The Spurs Round Up: I Guess They Aren't Boring Anymore

The Way To Be

Here's something that's going to sound really react- ionary: the 2013-14 Spurs might be the best team in NBA history.

No, seriously.

Let's break it down. The coach, no one's arguing with; five titles in fifteen years in an era of free agency and salary caps is world-class, and that's a simple statement of fact. Tim Duncan is the best power forward of his generation, and the biggest winner now, passing Kobe Bryant. Tony Parker is one of the best point guards of his era, and Manu Ginobili one of the best off-guards. And none of those guys were the MVP of the Finals; that honor, of course, went to Kawhi Leonard.

It's easy to see how there were better than last year's Spurs team, and that outfit was a famous three-point miracle away from winning in six. It seems pretty obvious that this team would have beaten that Heat club, just on the basis of this year's Ginobili being so much better than last year's. (Looking further, consider how much better Boris Diaw, Tiago Splitter and Patty Mills were compared to 2012-13.)

Do they beat the 2011 Mavs? Well, um, yes; that club rode the last good moments of Jason Kidd, the best work ever by Dirk Nowitzki, and Jason Terry and Tyson Chandler; not exactly a generation-shattering collection of talent. The Kobe/Gasol/Odom Lakers would have been a very difficult task, especially with Phil Jackson's ability to get the better of Popovich much more than most, but that club had real trouble guarding the three-point line against Boston, and the Spurs shoot it better from the arc than Boston did. This brings us back to the Garnett/Allen/Pierce Celtics, and that's a pretty great series battle of who can dictate tempo. I still take the Spurs, though. And now we're back into earlier Spurs teams, or the Shaq/Kobe Lakers, or the Pistons, and the game is just too different now with the three-point shots and the international talent, and so on. I know everyone wants to canonize the Jordan Bulls, especially any time anyone compares James to His Airness, but the game is just so different now; much less with hard fouls, much more with movement and three point shooting. If the game is played under 2014 rules, I take this Spurs team to beat anybody.

The biggest reason why? Look at what they did to their competition. The beating that they just put on the Heat was historic. You just rarely see the Finals going to a blowout as often as this did, and the simple fact of the matter is that when Leonard wasn't in foul trouble, they were dramatically better. Tonight, they were up 20 before Parker made a bucket. The Heat couldn't keep separation even after playing their best ball of the season, because the Spurs' depth was just of such quality.

And this wasn't even their most one-sided win in the playoffs.

That honor went to Portland, who got run out of the building in a series that was like this one, in that the longer it went, the more pronounced the beating became. They handled a Thunder team that might have had the best two players on the floor, seemingly had turned the series around after getting back Serge Ibaka, and spent a good chunk of that series without a healthy Parker. The only real problem they had was in the first round, when Dallas took them to the limit, and even that required some pretty damned lucky shots before the Game 7 beatdown.

There's also, of course, everything else. The NBA is frequently boiled down to Heroball. The Spurs don't do that. (With the possible exception of what Duncan did to the Thunder in overtime.) You can frequently predict a series by just going with Team With The Best Player Wins; that's not the Spurs, either. This is a league where coaches are hired out or their uniforms because they were heady point guards, and teams fire Coach of the Year winners within 18 months on average, as soon as they don't get out of the second or third round. Dear Lord in Heaven, the Spurs don't do that at all. Rather than blowing up their aging nucleus, they simply cut their minutes, avoided a player revolt, and got useful contributions from a bewildering array of options. Stars get yelled at. Benchies get fourth quarter minutes if they are better that night. The ball moves, gloriously, consistently, and at speeds that no other team can match or defend. And finally, as the series went on and Leonard got more and more comfortable, they even got good on defense.

If you defend the arc, they penetrate and make. If you have a rim protector, they make shots in mid-range, a lost art in the NBA. (Watch that Houston - Portland series for clarification.) If the starters fall behind, they pull them. No player gets to take them out of the game with an 8-for-30 night because he's The Star. No player gets to conserve his energy for offense, because all five guys can score. Players come here and get better, more conditioned (especially Diaw and Mills), and overcome adversity. I'm thinking primarily of Splitter, posterized for the ages by James last year, stuffing Wade in one of a dozen Clinch Definition moments in tonight's game. And that guy's had his minutes go up and down at Popovich's whim, without pouting.

