Game 1 does not look good for Miami Heat

I'm seriously hoping that the Miami Heat have some sort of secret strategy or some lessons they learned in game 1 because that didn't look like an NBA Finals matchup, that game looked like a totally one-sided affair.

The Lakers ended up winning by 18 points and honestly, it could have been 30 points if they hadn't turned on the brakes in the 4th quarter and allowed the Heat to score 31 points.

src

Things looked competitive right out of the gate as the Miami Heat were able to get a 13 point lead at one point only to see it quickly taken away and end the 1st quarter 3 points behind the Lakers. It was all downhill from there as the Lakers exploded into the 2nd to end the half with at huge 65-48 advantage. I don't need to get the statisticians involved for everyone to understand that coming back from that sort of deficit, almost NEVER happens.

Jimmy Butler seemed to be the only effective weapon that the Heat had in their arsenal, but he can't win the game on his own.

src

The Lakers took the Heat to school time and time again and the defense of the Miami side, which has proven quite the effective weapon in the playoffs, seemed almost completely ineffective as they would double and even triple-team Bron Bron only to have him quickly dish it off for an easy bucket in the paint.

src

To make matters worse for the Heat, they suffered a couple of very important injuries that could have lasting effects for the remainder of the series. In my opinion, if Goran Dragic (foot injury) and Bam Adebayo (shoulder injury) can't find a way back onto the floor, the Miami Heat are already done for and the Lakers will sweep this 4-0.

Jimmy Butler was also injured when he rolled his ankle late in the first half, but he stayed on the floor for 33 minutes (more than any other Heat player) to finish the game with 33 points. Imagine if you will, the Heat needing to continue without who is arguably their 3 best players?

Also, in game one the Heat were committing more than twice as many fouls as the Lakers and this basically gave away 25 points as well as having potential for future issues of foul trouble.

So what can Miami do to turn this around? I suppose they will have to get all their injured players back into top form and also wait for both LeBron and Davis to have an off night. The second thing is almost certainly not going to happen if any of the rest of the season can be used as a benchmark. The first thing better happen, or we are going to see an extremely boring and one-sided series in the finals.

Already, Las Vegas is responding to this surprisingly dominant affair by having the gambling lines for game two at a near -500 advantage for the Lakers.

If you have any ideas what the Heat could do to turn this around I would love to hear it and I would imagine that Erik Spoelstra (Head Coach of the Heat) would be interested in that information as well.