Erik Spoelstra will say no, and of course one road playoff game isn't enough to judge, but the Heat was essentially limited to six players Sunday, with James Jones, Mario Chalmers and Joel Anthony joining the Big Three in significant minutes.   

Mike Bibby went 0 of 6 from the floor and struggled defensively, and Zyrdunas Ilgauskas played token starter's minutes and didn't produce. With Mike Miller out of the rotation, for the time being at least, it limited the team's options and forced all member of the Big Three to play more than 40 minutes.

The idea, of course, was that it was OK to wear out those guys as long as it meant a win and a week to recover. Instead, it resulted in a loss and another game Wednesday while the older Celtics get their much needed rest after sweeping the Knicks.

The reason for the loss also had to do with trust, as Chris Bosh will explain.

“Sometimes you get a little tight,” Bosh said in regard to the Heat's lack of offensive execution. “It is tougher to execute down the stretch. When the attention is focused on the last minute of the game, it’s tough to execute your offense. It’s easy to trust when you’re up 2-0, 3-0.

“We’re gonna have to trust each other.”

Chances are that's just a minor slip-up. Chances are that Bibby will shoot his usual percentage and Big Z will hit the offensive boards again and Dwyane Wade and LeBron James won't resort to hero basketball again when games get tight.

But this game was just a reminder that it still can happen to this group, even when it looks like everything was going in its favor.

.... Oh, and feel free to go off about LeBron taking and missing the Heat's final shot. That topic had been dormant for some time now anyway.

Quick correction from the previous entry... When Doug Collins was complaining about one foul being called in 120 minutes, it was in reference to Lebron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, who combined to play about 120 minutes Thursday and were called for one foul combined.

On to Friday, there really wasn't much to it, other than Erik Spoelstra holding a light practice so his team could "smell the gym."

Spoelstra said he expects Mike Miller's role to be the same as it was Thursday, which means he won't play for the second straight game. He's totalled six minutes in the series, though Spoelstra insists the team will still need Miller as the playoffs go on. We'll see about that.

On a more positive note, Spoelstra was very complimentary of his centers, who were a huge part of Thursday's win. Zydrunas Ilgauskas had eight rebounds, all offensive, while Joel Anthony got plenty of credit for shutting down Thaddeus Young as well as for spearheading the Heat's defensive effort.

"I enjoy looking at his boxscore after every single game and seeing how unremarkable it looks," Spo said of Joel. "His energy is contagious. Hustle is a talent. It’s a skill."

As for the point guard play, which was less than stellar against the Sixers, to the point where the Heat finished the game without a point guard on the floor, Spoelstra said it shouldn't be a signal of things to come.

"I’m not too worried about it," he said. "That doesn’t affect my trust level about either one of them."

Mario Chalmers spent most of Thursday's game listening to Wade and LeBron yell at him for missed defensive assignments or poor offensive decisions. And he sat and talked with Pat Riley for a few minutes after practice was over Friday. He followed up his strong Game 1 with a pair of semi-stinkers in Games 2 and 3. Here's guessing he's due to finish out the series strong. At the very least, he'll want Dwyane and LeBron to stop yelling at him.

As this series continues, there remains that lingering question of whether or not Udonis Haslem will return either this series or the next one, and if so, whose minutes will he take.

Haslem still reports some soreness in the foot, but figures he could be ready soon if needed, especially if it's for five-minute segments or so.

The problem is, whose minutes will he take if he does play? When he was playing, it was backing up Chris Bosh and playing some center. Well, the current group is playing well with either James Jones or LeBron James spending some time at power forward. And for him to play some center, you're talking about taking minutes away from Joel Anthony, who has been playing very well of late and is a better shot blocker than Udonis.

As the playoffs progress, you'd assume that the minutes of Bosh and James get even higher, which would mean even less opportunity for Udonis. That's not to say Udonis doesn't have something significant to offer to the team, but tinkering with the lineup in a potential second-round matchup with Boston could be horrible timing.

Now, Udonis is probably best suited to defend Glen Davis and has a history of playing against Kevin Garnett, so that could definitely prove beneficial. But he'd have to be ready to play and not slowly working his way back.

Best case scenario for Udonis and the Heat in this scenario is for the Knicks-Celtics series to go the distance while the Heat sweeps Philly. That way the team will have a little extra practice time and get Haslem as acclimated as possible to actual game activity.

