Talent Trumps Talent

I guess I'm late here, but I'm finally ready to take this Miami Heat team seriously. All season I've ignored the stats, even though the team was ruling all the areas that best prove post-season success, because I'm a stubborn person. They led the league in point differential—which hoop junkies know is wildly prescient in terms of predicting champions—and finished the season as the only team in the top five in both offensive and defensive efficiency. But I got hung up on what has turned out to be minutia. I thought, "Mike Miller doesn't do anything anymore except rebound and look like a surly lesbian"; or "Surely you can't expect much from a team that jumped to sign Mike Bibby and his giant headband because he was clearly an upgrade for them at point guard"; or "Jam Band Jones literally does nothing except for catch and shoot from behind the arc"; and finally "What is a Joel Anthony?"

I believed all these sorry parts, even next to Wade and LeBron, wouldn't amount to anything more than a second round exit.

But, as outrageous as this is going to sound, I forgot one important factor...

The Confidence Interval of the Atlanta Hawks

It must be a great time to be a Hawks fan. They finally bested big brother Orlando in convincing fashion, Dominique Wilkins is fist pumping quite frequently in the stands, and Joe Johnson is wetter than the Thunder Canyon water ride at Dorney Park. Not to mention last night's thievery of home-court advantage against Chicago, in a game that was never really in contention. After a few years of pathetic playoff performances, this team appears ready to take the Bulls to the brink.

Celtics-Heat Game 1: Let's Get Physical, Physical

Yesterday's game one matchup in the Eastern semis between Boston and Miami presented what is likely to be the case for seven games: chippy basketball between two teams that so clearly hate each other, it's beyond Romeo and Juliet shit. Here are some (increasingly belligerent) thoughts that I jotted down as I watched in anguish, sipping Bud Light Wheats (or whatever they're called; good though, very good beer) and yelling at my television.

Question of the Day

Despite the truth that this first round has been downright thrilling since tipoff, will we remember it less fondly if the Grizzlies fail to make good on the promise implicit in their game four drubbing of the Spurs and lose in seven? Would we ultimately be disappointed if the only underdog victory was the Hawks semi-upset of the Magic? Or are competitive series, no matter the outcome, all we ask of lower seeds in the first round?

NBA Middle Names: Mario Chalmers

We at No Regard spend a lot of time in our NBA knitting circles trying to figure out the human side of these players. Whether it's musing about their commutes to work, how much "Call of Duty" they play, or what their favorite snack food is, we like to remind ourselves that NBA players are nothing more than young men with enviable jobs. What better way to humanize our heroes than look up their middle names?

Almario Vernard Chalmers

If You See Something, Say Something: Double Standard

IYSSSS is our semi-regular Internet intelligence report, a liberal arts approach to following the NBA on the Web. E-mail us at jewsforjesusshuttlesworth@gmail.com if you've got any suggestions.

Brain on Funk Tumblr: So, I have just been made aware that Doc Funk is back captioning for the playoffs. This is honestly the only way I can think of for these playoffs to get even better.

@JohnCTownsend: I would imagine Gilbert finds it a little frustrating that everyone else is allowed is allowed to do finger gunz. Poor Gilbert.

Bethlehem Shoals at GQ's Balls Out Blog: Shoals' work at his GQ-housed playoff blog has been great all the way around, and is the current URL at which to find his best work and visit daily, but this conversation with David Roth (contributor to The Wall Street Journal and The Awl) is particularly strong. From their digression about Chris Webber's color commentary:

Shoals: He always takes risks. In the studio, it's being vulnerable. On the call, it's cutting loose in weird, creative ways that have as much to do with confidence and intelligence as they do with a lack of experience. It's like watch Walt Frazier find himself, but the floor's on fire and nobody has any idea how they got here in the first place.

Roth: His malaprops are basically psychedelic, but he makes some good calls—Indiana and Denver as mirror images of each other was an on-the-fly gem he just tossed off between weird syntactic decisions—and I think he's doing great. He leverages his credibility in a really interesting way.

Bill Simmons: Despite the monstrous word count and tired references to "The Real World" that have come to define Simmons' writing, this new joint on small market teams—specifically the Kings—is a pretty fair and restrained look at the borderline crisis the NBA is facing. Worth a skim. He also makes a Thelma & Louise reference, which was shocking, because I always thought the only movies Simmons had ever seen were Rounders, Boogie Nights, Shawshank Redemption, Top Gun and Cocktail (the last of which he does reference here). The over/under on how many movies he's seen has to be 12. (I love using Simmons gimmicks when writing about him.)

Enchanted, Transported and Even Sometimes Devastated

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The Audacity of Z-Bo

The 2006-2007 Golden State Warriors were what I assume LSD is like. The experience of watching Don Nelson, Baron Davis and Stephen Jackson hijack the league for 12 days was mind-expanding in a way you normally only read about in Jack Kerouac books. And their "We Believe" mantra was fitting for a team trying to change the world during Obama's campaign. Nelson's lineup choices were as strong as Obama's email list, and Boom Dizzle's refusal to be anything less than great was downright presidential. Plus, there's a connection to be made somewhere between the flag lapel pin and the bullet fedora.

As much as that team stood for hope and change in a dedicated sports city that needed it, during an era that was starved for it, their breakup and subsequent waning also paralleled Barack's own struggle to unite and lead during his first term. Both promised a few too many revolutions to be able to follow through. Warriors fans must have felt like the ostracized LGBT community as they watched broken promises turn into missed playoffs.

But as Obama begins his second campaign, NBA fans have been gifted another team in which to place our optimism for a better world: The Memphis Grizzlies.