Depending on what you read or who you listen to you would have to consider that we should just forfeit now and save the rest of society the trouble of having to wait for the Heat to do the inevitable and make the finals.
I mean according to some what we witnessed tonight was nothing short of the Heat just being the Heat and there is nothing anyone can do to stop them when they are like that.
Look I’ll give them full credit, they hit their shots. They did the one thing that jump shooting teams have to do to win games and when they are successful it looks impressive and impossible to stop. They spread the floor and that ultimately opens up the paint area and soon you are trying to guard both but end up guarding neither.
It’s obviously not as simple as that but at the end of the day it really somewhat is. Haslem shoots closer to 50% in the first half than this game changes. Bosh doesn’t drop 2/3 from beyond the arc and again you’re looking at a different game.
But simply put neither of those things happened so you end up with a game where we don’t look like we are even good enough to win another quarter let alone game.
I’m here to say that I don’t believe that this result will happen again.
Now here is why this is so odd for me to be saying that. You can ask Diamond Dave but prior to the game I said I felt like we would get pummeled and I even specifically said Haslem would be the problem. I remember game 4 from last year all to well, I know what he is capable of when he gets going.
Again I’m not taking anything away from them but in his case I felt that we should have made some adjustments earlier on if for no other reason than to make him shoot from a different spot on the floor. I believe 7 of his 8 makes were from the exact same spot and the one shot he missed was from the same spot but on the opposite side of the basket.
We should have done something, I don’t know exactly what mind you, but something to move him off of that spot. Even make him shoot from the elbow, just not the open baseline jumpers that he was in a groove hitting on. I know that is easier said that done but I think I would much rather have been beaten by LeBron having to score 40 than to be beat because he scored 17.
I want to say again I give the Heat full credit, they made adjustments, they hit their shots and they made a concerted effort to hit the boards.
But I don’t think that we approached the game with the energy or purpose that you need to win a game 3 at home. I mean we got almost nothing from our wings who shot a combined 5-20 from the floor and we all know that if you are getting nothing from your starting wings you are certainly not going to get anything at all from your bench wings.
While George Hill had a very good shooting game he really did a very poor job on the defensive side of the ball and did not facilitate much offense at all and his backup just did nothing.
West had a decent game on offense but was part of the problem as to why we couldn’t defend as he just can not rotate laterally or help defend the rim. His backup was actually a detriment when he was on the floor.
Roy was great and his backup actually managed to not defecate on the floor so that in and of itself made him the best bench player on our team.
In other words what I’m saying is that while the Heat were great I don’t feel like we were at our best in this game and thus we have room to improve and won’t come out the same way next game. Obviously if I’m wrong were dead and the series is over, but I just don’t think it will happen again.
Also I’m going to go ahead and complain now about this. I’m tired of us being called a physical team and an irritating team yet we don’t have one single person on our team who will put a solid hard foul on anyone. If you saw Battier again during this game he was hitting Roy on the head on purpose while attempting to get rebounds. He was called for a foul but believe me it was more than that.
I just want once for one of our guys to actually provide him with one of those physical fouls that we are all so often accused of but we all know that won’t happen.
Also while we are asking, any hopes that Wade gets a fine for flopping when the Ref just looked at him as he fell out of bounds when he didn’t get the call on Mahinmi?
Let’s just do grade.
Paul George: C+
Passive, unaggressive and whatever other adjective you want to use there. I’m not sure 10 shots is enough for him and while I appreciate him wanting to get everyone involved we don’t need him to be John Stockton. We need him to be aggressive and make either Wade or James spend energy defending him. He played decent defense but when they went to James on the block Paul was very pedestrian, which is no insult btw as there is really nobody going to guard him there.
David West: B
Typical West game in some ways. Strong offensive production for a half, goes away for awhile and then come back with more offense later. But his defense tonight was really exposed because he is just not very quick laterally. But he did at least hit the boards.
Roy Hibbert: A
Again I’m not sure what more Roy could have done other that shoot better from the field. I mean that one hook shot really looked like an alley oop to Sam Young but other than that the guy almost had a 20/20 game including hitting 12-15 from the line. Again if Haslem doesn’t hit those shots this game is different and Roy’s game would be heralded as a giant game. But alas it didn’t happen that way.
George Hill: B-
Yeah that might be a little more harsh than he deserves but to me he offered so little defensive resistance to Chalmers that it really hurt the team. When they have Roy away from the rim we have no one who can protect it and George has got to be more aware of that. He also didn’t help much on the boards. He was great from the field though.
Lance Stephenson: C
Erratic as hell.
Tyler Hansbrough: C-
For God’s sake at least hit your free throws. I did have to actually wonder if maybe there wasn’t a solar eclipse or something going on as he managed to hit a face up jump shot, which was maybe the 3rd he’s hit all season long.
D.J. Augustine: D+
Ian Mahinmi: B
The only bench player that actually contributed, which is not really praise. But he was perfect from the field and did hit his rebounds.
I’m not wasting any time on the garbage time players.
The good news is that we start the next game 0-0 so no matter how badly that looked, and it looked bad, it all is new the next game.