It's incredibly inspiring, really.

I don't root for the Spurs and never have; I'm a Sixers fan. But by watching this series, I don't have to put all of my hopes that the upcoming draft class has to have a Magic Duncan for my team to be good. Instead, they could find talent from all over the globe, coach them up, keep them together over the years, hire the right coach and spread the minutes to a bunch of useful role players. And absolutely run away with a championship.

That never used to work, and even when it seemed to, it was only in a power vacuum, until some new Jordan or Bryant or Shaq or James came along to end you with his star power. The Spurs have shown the world a better way to build a team, and a better way to play basketball; it's as if the Webber/Divac Kings had beaten the Shaq/Kobe Lakers. (These Spurs are much more mentally tough and better on defense than those Kings teams, of course.) And even if they fall apart with injuries or age or complacency next year, and even if Popovich and Duncan and Parker and Ginobili all decide to walk away, that should stick.

But honestly? I don't think they are going anywhere. If there's an easier situation to be a star player than what the Spurs have got going right now, I haven't seen it. No one seems to be looking for more numbers, chafing under Popovich, looking for endorsement deals, or in any way angry about any damned thing at all. Duncan, Parker and Ginobili might play 50 regular season games next year and be even more ready for the playoffs, with the club still holding a 2 or 3 seed.

You've got hot weather, you're the only team in town, you've got interesting teammates from all walks of life, and you play historically great and beautiful ball. Why would anyone want to leave this?

And more importantly, why would anyone want to make any other kind of team?

The Heat Round Up: Same Beating Next Year

2-3 In The Finals

Here's the problem with winning: it's never enough. Win once, can you repeat? If not, it was a fluke. Win twice, well, the threepeat is the true definition of a great team. Win three, everyone hates you and thinks you're old and yada, yada, yada. And so it goes for history's least-loved great team, the Miami Heat, who have been to four straight Finals but have only won two, and just got beaten down by historic levels in this round by a Spurs team that (shh!) might have been one of the best teams in NBA history. (More on that in another post.)

As an aside, I take offense at just how much people delight in the Heat's loss -- and no, I'm not a Heat fan, and have never been. There are Cleveland hoop fans in my Twitter feed, and you would have thought that tonight's loss erased the Heat's two titles, and that the Spurs have moved to Ohio. You people are losers. LeBron was right to leave; he's got two rings now, and didn't spend his entire basketball life toiling for the Quicken Loans Comic Sans Idiot.

Also -- there is no "right" way to build a franchise. Guys taking less money to play with a winning organization is not evidence of wrestling heel-like cowardly behavior, unless they happen to be doing that for laundry that you do not root for. The idea that a championship team needs to be loved beyond their borders is insanity. Stop treating sports like pro wrestling, with designated heels and babyfaces; it makes everyone sound like they are 12 years old, and demeans a beautiful game. Moving on.


Back to the Heat. They still have advantages, of course. Anyone who really thinks that James is going to leave the closet thing to an automatic annual ticket to the Finals by leaving the East is smoking something that's only now legal in a few states, and they have a reasonable coaching situation, good home crowd (well, at least when they are winning), no state income tax and so on. There is no second-best team in the East that is going to improve themselves so dramatically as to stop Trip Number Five next June, assuming that they stay relatively healthy. But as this Spurs series show, they really aren't good enough, and probably wouldn't have gotten out of the second round, and maybe even the first, if they played in the West.

