1) "Ok, guys, we're up 1 with 12 seconds to go and the Heat are gonna have the ball at midcourt after the referees called a phantom timeout to stop their fastbreak after the defensive stop they got on us. We've caught them on a rare low energy, poor-shooting night, we've clawed back from 20 down, and I'm tellin' you: we're about to break the longest streak in their franchise's history! How sweet it is! Orlando may be the armpit of Florida, but tonight is gonna be magical! Get it? Magical! Yeah, I said it! Listen, the ball's definitely coming into KJ James - I don't care about anything else on the court, just make sure that all five guys load up the paint against him. Let him shoot the jumper, make him pass it to someone else for a jumper - they haven't made a jumper in an hour. Whatever you do, don't get beat off the dribble from 22' feet away, let him thunder down the lane without any weakside help whatsoever, and lay the ball in the basket uncontested to win the game! Okay? 'Magic' on 3! One, two, three: Magic!!! ........................uh, oh." Streak lives. 16. Let it fly.
2) Play of the game: KJ James scored the last bucket to win it, but he mostly took the night off. He scored 26, but only had 3 rebounds and 2 assists - that was indicative of his low work rate (he's totally entitled, by the way). Really, the only guy who showed up to play ball tonight was Dwyane Wade, and he made the play of the game. With Orlando up 1 and 20 seconds to go, DeQuan Jones got middle for the Magic, elevated, and was going to try to flush Miami out of the game, when Dwyane Wade suddenly came flying in from the side and made a play I'm not sure I've ever really seen a dude make. He reached across Jones from behind with his left hand and got it on the ball as Jones was cocking it back, held it in place, and as Jones desperately ripped it loose and tried to force it to the rim, Wade, still hanging in the air (for what seemed like forever), swung hard with his right hand and re-tomahawked the ball out of bounds to deny the bucket. Orlando only had a couple of seconds left on the shot clock, missed a hurried shot badly, and Miami started out in transition before the referees bizarely called a timeout on their own, setting up KJ's winning drive. Just another huge game-changing block for the best shot-blocking guard the sport has ever seen. And just another great game from Dwyane, who is on a string of them right now - 24 points on 10-16 with 6 rebounds, 3 assists, 4 steals...and that block. If he plays like this in the playoffs, Miami will win the championship - you aren't going to beat a team with two guys playing at this high a level...
3) ...unless Chris Bosh continues to deteriorate. He has been utterly atrocious since the All-Star break, consistenly bad game after game. When Miami squeaked out an overtime win in Orlando on New Year's Eve, second year Magic center Nikola Vucevic brutalized Bosh for 20 points and 29 rebounds. Before tonight's game, Bosh smiled and vowed Vucevic would not get 29 boards in this one. And he didn't! Bosh 'held' him to 'only' 21 rebounds! He was true to his word! Vucevic also scored 25 on 11-16 from the floor. By the end, it got so bad that Coach Spo took Bosh off Vucevic and put 6'8" landlocked forward Shane Battier on him, which would have worked except for the fact that Bosh had to guard Magic small forward Tobias Harris, and Harris either beat him off the dribble, or screened for point guard Jameer Nelson, and forced Bosh to switch on to the much quicker guard. Let's just say it was fairly disastrous. But at least Chris also missed 10 of his wide open 15 shots, and had 4 turnovers, including one huge one late after an offensive rebound when he brought it down to waist-level and got it ripped out of his hands by the diminutive Nelson. One consolation: Bosh was also terrible down the stretch last year (looked completely exhausted, and the Heat finally shut him down with a couple of weeks to go in the season, citing some mystery leg ailment), then got hurt in the second round of the playoffs...then came back and was the best defensive player on the court in the Finals! This year, let's skip the injury and just go right to the part where he plays great defense.
4) Earlier this year, Dwyane Wade got suspended for one game for kind of "shinning" Ramon (Ramont) Sessions in the groin, which cost Dwyane about $200,000 in salary. In retrospect, it was not appropriate for Dwyane to do that, although he was being tackled by Sessions at the time, and he didn't do it hard. Sessions wasn't even hurt, he just got mad. A couple of days ago, Serge Ibaka punched Blake Griffin in the gonads, on purpose, hard enough to make Griffin writhe around on the floor for a while. Ibaka didn't get ejected or suspended, only fined $25,000. On a scale of 1-10, where 1 is "a light, accidental bump while standing in a packed subway car," and 10 is "my cousin M.P.Minutos kicking my other cousin Jo.Minutos in the scrotum as hard as he possibly can when we were all 10 years old, hard enough to make my cousin pee blood for a few days," then Dwyane's infraction was a 2.5, and Ibaka's was a solid 8. How Dwyane's trangression cost him 8x more than Ibaka's is another example of how poorly this league is managed, at times. But you know who put it best? Who does everything best these days? KJ James:
@KingJamesSo explain to me the difference? My teammate gets a 1 game suspension and 150k+ taking away from him for his groin altercation #strangetome
"Groin altercation!" Haaaa!!!
5) Let's keep it right on twitter for a minute for a battle royale: Dos Minutos reader, and astute basketball fan, Good Mourning Miami vs longtime Heat beat writer, and giant Heat fan, Ira Winderman. @IraHeatBeat banned @GoodMourningMIA on twitter recently for the following joke (as far as we can tell):
"@davehydesports: Who's the last superstar to mix fun and professionalism properly like LeBron is now?"
@GoodMourningMiami: Gotta be @IraHeatBeat
First of all: haaa!!! That makes me laugh every time I read it. Ira is like the biggest Heat fan ever, but he can be a tad overzealous in his stewardship of the team. He gets super-uptight and nervous about minor team issues. He's been furious for years that the Heat don't sign a third, veteran point guard like journeyman Earl Watson. Ira almost blew a gasket when the Heat re-signed Juwan Howard last week instead of tricking Utah into waiving Earl Watson, then signing him. He's definitely the biggest Earl Watson fan alive - if only we'd had Earl Watson last year, we might have won the championship…Also, this season, he's insanely mad that Mike Miller has been de-rotationed. The Heat are the reigning champions, have won 16 straight games, have the best player in basketball by a mile, and lead the league in three point shooting. Mike Miller has all the durability of tissue paper, and yet Ira thinks he should grind out 82 games worth of heavy minutes. Guess who I am pretty sure doesn't feel that way: everybody else on Earth, most of all Mike Miller, who looks pretty happy sitting over there on the bench cheering. His body is feeling better than it has in years, I'm guessing. Anyways, when you are #Champs, these are your biggest problems: fans banning other fans on twitter…
6) There is a new Superman re-make? What? There's only one real Superman:
"No, I don't wear tights, I wear the required uniform."
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Big one on Friday: going for 17 against Philly. Do it for Juwan! If you need me before then, I'll be in detention. Don't you forget about me!
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