I like that Pat Riley has been here with Spo as the coach instilling this culture. It's sort of the authority source for the culture. Evenually Riley won't be here anymore and it'll just be Spo, but by then he'll be such an institution in the program in his own right that it doesn't matter. The culture lives on. But only if you find the right players. Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh probably function as much as the source of authority on Heat culture as Riley does. If you don't get players like that and you don't get them constantly passing the torch to one another, it collapses in on itself.
All the Spoelstra haters need to read that. The guy is Pat Riley 2.0 period. He inherits everything he does.
So is whiteside our flagrant free throw shooter now? Lol. He would have to be the first C to ever have that role.
He keeps shooting like this through the end of the year you damn well better start thinking about that come playoffs, but overall I think Miami goes with D-Wade just because he has the playoff experience. If Hassan shoots this way through the end of the season and through the playoffs then next year come the regular season he just might be that guy.
Heat are in the #3 seed. Boston has OKC and Toronto up next. Heat can begin to lock up the #3 seed this week.
True. And some really solid play from the Heat for a while now. However, the Heat don't have an entirely light line up themselves. Hornets, Cavs, Pelicans, Spurs. The Pelicans are the easiest of those games, then the Hornets - but they have proven they can't be outright dismissed this season. The Celtics face the Sixers and the Magic following OKC/TOR. So it could be close.
LeBron might sit out the game on Saturday. At this point, he is just trolling. He is gonna sit TWO games all year for rest..and both games will be vs. Miami?
He seems to be all about Miami right now so would it be him basically helping Miami secure the 3rd seed? Or am I stating the obvious.
I think Miami beating the Cavs with Lebron playing would be a huge boost in confidence for Miami and a huge blow to Cleveland's confidence. I think they're kind of reeling of late. They seem great one game and really vulnerable the next. If I were a Cleveland fan I wouldn't be all that certain anymore that they'll even keep the #1 seed with just a two game cushion over Toronto. If the Cavs beat Miami with Lebron it should still be expected so not much of a boost for them. Beating Miami w/o Lebron would mostly hurt Miami's confidence of being a real threat in the East. So IMO there's more upside and less downside for Cleveland if Lebron doesn't play. It might not matter that much for Miami either way if Bosh makes it back sometime later after that game b/c he's obviously a huge impact for us.
Ill take a win anyhow, with or without Lebron.. I just want to get to a point where we are seeing Lebron vs Wade in the playoffs.
Being a Thunder fan must be frustrating as hell. Two unstoppable scorers, some nice complementary pieces, and one of the longest most athletic rosters in the League. They just overwhelmed the Celtics last night. But they should be doing this, like, every night. As always, watching Boston get stomped on national TV is AWESOME. The scheduling really worked out for us tonight for this crucial game. We're coming off two days rest, and CHA comes in on night 2 of a b2b. Gotta win this one. HUGE game for the standings, obviously. Batum gave us issues last time, iirc, but that was before we moved Deng to the 4. They've been bringing Al off the bench, so we'll see him against Whiteside. I imagine JRich is in for more minutes tonight as Kemba has been playing out of his mind for the last month or so. Josh can lock him up. Whiteside's going to have be on his game in terms of PnR defense; CHA does a variety of things really well there.
I think Eric Reid is the first broadcaster in history to call out another player for being so annoying (Tyler Hansborough).. And then Fiorentino followed that comment up by mentioning the fact that Haslem decked Hanborough before in the playoffs, got suspended and got the gameball after the game he was suspended in.
Jeremy Lin looks like one of the henchmen in an old Jackie Chan movie who patiently awaits his turn to fight the main character before getting knocked out via roundhouse kick. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
That's a bad loss. Just is. Especially given the schedule. Wade was brutal (is he hurt??), too many turnovers, offensive flow disappeared for stretches. That's a blow. Gotta fight our asses off for a home playoff series. Ugh.
Wade was simply not focused, i know he has the thigh bruise but there was something else on his mind today and it wasnt basketball. Brutal
Hornets are no joke this year. They've just found a way to attack and score. They'll beat you with pure energy if you disregard them. Not a great game to lose for Miami but what's passed is passed. On to the next game!
Heat got ****ed by officiating tonight. In three areas: 1) Run to 15 up stopped due to foul trouble on at least 3 and maybe 4 questionable calls. 2) Blocks taken away as goal tending (which they were not) that led to two, two possession swings. One of them gave them points and took away from us on the other end. 3) No calls at the rim. Heat pounded the Hornets in the paint and got a "strange" FT count for it.
Didn't like the last possession. Wade, a poor 3 point shooter, having an awful game and a pretty bad week, gets the shot instead of JJ or Richardson, who watched from the bench. - sent via Tapatalk -
I thought Deng fouling Lin with his face was probably the worst call. Should have been 2 FTs for us, since they were in bonus. That was with what, 13 seconds left? On point 3, we had nearly double the points in the paint and only 3 more FTs. Definitely strange.
Tough loss but the Hornets are red hot, winners of 9 of their last 10, and Nick Batum and Kemba Walker were like completely incapable of placing the basketball anywhere but the bottom of the net for three quarters of the game. Like they try and pass the ball to Al Jefferson and instead of going in Al's hands it went through the hoop inadvertently.
Spo's got some interesting dilemmas with crunchtime lineups. Richardson and Winslow are so damn good on defense that you really notice when they leave or switch onto someone else (like when Justise wasn't on Batum anymore). But Joe and Dragic are so important on offense that you want them out there down the stretch. And this isn't even getting to the one or two big question we'll have if Bosh returns. It's a good problem to have these options, I suppose. I didn't expect these rookies to dominate on the defensive end like they do, especially when they're together.
Batum said he could not breath when Winslow was on him and called him "One of the best defenders int eh NBA". Notice how Kemba Walker stopped going off as soon as Spo put Winslow on him? it really is not crazy to say that Winslow deserves to make a all-NBA defense team.
So crazy to fathom this 19 year old kid already being one of the league's best defenders. He's like a smaller LeBron back when he was guarding 1-5. Would be a bonus if he grows a few inches taller the next few years. If he had Richardson's offensive game, people would be talking ROY. But that's the great part. We've got TWO of these guys. They're already championship caliber pieces. The grown man's game isn't too big for them. And they're only going to get better. - sent via Tapatalk -
I said this before when he was drafted but there's something about Richardson's game that reminds me of a really young (back when he was also super thin) Jordan. Obviously he's not destined to be a legend or anything but if we're talking about cookie molds, that's it. Jordan had this thing where he could shoot jumpers on the way down from his jump, it was messed up and magical. Richardson obviously doesn't have that.
How bad is Ty Lue? Big 3: w/ TT (374 mins) scoring 116.5, giving up 103.2 net +13.3 w/ Moz (168 mins) scoring 92.8, giving up 108.8 net -16.1 Guess who starts!
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