6 Thoughts
1) Tough, tough loss in Boston...again. Dead tied with a couple of minutes to go, Miami felt like they couldn't catch a break down the stretch - either the Celts hit a big shot (9-14 threes!), or a brutal call went against Miami. Whatever, it's a loss. Miami now 41-38, a one game lead on Philly for the 5 spot - but Miami also owns the tiebreaker. Their magic number for the # 5 seed is two.
2) Mike Beasley started his first game since November and really played well. The kid had 23 points and 13 rebounds. I also thought he did a credible job defending, and moving the ball. At times he still gets overpowered around the basket - he's still a baby. But his decision making is getting better, and he is hunting the ball on the boards more, and, of course, he can score for days. Derrick Rose is going to win Rookie of the Year - had Mike been on a lousier team where he started all year, he would have averaged 19 and 8 and the Rookie of the Year race would be closer. But he is going to do something even more valuable, especially if Miami can secure the 5 seed and avoid Boston and Orlando in the first round - play in a competitive playoffs series. That will force him to grow up even quicker.
3) Boston is still trying to get late season pickup and NBA problem child Stephon Marbury acclimated. He had a nice night tonight, 8 points in 14 minutes. Before the game, Doc said that they are still trying to teach Marbury to stay within the offense because it is the first time he has "played in a system that relied on execution and timing." Hey, he was both a New Jersey Net and a New York Knick - most of his previous offenses were based on "incompetence and poor decision making!"
4) The season nearly ended when Dywane Wade went middle early in the fourth quarter, landed on Kendrick Perkins' foot, and slightly twisted his ankle. Writhed on the floor for a few moments, but needed only a brief blow on the bench before checking back in. Looked sore, though - it would be nice to win Sunday against New York, get a Philly loss over the weekend, secure the 5 seed, and hold him out of the last two games next week.
5) We rarely go after refs here at Dos Minutos, especially considering our long-held position that all refs are jerkwads. Almost every night in the NBA, the players decide the game (unlike in college where the refs are approximately 70% of the outcome). Tonight was no different - Miami was there at the end, on the road against a 60 win team, with a chance to win, and just didn't make a play. Still, second generation referee Brian Forte was absolutely horrific all night long, and especially late. Amongst his transgressions: an insanely bad foul call on a clean Jermaine O'Neal block on Baby Davis which Jermaino argued, followed by Forte giving him a technical foul - this is the classic bad ref move, being embarrassed by a bad call, and t-ing up a player for questioning it; missing a blatant goaltend on Mike Beasley shot that Kendrick Perkins blocked after it had hit the backboard; a bizarrely odd interpretation of a Kendrick Perkins moving screen on Wade - when Wade finally swum around Perkins, who was doing his best pulling guard impersonation, Forte called a foul on Wade, leading to Wade going bananas on him; a missed travel on Baby Davis inside of two minutes to go right in front of the Heat bench, where the whole bench leaped up and called for the walk - after Davis scored, Miami called a timeout and Coach Spo charged Forte, who seemed mad that Spoelstra was questioning his blown call. Wait - you blow a call that is killing a team inside of two minutes to go in a hostile environment, and you're mad? That's strange...Forte capped it off with the Heat down 4 down, with 35 seconds to go, and Miami trying to get one last defensive stop - Forte anticipated that Miami would try to foul intentionally to stop the clock, and as soon as Wade approached Paul Pierce, he called a foul, trying, I guess, to help Miami. However, Miami was not trying to foul, and Wade never even reached Pierce - Forte knew after the blowing the whistle he had f-ed it up, you could tell by the mortified look on his face. But did he man up and change his call? No, he did not...Game over...Who knows, maybe the kid just had a rough night. Worth mentioning, though, that his dad, Joe Forte, is also an NBA referee who has sucked for over twenty years - they're like the George Bushes of NBA refereeing. By my calculations, Dick Bavetta would be Dick Cheney (grumpy old white men), Tom Washington would be Condoleeza Rice (sellout showing out for the white man), and Bennett Salvatore would be Rush Limbaugh (clearly insane, but harmful). Oh, and Violet Palmer would be Sarah Palin (women who are both...not...exactly...competent). I'm guessing Violent Palmer has a slightly stronger grasp of foreign affairs than Sarah Palin, though. Okay - and domestic affairs. Okay - and any affairs. Although, Palin may know the over-and-back rule in basketball, which Palmer still hasn't learned in almost a decade...
6) Finally, spend a good part of the week in Boston. I, along with a few of my associates, went to college there. I was not the best decision maker at the time, and, somehow, when I go back there, I seem to plagued by the same sort of questionable choices at key junctures. This past week, which of the following did not happen:
a) After a basketball game, someone, I'm not saying who - just someone - decided that they had to relieve themselves in a parking lot after a Celtic game and was relieving themselves on someone's car when that someone showed up to drive home. I thought that someone was incredibly gracious and understanding.
b) Drove 20 miles out of the way after the Celtic game to go to a skanky, backwoods, ummm, gentleman's club? The girls had ink - and a lot of it, dudes were taking off their shirts to get massages in plain view in the club (as disturbing as this sounds, it is sixty percent more disturbing in person), and Mr. McDevitt was there.
c) Stayed out until about 2 am at said gentleman's club the night before a crucial business meeting, and was subsequently blatantly struggling to stay awake at various points during said meeting.
d) Drunk dialed ex-college-sometime-friend Lisa Namphy and challenged her to bring her brother back to the Boston College basketball courts so I could cheap shot him into the basket stanchion again, nearly decapitating him, just to show her that I mean business.
The answer: d. I couldn't find her phone number.
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