By John Hollinger ESPN.com MIAMI -- Fool's gold. That's my two-word analysis of the Miami Heat's offense that got them a 1-0 series lead and 15-point edge midway through the fourth quarter of Game 2. With LeBron James and Dwyane Wade converting an unusually large number of bailout 3-point attempts and the Heat getting multiple easy baskets from their defense, it was easy to overlook the fact that Miami's half-court offense was struggling to consistently generate good shots. That is, until the tap stopped flowing on bailout 3s and transition dunks, at which point it became abundantly clear that Miami's half-court offense was struggling to consistently generate good shots. Those facts go a long way toward explaining why the Heat won the highlight film but lost the basketball game. "Offensively," Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said, "if we could have executed and moved the ball, we might have been able to stem the tide a little bit, even as poor as we were defensively down the stretch." Forget about all the things Miami might have done wrong defensively, or the many ways you might second-guess the Heat's choices on the Dallas Mavericks' final possession. (Including but not limited to: Not giving the foul they still had in their back pocket, not double-teaming Dirk Nowitzki, not having Joel Anthony in the game, and not having Udonis Haslem on Nowitzki instead of Chris Bosh). That's all important, obviously, but the fly in the punch bowl in this box score is the 14 combined 3-point attempts by Wade and James, part of the 30 that Miami launched as a team. "To shoot 30 3s in a game is not our style of basketball," Spoelstra said, "and at the end of the game to not be able to execute and move the ball and find an open shot. We were running the clock down to the end. That's not been a successful formula for us the last three months." And don't just focus on the fourth-quarter collapse, people -- look at the whole second half. Even before the death spiral at the end, Miami had only 23 points on 22 trips in their second-half half-court possessions; the Heat closed with five on their final 10 trips (not including Wade's heave at the buzzer), for a total of 28 points on 32 second-half possessions in the half court. That's not good enough. Obviously, things went from bad to worse late in the fourth quarter, when Miami inexplicably became 3-point giddy. Again, I think the fool's gold was a big reason. Up til that point, James and Wade were a combined 10-of-17 on 3-pointers and had to be feeling good about their strokes. And then the Sample Size Gods smacked them down. The Heat took nine 3-point tries in the final eight minutes, making only two of them; Wade's 3-pointer from the corner (begetting the posing and mugging that will fill the talk radio airwaves for 72 interminable hours til the start of Game 3) was the only one of the six attempts by either Wade or James that found the net. Moreover, it took James and Wade away from the things they actually do well. With the fast-break game closed off by Dallas' sudden flurry of scoring, the Heat rarely got the ball near the basket. Miami took 10 jump shots from 15 feet or farther, had two turnovers where the ball never threatened to enter the paint, and had only two attempts with a genuine foray to the basket. One of them produced two free throws for James, Miami's only points in a stretch of nearly seven minutes, and the other was a short-range shot that he missed. All this is a shame because, up til that point, Miami went up 15 by putting together 20 minutes of some of the best defense you'll ever see. Starting with the Heat down nine in the second quarter and James on the bench with three fouls, Miami forced 12 turnovers in a 20-minute span while surrendering a meager 21 points, allowing the Heat to build a seemingly insurmountable 15-point advantage. Included in that stretch was perhaps the single best defensive trip of the playoffs -- when a series of Dallas passes pinged the ball all over the court, and a Miami player rotated to cut off a potential shot on every one of them. Despite exquisite ball movement, the Mavs ended up with a shot-clock violation. Effort like that should be enough to bring home victory for Miami, because their offense should be good enough to generate decent looks consistently against Dallas. There's no reason for them to settle for hero shots by James and Wade on trip after trip. But they did, and one has to suspect the fool's gold results of their first 17 3-point attempts in the series were a big reason why. As a result, a Finals that should have been in Miami's back pockets now stands in genuine doubt. http://espn.go.com/nba/dailydime/_/p...603/daily-dime
There have been knee-jerk threads, but knee-jerk articles? Really? I'm sure that when Wade/James/the entire Heat team look at the film from this game, they will realize that they shouldn't keep heaving up hero threes. I'm surprised they just kept doing that though. It wasn't like the Mavs were leading by 20, and the Heat HAD to score threes to keep up with them. James and Wade probably panicked, and forgot that there were three other teammates on the floor. It won't happen again. Dallas better get ready, because James and Wade are going to be mad.
