Photo from Mavis via Flickr

So after two consecutive overtime losses, LeBron in the clutch is a story again. Woo-Frickidy-Hoo. I’m going to conveniently ignore it, for reasons that I hope are obvious (boredom, mostly), but just in case they aren’t, here’s Ethan Sherwood Strauss giving you the ideal explanation in less than 140 characters:

Only a Finals win changes the LeBron narrative. Anything in between either confirms what people think, or gets ignored

January 12, 2012 6:35 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@SherwoodStrauss

E. Sherwood Strauss

So instead of focusing on a narrative that very nearly decimated NBA fans’ ability to enjoy the internet last season and which isn’t going to be resolved for at least 5 months, let’s go to the LeBron story that is actually news, which is that he’s having the best season of his career.

LeBron has played just 10 games so far, so we probably need to temper our reactions,  but the much-maligned superstar is currently posting a PER of 33.2, which far exceeds every single season-long mark in history. While that’s clearly going down soon, even detractors of the stat should have their eyes open wide at this point. This despite a career high turnover ratio.

This, of course, is varying degrees of sustainable. En route to the insane PER mark, LeBron blowing away the best rebounding numbers of his career (a ridiculous 21.1% defensive rebounding rate, 2.1% higher than his career best 08-09), which history shows us will go down. He’s also posting a career high turnover ratio – but his Miami numbers were the worst since his rookie season as is, so this may require some monitoring. He’s playing 37.4 minutes a night, which is the least he’s played since… ever.

Around these new tweaks, LeBron, in his 9^th year (gulp!), is pretty much the same player. The rebounds will revert to their norm, the turnovers will go down slightly, and the minutes will likely stay where they are. The numbers at this point should be taken at face value – for instance, LeBron was shooting a career high 79.3% from the line a recently as yesterday, before a horrendous 9-17 outing sent him back to his career 75%. At worst, the things we have so far should either fail to register or raise questions standing at varying degrees of interesting to be visited later.

The biggest of those questions, however, is also the source of LeBron’s biggest improvement, and it has been the way LeBron gets his points. As Brian Windhorst  detailed, LeBron’s offensive game has trended inwards, and the results are easy to see both on the court and in the numbers. LeBron virtually stopped shooting 3 pointers – he’s attempted only 5 so far, 10 games in, after shooting 3.5 long bombs a night just last year. In the mean time, LeBron is showing off the much publicized new post game has been the (9^th in the league at exactly 1 point per play, after 41 plays in 10 games, according to mySynergySports.com).

All in all, LeBron’s true shooting percentage is ridiculous 62.6%. TS% takes into account 3 point shooting and free throws – and indeed, while LeBron has stopped taking 3s, he’s getting to the line at a career high rate of 0.56 free throws per field goal, and is shooting a fairly ridiculous 57% from the field. Everything described in this paragraph is easily a career high, which should raise quite a bit of red flags. There’s no doubt this won’t sustain, no doubt this can’t work – right?

Maybe. Let’s look at LeBron’s shooting numbers for the last two seasons at different distances from the rim, courtesy of Hoopdata.com:

Two things stand out from this chart:

1. LeBron’s lost three point attempts have been replaced with shots at the rim and long 2 pointers. The first is good, the last is bad. That’s life.
2. Interestingly enough, to go with the changes in shot distribution, LeBron’s shooting at the rim has taken a leap to a nearly impossible 80%, but the long 2s have dropped after a major leap in 2010-2011 (LeBron shot 40% in both 08-09 and 09-10).

We can probably assume the percentage at the rim goes down, seeing how LeBron has been between 71% and 73.3% for the past 5 years. In fact, let’s assume it does. If LeBron were to shoot 72% instead of 80% on the same, new 7.6 attempts per game, he would lose 0.6 makes. That would take down his total field goal percentage to 53.8% – still a career high – and his TS% to 60%, slightly under his career high of 60.4% in 2010.

