6 Thoughts
1) Dwayne Wade and Rafer Alston both still out with a bruised calf and a bruised hand respectively, and Miami lost to the worst team in basketball not headquartered in the New York/New Jersey area. Essentially, without Wade, Miami is Minnesota - still, when you drop to 29-29, just a half-game in front of two teams for the final Eastern playoff spot, someone has to get hammered...
2) ...and that someone is Mr. Michael Beasley. He was indescribably pitiful in this basketball game. First of all, he played 34 minutes and never once jumped. I don't know if that was his game plan coming in, or if he felt like the flow of the action didn't warrant jumping, or what, but, in the future, I'd recommend some jumping. Second, with Wade out, the team dying for scoring, Beasley asking for his teammates' trust, and objecting to Charles Barkley's comments identifying him as a Tito Jackson, he shot 5-18 for 14 points. But it wasn't just bad shooting, it was poor decision making: bad shots, zero inclination to go to the basket, and an inability to swing the ball quickly from side to side with passes. In fact, the last couple of games, Mike has reverted to a bad, bad rookie year habit of catching the ball and either cradling it in one hand and swinging it around carelessly, or bending over at the waist and waving the ball pointlessly in between his legs. One of the first skills they teach you in basketball is when you have the ball to be in "triple threat" position: on balance, ready to drive, pass, or shoot in an instant. Mike is using the "zero threat" position; or, as Plumber likes to call it, "The Vince Carter." Anyways, the reality is, if the Heat get anything out of Mike on this night, they probably win. Let's hope they don't miss the playoffs by one game...
3) And they probably would have won because of Dorell Wright. Career high 6 triples on 7 tries, 26 points and 7 rebounds for DWright. Remember the 5 or 6 million Miami "spent" on him at the trading deadline? He almost saved the game tonight. Along with Jermaino's 18 and 6, they were the only two Heat players to play well.
4) Minnesota rookie Johnny Flynn is short, electrically quick, strong-bodied, and a bad decision machine. He had 16 points on 6-17 shooting, and 5 turnovers, all of them seemingly in the last two minutes when the Heat cut a 10 point deficit to 1. The run also featured Flynn taking a ridiculously poor and quick three point shot off an offensive rebound with a minute to go, and Flynn running into and fouling Quentin Richardson on a three point shot. However, the rookie was unbowed, and his jumper with 35 seconds to go put Minnesota up 3 and was the biggest shot of the game. His point guard skills are limited, but he can score - upside is probably a good backup in the NBA, realistically.
Game didn't go too well overall - let's shift gears a thought early tonight, at #5.
5) Okay, so we get a lot of requests from readers, but most of them are like, “go to Hell,” or they aren’t even technically requests, just statements like, “you suck.” Every so often, though, we get one that is well-reasoned and in those cases we like to do what we can to accommodate it.
So, our favorite reader, Rachel, writes in to say: “I am respectfully requesting Olympics coverage (specifically figure skating) in your blog. I feel it is neglectful for you to ignore this important global event.?
