By CHRIS PERKINS
FOXSportsFlorida.com Heat Writer
Dec. 23, 2010
LeBron James bristles a little bit at the implication. The Heat's superstar forward has heard the chatter -- the Heat didn't really beat any good teams during their 12-game winning streak.
"We've beaten some teams," James said.
Well, let's look at who has had winning streaks of 10 games or more this season and whom they beat:
-- Boston has a 14-game winning streak that's still going on. During that streak the Celtics have beaten six teams that currently have a winning record (Atlanta twice, Chicago, Portland, Denver and New York).
-- Dallas had a 12-game winning streak. During the streak it beat six teams that currently have winning records (Atlanta, Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Miami and Utah twice).
-- San Antonio had a 12-game winning streak. During that streak it beat four teams that currently have a winning record (Oklahoma City, Chicago, Utah and Orlando).
-- Miami had a 12-game winning streak. During the streak it beat four teams that currently have a winning record (Atlanta, Utah, New Orleans, New York).
Draw your own conclusions.
By the way, James didn't seem overly impressed by any of the winning streaks regarding the amount of victories against teams with records better than .500. He doesn't think there's a large enough sample group.
"You should have a winning record against sub-.500 teams," he said. "Everyone is playing sub-.500 teams. If you look at the standings, how many plus-.500 teams are there in this league? Twelve? (Actually 14). Twelve out of 30? I think there's like four in our conference (actually six). There's not that many plus-.500 teams.
"We say. 'They don't have a winning record'; how many times can you play only (14) teams? And we're one of them. I think out of a week when you play four teams you might play one team that has a plus-.500 record."
James is kind of right on this one.
To me, whom these teams beat during their winning streaks doesn't really matter. A winning streak of 10 or more games is special because of injuries, travel, back-to-back games . . .
But aside from that, it's all about the best-of-sevens for teams such as Boston, the Lakers, San Antonio, Miami and Dallas. These in-season winning streaks won't really matter in the playoffs.
I just thought it was interesting James has heard the chatter about the Heat's winning streak and was prepared to respond.
