NBA Playoff Schedule 2012: Why Heat Should Worry About Road Games vs. Celtics

After Wednesday's Game 2, the Miami Heat have a couple of road games on their schedule that just might give them some trouble—a rare event thus far in these playoffs.

As good as Erik Spoelstra's club looked against the Boston Celtics on Monday night, this is still a team with its share of struggles on the road. In contrast to an almost flawless 28-5 record at home, Miami was just 18-15 this season when playing away from AmericanAirlines Arena.

And, while the Heat have lost just three games in the postseason thus far, two of those games were on the road.

Any explanation for the disparity would require a lot of speculation.

LeBron James and Dwyane Wade actually averaged more points on the road than at home this season. Chris Bosh, on the other hand, was better at home—but that probably won't be a factor in this series. Miami turned the ball over more often on the road, but only marginally.

It's not unusual for supporting casts to play better at home, and that could certainly be a factor with the rest of Miami's roster needing to pick up some of the slack in Bosh's absence.

The biggest factor may simply be whether or not James and Wade have the mental toughness to endure Boston's crowd—a group whose animosity will reach deafening levels.

That wasn't a problem in Games 4 and 6 against the Indiana Pacers, though.

If Miami's duo of supremely talented floor leaders remains as unflappable as it's been of late, perhaps it has nothing to fear from an aging Celtics team that's ever so close to imploding. If they lose focus even for a moment, though, we could see this team once again endure some of the road struggles it faced in April.

Of course, those struggles included a 19-point embarrassment against these Celtics, a game in which Wade made just six of 17 field goals, and James took only two free throws.

The pressure will be on Miami to make a quick statement in Game 3—the last thing this club wants is for Boston to regain some of the confidence it built in April. If the Heat let Doc Rivers' veterans get a foot in the door, this series could last longer than most of us expected.