In case you were out protesting your local theater’s lack of midnight showings of After Earth, here’s what you missed in sports on Thursday:

• The Miami Heat, buoyed by another vintage LeBron James performance, won a crucial Game 5, 90-79, to take a 3-2 series advantage back to Indiana. The Heat overcame poor nights from Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade primarily from the efforts of Udonis Haslem, who went 8-for-9 from the field while scoring 16 points, and Chris “Birdman” Andersen, who both attacked Tyler Hansbrough after incidental contact and didn’t miss a shot. “Jordan had Charles Oakley and Dennis Rodman, LeBron has me and the Birdman,” Haslem said after the game. “Except, of course Birdman is both Oakley and Rodman, and also an amateur chemist from a trailer out in Riverside, California, named Dr. Chri$. And I don’t mean any of that metaphorically, he genuinely believes he is all three of those people at different times.” When asked to elaborate, Haslem shook his head and said, “I’d rather not piss off Dr. Chri$. That dude is mean.”
• Rory McIlroy continued his rocky start to the 2013 PGA season, firing a 78, the worst first-round score of his career, to sit 13 shots back at the Memorial. “Man, ever since I’ve signed with Nike, it’s like I keep getting worse and worse,” a visibly weakened McIlroy said after the match, while sipping from a Tiger Woods–branded water bottle. “It’s like my arms are giant weights. My hair is falling out. I lost a tooth in the shower the other day. I asked Tiger about this and he said it was no big deal, and that I shouldn’t see a doctor or anything. And I trust him, as a fellow member of the Nike family. But man, I’m just leaking blood and other fluids all the time. And my brain is slow, not good. Hopefully this’ll all settle down sometime, and I can get back to challenging Tiger for the top spot in the world of stick hit still ball.”
• Jacoby Ellsbury stole five bases as the Boston Red Sox blew out the Philadelphia Phillies, 9-2, at Citizens Bank Park. Phillies catcher Erik Kratz, in for the injured Carlos Ruiz, said after the game, “Mondays, am I right?” before being told the game happened on a Thursday. Kratz then moaned a series of expletives, before asking the clubhouse if anyone had seen his wallet, or his phone, or his pants.
• In an effort to spark their moribund offense, the Kansas City Royals have turned to team legend George Brett to take over as interim hitting coach. Brett’s plan is to take the Royals’ hitters into a room and yell, “Hit like me! Look, you just hit the fucking ball,” at them. “If that doesn’t work,” Brett explained, “I’ll just have them all put too much pine tar on their bats. Can’t lose if you can’t play, that’s what I always say.”
• Russell Martin drove in the winning run as the Pittsburgh Pirates continued their hot start to the season with an 11-inning 1-0 win over the Detroit Tigers. Tigers starter Doug Fister, who took a no-decision despite striking out 12 in seven scoreless innings, said after the game, “I’m used to not getting a win or a loss; that’s sort of the kind of guy I am, I guess, given that’s happened to me a lot both here and when I was with Seattle, unless it isn’t? What do you think? Am I a no-decision type of guy?” Fister then weighed what to eat for a postgame snack until three in the morning, when he fell asleep having eaten nothing.
• Cubs starter Travis Wood hit a grand slam and threw six solid innings as the Cubs beat the White Sox, 8-3, at Wrigley Field. Cubs pitchers now have 19 RBIs in the month of May, a National League record for RBIs by a team’s pitchers in a single month, further proving the Cubs can be good at something just so long as a pitcher with the last name Wood is involved.
• Bethanie Mattek-Sands ousted former champion Li Na, 5-7, 6-3, 6-2, from the second round of the French Open. “It was a hard match, and I had to play my best tennis, but no, I did not think about the sands of time, and whether they were slipping through my fingers inescapably as I hurtle toward death,” Mattek-Sands said at her postmatch press conference at Roland Garros when asked about her name, before adding, “That said, to answer your follow-up question, now that I do think about it, I am definitely craving a particularly abrasive cigarette.”
• Arvind Mahankali won the 86th annual Scripps National Spelling Bee by correctly spelling the word “knaidel,” a small mass of leavened dough usually used in Jewish cooking. Eliminated in fourth place was crowd favorite Amber Born, 14, who said that she’s wanted to become a comedy writer since she saw the pilot for Seinfeld. Two things, Amber. One: No one who fails as a 14-year-old EVER goes on to a career in comedy. Fourth place is definitely not good enough. So get your house in order now, because the world of ha-has and guffaws is filled exclusively with the successful and elite from the eighth and ninth grades. Two: The pilot to Seinfeld wasn’t very good. The show didn’t really come into its own until “The Chinese Restaurant,” the sixth episode of Season 2. So upgrade your taste, girl, and next time you talk Seinfeld, cite “The Contest” or “The Marine Biologist” (remembering the quote “the sea was angry that day, my friends, like an old man trying to send back soup at a deli,” might also come in handy if someone asks you how to spell the ingredients used to make Jewish dumplings). Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll get back to doing what I do best: taking 14-year-old girls to task on the Internet.