What Separates the Heat from the Knicks?

Who would have thought a rivalry could get so boring?

The Knicks assembled a team laden with star-caliber talent in hopes of becoming the type of powerhouse that could push the Heat to the brink. Thus far, New York hasn’t even proved to be a minor bump in the road for the streaking Miami.

Fresh off another victory over the Knicks, the Heat look absolutely unstoppable. They run the floor with incredible ease and have proven to be the most athletic team in the entire league, largely thanks to the plethora of big name players they have stockpiled.

New York, on the other hand, looks worn, lost and uninspired. Jeremy Lin has carried this team to a number of impressive victories, but his efforts, as well as the rest of the team’s, are fruitless if they cannot keep pace with Miami.

Some will say it’s too early to judge. Carmelo Anthony has just returned from a groin injury, and both he and Amar’e Stoudemire are still learning how to play alongside Lin. But that’s the problem, their inability to win as a work-in-progress

LeBron James and Dwyane Wade spent all of last season developing the type of chemistry most players only dream about, and it has them atop the NBA standings. While Miami endured more than its fair share of growing pains last year, it maintained an air of dominance that carried it all the way through to the NBA Finals.

While we like to point to Udonis Haslem and Mario Chalmers as the unheralded x-factors that helped spark the Heat’s postseason run, we are kidding ourselves if we believe for one moment it didn’t have everything to do with James, Wade and Chris Bosh. Even while learning to play together, these guys managed to put together a championship run.

And that’s the difference; Miami’s big three possesses a consistence dominance that New York’s does not.

The root of the problem? Well, it’s not the selfless Tyson Chandler who has been a vibrant asset on both ends of the floor. And it’s not Lin, the team’s newest star who has had to learn how to play at the NBA level on the fly. It’s the Knicks’ premiere superstars, the ones the team coveted all along, Stoudemire and Anthony.

Stoudemire is having one of the quietest seasons of his career. His new-found penchant for jump shots has now completely eclipsed his knack for playing above the rim. And he’s exhibited an unwelcome tendency to disappear at any point in the game.

Anthony’s a different story, as he never disappears. He is always going to shoot the ball, even if his shots aren’t going down. His defense has improved, but his jump shot has worsened. And just when you think he’s about to buy into coach Mike D’Antoni’s system of selflessness, he reverts back to his first love, isolation.

Unlike James and Wade, Anthony and Stoudemire have been unable to power through their cohesive struggles. James and Wade found ways to win as a work-in-progress, something we just aren’t witnessing in the Big Apple.

The condensed season has eliminated almost any practice time, but at this stage, after celebrating their one year anniversary, Stoudemire and Anthony are out of excuses. Those are easy dunks Stoudemire is blowing, and those are wide-open teammates Anthony is opting not to pass to.

And that needs to change.

Stoudemire and Anthony are not incapable of playing alongside each other, but they seem to lack the necessary attributes that warrant a rapid rise to prominence.

Will it all come together eventually? Yes, it will, and deeming this pairing a failure is premature. Deeming it stagnant, however, is not. New York’s Stoudemire and Anthony simply don’t exude the same level of individual dominance as Wade and James.

Chalk it up to a different market. Chalk it up to less practice time. Chalk it up to bad luck, it doesn’t matter. The Knicks were built off the same blueprint as the Heat, and are susceptible to the same chemistry related issues.

But Wade and James found a way to use there individual talent to win basketball games while they continued to develop a rapport, Anthony and Stoudemire have not.

And that has made all the difference.