...Something New Every Day

Pistons / Heat – Ouch. For the first time in three years I find myself doubting that the Pistons will win a playoff series. Their resiliency is well-docmented and recently proven (see Cleveland) but the Heat are clearly the better team to this point in the series. I think Detriot can and will win game 5 at home but they would have to win big and carry some serious momentum to Miami to even the series and I don’t see it happening. If they can manage to bring it back to Detroit for a seventh game, however, that may be a coin flip. But they’re definitely in trouble. Maybe Flip Saunders bringing an offensive focus to the group wasn’t really what was needed? Maybe Miami’s upheaval of Riles taking over for a successful Van Gundy and bringing in unstable Toinne and Jason Williams and supposedly washed up Gary Payton was actually a good thing? Payton’s playing better than I’ve seen him play for years and Toinne is somehow showing up when they need him and staying within his role.

Mavs / Suns – I would have thought that the Clips would’ve done a better job at slowing down PHX’s break….but it’s the Mavs doing it?! Kudos to Avery Johnson. Let’s see if they can keep this up.

Dwyane Wade – I completely underestimated how good he was – and I thought he was pretty darn good before. His circus shot in the fourth was one of the most amazing, “I can’t believe that just happened” moments in recent memory. For the video, click here. We’ll be seeing that in highlight videos for years to come. I heard on the radio this morning that his 69.5% shooting is third best through four games of any conference finals behind Kareem and James Worthy. First – those are some big names on the board – champions and clutch performers, both. But Wade’s doing it from jumpers and penetration! He’s just having his way with Detroit – more often and with more efficiency than LeBron did. Wade may be helped in that he has other teammates who can score so Detroit has to respect that but he’s not seeing any shortage of double-teams here.

Gilbert Arenas – I don’t find it particularly interesting or amazing that he got arrested in South Beach. This seems rather common these days – ask Santonio Holmes. But the important thing here is that Arenas reached “I’m Keith Hernandez” status this weekend with his “You can’t arrest me – I’m a basketball player” comments upon his arrest. I’m going to try that next time I get pulled over or something – “You can’t give me a ticket – I’m an engineer!” Let’s see if it flies. He’s the modern day, urban Zsa Zsa Gabor!

Indy 500 – Do we care?

Bonds 715 – I care less than Indy. It’s there….it must mean something. But really - nationwide apathy for a 'big' event - seems sublime.

Detroit Tigers - you really won't get much baseball out of me - but weren't the Tigers at roughly 300:1 odds when we were in Vegas less than two months ago?

I’m old – You know how I know? Parts of me hurt where they never did before and where I didn’t actually get an injury. I’ve started playing basketball more regularly over the past few weeks. I played yesterday and last night and today my knees hurt. My knees have never really hurt before unless I actually did something to them (other than run around). I now understand why older basketball players always have to ice down their knees after games. This is not a good sign.