GAME NOTES, Cavaliers at Wizards

As a team, the Cavs played well only at the end, coming back from 13 to lose at the buzzer. But they were average the rest of the time. Mo Williams and LeBron were generally outstanding.

Big Z missing in action is noticeable. His absence brings forth the flaws in Anderson Varejao's game and the Cavs' general offense. Now when Brazil Laimbeer swipes at an offensive rebound, it is tragic rather than playing into the team's trial-and-error offensive mindset. The Cavs simply could not rebound when it counted. Head Coach Mike Brown 4th Quarter ejection may have affected the lineup decisions, however. Ben Wallace, anyone?

J.J. Hickson always looks like he knows how to make moves. Once he learns team defense, he'll be nice and may actually play in the second half.

Delonte West appears to have lost some confidence. He should wear white shoes. Or get a haircut. Stuff like that helps players like Delonte. What am I saying? There are no players like Delmonte Delonte.

This game was played at 1 p.m. 98 percent of NBA games are likely played around dinner time. It showed in both teams. There were great gaps in rhythm. Halfway through the 4th Quarter, Cleveland scored six, Washington three. Though the energy swung back up after that.

Michael James, Wizards guard, is a terrible decision maker. It appears he is trying to win a game of 32. Sometimes the greats can sneak a 2-on-3 hoop or a 1-on-2. Sometimes dopes can get lucky. But no one at the professional level goes 1-on-4 when you have a four point lead with two minutes to play. Except Mike James. That was just in addition to several hungover passes that found nothing but patrons and popcorn.

The Cavs came back in good form though, almost as they did on Christmas Day. LeBron's final three falling short. Had Z played, that shot wouldn't be necessary.

LBJ was also called for a traveling violation in this game. The commemorative NBA figurine will be issued next Fall by that same company who makes pewter Civil War chess sets.


____________________________________________________

Our NBA viewing experience

This is not about poor camera angles, ill-conceived graphics, or awful announcing. All of which get addressed, more or less, in the many quarters of online bitcheries. Rather, I am here to tout the new tech, hyper x2 ADHD watching steez that is modern life.

NBA League Pass Broadband Online is of good enough quality — finally — to see true detail of game play. So here's your home recipe:

• Put on your chosen LP game
• Keep the volume low, say a 2 or 3; enough to just hear the announcers
• Pull up your music player with volume at 6 or 7; enough to get some bass
  
• Play Girl Talk (or some other fast-paced, hip-hop oriented music)
  

This is how NBA is watched in the promised land, except you and Greg Gillis are at the game and everyone has Long Island Iced Teas that never leave you hungover.

Girl Talk works best with basketball because of it's pace changing and style referencing. Any thinker understands everything comes from something. In the NBA, in basketball, the moves made are references to prior tried and true laws of approach. Remixes, if you will. Alchemy, really.

Any mashup style of music "fits" basketball because of the game's natural rapid change of pace. The ball moves with a constant additive and subtractive energy, given so by the players; just as the DJ moves the beat, so goes the energy. Fast and high. Crescendo. Bridge. Cool interval. Banger.

A fade-away is a remix of a jump shot, which is a remix of a set shot, and so on. But today's basketball also has an intense neophilia amongst its players. It is ultra chic modern. It is the new shit. Always. Music like Girl Talk's top notch mashup album Feed The Animals brings that newest nouveau club rap together with 80s flashes, 90s grunge rock, funk, soul and epic rock classics — all blended in the modern sample-everything-fuck-the-labels ethos.

That IS modern basketball. Baggy shorts and headband, high dribble, bang low dribble back, free form drive, go high as you can and spin, dunk — bang the glass and do some shit with your hands that let's your folk know you know them.

Some real time occurrences for me:

• Ben Wallace misses a free throw. "Hold me closer tiny dancer..." (Girl Talk, Smash Your Head.)
  
• LeBron pins another sucker. Lil Wayne says, "I gotta eat, man, I gotta eat..." That is flared in with Sinead O'Connor's Nothing Compares To You.
• DeShawn Stevenson wearing a grape juice velour suit and a bow tie, interviewed on the sideline saying that he doesn't like LeBron. Stevenson is the guy who sexes up 14-year-olds and whose high school teammates beat him up the night he was drafted. Busta Rhymes, "Bust your face, like Apollo Creed..." The Police's Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic and Ini Kamoze's Hot Stepper round out the magic. And then the NBA game goes back to live action and the song changes. Caron Butler. Argent's hippie anthem about dedication Hold Your Head High and Ghostface within Wu-Tang blazin' out C.R.E.A.M., "...Stayin' alive was no job..." (Girl Talk, What It's All About.)
  

[ABOVE: DeShawn Stevenson looking like Willy Wonka. He called that shit an "80s beanpie suit." Seventies, dude, seventies. BELOW: Ini Kamoze hot steps for you.]


Mashup music and the fluidity or basketball coincide with amusing significance on a pretty consistent basis. Though the idea of hip-hop or any bouncy, improvisational music applying to basketball is not new, and neither is the idea of watching TV with the stereo on, being able to cleanly watch NBA games on your computer is. Headphones further complete the symbiosis.

For those addicted to the NBA, League Pass, the flagship home viewing option, is a well known temptress, a deadly siren who takes otherwise productive time and lulls into slow sweet death. But this year marked a tipping point even in it's own technology.

League Pass was always previously offered in tiers depending on when you bought it. And in the previous tow seasons included the almost throw-away online component. But the technology has finally caught up with the consumer's buffet habits.

In my graphic design programs, I save certain workspace layouts. One named Full Screen and one named NBA. That's work plus music plus professional basketball. I'm drinking coffee and the television is on. I take no medication.


____________________________________________________