Shorthanded Heat Lose Heartbreaker

I really wanted this one. Badly. Lately I've been rooting for the young guys to play well and secretly hoping to win the games, but outwardly I've been hoping we just lose games by 20 to get better draft positioning without the heartbreak of a close loss. But tonight, man I wanted the Heat to win.

I HATE the Dallas Mavericks. I hate their jackass owner. I hate their whiny players who should blame themselves for choking more than they blame outside influences. And I hate their smug fans. Theres nothing to like about that franchise since they refuse to give ours credit for a title. So when the Heat had the lead for most of the game, in Dallas, without Wade or Shaq or Wright or Williams, I was rooting HARD for a victory.

However, the 2nd half featured way too many turnovers and bad shots, but primarily just an outgunned Miami Heat team. I have to give the guys an A+ for effort. Everyone gave it their all tonight and played a great game against a top team in the NBA. If only they would put out that kind of effort when the starters are actually healthy.

That being said, there were two big negatives I took from this game. First, Luke Jackson does not belong on an NBA roster. I don't know what they saw in him, and I certainly don't know why he was chosen in the lottery. The guy is flat out awful. He hogs the ball and launches off-balance bricks, has no ball control, and killed our chances of a victory with a bad inbounds pass in the final seconds.

The other negative is the blatant non-call against Ricky Davis with under 10 seconds to go. Down 1, Davis drove to the basket and airballed a layup after getting smacked in the head by a Maverick. No call, game effectively over. Thanks, refs. I'd like to see any of those grumbling Mavs fans and so-called experts tell me the Heat get preferential treatment after watching that blown call. Even with all the factors going against us, Miami still won that game to me. Instead, the final result was 94-89 in favor of the Mavericks, and another notch in the Loss column for the Heat.