Speaking of finding minutes for someone. Are we seeing the last of Mike Miller's minutes because of his thumb injuries? He played three minutes in each of the first two games, and with Jones playing well and LeBron playing about 42 minutes a game, it looks like there's no rush for Erik Spoelstra to carve out minutes for Mike. Miller's too good a teammate to complain about it, but if he needs surgery on that left thumb, which requires months to fully heal, he should either get the surgery now and be ready for next year or be used in a capacity that can actually help the team.

Just because the team hasn't really needed him against the Sixers, it doesn't mean he won't be very useful in the next series or two (or three?).

Can't imagine it's fun being Mike Miller right now.

By the way, is it some kind of sign from above that the two guys who gave up the most money to play on this team have had frustrating, injury riddled seasons? Maybe it should be all about the money?

I understand that Thaddeus Young might be the Sixers' most explosive player -- at least of the ones that are completely healthy -- and Evan Turner is a rookie with plenty of potential, but the fact that the two of those bench players outscored the Philadelphia starters by a score of 33-29 shows you how well the Heat defense played Monday night.

Still, there are a couple things the Heat could do better if it wants to make this an easy sweep in Philadelphia.

The three-point shooting could be better. And strangely enough, the Heat shoots significantly better from distance on the road (.384 on the road to .355 at home). A fairly big part of that is LeBron James, who shot .373 from distance on the road compared to .279 at home.

The other part is containing Young. At some point, either Lou Williams or Andre Iguodala or Jrue Holiday will have at the very least a big scoring half, if not an entire game. If you combine that with another big performance from Young, then you could get yourself in trouble. Maybe that means Joel Anthony spends more time on Young from the moment he gets in the game.

Now for the saddest part about this series, and no, it isn't Spencer Hawes. For the second straight game, Mike Miller played just three minutes because of that sore left thumb, which is every bit as bad as the right one was that required surgery.

The chances of Mike's thumb getting better with just a week's rest is obviously pretty slim, but at this point shouldn't he just be shut down until the second round? It certainly can't help that he's taking a beating, even if it is just for three minutes at a time, in a series that the Heat can win easily. We saw Eddie House play in the fourth quarter Monday, and against a team that features a small guard in Williams and a shooting specialist in Jodie Meeks -- both of whom House can guard -- it wouldn't be the worst idea to toss him out there for a few minutes and keep Miller from possibly hurting himself even more.

(Also... a brief moment of silence in remembrance of the career of Jason Williams, who annonced his retirement Monday. Who can forget his highlight reel passes and crossovers with the Kings, or how he turned his career around by quarterbacking the Heat to a title? All hail White Hot Chocolate. Or should it be Hot White Chocolate? Actually, that sounds delicious.)

Good time for Eddie House to get hot, in the game he knew he'd get huge minutes.

That career-high 35 points might not be enough to convince Erik Spoelstra to get him into games come the playoffs, but it does go to show you that he's a great option to have. No one's sure if Mike Miller or James Jones can stay healthy for the entire playoffs, so House doing that is a good confidence boost heading into the postseason.

Jamaal Magloire's 19 rebounds was kinda fun, too, but probably most important is that James Jones  continued his red-hot shooting. After hitting 4 of 6 from three in Toronto, James is now 18 of his last 28 from distance (64.3 percent) over his last eight games. After that extended slump mid-season, this monster recovery has to bode well for Miami

In case you missed it, the Heat's playoff schedule for the first round goes like this:

Game 1, Saturday 3:30pm in Miami

Game 2, Monday 7pm in Miami

Game 3, Thursday TBD in Philadelphia

Game 4, Sunday 1pm in Philadelphia

* Game 5, Wednesday TBD in Miami

* Game 6, Friday TBD in Philadelphia

* Game 7, Sunday, May 1 TBD in Miami

*(if necessary)

Not exactly sure where to start on this one, but why not Chris Bosh, because that's where most people will go with their complaints.

He has to be better than that in a game without Dwyane Wade. It's as if someone needs to replay that  speech he gave a few weeks back just to remind him what he was upset about in the first place. Shooting 6 of 15 isn't good enough, getting to the foul line just eight times -- especially when Wade is out and LeBron James isn't getting to the foul line double-figure times either -- isn't good enough. And as much as it can be dismissed as a somewhat unimportant game, it was pretty important. Now the Heat needs to rely on the Celtics losing a game and still winning the rest of its game, including one against the Celtics.