Of course, if we’re correcting for shots at the rim, we should correct for everything. So, let’s take a look at a hypothetical season in which LeBron’s shot selection is identical to right now, and his percentages are the ones from last year. Given those parameters, LeBron would be posting:

• 28.9 points a night, down from 29 right now.
• 56.1% shooting from the field – not as crazy as he’s shooting right now, but still pretty crazy.
• 62.3 TS% – again, just a slight tick down from his small-sample-size career high.

Does this mean LeBron is destined to have an insane shooting season just by cutting down his three point attempts? Not necessarily. Our little exercise just assumes LeBron’s outlier percentage from 16 to 23 feet last season sustains, which may or may not be the case. But even if we take out long 2s from our little exercise in regression, LeBron is slightly above his career high TS% with a very stellar 60.6%.

This could all mean very little. Percentages usually go deeper than 5 separate ranges, and LeBron’s newfound reluctance to shoot 3s could eventually help defenses shut that rim down. It’s possible that this is a 10 game window into the future, but it’s also nearly as easily believable that everything regresses back to everything else.

Or LeBron might have actually matured as a player. It’s hard to tell at this point – and it really is moot until the playoffs, at which point either everything horrible breaks loose or a narrative is re-written – but it’s a start.

Photo via david.vigh on Flickr

The apex of my childhood sports fandom was the 1996 major league baseball season that saw the New York Yankees end an 18-year championship drought. That team played more nauseatingly close games than my pre-adolescent, lightweight stomach could handle, but I always knew if my beloved Bronx Bombers made is past the seventh inning with a lead all was well.

Mariano Rivera pitched the eighth.

John Wetteland handled the ninth.

Game over.

I don’t have the time, nor the energy to go game-by-game to exact the data, but I can say with absolute certainty that the Yankees played an inordinate number of close games that season, but if they led with six outs or fewer to go, that demonic bullpen duo shut the door with all the aplomb of an assassin.

Now, 15 years later in the wake of Game 1 of the NBA Finals, I am reminded of that devastatingly potent late game pair after watching LeBron James and Dwyane Wade finish off the Dallas Mavericks.

The production of Miami’s bench and Dallas’ inability to hit open shots (or the Heat willing them to miss) unquestionably played significant roles in the final outcome, but nothing trumps the competition like a deadly closer. Wade and LeBron were responsible for scoring or creating 14 of the Heat’s final 20 points in the last seven minutes of regulation, at once operating in unison and trading haymakers with devastating resolve. This game serves as the quintessential example of why Miami can not only win this series, but win a handful of NBA championships in the future – if they keep it close watch out.

Some have claimed the Heat offense has underwhelmed in the postseason. Maybe they’re right, but does it matter anymore? It certainly used to when the Fighting Spoelstra’s were searching for a harmonious existence and an identity amidst a season-long media firestorm. Now on the game’s biggest stage, the ends justify the means. During a televised timeout last night the head coach calmly told his bench to grind it out, buckle down and grind it out. Six months ago the thought of a team built around two of the most transcendent athletes of their generation grinding it out just didn’t seem a likely reality. We knew of Wade’s and James’ prodigious ability to get to the line, but certainly with both on the floor forming perhaps the most devastating open court duo in history, Miami would run teams out of the arena.

But having finally put it all together, the reality is the Heat attack doesn’t need to be perfect – far from it. Entering Game 1, Miami was a paltry 3-27 when shooting less than 40% from the floor. They’re now 4-27 because when push comes to shove you simply can’t contain both stars down the stretch. It’s akin to a now Methuselah-like Rivera remaining a dominant closer throwing one pitch that tops out at 90 miles per hour. Every hitter and every fan knows the cut fastball is coming each and every time, but it doesn’t matter. As long as New York gives him a lead, no matter how slim, more often than not he’s going to get the job done.

