Two Teams

There is one thought on my mind at the beginning of every Heat game: Which team will come out tonight? It seems like an absurd question, but this past week was a perfect example of how inconsistent Miami can be and how different they play each game. 

After a terrific week that started with a win against Orlando, following wins against Atlanta and Washington, we had disappointing back to back losses against Indiana and Dallas. I'm not upset about the losses, as we have not won a game at Conseco Field House for many years and Dallas played probably their best game of the season on Saturday. What upsets me is that the attitude for those games, the way the games started, it was almost obvious that we were not going to win. Both games were flat, and Miami seems to lack that spark that we had a couple years ago when we would come back and win games that seemed impossible to win. 

So what is the problem? How do we fix this? I think the Heat need to come out like every game is a Playoff game from now on. Even in previous games where we won, we always seem to be trailing at the beginning, or getting into stressful situations after having the game under control. The inconsistency happens in between games, but also many times during one same game. 

The danger of this is that on one end we show how good we can be by beating teams like Orlando, Los Angeles and Cleveland, but the inconsistency makes almost impossible for us to beat them 4 times in a 7 game series. 

It's hard to become more consistent when most of your key players are so young. Cook has had a couple of rough shooting nights, and now he is out with a knee injury that apparently is not serious. He could be back as early as later this week. Chalmers had a good game against Dallas, but the game before played only 13 minutes because of foul trouble. His jump shot is also very inconsistent, but hopefully it will get better as the season goes on. Beasley is playing very well, but I think Coach Spo is still not giving him enough minutes and freedom on the court. 

Which takes me to the next issue. Why is Yakouba Diawara starting instead of Michael Beasley? I have no problems against 'Kouba' and he has proven to be very good defending, but when we have Shawn Marion out, who else will bring offense other than Dwyane Wade? Let's be honest, Diawara is not a starter in the NBA, and as much as we were able to play well as a team during previous games with Shawn Marion injured, Diawara's contribution was not what helped us with those games. He has had a couple of good performances off the bench, but nothing better than what James Jones or Mark Blount can have on a good night. 

So here we start a new week of Miami Heat basketball with the Clippers. I hope the team comes back to playing solid defense and gains confidence for two difficult and very important games against Detroit and Philadelphia, which are key in our hunt for the 4th seed in the Eastern Conference. Keyword for the week: Consistency.

What's your opinion? Please discuss in the comments section below! 

Comments

[Jason Prince]

I hope a good team comes out to play tomorrow... we have only beaten the clippers in more than a week, its painful.