Floridinavians Take On The Celtics Victory

[wayray@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Miami Herald
ISRAEL GUTIERREZ

BOSTON - Only two games into the season, it's time for the Heat to break out the mirrors. The players might not like what they see.
That was the theme in a demoralized locker room Wednesday night after a humiliating 98-75 loss to the Boston Celtics at the FleetCenter.
''We have to compete,'' said rookie Dwyane Wade, who played through a sore hip to score five points on 2-of-12 shooting. ``It's man-on-man out there. That comes from the team itself. There's nothing Coach can do.''
Coach couldn't agree more. For the second straight game, Stan Van Gundy could have pulled from his bag of available excuses that include the absence of Caron Butler and Lamar Odom, but he saw bigger problems than the personnel.
''I didn't think we competed real hard. That's got to change,'' Van Gundy said. ``First thing first, we have to get to work and compete and get back to being good defensively. Then we've got to learn to play together offensively. Then from there we can worry about how we're going to be good enough to win a game.''
They certainly weren't good enough Wednesday, and that was evident fairly early. After taking a 5-1 lead, the team's first lead of the season, the downward spiral began.
With no answer for Paul Pierce -- or any other Celtic, for that matter -- the Heat fell behind by as many as 14 points in the second quarter. Pierce scored 18 in the first half, and his team shot 50.7 percent. The Heat responded with 36.6 percent shooting.
The Heat did not respond to Boston's aggressive defense with the ball movement necessary to get good shots. Eddie Jones managed 22 points, but they came on 6-of-16 shooting.
''We had some guys trying to attack and trying to step up and do it individually, but they were driving the ball into a wall of people and not making plays to open people. Consequently, we were taking a lot of bad shots,'' Van Gundy said.
The open-court attack the Heat is supposedly built for is nowhere to be found.
''It's two things,'' Van Gundy said of the team's stalled fast break. ``At the start of the break we're not getting the ball out quick enough or deep enough. We have our guards coming back to the ball all the time. It's a bad habit we've got to break.
``The second thing is, quite frankly, we're not running. We have a real energy problem right now.''
Brian Grant was the first to admit he wasn't playing like a co-captain responsible for setting a defensive tone.
''We haven't brought it, and as the starting center, I haven't brought it,'' said Grant, who finished with eight points and four rebounds. ``I look out there and I see Udonis [Haslem] scrapping and clawing for rebounds. I've got to get my [act] together. I have to get nasty, start shutting people down defensively. I don't feel nasty, and the other team isn't looking at me as nasty.
``Right now, everybody's down.''
That makes Friday's home opener perhaps a must-win.
''For me as a rookie, it is,'' Wade said. ``I've never lost three games in a row, so I'm going to try to do everything I can to get healthy and help this team win.''


Heat dealt 2nd loss 
By Chris Perkins, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 30, 2003
BOSTON -- Losing your head coach four days before the season starts is bad. The Heat knows that.
Being hit by a slew of injuries to key players is bad, too. The Heat knows that as well.
But being a talent-depleted, injury-rich team that doesn't hustle, well, that's a losing combination of titanic proportions.
And unfortunately, the Heat can attest to that also.
Miami was pummeled by Boston late in the third quarter and the Celtics harnessed that momentum to cruise to a 98-75 victory at the FleetCenter.
"We've got a real energy problem right now," coach Stan Van Gundy said. "Guys are not running, they're not getting down the floor fast enough. Those things are of concern because those are effort areas. We've got to find the answer to that."
Along with being without starting forwards Caron Butler (knee) and Lamar Odom (ankle) and reserve forward Rasual Butler (broken hand), the Heat is playing with a couple of injury-slowed starters.
"I felt like I was just blending in, and I'm not the type of player who likes to do that," said rookie guard Dwyane Wade, who is battling a left hip pointer. "I didn't feel like myself."
With Wade having no explosiveness and shooting 2-of-12, and center Brian Grant (eight points, four rebounds) saying, "I've got to get my (expletive) together," and the Heat shooting 36.6 percent from the field, there was almost no way Miami was going to win.
The Heat (0-2) began the third quarter trailing 49-39 and cut its deficit to 65-58 after guard Eddie Jones, who was battling calf and hand injuries, made two free throws with 4:04 remaining.
But the Celtics (1-0), playing their season opener before a sellout crowd of 18,624, attacked the Heat's zone defense as if it was nonexistent.
The Heat responded by taking a bunch of quick jumpers instead of working to make an extra pass or find an open man.
Miami had no points in the paint in the third quarter, and hardly ever seemed to be looking for that option.
Boston scored 30 points in the third period, and went on a 14-3 run in the final 3:52.
First, it was guard Paul Pierce (23 points), who had just five second-half points, hitting a 20-footer.
Then it was forward Raef LaFrentz, who came over from Dallas in the Antoine Walker deal, converting a layup. Twenty-one seconds later Eric Williams made a short jumper.
That was followed by a Williams free throw, a LaFrentz jumper, and a Williams three-pointer.
When the Heat finally countered with a jumper by Malik Allen, the Celtics had reeled off 12 unanswered points.
chris_perkins@xxxxxxxxxx


