Review: The Heat sneak ahead of the Bobcats, 99-94

The Miami Heat defeated the Charlotte Bobcats for the tenth consecutive time. They won 99-94 and have won 9 of thier last 10 games at home. Miami may be a fun place to visit but the American Airlines Arena is anything but fun for visiting teams. Much is made of how the Heat have some of the laziest fans in the league, a lot of whom like to leave early to beat the rush hour traffic. But the fact remains that the Heat are well rested when they play at home. Although how rested they were this night is a matter of debate, but more on that later.

The Miami Big 3!

There isn’t really much that you can do when LeBron has it going to this degree. James missed just one of his fourteen shot attempts and finished with 31 points, eight rebounds, eight assists and two steals. And he likes to bank in left handed hook shots too as he showed today. He hasn’t gotten around to using this unstoppable move of his in a game:

What he has now is just as deadly.

Heat scorers

Dwyane Wade added 20 points, twelve rebounds and four assists to the mix. Chris Bosh gave them 23 points and four rebounds. Yet another game in which the big three of Miami score more than 70 points. This was the fifth time this season that each of the big three had at least 20 points each. Ray Allen played 26 minutes and had 7 points on 2 of 8 shooting. Norris Cole added 5 assists and 4 points.

Downtown is shut

The Heat shot a paltry 1 for 12 from downtown, but they still shot above 50 as they finished with 50.6% shooting. The Bobcats also fared poorly from three point range as they finished with 8 of 25 shooting.

Share the ball

Miami shared the ball; the Bobcats didn’t. The Heat had 23 assists to the Bobcats 13. The Bobcats did share shots though as six of them finished in double figures. Jeff Taylor had 10, Gerald Henderson added 12, Kemba Walker added 11, Ramon Sessions had 18,

Near miss

The Bobcats actually led 72-69 with 9:25 remaining in the game. Miami then went on a 14-2 run on strength of LeBron James‘ six points in that span to go ahead 83-74 with 4:59 remaining in the game. Charlotte still hung in and cut it down to 89-87 with 1:38 left but then LeBron shut the door again as he assisted Bosh on a dunk, which made it 91-87 with 1:13 left. James struck again with a layup and gave Miami a 6 point lead with 37 seconds left and that was the end of it.

The Bobcats were missing Michael Kidd-Gilchrist who suffered a concussion against Houston on Saturday night. He needs to pass the NBA‘s post-concussion protocol before he is eligible to play. Ramon Sessions stepped up by scoring 18 points but they still lost their fourth straight game, making them 12 for their last 14 games.

“We’ll take it. Charlotte played tough and those guards, for a while it looked like we were playing in a [6-foot-4]-and-under league. They were able to really attack and really just spread the court but I thought our guys came back with a decent amount of energy”, said Heat coach Eric Spoelstra.

What he didn’t harp on was the activities of last night.

The Heat are one of the few teams, which can comeback from a road trip with delay. They were watching the Super Bowl, which held up their return till 3 AM last night, and yet they escaped with a win over the Bobcats. They improved to 31-14 and the Bobcats sunk to 11-36.

Fun fact, two of the five players in the NBA who were leading their teams in points, assists and steals were on the floor for this one. LeBron James and Kemba Walker lead their respective teams and the only other players to do so are Steph Curry of the Warriors, Goran Dragic of the Suns and Kyrie Irving of the Cavaliers.

Here are the highlights of this game: