WEWS' Mark Johnson didn't like the Heat forecast

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Well I still haven't processed all the emotions, but fortunately I didn't have to go on live television shortly after the Heat, gulp, won the NBA Title.

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, WEWS's Mark Johnson did. With hilarious results.

Game 1 of The Finals brings back deja vu

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Well, game one of the 2012 NBA Finals is in the book--and the story brings back lots of memories.

Unstoppable tonight. Look familiar? (Reuters)

Of playoffs past. Of LeBron James. But I'm not talking about the false narrative (that I've never floated here) that he chokes in crunch time or can't ever win a championship. (Although I'll most likely go to my grave rooting against him ever getting one one.) What I mean is that feeling.  That feeling that every single person on the floor, every single person in the stands, and every single person watching on TV knows--who's getting the ball, and that there's nothing in the world that will keep that man from scoring.

Tonight it wasn't LeBron's turn. It wasn't 2007. It was 2012, and it was Kevin Durant.

Making the opposing team look slow. And old. And utterly unable to stop him late. TGiM did not have a bad game. Forget comparing the fourth quarter stats of Durant and James. Irrelevant.  NBA's studio analysts just showed a stat that they seemed to think indicted James for his poor fourth quarter play. But the truth is, James had a solid game, all the way through. Just not transcendent.  Seven points in the fourth, an average of 7 and change each period before that. Big deal. It wasn't TGiM or his sidekicks that lost this game, it was KD that won it.

But his opponent was transcendent. 36 points from Kevin Durant, 17 in the fourth quarter. And for a big stretch of it, everyone knew he was going to take the ball, and do whatever he wanted with it. Just like Cavaliers fans knew in May 2007.

(By the way, when I quickly Googled Game 5 of the Pistons-Cavs series, I noticed the tone of the AP story talked about how the Cavaliers prided themselves not on being a one-man team, but LeBron just chose (rightfully in this case) to take over. I'm sick of the "no support" argument.)

In Cleveland, it's another year of living vicariously

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For Cavaliers fans, the strange bedfellowing of last year's NBA Finals continues this summer, just with a different potential paramour. The question is, what kind of relationship can we really have when our newest crush barely knows we exist?

Last season's wooing of the Dallas Mavericks was all hand-holding and restaurant desserts, admittedly. The wounds of The Decision were still fresh, and Clevelanders happily climbed into Mark Cuban's bunk as his team sent the Heat back into the swirling vortex of evil from whence they came.

The Cavs for Mavs movement was a fun and ultimately cathartic frolic for a fanbase one ugly season removed from the departure of That Guy in Miami (TGiM).  There was a savage satisfaction in Miami's ouster, made doubly lovely by James's undeniable role in his team's defeat. 

NBA.com dismisses Celtics, hopefully the SWAG sparks 'em

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Wow. It didn't take a genius to realize that any team with LeBron James and the ESPN/NBA marketing machine behind them was almost guaranteed a game six victory on Thursday night, but this is a bit much.
The NBA.com store was preemptively selling "Beat the Heat" shirts yesterday. Not in Celtic green however...in Thunder blue (if that is a thing.) BEFORE GAME 7 OF THE EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS!
I'm going to go out on a limb and say KG doesn't like that. If I could get a case of them fedexed to him in Miami before Game 7 tonight, I would.

The Horseshoe Diaries

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In June, 1994, I stood at the corner of West 3rd & Ontario St. and everything was in front of me. Not just the hot dog vendor and the Cuyahoga County Administration Building where I was interning, but also the future of my city and the entirety of my adult life. A few miles south, our exhilarating new ballpark stood unblemished, home of the first place Indians. A few miles north, The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame was finally under construction. It would become the holiest place on earth for me, but, at that point, I had no visions of the teary, cathartic Saturday afternoons I would spend under that glass tent or the emotional World Series that was just fifteen months away. I knew only of the immediacy those summer days offered: lunch beneath the Moses Cleveland statue, surging optimism, unhinged possibilities, etc. And somewhere on the radio, "Black Hole Sun" was playing. Chris Cornell begged, "my youth, I pray to keep." I heard that lyric a thousand times, but, regretfully, I never prayed with him.