Miami’s offense was far from great last night, but they kept it close until the critical juncture when they could go to their bullpen. It’d be easy to analyze and break down each critical possession in the closing minutes, but the simple fact is two of the best players in the world are wearing the same jersey and you can’t double-team both. There are dynamic flashes as the end unfolds, James’ buzzer beater to end the third. His usual barrage of confidence shattering dunks, Wade’s geometric bending forays to the rim. Taken in the context of the finished product though, its a steady diet of the same pitch, the same attack, the same result. It’s mind numbing in its effectiveness.

Somewhere in South Beach is a 10-year-old kid who will grow up looking back fondly on the days when he could watch his beloved Heat play, knowing if it was at least close in the 4^th quarter, he stood a good chance to see a win.

Photo via HaukeSteinberg.com on Flickr

“The concept of art is located in a historically changing constellation of elements; it refuses definition. Its essence cannot be deduced from its origin as if the first work were a foundation on which everything that followed were constructed and would collapse if shaken. The belief that the first artworks were the highest and purest is warmed-over romanticism; with no less justification it could be claimed that the earliest artistic works are dull and impure in that they are not yet separated from magic…”

- from “Aesthetic Theory” by Theodor W. Adorno

I give Adorno credit. I’ve spent the last seven months struggling to define my new and ever changing perception of LeBron James, trying to aptly express how it’s different watching him play. Why it’s different. Adorno more or less sums it up in less than a paragraph.

Jordan had to face accusations of being a one-man scoring machine incapable of leading a team to a championship. Kobe had to hear the whispers that maybe he couldn’t win it all without Shaq. Luke Skywalker had to lose a hand and face some hard truths about the lineage of his family tree. This isn’t to compare LeBron to any of them, but all have undergone a change, something palpable simply by looking at them.

James of course has undergone a degree of scrutiny never before see in the NBA, some of it his own doing, some of it a product of the time he lives in. But that’s only a part of it.

As a young, dominating member of the Cavaliers, James was something to behold – a force. Daily conversations with friends never boiled down to “Did you see the Cleveland game last night?” so much as it was “Did you see LeBron last night?” I was excited by the possibility of the unknown, the notion that anything could happen. The next play. The next game. The next 10 years. Watching James single-handedly restore a broken franchise to prominence while simultaneously shattering my perceptions of what a man his size was capable of was at once exhilarating and left me even hungrier for more.

Even as his career continued to develop and the expectations grew exponentially, there was some sense of being able to forgive his transgressions (read: inability to win a championship). James’ career arc seemed to be tilted so high that he inevitably would win a handful of rings, cementing his legacy as one of the greatest of all time. He remained the high school prodigy in many ways, still unearthing his talents before our eyes.

The Decision changed all of that.

Part of his allure in those days was his singularity, a one-man wrecking crew, it’s something that even if you weren’t a serious basketball fan, could be appreciated. His role in Miami has morphed, become more sophisticated, less about reckless abandon and more about seamless execution within the confines of a game plan. His love of playing is no longer tangible through my TV screen. Hardened by criticism and the pressure of validating his off-season moving, maybe the Wonder Kid is at the point where he’s no longer willing to make excuses for himself. But like Adorna says about the first works of art, change isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

James’ career has no definition right now, a byproduct of its still relatively early stage and the unprecedented turn of events it has undergone. Maybe that’s been the hardest part, seeing what once appeared a readily definable career turn to something much less certain.  Eight years ago I knew LeBron was the most hyped high school basketball player of all time. Three years ago I knew he was destined to win half a dozen MVP awards and lead Cleveland to the Promised Land. Today?

I know James will win titles, the learning curve for Miami has been too steep this season to think the Heat won’t put it all together at some point in the next five years. I know he’ll win more MVP awards, he “quietly” had his most efficient season ever in 2011 and many felt he was deserving of the honor. I don’t know if I’ll ever see the carefree LeBron that was omnipresent in Cleveland, the one who intermittingly danced with teammates while slaying defenses. But maybe to reach the lofty status to which he aspires change does have to happen and childish things do have to be put away.

