nbascribe
06-18-2006, 06:12 PM
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/14844279.htm
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Posted on Sun, Jun. 18, 2006
IN MY OPINION
A Game 5 victory -- Heat can't leave home tonight without it
BY DAN LE BATARD
[email protected]
MIAMI -- Miami plays its final home game of this glorious season tonight. It is The Single Most Important Game In Heat History Since The Last Single Most Important Game In Heat History. You can't lose today, at home, with Dallas backpedaling and missing a critical suspended player, and expect to win two straight for the championship in Dallas.
Pat Riley wrote ''Season'' on his board in a timeout huddle with Miami down double digits late in Game 3, and his Heat has been playing for its season every exhausting minute since. Game 3? Season. Game 4? Season. Game 5 tonight? Season. Lose today and Miami has too much to overcome. Impossible? No. It's still possible. But it's also still possible you'll win the lottery today.
That said, Miami has certainly led the league in overcoming doubt. It is a staggering thing to say about a team with Shaquille O'Neal and Dwyane Wade on it, but Miami's players are right when they offer the tired complaint that not a lot of people outside their timeout huddle have believed. This is a bandwagon town filled with people who are fans of winning more than they are fans of teams. That's why you actually heard booing and saw people leaving early in Game 3 of the NBA Finals. A lot of fans criticizing Riley's adjustments or Shaq's play arrived six minutes ago.
But, even from the hard-core, the doubt began in the preseason when Riley tinkered with the most successful Heat team ever, bringing in ''headaches'' Antoine Walker and Jason Williams because he wanted more talent, period, chemistry be damned. Never mind last season's crushing Game 7 loss to Detroit. Riley might have made up his mind about having to change things in Game 6 at Detroit, when Miami had no chance and lost by 712 points with Wade out injured.
Look at what has happened this postseason: Williams goes 10 for 12 in the Game 6 clincher against Detroit a couple of weeks ago. Gary Payton helps win Game 1 against Detroit and Game 3 against Dallas. James Posey puts up 15 and 10 on Thursday. Udonis Haslem grabs eight offensive rebounds with one good arm and makes the biggest steal in franchise history Tuesday. Walker plays exceptionally against New Jersey?
This Heat team has more ways to beat you than any ever, whereas last season's really had only two. It's why Riley said it wasn't championship-worthy. Never mind Wade and Shaq's health last season. Riley didn't think he could beat San Antonio or Dallas or anyone in the next round with what he had. But he does now. Game 4 is merely the most recent example: Miami kept pushing Dallas down with Shaq and Haslem strapped to the bench with foul trouble.
DOUBTED
Still, the doubt that began in the preseason continued throughout a herky-jerky, interminable and irrelevant regular season during which Miami went 2-14 against the league's elite teams. And how irrelevant is that stat right about now, huh? The 2-12 against division leaders plus 0-2 against Dallas, which didn't win its division? Do you think there is any precedent for a team that was that terrible throughout the regular season against the elite winning the championship? And, mind you, Miami easily could have been 0-16 if not for one bad ref's call in a win at home over New Jersey and one buzzer three-pointer by Tayshaun Prince not bouncing waywardly. A bounce and call. That's all that kept Miami from 0-16. And we go from there to two wins from the championship.
''Doubted all season,'' Walker says.
Postseason, too. First round against Chicago, Payton and Wade arguing on the court in a disjointed loss that tied the series and made the team look like it was coming apart. Second round against New Jersey, a blowout loss at home in Game 1, fans pulling hamstrings to jump off the bandwagon in what has been to date Miami's only home playoff loss. Third round against nemesis Detroit, a team with matchup nightmares and more victories than anybody in the NBA. And then, in the Finals, down 2-0 against the best team and best player Miami has seen as Dallas writers proclaimed Miami worse than Memphis and newspapers printed possible parade routes and times.
Doesn't take much to change the entire feel of a team, a series, a season. Dallas has gone from possible parade routes to its star going 2 for 14, its best bench player being suspended and wondering what to do about this Wade guy they just discovered while busy engulfing Shaq.
The Jerry Stackhouse dismissal seems excessive, but it's hard to say whether it is good or bad for Miami. The Heat can't keep up with Devin Harris, who will now get more minutes, and Stackhouse is a guy who shoots 28 percent from far away. He helped Dallas for about 70 seconds in Game 2 but has otherwise been irrelevant and inefficient. He has made only seven of his past 27 shots. Miami wants him shooting more, not less, in much the same way Dallas wants Walker shooting more. Not a coincidence that Miami's most lopsided victory of the series came with Walker taking fewer shots than he has in any game. You have to assume Posey will steal some of Walker's minutes tonight.
NOT AS IT SEEMS
And speaking of benches, Dallas is viewed as having an advantage there, but it is something of a mirage. The Mavericks have started two players (Adrian Griffin and DeSagana Diop) who don't do anything. So, yes, their bench is strong. Just like Miami's bench would be strong if it started Michael Doleac and Derek Anderson and sat Shaq and Wade. For all the credit Avery Johnson is getting for his coaching, it is a mystery why he doesn't try to outscore Miami -- a Dallas strength -- instead of trying to out-defend Miami. Any minute Griffin plays this late in the season is one too many. He has given NBA teams four points and three rebounds per game for his seven-year career.
(Enough with the clown-columnist-as-coach already, Le Batard. Did you really just make Game 5 of the NBA Finals into a rant about Adrian Griffin?)
Sorry.
Let's throw the basketball up in the air already.
By the time it comes down, we'll only have the biggest basketball game South Florida has ever seen.
