1) Hey, America, guess what the Miami Heat got you for Christmas? A stocking full of KJ James!!! And as a bonus, we did your post-holiday cleanup for you, we left the incredibly Grinch-like Russell Westbrook on the side of the road like a used-up, dying Christmas tree!!! You're welcome!!! Oh, one more thing: WE'RE STILL THE CHAMPS!!! Santa, we're gonna need that sled, we're gonna need it tonight to: LET IT FLY!!!
2) One is the best player on Earth, the reigning regular-season and Finals MVP, was the best player on the Olympic gold medal winning basketball team, and has a hairline that is receding back faster than Nike can manufacture wider headbands to cover his forehead. The other is the second best player on Earth, lost in the Finals when he got (slightly) outplayed by the first gentleman, was the second best player on the Olympic team that won the gold, and his hair is thinning out all over - it's not receding from the front to the back, it's patchy all over the top. KJ James meet KD Durant (and Hubie was doing the game on ABC)! Oh yeah, one more thing: somehow Durant is the presumptive MVP this season, despite the fact that KJ is just a little bit better. Their teams have similar records (Heat 19-6; Thunder 21-6), their numbers are equally outrageous (KJ gets more assists, KD scores a touch more - both are incredibly efficient), and they both have very good supporting casts, which is why they met in the Finals last year. If you need to decide who the better player is, who the actual most valuable basketball player in the NBA is, let's just call all that stuff a wash - and then understand that KJ is the best wing defender in the league, and Durant is, actually, a very decent defender...but not in KJ's league. Today went the way of a lot of their matchups. Both had terrific games. KJ scored 29 points on 12-20 from the floor, with 9 assists, 8 rebounds, a steal, and a block. Durant (with KJ guarding him much of the time), scored 33 points on 11-21, with 7 rebounds, and 3 assists (no steals or blocks). But, the two biggest possessions of the game illustrated the primary difference between the two. With 44 seconds to go, and the Heat holding a one point lead with the ball, KJ and Wade ran a little handoff on the left wing, and Durant and Westbrook switched men - Westbrook took KJ, and Durant took Wade. With the shot clock starting to run down, and KJ iso'd against Westbrook, OKC sent Kendrick Perkins off of Bosh, across the lane, to try to prevent James from driving on Westbrook (who despite all his athleticism, is not a great on the ball defender). Wade jogged a slow cut down the opposite lane, as Durant sort of faded away with him. First of all, Durant doesn't have to take that switch - neither KJ nor Wade is going to rise up and fire a jumper off the initial action (and if they did, that's great for OKC), Durant has plenty of time to reposition himself on James. Secondly, as Durant wandered down through the lane, and Perkins left Bosh, Bosh stepped right to the front of the rim. Technically, it probably wasn't Durant's responsibility to help on that play, but he was the Thunderbolt in the best position to bust up Bosh's cut. But he didn't, he didn't seem to sense it coming, and he kind of screened his own teammate, Kevin Martin, and as KJ threw a bullet to Bosh neither Durant nor Martin reacted, and Bosh dunked for a three point lead. On OKC's last possession down three, Durant caught the ball high and started to drive, but KJ walled him off - there was enough time for OKC to try to get a two and foul. After KJ stopped that action, KD stepped back behind the three point line, tried to lift KJ with a fake, couldn't, then leaned back for a triple with KJ chest-to-chest with him, thisclose. It was fantastic defense by KJ - he didn't let Durant get to the rim and made the three as difficult as humanly possible against such a freaky-good scorer. The shot was well off, and we'll cover what happened next, to all decent human beings' delight, down in #5. Listen, the reality is that Kevin Durant is probably going to win the MVP this season. People get tired of voting for the best player. Fine, we all get it. But just know that on the biggest possessions of the biggest games, Miami can put its defensive fate in KJ's hands, and know that they can't do any better than that. It's not always going to work, but it's going to work better than anything else anyone else has. OKC doesn't have the same luxury - Durant's not in KJ's class in that regard. That's no knock on KD - people always want to take stuff like that as criticism - being not quite as good as one of the best players in the history of basketball isn't exactly an insult...
3) All Almario Vernard Chalmers do is make big shots and beat the Oklahoma City Thunder. I mean, that's really all he do. There's plenty he don't do, but what he do do is what he do, and that's make bombs and beat OKC: 20 for Emcee on 8-11 (4-8 triples), including 5 quick points halfway through the fourth quarter to give Miami a 7 point lead, the last three when Walter Ray Allen got caught up in the air around the free throw line, flipped the ball to an empty space out towards the right wing, everyone assumed it was going out of bounds, Emcee (slowly) tracked it down and then decided, "well, I'm out here with the ball, everyone else stopped, and all I do is make triples to beat the OKC Thunder, so I might as well rip this baby through the net," which he did...Do you see what I am saying yet? That is what he do! Oh - and he also threw one insane fourth quarter alley-oop pass to Wade in early halfcourt offense for a big bucket, but that was mostly because Russell Westbrook was unconscious! Who couldn't have done that!!!
