FILET OF ISH

Twelve Moments I'll Remember From Watching the Fourth Quarter (I Could Not Stomach More Than One Quarter Per Game) Of Game 4 of The NBA Finals

1. "Filet O' Fish"
2. Jeff Van Gundy, after Cleveland's Anderson Verajao--the same dude who chose to attempt a finger-roll with the Cavs down 2 in the waning seconds of Game 3-- converts a breakaway dunk, saying, "That's your shot, Andy." It was even better because Van Gundy didn't preface the line by explaining what moment it referred back to. Even Tony Parker's rep hasn't risen as highly in the last month as Van Gundy's. Did you know he was this funny?
3. My buddy Mike's nine year-old son, Finbar, who is obsessed with hoops (and who, by the way, already has his black belt in karate...me no mess with Finbar), asking me if I really think that Ginobili is the third-best player on San Antonio moments before Manu's split-the-defense-lefty-layup-and-a-foul. God, if someone would just tell Manu 1) to stop flopping and 2) about the Hair Club for Men, he'd be one of the most popular players in the NBA.
4. Cleveland's two--not one, but two--unforced turnovers in their own backcourt in the game's final six minutes. I'd get on my 5th & 6th grade team for that.
5. Wondering if Eva Longoria was sitting/standing all by herself.
6. Again, marveling at the fact that in a crucial moment of the deciding game of an NBA Finals, four of the five players that San Antonio had on the court (Duncan, Parker, Ginobili and Oberto) were born outside the United States (Bowen was the fifth Spur on the court). Fourteen years ago I fact-checked a piece by Alex Wolff in S.I. about Toni Kukoc, and the sub-text of the piece was whether a foreign-born player could fit in and help a championship-caliber team. Today I wonder if a team can win an NBA championship without a foreign-born player in the rotation.
7. Watching San Antonio's "time-consuming drive" from about the 4-minute to 2-minute mark and thinking, If they score after all this, it's over. And then Oberto hits the layup.
8. Thinking that, great as he is and as personable and mature as he's come off in this postseason, LeBron seriously needs to work on his jump-shooting form this summer.
9. Wondering if Brent Barry will start reading for the same roles that Viggo Mortensen is up for in the coming months.
10. Watching a moment in the background, that the announcers never commented on, when the game was still very much up in the air. Coming out of a timeout, Verajao spotted the Spurs' Bowen and sort of put his paw on Bowen's bald bean. Was it friendly or was it taunting? Couldn't tell.
11. Wondering whether there was any series in all of the Western Conference playoffs that was as aesthetically displeasing as this one.
12. Realizing that the reaction from the Spurs when the buzzer sounded was more subdued than the one Finbar had after beating me 10-8 in one-on-one an hour earlier on the McCollow's backyard hoops court. Not that Finny's victory was an upset, either, but at least I didn't need a bailout call from the refs on a stuffed three-pointer in the final moments to even make it interesting.