6 Thoughts
1) This game was not over until Pistons rookie power forward Greg Monroe missed an uncontested layup with 25 seconds to go and the Pistons down 4. "He'll feel terrible when he thinks back and reminisces about that one," celebrated Eric Reid..."Hey, remember that time I missed an uncontested layup against Miami at the biggest moment of the game and made us lose?" "Yeah - that was tonight, dumbass." "Oh, right." Let's go, fast, cuz we in Detroit and trying to get out!!!
2) Oh my gosh, was this game ever in Detroit! It was the quietest, most depressed crowd I can ever remember hearing. Sometimes the Heat go to other cities - Atlanta, New Jersey, Charlotte, etc. - and there is no one there, but the few people who are there at least cheer LeBron and Dwyane's dunks. This Detroit crowd? Nothing. No-thing. They have even stopped doing that ridiculously non-pejorative-homo-erotic, sing-songy chant when the opposing team turns the ball over: "Dee-troit Basket-ball!" People were probably getting mad that the PA announcer was waking them up. Anyways, just to reset: Miami is in third place in the East, has 11 games left in the season, and probably can't win or lose enough games to move up or down a place in the standings, making these next three weeks or so completely irrelevant. Boston, in second place, lost tonight, at home to Memphis (too bad for the Celtics that South Beach isn't in Boston's North End): Eric Reid and Tony Fiorentino saw this as a positive, thinking it gave Miami hope of catching the Celtics, but realistically, Miami is 2 losses behind, and Boston wins the tiebreaker, so that race is pretty much over. Boston's loss is really more of a negative - it would be preferable for Boston to win out and catch Chicago for the 1 seed, so that Miami would get the Bulls, not the Celtics, in the second round. But whatever, that's for a few weeks from now: somehow we have to get through these sloggy last 11 games...
3) Mario Chalmers is out with a sprained knee for a couple of weeks, so Miami started Mike Bibby. How did it go? Not. Real. Well. The Pistons, who have a unique amount of size at the guards, posted Bibby over and over and over, causing Miami a lot of problems, especially on a Wednesday in Detroit, when no one felt like running to help him (or even watching the game, for that matter). He did keep them fairly well organized on offense when he could pry the ball out of LeBron's hands in the halfcourt, didn't turn the ball over, and not one time did he ever take off on a dribbling foray around the court that made you go, aloud, "whooooooaaaaaa," before ultimately gyroscoping to a dark corner of the court and dribbling the ball off his foot out of bounds, as Chalmers will do from time to time. So that was a positive. I'd say, overall: sides was even.
4) It was a boring, depressing game to watch - some games in an NBA season are just like that, especially ones in Detroit. My nadir occurred in the fourth quarter when I was praying for the game to be over, so I could write this stupid blog and go to bed, and a ballboy came out to mop a wet spot under the rim before a free throw, and the ref and 2 players were showing the kid where to mop, but instead of mopping, the kid was was just standing there motionless, with his mop on the floor, looking at them like they were speaking in Egyptian hieroglyphics. I may or may not have screamed "Just fucking mop something!" at the tv screen, and may or may not have been told by M.Minutos to try to cool out. Jesus - I don't know what to tell you: the kid wasn't mopping anything!
5) Punks jump up to get beat down, Michael Beasley! Whoa! From the T-Wolves game this past weekend against the Lakers (stay with it for one full minute, so you get to see both slow motion angles):
Glad to see that, in the end, cooler heads prevailed, like Matt Barnes!
6) Tommy Wade's Weekly Video Corner: As you know, last week, in his never-ending attempt to keep this blog current, our great reader Tommy Wade sent us videos by the adorably racist blonde UCLA student, and the Chinese-Amish dude. This week, the video Tommy sent must have been especially good, because by the time I tried to watch it, Youtube had removed it for some kind of violation! Not to worry, because Tommy also had a question, and since we don't have a video, let's take a look at it:
Random thought, you mentioned before that ur Gay Transporter-like looks give u extra "charm power"?
Correct me if i'm wrong, but you seem to be pretty in tuned and aware with body language and such.
I personally think that the ability to charm people is such an underrated skill set! It's a fun way of "healthy manipulation."
What are your thoughts?
Tommy, that's a great question, and, first of all, you are absolutely right, I am very in tune and aware of body language and such. Second of all, you were very wise to bring such an important question here, to a jokey basketball blog about the Miami Heat, which also specializes in making up fake stories about concerts that we didn't attend. To answer your question, I don't know whether the ability to charm people is underrated or overrated - my therapist would say that if people like you, it's o-kay, and if people don't like you, that's o-kay. For me personally, pretending to be reasonably nice so that I can get something out of people is really the only thing in life that matters to me, although for "healthy manipulation," I usually just use my hand. Thank you, thank you!..Again, great question, Tommy, and next time I will try to watch the video and post it quicker!
We are off until Friday, when there is another completely meaningless game against Philadelphia. Until then, if you need me, I'll be down on the block, posting up Mike Bibby...
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