The Thing About Knees, Part 2: "Yea, That Starts To Happen"

1 of my favorite Louis CK bits of all time is when he talks about going to see his doctor because of ankle pain as a 40 year old. Looking for some type of remedy, the doctor offers Louis no real fixes, and instead just points out that his ankle is just “worn out” and “s***ty” now.

This is pretty much the viewpoint I’ve adopted for my own body recently as well. In the infancy of this blog, I think a quarter of all my posts were injury-related. Now, I’m at the point that I’m just tired of talking about it. This is partially because it seems like a new ache or pain is popping up all the time, and partially because (like Louis’ doctor) I’m not going to do anything about it anyway.

On Sunday, I re-tweaked my left knee playing 1-on-1 with Krissy. The play where it happened was innocent enough: I took 1 dribble to my right, and planted for a pull-up jumper. There was no contact, and this wasn’t some violent looking, Derrick Rose-esque jump-stop either…it was a pretty routine play for me honestly, and I was even wearing my knee brace at the time, a remnant of the last time I had a “minor” knee injury a month or so ago.

The reality though is that there’s a lot of wear and tear there, and it’s not like injuries to different parts of the knee are mutually exclusive from 1 another. A partial meniscus tear, an MCL sprain, an ACL sprain (that last 1 was only self-diagnosed, but it’s my best guess)…they all add up, and I’m no doctor, but I always believe that an injury to 1 area causes your body to naturally overcompensate somewhere else (which can lead to another injury and so on).

While the area where it hurts this time is unfamiliar to me from my previous injuries, it doesn’t seem to be major. While still not pain-free and somewhat unstable feeling today, it feels better than it did yesterday. Using my ol’ injury criteria (if I was on a team and had a game, could I strap a brace on it, take some Advil, and go out there and play if I had to?), I think I would pass. Still, with every passing tweak, I always wonder how many more jumps, plants, and cuts this knee has in it.

This brings me back to my original point…I always joke with Krissy that if and when she gets pregnant, I am going to take a break from everything, go to the doctor, and get my knee and shoulder cleaned out. But short of having some catastrophic D-Rose/Baron Davis injury, I doubt I will actually go through with it. The fact is that I’m 27, and (as the blog title goes) nothing more than a “B-Court All-Star” at this point. I fully expect to be working out and playing sports well into an advanced age, but as a weekend warrior type I can’t see myself going under the knife unless absolutely necessary.

I'll have what he's having.

So for now, I think I will just have to live with having a s***ty incurable knee and trying to do my best to maintain its current state. If that means saying, “I’ll take 1 of everything,” when going through the McDavid catalog (or as I like to call it, the “Dwyane Wade special”), I guess that’s what I’ll do. The other alternative (taking it easy) never sounds all that fun to me anyway.

A Good Crowd Chant Gone Wrong

Crowd chants at sporting events are pretty ubiquitous at this point, enough so that you don’t even realize they are going on half the time when you are watching a game on TV. At 1 time, crowd chants actually seemed to mean something. I remember watching old Bulls-Knicks games as a kid, and when the Madison Square Garden crowd would belt out “Defense!” in unison during critical New York defensive possessions it felt as if the jumbotron atop the arena could come crashing down on the court at any time. In that same light, the 1st time I heard a crowd chant “bulls***” at the officials after a blown call, I legitimately thought there might be a fan riot.

Now, almost all sports crowd chants are completly lame and derivative. For example, every NBA crowd chants “M-V-P” when their star is at the free throw line, whether he is a legitimate candidate for that award or a fringe All-Star. Rajon Rondo is a great player, but I almost lost my mind when the Boston crowd gave him the MVP chant this postseason. (I have since softened my stance on this 1…Boston’s crowds are usually pretty smart and savvy when it comes to this stuff, and this may have served as a subtle jab at LeBron as much as a tribute to Rondo during the Boston-Miami series. Because of that, Celtics fans get a pass here.) There are other mainstays in every building like the “Let’s go, Celtics, clap, clap, clap-clap-clap” chant. “Let’s go, Cel-tics” can be replaced by just about any other 4 syllable phrase here too (“Ty-son Chand-ler, clap, clap, clap-clap-clap” or Duke fans chanting “Co-dy’s bet-ter” at Tyler Zeller, referencing Tyler’s younger brother, Cody). If it were up to me, all chants that use the 4 syllable phrase followed by 5 claps formula would be outlawed today. The 1 time I remember hearing it recently that was kind of cool was, ironically, also in Boston, where C’s fans chanted “Let’s go, Celtics” during the closing moments of game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals against Miami when Boston was trailing by what seemed like 50 points. Game 7 had yet to be played, so the Celtics were still alive at the time, but it was like Boston fans somehow knew it would be their last chance of the year (and maybe ever) to say goodbye to the team as currently constructed.

