The Miami Heat was able to wrap up target practice with the Milwaukee Bucks on Sunday night by winning 88-77, giving the team its first-ever playoff sweep. The Bucks received a lesson in asshole-punching with a syllabus that included things like how to obliterate your opponent in four easy steps and how to bludgeon a defense into a thin red paste using a giant tattooed man who flaps his arms like a bird when he scores.
This first-round series wasn't about if the Heat would sweep but if it would sweep with Dwyane Wade on the bench nursing an injury and Udonis Haslem suddenly, magically being able to hit his jumpers like it was 2006.
The answer to that, of course, is fuck and yes.
While the Heat had lapsed into ain't nothing to spare mode more times than anyone should care to remember, the team was able to flip the switch and play actual basketball from time to time, occasionally ripping off Ersan Ilyasova's arm and beating back any run Milwaukee had in them with it.
LeBron James, most of all, seemed to sleepwalk through parts of the game. He might have even let out a yawn at one point. But he seemed to turn it on when things got a little serious, particularly in the third quarter, when he decided he really didn't want to spend another day in Milwaukee and turned on the afterburners.
When LeBron decided it was over, it was over. And it was over quickly and without much warning, like when they take out Joe Pesci at the end of Goodfellas (*SPOILER ALERT*).
James finished with 30 points on 13-for-20 shooting, with eight rebounds and seven assists. Meanwhile, Ray Allen contributed 16 points of his own, hitting four three-pointers against his old team.
The biggest surprise of the day came from Haslem, who kept popping midrange jumpers as if the Bucks cheerleaders were giving away free T-shirts. Udonis' offense has been a bag of hamster shit since 2010. And the Bucks, like everyone else, knew this. So you can't completely fault them for staying away from Haslem as if he had been exposed to gamma radiation. But in doing so, they left him wide open, and he nailed down six jumpers from his favorite spot before going back to the bench to play more Star Wars Angry Birds.
I want to learn the ways of the Force and become a Jedi like my father. Chirp! #AngryBirdsStarWars angrybirds.com/trophy/?sw=1nl
— Udonis Haslem (@ThisIsUD) April 29, 2013
All in all, it really wasn't fair to give the Bucks the Heat as a first-round playoff opponent. It was like a grizzly bear batting around an injured bunny before shooting a bazooka into its face. But it's the way things were drawn up. And now the Heat will await either Chicago or Brooklyn as things are expected to get tougher.
Hopefully the Heat saved up enough fucks for the coming rounds, because there'll be plenty of opportunities to give them as the competition gets stiffer.
Until then, they wait and rest.
"We get a chance to get rest because we took care of business," LeBron said afterward. "But business is not done."
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