7:42 - I think Jason Williams' people may have tipped him off that I was dogging him during the break in between quarters, as he has hit two straight threes now to make it 27-21 Heat. Salim Stoudamire misses a three from the corner, but Marvin corrals the rebound (his second straight offensive grab). The ball gets right back to Salim, who promptly takes the exact same shot from the exact same spot...and buries it. 27-24 Heat. J-Will hits another jumper, sadly (to him, I imagine) from inside the arc, but Josh Smith responds with another short jumper. 13 for him. 29-26 Heat with 8:24 left in the half. A pretty good game right now actually - both teams are hitting shots, and the Hawks are very active on the glass getting second chance opportunities.

7:50 - Just as I say that, the Hawks turn the ball over twice in a row out of a timeout, and Antoine Walker hits a three after a Dorrell Wright basket to give the Heat their biggest lead at 36-28. I will just say this and get it out of the way - I get upset every time I see Antoine Walker hit a three, just like it bothers me when Shaq hits four three throws in a row. There - 'Toine just missed one and now the universe seems back in relative order. Shaq scored again though, and its now 38-28 Heat.

7:55 - Marvin hits a jumper to stem the tide, but Toine comes right back with a driving layup. Anthony Johnson responds for Atlanta, and with his basket the Hawks have just scored their first basket of the evening without a credited assist. 14 in a row to start the game. I'd be a little happier with that statistic if we weren't losing though, as Gary Payton hits a jumper to push the score to 42-34 Miami as the Heat call a timeout. They are 18-30 from the field right now for a tidy 60%. During the timeout, the Hawks video board tweaks Shaq with a little "Best Actor"-esque montage comparing his cinematic work to that of Morgan Freeman, Tom Cruise, and others. I wonder how this would have sat with him when he was 27 and dominating the league. It was still pretty amusing though.

8:01 - Marv gets a defensive rebound, his ninth of the game. He is pretty close already to another double-double with seven points, but he could have made it nine had he not missed two straight free throws. We are coming apart a little bit here, as we miss on two straight shots from in close that leads to a Miami breakaway. Another missed jumper by Josh Smith and a turnover, and all of a sudden it's 47-34 before Anthony Johnson makes a nice pass to a cutting Marvin Williams for a dunk right before the buzzer. Your halftime score: 47-36 Miami.

I'll be honest - we aren't playing all that well. Miami finished the half on a tear, and if we don't cut down on our mistakes this one could get away from us (we have 10 turnovers at the break). Josh Smith was hitting early, but now he is starting to settle for jumpers instead of attacking. Hopefully he will get back his aggressiveness in the second half.

Statistically, Smith leads the way with 13 points, Marvin has 9, and no one else has more than 4. Eddie Jones has 12 for Miami and Jason Williams has 8. Another thing hurting the Hawks? They are 2-6 from the charity stripe.

By the way, the halftime entertainment tonight is the Bucket Boys, a traveling troupe of percussionists who bang on (this will shock you I know) buckets. It's actually really cool, the kind of thing you often see street performers do (or in the Broadway show Stomp), and it always makes me wish I had just an ounce of rhythm that would allow me to bang on random objects and make it sound cool.

Ok, I'm going to take a short break, and I will return for the second half.