So what happens next? Well, everyone thinks they'll go after Carmelo Anthony under the concept that Stars Attract Stars, and as little of a fan as I am of Melo's me-first game. there's no denying that he'd help. If Miami isn't going to get to Spur-like ball movement and dead-eye three-point shooting, being able to get to the line and break up runs with a post game would help, and Anthony can do that. The Heat also just spent most of the regular season trying to manage Dwayne Wade's minutes so that he'd be better in the Finals, and that didn't work at all. Unlike previous years, they don't have a whole lot of hope that Norris Cole and Mario Chalmers are going to get a lot better, and despite the small moments that Michael Beasley showed them in Game Five, no one really thinks he's going to be anything more than a bench scoring vagabond. They also need a gritty 4 who can actually still play (unlike Udonis Haslem), a 3-point shooting 2 who can go for more than five minutes at a time (unlike Ray Allen), and a 5 who isn't an offensive liability who can block shots and rebound (unlike Greg Oden and Chris Anderson).

What they do works in the East, because the East does not have elite level point guards and long-term passing monster teams that make their defensive pressure meaningless... and, well, this isn't a style where you can grow old gracefully. James is the best player on the planet, but he's not getting better, and in another 1 to 3 years, that crown might go to Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, LaMarcus Aldrige, Stephen Curry or Kawhi Leonard. Or maybe even a guy in their own conference.

There are other ways to go than to chase Melo. Going after PG Kyle Lowery of Toronto, fresh off a series that clearly spiked his value, might help them get easier makes on offense. If Kevin Love is serious about chasing wins with his next team, he'd be fantastic for them, and probably make Chris Bosh better, since he wouldn't have to keep trying to be something he's not. Even small beer moves, like what Dallas did to bring in Monta Ellis and Sam Dalembert, or the Warriors with Andre Iguodala, would make this team so much more dangerous than, well, Haslem and Anderson and Beasley and Odom. There will be other names, and until the league changes, there will always be teams trying to tank and shed useful assets. Hell, Thaddeus Young would have helped loads in this series.

Basically, Miami just tried to win a threepeat with three above-average starters. That really shouldn't happen. And no one has ever accused Pat Riley of being insufficiently ruthless. There are at least a half dozen guys on the Heat bus tonight that won't be with this club in October. It's not like they have the excuse of not breaking up the band.

And the fact that they got to the Finals with relative ease, and did so while avoiding winter and income tax in a town with beautiful women?

Trust me, James isn't going anywhere.

The only question is who's coming to town to join him.

And whether they'll be good enough to close the immense gap from the Best of the West that was shown in these Finals. On that last point? I have some serious doubts. More on that later.

Heat - Spurs Game Five Takeaways: Follow Someone Else's Lead

This Is My Happy Face

Prior to tonight's game, the hype machine was about how someone has to be the first team to come back from 3-1 down, but the fact that the Spurs spent the last two games whistling "Sweet Georgia Brown" on Miami's home court did not inspire confidence. In any event, there's no more pro hoop before Halloween, so let's get into this one with too much detail in the Takeaways...

> LeBron James tells his teammates to follow his lead by saying inspiring things in front of a live mic

> Ray Allen in for Miami, which would be fine if he were a point guard or young

> Dwayne Wade with the first make, and that's encouraging for drama's sake

> Allen with a strip leading to a James flush, and Miami looks much more energetic early

> Tim Duncan with a miss of a too-open shot, and then Tony Parker does the same, and hmm...

> Actual nastiness in a floor melee -- interesting

> Duncan campaigns and does not get a call, followed by a James flush, and it's 8-0 for the road team

> Manu Ginobili in early and misses, James with a 3 coming back, and wow, the Spurs aren't moving the ball well

> Kawhi Leonard with the first make of the game, a three, with five minutes in -- big shot to stop the bleeding

> Rashard Lewis with a 3 with Chris Bosh driving and oddly dishing when defended by Parker

> Miami's on the ball pressure is just night and day from Games 3 and 4, but it takes a lot of energy to play this way

> James with absurd separation speed past Ginobili for another transition hoop, and the Spurs are yelling at refs, never a good sign

> 19-5 after six minutes is not exactly according to the script that said this was over

> Gregg Popovich goes to the subs, as is he is want to do when the starters do not produce

> James' second block of the game is crazy athletic

> Allen with a three, and he's your designated savior so far

> Ginobili with the old-school three to answer, a lifeline

> Shane Battier and Manu Ginobili get into some awkward weirdness as both men try to flop first

