BOSTON (AP) — LeBron James’ Miami Heat looked an awful lot like LeBron James’ Cleveland Cavaliers.
The Heat fizzled in the debut of their superstar threesome, scoring just nine points in their first quarter of the season and falling behind the Celtics by 15 points at halftime. James took over in the second half, scoring 21 of his 31 points, but it wasn’t enough to keep Boston from handing him another disappointment.
With chants of “Over-rated!” raining down on the NBA’s alleged superteam, the Celtics closed out an 88-80 victory and reminded Miami that it’s not so easy to slap together three stars and learn to win right away.
James left Cleveland for Miami because he decided that he couldn’t win a championship without more help than the Cavaliers could give him. But even with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, he still needed more Tuesday.
In what was being called the most anticipated regular-season game in NBA history, the league’s newest superteam scored just nine points in the first quarter and lost 88-80 to Boston on Tuesday night. The nine points in the first was fewer than the much less-talented Heat scored in any quarter last season; same with James and the Cleveland Cavaliers, for that matter.
Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen were able to do it in Boston from the start, winning their first eight games in 2007-08 and 29 of their first 32 en route to the franchise’s 17th NBA title.