Big Story:
The Florida Panthers lose their way into the playoffs, the Marlins offense is ridiculous, the Heat hit the court again tonight, and why Dwight Howard is scum.

Lyrics of the Day:
"To those who understand, I extend my hand. To the doubtful I demand, take me as I am. Not under your command, I know where I stand. I won't change to fit your plan. Take me as I am."

Panthers: (off Friday, Saturday vs. Carolina Hurricanes)
Only in South Florida can you lose seven of eight games and make the playoffs.
That's exactly what has happened to the Cats.
Before I get rolling, congrats to the team for making it to the playoffs when no one expected it.
Kudos to general manager Dale Tallon for putting together a winner in Sunrise for the first time in years.
Now, about these losses.
It's all about goaltending and Florida's has just been awful as of late.
Giving up nine goals in your last two games will do that to you.
I'm not exactly sure who the Panthers will play just yet.
If they tie or win on Saturday, they get home ice advantage in the first round.
If they lose, they don't.
Pretty simple eh?
If they win the division, I think they will play the New Jersey Devils.
So their first challenge will be beating Martin Brodeur.
Yeah, about that.
Plus trying to stop Patrik Elias and Ilya Kovalchuk.
Still, a second South Florida pro team is playoff bound.
We better enjoy the Cats and the Heat because the other teams….yeah they're, well….

Marlins: (off Friday, Saturday vs. Reds)
The Marlins have seven hits and nine total bases after the first two games.
Any questions?
They had Mark Buehrle pitching a great game yesterday in his NL debut.
Buehrle pitched 6 innings gave up 7 hits, but just 2 earned runs.
What did the Marlins offense do?
Let's look at the meat of the order, the 3-5 hitters.
Combined yesterday, Hanley Ramirez, Giancarlo Stanton, and Gaby Sanchez went 1 for 11 at the plate with four strikeouts.
Ouch.
When you're best hitters are .091 in the game, you're not going to win.
But such is the Marlins life through two games.
Somewhere I could have sworn I heard Ozzie Guillen saying, I signed up for this?
Luckily it's Major League Baseball, where there are 160 more games to get things right.
I'll start to panic if this keeps up into June.

Heat: (vs. Memphis Grizzlies, Sun Sports, 7:30 p.m.)
The Heat will look to tie a franchise record 18 game home winning streak tonight against the Grizzlies.
This season the Heat are 23-2 at home.
Now about those road games.
Tonight keep an eye on LeBron.
I think the hard foul he took from Russell Westbrook may have given him a kick in the pants along with the rest of the Heat.
LeBron is putting his stamp on the MVP award and has scored 75 points in the last two games.
Now the Grizzlies come in with a pair of twin terrors in the paint.
The Griz will send out center Marc Gasol and power forward Zach Randolph.
Both are monsters inside that will really challenge the Heat.
Keep an eye on the Heat's floor spacing.
With those two inside, they have the ability to clog up the lane and keep LeBron and D-Wade from penetrating to the basket.
That means Shane Battier and Mario Chalmers are going to have to dial it up from long distance consistently.
If they do that, the defense will extend and the holes for LeBron and D-Wade will open.
It'll be a good matchup for the Heat to work on shutting down big men, which they will have to do in the playoffs.
All I know is thank goodness we're not Orlando Magic fans.
Why?

Orlando Magic Debacle:
The Magic have let the inmate run the asylum and the inmate they chose to run it is an immature schmuck who should have been traded a long time ago.
First, don't get me wrong, head coach Stan Van Gundy is not without some blame for exposing the team's foibles.
But Dwight Howard is just a petulant, whiny overgrown bully who wants his way or he will take his toys and go home.
He went to management and said he wanted Van Gundy fired.
It's been widely speculated that this was true, and Thursday, Van Gundy said it was true to reporters.
Let's just put it this way, remember how LeBron was scorned for the decision?
If Dwight Howard isn't excoriated in an even worse way, then the people covering this and reporting on it are hypocrites.
Howard has held the team hostage and held the fans hostage.
He's treated the fans, who pay their hard earned money, like scum.
He quit on his coach and the fans.
The team quit on the coach and fans.
Van Gundy will be fired either today or at the end of the season.
But it's not so much Van Gundy who is the problem as it is Howard.
I could go all sociological here, but there's no need.
Howard has been spoiled for his adult life because he's a great basketball player.
He's taken his spoiled act to a new level with his actions and he should be treated like spoiled children are and smacked in the face.
The Magic should re-sign him after they fire Van Gundy, and then trade him to Golden State or Sacramento and let him toil in obscurity.
Or better yet, trade him to a European team.
And I love these ex-players saying it's all Van Gundy.
They always take the players side and it makes ESPN analysts that much less credible.
But I digress.

All that and all the sports that's fit to print on CBSMiami.com/sports today.
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