UPDATE: From Sebastian Pruiti, NBA Playbook: Late against the Los Angeles Lakers, the Miami Heat decided to put the basketball in Dwyane Wade’s hands, letting him be the one who would create on the offensive end. One way the Heat seemed to let Wade create was making him the ball handler in pick and roll sets. Over the course of the final five minutes, the Heat ran the pick and roll with Wade as the ball handler four different times (these four possessions represented all of Wade’s 4th quarter PNR Ball Handler possessions)…According to Synergy Sport Technology, Dwyane Wade goes away from the screen in pick and roll sets 25.4% of the time, which is 3rd most in the entire NBA (Behind Derrick Rose and Earl Boykins). Even more, out of the 3 pick and roll sets in the final 5 minutes (before the final one with one minute left), Wade went away from the screen 2 times, scoring both times:
From Dave McMenamin, ESPNLA: As the clock ticked toward midnight Thursday evening, long after players from both teams had filed out of American Airlines Arena following the Miami Heat’s 94-88 win over the Los Angeles Lakers, Kobe Bryant emerged from the visitors locker room and headed back to the court. It was time for Kobe doin’ work, after doin’ work. “I just wanted to work on some things,” Bryant told a pack of reporters who waited and watched his nearly hourlong workout. “I just wanted to work on my game.” In a surreal scene that encapsulated Bryant’s reputation as being wholly dedicated to the game, Bryant completed a series of extensive shooting drills, working in shots off the dribble along with catch-and-shoot 3-pointers and free throws.
From Stephen A. Smith, ESPNLA: In the locker room, black towel draped over his shoulders and chest, his knees, feet and ankles swallowed in ice, it was easy to decipher Kobe Bryant’s mood. Back out on the floor, long after the game had ended, firing shots from all over the floor, there was no doubt about Bryant’s resolve. Nor about his disappointment. His Los Angeles Lakers, riding an eight-game winning streak, having elevated their game and their prowess by riding the shoulders of big men Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol the past two weeks, picked a fine time to come up as miniature as they had appeared entering the All-Star break. When it counted, against a star-studded cast rendered helpless against size, length and heart all season, neither Lakers big man showed up, especially on defense.
From Brian Windhorst, Heat Index: In retrospect, LeBron James wished he’d missed the last insurance free throw in the Miami Heat’s biggest win of the season. “It means we still can’t win games by five points or less,” James said. “We still can’t crack that.” It’s true, the Heat beat the Los Angeles Lakers by six points, 94-88, on Thursday night. That nagging record in those five-point games still stands at 5-13. James’ joke wasn’t just a jab at the scrutiny the Heat have been under recently, it was mostly an expression of relief. That was the overwhelming reaction after they outdueled the Lakers at a clear flash point in the Heat’s season. Getting any win over any team would have eased the burden Miami has been carrying for the past two weeks. Beating the two-time defending champs while they were red-hot and doing it by outplaying them in the stretch run, though, was like hitting a momentum jackpot.
From Bill Simmons, ESPN.com: Fast-forward 23 years. I still hate the Lakers. I don’t hate the MoHeatos, but there’s nothing more perversely fun than watching them blow games after how last summer was handled. Thursday night, I realized that Lakers-Heat games turn me into a bizarro version of the mother from “The Good Son.” In other words, I don’t know which kid to drop faster. To be honest, I assumed the Heat would make the decision easy by caving like they always do. They were closing in on the dreaded Point of No Return: five straight losses, some finger pointing, some crying, som- … wait, players cried? Yup. Players cried. Or so the coach said. With the Lakers coming to town, with a TNT audience watching, with Kobe looking to avenge a Christmas Day shellacking, with Bosh slowly turning into Private Pyle, with Miami’s crunch-time woes worsening to the point that I kept waiting for them to sign Karl Malone … it just seemed like the perfect time to break out a running diary.
From C. A. Clark, Silver Screen and Roll: If you were to tell me two weeks ago that the Los Angeles Lakers and the Miami Heat would play a hotly contested game, with a playoff atmosphere, and the game would be decided solely on the basis of who wanted it more, I would have just about bet the house on the Lakers winning the game. But circumstances change, and those circumstances (Miami on a 5-game losing streak, the Lakers on an 8-game winning streak) dictated that it was Miami that entered this game as the team desperate to taste victory. And so they did, out-crunching the Lakers and pulling out a 94-88 win that will stem the tide of all the panic press that has descended on South Florida. This was not what you would call a pretty game. Ironically, the 1.13 points per possession posted by the Heat looks fantastic, and the 1.06 PPP posted by L.A. is OK, too, but both of these numbers were driven by an insane level of offensive rebounding.
