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Pregame: Bulls @ Heat, 8:05 PM EST

Here’s a little something I threw together to get the juices flowing for tonight (click and listen):




WHAT TO WATCH FOR

The one thing that Miami has going for them with Shaq and Alonzo Mourning is that they don’t have to guard anybody in this game. The one thing with Shaq is how he is going to play in April. He is still a dominant player. As good as Wade was in The Finals and throughout the playoffs, Shaq has to be guarded. There are only a few centers in the NBA that you have to guard, and Shaq and Mourning happen to be two of them that can create a double-team. That was a factor in the playoffs last year. They were able to zone up. I look for Miami to play an awful lot of zone in this game. When you have a frontline of Wallace, Brown and Luol Deng, the weakness is the outside shooting, which helps the Heat.

Dwyane Wade

Make sure to pay attention to Ben Wallace in this game. When you watch him play, he only plays one way, and that is full effort. In the preseason, he was more involved in the offense and handled the ball more. He wasn’t scoring big, but that will help him. I think he would really like to come out and show the world that Detroit made a major mistake by not giving him that extra year.

Miami Heat

X-FACTOR

Possibly the biggest x-factor, outside of Wade’s play, is that when you have a ring ceremony with so much emotion and fanfare before a game, there is the chance for teams to lose focus a bit. This really is a perfect time to be playing Miami for Chicago. For players like Payton and Walker and Shaq, who said he would bring a championship to Miami when he arrived, this will be an emotional time which they deserve, but they can be off their game a little bit.

Shaquille ONeal

For Chicago, Ben Gordon is the one to watch. He didn’t shoot well in the preseason and it looked like he was trying to change his game and take the ball to the hoop more. They want him to be more aggressive going to the basket and getting to the foul line which he didn’t do a lot of last year, but he has just looked a bit off so far early on.

Chicago Bulls

Make sure to check out The Dude’s preview. It’s B-ball season and The Dude is back in true form. He has a nice message to all the D-Wade haters out there. GO HEAT!!!

I’m not checking out the game tonight b/c I will be at the Panthers game. I know, I am a bad Heat fan but these tickets are just too good to pass up on. I also want to get out of the house for Halloween. Damn kids interrupting my evening of sports watching for Kit-Kat’s.

I have this feeling the Heat will come out flat and the Bulls will come out with something to prove and take this game quite easily. Then again I hope I am proven wrong. I will have my new Motorola Ming open all game with the live scores updating from the BAC.

Enjoy the game guys!!