February 3
Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
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When LeBron James was scoring 24 points during the first quarter Wednesday night in Milwaukee, no one was complaining about Chris Bosh getting only two shots in the period. But as an 18-point lead evaporated in what turned into a 105-97 loss to the Bucks, Bosh's lack of touches became part of a greater overall debate about a lack of ball movement, particularly into the post. "I think that's our strength," Bosh said after closing 4 for 10 for nine points. "When we pound it down on the inside, we put pressure on the defense. When guys are 10 feet away from the basket, I think we're a lot more dangerous.""
February 3
Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
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Chris Bosh will have to wait a week, but he's already found himself in an All-Star debate. While, as expected, LeBron James and Dwyane Wade were announced Thursday as All-Star Game starters in the final tabulation of fan voting, the remaining member of the Miami Heat's Big Three will have to wait until next Thursday, when voting among conference coaches for reserves is announced. James and Wade are joined in the Eastern Conference starting lineup by Orlando Magic center Dwight Howard, Chicago Bulls guard Derrick Rose and New York Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony."
February 2
Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
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To say LeBron James' dunking juices are stirring would be an understatement. Two days after the fact, he still was talking Wednesday about what Los Angeles Clippers forward Blake Griffin did Monday night to Oklahoma City Thunder center Kendrick Perkins. So could this finally be it, the year James takes his dunks to the show level and enters the dunking contest during All-Star Weekend in Orlando, perhaps to go one-on-one against Griffin? "I don't know. I'll be on the fence every year about it," he said following the Miami Heat's shootaround at the Bradley Center, in advance of their game against the Milwaukee Bucks."
February 2
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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LeBron James delivered a body blow as the Miami Heat came out punching against the Milwaukee Bucks on Wednesday night at the Bradley Center. But by the time the fourth quarter rolled around, it was the Heat flat on the canvas and the Bucks recording a powerful knockout punch. Point guard Brandon Jennings dropped in 7 three-pointers and finished with 31 points as the Bucks rallied for a 105-97 victory, halting Miami's five-game winning streak and beating the Heat for the second time in 11 days. Milwaukee (10-11) was powerless to stop James as he scored 24 points in the first quarter, but Luc Richard Mbah a Moute helped slow the Heat star down in the final quarter, even though James finished"
February 2
Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
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LeBron James had it all at the start. So did the Miami Heat. Then it all went away. Did it ever. Up 18 early after a 24-point first quarter by James, the Heat imploded in the second half of what became a 105-97 loss Wednesday night to the Milwaukee Bucks at the Bradley Center, one of the ugliest moments in the Heat's Big Three era. "What that second half showed, is we still have a long way to go as a ballclub," coach Erik Spoelstra said. "It can go the other way quickly if you don't stay close to your identity." The Heat didn't even come close to doing that, wasting what turned into a season-high 40-point effort by James. He previous high had been 37 on Christmas Day against the Los"
February 1
Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
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The tag-team approach is back. And now no one is talking about LeBron James or Dwyane Wade being better by themselves. Not when they're playing this well in tandem. Not after these past three games. With Wade back from the sprained right ankle that kept him out for six games, James and Wade have regained their common stride in victories against the New York Knicks, Chicago Bulls and New Orleans Hornets, part of the five-game winning streak the Heat carry into Wednesday's game against the Milwaukee Bucks. "It is at an all-time high right now, honestly," James said of the chemistry between the two. "It is just a chemistry that we have. Last year was a blueprint for us. It is not like"
January 31
New Orleans Times-Picayune
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Still stinging from an embarrassing defeat by one Eastern Conference playoff team Sunday night, the New Orleans Hornets got their only look at the defending conference champion Miami Heat on Monday night at the American Airlines Arena in Miami. One viewing should be sufficient. Despite trailing by 12 points at one juncture of the second quarter, the amazingly athletic Heat put on an 18-4 blitz — 13 of those points coming from the team's heart and soul, Dwyane Wade, then pulled away in the second half, thumping New Orleans 109-95. It was the Hornets 17th loss in the past 19 games."
January 31
Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
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With the Hornets in town, the buzz was gone. No, this was not the electric atmosphere of Sunday afternoon, when the Miami Heat made a rare regular-season statement with their decision over the Chicago Bulls. Instead, it opened as every bit the struggle of the second night of the Heat's previous two home-and-home back-to-back sets. Languid. Lethargic. Listless. With New Orleans making 10 of its first 11 shots. The difference is unlike those games against the Atlanta Hawks and Milwaukee Bucks, the Heat found their second wind and used it to blow past the West-worst Hornets 109-95 Monday night at AmericanAirlines Arena."
January 30
Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
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What a day. What a game. What a stage for the one real rivalry in the East — Heat vs. Bulls — that delivered such full-court emotion, Chicago guard Derrick Rose stood by his locker afterward and … What the … What's he … Tears? 'Give me one,'' Rose said, eyes welling up, of the two foul shots he missed with 22.7 seconds left in the Heat's 97-93 win. "I missed both of those. … Come on." A year ago, Heat coach Erik Spoelstra admitted players were crying in the locker room after a loss to Chicago to offer how much they cared. The idea became another laughtrack of that Heat time. Crygate, it was labeled."
