Tonight’s game means everything to the Heat and their future.
So tonight is one of the most important nights in recent NBA history. The Heat, at the center of so many of these nights the past 3 seasons, will take on the suddenly validated Pacers in Game 7 of the Eastern Finals. The game no doubt will be amazingly tense, hard fought, and well played. LeBron James may go off for 50 or Paul George could shut him down and hit a game winner. Dwyane Wade could return to 2008 Dwyane Wade and win his way back into the hearts of Heat fans or Lance Stephenson could prove his status as a “Rucker Park Legend”. My point is enjoy the game as a fan and don’t let the announcers, blown calls, pouting, flopping or the rest of the ridiculous stuff take away from the beautiful basketball we seen in this series. Since 2000, only eight of the 36 conference finals and finals have featured a game 7 and most of them were instant classics (somehow the Heat have been in the last three game 7s in the conference finals). So sit down in front of your tv or at a bar, grab a beer (and heart medication for Heat and Pacers), and enjoy the game.
All that being said, I’m terrified as a Heat fan. I know I will not enjoy the game because I’ll be shouting and throwing things. I believe the Heat will win, but the mere prospect of not getting back to the finals frightens me more than almost anything for various reasons. The game should be great and I figured I’d collect some of my thoughts pregame before I collapse into a heap of emotions:
>>This game means more to the Heat than it does for the Pacers. That’s not to say the Pacers won’t play as hard as they possibly can, but rather there’s more consequences for the Heat should they lose. The Pacers have a golden future ahead of them should they stay healthy. They might come in as the favorites next season even if they lose. On the other hand, the Heat have so much riding on this game. Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh have not effected this series in any positive way for Miami, the supporting cast outside of Udonis Haslem and Chris Andersen has disappeared, and, for the first time since the Decision, it feels like Lebron is angry with his teammates. Should they lose tonight, Pat Riley (assuming he doesn’t retire) will have a decision on whether to hope this group is enough for one more championship or if he needs to make moves to ensure not only success but also Lebron stays in Miami after 2013. This series has made Wade seem less like a superstar and more like an aging vet. His trade value may not get better than it is this summer and Riley may see a window to bring a replacement in and shed salary without tremendous backlash from fans. The whole bench could change. In short, the entire Heat’s future, and by extension, the NBA’s are on the line tonight. I think the Heat know this and their sense of urgency will be at all time high. (Yeah, this game is going to be a classic)
>>The officiating in this series has been horrendous both ways. Every game has seen the refs ruin three or four key moments by making a bad call. They rob us of a potential great ending by calling a moving screen on Lebron forcing him out of the game with two minutes in game 2. Refs can call moving screens on almost every screen set in the NBA and to call it in that situation was frankly a dick move. They launched a (unsuccessful) Heat comeback in game 4 by calling a shot clock violation after Roy Hibbert clearly hit the rim with a shot. They stopped a Heat surge with a terrible charge/offensive foul call on Lebron that completely shifted the momentum in game 6. The NBA will have to do a review on these refs and calls because it’s ruining one of the best Conference Finals ever.
>>On the flip side, please everyone stop flopping and whining to refs over EVERY SINGLE CALL. Bitching and moaning to the refs never succeeds in changing a call (Maurice Lucas, the Blazers forward from the Walton era, actually intimidated a referee into changing a call once but that’s different) and it irks me to see this great players ignoring the game to complain. As for flopping, I get it. Anything to win a game and if flopping wins games, anyone would do it. But, come on. Just one game, no flopping, no complaining, just basketball.
>>Go HEAT.
Gabe Ibrahim 