Don't Bet Against Heat After Loss
MIAMI (CBSMiami) – It's rare, but the Miami Heat does lose an occasional game or two. They just don't do it in consecutive games, at least not for the last six months.
With Sunday night's Game 2 victory in the 2013 NBA Finals, the Heat hasn't lost consecutive games since January 8-10. Not only that, but when the Heat do drop a game, as they did in Game 1 of the Finals; the next game is usually a blowout.
Dating back to January, when Miami loses a game it has followed up that loss with a win that has a margin of victory averaging 19.8 points.
Going deeper inside the numbers, Miami also hasn't lost consecutive home games since June 2011, when Dallas beat the Heat for the NBA Championship in the first year of the Heat's Big Three of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh.
Over the last two years, Miami is 84-14 inside the friendly confines of the AmericanAirlines Arena. For comparison, only two other teams have at least 65 home victories since the start of last season. Incidentally, one of the two teams is the San Antonio Spurs.
Miami now heads to San Antonio needing to win at least one game to bring the NBA Finals back to Miami. The Heat, or the Spurs, could clinch the series in San Antonio if they sweep the games in Texas, but that doesn't seem likely.
Still, the Heat responded to the Spurs' victory in Game 1 the way they did all season long and dating back to last year's NBA Finals against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Last year, the Heat dropped Game 1 of the NBA Finals only to sweep the next four games to win the NBA Championship.
When the series gets going again in San Antonio on Tuesday, expect the Spurs to come out firing and look to give Miami a case of Texas home cooking.
(TM and © Copyright 2013 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2013 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
