6 Thoughts
1) Man, that ball just wouldn't go in the basket. For everything that went wrong tonight for Miami - Bosh's absence, foul trouble, a bizarre stretch of officiating in the fourth quarter, getting behind by double digits two different times - in the waning moments, they still had this game. The ball just didn't go in the basket. KJ James missed four free throws in the last few minutes, Dwyane Wade missed a layup under a minute to go, and Mario Chalmers' triple at the buzzer missed, too. And that's just the tip - the very tip - of the iceberg. Goodness. Sometimes basketball is frustrating like that. Knew I should have gone to the Wilco concert with Thor instead. Not enthusiastic about it, but we have to do it: let's go... .. .. .
2) Chris Bosh, as everyone now knows, has a pulled abdominal muscle and will almost certainly be out the rest of this series, and even if Miami advances, it's questionable whether he makes it back at all this season (and since I'm having my dad trade him for Pau Gasol in the offseason, we've probably seen Bosh in a Heat uniform for the last time). This was exactly - exactly - the game in which he helps. His one superior skill is shooting, and Miami just shot a mind-bogglingly bad 34% from the floor (and 1-16 - that's 6%, by the way - on triples). They suffered through a 1-13 start to the 3rd quarter to go from 5 up to 7 down. Further, Indiana tries to run their offense through Roy Hibbert, who absolutely can't guard Bosh - Bosh dropped 13 quick points on him in the quarter and a half he played in game one. You have to believe Bosh knocks down a couple of shots somewhere in this game, and Miami gets out of here with a win.
3) Or, maybe his absence actually helped. I'm not sure Miami can play defense much better - despite the frustration that comes with the inability to knock down shots, they held Indiana to 38% shooting and 3-15 triples. Joel Anthony was everywhere in his 35 minutes, even though he didn't score a point. In one second quarter sequence, he flew out to the wing to contest a Danny Granger jumper, which missed, hit the floor in pursuit of the rebound, which Paul George scooped up first, then popped to his feet to grab George's miss. He hounded Hibbert into a 2-6, 8 point night. Miami's defense is actually better without Bosh. The offense is worse; the defense is better. What is the exact correct ratio? I don't know - ask Charles Barkley, he knows everything!
4) KJ James and Dwyane Wade - they were heroic, but in the end, each cost the team with easy misses. With the lane absolutely clogged by Bosh's absence, and the Pacers ignoring Anthony and Haslem, they still hammered their way to 28 points (KJ on 10-22) and 24 points (Dwyane on 8-22). KJ also had 9 rebounds, 5 assists and 6 steals, but he missed 2 free throws with 53 seconds to go, down a point. Then, on the next possession, Wade spun around George Hill, got to the rim, and missed a layup. On a night where "the shooters" - Battier, Chalmers, Miller, and James Jones - were a combined 4-19, James and Wade had to be perfect. They weren't, not quite, not when it mattered most.
5) Two bizarre stretches in this game. One, and I hate to say this, happened at the beginning of third quarter. Miami went 1-13 to start the quarter, and their primary offensive set was for KJ James to dribble the ball for 18 seconds, then have Udonis Haslem come set a late high screen, then Indiana would instantly trap KJ, and he'd either have to go 1 against 2, or throw the ball to UD. Either way was a disaster, and they kept running it, and kept running it, and kept running it. They absolutely would have been better off punting the ball into the crowd and setting the defense. I bet KJ can punt it super-far! Without highlighting all the specific problems, I think it says alot that in a game that Chris Bosh was unavailable, Udonis Haslem only played 12 minutes. He's my favorite basketball player ever; at this point, he shouldn't be on the court in an NBA playoff game. Not saying it's his fault - it's just the reality of the situation. He's overmatched...Other bizarre sequence: early in the fourth quarter, the officiating crew, starring Joey Crawford, he of last week's first-person, front-page New York Times memoir all about how he craves anonymity (!), lost control of the game a little. On an offensive rebound that KJ was camped under, he took an unbelievably hard and cheap shove in the back, sending him into the basket stanchion. I thought at the time it was Hibbert, but I'm not positive it was him. In any case, it clearly warranted a flagrant foul, but refs opted to just give a regular foul. Moments later, Wade went to the rim, thought he got fouled, didn't get a call, ran back down court and planted Pacer point guard Darren Collison in the ground with a shoulder in the back, the exact same foul which KJ had just absorbed, but this one was called a flagrant, much to Miami's delight. They were both obvious flagrants. With tension now heightened, KJ posted up Danny Granger, caught a perfect entry pass, and scored as Granger came down hard in his face with an elbow, knocking KJ's headband off his head. Giving Granger the benefit of the doubt and assuming it wasn't intentional - tough to tell on the replays - it's still a foul, obviously, yet it was no-called. I mean, a guy layed the ball into the basket as he was getting hit in the face with an elbow - clearly there was probably some contact since his headband came off his head. That would be your first clue. Furious at the elbow and the lack of a call, and because he was now headbandless, KJ tried to extricate his headband from Granger's armpit, and Granger got high with his arms again, and they called a double technical foul! Even worse, for the rest of the game, KJ's headband was messed up - it had two stray stings coming out the top and clinging to KJ's hair. I ask you: how is that not a foul - he f'd up the dude's headband!!! Welcome to KJ's life! He, along with Dwight Howard, are expected to play through hard contact over and over and over, not complain when they don't get calls because they are bigger and stronger, and not confront players who are whacking away at them. And in this case, KJ didn't react, and still got a technical foul! Mon Dieu!
6) Alright, I'm over it. I skipped a Wilco concert to watch this one, it was disappointing - even with everything that happened, Miami still had this game in its grasp. Now, we will have to go to Indiana, wherever that is, and dig one out on Thursday or Sunday - another Sunday afternoon game, Je-sus crapppp!!! I'm almost looking forward to getting eliminated so we don't have to play Sunday afternoon games anymore. You know who never plays a Sunday afternoon game? The Sacramento Kings - that's who I'm rooting for next year. Anyways, one of the benefits of skipping the Wilco show and staying home for the ballgame was that it was P.Minutos' 8th birthday. He's a bright and enthusiastic young man. I got him a pony. He doesn't ride, I just figured it would be a cool gift. I named him "Mashburn," and it's out in the backyard right now with my dog named "P.J." and the alpaca that I bought at last year's South Florida Fair and named "The Pogo Man." I guess that's kind of a dumb name for an alpaca. Oh well.
---
Back on Thursday. Look: either we grind this series out and move on, or I can stop writing this blog and start the rest of my life back up: win-win! If you need me before then, I'll be working double-time with the pooper-scooper out back. Alpaca mess is nastyyy!
-----