Following Cleveland’s loss to Boston in the playoffs last year it was said that maybe LeBron was destined to be my generation’s Julius Erving. One of the all-time greats, an individual lauded for their physical dominance over the game, loved by many, but never held in the same regard as the great champions of the sport. No one will ever call Jordan or Kobe fun loving; they were killers in their prime. And therein lies my personal struggle – sometimes what we want, isn’t always what’s best.

James’ legacy is and always was dependent on him developing an otherworldly killer instinct. Maybe it took the perceived role as the villain to fully manifest itself, but the once jovial phenom has grown up. I remain in awe of his physical abilities, talents that I’m still waiting to see reach their limitation, talents that will inevitably leave an indelible mark on the NBA when they are spent. They needed focus and they needed direction. LeBron seems to have found that, maybe it’s time my perceptions do the same.

Photo courtesy of Saschagrafie on Flickr

Hindsight being what it is, when the Miami Heat ultimately fall in the playoffs, a wave of columns (blog posts, Facebook status’, tweets) will materialize proclaiming the first super team a failure. We’ll hear about how the dynamic of two alpha dogs was doomed from the start. How the supporting cast was lacking in depth and talent. We’ll hear about how all those who predicted instant success for Miami Thrice were off their rocker from the beginning. Yet, the irony will be as soon as the first circus ends another will begin.

Of all the benefits that 24/7 sports coverage has provided, it has fostered a culture that is quickly moving towards the point of completely lacking any semblance of patience. Much like rabid fans live and die with every play, it seems as though teams and players write and rewrite their legacies on a week to week basis. Blake Griffin had barely established himself as a rising superstar when talk of him one day leaving the Clippers for another franchise began. The Lakers had some eyebrow raising loses prior to the All-Star break and suddenly their title hopes are collapsing. These examples pale in the face of what the Heat have wrought.

It wasn’t all that long ago we were content to watch teams and players develop over time. The ones destined for greatness were given leeway, the ends justified the means. When the Houston Rockets followed up their 1994 NBA Championship with a third place finish in their division it wasn’t as if anarchy had taken hold of southeast Texas. I was a kid then, but I followed the game intently enough to know that the sky wasn’t falling in Rockets land. There was a sense about things then – get to the playoffs, then the real games begin. It’s been the motto for the Spurs for the last decade and suffice it to say, they’ve done OK for themselves.

But the Heat? They’ve been anointed, torn down, left for dead, buried then dug up only to restart the process again from the beginning. Consider the following:

Miami’s Dwayne Wade Not Yet Holding Up His End Of The Bargain – Miami Herald, November 28^th

Miami Heat’s Power Trip Continues – Miami Herald, January 8th

More Misery: Miami Heat Loses Fifth Game In A Row – Miami Herald, March 8^th

It certainly doesn’t tell the whole story, but gives a timeline to the peaks and valleys of life in Miami this season.

With the Heat it’s an endless stream of extreme practices in perception. Lebron and Co. are either a juggernaut or a massive disappointment, there is no middle ground. They’ve run hot and cold to be sure, proving equally thrilling and frustrating when operating at optimal and subpar levels, but somewhere along the way the big picture has been lost when evaluating Miami.

History isn’t going to judge this team based on a nearly flawless month of December or meltdowns in March against Chicago and San Antonio. The Heat will be remembered as all potentially great teams are, by what they do in the playoffs. Few remember the way some of the Spurs championship teams meandered through the regular season, only that they were the last one standing when the season’s final buzzer sounded. The Celtics were close to being written off last season, the window having closed on their aging team, before pushing the Lakers to a decisive seventh game. The opposite is true for the back-to-back 60-win teams that Lebron led in Cleveland, years from now they will ultimately fade into obscurity as do so many teams that come up short.

