Unfortunately for the Heat, Bosh's potential rescue isn't likely to happen anytime soon, and there's a chance it might not even happen in this playoffs. What Wade's meltdown and the Heat's 19-point loss on Thursday underlined was the fact that the Heat desperately miss what Bosh brings to the table.
As a smooth-shooting power forward, Bosh functioned as the team's stabilizer and perhaps more importantly, the scoring buffer between Wade and James. Heat coach Erik Spoelstra has insisted over the last two seasons that Bosh, not Wade or James, is the most vital player on the Heat roster. But each time the coach made that statement, the declaration was usually met with an air of mocking skepticism.
Bosh, the most valuable Heat player? The guy who averaged 18.0 points and 7.9 rebounds this past season after averaging 24.0 and 10.8 rebounds in 2009-10? The guy who has scored over 30 points just twice this season? The guy who promised in the preseason to average 10 rebounds a game this season and he couldn't even average over eight?
Yes, that guy.
Though often a punchline and target of ridicule, Bosh thrives in the single most important play in professional basketball, the pick-and-roll. When Bosh went down, the Heat also lost one of their greatest weapons in the halfcourt: a simple screen for James or Wade to give them space to work their magic. Now, Bosh is being replaced by non-scorers in Udonis Haslem, Joel Anthony and Ronny Turiaf, and the Heat offense has never looked so clogged.
Bosh is often labeled as soft because of his finesse game that includes a nearly automatic mid-range jumper. Among the dozens of players with at least 100 shots from 10-15 feet this season, no one shot better than Bosh's 49.5 percent conversion rate, according to Hoopdata.com. No one was better. Not Dirk Nowitzki. Not Kobe Bryant. Not Kevin Durant.
For this reason, he creates a dilemma for his defender in the pick-and-roll. Leave Bosh to wall off James or Wade's penetration? Or shade toward Bosh and make sure the most sure-handed mid-range shooter doesn't get an open look?
Watch how Roy Hibbert and David West "guard" the Heat's big men. Or better yet, watch how they sag into the paint and completely ignore the Heat's big men. Watch how Wade and James settle for pull-up jumpers -- their least potent weapon in their arsenal next to heaving halfcourt shots -- because multiple bodies are anchored in their way.
Or better yet, just listen to Hibbert.
"Without [Bosh] in the game, I can wander a little bit more and make the paint look a little more crowded and block more shots," Hibbert said following Thursday's rout. "When he's there I have to respect his ability."
To see the Bosh effect, look no further than Wade's whopping total of two shots derived from the pick-and-roll in Game 3. According to SynergySports, Wade missed both of his shots after a screen and they were both as a result of Hibbert's noted lack of respect for big men in red. Wade clanked a running floater over Hibbert in the third quarter because the 7-foot-2 All-Star shifted over to Wade, ignoring Turiaf. On another possession, Wade got blocked by Hibbert after the screen because Anthony was never deemed a threat as a roll man.
The pick-and-roll used to be Wade's bread-and-butter, the vehicle that he road to a le in 2006, but without Bosh, it's almost useless. The Pacers can throw two on the ball and lure Wade into rolling the dice on a jump shot. The result? Wade has shot a putrid 16 percent (4-for-25) on jumpers since Pacers coach Frank Vogel had a day to gameplan for the Heat's post-Bosh offense in Game 2.
James has enjoyed more success than Wade in the pick-and-roll game since Bosh got hurt, but he certainly feels the effects of Bosh's absence. Because the Heat can ill-afford to play two big men without any semblance of scoring ability, ]James often is forced to play power forward and exhaust himself defensively on big men. James ran around like a man possessed defensively in the first half and then predictably trailed off after halftime.
There's little evidence that Bosh's skill-set has diminished since he came to Miami, only his role. Bosh has proved that he can be the scorer we knew in Toronto if he gets the touches. Consider that in Wade's nine-game absence in January this season, Bosh averaged 26 points per game on 59 percent shooting. He sacrificed touches when he came to Miami and did it for the goal of winning that elusive le.
Spoelstra maintains that the Heat "have enough" to replace Bosh's presence. Now, Bosh can only watch from afar while the Heat struggle to survive without him. As we're seeing now in the case of Bosh, sometimes you don't know what you have until it's gone.
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