But it wasn't all on Bosh. Mike Bibby had an unusual game, which must've been a result of Wade being out and him needing to do more ball-handling/creating. Those six turnovers were way more than he should ever have. Heck, it's about half as many as the total he had since getting here.

Then there was 1 of 9 from Mario Chalmers, and not enough from James Jones considering he played 33 minutes, which usually translates into pretty good numbers for him. LeBron needed to be more aggressive getting to the rim, especially after he spent the opening portion of the game softening up the defense by being a distributor. And as much as Mike Miller's rebounding is a good thing to have from the small forward position, should he really be leading this team in rebounding? That's got to come from Bosh or someone else up front.

On top of that, there's word less than 12 hours after the loss that LeBron's mother was arrested on a misdemeanor assault charge in Miami Beach. That just can't be good for his state of mind heading into the postseason. And it's another PR mess he and the team has to face at a bad time.

Overall, a pretty awful 24 hours for the Heat

Seemed like everybody was coming back to action on Sunday. Mike Miller was back in action, which was promising because there seemed to be some concern surrounding his knee injury. Mario Chalmers came back a little earlier than expected from his sprained knee. And even in Boston, Shaquille O'Neal came back, at least temporarily, for the Celtics.

Against the Nets, Chalmers played significant minutes, and Eddie House went back to playing none. Guessing that's going to be Erik Spoelstra's full-time plan for Mario, leaving Mike Bibby as the starter, which makes sense given that he's shooting almost 50 percent from three and committing less than a turnover a game since coming to Miami.

As for Shaq, he went out after a few minutes against the Pistons in Boston, and it didn't look good. He was running, stumbled, then looked back to see if he tripped over something. There was nothing there. He then limped off the court, into the tunnel, where he collapsed onto the team trainer. It looked like an Achilles injury, but the Celtics broadcast called it a strained calf. It looked way more serious than that. Even if it is a "strain," the chances of him coming back in good shape for the playoffs appear slim. And that would leave Jermaine O'Neal as the only healthy center they have (btw, the Heat hasn't gotten the best of the Tory Murphy-Mike Bibby decisions so far). Jermaine looks out of shape, and that team won't be the same without something better in the middle. It'll be a Glen Davis-Kevin Garnett-heavy frontcourt should those circumstances stay the same. More offense, but less defense.

As for the Heat, it's encouraging to see the team really attacking the basket, especially LeBron James, who isn't settling for jumpers much of late. He certainly wasn't against the Nets. And it appears James Jones has found his stroke again, which can make for a deadly combo when he and Bibby are on the floor together.

It might be, for a few reasons.

First, you'd think by now, and when the team should be getting into playoff form, that there wouldn't be anymore complacency, regardless of the opponent.

The Cavs are athletic up front, which has always given Heat problems, and have two point guards who can score in Ramon Sessions and Baron Davis (officially on the "Heat Killers" list), and we know how those have given the Heat problems all year.

Yet, the Heat has solved those issues with effort and defense at times this year. This time, though, that wasn't there -- at least not when the team was falling behind.

You'd think that another trip to Cleveland would keep this team into the game. You'd think LeBron James and Co. would want to dominate this team every chance it got. But they let up, which is disappointing.

Another disappointing aspect was the play of Chris Bosh, who hasn't had a stinker like this in a while. He looked like he was wearing butter gloves most of the night, and when he was making a move to the basket, was predictable and gave those athletic Cavs big men either bother or flat-out block every shot. And those free throws with the Heat down nine late in the game? Yikes.

But you almost want to give Chris a pass given how well he's been playing of late. It just makes you wonder if he'll respond this way during road playoff games.

This probably ranks right up there with the home Indiana loss and the home loss to Orlando that featured a 24-point collapse.

But all that said, it really doesn't mean much other than the Heat can no longer reach 60 wins for the season.

The No. 2 spot is still right in the Heat's reach, especially considering the Heat plays Boston on April 10, and if the Heat comes out of this road trip 3-1, there's a good chance it'll come back home at least tied with Boston, given the C's schedule.

Two quick side notes on the game: Mike Miller would've been fairly important in this game, because his rebounding would've helped. And what in the world got into James Jones? He hasn't played this many games in a season since 06-07, so maybe it's fatigue? Because 0-for-5 from three, and some pretty awful misses, just doesn't look like him.

