Miami Heat Super Tour: The 10 Games Every NBA Fan Must Watch

The 2010-2011 NBA season will end up being one of the most anticipated in the past two decades. Now that I think about it, only the return of the legendary Michael Jordan towards the end of the 1994-1995 season compares…and even that didn’t reach the magnitude that this summer appears to have.

The reasons for all the hype, rants, hate, and whatever else one could call it, is largely due to the Miami Heat organization. They have been accused of robbing the NBA of the idea of fair play with their free agent All-Star trifecta.

Apparently free agents had an unwritten set of rules in regards to who a team can and can’t sign?

Basically, the Heat declared war on the other 29 NBA franchises when they managed to pair Dwyane Wade, LeBron James, and Chris Bosh all on one team. Now. they will have every player marking their NBA schedule with Miami as their measuring stick.

It’s safe to say that the Heat games won’t be short on excitement and expectations…or should I say hype.

Veteran players and veteran heavy teams will look to prove that they aren’t in awe of what the Heat has assembled. Young borderline-stars and young teams will look to make a bigger name for themselves when they square off with the Miami dream team.

You honestly can’t go wrong tuning in for any Heat game. But, there will definitely be some games that will be more desired than others.

With that said, here are the 10 Heat games that no NBA fan should want to miss.

10. vs Boston Celtics: November 11, 2010

This will be the second matchup between the two clubs in 16 days.

After opening the season in Boston and their rowdy fans, the Heat get to give it a second go-round on more friendlier grounds.

Expect much of the same hype and play of the first game. The only difference will be the Heat getting most of the favorable calls, being that they are at home.

If Boston loses both of these games, expect the Heat to go on a lengthy run of wins, until their matchup versus the Lakers on Christmas day.

9. vs Minnesota Timberwolves: November 2, 2010

Michael Beasley makes his return to Miami. He will get to display the talents that many raved about when he was coming out of the 2009 NBA Draft.

The Heat will crush the Minnesota Timberwolves, but NBA fans should be eager to see how well Beasley performs against his former organization. We’ll all get to see just what kind of grit this young man is made of.

Being that he dominated Chris Bosh last season, it’ll be interesting to see if the Heat’s head coach allows his former player to be covered in a lot of man-on-man situations or if will he look to double Beasley early and often.

We'll also see how Dwayne Wade truly feels about Beasley, being that Wade has a history of attacking former teammates that he wasn’t fond of. If he goes hard against the Timberwolves, we’ll all have our conformation that he didn’t like the kid.

If he’s passive and allows LeBron James and Bosh to do the heavy lifting, we’ll know that it wasn’t anything personal between the two leading scorers for the Miami Heat the past two seasons.

It won't be a very competitive game, outside of Beasley trying to carry the Timberwolves by himself.

Being a Beasley fan and supporter, this will be the one game that I want miss.

8. vs Orlando Magic: October 29, 2010

This is the first home game of the season for the Miami All-Star trio and will be the first meeting between the Miami Heat and Orlando Magic clubs. The game will be one to watch for the sound bites alone. The Van Gundy brothers should dominate the headlines more than the players.

In regards to the game, I don’t expect their to be much of one. The Heat trio are the biggest terrors the Magic have faced over the past two seasons. They haven’t had a single answer for being able to contain any one of these players.

This will be the perfect game for Dwight Howard to prove whether or not he truly deserves those Defensive Player of the Year awards. Or, it could serve as a game where he gets a few more Youtube clips of him being dunked over added.  

If Vince Carter and Rashard Lewis don’t show up to assist Howard, the Magic could be in for a very rude awakening, and I’m not talking about the plane ride home with Stan Van Gundy giving one of his usual rants.

The Magic are a solid club, but I don’t think anyone views them as a threat to the Miami Heat, and the Heat will do everything possible to make sure that the Magic understand that.   

7. @ New York Knicks: December 17, 2010

The Miami Heat trio of All-Stars takes their show on the road to the Mecca of basketball. This will probably be the most exciting game of the first half of the season. Not from a competition stand-point but solely from a highlight aspect.

