RedZone: Post Season Photos

Dancer Gallery Twenty

RedZone Diaries: Index

MIAMI, May 23 - The best four teams this year, all season in the NBA, are the four still playing. Miami, Detroit, San Antonio and Phoenix are all worthy championship contenders.

But only one will wear the crown.

Miami knows to be the champs they must first beat the champs and do it four times in the next seven games.

The HEAT and the Detroit Pistons meet with the Eastern Conference Championship and a trip to the NBA Finals on the line. It is the match-up that must be and as of tonight, it is.

Before we look ahead, let’s look back to the only other time the HEAT made it this far.

It was the 1996-97 season and Pat Riley’s best Miami team won 61 games and the first of four straight Atlantic Division tittles. In the playoffs, the Heat advanced past Orlando, 3-2, in a roller-coaster first round series.

Then, in the first of four straight playoff meetings with New York, Miami overcame a 3-1 series deficit to capture an emotional and exhausting seven game series.

Their prize was to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals where Michael Jordan and the Bulls were waiting.

“My vivid memory is getting there,” said Stan Van Gundy, who was an assistant coach for that HEAT team.

“It was a great accomplishment to get there. Obviously, it was against the Bulls in their hey-day. I thought we played very hard. I thought we defended well in the series but they defended even better. They were just better than us. We didn’t want to say it then but they were.”

The HEAT lost the first three games of the 1997 Eastern Conference Finals and eventually fell in five games to a Chicago team that won it all. That was eight years ago. Now, for just the second time in 17 seasons they are there again.

Alonzo Mourning is the only HEAT player to be on both HEAT teams to make it to the Conference Finals.

“This is a better offensive team and I think a better team all around than that team was,” he said. “This team is playing with a little more hunger.

“Just getting there (in 1997) was great for us and we felt good. Just getting there this year isn’t enough for this team.

“This team wasn’t assembled just to get to the conference finals. This team was assembled to play for the NBA title. That’s what this team was assembled to do and we’re not there yet.”

To get there Miami must execute and score enough points to win against one of the NBA’s very best defensive teams. The Pistons have a very sound defensive system with great individual defenders in that system. Ben Wallace and Tayshaun Prince were both on the league’s All-Defensive teams this year.

They have held their opponents under 100 points in 22 of their last 23 playoff games. In the 2005 Playoffs Detroit is holding the opposition to 84.4 points a game on .415 shooting.

Miami has averaged 106.5 points on 51 percent shooting in the playoffs, topping the century mark in seven of their first eight playoff games in this run. This is clearly the best defense the HEAT has seen in this post-season. The challenges are obvious.

“They are very tough to score against,” said Van Gundy, “plus they are a very, very physical team that is somehow able to play that style without fouling. They had the second fewest fouls in the league this year, which all of us are trying to figure out, as physical as they are. When you can play that physically and do it without fouling it makes you very tough to score on.

“We have to be a little better with the ball. We cannot afford turnovers in a series that will be as competitive as this one.”

In the regular season series this year, Detroit won two of three games against Miami but both teams averaged less than 80 points a game on sub 40 percent shooting. Both teams can play defense.

The HEAT has the better offense but will it be good enough now?

The focus of the Pistons team defense is likely to be Dwyane Wade. While Tayshaun Prince is his expected match-up Wade is expecting see plenty of Richard Hamilton and Chauncey Billups as well.

“The thing they have done with Dwyane,” says Van Gundy, “is if he puts the ball on the floor, everyone’s coming. I mean everyone is coming. They really make a concerted effort to run everyone at him.”

Wade will have to make plays first, shots later. He’s done that before. In Game 2 against Washington he had six assists before taking his first shot and then wound up with 31 points and 15 assists. Nobody is confusing the Wizards with the Pistons.

The dilemma created by the 6-9 Prince is with his wing-span, his length.

“He is able to play guys with a cushion,” says Van Gundy. “He doesn’t need to get up and into people as much. So it’s tougher to go by him and when you do, you have to get the ball over his long wing-span. His length and his mentality are formidable.”

Wade must read the defense and make the right plays for himself and his teammates. He expects to be double-teamed and he expects success.

“It’s always about beating the second defender,” says Wade. “You have to have enough confidence in your ability that you can beat the first defender, then it’s about beating the second guy.

“Tayshaun Prince is a very long, very athletic guy, a very defensive minded guy. He is the key to their defensive team on the wing. It’s going to be a tough match-up but it will be a challenge and I look forward to the challenge.”

The heart of Detroit’s offense is Richard Hamilton. The 6-6 guard has averaged 22 points a game through his first 40 playoff games and leads the Pistons in these playoffs at nearly 20 points a game.

Hamilton moves without the ball as well as anyone and knocks down mid-range jumpers with alarming accuracy needing very little air space.

HEAT Captain, Eddie Jones is well suited and well prepared to defend him.

“It’s a challenge,” says Jones. “I am happy to accept the challenge of going against the world champions. They are the world champions for a couple of reasons and he’s one of them.”

Jones says he will try to contain Hamilton as he chases him through and around an endless amount of screens.

“The key,” says Jones, “is not let him come off those screens and get in the center of your defense. If you can keep him out of there you have a chance to do something good.”

The HEAT want to do something that is more than good. To win an NBA Championship you have to dare to be great.

A player waits a whole season, sometimes an entire career to play in a series that means as much as this one.

Eddie Jones played in the 1998 Western Conference Finals with the Lakers, experiencing the back-side of a 4-0 sweep by Utah. It’s taken all these years to make it back to the NBA’s final four. There are no guarantees.

“I think we are going to be fine,” says Jones.

“We’re going to come out and play great basketball. I think every guy in here wants to be here and has a desire to do something great. If we want to do something great, it goes through Detroit.”

Let the battle begin.