Miami Heat Missing

There is now an amber alert out for the Miami Heat, who have gone missing for at least a week now.

The last time they were seen was at Orlando for the final regular season game, although it was suspicious because Dwyane Wade and Shaq didn't make an appearance. We all just assumed it was normal and went on with our lives.

What we didn't realize is that incident was never reported and both players have not been seen since. And now, the entire team is missing, too.

Call it "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" or perhaps some sort of rapture, but the Heat have been missing for so long, the Bulls have decided to honor them by holding out for their recovery and only taking a win on each date originally scheduled for a playoff game. The Bulls get a win because the Heat, gone missing since April 19th, are forfeiting each game.

It's a sad story, really. The Bulls were looking forward to challenging the Heat in a playoff round one and testing their mettle against the defending champions. Yet, they seem to have never gotten that chance.

"It's like, they are still here, you know? Any second I am looking out on the court and I expect to see Shaq show up in his warm-ups. It's strange." Ben Gordon said about the missing Heat.

"I wonder what it would be like to have a rematch against Shaq, DWade and all those guys. They are intense competitors and with Riley at the helm, it would be one heck of a challenge to take the series," Kirk Hinrich told the media from his 30' yacht on Lake Michigan this afternoon. "I would have looked forward to it."

If you have any information on where the Miami Heat is, or even where some of the individual players are, please give us a call at 1-888-555-HEAT. Or email us at info@miamiheatwave.com.

The time is now - we need your help. Or soon, in another few more days, the Heat will forfeit games three and four and the Bulls will have no choice but to advance to the second round.

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Ok, enough of that.

It did seem in tonight's loss that the Miami Heat just flat out didn't show up. They KNEW they had to do a better job rebounding. They KNEW they had to do a better job defending Deng and limiting the perimeter looks as well. They KNEW that they could not just settle for jump shots, but attempt to take the ball into the lane and draw fouls.

They knew all of this, and yet they looked even worse tonight, losing 107-89 to the Bulls in Chicago. Yet, why didn't the Heat have a better showing?

Let's give credit to where it is due - Chicago played solid defense and held the Heat to 46% shooting. Wait, that isn't right...I meant to say the Bulls got the benefit of some home cooking, getting lots of foul shots. The Bulls shot 83% from the line, 10-12 while the Heat shot 80% 16-20.

Wait a tick, that means the Heat got more FTAs than Chicago...umm...

Ah ha! It was turnovers! Of course! Wade has 7 turnovers while the team amassed 20 for the entire game! Chicago had...oops...18.

Let's see...the Heat stayed out of foul trouble, drew more FTAs than the Bulls, shot a decent percentage from the field, only had 2 more turnovers than Chicago and still lost by almost 20 points?

What the heck is going on?

Well, in truth, the Bulls shot 55% from the field (43-78) and 64% from three (11-17). That means they made 9 more field goals than Miami which equals 18 more points. That is the difference.

Also, Chicago did outrebound, once again, the Heat who supposedly has the better front court by 8 rebounds. Ben Wallace finished with only 6 rebounds while Shaq finished with 8 himself. Udonis Haslem performed another disappearing act, only grabbing 4 rebounds in 21 minutes.

The Heat defense did not improve. All Riley did was play Posey a bulk of the minutes while sitting EJ this time (who played only 16 minutes tonight).

The Heat did not play with more energy. Instead, they played like scared little girls tonight. They should all wear diapers; I am surprised none of them ran to the bathroom to go tinkle at the sight of how this Bulls team just totally manhandled them tonight.

Let's be honest, championship teams don't underperform as consistently as this Miami Heat team does. They play down to their competition, and then tweak it to where they play even below that level.

The only guys who came to play tonight where Walker, Posey and Doleac (who always comes to play, damn it). Riley should take himself out of the head chair after these two games.

It is one thing to be unreasonable, another to be critical. And still another to be tired of being polite and offering constructive criticism and go straight for the intervention. What Miami needs is a serious labotomy. Shaq whined about the officiating, it didn't matter. Wade keeps talking about his left shoulder and how he is mentally prepared, he's lying to himself.

All the whining and bickering has to stop. Because if the Heat don't come together as a team and focus on winning real soon, it will come to a complete stop. Their season will be over and it will end just as their championship defense began - with the Bulls laughing their way back to Chicago.

Look, the Bulls simply did their job and held serve - they won their first two games at home. The object of every team in the playoffs is to win at home and steal a game on the road. For Miami, this means the next two games at home are must wins otherwise Chicago has the advantage.

The other thing to consider is that it is highly unlikely that a team that averaged 98.8 points per game on 45.7% shooting during the regular season will have another 55% shooting night from the field. Is this starting to sound familiar? It should. Kind of like last season's Finals where the Heat went back to Miami down two games after getting schlacked by the Mavericks - another jump shooting team that creates mismatches for the Heat on the perimeter.

The Heat have to be very careful right now. They have to come out in game 3 like it is the last game of the season for them. Because it really could be. Being down against Chicago 0-3 with only 2 potential home games left is not a good spot to be in.

Miami has to stop playing scared, and suck it up and be aggressive. Until then, this looks like the start of a Bull Run.