Pacers vs. Heat: Chris Bosh's Injury Shines Spotlight on Miami's Lack of Depth

LeBron James choked. Dwyane Wade should've done more.

That about sums up the discussion of the Miami Heat's 78-75 loss to the Indiana Pacers in Game 2 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series on Tuesday night.

With Chris Bosh out, it was apparently incumbent upon LeBron and Wade to shoulder even more of Miami's burden.

Even though James put together yet another ridiculous, MVP-worthy stat line, with 28 points, nine rebounds, five assists and six steals. Even though D-Wade had a solid night of his own, pouring in 24 points, six rebounds, four assists, a steal and two blocks.

"The problem," blathered the national punditry, "was that those two didn't do enough to make up for the absence of their third amigo, especially down the stretch."

Even though they combined to score 21 of the Heat's 23 points in the fourth quarter.

That's not to say that LeBron and Wade don't deserve some measure of blame for missing crucial shots under pressure, including a pair of free throws that James clanked with less than a minute to play. Any negativity concerning the Heat is bound to be flung their way by virtue of the fact that they're Miami's two best players, and two of the five best in the NBA at large.

But such a simple discussion overlooks a much bigger elephant that's been sitting in AmericanAirlines Arena ever since Pat Riley brought the Heatles together.

That is, their alarming lack of depth.

The Heat ended the regular season with all of four players (LeBron, Wade, Bosh and Mario Chalmers) registering positive overall ratings, according to 82games.com. With Bosh likely out for the rest of the series on account of a lower abdominal injury, Miami will have three guys who are (to put it in baseball-nerd terms) better than replacement-level players.

And one of those three (Chalmers) managed all of five points on 2-of-10 shooting against Indiana in Game 2.

Bosh may be an easy target for memes and jokes about his toughness (or lack thereof), but the fact remains that he's the only big man Miami has who's capable of contributing consistently on either end of the floor. Nobody can or should expect Ronny Turiaf, Udonis Haslem and Joel Anthony to be able to make up for the 18 points and 7.9 rebounds that Bosh provides on a nightly basis.

Which, it would seem, is why so much more is expected of 'Bron 'Bron and D-Wade—because, realistically, who else is going to pick up the slack? Mike Miller, who didn't score a single point in Game 2? Shane Battier, who looks like he's aging by the game? Norris Cole, who appeared to hit the rookie wall after opening night?

LeBron is more than capable of playing power forward, though doing so could wear him down to a nub. He admitted as much after Game 2.

If there's a finger to be pointed, it should probably be directed at Riley, who wasted most of what little cap flexibility he had on Battier and attempted to paper over the team's frontcourt issues with Eddy Curry.

Of course, passing the buck up to management won't change anything on the floor for the Heat. They have no choice but to make do with the band of misfits who've been charged with the task of holding up LeBron and Wade's jocks.

That may be enough to sneak past the Pacers, whose depth and balance is exceeded only by their lack of experience and absence of a go-to scorer.

But, with or without a healthy Bosh, the Heat will have their fair share of problems in the rounds to come, against the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals and (most likely) the San Antonio Spurs or the Oklahoma City Thunder in the NBA Finals.

And, naturally, the criticism for the likely shortfall would wind up as egg smeared on the faces of LeBron and Wade.

Not because they necessarily deserve it, but because there's simply nobody else on Miami's roster on whom to pin it.

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