6 Thoughts
1) Well, that got a little bit out of hand. Oh, no - not the score: the Bulls' emotional balance, and TNT announcer Steve Kerr! Jiminy Cricket, Bulls and Steve Kerr, act like you've been blown out before! Technicals, flagrants, ejections, announcers going on absolute tilt - this game had it all. I wore my new Mario Chalmers t-shirt...and Mario Chalmers instantly hit his first two triples: MARIO CHALMERS SHIRT POWER!!! MARIO CHALMERS SHIRT IS 1-0!!! Heat is back in this series! Let it fly!
2) Miami won this game because King James James (Hubieism) went to his playoff-tight-spot mode, which essentially boils down to "I do everything; everyone else try to do something." Also, because virtually every Bulls player got ejected. But mostly because of KJ. In Game 1, he spent three quarters trying to get everyone else involved, but their involvement was mostly turnovers and missed open shots. Tonight he lowered his head, thundered to the rim, and dared the Bulls to stop him: 6-6 for 12 points in the first quarter. For awhile, the Heat did leave him alone, but when Norris Cole drilled back-to-back triples to end the half, Miami led by 14. King James spent the third quarter picking the Bulls apart with drive-and-kicks, and one insane behind the back laser to Ray Allen for a layup-and-one. He didn't have to play the fourth quarter, and his numbers - 19 points, 9 assists, 5 rebounds, and 3 steals in only 32 minutes - don't even remotely describe how dominant he was. This was vintage KJ James.
3) The good, and the bad: Norris Cole was the second best player on the court tonight. Chalmers was good, too - scored 11 points with 2 triples, 4 assists, and 4 rebounds - but when Norris came in the game, his athleticism on both ends of the court helped Miami win the scrums they lost in Game 1, and helped force Nate Robinson into a 3-10, 4 turnover affair. That Norris knocked down shots - 4-4 triples and 18 points - was a bonus. He was great...On the other end, Dwyane Wade looked grouchy, gimpy, and his numbers wallpapered over how poorly he played. He did score 15 points on 7-11, but those were mostly runouts and backcuts where he got clean to the rim. I thought he was slow defensively, and did not change directions, or get off his feet, well. The first play of the game, he got a runout, Marco Bellinelli gave him a reasonably sharp whack from behind to stop the layup, and Dwyane wheeled around and threw the ball at him. He never looked like he felt good, and I kept waiting for him to punch someone in the mouth as the game got testier. Hopefully, he's not hurt as much as he is trying to get his legs back under him. We'll see.
4) Dwyane's technical for throwing the ball at Bellinelli was the start of all the extra-curricular activity. Later in the half, Bird Anderson checked in and instantly bodychecked Bellinelli into the crowd for a flagrant foul. Seemed dumb, but okay, he's the Birdman, who am I to argue? The Bulls responded with the obligatory "excessive reverse-shoulder pull-back" every time KJ went to the basket, which KJ tried to, literally and figuratively, shrug off. He knew they weren't going to be called flagrants, they weren't called flagrants, and instead they gave him a technical foul along with Noah on a play where he took exception to Noah smacking him well after the whistle had blown - I mean, welcome to KJ's life, that's S.O.P. up in this league for some reason. Bird was going at it with Joahomophobe Noah, he was going at it with Taj Gibson, and everyone else on the Bulls (not Boozer, he could care less), and finally Nate Robinson got a technical for arguing with him late in the third quarter. In the early fourth quarter, with the Heat's lead having ballooned to the mid 30s (Bulls already got one on the road - they gave it up early, that happens in every playoff series when a team gets the first one on the road), M.Minutos predicted, "there is no way Nate Robinson makes it through this quarter without getting ejected." Instead, instantly Taj Gibson caught a pass in the lane, clearly shuffled his feet, stepped to the rim, and took a reasonably hard foul. Referee Scott Foster, who called somewhere between 20 and 70 fouls in this game, as well as, I believe, all 9 technicals and the one flagrant, called a travel on Gibson. He acknowledged the foul, but showed Gibson, "hey, you walked first." Which he had. Next possession Gibson grabbed an offensive rebound, spun around, gathered, and Birdmanderson stood there measuring him, like, "is he really gonna try to flip it from there? Cuz if he does, I'm gonna swipe it out of the sky with a giant wing flap." Gibson did try, and Bird did crush it, the Heat ran out, and Ray Allen made a layup while getting fouled, which prompted Noah to leap off the bench and walk onto the court screaming at Foster - hard to know if he got ejected for a second technical, or instantly for walking on to the court hurling f-bombs! Meanwhile, Ray made the technical, and as they lined up for his and-one, I said to M.Minutos, "Gibson isn't gonna stop yapping at Foster till he gets t'd up," and he didn't, and Foster did, and then Gibson went mental, and tried to rush Foster, who instantly ejected him, while Gibson was screaming "F- you, motherf-er!" over and over. Umm, that's gonna be a fine for "failing to leave the court in a timely manner," you know that, right, Taj? Ray stood there and made, ohh, maybe 8 straight technical free throws - by the time the whole thing was over, the Heat led by somewhere in the mid-40s, and Ray ended up with 21 points on only 7 shots from the floor!
