in it, as much as I do. God bless you, Boston...I still hate the Celtics, though...
-----
We are back for the final game of the season, at home against Orlando on Wednesday. Best regular season ever; most fun regular season, by far. If you need me before Wednesday, I'm not going to be sad, I'm going to live, and find something special in every day.
-----
1) norris cole show...What?...Norris Cole Show...What?...NORRIS COLE SHOW!!! NORRIS MUTHERF*CKIN COLE, YOU MUTHERF*CKER!!! In his home state, with his family watching him in person: 43 minutes, 16 points, 11 rebounds, 9 assists, and one game-winning strip of Cavalier All-Star point guard Kyrie Irving at the buzzer! NORRIS COLE SHOW!!! LET IT FLY!!!
2) Here's who didn't start: the entire starting lineup, nor Shane Battier. All of them skipped the game (preventative maintenance). Here's who did: Norris Cole, Rashard Lewis (19 points), Joel Anthony (5-5 from the floor, 11 points, 9 boards, 2 blocks), Mike Miller (11 points, 3 triples, 8 boards, and 3 assists in 26 minutes), and...wait for it....Juwan Howard!!! More on Juwan in #3. That group had never been on the floor together for even one second this season, and halfway through the first quarter, Miami was down nearly double digits, and it looked like they would struggle to score 65 points. What happened? Can't you read? Norris Cole happened! Norris Cole Show! That's 65-16 on the season with one game to play. Only 16 teams have ever won 65 games in a season. 36-2 in their last 38. 15-1 on the second night of back-to-backs. Mannnnn...
3) Juwan Howard: first of all, he's 100 years old. Second of all, it's his 19th NBA season, and the guys on the team still call him "Seventeen," because when he first got here, it was only his 17th NBA season, he was a whippersnapper. He only came back to the team to fill the last roster spot a few weeks ago - it was either sign him as an extra big, or make television host Jason Jackson the third point guard. Juwan showed signs tonight with a sweet 2nd quarter turnaround over young Cavs' jumping jack Christian Thompson- wait, what? Oh, Tristan Thompson, ok, huge difference...But in the third quarter, for one several minute stretch, Juwan turned the clock back to earlier in his career, that period from 1977-1981 when he was one of the best 4s in this league. He cut to the rim, received a pass, took a hit from Thompson and finished to give the Heat their first 3 point lead. Then, iso'd against Thompson on the left block, faked baseline, and spun back middle for a velvety-smooth jump hook - "Hey, Rook - you ever hear of the Fab Five?" Then on the other end, West Palm Beach-bred small forward Alonzo Gee got loose to the rim and thought he had a dunk...until Juwan PUT HIM DOWN! "Hey, Rook - how's the floor feel on your back?" Neither of those guys are rookies, by the way, but in my mind Juwan calls everyone "Rook." Then, he iso'd at the elbow, a bunch of Cavs sucked to him -they had to, he was tearing them apart - and he immediately spit it to Mike Mil-lar for a hair-trigger three to put Miami up 6. Finally, he iso'd at the elbow again, turned and faced, and suddenly darted a pass to a cutting Joel Anthony who, improbably, caught it, and somehow, even more improbably, banked in a dunk while getting fouled and made the free throw for a 9 point lead! Then Juwan came out for oxygen. Still, the Heat never relinquished that lead. Juwan's been in this league a minute, you rooks...
4) Play of the game: halfway through the second quarter, Dion Waiters dunked a ball on Birdman Anderson so hard that it scrambled every egg in the nest!...That's dumb, right? Sorry, it was a glorified scrimmage, what do you want from me?
5) We hadn't really noticed who the refs were early in the game - too busy tracking Juwan Howard's every move - and then one of them made a bad call, and M.Minutos said something like "what is wrong with you, Tom Washington," and I said, "I'm not sure if that is Tom Washington," and she said, "yes it is, I'd recognize the delusional shine on Tom Washington's head anywhere." And she was right, it was Tom Washington. One, Tom Washington is terrible. Two, my wife can recognize NBA referees from the shine on their heads, in an instant, from a long camera angle. This is exactly the life I imagined for myself as a kid!
6) I grew up in Connecticut. I went to Boston College because, for a kid from Connecticut, making your way to Boston was pretty much the goal, that was pretty much the best thing you could do. That city took such good care of me. I love it with all my heart. The people there are the best. They pretend like they don't care about you - Boston kids are not outwardly emotional and busting balls is an art form - but deep down they do, and they always made sure I was safe, even when I made bad decisions. I love that city, and I can only be surprised that everybody doesn't love it, and the people in it, as much as I do. God bless you, Boston...I still hate the Celtics, though...
-----
We are back for the final game of the season, at home against Orlando on Wednesday. Best regular season ever; most fun regular season, by far. If you need me before Wednesday, I'm not going to be sad, I'm going to live, and find something special in every day.
-----
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Heat 105 Bulls 93
6 Thoughts
1) In the first half, this game had a little bit of intensity. The Heat don't particularly like the Bulls, because they don't necessarily love teams that go out their way to whack you gratuitously in the head. And the Bulls don't like anyone - hence, all the head-whacking. Jimmy Butler and Nazr Mohammed set an early tone with some outside-the-boundaries-of-good-sportsmanship fouling. In the second half, though, with neither team really playing for anything, the game kind of petered out, and the Heat won pretty comfortably, although they missed a ton of free throws that would have made the final margin larger. All in all, a good day of work: 64 wins with 2 to play. Mike Miller started today, and made the final dagger triple inside of two minutes to go to salt the game away: Let it fly!
2) Dwyane Wade, King James James, and Chris Bosh all played over 30 minutes and got good sweats going. The Bulls may not be that talented - at least not with their best player choosing not to play at the moment - but they do make you work hard. I doubt Wade, James, or Bosh plays tomorrow in Cleveland or Wednesday against Orlando. Wade and James had excellent regular seasons, and Bosh had a great start, then sometime around mid-January, started conserving his energy for the playoff run. All three set career highs in field goal percentage: Dwyane's at 52%, which is ridiculous for a shooting guard; KJ has shot an otherworldly 56.5%, and Bosh is at 53%. Pat Riley deserves credit for bringing in perfect complementary parts like Miller, Battier, and Chris Anderson (more on him in #3), Erik Spoelstra deserves praise for designing an offense that complements his players' talents, but most of the credit should go to Wade and James. They share the ball. Not just with each other - with everybody. Rarely does either of those two miss an open teammate for a good shot - not every superstar in this league is like that. Those two are an absolute pleasure to watch. Today was more of the same from all three: Wade took 12 shots (22 points); James 12 (24 points); and Bosh 8 (12 points). Chalmers also took 12 (15 points), and the other shooters all got their looks. It is a positive environment in which to play offense - so hard to believe people thought that Wade and James would never be able to play with each other. What we've learned (at least some of us), is that those two guys can play with anybody. Great seasons in particular for those two.
3) What kind of bird, exactly, is Birdman Anderson? Ummm, what kind of bird contests every shot in the defensive paint, has a second jump to go after the rebound, and then when the ball is secured, turns and sprints to the other end? Every time. Over and over he beat the Bulls bigs down the court in transition: got one massive, soaring follow dunk; two ridiculous whirling reverse layups; earned 11 free throws in only 15 minutes; and finished 4-4 for 15 points, with 7 boards and a block. It's only a little bit of a stretch to say he was the best player in the game today. Additionally, he's added a new twist to his repertoire. After a particularly good dunk, or bucket, he runs up court, puts his arms out in Bird-like fashion, but gives just one solid downward flap. That's a rock-solid celebration right there. Maybe it doesn't have the same hipster-cache as KJ's Nick Van Exel tribute, but it isn't bad. Also, you want to know another reason why KJ is a great teammate? He's already on the downward Bird flap - after Bird's flying dunk, KJ got up off the bench (he was resting), and gave the exact same flap. KJ always knows everything going on out there...
4) Oh, this Carlos Boozer. He really is one of my favorite NBA players to watch. M.Minutos and I watched the second half of the Bulls' win over the Knicks on Wednesday, and we kept rewinding the dvr to watch his defensive "help" efforts from the weakside. Here's how he starts: takes up a spot halfway between the guy he is guarding, and where a proper help position against a driver would be. When the drive starts, ideally he would scamper over in front of the driver, force him to pass the ball, then hustle back out to his man to contest the jumper. Here's what he actually does: when the drive starts, he crouches in a "ready" position, then as the guy blows by him, he reaches an arm out towards him. Sometimes he might be close enough to hit the guy for a foul as he's laying it in - he got one of those early on KJ today. Other times he's too far away, and guy just drops it into the bucket. The best thing: if for some reason, the driver kicks it out to his man, he doesn't move anyways. He had one play today where he had Chalmers on a switch, the ball got kicked to Chalmers for a corner three, a spot from which Chalmers is an above average shooter, and Boozer just crouched even lower 12 feet away as 3io took a dribble, set his feet, and swished the ball through! Boozer's other defensive move: standing under the rim. That kid catches more buckets before they hit the floor than anyone I've ever seen - he's just always right there, standing under the basket, waiting for someone to drop it in so he can politely secure it, and step back out of bounds to pass it in. It's an uncanny knack. If the NBA would have a station that just iso'd Boozer defensive possessions all day long, I'd definitely call my cable provider to get it added...In a related story, the Heat shot 51% from the floor today, despite never really getting the jump shots going (didn't need to - just kept driving and laying it in). Boozer was only 5-14, and missed three uncontested layups in the second half (one time he tried to drive the length of the court on James, who tracked him the whole way, then never even tried to block the shot, instead just let Boozer yip it off the front iron - ha!). On the other hand, he grabbed an impressive 20 rebounds - you add those 20 to the 30 times he caught the ball coming through the net on Heat hoops, that's a full day for him.