> Patty Mills playing downright disrespectul defense on Allen, leading to a miss and a Leonard three to cut the lead to 7

> Allen misses again and again, and it's telling that Miami is going down with the old guys that used to help

> Mills gets a soft roll in 3, 12-0 Spurs run, and this all feels inevitable

> James with an absurd end of clock 30-footer to stop the bleed

> Norris Cole in for Mario Chalmers, and wow, how the mediocre have fallen

> James with two makes, and that's 17 and 6 in 10 minutes - ye gads

> Danny Green with the transition 3 miss in the 2-for-1 choice, and that shot was going down earlier in the series

> Cole gets bailed out by the refs, and feel free to start thinking conspiratorial thoughts

> Leonard draws the second on Battier, who looks all kinds of spent

> James misses from 30, amazingly, and it's 29-22 Heat after the first

> As better as the Heat looked in the first, it's really asking a lot for James to be this absurdly good for 11 more quarters to suck out a series win

> Boris Diaw with the great pass and flush for Leonard to start the second, and it's telling that the Heat stars are in during what is usually benchie time

> Leonard over James to cut it to 3, and yeah, Young Buck's a coming

> Wade with a long make, and they need a lot more of that

> Green with another open corner miss, and that sort of thing is going to keep Miami hoping

> Chris Anderson ends a Parker drive, and that's shot blocking the Heat haven't had all series

> Parker now 0 for his first 6, not exactly his usual standard

> Green misses from five feet, and it's kind of amazing that the Spurs are only down 7 while shooting this badly

> James tries to pass rather than drive on Duncan, leading to a turnover -- telling

> Bosh misses the too-open 3 with no Heat player in any position to get a board, also known as why I hate it when 4's shoot 3's

> Duncan shakes Udonis Haslem, because, um, that should always happen

> Wade draws on Belinelli, and gets both to fall, which hasn't been the case very often in the dotage of his career

> Haslem blocks Duncan, but Timmy's got enough wherewithal to get a miss on the rim to continue the possession, leading to a Belinielli deuce -- um, he's heady and stuff

> Duncan owns Hawlem again, cutting the lead to 3, and no, Erik Spoelstra, your spirit animal can't play against Duncan

> Allen with the offensive foul turnover, leading to the old-school Duncan three to tie it, but Timmy misses the FT

> Spur defense picking up fast, as James drives and can't finish; Leonard's answering three is the Spurs' first lead

> Really did not think San Antonio could play this level of defense

> Mills with a killshot three, but it stays out

> Lewis with an airball from the corner three, and he's spent

> Ginobili with the super-pretty drive and reverse, and that's another Heat timeout

> Wade with a cheap shot push-off that Mills sells it for all that he's worth

> Miami with six points in nine minutes of the second quarter, and that's Game Four all over again

> Bosh misses the open three, Ginobili skies to make the lead seven, and seriously, no one knew he could still do that

> James with a fade and make to stop a 14-0 run

> Miami's defense worse now, and Ginobili makes the heat check three

> Bench scoring is 22-2 Spurs, and yup, that's kind of important

> James misses and makes at the line to cut it to 7

> Diaw misses an easy floater, Wade gets one to roll in, back to 5

> Diaw's drive and make goes this time, easy ball movement, unlike the first quarter

> James misses the 3, Parker misses to go 0 for 7, but San Antonio is so complete, they are still up 7

> Spurs getting the o-boards now as well -- fresh legs

> Diaw misses the 3, and the half ends Spurs 47-40, 25-11 in the second

> Any hope that Miami would use the break to get their legs and defensive ball pressure back left pretty quickly

> Leonard with the continuing rise and rush, and it's really getting hard to see the fourth quarter being meaningful

> Splitter with a signature block on Wade, and that had to taste good after last year

> Mills with the killshot three after that play, and the series may have just ended

> Bosh with a temporary reprieve make before Mills again hits

> Ginobili three, the lead is 21, and that will be all, Mr. James

> Chalmers and Michael Beasley in, and that's the essence of desperation right there

