2012 NBA Finals - Oklahoma City-Miami, Game 4

WARNING: This post is more rant than news article.

Miami takes advatage of OKC mistakes, grabs commanding 3-1 series lead

   With the Miami Heat up two games to one on the Oklahoma City Thunder, Tuesday night's Game 4 at the American Airlines Arena had the feeling of being a critical turning point. Miami, hoping to avoid a Game 4 loss like last year's implosion in the Finals to Dallas, and OKC, trying to claw their way back into the series with a win.

   The National Anthem was again sung by an eleven year old named Julia Dale, it was sung extremely powerfully, kind of amazing to see that big a voice come out of someobdy so small.

   It was also kind of amazing the way the game started. Miami drew first blood, as they have every game this series, but then the Thunder tore out with a 13-1 run, inspired by Derek Fisher's pregame pep talk. They kept up that fire all through the first twelve minutes, the lead dipped briefly to 15-10 and 17-12 before going back out on a mini-run of their their own to lead 25-12 with 2:59 left in the first. Leading at one point by seventeen, the first quarter ended with a Norris Cole three pointer, and the Thunder led 33-19. Miami started the second quarter on a 16-2 run, flying in from every possible angle to snatch away rebounds like Spider-Man snaring criminals, Oklahoma City had a hard time keeping up. After a 35-35 tie wiht 7:50 to go until halftime, OKC was able to regroup enough to have a slim lead, from one to five points, the rest of the way, leading at halftime by a 49-46 score. 

   Both teams came out in the second half wanting to impose their will, it was, as has been all game long, a reporter noted, "a war out there". The lead switched hands at least nine times in the quarter, the Heat clawed to a 71-68 edge with 3:22 left in the third quarter, and they led with one to play 79-75. Mario Chalmers was playing lights-out basketball, the only true player on the Heat roster scored from everywhere. Thunder players were getting drilled, hammered, nailed on 'legal' screens and rebounds, with no fouls called, while if an OKC player even brushed LeBron or D-Wade after getting elbowed for ten seconds straight, there was a whistle. Makes you wonder....Russell Westbrook single-handedly kept Oklahoma City in the game, at one point scoring thirteen straight, they crawled to within one posession, 92-90, with 5:15 to play. James went out with cramps, only to re-enter amid far too much pandering, Miami won 104-98, the Thunder had some chances, but bad breaks went against them.

   Westbrook had a playoff-career-high of 43 points to lead all scorers, Kevin Durant had 28, James Harden was again a non-factor, coming up with seven points, Nick Collison had six, Thabo Sefalosha five, Kendrick Perkins and Serge Ibaka four each. For Miami, James led with 26, followed by Chalmers and Wade, each with 25, Chris Bosh chipped in 13, COle had eight, Shane Battier four, and James Jones three.    Game 5 will be in the American Airlines Arena in Miami tonight, tipoff at 8 p.m., pregame show at 7:30 p.m.    

2012 NBA Finals - Oklahoma City-Miami, Game 3

 Lumber and gifts key to Miami taking Game 3

   [SCENE THREE, South Florida, Miami area. We see a montage of flashbacks to start with, covering what's happened already to bring the audience up to speed. Then the camera shifts to the star, LeBron, cutting to TV announcers who hype him up even higher on a pedestal, cutting again to Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, then cut to announcers talking pititfully about the young upstarts from Oklahoma.]    

   The thind installment of the best-of-seven series that is the 2011-12 NBA Finals opened about like that, if you were to look at the script, and from there, it was the frustrating, has-promise-of-being-interesting, familiar plotline. In Miami now, the National Anthem was sung by an eleven year old girl named Julia Day, although understandably nervous, she did a pretty good job.  

    Also doing their task well was Oklahoma City, the Heat shot off to a 10-2 start, but the Thunder reeled off eight straight to tie the game at 12-all, the score held close all throughout the first quarter, Miami led after twelve minutes 26-20. A balanced offensive attack and good interior defense kept the game close in the second quarter, Oklahoma CIty grabbed a 39-38 lead with 2:44 left in the frame, but the Heat came back to be up by one at halftime, 47-46.