From Kevin Ding, OC Register: It was the night for the Miami Heat to show it could play with the big boys. And the Lakers weren’t quite big enough at the end. The slumping Heat rallied in the second half to beat the Lakers, 94-88, on Thursday night. It was not just a triumph of Miami’s speed over the Lakers’ size, as in the team’s first matchup on Christmas. This time, the Heat produced 46 points in the paint to the Lakers’ 30 to end the Lakers’ eight-game winning streak. “I hope to see them again sometime this year,” Lakers coach Phil Jackson said. The Lakers failed to execute down the stretch, when Miami coach Erik Spoelstra exploited them repeatedly with the same alignment of LeBron James as a decoy for Dwayne Wade to attack.
From Mike Bresnahan, LA Times: Andrew Bynum finally had a bad night. In a sign of how far the Lakers’ center had progressed, it was difficult to call 13 points and 12 rebounds a bad experience, but he insisted on it. “It took me a while to get going today. I don’t really know why,” Bynum said after the Lakers’ 94-88 loss Thursday to the Miami Heat. “I was roaming. I just wasn’t being quite as active. I’ll watch the tape a little bit.” Bynum saw his rebounding spree (50 in the previous three games) ease up a bit after he took only one before halftime. It was a main talking point of a fairly even first half: Bynum had only one rebound in almost 16 minutes? Turns out he sustained a minor injury, landing on the foot of a Heat player in the second quarter and saying he tweaked his right ankle.
From Kurt Helin, Pro Basketball Talk: Here is what you need to know about what Thursday night meant to the Lakers, and why Kobe Bryant has pushed his teams to two consecutive titles. Thirty minutes after the Heat defeated the Lakers 94-88 in a game where Kobe’s shot was off after the first quarter (8-21 overall after starting 4-4) and his shot selection down the stretch was terrible, he was back on the court and started shooting. In an empty AmericanAirlines Arena after a tough game Kobe was putting himself through a workout and trying to fix his jumper. He was out there for an extended period just trying to fix what went wrong. In the end, both the Lakers and the Heat may be better because of what happened Thursday night.
Chris D says
Despite last night’s disappointing end, the glass is half full in my humble opinion. In spite of the fact that the Lakers’ defense in the last four minutes was lacking and the fact that it seemed they were getting paid not to rebound, that they manged to keep it close all night (even leading coming to the 4th) shows how easily they could have won despite their lackluster execution. Had they grabbed a rebound here and there, and hedged on the P&R occasionally, the streak would still be alive. Artest and Kobe actually deserve a ton of credit for not stopping, but containing Wade and James. With all due respect to the Heat, there is no reason that Mario Chalmers, Mike Miller, Erick Dampier and Zydrunas Ilgauskas should out-perform Steve Blake, Matt Barnes, Shannon Brown and Lamar Odom. To me, the bench production is key to our losing the game and the statistics more than reflect that.
The starters actually did okay to the extend that they performed, but Gasol seemed tentative all night of D, seemingly scared of challenging Bosh and other cutters to the rim. To be kind to Miami, they played well and wanted the game more but the game would have been won if the Lakers scored more than 15 points in the 3rd. In a lot of ways, I was reminded of Game 4 of the 2010 Finals, especially at one point when Lamar made an and-1 and it seemed like the game was slowly slipping away from the C’s. But then LA took their foot off the gas and let Boston back into it in the 4th.
In short, that’s pretty much what happened, but hey, that’s in the past. We ought to be more focused on the next game which actually is more meaningful because we very well could face Dallas at some point in May. As I previously alluded to in a comment yesterday, we can win the title even if we finish 3rd but I sure would love to have HCA in the first two rounds. If we can win at Dallas tomorrow, we have a more than likely shot at catching them. If not, well, we’re back to where we were last night
Aaron says
I’m interested to see how the Lakers play against an inferior Mavs team tomorrow. The Miami loss is a recipe for a losing streak, it can really take the air out of the Lakers sails. A loss like that can knock the confidence out a Lakers team that plays it’s best when it knows and not just think it’s the most talented team in all the land.
