| Movin’ On Up the Eastside Authored by Mike Leffman - May 6, 2005 - 5:50 pm
Everything Miami wanted and expected to happen so far in the playoffs has done so. A sweep; rest for Shaquille O’Neal’s hurt thighs; more fodder (Chicago or Washington) in the next round. Not to mention a different player stepped up in the first three games to ease the pressure off O’Neil and Dwyane Wade.
Cynics would say both the Heat and Detroit Pistons might be shell-shocked in the second round by less-talented teams that have more momentum since they struggled to win their series in six, possibly seven games. But look at the Wizards who were shell-shocked in Chicago by
dropping the first two games and have come back to show their true colors.
In best-of-seven series more often than not the better team comes back to win. One thing to remember is those same cynics said the Boston Red Sox could never come back from a 0-3
deficit to take the New York Yankees last year. They did.
With no serious contenders like in past playoff years (Phil Jackson’s Bulls and Lakers and Detroit’s Bad Boys) it is entirely conceivable that a team this year could come back from a 0-3 deficit. Now not every team still in the playoffs are capable of doing that. Boston or Indiana couldn’t do that. In my mind, the two weakest teams left since offense is difficult for both and their defenses could never stop the Heat. Fortunately one will be gone by this weekend.
Phoenix, Detroit, Seattle, San Antonio, Dallas and Miami all will have to be beaten until submission if the team playing them wants to advance (i.e. being up 3-0 will mean nothing). Any of those six teams could pull a “Red Sox” and create history. Makes for good TV watching.
-Chicago or Washington as Miami’s next opponent? It won’t really matter. The two are playing very similar styles that won’t challenge the Heat much. Lots of offense and little defense. Miami can literally run them over. Also the Bulls and Wizards each have one player stepping up (Gilbert Arenas for Washington and Kirk Hinrich for Chicago) but when a team like Miami has former duds like Christian Laettner, Keyon Dooling and Alonzo Mourning playing solid off the bench then what else could Washington or Chicago throw at the Heat? The Wizards suspended Kwame Brown for the rest of the playoffs leaving Brendan Haywood the only other Wizard who can come close to matching up with O’Neil’s size. With Eddy Curry out (irregular heartbeat) the Bulls would pose little threat to Miami’s run at the title. That is if they win the next two against Washington (which they won’t).
-Miami will be rested and lingering injuries of Damon Jones (right heel) and Christian Laettner (foot) should be much improved by the start of the second round. Another short series and they should be at near 100 percent for the semifinals.
-Close attention should be paid to the way O’Neal is reacting to the media. Reports of Lakers’ owner Jerry Buss making accusations about O’Neal’s weight seem to be getting O’Neil’s and the media’s attention. Buss knows O’Neil can easily be distracted especially when there is nothing to do for a while and he’s been successful in the past at getting in his head. The last thing the Heat need is O’Neil not focused and not taking the second round serious. The Lakers used to not take every team they played serious and that resulted in a few embarrassing defeats (the 2004 NBA Finals being one of them). Could Buss be setting up O’Neal so he’s not going into the Washington or Chicago series with a chemically-balanced brain? And all this talk about Phil Jackson coming back to L.A. and his issues with Kobe Bryant in the middle of the playoffs? Shouldn’t Buss be on vacation by now or busy watching all the other teams that played much better than his team did this year?
The Lakers are probably trying to sabotage Shaq. It will turn out to be useless since once the next series starts O’Neil will consider the issue dead. However with another possible short series, rest assured the Lakers’ PR staff will dream something up to try and distract Shaq before the big series with Detroit starts. |