5) It's so awesome that Derrick Rose is murdering his own franchise's season. He's been cleared to play for 6 weeks or so, but is choosing not to. That is bizarre - can you imagine how upset the Bulls management must be? The Bulls could still finish 5 or 6th in the standings, and it's an impressive feat considering how banged up their homophobic center Joakim Noah and some of their other guys have been. Some of the Heat beat writers thought it was a positive for Miami to win today - dropping the Bulls to 6th takes them out of the Heat's bracket. Realistically, though, they aren't beating the Pacers or New Jersey in a 7 game series. They can't score. A Bulls-Pacers series is unwatchable, it could set basketball back 40 years watching those two teams beat the crud out of each other in 72-71 games, but the Bulls would get smacked by the Nets, too - I don't think they win 2 games in a Bulls-Nets series. Nets are playing really well, and its kind of a downer when your best player chooses not to participate in a season for reasons known only to him. But you know what is even better than all that? Phil Jackson's twitter comment on Kobe Bryant's injury (which made me very sad), comparing him to Rose:
"Kobe wasn't going to let the Lakers miss the playoffs. We watched him go thru 3 anguishing plays, the last one devastating. What if he had gone to the bench after the 2nd mishap? Like Rose of the Bulls, one can guess, but what's done is done. Reality not maybe is zen."
What? That went off the rails at the end. Plus: haaa! Who talks like that? "Like Rose of the Bulls!" Like M. of the Minutos' said upon seeing his quote: "I'm not sure he understand twitter is supposed to be fewer words!" This league needs that dude in it - always trolling somehow, some way...
6) You know how when someone says, "no disrespect, but," and that means they are about to disrespect you? I've got another one. I went to the gym yesterday and as I walked in, this very fit young woman was getting in one of the gym employee's grills, complaining in a loud voice about the general hygiene of the free weight area. Apparently it was sweaty and people were making grunting noises, or something. He was trying to be nice - she was attractive after all, so he absolutely should have been polite in that situation - and then she goes, "I'm the last person to complain about something like this." Really? The last person? By "last," do you mean "first?" Because there were like 70 other people in the gym, and none of them were complaining as far as I could see! I'm the last person to comment on someone else's general comportment, but I have to be honest with you: she seemed a tad, ummm, "high maintenance."
-----
We're back tomorrow from Cleveland. Should be a barnburner between Rashard Lewis, Norris Cole and whoever-is-playing-these-days-for-the-Cavs. I'd normally be the last person to tell you what I would be doing if you need me before then, but just in case you do, I will be doing bench presses with no shirt on at the gym...and not wiping the sweat up afterwards! See you tomorrow!
-----
1) In the first half, this game had a little bit of intensity. The Heat don't particularly like the Bulls, because they don't necessarily love teams that go out their way to whack you gratuitously in the head. And the Bulls don't like anyone - hence, all the head-whacking. Jimmy Butler and Nazr Mohammed set an early tone with some outside-the-boundaries-of-good-sportsmanship fouling. In the second half, though, with neither team really playing for anything, the game kind of petered out, and the Heat won pretty comfortably, although they missed a ton of free throws that would have made the final margin larger. All in all, a good day of work: 64 wins with 2 to play. Mike Miller started today, and made the final dagger triple inside of two minutes to go to salt the game away: Let it fly!
2) Dwyane Wade, King James James, and Chris Bosh all played over 30 minutes and got good sweats going. The Bulls may not be that talented - at least not with their best player choosing not to play at the moment - but they do make you work hard. I doubt Wade, James, or Bosh plays tomorrow in Cleveland or Wednesday against Orlando. Wade and James had excellent regular seasons, and Bosh had a great start, then sometime around mid-January, started conserving his energy for the playoff run. All three set career highs in field goal percentage: Dwyane's at 52%, which is ridiculous for a shooting guard; KJ has shot an otherworldly 56.5%, and Bosh is at 53%. Pat Riley deserves credit for bringing in perfect complementary parts like Miller, Battier, and Chris Anderson (more on him in #3), Erik Spoelstra deserves praise for designing an offense that complements his players' talents, but most of the credit should go to Wade and James. They share the ball. Not just with each other - with everybody. Rarely does either of those two miss an open teammate for a good shot - not every superstar in this league is like that. Those two are an absolute pleasure to watch. Today was more of the same from all three: Wade took 12 shots (22 points); James 12 (24 points); and Bosh 8 (12 points). Chalmers also took 12 (15 points), and the other shooters all got their looks. It is a positive environment in which to play offense - so hard to believe people thought that Wade and James would never be able to play with each other. What we've learned (at least some of us), is that those two guys can play with anybody. Great seasons in particular for those two.
3) What kind of bird, exactly, is Birdman Anderson? Ummm, what kind of bird contests every shot in the defensive paint, has a second jump to go after the rebound, and then when the ball is secured, turns and sprints to the other end? Every time. Over and over he beat the Bulls bigs down the court in transition: got one massive, soaring follow dunk; two ridiculous whirling reverse layups; earned 11 free throws in only 15 minutes; and finished 4-4 for 15 points, with 7 boards and a block. It's only a little bit of a stretch to say he was the best player in the game today. Additionally, he's added a new twist to his repertoire. After a particularly good dunk, or bucket, he runs up court, puts his arms out in Bird-like fashion, but gives just one solid downward flap. That's a rock-solid celebration right there. Maybe it doesn't have the same hipster-cache as KJ's Nick Van Exel tribute, but it isn't bad. Also, you want to know another reason why KJ is a great teammate? He's already on the downward Bird flap - after Bird's flying dunk, KJ got up off the bench (he was resting), and gave the exact same flap. KJ always knows everything going on out there...
4) Oh, this Carlos Boozer. He really is one of my favorite NBA players to watch. M.Minutos and I watched the second half of the Bulls' win over the Knicks on Wednesday, and we kept rewinding the dvr to watch his defensive "help" efforts from the weakside. Here's how he starts: takes up a spot halfway between the guy he is guarding, and where a proper help position against a driver would be. When the drive starts, ideally he would scamper over in front of the driver, force him to pass the ball, then hustle back out to his man to contest the jumper. Here's what he actually does: when the drive starts, he crouches in a "ready" position, then as the guy blows by him, he reaches an arm out towards him. Sometimes he might be close enough to hit the guy for a foul as he's laying it in - he got one of those early on KJ today. Other times he's too far away, and guy just drops it into the bucket. The best thing: if for some reason, the driver kicks it out to his man, he doesn't move anyways. He had one play today where he had Chalmers on a switch, the ball got kicked to Chalmers for a corner three, a spot from which Chalmers is an above average shooter, and Boozer just crouched even lower 12 feet away as 3io took a dribble, set his feet, and swished the ball through! Boozer's other defensive move: standing under the rim. That kid catches more buckets before they hit the floor than anyone I've ever seen - he's just always right there, standing under the basket, waiting for someone to drop it in so he can politely secure it, and step back out of bounds to pass it in. It's an uncanny knack. If the NBA would have a station that just iso'd Boozer defensive possessions all day long, I'd definitely call my cable provider to get it added...In a related story, the Heat shot 51% from the floor today, despite never really getting the jump shots going (didn't need to - just kept driving and laying it in). Boozer was only 5-14, and missed three uncontested layups in the second half (one time he tried to drive the length of the court on James, who tracked him the whole way, then never even tried to block the shot, instead just let Boozer yip it off the front iron - ha!). On the other hand, he grabbed an impressive 20 rebounds - you add those 20 to the 30 times he caught the ball coming through the net on Heat hoops, that's a full day for him.
5) It's so awesome that Derrick Rose is murdering his own franchise's season. He's been cleared to play for 6 weeks or so, but is choosing not to. That is bizarre - can you imagine how upset the Bulls management must be? The Bulls could still finish 5 or 6th in the standings, and it's an impressive feat considering how banged up their homophobic center Joakim Noah and some of their other guys have been. Some of the Heat beat writers thought it was a positive for Miami to win today - dropping the Bulls to 6th takes them out of the Heat's bracket. Realistically, though, they aren't beating the Pacers or New Jersey in a 7 game series. They can't score. A Bulls-Pacers series is unwatchable, it could set basketball back 40 years watching those two teams beat the crud out of each other in 72-71 games, but the Bulls would get smacked by the Nets, too - I don't think they win 2 games in a Bulls-Nets series. Nets are playing really well, and its kind of a downer when your best player chooses not to participate in a season for reasons known only to him. But you know what is even better than all that? Phil Jackson's twitter comment on Kobe Bryant's injury (which made me very sad), comparing him to Rose:
"Kobe wasn't going to let the Lakers miss the playoffs. We watched him go thru 3 anguishing plays, the last one devastating. What if he had gone to the bench after the 2nd mishap? Like Rose of the Bulls, one can guess, but what's done is done. Reality not maybe is zen."
What? That went off the rails at the end. Plus: haaa! Who talks like that? "Like Rose of the Bulls!" Like M. of the Minutos' said upon seeing his quote: "I'm not sure he understand twitter is supposed to be fewer words!" This league needs that dude in it - always trolling somehow, some way...
6) You know how when someone says, "no disrespect, but," and that means they are about to disrespect you? I've got another one. I went to the gym yesterday and as I walked in, this very fit young woman was getting in one of the gym employee's grills, complaining in a loud voice about the general hygiene of the free weight area. Apparently it was sweaty and people were making grunting noises, or something. He was trying to be nice - she was attractive after all, so he absolutely should have been polite in that situation - and then she goes, "I'm the last person to complain about something like this." Really? The last person? By "last," do you mean "first?" Because there were like 70 other people in the gym, and none of them were complaining as far as I could see! I'm the last person to comment on someone else's general comportment, but I have to be honest with you: she seemed a tad, ummm, "high maintenance."
