The Miami Heat

["hironaka@xxxxxxxxx"<hironaka@xxxxxxxxx>]

The Miami Heat, like the NY teams, still get plenty of 
local press coverage, so its not hard for Boston fans to 
retrieve a general picture of what to expect out of that 
roster on Wednesday night.

It won't be tough for either team to get up for the 
opener of this four game series, even though the Heat 
lineup has changed so much. I particularly miss PJ Brown 
and Tim Hardaway. Much to my astonishment, Tim Hardaway 
is both hilarious and effective as a TNT analyst.

The Heat are not a bad team coming into this first 
meeting, given the way Eddie Jones is going. He's got the 
All Defensive credentials for another exciting Paul 
Pierce showdown, but right now he's also the hottest 
player in the game. Jones has dropped 15 and 17 fourth 
quarter points in the past two games, scoring 70 points 
in that span (35 ppg). He also leads the Heat in steals 
and assists.

If that guy doesn't manage to kill you, the "Butlers" 
just might. The two athletic Miami rookies (Caron and 
Rasual) are averaging a combined 18 ppg this year. Caron 
Butler, a starter, gets around 6 boards and 2.5 assists 
per game, but is shooting only .385. Rasual is a much 
streakier scorer due to his aggressive rookie shot 
selection. He seems to be in the dog pound at the moment, 
but that changes literally from game to game with Pat 
Riley.

The Heat have five guys contributing over five boards per 
game, led by Brian Grant's amazing 11.6 and Vlad 
Stepania's 6.8. They bring a +2.6 advantage on the 
offensive boards, led by Grant (3.4). Obviously, this 
remains a point of concern for the Celtics coaching staff 
and captains. It seems we're heading back toward giving 
up 50+ rebounding games this past week, hoping to get 
away with it.

The Heat have a couple of journeymen having strong years, 
notably Mike James (8.4 ppg, 3.0 assists), starter Malik 
Allen (10.3 ppg 5.3 boards) and shooter Eddie "Brick" 
House (6.6 points).

Brick House has yet to miss a FT all season. Malik Allen 
is an impressive shooter and scorer when he's on, but 
Vladimir Stepania is more of the true center in that 
rotation. Stepania reportedly doesn't manage his foul 
situation well, but can be trouble for Boston on the 
glass.

Mike James' game has been compared to that of Tim 
Hardaway, in part because he uses the 3-ball aggressively 
as his bailout weapon. He and Travis Best have turned the 
opening day starter, the well-paid Anthony Carter, into a 
third string towel-waver. 

In general, Riley sticks with a short rotation (7 or 8 
guys), whomever happens to be on it that day. And this 
team is still somehow all about Pat Riley. He keeps it 
that way, by jerking guys in and out of the doghouse. He 
recently told the papers that no one on the team deserves 
to start.

Be aware that the Heat will jack up a lot of three-point 
shots (around 15) led by both guards: Eddie Jones (4.5 
attempts, .374) and Mike James (3.8 attempts, .330). 

Travis Best has had an up-and-down season (down again 
now), but the near-Celtic is averaging a fairly typical 
9.4 points and 3.3 assists this season, and will 
occasionally start.

Interestingly, the Heat average 9.3 fewer trips to the FT 
line than opponents. Despite having some excellent FT 
shooters, they are getting outscored from the line by a 
staggering 6.7 ppg. 

Its hard to deny that this is the principal reason why 
they've been outscored this season by 5.8 per game.  The 
South Florida papers are referring to Pat Riley by his 
new nickname: "He Hate Me". 

Boston will no doubt try to take it to these guys in the 
paint, especially if they play man-to-man. On the other 
end, Vladimir Stepania is the only rotation player worth 
fouling (.473). Caron Butler and Travis Best are both at 
or over .850, and Eddie Jones is at .811.

As a team, the Heat struggle with FG shooting (.405 
overall, .315 on treys). They have been weak on perimeter 
defense too (.373 on opposition treys), although the 
overall defensive numbers are similar to the Celtics, as 
you'd expect from a Riley-coached team.

The Heat have reportedly looked terrible lately 
against "zone" defenses. They are simply a very 
inconsistent shooting team, for some reason. A lot of 
past and present Heat players were good shooters on other 
teams. Maybe the man defense takes too much out of them.

As everyone knows, Pat Riley unveiled a zone defense 
himself for the first time a couple of weeks ago. But 
he's still the NBA's biggest proponent of man-to-man, 
because of the individual accountability. 

His stubbornness happens to coincide with the rule change 
and his team's failure to make the playoffs for the first 
time, although the biggest reason for that is quite 
obvious('Zo). Against a guy like Paul Pierce, it seems 
like the NJ Nets playoff template has been the way to go 
defensively. But we'll see what Riley does.

With all the various distractions, the Heat can't get any 
traction so far this month. They finished a much needed 
homestand last night at 1-3, and have lost six of the 
last seven games. They do have wins this month against 
Phoenix and the occasionally dangerous Golden State.

Although the Heat's cast of characters has changed, its 
not hard for me to get excited about a game whenever the 
Greasy One comes to Boston. There's so much history 
between the Celtics and that guy....its really something 
to think about. This might be the last game I get to 
watch this calendar year, since I'm going away for awhile.

The Celtics are meandering a bit right now, when they 
really need to be tightening up their performances ahead 
of the tough January/February schedule. Still, the 
overall picture looks promising as far as how the defense 
and offense have come along, as well as our capacity to 
rebound from defeats.

I watched the tail end of last night's Rockets game, when 
the Heat wasted a good comeback and 17-point Eddie Jones 
fourth quarter. It was fun to see El Greasy One's face 
after Steve Francis hit that buzzer-beating three. 

That shot was as high a "degree of difficulty" buzzer 
beater as I've seen in awhile. S. Franchise was flying 
off to the side as he released the ball.

If you guys haven't seen him lately, you'll be shocked 
and possibly saddened by how quickly he's aged. What 
makes it so garish is the same old wardrobe and greasy 
hair.

Joe H.> 
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