The Cleveland Cavaliers are second in the Eastern Conference right now. The Miami Heat broke the tie for seventh with Boston and Indiana last night, grabbing the spot for themselves. Still, there is plenty of time left in the season for them to drop out of the playoffs completely or manage to hold on to the seventh seed for good.
The Cavs don’t want that. Or they shouldn’t, at least. They’ve played the Heat three times this season, winning only one of those matchups. In the single game that they won, guess who wasn’t playing?
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Just a guy named Dwyane Wade. Forget about him? It’s OK if you did. Most of the world outside South Florida seems to have done so as well.
But he hasn’t forgotten. Wade isn’t that type of player. Deep down on some level, he is disappointed that LeBron James left his squad. Yes, of course he was genuinely happy for LeBron. They’re best friends. But Wade knows that one of the reasons James left had to be his own fading game, thanks to the wear and tear accumulated on his tortured knees, feet and hamstrings.
So he’s worked extra hard this season to come back strong. And he’s done a pretty good job.
At this point in his career, Wade is biding his time throughout the season. The goal is simply to remain healthy (not as easy as it sounds) enough that when the playoffs begin, he can give his all and try to will his team onward.
He’s sort of like Rocky (in the first film), taking blow after blow from Apollo Creed and pushing on until the end of the fight, where he’s beaten but at least standing.
That doesn’t mean that we don’t get to see anything impressive from Wade during the regular season though. Just look at what he’s doing now: over his last seven games, he’s averaging 29.1 points, 3.5 rebounds, 4.7 assists and 1.8 steals on 53.5 percent shooting from the field, 36.3 percent shooting from downtown and 84.7 percent shooting from the foul line.
During this span he’s been playing just 32.5 minutes.
He’s starting to feel better at just the right time for Miami. They’ve gone 5-2 during his hot streak as they fight for position.
Even more terrifying are the numbers he put up during his two games against Cleveland:
- Dec. 25: 31 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 steals, 1 block, 42.9 FG%, 40.0 3FG%, 100.0 FT%, 37.0 minutes
- March 16: 32 points, 2 rebounds, 2 assists, 5 steals, 72.2 FG%, 75.0 FT%, 31.0 minutes
Like I said, Dwyane Wade doesn’t forget.
The Heat no longer have their other main threat in Chris Bosh due to unfortunate circumstances, but with the addition of Goran Dragic they remain one of the teams best suited to upset a top seed. So far, Cleveland hasn’t had an answer for Wade (or them).
A first-round series between these two clubs would be great theater: LeBron going head-to-head with his best buddy and his former team, who he left because he not only missed home but had the chance to play alongside a blossoming player in Kyrie Irving and a younger All-Star big man in Kevin Love.
You can bet that if this happens there’ll be more build-up to each game than a break-up scene in Bridget Jones’ s Diary.
Realistically, this series looks somewhat skewed on paper, what with no Bosh and all. Kyrie should torch Dragic (the way he’s been playing), Iman Shumpert and J.R. Smith should be able to handle Luol Deng, Timofey Mozgov should match Hassan Whiteside body-for-body and the Heat’s bench was traded for Dragic.
But it’s the things you can’t see on a piece of paper that are concerning.
Mario Chalmers also has a vendetta against LeBron apparently (maybe because of the yelling?) and scored 16 points on 60.0 percent shooting against the Cavs in their last meeting. Just look at him, he looooooves beating James.
Dragic has something to prove in Miami. He has to show that he wasn’t just acquired because of a reputation gained from a single All-Star caliber season. With that chip heavy on his shoulder, he makes the Heat that much more dangerous. Also, I just can’t get this out of my head whenever I think about Dragic.
There are also two salient, good intangibles in favour of the Cavaliers to help them combat the bad ones, thank goodness.
The first: Whiteside has one heckuva temper. You wonder why he’d had issues getting to where he is now? It’s because that temper of his is hotter than the flaming basketball that is the Heat logo. If Mozgov can get under his skin enough, I can easily see him blowing his top even to the point of getting ejected.
You know there’ll be at least five or six times during a seven-game series that Mozzy will say something in Russian that will sound like he’s calling Whiteside’s mother an inappropriate name.
The second: the Heat’s bench is really, really, really bad. OK, so this one isn’t an intangible (it’s super tangible), but it’s going to be one of the biggest advantages for the Cavs should this series come to be.
As of right now, Miami’s decimated bench contains: the Michael Keaton version of Birdman, the other Dragic brother, that guy who played well in the NCAA tourney and the sadness-in-a-jersey that is Michael Beasley.
If you at any point look at a team’s bench and think, Mario Chalmers is going to have to save the day, then your bench is bad. I mean Mark Wahlberg in The Happening level bad.
What do you think, Marky Mark? Heat bench gonna be all right?
Didn’t think so.
King James Gospel
And yet glossing over all of this is that undefinable light radiating from the mad competitiveness of Dwyane Wade.
It’s true, even at this age (when he’s healthy) Wade can make you forget about his defensive anchor having temper tantrum issues, can make you forget Deng was run into the ground by Thibodeau and can even make you forget (at least for a little while) that his team’s bench is a nuclear waste dump.
Players love the challenge of having media, fans and even their peers try to bury them prematurely. It gives them a purpose. And for Wade, his purpose seems to be not just proving those people wrong, but also LeBron and his Cavaliers.
The Heat may not (realistically) have legitimate title aspirations like the Cavs, but to them, maybe just knocking Cleveland out of the postseason early would be enough. Maybe that’s all they’re gunning for. Maybe that’s all Wade really wants out of this season.
And maybe, just maybe, that’s why the Cavs really won’t want to see them in the spring.
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