1) Out for the Spurs: Tony Parker, Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, Stephen Jackson, Kawhi Leonard, and Danny Green (all: yellow; if ur scared, say ur scared). Out for the Heat: Shane Battier (book club meeting - he's the president, he had to be there). As former Heat point guard and philosopher Tim Hardaway once said, "Sides is even." Let it fly!
2) Miami probably can't play worse than they did tonight. The effort level was dialed up to 0, even by the usually-diligent KJ James (again, he was atrocious, but "atrocious KJ" is still 23 points, 9 rebounds, and 7 dimes, with 4 steals, and a number of huge plays in the closing moments), Dwyane Wade was horrendous (more on that in #3), and they were down to a ragtag Spurs team by 7 with a couple of minutes to go. Annnnd, once again Walter Ray Allen went HAM, scoring 11 fourth quarter points, including the game-winning triple wth 20 seconds to go on a play where KJ went middle, lost the ball, got it back, and drilled a look-away bullet to Ray who had just enough time and space to pull the trigger. Ballgame, goodnight. Again. That's the fourth game this season he has essentially ended with a late triple. They aren't all going to go in, but a lot of them are going to go in. Had to be extra-special for Ray, too, one night after social deviant Rajon Rondo, and the progenitor of doucheball, Kevin Garnett, conspired to instigate a fight with the Human Date Rape, Kris Humphries. My cell phone almost caught on fire from the sheer number of texts the incident triggered, and I'm sure Ray's did, too. By the way, I'm sure we have a lot of the same contacts. You can see it on his face every single possession of every single game: he couldn't be happier to be out of Boston. And we couldn't be happier to have him! After the game, Jax asked him if he was starting to like these rims here in Miami. Ray smiled: "I love all rims." Amen, Jesus, amen!
3) I'm not sure why everyone seems scared to say this - maybe because it could be (it always could be) the beginning of the end for Dwyane Wade - but he's dragging his leg right now. He had offseason knee surgery, and he does not look lively. Watch him on his jumpers - he's not squaring up, he's not jumping on balance at all. He leaning back away from his shot to clear his body, hopping off one leg, and trying to wish it in. He's also shooting a ton of floaters, so he doesn't have to balance up and elevate. And he can't really move on defense (even when he tries). I don't know if he is still playing his knee into shape, which would be fine; or, whether he needs to be shut down for awhile. All that matters is that he feels decent come May and June. Right now he looks brutal. Even the one huge play he made tonight was awful: down three, with under a minute to go, he pushed the ball upcourt in transition with KJ on his right. He was indecisive about whether to pass or try to get to the rim himself. Instead, he did neither, and on the dead run from the foul line elevated, I think intending to pass, but got caught up in the air, flying forwards, and somehow rolled the long floater in. Bad decision, bad shot - huge hoop. It worked out, but Dwyane is playing really poorly right now.
4) So, so, soooo much chirping about San Antonio's decision to rest their best guys, and now the league office has threatened to fine the Spurs. Not sure for what - for playing a great game and taking the defending champions down to final seconds so that we all got to see another Ray Allen game-winner? Yeah, that was terrible! Thank God for David Stern and the league office - I hate thrillers! I'm with Kevin Durant's tweet: "Let them people live they own life." Indeed - let them live they own life. A lot better than the loathsome Russell Westbrook's tweet: "Tim Duncan and Tony Parker? Who?"
5) Does everyone here know why the blog is called "Dos Minutos?" Yes, Heat announcer Mike Baiamonte announces the two minute mark of every quarter by saying "two minutes remaining in the quarter - dos minutos!" I don't know if our readers from out of the area are aware of this, but we have a lot of Spanish speakers in Miami, not sure if that is common knowledge or not. But the reason the blog is called "Dos Minutos" is because one day, several years ago, a very, very white dude called into Dan LeBatard's radio show (good show, by the way - no debating "legacies," or debating who should or should not be in various Halls of Fame, it mostly makes fun of those people, it makes fun of sports talk radio) and told LeBatard, "I brought a friend from out of town to the game, and when the P.A. announcer said that in Spanish, it was the most embarrassing moment of my life." Ummm, if you're that humorless - and racist! - you might just want to keep it to yourself. And LeBatard is Cuban! He was just like, "Really, Sir? That's quite a life you have if that's the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to you!" I laughed - haaa! Okay, I didn't say there was a great story behind the name, just that there was a story. Anyways, here's Mike Baiamonte, the actual Heat P.A. announcer (thanks to A.H.Minutos - he's the best GFOB ever!):
6) So my neighbor G, who is the best dude, and dad, and neighbor everrr - thank God for him, by the way, since he's mostly raising my kids - he and I were out with our boys a couple of days ago at an outdoor bar near our house. I mean, bar and grill, of course, we wouldn't bring our kids to a straight up bar unless we really, really had to. (As a side note: he was drinking, I wasn't. Also, he drove!) And there were college football games on all the televisions, and one of the games near us was a total blowout, someone was winning like 42-3. G noted it was only halfway through the third quarter, and he was like, "that's brutal, that game is over," and I'm like, "ahhh, I don't know, five quick touchdowns and they are right back in it," and he's like, "in football there should be a way to surrender, just like in cribbage, you know?" Oh, yes: just like in cribbage! If I had a dollar for every time I surrendered in a game of cribbage, I'd have, ummm, zero dollars! What male under the age of 80 knows how to play cribbage? What male, period, knows how to play cribbage? What the hell is it, a card game? As I said, G is pretty much raising my kids - he's the dad who knows how to build stuff and all - so I just had to pretend that I never heard that! Cribbage!
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Our next game is Saturday against the new look New Jersey Nets, who are quite good this year. Along with the Knicks, they are the only other team in the East that you wouldn't call "putrid" right now. Of course, they are also the favorite team of Great Friend of the Blog, Plumber, who is probably the only actual legitimate Nets fan on Earth. Plumber, wisely and with the best intentions, tried to go reverse jinx this morning, texting me that the Heat will probably kill the Nets on Saturday. It's a smart move by him - he absolutely should go for the reverse jinx, but he is forgetting a few things: one, you can't reverse jinx something that already happened - Miami already beat them by like 30 once this year. Two, Miami is playing so poorly right now that they couldn't even blow out a D-League team tonight. If the Nets got blown out Saturday in Miami, or even lose the game at all, it would be an absolute humiliation for them, I can't imagine them recovering from that and going on to have a successful season. I mean, it is the biggest game they will play all year, a revenge game after getting embarrassed by the defending champions. For Miami, they're the champs, it's just another game, a loss of any kind would be utterly meaningless (as would a win). It is a pointless game for them, there is no reason to play hard at all. Three, you can't reverse jinx something that only you care about - there are no other actual Nets fans, I don't believe that at all. I watched them play a bit at home this week and it sounded like mostly Knicks fans. And four, and most importantly, Nets center Brook Lopez is reportedly out for that game with a bad foot. Advantage: Nets! No layup line at the rim off every pick and roll this time, I would imagine! We'll see what happens Saturday - good luck, Plumber! If anyone needs me before then, I'll be speaking to my attorney to make sure Mike Baiamonte doesn't sue me for stealing his trademark line. See you Saturday, movie critics!
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