James, Wade combine for 71 points as Heat torch Blazers 107-93
The hottest team in the entire league rolled into the Rose Garden to catch the Portland Trail Blazers (18-18) reeling on a lame loss the night before in Denver, while the Miami Heat (28-7) had as much as seven days of rest before playing their first game since the break. Without Chris Bosh, LeBron James and Dwayne Wade have found tons of success at the Rose Garden while others haven’t and it would continue. After Portland took an eight point lead during the first half of the first quarter, the Heat just ran away with multiple runs, highlight dunks and both Wade and James creamed the Blazers into a 25-point hole, winning 107-93, handing Portland their second straight loss and continue their sheer dominance as the best team playing right now.
Speedy offensive and shut down, choking defense is the name for the Heat and the Blazers opened things up giving LaMarcus Aldridge the ball for 12 quick first quarter points, hitting over Joel Anthony, finding Nic Batum cutting inside for the lay up and Jamal Crawford connecting for three. Miami didn’t freak out, instead feeding James and Wade the ball at every possession and as usual Portland caved in to settling for outside jumpers only and gave in to Heat going 9-0 runs and closed the first quarter on a 26-10 run, up 32-24 and made things look so easy.
The Blazers could not find their footing as they watched James run at light speed coast-to-coast off of Portland turnovers, and the lead was piling up to much frustration in the Blazers. One sweet spot was the return of beloved center Joel Przybilla who entered during the halfway point to a rounding applause (hypothetically of course, TNT failed once again to show these kind of things on television), not having seen much physical action in a year, Przybilla got off to where he left off in his earlier time in Portland, swatting away a few attempts from Anthony in the paint and grabbing some rebounds. Miami was flying high up 60-42 at half.
Nothing but the same continued until the final buzzer, give credit to Crawford and Gerald Wallace for trying their hardest to get anything, but it was fruitless. Portland could cut the 25-point lead to ten, and like before, there was just no more gas in the tank to get anywhere closer.
LaMarcus Aldridge got some love early on from Reggie Miller and the TNT crew as he went 6-7 from the field but Portland forgot about him after halftime, he scored 20 Pts, 6 Reb, 4 Ast on 41 minutes of play. I want to say that Jamal Crawford had a decent game with 18 Pts, 4 Ast but he broke one of the most important rules when playing the Heat: TURNOVERS. You simply cannot let James and Wade run like that in the open, Crawford turned the orange over 5 times, Wesley Matthews with 3, Gerald Wallace with 3, Nic Batum with 2 and Aldridge with 2. Batum had some quality defensive moments throughout for 17 Pts, 5 Reb and 3 Stl. Joel Przybilla didn’t look anything different and it was great to see him again in a Portland jersey, playing 16 minutes he logged in 4 Pts, 6 Reb and 2 Blks.
No surprise to anyone: LeBron James 38 Pts, 11 Reb, 6 Ast, 5 Stl, Dwayne Wade 33 Pts, 10 Ast, 3 Stl and owned the second quarter.
Some more stats (even though you probably know the end result):
- Points in paint: Miami 48, Portland 44
- Points off turnovers: Miami 4, Portland 20
- Turnovers: Miami 9, Portland 16
- Rebounds: Miami 41, Portland 36
- Steals: Miami 11, Portland 6
I believe we all saw this one coming so it doesn’t hurt too much. Minnesota on Saturday and hopefully a good couple of smacks to the Wolves will make things better, for a night.
photos courtesy of oregonlive.com/blazers
Nicholas Filipas