POST GAME MIAMI - AWAY

Teams beat individuals most of the time.  That's what happened last night.  The only Heat players to record any fgm in the 4th quarter was DWade and Bosh.  Gerald Green had 2 ftm, but that's it for the rest of the squad.  Compare that to the Celtics, who had 6 different players score in the 4th.  It's a lot easier to defend if you know where the ball is going and, in the case of the Heat last night, we knew it was going to Wade first and to Bosh second, so we doubled Wade to get the ball out of his hands and made someone else, anybody else, hit their shots after being spectators for long, long minutes.  Nobody did, and we won.  WE-ball triumphs over ME-ball, and all is right in the world again.

I had the Miami feed last night.  I don't know who the play-by-play guy is, he wasn't too bad, but he had this really annoying shtick of saying "Ka-BOOM" everytime a Heat player hit a jumpshot.  The color guy, Tony Fiorentino, was actually quite good.  He was an assistant coach under Riley (which is probably how he got this gig, the Heat announcers actually work for the Miami Heat and not for a TV station).  

Every Celtic starter scored in double digits and one bench player, Turner, too.  The Heat had 3 players in double digits, Wade, Bosh and Tyler Johnson with 10.  Sure, their superstar and future HOFer scored 30 and their other all-star (minimum) and possible future HOFer had 21, but they lost because balanced scoring is harder to defend and, eventually, legs get tired and mistakes are made at critical times.

They cut our lead down to 1 point in the 4th, at 9:53 left and had it down to 3 at 2:01 left.  Both times we rallied and drove the lead back up.  We had it up to double digits after their first run of the 4th.  So, there are two ways of looking at this (there always are, right?).  You can bemoan our inability to create and hold a lead or you can  extol our ability to keep things together and defend and hit our shots despite having 2 all-stars going off on us.  I like the latter view.  We're young, we've been very inconsistent, I'm glad this was a close game.  These are the types of wins that are character builders, much more so than blow outs.  Blow outs are more fun, you get Gino Time, but gut busting ganas checks like this make you think "we can do this" and that's half the battle there.

1.  I know that Sam was skeptical of Bradley's value.  He thought he was undersized to play SG (and he is), hated his ball handling skills (as do I), thought he was completely inadequate as a floor general/point guard and thought his defensive skills depended too much upon athleticism and that was tenuous given his size and thought he was a poor finisher around the rim.  The funny thing is, I think Sam was right on just about every point, especially his ball handling and floor generalship, but where would we be now without him (Bradley, that is.  We miss Sam)?  He has turned into a great two-way player.  The Heat announcers last night were really talking him up.  He had 8 points on 2-3 and 4-4 from 3.  Then, in the 3rd, he went off.  He ended the 3rd with 20 on 7-12.  A 12 point 3rd definitely got the Heat announcers' attention.  He ended up with 25 on 9-15 and 3-6 from 3.  Considering how many of us were calling for him to be traded after year 1 and into year 2 I guess the moral here is, it takes time to grow into this league.  We've had some very volatile weeks with the wins and losses over with Brooklyn and the Atlanta beat down and Orlando and the one player who has been coming out every night and getting his job done has been Avery.  Every game he comes out with energy.  If everybody had his energy in Brooklyn and Orlando we would have won those games.

2.  Sully battled Hassan Whiteside as best as he could but it was tough.  Mistakes were repeatedly made as Sully, Lee and Amir all failed to get around Whitesde and at least partially front him after he got position in the paint.  When he gets there it's too late to stay behind him unless you're a true shotblocker, you have to force them to make a perfect entry pass over the top and to do that you have to provide some threat of a deflection or steal from the front.  Whiteside's points came because we didn't do that.  Still, Sully did his job and hit his mid-range shots to put Whiteside in No Man's Land, in between defending the rim and defending the shooter.  Whiteside had 3 blocks.  So what?  You want to stay in the paint and block a shot here and there?  Fine, we'll kick it out and Sully will hit the elbow J on you.  Brad ran a clinic on how to beat a team with shotblockers like Whiteside and Bosh.  Amir taking 3s, Sully taking elbow Js and Whiteside feeling very out of place.

3.  Jerebko came off the bench first and was assigned to guard Bosh.  I thought he played defense on Bosh about as well as you could, although Bosh foxed him once by rolling into the lane to his left and then spinning back to his right.  Jonas bit on the inside fake because Bosh is SUCH a lefty.  Other than that though, I thought Jerebko's defense was very good.  His offense?  Still not good.  I can't remember seeing a slump like this.

4.  I'm thinking that the reason why Crowder is such a poor finisher is because he isn't a quick leaper.  Built like a middle linebacker, but not quick, so that gives the defense to get up there with him and bother/block his shots in close.  He guarded Wade at times, Green other times and Winslow others.  He had 4 steals, the first really good steal night for him in a few weeks.

5.  As noted, IT was a forgettable 5-17 for 16 points, but a memorable 9 assists and zero turnovers.  And we won.  Remember that, Isaiah.  You facilitated and we won.

6.  Amir has disappeared over the past few weeks but he was solid as granite last night.  13 points on 5-9 and 2-2 from 3, and that doesn't count the one that didn't count because the buzzer beat him by .1 seconds.  10 boards, 3 offensive, and 2 steals.  For a guy who isn't a center he can play a pretty good facsimile of one at times.  His last 3 boards, and his last offensive rebound, came in that gut check 4th quarter.

7.  The Good Evan Turner twin showed up last night.  I honestly cannot understand why Brad keeps calling plays for Turner to take 3s, he's shooting 14% from there, but it keeps happening.  Nevertheless, Evan shot 5-11 for 13 points last night (only took on 3pt fga, missing, of course!) but he had 3 steals and played some very good defense overall.

8.  After starting off the season well Kelly has fallen off the table.  He's back to overthinking and being less aggressive.  He is falling out of the rotation like Zeller already has.  

9.  Stat Roundup:  15 steals.  We lead the league with 11.3.  They had 18 TOs.  We lead the league in generating TOs at 19.3.  We might not be long, but we have very quick hands.  Evan Turner had 3 to go with Jae's 4.  Otherwise, this game was very close, statistically.  80 fgas for us vs 75 for them, 47.5% fg% for us vs 48% for them, 25 ftas for us vs 24 for them.  We hit 21 of ours while they only hit 18, so there's some points going our way because we hit our shots from the line.  We were 8-20 from 3 for 40% while they were 5-17 for 29%.  Once again, it's a hit or miss league and last night we were hitting our 3s, notably Bradley.

10-8.  I liste all my expectations for wins through November and it never occurred to me we might win 10.  Has it been smooth?  Hell no, but 10 wins is 10 wins however you get them.  Consistency will come.  At least until Danny pulls a trigger or two.

We are currently in 8th place, 1/2 game behind Charlotte which is 10-7, but Al Jefferson is going to be out a few weeks with an injury and GSW comes to visit them tomorrow.  Our next game is Thursday vs Sacramento in Mexico City as part of the NBA's "let's see how many miles we can put on the Celtics this year" program.  Kelly can impress the locals by showing them he can eat a burrito in 4 bites.  DeMarcus Cousins, Rajon Rondo, Rudy Gay, Willie Cauley-Stein, Koufos.  You know Rondo is going to be "on" for that one.  Then it's Saturday in San Antonio.  A relatively light week for a change.

10-8.  Wow.


bob


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