6 Thoughts
1) Garden variety loss to the Spurs. Duncan collapsed the defense, shooters made threes, Ginobilli made one spectacular block of a Wade layup to seal the game down the stretch. The Spurs are so methodical, they have sucked the will to write about the game right out of me. So let's run through a couple other things quickly and call it a night.
2) Life is tough when you've got a giant pumpkin for a head, especially around the holidays: http://www.hoopsvibe.com/IMG/antoine_walker-arton21231-240x240.jpg. Look, everyone loves to take shots at 'Toine - he's a funny dude. Still, he helped win clinching Game 6 of the NBA Championship for Miami with a gutsy 3rd quarter. No one wants to see it come to this, a DUI while driving the streets of South Beach late Sunday night, waiting for someone to give you an NBA job, trying to find a strip club wannabee who has a clue who Antoine Walker was. I just built a new basketball hoop over the weekend for O. and P. Minutos. We haven't named the court for anyone yet - I think 'Toine has to get serious consideration. My favorite Antoine Walker moment: "Antoine, why do you shoot so many threes?" "Because there aren't any fours."
3) The coolest Smashing Pumpkins song that you have probably never heard: "Set the Ray to Jerry." Rolling, vaguely ominous, super-great baseline with Corgan yelping professions of true lust over the top. "Suck you - like sap from a tree..."
4) Spent much of the second quarter arguing with Mami Minutos about the difference between a floater and a runner. Mami wanted the determining factor to be modality of the shot: if you are in the air, it is a floater; if you are on the ground, it is a runner. That's not quite right, though, it is really more the release of the ball. If you float the shot softly, it is a floater; if you push it stronger, it is a runner. Certainly, your modality will primarily determine the release, so those two elements will usually be in concert with each other. Also, it has to be palm forward - anything palm up is a scoop shot, at best. We both agreed that Shawn Marion has combined the floater and the runner and transmogrified them in to a single abomination whereby he sprints towards the basket at approximately 70 miles an hour, leaves his feet, but going more forwards than upwards - like a long jump - and fires a line drive at the rim from an impossible angle. Call that what you like.
5) Seems like a good time to give fair warning. Miami plays Wednesday night in Denver. As part of an ESPN "experiment," Dick Vitale will be providing color commentary for the game. I'm not going to make a Dick Vitale joke, or rip the guy. He sucks, we all know it, he broadcasts to the lowest common denominator, and if he knows anything about basketball he should consider showing it once in a while...of course it goes without saying that he's also a dear, dear friend. Look, one of the joys of the NBA is that you don't have to listen to hyper-excitable nonsense. There is a certain competent rhythm to an NBA game that makes it enjoyable to watch and listen to. The players are better, the announcers are better, even the referees are better. For one night, fine, let Dick Vitale do the game. Just know that I will forever resent you, ESPN, for ruining my life.
6) From the future, as-yet-unnamed, novel set in the Mennonite community in the mountains of Belize, a combination of From Here to Eternity and any Graham Greene novel:
"She regarded him without aggression."
Or, alternately:
"She considered him, without aggression."
