The Heat - from their beat writer's perspective

The Miami Herald > Sports > Dan Le Batard
Posted on Thursday, 06.07.12

No room for error for Miami Heat in Game 6 against Boston Celtics

By Dan Le Batard
dlebatard@MiamiHerald.com

You feel a little sick, right? You carry an anchor in your stomach. The way you care is irrational, but intellectualizing it doesn’t make it hurt any less. Your sleep becomes either wired or restless, and what you take with you to work in the morning, unable to shake the heaviness of this feeling, is equal parts sadness and emotional drain.

“But this is just entertainment,’’ the logical side of you attempts to reason.

But the heart wallows and wails for logic to just shut the hell up.

Are we having fun yet, Miami Heat fans?

Because, without danger and fear, roller-coasters aren’t fun, skydiving isn’t exhilarating and this Heat team wouldn’t be the riveting thrill ride that it is. Fandom has to hurt for the joy to be most fulfilling — you have to care, you have to risk suffering — and the Heat has now pushed all of South Florida right to the brink. The stakes tonight? So huge. The margin for error? So microscopic. Grab the bungee and the Pepto and prepare to leap off the end of the cliff at 8:30 tonight.

A loss against the rugged Celtics ends the Heat season, and America will laugh at Miami with a braying force that echoes for months — maybe years, given how historically and loudly this team was put together and how publicly it would be falling apart. A win? All that buys you is a few hours of blessed relief, just a few hours, until we would do it all over again, Game 7, Saturday night.

You get handed the blindfold and cigarette tonight when you turn on that television. And you survive until Saturday only if those veteran killers from Boston miss with their first shot. Fandom doesn’t get a lot more terrifying than this.

There is so much mistrust around this Heat team. Poison. Hostility. It can be soothed if not quite healed with a victory tonight — Miami is favored by one point, which doesn’t mean much given that it lost the last game when favored by eight — but the fan base still suffers post-traumatic stress disorder from losing in The Finals last year and hearing a mocking America rejoice all offseason. There have been very few sports teams, ever, rooted against the way this one is nationally, which makes the civic pride rallying around it locally as strong as anything ever felt for a sports team in our fickle, bandwagon town.

But the Heat has betrayed you recently, underachieving against a limping, old Celtics team against which Miami was heavily favored. And now there is doubt and anger and, well, you aren’t even sure if anyone on this team will make a bleeping free throw for you. It was never supposed to come to this. The challenge and fear was supposed to be in the next round, but it has arrived early, and it is unwelcome. Miami, the favorite all season, has had a three-game losing streak at just about the worst possible time. And only a two-game winning streak fixes that now.

You have to wonder how this team will react to the size of this moment. Can you shoot jump shots accurately with your hands trembling? Miami has played under a great deal of scrutiny and pressure for two seasons, more than any team in sports, more than just about any ever, and Coach Erik Spoelstra has always said after the failures that his team will learn and strengthen from falling down. Is that just a coaching platitude or an essential bonding truth? The answer to that question may decide whether Spoelstra gets to keep working here or not.

The Heat crumbled the only other time it has been under this kind of weight — in Game 6 of The Finals last year. Totally crumbled. And that was in the friendlier confines of home, not in a rabid Boston. It would be the most human thing in the world for Miami to be super tight tonight. Only two times in two years has Miami played a win-or-your-season-is-over-and-America-will-laugh-at-you game. And the last one was crushing, which is why so much distrust surrounds this team now. The home arena was so quiet during the last loss late that you could feel the surrounding fear in your core.

Miami tries to fend off the Celtics and a laughing America beginning at 8:30 tonight.

That anchor in your stomach? That emotional drain? That fear that consumes you?

If that’s what you feel here, all these miles away from the center of the hostility, just watching on television, imagine what it feels like to be LeBron James.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/06/07/2836672/no-room-for-error-for-miami-heat.html#storylink=cpy

And:


The Miami Herald > Sports > Miami Heat > Miami Heat
Posted on Thursday, 06.07.12



Thursday: Heat at Celtics

When/where: 8:30 p.m.; TD Garden, Boston.