So when the Miami crowd started to chant the Kanye West song “Power” during the closing minute of their Finals clinching win over the Thunder it had a chance to be a cool moment as well. Crowd singalongs have become popular in recent years. For example, it seems like every college basketball arena in the country plays and hums along with either The White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army” or the jock jams classic “Zombie Nation” at a certain break in the game. While it usually goes unnoticed, “Power” has become a staple of Heat wins as the clock winds under a minute to play in the game. While it wasn’t exactly the old Boston Garden ominously chanting “Beat LA” to the Sixers at the end of the ’82 Eastern Conference Finals, it had some serious goose bump potential. It was like the official signal that the Miami Heat block party was about to begin…until James Jones, mop that he is, shot a corner 3 that bounced off the top of the backboard. The often maligned Miami crowd’s chant died out within a second or 2 following Jones’ brick. I will give them a B- for effort at least…some plays you can’t chant through no matter how hard you try though.

Thunder-Heat, Game 5: The Champ Is Here

It’s no secret that I somewhat try to emulate Bill Simmons’ writing style in these posts. Last night I planned on ripping him off completely by blogging an in-game diary of game 5 of the NBA Finals…so much for that idea. I think I wrote 1 snarky comment about Matthew McConaughey’s straight-away 3-point bank shot on Jimmy Kimmel’s pregame show, and then I wrote something about the turnover that led to LeBron’s breakaway dunk that gave Miami a 2-0 lead being a bad sign for OKC. But after that, I just couldn’t keep up with it. I was just too into the game to stop and try to quickly think of something funny, smart, and relevant to write every 5 minutes…experiment failed.

With that being said, game 5 was pretty much drama-free from the 2nd quarter on. I was curious as to whether Miami would seize the moment and put their foot on OKC’s neck, or would they let a desperate Thunder team send this series back to their homecourt, possibly allowing the seeds of doubt to seep into the collective psyche of this Heat team once again. It turned out to be the former.

"It's about damn time."

OKC trimmed a 17 point 2nd quarter lead to 10 by halftime, but it seemed like they were down more (they only managed to keep it that close by being awarded a very generous amount of free throws early on). The Thunder got it as close as 5 thanks to a quick spurt a minute into the 3rd…but from that point on, it was all Miami. When Mike Miller made 3’s on the 1st 2 possessions of the 4th, the Heat lead had swelled to 27. With the outcome of the game no longer in doubt, the final 10 minutes or so served as a Miami coronation (for the record, the final score was 121-106).

LeBron will get the lion’s share of the credit and pub, and he is deserved of it, but let’s delve a little deeper. For many reasons over the past 2 seasons, it just seemed like this Miami experiment wasn’t going to work. LeBron wasn’t mentally strong enough. While great talents separately, the individual pieces of the Heat’s big 3 didn’t seem to fit together. And their supporting cast just plain wasn’t as good as they were supposed to be.

Mike Miller was unconscious last night, but he and the rest of the Miami role players finally played like Pat Riley had always hoped they would.

Ironically enough, it took until the closeout game of the Finals for the Heat to be exactly what Pat Riley envisioned 2 years ago. James stuffing the stat sheet with a triple double...Dwyane Wade living in the paint to the tune of 20 points…Chris Bosh settling comfortably into his role as the 3rd banana, scoring a quiet 24 points…and those 3 drawing so much defensive attention that Miami’s “others” were getting wide open looks from 3-point land. Miller and Shane Battier had been mostly disappointments since their arrivals in Miami, but the 2 combined to go 10 for 15 from downtown last night, including Miller’s near-historic 7 for 8…all that being accompanied by stifling team defense is a recipe for a championship.

As for the young Thunder, it was clear as this series went on that they may have gotten to this point a year ahead of schedule and weren’t quite ready for this stage just yet. Pending any big moves in the offseason by the Lakers or Mavericks (maybe even including them), they will be the clear cut favorites to win the Western Conference again next season. As currently constructed, this group has improved every season. There’s no reason that the upward trend won’t continue next year. They have the league’s best scorer in Durant and another top 10 player in Westbrook. If they stay healthy, add 1 or 2 complimentary players, and use this loss to fuel their desire to win a title, there’s no telling how good OKC could be.

It's safe to say we haven't seen the last of these 2.

