Official 2013-2014 MIAMI HEAT Thread
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YEAH I'M HATING. I HATE THE HEAT! IT'S WHAT I DO. HATERS ON THE JOB. I STILL HAVE NIGHTMARES ABOUT GINOBILI THROWING THAT DAMN BALL AWAY AND RAY ALLEN HITTING THE 3. SINCE WE CAN'T TAKE THEM RINGS FROM LEBRON, I WISH SOmeone would at least steal them from him so he can't keep em'. I got more hate to let off, but I need a drink. One more thing. How can you assemble half the damn olympic team and the other half All-stars old and new and call that a damn team? It's a damn takeover. GTFOH
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Uhhh ok lol...
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YEAH I'M HATING. I HATE THE HEAT! IT'S WHAT I DO. HATERS ON THE JOB. I STILL HAVE NIGHTMARES ABOUT GINOBILI THROWING THAT DAMN BALL AWAY AND RAY ALLEN HITTING THE 3. SINCE WE CAN'T TAKE THEM RINGS FROM LEBRON, I WISH SOmeone would at least steal them from him so he can't keep em'. I got more hate to let off, but I need a drink. One more thing. How can you assemble half the damn olympic team and the other half All-stars old and new and call that a damn team? It's a damn takeover. GTFOH
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YEAH I'M HATING. I HATE THE HEAT! IT'S WHAT I DO. HATERS ON THE JOB. I STILL HAVE NIGHTMARES ABOUT GINOBILI THROWING THAT DAMN BALL AWAY AND RAY ALLEN HITTING THE 3. SINCE WE CAN'T TAKE THEM RINGS FROM LEBRON, I WISH SOmeone would at least steal them from him so he can't keep em'. I got more hate to let off, but I need a drink. One more thing. How can you assemble half the damn olympic team and the other half All-stars old and new and call that a damn team? It's a damn takeover. GTFOH
I feel you bruh...? these diva ass overpowered ? who just give the ball to lebron and step aside. I hope anyteam but miami wins it this year.
All these bandwagon fans -
YEAH I'M HATING. I HATE THE HEAT! IT'S WHAT I DO. HATERS ON THE JOB. I STILL HAVE NIGHTMARES ABOUT GINOBILI THROWING THAT DAMN BALL AWAY AND RAY ALLEN HITTING THE 3. SINCE WE CAN'T TAKE THEM RINGS FROM LEBRON, I WISH SOmeone would at least steal them from him so he can't keep em'. I got more hate to let off, but I need a drink. One more thing. How can you assemble half the damn olympic team and the other half All-stars old and new and call that a damn team? It's a damn takeover. GTFOH
Rofl @ this being the 1st post you see when u click on this thread this post got me rollin -
Ring and Banner Ceremony tomorrow!
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The Heat have invited Varnado and Mike Miller back for Tuesday's ring ceremony. Varnado has bypassed the invitation.
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Its going down tonight....look forward to a competitive game...got the brews on deck...offseason felt long as ?
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miamiherald.com/2013/10/29/3717492/miami-heat-seeks-yet-another-banner.htmlMiami Heat targeted as team seeks championship three-peat
Mark Cuban, owner of the last team to defeat the Miami Heat in an NBA Finals, recently uttered the names Micky Arison and Al Davis in the same sentence while comparing Arison’s Heat with Davis’ Oakland Raiders.
Chicago Bulls center Joakim Noah has forever called the Heat “Hollywood as hell.”
The Indiana Pacers, which have made losing to Miami in the playoffs an annual event, think the Heat gets away with cheating on defense and believe this so passionately that their coach once paid thousands of dollars in fines to say it publicly.
Such is the hate and hype around the NBA as the Miami Heat opens its regular season Tuesday night, seeking a championship three-peat and bragging rights as the third franchise in NBA history to make it to four consecutive NBA Finals.
In other words, there is no shortage of motivation for teams lining up this season to take their best shots at LeBron James and the Heat. Once again, everyone wants to knock off the champs, and, once again, the Heat must navigate the emotional and physical rigors of defending a title. It’s tiring business being the king of a rebellious empire, and, as Cuban so rightly pointed out this preseason, the Heat has been the NBA’s “bad guys” going on four seasons now.
“That’s always good for the NBA, when you have a team that everybody looks forward to beating,” said Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks. “It’s just like when we beat them. I would go in places I’ve never been, and people would give me a standing ovation. That’s good for the NBA.”
