It doesn't happen when the "Heat" are in town. Miami went into a tough venue against a good team with always a thunderous crowd behind them and came out with a 115-107 win.
Miami led throughout, by a whopping 14 after one, held that two TD lead at the half and after three. The "Heat" shot an excellent 48.8% and this played good D too, holding OKC to an even 44%. They outrebounded OKC, who were without Steven Adams (thigh bruise--setting two many hard picks, Steven!) 45-35.
Players only love you when they're playing. Then Spo is covered in love tonight. Spo played nine guys and seven of them had double figure points. Big Game K game through agayne, 22 points on 9/17 (3/5) but as usual with this team others covered themselves in glory as well. Bam (21,8, 5, 1 block), Duncan (14, 3, 3), Jimmy a W with 14, 10, 7, 2, 1; DJj (13,5, 1 steal), KELLY, omg Kelly Olynyk not only played (MIA, Kelly, for a while now) but had 12 on perfect 5/5 shooting...Wow, KO had a complete game--7 rebounds and 2 assists in only 18'!, the Dragon (10,2, 5). JJ, now here is an example of why Spo says you can't just go to the last column in the box score to see a player's impact in a game. JJ played 21' and had 0 points. But he was +8 in the game, third behind Duncan, weirdly, I would not have expected Duncan to lead the team in +/- but he done did, +10, and...And here's another reason why points only don't tell the tale, Meyers Leonard was a +9, only 9 points but 3 boards and 2 assists in only 15'. Anyway, getting back to JJ, in 21' 0 points, but 5 rebounds and a block. That +8 tells me JJ had to have had a glue defensive game and "just" playing stickum D doesn't register in the box.
It is always difficult to award a game ball to one member of this team. Taking into account minutes played and the contributions that are reflected in the box score I'm going to go...No, I was going to go with Jimmy but you have to take that +/- into account (although I swore oaths against that thing in years past); all I have is the box score and taking minutes played, points, boards, assists, yada yada and the +/- into account I award tonight's game ball to Duncan Robinson Big Game K (tolja it was hard).
Congratulations TEAM Miami.
