NBA Playoffs 2011: What Went Wrong for Miami Heat in Game 1 Against Bulls?

More like what didn't go wrong.

Aside from Chris Bosh dropping 30 points and embarrassing Carlos Boozer in the process by making him eat his words, this was an absolute horrific game for the Miami Heat organization. They only got a combined 33 points between Dwyane Wade and LeBron James and only got 19 points from the rest of the squad.

The Chicago Bulls had an absolute field day with the Heat's defense. Miami once again relied too heavily on help defense and allowed too many shooters to get open.

The Bulls made 10 of their 21 three-point attempts, seven of those from Luol Deng and Derrick Rose combined, compared to the Heat who made only three of their eight attempts.

Rose proved again why he was the MVP with a dominant performance of 28 points on 10 of 22 shooting, 3 of 7 from deep, and six assists. He had four turnovers, but all of those came in the first quarter and the early moments of the second quarters. He had plenty of support from Deng, who finished with 21 points and hit four three-pointers.

Yet, neither of these players were truly why the Bulls decimated the Heat last night. Instead, you'll have to look towards a player that didn't even score double-digit points.

Joakim Noah single-handedly destroyed the Heat last night. He only had nine points on a less than stellar 4 of 14 shooting, but it was his work on the boards that absolutely ended any chance of a Heat come back. Noah finished with 14 boards, five more than the leading rebounder on Miami. His work on the offensive boards was what really did the Heat in.

Miami had a total of six offensive rebounds for the entire game. Joakim Noah had eight in a little less than 36 minutes.

In total, Chicago finished with 19 offensive rebounds and out rebounded the Heat 45-33 all together. Boozer finished with nine rebounds, four offensive, and Deng and Gibson each had seven, with five combined offensive rebounds.

What do all these rebounds translate to?

Only about 19 extra shots for Chicago. Miami shot 47 percent to Chicago's 44 percent and managed to find a way to lose by 21 points solely because they couldn't keep the Bulls' bigs off the glass on both sides of the court.

Compare that to the Heat who got nine rebounds from Chris Bosh, six apiece from James and Joel Anthony, and no other player having more than three rebounds.

When you give an opposing team 19 more shots, the chances are highly likely that you're not going to win.

Those odds don't improve especially when you run a lineup where the center for most of the game is 6'9" and attempting to box out players that exceed 7'0". The only attempted solution by the Heat was instilling seldom-used Jamaal Magloire, who was sluggish and only had two rebounds.

The solution to the Heat's problems isn't their lack of size, it's their lack of fight.

The keys to rebounding are just being able to find an opposing player attempting to grab a board and box him out. The Heat attempted to out jump and out size a team that has obvious advantages in both categories.

Miami doesn't have the size to match with Chicago, and they won't until they possibly sign a few centers over the offseason.

So, how do we correct this problem?

Effort for one would help. When you show off a lack of effort against a team that relies heavily on effort and hustling, you're not going to beat them.

The only way to beat a team like Chicago that gives 110 percent in every game is to do them one better by giving 120 percent. If Miami wants to take four games in this series, they're going to need to give an effort that the Bulls won't be able to match.

Miami can beat the Bulls. It's highly unlikely that LeBron James will shoot 5 of 15 and Dwyane Wade will shoot 7 of 17 again because they're superstars, and they're recognized as such because they know how to recover from tough games like last night's.

For an individual to give the Bulls the series already off of one horrific game by Miami is purely insane and shows a clear lack of basketball knowledge.

Obviously, Chicago is going to be a lot tougher than Miami thought. The Heat should consider themselves fortunate that they realized this now rather than in Game 5 or 6, and they also should consider themselves fortunate to have a coach like Erik Spoelstra that is actually very good at making adjustments.

Size won't help Miami in this series. They just don't have it. However, effort and tenacity will. Chicago has the league's top rebounding front court and it showed last night when they beat Miami solely off of their effort on the boards. Miami is going to have to match that effort and need to box out if they want to have a chance to win this series.

Don't count the Heat out yet. If you didn't realize, they still have LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, who might have the advantage over Carlos Boozer. For Bosh to have the edge over his matchup gives the Heat the biggest advantage in the series.

They just need to give him some support and start getting some windex on those boards.