So last night, when I got home during halftime, flipped on the game versus Orlando to see the Nets down 8, and then watched them quickly fall further behind (by as many as 15 at one point), I figured it was the same old story- keep things close for a half and then sputter out down the stretch.  But it didn't happen.  The second half, most notably the fourth quarter, was a bright spot for the current Nets season as a whole.  So what happened?

Lightning in a bottle.

Let me digress for a moment.  (Don't act like you're not pleased I finally broke the "anecdote comes first" formula...we all like change from time to time.)

Morning radio shows are terrible, but sometimes they play music, so that's what my alarm clock is set to.  Mostly because that buzzer sound is what I imagine to be the sound you hear as you descend into hell.  So yeah, some mornings I get music, some mornings I get inane conversational drivel.  Either/or will wake me up (eventually...I'm a huge proponent of the snooze button).  If it's a decent song I might let it play for a few seconds, but most songs and all forms of morning dj conversation usually propel me with a quickness toward the snooze and/or off button.  Not today, my friends.  The conversation topic I awoke to on this morning was so intriguing, so compelling, so...profound...that I had no choice but to continue to lie in my bed and listen for several moments. 

Now, apparently...and I missed the beginning, so my facts could be off...apparently, some woman, somewhere, possibly locally...weighed in recently at around 950 lbs.  And apparently she had only weighed around 500 lbs.  But then she got hit by a car, or truck.  One of the show's hosts asked, "Did the truck make it?"  Laughs all around.  And then since the 500 lb. woman was ah..."incapacitated," she put on the other 400 lbs.  More laughs all around.  Then the real point of discussion- this woman was married, with two children.  Questions asked and unfortunately not answered before I had to get out of bed, content that for at least one day, someone else was going to hell before me: Who would marry her? Who would not only marry her but have sex with her, at least twice?  Do you need to have a fetish?  Do you need to be skinny?  Do you need to be incredibly...ehhhm, well-endowed?  And seriously, how does one get that monstrously obese?

Think about it.  How lucky do you have to be as a 500 lb. woman, let alone a 900 lb. woman, to find somebody to, as the morning show hosts put it (and I approve!) "bang you out" even once?  Not to mention stay with you, procreate with you, procreate with you again, all while watching you put on 400+ more lbs.?  You need an incredibly fortuitous combination of circumstances.  You need a guy who really likes fat chicks, and a guy who is physically capable of exercising his penchant for fat chicks, and a personality not altogether too awful for someone to spend the rest of their life with you regardless of your weight, and decent weather (because I don't care how strong your obesity fetish is, fat people must smell terrible in extreme heat)....  Only if all these things come together do you have a shot at reaching the type of situation ripe for morning show fodder.  But the odds are decidedly not in your favor.  Probably 49 times out of 50, the chick who fondly recalls her 500 lb. days as "The Skinny Years" dies alone.  Possibly with a house full of cats.  If she hasn't eaten them.

And my point is this: 49 times out of 50, when you have a bad shooting night from Vince (a.k.a. "Errant Jump Shot Theater"), RJ (a.k.a. "3 Point Shots Are Not For You!!!") and JKidd (a.k.a. "The Best Point Guard In The League But Not Even Close To One Of Its Better Shooters By Far") coupled with foul trouble on your promising young big men, you are not going to win. 

I'm not sure last night's win over the Magic was the turning point of the season.  And if it was, I'm not sure that's a good thing.  As mentioned earlier, I am completely enamored with Boone and the Freak Elastique.  But, as young players are prone to do, they will get in foul trouble against the elite big men in the league, and probably won't be ready to drive the momentum of an entire game just yet.

So let's look at this objectively here.  You won by 1 point.  You had a huge game from Darrell Armstrong, who clearly intended to make a triumphant return to his former basketball home.  You had a big game from Malik Allen, who may continue to play at a higher level, thus causing me to take back any negative things I had to say about his basketball-playing abilities.  You got 10 points from JASON COLLINS!  He went 5 for 5!  With no turnovers!  AND had the NBA Steal of the Night!  That's never going to happen again!  Not to mention the intense Dwight Howard elbow that Boki took square to the face.  (Bok, if you need someone to hold some ice on there for you, I'm your girl...really, I'm very doting...call me!)  And for some reason, the Orlando tv crew was under the impression the Nets used the thunderous DH 'bow as a rallying point, despite the fact it was quite obviously unintentional.  But rallying point or not, after my poor Boki picked himself up off the floor, the Nets all of a sudden woke up.  The game got more physical and the refs let them play.  And what did the Nets get as a result of this series of improbable performances and hard fouls?  A win.  An exciting, down-to-the-wire, scream-at-the-television-with-glee, maybe-this-season's-not-over win.

But what are the odds the Nets can win games like this, with their "Big Three" (I hate that term) cold and their big men saddled with fouls early, often?  They say you can only catch lightning in a bottle once, if ever.  The Nets starters need to play solidly, in the same games, and with more consistency, so that the rest of the team doesn't have to try to string together a list of improbables.  I love seeing guys like Malik and Armstrong, and yes, Twin have good games.  I just don't love having to rely on it.