So, the 2008 NFL Draft is over and done. The Patriots needed to get younger and better on defense. At the moment, they appear to have gotten younger. Whether or not they're better remains to be seen. Even if the young players step in and contribute on defense, it's hard to see the Patriots not taking at least one step back next season.

It seems highly unlikely that the AFC East won't improve at all in the coming season. Adding Jake Long should make the Dolphins offensive line (which was probably their biggest weakness among many, many, many weaknesses) considerably better. Granted, they still have a long way to go to be good in that area, but it's a start. Buffalo and the Jets should be slightly better than they were last season as well. All this points to the Patriots cruising to another division title, but it should be a tougher run and 16-0 isn't happening again.

The mid to late first round was the most interesting part of the draft, what with the trades and the run of mediocre offensive line prospects coming off the board the way they did. If I had to pick one team to blame for that crime against good taste, I think I'd have to blame the Lions. I don't see the sense in their trading down two spots to take Gosder Cherilus four rounds too soon. But that's just me. Apparently it was vitally important that they give Boston College something to brag about with two Eagles going in the first round.

After the Notre Dame game, I posted something to the effect that Cherilus had played himself out of millions of dollars in guaranteed money with the way Kerry Neal and Brian Smith blew past his feeble attempts to handle their speed rushes. Granted Cherilus was playing left tackle when people assure me that he is a natural right tackle. But if two true freshmen linebackers from an historically dreadful Notre Dame team cruised by him repeatedly as though he were Matt Light with a perfect season riding on his ability to block Justin Tuck or Osi Umenyura, how long will it take NFL defenses to exploit this flaw in Cherilus' game? But what would April be without the Lions making an inexplicable and indefensible pick?

I also think Atlanta gave up an awful lot to trade into the first round to draft their left tackle of the future in USC's Sam Baker. It is essential to protect a rookie QB's blind side, or any QB for that matter. But Baker wasn't so dominant in college that he was worth that risk and his injury history is a cause of some concern.

But the Falcons must be praised for picking up a temporary fix at QB until Ron Mexico clears up his legal issues and resolves his indefinite suspension. As I watched the draft coverage, I found myself unimpressed by the deep throw over the middle Matt Ryan completed against Maryland and Ron Jaworski broke down from two angles. And yet the same clip had to have been shown something like 20 times.

The first problem I had with the clip is that Maryland wasn't exactly a dominant team in the ACC last season. Then no mention was made of the fact that Maryland's defense was shifting around and looking very confused before the snap. Finally, with all the talk of throwing the receiver open, Jaws didn't bother to mention that NFL middle linebackers drop into their zones with a lot more precision and much better technique than the Maryland defender showed on that play (his shoulders were turned in such a way that he could do everything but cover the receiver on the play).

With the receivers and offensive line awaiting him, I don't see a very promising future in Atlanta for Matt Ryan. Yes, he was head and shoulders above the rest of the quarterback class of 2008, but that could just as easily be due to the weakness of that position group as a whole as opposed to a ringing endorsement of Ryan's potential.

I think the Cowboys dropped the ball big time when they passed on Rashard Mendenhall to draft Felix Jones. When the dust settles on this choice, I think we'll all be amazed that they passed on a better runner to draft a guy named Jones from the University of Arkansas because they were owned by a moron named Jones who went to the University of Arkansas. And I don't want any nonsense about Jones having breakaway speed. After watching the Rose Bowl, it should be readily apparent that Mendenhall has as much speed as any back with a ball under his arm.

Maybe the Steve Youngs of the world couldn't see why Brian Brohm plummeted the way he did. Personally, I think it's due to the fact that most teams didn't want to risk their future on a 23 year old with a receding hairline, a creepy pink shirt that made him look like he was auditioning for a dinner theater version of St. Elmo's Fire and bowl cut to top it off. He and Aaron Rogers would be set for the weakest QB competition in recent memory if it weren't for Miami taking a QB in the second round for the second year in a row. Chad Henne and John Beck are going to be a running punchline this season, just wait and see.

