6 Thoughts
1) Whiteout...WHIIIIITTTEEEEOUUUUTTTTTT!!! The Timberwolves came to town rocking an all-white starting lineup: Luke Ridnour, Kevin Love, Andrei Kirilenko, Alexey Shved, and Nikola Pekovic! And they came off the bench with J.J. Juan Barea (Hube-ism), and Louis Amundson. Also, Derrick Williams, the rare black dude from Arizona! AND RICKY RUBIO IS HURT!!! (more on that in #4) Holy whiteness - this is definitely Mitt Romney's favorite team! This game was close for 3 quarters, then early in the fourth Miami pushed out a little, then went Battier triple-Walter Ray Allen triple-Battier triple for a 19 point lead with 7 minutes to go: ballgame. Let's go, let's white this place out, let's fly that white flag high and proud! Tally ho!!!
2) What an interesting game (even besides the whiteness) - one of the most entertaining of the year. Minnesota turned the area in front of their offensive basket into a 1990 Pearl Jam mosh pit - Love, Pekovic, and Kirilenko threw bodies all over the place and dominated the three foot radius around the rim. How bad was it? On one possession, Kevin Love, who is either "crafty and physical" or "over the line and dirty" depending on which team you root for (and whether or not you are white!), locked Shane Battier's elbow under his armpit, stuck his foot out, and pulled Battier over it to the ground! Twice! Somehow: no foul! Rare to see Battioke mad, but he was fuming. Minnesota killed Miami on the glass: 53 rebounds to 24! Holy blizzard of white power, that was like the Third Reich up in The Trip. With 5 minutes to go in the third quarter, Miami only had 11 rebounds for the game, Minnesota had 33 - but the Heat led by 8! At the end of three quarters, Love had 14 rebounds and the Heat had 14 rebounds! At one point Love was getting so many rebounds, on his own defensive end he just tipped a rebound right back into the Heat's basket - two points for Miami! Hey, whatever it take for him to pad those numbers! Need I continue? How did the Heat win? By dominating every other area of the floor! Down on the Heat's offensive end, Minnesota made the curious decision to put 170 pound beanpole rookie Shved on Wade, didn't give him any help, and Wade tore him apart down on the block. Posted him up over and over for buckets and fouls. Wade scored 24 in only 27 minutes - didn't have to play the fourth after Miami blew Minnesota out. KJ James was everywhere: 22 points (on 8-18, +50% streak is over at 10), 11 assists, 7 rebounds, 4 blocks, a steal, and no turnovers. Though Miami got hammered on the boards, they outshot the Wolves on triples (13-25 to 4-17); outblocked them 14 to 1 (Wade blocked a Love dunk and a Pekovic jump hook); and out-stole them 12-5 (it would be totally racist to point out the white guys stunk at stealing stuff). They out-assisted Minnesota 25-17, and turned it over only 8 times (Minnesota 19). Size matters, but sometimes how you shake it is everything...
3) Using its power underneath, Minnesota jumped out to an early lead, getting up 9 a couple of different times. Then you know who changed that flow up? Norris Cole, by getting into J.J. Juan Barea's shirt, then in his face, then in his head, and staying there. Barea, who would have tormented the Heat in the 2011 Finals with Dallas, had that series actually ever happened, is a little man with a big ego, and a hot temper. But he's not as quick as Norris Cole, and he's not as strong as Norris Cole, and Norris made him lose his cool - Spo pretty much spotted Cole minute for minute with Barea, who comes off Minnesota's bench to be their offensive sparkplug. It wasn't just that Cole made Barea shoot 3-9 from the floor with 3 turnovers (while scoring 8 points himself with 4 dimes, 2 steals and 2 blocks) - he made him lose his composure. Barea felt challenged, kept breaking the offense to go one-on-one with Norris, but couldn't beat him off the dribble, creating bad possession after bad possession for the T-Wolves offensively. At one point he got locked up, swung an elbow at Norris, then bitched at a ref, who could only shrug at him. Later, he got tangled up with Ray Allen, took a cheap shot at Ray, then bitched some more. Barea makes his living getting into other player's heads - tonight Norris Cole got into his. It was fitting that in the game's waning moments, Barea drove baseline to try to tack on a garbage bucket, and Cole slapped his shot back into his face, then scored a three point play at the other end when Barea tried to tackle him on a layup, but couldn't stop him! Too strong, giddyup, Norris, pell mell, all day, all night longgg! So good! It was also a good night for Mario Chalmers - he made 4-6 triples - so the Heat's point guards, not always a, ummm, strength, were dynamic.
