Heat-Bulls Recap Out Of Nowhere And Random YouTube Channels For Your Enjoyment

Wow…so, that was interesting. Last night’s Bulls-Heat game was a revelation in so many ways. With D-Rose struggling in shaking off the rust with so many games missed, Chicago put egos aside (sitting Noah, Boozer, and Rip Hamilton for much of the 2nd half and OT as well) and trusted their bench. Taj Gibson, CJ Watson, Kyle Korver, and Omer Asik played the bulk of the 4th quarter and extra session minutes, and those household names proved too much for Miami to overcome. As for the Heat, it was clear how badly they wanted this one. Udonis Haslem was only able to muster 11 minutes because of some kind of stomach bug, but the rest of the way they only really played 7 guys. LeBron played 47 of a possible 53 minutes, and I can’t recall him coming out of the game after halftime. Bosh and Wade each played over 40 as well, and by the numbers the Big 3 played well: a combined 71 points on 47.5% shooting against Chicago’s world class D translates to a good day at the office offensively overall. But Miami’s lack of depth really showed against Chicago’s super-subs. Mario Chalmers, Mike Miller, Shane Battier, and Ronny Turiaf averaged 29.5 minutes played, and they combined for 9 points while shooting a woeful 4 for 18. Even on a team where 3 guys are going to carry the offensive load, that’s not enough production from your role players. The Heat’s lack of a bench proved costly. In the 6 minutes James sat in the 1st half, Miami was outscored by 9. Wade’s +/- for the night was +17 as well, meaning the Bulls bench was killing Miami’s in even the brief moments when James and Wade got a blow, and it was clear that Wade, who carried the scoring load in the 4th quarter, and LeBron, who guarded nearly every position and played the point most of the 2nd half, had nothing left in the tank by game’s end. To me, that’s on the coaching staff. Even if your bench is clearly outclassed, you have to find a way to steal a couple minutes rest for those guys at some point here and there.

I also have to wonder if a lack of coaching contributed to Watson’s game-tying 3 in the final seconds of regulation. LeBron was guarding the inbounder, but went to double Korver once he caught the inbound pass. The only problem was that Bosh had the same idea (although he seemed to rotate too slowly), creating a somewhat weak and unnecessary triple team on the ball. That left the other 2 Miami defenders playing 4 on 2. Korver made a not all that difficult pass to Boozer at the high post, who then swung the ball to Watson. Wade still was able to make a good close-out on Watson, but the triple team put Miami’s defense in scramble mode, and that led to at least a semi-clean look at the basket. If it was just an instinctive play by James, it’s tough to fault the coaching, but it seems like they could have been better schooled as to how to react to that type of play. Either way, the alarming thing if you’re a Miami fan is that the Heat actually played pretty well in their last 2 games against Chicago and Boston, their 2 biggest threats in the East, and it just wasn’t good enough. Now, both the Celts and Bulls played great in those games too, but it seems that they have figured out some kind of formula to beat Miami…which leads to this point: despite anything LeBron and Wade do, the way this team is currently constructed just may not be good enough, period. In all honesty if I had to redo the power rankings today, I would have Miami at 4th or 5th, or maybe even 6th.

Anyway, enough of that for now…that recap of last night was almost like some stream of consciousness, spur of the moment stuff that just came out. What I wanted to do originally, what with it being Friday and all, is give mention to a couple of random YouTube channels that I have come across lately. YouTube is great and obnoxious for the same reason: because any shmuck with a camera who knows how to upload a video can put content on YouTube. With that being said, there are definitely some hidden gems out there. I found out about this 1st channel through my friend Mac, who emailed me a link of their videos. The channel is “Two Best Friends Play,” and it’s basically just 2 guys, Matt and Pat, playing through various video games with their running commentary. Since watching that 1st video, I’ve subsequently watched every video that they have posted. I’m not sure why exactly I’ve become such an addict though. The videos are very “inside baseball,” and I would be considered a “noob” in the gaming world to say the least, but there’s something about them that consistently cracks me up. The best episodes usually involve them playing some not very mainstream s*** game, which are generally endless sources of material. The gold standard remains the Bear Grylls game episode though.

A lot of people that have already come across the “Kev Jumba” channel probably had a similar experience to mine. They got bored 1 day, clicked on the “browse” link on YouTube, and found Kevin’s “Biggest Cockblock” video under the “most viewed today” heading. From what I can tell, Kevin is an awkwardly funny college-aged Asian dude who has been posting videos since he was 16 or 17. I’m not sure exactly how funny Kevin would be in real life (he could be hilarious for all I know), but he definitely edits and splices together his videos in a way that comes across pretty funny…oh and his Dad is a riot. The weird thing is that I perused through 5 or 6 of his other videos, and they are littered with semi-famous people like the Asian guy from “Twilight” (I think at least), actress/model Jamie Chung, the Harlem Globetrotters, and even Jeremy Lin before anybody knew who he was (in his Golden State Warriors days). Kev Jumba, who are you?

The last channel I’m going to pimp is called “Twin Muscle Workout.” I stumbled upon TMW looking for some workout tips, but I got a little bit more than I bargained for. The dudes in the videos are the Hodge twins, 2 (what looks like at least) identical twins giving fitness advice. There are a couple of reasons I sampled 2 or 3 other clips after watching the 1st. 1 reason is that from what I can tell, their tips seem pretty sound, but more than that these guys are weirdly entertaining. They have that always strange, almost telekinetic connection that twins have where they finish each other’s sentences and seem to know what the other is thinking at all times, and they have this odd routine that had me rolling by the time I watched the last video. “Hey man, you want to build some muscle, man? You do? That’s good, man [clenches his jaw and poses like a pro wrestler or something].” And at the end of the video, “It’s just advice, so do whatever the f*** you want to do!”