Miami Heat dog jersey (small)

I normally despise dressing dogs in clothing. It’s unnatural and makes the poor innocent animal look ridiculous. But Miami’s won three games in a row! Go crazy folks! Get that economy back on the right track by decking your Dachshund out with this glorious Heat jersey. Everyone knows that when a dog sticks its neck out of the car window, it’s trying to recreate the feeling of Dwyane Wade gliding to the basket for a slam dunk. So make the experience that much more authentic by forcing his or her legs through tiny holes in this mini-jersey. It’s not an auction, it’s an eBay Buy it Now, so get yours right now for $24.95 with FREE SHIPPING.

Wednesday night the Heat (32-31) will travel to Charlotte to play the Phantom Hornets Bobcats (30-31).

The Bobcats beat the Heat 104-65 in Charlotte on January 20^th.

After the beat down last time around, the Bobcats have cooled off and the Heat is in the middle of one of its better spells of the season.

The Bobcats have taken out the Lakers and the Warriors the last two times out, but before that they had lost 4 of 5.

The Heat has won its last 3 after losing 4 straight.

 PROJECTED STARTERS

                Heat                                      Bobcats

PG          Arroyo                                  R. Felton

SG          Wade                                    S. Jackson

SF           Richardson                          G. Wallace

PF           Beasley                                                B. Diaw

C             O’Neal                                  T. Ratliff

 When these two teams get together, the key for the Heat is to slow down the wing tandem of Stephen Jackson and Gerald Wallace. Wallace had 20 and 10 for the Bobcats last time, and Jackson had 24 points.

 They are the type of long, athletic wings that give the Heat fits, and to make it worse they attack the glass with vengeance, particularly Wallace, who averages 10.5 boards per game from his small forward position.

 STATISTICAL BREAKDOWN (Stats from Statsheet.com; 3/8/10)

 Effective Field Goal %

 The Heat is 18^th in the league at 49.1%; the Bobcats are 22^nd at 48.8%.

 EDGE: Even

 Turnover %

 The Heat is 4^th in the league at 13%; the Bobcats are 30^th at 15.9%.

 EDGE: Heat

 Offensive Rebound %

 The Heat is 20^th in the league at 25.9%; the Bobcats are 18^th at 26.2%.

 EDGE: Even

 Free Throw Rate

The Heat is 18^th in the league at 29.4%; the Bobcats are 3^rd at 34.3%.

 EDGE: Bobcats

 KEY TO THE GAME

 As was said, the Heat has to control Wallace and Jackson. Each has had a ten rebound game against the Heat this season, and Jackson has lead the Bobcats in scoring in both meetings.

 Always guard the inbound passer.

Of course there’s some basketball talk, but there’s a lot more talk about life. And honestly, I think a talk about life with Pat Riley is going to be a lot more interesting that a talk about basketball. So as you’re getting into the groove of work this Monday morning, give it a listen:

With knee problems being the culprit for Dorell Wright being inactive and Jermaine O’Neal leaving the game early as well as Rafer Alston going AWOL, the Heat desperately needed a lift to get past the troublesome Hawks. Quentin Richardson continued his surprising recent offensive surge with 22 points (including 5 three pointers) and Dwyane Wade was his typical brilliant self with 38 points and 10 assists, including a scorching 3^rd quarter that included back-to-back 3 pointers and catching cross-court lob passes for breakaway opportunities.

But the night belonged to Michael Beasley who scored 14 points in the 4^th quarter including seven points in a row near the end that swung a Heat deficit into a lead that they never relinquished. But his contributions weren’t limited to just offense. Back-to-back steals and deflections on two straight Hawks possessions along with some solid defending on Josh Smith were crucial in preserving the Heat lead.

With Beasley getting zero minutes in the 4^th quarter in the last several Heat games and being limited all season long at crunch time by Erik Spoelstra in favor of steady veteran Udonis Haslem, he most assuredly would not have been called upon if it wasn’t for O’Neal’s injury. It’s one thing if the Heat were a contending team with a solid rotation that had no late-game minutes for a second-year player still honing his NBA game. But for a team starving for buckets late in games when the opposing team’s only focus is to stop Wade, it’s just plain bizarre for Spoelstra to stubbornly stick to this plan all season long. The only way Beasley is going to reach his potential is to actually be in the game when it matters most instead of watching from the bench.

