If healthy Miller is the 1st or 2nd man off the bench on any team in the NBA IMO. He has great size and length, can hit the outside shot, handle the ball, rebounds extraordinarily well for his position, and isn't a bad defender either. The fortunate thing for Mike is that he is on a team where doesn't need to play extended minutes or every game during the regular season. I'm not so sure he would be able to stay healthy a whole year honestly. However anybody who has seen him play extended minutes this year knows Miller still has plenty of game left in him.
Section126, I love your post-game analysis on Heatfreak. Great stuff. Nice to read about basketball Xs and Os.
Because you shat on him. It's true though...I know it hurts and I'm sorry but he would get nice minutes with you guys coming off the bench as both a SG and possibly SF depending on the lineup. The actual point was that if our three point shooters keep crapping the bed we have a nice option I hope we use. As for health, he was healthy enough to start for us. Though it doesn't matter. 47-4 doesn't lie about our depth and talent.
I love the reactionary media. Yesterday the headline is "Heat in big trouble with Pacers!" Today the headline is "Pacers have no answer for Heat, expect this one to end in five!"
Just rewatched last nights game and that may be the most dominant performance I have seen from this team offensively. Won't show in the stats, but LeBron played as well as I can remember.
I just think he is a good role player and not much else at this point. And that's ok, you don't need him to score 20 a game and he can't make it through a season playing a lot of minutes. So it's a win-win.
Typical. Gotta give the coaching staff credit for realizing posting up Lebron in the paint was going to give the Pacers fits....ofcourse coaching is easy with the most complete player to ever play the game.
Well of course he can't play 30+ minutes a night these days but I'm 100% sure he can go 10-15 if he was needed to. He was hurting a lot worse last season.
I think sending Lebron to the post was a two part rope a dope. The Pacers hate sending help but now they will have to. I think the plan next game is to bury them in the wide open threes that sending a double to the post opens up. If Ray and Shane can make wide open threes I expect one or both of them to be huge.
That's why the plan worked like a charm, people (Haslem especially) was hitting his open shots. It's been fun watching this series from a technical standpoint.
UD screwed them last night. Forget about the damage Lebron did on the post. UDs 8 for 9 ripped their defensive alignments to shreds.
Haslem is a big time player. Time and time again he steps up in big games in the playoffs. Plus, he has this kick *** tattoo of the "gunshine state"
Just an outside perspective on this as a non Heat fan... I think papers are reactionary because they have to be to sell them but anyone who is really paying attention can tell that the Heat were not really challenged through the first 2 rounds. That was the first game they clearly played with a sense of urgency. You never really got that vs the Roseless Bulls; it was almost like they took them seriously enough to win but throughout the series you saw them go through bouts of semi-lazy play maybe because they knew the Bulls without Rose couldnt score and frankly werent a very good team. The Pacers being a more talented version of the Bulls....the Heat brought their A game last night and ran them out of the building. It was really the first time someone challenged Miami this postseason. Miami accepted the challenge. I stand by my original prediction that Miami will win this series in 5 even though Id love for them to lose
Anybody see the Greg Doyel troll column on Wade today, the gist of which is that Wade is a violent psychopath who also cowardly flops and is the biggest villain/evil person in the league.
The Heat play semi-lazy as a default. This is where not watching Heat games during the regular season will hurt the outside observer. You guys think the Heat are just raining hellfire on everyone they play. The flying death machine is not always engaged. It's usually grounded, getting waxed or oiled. And yes, this team responds well to being challenged.
lebrons damage in the post inflicted mental damage on pg he was a ghost the whole game. The real crux of this series is the fact bosh has been in foul trouble every game on bs off ball touch fouls.
It's hitting shots, but it's also about getting easier shots. The first two games there weren't the quality if looks the Heat are used to getting. In game 3 the ball movement was great and guys were getting much better looks. Series has been great from a technical standpoint. Last season's was just as good too. IMO the Heats coaching staff is the best in the league. The adjustments they make are always effective.
I don't think the officiating is that bad. The Heat are undersized. It shouldn't be a surprise they are fouling more. Bosh is going against 7'2 Hibbert, of course he's going to pick up fouls.
Parker better stay in the habit of dropping 37 and Manu better get out of the habit of playing terrible basketball. As they said in the post-game last night, that was one of the worst games Ive seen Ginobli play. I dont know how much he has left for his career but whatever hes got left better be better then what he played like last night. He made some hustle plays but he made a lot of poor decisions with the ball and while I think he was only credited with 5 TO's it could have been closer to 7 as there were a lot of plays he was careless with the ball. Spurs are going to need retro-manu to make a real run at this.
Spurs are very good, but are actually a good matchup for Heat. SA has had problems with athletic teams and OKC turned their series around last eyar by playing small and running Duncan and Splitter around the court. Well, that's what the Heat does all the time. Key will be Chalmers and Cole just not letting Parker go nuts, getting to the rim with ease. If they do that, Heat should be fine. But this is all presumptious as I'm not counting any chickens before they hatch, despite my confidence about tonight and Thursday
From a personnel standpoint Memphis provided more issues for the Heat than the Spurs. Pops is a great coach but the Heat have a lot of mismatches to exploit vs San Antonio.
Spurs v Heat, hopefully no one is surprised. IMO, Heat have it, to athletic and the Spurs are not good enough outside shooters to exploit the Heat's outside shooting weakness (imo).
Lets not get too presumptuous. The Heat do still need two more wins against the Pacers. I fully expect it to happen but those chicks haven't hatched yet.
I agree it's predictable but I never like to chance fate. If (God forbid) something like Lebron going down were to happen then everything is up in the air.
They made the 7th most threes in the NBA this season and shot the 4th highest percentage. Outside shooting is their strength. These aren't your papi's Spurs of a few years ago.
Haters gonna hate [video=youtube;yATjJEU5Dus]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yATjJEU5Dus&sns=em[/video]
I'm not sure why people think outside shooting is going to hurt us. It actually plays right into our hands. I can't wait to watch those long rebounds and fast break points happen because they can't beat our perimeter defense. The type of teams that generally hurt us with the three ball aren't necessarily the best three point shooting teams. They are teams with streaky players who nail threes with a hand in their face (Nate Robinson, JR Smith, Carmello to a certain extent) but even those type of teams generally can't maintain their play.