6 Thoughts
1) "Guys, we're overwhelming underdogs to the Heat, but we're only down 1 in an absolute dogfight with 20 seconds to go, Heat ball. Let's make sure Dwyane, LeBron, and Bosh get doubled on every catch, force the ball to Mario Chalmers, and see if he will make a weaving, gyroscopic scramble into the lane, drop the ball off to a cutting Joel Anthony, and then we'll have the dirtiest player in basketball, Elton Brand, try to rip his face off from behind and send him to the line. At worst for us - absolute worst - he makes one of two. No chance he makes both. Ready? Sixers on one: Sixers!" Ooooops...W-A-R-D-E-N! So long, Sixers, I bid you adieu. I'm smoking a peach-flavored Philly Blunt in your honor: I salute you, even as I hate you...Okay, for the first time in the LeBron James Miami Heat Playoff Era: MUTHAFUCKIN' SERIES IS OVER - LET'S GO!!!!!!
2) As Pat Riley often likes to say, in basketball there is winning, and there is misery - nothing else. This is magnified in the playoffs - only winning matters. A lot of things went against Miami tonight: they instantly got down double digits, again; Andre Iguodala and Elton Brand awakened to shoot a combined ridiculous 20-31, virtually all of them ill-conceived jumpers, while Dwyane Wade and LeBron were a combined 15-38; they endured a refereeing crew which allowed the defenses to play blatant lane-packing zones, and didn't call contact at the rim, turning the game into a jump shooting contest, not a Heat forte; they got an utterly bizarre technical foul call on Chris Bosh moments in to the game, when he wasn't even protesting a call, another on Spoelstra when back-to-back LeBron runout-and-get-fouled-at-the-rim plays were no-called, and another with less than a minute to go on Dwyane Wade from his back in a one possession game for smirking at a referee who once got fined by the league for telling the Heat coach, during a game, "I love to watch your team lose." Because, you know, that's fair that he still gets to ref our playoff games! No t's on the Sixers, by the way...It felt like Miami was down 20 all night, although they actually had a slight lead most of the game after the first quarter. In the end, they toughed it out: winning, instead of misery.
3) So how did they win? Well, for one thing, besides the aforementioned Chalmers drive-and-dish to Joel Anthony, the game's biggest play, Emcee made an insane 6-12 triples, and scored 20 points. Joel also made the game's second biggest play, a stone-cold, come-across-the-rim-and-take-it-away block of a Sixers layup in the closing moments. They won the battle of the boards 47-41, mostly because Dwyane and Chris had 11 each, and LeBron had 10. They made 21-25 free throws, while the Sixers only made 11-17, including 4 huge fourth quarter whiffs. They shot the ball poorly; they bogged down on late possessions; they gave up wayyyy too many layups. But they won - and in the playoffs, that's all there is.
4) Now, a new problem: The Boston Celtics. Round 2 starts Sunday afternoon. After watching most of the first round of the playoffs, and seeing what everybody has, I think it is pretty clear that if Miami had Udonis Haslem and Mike Miller healthy and available, they would be the league's best team, pretty definitively. Those are their fourth and their fifth best players. UD is rumoured to - perhaps, just maybe - be back for the Celtics, but he hasn't played since November, so it seems unlikely he is going to be able to help much. Mike Miller has been de-rotationed, and awaits off-season thumb surgery. Even without those two, I think they can beat any team in the league in a best of seven series - except one. The Boston Celtics. One, Boston's best two scorers are their wings, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce, which forces Dwyane and LeBron to have to guard all game long. That requires them to get a little more rest, and a little more offensive help, than they require against other teams with less talented wings. Without UD and Miller, that's a problem, unless Emcee Chalmers continues to make 6 triples every game. Two, Miami's weakest skill - jump shooting - is magnified against Boston because they are expert at packing the paint and forcing jumpers. Three, Boston is mostly comprised of old, battle-tested dudes who have seen everything - they aren't going to be fazed by playing against Dwyane and LeBron for two weeks. If there is one team Miami doesn't want to play, it's this one. In my heart of hearts, I don't think Miami can beat them - that's no reverse jinx, reverse jinxes don't work when it's that blatant. I just don't think they can beat them. I say Miami wins 1, Boston toughs out 2 on the road, wins 3 and 4 at home, Miami gets 5 at home, and Boston closes them in 6 in The Garden when Baby Davis rips a rebound out of Chris Bosh's hands and lays it back in the basket. Remember, there are only two possible outcomes: winning and misery...On the other hand, if we lose, I can send this blog on vacation earlier! Hmmmm...
