6 Thoughts
1) The new-look New Jersey Nets came to town sporting a new home city (Brooklyn - still not sure exactly where it is, I know it's part of New York, but it's not Manhattan), a good record (11-4), a bunch of veterans who are new to the team (Jerry Stackhouse - that Jerry Stackhouse?), and most dauntingly, a fearsome reverse jinx from GFOB (and the only true Nets fan in captivity) Plumber, who texted me for three straight days about how Miami would kill New Jersey. For a half, the Nets frustrated the Heat with their "slow-ball, dribble-around-for-20-seconds, then-have-Stackhouse-or-Gerald-Wallace-throw-in-a-bad-jumper, or-have-Deron-Williams-or-Joe-Johnson-miss-the-rim-entirely-and-have-Andray-Blatche-catch-it-and-drop-it-through-with-the-shotclock-going-off" offense. In the second half, Miami made a couple of defensive adjustments, played about 5 minutes of "playoff" offense, and won going away. Sometimes you can reverse jinx, and reverse jinx, and in the end, it's just too much talent. Imagine that? All these years, I thought it was the power of the reverse jinx, I thought it was me willing and jinxing us to all these victories. But it turns out that talent was a factor as well. Man - never would have suspected that. Oh well...Let's let it fly, shall we?
2) Dwyane Wade looked a little livelier tonight. He's never going to be "Dwyane Wade" every night again, he's past that point of his career, but he's still quick off the dribble, he's still comfortable in the paint, and he knows how to move without the ball. On a night like tonight, when he has his legs a little, he's still a handful for any defensive team in a way that few guys are. He scored 34 on 14-20, mostly on rim attacks, and one satisfying alley-oop dunk in transition on to the head of The Human Date Rape, Kris Humphries, off a long pass from Walter Ray Allen (13 pts on 5-7). Talent.
3) Also fairly talented: KJ James. He was pretty mellow for a half, and Miami got down 10 or 12 and stayed there, as he orchestrated the offense from the top. About halfway through the third quarter, with Dwyane obviously looking pretty bouncy, but the Nets still hanging tough, KJ went to the midpost for about 5 minutes and picked the Nets apart. Rolled to the rim for a hoop, found Ray Allen on a cut for an open 6 footer, found Dwyane on a cut for a dunk, found Mike Mil-lar in the corner for a triple, then got tackled by Darryl Wallace for free throws. Sorry, Gerald Wallace. M.Minutos inexplicably called him "Darryl" in the first half - he's been in the league for like 50 years, she's seen him play 170 games, at least, and there is a running joke about him in Casa Minutos from his Charlotte days because a Bobcat announcer once claimed after a concussion that he "wasn't himself." After he immediately badly missed a gyroscopic runner, M. and I both laughed: "He's really not himself - he's Antoine Walker!" It's impossible that she could forget his name. "I don't know what happened," she admitted. In any case, he can't guard KJ James - nobody can - and that is how Miami won the title last year: they put KJ in the midpost and let him work. He rarely does it in the regular season - no need to - but he broke her out tonight for a few minutes, just started'er up, make sure she still runs. Guess what? She does! Talent.
4) Mario Chalmers' Twitter Corner: "Had a great time ridding bikes wit the critical Miami crew. Ima try t b there every time from now on. A lot of fun plus good workout." A lot of Heat players, including Dwyane, KJ, and Emcee Chalmers, participated in a 20 mile charity bike ride yesterday. Dwyane, yes, I can see that. KJ - I was surprised a year ago when he rode his bike to The Trip for a game (couldn't believe he knew how to get to The Trip; couldn't believe he knew how to ride a bike; couldn't believe he knew about bikes!) - but since then he does seem to be an avid biker. He has his own charity bike ride, as a matter of fact. But Almario Vernard Chalmers? Are you kidding me? I mean, I know he's an NBA point guard and all, but he doesn't seem remotely athletic enough to ride a bicycle. Things like speed, strength, and balance are not amongst his fortes. Especially balance - have you seen him throw an alley-oop pass? He seems like he's throwing it standing in a rowboat in rough seas! Plus, I can't imagine him maintaining focus for 20 miles - the odds that at some point he would get distracted and careen into Biscayne Bay were significant. Glad you're okay, Emcee! He had a fairly active 18 minutes tonight: 7 points, 6 rebounds, 3 steals, but also 3 turnovers, plus one fastbreak where he was ahead of Deron Williams but somehow lost the ball backwards into another New Jersey player's knees. In the second half Spo went primarily with Norris Cole, because he is better on the ball defensively. He's the polar opposite of the sleepy-eyed, slow-footed Chalmers - Norris is pell mell, all day, every day - that's how he plays: pell mell!. Most of what the Nets run comes off of Deron Williams' dribble. Cole got into him a little, the bigs stepped out higher, and Williams played poorly after the break - Nets scored just 30 in the second half...By the way, isn't there any kind of charity event that involves dribbling along the baseline pointlessly and stepping out of bounds? Or fouling three point shooters? Charity bike ride - goodness gracious, Almario!
