6 Thoughts
1) "Guys, we've got this game - we're up like 6 with like a minute to go. Monster win for us - in Miami! All you have to do is make sure KJ James doesn't steal the ball like three times in a row, score a breakaway layup while getting punched in the groin by Dahntay Jones, and then knock down a corner triple to send the game to overtime, because if that happens, we'll probably get up 5 again with a minute to go, then KJ will hit another triple, bog down our offense by switching onto our point guard for the last few possessions, and then Dwyane Wade will hit a buzzer-beating twenty-footer with one of our guys landing on him to win the game...Okay? Pacers on three, one, two, three: Pacers!" Whooooops.
2) Besides KJ's late heroics, and Dwyane's winning shot, one of the biggest stories of the game was the officiating. It was utterly atrocious. In a related story, tonight's refereeing crew featured the 88 year old Dick Bavetta! Wait - are you trying to tell me that a basketball game reffed by Dick Bavetta was over-physical, highly contentious, and had both teams mad all night long? Not only am I telling you that, but Dick Bavetta wasn't even the worst ref on the floor! That would be his partner, Bennie Adams, who spent the entire game slow-calling fouls. It's one of the most annoying things you can do as a ref: wait to see if the ball goes into the basket before deciding whether or not to call a foul. You are absolutely not supposed to do that: if it's a foul, call a foul; if it's not a foul, don't call it. I promise you, Bennie Adams, no player, no coach, no fan, wants to watch a player drive to the basket, take a bump that looks like a foul, get the ball up to the hoop, watch it spin around, there's no whistle, it comes off the rim, the defensive team grabs it, spins to run up the floor, then you blow your whistle and call a foul. So brutal - and he must have done that 6 or 7 times tonight. He even extended it to out of bounds plays where he'd just stand there, obviously not sure who touched it last, wait to see if a player would give it away by heading back down the court, and when no one did, he'd point one way or the other and be like, "Pacer ball?" He was so, so, so bad. Not to be upstaged, on the last play of a tie game, Dwyane Wade went one-on-one with Paul George, garden-variety okey-doked him into the air, took a hard bump from George for an automatic foul, shot the ball anyways, and it went in for a three point play, except Dick Bavetta, standing, literally, four feet from Wade and George, didn't call a foul. It didn't even occur to me that he might not have called a foul until the ensuing timeout when M.Minutos (who turned momentum the Heat's way late in overtime by going hood-up with her sweatshirt) noticed Juwan Howard arguing with Bavetta while the rest of the team huddled. Amazing. You know one reason why America stinks now? I mean, except for Barack Obama, who killed Bin Laden? Because there are too often no consequences for sucking year after year after year - you still get to keep your job, like Dick Bavetta. Dick Bavetta killed America!
3) How many times does KJ James have to get tackled, or hit in the face, or smacked in the groin while driving to the basket in transition before someone calls a flagrant foul? In the first half, Dwyane Wade ran out with the ball chased by the land-locked David West, whose career has been murdered by a knee injury (4-18 from the floor tonight - no elevation or quickness anymore -one more year and he'll be Elton Brand). As Wade approached the rim, he felt West's hand on his back, and rather than get propelled into the basket stanchion by West (which happened anyways), he suddenly bounced the ball behind his back to a rampaging James. West whirled around and never jumped - just took a swing and hit KJ in the face as he elevated, dislodging the ball. The refs called a foul - after making sure the ball didn't go in the basket - but not a flagrant, which was absurd. KJ, as he always does, pretty much just walked to the free throw line, but the rest of the Heat players argued for a flagrant, along with, I guess, Pacer coach Frank Vogel (a known liar, remember - more on this in #5), who was assessed a technical foul, which Emcee Chalmers took, and predictably, missed! When even the coach of the other team thinks a foul should be flagrant, that's saying something. Dick Bavetta and Bennie Adams killed America! And now they are trying to kill KJ James!
4) Well, if you had March 10th against Indiana in the What Day Will Mike Miller Suffer a Debilitating Injury pool, you win. Sprained his ankle landing on Chris Bosh's foot while jumping for a rebound which, of course, Chris Bosh was not jumping for! Don't know how Mike lasted this long, frankly. Also, a sprained ankle seems so pedestrian for him. In the What Will Mike Miller's Injury Be pool, I had a detached retina, backed up with a second entry for tonsillitis.
5) The first time we played Indiana this season, Pacer coach Frank Vogel lied to Eric Reid and Tony Fiorentino by telling them that his team wouldn't play zone, and that they hadn't even worked on a zone yet. Then, five minutes into the game, they went zone! Congratulations, Frank Vogel: you outwitted the Heat's television broadcast team! Tonight, in his pre-game interview, he told Eric and Tony, "we're a very good team trying to be great - we're not there yet." How do we know that's true? I didn't trust him - I thought they would come out on the court tonight and be great, thought he was lying about that. But, no, they were pretty much the same over-exuberant, flagrant fouling, mediocre hacksters that they always were - he was credible on this topic. You know what would help them get from good to great? One: trade the good players for great players. Two: get a head coach who doesn't lie - it brings everybody down knowing their coach can't be trusted.
6) I watched the second half of this game live-action, which I almost never do. I think Sunsports only showed the same two commercials during every timeout: one where a UFC guy adopts a tiger, or something - not sure what that was an ad for. UFC fighters? Zoos? The other for a new (?) show starring Kiefer Sutherland. It seemed like an "I see dead people" show, but the specific ad Sunsports keeps showing featured a guy sitting with an intense-looking Sutherland, and the guy goes, "Your son can see the past, present, and future," and then Sutherland looks at him, baffled, and goes, "I don't know what you mean..." Really? Which part of the time-space continuum have you never heard of, the past, the present, or the future? You really don't know what he means? He means your son can see the past, the present, and the future - I figured that out the very first time I saw the ad. Seems like a really smart character! Well-written! You could be like, "I don't believe you," that would make sense, or you could be like, "That seems bizarre," that would make sense, but to not understand what the guy means, that just seems dumb. Still, this looks like a great show - I liked "I see dead people" - so I will be watching.
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So far we're 2-0 in our five game stretch against the best of the East. Tuesday we play Orlando, followed by Wednesday in Chicago: that's the hardest back-to-back Eastern conference double we can play. Should be fun. If you need me before then, I will be at Macy's buying M.Minutos a new hoodie for the mid-week back-to-back. See you Tuesday!
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