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.
-----