It also might be the first time in a long time that you see three teammates score 30 or more points in the same game. Seriously, the Knicks won't offer much in the way of resistance to the Heat's offensive onslaught.

The New York fans will provide the perfect atmosphere, like they so often do when opposing players do the unimaginable. Too bad it want be a nationally televised game.

Look for the Heat to look to put on a show, as this is as close as they might get to a easy game.

On a side note, this will be one of those games that exposes Amare Stoudemire as the kind of player you don’t want leading your team. He’ll probably show up on offense, if the Heat allow it, but look for him to do his usual phantom act on defense.

6. @ Cleveland Cavaliers: December 2, 2010

The King is returning home. Well, actually he’s returning to place that’s about 40 miles from home.

Nevertheless, this will be the NBA equivalent to O.J. Simpson showing up to the Brown’s family home for Thanksgiving dinner. In other words, he will not be a welcomed man.

Thank the heavens that he has two body guards to shield him from all of his hecklers and bitter supporters. Not that he needs to be shielded, as the Cavaliers don’t have a single player that can effectively defend LeBron James…heck, they don’t have anyone you want defending Dwyane Wade or Chris Bosh.

This isn’t one of those games that will make for good basketball. It’s only has relevance because it is the former team of James.

This game will be over quickly, but the sting Cleveland fans endure from it will linger for sometime to come.

5. @ Portland Trail Blazers: January 9, 2011

With so much talk surrounding teams like the Heat, Lakers, Celtics, Denver, and Thunder, everyone is ignoring arguably the deepest team out West. That team being the Portland Trail Blazers, of course.

They have the size and skilled players to actually do more than put a scare in the Heat. They could actually dominate the Heat, if their team is healthy.

They have the perfect offense and defense to cancel out the talents of Miami All-Star trio. Should Greg Oden be 100 percent healthy when these teams meet, it will make for some very interesting basketball.

Brandon Roy did quite a number on Dwyane Wade and the Heat last season. He’s arguably the most difficult player for Wade to cover at the two guard position because he’s always balanced in his attack, thus keeping Wade off balance. LaMarcus Aldridge will be more than a handful for Chris Bosh.

The Heat centers are too small to handle Oden, Pryzbilla, and Camby. The Heat would need for rookie Dexter Pittman to be ready and in shape to balance the field of play.

LeBron James is really the only clear advantage the Heat has, but even that isn’t so clear cut because of Nicolas Batum.

The only major advantage for the Heat that I see, is the inexperience on the Portland bench. It more than anything else that might prevent them from a win.

Still, this is a game that everyone needs to watch.

4. @ Dallas Mavericks: November 27, 2010

This is the game that Pat Riley has circled on his schedule.

Shortly after LeBron James announced that he was taking his talents to South Beach, Dallas Mavericks owner, Mark Cuban, questioned the credibility of Pat Riley and the Heat organization, with his rants that the Heat should be looked at for player tampering.

If there’s one thing you don’t do to Riley, it’s question his integrity as a man or professional. The fact that Cuban had the balls to do such a thing should have been enough to force him to sell his franchise. Such idiotic behavior is unbefitting of an NBA owner.

Nevertheless, Riley might take the time to give his star studded trio an added pep talk to embarrass Cuban’s Dallas Maverick team.

It should make for a great game to watch. One team will be defending the honor of the man that made the impossible possible, while the other will be trying to endure a beat down brought upon by it’s loud mouth owner.

Expect Dwyane Wade to dominate this matchup. He'll be extra geared up to go to bat for good ol' Pat...no pun intended.

If the Mavericks do lose this game, it’ll be especially difficult to swallow, being that it’ll happen on their home floor.

3. @ Oklahoma City Thunder: January 30, 2011

This will be a very intriguing game.