   Oklahoma City picked up the reins early in the second half, running off on a 14-2 run to start the quarter, and Leading by ten, 64-54, on a four-point play by wily veteran Derek Fisher, fouled by Mario Chalmers on a shot from behind the arc. That lead had dipped to 65-58 with 3:35 to play in the quarter, the Thunder got good rebounds, but had a hard time capitalizing on those advantages, constantly shooting themselves in the foot with bad fouls, giving Miami free points, and then missing six of their own eleven tries from the stripe. The Heat came back into it little by little, and going into the fourth quarter the home side was ahead by a nose, 69-67. The same problems followed the Thunder, a complete lack of rebounding and more fouls(some legal, some given) were what doomed OKC, down 84-77 with 3:44 to go, they clawed back to 86-85 with 96 seconds left, but a foul-ridden Durant, Westbrook and ice-cold James Harden weren't enough to stop LeBton James and Dwayne Wade, who benefitted time after time from whistles that were missed calls, leading to a 91-85 Heat victory.

   Durant's statement postgame was that "This was a tough loss. Frustrating, but we just have to go play the next game and take it instead." Game 4 will also be in Miami at the American Airlines Arena, tipoff will be at 8 p.m. on Tuesday night, Miami has a 2-1 series lead.   

Life's Little Things

   Yesterday was a strange day. For one thing, temporary jobs are odd; given that they're, well, temporary. And it's a little unusual to be hauling manure down the turnpike.

   But, anyway, it's kind of like this: My dad occasionally helps promote products on the weekends, stuff like Coke Zero, or a new video game or something like that. The people he does it for mentioned that they had an event planned for Saturday, but that really a teenager or someone younger would be better. So he suggested I offer to help, which I did. What the product was was a game for the Nintendo 3DS, off the Nickolodeon TV show "iCarly", a puzzle game, where she and her best friend have to run this restaraunt; making food, getting it to customers, trying to keep them happy; that kind of thing. So that was what I was doing, trying to get kids interested in testing the game, and maybe telling parents or grandparents about it, maybe for them to buy as a present for later on. The GameStop employee I was working with was named Heather, who was about the kind of person you expect to be working at GameStop. Late twenties, sort of completed school at the community college, about all she does in her free time is video games. Trying to possibly get into store management, would like to write comedies for TV, who was chosen to help with the event because "I'm the only one of us who isn't, like, allergic to little children." (Funny the things you find out about strangers if you just listen.) About fifteen or twenty kids tried the game, and one set of parents bought it; a couple others seemed to be thinking about buying. A little adopted Asian girl; her newly-found friend, a black girl; a family of Spanish siblings; and several kids who looked like they might have special needs were some of the testers.

   When Mom and everybody came to pick me up, we then went to pick up a load of horse manure for the garden and a to-be-built-soon worm composter. That doesn't happen every day, either. The place where we got it was one of those fancy high-end horse stables for rich kids to learn to ride, we were met by the manager's husband, who not only filled up the pickup bed with three large tractor-scoops(for free), but also showed Caleb how to tie down a tarp in a way that won't mess up the paint. Several poor motorcyclists on the BA Expressway got facefuls of the stuff. 

   While we were unloading the pickup a few hours later, I got to thinking and planning a blog post, since showers, campfires and manual labor are good times to think. Did I have to shovel manure, so that it could be turned into garden food, or pile it up in a large pile, for my siblings to start a worm farm? Not really, I probably could have gotten away with not helping, saying I was worn out from being a friendly, outgoing, non-threatening marketer, but it needed to be done, so I did it. And the promo event was kind of the same thing; pretty unimportant, but it was a small thing that needed doing, and I fit the description of a person who could help and was willing to try. Kind of out of the ordinary, more extreme examples, of what I usually do most days; of just trying to make sure the mundane tasks and chores in life get done. My life motto is that "Little things aren't the most important, but you should treat them like they are.", sort of a rephrased version of Luke 16:10: "Whoever can be trusted with very little can be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much." (NIV)
   If we do a good job on the little, small, non-important things in life, whether it's making sure the house stays clean, dishes and laundry kept running, or that the softball team gets mentioned in the paper every week or so; then maybe we'll get a little more to work with later on. My writing articles for the local three-town newspaper led to a small role with a statewide sports website; and so to way more exposure and a lot more teaching than I would have gotten otherwise, and maybe I can use that experience as a key to something else journalistic in the next few years. Wasn't that much money, and it wasn't that hard, but maybe being willing to do promo for that event will lead to more opportunities in the future, we'll see.

   This attitude can be seen in a pretty good amount of men in my family, whether your day job is marketing or a school bus driver, or you're technically retired, of being willing to do whatever else needs to be done to keep your family running should be done, whether that's working as a security guard on the Illinois River or at college football games, or pitching in at the junk store the family runs, or chopping wood and raising cows; helping set up garage sales and single-handedly wiring the electricity for an entire town.

