1) One of the best things about this Heat team: they never think they are going to lose a game. For three and a half quarters, this can be maddening when they don't defend quite as conscientiously as they should, or box out rebounders, or they commit loose turnovers, or take bad shots. But when they're down 6 with two minutes to go, like tonight, some teams would pack their tents - not Miami. They seem to focus more - KJ James gets to the rim, or finds a shooter for a triple, or Bosh makes a jumpshot, or Ray Allen deflects a pass, and they somehow win. Sometimes I think they are going to lose; but they never think they are going to lose. Someone always makes a play...
2)...and tonight it was Dwyane Wade - twice. With under a minute to go, and Dallas up 3 with the ball, Dirk Nowitzki was trying to back down KJ James when Dwyane Wade snuck in from behind, ripped the ball out of his hands, got out in transition, and dropped a pass on Ray Allen for a layup to cut the lead to 1. In overtime (after a late 4q Battier triple got Miami to ot, and an early ot Battier triple gave them the lead - his only two buckets), with the Mavs down 5 and needing a hoop to stay in it, Vince Carter went down in the corner, then tried to throw an overhand baseball pass back up to the top of the key for an open triple...except Wade saw the pass coming, rotated justintime, tipped the ball back upcourt, chased it down, and slammed for a 7 point lead: ballgame! Second straight game he won with steals - as much as KJ is the rock (32 pts, 12 rebs, 9 asst - are you serious with this kid?), Dwyane often makes the most dramatic plays, at both ends. He looked bouncy all night: 10 rebounds to go with his 27 points, 2 blocks, and the two game-winning steals. He's kind of looking a lot like Dwyane Wade right now.
3) Guess which NBA player played in the most games during the calendar year 2012? Here's a hint: he's also People Magazine's Sexiest Man Alive from Alaska (second pace: Levi Johnston; third place: nobody, ever). That's right: Almario Vernard Chalmers! Emcee played in 112 games - according to Heat beat writer Tim Reynolds, that's an all-time record. Kids, take note: you can't get injured and miss games if you don't run or jump!...Rio also set the record for "Most Errant Alley-oop Passes Thrown in a Calendar Year" with "how many did he try? - that many." He was able to complete a simple little transition pass to KJ James for a third quarter layup, and Heat broadcaster Tony Fiorentino chortled, "it may look easy to throw a fastbreak pass to KJ James, but it's not." Actually, it kind of is easy but, you know, whatever.
4) Dallas' two biggest strengths: one, fouling. Chris Kaman is like a lumberjack combined with a defensive tackle in the middle for Dallas - he committed 5 (called) rough fouls in 28 minutes. That's solid fouling production right there, but a lot of teams might fall off, foul-wise, when they go their bench. Not Dallas because they kept replacing Kaman with Elton Brand. Brand is like a FedEx mailbox nailed to the painted area on the floor, except if the FedEx mailbox had two tree trunks it could swing around to whack people with. Jesus-to-Betsy is he an awful basketball player. He tacked on 3 more almost-over-the-line fouls in 17 minutes, giving Dallas' two bigs 8 for the night. Strength # 2: calling timeouts. Every time Miami scored two hoops in a row, Dallas coach Rick Carlisle called a timeout to slow their roll - I don't know how many timeouts they started the game with, but through 3 quarters, they had already called 14, by my count, and ran out before the final minute of the game. At one point they called a timeout, the camera swung on to an afro'ed Drake sitting next to the Heat bench, and I'm positive I saw him mutter, "Man, how many timeouts do they get?" By the way, after the game, big hug between Drake and de-rotationed Heat forward Rashard Lewis. That makes total sense.
5) Look: It's O.Minutos with Miami Heat play-by-play broadcaster Eric Reid!
What the? I had no idea that my son O.Minutos and Eric Reid were friends, O.Minutos never said a word to me about it! This is bananas!...just kidding - saw Mr. Reid at a Florida Atlantic University basketball game New Years Day (Greg Gantt, boy!). He couldn't have been nicer to O.Minutos, shook his hand, gave him a few kind words of advice ("kid, always close out on shooters under control"), and showed off his championship ring. And, yes, O.Minutos watches a ton of Heat basketball, he absolutely knew who Eric Reid was, though he was disappointed that Jax was not there. Eric did not accommodate my request to "give us one 'kaboom-town,'" but I can confirm that he was very fit-looking and handsome in person. I actually thought he was a shade less fit and handsome than Memphis Grizzlies announcer Pete Pranica but, frankly, who isn't?
6) So at Dos Minutos International Headquarters, part of our office is a store-front in an outside mall - The Captain and I can both see the street from our work quarters, and in front of our office we have a sign hanging down. All the store fronts do, you know, like a sign with the name right on it: "Dos Minutos Int'l HQs." Eye-catching, we get a lot of walk-in traffic for the blog from that sign. So today, we are sitting there, and some teenager comes walking by wearing a bright green Rajon Rondo jersey. As I gasped in horror, just from seeing the shirt, the kid walks up to the Dos M. sign hanging down, and whacks it, causing it to swing violently on its chains - the exact same thing the real Raon Rondo would have done if he were outside on our sidewalk! Sacre Bleu! So I'm like, "Call the cops, call the cops!" I didn't know what the kid was going to do - he was wearing a Rajon Rondo jersey, for goodness sake, his judgement is totally impaired, obviously. But The Captain goes running out the door, and he says to the kid, "Hey - that's our sign," and the kid is like, "who are you, the sign police?" and The Captain is like,"No - I'm The Captain." And the kid pauses, and then he looks up at the sign, and then at The Captain, and then up at the sign again, which had finally stopped swinging back and forth. Then he smirks at The Captain with a degree of derision I've rarely seen on a human face (save for Russell Westbrook's), winds up, whacks the sign again, and runs away, but not before he looks back and calls out over his shoulder "hashtag: doucheball!" First Kevin Garnett invades O.Minutos' dreams, and now Rajon Rondo is haunting my office. Wow - Happy New Year to us at Dos Minutos!
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The next game is Friday against the Chicago Bulls. I may miss all or part of that game - not sure. If there's no blog Saturday, I'm sure everyone will live. Heading out of town for a few days with O.Minutos and Eric Reid - going to Talladega to watch the big race. Snets has always done a great job filling in in the past, but I know it's a pain to do, so I'm not gonna ask him - you're off the hook, Snets. I'll definitely be back for Sunday against Washington, so you'll hear from me at some point this weekend. If you need me before then, I'll be working on the 16 bars I'm getting on the first single from the upcoming Drake-Rashard Lewis cd "Watch the Throne...From the Bench!" Drizzy, up in this place, was' hahennin'?!!!
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