-----
We're back tomorrow from Cleveland. Should be a barnburner between Rashard Lewis, Norris Cole and whoever-is-playing-these-days-for-the-Cavs. I'd normally be the last person to tell you what I would be doing if you need me before then, but just in case you do, I will be doing bench presses with no shirt on at the gym...and not wiping the sweat up afterwards! See you tomorrow!
-----
Friday, April 12, 2013
Heat 109 Celtics 101
6 Thoughts
1) Green shoes! BRIGHT green shoes! Haaaa!!! Remember when playing against Boston used to be a big game for Miami? Tonight Dwyane Wade, KJ James, and Mario "Emcee" Chalmers each came out for the opening tip wearing bright green lime-pistachio colored sneakers to mock the Celtics...and then changed to different pairs of equally bright green sneakers for the second half! Haaa! Whoever scheduled the Celtics in Miami for the last day of the NBA's "Green Week" did us all a huge favor! If we don't see you in the playoffs - and it's not looking good right now - I bid you a hearty "slainte," Boston Celtics. No team has ever been as douchy as you have been and, frankly, you have always seemed awfully proud of it. At least that's something. Let it fly!
2) As for the game, Boston held out Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce in a desperate attempt to avoid Miami in the first round. Milwaukee lost in Atlanta tonight. If Boston beats Orlando tomorrow (or wins any of their last three games), they get the Knicks instead of the Heat, and Miami gets the Bucks. I suspect Garnett and Pierce will play tomorrow - skipped tonight to try to save all their energy for a much more winnable game. Miami played all three of its guys light minutes. Dwyane Wade was terrible, he looked bouncy, but very rusty with his decision-making after a couple of weeks of rest. Good to get him in there. KJ James was like a patient parent. Without Pierce, Boston doesn't have anyone on its roster who can guard him, but he was very deferential: played at the top of the key and crisply ran the offense, trying to get Dwyane and Bosh as many touches as possible, shooting only when he really had to. He finished 8-10 for 20 points and 9 assists in only 29 minutes. I'm guessing all three will play again Sunday against Chicago, then sit out the last two games. It's now 63 wins, by the way, with 3 still to play. That's a lot of wins.
3) Player of the game: Rashard Lewis! The Heat played everyone tonight, and had all kinds of unusual lineups. It was really more like a scrimmage than a competitive game. On one possession in the third quarter, Lewis and Mike Miller put on a weaving, Globetrotter-esque dribble-fest in, out, and around the Celtics defense, ending up with a Lewis three ball off a Miller drive-and-kick. Note to Celtics: that is embarrassing. The third quarter ended with Lewis making back-to-back threes to put Miami up 12, and on the first possession of the fourth quarter he made another: Heat by 15, ballgame. 19 for Lewis on 7-11 in 24 minutes. Get a look at him: you won't be seeing him again after Wednesday!
4) Play of the game: Jeff Green was spectacular against the Heat again. We are Jeff Green's reverse-jinx. If he played every game against Miami, he would be Kevin Durant, instead of, umm, Jeff Green. He scored 25 points, and had 3 massive throwdown dunks, all on Chris Anderson. However, on the third one, in fourth quarter garbage time, he slipped off the rim, fell on his left arm, and lay writhing in pain on the ground. After he wobbled to his feet, he motioned (with his good arm), for the Celtics to take a foul so he could get out of the game for treatment. But nobody on the Celtics took a foul! Haaa! Not only that, when Miami's possession ended, the Celtics didn't take a timeout, they played offense 4 against 5 with Green staggering around holding his arm to his side: AND THIS WENT ON FOR FIVE POSSESSIONS!!! On one of them, with the shot clock running down, someone brainlessly passed it to Green and he had to launch a one-handed 25 foot missile that almost went through the backboard! They always say that you can tell a lot about a team when one of its star players breaks his elbow falling off the rim after a dunk and the rest of his team is like, "ehhh, whatever!" And you know what it says? #Doucheball.
4.5) Bonus Thought! Because there is a decent chance this is the last time we ever play a Pierce-Garnett-Rondo Celtic team (even if two of them were too scared to play, and the other has - maybe - been faking an injury the past 4 months): Kevin Garnett's Top Five Hobbies:
5) Keying strangers' cars at the Star Market near his house
4) Fake mouthing words at deaf kids
3) Killing small dogs
2) "poop and run"
1) Madden 2008 (for Playstation)
5) Remember over the summer when Mario Chalmers somehow seemed to be an integral part of opening a cancer research and care facility at his alma mater, the University of Kansas? Well, he's at it again, making another contribution to the health and fitness world. He spent part of Thursday teaching kids how to swim at the Venetian Pool in Coral Gables. Oh, no! Parents, I'd put some water wings on those kids, I've been in that pool, it's super-big, very deep, and the swimming instructor is using a kickboard to stay afloat! This does not seem like a safe idea:
And that's not all. Emcee has several more community wellness events coming up, including: "Nature Hike in Chernobyl;" "Canoeing with the Somali Pirates;" and "Pub Crawl with the Boston Celtics." Participate at your own risk!
6) Travel Tips from Tania and Blake: no one travels more than great friends of the blog Tania and Blake. I'll text Blake to gossip about the latest episode of Dallas - because he wants to, I could care less of course, I'm just being a good friend - and he'll be like, "I haven't seen it yet, I'm in Napa Valley, we cruised up here for a few days," or "I'm dvr'ing it, I'm on a Python Hunt in the Everglades with Mario Chalmers." Anyways, today they alighted (alit? are either of those an actual word? I was an English major, by the way) for Providence, Rhode Island. Good idea: New England is where I'm from, it's a great place to visit in the spring, as long as you aren't too close to Boston. They always have a travel tip or two to pass on, and here is today's: "At the airport, flight delayed. Decent people-watching, like the slightly annoying family across from us. Note: if your kids are named Mossimo and Gianni, I'm 95% certain you are from Long Island." Whoa, whoa, whoa: I thought these two were travel experts...95%??? That seems wayyy too low...I think the jet lag may have caught up to Tania and Blake.
-----
Next game is Sunday against the Bulls. It's meaningless for both teams, although I would expect Dwyane, KJ, and Bosh to play a bit. If you need me before then, I'll be attending my weekly "Pitbull Obedience School" session with Mario Chalmers. See u Sunday!
-----
1) Green shoes! BRIGHT green shoes! Haaaa!!! Remember when playing against Boston used to be a big game for Miami? Tonight Dwyane Wade, KJ James, and Mario "Emcee" Chalmers each came out for the opening tip wearing bright green lime-pistachio colored sneakers to mock the Celtics...and then changed to different pairs of equally bright green sneakers for the second half! Haaa! Whoever scheduled the Celtics in Miami for the last day of the NBA's "Green Week" did us all a huge favor! If we don't see you in the playoffs - and it's not looking good right now - I bid you a hearty "slainte," Boston Celtics. No team has ever been as douchy as you have been and, frankly, you have always seemed awfully proud of it. At least that's something. Let it fly!
2) As for the game, Boston held out Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce in a desperate attempt to avoid Miami in the first round. Milwaukee lost in Atlanta tonight. If Boston beats Orlando tomorrow (or wins any of their last three games), they get the Knicks instead of the Heat, and Miami gets the Bucks. I suspect Garnett and Pierce will play tomorrow - skipped tonight to try to save all their energy for a much more winnable game. Miami played all three of its guys light minutes. Dwyane Wade was terrible, he looked bouncy, but very rusty with his decision-making after a couple of weeks of rest. Good to get him in there. KJ James was like a patient parent. Without Pierce, Boston doesn't have anyone on its roster who can guard him, but he was very deferential: played at the top of the key and crisply ran the offense, trying to get Dwyane and Bosh as many touches as possible, shooting only when he really had to. He finished 8-10 for 20 points and 9 assists in only 29 minutes. I'm guessing all three will play again Sunday against Chicago, then sit out the last two games. It's now 63 wins, by the way, with 3 still to play. That's a lot of wins.
3) Player of the game: Rashard Lewis! The Heat played everyone tonight, and had all kinds of unusual lineups. It was really more like a scrimmage than a competitive game. On one possession in the third quarter, Lewis and Mike Miller put on a weaving, Globetrotter-esque dribble-fest in, out, and around the Celtics defense, ending up with a Lewis three ball off a Miller drive-and-kick. Note to Celtics: that is embarrassing. The third quarter ended with Lewis making back-to-back threes to put Miami up 12, and on the first possession of the fourth quarter he made another: Heat by 15, ballgame. 19 for Lewis on 7-11 in 24 minutes. Get a look at him: you won't be seeing him again after Wednesday!
4) Play of the game: Jeff Green was spectacular against the Heat again. We are Jeff Green's reverse-jinx. If he played every game against Miami, he would be Kevin Durant, instead of, umm, Jeff Green. He scored 25 points, and had 3 massive throwdown dunks, all on Chris Anderson. However, on the third one, in fourth quarter garbage time, he slipped off the rim, fell on his left arm, and lay writhing in pain on the ground. After he wobbled to his feet, he motioned (with his good arm), for the Celtics to take a foul so he could get out of the game for treatment. But nobody on the Celtics took a foul! Haaa! Not only that, when Miami's possession ended, the Celtics didn't take a timeout, they played offense 4 against 5 with Green staggering around holding his arm to his side: AND THIS WENT ON FOR FIVE POSSESSIONS!!! On one of them, with the shot clock running down, someone brainlessly passed it to Green and he had to launch a one-handed 25 foot missile that almost went through the backboard! They always say that you can tell a lot about a team when one of its star players breaks his elbow falling off the rim after a dunk and the rest of his team is like, "ehhh, whatever!" And you know what it says? #Doucheball.
