As bad as the Miami Heat played the first half of their first game against the Boston Celtics, they pieced together a solid third quarter and outscored the C's by nine points to help get back in the game. In their second game against the Philadelphia 76ers, the Heat torched through the third quarter on a 31-13 blitz. When the Heat blew out the Orlando Magic a game later, Miami won it in the third quarter by the score of 28-10.
Lately however, the tide has turned. Savvy coaches are watching film on the Heat and they're figuring out ways to stop Miami from blowing games wide open in the third quarter so they can give their superstar trio a nice view from the bench of the fourth quarter. The Utah Jazz were down 51-32 at halftime and coach Jerry Sloan found a way to turn the tide and chip away at the Heat's lead by outscoring them by six points in the third quarter. The Heat then allowed 42 Jazz points in the fourth quarter, leading to an overtime loss.
The Heat were able to eke out the win against their latest opponents, the Charlotte Bobcats. But once again they came out flat after halftime and allowed the Bobcats to outscore them 31-19 in the third quarter. Coach Larry Brown has given the Miami Heat plenty of headaches since he began coaching the Bobcats, winning three of four last season, but this is a new team he had to plan against and it still worked for long stretches of the second half.
"You can't take quick, bad shots against them," said Brown before tip-off on what his gameplan would be against Miami. "You have to control tempo if you want to have any chance against them. If you take good shots and don't turn the ball over you have a chance to get back (on defense). We just have to take care of the ball and get great shots."
That's certainly what the Bobcats did in the second half. By slowing the game and limiting their turnovers -- they had 10 during the first half but only one in the third quarter -- they were able to stop the Heat from stringing together quick baskets in transition and getting the home crowd into the game. Heat coach Erik Spoelstra was not surprised by what happened during the comeback attempt.
"The second half was really what we were expecting for the entire game against Charlotte," Spoelstra said. "They are simply a physical, tough-minded basketball team and we saw that in the second half. We didn't come out with the right energy in the third quarter and they were able to grind us to their tempo and really just crawl back into the game.
"It didn't happen all at once. They kept on grinding and grinding and the game became more physical. And there it was, a ballgame with three minutes to go."
The Heat stormed back late in the game to restore order and avoid going .500 on their six-game homestand. Brown expects great things to come from them over time.
"This is going to be a great, great team," gushed Brown. "They're all trying to find themselves. They have a great, young coach. At the end of the day they will be as good as anybody in the league."
No comments:
Post a Comment