Goodbye Mighty Quinn, Welcome back Rafer

Our inside man at the Heat came up big time with a scoop on the arrival of Rafer Alston. We were told about it in the early stages as Pat was trying to trade for Rafer (particularly trying to trade James Jones). In the end the trade negotiations broke down. The Nets didn't want Jones and for some strange reason Pat didn't want to let Daequan go to the Nets. So the Nets have bought out Skip who, as long as he passes through Waivers, is excitedly waiting for a Heat reunion and they have traded with Miami for Chris Quinn (also cash and a 2012 2nd rounder) in exchange the Heat receive nothing.

Chris Quinn was much ridiculed by some Heat fans for both his elf-like features and his play but I liked him. he was a genuine guy who gave it his best all the time. In between seasons he worked hard to improve and this year he benefited with a $1.1m salary. His defense wasn't that great but his TOs were low and he succeeded in his main job which was to bring the ball up and give it to Dwayne - then get out of the way or shoot the odd three when asked to. This season he has spent every game on the bench dressed in a suit - but he's looked good doing it.

Thank you Chris and all the best at the Nets, hope you get some PT.

The deadline for releasing Arroyo is later today, he still hasn't received a contract for the rest of the season but with the release of Quinny it's possible, though still unlikely, he'll receive one today. More news on him later as well as a look at Rafer, if he passes through waivers.

What do I know? Hawks 75 Heat 92

I think I need to be more pessimistic in the future, reverse psychology/jinxing seems to work. The Heat murdered the Hawks in the first quarter last night and then held onto their lead for the rest of the game to record a very good and very large victory.

Michael Beasley shredded Josh Smith and the Hawks in the first half and his colleagues made sure of the victory in the second. Beasley's first half display will probably capture the headlines but his poor second half performance sums up Beasley at the present time in his career. Magnificence for short bursts without the consistency. Still he's not 21 until later this week, so we can accept that.

The Heat's superstar let the hot hand work the first half and steadily accumulated his usual team/game topping score. wade finished with 28 on 11 of 20 shooting including all 6FTs (thankfully he missed his 1st 3 pointer last night). He attacked the rim better than of late and also got 8 rebounds, 4 assists and a block and crucially only 1 TO (and that was a pass to starting center Joel Anthony who looked away at the wrong time). It was nice to see Wade hitting 55%FG and 100%FT again. Haslem also refound his steady shot with 6 of 10. Dorrell Wright got 18mins for 6 and 6 and the Magloirinator got 10 rebounds and 5 points in 21 minutes as a result of JO sitting about a little banged up. Arroyo (in possibly his last game for the Heat) played 19 minutes for just 2 points and no assists whilst Mario came off the bench for 28 minutes, 7 points and 6 assists. The other good news was cook only played 1 minute.

I don't know if it was all good defense or some bad Atlanta shooting but even at game end they had only shot 32% and more incredibly Miami had out-rebounded them 52 to 30. I like what JO gives us but he lets us down on rebounds, it'd be nice to have a rebounding Center on the Heat. No surprise in who was the top Atlanta scorer - off the bench Jamal Crawford more than doubled the second best scorer Joe Johnson who was the only other Atlanta player to score double figures (11).

One other note to make - can someone please shop (or shoot) the miami whistler. He is driving me crazy with his continual whistling.

Next up: Atlanta

Well I optimistically thought we could beat both San Antonio and Charlotte and look what happened there. I honestly think that we match up terribly with Atlanta, perhaps worse than any other team in the league and I expect a big defeat. Of the "big 4" in the East, Atlanta are the team that I least want to meet in the playoffs. Okay they only just beat us in 7 last year but they are so athletic that they have the ability to simply run us off the court.

Let's look at the starting 5's:

Miami

PG Carlos Arroyo

SG Dwyane Wade

SF Quentin Richardson

PF Michael Beasley

C Jermaine O'Neal

Atlanta

PG Mike Bibby
SG Joe Johnson
SF Marvin Williams
PF Josh Smith
C Al Horford

And then Atlanta have off-season acquisition, Heat killer, Jamal Crawford on the bench (the Heat have Mario Chalmers).

I think it's going to be a long night. For the Heat to have any hope then Beasley is going to have to step up both offensively and defensively and outplay Josh Smith; Wade needs to stop the turnovers, attack the rim and annihilate Johnson's performance and JO is going to have to play mind games with Horford unless spo lets the Magloirinator loose for a few early minutes.

Got to expect this game to mean we are still winless this decade come tomorrow morning. Still isn't that when the Heat surprise everyone and pull off a win?

My Prediction: Hawks 115 at Heat 93

Arroyo - Still not guaranteed

Poor Carlos!

