6 Thoughts
1) Chris Boshhhhh!!! I ALWAYS LOVED YOU!!! NO ONE EVER BELIEVED IN ANYONE THE WAY I BELIEVE IN YOU!!! YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN A BETTER CHOICE FOR OUR FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT THAN OBAMA!!! Miami guts one out in Boston, in overtime, and now leads 3-1! Start the bus, gas up the plane, get out of town - LETTTTSSSS GOOOOOOO!!!
2) One game after the most ineffectual performance of his, or anyone else's, career, Chris Bosh - sort of - bounced back. I wouldn't say he was exactly effectual tonight - let's say he was semi-fectual. In any case, he had 20 points on 8-17, with 12 rebounds, while holding Kevin Garnett to a 1-10. Ouch. Most important of all, with Miami clinging to a 3 point lead and the seconds winding down in overtime, LeBron James missed a clearout jumper from the top of the key, giving Boston one last chance to come down stay in the game...except, out of nowhere, pranced Chris Bosh to reach up and daintily tip the ball back up over the rim! I don't want to point out that a lot of 6'11" guys might have dunked that ball. Whatever - it's still ballgame! Goodness gracious...
3) He was not always efficient. He did not always make good decisions. He lost the ball on a late possession that could have won the game. But with Miami down 3 with two minutes to go, after letting a 3 point lead slip away on back-to-back triples by Boston, Boston crowd going bananas, LeBron James caught the ball deep in the corner, stagnated the offense by holding it for approximately nine seconds, then fell away with a guy hanging all over him and dropped a three to tie the game. He was a man: 35 points and 14 rebounds. He drew an insanely huge charge on Paul Pierce in overtime. He got a great contest causing Pierce into a bad shot with a chance to win it at the regulation buzzer. He tracked down approximately every defensive rebound over the last quarter and overtime. That's how you win a playoff game on the road: you grind, and grind, and grind, and grind - that's not always LeBron's forte. But tonight he ground.
4) Dwyane Wade ground, too, and had 28 points and 9 rebounds. Wade and LeBron won the game. Boston has their Big Four, and Baby Davis, and the irrepressible Jermaino, et al, but for Miami, it was really only Dwyane and LeBron, with a sprinkling of Bosh. The three of them scored 83 of the 98 points, and grabbed 35 of the 45 rebounds. No one else scored more than 4! No one else had more than 4 rebounds! Dwyane and LeBron - truly, as many times as we have said it in this blog, it never applied more than tonight - they were doin' it all! In fact, they were the only ones doing anything!
5) Well, old Shaq was back again tonight. We didn't talk about his mostly disastrous Game 3 performance - he bounced back tonight and was even worse in Game 4. He played four minutes, and didn't have a statistic besides two fouls leading to four Miami points. In fairness, his boxscore would have been even more impressive if they kept a stat of "Number of times you stand there and watch someone drive to the rim and lay the ball in the basket." Most importantly of all, in Game 3, there was a small Asian man assigned to massage Shaq's inner thigh any time Shaq was not in the game, which was most of it, frankly. Great gig! Anyways - surprise! - that guy didn't show for work tonight, and was replaced by a small white man. Again - great gig! "Hi, ladies? What? Oh - I work for a little team called the Celtics!"...Also back: MR UDONIS HASLEM!!! For the first time since November, UD was available to play! He started the second quarter! Annnnnnd, he was atrocious! Immediately caught a ball and launched an 18 foot scud missile off the backboard. Then committed an offensive foul, then a delay of game warning, then another foul on a rebound, and then a technical foul when he told the ref, twice, "The ball was over his head." Seemed like an odd technical. But guess what: we're 1-0 with UD back! Love you, boy!!!
6) Piers Morgan is the bomb. He fucking got it out of Rob Lowe like no one I've ever seen last week. Who is he again?
Chance to closeout on Wednesday night in Miami. We'll see how that goes. Until then, does anyone know how to use Craig's List? I want to post an ad for a dude to massage my inner thigh while I'm watching the game. See you then!
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