> Two makes by Miami gives Popovich the excuse he needs for the angry timeout

> Mills makes at the end of the clock to foil good Miami defense and keep the celebration going

> Leonard makes and the lead's back to 21 as Beasley travels

> Credit to Bosh for still fighting the good fight, even while ESPN is giving us a lesson in Aboriginal land rights

> Chalmers to the line and the lead is back down to 17, or at least would be if Mills can ever stop making open threes

> Duncan over James, who replies with a three right back

> Beasley with a nice play on Parker, but James can't keep making threes

> Parker finally gets in the scoring column in the waning moments of the third, and this really should be a full runaway by now

> James makes two, now has 27, and the Spurs lead by 19; Spurs 77, Heat 58, and if this isn't over, I'm an airplane

> Five words from Pop in the interview, he's the best

> Spurs force a 24-second violation to start the fourth, and, um, wow

> Spur crowd outraged over an out of bounds, because they are just that fully invested

> Nice and one from Beasley, which is probably going to make Popovich throw a chair; he misses the FT, of course

> James with the board, speed outlet to Chalmers, who makes and gets Leonard's fifth -- as good a sequence as Miami could hope for

> Leonard gets to the line to end that mini-run

> James owns Diaw for once and dunks, back to 14, glimmmer of drama... so Duncan with the old-school make

> Chalmers with his best game of the Finals, which is damning with no praise

> Parker makes off the terrible Bosh three attempts, the lead is back to 18 with 9 minutes left, and this is starting to get outside the realm of math

> Heat suffer a turnover out of a timeout on the inbounds, which doesn't say much for the coaching of bench players

> Beasley with the follow dunk on James' three, but loses Diaw on the resulting three-pointer

> Wade hits a three to show he's not dead yet

> Parker owns on the hesitation make, just artistry

> James makes, but trading buckets isn't cutting the lead

> Parker again, no answer for Miami on defense

> Green misses the killshot three, but it's 18 with 6:30 left anyway

> James out of the huddle and on the bench, which has to be giving his haters fresh wood

> Wade gets to the line, misses both, stick a fork in him for at least this year

> Wade to Bosh on the break, can't finish, which is the series in microcosm

> Six straight makes by Parker, who seems determined to salvage his percentages

> Beasley really looks like he could have helped his team at some point in this series, but he's hopeless on defense

> It's rare that you see garbage time with so many name players trying to make thematic points

> Wade, James and Bosh out with 3:15 left, and let the rampant and pointless speculation begin

> I'd say something about the last two minutes of game play, but why be better than the professional game coverage

> The Right Way is cited, because guys taking less money for the chance to play for a championship is clearly very, very wrong

> ESPN feels that we will never see this kind of continuity again, because the NBA doesn't copy successful formulas at all

> All four victories were by over 15 points, which didn't say much for why we watched

> The stars and coaches couldn't wait for the game to end to hug, which seemed wrong, really

> Five titles in 15 years is a very odd form of dynasty

> Leonard is your MVP, because he pl;ayed the most like LeBron for the winning team (and yeah, it's an easy choice)

> He becomes the third youngest Finals MVP in history, and um, yeah, the Spurs' window isn't exactly closed

> Honestly, this might be the Finals again next year, which means Commissioner Silver desperately needs to end the conference playoff system

The Poker Diaries: One Mistake

Some of this was mine

As a general rule of thumb, humans will only risk an asset if they feel that they are likely to double up for the risking of the asset. So poker is, as a rule, something that is not practiced by healthy human beings, since even the best players rarely win twice as much as they lose. Even on average earning power metrics, a 200% ROI on a consistent basis is damn near impossible. The game is too subject to the vagaries of luck, and if you run into the wrong hand and table, you are going down. At any moment.

This is also why the defeats last so much longer on your psyche. And why you've got to figure out how to get over them, assuming that you are going to keep playing the game, or getting better at it.

