Miami Heat Tickets

Miami Heat 2011-12 Season Preview The Miami Heat come into the season on a mission after ending last year on such a downer by losing to the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA Finals.

In some ways, despite reaching the final series of the season, the Heat became the laughingstock of the NBA. LeBron James was actually the focus of a lot of that amusement.

James had the strangest NBA Finals we may have ever witnessed from a superstar, passing up open shot after open shot despite the obvious need for him to put the ball in the basket.

The Heat lost to a team that certainly didn't have the same kind of talent that they did, but rather a group that simply played better together and worked harder at both ends of the floor.

This is only the second season of the James/Dwyane Wade/Chris Bosh experiment, so it's far too early to write it off as a failure. If anything, it was somewhat surprising they made it as far as they did last year.

Miami has to be considered a significant favorite to win the NBA title, but as we saw last year, nothing is guaranteed. James will have to become more assertive rather than always deferring to his teammates in key moments if the Heat wants to become a championship team.