6 Thoughts
1) Tough loss. Miami played a strong first half, a desultory 20 minutes in the second half, then nearly stole the game with a a late rush engineered by...Mik- just kidding - Dwyane Wade, of course. Had a last shot to win in regulation, didn't, and lost in overtime. Now 35-34 on the season. Every game has all sorts of playoff implications for Miami from now until the end of the season. The reality is that Chicago is so banged up, that Miami is almost certain to qualify for the post-season. But finishing 7th or 8th gets you Orlando or Cleveland, respectively. Those are not winnable series. But sixth or fifth - and fifth is pretty much gone - gets you Atlanta or Boston. Those are potentially winnable series, with a few breaks.
2) Bad choice # 1: Tied with 15 seconds to go, Miami came down the court for the last shot, opting not to take a time out - that was a good choice. It went awry from there. Orlando jumped Wade at midcourt, and he dropped the ball to Mike Beasley at the foul line. Dorell Wright's man had doubled Wade, so he was spotting up at the three point line for a wide open shot. Beas eschewed that and went left against Dwight Howard - got a half-step on him, but instead of trying to force his way to the rim, maybe getting fouled, he settled for his patented I'm-going-to-lean-back-and-try-to-bank-a-fall-away-runner-off-the-glass-and-avoid-all-possible-contact shot. It works fairly effectively, but it's a bad choice against Dwight Howard. Shot got blocked out of bounds. I like that Mike tried to make a play, but it was a bad decision. He needed to either: 1) reverse the ball to Wright for a jumper; 2) try to get his shoulder past Howard and force his way to the rim; or 3) take one dribble, pull up for a rhythm jumper. By the way, the order in likelihood of success, probably 3, 1, 2 - realistically if he tried to bull his way past Howard, he would have had the ball stuffed into his ear hole. It was a bad night overall for Mike - hasn't looked good for two or three weeks. Kept losing Rashard Lewis in the corner late for open triples, drawing Dwyane Wade's ire. Seems down.
3) Bad choice # 2: after the blocked shot, Miami had the ball side out of bounds with 3.4 seconds to go, and called a timeout. I don't think I am playing the result when I say I'd like to see a last play in a situation like this where there are at least options. Spo does the same thing every time in this situation - try to run Dwyane Wade off a series of screens to catch the ball on the move coming down the sidelines. Wade is so fast and strong that getting the ball in to him is never a problem. The problem is that the other team is always going to switch over the screens, and by the time Wade catches it, there going to be two or three guys surrounding him. Tonight one of the guys was Dwight Howard - Wade caught the ball, and he's only 6'3" and when he is surrounded by length, with no time to put it on the floor for more than a dribble or two, he isn't going to get a great shot. In this game, he got no shot at all, really, just a falling-away, leaning-around throw from 18 feet that hit the side of the backboard. Orlando is good, and well-coached - Stan Van Gundy isn't Byron Scott, he knows the ball is going to Wade, and made sure to surround him. How about entering the ball to Wade, and running a cutter down the lane so he has the option to try to hit him? How about Beasley screening for Wade, then spotting up and get the ball entered to him for a jumper - though Dwyane Wade might sign elsewhere as soon as that play was drawn up. I don't know - it just felt like a bad decision...
4) I don't want to jinx it, because there is a good chance Miami will play Orlando in the playoffs, but Jermaine O'Neal is becoming Dwight Howard's kryptonite. Jermaino blocked a season high 5 shots - 4 of them by Dwight Howard, including a jump hook (!) early, and a dunk attempt late. Jermaino has played him tough all year long, and is a big reason Miami split the season series at two games apiece. Late in the season, Jermaino has taken to telling the media that "I still know how to play this game," in a performance eerily reminiscent of Alonzo Mourning, who after every good game he played in the championship '06 run, would inevitably get the question about how it felt to be playing well after all his injuries and illnesses, and he would just shake his head slowly, sigh, get mock-exhausted, and tell the reporter: "Look...don't question whether I can still play this game, I mean, come on, man." Jermaino is heading right to that territory. He's like old man Alonzo now - I mean, without the rebounding...
5) It was nationally televised game, TNT network only, Marv Albert and always nervous Doug Collins in town to provide the coverage. Marv is solid - the best ever, probably, although he has a weird thing now where he can't seem to tell what player any foul is on. In fairness, as M.Minutos pointed out, he's eighty. Doug Collins just gets nervous - I mean for the players and coaches, not to be on tv - and starts worrying that a team is struggling the first time they get down more than a basket. It easy to see why he quickly wore out his welcome at all his coaching stops - had a reputation of being very frustrating to play for, what with the panic meter perpetually dialed up to a minimum of 8.5. The highlight of the game tonight? Not Wade's 36, or Vince Carter's numerous big plays down the stretch. It was during the timeout with 40 seconds to go in regulation, and Miami up one, when a young skinny Latino-looking Mike Piazza clone, who was sitting directly behind the TNT announcing table, clearly had some problem with Collins, and spent the entire timeout, with the camera on Collins and Albert, staring at Collins with laser-like focus, while rhythmically clapping as hard and quickly as he could at Collins. Not sure if Collins tried to play through the kid's foursome on the golf course today, or he is just a psychotic killer. Doesn't even matter- totally hilarious either way.
6) Anyone who knows anything knows that both The Captain and Plumber love jazz. One major difference: The Captain really does love it; Plumber just said he loved it one afternoon when he was visiting me and M.Minutos in Newport. If I recall correctly, and I like to think that I do, he directed the comment at us when we expressed skepticism that he would enjoy going out to a jazz brunch, as he was asserting. I know he wasn’t drunk, because he doesn’t drink, but I think he was little hyped up because he was in New England – it’s nice there. But the Captain really likes jazz. He moved down to Florida thirty years ago to hang out at the beach, chase girls, and rock out to, ummm, jazz. Whoa, slow down, Corey Haim! But I digress. In honor of my boys, The Captain and Plumber, I am going to give you my five favorite jazz artists of all-time:
5) tie: John Coltrane and Miles Davis. One of them made the all-time jazz classic, “A Kind of Blue,” or “A Shade of Blue,” or something like that. Not sure which one did it, so I’m putting them both on the list.
4) Dave Brubeck. Not totally sure he is jazz, or that he is even a real person, but one day recently The Captain was saying something about jazz, and I said, “like Dave Brubeck,” and he laughed, so I think he is.
3) Spyro Gyra. I think they are like "fusion-jazz." I also think that I would kill myself if I had to listen to "fusion-jazz" for more than, like, six minutes.
2) Kevin Eubanks from The Tonight Show.
1) Yes. “Roundabout,” boy!
