The “Bad Win”

Bill Simmons concluded from yesterday’s Lakers-Heat game that Miami sucks – an odd takeaway considering Miami won this game, and are 3.5 games away from sole ownership of the Eastern Conference’s top spot. His articulation of this conclusion is so strange it deserves some comment:

Americans love when false arrogance comes back to kick someone in the teeth. Heck, that’s what created our country in the first place: In 1774, the British easily could have been LeBron, Wade and Bosh dancing on a stage and pretending to be immortal. We love underdogs, upsets and comeuppances.

(Brief sidebar about this bizarre metaphor: Do we really love “underdogs, upsets and comeuppances”? We haven’t been an underdog since the end of WW2, we hated Vietnam, and no one seems to have been enjoying our recent economic and political comeuppance.)

And that’s what this Miami season has been — a four-month-long comeuppance, a vindication that you can’t stack your team without thinking it through, that role players matter, that coaching matters, that even the most talented basketball teams need a pecking order. Miami tried to cheat the system. It didn’t work. Teams came roaring at them for four straight months — night after night, a bull’s-eye draped on their backs that never went away — and eventually, Miami started to wear down. It’s possible to play playoff games for nine straight months, but only with a deep team. You can’t do it with three guys.

As of right now, Miami enjoys the league’s sixth best record. So his talk about “comeuppance” seems premature. Twenty-four other teams would love to have failed like the Heat have. This whole paragraph reads like a post-mortem following Miami’s spectacular first-round flameout. Yet there’s twenty games to go, and as LeBron mentioned, the Heat have already clinched a playoff berth.

Against the Lakers, they won because Bosh played really well, Wade outplayed Kobe, and Miller and Bibby nailed six of nine 3s. Pretty good game for the Heat, actually. And they barely won. Not a good sign.

Simmons talks about the win like a perfect storm. The only flukey circumstance he lists is Bibby/Miller’s 6-9 mark from deep. That Chris Bosh, perennial All-Star, and Dwayne Wade, top five talent, would perform exceptionally does not qualify as abnormal, or even lucky. The media has an angel/whore complex when it comes to this Heat team. They are perfect (remember Van Gundy’s prediction) until they do not meet the unreasonable expectations set for them. Then they are fallen. If they rip off twenty-one wins in twenty-two games, the Heat are a man-eating Cerberus, the most ferocious open-court blitzkrieg the league has seen. If they lose a few games, they are an abject failure; pundits start measuring the Big Three for a king-sized coffin. The fact that Simmons can call a six point victory over the streaking, two-time defending champion Lakers a bad sign speaks to the preposterous expectations imposed on the Heat. These columnists reference the pre-season pep rally as their license to rant: “They brought it on themselves! They bragged about all the championships they haven’t yet won!” These are athletes. They bluster. The media shouldn’t follow suit.

Game 36: The Abasement of Glen Davis

Result: Bulls 90, Celtics 79

Record: 24-12

The dung beetle strikes again! Luol Deng, despite being a professional athlete, has the ball-handling skills of a yam and the turn radius of a Carnival cruise liner. Coach Thibodeau, perhaps operating under the mistaken assumption that all Africans are marathon runners, played the lead-legged Deng for another 40 minutes tonight, his season average. Deng repaid his Coach’s faith in his great stamina by getting no lift on his threes (1-4) and getting outrun by Paul Pierce, a slow man eight years his senior. But Deng’s bad night flew under the radar thanks to the atrocious night Glen Davis put in.

Game 11: Taj ‘The Neuromancer’ Gibson

No good? What about Taj ‘Mughal Emperor’ Gibson?

Result: Bulls 88, Mavericks 83
Record: 8-4

When he wasn’t fouling all available Mavericks and dropping every pass, Taj Gibson balled out of control. Following the precedent established this year by Paul Millsap — unlikely and timely 3s from non-shooting PF — Gibson knocked in a huge three-pointer to keep things tight in the 4th. He fouled out of course, but the damage had been done, to the tune of 17 pts and 18 rebs. Considering how lousy his hands are, I’m surprised he managed so many boards.

Rose took a cut on the bridge of his nose, and while it wasn’t exactly Nash-with-shiner, Rose did display a little more animation than usual. (I’m not a lip reader, but I’m pretty sure he shouted ‘fuck’ fifteen times as he was being cleaned up.) And, in the call of the night, Jeff Van Gundy said that if he were Tom Thibodeau, he would lick the blood off Rose’s face to get him back in the game quicker. But not Luol Deng. Breen and Jackson laughed, but it got weird. What, you guys don’t like bloodplay?

