Hours before the biggest game of his life and the most important
in this city's hoop history, Dwyane Wade, brimming with confidence
and South Beach coolness, gave his take on the NBA finals. "It's
not over," he said. Not if he says so.
Wade scored 42 points and orchestrated a furious fourth-quarter
Miami comeback that reached its crescendo on Gary Payton's jumper
with 9.3 seconds left as the Heat escaped with a 98-96 win over the
Dallas Mavericks in Game 3 on Tuesday night.
The Heat rallied from a 13-point deficit in the final 6:34 to
keep alive a series that looked to be over with Dallas up 2-0.
"As a team, we just came out and said this could be the season
if they win this game," Wade said. "We came out, ran our offense to
the crisp, locked down on defense and came back and won this
game."
Despite blowing its big lead, Dallas still had plenty of chances
late but Dirk Nowitzki missed one of two free throws with 3.4
seconds to go and the Mavericks couldn't convert on an inbounds
play in the final second thanks to Wade, who tipped away the last
gasp pass after scoring 15 points in the fourth quarter.
As the final horn sounded, Heat fans simultaneously exhausted
and exhilarated, tossed their "White Hot" white T-shirts into the
air, a celebration that seemed unimaginable just a few minutes
earlier.
Now, after watching Wade's heroics, Shaquille O'Neal and Udonis
Haslem hit four straight crucial free throws in final two minutes
and the second-largest fourth-quarter rally in NBA finals history,
they're coming back for Game 4 on Thursday night.
Miami was down and apparently done after Jason Terry's basket
made it 89-76 with 6:34 remaining.
That's when Wade, playing with five fouls and conjuring memories
of Michael Jordan's playoff miracles, decided it was time for him
to take over.
He hit a jumper, completed a 3-point play and dropped in another
bucket to bring the Heat within five. Then, after a miss by
Nowitzki, Wade drove baseline, hung in the air for what seemed like
an eternity, and hit a floater to make it 91-88 with 3:36 to
go.
Dallas, meanwhile, which had shown so much poise through 3 1/2
quarters, was coming apart at the seams. Nowitzki's two free throws
slowed Miami for a moment, but O'Neal, whose abysmal foul shooting
had contributed to Miami's 0-2 deficit in the series, calmly spun
in two attempts to pull the Heat within 93-90 1:48 left.
Wade's jumper got Miami within a point, and Haslem came up with
the play of the game, picking off a pass intended for Nowitzki.
Haslem, playing with a badly bruised shoulder suffered in Game 2,
was fouled and the Heat's toughest player made both attempts after
firing bricks on his first four tries.
Then, with the game tied, Payton, the defensive specialist coach
Pat Riley brought in this season, knocked down a 21-foot jumper
just his second field goal of the series.
O'Neal said the Heat felt the desperation of trailing in the
fourth quarter.
"It means we're already in a little bit (of) a hole, 2-0, we
don't want to go down 3-0," O'Neal said. "We just told guys to pick
it up. Gary hit a big shot and got the fans into the game. … We had
2 1/2 horrible games and now we can use this momentum and pick it
up and just try to win four."
Nowitzki, who finished with 30 points, was fouled trying to
answer Payton's shot with a drive to the hoop. At that point, he
was 25-of-27 from the line in the series, but he could only make
the first. When he misfired on the second, he triggered a roar
inside AmericanAirlines Arena that could be heard back in
Dallas.
The Mavericks appeared on their way to a 3-0 lead in the series
when they outscored the Heat 34-16 in the third quarter to open a
77-68 lead entering the final 12 minutes.
Josh Howard scored 21 points for Dallas, which came in 25-0 in
games where he scores at least 20. Erick Dampier added 14 points
and Jerry Stackhouse, who had 19 in Game 2, managed just four
points on 1-of-9 shooting.
O'Neal had 16 points and 11 rebounds, atoning for a miserable
five-point performance in Game 2.
Beyond what the Mavericks' defense did to him in Games 1 and 2,
O'Neal, who was fined $10,000 by the NBA for skipping his postgame
interview on Sunday in Dallas, has taken a public beating in the
media and from fans wondering what has happened to one of the NBA's
pre-eminent towers of power.
Riley, for one, thinks O'Neal has been treated unfairly.
"Shaquille O'Neal is one of the most worthy professional
athletes who has ever walked the face of the planet," Riley said
before the game. "And he has one bad game … but that's the way it
is in life.
"So he's being judged right now and he'll deal with that. He's
been judged before. That's just the nature of this business
now."
In his final pregame blog, Dallas owner Mark Cuban first
grumbled about South Florida's oppressive humidity "I promise never
to complain about the weather in Dallas again. Dang." and then he
imagined how the temperature might be when the Heat took the floor
in AmericanAirlines Arena.
"The crowd is going to be nuts," he said. "We have to be able to
take the early barrage of punches."
O'Neal and Wade combined to throw the first flurries.
On Miami's first possession, O'Neal backed down the lane and
dropped a turnaround jumper over DeSagana Diop and then the big
fella powered inside off a repost and banked in another bucket.
Moments later, O'Neal reached in and poked the ball away from
Terry and shoveled the ball ahead to Jason Williams for a
layup.
And then, with the crowd holding its breath, O'Neal stepped to
the line and drained his first two free throws, matching his entire
total on 16 attempts in the first two games.
?
(AP via CRI June 14, 2006)