1) Mike Mil-lar: Triple. Mike Mil-lar: Triple. Mike Mil-lar: Triple. Mike Mil-lar: Triple. Mike Mil-lar: Triple. Mike Mil-lar: Triple. Did. Not. Hit. The. Rim. Six straight triples in 11 second half minutos as Miami somehow went from seventeen down halfway through the third, to up twenty-eight halfway through the fourth quarter. Let's not go - let's stay right here, just for a minute, and be, like, Damnnnn, Mike Miller!......Okay, now let's go!
2) Rumor was, this morning, that Coach Spo was finally going to activate Miller, out to this point after suffering a hernia and having surgery just before preseason began. The Captain and I have been willing Spo to let him play (Miller has been saying he has been ready for a week or more): "If Spo doesn't put him out there, how is he ever going to get injured again?" I pointed out this morning to Cap that Miller couldn't just go out there and get a "normal" injury. Not after a season which saw him break both thumbs, suffer two concussions in a week's time, and shoulder surgery. "He can't go out there and just sprain an ankle," I told Captain, "I predict a cracked pelvis, or Lyme disease." He can't sprain an ankle? Ohhhh, yes he can - and did! Three minutes into his first stint of the season, in the second quarter, Mike flew through the air on the offensive glass, plucked a rebound out of mid-air, flipped it back out to Emcee Chalmers on the perimeter, and somehow landed with his foot wedged up into the basket stanchion, twisting his ankle back towards the floor, and causing him to limp back down the court, after he got up, which was a good, long while. Also, managed to get the air knocked out of himself twice, once on another offensive rebound, and once when he got okey-doked into the air defensively, and took a hard shoulder to the sternum area. Then he made six triples in a row and the Heat won going away. The end, we all lived happily ever after...
3) Things that only happen when you turn a 17 point third quarter deficit into a 28 point fourth quarter lead: Chris Bosh gets a defensive rebound in traffic (no, seriously, there's more!), spins up court dribbling, crosses the foul line at full-Bosh speed (which is about 60% of a normal person's speed), sees no resistance, keeps going, gets to the foul line area still going full speed, spins through two Spur big men off the dribble, splitting their double-team, elevates with a two-footed power jump while getting tackled from behind by Tiago Splitter, and thunderrrs the ball through the basket! Now I have seen everything. And I mean everything...Like everyone else, Chris had a slow start, and a strong finish. 30 and 8 - all I want him to do is keep shooting. Don't hesitate, just shoot it. Especially with Dwyane out. Just shoot. The Ball. Shoot it. THEY CAN NOT STOP YOU! (just trying to give the kid some confidence - they can probably stop him)
4) So Mil-lar and Bosh were nice, but LeBron won the game. After a sleepwalk of a first half which included 4 more missed free throws, three or four missed layups, one turnover where he threw an entry pass directly to a cutting Matt Bonner, and one skip-pass turnover that he threw seventeen rows up into the stands, LeBron shook off a bleary-eyed cold after halftime and dragged Miami back into the game with a flurry of jump shots, including one stretch with three triples sandwiched around a Chalmers triple (on a pass from LeBron) that pushed Miami out in front, before letting Miller and Bosh stretch it out and bring it home. 33 in only 3 quarters from LeBron. He (and Dwyane) have been so conscious about not shooting threes, about pounding the ball to the rim, that he hadn't really been giving himself a chance to get hot from the outside. Yes, LeBron should attack the rim; yes, LeBron should post up. But he should also shoot jumpers when he is feeling it - his 4-6 from deep seemed to empower Miller and Chalmers, and Miami shot 12-15 from beyond the arc in the second half. Holy Sudafed!
5) This game started when the players milled around before the opening tip, shaking hands, and renewing old acquaintances, except with Spurs starting power forward DeJuan Blair, whom absolutely nobody could possibly like, and referee Kenny "Slick" Mauer called for the official game ball, received a pass from the scorer's table, then spit in his hands and rubbed it all over the ball! What the...?!!! Kenny "Slick" Mauer, what in the hell is wrong with you? This is a league in which the instant someone gets a scratch over the eye, or a hangnail, or sneezes, the refs stop the game, make the offending party go to the bench, change his uniform, get immunization shots, and check his medical records before letting him back on the court. And you are going to start the game by hocking a huge loogie into your hands and rubbing it all over the ball? Before, when Chris Bosh did the whirly-dunk thing, and I said I had seen everything? That was nothing. Now, now, I have seen every-thing!
6) So M.Minutos and I went out to dinner in Lake Worth over the weekend at a small, outdoor gourmet pizza bistro – I had the country ham and fried egg pizza, and a Narragansett beer. As we were walking back to our tweaked-out Prius, two normal-looking dudes had parked their car in what seemed like a legitimate spot on the street – maybe they were sticking out a little too close to the curb, but they didn’t seem to be obstructing anything. As they locked their doors and started to walk away, a young, handsome po-lice came striding by. He wasn’t paying any attention to them, really, but it spooked them – as you know, it is my long-standing theory that the po-lice make almost any enjoyable activity worse. Like, there is no situation in which you are chilling with your friends, having fun, doing whatever, and anyone ever says: “You know what would make this evening even better? If the po-lice showed up!” That never, ever happens. So anyways, these two dudes probably feel like I do, so, kind of in a guilty tone, they go, “Is it okay if we park here?” Personally, I figured the po-lice would probably make them move the car, just on the general principle of acting like a jackapple, but to this po-lice’s eternal credit, he never broke stride, and never even looked at them or their car, but he smiled and called back over his shoulder, “Park wherever you want. Traffic’s not my thing, man. Neither are parking tickets.” What? This po-lice is my hero! You mean it is okay to simply park in a logical spot, where you aren’t obstructing anyone, and everyone can continue on with their lives happily? What is this, America? Yo, everybody here knows I love Milt Romney more- what? – oh, Mitt Romney more than my own dad, but now I’m out on Romney for the Republican nomination, and in on this Lake Worth po-lice! It’s the dawning of a new day in America!!!
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Next game Thursday, vs. Lakers. Shoot, Kobe, shoot!!! If you need me before then, I'll be at the big liquor store down on the corner seeing if they carry Narragansett beer. Ohhh, that shit was smooth, like Chris Bosh's booty! See you Thursday!
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