1) Solid home win, the 16th straight at The Trip for Miami. No Dwyane Wade ("sore knee") - my dad, Pat Riley, read last game's blog and decided to start getting guys some rest apparently. #WithoutWade!!! KJ James looked a little more lively - he didn't exactly force his way to the rim with aggression, but he hunted shots, especially in the 4th quarter when he scored 14 straight points and put the game away - season-high 41 on 15-25 for KJ. We'll cover the play of the game in #2, a lineup change in #3, what didn't go well in #4, and examine Elton Brand's brutal night in #5. Special treat down in #6 - in defiance of several emails complaining about a recent post when I detailed the Minutos family vacation to Washington DC, more details about that trip...Like we always do about this time: let's go...
2) Play of the Game: with 1:30 left in the game, and Miami holding a 5 point lead and the ball, KJ James missed a jumper from the right wing with the shot clock going down. The ball came off the rim high and hard towards the foul line - Shane Battier, closing hard to the paint, tracked it down a step past the foul line. As he grabbed the ball, Philadelphia's Evan Turner ran through Battier's legs and tripped him (unintentionally), sending him sprawling to the ground with the ball. Somehow, no foul was called, but as Battier smashed down to the floor, he managed to shovel the ball out to Mario Chalmers (19 points) at halfcourt. Emcee took a casual dribble towards the basket. Then, like it was a slow-motion horror film, we all watched as he made eye contact with KJ, back out on the right wing, as KJ made a sudden, sharp back cut to the rim, and Emcee launched a thirty-five foot missile towards the basket: "Noooooooooooo!!!" (slow motion distorted voice). But, somehow, the ball ended up in the general basket area, maybe a little high, maybe a little close to the backboard, but all-in-all, a solid pass, and KJ flushed it. Ballgame. Percent chance of Emcee Chalmers ever throwing a successful alley-oop pass to win a game, again? Zero. Zero percent chance. Enjoy this one while you can!
3) Lineup change - Canadian center Joel Anthony: out. Martinique-ian/French center Ronny Turiaf: in. Crap is getting serious - we're going harder-core French speaker now. I don't think there is a huge difference between Joel and Ronny, actually, but Ronny definitely is better at catching the ball and finishing plays at the rim (so is my microwave oven, actually). I think it was a good thought, a positive thing to try: we've had recent struggles on offense - can't hurt to run screen and rolls where the roller might conceivably catch a pass and score a basket, and Ronny had two quick ones to start the game. He finished with 6 points, 6 boards, and 2 blocks in 23 minutes. In the Sunsports Lounge after the game, Jax asked him if he was going to continue to start. "I don't know," the always smiling Turiaf informed Jax. Okay, then! Sixers play small, so we only needed Joel for 6 minutes, but he'll be back - his defense and energy have a place in the rotation.
4) Chris Bosh was atrocious. Every game, ESPN writer, the very likable, young Tom Haberstroh, instantly writes a blog grading each of the "big three," and generally one or two other players from either team. I don't try to surmise what grades I would give - for me, it would always be the same: A's for Dwyane, Udonis, and me; C+ for everyone else, except for an F- for Chris Bosh. But I do always try to guess what grades Tom will give the guys. He's an easy grader, honestly - where was he during my academic career? - but he's easiest of all on Bosh. I consistently disagree with his grade on Bosh - he's biased one way, I'm biased the other, so the truth is somewhere in between, I suppose. Tonight, before looking at the grades, I was like, "No way even Haberstroh gives Bosh better than a C+ - he was a C at best." Haberstroh gave him a B-. Man, seriously - he's the easiest grader since GFOB Plumber and I took an Oceanography class in Boston College where the professor, Benno Brenninkmeyer, started class the first day by saying, "First of all, being an oceanographer is the worst job on earth, and all of you need to promise me never to do it," and then explained that his grading system was the square root of your raw grade x 10. Thus, a 49 was a C - sweet! Bosh, against a smallish, unathletic frontline made 6-12 shots for 17 points, and 5 rebounds in 37 minutes. In the first quarter alone, he allowed Elton Brand to get three offensive rebounds directly over the top of him - that's virtually impossible, Elton Brand is- okay, we'll wait until #5 for more. Chris didn't protect the rim much, and he seemed only vaguely engaged, even though they needed him without Wade. Right now, he's the third best big on this team, behind UD and Turiaf, and neither of those two is exactly Tim Duncan. He is really bad right now - really, really bad. Personally, I hate him. Other things that went wrong: there was like a 5 minute stretch in the second quarter where we went from 5 up to 5 down because KJ, Emcee, and Norris Cole turned the ball over like 7 times in a row - four of the turnovers (2 each by KJ and Norris) were in transition, where they just threw the ball right to the other team...With both Wade and Miller out, rookie Terrel Harris played 18 minutes and got lit on fire by Evan Turner, who isn't exactly an offensive juggernaut: 26 for Turner on 12-19, including 11 quick ones almost all on Harris in the second quarter. Terrel looked like one of the Buddhist monks during Vietnam, the dudes who self-immolated themselves in the middle of the road to protest the war.
5) Besides the 3 quick offensive rebounds in the first quarter against Chris Bosh, which led to 5 quick Sixers points, Elton Brand's game highlight was either that he got half of his shots blocked (3 out of 6, 2 in a row by UD), or in the second quarter when he caught a ball 12 feet on the left wing in transition, sighted the rim, was falling over to his left because he is so out shape that his momentum didn't allow him to stop, took a quick bunny hop to the left to balance himself - which is a blatant travel, by the way, you can't travel anymore blatantly - and launched a low, skidding sidewinder off the iron. Goodness gracious. Somehow, looking at the boxscore, he was credit with 4 steals. That's impossible. I dispute that. I defy anyone to describe a steal he made to me...Anyways, he was terrible, as always (8 points on 1-6, 6 rebounds in 31 minutes)...
6) Okay, okay, okay. I saw a lot of things in Washington DC, a lot of great things. But I didn't see anything better than this:
That's me, and look where I am: the headquarters of the National Restaurant Association! This is where Herman Cain got busy with all the chicks when he was the president of this fine, fine - and very essential - organization! Yeah, boyyy, this is how we do it! This is how I get down when I'm on vacation!!! "Yes, I am the president and CEO of imaginary Godfather's Pizza - girl, do you prefer sausage or pepperoni? Girl, you're hotter than a brick oven! Girl, I deliver in less than thirty minutes! Girl-" I think you get the point. Needless to say, this was the highlight of my trip. Washington DC is so historic!!! By the way, they threw me out of the lobby in about ninety seconds when I told the receptionist I had a "very important meeting" with Mr. Cain and his intern. Next game: pictures from my trip to the Mayflower Hotel. Eliot Spitzer!!!
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Back tomorrow night against Kevin Durant and OKC. Great team. If you need me before then, I'll be booking the next Minutos family vacation to a place a little more wholesome and family-oriented, and less sex-drenched and scandal-ridden than DC, like Las Vegas, Rio De Janeiro, or Bangkok. God bless America!
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