My Reply to the Sports Guy

I love reading the Sports Guy's (Bill Simmons) Page 2 column on ESPN. I think he's a talented and witty writer that shows much humorous insight into the world of sports. He can get a bit long-winded and tiresome sometimes, particularly with Boston sports (but I can't hold that against him, I do the same with Miami sports). But today, I find myself saying: EFF the Sports Guy.

So here's what he said that got me so heated (no pun intended):

1) The Mavs are an amazing team who personify everything that's good about the NBA.
2) The Heat play a dated, boring form of basketball that's a regression to old, boring playing habits.
3) D-Wade and LeBron are the first real re-incarnations of MJ.
4) If the Heat win, the NBA landscape will move away from fast team ball to finding one superstar per team with observant teammates. The world might end.
5) Gary Payton is finally learning how to be a team player and that's bad. He sucks and shouldn't be getting love for being a 6th-man.
6) End of game 5: there was no foul, and the refs should have known better than to issue that time out. Also, refs were highly favoring Miami during games 3-5.
7) Miami fans aren't good fans.
8) Shaq is an idiot for not correcting his FT shooting problems after all these years.
9) Stack did not commit a hard foul, the REPLAY just made it look that way.
10) He loooooves Mark Cuban's lack of tact and wants him to win it all.
11) The refs suck.
12) Mavs win games 6 & 7.

C'MON.

1) Agreed.
2) I concede to old-fashioned, but dated? And how can you ignore the contributions of Haslem and Posey during these finals? Or Walker and Williams throughout the rest of the playoffs? This is just hateration.
3) Agreed.
4) This is nonsense. The Heat have the greatest young player in the NBA with the most dominant big man in the NBA joined by a number of veteran all-stars and role players who are good enough to probably play bigger roles in other teams. AND for the last few months (since the Wade-Payton mouth-off), these guys have played as a team - passing, contributing, and playing their parts. Sure they refer to their superstar most, but who wouldn't?!
5) This is not a legitimate gripe. More hateration from a Bostonian.
6) There was a foul. And there's always going to be a slight favoring of the home team (happened in Dallas in games 1 & 2, remember?), but the vast discrepancy in game 5 came down to Dirk not driving and the Mavs playing small, opting for more jump shots and fade-aways than driving hard to the basket. Terry and Howard would typically get the calls when the drove in. Plus, game-to-game since game 1, Miami has just consistently been better at drawing fouls from the Mavs.
7) And why does there still need to be hate for Miami fans? Place has been consistently sold out, everyone's participating in the dress code, cheering, screaming, jeering, chanting. They're having fun, showing love, feeling the heat down in their souls. What more do you want? Seriously. I'm sick of hearing this crap. A city as culturally diverse as Miami (meaning, many people who don't have basketball in their culture), and being relatively new to basketball, AND having sooo many other entertainment options - despite all that, I think Miami fans are being great fans. Even without those reasons and distractions, Miami fans are being great fans. The DA-VID HASSEL-HOFF chant was classic.
8) I kind of agree. C'mon, Shaq - make an f-ing Free Throw. But at the same time, if my hands were the size of those car windshield sun shades that look like giant sunglasses, who knows how hard it would be for me. Considering who he is and what he's done for the game, I'll try to not hold that against him too much.
9) Dude, he came flying in to jam him out. More or less the same shit Posey did during these same playoffs that got him suspended. The only reason it didn't look as bad is because Shaq is 3 million pounds. Would Stack have come charging in as hard had Shaq not been so huge? Who knows. Point is, he charged with intent to ram him, not the ball.
10) Uh. OK. On some days, you gotta give Cuban credit for saying what needs to be said, but most of the time he's just a whiny rich brat who's used to getting things his way and doing whatever he wants. Really, not the best reason to reward him with a trophy.
11) Agreed - they've sucked all season, and sucked all playoffs. They've screwed everybody up in one game or another. They've done some Piston loving and Mavs loving right along ith their Heat loving. But that's not what caused Game 5 (see #6).
12) It ends tonight.