NBA Playoffs 2012: Miami Heat in Trouble Despite Possible Return of Chris Bosh

Chris Bosh alone won't help the Miami Heat overcome the colossal momentum swing that is in favor of the Boston Celtics after a psyche-boosting overtime win in Game 4.

Make no mistake about it, the Heat are still in big trouble heading back to South Beach, even after reports have surfaced that Bosh may be back in the lineup for the Heat in a pivotal Game 5.

Since Bosh fell victim to an abdominal strain more than three weeks ago against the Indiana Pacers, the Heat have been scrambling to figure out which big men on their roster can be effective enough to help them win games.

Dexter Pittman, Joel Anthony, Udonis Haslem and Ronny Turiaf are hardly players that you want to rely on as a lone presence under the hoop, and the Heat have realized that since Bosh went down. However, Bosh's return doesn't signify the end of the Heat's issues, nor does it mean that they will win this series against the Celtics.

Despite winning the first two games, the Heat haven't looked like their usual selves since Game 1, when they held the Celtics to 79 points on 40 percent shooting. They looked lifeless in the first half of Game 2 and had to rely on a 35-point third quarter to take the lead against a Celtics team that was previously deemed as LeBron and company's next victim en route to the NBA Finals.

They entered the fourth quarter of Game 2 with a six-point lead, only to suffer the wrath of Rajon Rondo in the fourth quarter, a fate that was exacerbated by James' inability to hit a game-winner yet again.

It's safe to say that Miami dodged a bullet in that overtime period after two questionable calls involving Dwyane Wade. One pertained to an extended knee driving the line that could have easily been called an offensive foul, and the other saw him rake Rondo in the face as the Boston point guard was going for a layup. The latter was a heinous non-call, while the former is something that you would expect the refs to stay away from when Wade is involved.

Slowly but surely, from the beginning of Game 2, it was evident that the Heat were losing their stranglehold on the series. Game 3 was more of the same, as the Celtics came out of the gate and smacked the Heat in the mouth in the opening quarter, putting up a 30-spot while channeling the 2007-2008 championship team. That game should have been much worse than a 10-point victory for the C's, as Miami made up some ground in garbage time.

Need I say more than a two-point Miami output to show you how the tides in this series have rapidly turned? Two points in five minutes is hardly what we've come to expect from the Heat.

Maybe the worst outcome of Game 4 for the Heat is that Ray Allen has seemed to have awoken from his shooting slumber. He shot just 6-for-16 in Game 4, but he hit some threes that he wasn't hitting earlier in the series, and that is just terrible news for Erik Spoelstra's team.

The Heat can't do anything to stop Rondo. He's going to get his double-double every night and there's no game plan that Spoelstra can put together to avoid that. If he's shooting well and Allen is shooting well, the Celtics are going to steal Game 5 on the road.

Bosh isn't going to change the fortune of the Heat. He's an important player, but he's not the X-factor that the media has been saying he is since he went down. They talk about him more when he's not on the court than when he is.

Bosh isn't going to turn this around. It wouldn't be a surprise if he wasn't fully healthy either. An abdominal injury is probably the worst thing that a player can have when they are going up against Kevin Garnett, who surely is adept at sneaking in some "accidental" elbows to the midsection when the refs aren't looking.

KG is going to manhandle Bosh down low and that is going to throw a huge wrench into the Heat game plan. This group of Celtics players are too experienced and too proud to roll over for the Heat, and they've made that much clear in the last two games. 

The team that wins Game 5 wins the series more often than not, and Bosh being matched up against Garnett hurts the Heat's chances at victory more than it helps them.