On one hand, you have the villainous Miami Heat squad that everyone wants to see lose every game they play this season. On the other hand, you have a young and extremely talented Oklahoma City squad that many believe will be the next dominant force in the Western Conference for the next decade or so.

The Thunder team features the talents of Kevin Durant, a player who somehow has been propelled into talks of best basketball player in the NBA. A player who somehow finished second in MVP voting, even though his more balanced Oklahoma City team only finished with three more wins than a Dwyane Wade-led Miami Heat team.

With Durant being given so much unwarranted praise, it is very likely that Wade and LeBron James have both circled this game on their checklists. Wade has an added incentive because the Thunder man handled the Heat in both matchups last season.

Durant and his Thunder teammates will look to see how they measure up against the talented Heat squad. A win could be a great confidence booster to their aspirations of winning the Western Conference and competing for an NBA title. A loss wouldn’t do anything,but prove that they aren’t quiteready.

Expect the mdia to use this game as a spring board to further create more hype about how great Durant is.

In regards to the two clubs and how they play, the Thunder have as good of hot at beating the Heat as any team outside of Portland. They have the size and quickness needed to keep the Heat players out of the paint.

With Jeff Green being occupied by Chris Bosh and Thabo Sefolosha being occuped by Wade, the game will be decided by whether or not Durant can contain James. I fully expect James to expose every weakness that Durant has.

This will be one of those matchups for Miami that James will make every other player on the court seem a level or two under him.

2. @ Los Angeles Lakers: December 25, 2010

This is the Christmas day showdown in Los Angeles for the supposedly two front runners to end up in the NBA Finals. It also will be the first meeting of these two teams this season.

Both teams will be near the halfway points of their seasons and should have worked out any chemistry issues with their new players.

Los Angeles will show up boasting the fact that they are the reigning NBA champions of the past two seasons. They also will be carrying the pressure of being the team that everyone has picked to destroy the Heat this season, should they meet up in the NBA Finals.

The Miami Heat could very well enter this game with as many as 31 victories, thus creating an even bigger hype around the game. The Heat All-Star trio would no doubt be geared up to prove a point by manhandling the Lakers on their home court.

This game will probably be the worst officiated game of the year for the Heat. No star player gets a fair shake in Los Angeles, so one can only imagine what the heck is going to happen when you have the two best players on the same team facing them.

Being that it is a Christmas day game, the league won’t want the Heat to run away in laughter, so it’s safe to say the Lakers will get a lot of favorable calls.

Expect it to be the biggest spectacle of NBA fanfare prior to the NBA All-Star game. After all, there isn’t a more annoying grouping of fans than those Kobe Bryant/Lakers fans.

The game would feature five of the 10 best player in the NBA and nine players that have been NBA All-Stars.

Guess we’ll see how great Bryant and Lakers really are. His fans say he and his team can do anything they want. Let’s see if he wants to beat the Miami Heat trio. 

1. @ Boston Celtics: October 26,2010

Let's just call this “Heat-Genesis.” This will be the first game for the newly formed Miami Heat.

Clearly, the Heat drew the short end of the stick as far as NBA scheduling goes. They get to start their journey off against an NBA finalist Boston Celtic club that was one game away from winning it’s second title in three seasons.

The Celtics are strong in the Heat’s two weakest positions: center and point guard. They also have the benefit of being at home, with a starting nucleus of four returning players.

Nevertheless, this game is a great way to bring together a Heat team that will be playing with a "me against the world" attitude. Already, the talking has begun by the Celtic players. Rajon Rondo and Kedrick Perkins have both given their two cents on what they think of the Miami Heat.

Many view this as a game that can be the straw that breaks the Heat’s back and put a quick end to any talks of winning a title this season. Many others see it as a spring board that will propel the Heat to a season of greatness.

Either way, both the Heat and Celtics will be working on chemistry issues, being that both clubs have added at least six new players to their respective rosters.

This will also be a game that features 12 players that have been selected as NBA All-Stars. So it’s safe to say that it might be the highest rated game this NBA season.

Absolute must-see TV.