4.5) Bonus Thought! Because there is a decent chance this is the last time we ever play a Pierce-Garnett-Rondo Celtic team (even if two of them were too scared to play, and the other has - maybe - been faking an injury the past 4 months): Kevin Garnett's Top Five Hobbies:
5) Keying strangers' cars at the Star Market near his house
4) Fake mouthing words at deaf kids
3) Killing small dogs
2) "poop and run"
1) Madden 2008 (for Playstation)
5) Remember over the summer when Mario Chalmers somehow seemed to be an integral part of opening a cancer research and care facility at his alma mater, the University of Kansas? Well, he's at it again, making another contribution to the health and fitness world. He spent part of Thursday teaching kids how to swim at the Venetian Pool in Coral Gables. Oh, no! Parents, I'd put some water wings on those kids, I've been in that pool, it's super-big, very deep, and the swimming instructor is using a kickboard to stay afloat! This does not seem like a safe idea:
And that's not all. Emcee has several more community wellness events coming up, including: "Nature Hike in Chernobyl;" "Canoeing with the Somali Pirates;" and "Pub Crawl with the Boston Celtics." Participate at your own risk!
6) Travel Tips from Tania and Blake: no one travels more than great friends of the blog Tania and Blake. I'll text Blake to gossip about the latest episode of Dallas - because he wants to, I could care less of course, I'm just being a good friend - and he'll be like, "I haven't seen it yet, I'm in Napa Valley, we cruised up here for a few days," or "I'm dvr'ing it, I'm on a Python Hunt in the Everglades with Mario Chalmers." Anyways, today they alighted (alit? are either of those an actual word? I was an English major, by the way) for Providence, Rhode Island. Good idea: New England is where I'm from, it's a great place to visit in the spring, as long as you aren't too close to Boston. They always have a travel tip or two to pass on, and here is today's: "At the airport, flight delayed. Decent people-watching, like the slightly annoying family across from us. Note: if your kids are named Mossimo and Gianni, I'm 95% certain you are from Long Island." Whoa, whoa, whoa: I thought these two were travel experts...95%??? That seems wayyy too low...I think the jet lag may have caught up to Tania and Blake.
-----
Next game is Sunday against the Bulls. It's meaningless for both teams, although I would expect Dwyane, KJ, and Bosh to play a bit. If you need me before then, I'll be attending my weekly "Pitbull Obedience School" session with Mario Chalmers. See u Sunday!
-----
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Heat 103 Wizards 98
6 Thoughts
1) Out: KJ James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, and Udonis Haslem (all: preventative maintenance). That's eighty percent of the starting lineup. In: a surprise win, all sorts of records, turnovers, and, best of all, a whole lot of letting-it-flyness! Yeahhh, Ray Allen, it's all 2002 up in here! Let it fly!
2) Things accomplished in this game: Miami secured the #1 seed throughout the playoffs (and the players split about a $700,000 bonus for winning the East, and the entire NBA regular season). It's now the single most wins - 62 - in a season in franchise history (with 4 games to go). They are a positively absurd 14-1 on the second night of back-to-backs. Finally, most historically, for the first time in NBA history, a team starting Joel Anthony, Mario "Emcee" Chalmers, Shane Battier, Rashard Lewis, and (of course) Mike Miller, won a basketball game! And the Wizards aren't even that bad at home - had won 9 straight there before tonight! Man, this year even these games down the stretch that are normally drudgery are super-fun!
3) Not only that, but the Heat set a team record for the most three pointers ever attempted in a game: 41. Either one of the shooters jacked a long one over the top (that's what she said), or they turned it over. The first quarter was a microcosm of the game, it was bomb or bust for the Heat: it took 90 seconds for Mil-lar to make his first two threes, but then Mario Chalmers had series of mind-bogging turnovers culminating in a play when he drove down the left side of the lane, started stumbling, couldn't regain his balance, and tumbled headlong over the baseline with the ball, crashing into photographers row. Five triples and eleven turnovers in the quarter for the Heat. Still, the starters shot it exceptionally well from deep: Lewis was 3-8, Chalmers was 3-7, Miller was 4-6, and Battier was 5-8. That's 15-29 from your starting group. The three ball won the game.
4) I mean, the three ball...and Walter Ray Allen! Walt was the one guy who couldn't get his triple going tonight (1-7). So he decided to live in the paint. Had a tomahawk dunk on a clean drive down the middle shortly after entering the game, and never stopped attacking the rim. It was slow, it was a little awkward, but it was effective. He kept finding little creases, slipping through them, and then would flip the ball up into the hoop, like, under the rotating big's armpit. With about 4 minutes to go, he posted up on the block, lifted uber-athletic Wizard guard John Wall with an okey-doke, and banged in the layup through the hit for the and-1 to put the Heat up 4, then after a stop, came back down the court and drilled his only homerun: Heat by 7, ballgame. Ray finished with 23 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists, and 3 steals, and steadied the offense down the stretch (only 1 turnover). He beamed with pride after the game during his visit to Jax's winner's circle: "This was a good win, but the fun stuff is still to come...unlike when I was in Boston, and the beginning of playoffs felt like an absolute death sentence because it meant two more months in close quarters with social deviants Rajon Rondo and Kevin Garnett, whose goal in the playoffs wasn't so much to win a championship as it was to destroy peoples' lives, and to, over those two months, make as many human beings as miserable as possible." Well said, I couldn't have stated it any better myself...
5) You know what call that referees can not handle this year? The continuation play. Some things they have down. Hammering KJ James on the way to the rim, the refs have a handle on that: never a foul. Also, Ed Malloy called back-to-back carries on John Wall tonight, so that was great, that's what we all want to see, Ed Malloy calling pointless carries in a meaningless game in mid-April. So he's on top of that. But there was supposed to be a new emphasis on not awarding free throws to, or counting baskets for, offensive players who initiate contact following an okey-doke, or just in general initiate contact before intending to shoot - and it's wayyy too hard for the refs, they can not be consistent with it at all. Over and over I have been surprised this season at what gets shots and what doesn't. You can never settle in because it changes from night to night. Last night, KJ James thundered out in transition one-on-one with (I think) Mike Dunleavy. Some pointless Bucks player. KJ anticipated that he was going to get hammered. How did he know? Because he always gets hammered! So Dunleavy, smartly, stepped out to foul him a step early, and KJ elevated a step early, took the blow, and banked the ball in. The closest referee called a foul, and immediately indicated a three point play. But Miami's own John Gobel (traitor) came freight-training across the lane to try to wave the hoop off, implying that James only shot the ball because he knew contact was coming. Ummm, duh? In past years, that play was fine, that would always count, but this year about half the time it gets called the way Gobel wanted to call it, no bucket (he lost the argument last night: hoop stood)...Case in point: tonight in the third quarter, Shane Battier caught a pass behind the three point line, lifted his guy with a fake, took a dribble towards the basket, saw the guy about to land on him, elevated, took the hit, and banked in his runner. Instantly the ref waived it off, and Battier didn't get his basket. Look, this rule is way too "intent-y" for these refs to call correctly - they are having to guess whether the player was planning to shoot before he lifted his guy and took the blow, and they can't apply a consistent standard to it, and it's frustrating to players and fans. It's impossible to judge the player's intent, and it's dumb anyways: who cares? If the guy is shooting the ball from a legitimate spot on the floor, like anywhere inside of 25 feet, and it goes in as he gets fouled, just count it. We all like to see baskets. In fact, scoring baskets is the whole point of basketball! Ed Malloy doesn't want to call a basket that went in because he is too busy calling palming violations 27 feet from the rim. I see, that makes total sense. This rule needs to go back to how it was being called every other season for the past fifty years.
6) You know what is an absolutely delicious (and severely underrated) treat? Italian ice. Those Italians are genius. It's not just the flavor of Italian ice that is so enchanting, it's also the texture of the ice, that shaved, smooth texture that lends itself so perfectly to being scooped up in thin, delectable slivers with a small, flat wooden spoon. I know that they have machines that make it now, but back in the day, how did Italians make ice into that texture? How did they even imagine that texture at all? You can see what happened when white(r) people tried to duplicate Italian ice - we got snow cones. Snow cones are aiiigght, but they aren't as good as Italian ice. Too granular. That happens a lot when very white people try to co-opt great inventions, we end up with an inferior product. Except for rock and roll. A lot of people say, "oh, white people stole rock and roll from black people." You know what I say to that? Thank God! Have you ever listened to Chuck Berry and thought to yourself, "oh, this is tremendous, I could listen to this all day!" No, you haven't - no one has ever thought that to themselves, at least not since 1958! But Arctic Monkeys and Phoenix, just to name two very white bands, are the bees' knees. You know who was a great black rock and roll dude? Prince. You know what else? Half-white! The end...Holy Toledo, that really spiraled out of control quickly...
-----
Our next game is Friday against Boston. Listen, we'd be better off tanking that game to keep Boston out of the 8th seed but, frankly, we tried to tank tonight's game and we still won! If you need me before then, I'll be on Coney Island, in a white Nissan Sentra, slurping that authentic, New York, old school Italian ice. Arrivederci, paisans!
-----
1) Out: KJ James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, and Udonis Haslem (all: preventative maintenance). That's eighty percent of the starting lineup. In: a surprise win, all sorts of records, turnovers, and, best of all, a whole lot of letting-it-flyness! Yeahhh, Ray Allen, it's all 2002 up in here! Let it fly!