One of the rules of my home game is that we take 10% of the side pot from every tournament buy-in, and put it towards a Player of the Year prize. You get a point for entering, one for each player you outlast, and a double score if you win, so my home game promotes a fair amount of heads-up play. We've ran the game in this way for four years, and I've finished twice in the first two years, before breaking through in the fourth. So I had to take some portion of my winnings and try to roll it into a World Series of Poker or World Poker Tour event.

The smart way to do this, of course, is to just play online, but I hate and fear online poker. The idea that I could be facing some 18-table huge monitor math mutant, or all of the various times that people have gone into God Mode with some terrible piece of cheating software, tells me that's not the game for me. You see things happen online that you just don't see anywhere else, and I'm generally patient, and I don't need to play all the time. The occasional casino, and every three weeks home game, is more than enough for me.

(Also, if you believe in omens, I wasn't going into this in a position of strength. I don't get sick very often, but when I do, it's a monstrous affair, and so it was here -- fevers, chills, constant clear nasal drip and a throbbing headache. It felt like allergies, so I tried to exercise it out, which also probably didn't help, as I wound up with frayed hamstrings and overall ache. Friday was better, so I medicated myself up and talked myself into the attempt. I don't think it had any impact on the outcome.)

With the WSOP already starting in Las Vegas, I needed to get on this. So I decided to pull the trigger on a 1-day deep stack event at the Borgata today in Atlantic City. 25K starting stacks, 30 minute periods, a likely 12 to 18 hour session with a $100K guaranteed total purse. It attracted 350 entries from a little over 240 contestants, and it was my first time at the room that many feel is the best poker room on the East Coast. 11am start, so I drove down for the day.

First things first: money's tight, so I had no funds possible for a rebuy, no matter what. I also wanted to play tight and patient, as it's just not an event that you are going to win quickly... and the cards obliged this gambit in a big way, as I see a wide range of 10-2, 8-3 and 7-4 offsuit. I turn off the phone and focused, and started putting together my book of information on the players at the table. The player in Seats 2 and 3 (I'm in Seat 4) are nice and tight, and the two to my left are loose, so I'm in a good place to be slow. In 80 or so hands of play, I catch pairs four times; deuces, fours twice, and sixes; on all of those, I see a flop for a reasonable price, don't catch trips, and wind up happy to be out, as bigger pocket pairs carry the day. A-Q offsuit happens for me twice, and I'm able to cash those without showing a hand. I'm also able to be more or less even on a half dozen position steals. Not something I'm thrilled with doing too often, but if I had just played good hands, I'd have been the tightest player at the table by a factor of four.

Seat seven is the action seat. Our first maniac of the day is more interested in his newspaper, tablet and food than his cards, and his day is more or less sealed in the first hand, when there are just four players at the table, and he gets three folds in front of his pocket aces. Don't think I'd have shown that if I was him. I take some of his money with c-bet bluffs, because he's in 2 out of every 3 hands, but most of it goes to the player in Seat One, who's aggro and measured, and I like his game, in that I felt like I got a good read of it. More on that later. Right before the end of period 6, with rebuys ending and down about a grand, I fold 8-9 off to the maniac's every hand 3X BB raised and start to regret it when I see the straight hit on the turn... and then not so much as the board pairs on the river, and the aggro guy pays off the guy to my left's boat. Phew.

After the break, I get back to the table and get 10s in middle position. As I've played few hands, I think I can make these look bigger with relative believability, so I answer aggro player's 3X raise with 2X in return, and don't love two callers. The flop is K-3-5 rainbow. Both callers check, and I throw out a pot sized bet. One fold... and then a shove.

So his story is that he's got a K; I can't put him on low trips. The shove is for 80% of my stack... so what does he think I have? Queens, in all likelihood. So he's got the K and thinks I won't believe him... or he's got pairs that are a lot like mine, Js, 9s or 8s. He also doesn't seem to be too thrilled that I'm thinking things over, not that he's giving off extreme tells. If I'm wrong, I only have 10BBs left, but I don't think I'm wrong; if he's got a K, he's better off calling and raising again on the turn to get full value out of me. It just doesn't pass the smell test. I call, and he turns over 8s, blank blank bang, and he's amazed that I made the call. Well, I don't need compliments, I need chips. And now I've got 40K of them.

