I hope you remember game 6 of the 2013 NBA Finals (part 2)

Before we begin: let's make sure everyone has seen this.  

Then, let's do a quick detour from basketball to soccer, since the World Cup is happening, and remind everyone that if you were born in the USA and you call a field a "pitch," a uniform a "kit," the number zero "nil," and/or a team a "side," you are a fucking dipshit of the highest order and you should be embarrassed.  I'm very excited about the World Cup, and I sometimes sort of follow the Champions League. (Admittedly, I do not have a favorite club team in America or outside of America, so it's not like I'm Mr. Soccer.)  But seriously, if you were born here and you like to use British terminology to describe the sport, you should be thrown out of a moving train.  You suck.  Go away.

Moving on: as succinctly and comedically explained to us by Anonymous in the comments to part 1 of this post, Bill doesn't remember anything about game 6.  Except the parts he remembers, because it was so unforgettable, which HE KNEW WAS THE CASE AT THE TIME.  Make sense?

But the fourth quarter? I remember a bunch of things. 

Of course you do.  You remember tweeting about how in ten years, people might remember this as a moment in which they decided to look forward and think about how they might remember it in ten years.

I remember Duncan fading as LeBron ascended to an ungodly level. 

LeBron has been the best player in the NBA for like seven or eight years.  Noticing that he was better in the 4th quarter of a game late in the playoffs than 37 year old Tim Duncan is not novel or interesting.

Stretch Bo Jackson to 6-foot-8, give him T-Mac’s streaky jump shot, Jordan’s competitiveness, Pippen’s defensive prowess and Bird’s brain, and that was LeBron dominating both ends for nine solid minutes. 

Attention, ignorant readers who know nothing unless Bill tells you you know something: LeBron is really good at basketball.

He fought off a slightly better San Antonio team, by himself … and then, just as unexpectedly, he remembered he was human and ran out of gas. 

LeBron played 49:46 of that 53 minute game.  Him running out of gas late in the 4th is not at all unexpected.

That’s when Tony Parker made a couple of Tony Parker plays, 

So descriptive!  I say this every few months, but "[Name] making [name] plays" is the dumbest fucking thing any person can write about sports.

and before we blinked, San Antonio’s bench was celebrating and Miami had bungled the series.

During that now-fateful timeout with San Antonio up five, 

Someone should have asked Popovich what he thought he would think about that timeout in five years!  I know I'm beating that joke into the ground, but Simmons's obsession with that concept is out of hand.

Jalen Rose and I watched NBA officials wheel the Larry O’Brien Trophy into the runway to our right. 

I AM FRIENDS WITH A FORMER NBA PLAYER!!!!  EVERYMAN COLUMNIST WHO REPRESENTS THE AVERAGE FAN COMES THROUGH IN THE CLUTCH AGAIN!!!

It couldn’t have been farther than 15 feet from us. We watched security guards assume positions around the court, and we watched Heat employees hastily sticking up yellow rope around the courtside seats. 

You know what, I'll give him non-sarcastic credit here.  This is actually non-horrendous description of a rarely-seen occurrence at a sporting event that most people don't really notice or pay attention to.  

Like they were cordoning off a homicide scene. 

And now we're back to the same old Bill--the employees cordoned off this area like they were cordoning off another kind of area.

Even after LeBron’s second-gasp 3, I still thought we were going home. Some Heat fans had already trickled out. 

Nooooo!  Heat fans aren't bad fans!  They are great fans who just have to beat traffic!  Miami is known for its terrible traffic, right?

We watched them leave in disbelief. How could the Basketball Gods reward … that?

Gregg and Bill have more in common than either would admit, but let's get down to brass tacks: if what Bill is saying is that Heat fans suck balls, he's not wrong.  Regardless of his reference to the Basketball Gods.

After Miller fouled Leonard with 19.4 seconds left, he strolled impassively to the free throw line, with Miami’s rejuvenated crowd suffocating him with boos and screams. I remember thinking, Forget about making these free throws — I wonder if this kid is hitting the rim. 

Kawhi Leonard is a career 80% free throw shooter.  No matter how he wants to tell the story, Bill knew Leonard was going to miss one of those free throws right after he missed it, and not a minute sooner.

Leonard sized up those freebies, the clatter bouncing off him, a Spurs collapse suddenly in play. How many current players could have nailed these specific free throws? 

Hundreds.  

Maybe 10 total? 

You're a fucking idiot.

Leonard clanged the first one. Mayhem. He made the second one, and by the way, I will always respect Kawhi for making that second one. 

