Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Cleveland Cavaliers, Daequan Cook, Dwyane Wade, LeBron James, Mario Chalmers, Miami Heat
Last season this match up between LeBron James’ Cleveland Cavaliers and Dwyane Wade’s Miami Heat would have been a joke with the Cavs wiping the floor with Wade’s crew, but this year is another story altogether.
Coming into this season Dwyane Wade was coming off winning a Gold medal with the Redeem Team in China. Wade was arguably the best player on that team over the summer as he seemed to be reborn and out to prove that his injuries haven’t caused him to lose a step or two.
That fire that was sparked during the Olympics has carried over into the NBA season with a Miami Heat team that looks a lot like the young team Wade had before Shaq came to town.
Not only is Wade back to normal, possibly playing better than ever and arguably the leading candidate for the NBA MVP, but he has his team back to contender status in the East conference. With the Heat competitive again, this time around won’t be as easy as it was in their championship campaign a few years ago as the East has drastically improved with the Orlando Magic, Cleveland Cavaliers and defending NBA champion Boston Celtics as legit championship contenders and leaders in the East.
With that being said the odds are definitely not in the Heat’s favor and with LeBron finally having the team that he can contend with the Heat were definitely not favored to win this game.
Even though they were underdogs, the Heat came out to prove that they can play with anyone and weren’t intimidated by LeBron’s Cavs.
This season Wade has gone back to his scoring was by putting up 25, 30 and 40+ point performance, but against the Cavs Wade turned into a distributor as he dished out 12 assists to go along with 21 points.
LeBron James put on a show as well as he lit up the scoreboard with 38 points, but it wasn’t enough to hold off a Heat team on a mission as they took down the Cavs 104-95.
Rookie Mario Chalmers and Daequan Cook continue to play well as they helped Wade during a poor shooting night. Cook was red hot from deep hitting 5 of 7 from beyond the arc and finished the night with 17 points off the bench. Chalmers was also draining threes all night long as hit was able to hit 6 of 7 from deep scoring 21 points.
I still think the Heat need a couple seasons to get these young guys play some real team chemistry, but when they play well they can beat anyone in the league right now.