4) Well, two guys missed the game for the Timberwolves, and they are polar opposites. Ricky Rubio, the Wolves flashy young point guard, and a super-nice kid, missed the game while recovering from knee surgery that he faked last season so that, this season, when the Wolves came to Florida and played Orlando on Monday night, he would have a plausible excuse to skip the second game of the back-to-back, claiming he was bringing his knee along slowly, when we all know he had Chalmeritis. Listen, rook -- if you're scared, say you're scared. You don't have to put your body through the trauma of an unnecessary knee surgery just to avoid Emcee Chalmers dropping four triples on your cabeza - stand up and take it like a man next time, we'll all respect you a little more...Speaking of knees, the incredibly detestable and despicable Brandon Roy also missed the game. Listen, this ungrateful, nasty human being retired a few season ago because he was playing at the level of a junior high schooler because both his knees are essentially made out of spaghetti. And by the way, when he was going out there night after night stinking the joint out (but still refusing to pass the ball), no one enjoyed it more than me. I hate that dude. So he sits out a couple of years, then gets a serious, serious case of Allan Houston Syndrome. The former Knicks guard, who is like 50 now, feels like he was forced to retire too early due to bad knees, doesn't play for a while, his knees feel better, then he announces a comeback, practices for 20 minutes, his knees start to kill again, then he re-retires. This is exactly what Brandon Roy did - except he got a team to guarantee him five million dollars for the season, came back for 5 games, crapped the bed up (5 ppg on 31% shooting - again, I loved this!), his knees hurt, he went to the doctor, the doctor is like "what the hell do you expect, you have the knees of Dick Chaney, and you need to be scoped," he got scoped, called a press conference, and everyone is like "surely he'll retire now," and he announces at the press conference that he feels great and will be back. Oh. My. Goodness. This kid has no sense of pride, or even basic human dignity. He is stealing money, straight up. And, no, I don't think I am taking this too far - you do realize he once tried to start a fight with Connecticut's Rudy Gay in 2006, when they were both in college, at an NCAA tournament game in Washington, D.C. that I attended, right? How could I possibly be taking this too far?
5) It's over, it's soooo over, and we have an upset winner in Hot Seconds with Jax: Jorts! Josh Harrellson did it, he swept in and stole Walter Ray Allen's title on the last night! Nooooo! I can't say he didn't earn it - he nailed all 10 points. He knew Regis was Kelly Ripa's previous co-host, that's a layup. But he was smart enough to sub his three point question when he didn't know the answer (Kentucky ballplayer also drafted by the Dallas Cowboys: my dad, Pat Riley!), and then knew the replacement question, that Eddie Sutton preceded Rick Pitino as Kentucky coach (current Kentucky coach: Satan), and he nailed 5 out of the 8 years that Kentucky won the national title. That was impressive, I doubt a lot of ex-Kentucky guys could have done that. Certainly not Antoine Walker. Rashard Lewis had a shot earlier in the night - much like his defense and rebounding, he didn't give it much of an effort. Defending champion KJ James had the last shot at it, in the postgame, and pulled out the first two answers: Oxford is not in London (!), and Tim Duncan was the last player before KJ to have a triple double in a Finals closeout game (Jax cheated by telling KJ the year). But he didn't know the 4 other guys besides himself who averaged a 25-7-7 for a season. He got himself, Jordan, and Oscar Robertson, but didn't get Havlicek or Bird. Ahhhh - he was a proud champion, he left it all out there in Jax's living room. Overall a great season of Hot Seconds, it went right down to the last night, which is all we can ask. So good, even considering the odd stylistic choice that Jax made to run his audio through some kind of wind tunnel sound effect for the entire season. It makes the rest of the Heat schedule a little anti-climatic, frankly. Coming up soon, I would imagine, is the media version of Hot Seconds with Jax. Heat sideline reporter Johanna Gomez will obviously be a heavy favorite in that competition, she is clearly the smartest member of the Heat media, which is why I am such a big fan. What? I mean, yeah, now that you mention it, I guess she is kind of cute, never really thought about it before, mostly just marveled at her superior basketball knowledge and interviewing skills. Let's go, JoGo!!!
6) I'm from Connecticut; let's do some living, after we die.
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Next game is Thursday in Dallas! I love Dallas, Mark Cuban is so cool, for an overweight, putzy loudmouth. If you need me before then, I'll be doing what I do - white-ing it up! See you Thursday!
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