5) Only, it wasn't quite over, not yet. Because you know who went into NoahandGibsonesque tilt mode? TNT announcer, and former Chicago Bull, Steve Kerr! It was hilarious! He had already demanded that Mario Chalmers get fined in the third quarter for a play when he kind of grabbed Noah around the neck going over his illegal screen (it will never happen: MARIO CHALMERS SHIRT POWER!). I don't know if Kerr couldn't get a table at Prime Italian last night, or his pasty little booty got sunburned on South Beach, but, damnnn, was he ever aggravated by the Noah and Gibson ejections, claiming they were smart to get ejected: "there's no greater disrespect as a player than when you are already getting blown out and the officials blatantly miss a couple of calls," and then he bellyached about the Gibson walk, and claimed Bird's block should have been goaltending. Really, no greater disrespect? How about when the team trades you against your will to Cleveland or Detroit? How about when your franchise publicly leaks that you are totally all the way back from knee surgery and ready to play in games, without first asking you if it's okay to release that opinion? Nope! It's when you're getting blown out and a couple of meaningless calls go against you. First of all, the walk on Gibson was blatant - there was no arguing it. Second, the block by Bird looked fine - is it possible it was maybe on its way down when Bird slapped it? I guess it's possible - it certainly wasn't blatant, and it would have cut the lead to, like 35, with 10 minutes to go. So it didn't seem that important, except to Steve Kerr! In any case, Nazr Mohammed checked in for the ejected Gibson and instantly committed three aggressive fouls on the same possession: shoved Wade to the floor and stood over him; shoved Bird down on a rebound; went up high late on a Bird drive. The refs, I guess trying to calm the situation down, didn't call any of them flagrants, although they all probably were by the standard they had set, and Steve Kerr spent the rest of the game defiantly pointing out over and over that getting blown out doesn't mean anything to the Bulls, and they already did what they had to do by winning Game 1. All of which is true: we got it, Steve Kerr, we know those things! It is really rare to see an announcer - especially a national announcer, not one of the team's announcers - come unraveled like that! So awesome! This series is going to be a war...with Steve Kerr!!!
6) Let's talk about clapping. It's an important topic; not too many people do it correctly, or have the guts to bring it up in a public forum like this. Last night I was at an elementary school awards banquet for one of my sons. There were a ton of awards given out, and every time a kid went up to receive his award, of course, we all had to clap. That's fine - we all understand that's part of the charade of making kids feel like life is going to work out for them. But let's set some basic boundaries. And by "set some basic boundaries," I mean, of course, "everyone should do exactly what I do." I give four solid claps, in measured succession. Like this: "Clap-Clap-Clap-Clap." Then I stop. It's a fairly loud clap because I am a powerful man, so it contributes in an appropriate way to the noise level of the cheering. But it doesn't overdo it. Four claps is the perfect number. Any fewer than four, and you're half-assing it. More than four and you're pandering: "look at me and my clapping!" And if you vary your claps in number, or volume, or cadence, that's terrible, that's the worst thing you can do, that's chaos-theory at work, that's the kind of thing that brings society to its knees. Did you ever see the movie "28 Days Later," in which crazy, rage-filled zombies in England try to murder Cillian Murphy and Naomie Harris, and everyone else in the country? That's the kind of unbalanced, chaotic society that unstructured clapping can create. Don't do it. Think about your clapping.
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Well, the series shifts to Chicago for Game 3 on Friday. If you need me before then, I will be wearing my Mario Chalmers shirt (MARIO CHALMERS SHIRT POWER), and buying Steve Kerr tampons, just in case he's still, you know, 'bout that time on Friday. See you then!
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