The Lakers better not lose to the Heat tomorrow. I will be so pissed if they lose.
[quote]gregron wrote:
The Lakers better not lose to the Heat tomorrow. I will be so pissed if they lose.[/quote]
Tomorrow is the Hawks. Thursday is the Heat. And if they do, I’ll be crying! Ha.
It’s official – the Heat has been remade in the image of LeBron James. His decision has become their burden, and it’s taking down an entire team.
It started on a Sunday in Boston three weeks ago and boiled over yesterday in a nationally televised 87-86 loss to the Chicago Bulls, the team’s fourth straight loss and fifth in six games. It was yet another game in which the hated Heat couldn’t hold a double-digit lead, and this time they couldn’t hold back their tears either. You almost feel bad for James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. Their coronation has become a pity party.
“Inside our locker room, we stick together, we’re like brothers,” said Wade. “We win together, we lose together. Outside, the Miami Heat are exactly what everyone wanted, losing games. The world is better now since the Heat is losing.”
The Big Three in Miami is not LeBron, Wade and Bosh. It’s anguish, frustration and doubt. Failure, which wasn’t supposed to be an option, is now a harsh reality.
The Heat’s shortcomings against the NBA’s elite (1-9 against the five teams in the league with better records than their own) have resulted in a Miami meltdown, replete with sobbing on South Beach.
Now more than ever the Heat reallhttp://tnation.T-Nation.com/free_online_forum/music_movies_girls_life/20102011_nba_season_20?pageNo=22#bottomy has become LeBron’s team. Like LeBron they are enormously talented, mentally fragile, overly concerned with public perception and opinion and pressing too hard to live up to hype they created.
People have LeBron and the Heat all wrong. They’re not entitled, presumptuous or oblivious. They don’t expect anything to be handed to them. Quite the opposite, they’re all too eager to please, to earn your affection and approval, to prove they’re worthy. They may be the jeunesse dorée of the NBA, but they want respect paid the old fashioned way – they want to earn it.
But like an unfortunate soul stuck in quicksand, the harder they try the deeper they sink.
It’s a sports epiphany that was reached about LeBron the last time the Heat played the Celtics, an 85-82 Boston victory at the Garden Feb. 13.
The teams entered that game with near identical records. Miami was 39-14 and the Celtics 38-14. It was the Heat’s chance to silence its detractors and stake their claim as the new “it” team of the East. James went to the free throw line, his team down 83-81, with 12 seconds left. He missed the first free throw and an opportunity to tie the game.
At that moment it was clear that James is the new Alex Rodriguez, or at least the pre-2009 postseason A-Rod. He wants so badly to be right that he’s all wrong. He missed a free throw he could have made in his sleep because he simply wanted it too bad.
That’s the problem for the entire Heat team and why it can’t close out good teams down the stretch, why every last-second shot or buzzer beater goes awry.
James is the Miami Vice that is squeezing the life out of the Heat. His desire to win a title is so great, his need to prove his worth so profound that it is actually having the opposite effect on both his own fortune and his team’s. That’s why Miami has a disappointing 14-18 against teams with winning records.
I’ll give this to you Rand, you’re the best at finding articles dissing James and the Heat and posting them in this thread.
As much as I generally don’t like Le Batard, I think he really nailed it in this article http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/03/08/v-fullstory/2102109/miami-heats-recent-losses-troubling.html Pretty much sums up my opinion of them.
Edit: removed period from link, it was messing it up.
[quote]scj119 wrote:
As much as I generally don’t like Le Batard, I think he really nailed it in this article http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/03/08/v-fullstory/2102109/miami-heats-recent-losses-troubling.html Pretty much sums up my opinion of them.
Edit: removed period from link, it was messing it up.[/quote]
Couldn’t disagree with him more. He wants to sum up that the losses are troubling but hardly conclusive. He says that losing to the Bulls three times by a total of 8 points “without it being of anything other than one team making a shot at the end and one team missing it”.