   It's the little things in life that makes us who we are, and if we practice these little acts of servanthood, we're growing a bit closer to Christ, reflecting His image better, and shining a light out to the world, even if we(or they) don't really stop to think about how it's happening. So clean up after your little sister leaves her stuff all strewn out on the floor. Don't take quite as many coffee breaks during the workday. Milk the goat in the mornings. Small things like that are important, and you never know what might be on the other side of an ordinary-looking situation. 

2012 NBA Finals - Miami-Oklahoma City, Game 2

I'm out of practice on writing. Bleah. You should have heard the thoughts of me and my friends during the game last night...we speak coachspeak better than coaches. "Our defense is terrible, Westbrook can't buy a bucket, and we need to figure out how to close down on those drives." "Miami has more energy, they want it more than we do." "That was rough. We've now lost home court, and we're going to Miami. Champions win on the road, so...it's time to go."   

Miami's scorching start lead Heat to 100-96 victory; ties series

   Game 2 of the 2011-12 NBA Finals came down to Kevin Durant and LeBron James, just what many basketball fans were hoping for. But this dream scenario nearly never came to pass, since there was barely any hope for rescuing this season. 

   Just days after Super Bowl XLV, the NFL went into a lockout after an arguement on how to split revenue. Coaches couldn't talk to players, players couldn't talk to team employees, it was a mess. For months, until the middle of July, the only offseason news was made in courtrooms, with day after day of reporters filiing stories that "...The owners and players' representatives met today, discussing the labor agreement and revenue sharing, but came no closer to finding any common ground..." Thankfully, it was resolved, and we had a football season characterized by one of the most polarizing figures in sports in recent memory, Tim Tebow; Peyton Manning's injury and the Colts' haplessness without him; and the Suck for Luck Sweepstakes, racing to see who could be the worst team in the league, and thereby getting Stanford QB Andrew Luck. The Super Bowl was a rematch of a game four years ago that nobody really cared about the first time, the New York Giants beat the New England Patriots again, getting the first points of the game on a safety.

   Just as the NFL was un-locking itself, the NBA went into lockdown mode. As awful as it would be to lose an entire season of pro football, it'd be almost as bad, if not worse, to lose an entire season of pro basketball, because that would have an enormous impact on the small-market teams in the league(Cleveland, Oklahoma City, Portland, etc), and send the fan bases of those teams into a deep depression. So there was MORE talks where nothing happened, MORE lawyers, MORE reports of "...The owners and players' representatives have met again to discuss the labor agreement and revenue sharing, but came no closer to finding any common ground in today's talks..."

   This stretched on into late October, when Derek Fisher(of the Los Angeles Lakers, and president of the NBA Player's Association) and various high-ranking league officials finally hammered out an agreement that was an acceptable compromise, and so there would be a season after all; starting on Christmas Day, and only lasting 66 games, instead of 82. It started out with Miami crushing Dallas and Oklahoma City pounding Orlando, and all through the season that appeared to be the Finals matchup. The Heat clawed their way through the regular season and playoffs, flopping, pounding, and whining their way past their first round opponent, then Indiana and Boston. The Thunder lost backup point gaurd Eric Maynor to an ACL tear in the first two weeks of the year, they picked up Fisher from the Lakers just before the trade deadline, giving a much-needed boost to morale and team chemistry. Although they faded at the tail end of the regular season, they swept defending champ Dallas in four games, fought down the Lakers in five, and then rallied from two games down to knock San Antonio off their perch, Game 1 of the 2011-12 NBA Finals Tuesday was all Heat in the first two quarters, but Durant and Russell Westbrook were too much for the South Beach super squad, and OKC won 105-94. 

   Game 2 on Thursday night at the Chesapeake Energy Arena began with Sara Evans singing the National Anthem(She did well, though some lines were hurried and other notes extended too far), and the game itself starting out much like the previous contest: All Miami. NOTHING was falling for the boys from Loud City, and EVERYTHING went down for the visitors. The Heat had leads of 18-2 and 25-8 to start the game, terrible Thunder defense and lights-out shooting from Shane Battier and James set the tone early. James Harden scored ten points in the opening frame, but Oklahoma City still trailed at the end of the first quarter 27-15. The second verse was more of the same, except coming from Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade, and although OKC pulled within ten at one point, the halftime cushion for the Heat was still a dozen, as they led 55-43. 

