Miami Heat discover aggressiveness as their key to success - NBA Update
Chris Bosh was direly missed in the Miami Heat game 2 and 3 of East’s semi-finals against Indiana Pacers. But the way Heat played in the 5th it seems that Chris can take all the time to recover from his injury.
Heat simply outplayed and outhustled Pacers on Tuesday night and took a 3-2 lead in the series with a 115-83 win. The maimed Big Three transformed into Big Two and went onto display such an impressive show that will haunt Pacers
for many seasons.
LeBron James and Dwyane Wade combined for 58 points and outscored Pacers starters 58-45. Above all James and Wade put up such a mesmerizing show that kept the crowds on their feet throughout the game.
Heat managed to shot an unprecedented 61.3 % from the floor against Pacers who retained them to just 40.1% throughout the 2nd round. The credit goes to transitional buckets. Wade was simply unstoppable; before Pacers
could even turn he was running with the ball down the court and score with a dunk.
On most of the occasions Heat came up with a baseball style game, James would turn over the ball and provide Wade with it, who was already running down to the post. Vis-à-vis Wade did the same on the night lofting a lob pass to
streaking LeBron.
Heat took charge of the things early in the opening half, they managed to pull off a 21-7 run starting in the second and finishing midway through the third allowing Heat to take a mammoth 61-45 lead.
It was not just Wade and James. Every one wearing Heat jersey played his heart out. Shane Battier tallied 13 points but he shined at the 3-point line, missing only one of his 5 long rangers.
It was a physical night with players taking flagrant hits throughout, but only this time it was Pacers who tasted their own medicine. Mainly due to Udonis Haslem who came up with a huge blow in the face of Tyler Hansbrough. Tyler
did the same with Wade few moments earlier and it was just a retaliatory shot by Udonis. However the forward also collected 10 points to go with 6 boards. But his act jeopardized his chances in the next game.
Overall the physicality took its toll on Pacers as they witnessed their key players Danny Granger and David West leaving the court due to injuries.
The key reason behind Heat success was rebounds, James had 10 while he netted 30 points and dished out 8 assists. On the contrary Mario Chalmers had a career best 11 rebounds.
With this win Heat sent a clear message out to Pacers, they will plough through the rest of series with or without Chris. Heat’s Coach Erik Spoelstra said that they discovered their answer in aggressiveness.
“When you lose a big component, you become in survival mode,” Spoelstra said. “You have to find something that works and you do it in pressure-packed moments. [James] has to be aggressive. He has to play multiple positions. And
he has to give us a little of what we’re missing. The attack mentality has been the biggest thing.”
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