6 Thoughts
1) One team played hard for four quarters; one team played hard for about four minutes. Life in the NBA - it's not good, but it is what it is, no reason to spend too much time on it. Let's go!
2) Miami came out and got roasted from the jump in every way you can get roasted, but mostly in the way that occurs when you bring the ball up the court, look out to the wing, then slowly toss the ball out there while an opponent steps in front of it, dribbles it down the court super-fast, and dunks it! Seven - 7 - quick turnovers early in the first quarter for Miami, and they put themselves in a huge hole in the first half. They had one sustained run in the third quarter where they came all the way back and let by 7, but even that was frenetic - they could never get the pace down to a manageable level for the second night of a back-to-back against the very quick Bucks backcourt of Brandon Jennings and Montae Ellis. The Heat won the third quarter 27-13, but ran out of gas and lost the fourth quarter 35-14! Dunk fest for the Bucks! They aren't bad, actually, 16-12 on the season. I imagine they don't play this hard every night, but they aren't bad...
3) Is it just me, or does KJ James seem like he's had it a little with the refs over the past couple of weeks? It is undeniable that he gets fewer calls than any player in the league - he's so big and so strong and so gifted, that the hits he takes usually don't knock him off balance. And refs constantly - constantly - expect him to play through contact plays on which other players would shoot free throws every time. I think one of the main reasons he's so liked around the league by opposing players is that he doesn't complain about this, he doesn't retaliate, he doesn't hold grudges - he just continues to play. It's a solid Ohio work ethic! But he looks a little frustrated lately - tonight, in a super frenetic game, he attacked a lot, took a lot of hits at the rim, and shot only 5 free throws. Terrell Harris played 3 minutes of garbage time and shot 4. Brandon Jennings shot 7, and he doesn't attack the rim much at all, those are mostly touch fouls on the perimeter (more on him in #5). Several times tonight, and over the last couple weeks, KJ takes a hit at the rim, either finishes or doesn't, and runs back up the court looking at the refs with a half-aggravated, half-sad look on his face, like a, "come on, I'm just a dude in this league, too" face. Tonight, on one possession immediately after KJ took a body check at the rim with no call, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute caught a ball at the rim, and layed it in while getting lightly touched on the arm by Chris Bosh, and referee Bill Kennedy called a foul on Bosh from 40 feet away. KJ grabbed his head with his hands and stalked off to midcourt by himself - so frustrating for him. Bascially, to get a foul called, he would have had to get tripped and tackled 35 feet from the hoop by Mbah a Moute out in the open court where all three refs could see it. This happened by the way, and they did call a foul - cue the confetti! I mean, it's "white peoples'" problems, obviously: he's the MVP, the reigning champ, and the best player in the league by a fairly significant margin, but he's still a young dude who probably wants to get treated like everyone else, at least some of the time. Poor KJ - I really do feel bad for him sometimes. By the way, he was pretty bad tonight: had 26, with 6 rebounds and 7 assists, but he had 6 turnovers, and he didn't get too engaged defensively. Tied Kevin McHale with 28 straight games to start the season with 20+ points. That's the second most ever. George Gervin has the most, I think it's in the 40s - 48, maybe? You're on a computer or smart phone right now - look it up!
4) Play of the game: during the third quarter run, Mario "Emcee" Chalmers came steaming down the middle of the court in transition, which is pretty much how every Miami Heat play-of-the-game starts. He had Dwyane Wade on his right, and KJ on his left. He threw a reasonably solid, especially for him, bounce pass to Dwyane, who looked like he had a lane to finish at the rim. But instead, Dwyane decided to try to flip it back up over his shoulder across the lane to the trailing KJ. Unfortunately, Bucks 7 footer Epke Udoh was standing there, and the pass hit him in the arm, and kind of popped up into the air...right into KJ's flight path, and he caught the deflection while flying in midair and banked it off the glass and into the hoop in one motion! By the way, no foul call! Of course not!