No, there’s never been a situation like Miami’s before. The Heat entered the season with more hype than any team in NBA history, but that hype has manifested itself into a microscopic viewpoint of the franchise and its development. Every homestand is a test of cohesiveness, every road trip a postseason preview. The concept of judging a team on the merit of its final product has been lost in the blinding spotlight of South Beach.

Perhaps this is the future of the NBA. In a universe where players are seemingly constructing their own teams there isn’t room for patience and development – only results. How soon until we view the Knicks through the same lens of extremities? If the Nets buy themselves into contention will they be subjected to the same criteria?

There are certainly more questions than answers, an infinite number of divergent paths that ultimately lead us to one inevitable truth: the Heat may be perceived as operating at any number of extremes throughout the season, but they will be judged universally by what lies ahead.

Well.

That went well.

Before we get into the nuts and bolts, meat and potatoes, Riggs and Murtaugh of this game, we need to look at something really weird from this contest. In looking at the box score from HoopData (which gives you a nice breakdown of shot locations if you didn’t already know even though we’ve been pumping this site for a year now), you’ll notice something really strange.

Knowing that Vince Carter and Rashard Lewis were guarding Dwyane Wade and LeBron James and knowing that Joel Anthony was guarding Dwight Howard, how many shots at the rim would you expect for this game? For a little perspective, the Heat averaged 22.5 attempts at the rim in their first two games and the Orlando Magic attempted 21 shots at the rim in their blowout win over Washington on Thursday night. So knowing all of that, how many total attempts at the rim would you guess?

That’s right. The two teams combined for just 17 shots at the rim in this game. Miami had just 10 attempts at the rim. Orlando had seven. Seven!!! I was dumbfounded to find that in the box score this morning. I knew there were a lot of long jumpers taken in this game. Tom Haberstroh breaks it down wonderfully at the Heat Index. It’s astounding to me that these two teams who have a reputation for attacking the rim so ferociously already would settle for lower percentage shots all game long (cue LeBron critics shouting about his shot selection).

But that’s not really the whole story of this game. The Miami Heat is a second half team. Even though they played well in the first half offensively, they have now shown in three straight games that they come out of halftime with a defensive intensity that not many teams will be able to match. The Boston Celtics had enough of a cushion to withstand it in the first game. The Philadelphia 76ers were simply overmatched in the second game. And the Orlando Magic wilted in this third game.

The first half was disjointed but pretty good. Dwight Howard showed off a weird array of jumpers and running hooks that he efficiently showed in the preseason. LeBron James was settling for long 2-point shots instead of ferociously trying to tear the rim down whenever he could (which is a trend when he plays against Dwight). Either team will settle for that happening all game long because that’s what you want them to take. But for the most part both teams exchanged blows in the first 24 minutes of this game.

Then the second half happened and the Miami Heat clamped down on the Magic. Their perimeter defense is scary good. Think about the fact they’ve only been playing together for three games and it looks this good in the key stretches of games. What’s it going to look like in February? May? June? I know their interior is perceived as weak but it’s not really about having a Dwight Howard or Andrew Bogut in the middle for them. They don’t need it because the rest of the defense appears to be so good. Granted, they lucked out on a lot of missed 3s by the Magic (4/24). It doesn’t change the fact that the Magic scored just 25 points in the second half while shooting 19% from the field and 12.5% from 3-point range.

The perimeter defense just swarms the entire time and they end up running the shot clock down for the other team because of it. They did this in the second half against Orlando. The double teams were fast and aggressive. The rotations were even faster and helped them recover incredibly fast. The defense won’t be like this every night. Sometimes it will be worse. But sometimes it might also be better when they get more continuity with each other. This was an impressive win (maybe not a statement making win) any way you look at it.

Let’s Talk About Role Players

Zyndrunas Ilgauskas was fantastic in this game. He didn’t dominate Dwight Howard or hit a bunch of key jumpers. He just did his job of being big and getting in the way of the things going on inside. 8 points on 10 shots looks bad and frankly, it is. But he had five offensive rebounds in the game and neutralized Orlando inside when he was on the court.

