After the Miami Heat allowed a depleted Chicago Bulls team to come into their arena and grab a Game 1 victory, people weren’t exactly sure what to think.
This was a Heat team that had time to rest in between rounds, after easily sweeping the Milwaukee Bucks in four games. This was the first game for LeBron James after being awarded his fourth MVP award. This Heat team was playing a Bulls team with injuries ranging from ACL reconstruction rehabilitation to spinal tap complications. It felt a little worrisome that the best team in the league would come out and surrender a victory on their home floor so easily.
Fast forward a week and three victories (that saw them outscore the Bulls by a combined 70 points) later, the Heat are back in Miami to try to close out Chicago on Wednesday evening.
Dwyane Wade will hope for the series to be over to allow him some extra time to rest before the Conference Finals. Wade has been bothered by a gimpy knee this postseason and has averaged just 11.3 points over the four games Miami has played against the Bulls. He has looked anything but invincible, pushing through discomfort to try to be the player he is when healthy.
On any other team, a crippled All-Star would legitimately pose the concern of being potentially devastating to a team’s playoff hopes. See the Oklahoma City Thunder, a team with Kevin Durant, the second-best player in the league after James, struggling without Russell Westbrook, for just one example. With the Heat, though, a banged-up Wade is not as big of a worry basketball-wise as it would be with any other team in the league.
Whether the Heat have a healthy Wade playing at full-speed, an injured Wade battling through pain, or, perhaps even no Wade at all for a game here or there, they are the team we’re all expecting to be there in the end, competing for a title.
In addition to the brilliance of James, reserve guard Norris Cole has come up huge for the Heat in the postseason. The NBA is largely about timing and opportunity. With Wade hurting, the opportunity for minutes is there. With the brightest lights of the season shining on him, it’s certainly the right timing for Cole to be playing the best basketball.
Cole has tacked on three points to his per-game average, but most impressive is how efficient he has been. Shooting 42 per cent from the floor during the regular season, the second-year guard is connecting on 63 percent of his attempts this postseason. A 32 per cent three-point shooter through the season, he is knocking down 73 per cent of his shots from beyond the arc in the playoffs.
He has been better than good and just as important as good, reliable. Whether Cole has unlocked the key to his own successes, or is just on a heck of a crazy hot streak, the player we’re seeing in this postseason is on another level than the one we’ve gotten to know over the past two years. Confidence can be a wonderful thing.
Despite the Game 1 loss that allowed them to look briefly human a week ago, the talk surrounding the Heat this week -despite a 38-point victory in Game 2 and a 23-point victory in Game 4 — has been as much about the fashion choices of Wade as it has about his status. Both the bandaged, wrapped knee he has been sporting in games and the shrunken, patterned pants he wore as he walked through the United Center for Game 4 in Chicago have made headlines.
While Wade’s health is certainly a priority for the long term, the success the Heat are having in spite of his struggles are a testament to how this team is constructed. There is Chris Bosh hauling down 19 rebounds and shooting 42 per cent from beyond the arc, Ray Allen being in the right place at the right time with the right results for the 17th year of his career, and there is also late-addition Chris Andersen keeping everyone light and everything in order.
And then there is James.
From the moment James went to Miami, there wasn’t any doubt about whose team the Heat had become. As the Heat wait for Wade to get back to being Wade, they will continue to look to James to lead them. With James doing what he does best, people at home will be waiting to see what trend Wade decides to break out when he speaks with media after the Heat accomplish the inevitable and close out the injury-plagued Bulls.