He's taken over the starting spot from Mario, he's igniting the offense but with only a couple of days to go before the deadline he still has no guaranteed offer. The Heat have had him playing without a guaranteed contract so far this season. Riley is a crafty beggar and he doesn't want Arison to pay the extra luxury tax if it isn't necessary. Sure he'd prefer to get rid of Chris Quinn, but his contract is guaranteed for the season, Carlos's isn't so it could be "bye bye Carlos".

Our insider contact reckons that a trade for a veteran PG is in the works which'll mean Carlos is not signed before the deadline. I've been calling for a Vet PG for a while but is the return of Rafer Alston the answer? Can Skip play lock down defense? Could we trade James Jones' contract away in return or will it be the TPE? Is our insider speaking rubbish.

All will soon be revealed, but you heard it here first (maybe).

Jackson > Wade. We need the rim attacker back.

A ten point loss after leading by 19 in the 1st Q. That's not good. Wade and Beasley started well and then the Heat stopped. Beasley and JO got into foul trouble. Wade settled for 3s and stopped attacking the rim. 8 Three point attempts but only 7 foul shots (and 3 of those on a 3 pointer). It's just not right. We need Wade to attack the rim relentlessly and especially early in quarters. Last night Charlotte had 31 FTA we had 16. We were at home, we have DWade.

It's not all Dwyane's fault. He gets double and triple teamed every time down the court, so he needs the open man to shoot and knock the shot down. Last night JO was particularly poor with his shooting and it cost us.

Yesterday I talked about TOs, particularly Wade and Jackson. Last night Jackson had only 1 TO Wade had 6. Jackson had a great game, 35 points and 8 rebounds. Wade had a double double but he didn't take over the 4th Q when the game was still in our hands (we did take a lead early in the 4th). He didn't attack the rim.

Final score Bobcats 107 Heat 97.

Next Up: Charlotte

Happy New Year.

Let's hope so, and let's hope that we start it off with a decent win. Charlotte are better than their record of 12:18 but they shouldn't be quite good enough to beat the Heat in Miami without Tyson Chandler.

The Bobcats are a good defensive team who have just recently given the ball up waaaay too much. Gerald Wallace is one of the most underrated players in the league; Boris Diaw is one of the most versatile but even the addition of Stephen Jackson has not turned them into an offensive threat. That is not Coach Brown's philosophy.

The Heat are coming off their worse loss of the season and Dwyane has 13 TOs in the last 2 games (curiously the same as Jackson). It's time for Wade to step up again, as the Heat cannot win without him playing better ball. Beasley is an improving number 2 and JO is playing above his Toronto cast-off tag, Arroyo above his Israeli league tag and Q above his doughnut 5 team summer tag; but in the end if Wade doesn't perform the Heat can't win. Come on D. shut those whinging miami supporters up and show them that Riley and Spo know what they're doing.

This should be a low-scoring defensive battle that Miami come out on top of.

Prediction: Charlotte 84 Miami 90

Biggest loss of the season (so far)

So much for my optimism!

Having said that at the end of the first quarter I still thought we'd win. It was a great start to the game, Beasley hitting shot after shot, JO knocking a couple down as well. Pops having to call time out before I'd taken my first breath as Beas blew past Blair twice and scored. Sadly it started to go downhill after Beasley went for a rest half way through the first. Still we finished the first Q tied at 26 and that was with Wade hardly having taken a shot and Beas knocking down 7 for 14 first quarter points. The signs were there though; San Antonio had scored 26, TP was cutting to the basket with ease and TD was playing like the NBA player of the decade he so surely is (Kobe my ass!).

The rest of the game was a tale of woe. No defence, TO's galore and Wade looking so out of sorts that the three he put up for his second FG (after starting 1 of 7) was something of a ray of hope. Except Miami fans know that the worst thing Wade can do is score with his first 3, he goes back to it again, more than once, when that happens. And he stops attacking the basket. In fact according to the refs the spurs hardly made a foul the first half - partly that was true - Beas was hitting from outside and Wade wasn't attacking the rim but mostly that was the home TD factor.

The turning point (if it hadn't passed already) was when Q was fouled shooting (and missing) a three. A clear slap on the head by Manu. Spurs took the rebound, fast break 2 points plus a technical foul on Q - 6 point turnaround - game over.

The second half was hard to watch. The heat were terrible, Wade was terrible, Cook was on the floor for 23 minutes (2 of 9). Terrible. Haslem had his worse game of the season (in his worse run of the season). The highlight of the second half was a 9 minute appearance by Magloire when he actually put a FT in (well 2) on his way to 4 points. Wade had 7 TO's in 29 minutes and needs to get back to training hard, shooting, attacking the rim and scoring. This game was not Spo's fault, this was a Heat team who hadn't come ready to play. The only highlight here was Michael Beasley. My call for a trade of Cook, Haslem and Jones (DNP) for a vet passing, defensive PG just got louder.