Celtics embarrass Heat in East finals rematch, 143-110 (AP for ESPN)

The perfect word. Do you think Pat-“Danny-Ainge-should-shut-the-fuck-up”-Riley is going to let go of being “embarrassed” by the Boston “Celtics” at home without having a tête-à-tête with Erik Spoelstra? I don’t think so.

Is it, in part anyway, a Kyle Lowry Effect? The first loss in this Funky Time happened in the 905 and it was a blow-out L to a team that was shedding talent. Then Kyle stayed up there and was late to a shootaround before the ATL game, a bad, albeit one-point, loss to a team that we own. Spo didn’t start Lowry. The first game he had not started this season. Then Spo didn’t start him in the next game, a blowout L at Mouse. Then Kyle was asked if he and Spo were still on the same page and he answered “I don’t know how to answer that question.” That was it, he was traded.

Spo said after the trade the everybody in “Heat” World did everything they could to get Kyle here in the trade with Toronto. Jimmy included. Spo said we wouldn’t have been the number one seed in the East a couple seasons ago without Kyle. He was very complimentary of Kyle while a Heater. You can go back over 100 posts since we got Kyle, I didn't get the infatuation. I mocked Ira Winderman's "intangibles" "Kyle Lowry Effect". But as I allowed in a post after the trade, I never thought Kyle was a fit for "Heat" Culture, I didn't think he wanted to be here particularly, his heart seemed still to be in Toronto and he spent far too many unexplained "personal days" away from the team in Toronto. Riley criticized Lowry's fitness before last season. There was that exorbitant contract for a player in clear decline who contributed too little tangibles in the boxscore. Is Kyle bad-mouthing Spoelstra since the trade or was the dissatisfaction clear to teammates.

 

Then there was the lineup juggling. You know when the last time I saw this level of tinkering from Spo? That year we went 11-30 in the first half and 31-11 in the second half. Spo just could not settle on a lineup and it drove the players, in particular Hassan Whiteside to lash out publicly. That was "Young Whiteside's doom. But that was a new patchwork team--Dion Weighters, the Johnsons, Hassan, a real collection of misfits and spare parts. 

 

This team with a core and most key rotation players intact for three straight years, should have had rotations set in concrete and ready to roll out the ball. But yet, tonight was the 25th different starting lineup Spoelstra sent out this season. He was not satisfied with that roster in 2016 or whenever it was and he clearly is bothered about something with this season's roster. It's just a sign with Spoelstra that when he is tinkering, he doesn't have the roster he wants. Then was understandable; now is unfathomable. 

 

The weird use of Jovic. That may be the weirdest of all Spo's tinkering. Started ten straight games! And he can't play. Not for the big club. Not yet. I think Spoelstra has given up on him. Now he's so far down the bench you need a telescope to find him. 

This org is tight as a ten-year old's asshole. You can't get straight dope out of them. But there is dope there, hidden from view. Don't know what it is, just that this is not Funky Time, it's five-alarm warning bell time. I posted recently that I still believed we would get to 50 wins. We're now on course to win only 44 games this season. We're 11 games out of the top spot, out of the playoff slots and in the play-in tonight. Fifty seems a chimera. There's still plenty of time of course but the fall has been so sudden and so precipitate that simply "getting back into the groove" seems laughable. The "Heat" did not play "Heat" basketball tonight, they didn't compete, they didn't give effort, they didn't play defense. This seems as much, if not more, the end of this core's run as it is a blip. Tonight and this losing streak seem systemic, not correctable by tinkering. 

Good night.