I've been digesting the loss for days; obviously game 6 and the series didn't go how I expected. Didn't help that I was crazy sick Sunday/Monday and slightly so Tuesday.
I've finally come to peace with it, though I think it was probably the hardest of any playoff loss to swallow for me, ever. Losing to the Knicks on Allan Houston's last-second, high-bouncing bank shot hurt, because it was so dramatic, and last second, and the Knicks. Losing to the Celts last year was just demoralizing. Losing to the Pistons in 04-05 when I'm pretty sure we win a title with a healthy Wade was frustrating.
But we lost games 2 and 4 by a combined 5 points. Which means if we change basically
any of the stupid/bad things we did in those games, we win at least 1, if not both. There's plenty of blame to go around.
Spo: It really took that long to figure out Bibby was useless?
Forget about offensive schemes, all other qualms about rotations, gameplans, whatever...if we scale back Bibby's minutes before the Finals we probably win at least one of those 2 games.
Also, a friend of mine made the point that at some point, Spo probably should've said something inflammatory. Trash the refs. Call Jason Terry a clown for making a big deal about premature celebrations when he has a tattoo of the Larry O'Brien on his arm. Mock the idea of wife-beating Jason Kidd being a "hero" and the Heat being "villains."
Anything to make the news about HIM and not about Lebron, who was just getting hit relentlessly. I hadn't thought of that before, buy my buddy is right I think. It would've helped. Spo can take the Heat and take the fine if it helps Lebron get his head right.
And lastly, could Spo have done more to get Lebron on track? We ran plays to get him the ball near the rim, but obviously there was something mental going on there and running plays isn't enough.
Lebron: I mean, what is there to say that hasn't been said? The guy checked out. And not
just offensively, he fell apart on defense too. WTF man? I'd feel better about it I think if I understood it. Wade's bad series vs Chicago makes sense; his legs just abandoned him from chasing Ray Allen, but he was always engaged and active vs the Bulls, just had trouble finishing. Lebron just seemed out of it.
Wade/FTs: Miami lost game 2 by 2 points and shot 16-24 from the stripe. They lost game 4 by 3 points while going 17-24 from the stripe. Even if the Heat changed
absolutely nothing else, Bibby starts and plays his minutes, Lebron is passive, we play the same schemes and have the same gameplans, etc., and simply hit their FTs, Miami very easily could've swept the Mavs. Lebron was 4-8 in those games, Mario Chalmers 5-8. Based on their season averages you expect those guys to get 13 out of 16, not 9. Those 4 points would've been enough to win at least one of those games.
As great as he was, though, and it breaks my heart to say it, Wade was the biggest culprit here. He shot a putrid 14-21, 66%, in those games. Overall 69% for the series. On the one hand, Miami isn't in position to win those games without his stellar play, but on the other hand, if had just hit his effing free throws they win a title.
Sloppy Play/Haslem: With the Heat holding a 2-point lead with a minute remaining in game 2, Haslem
pursued a ball out-of-bounds that had been knocked out by Jason Terry. If he lets it go, the Heat have a chance to run down the clock and there's a very good chance they win the game, bad FT shooting and all. Instead, he chases it, tosses it back inbounds, and Dallas gains possession and scores a fastbreak layup to tie it going the other way.
The Heat made a number of sloppy plays like that. Haslem was actually late a number of times on rotations, obviously still feeling the rust from missing an entire season, and he was one of the culprits. But also, Wade was seemingly king of dribbling it off his foot in the last 5 minutes of each game. I don't understand it. But Miami had a number of head-scratching plays like that. In a series that was ultimately decided by a handful of possessions, those add up.
Bosh: Bosh had some great games, and some bad games. 4-16 in game 2, he alone could've won that game by shooting his season average.
At the end of the day, its hard for me to pin this loss on any one individual. There are the easy targets - Lebron, Spo, Bibby -, but guys like Bosh, Haslem, and Wade were just as complicit in all this. Not to mention
Joel was unplayable at times. Ultimately, there is so much blame to go around because when a possession here or there could've changed the outcome of the series, everyone has their blemishes magnified. Lebron goes 2-10 from 3 in games 2&4...if that's 4-10 we sweep. Everything could've been a difference maker.
edit: even
Riley is largely getting away unscathed here, and maybe that's not right. If he doesn't cut Arroyo in favor of Bibby, do we win a title? What about Dampier? Couldn't we have used another shooter (with James Jones' toe apparently worse than let on) instead of him? Should we have maybe avoided going all-geriatric with our bench? I think you could argue that Riley was just as a complicit as everyone else in this. When Spo looked to his bench for answers, the best options were often rusty Haslem and thumbless Miller. That says something about the bench depth, and its not good.
The FTs are still what get me the worst though. Because more than anything else that's within the players' control.
Considering how close the series was (Dallas differential was +2.33/game for the series, and was a measly +.8 after 5 games), it's hard for me to construct any sort of narrative that revolves around the idea of a Dallas success or a Miami failure. Ultimately, we played them about as even as two teams can play for 5 games, and they made a couple more plays than we did, or hit a few more FTs, and that was the difference. And then Lebron just seemed to check out in game 6, and the rest of the team followed suit soon after.
It's not practical to go often to these things. If some activity takes me a lot less time to spend money then it does to earn it, then I'm probably skipping it lol. A lot of people down here spend way beyond their means. Too big house, too fancy car, tickets that you can't afford. I love my Heat but I'm not going to the poor house for them.