But last night belonged to LeBron James and the Miami Heat. The monkey that had been on James’ back since his postseason failures in Cleveland are gone, and with that so is the 1 that the Miami franchise had collectively carried around ever since “The Decision.” Frankly, it will be interesting to see how the court of public opinion views the Heat going into next season. In year 1 of the big 3, LeBron and Miami were widely hated. This year those feelings seemed to die down a little, but you still didn’t have to look too hard to find Heat-haters across the sports universe. Now, will LeBron, Wade, and company be universally loved again (as they were prior to their coming together)? Or are haters still gonna hate?

Realistically, probably some combination of the 2…whatever you want to say, the Heat actually got it done this year. If you look at it in a different way, they were actually 2 games from having 2 championships in their 1st 2 years, but that’s an argument for a different day. No doubt, some people still won’t forget the Heat’s original arrogance though and LeBron’s infamous “not 5, not 6, not 7” line. He has 1 ring, but now I fully expect people to chime in with “Kobe’s got 5” and “MJ’s got 6” too. After all, no matter what LeBron had accomplished up to this point in his career, it seems like we always expected more. It’s unlikely that we will be satisfied no matter how many records, MVPs, or rings he winds up with whenever his career finally ends. To those that love basketball though, let’s try to appreciate him while he’s here.

Thunder-Heat, Game 4: Cramping OKC's Style

So…that was some game.

NBA Finals games are supposed to have a certain level of intensity, but the Heat and Thunder seemed to ratchet it up a couple notches last night. Desperately not wanting to go down 3-1, OKC started off the game at warp speed, jumping out to an early 17 point lead only to let Miami answer with their own 16-0 run, and the Heat survived a Russell Westbrook explosion and some 4th quarter cramp-age by LeBron James to gut this 1 out.

Westbrook was unstoppable last night, but most people will only remember his role in 1 critical play.

Oddly enough, it’s Miami that looks like the more physical, more grind-it-out, and more clutch team right now, which is saying something given their criticisms over the last 2 seasons. On the other hand, as 1 of my favorite sayings goes, OKC looks just good enough to lose at the moment. You can’t say the Thunder haven’t played well (they have only been outscored by a total of 5 points for the series), but Miami seems to be using their experience to their advantage.

James, Dwayne Wade, and Mario Chalmers were the ones making the big plays at the end of last night’s game. Westbrook was fantastic, but had a Chris Webber “lite” moment at the end of the game (his foul on Chalmers that pretty much iced the game), Kevin Durant faded late (only 3 shot attempts and 2 turnovers in the 4th quarter), and James Harden had another nightmare game (2 for 10 from the floor, 4 turnovers, and a shankapotomus layup attempt on a fast break in the 4th to boot).

An unlikely hero: with LeBron suffering from severe leg cramps, Mario Chalmers came to the rescue.

It looks like Miami simply out-toughed OKC too…the Thunder have a definitive size advantage, as Miami has continued to go small with Chris Bosh and Udonis Haslem manning the center position for most of the series while James and Shane Battier share power forward duties. Still, the Heat have outrebounded the Thunder the past 3 games, and LeBron and Dwyane Wade are living in the paint. Meanwhile, OKC is built around their perimeter play and their ability to make jumpers, and if 1 of their big 3 is off (it’s been Harden for most of this series), it can be difficult to overcome.

Also speaking to toughness, OKC seemed too concerned with the refs in game 4. 1st, it’s a given that the Heat are the darlings of the NBA right now, so the “tie goes to the runner” theory should be assumed when you’re playing against Miami (especially in Miami). 2nd, you’re simply not going to get as many calls when you’re a jumpshooting team like the Thunder are. 3rd, it was pretty clear early on last night that the refs were going to let just about anything go away from the ball. Being the more physical team, this favored Miami, but the game was officiated that way all night. 4th, there seemed to be at least close to an equal number of missed calls or phantom calls on both sides last night…the ones working against OKC just seemed to come at more inopportune times. 5th, if I’m a ref, I’m not bailing out Westbrook with a foul every time he goes into hyperdrive and flies towards the rim in a semi-out-of-control fashion just because he gets bumped a tad. And 6th, if you check last night’s box score, the Thunder actually benefitted from more whistles than the Heat. Miami was called for 19 personal fouls for the game to OKC’s 16, and the Thunder took 9 more free throw attempts.

So, less sideways glances at the refs, more made baskets, please. If not, South Beach may be the party location of the century Thursday night.

