Neither team played very well, and there were the usual controversial calls from the refs, but the Celtics are back in this series.
Everyone will dissect LeBron’s big three near the end of regulation along with his pass when he held the ball with the last possession, along with Wade’s off-balance missed three in OT. But the Heat might be at the point where they need Chris Bosh back to put Boston away. The Lebron/Dwyane show was working great for a while but they couldn’t steal one on the road. Home court might be enough to take out Boston, but getting Bosh back would surely help.
The Spurs found a way to win game one against Oklahoma City despite looking terrible for three quarters.
– Gregg Popovich challenged his team to get nasty with their defense, and Stephen Jackson responded with tough defense on Kevin Durant.
– Russell Westbrook is getting a ton of heat for his lame play in the 4th quarter, but Gregg Doyle just eviscerates him in this column, pointing out that Westbrook’s game is as hollow as the lenseless glasses he was wearing to show off the new nerd look that he and other prima donna’s like Prince James and Dwyane Wade are sporting these days.
– Youth is definitely a factor in a series like this. That has to be an advantage for the Spurs, and it’s one of the reasons that Heat-haters like me would rather see the Spurs take on the Heat.
It’s easy to hate these guys when you watch this lame video. It’s almost as bad as the party they threw when the Big Three signed their contracts with the Heat last season. After choking last year against the Mavericks, you would think that a somewhat different tone would be in order.
But LeBron wants to have fun this year. He didn’t do so well as the villain, so the dopey kid is back and his teammates are joining in on the fun.
That aside, however, after two games it does look like LeBron is taking the game seriously this year. He and Wade and shying away from three-pointers and they’re focusing on transition baskets and post-up moves. It’s a shame it’s taken LeBron this long to figure it out, but I guess a humiliating meltdown in front of the world in the Finals will do that do you.
Now we shouldn’t get carried away after two games, as the Heat ran past two older teams. The Mavs have new players and haven’t had any time to work together. They have to win as a team like they did last year. Also, LeBron always looks good in the regular season. Sure, he’s working on developing better habits, but we’ve seen him lose focus during crunch time before.
This team is talented, and they’ll battle for the best record. But none of it matters. They have to win it all. Anything else is a failure.
Miami Heat’s Dwyane Wade speaks during a media conference for the NBA Finals basketball series against the Dallas Mavericks in Dallas, Texas June 8, 2011. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson (UNITED STATES – Tags: SPORT BASKETBALL HEADSHOT)
“I’m not ruling it out,” Wade said, following the lead of numerous stars over the past few weeks. “It’s not something you’re waking up every day thinking about. At the end of the day, you get that itch as a basketball player where you want to play the game. I have no idea when I’ll get that itch.”
That’s just it — the itch to play and the itch to get those checks is somewhere over the horizon during this lazy summer. Deron Williams’ proactive action of signing with a Turkish team was an eye-opener but it may prove to simply be an outlier. Most stars are content to sit back and wait to see how things play out without a whiff of urgency.
It will be interesting to see how many stars head overseas as the lockout drags on. Keep in mind that many believe that the NFL labor strife pales into comparison with what the NBA is about to go through. While an abbreviated season seems unlikely in the NFL, it’s a very good possibility in the NBA.
I had to laugh when LeBron said that he works hard on his game in the offseason because I sure can’t see the results on the court. Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant are notorious for going away in the offseason and coming back with a new killer move in their offensive arsenal — what move has LeBron developed over the last eight years? How is his game significantly different than when he entered the league at age 18? To me, this is his biggest issue as a player.
Anyway, the relationship between these Wade and LeBron has been one of the more interesting stories this season. Bill Simmons went so far as to suggest that the duo’s interaction towards the end of Game 3 may have sent LeBron into a tailspin.
Remember when Wade tore into LeBron with three-plus minutes remaining in Game 3? When he yelled at him for eight solid seconds? When there was genuine anger in his eyes? When he did it right on the court, right in front of the other players, right in front of 20,000 fans and 10 million TV viewers?
LeBron was never the same after that.
When was the last time anyone ever really yelled at LeBron James? You’d have to go back to high school, right? He just spent the past 10 years being coddled by everyone (teammates, coaches, agents, entourage members, yes-men, general managers, owners, media members, etc.). Imagine he was a little kid (which really, he might be to some degree), and imagine you were his father and didn’t believe in yelling at your kids. Now, imagine your kid screwed up in his second-grade play and, for whatever reason, you broke character, snapped, and berated him for eight seconds in front of everyone. How would he handle that? Poorly, right? He’d pretend it didn’t affect him, but the more he thought about it, it would gnaw away at him (especially once his buddies said, “I can’t believe your dad yelled at you like that”).
Could that have been what happened to LeBron? Did those eight seconds shake his confidence beyond repair? Did he resent Wade for embarrassing him? Did he think to himself, “Fine, you want to act like this is your team, then YOU win this title?”
Wade was angry that LeBron threw the ball to Chalmers in the corner and after Chalmers eventually turned the ball over, Wade let LeBron hear about it. This is not how most of us would react if a friend lit into us, but LeBron’s expression was telling. He was frustrated with the situation and didn’t seem like he appreciated getting chewed out by Wade in the middle of the game.
Only he knows how much that exchange affected his game.
Neither team played very well, and there were the usual controversial calls from the refs, but the Celtics are back in this series.