Igor Avidon says
From Simmons’ game diary:
“6:11 — You wouldn’t know this unless you lived in Los Angeles or were a deranged NBA fan, but the Lakers’ bench has quietly fallen apart: Steve Blake went into a shooting funk, Shannon Brown tailed off, Matt Barnes can’t stay healthy … I can’t believe I’m saying this, but they might actually miss Sasha Vujacic and his hairnet. I’d be much more biting about this if my own team didn’t have Carlos Arroyo, Sasha Pavlovic and Troy Murphy … actually, let’s move on. Fast.”
Every joke has a grain of joke in it.
kwame a. says
What exactly makes Dallas “inferior”?
Jane says
Ric Bucher’s quote is a reasonable commentary on the MIA loss and going forward:
“They [Lakers] were playing a desperate Miami team on its home floor. They should’ve been 90-all if Artest makes the putback or goaltending is called. Gasol didn’t show up. Heat got a couple of fastbreaks at the perfectly wrong time. I don’t take from that win that Miami has solved their problems or that the Lakers are any better or worse than I’ve thought they were all season long. How much Kobe has left to make game-winning shots against the absolute best and the Lakers’ collective energy is going to determine whether they win another ring. No way to gauge where exactly those things are now. But there are reasons, certainly, to have questions. I just don’t see the Spurs having the answers, regardless of their record. Not against the Lakers, anyway.”
Adam says
Aaron, that’s where you are wrong (sorry for making you my human pinata – I’m just a realist). The entire philosophy of this Lakers’ team, as it is w/ all Phil Jackson teams, is a focus on the big picture. It’s about team development and execution. They know there are aspects of the game last night that were not executed as well as they should have been, thus resulting in a loss. They will work on these things. If they lose tomorrow, it will not be because of a hangover or a loss of self-believe. It will be because the same bad habits that cropped up last night cropped up again. Or different bad habits they’ve shown this year raring their ugly heads.
Lamar said it himself after the game, “we are not a team that gets too high, too low. What we’re focused on is getting better as a unit. We don’t care about any other team, only us.” Of course I’m paraphrasing, but you get the idea..
Every time the Lakers take the floor, they feel like the superior team. Every time. B2B titles can do that for a group. it’s the exact reason we see nights where the effort isn’t there, because everyone on the team believes so strongly in his teammates that somebody else will just pull out the win for them. Mental weakness is not a soft spot with this Lakers team, but of course, it is with your Superfriends down in Cryami.
Adam says
#5 – thanks for that Bucher quote, I think it’s pretty accurate. The Heat said post game that they were basically “all-in” from a morale standpoint on this game. That’s really what makes the loss so damn frustrating. We could have delivered a knock out blow to this team, but didn’t take advantage. And you know Kobe knows this, no small part of his post game workout. As much as he wanted to tune his jumper, I think he was out there more as a stress release (esp the weights). He knew what this loss would do to the psyches of Miami, too bad we couldn’t do the Eastern conference a big favor. In the end, it may actually prove to work in our favor..if they gain momentum, they can at least make the road tougher for whoever we will *hopefully* face in the finals.
kwame a. says
Henry’s sifting through twitter messages to find disparaging Kobe remarks smacks on the side of desperation. We know you do not like his shot selection. Do we need to read about it after every Laker game?
BlizzardOfOz says
It’s always amusing to see the Kobe haters let their hate slip without even knowing it. I’m talking about people (Hollinger) saying “it’s all for show” about Kobe’s post-game shootaround. Does it really not occur to them there’s a slight difference between shooting around on a practice court, and on the stage where you might be playing for the highest stakes 2 months from now? You’re better than that Hollinger …
Aaron says
4,
What makes Dallas inferior to the Lakers is their roster. They are a nice team… But next to the Lakers only the Heat have the kind of fire power to contend with LA in a 7 game series. I don’t see anyone in the west as a threat… And out East only the Heat scare me as I’ve said many times. Domt get me wrong… I think the Celtics ar very good, I just don’t think they have the talent to beat us. Of course if Bynum is less than 100% like last year we will be looking at another 7 game series.
Igor Avidon says
@kwame – amen. Abbott is mercilessly beating a dead horse, and it’s getting ridiculous. Don’t his editors read that crap? I’m pretty sure even Kobe haters are tired of reading the same old thing over and over.