NBA Playoffs: Red-hot Heat bury Trae, Hawks to take Game 1

Miami reserve Duncan Robinson scored a career playoff high 27 points and the Heat defensively dominated Atlanta for a 115-91 victory in an NBA playoff series opener on Sunday.

Robinson sparkled by making 9-of-10 shots, including 8-of-9 from 3-point range, while Jimmy Butler added 21 points and P.J. Tucker contributed 16 for the Heat, who seized a 1-0 lead in the best-of-seven first round series.

"We saw the confident Duncan," Butler said. "He doesn't care what anybody thinks. He saw some threes and he made them and that's what we need from him."

The Hawks and their star guard Trae Young suffered through a miserable night against Miami's defense.

Young went 1-of-12 from the floor, 0-of-7 from 3-point range, and had a season-low eight points.

"Just make it physical on him, challenge every shot, make him pass," Butler said of the Heat's strategy to shut down Young. "He can score in bunches and we don't want him to do that."

Atlanta opened with its worst-shooting quarter and worst-shooting half of the season. Although they started 3-of-17 from the floor, the Hawks trailed only 23-17 after the first.

Miami surged ahead in the second quarter to a 59-40 halftime lead. 

Young was only 1-of-9 in the first half as the Hawks went 11-for-38.

Asked if their defensive scheme had worked perfectly, Butler admitted, "We were really close. They missed a lot of shots."

The Hawks welcomed back forward John Collins, who missed the past 18 games with foot and finger sprains, but were without star big man Clint Capela, out with a right knee injury.

Later opening games Sunday found Brooklyn at Boston, Chicago at defending champion Milwaukee and New Orleans at Phoenix.

Agence France-Presse

Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett lead Brooklyn Nets over Miami Heat

BROOKLYN — Thirteen straight times, the Brooklyn Nets had fallen short to the Miami Heat.

Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce were not around for any of those games but having battled the Heat in the postseason with the Boston Celtics, they were determined not to extend that losing streak for their new team.

Pierce scored 17 of his 19 points in the second half, helping the Nets build a double-digit lead before they withstood a furious Miami charge in the final three minutes and pulled out a 101-100 victory Friday night in its much anticipated home opener.

“I think we wanted this a little more,” Garnett said. “No disrespect to the champs and what they are trying to accomplish this year, but we knew playing at home, coming from Cleveland that we would play better.

“We watched a lot of film and saw our mistakes, so we were locked into what we wanted to do and we played with that in mind through the whole game.”

Pierce played 31 minutes, made 5-of-10 shots and went 8-of-8 from the foul line. His biggest plays of the night were a 19-foot jump shot with 6:13 remaining that put the Nets up 90-78 and an emphatic block on LeBron James a minute later.

“Whenever you are trying to establish something against the champs it’s going to be like a playoff atmosphere,” Pierce said. “KG really talked about that coming into the game. Expect it to be like the playoffs, don’t expect anything to go our way because they are the team to beat. It’s good that we got a taste of this type of atmosphere to see where we are at. Miami is the measuring stick for everybody so it was good to come out and get the win.”

“I think it was (a statement game),” Nets center Brook Lopez said. “It’s the defending world champs, you don’t want to come out and be soft and give this one away. So we wanted to show we could come out and compete with them.”

Joe Johnson, who also had 19 points, added a pair of 3-pointers to expand the lead to 96-84 with 2:47 left but then the Heat made their charge. They were within 96-94 on a 3-pointer by Mario Chalmers with 18 seconds left but could not complete the comeback

James led all scorers with 26 points and Dwyane Wade added 21 for Miami, which is under .500 for the second time since James and Chris Bosh joined the team in 2010.

“A little bit of unmotivated basketball I thought at the start,” James said.

James scored his final points on a left corner 3-pointer that made it 99-98 with four seconds remaining but Johnson hit two free throws to push the edge to 101-98. Bosh made the free throw and when he sank the second, the Heat had no chance for the comeback and the Nets simply ran out the clock.

“We tried to make it a game at the end,” Miami head coach Erik Spoelstra said. “It’s pretty clear tonight we didn’t play well. We didn’t play consistently or how we need to play.”

The game had a lot of hype for the budding rivalry with two preseason meetings that featured a few hard fouls, criticism from James about Garnett and Pierce going from Boston to the Nets. Garnett responded to James by telling him to mind his business and the MVP seemed to follow declining to discuss the Nets before and after the game.

