Pacers vs. Heat, Eastern semis

KingCheetah · May 25, 2012

2000!

htownrox1 · May 25, 2012

Haha Cheetah don't know how to count.

SamFisher · May 25, 2012

juicystream · May 25, 2012

Major said: ↑

This is one of those nonsense stats. Percentages say that because (1) the better team usually has home court advantage and (2) the team that wins the series is going to win any particular game more often than not.

I'd guess that the percentages also say that the team that wins games 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 are also more likely to win their series, because you're giving them one of the four games they have to win.
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I demand the statistical analysis be done. I'm positive the team that wins game 7 wins 100% of their series...

DonnyMost · May 25, 2012

Sam uses the white layout.

I am disappoint.

J.R. · May 27, 2012

'Heat’s Udonis Haslem admits hit on Pacers’ Hansbrough was to defend Dwyane Wade'

Now the truth can be told, thanks to the freedom and relief that comes with winning. Hell, yes, Udonis Haslem meant to foul Tyler Hansbrough like that. Would do it again, too, if given the chance. He revealed as much after practice Saturday, stitches still on his face, right eye still dark red with blood. And damn if that wounded eye didn’t sting a little bit on this big, tough man from Miami’s meanest streets as he tried to articulate exactly what Dwyane Wade means to him. Ol’ Udonis isn’t going weak, not by a long shot, but age tends to bring perspective and appreciation, and those things can soften even a man as hard as Haslem.

“I can’t imagine anything I wouldn’t do for Dwyane,” he says.

Wade, bleeding, fell at Haslem’s feet after Hansbrough’s hard foul. The game and series were still close then, though Miami would outscore Indiana 86-58 immediately after Haslem’s retaliation on Hansbrough and would extinguish the Pacer season in Indiana the game after that, an angry Wade providing the 17-for-25 punctuation that will echo throughout Indiana’s offseason. Wade got on the team flight with game ball in hand after finishing Indiana with 41 points and 10 rebounds, and he asked his rowdy teammates to please quiet down as he handed that symbolic ball over to Haslem.

“For my brother,” Wade said for all to hear. “For his sacrifice. I don’t think we win this series without him.”

“Way to cook their asses,” Haslem told Wade.

...

“Like having a big brother going with you to school,” Wade said Saturday. “No one is going to mess with you.”

Haslem’s thought as Wade landed at his feet?

“OK,” he says. “That’s how it is going to be tonight? OK. Let’s do that then.”

He laughs.

“It is all fun and games to beat up the Heat in the media, to say the Heat are soft,” he says. “But as soon as the Heat take a stand and hit back, it’s not funny anymore. Rabbit hunting is fun. But it ain’t funny when the rabbit has the gun.”

Suspended for Game 6 and banned from the arena, Haslem had to watch from the hotel. He tried to nap beforehand but was too restless. He went downstairs and grabbed his game meal — a bag of popcorn, a bag of Cheetos, a Kit Kat and a Powerade. And this is how he felt in his own words:

“Lonely. Anxious. Helpless. Useless.”

He rushed to the airport immediately after the victory. Wade and Mario Chalmers were texting him pictures from the jubilant locker room, holding up “Free UD!” signs. He sat on the plane alone for 45 minutes until the team got there. And then Wade gave Haslem the game ball.

Asked to describe what that moment meant, Haslem pauses for a long time.

“Felt like family,” he finally says, succinctly enough. Then he adds, “Felt like they did all that for me. I knew Dwyane was going to have a game like that. I knew. I know that guy. No doubt. None. No doubt. His sister, his kids, they are my family. His mother and my mother used to be friends. They had similar journeys. Drug addiction. His mom is like my extended mom. I know that guy, and I knew what Dwyane was going to do to Indiana.”

Haslem’s jump shot has been broken all season, but he won Game 4 with so many fourth-quarter baskets that swung the series. He is asked which was the best feeling — making all those jumpers, fouling Hansbrough or getting the game ball.

“Game ball,” he says. “Most expensive basketball ever. That’s not going to be the ball the kids play with outside.”

He is asked which was the better feeling — hitting all those fourth-quarter jumpers in Game 4 or fouling Hansbrough in Game 5?

“Protecting my brother,” he says.

Haslem wasn’t paid for Game 6. That foul cost him more than $34,000 — or 1/110th of his annual salary (preseason and postseason included). Wade offered to pay half the fine, but Haslem refused, even though Wade earns a lot more than the $3.8 million Haslem does.

“No way,” says Haslem, proud and moved.

And then this so-rugged man from Miami’s meanest streets bows his head so you can no longer see that bloody, stitched eye or if it is stinging.

“That,” he says, “was out of love.”
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Pacers vs. Heat, Eastern semis

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