LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh all scored at least 20 as the Heat used a third quarter surge to drop the Knicks 102-88 Thursday night in Miami. While it was a forgettable night for Lin, it was as good a night the Heat could’ve asked for on defense. They forced 19 turnovers, eight from Lin alone. LeBron told reporters, including ESPN’s Brian Windhorst, afterward the Heat made it their goal to play as suffocating defense as possible.
“We wanted to make guys uncomfortable,” said James. “Does it work all time? I’m not going to say yes because we have great players in this league. Lin is a great player.”
Bosh led all scorers with 25 points while LeBron has 20 points, nine rebounds, eight assists, five steals and two blocks. The Heat had 19 fast break points, 16 of those coming off the turnovers they created. The turning point of the game came near the end of the third quarter, when the Knicks had a chance to shrink the lead single digits when LeBron James made two free throws, J.R. Smith then missed a jumper and LeBron came back down and scored again, pushing the lead to 14 as the quarter came to a close.
The Knicks got within six midway through the fourth quarter when the Heat used another 6-0 run to push the lead back up to 12 and they never looked back. After the game, Wade hinted the game had some extra meaning because of the Lin coverage that swept just about every media outlet that has ever said the word “basketball”.
“Obviously we want to go out and represent our team well,” Wade said. “We know how many people were going to be watching this game for many different reasons. We wanted to come out and dominate the game.”
Aside from the amazing pressure the Heat can put on the ball is how diverse their offense is. Last year it felt like didn’t quite know how to adjust to different looks other teams threw at them. Now, especially when their 3’s are falling, they have a counter to anything a team can throw at them. LeBron is forcing very little, same with Bosh. The Heat pushed their league best record to 27-7 (tied with Oklahoma City) going in to the All-Star break with James, Wade & Bosh headed to Orlando to for the game and Mario Chalmers, James Jones and Norris Cole all participating in All-Star Saturday festivities.