2) Things accomplished in this game: Miami secured the #1 seed throughout the playoffs (and the players split about a $700,000 bonus for winning the East, and the entire NBA regular season). It's now the single most wins - 62 - in a season in franchise history (with 4 games to go). They are a positively absurd 14-1 on the second night of back-to-backs. Finally, most historically, for the first time in NBA history, a team starting Joel Anthony, Mario "Emcee" Chalmers, Shane Battier, Rashard Lewis, and (of course) Mike Miller, won a basketball game! And the Wizards aren't even that bad at home - had won 9 straight there before tonight! Man, this year even these games down the stretch that are normally drudgery are super-fun!
3) Not only that, but the Heat set a team record for the most three pointers ever attempted in a game: 41. Either one of the shooters jacked a long one over the top (that's what she said), or they turned it over. The first quarter was a microcosm of the game, it was bomb or bust for the Heat: it took 90 seconds for Mil-lar to make his first two threes, but then Mario Chalmers had series of mind-bogging turnovers culminating in a play when he drove down the left side of the lane, started stumbling, couldn't regain his balance, and tumbled headlong over the baseline with the ball, crashing into photographers row. Five triples and eleven turnovers in the quarter for the Heat. Still, the starters shot it exceptionally well from deep: Lewis was 3-8, Chalmers was 3-7, Miller was 4-6, and Battier was 5-8. That's 15-29 from your starting group. The three ball won the game.
4) I mean, the three ball...and Walter Ray Allen! Walt was the one guy who couldn't get his triple going tonight (1-7). So he decided to live in the paint. Had a tomahawk dunk on a clean drive down the middle shortly after entering the game, and never stopped attacking the rim. It was slow, it was a little awkward, but it was effective. He kept finding little creases, slipping through them, and then would flip the ball up into the hoop, like, under the rotating big's armpit. With about 4 minutes to go, he posted up on the block, lifted uber-athletic Wizard guard John Wall with an okey-doke, and banged in the layup through the hit for the and-1 to put the Heat up 4, then after a stop, came back down the court and drilled his only homerun: Heat by 7, ballgame. Ray finished with 23 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists, and 3 steals, and steadied the offense down the stretch (only 1 turnover). He beamed with pride after the game during his visit to Jax's winner's circle: "This was a good win, but the fun stuff is still to come...unlike when I was in Boston, and the beginning of playoffs felt like an absolute death sentence because it meant two more months in close quarters with social deviants Rajon Rondo and Kevin Garnett, whose goal in the playoffs wasn't so much to win a championship as it was to destroy peoples' lives, and to, over those two months, make as many human beings as miserable as possible." Well said, I couldn't have stated it any better myself...
5) You know what call that referees can not handle this year? The continuation play. Some things they have down. Hammering KJ James on the way to the rim, the refs have a handle on that: never a foul. Also, Ed Malloy called back-to-back carries on John Wall tonight, so that was great, that's what we all want to see, Ed Malloy calling pointless carries in a meaningless game in mid-April. So he's on top of that. But there was supposed to be a new emphasis on not awarding free throws to, or counting baskets for, offensive players who initiate contact following an okey-doke, or just in general initiate contact before intending to shoot - and it's wayyy too hard for the refs, they can not be consistent with it at all. Over and over I have been surprised this season at what gets shots and what doesn't. You can never settle in because it changes from night to night. Last night, KJ James thundered out in transition one-on-one with (I think) Mike Dunleavy. Some pointless Bucks player. KJ anticipated that he was going to get hammered. How did he know? Because he always gets hammered! So Dunleavy, smartly, stepped out to foul him a step early, and KJ elevated a step early, took the blow, and banked the ball in. The closest referee called a foul, and immediately indicated a three point play. But Miami's own John Gobel (traitor) came freight-training across the lane to try to wave the hoop off, implying that James only shot the ball because he knew contact was coming. Ummm, duh? In past years, that play was fine, that would always count, but this year about half the time it gets called the way Gobel wanted to call it, no bucket (he lost the argument last night: hoop stood)...Case in point: tonight in the third quarter, Shane Battier caught a pass behind the three point line, lifted his guy with a fake, took a dribble towards the basket, saw the guy about to land on him, elevated, took the hit, and banked in his runner. Instantly the ref waived it off, and Battier didn't get his basket. Look, this rule is way too "intent-y" for these refs to call correctly - they are having to guess whether the player was planning to shoot before he lifted his guy and took the blow, and they can't apply a consistent standard to it, and it's frustrating to players and fans. It's impossible to judge the player's intent, and it's dumb anyways: who cares? If the guy is shooting the ball from a legitimate spot on the floor, like anywhere inside of 25 feet, and it goes in as he gets fouled, just count it. We all like to see baskets. In fact, scoring baskets is the whole point of basketball! Ed Malloy doesn't want to call a basket that went in because he is too busy calling palming violations 27 feet from the rim. I see, that makes total sense. This rule needs to go back to how it was being called every other season for the past fifty years.
6) You know what is an absolutely delicious (and severely underrated) treat? Italian ice. Those Italians are genius. It's not just the flavor of Italian ice that is so enchanting, it's also the texture of the ice, that shaved, smooth texture that lends itself so perfectly to being scooped up in thin, delectable slivers with a small, flat wooden spoon. I know that they have machines that make it now, but back in the day, how did Italians make ice into that texture? How did they even imagine that texture at all? You can see what happened when white(r) people tried to duplicate Italian ice - we got snow cones. Snow cones are aiiigght, but they aren't as good as Italian ice. Too granular. That happens a lot when very white people try to co-opt great inventions, we end up with an inferior product. Except for rock and roll. A lot of people say, "oh, white people stole rock and roll from black people." You know what I say to that? Thank God! Have you ever listened to Chuck Berry and thought to yourself, "oh, this is tremendous, I could listen to this all day!" No, you haven't - no one has ever thought that to themselves, at least not since 1958! But Arctic Monkeys and Phoenix, just to name two very white bands, are the bees' knees. You know who was a great black rock and roll dude? Prince. You know what else? Half-white! The end...Holy Toledo, that really spiraled out of control quickly...
-----
Our next game is Friday against Boston. Listen, we'd be better off tanking that game to keep Boston out of the 8th seed but, frankly, we tried to tank tonight's game and we still won! If you need me before then, I'll be on Coney Island, in a white Nissan Sentra, slurping that authentic, New York, old school Italian ice. Arrivederci, paisans!
-----
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Heat 94 Bucks 83
6 Thoughts
1) I'm back from my little late-season sabbatical to Savannah. More on that down in #6. While I was gone, I saw the second halves of the wins against Charlotte and Philly - those were both basically Mike Miller showcases, as he started in place of Dwyane Wade (preventative maintenance) and started drilling triples like it was an elimination game in the Finals...Tonight was really the last meaningful game of the regular season for Miami - the win over Milwaukee helped secure the Bucks hold on the #8 spot, and made it a little more likely that the Heat can avoid an annoying-fest against Boston in the first round. The Bucks and Celtics each have 5 games left - any combination of 3 Bucks losses and Celtics wins means Miami plays Milwaukee. The Heat play Boston later this week, and should absolutely tank that game. I'd play Jarvis Tornado and no one else in that game - just Tornado, one on five against the Celtics...wait, what? Oh: Jarvis Varn-ado...Yeah, that guy - I'd play him by himself against Boston. And guess what? I think he could win! Let it fly!
2) This is why Miami should tank against Boston to try to secure a matchup against Milwaukee in the first round: Miami rested Wade and Chris Bosh, KJ James played only 30 minutes, and the Heat shooters were positively brutal (8-35 on triples, 23%). Yet, Miami won easily, were never really pushed in the second half. Milwaukee is really bad defensively, Miami shot so many threes because Milwaukee is so bad at defending - they sort of generally sink to the paint against any ball movement, or penetration, and get hung up on a ton of screens. Most of Miami's looks were wide open - it was just one of those nights when the ball didn't go in. Finally, in one stretch spanning the end of the third quarter and beginning of the fourth quarter, they made 5-6, and then Birdman Anderson ripped his third career triple (in 11 years): Miami by 18, ballgame. Much better to play this team in the first round than a team that knows how to play NBA-level defense.
3) Play of the game: easy, efficient night for KJ James. He shot 11-16 for 28 points, and had 7 rebounds and 7 assists...and one insane highlight reel play. Late in the first quarter, he pushed the ball out in transition with Mike Miller running the right wing. Only Monta Ellis was back defensively: he likes offense, but his general level of defensive enthusiasm hovers somewhere between "disengaged" and "completely unaware that defense is a thing." KJ hopped up in the air with the ball in his right hand, intending to slide the ball over to Miller for a layup...but this was the one time, ever, that Monta Ellis made a savvy defensive play. He guessed pass, and dropped right into Miller's lap when KJ elevated. James, stuck up in the air, simply switched the ball from right hand to left, glided a minute, then underhand flipped the ball up off the backboard, went back up, and slammed the ball into the bucket - hard - as Miller burst out laughing and Ellis...well, he did nothing at all. Believe me, he's given up baskets before, you think he's gonna worry about one more?
4) A lot of guys might not like living in Milwaukee, but Bucks coach Jim Boylan actually looks like a guy who would enjoy it there. He's a classic white guy - underrated stereotype, in my mind, not a lot of dudes these days are just rock-solid, classic white guys. Can't you see him in downtown Milwaukee at the, umm...doing a, ummm...Jesus, what do you do in Milwaukee?
5) Oh nooooo - I own Levis! Throw them out, M.Minutos! PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING THAT YOU HOLD HOLY, THROW THEM OUUTTTT!!!!!!!