The Bears draft started fairly promising, at least they finally tried to get younger on the offensive line. Why they drafted a running back in the second round when they had much more critical needs at quarterback and wide receiver is beyond me, however. Yes, Cedric Benson hasn't produced the way the team desperately needs him to produce. But part of that has to be due to the inferior offensive line play last year and the fact that the team wasn't a serious passing threat.

I won't deny that I have probably been Cedric Benson's biggest supporter. Nor will I deny that he's disappointed my prediction that he would become a 1,500 yard rusher in the not too distant future. But no matter how you feel about Benson, it doesn't change the fact that the Bears top three receivers are Mark Bradley, Marty Booker's preserved remains and Devin Hester (who is at least another year away from being something beyond a novelty act in the passing game). And the less said about Bears' QBs the better. But maybe their later picks will turn out better than I think.

As a final note on this draft, why did the top two picks from Notre Dame have to go to teams I hate? I like John Carlson as a football player, or at least I did. Now I have to root against him because no one in their right mind wants to see anything good happen to the Seattle Seahawks. And why did Trevor Laws have to go to the sinking ship that is the Eagles? Putting a quality run stopper on a team like that is like putting a lace doily on a bowling ball. One can only hope he becomes an excuse for Donovan McNabb's inability to put the team over the top and he goes on to a team where he can thrive.

In other matters, it's been too long again since I've ripped Bill Simmons. First, I need to point out something from his piece on the Bruins Canadiens series. This is the verbal indictment of the Boston sports fan I've been waiting for, and true to form that jerk Simmons thinks it's a good thing, but here's a sentence he wrote:

We won an emotional Game 3 in overtime, followed by a number of postgame brawls on and around Causeway Street between Boston and Montreal fans, at least 50 of them involving guys named Sully and Murph teaming up to beat the hell out of someone named Pierre.

That's one more reason Boston sports fans are overrated. It takes two of them to beat down a French Canadian named Pierre. General Patton would be rolling over in his grave if he gave a damn about Red Sox Nation. If it takes two to beat up a lone Canadiens fan, how many does it take to throw a piece of pizza off the back of a Canadiens fan's head? On the plus side, I suppose I should thank God for the shanty Irish, otherwise Irish Americans might look like they make a contribution to American society instead of being degenerate drunken bullies. Thanks for bringing our ethnic group down once more, people of Boston.

Now consider this paragraph from Simmons' playoff awards column:

The Brian Fantana Memorial "Hey, Champ, Maybe You Should Stop Talking For Awhile" Award
To Charles Barkley for declaring last weekend that Rasheed Wallace is the most talented player in the league and could have been the greatest player ever if he wanted it. Chuck Wagon, we love you ... but you can't possibly believe that, right? Rasheed couldn't handle the responsibility of being great every night, true, but part of being great is that you've made a conscious choice to accept that everyday responsibility and live up to a different standard of pressure and expectations. It's like a chicken/egg thing. If Vince Carter was wired like Michael Jordan, he would have been Michael Jordan. If Derrick Coleman was wired like Kevin Garnett, he would have been the greatest power forward ever. If Sam Jones was wired like Jerry West, he would have been the NBA logo instead of what he was -- a top-50 player and one of the NBA's memorably clutch shooters. Rasheed was much closer to the Sam Jones camp than the DC/Vince camp, but all of them had one thing in common: They didn't totally want it. And that's part of being great.

Is it just me or did he rip Barkley and then go on to make exactly the same point Barkley made which made Simmons rip him in the first place?

Happy trails to Pat Riley, who has given up his coaching duties in Miami. When Dwayne Wade becomes this generation's Michael Ray Richardson three years from now, I'm sure every one will blame Star Jones, but a few of us might wonder what might have been had Riley given up after the 2006 title run or at the very least hadn't acquired spare parts like Shawn Marion and Ricky Davis (two very talented players but more concerned with stats than wins or team play).

