Welcome back UnderDogs! This post is coming to you from the glorious land of Birmingham, Alabama. The people here are wonderful so far. On the way up here from Florida however, I was (un)fortunate enough to get a speeding ticket from an Alabama State Trooper who ONE HUNDRED PERCENT lived up to (and possibly exceeded) the stereotypical caricature expected (both in stature and extremely diminished communicative ability.) It’s an experience everyone should have, seriously. You haven’t been to Alabama until you’ve received a speeding ticket from one of their… um, finest? (Side note: if getting speeding tickets was a sport, and percentage was based on amount of times pulled over to amount of times getting a ticket, historically I'd be 4-4. Batting 1.000 people! Maybe I need to learn how to cry better :)
On a serious note though, there has been some recent outcry, from people in the UnderDog Universe, that in the last post I may have come down a little bit hard on one, Brian Scalabrine. And while I stand by my assertion that he has certainly been of the 6 worst players in the league for the last 10 years (not debatable in my mind) I might have crossed over the line by dedicating three paragraphs to that fact. After all, it’s not his fault that Danny Ainge was dumb enough to give him $22 Million over 5 years, and maybe he wasn’t informed in advance by the Celtics PR department that he was going to be singing Santa Claus is Coming to Town on camera, and maaaaybe he needed the lyric sheet because he resists silly-market-capitalistic-pop-culture-Christmas songs as a rule. And I can get behind all of that. So, Brian… here you go buddy… From all of us here at the Underdogs… we are sorry that we Dogged you. There… everybody happy? Good. Oh and Brian, congrats on the START last night against the Nets in Jersey (KG and Rasheed are injured.) And those Eleven points. Not bad. (Even though you were only 4-12 from the field with ZERO offensive rebounds in 28 minutes… at 6-9??? No Offensive Rebounds??? And against a defacto-high school team at that (the Nets are 3-35) Yea, REAL good job, Bri! Lucky for you the NBA has guaranteed contracts right? I mean, have you guys SEEN his statline for the season??? 1.7 points, 0.9 rebounds, and 0.1 blocks per game??? 22 Million Dollars, people. UGH! … oops, looks like I Dogged him again. Sorry Bri :-)
(Oh and while I'm apologizing (again,) I'm sorry I misspelled your name for the entire last post. I spelled it the way it is pronounced. My Baaaad, Pigeon. Fact Error!)
So anyway, before we left Miami, the Lady-Under-Dog (Lakisha) and I were able to swing down to American Airlines arena to see the 2006 NBA Champ Miami Heat take on a 25-13 Atlanta Hawks team (Good enough for 4th best in the East) on Monday night. What a game! The Heat were able to neutralize Atlanta’s high octane offense early while building a big lead riding some super-hot shooting. And then they cruised, very effectively, to the end (avoiding an oft-endured NBA-third-quarter-let-down.) Everybody was on their game that night for Miami, who dominated in every way. And holy SMOKES... Dwayne Wade is FAST! Wow! Seeing him in person for the first time was amazing. He can pretty-much get to the rim whenever he wants to, NO one can guard him one-on-one after he turns on those afterburners. He just makes everything look way too easy :) It’s a little bit like the few times I was able to see Jordan in person… he looks like an upgraded model in contrast the other (more mortal) guys on the floor; like he’s about 6 notches above everybody else! (I said a little bit, because DWade is probably not in Jordan’s class… but then, nobody is, really.) Oh and by-the-way... Jordan's Bulls Number 23 is hanging in the rafters. Pat Riley retired a jersey number from another TEAM! Has that ever happened before??? :)
Miami was a really fun place to see a game too. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone on the fence. Good production value at the arena, kind of like a fan-friendly minor league team (probably a necessity to keep their dwindling fan-base coming back) with a DJ, Dancers, and fun jumbo-tron shots of crazy fans. Also, there were a whole bunch of University of Iowa Alumni there, in town for the Orange Bowl the next day, and the DJ played their Fight Song during a time out! Wow, that guy was ON it! Heat win 92-75.
Next the Underdogs went North... to GATOR COUNTRY!
stay tuned :)
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