Hobbled Miami Heat Now Looking Like Long Shot to Face Cavaliers in NBA Playoffs
CLEVELAND — It was called "Mario's Miracle," but the shot that Mario Chalmers made to send the 2008 NCAA championship game to overtime was unremarkable compared to what he's accomplished in this, his seventh NBA season.
As cartilage has torn and clots have formed and bones have bruised around him, the Heat point guard has managed to play all but one game, eight more than anyone else. Still, he knows he's vulnerable, simply because everyone on his squad continues to be subject to the long, chiseled arm of Murphy's Law.
"Don't say nothing about me," Chalmers said Thursday night, following a 114-88 loss to the Cavaliers, when reminded how healthy he's been. "I don't want to know."
Chalmers and his teammates would love to know how dangerous they could become if they ever came close to whole, but that hasn't been in the cards. Not with Josh McRoberts, Chris Bosh and Shabazz Napier now sidelined for the season. Not with Hassan Whiteside, Luol Deng and Goran Dragic playing through ongoing ailments. Not with Dwyane Wade's availability so unpredictable.
There's only been a hope of a fresher start when the playoffs begin—the promise, however faint, of making some contender sweat and making some pleasant memories.
"That's all we need, is just the chance to get in," Chalmers said. "If we get in, we'll be all right."
That may seem like wishful thinking, but Chalmers and the Heat haven't been the only ones trying to salvage something lately. So have NBA fans and—though they'd never say so—television executives.
Facing a prospect of four rather bland first-round matchups in the Eastern Conference postseason, it's been understandable to crave a late-April collision between Cleveland and Miami, not simply for the soap opera potential but also for the chance of a competitive series, considering that Wade and the Heat handled the Cavaliers twice at home in the regular season.
Thursday's shellacking made that series less likely, pushing the Heat a half-game behind seventh-seeded Brooklyn—the spot that would draw certain-to-be-second-seeded Cleveland—and into a tie with eighth-seeded Boston, with Charlotte and Indiana still lurking close behind.
But it did more than that.
It also showed why such a series, even if it occurred, would likely be a letdown, for however little time it lasted. It's not just that most of the storylines have been overblown and, by now, played out, with more than half the team turned over since James left. Nor is it just that LeBron James doesn't lose in the first round, with a 16-2 record while with the Heat and a 20-5 record in his previous Cavaliers stint.
It's that he doesn't lose to teams limping like this one.
The Heat's only real chance to reach the playoffs, and compete once there, is a dynamic, dashing Wade, which is why it made little sense for him to play Thursday night. Not when his left knee was clearly bugging him throughout much of Tuesday's loss to the Spurs. Not with beating the rested Cavaliers an extreme long shot. And not with such a critical stretch of schedule—a back-to-back against the Pistons and Pacers, followed a day later by a home game against the Hornets—coming up.
That was true even prior to Wade, along with Udonis Haslem, missing Thursday's shootaround with the flu. The tactical play, even if not the popular one, would have been to sit out until Saturday, when Wade's presence would have given the Heat a significant edge against the Pistons.
But Wade was on the floor at the start on Thursday—if not especially effective—as the Cavaliers took a 47-31 lead. And then he was on the floor, in much more literal and frightening terms. The cloud that has hovered over the Heat all season? Well, it apparently created a wet spot under Wade's feet.
"I slipped, came down very awkward, banged the inside of my knee on the court," Wade said.
That knee, his left, wasn't the one that gave him the most trouble last season, but it can tell its own tales of woe, dating back to long-ago cartilage removal and a bruise that has bothered him of late. After a stoppage, Wade eventually hobbled back to the locker room, where tests didn't find any ligament damage and where he found some peace in knowing "it could have been worse."
"You go down like that, couldn't bust into a split, I'm not that flexible," Wade said. "I knew I was in trouble on my way down. Just unfortunate."
The unfortunate truth for Miami is that it is now at risk of heading down from here. Wade said he would spend Friday, after arriving in Detroit, getting treatment as he always does. But his Instagram post, in which he said he prayed he could join the team on the court on this road trip—which finishes Sunday in Indianapolis—wasn't especially encouraging.
We've seen this before.
One guy on the other side certainly has.
"I asked the medical staff at halftime was he doing all right, and they said it was probably a knee bruise, a bone bruise," James said. "Something he went through over and over while we were teammates. When he's healthy or close to healthy, we've been seeing what he's able to do this last month. You definitely wish him the best."
If it were just him, perhaps Miami could push through. But you need a medical degree, or at least a weeklong stay at a Holiday Inn Express, as you work your way through the Heat locker room these days. Everyone is aching, physically and, at this point, psychologically.
"The goal has just been get healthy, get it going," Deng said. "We had our struggles early in the year, we made the trade [for Dragic] and then C.B. went down. Just guys been in and out. It's been a very—not making excuses or anything—but in terms of consistency, it's really been difficult for everybody."
Deng managed his own knee problem without pain Thursday, posting 17 points and eight rebounds while trying to stay with James, but he remained concerned about whether it would swell Friday. Dragic, who was often tentative Thursday, is trying to manage "tightness" that he says is keeping him from generating his usual speed, even if he wouldn't specify the primary source (his back had been an issue, but he insisted that wasn't the primary problem now).
Whiteside, who had 17 points and eight rebounds, is trying to manage his emotions as teams, in his words, try to "butcher" him and his stitched-up right hand. The center said it hurt "a lot more" Thursday than Tuesday, when he returned with 10 points and six rebounds against the Spurs, and that it's bothering him on both ends. It inhibits his shooting, shot-blocking and rebounding.
"Playing with one hand has become my new thing now," Whiteside said. "So nothing I could do about it. Just deal with it."
That's where the Heat are, with seven games left: dealing with a bad hand.
Hardly looking like a threat to Cleveland or anyone else. Hardly looking like a team that can salvage the Eastern Conference's first round as half of a showcase series.
"Can't keep everybody healthy," Chalmers said.
"That type of year," Deng said.
"The story of the season," Wade said. "It continues."
If he can't play this weekend, it probably won't continue much longer.
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