And way to go Roger Clemens, thanks for having an alleged ongoing affair with a mediocre singer starting when she was 15. That really helps my effort to defend you against all logic. At least TO has been well behaved lately, so I have that going for me. Which is nice...

Like the good episodes of the Simpsons and Family Guy, the Miami Heat's title defense might as well be ancient history. Like disco and Vaudeville, Miami is dead. I know this because it seems to be the principle under which Jay Mariotti is operating these days. The sad thing is, under the Even A Blind Squirrel Finds A Nut Now And Then Theorem, he's right. Miami can't beat Chicago. And there is a villain in all of this most people might not realize - Pat Riley.

It's hard to criticize a coach with seven NBA championships on his career resume, but I think Miami might have stood a better chance of defending their title with Ron Rothstein still running things. I don't know how many times Chicago has to exploit the fact that Miami is not quick enough (or perhaps motivated enough) to rotate to open perimeter players before Miami tries something different. Even if it didn't work, it would have been nice to see Miami try different looks.

Also, every minute that Eddie Jones and Udonis Haslem occupy space on the basketball court has become an affront against the sport. Udonis Haslem has been outplayed by PJ Brown, which baffles me since Udonis Haslem is supposed to be a guy who brings energy and hustle to the defensive end of the floor and the offensive glass. Isn't that what PJ Brown made a living doing in the NBA for the last quarter century (deliberate exaggeration)? So Udonis Haslem is being outplayed by an older version of himself, who doesn't really enjoy a reputation as a savvy, heady player. At least not to the extent that it would justify the humiliating fashion in which he has handled Haslem. As for Eddie Jones, he looks like he aged four years in the last two weeks.

Dwayne Wade is pressing, and he's committing way too many turnovers to only score 21 points a game. Shaq is playing well in the first half, when he manages to avoid foul trouble. Too bad that he can't avoid foul trouble. Part of this is his fault for not adjusting to the way the refs are calling the game, and part of it is the fault of the referees for calling touch fouls that cut one way. Based on what I have seen to this point, I feel Shaq would be morally justified if he grabbed Ben Wallace and hammered him into the floor with his fist as though he were Spike (the big bulldog from Tom and Jerry) and Wallace were Tom.

And this brings us to Ben Wallace. If you've been following this blog since its inception, you may have noticed that I don't think much of Ben Wallace. I once called him the evolutionary Bill Russell, which believe it or not is an insult to Wallace and the way the game is played now. Ben Wallace is very nearly able to influence a game on the defensive end of the court the way Russell could because offenses stagnate to wait for a superstar to score and because the refs are immoderately inconsistent with the way they call games.

Ben Wallace is like Bill Russell in the same way a savage kick in the groin is like a steak dinner. When Wallace wants to shift position to front Shaq whilst defending him in the post, Wallace grabs Shaq and uses his body as a lever to get himself into position quickly. That's some good thinking, fine, practical application of physics, but it's not basketball. Russell played Wilt physically but cleanly. He'd be rolling over in his grave watching Wallace defend Shaq if he were dead.

I just don't see how the Bulls were able to handle the Heat so easily in the first two games when I look at the two teams on paper. I realize that Chicago is a better, tougher team than they were a year ago. They're younger and more athletic than Miami. Miami has been decimated by injuries all year, and now that all the pieces are back and in place (even though Wade's shoulder is not healed) they're out of sync. Shaq and Wade missed so much time that the team isn't sure how to play with the two of them on the court at the same time.

Miami wants to look to Wade the same way they did last year, but with 1 and 1/2 shoulders, he just can't be the same guy. So the rest of the team is torn. They're used to looking to him. They want to look to him, but they also know he's hurt and it makes them tentative. This tentativity (it's a word now, baby) cripples them in every phase of the game. I think they have the mindset that D Wade will save them on offense, on defense and in a fire should one break out ingrained so deeply that they can't get beyond it. That's why they're slow in rotations and a bit stagnant on offense.