YOU'RE WELCOME, KAWHI.  YOU MIGHT MAKE THE BOOK OF BASKETBALL'S FOURTH EDITION IN 2035.

Three-point game.

After Miami’s timeout, we watched in disbelief as Pop removed Duncan for the ensuing defensive possession. How can you keep the power forward GOAT off the floor twice? Jalen and I were flipping out. What was Pop thinking? 

I have no idea, and maybe it was the right decision and maybe it wasn't, but Gregg Popovich has more basketball knowledge in his pinkie toe than Bill Simmons could ever possibly accumulate.  Not to say that the "if you knew anything about the game, you'd be playing/coaching/managing it" argument is always infallible, but when we're talking about Popovich, I think it's worth giving him the benefit of the doubt on literally every decision.

As we were venting, they started playing basketball again. 

Back to some rock solid Bill exposition.  So descriptive, it's like watching with Jalen Rose.

Chalmers dumped it to LeBron, who missed another 3 near Miami’s bench. The ball caromed to the right side, with Bosh securing it right before Ginobili bounced off him. (For what it’s worth, that was a GREAT rebound by Bosh.) 

Everyone hates Chris Bosh.  He's 6'11", and here he's getting credit for grabbing a board over a 6'6" guy.

As Ginobili tumbled to the ground, Allen furiously retreated toward the right corner. None of the Spurs was close enough to him. And Bosh was tossing the ball his way.

Why?  Because, as Bill will soon show us, only a TROOOOO FACKIN' CELTIC (who spent approximately 30% of his career in Boston) like Allen could come up big in a moment like this.

Now …
I watched Ray Allen play for my favorite team for five years. 

YOU DID NAWT WATCH!  YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW RAY ALLEN PLAYS!  LISTEN TO ME!

He goes to the same spots and does the same things the same ways — not just for weeks, or months, but for years and years and years. 

This is not true.  He has favorite spots--and every player has favorite spots.  Allen is also first all time in NBA history in total three point FGs made by a lot, and 36th in 3FG%.  He's probably the best three point shooter ever.  He will kill you from anywhere behind the arc.  If you wrote a best-selling book about basketball, I'd think you might comprehend that.  I'd also think you wouldn't be a petulant child if given the chance to go on TV and talk about basketball, but here we are, with that link at the beginning of this post existing.

He’s the closest thing we have to an NBA robot. 

Wait, I thought Duncan was a robot!  Because he never shows emotion!  NO ONE APPRECIATES TIM DUNCAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  This is not mockery of Simmons, it's a mockery of every dipshit out there who has been pushing that retarded-ass angle for the past five years or so.

He treats 3-pointers like tennis players treat their serves, golfers treat their swings and pitchers treat their delivery — quick jump, quick release, perfect form, line drive, bang. 

Or in other words, he treats three pointers like every NBA guard treats every jump shot.

Every shot looks the same. Watch Ray long enough and you instinctively realize when he’s heating up, when he’s shooting from a spot he likes, and when he’s thrust into a situation that — even if it seems chaotic — happens to be perfect for Ray Allen and Ray Allen only.

ONLY A FAN OF THE BASKETBALL SOX WOULD UNDAHSTAND OW-UH RAY!  THE REST OF YOU AHHHH CLUELESS!

With seven seconds left in Game 6, suddenly, we were in one of those situations. And I knew just from watching him backpedal those first two steps.

The fuck you did.  Die.

True story: When Ray practices 3s from different parts of the court, sometimes he blindfolds himself so he can’t see the 3-point line. His complicated shooting routine unfolds hours before games — like, HOURS before games — sometimes with cheerleaders practicing and arena employees turning the lights on and off. He practices footwork as diligently as a ballerina, partly because he’s a perfectionist, partly out of basketball OCD, and partly because he always wants to be prepared for anything. And you know what’s really crazy? Ray Allen is enough of a lovable weirdo that he practiced this specific shot. In fact, he’s been practicing it since his Milwaukee days.

This may be true or it may not be true.  Wouldn't surprise me; also wouldn't surprise me if this is embellishment of a story where, like, one time Allen wore a blindfold while shooting around because he was super in the zone.  Bill's source?  Bill's perspective, other than "Take my word for it?"  None.  Bill Simmons, everyone.  America's loudest semi-informed sports fan.  If anyone you know tries to cite him as an authority on anything other than Larry Bird, be sure to kick them in the nuts and then run away.

