Thunder are better than the Heat...not even close

[CablexDeadpool]

lol we aren't worse than the Celtics

The Celtics right now are playing their best basketball in awhile.

WE'RE PLAYING OUR ABSOLUTELY WORST!

Heat...aren't playing basketball, what is this team u speak of

[EscapoTHB]

Lol at this thread. What now? We just beat them with really only Lebron playing well. I think we'll be okay.

[RhapidKid]

ERRMMM......SO YOU WERE SAYING????

[DefenseWins]

Oh come on, we need to play more games to really see how we match up. We played them at home, and if you noticed, when LeBron got out of the game, we sucked ass.

LeBron has to be in super saiyan mode everytime.

Westbrook has to shot jack.

They still get to the rim at will, and we can't get to the rim against them. Their inside defense is better than I thought. I always thought it was just Ibaka, but Wade can't even make his magic work in there.

Also we shot really good from 3... but it was one of the best games of the season. A lot of non-Heat/Thunder fans also said so. It was like a Finals game in the regular season

Durant had like 8 TO's though... that's key right there. Also our players have to stop some bad TO's. Also Chalmers showed up, how often will that happen?

[arsenic]

ERRMMM......SO YOU WERE SAYING????

[EscapoTHB]

We're not playing great right now, but it's still enough to beat a team like the Thunder at home. To beat them on the road though we'll have to get back to pre-all-star break level.

[kyphi]

Obviously, the OP entitled to his opinion and the Heat might make him think twice now - These two teams should be in the championship

[HEATVols865]

Really?

They beat us on their home court by 21 and we beat them by 5 and you think everything is OK????
a 5 point game can swing either way, a 21 point game...not so much!

[arsenic]

Really?

They beat us on their home court by 21 and we beat them by 5 and you think everything is OK????
a 5 point game can swing either way, a 21 point game...not so much!

Fair, but that 21 point win was NO WHERE near the same intensity, Heat didn't even bother to play defense that game. Thunder probably played harder THIS game than they did the one they beat us in but Heat came to play tonight so we get the victory. Not concerned with the number differential at all.

[DefenseWins]

Considering we played last night and OKC didn't, it does speak how the energy level the Heat played. It came back and forth. But OKC was pumped as hell in their building.

I want to see us win there. We won there last year.

But I want to see our energy level there. We can't have lapses there. Also keep in mind role players play better at home, and that's bad news for us. If we ever meet OKC in the Finals, we need HCA.

[El Alonzo scowl]

This was a massive victory, margin of victory be damned.

[iboxlefty]

Our major flaw is lack of size and length in our bigs. This is where the lack of development of Pittman hurts us.

If lebron actually plays defense on Durant like he did tonight we will beat them in any series. Keep in mind we shot 37% and both wade and bosh struggled. We still won.

[cb1]

Our major flaw is lack of size and length in our bigs. This is where the lack of development of Pittman hurts us.

If lebron actually plays defense on Durant like he did tonight we will beat them in any series. Keep in mind we shot 37% and both wade and bosh struggled. We still won.

True...but they still match up extremely well with us and are probably the only team in the league more athletic than us and plus they have two guys than are capable of going nuts just like we do

[HIF]

Not even close. Sucker

[Rodrizzle]

Oh noez the worldz is ending

[NorrisColeWorld]

First of all I dont think we will meet the Thunder in the finals but I digress.


I feel like this game is fools gold like when the Bulls hit 10 threes against us in Game 1 and blew us out the water.

Durant wont have 9 turnovers again
Chalmers wont show up all series
Battiers shot wont fall all series


That being said Wade and Bosh didnt show up and we know we can count on atleast 1 guy to.It all comes down to Bosh getting his head on right.

[mopper8]

First of all I dont think we will meet the Thunder in the finals but I digress.


I feel like this game is fools gold like when the Bulls hit 10 threes against us in Game 1 and blew us out the water.

Durant wont have 9 turnovers again
Chalmers wont show up all series
Battiers shot wont fall all series


That being said Wade and Bosh didnt show up and we know we can count on atleast 1 guy to.It all comes down to Bosh getting his head on right.

This is bad analysis. yes, Durant won't have 9 TOs in a game again, most likely. But guess what the rest of their team only had 9 TOs total, which is also unlikely to happen again. Overall, the Thunder average 16.4 TOs/game on the season, and Miami forces 17 TOs a game on average. OKC having 18 total TOs is hardly unexpected, and very likely would happen again.

Miami shot 10-24 from 3 for the game. Earlier in the season, before their March slump, that basically would've been an average game (they were at 40% for the year and 10-24 is 41.7%). As it is, on the year, Miami as a team is shooting 37.3%...out of 24 shots, that means you'd expect on average to make 9. So yeah, going 10-24 instead of 9-24 is hardly an anomaly and likely to be replicated multiple times in a 7 game series.

If you want things that stick out, both teams shooting 90% from the stripe is not likely to happen again...for either squad. But that basically evens out.

The game that sticks out as bizarre and unexpected is the OKC blowout, not the close Miami win at home. Miami has an SRS (MOV adjusted for strength of schedule) slightly better than OKC's, and homecourt advantage is statistically pegged at somewhere between 2.8-3.6 points. Use 3.2 as that number, plus Miami's stronger SRS, and if they played a bunch of games in MIami, you'd expect on average the Heat to win by ~4 points. Winnning by 5 seems pretty run of the mill then.

You just don't expect OKC to win by double-digits on their floor, statistically speaking.

[EscapoTHB]

Yeah it's funny that the Miami game would be considered the outlier, when this game was much more in line with how these teams have played each other the last two years. Lebron has historically gotten the better of Durant fwiw.

And I didn't feel Rio and Shane had amazing games or anything. They're supposed to make those 3s. That's what they're hear for. The weird thing is how bad both have shot for stretches this year.

If everyone on our team just played to their career averages across a 7 game series, we'd blow everyone out by 20.