Bulls-Heat Game Two: Miam Gets Even

Oh What A Piece Of Work Is Man (And Woman)

On some level, there isn't that much to say about this one, of course; the Heat won in a blowout because they got the game up-tempo and hit their threes, and Chicago lost their discipline. Desperation wins playoff games, and so does vastly better talent, and when the Bulls have lost games this year, they have lost them with a vengeance. No one on the planet, probably not even the most rabid Bulls fan, really thought they'd take both games and threaten the world with a short stomp series; after two games, all we've really established is that these teams well and truly hate each other, and that NBA referees who can't handle emotion will make a game borderline unwatchable by going over the top with flagrant and technical calls.

And yet, well, this.

I suppose, on some level, that this speaks to a certain and unmistakable moment of equality; the ability of women (in this case, one) to be just as regrettable and repugnant as any man is a form of liberation, really. If this were a photo of a guy, we'd shrug and move on, but given the composition of this shot -- the younger people on their phones, the security people not really noticing, her old man doing the same but far less noticeable behind her, and the shock of that hair and that mouth just drawing the eye in, almost against your will -- there's really no way around the trainwreck. If this were a child with the exact same reaction, it wouldn't pop as much.

It is hard, of course, to not see this as emblematic of the Miami crowd; overstepping their boundaries, reveling in hate to absurd levels, especially given their recent championship, the detritus of Trash America With Money, sliding down, down, down the pipe of America to collect in the Florida recess. And on some level, this happens at every game verbally, and probably more games than most visually. The fact that it's coming from someone who probably dropped four figures for tickets doesn't matter, of course. (Money doesn't buy you class, and it really doesn't in Miami.)

It also speaks to the new technology, in that the Internet assures that she'll be named and identified from this, and probably suffer some later public shame or maybe even professional consequence. Which is also new and probably not the best use of the new tools, but, well, unstoppable. If you make yourself into a public spectacle, you don't get to decide when that stops now.

One final point on this, and I'll move along... She's no more than five feet away from one of the world's best athletes, a man in the prime of his athletic life who is something like 2X her height, weight and power.

And yet, well, that.

Special, no?