MVP James gets 32, Heat top Pacers 95-86 in Game 1

Posted by Spoelstra Heat | Posted on 14-05-2012

Category : Miami Heat, Playoff 2012

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MVP James gets 32, Heat top Pacers 95-86 in Game 1

MIAMI (AP) LeBron James got his trophy, and then he and Dwyane Wade made sure the Miami Heat got a win in Game 1.

James scored 32 points and grabbed 15 rebounds in his first game as a three-time MVP, Wade finished with 29 despite struggling from the floor, and the Heat beat the Indiana Pacers 95-86 to open their Eastern Conference semifinal series on Sunday.

Chris Bosh scored 13 points for Miami, but left late in the first half with a lower abdominal injury and did not return. The Heat outscored Indiana 25-16 in the fourth, with Wade and James combining for 22 of those points.

David West and Roy Hibbert each scored 17 points and combined for 23 rebounds for the Pacers, who got 10 points each from Darren Collison and George Hill.

Game 2 is Tuesday in Miami.

The Heat never led by more than two until 9:20 remained in the game, when a layup by James gave Miami a 76-72 edge. Wade added another basket about 30 seconds later, and the margin eventually reached eight when James made two free throws with 7:52 left.

Back came Indiana, which got within 86-85 on a 3-pointer by Hill with 4:51 left after Miami went cold again. But one big flurry – capped by a dunk from James in transition and Wade coming from behind to block a shot by Paul George at the rim about a half-minute later – gave the Heat some breathing room.

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By TIM REYNOLDS | The Associated Press

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Indiana Pacers take preemptive strike against Miami Heat

Posted by Spoelstra Heat | Posted on 13-05-2012

Category : Miami Heat, Playoff 2012

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Indiana Pacers take preemptive strike against Miami Heat

Don King must be the Pacers’ new director of public relations.

A less-than-exciting, second-round series for the Heat took a turn toward slightly interesting Wednesday and Thursday when the Pacers’ All-Star center and then the team’s coach tossed a few verbal jabs Miami’s way. King, the master boxing promoter, would be impressed.

First, Indiana center Roy Hibbert fired off a shot at the Heat when he set in motion the team-vs.-collection-of-superstars narrative.

Then, as if that wasn’t enough pregame trash talk for one second-round series, Pacers coach Frank Vogel took it a step further when he said Thursday that the Heat’s defense is a flop machine.

“They are the biggest flopping team in the NBA,” Vogel said.

Vogel, who finished third in voting this season for the NBA’s Coach of the Year Award, is no doubt preparing league officials for what’s sure to be a physical series.

For his part, Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said Wednesday that he expects the series to be “played in a cage.” The Heat, which was tied for fourth in the league this season in charges drawn per game (2.3), absorbed seven offensive fouls in its first-round win over the Knicks.

Although wingmen Dwyane Wade, LeBron James and Danny Granger will headline the Eastern Conference semifinals matchup, the series could hinge on the battle inside the paint.

That’s where the Pacers command a height advantage with Hibbert at center and David West at power forward.

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BY JOSEPH GOODMAN
JGOODMAN@MIAMIHERALD.COM

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If experience matters, Heat have an edge on Pacers

Posted by Spoelstra Heat | Posted on 12-05-2012

Category : Miami Heat, Playoff 2012

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If experience matters, Heat have an edge on Pacers

MIAMI (AP) Combined, the players in the current Indiana starting lineup have a total of 90 playoff games between them.

LeBron James and Dwyane Wade – each by himself – have more than that.

So if experience matters for anything in this Miami-Indiana matchup in the Eastern Conference semifinals, then advantage Heat, and in a big way.

This is the first trip to the second round for the Pacers since 2005, and of their starters, only George Hill and David West have ever appeared in anything beyond a first-round matchup.

”I know they’re a very good team and I know they have a good inside and outside game and have a few guys who can get it going,” Wade said Friday.

”For the guys that they play, they’re all very talented and they’re very deep.”

The Heat say when they see the Pacers, they don’t see an untried group. They see a team that won 42 games, something only San Antonio, Chicago, Oklahoma City and Miami topped in the regular season.

”They’ve earned it,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said.

”A lot of teams have talked about circumstances and things that have happened during the course of the year, right or wrong. The Pacers earned it. They were the third-best team in the East at the end of the day, fourth-best road record and the fifth-best record in the league. So despite all the different story lines, they earned that right.”

Game 1 of the best-of-seven is Sunday in Miami.

