6 Thoughts
1) Out: KJ James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, and Udonis Haslem (all: preventative maintenance). That's eighty percent of the starting lineup. In: a surprise win, all sorts of records, turnovers, and, best of all, a whole lot of letting-it-flyness! Yeahhh, Ray Allen, it's all 2002 up in here! Let it fly!
2) Things accomplished in this game: Miami secured the #1 seed throughout the playoffs (and the players split about a $700,000 bonus for winning the East, and the entire NBA regular season). It's now the single most wins - 62 - in a season in franchise history (with 4 games to go). They are a positively absurd 14-1 on the second night of back-to-backs. Finally, most historically, for the first time in NBA history, a team starting Joel Anthony, Mario "Emcee" Chalmers, Shane Battier, Rashard Lewis, and (of course) Mike Miller, won a basketball game! And the Wizards aren't even that bad at home - had won 9 straight there before tonight! Man, this year even these games down the stretch that are normally drudgery are super-fun!
3) Not only that, but the Heat set a team record for the most three pointers ever attempted in a game: 41. Either one of the shooters jacked a long one over the top (that's what she said), or they turned it over. The first quarter was a microcosm of the game, it was bomb or bust for the Heat: it took 90 seconds for Mil-lar to make his first two threes, but then Mario Chalmers had series of mind-bogging turnovers culminating in a play when he drove down the left side of the lane, started stumbling, couldn't regain his balance, and tumbled headlong over the baseline with the ball, crashing into photographers row. Five triples and eleven turnovers in the quarter for the Heat. Still, the starters shot it exceptionally well from deep: Lewis was 3-8, Chalmers was 3-7, Miller was 4-6, and Battier was 5-8. That's 15-29 from your starting group. The three ball won the game.
4) I mean, the three ball...and Walter Ray Allen! Walt was the one guy who couldn't get his triple going tonight (1-7). So he decided to live in the paint. Had a tomahawk dunk on a clean drive down the middle shortly after entering the game, and never stopped attacking the rim. It was slow, it was a little awkward, but it was effective. He kept finding little creases, slipping through them, and then would flip the ball up into the hoop, like, under the rotating big's armpit. With about 4 minutes to go, he posted up on the block, lifted uber-athletic Wizard guard John Wall with an okey-doke, and banged in the layup through the hit for the and-1 to put the Heat up 4, then after a stop, came back down the court and drilled his only homerun: Heat by 7, ballgame. Ray finished with 23 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists, and 3 steals, and steadied the offense down the stretch (only 1 turnover). He beamed with pride after the game during his visit to Jax's winner's circle: "This was a good win, but the fun stuff is still to come...unlike when I was in Boston, and the beginning of playoffs felt like an absolute death sentence because it meant two more months in close quarters with social deviants Rajon Rondo and Kevin Garnett, whose goal in the playoffs wasn't so much to win a championship as it was to destroy peoples' lives, and to, over those two months, make as many human beings as miserable as possible." Well said, I couldn't have stated it any better myself...
5) You know what call that referees can not handle this year? The continuation play. Some things they have down. Hammering KJ James on the way to the rim, the refs have a handle on that: never a foul. Also, Ed Malloy called back-to-back carries on John Wall tonight, so that was great, that's what we all want to see, Ed Malloy calling pointless carries in a meaningless game in mid-April. So he's on top of that. But there was supposed to be a new emphasis on not awarding free throws to, or counting baskets for, offensive players who initiate contact following an okey-doke, or just in general initiate contact before intending to shoot - and it's wayyy too hard for the refs, they can not be consistent with it at all. Over and over I have been surprised this season at what gets shots and what doesn't. You can never settle in because it changes from night to night. Last night, KJ James thundered out in transition one-on-one with (I think) Mike Dunleavy. Some pointless Bucks player. KJ anticipated that he was going to get hammered. How did he know? Because he always gets hammered! So Dunleavy, smartly, stepped out to foul him a step early, and KJ elevated a step early, took the blow, and banked the ball in. The closest referee called a foul, and immediately indicated a three point play. But Miami's own John Gobel (traitor) came freight-training across the lane to try to wave the hoop off, implying that James only shot the ball because he knew contact was coming. Ummm, duh? In past years, that play was fine, that would always count, but this year about half the time it gets called the way Gobel wanted to call it, no bucket (he lost the argument last night: hoop stood)...Case in point: tonight in the third quarter, Shane Battier caught a pass behind the three point line, lifted his guy with a fake, took a dribble towards the basket, saw the guy about to land on him, elevated, took the hit, and banked in his runner. Instantly the ref waived it off, and Battier didn't get his basket. Look, this rule is way too "intent-y" for these refs to call correctly - they are having to guess whether the player was planning to shoot before he lifted his guy and took the blow, and they can't apply a consistent standard to it, and it's frustrating to players and fans. It's impossible to judge the player's intent, and it's dumb anyways: who cares? If the guy is shooting the ball from a legitimate spot on the floor, like anywhere inside of 25 feet, and it goes in as he gets fouled, just count it. We all like to see baskets. In fact, scoring baskets is the whole point of basketball! Ed Malloy doesn't want to call a basket that went in because he is too busy calling palming violations 27 feet from the rim. I see, that makes total sense. This rule needs to go back to how it was being called every other season for the past fifty years.
6) You know what is an absolutely delicious (and severely underrated) treat? Italian ice. Those Italians are genius. It's not just the flavor of Italian ice that is so enchanting, it's also the texture of the ice, that shaved, smooth texture that lends itself so perfectly to being scooped up in thin, delectable slivers with a small, flat wooden spoon. I know that they have machines that make it now, but back in the day, how did Italians make ice into that texture? How did they even imagine that texture at all? You can see what happened when white(r) people tried to duplicate Italian ice - we got snow cones. Snow cones are aiiigght, but they aren't as good as Italian ice. Too granular. That happens a lot when very white people try to co-opt great inventions, we end up with an inferior product. Except for rock and roll. A lot of people say, "oh, white people stole rock and roll from black people." You know what I say to that? Thank God! Have you ever listened to Chuck Berry and thought to yourself, "oh, this is tremendous, I could listen to this all day!" No, you haven't - no one has ever thought that to themselves, at least not since 1958! But Arctic Monkeys and Phoenix, just to name two very white bands, are the bees' knees. You know who was a great black rock and roll dude? Prince. You know what else? Half-white! The end...Holy Toledo, that really spiraled out of control quickly...
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Our next game is Friday against Boston. Listen, we'd be better off tanking that game to keep Boston out of the 8th seed but, frankly, we tried to tank tonight's game and we still won! If you need me before then, I'll be on Coney Island, in a white Nissan Sentra, slurping that authentic, New York, old school Italian ice. Arrivederci, paisans!
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