Almost in response to Cuban, the Heat’s owner has used social media to count down the days leading up to opening night with professionally produced highlight videos that celebrate the Heat’s past championships. Rubbing opponents’ noses in the Heat’s success probably isn’t going to make anything easier this season, but the Heat has never done anything modestly. That’s just not Miami’s style.
On Monday, Arison tweeted “1 day until #HEAT2013Opening- Night” and “enjoy the ride,” along with a link to a video that featured the Heat receiving its 2012 championship rings.
For the Heat, the foundations of defending its second title in a row began this preseason in the Bahamas, and opening night of the regular season is Act 1 in a drama that is likely to stretch out for six months. First up Tuesday night are the Bulls, who will watch the Heat receive its 2013 championship rings in an elaborate pregame ceremony and then take the floor with point guard Derrick Rose for the first time since 2012.
The return of Rose, who tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee in the first round of the 2012 playoffs, is one of the NBA’s biggest storylines heading into the season. The other, of course, is the Heat, which has won back-to-back championships and in May and June delivered back-to-back series in the Eastern Conference finals and NBA Finals on par with the best postseason memories in league history.
With the Miami Dolphins once again struggling, the Heat’s made-for-TV matchup on Tuesday will rekindle the flames of Heat mania in South Florida that never really went away.
‘Work to do’
Traditionally, teams have fared well on opening night the season after winning a championship. Since the 1989-90 Detroit Pistons, defending champions are 19-5 in the first games following title runs. The 2006-07 Heat lost to the Bulls on opening night, but Miami defeated the Celtics to begin the 2012-13 season. In 2011-12, the Heat defeated the Mavericks on opening night to avenge the 2011 Finals.
The Heat’s players, who have looked sharper this preseason than in years past, say they are more focused on defeating the Bulls than on adding to their jewelry collections.
“I wish we could get the rings on the day of the parade,” said Udonis Haslem, who will receive his third championship ring before Tuesday’s game. “That’d be great, but obviously it’s something we got to do. We earned it, and it’s great for us and for the fans, but we got work to do and we got to understand that we got a team that’s coming in here and wanting to kick our butts.”
Rose’s return is just one example of how the top contenders in the Eastern Conference improved over the offseason in a push to topple the Heat’s dynasty. On paper, the roster moves and additions of the East’s top teams suggest the Heat might have a tougher time making it to the NBA Finals this season.
Then again, consider how difficult it was to obtain the second championship. It can’t get much harder than back-to-back, seven-game series with Ray Allen bailing out the Heat in Game 6 of the Finals.
It could be argued that winning another championship is entirely the wrong measure of success for the Heat. A team hasn’t played in four straight Finals since the 1987 Boston Celtics.
“It’s competitive, and we know it is,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “The entire Eastern Conference has gotten better. The younger teams that dealt with some injuries last year made some changes. They’ll be much stronger as well.”
Five teams spread across three franchises — Celtics, Lakers and Bulls — have won back-to-back-to-back championships in the NBA. For the Heat to join that exclusive club would be nothing short of sports immortality, but it wouldn’t exactly be unprecedented, either. Five teams have failed to win three in a row after back-to-back championships, which means 50 percent of the teams in the NBA that have won back-to-back championships have gone on to win three straight.
Those are good odds, but these are better: Like last year, the Heat is the heavy favorite (21/10) to win the 2013-14 championship, according to online sports book bodog.net, and, in a recent survey, 75.9 percent of the NBA’s 30 general managers selected the Heat to win it all.
For the Heat, everything really boils down to one simple factor, and that’s the health of its players. When its stars are healthy, the Heat is the best team in the league. So far, so good.
“The most important thing is guys got through the preseason healthy, and now we go in at full strength,” Haslem said.
Expectations
It should also be noted that winning three championships in a row, while never easy, historically has been less difficult in the NBA than in any other professional sports league in North America. The NBA, the youngest of the four major leagues (founded in 1946 as the Basketball Association of America), has produced just as many back-to-back-to-back champions as the NHL, which is 38 years older. An NFL team has never won three consecutive Super Bowls, although the Green Bay Packers won three championships in a row twice before the introduction of the America’s biggest game.
Smartly, the Heat has tried to temper expectations, but, in all seriousness, good luck with that.