The Secret's Out

It’s been a while since I’ve done 1 of my “terrible movie review” posts, but fortunately TV can be a great source of material too. Here to the rescue is ABC Family’s “The Secret Life of the American Teenager.” To my amazement, this show is currently in its 5th season, and looks like it has enough of a following that it might stick around for even longer. 5 seasons! That’s as long as “Friday Night Lights” was on the air, for Pete’s sake…

The show was meant to be an insider’s look at the worlds of teens that parents and teens could watch together. It’s so campy and so single-minded (as good ol’ YouTube will attest to in a minute) that virtually every episode I’ve seen is completely unbelievable. Seriously, who as a teenager ever talked or acted like this? The core audience of the show seems like teenage girls, but I wonder how many of them watch just to giggle as 1 character will rattle off the word “sex” 47 times in a 90 second stretch.

I do wonder how many people like Krissy and I watch though. We stumbled upon the show a few years ago during the summer when there was nothing else on TV…no games, no movies, nothing on the DVR. We were channel-flipping, somehow landed on ABC Family, and stuck it out for a few minutes. We ended up screaming at the TV due to the stupidity of all the characters (and for the awful acting), but it was so bad that we couldn’t help wondering what was going to happen next. Somehow, we kept finding ourselves tuning in for at least part of “Secret Life” every week until we finally just decided to add it to our DVR queue.

And now, here we are…hating all the characters and the show as a whole, but still watching. Ben is so weasel-y, spineless, and entitled that you just want to wring his skinny ostrich neck. Grace is fake, selfish, and a complete c***tease. And I’m still not convinced that the actress that plays Ashley isn’t a china doll cyborg from another planet. For what it’s worth, the adults on the show are all kind of funny in their own way, and every time I see the 1 mom I say, “Hey, there’s the girl from all those John Hughes movies all grown up!” but for the most part they are only meant to be side props to the teenagers’ ridiculous adventures in adolescence.

"Look at yourself, you f****** swan!"

Of the kid actors, I only find 2 of them to be redeemable in any way. 1st is Shailene Woodley, who was really pretty good as the older daughter in The Descendents. For any “Secret Life” watchers, you will be completely taken off guard by her on-point use of the word “t***” as well as the many variations of the word “f***.” (Weirdly, when she was only a little kid she also played Marissa’s younger sister in “The O.C.” for all of 6 episodes before she was effectively killed off and sent to boarding school or something.)

The language in The Descendants is a little saltier than what "Secret Life" fans might be used to.

The 2nd, and I’m not proud to say this, is the actor that plays Tom, who is basically Grace’s mentally challenged older brother. As un-P.C. as it is, it’s impossible for me to watch him deliver a line without cracking up. The only thing that probably saves me from going to hell on this 1 is that it looks like the show’s writers have started to purposely exploit his condition for comic relief over the last few episodes. At 1st, it seemed like his character was meant to diversify the cast and show the family interactions of a mentally challenged person, but the show doesn’t use him that way at all, so why should I view him that way?

Overall, I’m not sure how much more of a shelf life the show has. The nature of teen soaps is that the characters age-out of whatever situation they are in, and any effort to continue the show past that is usually far-fetched…unless they change the name to “The Secret Life of the American 20 Year Old,” or something. It seems like the writers did stagger the ages of the characters so all of them don’t move on to college at the same time though, and it’s possible that an influx of new younger characters could take over the show, but I’m not sure that’s the best idea. “Secret Life” has already clumsily taken us through teenage sex, teenage pregnancy, teenage marriage, and teenage lesbianism. What’s next, teenage cannibalism? Besides that, is anyone going to want to watch Ricky and Grace’s half-brothers carry the show once the current crop of characters graduates? Then again, why are we watching now exactly?

Thunder-Heat, Games 2 and 3: The Thunder's Own Worst Enemy

For the past 2 years the NBA has been all about the Miami Heat. This is for good reason. Ever since “The Decision,” the Heat have been the most hated, most scrutinized, and most intriguing franchise in all of professional sports. They, and more specifically LeBron James, have been picked apart and dissected in more ways than I would have thought possible. Their following has been so insane that the Heat’s critics have critics…and the critics’ critics have their own critics…and so on. So with each passing game, don’t be surprised if the headline revolves around Miami in some way whether they win or lose. Even my game recaps always seem to be a little more Miami-centric than I originally intend. Still, to me the real story through 3 games in this series has been the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Prior to the Finals, many wondered aloud whether OKC was ready for this kind of stage yet. The talent and framework was undeniable, but this group is so young that it seemed possible they were a year ahead of schedule. That talk quickly diminished when the Thunder erased a 7 point halftime deficit in game 1 to win by 11. Durant and Westbrook both looked unstoppable in the 2nd half, as they ran right by the older, slower, more tired looking Heat. Even though Miami held on to beat OKC by 4 in game 2, everyone still seemed to believe the young Thunder had proven their mettle. A somewhat controversial no-call on LeBron was all that stood between Durant possibly tying the score with only seconds to play…but all that might have been fool’s gold in the end.