TV/radio: ESPN; WAXY 790, WQBA 1140 (Spanish).

The series: Celtics lead 3-2.

The game: Erik Spoelstra said he will play Chris Bosh more in Game 6 but would not say if he would start him. One option is going back to the Bosh/Udonis Haslem starting frontcourt pairing that opened the playoffs winning five of six games before Bosh’s injury. But the Heat often has preferred to go small in this series, with only one natural power rotation player, and Shane Battier cast at power forward and logging heavy minutes (including 32 in Game 5). If Spoelstra goes more with bigger lineups, that would mean less time for Battier and possibly James Jones. Mike Miller’s minutes already have shrunk.


BY BARRY JACKSON
bjackson@MiamiHerald.com

The championship-or-bust season sits on the precipice of disaster now, one loss from a summer of discontent and an avalanche of searing criticism.

Lose Game 6 on Thursday in Boston, and Year Two of the Big Three era is done, and this franchise faces every question it wants to avoid: Why were its stars outperformed in the clutch? Should the Big Three be broken up? Should a coaching change be considered?

Win in Boston — where Miami has won just once in eight games the past two seasons — and the Heat gets a 48-hour reprieve, until a series-deciding Game 7 on Saturday.

“There’s added pressure, but I think it will be a great thing for us,” Chris Bosh said Wednesday. “You really rise to the occasion when the pressure is there. Hopefully, this will be one of these moments where we look back and say, ‘Remember, we were down 3-2 going into Boston?’

“People on the outside think it’s easy. It’s the most difficult thing you have to do as a professional. We’re finding that out now. We’re going into one of the toughest places in the world.”

Though this Heat group lost its only previous playoff elimination game (against Dallas in the NBA Finals), Dwyane Wade said, “We normally respond really well to desperation. I never thought we would be in this situation. We have to play as close to perfection as possible.”

LeBron James, averaging 31.8 points and 10.0 rebounds in the series, is 2-9 in playoff games in Boston (1-3 as a member of the Heat) since the Celtics put together their Big 3 in 2007.

“I know how much pain this team has given me over the years,” James said. “It’s only right we go up there in an elimination game. I’m putting a lot of pressure on myself to come through.”

Through five games, the Heat still hasn’t solved vexing problems. Among them:

• The Celtics are disrupting the Heat’s offense by switching defensive schemes. Miami scored 16 points in 13 possessions against the zone Wednesday (a good ratio), but the double-teams and the mixing of coverages — combined with errant Heat shooting — have led to several exasperating droughts.

Not only has Miami averaged 90.7 points and shot 43.5 percent in the past three games — compared with 98.5 and 46.9 in the regular season — but of the past 12 quarters, the Heat has scored between 14 and 21 points in eight of them, plus two points in the Game 4 overtime.

“They’re a good defensive team,” Wade said. “We’re not going to say we just missed shots.”

And this should not be understated: During the regular season, the Heat shot 290 more free throws than Boston, with Miami eighth in the league in attempts and Boston 27th. But the Celtics have taken more the past three games (73 to 69). And Miami is shooting 66.9 percent from the foul line, well below its 77.5 season mark.

Also, Miami has been over-reliant on three-pointers, making 18 of 62 the past three games and shooting them at a 29.2 percent clip in the series, down seven points from the regular season.

• Inability to control Rajon Rondo (20.6 points, 11.0 assists in this series) or Kevin Garnett (21.6 points, 10.8 rebounds). Even on a night when Rondo shot 3 for 15, he created havoc with 13 assists, seven of which resulted in dunks or layups.

Since Game 3, the Celtics have carved out passing angles to get Garnett the ball at the rim, often against an undersized defender.

Perhaps 6-11 Bosh, who played 14 minutes in his first game back, can make a difference in Game 6. Coach Erik Spoelstra said Bosh “will be able to handle a bigger load” Thursday but was non-committal about starting him.