Antoine and the second unit turned this game around tonight in the second quarter. They forced turnovers, they shot well, they played with energy and they took the lead from Chicago. Meanwhile, while the game started to get away in the fourth, Antoine was on the bench as Haslem failed to track open shooters on the break, failed to catch two Dwayne Wade passes which resulted in turnovers and generally removed objects from the table. Finally with 3:10 to go, Riley put Antoine back on the floor.

I can see a certain logic in making sure that he was fresh for the most important minutes of the game, but with less than five minutes to go, there were stoppages for a called team timeout and a TV timeout where Toine could have been put back in the game. I understand that a coach has tough decisions to make. Toine was excellent in the second quarter, but not so good in the third. But the Heat were down 0-2 in the series, taking on water as the Bulls ran off a 15-2 run.

By the time Antoine came back into the game, it was just too hard to come back. Antoine was called for a charge and a flagrant with less than a minute to go, which hurt more than it helped. The charge was his fault. The flagrant wasn't. I though as I watched the game that it was just a foul, Antoine didn't hit him harder than the situation required and he tried to hold Deng up as he fell to the floor.

Even worse, with 30 seconds to go and counting and down by five the Heat were trying to foul while the ball was on the perimeter to extend the game. And of all times for the officials to swallow the whistle, that's when they did it. For all the touch fouls that they've called on Shaq through the first half of games 1-3, this time the Heat needed to drop Luol Deng to the floor to get a call.

The kick in the ass of a flagrant foul in that situation isn't the two shots, because it was in the act of shooting and the Heat were over the limit at the time. Any foul but a technical would have been two shots at the time. Possession reverted back to the Bulls so stopping the clock didn't help even a little bit. Down by 5, with 18.7 seconds to go, it would have been a miracle if Chicago had found a way to lose.

Interestingly enough, Dick Bavetta was calling this game. For those who don't know, his presence at games which the home team desperately needs to win has been a staple of almost every suggestion that the NBA attempts to assist high-profile franchises survive and advance in the postseason Bill Simmons has ever made. And it just so happened that the officials swallowed the whistle when the home team with huge star power desperately needing a win tried like hell to foul on the perimeter, right up until the time that Luol Deng hit the floor.

Regardless of how a person wants that game to turn out, a foul should be called when contact occurs on the perimeter in that situation. Even though the flagrant foul pretty much turned out the lights on Miami Heat, not only for Game 3 but for the series, Luol Deng hitting the floor didn't need to happen. I don't mean to insinuate that Antoine Walker deliberately knocked him to the ground. Even if I thought he meant to do it, I probably wouldn't admit it here, since I have gone out of my way to defend him dozens of times.

Luol Deng is a big piece of the Chicago Bulls. I think Mariotti rushed to pronounce him a closer after only two stellar playoff games. I think he was phenomenal in Game One; he beat Miami by himself really (not because he didn't have help, but without his tremendous game, Chicago couldn't have won). And he was excellent again in the second game. He didn't have quite as good a game tonight, but he certainly played very well. If he got hurt in that episode, it would have reflected poorly on Walker and it would have crippled the Bulls hopes to beat teams like Cleveland and Detroit.

I think Mariotti rushed to judgment on the closer status (the article is on Deng, the closer crack motivated by the person on Around the Horn, both likely motivated by something like the impulse to apologize for this drivel in a normal human). I have two reasons for thinking that. First, Mariotti is a total douche, a miserable person and a terrible writer. Obviously that would amount to more than one reason if they didn't point to the simple fact that it makes me want to vomit when I find myself agreeing with him even on simple facts like water is wet.

