6 Thoughts
1) Cue the bagpipes! Good, focused win at home over nemesis Detroit in a playoff style atmosphere. 30th win of the season, doubling last year's total with 26 to play. Detroit, jockeying with Miami and others in the playoff race, loses it 7th (!) in a row.
2) Six guys in double figures in an ultra-efficient offensive performance, led by Wade's 31, with a career high 16 assist, and 7 rebounds. He was spectacular. Detroit seemed willing to play a halfcourt game with Miami - Coach Spoelstra, sensing the big game, and with Chalmers in foul trouble, gave the ball to Wade and let him walk it up the court the entire second half, look the defense over, and make plays. If you are Detroit, or any Miami opponent, you can't let that happen. You can't let Wade walk it up and survey you - he will kill you. You have to jump him with extra defenders, you have to keep the ball out of hands - anything but let him walk it up and look you over. Miami won a championship doing that - Detroit found out why tonight. Wade picked them apart.
3) Great night for newly crowned NBA 3 point champion Daequan Cook who scored 16 points on 4-8 threes, and played hard-nosed defense on Rip Hamilton, Iverson, and Stuckey. Made it a point to pick up Hamilton up two and a half steps earlier than a normal defender, clearly sending a message to Rip that he was there to play. Also, involved in the game's wackiest sequence when he got elbowed in the breadbasket by Iverson, keeled over on to court while Miami rushed down and missed a Wade jumper at the other end. Got up as Detroit pushed back on a fast break, provided some token resistance, causing a miss, then immediately fell back to the floor and curled up in to the fetal position. With the entire Heat bench telling Wade to call a timeout, he instead went back up the court 4 against 5, and Jermaine O'Neal tipped in a miss, before Yakhouba Diawara took a foul to stop the clock, whereupon DCook was scraped off the court and deposited on the bench. Minutes later, sideline reporter Jason Jackson reported that Daequan was suffering from "a lower abdominal bruise," and that "his time on the bench has helped him to relax." Never fun to get rocked in the Will.I.Ams.
4) This Allen Iverson. Jesus. I am not a fan. I have never liked him, but at this even less efficient point of his career, watching him dribble the ball all over the court with his teammates standing around waiting in vain for him to give up the rock, was the basketball equivalent of watching him drop trouser and yank it to completion at halfcourt, and then motioning for a ballboy to come clean it up. Look - the Pistons have won 50 games and been to the Eastern Conference Finals since approximately the beginning of the first Bush administration - Papa Bush. Now they swap Billups for Iverson, and have lost 7 in a row, bring their best player, Hamilton, off the bench, and are a game under .500 for the season, with a brutal upcoming schedule. Iverson is an absolute testimony to lack of self-awareness. I couldn't possibly enjoy watching someone play basketball less. Also, Coach Michael Curry - don't be afraid to take him out of the game. I know you couldn't stop him when you played, but let's be honest: you couldn't really stop anybody.
5) Formerly skinny and spry Piston forward Rasheed Wallace now has a behind the size of a dump truck, and the general enthusiasm of a guy waiting in line to renew his driver's license at the DMV. It was a good game. Both teams did not play hard. Or, at least, not everybody.
6) Spotted in the crowd at the Triple A: flashy Cincinnati Bengal wide receiver Chad "Ocho Cinco" Johnson; L'il Wayne; Chili from TLC; and Tommy Lasorda. Not together, of course - I mean separately. Guess which one regaled sideline reporter Jason Jackson with tales of spring trainings in Vero Beach from four decades ago; said that his diet is going okay, but that he can't help but cheat on the pasta; and is uncomfortable with the direction of the country, "now that we have this black boy running things?" Right, you guessed it - L'il Wayne.
