Balanced Attack Withstands Cavs

With the Miami Heat and the Cleveland Cavaliers in a "mini-playoff" series of sorts with a home-and-home sequence, the Heat took care of its home court advantage and withstood several late Cleveland surges to hold on to a 104-95 win.

Miami built up a 16-point lead by halftime as the Cavs shot a miserable 31 percent from the field. But as the Heat saw against Cleveland just two days earlier, the game was far from over. LeBron James did much more against Shawn Marion than he did on Sunday; finishing with 38 points on 12-of-24 shooting and 11-for-14 from the foul line. A three by James, who celebrated his 24th birthday in Miami, cut the lead to 78-77 with just under nine minutes left.

The Heat simply ran away with the game from that point on, building the lead back up to 14 with 4:52 left in the fourth quarter before Daniel Gibson made two triples that were simply too little, too late.

Rookie guard Mario Chalmers shook off a hamstring injury he sustained in his last game with Cleveland and really turned it up for the Heat. The second-round pick out of Kansas had eight points in the dicisive Miami run to finish with 21 points on six-of-seven shooting from beyond the arc, eight assists, three steals and no turnovers. Chalmers' point total was only matched by Wade on the Heat and registered a career-high in three-point field goals. Chalmers also did a good job on Maurice Williams defensively, as Williams shot just two-for-eight from the field.

On the offensive end, it did not matter that Wade only had two points in the fourth quarter. Daequan Cook and Chalmers made Cleveland pay for double-teaming Wade. The sophomore out of Ohio State had 11 of his 17 points in the final quarter and did it on five-of-nine shooting from the field. Cook even hit five straight points for Miami to give Miami its 14-point lead midway through the fourth quarter. Udonis Haslem and Shawn Marion each had double-doubles, combining for 27 points and 21 rebounds. I was happy that Marion looked to dunk the ball more as opposed to shooting his point-blank floaters. And Udonis Haslem's jump shoot is still there, a positive sign for Miami.

In the fourth quarter, Spoelstra went to a zone defense. Cleveland was stifled by Miami's zone defense, and never had another run when the Heat went to it. This allowed LeBron James to have different guys thrown at him, not just Marion. Even Wade was seen guarding James in the latter stages of the game.

The best thing about Miami's win tonight was that its ball movement was flawless in the fourth quarter, and its defense was confusing for Cleveland. Outside of Wade, the entire Heat only committed eight turnovers. Wade finished with 21 points on an abysmal 7-for-23 shooting from the field. However, Wade did have 12 assists. As I said, it did not matter that Wade was off on his game; others stepped up for him.

Joel Anthony was much more active against Zydrunas Ilgauskas, even making the 7-foot-3 Lithuanian product play some defense. Anthony played Ilgauskas to a near standoff, coming up just short in a 7-8 match-up. Ilgauskas scored six points below his season average of 14.

Michael Beasley struggled offensively, going just one-for-five from the field in 13 minutes. Beasley, however, did make it the foul line six times and sank all of them and grabbed five rebounds in his limited time. Spoelstra sat him on the bench in the fourth quarter after the Kansas State product played more than 24 minutes in his past two games.

Miami has a tough January ahead, with games against Orlando, Boston, San Antonio, the Los Angeles Lakers and Atlanta, among other teams. But this Heat team, fresh off a horrendous 15-67 season, has beaten San Antonio and Phoenix on the road and the Lakers and now the Cavaliers at home. There has got to be some confidence heading into the challenging road of the New Year.