That Sucked

Hindsight is, of course, 20/20...but we feel as though we had pretty clear foresight when the brilliant Coach Brown elected to sit LeBron at the 9:05 mark of the first quarter last evening. At the time, we said, "ok, maybe try to steal a minute or three" by sitting LeBron after he picked up his second (silly) foul, but let's not let this thing get out of control. Upon his departure from the game, the Cavs were down 7-4; exactly 90 seconds later, at the 7:35 mark, Tony Parker hit yet another layup to put the Spurs up 16-6, at which time we rose quickly off the couch and screamed "get him back in!" at the television. Somehow, Coach Mike was unable to hear us, and elected to leave the only chance the Cavs have at keeping this series close cooling his royal heels on the bench for the entire balance of the quarter. Game 2 officially ended in quarter 1. Which is awesome in a 4 quarter game.

LeBron's mere 15 minutes in the first half lead to what we sure must have been the worst half of basketball ever played in the NBA Finals. We haven't seen every NBA final, nor have we watched every quarter of every Finals game since we became basketball fans, but that does not discourage us in our evaluation. In addition to putting up an impressive 33 points, the Cavs shot 10-of-18 from the FT line and surrendered 57% of the Spurs field goal attempts. Good on ya, Cavs. We just can't imagine a worse combination of execution and strategy.

The 4th-quarter comeback, which saw a 29-point lead whittled to 8 with 3:30 remaining, was nice and all, but it's probably going to work against the Cavs in Game 3 as Pop and the Spurs will want to put a Johnnie Morton-style beating on the unsuspecting Cavs to remind everyone who is the daddy in the NBA. The comeback also highlighted the Cavs remarkably low basketball IQ, when they cut the lead to 8 (with 3:30 left), forced a turnover, and Donyell Marshall and Damon Jones engaged in a breakdance fight to the death to see who could launch the worse 3 in a quicker fashion. Great strategy and poise there, ass clowns. Jones missed, obviously, and the game was over.

This series just gets worse. The Cavs were awful, and that Guttural Gang who do interpretive grunts to great Finals scenes from the past at commercial breaks (who the shit saw them and thought "NBA Finals"? Anyway we could arrange for a fire bomb in that ridiculous studio where they do their act?) took "bad" to new levels. ABC's coverage is pretty much abysmal all the way around (Tony and Eva's wedding plans at halftime?), and the Cavs' play makes it that much harder to watch. Let's hope we find some hope prior to tomorrow's prediction. Which promises to be woefully off.