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Posted on Sun, Jun. 18, 2006
IN MY OPINION
A Game 5 victory -- Heat can't leave home tonight without it
BY DAN LE BATARD
[email protected]
MIAMI -- Miami plays its final home game of this glorious season tonight. It is The Single Most Important Game In Heat History Since The Last Single Most Important Game In Heat History. You can't lose today, at home, with Dallas backpedaling and missing a critical suspended player, and expect to win two straight for the championship in Dallas.
Pat Riley wrote ''Season'' on his board in a timeout huddle with Miami down double digits late in Game 3, and his Heat has been playing for its season every exhausting minute since. Game 3? Season. Game 4? Season. Game 5 tonight? Season. Lose today and Miami has too much to overcome. Impossible? No. It's still possible. But it's also still possible you'll win the lottery today.
That said, Miami has certainly led the league in overcoming doubt. It is a staggering thing to say about a team with Shaquille O'Neal and Dwyane Wade on it, but Miami's players are right when they offer the tired complaint that not a lot of people outside their timeout huddle have believed. This is a bandwagon town filled with people who are fans of winning more than they are fans of teams. That's why you actually heard booing and saw people leaving early in Game 3 of the NBA Finals. A lot of fans criticizing Riley's adjustments or Shaq's play arrived six minutes ago.
But, even from the hard-core, the doubt began in the preseason when Riley tinkered with the most successful Heat team ever, bringing in ''headaches'' Antoine Walker and Jason Williams because he wanted more talent, period, chemistry be damned. Never mind last season's crushing Game 7 loss to Detroit. Riley might have made up his mind about having to change things in Game 6 at Detroit, when Miami had no chance and lost by 712 points with Wade out injured.
Look at what has happened this postseason: Williams goes 10 for 12 in the Game 6 clincher against Detroit a couple of weeks ago. Gary Payton helps win Game 1 against Detroit and Game 3 against Dallas. James Posey puts up 15 and 10 on Thursday. Udonis Haslem grabs eight offensive rebounds with one good arm and makes the biggest steal in franchise history Tuesday. Walker plays exceptionally against New Jersey?
This Heat team has more ways to beat you than any ever, whereas last season's really had only two. It's why Riley said it wasn't championship-worthy. Never mind Wade and Shaq's health last season. Riley didn't think he could beat San Antonio or Dallas or anyone in the next round with what he had. But he does now. Game 4 is merely the most recent example: Miami kept pushing Dallas down with Shaq and Haslem strapped to the bench with foul trouble.
DOUBTED
Still, the doubt that began in the preseason continued throughout a herky-jerky, interminable and irrelevant regular season during which Miami went 2-14 against the league's elite teams. And how irrelevant is that stat right about now, huh? The 2-12 against division leaders plus 0-2 against Dallas, which didn't win its division? Do you think there is any precedent for a team that was that terrible throughout the regular season against the elite winning the championship? And, mind you, Miami easily could have been 0-16 if not for one bad ref's call in a win at home over New Jersey and one buzzer three-pointer by Tayshaun Prince not bouncing waywardly. A bounce and call. That's all that kept Miami from 0-16. And we go from there to two wins from the championship.
''Doubted all season,'' Walker says.
Postseason, too. First round against Chicago, Payton and Wade arguing on the court in a disjointed loss that tied the series and made the team look like it was coming apart. Second round against New Jersey, a blowout loss at home in Game 1, fans pulling hamstrings to jump off the bandwagon in what has been to date Miami's only home playoff loss. Third round against nemesis Detroit, a team with matchup nightmares and more victories than anybody in the NBA. And then, in the Finals, down 2-0 against the best team and best player Miami has seen as Dallas writers proclaimed Miami worse than Memphis and newspapers printed possible parade routes and times.
Doesn't take much to change the entire feel of a team, a series, a season. Dallas has gone from possible parade routes to its star going 2 for 14, its best bench player being suspended and wondering what to do about this Wade guy they just discovered while busy engulfing Shaq.
The Jerry Stackhouse dismissal seems excessive, but it's hard to say whether it is good or bad for Miami. The Heat can't keep up with Devin Harris, who will now get more minutes, and Stackhouse is a guy who shoots 28 percent from far away. He helped Dallas for about 70 seconds in Game 2 but has otherwise been irrelevant and inefficient. He has made only seven of his past 27 shots. Miami wants him shooting more, not less, in much the same way Dallas wants Walker shooting more. Not a coincidence that Miami's most lopsided victory of the series came with Walker taking fewer shots than he has in any game. You have to assume Posey will steal some of Walker's minutes tonight.
NOT AS IT SEEMS
And speaking of benches, Dallas is viewed as having an advantage there, but it is something of a mirage. The Mavericks have started two players (Adrian Griffin and DeSagana Diop) who don't do anything. So, yes, their bench is strong. Just like Miami's bench would be strong if it started Michael Doleac and Derek Anderson and sat Shaq and Wade. For all the credit Avery Johnson is getting for his coaching, it is a mystery why he doesn't try to outscore Miami -- a Dallas strength -- instead of trying to out-defend Miami. Any minute Griffin plays this late in the season is one too many. He has given NBA teams four points and three rebounds per game for his seven-year career.
(Enough with the clown-columnist-as-coach already, Le Batard. Did you really just make Game 5 of the NBA Finals into a rant about Adrian Griffin?)
Sorry.
Let's throw the basketball up in the air already.
By the time it comes down, we'll only have the biggest basketball game South Florida has ever seen.