Dave Hyde: Bad loss, big injuries — the dream becomes a Game 1 nightmare for Heat

Every time you thought it couldn’t get worse, it got worse. Goran Dragic didn’t come out for the second half. Injured.

Bam Adebayo trudged off to the locker room in the third quarter. Injured.

The Los Angeles Lakers already had the game in hand, their lead rising like bread from 17 points at half to 20 points after three quarters to, well, you’d turned if off before it reached 32 points, didn’t you?

It was an all-nightmare game, all night long, the Miami Heat’s 116-98 loss in Game 1 of the NBA Finals. As in, everyone had something horrifying happen to the point it was a nightmare for all. Go down the list.

For Dragic and Adebayo, their disappearance suggest something that’s not going away by Friday’s Game 2.

For Jimmy Butler, it was a twisted his ankle at the end of the first half and wasn’t the same thereafter. Add him to the injury list.

For Duncan Robinson, it was being switched off constantly onto LeBron James. That didn’t go well.

For Pat Riley, it had to be watching the Heat make a remarkable, even magical, run to reach these NBA Finals and watching LeBron James pop the bubble on the first night. And if not LeBron with 25 points, Anthony Davis did with 34 points.

Yes, that was the Lakers. That’s the team many wondered how the Miami Heat could stop when healthy. That’s the one-two combination of two of the game’s best you can’t appreciate until you’re in the middle of it.

Hello, darkness, my old friend?

Game 1 was that kind of nightmare for the Heat. It feels strange to say now, but it couldn’t have started any better for the Heat. They made their first 3-point shots. They had a 13-point lead midway through the first quarter.

That only made you do higher math the way it fell apart from there. There was a 30-point turnaround to the Lakers 17-point lead at half. And then the injuries started coming. Dragic is the Heat’s top scorer these playoffs. Adebayo is their most valuable player, especially this series when his size is needed against Anthony.

ESPN’s Jeff Van Gundy made the proper point about the silliness of saying, “Next man up.” Not at his level. Not in this series.

The unsettling part is the injuries came after the night was done. Because it was finished somewhere in the second quarter you started to sense something seriously missing from this Heat team.

Was it the patented Heat defense? Well, yes. Or maybe it was just the Lakers being too much. They entered the Finals shooting a meh 35% on 3-pointers in the post-season. They shot 65% in the first half as they put the night away early.

Was it the vaunted Heat bench? Well, yes. Or maybe again it was just the Lakers are deeper. They doubled up the Heat in the first half, 20 points to 10 points.

Was it the Heat offense? Well, that, too. Forget the final numbers considering the score was numbing through much of the second half. After making those first 3-point shots, they missed three of their next 13.

So it was all that, but it was the Lakers even more. If The Eastern Conference Finals told a story of two teams when the Heat fell behind to healthy double-digits to Boston in the third quarter in three games and recovered to win. That’s not happening this series. No sir. LeBron isn’t going to fall for that fool’s gold as Game 1 showed.

Oh, right, LeBron James is 1-8 in the first game of NBA Finals. This is where you’re supposed to say that doesn’t matter all that much, because he’s won three rings. The truth is that stat doesn’t matter, because it’s contorted when you peel back the endings.

Just look at his Heat years. The Heat lost Game 1 three times – and won two of those titles against Oklahoma City and the first meeting against San Antonio. They won Game 1 once – and lost the title to Dallas.

So what does Game 1 mean?

It was a nightmare for the Heat. That’s what it means. And with Dragic and Adebayo injured it’s hard to see the nightmare letting up this series.

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