KD has looked unstoppable...in only he got the ball a little more often.

The Heat could very well still lose this series. All anyone needs to do is think back to last year when Miami also held a 2-1 series lead against the Mavericks and what happened the rest of the way. More than that, OKC still very well may be the better team. Ignoring the 1st quarter of game 2, if you watched the 1st 3 games with the score at the bottom of the screen blocked out, it probably always feels like the Thunder are ahead. They are deeper, their pieces fit together better, and they seem to play without fear. They also seem to possess things that Miami doesn’t have an answer for. LeBron might be the best perimeter defender in the league right now, but even he seems to be at Durant’s mercy when guarding him 1-on-1. Russell Westbrook is a nightmare matchup for even the likes of Dwayne Wade. And OKC has enough rim-protecting bigs and perimeter defenders to make life tough for the Heat on the other end of the floor if their jumpers don’t happen to be falling that particular night.

But the Thunder also can’t seem to get out of their own way at times. They got off to very poor starts in the 1st 2 games of the series, trailing by as many as 13 in game 1 and spotting Miami an 18-2 start in game 2. In game 3, OKC started off much stronger, and they even led by 10 midway through the 3rd quarter, but they somehow let Miami chip away. This was in large part thanks to Durant’s foul trouble for a 2nd straight game and what can only be described as 2 ill-advised fouls on Shane Battier and James Jones 3 point attempts. Thunder Coach Scott Brooks probably also shares blame for last night’s 3rd quarter. After Durant picked up his 4th foul, he immediately took a seat on the bench, but then Brooks gave Westbrook his normal 3rd quarter rest as well. It might have been wise to let Durant try to play with the fouls for at least a few of those minutes or cut Westbrook’s break short. Instead, they both were out of the game for a considerable amount of time, and Miami entered the 4th leading by a deuce.

Westbrook's numbers through 3 Finals games look spectacular at 1st glance..."look" spectacular.

The Thunder’s biggest flaw of all may be that their best player (Durant) often looks like the team’s 3rd scoring option. When Durant, Westbrook, and James Harden are all playing at once, Harden and Westbrook usually dominate the ball. They are both great creators off of the dribble, but more often than not they are creating shots for themselves rather than Durant or other teammates. Westbrook in particular has come under fire during this series, but his numbers look fantastic: 24 points, 7 boards, and 7 dimes per game in 3 Finals games while only turning the ball over twice per contest…with that being said, he’s only shooting 41% from the floor and 21% from 3, and he is good for at least 3 wildly out of control, what-are-you-thinking layup attempts per game, most of which seem to occur on possessions where Durant doesn’t even get a touch. Westbrook is ridiculously good, but he just doesn’t seem to have the whole balance between scoring and setting others up thing down yet. Meanwhile, Durant is shooting a staggering 57% from the field in the Finals while shooting 7 fewer shots than Westbrook through the 1st 3 games. The Thunder won’t win if Westbrook alters his game completely, but it’s safe it might do their offensive efficiency some good to get Durant a few more shots…if they don’t, they’re not going to beat Miami no matter what.

Let's Take A Break From The Finals And Enjoy Some Random YouTube Clips

My last 10 – count em’, 10 – posts have basically been playoff game recaps, so I figured I would change it up with a little random YouTube clip post. I probably wrote enough words yesterday to count for 2 regular posts anyway.

1st up is your prototypical YouTube clip: a video with a cat in it. What could be more cliché than that? Cat-hater that I am, I might be the least likely person to repost something like this, but the randomness and spontaneity of the clip had me dying. The “mash-up” of the crescendo of the song and the climax of the video is just too good to be true. As always in comedy, timing is everything.

Video number 2 will catch anyone’s eye that was a fan of the now extinct “a capella” singing competition show “The Sing Off.” That’s the winning group from season 3, Pentatonix, covering Gotye’s hit single “Somebody That I Used To Know.” I wasn’t really a fan of the original version to begin with, but after hearing PTX’s version, for me Gotye went from being “meh” to being complete dogs***.

Just so we don’t stray too far from the NBA Finals, here’s a clip of LeBron James and Kevin Durant working out together for a few days during this year’s NBA lockout. I know we saw hundreds of clips of NBA superstars playing in local summer league games during the lockout, but for some reason they didn’t produce the reaction for me that this clip did. It was like 2 universes were colliding, like Batman and Iron Man joined forces, or like Sting and the Undertaker were tag team partners…spooky.