Basic number crunching aside, Chris Bosh's injury undoubtedly makes reaching The Promised Land a much more difficult task for the Miami Heat. That's obvious when you lose a talented big man who gives you 18 points. 7.9 rebounds and more than 35 minutes a night. However, it hardly makes the task impossible.
Any team spareheaded by the talent level of a LeBron James–Dwyane Wade duo — few are — is going to contend in today's NBA, regardless of which other 10 players suit up each night. It's a superstar-driven league, and James and Wade fit that mold to a T.
We saw James carry a Cleveland team to the NBA Finals in 2007 that featured Larry Hughes as its second-leading scorer, and we saw D-Wade put the Heat on his back in 2006. It's years later, but each player has hardly lost a step, so to rule out either player exploding for the rest of the current postseason would be unwise.
What Bosh's injury does mean, though, is that the supporting cast will need to exceed its initial expectations. That's something neither James nor Wade can do because the bar has already been set so astronomically high for the pair. But if the likes of Udonis Haslem, Joel Anthony and Ronny Turiaf can rebound effectively and play formidable defense, Miami will have enough to weather the storm against the Pacers, should have enough to weather the storm against the Celtics and could have enough to weather the (Thunder?) storm in the NBA Finals.
Haslem, who hasn't been much of a factor in the playoffs thus far, will become especially important, because he's the one guy in that aforementioned trio of Bosh "replacements" who can stretch the floor, knock down midrange shots and thus force the opposition to be careful about double- and triple-teaming LeBron and D-Wade. He'll need to come alive. And if he does, an NBA title is still well within reach for the Heat this season, Bosh or no Bosh.
What can't be analyzed from an X's and O's standpoint, however, is the pressure that Bosh's injury puts on the Heat. That happens to any team that sees a perennial All-Star go down, but since The Big Three converged in South Beach before last season, the Heat have been the most hyped NBA team in years. And no one now feels that pressure more than James.
James traded everything for "Not one, not two, not three, not four…" — OK, you get it — championships in Miami, and after failing to deliver a parade to the city in Year 1, the pressure was already immense heading into Year 2. Now, following a week in which he earned his third MVP Award and watched Bosh go down indefinitely, the pressure is so high that American Airlines ought to donate a few oxygen masks from their flights to everyone who walks through the AmericanAirlines Arena doors from here on out.
The common notion has been that James couldn't earn an NBA title on his own, and that joining the Heat rather than sticking around as the building block in Cleveland was a bit of a cop out, because he would never truly have to carry a team to a title. He still doesn't, as he still has one of the game's premier closers in Wade on his side. But with Bosh out and even more individual hardware to highlight his lack of the ultimate team prize, James' burden just got a lot heavier.
Miami could still be standing when all is said and done, but the heat has been turned up on the Heat. And no one will get burned worse than LeBron James if they fail to deliver.
