H O W A R D S B E N D

The country is rapidly approaching a fiscal train wreck, the scale of which has only been seen in “Super 8”.  Most train wrecks are of a sudden nature and almost impossible to prevent at the very last moment.  The fiscal train wreck that is approaching has been coming down the tracks for a few months now and will not hit for almost another two months and yet nobody is doing anything to prevent the pending disaster.

The US federal government is rapidly approaching the maximum limit on its debt borrowings.  It is expected that the US debt will hit approximately $14 trillion in early August.  At that point, the federal government will not be able to borrow additional  funds to pay its obligations and will mostly default on its debt obligations.  The default on our federal debt is expected to wreak havoc on the world’s financial system.  The Republicans are holding the federal government hostage as they demand massive cuts in federal spending in order to approve an increase in the debt ceiling.

“It is deja vu all over again.”  I am beginning to see a very familiar pattern develop in the approach to legislative impasses.  The Republicans put out their position which is always an extremely conservative position and state that there will be no compromises.  The Republicans in both the House and the Senate are 100% behind this proposal.  The Democrats then publish their position which has most of the Democrats supporting this position, but of course never universal Democratic support.  This Democratic position is already compromised from a truly progressive position and the Democrats let it be know that they will negotiate even further.  As we know, the Republicans do not negotiate at all and an important deadline approaches.

It is at this point, that the “Lone Ranger” President jumps into the negotiations.  Missing in action up to this point, the President, like our masked childhood hero, now steps into the fray with the clock ticking down.  The President took this approach on the international scale as he arrived on the last day of the Olympic Committee’s decision for the site of the 2016 Olympic Games and tried this same approach when he arrived on the last day in Copenhagen at the International Conference on Global Warming.  One both these accounts he failed to persuade the appropriate body of his viewpoint and in both cases he was turned down.

In domestic politics, the Lone Ranger does not like to partake in the long drawn out battles to win public opinion which would involve an extensive road tours constantly outlining his position.  Also involved in this process of passing legislation favorable to the party’s platform would be strongly convincing reluctant members of  the Democratic Party to stand together through this fight.  This would entail confronting his own party members.  The President prefers to come in the last minute to the stalled talks and convince his party to give the Republican Party almost everything they want eking a small token of reform for his own party.  We saw this approach in the healthcare debate in which the President never got his party to go along with the public option.  The President again used this last minute entry into the budget debate last December with the President conceding the tax breaks for the wealth and no reduction in tax benefits for large corporations in order to get the budget passed as the deadline approached.

The President has been missing in action during the debt ceiling debate.  The Republicans have put out their position demanding hundreds of billions in cuts in federal spending in return for increasing the debt ceiling.  The Democrats have no cohesive policy and the President has not been leading the debate.  Therefore, we can expect the President to approach the legislative talks again at the last moment in the beginning of August.  At this point he will make it clear “that his hands are tied” as the deadline approaches and that although he does not support all these cuts he will go along with them “in the name of compromise.”  The Republicans will get massive cuts to social programs, support of education and most likely cuts to Medicare and Social Security.  We will hear that time just ran out and the President will promise that next time he will not support such massive cuts.  “Who was the man?”

As I see it,  the Miami Heat only have two problems to work out before game six of the NBA Championship Series.  The first is their offense and the second is their defense.

I will start with the defense as this appears to be the easier problem to address.  The Heat trap the ball on almost every possession which means that two Miami defenders are on the ball trying to take the ball or force a weak pass out of the double-team so that it can be intercepted by a teammate off the ball.  This has not worked to create turnovers as Dallas is too good and too well disciplined to be forced into rash mistakes.  Dallas has seen this same defense for five games now and has the timing to turn this aggressive defense into an ineffectual and counter-productive strategy.  The Dallas player with the ball quickly passes away from the double-team to an open teammate.  Generally the Miami defense can rotate quick enough to cover the first pass, but Dallas who spaces the floor perfectly makes a second and sometimes a third pass around the court until someone is wide open for a jump shot.  Dallas has too many players that can hit a wide open shot.  The Miami defense should play a “stay-at-home” defense in which every Miami player sticks to the one man he is defending.  It might be difficult to guard Dirk Nowitzki with one man and he will probably get 35 points.  However, none of the other Dallas players are skilled enough to create their own shot and this defense will absolutely eliminate the wide-opne threes that defeated Miami in game 5.  This defense would allow Dirk is 35 with the four or five other offense players averaging 10 points each giving Dallas a total score of 75 to 80 points for the game.

The offense will be much harder to fix.  First, the Heat must take the ball out of LeBron’s hands as he likes to hold the ball thirty feet from the basket as the shot clock winds down believing he will make the perfect pass for the score or hit a three pointer as the shot clock goes off neither of these happening recently.  Put the ball in a guard’s hands and let LeBron work to get open either running through picks or posting up his defender.  Making LeBron work for the ball will hopefully get him into the flow of the offense.

Dallas has been using the zone to prevent Miami from penetrating and getting to the basket.  Against this zone, Miami should go small with Wade holding the ball and Chalmers and  Miller set at the three point line and James on the baseline.  Haslem sets a pick that lets Wade penetrate into the zone and as the zone collapses around him he can kick the ball out to his shooters on the three point line or find James along the baseline for a dunk or pass to Haslem who goes to the free throw line.  Against, the man-to-man, the Heat have demonstrated their efficiency on using the pick.  These picks have created mismatches with James being guard by Jason Kidd or Jason Terry.  James must take advantage of this mismatch and go to the basket instead of passively passing away from this key opportunity.  Also the Heat worked the pick-and -roll to perfection during the forth quarter of Game 5.  I would repeat this until it does not work anymore.

And finally, I might hang a big sign from the rafters stating, ” Michael 6, Magic 5, Kobe 5, Lebron  0.”  Let LeBron mew over what greatness is about.