The truth is that Miami's offense has been exposed in the last 7 minutes of the game. When they couldn't force a turn over and a dunk, or couldn't hit a miracle prayer, they couldn't score in a half court offense.
It didn't seem to be a problem in the last three series. Miami does seem to have problems when they have a big lead because they play iso ball. Maybe they shouldn't get such big leads.
76ers is a cake walk. Celtics are done, with Rondo playing on 1 arm. As for the Bulls, Rose sucked and also did not have much help. Miami could get away in the last 3 series since they opponents sucked. But not against this Dallas offense and defense.
That is revisionist history. About half of the posters here picked the Celtics and Bulls. Both of those teams had better records than the Mavs. No one wants to admit that the Heat are just playing really well this post-season. I mean, they did get out to a 15 point lead to the Mavs (which has to be the biggest hole they've been in this postseason).
LOL. Fool's gold gets you the second best record and 16-3 throughout the playoffs? People are simply hating. Miami has proven to be a very, very tough team.
No. Every team does that. They're so afraid to lose the lead that they waste all the time on the shot clock and force up a shot. I would have loved to have seen them run the score and utterly annihilate the Mavericks.
Did you watch the Mavs/Thunder series? On another note, the Mavs just seem to be more focused and want it more. I've always disliked Dirk, but he's matured and is playing with "the heart of a champion." This should be a good one... If Terry doesnt play YMCA defense.
Of course. It was a given that Miami was going to beat Boston and Chicago. You're the type of poster who will be saying the exact same thing about Dallas in two weeks if Miami wins the Finals. When they beat the Sixers, that's because the Sixers sucked. Boston was going to be different. When the beat the Celtics, that's because the Celtics were too old and it was inevitable. Chicago was going to be the real threat. When they beat the Bulls, Dallas became the new team that would stand in their way. If they beat Dallas, we'll just go back to the narrative that it wasn't impressive at all because they were supposed to do it and nobody thought Dallas was going to pose a problem, after all, those guys are a bunch of chokers. Either that, or it will be time to blame the refs. In the words of Phil Jackson, "give them some f***ing credit." Miami is one of the top couple teams in the league. So is Dallas. Just sit back and enjoy the great basketball.
LMAO. And what did you predict before the boston and chicago series? Should we go back and look? What did you say after Miami got dominated in game 1 at Chicago. Should we do a search and read your comments? Big deal guys, the heat blew a game against the mavs that they had under complete control. They relaxed, they were coasting, they know they are the better team and will show you why in the next 3 games. Series over in 5.
I hate how some people say the Mavs comeback was only because the Heat relaxed in the final minutes, and that it won't happen again and they'll still win the series easily. Two teams are playing on the floor, and while the Heat did play bad and did relax a little, you can't discount the inspired play of the Mavs as well. Just like you can't say the Heat were owning the game up until that point. Sure they were playing great defense, but the Mavs were playing sloppy and without confidence as well. It goes both ways. If both teams are playing to the best of their abilities, then honestly I think it's a dead-even crapshoot.
Maybe it is fool's gold, but they only need a couple more games of fool's good to end up winning it all.
Boston was older than dirt and Chicago had been playing like **** throughout the entire postseason. Have you been watching Dallas this postseason? If so, that 15 point comeback wouldn't be a surprise. They are experienced, composed, classy. If Miami gets by Dallas, that would be impressive. And it isn't blame the refs, the refs ARE one sided. Dallas just has to fight through it (like they did last night, perfect bball down the stretch)
Hollinger is saying that the way the Heat ran their offense LAST NIGHT was fool's gold; he's not saying that their offense is fool's gold in general. In fact, he goes on to say the Heat's sticking to their offense and playing punishing defense should have been enough to get the home win. But I wonder what Hollinger thinks about the Mavs' "sudden flurry of scoring" that closed the game. Since the Heat wasn't playing with their usual defensive focus, should the Mavs' offensive success be seen as fool's gold too?
James and Wade had been red hot from 3 heading into that 4th quarter. They were hot from the close out game in Chi, James had been hot before that. It's natural that they expected their streak to continue. Next game both will go strong to the buckets, the game will depend on how many superstar calls the refs make.
Technically, he is only talking about the Heat's OFFENSE and how their 3 point makes were fool's gold. He didnt say the entire Heat team is fool's gold.
