Heat Look For 2-0 Lead Tuesday Night
MIAMI (CBSMiami.com) - Fresh off a Game 1 victory that saw Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade torch the Boston Celtics; the Heat looks to take a two games to none lead in the best of seven series Tuesday night.
Wade scored 38 points in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals. He shot better than 60 percent from the field, including 40 percent from behind the 3-point line. LeBron James also chipped in with 22 points, 6 rebounds, and 5 assists.
The bigger story was the play of James Jones off the bench. The Heat's bench has been much maligned all season, but Jones has come up huge in the playoffs. He dropped 25 points on the Celtics and played 28 minutes in the game.
But the Heat's victory was not without a few problems.
Chris Bosh, who had been playing extremely well in the playoffs, only managed to score 7 points, but did pull down 12 rebounds in Game 1. Plus, Mike Bibby and Mario Chalmers combined to score 5 points from the point guard position. But they did shut down Rajon Rondo, which is saying something this season.
For the Celtics, they may be getting much bigger on the front line. Shaquille O'Neal, who has missed 33 of the last 34 Celtics games, is being called a game-time decision for Game 2. If he doesn't play Tuesday night, Celtics coach Doc Rivers said Shaq will likely play in Game 3 back in Boston.
Still, even if Shaq does play, given his conditioning, he will likely only play a handful of minutes. What will be interesting is to see if Shaq does play in Games 3 and 4. If he does, look for the Heat to seriously consider bringing back Udonis Haslem for a few minutes when the series returns to Miami.
The main thing the Heat can hope for is that the lower bowl of the American Airlines Arena finally becomes more interested in the game than in being seen. It looks bad on television to see the AAA so dead in the lower bowl, even when the Heat are playing great basketball.
In the playoffs, the Heat have four players averaging in double-figures heading into Tuesday night's game, with Bosh and James nearly averaging a double-double per game in the playoffs. But Boston will likely turn up the defensive intensity Tuesday night's game and that could mean a long, slow game with lots of fouls.
It will likely come down to who can hit their free throws, and who can stay healthy during the bruising series. The Heat shoot 81 percent from the free throw line in the playoffs and they'll need every point if they want to take a 2-0 lead back to Boston.