“I am not commenting on any other team, OK,” James said. “They won and they are 1-1 and we are 1-2.”

The Nets trailed for just 88 seconds and turned a 47-47 halftime tie into an impressive third quarter showing. Pierce scored 11 points and the Nets took a 78-67 lead into the fourth quarter.

NOTES: Garnett played 26 minutes in the victory, leaving him seven behind Wilt Chamberlain for fifth place in career minutes in NBA history. … Lopez’s eight rebounds give him 2,405 for his career, passing Keith Van Horn for eighth place on the Nets’ career rebounding list. … Andrei Kirilenko was a game-time decision with back spasms but played 12 minutes and scored eight points. … Wade remains seven blocks from breaking Dennis Johnson’s career record for blocked shots by a player 6 feet 4 or shorter at 675. … The Nets travel to take on Orlando on Sunday, and Miami returns home to face Washington. … Joe Prunty coached the Nets as head coach Jason Kidd served the final game of a two-game suspension for a DWI last summer in the Hamptons.

source: interaksyon.com

Heat strike back against Spurs to tie NBA finals series

The Miami Heat showed championship pride, rebounding from a blowout loss with a 109-93 victory over the Spurs in San Antonio on Thursday (Friday morning Manila time).

With its Game Four win, Miami tied the NBA finals series at 2-all.

“They kicked our butts the other night,” said Heat coach Erik Spoelstra. “We were horrible. There was a better response today.”

LeBron James led the way with 33 points and 11 rebounds, but it was Dwyane Wade’s vintage performance that turned things around for the Heat. The 2006 NBA finals MVP played his finest game of the postseason with 32 points, six rebounds, and six steals.

San Antonio committed 19 turnovers, which Miami turned into 23 points.

“Turnovers obviously hurt us. We can’t give them over 20 points on turnovers. They’re too good,” said Spurs coach Gregg Popovich.

Chris Bosh added 20 points and 13 rebounds for the Heat.

Miami looked nothing like the team that was humiliated 113-77 in Game Three as once again they displayed their ability to recover from defeats.

Miami is now a perfect 6-0 following a defeat in the post-season and all six wins have come by double digits. Miami hasn’t lost back-to-back games since January 8 and 10.

Tony Parker had 15 points and 11 assists and Tim Duncan finished with 20 points for the Spurs, who were looking to take a stranglehold on the series after their dominating victory in the last match.

Parker was playing with a sore hamstring he injured in the previous game.

Spoelstra decided to shake up his lineup Thursday by starting forward Mike Miller. James also made good on his guarantee to play better after a dismal performance in the game three loss.

Miami outscored the Spurs 28-17 in the fourth quarter after the teams were tied 49-49 at the half.

James drained a 25-foot three pointer for the last of his 33 points with 23 seconds left in regulation to help seal the win in front of a crowd of 18,581 at the AT&T Center.

James said going into Thursday’s game that he took “full responsibility” for the Heat’s ugly loss in game three and vowed to do better.

He got his first field goal halfway through the first quarter on a driving layup to cut the Spurs’ lead to six points, 15-9.

San Antonio did come out the stronger of the two teams Thursday as France’s Parker scored six points and the Spurs hit three from beyond the arc to jump out to a 15-5 lead in the first five minutes.

But Miami shot 60 percent from the field in the first quarter and Wade made a running eight foot jump shot to give the Heat a 29-26 lead heading going into the second quarter.

The Spurs closed the second period on an 11-2 surge which included seven points from Parker.

Boris Diaw’s driving layup allowed the Spurs to tied the score, 49-49, going into halftime.

Diaw completed a nice give-and-go with Danny Green who got the assist on the final basket of the first half.

Game Five of the series is set on Sunday (Monday Manila time) in San Antonio.

source: interaksyon.com

Miami Heat’s Big Three cruise to NBA title, sights set on more

MIAMI—For the Miami Heat, No. 1 is in the books. What’s got to be scary for the rest of the NBA is that, on Thursday night, the Heat showed just what they’re capable of accomplishing from here.

In Game 5, the Heat played a nearly flawless game on both ends of the floor, dismantling the pesky Oklahoma City Thunder with a 121-106 drubbing for their fourth straight win in this Finals series, and the Larry O’Brien trophy that comes along with it.

