Talking Heat Fans Off The Ledge After Loss To Chicago

I’m going to attempt to calm down Heat fans and ask them to avoid overreacting to what was witnessed last night in Chicago. If we learned anything from last season it’s that trying to use regular season game results as a barometer for what will happen in the playoffs was not all that accurate. There were a number of anomalies in yesterday’s game that I wasn’t even frustrated a bit when the game ended.

Lets look at some of the surprising stats that were recorded during the game yesterday. The man LeBron James made famous by jumping clear over him for a dunk in the last meeting versus Chicago , John Lucas, had maybe the most efficient shooting game of his career going 9-12 from the field for 24 points. Chicago also hit 10 of 19 threes which put them at 52% from beyond the three point line for the game. On average this season, the Bulls make their threes at a 38% clip. If there is one formula to make games tough for the Heat, it involves shooting and making a lot of threes because the Heat make it harder than anyone else in the league to get to the rim. This is why the likes of Orlando and any other team that shoots a high number of threes can normally have success against Miami although it isn’t always certain to work versus Miami.

Some other numbers from the Heat side yesterday that were sure to get people upset came from Bosh and the rest of the team outside of Wade and LeBron. Bosh had flashbacks to his 1-18 shooting night last year in Chicago by going 3-15 yesterday with only 3 rebounds. LeBron and Wade went 30 for 51 from the floor while the rest of the team 8-34. Now one thing I won’t over look in this game is Chicago’s ability to play defense. It’s one of the reasons they’ve been able to withstand the absence of Derrick Rose in games throughout the season. Rose makes the Bulls better because he makes their offense more efficient but their defense is just as stifling, if not more, when he’s off the court. Even with that said, Miami still managed to get over 100 points yesterday with some extremely lackluster shooting for Bosh and company. Giving up more than 100 points to a Rose-less Bulls isn’t exactly something you want to see though. Miami will need to get bigger on the boards when they play Chicago as that is one clear advantage they will always have over Miami in how the teams are currently structured.

All I ask of the Heat fan is to not get so out of whack after one regular season game no matter how disappointing it was. We’ve seen this play out last year, Miami loses games to Chicago and Boston in spectacular fashion just to defeat both in five games. I’m not saying to taken teams like Chicago lightly, because you shouldn’t. I’m just asking to have a bit more faith and perspective in the team you see play and root for on a nightly basis. Bad games are bound to happen, it’s just how it works in the NBA regular season especially this year. Sometimes you just got to chalk it up as one of those and keep moving forward. I’ll leave you with my favorite response that I use to my friends when they trying to over analyze and overreact Heat regular season games, “Wake me up when the playoffs start.”