That is a good request – you know what won us over? When she respectfully requested the coverage…
Well, here is some coverage: Sunday night I was researching Nazis on-line and I saw on espn.com that the United States was leading Canada in hockey. I was, like, “oh, I’ll go watch the end of that – The Captain will be so proud of me because he loves hockey.” So I go turn on the tv, and put on NBC – I knew the Olympics were on NBA because Bob Costas is the host, and he is always on NBC (watching him announce NBA Finals games on NBC still gives me the willies). There was some sort of couples skating competition on – I watched for thirty seconds, didn’t see any jumping at all, so I knew, “ahhh, the red-headed step-child of skating: ice dancing!” Because I know about skating. I'm like a cooler Dick Button. So this couple finishes, and the announcers start building up the next couple, saying how they are controversial because they dress up like aboriginals (Aborigines? I honestly don’t know), and then do an interpretation of an aboriginal dance, but they are Russian, and aborigines are all offended and upset, and that gave me two thoughts: One, "I don’t even really know what aboriginals are, or where they are from. They are, like, black dudes from Australia or something, right?" Two, "I am definitely watching this." So they come out – they are very, very white Russian people by the way – and they are wearing light brown jumpsuits with fake white aboriginal tattoos on them, and what looks to be green construction paper leaves in their hair and belts, representing the indigenous clothing of the aboriginals, I guess. The announcers did a split screen to show that they had worn similar outfits at the 2010 World Championships, but had received so much criticism that they were forced to tone the outfits down by making the fake tattoos smaller, and taking off the fake war paint that they wore on their faces in that competition. They do their dance – there was a lot of really bad “tribal” dancing, and, to be honest, some eye-bugging – you know, like crazy natives do – and the color commentator, a women who clearly despised the couple, criticized them the whole way through, and when they ended and the crowd clapped, she said, “a lukewarm reception…at best.” Then their scores came up and they were in first place. They throw out the high and low scores in ice dancing, so the 0.0 that the aboriginal judge gave them didn't hurt too much. I don’t know if they won because right about then I remembered I was trying to watch the hockey game and suddenly realized it was probably showing on MSNBC, which it was, but I turned it on right as it was ending, so I didn’t see any of the game – which were supposedly spectacular – because of the ice dancing. C’est la vie…The Captain is not going to be happy, though. Last year I missed the Superbowl because I was watching a movie - now this...I think I’ll just pretend I saw the hockey…
Other quick Olympic thoughts:
-The Captain is enthralled by openly gay figure skater Johnny Weir. Not because he is openly gay – although The Captain, and Dos Minutos in general, are pleased to see someone just be who they are, unlike that phony Bob Costas – but because PETA criticized him for wearing a real fur on the ice, and he tried to wear a fake one, didn’t like how it felt, and then said, essentially, “screw PETA,” and went back to the real one. The Captain hates activist groups of any kind…
-I watched a little two man bobsled. I didn’t think there was any chance I could make it into the speeding sled to sit down while running along full-speed on ice pushing it, although M.Minutos pointed out that one would probably practice this for a while before just, like, showing up for the Olympics.
-Bode Miller? Not really sure who he is.
-Lindsey Vonn – she is the girl skier who was complaining incessantly about a bruised shin. A bruised shin? You aren’t even running, you are just standing on skis – I think she is in downhill, so there aren’t even turns. Come on, a bruised shin – do you think Jeremy Shockey would be slowed down by a bruised shin? I didn't think so...
6) Big day tomorrow. Going with Dos Minutos' favorite reader, Jamie, to see the Dalai Lama give a speech at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. According to the ticket, you aren't allowed to bring air horns, confetti, or weapons in to the lecture hall, and it expressly states that the Dalai Lama does not sign autographs. He will, however, perhaps answer some questions after his speech - I think it is about non-violent resistance, or something - but the questions had to be pre-submitted, via email. Here are the questions Jamie and I submitted:
- "Technically speaking, do you outrank Gandhi, or does he outrank you?"
- "Why do you continue to deny the Holocaust?"
- "Team Pam, or Team Karen?"
- "In Tibet, are you allowed to park your car wherever you want, as long as you aren't blocking anyone in, or creating a safety hazard? By the way, here in Amerika we are not."
- "How tall do you think Tom Cruise actually is?"
- "What is the age of consent in Tibet? Is it, like, a hard and fast law, or more of a guideline?"
- "What do you think of Anton Apollio Ohno, or whatever his name is, getting a shot at being the next Lama? He is kind of Asian, kind of not, sort of like you. If he doesn't work out, you just do what we do in Amerika - set him up with a hooker, call Star Magazine, and wait for him to resign."
- "Have you ever used the 'N' word? Even as a joke?"
- "Do you hate Japanese anime because they have illegally occupied your country by force for the past fifty years?...Wait, what? Oh - never mind..."
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Off until Saturday - long break, let's hope Wade gets healthy, and we'll see you then, hopefully with a full report on the Lama's speech.
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