Makeshift Heat lineup comes up flat in 98-75 loss against Celtics

By Ira Winderman 
Staff Writer 
Posted October 30 2003 

BOSTON -- Way back when, when Pat Riley still was coach of the Heat, he downplayed such lineups.  By the time the season started, he said, his second-tier talents merely would be sprinkled into rotation. 				
Surely there was no way he would be employing both Udonis Haslem and Rafer Alston as starters two games into the season, let alone opening a fourth quarter with a lineup featuring John Wallace, Samaki Walker, Bimbo Coles and Malik Allen.  Riley, of course, was right. He wouldn't be, not with his shocking resignation as coach last Friday.  The misery instead would be left to Stan Van Gundy to endure nights such as Wednesday's 98-75 loss to the Boston Celtics at the FleetCenter.  "Right now, we're not ready to compete," Van Gundy said. "We didn't play hard enough with the guys we had."  Van Gundy's second game as Heat coach was even uglier than the first, this time with Lamar Odom in street clothes from the start, the result of a severely sprained ankle early in Tuesday's 89-74 season-opening loss in Philadelphia.  Factor in Caron Butler's ongoing stint on the injured list, and the Heat allowed a second opponent to celebrate for most of the fourth quarter in a home opener.  "We've got a real energy problem right now," Van Gundy said. "Guys are not running. We've got to find an answer to that."  With first-round pick Dwyane Wade limited by a hip pointer suffered a day earlier, not even Eddie Jones playing through calf and hand injuries on the way to 22 points was enough to prevent an 0-2 start.  "We haven't brought it," center Brian Grant said after his lethargic four-rebound, eight-point effort. "Right now, everybody's down. I'm down."  After a 15-point first quarter, the Heat found itself down 10 at halftime and 18 after three quarters on the way to a 30-point deficit.  The most sobering fact is that Boston stood as the least-challenging opponent of the first six on the schedule, with Detroit, Dallas, San Antonio and Minnesota to follow.  "I just wasn't happy with our competitiveness over the course of the game," Van Gundy said. "That's got to change."  Considering that Boston started former Heat point guard Mike James, journeyman center Mark Blount and third-year unknown Kedrick Perkins, this set up as a!
  relativ

ely fair fight.  But despite contentions by Van Gundy to the contrary, the Heat has emerged as a team with little fight, its spirit seemingly sapped by injuries and Riley's departure.  With Wade 2 of 12 from the field, the Heat returns home as a broken-down team with a broken spirit.  "I felt like I was just out there playing. I felt like I was just trying to blend in," Wade said, "and I'm not that kind of a player."  The Heat scored just eight points off the fastbreak, was stagnant in its lifeless halfcourt offense and was outscored 38-20 in the paint.  "This team needs to look in the mirror," Grant said. "Everybody needs to look at themselves and figure out what they've got to do to help us win."  Without Butler to run the break and Odom to create in the halfcourt, the Heat's games remain a case of first team to 80 wins.  And that meant with Paul Pierce going for 23 points, Vin Baker for 15 and James for 12, the Celtics would have plenty of time to go deep into their bench.  The Heat, of course, did, too. The difference was the Heat did it at the opening tip.  "The way we're playing right now," Coles said, "is not going to cut it."  Ira Winderman can be reached at iwinderman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 						 
Copyright ) 2003, South Florida Sun-Sentinel