It’s a good thing I accepted defeat on Tuesday night, and made my peace with it. It really was the very definition of an inoculation for what was to come. Accepting it makes a loss like this, a collapse of 2003 Chicago Cubs proportions, really not hurt as much as it could. If this was a game 7??? Whoah, then it really would be like the scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom pictured above.
–Or this. That’s exactly what the Miami Heat did to the Chicago Bulls tonight.
-33 to 21 foul shooting discrepancy? Really? And what about the overall series? I hate to sound like a total meathead fan, Chicago douchebag, but c’mon the “star calls” were just off-the-charts and over-the-top in favor of Miami
“Everything is a learning experience… This will only make us more hungry.” – Derrick Rose
By Paul M. Banks
-Now I see why the Heat had that stupid NBA Championship type pep rally for each other this past summer.
-Parodying “Field of Dreams,” “Is this NBA Hell Ray?”
“No, it’s the Eastern Conference if you’re anyone other than Miami.”
-No NBA franchise has spent as much time in NBA hell as the Utah Jazz. So I guess it makes sense for the Bulls to possibly begin a relocation at that address. They did after all, get 1/4 of their current roster from the Jazz last summer.
-Two games in three nights, two missed free throws by the NBA MVP in crunch time. Two game clinching FTs, blown. Damn Bret Michaels was right “every rose has its thorn.” “Just like every night has its dawn, and every cowboy sings a sad, sad song.”
I’ll stop there, I know I just turned off a multitude of potential repeat visitors with that. Plus I played that song to death Tuesday night. Here’s another one, and it’s more depressing. “Where do broken hearts go? Do they find their way home?”
-A game like this is a reason we have mind-numbing, horribly trite and predictable cliches. If you’re a Bulls fan what else can you say other than “it is what it is.”
-Here’s good news for someone, via Darren Rovell’s Twitter: “Mavs-Heat final could be worth up to $96 million for American Airlines” https://tinyurl.com/3vnoxhk
-Bottom line, if you would have told me at media day in September, 62 wins, #1 overall seed, Eastern Conference Finals was in the cards, I would have said “no way” followed by “I’ll take that!”
-Watch the Dallas Mavericks become “America’s Team” now.
-You might have noticed this post had a lot less actual hard-core basketball analysis than usual. You understand why; and I’m not apologizing. I’ll break down the pick-and-roll and the screen-and-roll with anyone. Just not now.
Paul M. Banks is CEO of The Sports Bank.net. He’s also a regular contributor to Chicago Now, Walter Football.com, Yardbarker, and Fox Sports
You can follow him on Twitter @thesportsbank and Facebook