Next hand is 8-9 suited. I limp and hope to see a cheap flop, but new crazy aggro guy in the action seat three to my left throws his usual 3X at it. Three callers makes the math for me easier, so I make the call. Nice pot, and it's looking better when the flop is 9-2-3 rainbow. Pot sized bet gets the all-in for only $1400 more from action man, and I'm not thrilled with having to call here, but I like it better when he turns over A-J. Six out for him is pretty thin odds, but the turn is a J, and the river a blank. He lives and I'm back to 32K. Dammit.

Ten hands pass, and on at least eight of those hands are 3X raises and c-bets from crazy aggro guy, with an awful lot of blind stealing, and two hands of utterly random cards hitting on the river. I fold on all of these, and get Q-10 suited (diamonds). Well, hell, that's a hand, and I've got chips, and his stack is my size; if I hit this hard, he's giving his chips to someone. Might as well be me. Call.

The flop is Q-5-8, the 5 and 8 are diamonds, and damn, that's as good as I can hope for, really. I check to get his inevitable raise, and he makes it 5X the blind. I raise, he re-raises.

And that's when I screw up, and in tournaments, it really only takes one misfire for it all to come crashing down. A 2 or 3X re-raise should tell me everything I need to know here. But I've hit top pair, reasonable kicker, 4 to a flush -- and he's not priced as pocket Qs or better, or A-Q for that matter. I shove. And he calls, with A-Q.

Well, crap. I'm not dead in the water -- 11 outs with 2 to go -- but blank blank bust, and here goes 95% of my stack, and any real shot at things. The Borgata dealer makes a hash of the pot, and it takes a lot of work from the players to convince her that I've still got chips; they don't seem very engaged with the idea that they are working an important event to the rest of us. With fewer than 5 BBs left and antes starting to boot, every hand now is shove or fold. I make Broadway and quad up from K-10 off two hands later, getting me back to 12 BBs, then find 6s. Shove, called by As, and the coup de gras is that I make the straight on the turn, only to see my caller hit a freaking straight flush on the river. As if the usual four cards on the board flush wasn't bad enough.

Takeaways? Well, I don't think I was the worst player in the room, or at my table. If the guy who crippled me doesn't hit his six-outer from overcards, I avoid him later. If I hit my flush or 10 draw -- 46%, according to the site I use to calculate such things -- I'm chip leader at the table and running hot. Hell, if the club doesn't hit on the river on my final hand, I've got half of a starting stack and might have been on the comeback trail. Instead, I'm on the rail a lot earlier than I anticipated, and driving back home with all of this rattling around in my head.

Oh, and I just checked the Borgata blog, just to hurt myself. They just went to the final table, and the guy who crippled me is chip leader. If he wins, he takes down $35K. Guess he kept running hot. (Well, no; he didn't hold it at the final. Still won a lot of money, though.) And so it goes.

Spurs - Heat Game Four Takeaways: Well, So Much For A Long And Competitive Series

Kawhi Fly

When I get sick, I don't mess around. Last night, what seemed like an ordinary case of allergies did not respond my usual running cure, and I wound up tearing the house apart trying to find some Benadryl to put me on my ass and stop the flood coming out of my nose. Which means that my family left me alone, and I got to see the whole game as I drifted in and out of consciousness with fevers, chills and a throbbing head. Not what you want when there's all of that Bill Simmons to wade through, but I gutted it out. More than the Heat could say...

