No one wins all the time, not even the Miami Heat. Here’s a look at one of those times, a time that will live in infamy forever among Miami Heat fans.
For me, the Miami Heat’s 2011 NBA finals will always be on my mind. They’re something that I will never get over and even in rewatching it over the past week, it still doesn’t make sense to me that the Miami Heat lost in the Finals to Dirk Nowitzki. Dirk and if we are being honest, a bunch of role players.
Let’s be clear here, this isn’t an attempt to take anything away from Nowitzki, who’s probably the greatest player from abroad to ever play the game in the NBA. Furthermore, he had an amazing performance and gave the Miami Heat headaches throughout the entire series. It was the other guys’ performances though, some of whom never had another meaningful moment again in the NBA after that particular NBA Finals, that really got to me.
For example, random Miami Heat killers that series were J.J Barea, DeShawn Stevenson, and Brian Cardinal. After the Finals, Barea signed with the Minnesota Timberwolves for 4 years and $19 million dollars, but still hasn’t done much since then.
Stevenson signed with the New Jersey Nets, before retiring shortly after. Brian Cardinal played for just one more NBA season afterward.
After reading those names, who would have thought they would have given the Big 3 Miami Heat problems. While rewatching the Finals, I still had those butterflies and deep down, I still thought Miami had a chance during the series and this is even knowing what the results were to be.
I only became angrier during the rewatch, as there were so many things that should have been fixed in real-time. For example, having Joel Anthony out there for long stretches didn’t make any sense and especially when considering that he was tasked with trying to guard Nowitzki over stretches. This was only beat out by the fact that he rarely received help either.
In reality, Anthony didn’t do a terrible job guarding Nowitzki but he really struggled offensively, leaving Miami as if they were playing four on five when he was on the court. In hindsight as well, Lebron James should have been at the four a lot more, with Mike Miller starting.
We know now that Miller was dealing with a left shoulder injury at the time but I think it would have been the move to make there, especially when thinking from an offensive perspective. It would have given them a ton more floor spacing.
Another adjustment that should have happened was the benching of Mike Bibby. Bibby was terrible other than in game two. For the most part, he was a negative defender and could barely bring the ball upcourt half the time. At that stage in Bibby’s career, he was just washed up and about two steps behind on every occasion.
Mario Chalmers should have started game four, as his defense had been great up until that point while he did a really nice job of spacing the floor, although we also wish he would have shot the three-ball a bit more.
Miami should have also gotten to more pick and rolls with Dwyane Wade and whoever Nowitzki was guarding at that time. There were countless times where Nowitzki was out of position defensively and he always had trouble going side to side, which were opportunities left out there.