Rose wasn’t special tonight, just average; luckily his averages are 20 points and 7 assists. Twenty-two points on 17 shots (and nine free throw attempts) isn’t great, and you’d like to see him cut his turnovers (4), but really, Rose is the advanced student, subjected to higher standards by his teacher while being the sole reason that teacher comes to work.

Thibodeau has seen more floor time than James Johnson this year, roving the sidelines constantly and waving his arms so the team will guard with their hands up. Overcoaching.

Game 10: Nope

Well they didn’t win that one.

6-4

Game 9: Relax

Result: Bulls 95, Rockets 92
Record: 6-3

Anxiety is a huge component of being a fan. I read game recaps from bloggers much more invested in their teams than I am the Bulls, and I wonder how they manage to type with their fingernails gnawed to bloody stumps. The open thread comment section at Blogabull is an unmedicated blend of fury, joy, and despair. I get where all the feelings comes from. You are emotionally participating in an event you have no control over. There’s just these five guys wearing one particular color, and you’re depending on them to outplay other elite athletes. Lack of control leads to powerlessness and nasty, uncapitalized (or all-caps) attacks on the refereeing, announcers, and Luol “Dung.”

Which is why it’s such a rare relief to see a player take over the game like Derrick Rose did last night.

Game 8: “We don’t even GOT corndogs.”

Result: Bulls 103, Wizards 96
Record: 5-3

The Bulls cracked triple digits, much to the delight of the crowd. Kirk Hinrich’s return to the United Center didn’t hold many surprises – John Wall is fast, JaVale McGee has long arms, the Wizards are lousy, and so on.

That being the case, here are some utterly superficial notes.

Game 7: Warriors, Come out and Play

Result: Bulls 120, Warriors 90
Record: 4-3

A Bulls team on two days rest jumped all over a rubber-legged Warriors team playing their fourth game in five days.  Seven first-quarter steals for the Bulls lead to a mess of transition buckets, as well as two 10-0 runs. IFC ran Alien for Halloween, and this game in the early going was the basketball equivalent of a face-hugging. It was over by the half, and really over by the end of the third, which nearly saw the Bulls break into triple digits.

Game 4 & 5: The ones that got away

Result: Bulls 112, Knicks 120
Record: 2-2

If you already know the outcome of a sports game, will you watch it anyway? What if it’s a blowout? With this Bulls team, aesthetically frustrating as they are, the answer is no and fuck no. On a night when the Knicks dumped in 16 of 24 3PA, there’s little to learn except that’s it tough to win when they score 3 to your 2.

The night’s standout play was a two-handed slam that Rose brought back between his shoulder blades.  After bursting past Douglas, Rose went off two feet from the bold hatchmark at the right side of the lane. The cock back protected the ball from Gallinari’s swipe, and the finish was so explosive his arms windmilled as he came back to earth. What’s interesting about this is Rose recently stated that he “couldn’t palm the ball if he wanted to.” Which means he’s forced to do these enormous 2-handers; a strange case where physical limitation increase’s a player’s athletic reputation. Since Rose can’t palm it, you’ll never see him put down an easy one handed dunk. It’s all vicious putbacks and two-fisted tomahawks.

Game 3: Dengity Dengity Deng

Result: Bulls 101, Blazers 98

Record: 2-1

The Bulls went Bas Rutten on the Trailblazers, by which I mean this.

A lights-out first quarter staked the Bulls to an eleven point cushion they wouldn’t relinquish for the rest of the game. LaMarcus Aldridge did what he could for Portland, pouring in 33, but it wasn’t enough to counteract a career night from Luol Deng.

Game 2: The Team You Hate to Love

Result: Chicago 101, Detroit 91
Record: 1-1

Spend any time in a strange city and you’ll quickly discover its character. New Yorkers might be inured to the constant whiff of garbage and piss, and chalk up the casually brutal ball-busting as local color, but out-of-towners can’t notice anything else.  The people dress a certain way, have their own bearing and sensibility. Architecture and location define the physical space, quality of light. History influences existence there as subtly as our own biographies shape our lives. Cities, insentient, a number of tall buildings, somehow manage to have an identity.

Sports teams can absorb that identity, even as they play a part in forming it.