here's what i saw:

Offense:
chauncey did dribble too much, but I don't think he shot too much (11-17) and in the long run, especially, I was glad to see him break out; also glad to see his turnovers cut down to 1 again.

rip: didn't shoot well in the second half, but did a good job of taking the ball to the basket (though he could've finished more consistently). needs to do a better job of breaking them down from teh wing when they front the post (i.e. beating his man to create a 2 on 1 with his post player)

sheed: great second half, useless in the first. sorry that they went away from him after his little hot streak at the beginning of the second half; but if his man is gonna front, i don't thinkn he needs to push thte dude all the way out to where our perimeter players are standing. but the passing into him was weak as hell tonight.

ben: useless tonight on offense, didn't even board well

tay: useless tonight on offense, no aggressiveness at all -- like he wasn't even on the floor (1-7 shooting, 2 boards)

dyess: not quite useless, but he still looks intimidated when he gets the ball in the post, attempted to pass out several times when he was 1 on 1. didn't board (4 def. boards in 22 mins. unacceptable from him). I know he had 9 points, but he could've and should've had more -- and his mistakes perhaps were magnified by when they occurred and by the fact that he was about the only guy who was even getting the ball near the basket. *reserve the right to change my mind about his offensive game*

Lindsey, delk, delfino: whatever.

DEFENSE
non-existent except for a four minute 20 second stretch to bbegin the fourth quarter. I will give wade credit: i think he hit some tough shots. but overall, their high shooting percentage was due to the huge number of layups and dunks (or shaq bunnies) that they got.

REBOUNDING:
entire team except sheed gets an F, and even sheed gets a D on the offensive end. too many one shot and outs for us. we missed 37 shots and got only 8 of those rebounds. they missed 28 shots and got 11 of those rebounds. unacceptable.

I have to say i agree that when shaq is out (especially in the hack-a-ben period of the game) ben needs to be pulled immediately. period.

OVERALL
However, I remain optimistic (if not quite confident). Bottom line is that the 2nd quarter is where they blew it open (23-14): apart from that we lost the first quarter by 2, the 3rd quarter by 1, and actually were winning the 4th quarter until that final parade of free throws by them (wanna check the full play-by-play and game flow to confirm that impression of the fourth).

Iin other words, though we were outshot by 15 % from the floor, outrebounded by 13, and had 16 to's to 11 assists, i felt like we were in this game (and in fact, of course, we had it at 74-73 when dyess muffed the dunk -- maybe he was fouled -- and dwade came back and made a 3 point play).

this didn't feel like game 1 or game 2 to me (even though i know some will see a similar rhythm); at least definitely not game 2 cause they were never up more than 12 til the very last minute, and we got it down to 1 with a fair bit of game left (whereas in game 2 we were up 18 and they only closed the gap at the very end).

i don't know about the rest of you, but when we came down with the ball, down 1, i felt pretty good about our chances of stealing a game in which we got outplayed. as it turns out, we didn't get steal this one.

this time chauncey showed up, rip was more or less rip, and sheed showed what he can do when we get him the ball, and then tay disappeared. it's frustrating that the five starters haven't been able to show consistently, but i believe we're still gonna see 'em show up for one of these games: four guys in double figures (with rip and someone else over 20), ben around 15 boards, and another 15 or so from dice and co. off the pine. I know Miami is a good team -- I'm not underestimating them. but i think they are playing at the top of their game right now and we definitely aren't.

but my money's still on us for game 4 (and, for that matter for game 5).