It was a replica of Miami’s game against Boston two nights earlier. In a bid to stop the Heat Wave, Jeff Green stepped in for Kevin Garnett, tossed up 43 points and led the Celtics to a 13-point fourth-quarter lead.
In back-to-back games, Miami withstood the emotion of a hostile crowd and near-perfect play from an opponent and survived and advanced March Madness.
The Heat have had bull’s-eyes on their backs ever since James and Bosh hit South Beach three years ago. The bull’s-eye got bigger in the aftermath of winning a title last summer. Thanks to this streak, social media and the ever-expanding sports-media industrial complex, the bull’s-eye is enormous now. There’s a bounty on the head of the Heat. Opponents are taking the court with the mindset of making history, leading SportsCenter.
Digger Phelps never won anything at Notre Dame. He’s famous because he stopped UCLA’s winning streak.
Beating LeBron can make you famous.
When you reach the professional level of sports, everyone in uniform can play. They’re all really, really good — even Kwame Brown. What separates them beyond ever so slight differences in raw talent is their ability to consistently summon the energy, focus and discipline to play at their optimum level on a nightly basis.
You ever see some guy come off the bench and score 40 points one night and wonder why he doesn’t play like that every night? There’s a damn good chance that that guy has a drinking problem or a weed habit or baby-mama drama in five different cities — hell, he might have all three issues — and he just can’t get up mentally to go hard three nights a week. Some guys have escorts/bimbos running in and out of their hotel rooms right up until the bus leaves for the arena.
Right now, when the Heat come to town, it’s all business for the opponent. Guys roll one less joint. They go to bed at midnight and get a good night’s sleep. They turn off their burner phones. They take a day off Facebook/Twitter creeping. They read their scouting reports and listen to their coach. They lock in on beating the Heat.
The Cleveland no-names who almost upset the Heat are really good basketball players when they take care of the details, make a few sacrifices and concentrate.