Last night Miami’s big three all had at least 30 points and 10 rebounds.  Impressive, but that’s not the amazing stat.

James, Wade, and Bosh represent 3 out of the 11 players that saw time last night for the Heat.  That’s 27% of the roster.  Therefore, the rest of the guys obviously make up 73% of the roster.  Now what’s crazy is in a twist of selfish symmetry, the Big Three took exactly 73% of the shots for Miami (67/92) leaving the other 27% of the roster with 25 shots to split up between 8 guys.  That’s one shot ATTEMPT from a non-stud every two minutes.

I don’t know what it means.  They did win the game.  But only by 6 to a borderline .500 Houston squad.  There’s a reason that they can’t beat good teams and it has to have something to do with the fact that the big boys have to do it all themselves and on most nights, the three of them just aren’t running on all cylinders at the same time.  Competent defensive teams (Chicago and Boston for example) can just focus on shutting down James and Wade knowing that neither Bosh nor anybody else on the team can win a game.

Just as a comparison, the Celtics in the same night had Pierce, Garnett, and Allen take 50% of the teams shots and they represent 33% of the playing roster.  To simplify, they constitute a larger percentage of the team than J/W/B and they still take FAR less shots away from teammates.  During the Celtics new era they have valued the idea of sharing the ball and the spotlight and despite a ridiculous barrage of injuries have won a championship and had two other deep playoff runs.  Neither James nor Wade have ever beaten them in the playoffs with their one man shows.  Now that they have a two and a half men ensemble, I’m not sure if their chances are better or worse.

This isn’t NBA Jam or a three on three street game.  If it were, the Heat would be undefeated.  Unfortunately for them, they need to take the “I”s out of TEAM before they can take the next step.  The stats don’t lie.

Photo: Getty