5) Our good friend Tania writes in from Key West to ask something like, “Are you going to comment on this whole Chris Bosh fake marriage thing?” I’m too tired to look up the email which contained her exact question. You know why? Because Chris Bosh is positively exhausting. There have been stories the last couple of weeks that Chris Bosh and his somewhat, umm, “visible” fiancé (her Twitter handle is @FutureMrsBosh) are actually married – some reporter produced something from a courthouse showing that they were married and asked Bosh about it at a recent practice, but he said something like, “Umm, not yet, no, not really,” and the reporter was like, “Well, why does the city of Miami say you are,” or something, and Bosh laughed or something, and said, “Oh, I don’t know,” and went back to practicing rotating to the correct spot defensively only to watch a point guard lay the ball in right over him. Again, the exact details of the story are hazy to me, because any time I would start to read the articles I would begin to get drowsy, the same way I do the instant I see a preview for any Dustin Hoffman movie made after 1990. If I have to make a ruling here, and it seems like Tania is demanding one, I would assert three things based on the evidence. One: Chris Bosh is probably married. Two: His wife is angling for a spot on a reality tv show like Basketball Wives (the greatest show in tv history – “I wasn’t being selfish; I was just doing what was right for myself at that particular time”) or The Real Housewives of Miami. Three: Tania is reading too much Bossip.com. And she’s not even black.
6) Dude, what? Obama was born in America ? No wayyyy, not buying it, that’s absurd. By the way, It turns out this Obama dude is not funny, at all. Lots of funny black dudes over the years: Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock – Obama is not one of them. I thought I would be going for Huckabee in the next election, because the time I saw him play the bass guitar on an old Billy Joel song during an episode of his aptly titled sitcom “Huckabee,” just before he introduced Joe the Plumber to Mario the Builder (they didn’t seem to like each other), ranks up there with any Seinfeld episode…Wait- what? “Huckabee” is not a sitcom? Whatever, because Trump is totally funnier, and probably always has been. One, he’s from New York – that’s funny right there. People from New York are loud, maybe lack a touch of self-awareness, and have funny accents. Two, he has like millions and millions, if not billions, of dollars, yet he is an absolutely atrocious dresser - dark, billowy, pinstriped suits, with loud red ties!!! Haaa!!! I am a Power Player!!! Three, he got in to a feud with Jerry Seinfeld because Seinfeld didn’t want to play his son’s charity event because Trump is all over tv being funny about ‘investigating’ Obama’s birth certificate, and Trump goes, “I’m not disappointed that Jerry Seinfeld won’t do the charity event – I’m disappointed that I made an appearance on his failed tv show ‘The Marriage Ref,’ even though I knew it was terrible.” That’s intentionally funny (and true, by the way), so you are getting both intentional and unintentional comedy with Trump. Now that Obama has produced his (in my mind, fabricated) birth certificate, Trump is taking credit for that, claiming his media campaign made Obama give it up! And he’s probably right! And now I can sleep at night! Funny, and gets stuff done – he’s got my vote (so far). Now let’s see if he can get to the bottom of this Chris Bosh marriage thing.
Game One of Round Two is Sunday at 3:30. No more Jax, no more Eric Reid, no more Tony, by the way - we're national only from here on out - have a great offseason, boys! If you need me before then, I'll be growing my hair out, so I can comb it over, Trump-style. That's how we super-indie Birthers do it, boy! See you Sunday!!!
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