Personally I think we can shake this off and can come back but I will go ahead and use the dreaded “must win” game. We can’t go down 3-1 because we won’t come back from that.
I mean according to some what we witnessed tonight was nothing short of the Heat just being the Heat and there is nothing anyone can do to stop them when they are like that.
Look I’ll give them full credit, they hit their shots. They did the one thing that jump shooting teams have to do to win games and when they are successful it looks impressive and impossible to stop. They spread the floor and that ultimately opens up the paint area and soon you are trying to guard both but end up guarding neither.
It’s obviously not as simple as that but at the end of the day it really somewhat is. Haslem shoots closer to 50% in the first half than this game changes. Bosh doesn’t drop 2/3 from beyond the arc and again you’re looking at a different game.
But simply put neither of those things happened so you end up with a game where we don’t look like we are even good enough to win another quarter let alone game.
I’m here to say that I don’t believe that this result will happen again.
Now here is why this is so odd for me to be saying that. You can ask Diamond Dave but prior to the game I said I felt like we would get pummeled and I even specifically said Haslem would be the problem. I remember game 4 from last year all to well, I know what he is capable of when he gets going.
Again I’m not taking anything away from them but in his case I felt that we should have made some adjustments earlier on if for no other reason than to make him shoot from a different spot on the floor. I believe 7 of his 8 makes were from the exact same spot and the one shot he missed was from the same spot but on the opposite side of the basket.
We should have done something, I don’t know exactly what mind you, but something to move him off of that spot. Even make him shoot from the elbow, just not the open baseline jumpers that he was in a groove hitting on. I know that is easier said that done but I think I would much rather have been beaten by LeBron having to score 40 than to be beat because he scored 17.
I want to say again I give the Heat full credit, they made adjustments, they hit their shots and they made a concerted effort to hit the boards.
But I don’t think that we approached the game with the energy or purpose that you need to win a game 3 at home. I mean we got almost nothing from our wings who shot a combined 5-20 from the floor and we all know that if you are getting nothing from your starting wings you are certainly not going to get anything at all from your bench wings.
While George Hill had a very good shooting game he really did a very poor job on the defensive side of the ball and did not facilitate much offense at all and his backup just did nothing.
West had a decent game on offense but was part of the problem as to why we couldn’t defend as he just can not rotate laterally or help defend the rim. His backup was actually a detriment when he was on the floor.
Roy was great and his backup actually managed to not defecate on the floor so that in and of itself made him the best bench player on our team.
In other words what I’m saying is that while the Heat were great I don’t feel like we were at our best in this game and thus we have room to improve and won’t come out the same way next game. Obviously if I’m wrong were dead and the series is over, but I just don’t think it will happen again.
Also I’m going to go ahead and complain now about this. I’m tired of us being called a physical team and an irritating team yet we don’t have one single person on our team who will put a solid hard foul on anyone. If you saw Battier again during this game he was hitting Roy on the head on purpose while attempting to get rebounds. He was called for a foul but believe me it was more than that.
I just want once for one of our guys to actually provide him with one of those physical fouls that we are all so often accused of but we all know that won’t happen.
Also while we are asking, any hopes that Wade gets a fine for flopping when the Ref just looked at him as he fell out of bounds when he didn’t get the call on Mahinmi?
Let’s just do grade.
Paul George: C+
Passive, unaggressive and whatever other adjective you want to use there. I’m not sure 10 shots is enough for him and while I appreciate him wanting to get everyone involved we don’t need him to be John Stockton. We need him to be aggressive and make either Wade or James spend energy defending him. He played decent defense but when they went to James on the block Paul was very pedestrian, which is no insult btw as there is really nobody going to guard him there.
David West: B
Typical West game in some ways. Strong offensive production for a half, goes away for awhile and then come back with more offense later. But his defense tonight was really exposed because he is just not very quick laterally. But he did at least hit the boards.
Roy Hibbert: A
Again I’m not sure what more Roy could have done other that shoot better from the field. I mean that one hook shot really looked like an alley oop to Sam Young but other than that the guy almost had a 20/20 game including hitting 12-15 from the line. Again if Haslem doesn’t hit those shots this game is different and Roy’s game would be heralded as a giant game. But alas it didn’t happen that way.
George Hill: B-
Yeah that might be a little more harsh than he deserves but to me he offered so little defensive resistance to Chalmers that it really hurt the team. When they have Roy away from the rim we have no one who can protect it and George has got to be more aware of that. He also didn’t help much on the boards. He was great from the field though.
Lance Stephenson: C
Erratic as hell.
Tyler Hansbrough: C-
For God’s sake at least hit your free throws. I did have to actually wonder if maybe there wasn’t a solar eclipse or something going on as he managed to hit a face up jump shot, which was maybe the 3rd he’s hit all season long.
D.J. Augustine: D+
Ian Mahinmi: B
The only bench player that actually contributed, which is not really praise. But he was perfect from the field and did hit his rebounds.
I’m not wasting any time on the garbage time players.
The good news is that we start the next game 0-0 so no matter how badly that looked, and it looked bad, it all is new the next game.
Personally I think we can shake this off and can come back but I will go ahead and use the dreaded “must win” game. We can’t go down 3-1 because we won’t come back from that.
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