• Clutch play. In the final five minutes of the fourth quarter (plus overtime) in games with a margin of five or less, the Celtics are 10 for 21 in the past two games, the Heat 7 of 24.

And over the entire playoffs, the Celtics are shooting 50 percent in that scenario (48 for 96), compared with 36.5 percent for the Heat (23 for 63).

And consider: While Paul Pierce is shooting 63.2 percent (12 for 19) and Rondo 51.6 (16 for 31) in those clutch minutes, James is at 31.6 percent (6 for 19) and Wade 40 percent (8 for 20).

• Wade’s poor first halves, a constant the past four games. Wade scored seven points in the first 4:22 of Game 5 but didn’t score again before halftime, closing the half 3 for 9. During the series, Wade is 11 for 40 in the first half, for 29 points — compared with 81 points after halftime, including 20 in Game 5.

• Inconsistent work from Miami’s role players. Aside from Udonis Haslem (31 rebounds the past two games), the ensemble’s play has been typically erratic.

“At this point, it’s not about schemes [or] play-calling,” Wade said. “It’s about mano-a-mano and see who comes out and wants it the most.”

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/06/07/2836682/pressure-heats-up-for-miami-in.html#storylink=cpy

Also (NY Times):

On Pro Basketball
Model for Success Shows Its Faults
By HOWARD BECK
Published: June 6, 2012

Two years into the great Miami Heat experiment, the biting narratives have begun to blur — LeBron James’s failures merging with franchise missteps merging with random events and unforeseen obstacles.

When the Heat lost to the Dallas Mavericks in the finals last June, it was judged an indictment of the Big Three partnership of James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. It was more an indictment of James, whose fourth-quarter fades doomed the Heat against a veteran, strong-willed Mavericks team. (It also had something to do with Dirk Nowitzki.)

With the Heat now staring at elimination in the Eastern Conference finals — trailing, 3-2, heading into Thursday’s Game 6 in Boston — the recriminations are already starting to fly, mostly at James, some at Coach Erik Spoelstra, and with renewed doubts about the fortitude of the James-Wade-Bosh core.

Championships were expected, immediately and in great numbers — “not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, not six.” That is what James promised in that infamous July 2010 rally, and that is the standard by which he and his teammates will be judged.

If the Heat fail again this spring, it will only bolster the two most prominent themes: that James lacks some intangible championship gene, and that the Heat’s model is flawed.

At 27, James has time to evolve and recast his image. It’s the franchise that needs to reassess its direction after overselling and overinvesting in the all-superstar paradigm.

It isn’t that James, Wade and Bosh are flawed as a group; to the contrary, they have been dominant for two seasons and reached the finals in their first year together — a rare feat for any newly constructed team. Their talent is unquestioned, and their chemistry solid.

The issue is not personnel, but economics, and the perils of wild spending in a salary-capped world. Pat Riley allocated so much cap room to his stars in 2010 that he left his team with no flexibility, no room for error and little ability to withstand a significant injury.

Bosh’s abdominal strain obscures the meaning of this bumpy postseason. He missed the first four games of this series and played a meaningless 14-minute cameo in Tuesday’s 94-90 loss. In his absence, the Heat lurched from Ronny Turiaf to Joel Anthony to Udonis Haslem in search of a viable big man, none of them up to the task of defending the paint or challenging Kevin Garnett or hitting a timely shot.

Bosh is not the most talented member of Miami’s Big Three, but he is in some ways the most vital. James and Wade are almost interchangeable — when one is out, the other can still score, pass, set up teammates and defend on the perimeter. There is no viable substitute for Bosh.

Would the Heat be in such peril if Bosh had been healthy? Would the Big Three look like such a failure if all three were actually playing?

Losing this series does not necessarily mean the Big 3 are incapable of winning titles. But it should force a reassessment of the Heat’s strategy.

After uniting James, Wade and Bosh, Riley perhaps believed the high-level role players would flock to South Beach and sign for minimum-level salaries for the chance to win titles. It hasn’t happened that way, and the supporting cast remains woeful: Miami has the worst point guard-center combination of the four conference finalists, and probably the worst bench as well.

