A Potential Cavs - Heat Series

So...
Now that Miami seems to be legit (kinda), how do you feel about a potential playoff series against them?

If healthy, their starting 5 will look scary good on paper:
Dragic
Wade
Deng
Bosh
Whiteside

Heat are currently the 8th seed in the East, but will probably end up ahead of Charlotte as the 7th and maybe even ahead of Milwaukee as the 6th seed.

So it's highly probable that we could face them in the first round if we end up being 2nd or 3rd in the East.
That would make for an absolutely EPIC first round series.
But how would y'all feel about our chances advancing into the second round?

Cavs in 6... We have better talent, better depth, star players.

They're certainly more dangerous than they were last week, but in order for them to do any damage in the playoffs they'd almost need to shut Wade down completely until then.

imma admit im a little scared

they did lose depth...im going to assume miami goes hard for vets on buyouts

its going to annoy me when we lose buyout players to miami because of beaches and weather

im not scared until i see how they look outside the paper

Sure, the Heat's starting line up is pretty good. Beyond them, they have almost nothing of value though. Wade's health is crucial. If he is fully healthy and playing well then they could be a challenge.

Just to have a visual, these are what I imagine the match ups would be in a series:

Kyrie ---- Dragic
Shump --- Wade
LBJ -------- Deng
Love ------- Bosh
Moz -------- Whiteside

Seems pretty evenly matched. Yet once those 6th, and seventh men start entering the game then our advantage really becomes obvious. Bringing TT, Smith, and Delly off the bench is a nice luxury. Not to mention we still have Marion, and Miller to step in in case injuries occur. The Heat have nothing of that caliber.

Maybe I'm unknowingly wearing the wine colored glasses but I still like our chances against Miami. We're deeper, and more talented in my opinion.

It feels nice to be able to say it again, but we still have Lebron James in a playoff series.

Pat Riley is indeed the Godfather.

This Dragic trade shows how badly we overpaid for Love. Never should have included the Mia first. Completely bid against ourselves.

Some of you are giving the Heat waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much credit

Wait wait wait... So Flip turned the Heat first into 27 games of KG? What a moron. And he fleeced us too.

Hassan Whiteside changed everything for Miami. Their future was bleak. But they completely lucked into a 25 year old monster rebounder and rim protector off the scrap heap. And thus, that allowed them to aggressively pursue Dragic. Riley is relentless.

^ agree but lets see him do it for more than 20 games before we get out the anointting oil

Plain and simple if they don't have healthy Wade we sweep. Fully healthy they could probably steal one game

Yeah, he's still got some maturity issues. Thinks he's big shit right now. ESPN's Amin El Hassan said the main reason he flamed out up until this point was because he was a jackass.

But the sample has gotten large enough to where you have to take notice. He's a threat now. His PER 36 numbers resemble Dwight Howards for his career.

You guys do realize that they got Goran Dragic and not an all star level PG in a league littered with all star PG, right? They just gave up two first rounders for a potential rental.

The Heat have been running a slow down offense this season whereas Dragic excels in up tempo. Are they supposed to just up and change their style mid-season? Either way, I don't see how this trade makes them any more of a threat in the playoffs. Wade is still brittle and while Bosh's numbers are up, his shooting percentage is down and his defense has taken a dive.


They'll get bounced in 5, maybe 6 in the first round.