The main reason is that I think a guy has to take a team to a conference finals at the very least before he can become a closer. After all, the Bulls are now on the verge of winning their first playoff series since Michael Jordan walked the Earth. I think that Ben Gordon, Luol Deng, Kirk Heinrich and Andreas Nocioni have not earned the right to be called closers, even if they were cut up and recombined into some sort of Frankentool. How can you be called a closer when you have not, to date, even closed out one team?

And before any one who reads this decides to get in my eye (I expect some negative feedback, because attacking Mariotti has attracted positive feedback in the past but I've never done it while being hostile to a Chicago team), I admit that every single one of the players I just combined into a Frankentool is very good. But let's not forget that I'm not a Chicago guy and not a Chicago fan (I'm not sure how to categorize the strange emotional attachment to the Bears that developed during my efforts to help build and maintain the Bears bandwagon last season).

By the way, I am aware of the Michael Jordan "comeback" with the Wizards, I choose not to acknowledge it any more than I absolutely have to. I was never really a Jordan fan, though I did root for his teams against the Utah Jazz and the Lakers during the three-peats and always against the Pistons. While I am not a Celtics fan now, I used to be right up until Ainge mounted his one man crusade against a team that had made a conference finals appearance and a trip to the second round before he arrived even though it had hired him.

I haven't done this much explaining in quite some time, probably since the inaugural post or one of my apology posts. But this is a weird post. I don't know that I've been as critical of a team that I don't hate as I had to be with Miami tonight. It's just not easy being one of the appallingly few Antoine Walker fans from Boston. I think all of them are included in my original seven readers.

I apologize for the coherence of this post. I'm not even drunk. But with the Heat playing, the Sox playing the Yanks and now the Mavs deflating in Game Three in Oak-town, I haven't found time to eat yet. The blood sugar is a tad low, so I have to wrap up and get my grub on. Before I sum up as best I can the many, many, many threads of this post, I want to add my voice to the number of people lamenting the fact that the NBA gives out its awards so soon after the regular season. How can Dirk be the MVP and Sam Mitchell Coach of the Year when their teams are on the ropes?

And that brings me back in a very long, meandering, roundabout way to my point (such as it is). There is no way Miami should have found itself in this position in the series with Chicago. Yeah, Chicago is younger and more athletic than Miami. But Miami is seasoned, with players who should know by now how to come up big in big moments. If you had asked me before the playoffs started which series could come close to being a desperately poor man's edition of the Celtics vs. Lakers series in 1987, it would have been the Heat vs. Bulls. Alas, thanks to Pat Riley and his determination to hide Antoine on his bench as though Employee Number Eight were the light under the basket in an inversion of the Biblical original.

I'm not as depressed by the demise of the Heat and the defeat of the Yanks as you might expect. Maybe it's because there was just an excellent episode of South Park (the Junior Detectives episode, I highly recommend it). Maybe it's the fact that Jackass the Movie is on right now. Or maybe it's the fact that I have the John Wayne opus The Horse Soldiers waiting in my saved programs on On Demand. Or maybe it's that Dallas is on the verge of dropping Game Three to Golden State like an overly ambitious Tae Kwan Do novice missing with a big crescent kick and dropping like a sack of potatoes. Who can say? But at any rate, good evening.

I find myself wondering whether Pat Riley wants to win basketball games. Things looked bleak for Miami when Shaq went to the bench with his fifth foul at the 8:35 mark of the 4th quarter. They certainly did not look like they were going to get a whole lot better when D Wade joined him after he was called for his fifth with 8:26 to play. One would have thought that things were going to fall apart for the Heat at that point.

Unfortunately for Scott Skiles and the Bulls, their road to victory was made considerably more difficult by one man. It was Antoine Walker, and the Bulls had no answer for him, as he led the Heat back to within two points with 5:17 to go in the game. Thankfully for Bulls fans, Pat Riley decided that it was time to bring Shaq and D Wade in off the bench at that point. Here is the full game play-by-play, in case you're interested.

