6 Thoughts
1) The Heat win an easy game in Golden State, wherever that is. I think California, maybe? Sometimes we say it is late, but it's a lie, we just don't feel like writing much. Tonight, it's late: 10:30 eastern start time, about 1:35 right now. Debated skipping game but had seen 36 straight to start the season so far. It's 37 now, boy! 19-18! No, I have no life...
2) Wade could smell it against a team that is last in the league in virtually every defensive category, and poured in 35 points on 10-15 shooting, 15-15 from the line, to go with 9 assists and 7 rebounds. Good night to pad the numbers - he had a sore wrist and was questionable to go tonight: wrist had to be feeling better when he saw Golden State next on the schedule.
3) Also smelling it after a series of games in which he appeared approximately 100 years old? Jermaine O'Neal! Welcome back to the land of the living, Jermaino! 24 points on 11-15 shooting. A boisterous Warrior fan who sits right behind Eric Reid and Tony Fiorentino and is audible throughout every year's broadcast from Golden State - and also clearly in the head of Eric Reid, who couldn't stop talking about him - screamed out late in the game after Jermaino hit another pull-up over a half-hearted defensive effort: "Come on - he's been doing that since Indiana!" Jermaino turned and gave the "shhhhh" finger to the lips. When Jermaine plays well and can defend the rim, Miami is pretty good - he just doesn't have it in the legs to bring it every night, it seems. Tonight, for the first time in a while, he was really good.
4) The Warriors defense, as we mentioned last in almost every defensive category the NBA tracks, is an abomination. Sadly, they have superior athletes, but appear completely disorganized - a defensive plan is even more important in the NBA than a focused offense. 102 year old Warrior coach Don Nelson has been mailing in seasons since about 1994 - it is pitiful that the Warrior organization allows him to continue collecting checks for just rolling balls out there, and occasionally making a substitution. NBA fans deserve better. Warrior fans ought to boo this team off the court every night. Just a group of guys looking to post numbers - someone has to change the culture there, and it has to start with changing the coach. He's a joke.
5) Mike Beasley: again, big first half, 14 points, went to the rim early, which set up his jump shot. Again, second half, refused to go to the basket, finished with 19 overall, including a garbage time triple. I don't know why he can't string two halves together - there has to be a night coming where he goes 18 and 19, for 37, doesn't there?
6) Okay, so if you remember last year we spent a lot of time analyzing the Tom Cruise movie Valkyrie, in which Tom Cruise goes back in time to try to kill Hitler. Clearly, one of the best movies of the year, although, to be fair, we still haven't actually seen it. Couple of new thoughts on it this week: 1) In Inglorious Bastards, which I did see, they do kill Hitler. That was sweet. 2) Taking a class on Nazis this semester in my graduate program. Not rushing to judgement, by the way - going to keep an open mind. Anyways, it turns out that the 1944 internal plot to kill Hitler, the one Tom Cruise traveled back in time to join, has through the years been portrayed as a liberal attempt to rescue Germany from totalitarianism but, in actuality, was little more than a power grab by another conservative, authoritarian faction within the German power structure. Cruise and his buddies may have thought that Hitler went a little bit too far, but they were bad guys themselves, and probably still would have done things like invade other countries, and prevent people from parking in spots that totally made sense, were safe, and weren't causing anyone any inconvenience whatsoever (you know, like here in Amerika!). Tom Cruise - I knew it, I knew you weren't being honest with us, you little stinker. You're glib...
