Last night I met up with a friend (who, incidentally, will soon be a new addition to the Psychedelic Kimchi team) to watch the Korea/Togo match at Yatap stadium. The atmosphere was electric, the beers cold, and at the end of the evening everybody was ecstatic that Korea came from behind to secure a 2-1 win.
This morning I woke up slightly hungover, cooked cheese ramen (recognize) and reheated some buldak that was in the fridge, smoked a square, and at 10 turned on the TV to watch game 3 of the NBA Finals.
The soccer match the night prior, I told my companion, would be an indication of how game 3 would turn out. I'm superstitous like that.
Things looked good for the first two quarters, but the Heat began to slip in the 3rd. By the end of that quarter, with the Heat trailing the Mavs by 9, I felt like I was going to throw up, and it wasn't because of the cheese ramen. The Mavs were shooting lights out, and the Heat were making stupid errors.
Dallas took a 13-point lead with about six and a half minutes remaining in the final quarter. It was then that I admitted to myself that this series looked just about over; the Heat were overmatched, they couldn't hang.
Nevertheless, I stuck it out to see how the game's final minutes would unfold. Hope, you see, is a very powerful human emotion -- perhaps the most powerful.
And a funny thing happened.
Dwyane Wade played possibly the best 12 minutes of his life (with 5 fouls no less!), scoring 42 and pulling down 13 boards; Shaq hit 2 of the biggest free throws of his career, bringing tears of joy to more than a few, I'm sure; Gary Payton hit the go-ahead jumper, his only attempt of the game, and what would be the game winning shot; and the Miami Heat escaped from what seemed an inevitable defeat, notching their first win of the series in what was arguably the biggest 4th quarter comeback in NBA Finals history.
15 hours. 2 memorable games.
1 overjoyed sports fan.
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