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By TIM REYNOLDS | The Associated Press

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Miami Heat works on late-game situations

Posted by Spoelstra Heat | Posted on 12-05-2012

Category : Miami Heat, Playoff 2012

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Miami Heat works on late-game situations

Two days after squandering a last-second chance to tie or win Game 4, the Heat spent part of Tuesday’s practice working on late-game situations “so we’ll be more comfortable in our package,” Dwyane Wade said.

To refresh: With his team down two, Wade received the inbound pass with 13.2 seconds left, dribbled, fumbled the ball briefly, recovered, and missed a difficult 24-foot three-pointer with 2.4 seconds left.

“Look, guys,” coach Erik Spoelstra said. “If you get Dwyane Wade going down the lane with an open lane, and you’re down by two, I think you take that. It was a pretty good opportunity to attack the rim. It was a broken play, and we know what happened from there. …

“We had an open trigger for LeBron James. We had an open window on the second one with Chris Bosh. Just made the wrong read, and it ended up being a miscommunication between him and Dwyane. Otherwise, that would have been a pretty good opportunity.”

The Heat is now 6 for 16 this season – and 9 for 36 since the Big 3 was assembled – on shots to tie the game or go ahead in the final 24 seconds of the fourth quarter or overtime. Wade is 3 for 7 on those shots this season, James 1 for 2.

“I got a step on Amare Stoudemire, which I wanted,” Wade said of the last play. “I just lost the ball. I would do it all over again.”

Said James: “Last play, we could have executed a lot better.”

Bosh said he “was trying to get to an open spot” on that play to give Wade another option.

” Michael Jordan made it look so easy,” Bosh said of late-game shots. “It’s a low-percentage shot.”

TNT’s Kenny Smith said on that last possession, “I would have had the ball in LeBron’s hands and let Wade set the pick” instead of Wade with the ball and Bosh setting the screen.

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Barry Jackson, Miami Herald

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Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra stuck in no-win situation

Posted by Spoelstra Heat | Posted on 12-05-2012

Category : Erik Spoelstra, Playoff 2012

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Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra stuck in no-win situation

Back against a wall, enclosed by a semicircle of media pressed in uncomfortably close, stands the luckiest coach in the NBA, and also the unluckiest. He is the same man, for the same reason.

He has LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, meaning the best thing coach Erik Spoelstra can do is not mess it up.

Championships (that’s plural) are expected here with this group. Dominance is expected. Perfection would be nice, too, apparently, to a degree the occasional loss always feels like the earth has quaked from its axis, the cause something to be placed under a microscope and examined so it won’t happen again.

The Heat is in great shape in its first-round series against the Knicks, up 3-1 entering Game5 here Wednesday night. But because the last game up in New York was a loss, what-went-wrong-and-why were still the arrows flying at Spoelstra.

“We understand that when we win, there’s no story, no noise,” the coach tells his inquisitors following Tuesday’s practice at the Heat’s downtown arena. “And that when we don’t, the decibel level is up.”

I found it interesting that as the coach spoke, club president Pat Riley and owner Micky Arison – the men whose ingenuity and money made the Big3 happen – sat at a courtside table as work in the practice gym wound down, their gaze literally upon the job their coach is doing with what he was given.

Spoelstra is Coach Can’t-Win.

Should Miami end this playoff run with an NBA championship, it would be – by broad national consensus – on account of the Big 3 rising. It would be because talent prevailed. It would be simply expected.

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BY GREG COTE
GCOTE@MIAMIHERALD.COM

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James wins 3rd NBA MVP award

Posted by Spoelstra Heat | Posted on 12-05-2012

Category : Lebron James

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AP Source: James wins 3rd NBA MVP award

MIAMI (AP) Heat forward LeBron James is the NBA’s MVP for a third time, putting him alongside some of the game’s all-time greats.

A person familiar with the decision told The Associated Press that James will be announced Saturday as this year’s winner of the league’s top individual honor, and that he’ll be formally presented with the trophy by Commissioner David Stern on Sunday afternoon before Miami hosts Indiana in Game 1 of an Eastern Conference semifinal series.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the league has not announced the results.

James is winning the award for the third time in four seasons. Only seven other players – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Moses Malone – have at least three MVP trophies.

James said last week that while another MVP award ”would be amazing and would be humbling,” it’s not what drives him.

In his ninth season, James still has not won an NBA title and it’s clear that, although he wanted to reclaim the MVP trophy, winning a championship is far and away his top basketball priority.

