GT: 12/18 Indiana at Miami 7:00 PM EST

[BoshtimusPrime]

Miami Heat (18-6) vs Indiana Pacers (20-4)

Starting Lineups



Injuries

Miami
- LeBron James is day-to-day.
- Greg Oden sore knee
- Michael Beasley sore hamstring. (Beas is actually 100% healthy but Spoelstra is refusing to play him. Shoutout to everyone's favorite poster, Js2k0516.)

Indiana
- Danny Granger strained left calf

Keys to the game

- Short leash on Battier. He's been putrid against the Pacers since donning the Heat uni.
- Don't put Ray Allen on Paul George. I understand LeBron gets tired but surely there's a better option.
- The Warden is underrated as a Hibbert stopper. Use him. MVP MVP MVP

GLB



And of course... LETS. NOT. SUCK.

[cyclix]

We must get that payback win! Let's not suck.

[KingDavid]

Don't care. LBJ is hurt as is Beasley. Not expecting a win but it would be great if we did.

[KingDavid]

Hakeem Bosh has to show up again. A bit down on the boards vs Utah but I expect him to come full circle this game. Win/Lose, I just want us to play great out of the gate and sustain it.

[MisterHibachi]

Posted this in Around the NBA thread, relevant to this game:

I don't remember LeBron saying this?!

They apparently will try to draw added motivation from Lance Stephenson's emphatic breakway dunk with 26 seconds remaining, when the Pacers already led by seven points. James could be seen on camera saying, “I'm gonna remember that. I'm gonna remember that,” as he brought the ball upcourt.

The Pacers are aware of that. Assuming the sprained ankle that James suffered in Miami's win over Utah on Monday isn't too serious, they'll get his best – along with the rest of the Heat.

“They were really mad at the end of the game because I got a cheap dunk,” Stephenson said. “I know they're going to bring it to us.”

http://www.nba.com/pacers/news/pacers-l ... -face-test

[Gwynplaine]

Don't Suck. Just win please.

[JesusHCoxMd]

Couldn't care less about Pacers up until playoffs.

[AlexCRO]

ahhahaha wilt hibbert

[RexBoyWonder]

Love this game thread..+1

[cyclix]

I see Wade scoring 30+ if LeBron doesn't go. His last 8 games have been pretty good:

.645 TS | 21.1 PPG | 5.3 RPG | 5.0 APG | 1.5 APG | 0.5 BPG

[DefenseWins]

I keep hearing something about a championship game from Lance? Did he say that the last game was a championship game or something? I haven't heard anything about that


LeBron rolled his ankle and will be cautious... even if he plays he won't be aggressive. LeBron being aggressive is how we win games if you think about it. So who knows how this will go.

Interested to see how Bosh does, since he's been aggressive lately.

Will Beas play damn it?! He has been out too long...

[Slot Machine]

Best gamethread of the year thus far

[Zasterror]

Posted this in Around the NBA thread, relevant to this game:

I don't remember LeBron saying this?!

They apparently will try to draw added motivation from Lance Stephenson's emphatic breakway dunk with 26 seconds remaining, when the Pacers already led by seven points. James could be seen on camera saying, “I'm gonna remember that. I'm gonna remember that,” as he brought the ball upcourt.

The Pacers are aware of that. Assuming the sprained ankle that James suffered in Miami's win over Utah on Monday isn't too serious, they'll get his best – along with the rest of the Heat.

“They were really mad at the end of the game because I got a cheap dunk,” Stephenson said. “I know they're going to bring it to us.”

http://www.nba.com/pacers/news/pacers-l ... -face-test

Uh-oh. LeBron is playing and will destroy the Pacers = CONFIRMED

[BoshtimusPrime]

I keep hearing something about a championship game from Lance? Did he say that the last game was a championship game or something? I haven't heard anything about that

Yeah here's a couple tweets about it

[tweet]https://twitter.com/EthanJSkolnick/status/410444282730774528[/tweet]
[tweet]https://twitter.com/EthanJSkolnick/status/410454001457459200[/tweet]

ahhahaha wilt hibbert

Thanks, I enjoyed doing that

[AlexCRO]

the sad thing is he looks like wilt against us but when he plays against a real center he looks like olowakandi. unfortunately we dont have any real centers beside oden who is injured. damn

[WD]

Has it come to this?, this has to happen, we can't avoid this, a win would really fit well right here

[Chosen01]

As SweetTouch said, Hibbert is overrated. You're putting a 7'4 guy against a 6'8-6'10 guy who are all slender, of course he's going to dominate. As useless as people call Perkins( dude does suck) wouldn't mind having him on the Heat JUST for when we play Hibbert. A big body renders Hibbert non Wilt-like to say the least.

Hibbert has been neutralized by Drummond, Noah, Pekovic, Duncan, Gasol, Perkins and so on. It's no surprise why.

Even if Oden can play 18 solid minutes in the playoffs, it'll do wonders. You already know they're having nightmares about Oden.

[MisterHibachi]

They were game planning for Oden last week he's in their heads without even suiting up.

If Oden can manage to stay on the court for a decent amount of time, the Pacers literally have no chance. Hibbert is actually garbage when faced with players his own size.

[Mars]

EthanJSkolnick
Spoelstra on Pacers: "We want to play better than we did. Won't go much further than that."

EthanJSkolnick
Dwyane Wade: "We don't like to talk about stuff. We just go do it."

[DefenseWins]

I keep hearing something about a championship game from Lance? Did he say that the last game was a championship game or something? I haven't heard anything about that

Yeah here's a couple tweets about it

[tweet]https://twitter.com/EthanJSkolnick/status/410444282730774528[/tweet]
[tweet]https://twitter.com/EthanJSkolnick/status/410454001457459200[/tweet]

ahhahaha wilt hibbert

Thanks, I enjoyed doing that

God this is so pathetic. I really wish we'd win so they would shut up.