I realize that Wade and Shaq absolutely must be on the floor at crunch time. I was looking forward to their return. I just don't think Antoine needed to go to the bench with his twenty when Shaq and Wade had been on the bench for three minutes of game play and three of the Heat (Eddie Jones, Udonis Haslem and Jason Williams) who also played important minutes had managed to combine to score fewer points than Antoine.

By the way, I would pay money to see Eddie Jones do Shakespeare before I paid money to see him play basketball at this point. I understand that Pat Riley has a man-crush on him, but enough is enough. He was done like dinner in the last days of the Clinton administration. Maybe Antoine would have scored more consistently in the regular season if he'd played more minutes. Just a thought. I am also working on the theory that he might have scored more consistently had I watched more of his games. But there was work to be done on the Bears bandwagon, and injuries from which to recover after each time it piled up into a trestle.

Chicago promptly went on a quick 5-0 run, until Shaq picked up his 6th, and Toine returned. Antoine didn't score another point, but finished with 20. His 3 point shooting on the day was pretty good, and he was perfect from the freethrow line for a change. And I would say that his defense did not suck quite as much as the other Miami players' effort on that end of the floor.

Antoine, on the off chance that some one in your entourage reads this and can pass it along, please stop playing hard. You have no right to remind Celtic fans that you were the last person that really wanted to win in a Celtic uniform. Stop showing up Danny Ainge. He does the best he can, and it's not his fault that he cannot run a basketball team. Stop making Bill Simmons look bad for saying that you're moving like Fred Sanford these days. It's not his fault he's a tool, and people seem to prefer his wife's writing to his. He and J Bug or Joe House or Fist Magnet will always have the time they routed Norv Turner from a $10 blackjack table.

And above all, stop playing hard because it encourages the lunatic fringe that wish Ainge had never traded you. Just think, on a day when the Red Sox played the Yankees, I watched the Miami Heat play a basketball game because I like Antoine Walker. If only we lived in a free country, then a grown-ass man could eat what he wanted and watch what he wanted and hope that Charles Barkley runs for President in peace.

You need to see this clip from the Detroit-Calgary game. I know I rarely talk about hockey in this space, and then it's usually college hockey, but this is strange. I am almost speechless. I've never seen a goalie get a game misconduct. I'm sure it's happened before, I just don't want to do the leg work since it's Saturday afternoon and googling hockey was pretty low on my to-do list for today.

It caught me by surprise because I haven't been following that series with much interest. I assumed that Detroit was up 3-1 based on the fact the fact that the score was 5-1 at the time of the incident and the Flames were that frustrated. I didn't realize the series was deadlocked at two wins apiece. There's still a game to play, that ought to be interesting.

I am going to watch the New Jersey game tomorrow afternoon, so I may have a thing or two to say about it. If there are any compelling moments, I may be doing some more writing on hockey as the playoffs progress. I do like the sport, it's just that I have no energy to hate the Bruins with so much devoted to hating the Red Sox and the Danny Ainge era of Celtic basketball.

Here is my conservative prediction for tonight's NASCAR race under the lights in Phoenix: a semi-literate moron will win. Of course since that cruelly insensitive epithet covers the entire spectrum of NASCAR drivers, I have a 100% chance of being right. And let me tell you, it feels good, for a change.

And it looks like the meek are going to inherit the earth today in Fenway, or at the very least a baseball victory. It's not every day that you can defeat a pitcher like Jeff Karstens. Red Sox Nation has a lot to hang its hat on today.

PS - There is a Springsteen reference somewhere in today's post. I wonder if you can spot it and tell me the song from which it came.

For a while, I was looking forward to the new season of Mind of Mencia. I saw his stand-up show, Take a Joke, America about 5 years ago. I've been watching his Comedy Central show since it came on the air. But then I saw the commercials for the season premiere. And it reminded me that there's a lot to be said for the cliche that timing is everything.