4) You know how when a lot of calls are going against you, and the coach (in this case Spo) is like, "don't let it get to you, it will even out," but it doesn't feel like it is evening out, and you are at home, and you have two of the most aggressive rim-attackers in basketball in Wade and James, and you are the defending champs, and then it's halftime and the other team has shot 19 free throws, and you've shot 2? You know that feeling? And you are sure it will even out in the second half, and you keep grinding, and staying in the game, but calls still seem not to be evening out and it gets to the point where you go to the basket and feel like you get body checked every time, but there's no call (welcome to KJ James' life), then there is a brush foul called on the ensuing possession on your end, and you're already in the penalty so it's two free throws for the other team, which is like only the best free throw shooting team in the history of NBA or something, and every time this happens everyone on your team can't not let it get to them, and everyone goes ballistic on every whistle, and even your coach is now going mental? And you look up with 3 minutes to go, and the free throws are 36-14 against you, even though one of the referees, John Goble, was Udonis Haslem's high school teammate? Do you know that feeling? How does that feel? Pretty terrible, right? Except, you know what? You know why you hang in there? Because with just over two minutes to go, and the Heat leading by 4, the intensely unlikable Russell Westbrook might come flying down the court in transition, with only little, old Ray Allen back to guard the rim, and Ray is giving ground, hoping he doesn't get killed, and when he can back up no further he comes to a polite stop just above the no-charge area, and then, anticipating contact, kind of turns sideways and leans out just as Westbrook is bulleting past him for a layup, and there is a huge collision, and it is the easiest blocking call in the history of the NBA, and Westbrook will make two free throws to cut the lead in half...except somehow the referee calls it a charge, and Miami keeps it four point lead, and gets the ball? You know what I say to that? Nobody likes Russell Westbrook, not even referees!!! Also, I say: how do you like it, OKC? Doesn't feel good, does it? No, it does not. Idea: in the future, if you're a ref, just call the game kind of even the whole night, that way you won't have to try to even it up with a brutal call or two down the stretch. Just an idea.
5) Ahhh. we're feeling giddy, let's just keep picking on Russell Westbrook. He did score 21 points, but it took him an inefficient 19 shots to do (5-19). He helped out on the boards with 11 - he rebounds like Dwyane Wade used to! - but he didn't exactly excel at making plays for others, even though Christmas is supposed to be all about giving, only 3 assists, and 5 costly turnovers. He also took what I would term a "medium-hard" foul from Shane Battier, and freaked out, trying to start a fight by rushing back at Battier, who laughed it off ("I didn't take offense at him taking offense," Battier chuckled after the game). Finally, on the last play of the game, after Durant missed the triple with KJ James thisclose to him, OKC got the rebound out to Westbrook, who had a clean look at a three, and instead of simply trying to make it, as he elevated he karate-kicked a closing-out Dwyane Wade in the stomach, sending Wade to the floor in pain, causing the shot to be way off, and resulting in Westbrook falling over, since it is hard to shoot a three and karate kick a dude and keep your balance at the same time (side note: two of the biggest plays of last year's Finals were late-game Dwyane Wade blocks of OKC three pointers - think maybe Westbrook had that tucked away somewhere in his mind? That's a trick question, the answer is no, he's not capable of that advanced a form of cognitive reasoning). It should have been an offensive foul on Westbrook but, of course, on par with the entire night, it wasn't called. Bosh rebounded the ball and was fouled, and for some reason Westbrook got up off the floor, screamed in the referee's face, and then slammed his fist into the scorer's table in a tantrum not unlike the ones undoubtedly thrown all over the world this evening by six year olds suffering from post-Christmas Day letdown. Bizarre play, bizarre reaction, bizarre kid. Westbrook got t'd up, Miami made all three free throws, and the Heat saved Christmas! And to all a good night!
6) Just because, from this month's GQ magazine:
Why am I constantly not surprised that this kid can not dress? Trying sooo hard to be Dwyane Wade, but this is: not. quite. it...Enjoy the long Christmas flight home to Texas, or wherever Oklahoma City is! See you in the Finals!!!
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Next game is tomorrow, ugh, in Charlotte. If anything, that game should be even more exciting than this one, and by "even more exciting," I mean, "it is potentially the most boring night in all of our lives - even going clubbing in downtown Oklahoma City with Russell Westbrook would be more fun." If you need me before then, I'll be shopping for powder-blue leisure suits. Happy Christmas to everyone except Russell Westbrook, Rajon Rondo, and Derrick Rose!
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