Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Pocket Pair 6/6/12

A new segment of daily (hopefully) rants about goings on in the world of sports, movies or anything else I have an opinion 


Last night was a tough one for the thumb.  Both the Washington Nationals/New York Mets game and the Boston Celtics/Miami Heat game were too good to turn away from.  Both games were back and forth, taut affairs. 


 The Nationals took an early lead only to cough it up in the 8th inning.  That's when Ian Desmond took over for Washington.  He singled home the tying run in the bottom half of that frame which was only the beginning of his heroics.  After the Mets took back the lead in the top of the 10th inning, Desmond took advantage of some sloppy defense to tie the game up again with a fielder's choice ground ball.  He wasn't quite done.  Scott Hairston  homered in the top of the 12th inning to give the Mets the lead once again, but only two batters into the bottom of the inning the game was tied yet again.  Ian Desmond, the man of the moment, doubled home Michael Morse to knot the game up at 6.  A few batters later some unknown rooking name Bryce Harper singled home the winning run and that is what all the beat reporters and local journalists will probably focus on which is fine.  The truth is that this game belonged to Ian Desmond.  His three clutch late inning RBI were the only reason Bryce Harper was the 'hero' after failing to win the game during his previous two at bats.  Harper is going to get the headlines, he got the post game interview, he got the Gatorade shower and he was probably the lead story on ESPN for their recap.  


The focus all season has been on Bryce Harper, even before he joined the team.  Quietly Ian Desmond has been steady and pretty important to their success.  He has been asked to hit in the top of the lineup and then was shifted to the 5 hole when the injuries mounted for the Nationals.  He thrived there and has now been shifted to the 6th spot in the lineup with the return of Michael Morse.  He as already matched his home run total of 2011 through a third of this season.  His batting average is right in line with his career average and most importantly for the Nationals he has played in 51 of their 53 games.  Obviously the pitching has been the key to the Nationals sitting in first place in the NL East, but just as important has been the play of Ian Desmond.


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Down in Miami the Heat choked away another game, but I'm not going the easy route and blaming LeBron James.  He scored 30 points and had 13 rebounds and his stat line actually spoke the truth about how well he played.  Dwyane Wade scored 27 but the problem for the Heat last night were the men wearing green.  The Celtics were just better than them.  They wanted it more down the stretch and they made more key baskets when it mattered most.  Kevin Garnett played with the heart of a champion.  Rajon Rando was masterful and Paul Pierce threw in the dagger from beyond the arc.  Boston had five players in double figures.  Miami had two.  Boston is a deeper team and the underlying stats prove it.  Only one player for the Celtics was on the court for more points against than points for in game 5.  Marquis Daniels played only 3 minutes and Boston was outscored by a scant 3 points during that time.  The Heat had four such players including 'superstar' Chris Bosh who obviously returned from injury too soon.  He played 14 minutes and saw the Celtics outscore the Heat by 12 points during that stretch.  Mike Miller and Mario Chalmers who are on the roster to score points were outscored by 20 points total in their 47 combined minutes while only scoring 12 points.  They shot a meager 2-8 from 3 point range as well.  The fall off from Wade and James to the rest of the team is cavernous.  The Heat are built around 3 top end talents and with one of them injured the dynamic of the team is broken.  When they play a really good TEAM night in and night out the TEAM is going to win out.  Yes the Heat can win any individual game, but the larger the sample size the more fans will see that it just is not going to happen for Miami this season.


Unless Chris Bosh shows dramatic improvement on the court on Thursday, this series is going to come to an end.  The Heat are built to rely and rely heavily on Wade, James and Bosh and without any one of the three firing on all cylinders they are like a car missing a tire.  I won't blame Erik Spoelstra even though he's not a very good tactician.  He needs his big 3 to lead the way and its impossible to do so at this moment.  

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