6) Here are my favorite American cities, in order: 1) Savannah 2) every other city in America 3) Orlando...I love Savannah, it is the illest place ever. You can walk everywhere, there is super-cool art because the design college is so prominent downtown, the early-American architecture is the coolest, the beach at Tybee Island is so chill, and there is basically no open container law. I am definitely retiring there. Like, next week. Highlight of my trip there last week: when M.Minutos started drinking "beer-mosas." By the way, yes, those are exactly what they sound like, and sweet, quiet little M.Minutos is the last person on Earth who would ever order one...orrrr, several! Lowlight of the trip: when M.Minutos passed out in bed after the "beer-mosas," before I could get my legendary "Savannah Swerve" on. Oh well, I'm back home now: there is always the "Boynton Beach Booty Call!" Time to end this blog quick!
-----
Next game is totally meaningless tomorrow night in Washington nobody may play but Tornado if you need me before then I'll be super-busy sorry gotta go right now!!!!!
-----
1) I'm back from my little late-season sabbatical to Savannah. More on that down in #6. While I was gone, I saw the second halves of the wins against Charlotte and Philly - those were both basically Mike Miller showcases, as he started in place of Dwyane Wade (preventative maintenance) and started drilling triples like it was an elimination game in the Finals...Tonight was really the last meaningful game of the regular season for Miami - the win over Milwaukee helped secure the Bucks hold on the #8 spot, and made it a little more likely that the Heat can avoid an annoying-fest against Boston in the first round. The Bucks and Celtics each have 5 games left - any combination of 3 Bucks losses and Celtics wins means Miami plays Milwaukee. The Heat play Boston later this week, and should absolutely tank that game. I'd play Jarvis Tornado and no one else in that game - just Tornado, one on five against the Celtics...wait, what? Oh: Jarvis Varn-ado...Yeah, that guy - I'd play him by himself against Boston. And guess what? I think he could win! Let it fly!
2) This is why Miami should tank against Boston to try to secure a matchup against Milwaukee in the first round: Miami rested Wade and Chris Bosh, KJ James played only 30 minutes, and the Heat shooters were positively brutal (8-35 on triples, 23%). Yet, Miami won easily, were never really pushed in the second half. Milwaukee is really bad defensively, Miami shot so many threes because Milwaukee is so bad at defending - they sort of generally sink to the paint against any ball movement, or penetration, and get hung up on a ton of screens. Most of Miami's looks were wide open - it was just one of those nights when the ball didn't go in. Finally, in one stretch spanning the end of the third quarter and beginning of the fourth quarter, they made 5-6, and then Birdman Anderson ripped his third career triple (in 11 years): Miami by 18, ballgame. Much better to play this team in the first round than a team that knows how to play NBA-level defense.
3) Play of the game: easy, efficient night for KJ James. He shot 11-16 for 28 points, and had 7 rebounds and 7 assists...and one insane highlight reel play. Late in the first quarter, he pushed the ball out in transition with Mike Miller running the right wing. Only Monta Ellis was back defensively: he likes offense, but his general level of defensive enthusiasm hovers somewhere between "disengaged" and "completely unaware that defense is a thing." KJ hopped up in the air with the ball in his right hand, intending to slide the ball over to Miller for a layup...but this was the one time, ever, that Monta Ellis made a savvy defensive play. He guessed pass, and dropped right into Miller's lap when KJ elevated. James, stuck up in the air, simply switched the ball from right hand to left, glided a minute, then underhand flipped the ball up off the backboard, went back up, and slammed the ball into the bucket - hard - as Miller burst out laughing and Ellis...well, he did nothing at all. Believe me, he's given up baskets before, you think he's gonna worry about one more?
4) A lot of guys might not like living in Milwaukee, but Bucks coach Jim Boylan actually looks like a guy who would enjoy it there. He's a classic white guy - underrated stereotype, in my mind, not a lot of dudes these days are just rock-solid, classic white guys. Can't you see him in downtown Milwaukee at the, umm...doing a, ummm...Jesus, what do you do in Milwaukee?
5) Oh nooooo - I own Levis! Throw them out, M.Minutos! PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING THAT YOU HOLD HOLY, THROW THEM OUUTTTT!!!!!!!
6) Here are my favorite American cities, in order: 1) Savannah 2) every other city in America 3) Orlando...I love Savannah, it is the illest place ever. You can walk everywhere, there is super-cool art because the design college is so prominent downtown, the early-American architecture is the coolest, the beach at Tybee Island is so chill, and there is basically no open container law. I am definitely retiring there. Like, next week. Highlight of my trip there last week: when M.Minutos started drinking "beer-mosas." By the way, yes, those are exactly what they sound like, and sweet, quiet little M.Minutos is the last person on Earth who would ever order one...orrrr, several! Lowlight of the trip: when M.Minutos passed out in bed after the "beer-mosas," before I could get my legendary "Savannah Swerve" on. Oh well, I'm back home now: there is always the "Boynton Beach Booty Call!" Time to end this blog quick!
-----
Next game is totally meaningless tomorrow night in Washington nobody may play but Tornado if you need me before then I'll be super-busy sorry gotta go right now!!!!!
-----
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Knicks 102 Heat 90
6 Thoughts
1) The Heat sat Dwyane Wade, KJ James, and Mario Chalmers again - surprising because it was a home game. Chris Bosh and the backups - Shane Battier called them The Expendables tonight - played one great half of basketball (Mike Miller!), but fell short down the stretch when Carmelo Anthony kept pouring in shots, and Norris Cole turned the ball over like, well, like he was Norris Cole. Entertaining game, though meaningless (for Miami). Guess what? Mike Miller was so good that even in a loss we're doing it: LET IT FLY!!!
2) It wasn't only the Heat who took the game lightly and rested their starters. So did TNT - it was a national television game only tonight, and it was a brutal crew. BRUTAL! Ernie Johnson was stuck in the studio with Dennis Scott and Brent Barry, I think - one of the Barrys, does it matter which one? I didn't watch that: TNT studio show is unwatchable, even when Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley are not there. But you can't really get away from the play-by-play and color team. Play-by-play veteran Kevin Calabro, in lieu of actually using multiple adjectives to describe anything that happened in the game, just carpet-bombed every action with "outstanding." Carmelo Anthony is an "outstanding" scorer. The Miami Heat have had an "outstanding" season. Even things that were clearly not "outstanding," Kevin Calabro still described as "outstanding": Norris Cole is an "outstanding" second year player, and that was an "outstanding" pass he just threw into to Chris Bosh's back 40 feet from the basket. Nuclear war is "outstanding." In fairness, he did redeem himself somewhat when he referred to the Birdman as "Bird Anderson!" HUBIE-ISM!!! But nothing redeemed the animatronic version of former Knick point guard Greg Anthony, whoneverstoppeddroningoninthesamevoicetoneandcadencenevervaryingitonetimenevertakingabreathbecauseifIdothisbuswillexplode. Holy cow was he brutal. He also pointed out late in the game that, "honestly, it does have a bit of an impact that Wade, James, and Chalmers are not playing." Really? Honestly? I don't feel like you are being honest about that. The Heat choosing to sit Wade, James, and Chalmers in a totally meaningless game for them has "a bit of an impact?" Greg Anthony seems like a smart and nice dude, but he isn't too good at this specific job. Final grade for TNT's coverage: "outstanding!"
3) That was kind of negative - it actually made the game more enjoyable, we were laughing at the announcers all night long. I even enjoyed Carmelo Anthony's performance. He was on fire, scored 50 ("I'm 50, and I like to kick!")! He didn't even bother driving to the basket. No need to, just kept pouring in jump shots over Udonis Haslem and Rashard Lewis all night, finished 18-26 from the floor, 7-10 on triples. Down the stretch, with the game over, and Battier taking over defensively and challenging him a little, Melo willfully demanded the ball and went for his 50 - hit an incredibly tough pullup, total-ballhog jumper on the last Knick possession to get it. It was his night, he earned it - you don't see a guy that hot very often. Little different with KJ James guarding you, though (as Melo found out in last year's playoffs).
4) Well, Melo had 27 in the first half alone, but I think we all agree that it was the Mike Mil-lar show. Late in the first quarter, someone missed a jumper, and Miller came flying in and tip-slammed it home! Hard! The bench exploded (With laughter! And excitement!). But he wasn't even close to done. In one long second quarter stretch he: had a crazy, spinning reverse tip-follow; snatched a defensive rebound one-handed; after a Heat miss, snuck up behind Tyson Chandler, who had grabbed the rebound, swiped the ball, reset the offense, relocated, and drilled a triple from the top; made another quick triple; then a driving, one-handed scoop shot; then stole a pass, headed up court, but got the ball stolen while getting knocked down by Pablo Prigioni - no foul, what the hell, don't we protect the superstars in this league?; bounced right back with another triple! DOING! IT! ALL! Finished the half with 18 points on 7-8 shooting, 4-5 triples, and 6 rebounds. "Outstanding," exclaimed Kevin Calabro. "He'srelivingtheglorydays," droned Animatronic Anthony (Hubie-ism). Reliving the glory days? How dare you! THESE ARE THE GLORY DAYS!!! Mil-lar ended the game with 18 points, also, so he, you know, dropped off a little...Still, in all seriousness, it was a glimpse of how good a ballplayer this dude was at one time. When Miami signed him to support the three All-Stars, they probably hoped he wouldn't break both thumbs and require shoulder surgery that season. And as it was, they came up one guy short, right? In those Finals against Dallas in 2011, if Miller is healthy, maybe they win that series. Last year, they found the extra guy: Battier. When they also got a vintage Mike Miller performance in Game 5 of the Finals, it was curtains for OKC...
