MIAMI — One of Pat Riley’s favorite sayings is, “No
rebounds, no rings.’’
Perhaps the Miami Heat president, an eight-time NBA champion
as a player, assistant coach, head coach and executive, will need to amend it.
The defending champion Heat entered Tuesday with the
second-best record in the East despite having been outrebounded on the season.
But what they pulled off in a 103-92 victory over Minnesota at AmericanAirlines
Arena was mystifying.
Miami (16-6) was outrebounded a stunning 52-24, but still
somehow won. According to www.BasketballReference.com,
teams that had outrebounded foes by 28 or more had been 106-3 since the start of
the 1985-86 season.
“There’s always a chance,’’ quipped Heat forward Shane
Battier when told that stat.
Battier then was reminded of the line from “Dumb and
Dumber’’ in which Jim Carrey’s mentally challenged character Lloyd Christmas
asks a girl about the chances of getting a date and is told they’re “one out of
a million.’’ Lloyd responds, “So you're telling me there's a chance. Yeah!’’
It didn’t look early on as if there would be much of
a chance for the Heat to win if they continued to get hammered on the boards.
They were down 27-21 after a first quarter in which they were outrebounded
18-3. The margin on the boards soon reached 21-4, and Miami trailed by nine.
“I haven’t seen a (rebounding) deficit like that,’’ said
Heat forward LeBron James, who scored 22 points, had 11 assists and four blocks
and was Miami’s leading rebounder with a whopping seven. “I think at one point,
I looked up (and the rebounding margin) was like 18-3. We were getting killed
on the glass. We just had to keep fighting, figuring out ways.’’
The Heat continued to get slaughtered on the boards but they
did enough things to turn the game around and led by as many as 19 points in
the fourth quarter. When it got to that point, pages were being turned in NBA
record books to see if a team ever had won a game by 20 points while getting
outrebounded by 20.
There also was a curiosity during the game to see if Minnesota
forward Kevin Love might outrebound the Heat all by himself. Love led 14-11 at
halftime and it was tied 16-16 after the third quarter before Love slowed down
and the Heat were able to outrebound him 24-18 for the game.
As it turned out, it still had been 18 years since a team
had outrebounded a foe by 28 and lost. Of the three teams that had lost such
games since 1985-86, the biggest margin of defeat had been five.
“We’re a good team,’’ center Chris Bosh said of how the
Heat — who have won three games this season while being outrebounded by 10 or
more — are able to overcome problems on the boards. “Good teams always find a
way to win, and this is a process where we have to figure out how to rebound
collectively as a unit.’’
Rebounding often has been an issue with Bosh, who grabbed an
embarrassing two in 27 minutes on Tuesday. Forward Udonis Haslem is the leading
rebounder in Heat history but he didn’t get a single board in 18 minutes.
But don’t blame Battier, who grabbed five in 29 minutes off
the bench. He more than doubled his seasonal average of 2.2 coming in.
“Well, you better be strong in other areas of the game,’’
Battier said of how the Heat were able to win despite the huge rebounding
deficit. “We had 14 blocked shots and 12 steals. You have to make up for it
somewhere else, and we shot a great percentage on 3s (13 of 25 for 52 percent).
That’s not an easy way to win. You have to do your work somewhere else.’’
James did plenty of work with his filling up of the stat
sheet. So did Miami guard Dwyane Wade, who shot 8 of 14 for a game-high 24
points. He also had four assists, two blocks and two steals.
Perhaps Heat fans can thank TV analyst Charles Barkley for
Wade’s recent turnaround. Since the Hall of Famer, who once did cell phone
commercials with Wade, began saying on the air in November that Wade is past
his prime, the 30-year-old has averaged 21.8 points and shot 58.2 percent in
eight December games. Before that, Wade had averaged 18.2 points and shot 46.4
percent in his first 11 games.
Wade played just 27 minutes against the Timberwolves
(12-11), sitting out the entire fourth quarter. Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said
he thought of putting Wade back in after Minnesota had trimmed the 19-point
deficit to nine and later to eight, but that Wade already had cooled down.
As it turned out, Spoelstra was just happy to survive one of
most bizarre statistical games he’s ever seen.
“I don’t know how many times I’ve seen that where you get
doubled up on the rebounding and are still able to escape with a win,’’ he
said.
Spoelstra’s Heat now have been outrebounded on the season by
an average of 49.2-47.0 per game. But they still have the same record they did
last season, although that championship outfit outrebounded foes by 1.8 per
game.
Stay tuned to see what happens next June. Perhaps Riley
will need to find a substitute for one of his favorite sayings.
Chris Tomasson can be reached at christomasson@hotmail.com or on
Twitter @christomasson
