1) Oh, no! Just - oh, no! Well, my mom is from Cleveland - at least she is happy for one night! Or, she would be if she had ever heard of the Cavaliers. Or the Heat. Or LeBron James and Dwyane Wade. Or basketball. Or sports...No one ever said this job is easy every night - let's go!
2) Remember the game in Chicago when Chris Bosh shot 1-18 and it was, literally, probably the worst game I have ever seen a good player play? The stats won't show it, but tonight he was demonstrably worse. Holy Kitchen Nightmare, Maitre d'! He keyed a 19-0 third quarter Cavalier run by fumbling multiple pick-and-roll passes in the lane, and getting stripped of the ball; half-acquiring rebounds only to drop them directly out of bounds; and watching Cavalier after Cavalier finish plays at the rim while he looked on politely. He capped the run with back-to-back offensive possessions where he dribbled across the lane, somehow slipped to the floor, slid seven feet across the lane, and then lost the ball, leading to a run out, and then a feeble driving semi-hook attempt that Ryan Hollins - Ryan Hollins! - blocked easily, and then smashed Chris to the floor with an inadvertent elbow to the face, where he lay, rolling in agony, while the Cavs ran out again! And that was only the third quarter! In the fourth quarter, after Miami had climbed back to tie the game with Bosh on the bench - after getting down 20 during that 19-0 run - he came back in, and did the following: rolled down the lane, received a pass, was defended by Cavs point guard Ramon Sessions, who is 10 inches - at least - shorter than him, pumped faked him, allowing the bigger Cavs defenders to recover back to the paint, and block his delayed shot; dropped another pass while rolling to the basket, recovered it, re-stumbled to the floor with the shot clock running down, and then moshed an awful pass out to Mike Bibby, who dropped a triple with the shot clock going off; on the very next possession, rolled down the lane, dropped another entry pass, but it happened to go around the defender who wasn't anticipating Bosh dropping the uncontested pass, whereupon Bosh stepped around him, recovered the ball, and politely laid it in the basket - come to think of it, these two plays worked!; on the next defensive possession, was somehow in the paint, looking over his own baseline into the crowd, while the aforementioned 6'0" Ramon Sessions drove into the lane and laid the ball up past him; got another rolling half-hook blocked by Hollins, and then got out run down the court by Hollins, who received a pass in transition and dunked; drove the lane, turned his back to the basket, stumbled, and threw a shot wildly over his head that crashed off the backboard; and then, for the coup de grace, with Miami clinging to one last chance to stay in the game with three minutes to go, got fouled, went to the line, and missed both free throws. I was going to use the word vagina somewhere in this description, and then thought the better of it - that's inappropriate, even for this blog...I'm sure he wasn't trying to play this awful...Well, I'm not totally sure - but I'm pretty sure. Anyways, when the Heat are playing Boston on the road instead of at home in Round 2, we can all remember this game and laugh...
3) To be fair, it wasn't just Chris - everyone was pretty bad. EXCEPT FOR MR. BIB SHOTS, MIKE BIBBY, WHO RIPPED 7-11 TRIPLES FOR 23 POINTS AND WAS THE ONLY THING KEEPING US IN THE GAME MOST OF THE NIGHT!!! YOU TAKE WADE, LEBRON, AND BOSH - I'LL TAKE BIBBY AND PLAY YOU TWO ON FOUR!!! HOW DARE EVERYONE ELSE SPOIL THIS SHOOTING EXHIBITION BY BIBS!!! DAMN!!!
4) Just to put it out there - Cleveland played very hard (even Baron Davis), and it was good to see them give their fans something to cheer about in an otherwise dreadful season. It was also nice to just get back to playing basketball there. After the spectacle of the first return, to just go and play, and have the crowd enthusiastically boo LeBron, but no worse than a big game anywhere else, was refreshing. If LeBron had left New York City the way he left Cleveland, those people wouldn't even forgive him after he was dead. They wouldn't even forgive him after they were dead. People from the Midwest are so nice. Like my mom.
5) Unprecedented moment for Tony Fiorentino and Eric Reid - they got to be involved in a referee's call! After Cleveland made a triple with 1.9 seconds left in the third quarter, Miami took the ball out of bounds, tossed it to LeBron, who let it bounce, as he always does, then picked it up and nailed a 70 footer. Unfortunately, the clock operator had started the clock when the ball hit the floor, not when LeBron touched it, so his shot was released well after the buzzer. The Heat bench instantly pointed this out to the refereeing crew, who spent a good ten minutes reviewing the replays at the scorer's table, then came over to Eric and Tony to ask them if their cameras had a better angle! "Hey, ref, no we don't, but would you like to see a fastbreak dunk from directly under the basket where all you can see is the dunker's nuts?" Just kidding! The odd thing was that the regular game angle that Sunsports had did clearly show the clock starting early, but somehow this wasn't communicated clearly by a flustered Tony and Eric to the refs, who instead huddled back up at midcourt, and randomly (somewhat, since they never really saw the play if they were asking for a different angle) awarded the Heat 3 points. Guess what? It didn't help!
6) Political update: in my town, we have a former mayor of West Palm Beach, Lois Frankel, about whom I know nothing except that, like all politicians besides Speaker of the House John Boehner and Idaho Senator Mike Crapo, The Captain despises her, running for the House of Representatives against Kanye West! Yeezy!!! So exciting, in my own town!!! Wait- what? Ohhhhh, Allen West - you know, this rugged-loooking dude, with the 80's fade:
Heyyy, wait a minute! Is that former 80's New York Knick great Buck Williams? No? Are you sure? That Buck Williams picture is kinnnd of hazy - might be him!
Man, politics is exciting!!!
Okay, we have another game tomorrow against the Washington Bullets. This was supposed to be an easy week, but now I'm not so sure. If you need me until then, I'll be running screen-and-rolls with my toaster, just to see if it can receive an entry pass any stronger than Chris Bosh. Don't forget to vote!!!
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