Shane Battier, the Heat’s signature acquisition last summer, is shooting 32.4 percent in the conference finals, and 29.6 percent from 3-point range, which is supposed to be his specialty. Mike Miller has been better (44.4 percent from the field), but he is averaging just 6.2 points per game in the series and does not do much else.

With Bosh out, the Heat struggled to put away the Indiana Pacers, a team with no transcendent star but fantastic depth and chemistry. The only team the Heat dominated in these playoffs was the equally top-heavy but less-talented Knicks, who were handicapped by injuries and lousy chemistry.

In truth, the Knicks and the Heat both made the same mistake, attempting to pattern themselves after the Celtics, who brought Garnett, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce together five years ago and promptly won a title. But Boston’s Big Three were well complemented by a Trusted Two — Rajon Rondo, a then-unknown who blossomed into a star, and Kendrick Perkins, who became one of the top interior defenders in the league.

Even now, the Celtics can turn to Pierce, Garnett, Allen or Rondo for a key basket, while Miami relies almost solely on Wade and James. Their burden is greater, as are the consequences for failure.

James went eight minutes without scoring in the fourth quarter of Game 5 and fouled out in overtime of Game 4, but his play in this series has been mostly brilliant. He is shooting 50 percent from the field and averaging 31.8 points, 10 rebounds and 4 assists, all while guarding Pierce.

When the season began, Wade said the stakes were clear: championship or bust. Blame will be cast in every direction if the Heat fall short. James will again take the brunt of it, no matter how many points he scores or assists he collects.

The only point of universal agreement is that another loss in these conference finals means failure.

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/basketball/sixth-sense-calls-a-loss-lebron-james-heat-face-elimination-article-1.1091225

one of the most interesting things i took from these articules was from this fella, "Chris Bosh said Wednesday. “You really rise to the occasion when the pressure is there."

apparently Bosh is unfamiler with how "king nothing" james "lequite" deals with pressure.

heres what to look for from king nothing
* elbowgate will return
* someone will sleep with his mommie and throw off his concentration
* his coach/teammates will all be blamed when king nothing doesnt do anything to help them win in the 4th
* most of the do or die game will see king nothing doing his best momma cass impression


rising to the occasion isnt in king nothings playbook..

some things that are in his playbook though..

* following a heat loss he might not shake hands with the other team, "because as a competeter he doesnt do that"

* ripping off his jersey after the game and deserting his teammates

* making excuses.. am sure there will be a lot of that, im sure the statement will be once more, we played hard, what more do you expect from us" will be heard..

"rising to the occasion"... not something im expecting from the heat.. besides this is year two of the team that will smash the league, win 83 reguler season games a yr, and win the title in 14.7 playoff games every yr... how does a team like that, "rise to the occasion"???

Matty

As much as I'd love to throw dirt on their grave..... fact is this is a long way from over.

Until then I will pace and worry.

beat

( hoping to gloat about 11:00 Pm tonight.)

Beat, I agree. The Heat will play as if their manhood is on the line, and in light of the prevailing commentary, it is. I just hope Doc uses lots of Pietrus, Dooling, Daniels and Steamer in the first three quarters so that in the last six minutes, the starters have the legs to gut it out. I think the Heat will try to pound the ball inside early to get KG in foul trouble, something we can't allow.
The key is good D on the perimeter, something Ray has worked has tail off to provide, but come up a half step short.
In game 5, third quarter, when their guards were driving and we were fouling, trailing by 7 or more, Doc went to his bench, Steamer sealed up the middle, I think Dooling came in, KG got a breather and we weathered the storm. Got a feeling the storm will come earlier tonight... Pacing and worrying here in Columbus, a couple hours south of the Tug Plateau. Hawk

Hawk,

I think that's a good and concise summary of what to expect tonight. Especially since Wade has been off each 1st half shooting from the outside. As you said, I would look for them to take it to us right there inside with everything they've got. If they're going to try bombing away from the perimiter at all, James Jones may still be a wild card they'll throw.

