Miami’s huge win over Boston has the Heat on the verge of the Conference Finals.  Now imagine if they actually passed the ball on a consistent basis like normal teams do

SCOTT JACOBS

The Miami Heat won a game they had to have tonight over a desperate Boston Celtics team that fought tooth and nail to make it a series.  It was a huge win.  The dagger that they needed to break Boston’s championship spirit and align them against the ropes.  But this didn’t feel like a team win.

Three guys scored 83 for the Miami Tri-Nasty. LeBron had 35, Wade had 28, and Bosh entered the scoresheet with 20.  The rest of the team had 16 points.  No other guy scored more than four points.  We kinda sorta expected this when these 3 stars committed to this experiment in the off-season, but it doesn’t make it any less astonishing.

No reporter asked this after the game, but why does Miami continue to execute it’s end of game half court plays with 1 on 1 isolation plays that result in extremely difficult off balance perimeter jump shots?  Why does Miami play 2 on 5, or more than that 1 on 5 when the game is frozen in a nail biter?

I should have counted how many times Wade or LeBron got the ball and everyone moved to the side in the closing moments and overtime.  It’s no mirage that Miami finished the game with 10 assists.  Steve Nash gets that in his sleep.  But the Heat don’t pass in late game situations for whatever reason.  Maybe they don’t trust their bit players, maybe they just want the ball in their stars hands (and only their stars hands), but if you watch the way the Celtics execute their offense down the stretch and the way they move the ball, it just doesn’t make sense that Miami consistently confines itself to these desperate, sometimes wild 3 pointers or hotly contested 18 foot jumpers.  That’s if they’re lucky.  Too many times the lack of ball movement results in not just bad shots, but dumb turnovers, which could easily alter the game.

The Heat won tonight.  They got the one they needed.  They’re up 3 games to 1 against a hurting Celtics team that seemed like their greatest road block.  All that considered,someone has to say it:  besides LeBron’s epic me against Detroit game 5 in 2007, I can’t recall another game where passing became optional in the playoffs.  And LeBron and Wade who were a combined 20-46 didn’t even have a great shooting night.  They said so themselves.

LeBron and Wade are both sensational players.  They have world class talent and they don’t shy from the big moments, but why does it seem like they live on an island when the game gets tense.  There’s no ball movement, no picks, no cutting, just get out of my way, let the shotclock run down, I got this basketball.

Miami got Boston in the bonus just a few minutes into the fourth and then for some odd reason they stopped driving, and started settling.  This from a team that was a fantastic 25-28 from the foul line.  LeBron on his own is usually good for 3 free throw clanks a game.  But Miami’s offense got stagnant as it so often does in the fourth, and it was left to the stars to sink or swim.

When they win it looks great, but Miami’s two-dimensional offense is so flawed it’s unbelievable they’re in position to take out the defending East Champs with an offense that basically omits anyone but stars from touching the ball in the final few minutes and especially overtime.

Now I understand that guys like Mike Miller, Mario Chalmers, James Jones, Mike Bibby and Eddie House are question marks every time they take the court offensively.  One game they go off, the next they’re completely invisible.  House randomly gets thrown into games, misses a pair of shots and he’s gone.  Miller is inserted does nothing and then Jones comes in.  It’s a web of mystery.

But that doesn’t change the fact that I’ve never seen a team win a championship with the lack of ball movement that Miami consistently exhibits.  Maybe that’s what happens when you get a bunch of buyout guys, vets over the hill, and young guys who shouldn’t be starting, but you can’t tell me that a LeBron and Wade cutting to the basket and those other guys moving the ball around wouldn’t get them a better shot than what they’re getting.  I just wouldn’t believe you.

The Heat need guys that they can go to not named Wade or LeBron.  Why don’t they orchestrate their offense through Bosh, let the defense collapse, get Wade and LeBron in motion and maybe get the opposing defense on their heels?  There was one play in ovetime where Miami even utilized their Big Three together.  It came when Wade found LeBron down low who fed Bosh the ball for an easy lay in.  It was poetry in motion.  As for passing the rest of the game, Miami aborted that shortly thereafter.  It’s head-scratching.

They still won by 8.  They still beat the Celtics on their home-court in front of their rowdy crowd.  But can this type of gameplan win you an NBA title?

The baffling thing is that when Miami passes, they’re really good.  It’s when they become a 1 on everybody squad that they get in trouble.  Sure, Wade and LeBron will have their star moments, as they did before they joined forces, but the majority of your possessions should consist of at least two passes.  It’s fundamental basketball.

The Celtics are old.  I’m sure they were tired in overtime, but Miami didn’t put any pressure on them defensively by taking the shotclock to it’s final seconds practically ever possession.  Instead Boston found itself waiting for the Heat’s stars and Wade and LeBron delivered when they needed to.

But Wade’s crazy killer three as the shot clock was set to expire is not a high percentage shot.  LeBron’s fadeaways, while well within his arsenal is not the best play when you’re clinging to a small lead or tied.

Look, we knew this Heat experiment was going to be different from the onset.  It’s never happened this way.  No team has ever won a championships like this.  None that I can think of.

Maybe Spoelstra’s game plan is to get them 1 on 1 looks, but I just don’t understand it.  Does he really tell them in the huddle, ‘clear out with 3:34 to go so we can get one of our two megastars an isolation play? You know what, let’s just do that the rest of the game.’ How dispiriting must it be for guys like Chalmers and Jones that they damn near didn’t even touch the ball in OT?  Do they sit there and think to themselves, “when did I sign up for NBA Street?”

Can this strategy succeed against the Bulls or the Hawks, Miami’s next opponent assuming the Heat can salt away Boston in one of these next three games?  Can the Heat dethrone a remarkably deep team like Dallas which can get star performances from anyone two through ten on their team?  Can they go punch for punch with a powerful team like Memphis which pounds you inside?  What about Oklahoma City?

It’s still hard to say.  Despite being up 3-1 and closing in on a berth to the Conference Finals– a place the Heat haven’t been since their title run of 2006 — Miami is still a team with almost as many questions as it has answers.

For every King and Wade, there’s a collection of misfit veterans and young guys who are clearly playing second — no, make that third fiddle to Miami’s Big Kahunas.

Wade knows that the Heat will only go as far as their Big Three, but why does it have to be only the Big Three?   LeBron chimed in by saying that just because guys don’t end up on the stat-sheet doesn’t mean they’re not important.  But they should be on the statsheet.  Joel Anthony should have a plethora of open looks down low with guys like Wade and LeBron driving to the cup.  Bosh should be crashing the boards every play like he did for the game sealing tip in.

You dance with the one that brought you here and Wade and LeBron agreed to this pact knowing they would be ‘the guys.’  But the Other Guys can be used more effectively.  There should be more easy baskets for the guys who don’t get on the statsheet.  There should be open looks for everyone.  There should be a heck of a lot more passing.

The papers will write about Miami’s triumphant win tomorrow, as they damn well should.  But the forgotten subplot is that this isn’t team basketball. Miami needs to make more of what they have.

If they can be this good with two guys and Bosh, just imagine what they could do if they actually played consistently on offense as a team.

It’s a crazy thought, but an increasingly scary one.

Especially for the opposition.

Photo: Reuters

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