2) Playoff time! Time to swash buckles! Time to storm barns! Come on, get it, get it! We're gonna touch the sky, baby girl!!! We have a playoff theme song, and it's Kanye West's "Touch the Sky!" One, you can sing along to it! Two, Curtis Mayfield! Three, it's about reaching for the skies, reaching for your dreams! Four, it's got an Evel Knievel-esque video! Five, every damn time Dwyane, UD, and I come up in the spot, we're looking extra fly! Extra Fly! COME AND GET SOME, NEW YORK KNICKS, COME AND GET SOME!!! NO JUGAMOS JUEGOS, WE DON'T MESS, MAN, ALL WE DO IS WIN!!! LET'S GO (KJ), AND LET'S GET IT (Gabrielle U)!!! (shhhh - Knicks make me super-nervous)
3) On the serious side, if you've been a Heat fan for a long, long time, like the people in Casa Minutos have been, you lived through four consecutive playoffs series between the Heat and Knicks from 1997-2000. Annnnd, after the first one they were all nightmares, as the Heat lost on their home court in a winner take all game in those last three. One time we got killed; one time Mashburn passed the ball to Clarence Weatherspoon and he missed; annnnd one time Allan Houston made a floater at the buzzer. There were lots of fights: PJ Brown vs. Charlie Ward; Zo vs Larry Johnson; Jeff Van Gundy vs Zo's ankle. There was the Eric Murdoch throat-slit, and the Chris Childs throat slit, there was the Zo three pointer, there was Tim Hardaway's 20 point third quarter, there was Anthony Carter's shot over the backboard - so many moments, good and bad, mostly bad. The animosity was so, so high- I'm not sure I've ever seen two teams hate each other so much by the end of the fourth series. And each team's best player, Zo and Pat Ewing, were best friends! Uh-oh: Dwyane, KJ, and the Knicks' best player, Carmelo Anthony, are all best friends! Here we go again!
4) Everyone keeps asking me for predictions. I don't know, mannn, that's not really what I do. I more, like, watch the games, and then say what I saw. Miami, OKC, and Chicago were the best three teams I saw. I didn't see San Antonio much. Miami needs Miller, Battier, Haslem, and Chalmers to make a few shots. It's more of a volume proposition in the playoffs - efficiency goes down across the board, and you have to keep shooting. Baskets come hard. KJ will get his; Dwyane will get his. Even Bosh will wander into a few. But those other guys need to make a few shots. When they do that, Miami's the best team. I don't know if they will do that; but if they do, Miami has as good a chance as anyone. You know what's scary? Out of that group, the guy I worry about least is Chalmers. I know he'll shoot open looks in big spots. Yikes.
5) Well, it's settled, the "Who is the Bigger Racist" contest from last game: white people win! From GFOB EW, who only happens to be a world-class chef:
Dude...HoJo's fried clams are a HUGE childhood memory...good times! Every family road trip included a stop for a big plate of 'em...good call
Yeahhhh! White people unite!!!
6) Judge Smails > Judge Reinhold > Judge Ito > Traffic court judges who think they are supercool and berate friends of mine who received bogus moving violation tickets, and go to court to state their cases. So cool: you can berate someone who allegedly failed to change lanes in time to avoid a po-lice giving another fine citizen a ticket, even though neither citizen harmed anyone. Wow- very dignified, Your Highness!...Wait- you don't think that just because it's a friend of mine, and I had that one parking incident...okay, two parking incidents...okay, thr-okay, maybe four, if you count the one where the parking ticket po-lice didn't give me a ticket, but we did get into a curse-out with each other. I mean, just maybe- nahhh...
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Okay, okay, okay - we'll be back Saturday for Game One against the Knicks. Remember: it's a seven game series. You can't win it or lose it Saturday. People overreact every game of every playoffs series - you people don't do that, you people try to stay cool, okay? Just revel in the thrill of it all. We're gonna touch the sky! If you need me before Saturday, I'll be mapquesting the nearest Howard Johnson's. Have fun watching the game!
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