If you didn't watch the Bulls-Heat game this morning, you don't like basketball. This game was an Eastern Conference Finals re-match and probably pre-match, because I have to imagine these two teams can only be beat by one another in the 2012 NBA Playoffs. I hope I've shown myself to be a reasonably unbiased man despite my penchant for constantly ejaculating personal preferences in an admittedly tyrannical fashion, but I hate the Heat. Unless you live in the bottom half of Florida (and even then, it's questionable), you probably hate the Heat too. And if you’re like me, you probably hate them as much as the Lakers, or the Celtics before they became geriatrics. Or you hate them like I'd hate the present-day Knicks, were they competent. Like I'll probably hate the Clippers next year—or after hearing moniker "Lob City" enough times, whichever comes first. And if you're like me, you root against the Heat like you root against any team that conspires to stack their team with a surplus of talent. But I digress. Despite my principled hatred for the Heat, I can't help but whoop at their redunkulousness. If the Clippers govern Lob City, the Heat oversee Lob Country. And if today's win over Chicago is evidence of anything, it's that god wants them to win the championship.
Despite the updated Chicago and Miami rosters, this game was a little too reminiscent of Bulls-Heat games from last year, which all generally followed similar storylines wherein the Heat appear dominant for the first 43 minutes of regulation despite only being ahead by a small margin, until Derrick Rose, with less than five minutes left in the game, sharts out his game-long funk and leads the Bulls in a frantic comeback, like he’s done so many times before. Meanwhile, LeBron James—regardless of how dominant he'd been for the majority of the game—with less than five minutes left, turns into Jerome James, like he’s done so many times.
Frankly, I'm a little suspicious that the NBA didn't just re-cut a conference finals game from last year, editing out the parts where LeBron shoots three-pointers, then adding in Rip Hamilton in a Bulls' jersey, digitally, kind of like George Lucas did with Jabba the Hutt for the 20th Anniversary theatrical re-release of Star Wars. This was a good game, but it still felt like a waste of money (even though I watched it on ABC), kind of like how the 20th Anniversary theatrical re-release of Star Wars was a good movie, but still felt like a waste of money (even though I watched it on ABC).
The last half-minute of the game, though, was really the story of the game, though it should be stricken from the record. With Derrick Rose heading to the free throw line, the Bulls down 93-94, I was prepared for an exciting finish. Instead we got the type of finish you'd see in a college game. The last thirty seconds of the game were saturated in folly. Let me summarize it for you: Derrick Rose bricked two free throws, LeBron bricked two free throws, the ref interrupted the most vital play of the game with an inadvertent whistle then used a center-court jump ball to gloss over it, LeBron may or may not have stolen the tip, Mario Chalmers bricked a free throw to leave the garage door open, Carlos Boozer got the rebound but dropped the ball while trying to call a timeout, Derrick Rose came up with the ball and called a timeout while somehow not being called for traveling, then bricked a floater (very appropriately) at the free throw line on the ensuing play. The end. As the credits rolled up, LeBron and Dwyane Wade exchanged simultaneous looks of confusion and relief, like those we've seen so many times in a freeze-frame of a married sitcom couple at the end of the episode. Because the end dropped out of this otherwise great game so horribly, you won’t see it on ESPN Classic’s Instant Classics. Though, you may find the taped broadcast in the late-night comedy section of Netflix’s Instant archives, because if this game were a movie, it would have been a straight-to-Netflix-Instant release.
Still, the game had some clairvoyance. Derrick Rose is still autonomous within the Bulls’ offense. Meaning, they don’t function together. Like the guy who used to dribble the texture off the rock on West Madison street during the late-‘80s, Rose is playing too much road construction basketball—one guy dribbling, four guys watching. When has there been an NBA Champion that started a team of four and a team of one simultaneously? The Bulls will be stopped in the 2012 Playoffs, for the same reasons they were stopped in the 2011 Playoffs—road construction basketball. Then there’s the Heat. They’re intrinsically good. They can’t lose even when it looks as if they’re trying to. It pains me more than anybody to drop the rhyme, but the Heat are the team to beat.
Lastly, what kind of a person would I be if I didn’t touch on The Dunk? LeBron actually did the same dunk on Friday night against the Knicks. Observe:
But look here, when I say the Heat are redunkulous, I mean they jump over the sons of former NBA players. They don’t give an F! Ri-dunk-u-lous! Observe how much tighter this dunk is when you insert the son of a former NBA player under LeBron:
It’s too early in the season to predict an MVP, but I’ve already called the trophy shop and had them engrave the plaque that I’ll personally present to LeBron James when I proclaim him MVP of Jumping Over People While Dunking. I know you’re thinking about the Nate Robinson dunk over 6'11" Dwight Howard, but that doesn’t count because the dunk didn’t take place in an actual game. Same goes for his dunk over 5'7" Spud Webb (which, somehow, is better than the Dwight Howard dunk). The previous MVP of Jumping Over People While Dunking is, of course, Vince Carter. Carter loses the title for two reasons. One: a U.S. player dunking over a guy in the Olympics is only slightly (if at all) more credible than dunking over a guy in the dunk contest. And two: the alley-oop added a degree of difficulty to LeBron’s dunk. LeBron’s dunk made me wonder if an NBA game has ever ended, not in a dunk, but because of a dunk. If this dunk had happened during a game at Rucker Park or in the Drew League (and maybe it has), that would’ve been game right there. Even if the clock were only at 5:02 in the first quarter. This is the dunk to beat. Shut it down.
