Happy Halloween!

Congratulations to the New Jersey Nets on their costumes! They dressed up like an NBA team!

On the itinerary for the rest of the season is maybe learning to play like one.

Black Magic

First off, some disclaimers.

We caught the Magic on the tail end of a back to back on the road, it was our home opener after a day off, and the amount of santeria performed on behalf of the Heat decimated the rooster population of Miami-Dade County.

That being said we made Orlando, an early title contender, look like the 2009 Nets.

Dwight Howard was the leading Magic scorer with 19 points, all in the first half. The Magic, who were one of the top teams last season in 3 pointers made and 3 point percentage, made only 4 treys...at a 16% clip. The Magic shot 30% overall and 70% from the charity stripe.

The Heat's defense was still about half a step slow, understandable because Spoelstra relies so much on help defense rotations which are a bit complicated to learn (just ask Beasley, oh wait...). One thing the game illustrated was how effective four long, athletic players and Carlos Arroyo can be in the scheme, never mind that Lebron and Wade are two of the best help defenders in the league. When this team puts it together, it's going to be impossible to get a bucket on them.

If you still need convincing, just look at this play-by-play of Friday's third quarter, where the Heat outscored the Magic 28-10. The Heat defense held the Magic to 2 field goals. Over a 12 minute period. Seriously.

The offense looked much more polished as well. It's surprising that it took Lebron and Wade so long to figure out that they can just run down the court and throw alley-oops to each other.

Theres still room for improvement, the Heat shot 40% from the field and committed way too many fouls on defense. Our defensive strategy made the Delonte West-Von Wafer "altercation" look like a spirited game of slaps. Our 3 point Shooting on the other had was awesome, and also served as a giant middle finger to the Magic, who couldn't hit a thing despite throwing up shots like they threw money at Rashard Lewis.

On a more hilarious note, Vince Carter went down after being "shaken up" when he collided with another player. The Celtics (God bless their demonic evil hearts) showed how fragile Carter was last year in the playoffs and now everyone is banging into him trying to collect the bounty Toronto put out on him all those years ago. I got my money on Grizzlies finally doing him in, Zach Randolph looks like the type that would be super down with this. He is a drug kingpin after all.

The Heat have a tough Eastern Conference test on the road at New Jersey (Pfffftt) on Sunday. Hopefully they'll be able to scrape out a win *snort* against the vaunted Nets. No word as of yet if Jay-Z and his boo Mikhail Prokhorov will be in attendance.

Sixers

The Sixers were papa. They don't deserve our energy, time and effort.



The shit show begins tomorrow.

Building Rome

The text messages started rolling in around 8:15.

"Hey Spoelstra, Your team is down 18"

"R u a heat fan? cuz your losing"

"We got more championships than u have seasons"

Being stuck in class, this was the way I experienced the first half of Tuesday's season opener.

It wasn't Boston fans sending me messages. Oh sure, they might have been wearing Boston gear, but in reality they were Heat haters, the biggest fan base in the country as of July 8th.

And for one night they were right, regardless of how douchie they might have sounded.

The Big 3 looked hesitant, the defense was a step slow, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh shot 26% from the floor, none of the role players stepped up, and Joel Anthony started at center.

Disaster, on the surface at least.

The fact is before Tuesday's game, Wade, Bosh, and James played together on the same NBA team for exactly three minutes. In a preseason game.

The fact is the new-look Heat played the defending Eastern Conference Champions, a team which led the league in every defensive statistical category last season, in Boston.

The fact is the Heat were down three points with less than a minute to play.

That was as bad as the Heat are ever gonna play. To lose by eight, after being that unimpressive and unimaginative isn't disheartening in the least, its encouraging. Today's glorified shoot around (@ Philadelphia) should serve to hash out rotations and loosen up the players a bit, after all, nothing lifts a team's spirit like hammering on the 76ers (Honorable mention for the Twolves).

We open our season at home on Friday, October 29th against the Magic, a legitimate title contender with size, shooting, and athleticism. Hopefully by then, Wade gets over his irrational fear of defending screen and rolls, Bosh remembers you can be closer than 17ft to the basket, and Lebron forgets about game 1.

The Haters were happy for one night. The Heat are content to save their happiness until June.

Meanwhile in LA....