Rick Reilly Is a Proffesional Sports Writer

Rick Reilly is paid makes around a million bucks a year as a sports journalist and enjoys a celebrity status held by few others in his industry. He also hates people who write on blogs, as they do not have the perspective and access to write the in-depth pieces that he produces. With hard hitting articles like this one, it's hard not to agree with him:

My Favorite Olympic Sport? Translating the Anthems.

Facial IOC, total facial.

Here come the Olympics, when we are reminded of the unquenchable spirit of the athlete, the true fellowship of nations through sport—and the Spam-brained quality of most national anthems.

National anthems are anachronistic holdovers from an ugly part of world history. No one need spend any amount of time analyzing them.

It's so sad when bad anthems happen to good countries. America, for one. Ours goes up and down so many octaves only certain German shepherds can hear all of it.

Really sticking your neck out there, Rick.

Andorra. I look forward with great zeal to the day when a 350-pound Andorran shot-putter with phone booths for arms stands on the podium and sings: "I was born a princess, a maiden!" Hey, with today's medical breakthroughs, it's possible.

A man singing a line as if he was a woman? LOLZ!

Ukraine. I love it because it asks so little. The first line: "Ukraine has not perished." I call that managing national expectations: "We're not dead, okay? Give us that."

1. I'm sure that as with all these anthems, the translations are not perfect. My guess would be "perished" is translated from a word that doesn't exist in English.
2. Just off the top of my head, Ukraine has been under the brutal oppression of the following countries: The Mongolian Horde, Tsarist Russia, Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, and Soviet Russia again. So the fact that Ukraine has survived is actually a pretty big deal.
3. You rip on their anthem for bragging about its nation's survival, whilst our anthem brags about a battle that we didn't win (we survived an attack) in a war that we pretty much lost (War of 1812, Washington was burned to the ground).

This anthem is played each day at 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. It declares, "Every inch of Thailand belongs to the Thais." Odd.

Yeah, not a lot of disputes going on in the world over land and which nation has legitimate claim to it. Not Cyprus, the Balkans, Northern Ireland. Nowhere .

Was anyone under the impression it belonged to Diddy?

Obligatory reference to Sean Combs to prove article is topical - check.

Algeria. "We have taken the noise of gunpowder as our rhythm and the sound of machine guns as our melody." This is why no one invites your band anywhere.

That is kind of funny.

Sweden. Here is a national anthem that has almost nothing to do with the country it honors. It's mostly about the Nordic way of life. Swedes are like that. Once, at an Olympic soccer game, I listened to Swedish fans chanting and singing. Finally, I asked one what they were urging their players to do. "The players?" she said. "We simply chant: 'We are from Sweden, we have come a long way and we are drunk!'"

Hey, this has nothing to with the topic I've laid out, but this one time this Swedish person told me about a hilarious phrase they were chanting.

China. The Chinese change their national anthem about every other Tuesday, but the latest, approved in 2004, talks about putting up a "new Great Wall!" If I'm Chinese, and I'm looking at the 4,500-mile one that took 19 centuries to build, I'm thinking, Look, we'll do a Good Wall, but Great? No way.

Why oh why did no one consider Rick Reilly for replacing Leno?

The national anthem of Spain is easy to learn. It contains no words. Don't you wish the same could be said of Imus?

Don't you wish Don Imus didn't contain any words? Holy shit that makes a lot of sense.

Hate to admit it, but France's "La Marseillaise" is very good. Remember how it drowned out the Nazis in Casablanca?

Remember in that fictional movie about a story that never happened, when that song drowned out the Nazis? It totally ruled!

(Watch out Simmons)

The best, though, is Great Britain's "God Save the Queen."

It's embarrassing for Andorrans to sing "I was born a princess, a maiden," but not for England, a country stereotyped for effemine acting men, to say "God save the QUEEN." Just throwing it out there.

For catchiness it ranks only slightly behind "It's a Small World (After All)."

And since it is the catchiest song I have ever heard in my life, "Girlfriend" by Avril Lavinge is the indisputable best song of all time.

There's a bit more, but there's no point. Here are some things to ponder:

1. Rick Reilly writes 1 column a week, and this is what he came up with.
2. Exactly how many minutes of research did this require? 15? 10?
3. Which took longer, the "research" or the writing? Could the total time spent on the article be anywhere over 30 minutes?
4. If this were a post on joeblowsportsblog.blogspot.com, is there any shot in hell that it would get linked on Deadspin or The Big Lead?
5. This article was posted on the front page of the most frequented sports site in America.