And just a note on that three-pointer that was first ruled no good, then good by the officials at the end of the third quarter. Normally, in those situations where the clock clearly started before a player touched the ball, they would literally run the play again, rather than count anything that happened after. But these officials literally pulled out a stopwatch while watching the video replay, checking to see if LeBron's heave would've gotten off in the 1.9 seconds left on the clock. Now, that would seem to be the right thing to do, call it a "clock malfunction," and let a very meaningful play count rather than try to make LeBron make that shot again. But it also feels like these officials panicked because it was obvious neither of them was watching the clock like they were supposed to.

Not surprised that the NBA said the shot shouldn't have counted. But if the clock operator had just done his job correctly, it would've counted, so in a sense it was the right thing to do. These officials (Ed Malloy was the lead official, and his charge call looks like a "count it," motion, which was extremely confusing) are lucky that it didn't come down to a one-possession game.

(Update: Technically, it could've been the clock operator or any of the three referees that started the clock early on that 3rd quarter play. Each of the refs have the ability to start the clock. So it's not necessarily the fault of that hometown clock operator.)

Turns out Mario Chalmers' injury might help Mike Miller shake out of this shooting funk he has been in of late.

Miller has always been a playmaking forward, not just a shooter. He averaged at least 3.4 assists over his previous four seasons. If nothing else, he's at least an involved player, not just a spot-up shooter.

Well, with Chalmers out for a while, Miller will initiate offense a little more often, Erik Spoelstra said.

"Mike did well in the Atlanta game," Spoelstra said. "The game was out of the balance, but he initiated most of the offense for us in the fourth quarter.

"He is a very good passer. He can put the ball on the floor. And he reads the game well. He’s a rhythm player."

Miller seemed pretty happy about it Tuesday, and it'll probably be a relief once he actually starts doing more of it. He hasn't said anything about his role, but you could see on the floor just how frustrated he is at times with just standing, waiting for shots from the perimeter.

"He’s been a terrific soldier about it," Spoelstra said. "I told him that he doesn’t have to answer the critics. I don’t care if people are judging him, comparing him to what he used to be. He’s getting more than 10-less minutes a game. It’s a different role for him. He’s adjusting. That does take time. He missed the first half of the season.

"But it’s a symbiotic relationship. It’s also our part to make sure he is getting involved and feeling engaged in the offensive side of the floor."

Added Mike"

"It’s difficult, but I knew what I was getting when I signed up for it. You can’t let critics decide how you’re going to play. My role on this team is to do a lot of the dirty work. Now, would I like more shots? Sure. But there’s only so many shots in the game. There’s only so many points in the game. We’ve got three guys that play heavy minutes. Two of them are in the top five in scoring, and one’s averaging 20 a game. There’s 70 points right there.

"You accept your role and you do what you can to win a championship."

Turns out Mario Chalmers' injury might help Mike Miller shake out of this shooting funk he has been in of late.

Miller has always been a playmaking forward, not just a shooter. He averaged at least 3.4 assists over his previous four seasons. If nothing else, he's at least an involved player, not just a spot-up shooter.

Well, with Chalmers out for a while, Miller will initiate offense a little more often, Erik Spoelstra said.

"Mike did well in the Atlanta game," Spoelstra said. "The game was out of the balance, but he initiated most of the offense for us in the fourth quarter.

"He is a very good passer. He can put the ball on the floor. And he reads the game well. He’s a rhythm player."

Miller seemed pretty happy about it Tuesday, and it'll probably be a relief once he actually starts doing more of it. He hasn't said anything about his role, but you could see on the floor just how frustrated he is at times with just standing, waiting for shots from the perimeter.

"He’s been a terrific soldier about it," Spoelstra said. "I told him that he doesn’t have to answer the critics. I don’t care if people are judging him, comparing him to what he used to be. He’s getting more than 10-less minutes a game. It’s a different role for him. He’s adjusting. That does take time. He missed the first half of the season.

"But it’s a symbiotic relationship. It’s also our part to make sure he is getting involved and feeling engaged in the offensive side of the floor."

Added Mike"

"It’s difficult, but I knew what I was getting when I signed up for it. You can’t let critics decide how you’re going to play. My role on this team is to do a lot of the dirty work. Now, would I like more shots? Sure. But there’s only so many shots in the game. There’s only so many points in the game. We’ve got three guys that play heavy minutes. Two of them are in the top five in scoring, and one’s averaging 20 a game. There’s 70 points right there.

"You accept your role and you do what you can to win a championship."