Miami Heat Lose When They Need To Win

By Christopher Cruz | Feb 28, 2015

Feb 27, 2015; New Orleans, LA, USA; Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade (3) dives for a loose ball at Smoothie King Center. The Pelicans won 104-102. Mandatory Credit: Rusty Costanza-USA TODAY Sports /

Friday night, the Miami Heat lost a game that was imperative for them to make the playoffs. The Heat have a schedule that is easy enough for them to be able to make the playoffs, probably safely taking the seventh seed. Even losing Friday night’s game doesn’t really hurt their chances, because they probably count most Western Conference games a loss.

Western Conference teams are very good, especially a team like the New Orleans Pelicans that is on the verge of making the playoffs.

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But with the Pelicans missing Anthony Davis, this was the one that Miami had to capitalize on. They had to win this game. Yes, the Pelicans had won three straight games, giving them momentum. But Miami had gone on their run, and have scored more than 100 points in three of their last four games.

Tyreke Evans was a nightmare for the Heat, scoring 19 points before fouling out at the end of the game. He got into the paint at will, using a variety of different head fakes and euro-steps.

There was also Davis’s replacement, Alexis Ajinca, who miraculously stepped into the role of premier big man and scored 24 points on 9-of-10 shooting from the field, and also collected eight rebounds. He also had three blocked shots. From the looks of things, he looks as though he dominated Hassan Whiteside, who didn’t have his normal routine double-double.

Whiteside only had 16 points and seven rebounds.

Dwyane Wade didn’t have a good shooting night either, although he made up for it with his passing, collecting eight assists. But the real story was Goran Dragic and Luol Deng, who scored 20 and 22 points, respectively, and were able to take advantage of this team in transition. Miami wasn’t able to defend, which is ironic.

Miami has always been able to hold teams to really low-scoring games all season, but now that they’ve received Dragic, they’ve allowed more points.

The game went down to the wire, with Miami down by two with only seconds left on the clock, and Wade decided to cross over and pull up from three-point range. He ended up bricking off the back of the rim. That is not a shot that you want from Wade, especially when he had shot so poorly that night. It didn’t seem like his shot was going to fall all of a sudden.

It would have been better if he, like a few plays ago, would have just taken his man off the dribble and tried to go to the basket. Or, if he would have given the ball up to Dragic to see what he could do.

That might seem like a harsh thing to say because this is still Wade’s team, but it might have yielded a better result. Miami might have won that game, and they would have been much closer to getting to .500. Losses such as last night’s loss allows teams like the Detroit Pistons, the Charlotte Hornets and Indiana Pacers get back into the playoff picture.

Miami cannot afford it.

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