The Miami Heat lost both of the regular season games to the Dallas Mavericks, but that was the regular season. During the Playoffs, the Heat have managed to enact revenge against two teams that had beaten them the majority of the time in the regular season, Boston and Chicago.
Since Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Semis against Boston the Heat have turned up the heat, treating the Celtics like white kids playing basketball with swim trunks on.
Dallas also had Caron Butler on the floor in those two wins early in the season. Butler has been out since tearing a tendon in his right knee on Jan. 1. He was averaging 14 points and 4.1 rebounds in almost 30 minutes per game. He averaged 18 points in Dallas’ two regular-season wins over Miami. Dallas coach Rick Carlisle said Friday that Butler’s availability for this series is “unlikely, but I’m not sure.”
This series, like all basketball will be based on matchups.
With or without Butler the Mavericks are in for their toughest matchup this postseason.
The Mavs were built to get past the Lakers and they succeeded at that, unfortunately no team in the NBA is designed to handle the Heat. Dallas will utilize the zone defense to make up for their matchup problems.
In the two-game regular-season series against Dallas, Wade and LeBron James were a combined 3 of 17 versus the zone, according to Synergy, which provides a statistical analysis of each playoff game.
Miami has plenty of matchup issues as well. The most compelling is of course, Who holds Dirk?
Chris Bosh should get the majority of the assignments, along with Udonis Haslem. During the Eastern Conference Semis, LeBron James turned Derrick Rose, the league’s MVP into an average point guard. The world will await the moment when LeBron and Dirk square off against each other, and in many situations the game will depend on how well LeBron can defend without fouling Dirk.
Dirk has shot 130-140(93%) from the free throw line this postseason.
According to StatsCube, there is one thing that the Heat and Mavs have had in common in these playoffs: incredible success in late-game situations.
In “clutch” situations in the postseason, the Mavs have outscored their opponents 97-42, while the Heat have outscored their opponents 98-55. Neither of those totals encompasses the complete comebacks by Dallas in Game 4 of the Western Conference finals (when the Mavs rallied from 15 down with five minutes to go) and Miami’s effort in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals (when the Heat came back from 12 down with less than four minutes left).
Clutch situation = Last five minutes of the fourth quarter or overtime, with a score differential of five points or less
Dallas has been the best offensive team in clutch situations, scoring an estimated 148 points per 100 possessions. Miami has been the best defensive team in clutch situations, allowing just 69 points per 100 possessions.
