6 Thoughts
1) First game in the Eastern Conference Finals, Heat vs. Bulls in Chicago! Annnnnnd, Miami got killed! That did not go well at all! Where is Boston? Wasn't there one more game to play against Boston? Damn...Well, I don't wanna, but I'm going to do it for you - Let's Go!
2) I know we don't always have a choice about these things in life, but me, personally, I liked it better when Chris Bosh was playing terribly, and the team was winning. Tonight, Chris Bosh was great: 30 points and 9 rebounds against the best defensive frontcourt in the league. But he got little help. LeBron had an off night: 15, 6, and 6, on 15 shots, and Dwyane was equally inert: 18, 3, and 3. No one else, literally, did anything. This is a problem against Chicago - there's a reason they were the best team in basketball all season long. They are deep, they are athletic, they play hard, and if LeBron and Dwyane don't play great, Miami isn't going to have a chance. As M.Minutos pointed out after the game, "If Dwyane and LeBron don't play well, and we have to rely on Chris Bosh, then aren't we just the Raptors?" Yes - yes, we are: thanks for making me feel even worse!
3) Okay, so it's one thing to get annihilated in a playoff game - it's just one loss, it counts the same as a losing a game by one on a buzzer-beater. But tonight's game was won by Chicago in an area that Miami can't necessarily fix: rebounding. Against most teams - against Boston in the last round, for example - Miami is bigger, more physical, and more athletic. That's simply not the case against Chicago. Joakim Noah had 8 - eight - offensive rebounds, out of Chicago's total of nineteen. That's wayyy too many. Like, wayyy, wayyy too many - you can't win a basketball game giving up 19 offensive rebounds. Chicago also made 10-21 triples, many of them coming on kickouts after winning 50-50 balls. It's not just Noah, it's also Boozer's strength, Luol Deng's length, and then Taj Gibson off the bench. Miami can't match up with that, especially with Udonis Haslem and Mike Miller not healthy, and only available for spot duty. Dwyane and LeBron are going to have to help more, but as we've pointed out all year long, UD and Miller's injuries have placed such a burden on those two - they not only have to create all the offensive plays, and guard the other team's best scorers, which other superstars are not required to do, but they also have to rebound, defend the rim, and win loose balls. It's a lot - the better the competition gets, the harder it is for those two to do everything.
4) Still, I was feeling relatively loose all night. It's great to be in the final four - you're in position to win the championship. You will either win it, or you won't - but at least you could. And after Connecticut won the college basketball tournament last month - especially defeating Satan en route to the title - I feel like I'm playing with house money. I really, really didn't want to lose to Boston - they're old, they're creaky, and Miami is better than they are - you at least want to get eliminated by someone better than you. Miami really needs to get one of these first two in Chicago to have a great chance to move on - it didn't have to be tonight, and I was feeling relaxed about it. When LeBron James nailed an early jumper, and a Heat fan who had scored front row seats in Chicago leapt to his feet to celebrate, I felt even better: "I think that's former Elizabeth Taylor husband Larry Fortensky," I pointed out to M.Minutos excitedly. "RIP," lamented M.Minutos. "Larry Fortensky died?" "No - Elizabeth Taylor." "Oh, whew - thank God..." We might have gotten hammered tonight, but Larry Fortensky yet lives!!!
5) As we often point out, after you get past the first round of the playoffs, it is absolutely brutal to watch unless you turn the sound off, because you get announcers who have seen your team play much less often than you have, and know far less about them than you do. In the first quarter, after a severely blown defensive assignment by Chicago led to a Mike Bibby layup, the always unconscious Reggie Miller warned the national audience that "Bibby is a dangerous shooter and scorer." Dangerous to who? I mean, dangerous to whom? Apparently, Reggie hasn't seen Bibbs play since Reggie retired in 2005. Actually, not sure 2005 is going to do it, to be honest with you, not sure that's far back enough...Then in the second half, with Miami playing out the blowout, Coach Spo inserted Udonis Haslem just to get him a little run, just to see if he can get his legs under him after six months on the shelf. Steve Kerr inaccurately pointed out that UD has missed six months with a wrist injury - play by play announcer Marv Albert quickly corrected Kerr, and told him that Udonis had undergone knee surgery, all of which would probably be news to Udonis, who missed all the time with a broken foot. Reggie Miller pointed out that, "whatever the injury was, Chicago better watch out, because Haslem is a dangerous shooter and scorer." Or something like that.
6) Movie Review: Blue Valentine. I have been dying to see this movie, and I would have seen it in the theater if I had any motivation to ever leave my house whatsoever. Instead, I watched it late, late Friday night by myself after getting it on Netflix. Spoiler alert: It stars Ryan Gosling, who, of course, is freaking awesome in The Notebook, and every other project he has ever been involved in. Oddly, in this film, he plays the role as if he is channeling Giovanni Ribisi, to the point that at some juncture, I forgot it was Ryan Gosling, and just assumed it was Giovanni Ribisi. He's great, but he's no Ryan Gosling, for sure...The positives: the soundtrack, by Grizzly Bear, is unbelievably good, all atmospheric and perfect; the movie is shot perfectly, it's about a crumbling relationship, and there all almost no wide shots, you are always right on top of the actors - so just as they feel suffocated, you feel suffocated; the colors are awesome - it looks depressing; in the flashback scenes, Ryan Gosling at least looks like Ryan Gosling, even if he sounds like Giovanni Ribisi; Michelle Williams is awesome, reprising her role from Brokeback Mountain - wait, what? It's a different character? Oh, well, she's still good at it; Rawls from "The Wire" is in it. Negatives: needed more Gosling, less Ribisi - dude, you're Ryan fucking Gosling!; the pacing is fine - nothing happens, which is perfect for me, since it's about all that I can follow - but something is wrong with the plot - we get it, they aren't feeling each other, but we don't really get why they aren't feeling each other; when the Michelle Williams character points out that Ryan Gosling starts drinking each morning before going to his job as a housepainter, it's almost as if the filmmaker is portraying this type of devil-may-care attitude as a negative! - that's crazy!...In any case, it wasn't quite as good as I thought it was going to be, but it was pretty well done, and I enjoyed it. Definitely worth seeing. Coming up soon, my boy Terrence Malick with a film called Tree of Life, starring Brad Pitt, currently # 1 on my must-see list, although I am somewhat hampered by the fact that I don't know when it's coming out....
Game Two is Wednesday, again in Chicago. Miami needs to win, or it could be a short, short trip to the conference finals. If you need me before then, I'll be on the back porch, having a beer before work. Cheers!!!
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