The Heat Are Old & Slow; The Lakers Are Young & Sloppy

After watching both the Heat and Lakers get their butts kicked last night (by the Bulls and Suns respectively) make me sorta sad...sad that they didn't right their ships righted when they had a chance.

If the NBA Playoffs do anything for the teams who don't make it to the Conference Finals, it's that it shows them why they can't win it all and gives them clues as to what they can do to improve themselves.

Since Miami won last year, this lesson is more suitable for L.A. But Miami still has their issues.

1. Dwayne Wade can't play fancy-free: the injury has forced him to become a shooter. That hurts the team overall (I'll explain in a minute) but for Wade in particular, it drastically limits his game. So now he's playing like Ray Allen, except Allen is a better shooter.
2. Shaq isn't dominating: getting a 30-point game now from him will be a shock, where once it was a certainty. He should be insulted by the fact that Chicago has dared to cover him with only one player, and if he is he has yet to translate that into the frustration needed to fire him and his team up. But then again, he's won three rings in L.A. and one in Miami; he's proven he can win as long as his coach has a brain and his wingman is talented with a manageable ego. I get the feeling that during the third period of every game he may be thinking, "What the Hell do I have to prove?"
3. The rest of the team is crappy: they are a mix of decent role players, even-steven scrubs and has-been stars. Some might say these three types are interchangeable. I say they are too old and un-athletic to keep up with the younger, hungrier Bulls. Did Pat Riley think that a group of veterans who never won a ring would play like it's a contract year once they finally got to the promised land? Most of these guys should have either been traded or encouraged to retired.
4. The Heat depend on fouls to win: last year they benefited the most from going to the line. When they went more then the opponent, they won a vast majority of the time; when it was even they had a slight edge and when they went less then their opponent a loss was inevitable. So you have a "Slasher Supreme" in Wade and the Most Dominant Center in Shaq, players who game hinges on the foul line because it gives them free throws and puts the defenders in foul trouble. Well guess what the Bulls have been doing the past two games? If you said "putting the stars in foul trouble and making the team shoot jumpers" than give yourself a cookie.

The Lakers are a different animal: It's a one-man band masquerading as a well-oiled team. Meanwhile Phoenix is the opposite: people claim that Nash is everything, but it's clear that he's just a crucial component like everyone else on the Suns.

Anyway: I barely saw any resemblance of the famed Triangle Offense that Lakers coach Phil Jackson is known for. And I cringe every time I hear pundits say that Kwame Brown is key to their success (you have to be kidding me? He has terrible hands). Plus, whatever happened to having big guards? Wasn't that a Jackson staple? Jordan Farmar and Smush Parker would never had made the Jordan Era Bull's roster, and even during the Shaq&Kobe Laker Days they would have been Point Guard Option #3. Here, they are the #1 and #2 choice. Who exactly are they going to post up, Earl Boykins?

So if having the wrong tools for the Triangle wasn't bad enough, the youth and inexperience of this club is forcing Kobe to be "T-Mac in his Orlando Days." As in "I gotta score 50pts to keep us in the game." And we all know this will help give the supporting cast the confidence to beat the Suns; after all they're waiting to be knocked off, right?

In a funny way, the Lakers and Heat would benefit from another trade with each other: the Lakers could definitely use some old-timers who know how to play, and the Heat need some more youth and energy.