5) A quick pre-game look in at the warmups found Birdman Anderson in deep conversation at center court with Kenyon Martin. They were former teammates in Denver, because of course they were.
"Did you read the New York Times review of Nathan Lane's new Broadway show 'The Nance?'"
"Read the review? I went to opening night!"
"Seriously? How was it?"
"Outstanding!"
6) Time for another episode of "Who Is The Racist?" This is when the black M.Minutos and the (very) white me have a racial dispute, and then right here in this blog we try to sort out who was the racist in the situation. Ready?...There is a new movie about Jackie Robinson coming out, apparently. I kept seeing the ads for it during the game. M.Minutos kept missing the ad, then was mildly offended when she asked me who was playing Jackie Robinson and I answered, "I don't know - some black guy." Listen, I saw the ad ten times: I don't know who the guy is. I know tons of black actors: Wesley Snipes, Hill Harper, that Boris dude from the tv version of "Soul Food" who looks like former Dolphin Jason Taylor but way more handsome...I know a lot of black dudes. This dude playing Jackie Robinson wasn't any of them, to my eye. But he was definitely black. Oh, what, only a black guy could play Jackie Robinson in a movie? You don't think a Jeff Bridges could pull it off? Bullcrap. So, who is the racist, me or M.Minutos? Always remember, you have to apply orignal MTV Real Worlder Kevin Powell's time-tested formula: "race plus power equals racism." Jackie Robinson played 10 years in the big leagues and hit 137 homers. That's decent power, but not great. So he's not the racist. But by the same token, I hit zero major league homeruns, and in fact, while pitching in high school, gave up a titanic first-pitch homerun to future big league power hitter Mo Vaughn (I thought I could slip a quick fastball by him and get ahead in the count). So it can't be me, I don't have any power. I can't be the racist in this situation. M.Minutos, once again, you are the racist!
-----
I'm going to Savannah tomorrow! Holiday! I'm skipping the games against Charlotte and Philly this weekend - no blog. I'll be back next week to grind out the last few regular season games, and prepare for the playoffs. If you need me before then, I'll be on Tybee Island, drunk. Have a good weekend, y'all!
-----
1) The Heat sat Dwyane Wade, KJ James, and Mario Chalmers again - surprising because it was a home game. Chris Bosh and the backups - Shane Battier called them The Expendables tonight - played one great half of basketball (Mike Miller!), but fell short down the stretch when Carmelo Anthony kept pouring in shots, and Norris Cole turned the ball over like, well, like he was Norris Cole. Entertaining game, though meaningless (for Miami). Guess what? Mike Miller was so good that even in a loss we're doing it: LET IT FLY!!!
2) It wasn't only the Heat who took the game lightly and rested their starters. So did TNT - it was a national television game only tonight, and it was a brutal crew. BRUTAL! Ernie Johnson was stuck in the studio with Dennis Scott and Brent Barry, I think - one of the Barrys, does it matter which one? I didn't watch that: TNT studio show is unwatchable, even when Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley are not there. But you can't really get away from the play-by-play and color team. Play-by-play veteran Kevin Calabro, in lieu of actually using multiple adjectives to describe anything that happened in the game, just carpet-bombed every action with "outstanding." Carmelo Anthony is an "outstanding" scorer. The Miami Heat have had an "outstanding" season. Even things that were clearly not "outstanding," Kevin Calabro still described as "outstanding": Norris Cole is an "outstanding" second year player, and that was an "outstanding" pass he just threw into to Chris Bosh's back 40 feet from the basket. Nuclear war is "outstanding." In fairness, he did redeem himself somewhat when he referred to the Birdman as "Bird Anderson!" HUBIE-ISM!!! But nothing redeemed the animatronic version of former Knick point guard Greg Anthony, whoneverstoppeddroningoninthesamevoicetoneandcadencenevervaryingitonetimenevertakingabreathbecauseifIdothisbuswillexplode. Holy cow was he brutal. He also pointed out late in the game that, "honestly, it does have a bit of an impact that Wade, James, and Chalmers are not playing." Really? Honestly? I don't feel like you are being honest about that. The Heat choosing to sit Wade, James, and Chalmers in a totally meaningless game for them has "a bit of an impact?" Greg Anthony seems like a smart and nice dude, but he isn't too good at this specific job. Final grade for TNT's coverage: "outstanding!"
3) That was kind of negative - it actually made the game more enjoyable, we were laughing at the announcers all night long. I even enjoyed Carmelo Anthony's performance. He was on fire, scored 50 ("I'm 50, and I like to kick!")! He didn't even bother driving to the basket. No need to, just kept pouring in jump shots over Udonis Haslem and Rashard Lewis all night, finished 18-26 from the floor, 7-10 on triples. Down the stretch, with the game over, and Battier taking over defensively and challenging him a little, Melo willfully demanded the ball and went for his 50 - hit an incredibly tough pullup, total-ballhog jumper on the last Knick possession to get it. It was his night, he earned it - you don't see a guy that hot very often. Little different with KJ James guarding you, though (as Melo found out in last year's playoffs).
4) Well, Melo had 27 in the first half alone, but I think we all agree that it was the Mike Mil-lar show. Late in the first quarter, someone missed a jumper, and Miller came flying in and tip-slammed it home! Hard! The bench exploded (With laughter! And excitement!). But he wasn't even close to done. In one long second quarter stretch he: had a crazy, spinning reverse tip-follow; snatched a defensive rebound one-handed; after a Heat miss, snuck up behind Tyson Chandler, who had grabbed the rebound, swiped the ball, reset the offense, relocated, and drilled a triple from the top; made another quick triple; then a driving, one-handed scoop shot; then stole a pass, headed up court, but got the ball stolen while getting knocked down by Pablo Prigioni - no foul, what the hell, don't we protect the superstars in this league?; bounced right back with another triple! DOING! IT! ALL! Finished the half with 18 points on 7-8 shooting, 4-5 triples, and 6 rebounds. "Outstanding," exclaimed Kevin Calabro. "He'srelivingtheglorydays," droned Animatronic Anthony (Hubie-ism). Reliving the glory days? How dare you! THESE ARE THE GLORY DAYS!!! Mil-lar ended the game with 18 points, also, so he, you know, dropped off a little...Still, in all seriousness, it was a glimpse of how good a ballplayer this dude was at one time. When Miami signed him to support the three All-Stars, they probably hoped he wouldn't break both thumbs and require shoulder surgery that season. And as it was, they came up one guy short, right? In those Finals against Dallas in 2011, if Miller is healthy, maybe they win that series. Last year, they found the extra guy: Battier. When they also got a vintage Mike Miller performance in Game 5 of the Finals, it was curtains for OKC...
5) A quick pre-game look in at the warmups found Birdman Anderson in deep conversation at center court with Kenyon Martin. They were former teammates in Denver, because of course they were.
"Did you read the New York Times review of Nathan Lane's new Broadway show 'The Nance?'"
"Read the review? I went to opening night!"
"Seriously? How was it?"
"Outstanding!"
6) Time for another episode of "Who Is The Racist?" This is when the black M.Minutos and the (very) white me have a racial dispute, and then right here in this blog we try to sort out who was the racist in the situation. Ready?...There is a new movie about Jackie Robinson coming out, apparently. I kept seeing the ads for it during the game. M.Minutos kept missing the ad, then was mildly offended when she asked me who was playing Jackie Robinson and I answered, "I don't know - some black guy." Listen, I saw the ad ten times: I don't know who the guy is. I know tons of black actors: Wesley Snipes, Hill Harper, that Boris dude from the tv version of "Soul Food" who looks like former Dolphin Jason Taylor but way more handsome...I know a lot of black dudes. This dude playing Jackie Robinson wasn't any of them, to my eye. But he was definitely black. Oh, what, only a black guy could play Jackie Robinson in a movie? You don't think a Jeff Bridges could pull it off? Bullcrap. So, who is the racist, me or M.Minutos? Always remember, you have to apply orignal MTV Real Worlder Kevin Powell's time-tested formula: "race plus power equals racism." Jackie Robinson played 10 years in the big leagues and hit 137 homers. That's decent power, but not great. So he's not the racist. But by the same token, I hit zero major league homeruns, and in fact, while pitching in high school, gave up a titanic first-pitch homerun to future big league power hitter Mo Vaughn (I thought I could slip a quick fastball by him and get ahead in the count). So it can't be me, I don't have any power. I can't be the racist in this situation. M.Minutos, once again, you are the racist!
-----
I'm going to Savannah tomorrow! Holiday! I'm skipping the games against Charlotte and Philly this weekend - no blog. I'll be back next week to grind out the last few regular season games, and prepare for the playoffs. If you need me before then, I'll be on Tybee Island, drunk. Have a good weekend, y'all!
-----
Monday, April 1, 2013
Heat 88 Spurs 86
6 Thoughts
1) I did not watch this game. My cable, internet, everything was out. I thought about going somewhere to watch it, then saw on Twitter that Chalmers wasn't playing (along with Dwyane Wade and KJ James), and figured we would take a beatdown from the Spurs machine in a meaningless game. I'd only missed one half of basketball all season so far (first half of the January loss to the Bulls), and this seemed like a good one to skip. Oops. I checked the score at halftime and it was close, so I threw on the radio and listened to the second half (then had to watch the highlights all night long on my phone). I think the last time I listened to a basketball game on the radio was 1986, when Cliff Robinson hit a jumpshot at the buzzer to win a game for my beloved University of Connecticut. Same as it ever was: let it fly!