The Heat made a lot of progress in the playoff hunt with this victory. It took the season series from last year’s first round playoff nemesis Atlanta 3-1 with three straight victories. The Heat are also now only 3 games back in the loss column from 5^th seeded Toronto who have lost 4 of 5 games and leapfrogged a slumping Bulls team who have lost 4 straight games.

It was imperative for the Heat to defend their home court with this favorable schedule and they responded with three straight victories to lift their record at the American Airlines Arena to 17-14. Now it’s time to avenge some ugly Charlotte Bobcat losses.

While Dwyane Wade vs Kobe Bryant was the marquee matchup, there where plenty of heroes for the Heat. Quentin Richardson was ridiculous with 7 for 11 on 3-point shooting. Carlos Arroyo unsurprisingly returned to the starting lineup and provided the kind of play at point guard that the Heat desperately needed. Too often the Heat’s point guards have settled for simply bringing the ball up the court, passing it to Wade at the top of the key and then just standing around waiting for someone else to make a play. This time Arroyo actually made plays for others, providing easy baskets for his teammates but also hitting his own jumpers when given space to roam. It’s stunning how needlessly complicated the Heat’s offense can be when it can just be a matter of hitting open jumpers while the defense is zeroed in on Wade.

The Heat’s front line was just as important to the victory as well. Jermaine O’Neal was huge for the Heat when it mattered the most with some timely baskets and a charge on Kobe Bryant in overtime. Michael Beasley had his moments, playing more loose and confident than he has in the last few games. Beasley made better decisions with the ball and chose to pass instead of forcing the issue by taking a jump shot if he didn’t have a clear path to the basket. Udonis Haslem played the entire 4^th quarter and overtime, snagging a double-double with 12 points and 11 rebounds while playing some solid defense against the Laker bigs.

Speaking of which, when Pau Gasol goes for 10 points, Andrew Bynum gets 12 points and Lamar Odom has 13 against flat footed Jermaine O’Neal and Jamaal Magloire then your team deserves to lose. There simply is no excuse to struggle to score when every other NBA team this season has taken advantage of the Heat’s biggest weakness in the paint. While they did collectively pull down 30 rebounds with ease, the problem is that the rest of the Lakers only grabbed 9 more rebounds and that negated what would have been a huge rebounding edge for the Lakers. With the clear advantage in height, the Lakers’ biggest failure was not taking advantage and instead seemed to over-rely on getting Kobe Bryant his shots to upstage Wade, particularly late in the game. Ironically, that’s the kind of basketball that Miami has played throughout the season and it hasn’t brought much sustained success. Whereas the Heat has limited choices so it’s understandable that sometimes Wade must play “me against the entire team” ball, it makes no sense to do that when the Lakers have such quality big men that could have benefited from the Heat’s porous defense by the basket. On a side note, why did it take the coaching staff so long to double Kobe and take the ball out of his hands? With two minutes left in overtime, the Heat finally woke up and sent a second defender to him at the top of the key which led to a quick turnover by Bryant.

The Lakers’ strategy was working well at the end when Bryant had 12 consecutive points during a 3:31 stretch in the 4^th quarter and overtime. But two plays at the very end perfectly illustrated why Wade was the winner and not Kobe on this night. With 45 seconds to go, Wade split the double team at the top of the paint and instead of barreling towards the basket where Odom and Gasol were waiting for him he passed it to his left where a wide-open Haslem hit a huge jumper. On the very next possession with about 23 seconds left to play, Kobe had a similar opportunity on a broken play but chose to be the hero and barreled into O’Neal for an offensive foul instead of passing to Gasol who was right next to the basket with only Arroyo behind him.

No question that the Heat woke up and stepped up their game because of the opponent on a national stage. This team simply doesn’t play like this against Milwaukee or Charlotte. After 62 games and the Heat winning exactly half of them, this is not the time to declare this victory as some sort of “season changer” until the Heat string together several games like this which is certainly the time to do it with all the home games coming up. Unfortunately, the Heat are just as capable of doing the opposite so it remains to be seen if there are any after affects from this victory.