One big three has the image, the other has the heart. Can you guess which is which?

I’ve heard so much chatter about the Heat and Celtics. So much. Most of it is generic, baseless, or exaggerated. Here are a couple of notes that actually stuck with me, several being from Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless of ESPN’s First Take.

– The Heat have no excuse. As long as they two of the top 5 players in the world, the Heat should be capable of winning without Chris Bosh. And I’m not exempting the Knicks from this truth either – the Knicks have no excuses either (the injuries of Tyson Chandler, Iman Shumpert, and Baron Davis are not valid).

– LeBron, while he hasn’t been terrible in the clutch, has been insufficient. As has Wade. LeBron James averages around 28 points per game. He should thus average around 7 points per quarter. But because he is a superstar, and superstars produce most during the fourth quarter, he needs to be scoring 8 to 10 points in the fourth quarter (at least!) for me to be satisfied. He has failed to do so. Sure, he’s hit some big shots and neglected to completely disappear in the fourth like last year, but it has become abundantly clear that he doesn’t possess the so-called “clutch gene.” As for Wade, he seems to have lost his clutch mojo. I know he has it in him, because I’ve seen him devastate teams in the last 2 minutes. But he’s missed late shot after late shot, recently. As one friend poignantly put, “He’s spending too much time around LeBron.”

– Just like everyone else, I am surprised at how much Kevin Garnett has left in the tank. From his authoritative dunk last night, to his sweet midrange jumper that continues to be effective, Kevin has really impressed me. My favorite thing I’ve seen him do, though, is something most people probably didn’t see. In the last minutes of the game last night, the Celtics were huddling up, and Mickael Pietrus wasn’t putting his hand in all the way. KG grabbed his arm and stuck Pietrus’s hand into the huddle with everybody elses’ hands. To me, this encapsulates why the Celtics have a 3-2 lead on the Heat. While the Heat go back to its bench as individuals, and stars like Dwyane Wade spat with the coach Spoelstra, the Celtics come closer together with every huddle and Doc Rivers pep talk. I’ve come to respect the Celtics a lot during this series, and that’s coming from a Knicks fan.

– Eric Spoelstra is just a terrible coach. I want to root for him, because he never played basketball professionally and has worked his way up from being a lowly video guy for the Heat, but he simply has no command over his team. His decision not to play Chris Bosh in the final minutes of Game 5 is a perfect example. He reasoned that “it wouldn’t be fair to Chris” to put him is such a pressurized situation. Are you serious?! The man is exactly that: a man. He can handle it, especially considering the gobs of money he makes and his passion for the game of basketball. Could you ever picture Red Auerbach sitting Willis Reed or Phil Jackson sitting MJ because of a lack of fairness?! Obviously, Bosh is no Willis or MJ, but you get the point.

– The Heat have no cohesion or bench play to speak of. The role players for the Heat simply look confused. During the last plays of the game, they’re not evenly spaced or set up to help their leaders close out. They play hot potato with the ball until someone throws up a desperation shot. The bench play is just so sporadic; you can get a three or two here from Shane Battier, and a hustle play there from Norris Cole, but none of them can give you a solid effort through the whole game. The most telling statistic from Game 5 was that not a single person was in double figures outside of LeBron and D-Wade. To me, Mario Chalmers has let the Heat down. He’s probably the only guy outside of the big three that could potentially put up double figures, but he gives them a measly 9 points. On the other side, the Celtics routinely have a guy or two step up. From Keyon Dooling (an underrated guard whom I’ve always liked) to Mickael Pietrus to the impressive Greg Stiemsma, the Celtics’ bench almost always shows up.

I sound like just another person who hates the Heat, who has been waiting for this day to just leap on the Heat after picking them to win it all. But can you blame us haters? I feel completely justified in hating the Heat, considering that they’re against everything I stand for: taking shortcuts, Hollywood superficiality, arrogance. Let this be a lesson to all – taking shortcuts never works, and giant conglomerates such as the Heat’s big three are not a good recipe for successful teams or even good basketball. The Celtics’s big three has succeeded because of the fire in their collective belly and their will to win, unlike the Heat. Hopefully the Heat will be disbanded after their imminent Game 6 loss, and the league will start to move away from these powerhouses that teams are trending toward (trade Carmelo, anyone?).