Pulse of the NBA
(SportsNetwork.com) – The Miami Heat continued their trend of following up a playoff loss with a win, and in doing so, tied their series with the Indiana Pacers at 1-1 Tuesday night after rallying in the fourth quarter for an 87-83 victory.
The game marked the 11th straight time the Heat have won in the playoffs after losing the previous one, but it wasn’t in the convincing fashion of many of the games we’ve seen in the past.
In last year’s Eastern Conference finals against the Pacers, the Heat had three straight double-digit wins following a loss, including a 23-point blowout in the seventh and deciding game. And after losing the opener of the NBA Finals against the San Antonio Spurs, the Heat won Game 2 by 19 points.
But in Game 2 on Tuesday, they were trailing the Pacers by four points with 7:18 left in the fourth quarter before LeBron James and Dwyane Wade took over.
James scored nine straight points to put the Heat up by three with 3:47 left, and Wade then put the game out of reach by hitting four straight shots and scoring Miami’s next eight points.
The Heat’s two stars scored 22 of their team’s 25 fourth-quarter points and chipped in four assists as Miami avoided falling into a 2-0 playoff hole for the first time since the first round of the 2010 playoffs.
“That’s why they’re the hundred million dollar guys,” teammate Norris Cole said. “They’re unstoppable. They make the game easy for everyone else when they’re in attack mode.”
The two-time defending champs were obviously more dialed-in defensively in Game 2 after giving up 107 points in the series opener, but the marked improvement also had a lot to do with Heat coach Erik Spoelstra making the obvious adjustment to playing bigger for most of the game.
Udonis Haslem was in the starting lineup in place of Shane Battier, who played just eight minutes in Game 2, and, even more importantly, Spoelstra played his third-best frontcourt player, Chris Andersen, 29 minutes.
The Birdman responded with solid post defense against Roy Hibbert and was a force off the boards with 12 rebounds. He and Haslem combined for 10 points and 15 rebounds in 48 minutes, while Hibbert had 12 points and 13 rebounds in 41 minutes.
I’m sure the Heat would be very happy to get that kind of production from Anderson and Haslem going forward in this series.
As for the Pacers, they were left with the frustration of coming very close to taking a 2-0 lead and maintaining home-court advantage.
“We were winning the whole night,” guard George Hill said. “We controlled the whole game until the last couple minutes.”
The Pacers still have to feel a lot better about themselves and be a lot more confident than they were following some of the disastrous performances they’ve had in these playoffs.
They almost got Game 2 despite getting very bad games from their two best players, Paul George and David West.
George was 4-of-16 from the field and scored 14 points, while West was 5- for-16 and had just 10 points.
The Pacers’ bench was also really bad, and they’ll need to be more productive and allow coach Frank Vogel to give his starters more of a blow, as they appeared to run out of steam down the stretch.
With the exception of West, who was saddled with foul problems, all of Indiana’s starter played at least 40 minutes.
So what should we expect the rest of the way in these Eastern Conference finals?
Well, the Heat don’t seem to be playing at quite the same level they were at during their first two title runs, and they had to go seven games both times in the conference championship before winning the title, so it won’t be easy from here.
As for the Pacers, they certainly aren’t intimidated by the Heat and they do look better in these first two games than they did in struggling to beat the Atlanta Hawks and Washington Wizards, but the bottom line is the Heat now have home-court advantage as well as LeBron, so Miami should be able to keep alive its hopes for a three-peat.
Categorized in: NBA
Tags: Heat, Miami, Miami Heat