BOSTON – A friend walked up at halftime and asked: “How to you make any Heat superstar miss a shot?”
Answer: Give him the ball.
Yes, the jokes started early Tuesday. That was expected. Goliath got punked. How bad was it? In their first quarter together, the Heat’s Dream Team scored fewer points (nine) than in any Heat quarter last year.
That’s part of why the Heat’s 88-80 loss actually was much worse news for the rest of the NBA. Go ahead and laugh a little more at that one, if you want.
But let me go further: It was the very worst news the rest of the league could have received. There’s really no other way to assemble what happened in this Heat opener in another context.
The Heat looked awful deep into Tuesday. It wasn’t just the first quarter. The Big Three shot a collective seven-of-27 with two assists and nine turnovers at half. Does anyone really think they’ll have a worse half all season?
Then, through much of the second half, the Heat played without one of the league’s top four players. Dwyane Wade sat on the bench. He hadn’t played in three weeks. He looked like it. So did the Heat with him.
“I don’t think so,” LeBron James said when asked before the game if all that time off would affect how he and Wade play together. “We’re two guys who know how to play basketball and we’ll work off each other.”
If they were playing tonight’s opponent, Philadelphia, that wouldn’t have mattered. But the Heat drew the toughest opener they could have. Boston. In Boston. With a full fury of Boston frenzy waiting them. And that was just the team.
“We wanted to prove we’re pretty good, too,” Boston guard Rajon Rondo said.
This is what the Heat will be up against all year, of course. The difference here is the Celtics are good. They’re the second-best team in the Eastern Conference when healthy, as they showed Tuesday night.
The Celtics are a rosterr of veterans and champions and plenty of good, players in proper roles. Shaquille O’Neal aside, they’ve been together for a few seasons. And that’s really why the rest of the league was put on notice Tuesday.
After leading by 15 points at half and 19 points midway through the third quarter, the Celtics had to hang on for the win against a stumbling Heat team.
Mostly behind LeBron James’ 31 points, the Heat cut the lead to four points with eight minutes left in the game. The Celtics then took charge again. And then the Heat stormed on a 8-0 run to make it 83-80 with a couple of minutes left.
That’s just it. The Heat were awful. Their best players were their worst. Wade made four of 16 shots. Chris Bosh was 3 of 11. LeBron had an ungodly eight turnovers, which would have put him in triple-double range except he only had four rebounds.
All that, yet the game was right there for them.
Down three points, they just needed a defensive stop to pull out the unlikely win. And, no, they didn’t get it. The Celtics hung on. Paul Pierce hit a big shot and Boston became America’s darlings for this opening night by beating the Heat.
It was all there, everything this team is going to face. One fan had a big mask of a crying LeBron. There were a few “Queen James” signs. So if you didn’t know who is America’s new villain by now, you saw evidence of it up close on the first night.
“It’s going to take some time,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said before Tuesday’s game. “What I know we’ll have is great effort. That’s what this team has shown from the start in a great camp.”
But playing together, understanding each other’s games, or just getting a game back into proper shape in Wade’s case, wasn’t a one-night proposition.
The Heat looked awful Tuesday. That gave much of the sporting nation a good laugh. But the conclusion from the game was far different than just a Heat loss.
Playing so badly against the toughest opponent in the East, the Heat nearly won. They gave Boston a fight to the finish.
This was the worst kind of warning the rest of the NBA could have received. The Celtics ran off the court celebrating. The Heat? They walked off the court and flew to Philadelphia. The season is on. The laughing will stop soon.