In three games so far this year, Eddie House and James Jones have combined to hit 16 of their 30 3-point attempts. Imagine this constant outside attack when Mike Miller comes back to the team and gets into a rhythm. What do you do? How do you guard them? Does it really matter they don’t have an All-Star caliber center?

Udonis Haslem has 22 rebounds against the Celtics and Magic this season. Granted, one of those games ended up being a loss but he’s going to be as important as any role player on this team. He’s always been willing to sacrifice his personal adulation for hard work and everything that will benefit the team. We need to get him onto a serious 6th Man of the Year award watch.

Oh, Before I Forget … This Happened

Why LeBron James is going all Kristen Stewart on us, I don’t really know. I’m not quite sure if this is a tribute to True Blood, Twilight, or if he just wants to turn the term “fangbanger” into one of his signature dunks. Regardless, this just seems dangerous and irresponsible. You’re just asking to impale your own lip or get caught in Dwyane Wade’s cheek when you do one of those super cool flying hip checks to celebrate a big shot.

The Heat are a .500 team! The Heat are a .500 team!

This is incredible.

The Miami Heat were done as of about 2 quarters into this game. They were struggling against the lowly but athletically stupendous Philadelphia 76ers. Keep in mind they were up eight points at halftime.

The problem with this Heat team is they’re still getting used to each other. Yes, that’s an easy excuse to make but it doesn’t make it wrong. You can tell in the way they’re running the offense. Defensively, I don’t believe it to be an excuse because that’s just a matter of awareness and effort. But offensively, there is a certain timing and understanding amongst all the players (outside of Haslem, Wade and Arroyo who play well off of knowing each other’s games) that is lacking.

Does that mean when they get this timing and understanding down they’ll run through the entire league and manage to win three championships in two seasons, cure cancer, defeat the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and put out a folk album that makes The Beatles’ White Album look like a Ricky Martin interpretive dance cover band’s mixtape?

No, not necessarily.

It just means we won’t see them be so careless with the ball and have LeBron James turning the ball over enough times to make Darren Collison blush. Or maybe they will still turn the ball over from trying to do too much. Look at the Celtics. They have great chemistry together and still turn the ball over an obscene amount of times.

The things I noticed about this Heat team is when the defense is clicking, they’re pretty special to watch. In the second half of the loss to the Celtics, they locked down defensively and made enough runs to make this game extremely interesting. In the third quarter of the win against the 76ers, the clamps were applied and the Sixers had nothing they could do about it. Some of that had to do with a young point guard like Jrue Holiday still feeling his away around a good perimeter defensive unit.

In the ultimately decisive third quarter, Philly had more turnovers (six) than made baskets (four). Elton Brand scored three of those buckets and two of them were inside. The rest of the Sixers offense got chased all around the perimeter and forced into poor decisions.

Hey, let’s talk about the role players for a minute.

James Jones can fill in for Mike Miller. Maybe you don’t want him to do that when it’s playoff time and you need a better playmaker in case the defense chases him off that 3-point shot. But as of right now, James Jones can get hot and will always have open spaces to shoot. He knocked down six 3-pointers in this game and was sort of ridiculously hot all game. When the Sixers made a couple of runs, he answered with 3s, especially in the second quarter.

Carlos Arroyo isn’t really that good but he had a nice steady hand in this game. He’s going to get abused by the Rondos of the world but so do most point guards. Put him against a young guy like Holiday and the talent discrepancy is diminished because of a little veteran savvy.

Udonis Haslem should not guard athletic 3s posing as terrifyingly athletic 4s. Thaddeus Young abused Haslem every time he had to guard him. Young was simply too quick for Udonis and blew by him whenever he wanted. In the later rounds of the playoffs, you’ll see more and more matchups with Haslem guarding more traditional 4s but if you can stretch out the offense a bit (I’m looking at you, Orlando) then you might be able to expose that part of Halsem’s game.