I think at this point, every joke that can be (and probably should be) made about that astronaut that went on the cross-country spree of insanity. It's too bad for Carlos that his show was on hiatus and he didn't get a chance to beat that to death with the rest of the media when it happened. But it would have been far better to let it go than to cram it into a season opening episode three months after the fact like a little "dee-de-dee" (sorry to steal his catch phrase) trying to force the round peg into the square hole.

I said all that because I'm running the risk of making that same mistake tonight. It's been nearly two weeks since the Falcons traded backup quarterback Matt Schaub to the Houston Texans. I really don't know why I care, but this trade seems like a mistake for both teams.

It seems like the Texans made this move so that they'll never have to hear commentators rip them for passing on Reggie Bush and Vince Young. As bad as the Mario Williams move looks now (I am still not willing to say this was a wasted pick after only one season, give him another year or two before the verdict is delivered), it's still a million times better than giving a guy with 2 career starts a $48 million dollar deal over 6 seasons. Fortunately for the Texans, only $7 million is guaranteed.

I think my favorite line from that link was Schaub's agent referring to this deal as "a real contract." That's the guy I want to represent me. Where did he go to business school? DeVry? I bet he's the type of guy who calls business school "B-school" in casual conversation.

The real problem here is that the Texans have been around now for five full seasons and they show no real signs of improvement as a franchise. It seems like the team faces an either/or decision every year and they choose poorly every time. It's actually kind of amusing, it must be what non-Celtics fans and people who aren't consumed by a bitter hatred of Danny Ainge see when they look at his tenure as the Celtics GM. If the Celtics come out of this draft without landing a franchise savior, it might just be the NBA's version of that Mario Williams pick.

This is a mistake for the Falcons, too. They're rolling into a season with plenty of turmoil (new coach, Vick's trick water bottle and the rest). And they have no reliable backup for Ron Mexico. A wild rumor has them considering bringing in Drew Bledsoe, which has disaster written all over it. So Atlanta is one injury or ill-advised carry-on item away from a lost season. What a shame it would be if they missed the postseason again.

I don't see the logic of this move from the Texans standpoint. I haven't seen a lot of Matt Schaub, but then again who has? After only two starts, who knows what he can deliver in the long run? He seems like a younger David Carr with less mileage on him. Considerably less mileage, what with the fact that David Carr gets hit more than some tackling dummies every week. But if David Carr wasn't the answer in Houston, I don't see how Matt Schaub will make them any better.

As for yesterday's Final Four games, I was right about Ohio State and wrong about Florida. Too bad. I hate Florida even more now than I did yesterday. With any luck Ohio State will beat them by a ludicrous, inconceivable margin. I was right, I think, about the Oden-Hibbert matchup. When the two of them were on the floor together, however brief that time may have been on account of foul trouble, it was very interesting. There might be some hope for the NBA yet.

I don't know if you got a chance to see any of the Detroit-Miami game, but it was very depressing. Miami took a 9 point lead into the fourth quarter and murdered it. Jason Williams is not remotely qualified to run an offense in the NBA. Detroit went to a full-court press, with Richard Hamilton guarding the point. And Miami's offense went into cardiac arrest. Antoine Walker was forced to bring the ball up when Gary Payton was in the game. And I was, in all fairness, disappointed with Toine's performance too, but maybe if Riley played him more he'd be less rusty.

If a full court press by Richard Hamilton destroys your offense, it might be time to consider a new sport. I never would have believed a veteran team would be so mystified by a simple tactic like the full court press. After all, elementary school kids are taught the full court press. And a "coaching legend" like Pat Riley had absolutely no answer. Miami might as well have had four guys on the court, for all the good Williams did there.

God help the Heat in the playoffs. I never thought Dwayne Wade's ability to bring the ball up against the full court press would be the aspect of game the team missed the most. I figured it would be much harder to make up for his scoring and his defense than for a rudimentary skill like handling Richard Hamilton pressuring the ball. Not that I could bring up the ball against Rip Hamilton, but he's not exactly a fearsome defender.