Ah, a reverse of last year? "Heat fail to close out series after 2-1 lead; Pacers advance to face the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Finals." I like it, Bill.
I hope The Pacers realize that game 5 is a must win. They are capable of winning game 6 in Indiana to end the series. If not, they have no shot at a game 7 in Miami. My guess is that Miami will win the next 2, so Miami in 6.
I thought the Heats would blow out the Pacers in games 2 after Indiana let game 1 got away. It didn't happen. Then most were writing the Pacers off in game 4. It didn't happen either. Wade is not the same Wade we saw last year. I think we are in for the duration. A toss up.
And Hibbert averaged 12 ppg last year in the series while shooting under 50%. His low is 19 points this year, with 2X the rebounds. Plus Lance didn't play, West couldn't play big minutes coming off knee surgery, and Paul George was a non-factor, on both offense and defense. To compare this Pacers team to the one 12 months ago isn't comparing apples to oranges (which after all are both tasty fruits) it's like comparing an apple to a bag of flour. One team had some needed ingredients but wasn't ripe and ready. This one is.
While game 7s historically strongly favor the home team, they are also historically are rough & rugged "let them play" contests where soft flopping pansies (ahem, many of the teammates of LBJ) tend not to excel. It's a man's game, not a Bosh/Battier game. Pacer win of 5 + 6, 6 + 7, or 5 + 7 are all nearly equally possible IMO since these are evenly-matched teams
There is no game tonight!!!! Oh no. This is a major blackout, watching the Astros is not even possible, but I'm O.K. with it.
And comparing the Heat team to last year's Heat team is also comparing apples to oranges. The Heat are much better this year. They have Ray Allen and Chris Andersen and they won 27 games in a row and 39 out of 41.
I expect the Heat to win the next two. I think we're going to see a lot of Pacers misses as the averages start to kick in. I also think LeBron or Wade posterizes/twitterizes Hibbert soon. They can't be happy about how he's been punking them all series long.
Wasn't Bosh hurt last year against Indiana too? Well, he's a non-factor this year too, so it's about the same...
I agree their bench is better with those two, and Norris stepping up, but Wade and Bosh are not stepping their game up like they did last year. Pacers bench is sorry as hell, but their starters are playing fantastic.
