Monday, May 21, 2012

Heat-Pacers: A Duel of Individual Talent vs Team Strenght

Little more than a week ago the Eastern Conference Semifinal series between the Miami Heat and the Indiana Pacers had a particular storyline set up for it. A match up between a team with great individual talent (Heat) and a team with no superstar talent but great team chemistry (Pacers).

Little has changed since to change that narrative. The abdominal strain that Heat forward Chris Bosh suffered in the first half of the team's 95-86 Game 1 victory only reinforced it.

The Heat were already at a size disadvantage coming into this series facing the Pacers front line of forward David West and center Roy Hibbert. Losing Bosh for the series to an injury made this advantage greater for Indiana and it showed in their 78-75 and 94-75 victories in Games 2 and 3. It also helps that one of the Heat's Big 3 still standing (guard Dwyane Wade) wasn't playing like himself in Game 3 with only five points in 37 minutes of play.

What Bosh's absence has done is being felt more than just on statistics. Bosh as it turns out, while sacrificing the most in individual achievements when he chose to come to Miami, has become the team's most important player. His presence is what allowed Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra to set up the pick and roll plays in a half court offense as well as his bench rotation, something a coach shouldn't be tinkering so much with in the playoffs. In fact, Spoelstra has used a different starting lineup for each game. One of those lineups featured starting second year center Dexter Pittman in Game 3. Pittman didn't play for three weeks prior to Game 3 and the experiment only lasted a little more than three minutes.

This has put the pressure on Wade and forward LeBron James. They are the two best players in the series and have to play as such for the Heat to win. With Bosh out weakening the Heat bench Wade and James have to force their individual talents to overwhelm the Pacers. However, they also need another player to step up and contribute. In Game 3 one those things happened with guard Mario Chalmers having one of the best games of his career finishing with 25 points, six rebounds, and five assists. That performance was overshadowed by Wade's lackluster effort.

Luckily in Game 4 both those things happened.

James, playing the Magic Johnson role, got Wade going in the second half after only making one field goal in the first. That effort by James led to Wade to at one point make 11 straight field goals in a row. Wade finished the game with 30 points, nine rebounds, and six assists. James, while doing his best to help his teammates, also went on to have a historic performance. James finished the game with 40 points, 18 rebounds, and nine assists. That type of stat line hasn't been achieved in a playoff game since Elgin Baylor did it in 1961.

In other words, what James did in Game 4 hasn't been done since the early days of the John F. Kennedy administration.

It didn't stop there for the Heat. Forward Udonis Haslem, who is having a down season, stepped up with a 14 point performance that included shots late in the fourth quarter that stemmed several pushes by the Pacers to take back cpntrol of the game. He also received a cut above his right eye during the game that required nine stitches afterwards. Haslem is the player that can most replicate what Bosh does for the Heat and Game 4 might get him back in a good groove offensively.

So now with the series tied at 2-2 it has become a best-of-three event with two of those games being held in Miami's American Airlines Arena. The Pacers will try to make the adjustments needed to keep Hibbert and West out of the foul trouble they found themselves in Game 4 and to reinsert their size advantage. The Heat will try to make the adjustments needed to exploit their athleticism like in Game 4 and find ways to negate the size they are giving up in this series.

The narrative is still the same in this series, and that is what will determine the winner in the end.

On to South Beach for Game 5.

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