January 30
Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
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Playoffs in January? About as close as you're going to get in the NBA. On a day the NFL and NHL offered gloried exhibitions of All-Star triteness, the Miami Heat and Chicago Bulls offered true grit Sunday at AmericanAirlines Arena. "For a regular-season game, that's probably as intense as you'll find," Heat forward Shane Battier said. "It had intensity, to say the least." Get the FREE Miami Hoops iPhone and Android app Playoffs in January? You bet, all the way to the finish of a 97-93 Heat victory that sent a message from both sides to the rest of the Eastern Conference that there is us and then everybody else. "In many regards," Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said, "it was a typical"
January 29
Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
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Finally, something more than Detroit's Austin Daye tossing up eight 3-point prayers against the Heat and then every single Knicks player seemingly doing the same a game later. Heat-Bulls on Sunday afternoon at AmericanAirlines Arena delivers a genuine basketball challenge, not the circus of the past two games. But does it deliver legitimate rivalry? That takes more than one playoff series. Last season, was a start, but this is nothing like Heat-Knicks during the Hardaway-Mourning days, or even Heat-Pistons during the start of the Wade era. Some of that has to do with the lack of identity when it comes to the opposition, with Scott Skiles then Vinny Del Negro and now Tom Thibodeau the"
January 29
Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
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An unlikely debate surfaced when the Miami Heat won eight of the nine games they were without guard Dwyane Wade this season. Is this team really better off with Wade out of the lineup? After Wade scored 28 points in the Heat's 99-89 victory Friday against the New York Knicks, he offered his opinion on the subject. "This is a very good team with or without me," Wade said. "But better without me? I doubt that.""
January 29
Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
columnist Ira Winderman
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At times such as these, there is plenty to be said in favor of David Stern's gag orders. For as ragged as the quality has been during this post-lockout, compressed NBA schedule, we've heard very little from team management or players about this four-month grinder. Then again, it's not as if they have all that much to complain about. Even as they sit, the players still are getting paid. Get the FREE Miami Hoops iPhone and Android app Even as they offer second-rate lineups, the teams still are collecting full face value on tickets. The undeniable losers in this maybe-you-see-'em, maybe-you-don't season are the paying public, fans who don't know from game to game what they might be seeing,"
January 28
Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
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Heat center Eddy Curry preferred not to think about it. He faced his former team, the New York Knicks, Friday at AmericanAirlines. Arena. No big deal. "I'm trying to look at it as just another game," said Curry, who didn't play in the Heat's 99-89 victory. "I just want to prepare a normal workout routine before the game, and just go out there and give it my all with whatever minutes I get.""
January 28
Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
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The Miami Heat finally are whole. And for a while there Friday night, they were in a whole lot of trouble against an opponent that was living by the 3-pointer to an absurd degree. But with Dwyane Wade back, and a semblance of reality eventually returning to a New York Knicks offense that somehow was over-the-top thriving in the injury absence of Carmelo Anthony, the Heat held on for a 99-89 victory Friday night at AmericanAirlines Arena. For Wade, this was no subtle return, with 18 of his 28 points coming in the first half, a start that included a Euro-step layup, a dunk and a nifty reverse layup off a feed from LeBron James. "It's a nice welcome back for that young kid, number three,""
January 27
Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
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"Eventually," LeBron James said as he unwound from this latest stretch of four games in five nights, "it just clicks." He was talking not about this Miami Heat run of five victories in the last six games without sidelined Dwyane Wade, but rather about last season's revival from early struggles to the NBA Finals. He just as well might have been talking to the New York Knicks, because at this moment, it is exactly what they need to hear. Having secured their own big three on a timetable that lagged behind the Heat's July 2010 free-agency haul of James, Wade and Chris Bosh, the Knicks arrive Friday at AmericanAirlines Arena looking very much like the Heat did at the start of last"
January 27
Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
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The record is now 8-1 without Dwyane Wade. And yet all the Miami Heat want is their star shooting guard back on the court. That could happen as soon as Friday's home game against the New York Knicks, with Wade testing his sprained right ankle in an aggressive pregame workout Wednesday night in Detroit. The Heat had Thursday off. "We want our All-Star out there," LeBron James said after the Heat moved to 5-1 in Wade's absence during this latest injury. Wade also missed three games earlier this season with a bruised left foot."
January 26
Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
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This time LeBron James was finishing. On the court. At the foul line. Whatever it took. And this time, Erik Spoelstra, who has taken such pride this lockout-compacted season in measuring the minutes of his star forward, wasn't about to get in the way. So with Dwyane Wade sidelined yet again, and with the too-young-to-know-any-better Detroit Pistons mounting an unexpected challenge, Spoelstra stepped back."
January 26
Detroit Free Press
columnist Michael Rosenberg
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Forget the final score. You have to do that a lot this season, anyway. (I think that is actually the Pistons' slogan: Forget The Final Score!) This was a night for a little hope for the fans, some belief for the players, sunlight in the winter. The Miami Heat came to town, and the Pistons were supposed to roll over and play like the Pistons. Instead, they ... well, they lost, 101-98. But it was an encouraging loss in so many ways Wednesday."
January 25
Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
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Midway through the third quarter, with his team's lethargy reaching the point where he was forced to call plays from the bench, Erik Spoelstra informed his team to run, "C-Rip." Most of the way in this one, the Heat played like "C-rap." The difference between this slop and similar slop Sunday against the Milwaukee Bucks is Spoelstra's team somehow found a way to turn something equally ugly into a 92-85 victory Tuesday night over the Cleveland Cavaliers at AmericanAirlines Arena. "It wasn't an all-together smoothly played game," Spoelstra understated, "but there, at the end, regardless of how you get there, we were able to get a handful of stops and then able to execute down the stretch.""