Heat look the goods. Durant won't get away with being in foul trouble like he did in game 2

If Miami wins it all this year, do they go into the conversation of Worst Championship Teams of All Time?

I mean, it's a credit to the dominance of Lebron James, but this team is baaaad...

How are heat bad? They are in the championship series of the worlds best league.

Heat bad? People will find any way to hate the hear haha.

LeBron's dominance? Sure Wade hasn't shot well, but his stat line is great!

Not a hater at all.

Just looking at how shallow their roster is and comparing them to the teams who have won it all before. Lucky to be facing a team like OKC who, though perhaps superior, are inexperienced.

It's a testament to the greatness of Lebron James, as Wade hasn't delivered much since the Indiana series.

Also a big factor has been Shane Battier, who after sucking all year and all postseason has turned his game around in the finals. Without him Miami are down 3-0.

When you say bad in a comparitive sense when talking about championship teams, it's not comparing them to the Toronto Raptors...

Perspective here, people.

For the first time in the playoffs, the Thunder showed a lack of maturity. Finally!

Its so frustrating watching an OKC team that still hasn't played their best game yet.

Im positive they will take the next 2 games at MIA, and close it out at home.

KD just needs to stay out of foul trouble

Agree with anon above, probably a better choice of words would be "flawed" or "imabalanced", rather than just bad, but still.

I can't recall a championship team, maybe ever, that has as many holes and roster deficiencies.

Again, it's a credit to the monster that is Lebron James.

Didn't see today's game but perhaps experience is a factor in this series? I still think thunder are the better team but for once Lebron and co are the more experienced team, as opposed to playing the Celtics or Mavs. Durant getting in foul trouble in this series is probably a good eg. When he went to the bench in the highlights thunder were up and it looks like they quickly lost that lead w him on the bench. Perhaps a mistake by brooks to allow Durant to guard Lebron for more than a few mins max?

Thought that LeBron should've been called for a charge on Durant that was a block. Not to mention the one on Harden in the final 30 seconds was a push off. Refs always dictate the NBA, this is Stern's way of drawing out a series to at least 6 games!

This has to be stern at work again

Why can't people just accept that referees make mistakes rather than there being some ulterior motive.

As if Stern is telling them "make Lebron look good!"

And if he was, why wouldn't he be saying "make Kevin Durant win" since he is a superstar of equal status, and much more loved than Lebron?

Agree that Spurs would have beaten the Heat.

The Heat are one of the oldest, slowest teams in the league (when you look at the whole roster), I doubt they could have kept up with San Antonio's pace the way all the young OKC legs did.

That said I was expecting an OKC 4-1 victory here so shows anything can happen.

I watched pretty much all of the conference finals and almost every game I was blown away by something; the incredible momentum swings, some breathtaking unstoppable offense and shooting, unbeleiveable individual performances. So far I've not been impacted in the same way at all with these finals - apart from some great 4th quarter performances from Durrant they seem to be lacking some intangible quality, I can't quite put my finger on it.

I thought Lebron got away with a couple of preposterous travels in the first quarter, one of them was beyond ridiculous and that jump stop to layup was also definitely travel. Lebron's loose footwork and imprecise game is so apparent when compared to Durrant who's already a master of his craft at 23 - KD is so much smoother and seems to score so much more effortlessly. Watch how quickly KD puts the ball in the basket after he catches it, it's amazing.

Agree. How can you pick up your dribble tale a step(hop step or whatever the NBA commentators want to call it) into a jump stop. It's a travel every time and a guy with that sort of talent doesn't need any help. In fact this move gives him a huge advantage due to his size and skill set and so he uses it often. I hope the refs at the Olympics call all of them. I also dislike how players in the NBA catch the ball on curls with their inside foot as a pivot foot. They then are allowed to decide to use the other foot to pivot if they feel they need to.

The amount of LeBron/Miami bashers on here is ridiculous, a hop step is not a travel, even over here in Australia. You praise KD's game to an enormous level, which he's the 2nd best player of the current game, but LeBron's game is of course just terrible. He's playing some unbelievable basketball right now, putting Miami 2-1 in this series and in control of the Finals, also causing KD huge issues on the defensive end (thus the foul troubles, and the blocking foul was clearly the correct call, didn't establish position until LeBron was already in flight). Simply put KD cannot guard him.
PS- People calling Miami one of the slowest teams clearly aren't paying attention to an elite defensive team they don't even have a legit big man, to be an elite defensive team under these circumstances you have to be extremely quick.

Miami plays the game at a slow pace. Outside of the big three they are enormously unathletic and slow. They are also the oldest team (avg age) in the entire playoffs this year. That isn't opinion, that is fact. Again, a credit to them, because this is an empty roster outside of top end. I honestly didn't think they would make it this far this year.

And no one here is knocking Lebron at all. Every time his name has been mentioned it has been met with praise, including myself...