   The third quarter was like a bad high school game; one team committing stupid fouls on every other posession, and the other team's star turning their play up about three notches. The Thunder got balanced scoring, but too many James drives sent him to the free-throw line, and he made them pay, going 6-for-6 as his team led with one quarter to go by a 78-67 score. Despite being in severe foul trouble, Durant went aggressively to the basket on offense, trying to lift his team up for a third-straight comeback win. Steadily and slowly, the lead was chipped down to 94-91 with 1:42 left, but a Serge Ibaka block was ruled a goaltend, and James slapped Durant on a game-tying jumper without penalty, and so a game that was a nightmare to witness ended so close, but so far away, as Miami had more energy, more fire, and they led from tip to buzzer all the way as they tied the series at one game apeice with the 100-96 win. 

   The series shifts to Miami now for the next three games, Game 3 will be at the American Airlines Arena at 7 p.m. Sunday night, and the Heat now have homecourt advantage. 

2012 NBA Finals - Miami-Oklahoma City, Game 1

   Leave it to me to write up a 1,500 word story on last night's game when I didn't even have to. And yeah, it's biased, but....when your team has a legitimate shot to win the championship, what can you expect? And besides,  I haven't really written anything since about October.

Storm arrives late, stops Heat in Game 1 105-94

   The superstars from South Beach everyone loves to hate. The mostly-unknown bluecollar guys from the middle of the country. The bad guys versus the good guys, each led by a player looking for his first championship, with supporting casts who have won rings. It makes for a perfect title matchup. But first, a little history. 

   In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, devastating millions of dollars' worth of propertiy, killing thousands, and ripping apart of identity of hundreds of towns. One of those towns, known for it's wild side and party attitude, was New Orleans, Lousiana. Some of the places affected by the storm included the Superdome and the New Orleans Arena, home to the NFL's Saints and the NBA's Hornets, leaving both of them displaced. The Saints found a last-minute home in San Antonio, and the Hornets, one in....Oklahoma City? While a huge surprise to everyone in sports, especially the commissioner of the NBA, David Stern, the refugees were welcomed gladly by those in their adopted foster state, so much so that they extended their stay another additional year before going back home.

   Also, at this time, the Seattle SuperSonics were locked in a frustrating, demoralizing legal wrangle with the city of Seattle to fund a new arena, as KeyArena was falling apart rapidly. Enter a man, a very rich man, named Clay Bennett. He purchased the team in June 2006 from the founder of Starbucks Coffee for $350 million, and set out immediate goals for his team: One, to find a way to pay for a new arena in a Seattle suburb. If that couldn't be accomplished, to move the team to his hometown of Oklahoma City. Well, long story short, there was nearly a deal several times, but disputes over how to pay for the construction costs killed that plan, and so in July 2008, the Sonics packed up and left for the plains of Oklahoma, much to the laughter of derisive critics, at seeing the Lakers, Bulls and Knicks playing in Oklahoma?  Would they even be able to find OKC on a map? Would there be spontaneous musical numbers during timeouts? 

   They didn't care. Especially not a few certain guys who joined the organizatioin recently. The Big Question in the 2007 NBA Draft was: Who would Portland take, Ohio State's Greg Oden, or Texas' Kevin Durant? Both were products of the NCAA's new ruile that players must play at least one year of college ball, and prognosticators speculated that both could be superstars for well over a decade, putting their teams in contention for championships once the current regime fell. Well, the Trail Blazers did what they thought was the smarter pick at the time, selecting Oden, and so Seattle snapped up Durant. Hindsight is 20/20, they say, and it doesn't take much looking to see who got the better end of that deal. Oden has had a spectacularly unimpressive career, plagued by injuries, he's only played one full season from then to now. Durant, meanwhile, though his team remained awful, won Rookie of the Year honors in his first pro campaign, and has picked up three scoring titles, while becoming the leader many weren't sure if he could be. General manager Sam Presti was one of the men debating who to choose in that draft, and the next year he chose UCLA's Russell Westbrook. 

   While some of the state took a little while to warm up to the Thunder, apparently annoyed by the name "Oklahoma City Thunder" instead of the more-inclusive "Oklahoma Thunder", the rest of the Sooner State welcomed pro sports with a warm handshake. And did they ever need it. Starting 3-29 and firing head coach P.J. Carlesimo, the 2008-09 Thunder crawled to a 29-53 finish in their first year in their new home after first appointing assistant Scott Brooks to interim head coach, and then making him the head coach.

