1. Defensive weakness. They have prided themselves on their defense most of the season, but matched up with Boston in the 1st round will make things very difficult. Miami is probably weakest defensively at the point guard position, and Rajon Rondo showed during the regular season that he could do pretty much whatever he wanted against the Heat. Miami will likely be switching a lot between man up and a 2-3 zone to keep Boston off guard. Good point guards have had their way with Heat defenders all season; containing Rondo will be the Heat’s key to success for this series.

2. Their second unit is what has been providing the spark since they started playing so well at the beginning of March. Coach Erik Spoelstra began taking starting center Jermaine O’Neal out of the game mid-way through the 1st quarter so that he could come back in and join the second unit at the start of the 2nd quarter.

The actual ‘non-starters’ that have been imperative to the backups success are Udonis Haslem and Dorell Wright. Haslem had been the Heat’s starting power forward since he was a sophomore is the 2004-05 season, so heading into this year it was a little uncertain how Miami’s co-captain would respond to his new assignment. Lucky for us, he played just as well as a reserve as he did a starter, but since right around the All Star game he kicked it into high gear. Since then he’s been racking up the double doubles, rebounding like an absolute beast.

The other guy I mentioned, Dorell Wright, is having by far the best season of his young career. Miami drafted him right out of high school back in 2004, but a plethora of injuries have kept him from playing a full season. That being the case, it took him a couple months to get a steady spot in the rotation. He earned his minutes playing solid defense, he kept them by adding a consistent 3-pointer to his offensive arsenal that he’d been working on for years. And he, like Udonis, is playing well heading into the postseason, shooting 50.0% from the field and 44.8% from beyond the arc in the month of April.

3.  I’ll wrap this up with what most of us Heat fans are banking our postseason on: how absolutely awesome they have been playing the last two months. Back on March 1st Miami was on the outside looking in, sitting in 9th place in the Eastern Conference, 2 games below .500 and losers of four straight games. Since then they have been one of the hottest teams in the NBA, moving all the way up to 5th in the standings by winning 18 of their final 22 games, including eight straight on the road.

Check out The Peninsula Is Mightier for more of Dave’s coverage of the HEAT.