Oklahoma City Thunder: Heat at crunch time? - NewsOK.com (blog)

on June 14, 2012M at 12:30 pm

A two-year theme has been what does the Miami Heat do at crunch time? LeBron James? Dwyane Wade? The ultimate answer is, it’s LeBron’s call. So says Wade.

Wade said a few weeks ago that he anointed the Heat as LeBron’s team, even though Wade had been the team leader from the 2006 NBA title season until LeBron’s arrival in summer 2010. So is that a balancing act for Wade?

“Yeah, that’s the toughest part about it,” Wade said. “That’s the hardest part about playing with another guy with that capability. It’s just trying to figure out when to defer and when not to defer. I’ve played with Shaq before, I’ve played with a dominant player, and I knew when to defer and when not to defer. I just try to figure that out.

“Throughout this series, like the other series, I’ll figure it out. It’s kind of a read-all game a little bit, and I think with me and LeBron, we continue to talk  about it and discuss what we feel is the opportunities for that. You know, we’ll figure it out.”

Interesting. But that seems awfully dramatic to me. Lots of theater. The Thunder has a dynamic duo in Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, but there isn’t all the gnashing of teeth over who takes over. Well, there’s lots of gnashing in the marketplace of public opinion. But the Thunder players themselves don’t seem worked up about it. Durant, Westbrook, even James Harden, they all take turns. Durant more than the other two, of course, but there are times when Durant is not the go-to guy, and it wasn’t just some kind of deferment. It was more organic.

LeBron says the Heat situation â€" when to defer, when not to â€" is much better this season. Confusion, LeBron said, has “happened maybe a handful of times. I can probably count on my hands … last year it happened a lot. It happened every week or every other week where we was trying to figure out ways we can help our team or we can figure out ways we can help one another. But it hasn’t happened much this year, so it’s not surprising when it comes up. It’s just reassurance.”

Reassurance? Sounds like drama to me.

-------------Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel. Visit Berry's website here.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.