5) Why replay often stinks, reason #2000: Chalmers and Bucks point guard Brandon Jennings were irritating each other all night. In the third quarter, Jennings shot a corner three that missed, and Chalmers caught him on the arm with the closeout. It didn't cause the shot to miss, but sometimes that play gets called a foul anyways. It wasn't in this case, and running back up the court, Jennings, frustrated at the lack of a call, suddenly veered into Chalmers' path and gave him a cheap-shot shoulder. Not a hard one, but a cheap shot nonetheless (Chalmers didn't have the ball, they were just running up the court). A ref saw it and called a foul on Jennings - probably should have been a flagrant foul. I think the flagrant rule is "unnecessary contact," and ramming someone intentionally with a shoulder off the ball probably qualifies. In any case, Chalmers came back at him, and at least the ref didn't t him up, just called the foul on Jennings. However, a few minutes later, with the rout on in the fourth quarter, Jennings stole a pass on the Heat's end, went flying up court with Chalmers in, sort of, hot pursuit, and suddenly did the exact same thing - veered into Chalmers with a hard shoulder (this time Jennings had the ball). Chalmers, surprised and aggravated to get another shoulder in the midriff area, kind of grabbed at Jennings as he went flying away from him, and tried to headlock him, but mostly missed, and went staggering away from Jennings. Then the two of them started to come back at each other again for round two of the "lamest potential fight that never happened" ever. Initially I thought they were going to eject Jennings, but somehow the closest ref, I think it was Bill Kennedy again actually, called a flagrant one foul on Chalmers. Okay, fine - I can see how if you were a ref, on a bang-bang play like that, you might see the play from an angle from which you couldn't see that Jennings veered into Chalmers again. That is actually possible, I'll give the dude that. Also, Chalmers did try to grab at his head, so if you thought he initiated the contact, and those two guys had already been into it, you might want to control the situation by calling a flagrant. I understand that. But since flagrant fouls all seem to get reviewed (not sure if it is a rule that they have to, or can choose to - but they review every one), when these three guys reviewed it, what are they going to do then? Obviously, when you see the replay you are going to see that the initial foul was on Jennings, not Chalmers, but by rule that's not reversible. Only the Chalmers flagrant/not flagrant can be reviewed - even if you contend that Chalmers' play was "flagrant," technically it couldn't have been a flagrant foul because the foul was actually on Jennings. Chalmers' foul, by rule, was a technical foul, because flagrant fouls can't occur in dead ball situations. In any case, since they couldn't change the foul to Jennings, the refs just left the call the way it was, which was fine with everybody but Coach Spo, who spent thirty aggravated seconds demonstrating to Kennedy how Jennings had jumped into Chalmers. Spo is a stickler for correctness like that! Kennedy probably agreed after seeing the replay, but couldn't do anything about it. And, I mean, anyways, why start worrying about whether calls are correct or not now? Not to mention that all this took 5 minutes at the end of a game that was already over - excellent use of everyones' time. Not a fan of replay - if the guys could look at a play and call it correctly, why do they need replay? And even if they could, on a play like tonight, it creates more problems than it solves, since they can't even correct the call. It's never gonna happen, but I wish they would just dump it...
6) Well, this is the time of year when I like to look back at my resolutions from the previous December, and see how I did, see if I accomplished any of my goals. As catalogued by The Captain (who else would you have keep track of your resolutions?), I only set two priorities this year: one, to play more golf. Two, to try to fly back to my hometown, Hartford, Connecticut, to get a free piece of pie at a venerable old clothing store on Trumbull Street named Stackpole's. I was there over the summer on like a Tuesday morning (my dad was picking up a pair of trousers he had altered) and an attractive young woman working there asked me if I wanted to come back on Thursday because one of their clients owns a pie shop, and she drops off a bunch of pies every Thursday morning and they put them out for the customers. After leaving the store, I spent the next 4 hours breaking down every syllable of the conversation to try to figure out whether she was flirting with me because she thought I was cute, or she was only being nice because I might potentially purchase a stylish three-season suit. I may be old, tired, and balder than KJ James, but I still have a certain élan, a certain rakish charm. I asked my dad what he thought: "I don't know." Okayyy. Anyways, let's see how I did on my goals. I played golf twice this year: one time I went by myself and hit balls at the driving range near my house; and one time I brought O. and P. Minutos, and almost had a nervous breakdown because 8 year old P.Minutos was such a terrible putter when we were on the practice putting green. So I'm going to say I accomplished that goal, that was a total success, I'm proud of myself, that was more golf than I played in 2011! On the other hand, I did not go back to Hartford to that clothing store on a Thursday to talk to that girl and help myself to free treats, but I am still going to say that I accomplished this goal, and am considering this resolution a success, if only because my self-esteem is already too low due to concluding that the girl probably was only talking to me because I was a customer. Got to keep myself feeling good about myself!
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Next game is Monday on New Year's Eve in Orlando. What a lovely city! It's an early start, a 5 pm game - not even David Stern hates the Heat enough to make them spend New Year's Eve in Orlando. They'll be back to Miami in plenty of time to meet me at the Delano to see Santigold! By the way, is Dwight Howard still on Orlando, or did he finally go somewhere else yet? Not too sure, I guess we'll see Monday. If you need me before then, I'll be baking a rhubarb pie for New Year's Eve - rhubarb is sooo "the" pie! Get those resolutions ready, see you Monday!
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