”What I’m all about is team and ever since I was a kid, I was always taught it’s team first,” James told the AP on Friday.

”My first time playing basketball, we went undefeated and won a championship and Frank Walker Sr. gave everyone on the team a MVP trophy. Right then and there, I knew that this is what I wanted to do. I wanted to see my teammates reap the benefits as well.”

Abdul-Jabbar won the MVP six times, Jordan and Russell five times each, Chamberlain four times. After this weekend, they’ll be the only players with more than James.

”I think he’s probably as committed as he’s ever been in his career,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said this week, asked to summarize James’ season.

”And he’s always been committed. … We all respond to his energy on the court.”

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By TIM REYNOLDS | The Associated Press

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LeBron James, Dwyane Wade play role of closers as Miami Heat advances

Posted by Spoelstra Heat | Posted on 12-05-2012

Category : Miami Heat, Playoff 2012

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LeBron James, Dwyane Wade play role of closers as Miami Heat advances

Dwyane Wade and LeBron James left nothing to chance.

Led by its stars, the Heat played with an energy level not seen in this first round series since the opening game. It started with a blowout and it ended that way Wednesday at AmericanAirlines Arena.

Sealing the deal with ease on its first postseason series victory against New York since 1997, the Heat defeated the Knicks 106-94 in Game 5 to clinch the series and advance to the Eastern Conference semifinals.

The Heat will begin its second-round, best-of-7 series against the Indiana Pacers on Sunday. Miami was 3-1 against Indiana in the regular season.

“It’s going to be a great series,” James said. “They’re well coached and they have a great inside-outside punch.”

Fans began launching their white seat covers into the air and onto the court in the final moments of Wednesday night’s game. But the game was long over before that.

A 14-2 run late in the third quarter put the Heat ahead by 18 points. A three-pointer by James with 7:26 left in the game gave the Heat a 92-75 lead.

“Nothing’s easy in the playoffs,” coach Erik Spoelstra said. “We feel good about moving on, and it will only get tougher from here.

“We feel confident we can put teams away, but it’s never easy.”

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Joseph Goodman, Miami Herald

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Still no contact with Carmelo

Posted by Spoelstra Heat | Posted on 11-05-2012

Category : Lebron James, Playoff 2012

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Still no contact with Carmelo

James and Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony have been friends since their high school days, but have yet to contact each other during their first playoff series against each other.

Before the series opener, Anthony said the two might exchange text messages. James said Wednesday there will be plenty of time to talk in the offseason because both are focused on more important things.

“It’s the playoffs,” James said.

“We’re going to be competing at the highest level throughout this round. Our friendship goes beyond basketball, but during the game there’s really no [being] friends. I want the best for him but I don’t want the best for him while he’s playing against us.”

By Shandel Richardson, Sun Sentinel

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A refreshed LeBron

Posted by Spoelstra Heat | Posted on 11-05-2012

Category : Lebron James, Playoff 2012

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A refreshed LeBron

A healthy Mike Miller and Udonis Haslem are helping give James somewhat a breather during the postseason.

James logged 43.9 minutes a game during last year’s playoffs, but is averaging just 37.5 this year. He said it’s too early to tell if it will last.

“It felt good the first four games,” James said.

“I’m going to need [rest]. It’s always a luxury to have guys come off the bench and spare you minutes.”

Haslem and Miller were battling injuries last year around this time, causing them to play less. Spoelstra said the difference in health is noticeable.

“There’s no question about it,” Spoelstra said.

“They both feel a lot better, and move considerably better than last year. They were limping into the Finals.”

By Shandel Richardson, Sun Sentinel

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Free throws a concern

Posted by Spoelstra Heat | Posted on 11-05-2012

Category : Miami Heat, Playoff 2012

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Free throws a concern

Heat coach Erik Spoelstra made free-throws a primary concern since Sunday’s poor performance. Miami made just 24 of 35 from the foul line in Game 4.

Spoelstra said the team spent extra time during practice working on free throws.

“In a playoff game, points are hard to come by,” James said.

“When you get an opportunity to go up to the free-throw line, you just do your best to try to knock them down.”

The positive is it meant the Heat were attacking the basket. They’ve been known to struggle when becoming a “jump-shooting” team.

“Open free throws, they weren’t contested,” Spoelstra said.

“The fact that we’re getting to the free throw line, that’s a positive. We’re an attack team if we get 35 attempts. We like those opportunities. We just didn’t capitalize on them.”

By Shandel Richardson, Sun Sentinel

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