It is very late tonight and I will try and go into more details tomorrow as to why I think this has occurred, however I think it is very interesting to see, and maybe something that gives us an insight as to why the Heat may not have it completely their own way in the Eastern playoffs this year, considering we all (myself included) thought they would stroll to the play off finals with relative ease this season.
The main reason is Heat going 'small ball.' This just simply isn't working against teams with size and big front court's, especially teams like Chicago who rebound the ball extremely well. We saw Chicago out rebound Miami by a huge amount (stats to follow) which obviously leads to more shot attempts for chicago and less for Miami. It was the same last night, with the Pacers defending the paint well, getting alot of rebounds and defending the perimeter well also (Ray Allen finished the game with zero(!!!) points, the first time that has happened in 15 years for him). Now if the Heat don't get at least 2 of their superstars firing with a spectacular rate on their jumpers, or being able to get to the FT line with regularity I feel that they are always going to struggle this season, as well as in the play offs with both Pacers and Bulls. As well as the other teams with good sized front caught that play great defense.
Having said that Miami as shown last year always step it up a notch in the playoffs, with Lebron going all superman on teams and Wade and Bosh contributing well too.
Anyways, as I said it's late but I hope to write more about this tomorrow as I think it is interesting and gives us a glimmer of hope that the NBA this season isn't a foregone conclusion.
Let me know your thoughts on here or on twitter.
Dave
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