1/28/10
by: Scott
Permalink
 |
Here's the thing about the Miami Heat — outside of Dwyane Wade, Michael Beasley and Jermaine O'Neal, they pretty much stink. Since Wade and Beasley are the only real offensive weapons on that team, the Raptors had a clear mandate once Beasley was knocked out of the game with a knee injury: Force the Heat to try to beat them with everyone other than Wade.
While Wade did score 35 points (along with 10 assists) last night, 21 of those came in the first half when he was eating up poor Sonny Weems. In the final 14:43 of the game, Antoine Wright did a much better job helping the Raptors trap Wade and force his teammates to make their shots. With the Raptors' leading 85-81 going into the fourth quarter, the Heat shot just 8-for-20 the rest of the way (including Wade's 2-for-6 and 0-for-3 from long range) and the Raptors' completed their comeback from a 13-point second quarter deficit to beat the Heat fairly comfortably.
Let's be real here. If Beasley doesn't hurt his knee early in the game, this might have had a different outcome. He gave the Raptors trouble in their previous two meetings and he had scored six of Miami's first 13 points before he left the game midway through the first quarter. With no Beasley and with the Heat exposing their poor three-point shooting (they're 23rd in the NBA in 3P% and went 5-for-22 last night), this game was there for the taking and the Raptors didn't blow their opportunity.
Aside from the outstanding performances from Chris Bosh and Andrea Bargnani (combining for 51 points on 24-for-41 shooting and 21 rebounds) that we're now starting to take for granted, a ton of credit deserves to go to Antoine Wright for his tenacious D on Wade in the fourth quarter and for sticking a fork in the Heat's back by burying an open trey from the corner that gave the Raptors a seven-point lead with 15 seconds to go. If Wright can improve his three-point shooting from the corner so that he hits close to 40 percent of them — and then essentially limits his offence to taking those shots when he's open — then there's no question he can be a very valuable contributor to this team.
The next 10 games will almost certainly determine whether or not the Raptors have a shot at breaking into the top four in the East by the end of the season. Their opponents during that stretch are the Knicks, the Pacers (back-to-back), the Nets, the Kings, the 76ers, the Grizzlies (in Toronto, Memphis is 8-14 on the road), the Nets again, the Wizards and the Trail Blazers (in Toronto). When you look at that schedule, should the Raptors lose any of those games? I'm not suggesting that I think they can run the table, but 9-1 is entirely attainable and anything worse than 8-2 is unacceptable.
If the Raptors go 9-1 over their next 10 games, that will put them at 33-23. If either Atlanta or Orlando goes .500 over their next 10 games, that means the Raptors could very well be just a couple of games behind fourth place in the East with 26 games to go in the season. Is this series of events probable? Nope. Is it well within the realm of possibility? Absolutely. How crazy is that? 
|
