No Regard Previews: NBA Forever

One Game We Will Watch Tonight: Miami Heat vs. Memphis Grizzles

How could we not suggest that this is the game you watch tonight?

We are not idiots; we have eyes, televisions, the Internet and functioning brains, just like you. This game will be sick (sick as hell, if you will). The Heat have not lost since the Clinton administration (12 wins in a row) and the Grizzles have not lost since the W. Bush administration (eight wins in a row).

The Heat have been making brilliant Harlem Shake videos. The Grizzles have been winning with very little regard for human life.

NBA finals preview? Possibly. NBA regular season game? For sure. LeBron James and a divine dunk before the game? Yes, please.

In terms of geologic time, you watching this game is a meaningless spec that will soon be forgotten. The three-plus hours you spend in front of a glowing machine, sipping fermented wheat from an aluminum can, is smaller than the smallest grain of sand on the biggest beach on the planet, insofar as the big picture is concerned.

But doesn't that make it way cooler? That you're a living, breathing, consuming being, capable of taking in the spectacular NBA? Possessing gray matter competent enough to make sense of what might look like gibberish to a lesser being? Conscious of the fact that men who are somehow the same species as you are able to do stuff you couldn't even do on the best, most potent and expensive steroids?

Okay fine, the existential rant is not doing it for you? How about tactics? Tactically, this game is satiating. Memphis presents a successful push back to the modern guard-dominated NBA with their space-eating, skillful bigs—sporting the ridiculously massive, dexterous, Marc Gasol and Zack Randolph. Two of the most crafted forwards in the league.

Miami, conversely, offers exactly the opposite: almost always playing five guys who can shoot from range, score freely in transition and handle the ball like hell. There's also LeBron James, who I am convinced is the best athlete on the planet right now, even better than Messi.

It is a long season, no doubt. And maybe the Friday night you dreamed up during Thursday night's slumber did not include your couch, Super Nintendo Chalmers, Chris "the Birdman" Andersen or Dexter Pittman. And that's fine. We're still cool.

We're always cool. Life is good, Mon.

One Game We Won't Watch Tonight: Denver Nuggets vs. Oklahoma City Thunder

Please do not think for one second that we do not want to watch this game. We would love to watch this game.

The prospect of being too poisoned from the amount of fermented wheat in an aluminum can we will have gulped down during the Miami game is worrisome. If we can stay up and handle more poison, than we will definitely watch this basketball match.

I love you, Manimal.