Warriors cool the heat

For comparisons sake, Miami would be 5th in the West, too, though nowhere near the caliber of Golden State or the San Antonio Spurs.

Miami played well but not enough to be the first visiting team to win at the Oracle Arena in almost a year.

This certainly doesn’t mean Curry, Green, and Thompson played a bad game. The aging group is also playing their third game in four nights and face a Warriors troupe that is playing their lone home game, in a five game span. Regardless of the Heat situation, with Wade, Johnson and Whitehead active or not, this is exactly the type of high profile matchup that Golden State does their best home court entertaining in. The Warriors defeated the Cavaliers 105-97 to win the best-of-seven game series 4-2. Goran Dragic leads in assists with 5.0 and in steals with 1.0 per game.

From Roland Lazenby’s piece last season, the most fascinating part about the Golden State Warriors’ incredible and surprising dominance remained that they were simply scratching the surface of a scheme that stood to become even more improved. Bosh has upped his play for the Heat. The eagerness with which Speights attacked the defense in the early fourth quarter was infectious, and the occasionally timid reserve unit helped bolster the Warriors’ lead with a decisive stretch of play. “It’s a credit to (Warriors players) that we scored 111 points anyway”.

When Golden State was down 1-2 in last year’s Western Conference semifinals against the Memphis Grizzlies, they used a tactic few if anyone saw coming: Center Andrew Bogut guarded Tony Allen, a perimeter player who can’t shoot. The Golden State Warriors offense was and is the prettiest show in the world.

The Heat battled for most of the game trailing by just two points after the first quarter, 27-25 and after the first half, 56-54.

The Warriors are a team legitimately in possession of three superstar talents and a heap of depth.

“That’s a huge bonus for us”, said Warriors All-Star point guard Curry.

“Right out of the gate they just ran for some easy ones in the third quarter”, coach Erik Spoelstra said. The outcome was not fully settled until Stephen Curry’s 3-pointer with 26.9 seconds left, forcing the Heat to accept defeat on a night in which they did nearly everything right. Shooting guard Dwyane Wade led six Heat players in double figures, scoring 20 points, but even he had an off night from the field, missing 13 of 19 attempts.

The Wizards won their second straight game by getting points from 10 players, including seven who finished in double-figure scoring. I think we will. I don’t think the most important thing is that record.

Among all teams, Miami is the best at blocking, registering an average of 6.8 per game.

The defending champions have dominated the league this season, putting together a very impressive 36-2 win-loss record so far. That’s a streak that dates all the way back to April 14, 2014, meaning it’s been approximately 21 months since the last time the Dubs blew a 15-point lead in a game they lost.