No surprise if we end up with another nail-biter. This has been a thrill ride. Dan LeBatard from The Miami Herald put it well when he said 'get out the bungee and the Pepto'; we'll all need it!

Regards

Hawk

No, minutes will be what they have been for Doc. He's rode the horses too long to change course now. Fouls will dictate less minutes. Rotations will be about what they have been. Why change?

As for the Heat nothing they do would surprise me at this point. Some say Bosh will start. Let um? They still don't have a soul that can handle KG period and they really have no low post threat.

James and Wade will try to take it to the hoop they will get their points we just need to make um work for every single one and not put them on the foul line. Make um both go left as much as possible, make um jump shooters.

We need to push on offense all the time and when we have the advantage take it to the rim, Miami really has no shotblockers, Bron get s few but rarely in a 1/2 court typw setting.

Lets not forget the heat have played a lot of minutes to. Their legs are a bit waxed too plus the mental aspect has to much in our favor.

I'd love to see a game where we just slowly pull away sort of like a large snake, wrap um up and slowly squeeze the life out of um.... as for the eating them up after I'll pass on that.

( Columbus ) ???? where abouts???

beat

Hawk

looked it up

Welcome to the Town of Columbus, NY.

Situated in the northeast corner of Chenango County, Columbus is home to about 975 people, picturesque farms and thriving businesses. Much of the town, which covers 37.5 square miles, occupies a ridge between the Chenango and Unadilla rivers, a land where rural vistas abound.

If I could count the Cows as people we'd probably match you!

beat

Beat, It's funny you found that description of Columbus. I wrote it, as I'm the (do I dare admit it?) town supervisor.
On the Celtics' front, you're probably right about what Doc will do, but he has trusted his bench a little more the last two games, and I think they've earned his continuing trust.
And NY Celt, I've got no nails left to bite!
Hawk

Hawk

if your town is anything like mine, if you can get family to vote for you, you can win any election!

beat

Hawk,

Is Columbus near Cooperstown or Oneonta? It sounds familiar.

I'm a western New Yorker myself; suburban Rochester area.

I loved the description of how Heat fans must be feeling as Game 6 approaches: "You feel a little sick, right? You carry an anchor in your stomach. The way you care is irrational, but intellectualizing it doesn’t make it hurt any less. Your sleep becomes either wired or restless, and what you take with you to work in the morning, unable to shake the heaviness of this feeling, is equal parts sadness and emotional drain."

I've always described the feeling as having a rock in the stomach, but an anchor fills the bill nicely. I've had the privilege of experiencing CPIB (Celtics Playoff Intestinal Boulder) 578 times. And, on 270 (or 42%) of those occasions, I've been bitterly reminded that the Celtics are mortal and nothing is guaranteed in the playoffs.

What strikes me as humorous, in a dark sort of way, is that this apparently comes as news to Heat fans. I guess they're still so late to the playoff party that they don't know that CPIB is the way it's supposed to be. The author of that article puts it very nicely: ".....without danger and fear, roller-coasters aren’t fun, skydiving isn’t exhilarating and this Heat team wouldn’t be the riveting thrill ride that it is. Fandom has to hurt for the joy to be most fulfilling — you have to care, you have to risk suffering."

My older daughter works for a pentagon defense agency that she's not allowed to tell me much about. But I do know that the mission of that agency is to prevent the U.S. from being surprised. And, when I think about how a veteran fan should act during the playoffs, I realize that the number one axiom for me is "Never Be Surprised." In other words, deal with the boulder but, above all, don't be fazed by anything that happens. Move on immediately to the next boulder with even greater resolve. And if it happens that you've run out of boulders for the season, take it like a man, congratulate the winners, and look forward to the next season's rock garden.

At this juncture, I'll let the people in South Beach worry about running around in circles and wondering, "What I do, what I do?" I choose to welcome each succeeding boulder as an old friend and rivet my attention on the business of sending every available erg of energy in my body to the Men in White.

I like to think this is mirror image of the Celtics players' approach.

Go Celtics! Focus, focus, focus.

Sam