2) Cliff Robinson isn't the only lanky 6'11" forward in the history of basketball who can step out and hit a jumper to win a game - Chris Bosh makes it, at least, two. Dirk Nowitzki: that's three. With 10 seconds to go down 1, Udonis Haslem forced Tim Duncan into a tough fallaway jumper, which he missed. Walter Ray Allen grabbed the rebound, pushed it hard up the court, and Bosh screened for him at the top of the circle. Ray came over the screen, and everyone on the Spurs seemed to rush at him - he's old, but he's still Ray Allen. Bosh spaced out to the top of the arc, Ray flipped it back to him, Duncan tried to get out to contest, but too late...triple, ballgame!!! He Nowitzki'd 'em!!! Or Cliff Robinson'ed them. Or whatever - the point is, he won the game! Scrappy road win for the Heat backups!
3) Bosh scored 23 points, had 9 rebounds, 3 assists, and a couple of blocks against the second best team in basketball (playing against Tim Duncan). It's amazing what he can do when he sets his mind to it - maybe he is simply happy to drift through the season letting Dwyane and KJ do the heavy lifting, and then step up only when needed. He also made 3-5 triples, including the game winner. It shows that he can knock that shot down, when it is available to him. I predicted he'd hit 50 this year - after those 3, he's sitting on 19, so he only needs 31 more in the last 9 games. Doable. Two lessons I have learned: one, never bet on your center making 50 threes after your team signs Ray Allen and Rashard Lewis in the offseason to add to Shane Battier, Mike Miller, Mario Chalmers, KJ James, and James Jones. He's probably not going to get enough looks at it. Two, never bet on Chris Bosh to do anything that involves doing something.
4) Mike Miller started, played 24 minutes, and made 4-6 triples. He's growing his hair back out, and he says it is because he is feeling youthful - his body feels young. Coach Spo made the wise decision to essentially shelve him for the entire season, to get him to the playoffs healthy. It will be interesting to see if he can crack the playoff rotation. I'd like to see Battier start instead of Haslem, and soak up a bunch of extra minutes, and Miller to take most of Norris Cole's - reducing UD and Cole to spot players. I'm guessing Spo won't start that way - he's stubborn. Also, the team has won 29 of their last 30 games his way, so maybe he's on to something. But at some point in the playoffs, maybe Miller gets his shot (to let it fly).
5) Interesting note on the last possession for Miami: Coach Spo said that down 1, with a 10 second differential on the shot clock and game clock, he told the team to get a stop and then push it up without calling a timeout. If he felt that they weren't getting into something quickly, then he would call a timeout from the bench; or, also, Shane Battier had the authority to call one on the court, if he felt it was necessary. This Battier, he's more than a coach on the floor who also knocks down threes, he's like the coach, the general manager, and the CEO all rolled up into one. If he offered to raise my kids for me, I'd gladly step aside - I have no doubt he'd be better at it than me...After the game he said that he could sense the disappointment in the San Antonio crowd when it was announced before the game that Wade, James, and Chalmers weren't playing (especially Chalmers). He said the crowd groaned and was like, "'we have to watch these clowns?' But you know what? These clowns have some fight in them - we're the Fighting Clowns!" Along with everything else, Battier knows what is funny...
6) Down here in South Florida last week we had this minor controversy at Florida Atlantic University. A professor asked each of his students to take a picture of Jesus, drop it on the floor, and step on it. I'm not sure what the point of the exercise was. Jesus sucks? Jesus does not suck, he seemed like a supercool dude...Anyways, one kid wouldn't do it, and complained, and blah, blah, de-blah-de-blah. Whatever. The thing is, I probably wouldn't step on a picture of Jesus - it feels like bad juju. You don't have to be a full-on Christian to believe in juju (I'm only half-Christian). I mean, if you gave me a picture of Dwyane Wade and asked me to step on it, I wouldn't do that, either. It's dumb, and disrespectful, and you shouldn't step on any picture of any man, ever...unless it's Russell Westbrook: then stomp away!!!
-----
Programming note: I should be here for Tuesday's game against the Knicks which is pretty much meaningless. Miami has the East #1 seed locked up, and a four game lead for the #1 overall seed (which I don't think matters, and I almost prefer to be the road team in the Finals) - this unlikely win over San Antonio puts them up three losses on the Spurs, plus Miami swept them and owns the tiebreaker. But I will be out of town for Friday's game against Charlotte and Saturday's game against Philly. I'm going to Savannah for a short vacation - not going to even try to watch those games - good to recharge the batteries heading into the playoffs. If you need me before Tuesday's game vs New York, I'll be at Kinko's printing out Russell Westbrook photos. See you Tuesday!
-----
1) I did not watch this game. My cable, internet, everything was out. I thought about going somewhere to watch it, then saw on Twitter that Chalmers wasn't playing (along with Dwyane Wade and KJ James), and figured we would take a beatdown from the Spurs machine in a meaningless game. I'd only missed one half of basketball all season so far (first half of the January loss to the Bulls), and this seemed like a good one to skip. Oops. I checked the score at halftime and it was close, so I threw on the radio and listened to the second half (then had to watch the highlights all night long on my phone). I think the last time I listened to a basketball game on the radio was 1986, when Cliff Robinson hit a jumpshot at the buzzer to win a game for my beloved University of Connecticut. Same as it ever was: let it fly!
2) Cliff Robinson isn't the only lanky 6'11" forward in the history of basketball who can step out and hit a jumper to win a game - Chris Bosh makes it, at least, two. Dirk Nowitzki: that's three. With 10 seconds to go down 1, Udonis Haslem forced Tim Duncan into a tough fallaway jumper, which he missed. Walter Ray Allen grabbed the rebound, pushed it hard up the court, and Bosh screened for him at the top of the circle. Ray came over the screen, and everyone on the Spurs seemed to rush at him - he's old, but he's still Ray Allen. Bosh spaced out to the top of the arc, Ray flipped it back to him, Duncan tried to get out to contest, but too late...triple, ballgame!!! He Nowitzki'd 'em!!! Or Cliff Robinson'ed them. Or whatever - the point is, he won the game! Scrappy road win for the Heat backups!
3) Bosh scored 23 points, had 9 rebounds, 3 assists, and a couple of blocks against the second best team in basketball (playing against Tim Duncan). It's amazing what he can do when he sets his mind to it - maybe he is simply happy to drift through the season letting Dwyane and KJ do the heavy lifting, and then step up only when needed. He also made 3-5 triples, including the game winner. It shows that he can knock that shot down, when it is available to him. I predicted he'd hit 50 this year - after those 3, he's sitting on 19, so he only needs 31 more in the last 9 games. Doable. Two lessons I have learned: one, never bet on your center making 50 threes after your team signs Ray Allen and Rashard Lewis in the offseason to add to Shane Battier, Mike Miller, Mario Chalmers, KJ James, and James Jones. He's probably not going to get enough looks at it. Two, never bet on Chris Bosh to do anything that involves doing something.
4) Mike Miller started, played 24 minutes, and made 4-6 triples. He's growing his hair back out, and he says it is because he is feeling youthful - his body feels young. Coach Spo made the wise decision to essentially shelve him for the entire season, to get him to the playoffs healthy. It will be interesting to see if he can crack the playoff rotation. I'd like to see Battier start instead of Haslem, and soak up a bunch of extra minutes, and Miller to take most of Norris Cole's - reducing UD and Cole to spot players. I'm guessing Spo won't start that way - he's stubborn. Also, the team has won 29 of their last 30 games his way, so maybe he's on to something. But at some point in the playoffs, maybe Miller gets his shot (to let it fly).
5) Interesting note on the last possession for Miami: Coach Spo said that down 1, with a 10 second differential on the shot clock and game clock, he told the team to get a stop and then push it up without calling a timeout. If he felt that they weren't getting into something quickly, then he would call a timeout from the bench; or, also, Shane Battier had the authority to call one on the court, if he felt it was necessary. This Battier, he's more than a coach on the floor who also knocks down threes, he's like the coach, the general manager, and the CEO all rolled up into one. If he offered to raise my kids for me, I'd gladly step aside - I have no doubt he'd be better at it than me...After the game he said that he could sense the disappointment in the San Antonio crowd when it was announced before the game that Wade, James, and Chalmers weren't playing (especially Chalmers). He said the crowd groaned and was like, "'we have to watch these clowns?' But you know what? These clowns have some fight in them - we're the Fighting Clowns!" Along with everything else, Battier knows what is funny...
6) Down here in South Florida last week we had this minor controversy at Florida Atlantic University. A professor asked each of his students to take a picture of Jesus, drop it on the floor, and step on it. I'm not sure what the point of the exercise was. Jesus sucks? Jesus does not suck, he seemed like a supercool dude...Anyways, one kid wouldn't do it, and complained, and blah, blah, de-blah-de-blah. Whatever. The thing is, I probably wouldn't step on a picture of Jesus - it feels like bad juju. You don't have to be a full-on Christian to believe in juju (I'm only half-Christian). I mean, if you gave me a picture of Dwyane Wade and asked me to step on it, I wouldn't do that, either. It's dumb, and disrespectful, and you shouldn't step on any picture of any man, ever...unless it's Russell Westbrook: then stomp away!!!
-----
Programming note: I should be here for Tuesday's game against the Knicks which is pretty much meaningless. Miami has the East #1 seed locked up, and a four game lead for the #1 overall seed (which I don't think matters, and I almost prefer to be the road team in the Finals) - this unlikely win over San Antonio puts them up three losses on the Spurs, plus Miami swept them and owns the tiebreaker. But I will be out of town for Friday's game against Charlotte and Saturday's game against Philly. I'm going to Savannah for a short vacation - not going to even try to watch those games - good to recharge the batteries heading into the playoffs. If you need me before Tuesday's game vs New York, I'll be at Kinko's printing out Russell Westbrook photos. See you Tuesday!
-----
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)