Thanks mostly to the Heat's role players shooting the basketball like it was a bag of piss, some putrid rebounding, strong play from the Pacers' Roy Hibbert, and a crapload of atrocious officiating from the referees, your 2013 Eastern Conference Finals is all knotted up at 2-2.
After cracking the Pacers nuts into several pieces in Game 3, Indiana came roaring back for Game 4 in front of their home crowd, beating the Heat 99-92.
Here's your rundown:
1. The Cobradick Can Only Do So Much
He can lay waste nations. Collapse governments. Turn Jason Terry into a plume of ash in a single bound. But he can't win a playoff series playing five against one.
It's pretty damn simple. LeBron James is the greatest basketball player on the planet. Yet for all his Kryptonian/gama-ray infused DNA, he can't do it all.
LeBron finished Game 4 with 24 points on 8-for-18 shooting, which is subpar for him.
Yet, as he has been all series long, he was playing outside of his mind with suffocating defense while altering the fabric of time-space with his aerobatic displays of awesomeness.
But, in the end -- aside from being called for a ridiculous sixth foul by the human flaccid penis known as Joe Crawford at crunch time -- LeBron was left to try and rescue the Heat on his own.
Dwyane Wade's knee has been an asshole. At times he looks explosive, at others it looks like someone tied Mike Miller to his ankles.
As the playoffs go on, it's becoming more and more apparent that Wade is the most important player for the Heat.
LeBron is going to give Miami what he gives Miami.
But if Wade struggles, as he did in Game 4 with his putrid 5-for-15 shooting and his suspect defense, the Heat is going to be a barrel full of shit.
Barrels filled with shit is no fun.
Chris Bosh has been touch and go in this series, and he's been completely eaten up by Treebeard Hibbert on the boards. He's a dinosaur who can't rebound. Worse still, he rolled his ankle late in the game, so now he's a hobbled dinosaur who can't rebound.
Meanwhile, Shane Battier has been a boiling pot of concentrated ass, while Ray Allen has been a bag of old broken dicks.
LeBron needs help -- the kind he got in Game 3 -- if the Heat are going to pull things off.
Might it be time for more Mike Miller, even though he's always a sneeze away from exploding his spleen? Or perhaps more Joel Anthony, who we caught a glimpse of in Game 4, to bring some much needed height against Indiana's forest of players?
Mario Chalmers has been denting ass lately. So there's that!
2. The Officiating in Game 4
3. EVERYBODY CHILL
No one said this series would be easy. The Pacers are built to be a matchup ass-pain for Miami with their forest-sized players and streaky shooters.
But the Heat's Game 4 woes were tied to several things that are fixable.
In the final 5 minutes of the 4th quarter, the Heat went 1-for-9 shooting as a team, morphing into a squad of chuckers who refused to play in the post. They were out-rebounded by a huge margin, and were left to fend for themselves down the stretch without LeBron, and with a hobbled Bosh and Wade trying to fight off the putrid officiating.
But the series now returns to Miami, where the Heat are 4-1 in swing playoff games.
And for all the ball achey feeling today, and all of America throwing parades because of Miami's loss, and for all the horseshit that's going to be spewed from the media in the next two days, remember:
- The Heat have yet to trail in this series - The series has become a Best-of-tree with two games in Miami - No way Dwyane Wade has a string of shit games - And, most importantly.... THIS GUY:
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