“I know how hard it is to win a championship period, to win one,” Wade said.
“To go to the Finals, it never gets easy, it never will be easy for [any] team. . . .” he said. “To win one, to win two, to win three, whatever the case may be, to even get there, a lot of guys haven’t even done that, so it’s just not easy to be a champion in this league, and that’s why there are only a small amount of organizations that have won a championship.” -
miamiherald.com/2013/10/29/3717348/miami-heats-dwyane-wade-aims-to.htmlMiami Heat’s Dwyane Wade aims to be more efficient on offense
Practice had long since ended last week, but there was Dwyane Wade — the last player on the floor — working with assistant David Fizdale on polishing his post moves.
Indiana coach Tom Crean, his close friend and former coach at Marquette, pointed out this summer that Wade is “one of the most efficient players to ever play the game.”
But even after finishing seventh in last season’s NBA’s efficiency ratings — he was second or third the previous four years — Wade said in no uncertain terms: “I’ve got to be way more efficient than I’ve ever been.”
Wade, off July’s Ossatron knee treatment, has looked very good — “best I’ve seen him since year one,” LeBron James said earlier in camp — and how his game evolves, at 31, will be fascinating.
The fierce forays to the basket will continue, but he knows continued diversification is critical.
“I’ve got to do different things than I’ve done,” he said earlier in preseason. “I’ve got to be a better post-up player. I’ve got to find ways to be involved when I’m not involved, kind of like I did with the Olympic team. Cut to the basket, rebound.
“I remember when Gary Payton and James Posey were here; they used to do all the defense, I used to do all the offense. Now I’ve got to do way more defense to get to offense. You adapt. When you’re 30, you lose some of your athleticism, but you don’t lose it all. When I’m healthy, I feel I can do anything.”
Wade’s injury-plagued postseason overshadowed this: When he was healthy last season, he was excellent, becoming one of only five shooting guards in the past 30 years to average at least 20 points while shooting at least 52 percent.
But there are areas he knows he needs to improve or maximize:
• He shot well on post-ups (57 for 119, 47.9 percent) but “the post-up is something he can be even greater at,” Crean said. “Going back to age 19, some of our best offense was to post him.
“Because it’s not just the scoring and the free throws, but his ability to pass. The vision that he plays with, it’s a very high level.”
• His midrange game. Wade points to this as the area his efficiency can most improve. He shot 38.5 percent from 10 to 16 feet last season, better than 2012 but down three points from two years ago.
On all jumpers from 17 feet or less, he shot 35.3 percent, according to synergysports.com. He shot 35 percent on isolations, 36.9 percent on jumpers off the dribble.
• Free throws. Wade dropped to 72.5 percent last season, his lowest ever and down from his 76.7 career average.
This and that
• During a drill Monday, assistant coach Juwan Howard banged Heat players with pads on their forays into the lane. That was designed to prepare the Heat for Chicago’s physicality.
“You can’t play lackadaisical against the Bulls,” James said. “They will embarrass you, and you will end up scoring 60 points.”
• Former Philadelphia guard Allen Iverson will officially retire Wednesday when the Heat visits the 76ers.
James on Monday called him “pound for pound, probably the greatest player to ever play.”
• Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau said his team will not watch the Heat receive its championship rings. “That’s their moment,” he told the Chicago Tribune. “We’ll be in the locker room.”] -
The Heat have invited Varnado and Mike Miller back for Tuesday's ring ceremony. Varnado has bypassed the invitation.
I surprised that they invited him back.. since he's thinking about suing the Heat.. cause he got scammed out of some money by con artist in the Miami area.. He wants to sue the team.. because someone in the Heat front office introduced him to that con artist... -
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Yall
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Good win. All around effort. Defense was top notch for 3 qtrs especially in the 1st half. Just build on the good habits and we good.
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D-Wade & Bron didn't even have great offensive games.. yet the Bulls still got that work...
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You meant they didn't...
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Y'all kicked the ? out of us last night but i liked the way we fought back. We'll get y'all next time
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Lol Alpha allowed you to crop the pic?
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? no! nice try chi town but ? outta here
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infamous114 wrote: »Lol Alpha allowed you to crop the pic?
Yea that ? caught me, he will pay dearly for this embarrassment -
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D-Wade's not playing tonight.
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This discussion has been closed.