Ok, I’ll be honest: I’m scared. Not really scared like in “I Am Legend” when Will Smith is looking for his dog in the building filled with vampires and everyone thinks he and his dog are about to die. Just kind of scared, like in “Jaws” when you hear the music playing and you know something is going to happen but are not sure what it is yet or how bad it will be.
This is how I feel about the Miami Heat. The team is beginning to scare me. It started its season 9-8 with a three-game losing streak thrown in there, and the whole world seemed ready to hound LeBron James for making a terrible decision with a team that had no way of pulling itself together for a championship run.
I’ll admit, I was on that bandwagon of people laughing at Jeff Van Gundy’s statement that the Heat could beat the standing record of 72 wins, set by Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls back in the 1995-96 season. While the chances of the Heat beating this record are still not very good, if it continues its current streak of winning 19 out of 20 games, it could come very close to challenging it.
Yes, this current win streak has occurred during a streak of games against not-very-good teams, but of the 19 wins, four of them have been double-digit wins over the Los Angeles Lakers, Utah Jazz, New Orleans Hornets and New York Knicks. In fact, the convincing statistic in all of this is that the Heat won those 19 games by an average of 13.6 point each, a solid margin of victory. The Heat has been feasting on its opponents, standing first in the league in point differential, at plus 9.6, and second in the league in team defense, giving up only 92 points per game.
As the statistics clearly show, LeBron and Dwyane Wade have looked quite good lately when playing together. It seems like the two have finally figured out how to run and play offense together. In the last 15 games, Wade is averaging 32 points, seven rebounds and 3.8 assists, while LeBron has averaged 27 points, 7.9 rebounds and 7.9 assists. If those kind of numbers keep up, both players may have to be in the MVP discussion. They shared the Eastern Conference Player of the Month Award in December; could they share the MVP award at the end of the season?
Admittedly the fluidity is not perfect yet, but LeBron, Wade and the rest of the Miami Heat have shown that they have a killer instinct and know how to win games against good teams, like my Lakers. Originally, I was planning for this column to be about how I am scared that the Lakers may face the Heat in the finals, where the Heat will have home-court advantage, knowledge that they can beat the Lakers, and momentum from a good regular season and a solid playoff run.
As of right now, though, my Lakers are not showing any intensity and are definitely not in the mindset they need to be in to get to the finals, let alone win a third straight title. I can understand the double-digit loss to the Heat: Fine, they wanted that regular-season game more than we did, and we will get them in the playoffs. But double-digit losses to the Milwaukee Bucks, Memphis Grizzlies and San Antonio Spurs? Good teams should not lose by a combined 38 points to the Bucks or the Grizzlies. And the Spurs game represented possible playoff implications. Right now the Spurs have the best record in the Western Conference. I thought that the Lakers would come out ready to reassert themselves as the team to beat in the West. Did not happen.
Now I know that Zen master Phil Jackson is the best at getting his team prepared for the playoffs, and every now and then it means dropping regular season games while looking at the bigger picture, but does it really mean a 19-point loss to the Grizzlies at home in front of a booing crowd? The Lakers need to figure out their offense soon, or else they could be looking at giving up home-court advantage for a very large portion of the playoffs.
So I’m expecting more of the same from the Heat: more “Jaws” music and more gobbling up teams with a hunger for the playoffs and a chance to really prove themselves. If the analogy holds, though, I’m hoping the Lakers will be able to pull it together in time to pull a Chief Brody on the Heat’s shark, ending its reign of terror. This year, anyways.
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