   Yes, that first year was rough. But then progress was made the next year, as they went 52-30, gaining the eighth seed in the playoffs, falling in six hard-fought games to the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers, who went on to repeat.  Presti selected Arizona State's James Harden and Serge Ibaka from the Congo in the 2010 draft. Brooks was named Coach of the Year for spurring his squad's turnaround, and momentum was picked up for the 2010-11 season.    Fan favorite Jeff Green was sent to Boston in midseason for the hulking grouch of defensive prowess Kendrick Perkins, once the big man got himself accustomed to the way things were run in OKC, the young guns took out blazing past the competition, posting 55 wins and getting by Denver in the first round and Memphis in the second round, falling to eventual champion Dallas in five games in the 2010-11 Western Conference finals.   

   Many fans felt that it was their time now last June, and the Thunder apparently felt that way, too. Acquiring vetern Derek Fisher in midseason to make up for the loss of Eric Maynor, out with an ACL tear, OKC led the West for much of the shortened 66 game season, falling at the last minute to San Antonio for the number one seed and homecourt advantage. Up first in the 2011-2012 playoffs? Dallas. The Thunder swept the Mavericks in four games. Now they would have to face the Lakers, only the most loathed team in sports, particularly after Ron Artest(aka Metta World Peace)'s vicious elbow slam to Harden's head as the regular season wound down. The good guys won in five, setting up an even greater challenge in the San Antonio Spurs, the franchise who'd been playing together forever, full of crafty veterans, and who had served as the Thunder's model on how to build a successful organization. The Spurs, on a phenomonal twenty game(!) win streak, took the first two contests on their home floor. However, there's a reason Chesapeake Energy Arena is nicknamesd "Loud City": Because it is. That's what happens when you get a bunch of passionate, football-crazy fans together to rally around a united cause. It helps, just a little. Not having lost on their home court, Oklahoma City continued that trend, evening the series up at two games apiece, winning a huge Game 5 in Texas, and then rallying from an 18 point deficit to win on the home floor, punching their tickets to the NBA Finals as Western Conference champions. Cue the aforementioned fans being lost in a stunned excitement, unsure of how to react to this news. 

   The opponents? The Miami Heat, led by LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh, with the rest of the roster including three point ace Mario Chalmers, defensive stoppedrShane Battier, and nobody else anyone can remember. Miami cruised though the first round, beat up Indiana in the second round, and went to the limit before knocking out Boston in the Eastern Conference finals.    

    Thunder fans were fired up on Tuesday, writing and recording parodies of hit pop songs in Thunderized versions(See "Beard Like Harden" and "Call Him KD"), flying off the walls in beserk excitement and approaching the intensity of Super Bowl Sunday, or Canadians about hockey. Loud City was "earsplitting", according to radio voice Matt Pinto, in pregame, and even on TV, it was crazy.    

   Once the introductions and hype was over with, the National Anthem sang by American Idol runner-up Jessica Sanchez(she did an okay job of it, better than I expected) and the ball was tipped, it was a typical Oklahoma City start, with some added tweaks. Battier went crazy shooting 3s, Chalmers made a few, too, and with a 10-2 start, Miami led comfortably for most of the first quarter, a bucket by Harden trimmed the gap to 29-22 with twelve minutes played. Turnovers plagued OKC, allowing the Heat to lead at one point by thirteen. However, towards halftime things started clicking, and the Thunder were down by seven at the break, a manageable distance away at 54-47.  

     We've gotten to understand that while we may fall behind early, sometime in the second half our guys will make a huge leap to hang in there a posession or two down, and then wear the other team down and run away. Last night, that pounce took place right out of halftime, Westbrook scored 14 of his 27 points in the third, leading the way. Miami led 58-57 with 7:48 to go in the quarter, they stayed about four points ahead most of the way there, until Westbrook went on a slashing drive with 16.4 seconds to go in the quarter, made a layup, and got fouled, putting Oklahoma City ahead for the first time all game, 74-73 going into the fourth. The Great Lockdown continued in the fourth quarter, after allowing only 19 points in the third stanza, OKC held Miami to 20 in the fourth. James and Durant took over the game, and Kevin outdueled the King, scoring seventeen of his 38 points to James' seven of 30. The lead gradually stretched with each fastbreak basket and extra pass, sealed with a pair of Nick Collison dunks, and Oklahoma City went up 1-0 in the series after the 105-94 win, despite Serge Ibaka and James Harden being nonfactors for much of the game.    Game 2 takes place in Oklahoma City Thursday night at 8 p.m. on ABC, pregame show starts at 7:30.