It wasn’t easy for the Miami Heat from the opening tip, and they made it perhaps more difficult than necessary down the stretch. But when all was said and done, Miami pulled away with a well-earned 97-89 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers in Game 1 of the 2011 playoffs.
And in a game where Philadelphia held LeBron James and Dwyane Wade in check by limiting them to a combined 10 of 27 shooting, it was Chris Bosh who helped provide the consistency the team needed to come away with this win — at least after the first quarter.
The Sixers came out aggressive and hot to start the contest, with Elton Brand leading the way down low. Brand scored 11 points on 5 of 7 shooting to help his team jump out to a 14-point first quarter lead, but Bosh adjusted, and limited him to just six points the rest of the way.
“I just tried to front him in the post, work him off the block a little bit,” Bosh said of his defensive adjustment. “I just kind of wanted to take that away, take away his easy touches. There were a couple times where they caught me off guard and he ducked in, and that was my mistake. But after that I was just conscious of it and aware of it, I just knew that eventually he was going to try to move into his sweet spot, so I just wanted to have some resistance.”
The Heat went to a zone defense for a stretch in the second quarter, which also helped limit Brand and the Sixers’ ability to get easy scoring inside. That spark sent Miami on a huge 16-2 run, one that put them up by seven late in the second period, and put the game in their hands.
“We did a poor job in the beginning of the game starting out with our man to man defense, and we just wanted to show them something different,” Bosh said. “We got two or three or four stops, and we just wanted to stick with it.
“I think that gave us some momentum into our man (defense), and that’s our bread and butter; that’s what we work on. That got us going and gave us a lot more confidence the rest of the game.”
That confidence lasted almost all of the third quarter, as Miami built its lead as high as 16 points — thanks to 10 points in the period from Bosh. But the Sixers wouldn’t quit, and got 12 points off the bench from Thaddeus Young in the final period, along with two critical back-to-back three pointers from Jrue Holiday that helped bring Philadelphia back to within a single point with 2:23 remaining. But that’s as close as the Sixers were able to get, thanks to the aggressive play from Wade and James down the stretch that resulted in either tough makes or trips to the free throw line that enabled Miami to seal it.
But none of it would have been possible without the solid and consistent play from Bosh, who was big for much of the game while James and Wade struggled at times offensively. Bosh, however, wasn’t willing to take too much credit afterward.
“I don’t read too much into too many games,” Bosh said. “It’s one of many; we expect to make a long run. Me personally, I don’t want to put too much on it because I just want to go out there and keep doing what I’ve been doing.”
James, though, had no problem summing up Bosh’s impact on this one, and did so with a much grander statement.
“CB’s the most important player on our team,” James said. “He brought it. It was great to see.”
