I don't even remember this game. I must have blogged it. The win made us 24-16. Rust was 16-22 going in. Reading the AP write-up reminds me of Spo's comments after G1, a 103-102 win over the Zollner Pistons. Look:
“I think this is good for us. [Remember that.] This is what I wanted, to see if we could win some games with different solutions when we weren’t necessarily making shots, [We were 37.9% (34.3%)] where it potentially could be a little bit ugly, and then you just figure out how to win at the end.”-post-Rust.
“That’s three straight games where we held our opponent under 100 (points). [Remember that.] That’s progress, and there’s been a lot of moving parts...
We trailed 45-31 at HT. It is clear in retrospect that whatever is broken broke that game.
It was Jimmy's first game back after missing 7 games.
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Zollner, Oct. 25:
The "Heat" led 58-47 at the half.
The Heat led by 19 with 9:07 left, went scoreless in the final 2:57 and survived when a 30-footer by Detroit’s Cade Cunningham missed as time expired.
Spo post-:
“I loved it. I loved the emotion tonight. I loved the energy. A lot of good things.”
No, he didn't. Spo is always positive.
We then lost four in a row: at Beans by 8, at Ice by 16, at Beer by 8, then back home to Rust by 4. That kicked off 7-straight wins and 9 of 10. We didn't hold a team under 100 points until our 15th game.
We then lost 3 in a row. After that we were 5-4 in our next 9.
In our first 27 games we held our opponent under 100 points once. That's not Miami "Heat" basketball.
We then won four straight again, all triple-digit games by both teams.
Our most impressive win of the season, and the game that broke La-La Lake-Lake, was Jan. 3, 110-96 out there.
Rust was the last of three straight W's, the last holding the opposition under 100. The game before that, Jan. 14, Queens at home, a 104-87 win, was the last game until today that 3J played, the game that he scored 15 points in 15 mins.
3J wasn't himself today, he is going to need to get his game legs under him, and, as I have written before, it is clear to me that he is our MVP this season, our Energizer Bunny, and that without him and his manic drive on both ends of the court, we can't win.
We are 9-6 without Jimmy, .600, equates to 49 wins; we are 15-16 when Jimmy does play. We are 1-5 when 3J doesn't play at all, 2-6 if you include the Charlotte 15' and today's first game back, 1-6 if you exclude Charlotte.
Now, the "Heat" can make a liar out of me but these are season-long trends: dreadful (as usual) shooting, sub-par (by historical "Heat" standards) D; they were present when we were 1-0, when we were 1-4, when we were 10-5, 19-12, and 24-16; they were there when we had Jimmy and when we didn't, had 3J and didn't. But this team only got from 1-4 to 24-16 because of Jaime Jaquez, Jr.