> It's a shame the Spurs were so much better, because I really feel like we've wasted the Joey Crawford card

> Mario Chalmers with the very predictable early forcing it move on offense, because that's what bad and struggling players do

> Early Spurs lead on kitteny-soft ball movement, capped by the Danny Green three, and it's 13-4 after five minutes; we've seen this before

> Tim Duncan really can't come out to the perimeter to guard Chris Bosh, as that's a layup looking to happen

> Bosh with 6/2 early to cap the mini-run

> LeBron James to the locker room running late in the first quarter, and the world is thinking just one thing: cramps, but it's just the restroom

> Parker with a crazy make at the end of a scattered possession, and that's all kinds of unfair

> Wade misses in transition, and Kawhi Leonard gets to the line the other way, and honestly, that used to rarely happen to the Heat

> James over Tiago Splitter for a hero ball three, and that's a big shot for a lot of reasons

> Wade not finishing in transition, and that's kind of telling

> Shane Battier and Matt Bonner in, and Bonner dribble-drives and makes for your video highlight of What Year Is This Anyway

> Paddy Mills with the three to push it back to nine, and he's been a real help for the Spurs with that

> James over Bonner is just obviously unfair, really

> LeBron ends the quarter with a bad turn and a heroball three miss, and it's Spurs 26, Heat 17

> Green with his third three-pointer make, and the lead goes to 14

> Norris Cole on and makes, maybe that's the end for Chalmers

> Leonard with a great block on Bosh down low, and the Spurs then go touch-pass clinic to get it back to 13

> Through 16 minutes, the Heat have 20 points, which causes Allen to can a three and remind me not to note such things

> Diaw behind the back to Splitter was Princeton offense orgasmic

> Leonard with a crazy strong make out of the timeout, and he's really starting to look like the Next LeBron

> Chalmers misses, Ginobili does not, and the lead is back to 14

> The Heat are on pace to score 72 points, and have as many assists as Boris Diaw

> Parker misses twice as Jeff van Gundy preaches passion, because it's easier to say play with passion, rather than be better at passing and defense

> Toney Douglas in for the Heat, as Erik Spoelstra is desperate

> Chalmers with a make as the Heat go super-small

> Wade gets to the line and gives America a chance to look at his terrible numbers

> James gets blocked by Ginobili, Bosh gets blocked by Duncan, the refs don't bail either man out, and the possession ends with a Mills 3; borderline kill-shotty, as the lead goes to 20

> Mills misses the three, Leonard skies for the follow dunk, and Miami Fan boos -- America just experienced orgasm

> James with a hero ball 3, which cuts the lead to 19, and, um, didn't we see this game already?

> Finally, a James flush in transition, but Parker really could not care less

> James much better in the third, but the Spurs are still matching every bucket

> Wade drew a floppish foul on Leonard, and James makes to get the lead down to 13

> Duncan with old school bank to stop the bleeding, as ABC wonders if James is all there

> Wade can't finish a layup, is now 1 of 9, and ye gads

> Leonard gets his double-double with 18 minutes of game left

> Diaw at the end of the clock just goes to the cup with ease, and so much for the Heat mini-run; lead is back to 20

> Leonard blocks James, but gets his third, and man alive, do the Heat need to get him off the floor

> Wade is denied whistles at both ends, and Duncan slams; he's just walking now and looks quitterish; lead goes back to 21 with 16 minutes left

> James with a 3, might be the only good Heat player tonight

> Technical foul on Chris Andersen, just so you remember who the ref was in this one

> James with 19 of the Heat's 21 in the third, but without stops, it means nothing

> Third ends as Spurs 81, Heat 57, and the over-under on number of Heat fans left in the building at the end of this one is 12.5%

> ESPN flashes Diaw with 7 assists, Heat with 7, and more turnovers than dimes

> Mills with a wild 3, and that might be it

> Udonis Haslem in for a little spark of I Give A Damn

> Wade draws Green's fifth, not it matters at all

> Heat with a 7-0 run to cut it to 18, and Popovich calls time, because that's just who he is

> Mills with another three of a Diaw dish, and that man is making himself some money this series

> Leonard dominates Wade to end another mini-run

> Diaw closing in on a triple double, then Leonard steals it and keeps the possession alive after a mix; he just cares more than the Heat

> Leonard leaves with 20/14/3 with 3 steals, 1 block, and did it all on 12 shots

> Nothing of consequence happens in the last five minutes, and this is looking a lot like Spurs-Blazers

> 13 Spurs players play, 13 players score