6 Thoughts
1) On the verge of letting a 15 point second half lead slip away, on a night where Dwyane Wade played poorly (as he always seems to in his hometown), tie game and four seconds to go, Wade picked off Chicago's inbounds pass and called timeout before falling out of bounds. After the timeout, with 3.5 to go, Wade received the inbounds pass, took a dribble, started to pull up for a jumper...then hit the inbounder, a streaking Shawn Marion, on the dead run for a buzzer beating dunk over Thabo Sefalosha, to win the game. Exhilarating - Miami's most exciting finish of the year pushes them to 28-24 at the All-Star break, 11 more wins than they had all of last year, and sitting in 5th place in the playoff race. The schedule gets brutal for the last 30 games, so every win is essential as they try to scrap their undersized way in to the postseason. Also, felt good for Marion, who has struggled offensively, and has been rumoured in approximately 65 different trades over the past three days as the trading deadline approaches next Friday. Glad he had a moment where he was a hero. Don't unpack the bags quite yet, though.
2) Wade was just 9-23 from the floor - perhaps still suffering from the flu. No one plays him tougher than Bulls guard Kirk Hinrich, for whatever reason. Okay, it's mostly because he is white and no one will call a foul on him. Wade also got lit up by Ben Gordon for 34 points. Bad night. But besides the steal, and game winning assist, also had three other buckets in the final 2 minutes - even on a bad night, he's still their guy. Someone in the Minutos Compound was calling for Coach Spo to "pull him the f- out of the game" throughout the second half before his game saving heroics. It doesn't matter who was saying it, just pointing out that someone did say it...
3) After a couple of indifferent games, Mike Beasley lit it up tonight: 9-10 from the floor, 21 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 blocks. Without him and his Ritalin Kid buddy Daequan Cook (4-6 threes) the Heat were nowhere tonight. On the down side, The Beas' name is floating in trade rumours for Phoenix power forward Amare Stoudamire. Stoudamire plays no defense, seems like a bad teammate, and is a bit of a head case...also, a dear, dear friend who is a legitimate scoring machine, and if I can flip Marion's expiring deal and Beasley into Stoudamire, I'll miss Mike immensely, but I'll get over it.
4) These Bulls - Jesus, they are messed up. They are talented. They have shooters, length, ballhandlers, rebounders, veterans, young guys. Most of all, though, they have Tyrus Thomas, a 6'8" force of nature, one way or another. He had 15 points, 8 rebounds, 6 turnovers, 3 goaltends (2 defensive, 1 offensive), three arguments, and missed approximately 30 defensive assignments leading to Heat baskets. He is a whirling, athletic epicenter of basketball activity, not all of it good. I don't think there is any way he puts it all together - just too, too far to go. This team needs to be broken up - and, coincidentally, they are rumoured to be a primary contender with Miami for Stoudamire's services. A Shaq-Tyrus Thomas-Grant Hill front line might be too good for Phoenix to pass up. That might be worth getting my NBA Ticket package re-activated for, the comedic potential of that trio is high, very high.
5) Game on TNT tonight, no Sunshine coverage. The national announcers don't see nearly as many Heat games as Eric Reid, Tony Fiorentino, or the Minutos household, and it is always aggravating. Tonight's color commentator, at least, was old friend, former Heat announcer , The Czar, Mike Fratello. I know my credibility is suspect at this point, but a woman I know dated him for a while when he broadcasting Heat games. I would send messages to him through her (which she delivered), and encouraged her to steal something from his house for me (which she agreed to do, then got scared) until he finally sent me a note back, essentially accusing me of being a stalker, albeit in a good natured way. Later, after they broke up, we drunk dialed him once. Okay, a couple of times. Okay, it was several times, but it was while he was coaching Memphis, and my calls were actually to suggest trades, not to harass him - believe me, she is my friend, but if I had the opportunity to choose, I'm taking his side without even thinking about it.
6) Okay, I may have mentioned this before, but over the last few years why is Michael Jordan starring in a series of gay underwear ads for Haines? By the way, often on this blog we use the word "gay" to mean "lame," but in this case we mean "homosexual," without any pejorative intent. First, he was playing footsie in his underwear with Kevin Bacon in a famous series of ads (you know him - one of The Bacon Brothers: http://www.baconbros.com/site.php). Then he was gaying it up with Cuba Gooding Jr in an ad which seemed to poke fun at the gayness of the Bacon ads. Now - and this might not be new, but I don't see many tv ads thanks to Tivo - he is in a commercial in which Charlie Sheen drops his trousers to show Jordan his boxers. What? The gayness - fine, no problem. But why those two? I have gay friends - never once have I heard any of them say, "You know who is hot? Paunchy, milky-eyed Mike Jordan, and his middle-aged, dumpy friend Charlie Sheen." If you are going to have gay underwear ads, why not get someone who gay people think is hot, like Chris Isaak?
No games until next Wednesday, vs. Minnesota, but we should have a post over the weekend of Ideas That Were Not Good Enough to Be Included in a Post. Actually, looking at the list, it is going to take two posts to get them all in, so we may save some for later in the season, or in case Miami goes on a long losing streak.
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