5) Nets guard Joe Johnson is a human dull fest. I mean, he is borrr-ing. I watched him play about, oh, six hundred games for the Atlanta Hawks, and every moment of every one of those games, except for when Mike Bibby could pry the ball out of his hands and make a spectacular Bibby-esque play, was boring. He is a nice player, he's big, he's pretty skilled, he's a pretty good shooter, and a fairly solid defender, but he doesn't do anything with explosiveness (explosivity?) - I'm not sure I've ever even seen him run. I certainly have never seen him change expression. His signature play is the famous "Iso Joe" offense, where he takes the ball out on the wing, and starts backing his defender down while the other 8 guys on the court stand there and watch. Ahhh - yawn. Excuse me, unprofessional on my part. Yawnnn. Sorry. He's good at it, he can usually create a decent shot, but you don't have to double him because he can't get to the rim, so essentially the game just grinds to a halt and everybody watches him work. Yawnnnnnn- oh, where was I? Oh - Joe Johnson, right...He's been doing it for 100 years, he's, ummm, yawnn, he's ummm, little, yawnnn, deliber-...ohhh, sorry, I mean, he.........zzzzzzzzzzz.........
6) Just had two Red Bulls, feeling better! Listen, I don't like to toot my own horn too often, I don't like to sing my own praises, I don't like to rep myself too hard, but tonight, man, tonight, I really did something special! I went to P.Minutos' keyboard, started messing around, and, I think, just wrote a classic. I call it "Christmas in Florida," and it was a jaunty, rag-time, two-step holiday feel-good number. Not too sure what "rag-time" or "two-step" mean in technical musical terms, by the way, but that's how I'd describe it. I don't have any formal keyboard training (or any musical training whatsoever), but you wouldn't have known it from this song. Basically, I played two notes about 2 or 3 keys apart with my left hand about a third of the way up the keyboard, and then with my right hand played one note bouncing along with the left hand notes, then shifted the left hand notes about two keys to the right, as I played the consecutive next two notes with my right hand upwards and then back down again. And then, as I got comfortable with the notes, I started varying up the rhythm a bit (while still respecting the general integrity of the song), and sticking in a double note with the right hand here and there. Bouncy, but also heartfelt at times. Oh, and I had the keyboard set on some weird organ sound. Theoretically, I am sure there is some way to transcribe this down onto paper in some kind of musical note format, but it doesn't seem like it's necessary, I think everyone out there can pretty much hear the song from the way I described it. By the way, there are no words. Don't need them, the music paints a perfect picture of Christmas in Florida all on its own. The boys, O. and P. Minutos, came running into the room to learn the song, but I didn't teach them - obviously that's taboo, a musician shouldn't share his music with other musicians. And when I went into the kitchen to tell M.Minutos "you have to admit, that was pretty great," even she didn't deny it (she didn't say much, but who are we kidding, she's not exactly Janis Joplin herself). I have to admit it, I'm as surprised as you all are that I simply sat down at a keyboard and wrote a holiday classic, but sometimes it's just like that. Talent.
-----
I actually don't know who the next game is against, but I know it is Tuesday. That Joe Johnson-induced slumber erased some short-term memory cells. Hold up...oh, Washington. If you need me before then, I'll be trying to re-create that keyboard magic - I'm starting to realize that "a third of the way up the keyboard" is a little bit imprecise, and kind of tough to duplicate. See you Tuesday, Narcoleptics!
----
