The Miami Heat’s opponents for the remainder of the Eastern Conference playoffs are as follows: Boredom, Complacency, Expectations.
Beat them down, and LeBron James and Co. are back in the NBA Finals. Because that trio will put up a more competitive fight than the actual other East teams.
Maybe LeBron can revise his infamous remarks from the welcome-to-Miami celebration two summers ago. Instead of counting potential championships with “Not two, not three, not four …” he can rattle off one-time potential threats to a Finals return trip that suddenly aren’t as threatening.
“Not Orlando, not Boston, not Chicago …”
Not New York, that’s for sure. But isn’t it fitting now that the Knicks, perceived to be capable of throwing a mild scare into the Heat in their first-round series, are either imploding physically (Iman Shumpert’s knee) or mentally (Amare)? New York is only the latest Eastern Conference opponent to have doom visit in some form—and as it turns out only the latest to inflict it on itself.
It has to be karma … and, truthfully, it was the Heat’s turn to get the benefit of it themselves. With their actions and antics last season—The Decision, the introduction party, the premature celebrations, the fake-coughs—they brought their eventual demise on themselves. However, the public’s overwhelming desire to see the Heat fall might just be turning the cosmic tables; they might have wanted to see the Big Three go down in flames again a little too much.
The result? Every team in the East that could delay the inevitability of Miami’s returning to the Finals is crumbling before our eyes.
How do you want them listed? Chronologically, or in order of impact on the fate of the conference playoffs? Let’s try the latter, because putting Derrick Rose’s blown ACL anywhere but at the top of any such list is an injustice to him and the ripple effects of the injury.
The Bulls aren’t going to beat Miami without Rose, period. The franchise is putting on a brave face. On Monday, the day before the Bulls’ Game 2 in Chicago against the 76ers, the players talked about overcoming the odds and proving doubters wrong and circling the wagons and, basically, win without Rose.
The Bulls have done it so often, it might just work … until they play Miami. And then, the only way it works is if the Heat lose their most indispensable player, too.
As for Boston, playing Tuesday in Atlanta down 1-0 and without ref-bumping Rajon Rondo? Here is another team that would have had a chance to grind past Miami if everyone on the aging roster held together physically.
If it can’t hold it together mentally? No way.
Orlando, meanwhile, had little chance to even extend the Heat to a long series with Dwight Howard. But his back gave out on the eve of the playoffs. Cross them off the list, too.
Now, for the defending conference champions and reigning heirs apparent … who is left to give them a stiff fight?
Themselves.
Miami now has to guard against the aforementioned self-imposed obstacles. The Heat can’t just roll the ball out onto the court at Madison Square Garden this week to finish off the first round. They can’t presume they can coast past either Indiana or Dwight-less Orlando without either team pushing back hard. They can’t just mark time waiting for an inevitable East finals showdown against either Boston or Chicago, both of whom they controlled with surprising ease last spring.
More important is the opposite: no freezing up in the moment. No buckling under the weight of expectations that got infinitely heavier within the playoffs’ first three days. To lose anywhere short of the Finals would be devastating, and nobody involved would ever hear the end of it. It’s considered that much of a walkover now that a loss would be a bigger taint than the one last June to the Mavericks.
Take that effect, multiply it by about a million, and that’s what the effect on LeBron will be if it happens.
Thus, all he and the Heat have to do is not let any of that bother them. Certainly, nobody else in the East will.
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