Opponents have been raining three pointers down on the Miami Heat all season long, and last night the Orlando Magic decided that was a good idea too, and hit 4,000 17 three pointers, taking the 102-89 win over Miami.
Dwight Howard, who has apparently checked out and doesn't give a shit about basketball anymore, finished the night with 25 points and 24 rebounds, reaching his 20th double-double of the season before the first quarter was even over. Meanwhile Ryan Whitest Name Evar Anderson scored 27, hitting five of Orlando's 17 triples, and grabbing eleven rebounds on the night.
For their part, the Heat's wrecking ball offense displayed during their previous three-game winning streak, morphed into to a bucket of shit, going 35-for-83 from the field as a team and only hitting five 3-pointers all night. It didn't help that the Magic started off the game with a 7-0 lead and then started jacking up and hitting threes like they all had to get going because they needed to take a massive dump.
Dwyane Wade led Miami with 33 points, 22 of them coming during the second quarter where he pretty much single-handedly brought the Heat back into the game on a 24-9 run.Miami was within three points before the half after falling behind by as much as 17.
But then Erick Spoelstra decided to do that thing where he goes with a predetermined lineup and took out the guy hitting all his shots, which is a good idea when the other team is hitting their three-pointers at a 40 percent clip and your other superstars are just plain dicking around.
LeBron James, who finished the night with 17 points, just didn't have it last night, allowing Jameer Nelson to get to the basket regularly, and not being able to post up effectively against Howard's defense in the paint. Maybe it's because James had a rough day with his critics, or maybe it's because he plays 120 minutes every night, but it just wasn't LBJ's night. For his part, Chris Bosh was mostly useless, finishing with 12 points and being pretty much a non-factor for most of the night. This is where D-Wade and his amazing feats of awesome comes in handy. But by the time he came back into the rotation, he had gone ice-cold, while the Magic made it rain from downtown.
Simply put, the Heat ran into the perfect storm in Orlando, unable to stop Dwight Howard's inside game while getting their shit fucked up from the Magic's outside shooters whenever they did try to stop Howard.
WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK?
Meanwhile, LeBron addressed the recent criticisms and shots and nonsense from Larry Bird and Kendrick Perkins and his other critics and the fact that he's not allowed to ever tweet or say anything ever again for the rest of his life:
"I'm an easy target; if someone wants to get a point across -- just throw LeBron's name in there," James said. "You could be watching cartoons with your kids and you don't like it, you say, 'Blame it on LeBron.' If you go to the grocery store and they don't have the milk that you like, you just say, 'It's LeBron's fault.' "
Yup. Pretty much.
The Heat visit the shitty Washington Wizards on Friday. Stock your fallout shelter with dried goods, gas masks and assault rifles because if the Heat lose that game, the end is nigh! Tipoff is at 7 p.m.
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