6 Thoughts
1) Look, I'll take the hit for this one. First, I skipped yesterday's game because I wanted to go on vacation to St. Augustine with my family. That's selfish on my part - Dwyane and UD wouldn't do that, and neither should I. Even more damaging, on the drive home this afternoon, I was thinking about the 5-0 start and I had the distinct thought: "What if we never lose a game all season? What if we just win 66 in a row?" Oops.
2) Had to lose some time - might as well be to the Hawks. They know how to play Miami better than anyone since they are in the Heat's division, and have had the same basic cast of characters -- Joe Johnson, Josh Smith, and Al Horford -- since approximately 1986. We all know what will happen in their season. They will finish as the 5th seed, either win or lose their first round playoff series by a game, then, if they survive, get destroyed by Miami or Chicago in the second round. Why do we know this? Because this has been every season for the Hawks since 1986! I thought I just told you! Al Horford! AL HORFORD!!!
3) The Hawks, to their credit, were able to slow this game to a crawl. This benefits them: they have good isolation players, they can get on the offensive boards, and also, they aren't ever going to try to run back on defense, so if the game does speed up, they are going to lose. The downside of this style, besides the Heat losing? The game seemed like it took about six hours to play. I wish I had never stopped at my house after driving back from St. Augustine, I could have kept driving, down through Fort Lauderdale, past Miami, through all the Keys, and then right on into the ocean and drowned. That would have been more exciting.
4) Worst play: probably when we were down like 6 with a couple of minutes to go and Dwyane Wade, who was an exhausted-looking 4-17 in the game, tried to iso on the wing, crossed over on his defender but dribbled it off the defender's foot, and the Hawks went down in transition and banged a three to effectively end the game. However, for sheer and utter ineptitude, it was when Mario Chalmers got beat off the dribble by Jeff Teague for a layup, took the ball out the net, and fired an aggravated inbounds pass up the court to LeBron on the sidelines, leading him as if LeBron were walking upcourt, except LeBron wasn't walking upcourt, he was just standing there, and the ball hit the scorer's table on the fly. Ughh. Emcee had five -- 5 -- turnovers, and they were all of the terrible, unforced variety. Even the one alley-oop he successfully threw to LeBron was horrible - he threw it too low, under the basket, and LeBron had to catch it and rip it back up over his head to flush it.
5) People like to talk about who the best player is. Yes, Kevin Durant seems like a nice person, and scores a ton of points. Yes, Dwyane Wade is the flashiest and the most marketable. Yes, Dwight Howard is the only dominating big man in the game. Yes, Dirk Nowitzki just won the title. They are all great players. And, yes, LeBron did not play well the last week of the Finals -- I'll concede that, he was too passive. But game in, and game out, even on a night like tonight, even when the whole team looks exhausted, even when he seems slightly off his game, he still plays well. Tonight: 11-18 for 28 points, 7 rebounds, and 6 assists, and as always, was rock solid defensively. If you watched the game, you'd be like, "Ehh, he wasn't great." But those numbers are great. He has bad games, relative to his other games - not really compared to other players' games. Dwyane's highs are higher, for one, but LeBron almost never, ever plays a bad game. We all judge him on a sliding scale against himself, and that's fine -- but to imply any other player in the league is as good night in and night out is inaccurate. I mean, if you want to claim that someone else is the best player, fine, go ahead, do it. Just know ahead of time that it's dumb.
6) Best parts of my trip to St. Augustine: the fried oyster sandwich I ate at this hole in the wall country-ish restaurant in the woods in Palm Coast last night -- rednecks know how to fry stuff; when I tried to convince my 19 year old cousin that Darko Milicic's career hasn't been as good as Dwyane Wade or Carmelo Anthony's so far, but that he has to let it play out before deciding if Joe Dumars made the correct decision in selecting Darko over those two guys; when I pretended to fall asleep at the pool, and my family abandoned me there because they are cold-hearted; when I had to suppress the urge to shove P.Minutos off the bed last night because he kept kicking me after he crawled in with me -- I was this close; New Year's Eve at a miniature Cityplace in Palm Coast, only if 90 percent of the shops in Cityplace were vacant, and if Cityplace hired a DJ to blast loud music at, like, the fifty people actually eating dinner there; and, of course, the old forts and buildings in St. Augustine which, if you block out the schlocky tourist-y parts, is one of the cooler towns we have in America.
---
Good week of games coming up: the up-and-coming Indiana Pacers come to town Wednesday, and Miami takes a trip to Atlanta Thursday for a re-match. If you need me before then, I'll be heading out to Okeechobee County for fried foods with the rednecks! Happy 2012 everybody!
-----