Key Stat of the Game

Dwyane Wade had 12 shot attempts at the rim. 12 is not an absurd number by any means but it was a lot better than what we saw against the Celtics when he had seven attempts and the majority of them were not all that aggressive and composed. It’s probably easier when you don’t have the Celtics help line to contend with and Wade took full advantage of Spencer Hawes and Elton Brand being the stopgaps.

Panic. Shock. Awe. Failure. Need to go 72-9 now.

The Miami Heat lost a game – their first game. It was an eight-point dismantling that was actually a three-point game with 50 seconds left.

It’s pretty much a lost cause. Well, okay. It’s not a lost cause. But it’s an embarrassing loss that shows the utter stupidity and ridiculousness of The Decision.

Well, okay. It’s not quite that dramatic. But they only scored 30 points in their first 24 minutes of the season. That was pretty bad.

The Miami Heat are down to 0-1 on the season after being smothered by some Celtics defense before getting it together a little bit only to prove none of them are winners and they simply can’t do it on their own or as a collective unit at the end of games or something.

I don’t really know what you take from this game other than the Celtics defense looks freaking good.

Did the Miami Heat have opening night jitters? Nine points in the first quarter and just 30 points at halftime thanks to some 26.8% shooting from the field certainly say so. At the same time, you have to attribute the Celtics defensive cohesiveness for turning the Heat into a jump shooting team. The Miami Heat had just 28 points in the paint. That’s 14 baskets in the paint and considering they only made 27 shots in the game, it shows just how little the Heat were able to do on the perimeter.

The Miami heat took 50 jumpers (out of 74 total field goal attempts) in this game and made just 13 of them. The Celtics took just 33 jumpers (out of 69 total field goal attempts). For the most part, the Celtics were attacking inside and finding ways to get guys open shots. Rajon Rondo played the role of willing playmaker while dissecting the Heat defense as if it was were a fetal pig in biology class (had to do that once in high school. It was weird). The Heat had Carlos Arroyo and Eddie House run the point whenever LeBron wasn’t dribbling around the perimeter.

It doesn’t mean the Heat are a flawed team by any means. One game (especially the first game together) doesn’t kill this experiment or prove the naysayers to be correct. It’s just as easy to say this team can’t play together as it is to proclaim they simply need more than three preseason minutes together to get any sense of cohesion.

As bad as the first half looked for the Miami Heat, they sort of pulled it together in the second half and had a chance to tie the game in the fourth quarter if they could make one stop. Instead, they gave up a huge 3-pointer to Ray Allen with 49 seconds left in the game. The Heat erased a second half deficit like many Celtics opponents did last season. But when it counted, they continued to give up wide-open looks from 3-point range that the Celtics knocked down in a clutch manner.

Overall, there wasn’t a huge advantage for either team in most aspects of the game. Rondo had more assists (17) than the entire Miami team (15) and the Celtics dominated the points in the paint. And that might have been the only difference between an eight-point loss in Boston and pulling out a win in their first real game together. The Celtics had a negligible advantage on the boards, were worse in turnovers and free throw shooting, and allowed the Heat to stay relatively in the game with a lot of turnovers in the first half.

The problem was the Celtics brought a championship level defense to the party and the Heat’s second best player in this game ended up being a tie between Udonis Haslem and Eddie House.

Let that marinate until Game 2 for Miami.

Post Game Tweets!

@KingJames – “Rome wasn’t built in a Day! Work in progress. On to the next one”

@Dwadeofficial – “Not a great 1 but its 1 of 82..felt good 2 finally play a game this season. Now ill work on my rhythm and chemistry with the guys..”

@chrisbosh – “The wait is finally over. Opening night is finally here and I’m more than ready!”

Okay, that last tweet from Bosh before the game. I guess he wasn’t in the mood to tweet.