6 Thoughts
1) First of all: oh-no. I mean, just: oh-no. So, our boy, Mike "Supercool" Beasley was back in town tonight. Everyone thinks we hate him; we actually love him. It was great to see him wrestling with Dwyane Wade on the floor of the court during warmups - don't want any hard feelings between Mike and his former teammates. And he looks terrific - must have lost 15 pounds in the offseason. Came out aggressive, and when he rolled down the lane in to a one-handed tomahawk dunk on an offensive rebound, I couldn't have been happier. But moments later, he drove left, elevated, and got hit at the apex by Chris Bosh, and crashed down - hard - on to his hip. Couldn't shoot his free throw, couldn't stay in the game, could barely even walk to the locker room. Heat sideliner Jason Jackson reported that the Timberwolves were calling Mike's injury a hip contusion, but Jax wasn't buying it: "they better get him an MRI." Just: oh-no. Get well soon, Mike - get well soon.
2) This is now four games in a row that Miami has led by 25+ in the third quarter. That is ridiculous. They are killing people - the games aren't even competitive. The teams, besides Orlando, have been a little weak, but still...Is the whole year going to be like this? By the way, M.Minutos could care less: "This is what we have been working towards all these years. I love it!"
3) In the first half alone, Dwyane Wade had 22 points, virtually without ever dribbling the ball, just by cutting to open spots and dunking, or offensive rebounding. He barely played in the second half, and only 24 minutes overall. LeBron James had 6 points and 9 assists in the first half - he played the third quarter and poured in 14 to get to 20 for the night. The reality is, right now the third quarter is garbage time for this team, at least for the starters, since they aren't going to see the court in the fourth quarter. The fourth quarter is strictly for seeing how many shots and points the offensively ubiquitous Eddie House can accumulate in 12 minutes: tonight it was 5 and 15 (4-4 triples, and 3 free throws - impressive!)...
4) James Jones who, God bless him, seems like the nicest guy on the team, leads the NBA in triples right now, and is 18-34. That's pretty hot. And he is their second best shooter - their best, Mike Miller, is sidelined until February or so. If James Jones is making that many shots, and Eddie House is making that many shots, and UD stands on the baseline and makes shots, and Chris Bosh makes shots from the elbow - that's a lot of made shots. And it is tough to get to those guys when Wade and LeBron are zipping around with the ball. Right now this team is a serious, serious problem for the NBA...The offense still doesn't look that fluid and they dropped 129 tonight - goodness gracious...
5) Okay, Election Night in America!!! And I am not happy with the results! I am talking, of course, about the ATT Poll, in which tonight's question was: "Which former Heat player do you think will have the best season for their new team this year? Dorell Wright, Mike Beasley, Quentin Richardson, Daequan Cook, or Jermaine O'Neal?" You text in your vote to 789789. Early returns showed Supercool Beas with a fairly significant lead over DWright, although Dorell is actually off to the best start out of the group out in Golden State - 19 a game, and dropping triples like he's James Jones...But in disturbing news: initial numbers had Jermaine O'Neal at 0.0%. At that point, someone in Casa Dos may or may not have went and retrieved their cell phone, and texted "e" 88 times to 789789, only stopping when he or she got a message back that said I - I mean he or she - had reached the maximum number of allowable votes. But, when Jax called it in the postgame show, declaring Beasley the clearcut winner, even with a potentially broken hip, Jermaino still had 0.0% of the vote!!! I don't know if "certain" votes that may or may not have been cast were invalidated on suspicion of voter fraud, or there were so many votes cast that even 88 weren't enough to lift Jermaino to even 1%, or if there was some kind of correlation to the year I wrote a letter to the White House like sixty-one days in a row to George Bush asking him to "step off" until I got a polite cease-and-desist request from Washington. I just don't know. But what I do know is that Jermaino is going to make 100% of the electorate - minus 88 votes - very unhappy when he has the best year out of the five, and leads the Celtics to another title...
6) At grocery store this evening, saw headline on the Enquirer, or whatever: "Oprah's Gay Life Uncovered!" Okay, now we're just waiting for her straight life to be uncovered, and we'll be all set! Goodnight everybody, we'll be here all season, mostly watching games that aren't competitive from halfway through the second quarter onwards!
See you Friday in New Orleans!
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