The numbers are jaw-dropping: Miami shot 51.9 percent from the floor, had 25 assists on 40 field goals, made 53.8 percent of their 3-pointers, held Oklahoma City to 41.4 percent shooting and led by as many as 27 points. That’s a far cry from the slog of the first four games, when, despite their series lead, the Heat outscored the Thunder by five total points.

In Game 5, we saw the Heat in full—blitzing the Thunder on the defensive end and picking them apart offensively. That started with series MVP LeBron James, who was as impressive mentally as he was physically, racking up a triple double of 26 points, 11 rebounds and 13 assists.

For the second game in a row, James was brilliant in reading the Thunder defense, and when opportunities to drive to the basket arose, James took advantage, scoring all of his points in the paint or at the free-throw line. When Oklahoma City overcommitted to stopping James, he ably swung the ball to his teammates, piling up assists.

Chris Bosh (24 points, seven rebounds) and Dwyane Wade (20 points, eight rebounds) filled their roles as James’ top support men. And James clearly did the one thing a star player is supposed to do—make those around him better. All the defensive attention paid to James allowed so many open looks for the Heat’s perimeter shooters, and Mike Miller wound up with 23 points on seven 3-pointers, with Mario Chalmers and Shane Battier adding multiple 3s, too.

They’re not going to develop into a 121-point-per-night team. But when the Heat were constructed, this was exactly the kind of performance that they seemed capable of producing regularly, even against the second-best team in the NBA.

“We never thought of it as the Big Three,” coach Erik Spoelstra said. “That was the theme outside. But we knew other guys would have to contribute. This was a perfect example tonight. Everybody stepped up, Shane (Battier), Norris Cole, Mario Chalmers, Mike Miller, the list goes on, Udonis Haslem. Everybody had to sacrifice something, but the guys who had an opportunity to choose to come here, they sacrificed something, either pay, minutes, shots, opportunities that they would get with some other team. That just doesn’t happen in today’s game very often. And that's why this is a special group.”

We didn’t see this in the conference semifinals against Indiana, at least not until the Heat adjusted to playing without Bosh after he injured his abdominal muscle in the opening game of the series. We didn’t see it against Boston, a series that went seven games and required back-against-the-wall wins in the final two games. In that series, not only did the Celtics have the veteran capability of mucking up the Heat’s works, but Miami had the added challenge of Bosh returning in Game 5, and figuring out how he could contribute off the bench. Even in the opening game of this series, the one game the Heat lost, Bosh was not in the starting lineup.

That leaves this reality, a stark one for other teams in the league: In games in which James, Wade and Bosh started in these playoffs, the Heat were 9-1.

It only figures to get easier for Miami, with the pressure of not having won a title being lifted, with the often irrational questioning of James’ ability to finish games falling by the wayside, with speculation about the job security of the youthful Spoelstra evaporating. When Michael Jordan’s Bulls first broke through with a championship in 1991, he went on to lead the team to six in a row (excluding his two retirement years).

As Lakers great Magic Johnson said before Game 5, “I think everything changes (after getting a first title). We saw that with Michael. ... We’re judged by championships, and I think LeBron will be bigger around the world with a championship. I think all the naysayers go away, and I think it's only going to make him better. Michael got better after his first championship, and I think the same thing happens for LeBron.”

There does not appear to be a team in the Eastern Conference that has a realistic chance to keep Miami from the Finals. The Thunder likely will be back in the championship round in the future, and they figure to see the Heat often. The knee injury suffered by the Bulls' Derrick Rose will keep him out for much of next season, and it could take him some time to get back to pre-injury form. The Celtics have been a worthy foe for the Heat over the last two years, but Boston will retool this summer. Indiana is a solid young team, but the Pacers are still at least a player away from being championship-caliber. Perhaps a new powerhouse can sprout up (a pairing of Deron Williams and Dwight Howard in Brooklyn, for example), but as the East stands now, Miami is clearly on its own tier.

That’s what the architect of this group, team president Pat Riley, had in mind as he was receiving the championship trophy. “We believe that we built a team that will be around for a while,” Riley said. "Our goal is to hopefully come back every year. It’s always started out as an upstart, you become a team, you become a winner, you become a contender, then one day you might be something special, and that’s what we’re shooting for.”

They were shooting for a championship, and they got one. There could well be more to follow.

article source: aol.sportingnews.com