Heat and Dolphins Provide Miami With a Happy Halloween

Sunday afternoon, 1pm, Halloween. Could've been a scary day for Miami sports.

The Dolphins, at .500 but undefeated on the road, would make a trip to Cincinnati to take on the Bengals and their VH1 offense.

The Heat, 2-1, could've faced a potential let-down game in New Jersey after mollywopping the Magic at home on Friday night.

So which game did you watch? 

For me it was easy, even though Football, the NFL specifically, is my favorite sport, and the Miami Dolphins were my first favorite team, I was watching the Heat.

Its not a statement about how bad the Dolphins are, they're not a bad team at all and would be front-runners to win the NFC if they were in the NFC, but more a statement on both teams personalities and expectations.

With the Dolphins I expected a game that would be an unnecessary nail-biter. Something along the lines of five field goals, one touchdown, plenty of squandered red-zone opportunities, and plenty of stupid drive-killing play calls out of the wildcat.

With the Heat, I expected an entertaining show with stifling defense and explosive offense, with the majority of points coming off of fast breaks and ending with explosive dunks and exciting alley-oops.

Let's face it Miami, unless football is your favorite sport by a lot, and unless you're a Dolphins fan but not a Heat fan, or you hate the NBA for whatever reason, this was not a tough decision to make for me.

And its the Dolphins fault, not the Heat.

This season the Heat, while containing the most exciting and fun to watch team in the NBA will have the American Airlines Arena filled with celebrities, they've cut down on the superfluous stuff. They're more low-key, all about business, and business right now is good.

Then on the other end the Dolphins, who on the field have a very boring business-man mentality, yet off the field is importing more superfluous stuff with celebrities and and all that mess. I feel less connected with the Dolphins more and more every day because of that, where as the Heat, another team I've loved since childhood but always second to the Dolphins, are becoming a team that I feel more connected to.

I don't think I'm alone in that in Miami either.

But on Sunday, I got to see both teams, and both left me happy as I was flicking through the channels.

With the Dolphins it was much of the same; good drives, nothing too big, mostly ending in field goals. However because of this they found themselves playing from behind for most of the game. 

The Heat were down once, 2-0 at the beginning of the game.

The Dolphins gave us drives that were long and consistent. Little by little they chipped into the Bengals defense. The running game while decent was nothing to write home about (31 attempts for 137 yards and one touchdown.) The same could be said for their passing game (Henne was 24-37 for 217 yards, no touchdowns and a pick.) But it was a well managed game. One that I'll admit I only caught during Heat commercial breaks, during halftime of the Heat-Nets game, and after the conclusion of the game (by conclusion I mean when Wade and LeBron were taken out with 8:27 to go in the fourth quarter and the Heat already leading 89-65.)

The Heat gave us excitement. Their stifling defense kept a team under 90 points for the fourth consecutive game and helped the team win their third straight game. It was well balanced when it comes to scoring with six players scoring in double figures. A beautifully played game, and to think the team is still not running on all cylinders.  

Overall Halloween was a great day for Miami sports. It certainly did well in washing out the bad taste left from the Hurricanes game the day before. 

With the Dolphins we still don't know what we have, but with the Heat, we know that great things are here, and greater things are on the horizon.

This was a Dolfan Diaries entry, even though it was more about the Miami Heat. Follow me on twitter, @thomasgalicia