This article is utter drivel and it’s not surprising it’s in the “MIAMI HERALD” of all places. Bullshit these close games are not indicative of deeper problems. Here’s what is more than troubling about the Heat. Lebron insists in taking the last second shot and having the ball in his hands. Everyone on the planet can pretty much agree that person should be Wade, not Lebron. But Lebron has brought his Cleveland baggage of desperately needing to win a championship and thinks he has to do it single-handedly. If I were Wade, I would insist in getting the ball in my hands at the end of the game and Spoelstra should back that up.
Never mind that this team doesn’t have a true point guard, center or bench that’s worth a crap. Oh yes, just a couple of small details about what constitutes a true contending team.
I’m not surprised you agree with this point of view wholeheartedly fanboy.
As Heat lose, James, Wade fall apart
For all the flexing and preening, the third-person proclamations and South Beach parties, LeBron James(notes) finally delivered these Miami Heat something pure and authentic in the privacy of the locker room: Full of emotion, he apologized for his big-shot, big-games failures and promised redemption.
â??I told my team Iâ??m not going to continue to fail them late in games,â?? James told reporters in Miami. â??I put a lot of the blame on myself.â??
James has used the words â??failâ?? and â??blameâ?? a lot of times, but seldom in context of his own performances. His idea of accountability has always been his cronies and him nudging you in the direction of the guilty parties â?? his coach, GM, teammates â?? but never the global icon in the mirror.
LeBron didnâ??t promise to do different.
LeBron promised to do better.
He didnâ??t go to Miami to construct a partnership, as much as he did gather superior sidekicks. Heâ??s going to keep trying because the solution will never be to bend to the I-told-you-sos that insist Dwyane Wadeâ??s the closer on this Heat team. The Heat have two of the best five players in the world, and they still canâ??t play together when it matters most. Derrick Rose(notes) never wanted to play with James, but he welcomed the idea of Wade as his shooting guard. Wade must have some regret that he hadnâ??t gone home to Chicago in free agency and spared himself this most unhappy ever-after with the Heat.
And more juicy paragraphs in the link…
[quote]randman wrote:
[quote]scj119 wrote:
As much as I generally don’t like Le Batard, I think he really nailed it in this article http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/03/08/v-fullstory/2102109/miami-heats-recent-losses-troubling.html Pretty much sums up my opinion of them.
Edit: removed period from link, it was messing it up.[/quote]
Couldn’t disagree with him more. He wants to sum up that the losses are troubling but hardly conclusive. He says that losing to the Bulls three times by a total of 8 points “without it being of anything other than one team making a shot at the end and one team missing it”.
This article is utter drivel and it’s not surprising it’s in the “MIAMI HERALD” of all places. Bullshit these close games are not indicative of deeper problems. Here’s what is more than troubling about the Heat. Lebron insists in taking the last second shot and having the ball in his hands. Everyone on the planet can pretty much agree that person should be Wade, not Lebron. But Lebron has brought his Cleveland baggage of desperately needing to win a championship and thinks he has to do it single-handedly. If I were Wade, I would insist in getting the ball in my hands at the end of the game and Spoelstra should back that up.
Never mind that this team doesn’t have a true point guard, center or bench that’s worth a crap. Oh yes, just a couple of small details about what constitutes a true contending team.
I’m not surprised you agree with this point of view wholeheartedly fanboy.[/quote]
fanboy? LOL I think the Heat are the 3rd best team in the East and I’m a fanboy… nice!
I agree with the general point of the article – that records in close games have been shown REPEATEDLY to mean nothing statistically (in terms of predicting future records in close games, and thus the stat itself means nothing if it has no predictive power over itself). I also agree that IN GENERAL people use “intangible” arguments very frequently to describe what are truly random events.
These are GENERAL views of mine and are entirely independent of how I feel about the Heat, which is that they still lack the talent outside of james/wade/bosh to make it out of the 2nd round of the playoffs. I think that because of how I see them play in the 4th quarter against good defensive teams, NOT because of their record in close games.
^This was a pathetic article from the Miami Herald trying to assuage the Heat fan faithful that the sky is not falling. Records in close games that are won or lost from a pure numbers perspective can mean nothing statistically. That’s why you don’t just look at the “numbers” and you look closer of what’s going on in those games.
And what’s happening IS significant. The blame here does go to Spoelstra and Lebron. The Heat’s offensive schemes in the final few minutes of the game haven’t changed from last year. Last year it was…give Wade the ball and everyone else get out of the way. Now it’s…give Lebron the ball and everyone else get out of the way. What’s particularly troubling about this is that Lebron is NOT a closer. He’s the best player on the team but that does not equal best closer. Wade is the best closer.
So making those adjustments could win them a few more close games I admit. But it still doesn’t take care of the other fundamental flaws of this team that can’t be fixed until the offseason.
[quote]randman wrote:
^This was a pathetic article from the Miami Herald trying to assuage the Heat fan faithful that the sky is not falling. Records in close games that are won or lost from a pure numbers perspective can mean nothing statistically. That’s why you don’t just look at the “numbers” and you look closer of what’s going on in those games.
And what’s happening IS significant. The blame here does go to Spoelstra and Lebron. The Heat’s offensive schemes in the final few minutes of the game haven’t changed from last year. Last year it was…give Wade the ball and everyone else get out of the way. Now it’s…give Lebron the ball and everyone else get out of the way. What’s particularly troubling about this is that Lebron is NOT a closer. He’s the best player on the team but that does not equal best closer. Wade is the best closer.
So making those adjustments could win them a few more close games I admit. But it still doesn’t take care of the other fundamental flaws of this team that can’t be fixed until the offseason.[/quote]
Along those lines… has anyone ever answered why they don’t run pick-and-rolls with Wade and LeBron where LBJ sets a ballscreen for Wade then crashes towards the rim? Not just in the last minute but all game long? How would any team in the NBA stop that play?
[quote]randman wrote:
I don’t understand…I just don’t understand…[/quote]
To be fair…the NFL will likely have a labor agreement before LBJ even takes another game-winning shot, let alone makes one.
Ha ha ha.
And it just keeps coming…
Ha ha ha!
I love Ron Artest 3.0. I have to admit it. This is hilarious. He talks about the Miami crying incident. He’s been funny as shit since he’s joined the Lakers.
Strong men Cry!
Let’s hope Derek Fisher and Kobe can keep it together when the Spurs take care of business again
[quote]therajraj wrote:
Let’s hope Derek Fisher and Kobe can keep it together when the Spurs take care of business again[/quote]
Oh I see what you’re doing little man. Because you’re looking pretty stupid about touting Miami’s chances coming out of the east right about now you’re going to shift the focus to the Lakers. Nice try…Ain’t gonna work.
POST EDIT: and this comes after a 32 point drubbing on the Spurs home-court. ha ha ha…
[quote]therajraj wrote:
Strong men Cry!
Absolutely I agree. If memory serves me correctly I can almost guarantee DFish, Kobe and Shaq weren’t holding championship parades pre-season touting how they were going to win 7+ championships and then CRYING after a REGULAR season game.
This crying…after winning 3 straight championships…in the playoffs…on national tv…completely ok.
Crying after a regular season game…after you had a pre-8-championship celebration before the season even started…completely NOT ok.
Nice try…
[quote]randman wrote:
[quote]therajraj wrote:
Let’s hope Derek Fisher and Kobe can keep it together when the Spurs take care of business again[/quote]
Oh I see what you’re doing little man. Because you’re looking pretty stupid about touting Miami’s chances coming out of the east right about now you’re going to shift the focus to the Lakers. Nice try…Ain’t gonna work.[/quote]
Says the guy who called this Lakers team the best Lakers team in the last 15 years.
Seriously Who are you to talk randlady? I’m just proving the Lakers have their share of cry babies.
If the Heat meet Boston, they will be neck and neck the whole series. That was basically my prediction. Don’t go twisting it, fact is when Lebron signed I picked them to win a championship in year 2.