NBA Finals: A surprise ending for Dwyane Wade and the Miami Heat

 
MIAMI — It had been a while since Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade commandeered a game like he did early Thursday night in Game 2 of the NBA Finals against the Dallas Mavericks. He slipped around defenders. He threw down huge dunks. He ignited fast breaks, and finished them, often thunderously.
He rolled up points and, perhaps, finally dismissed questions about whether he had been harboring an injury.
But for all of the flash showed by the player who goes by that nickname, Wade found himself in a position he could surely not have fathomed as Miami built a 15-point fourth-quarter lead: Launching a last-ditch heave after a frantic rush up court as the clock expired.
The shot never had a chance, and Miami fell improbably, 95-93, in Game 2 of the NBA Finals in front of a shell-shocked crowd at American Airlines Arena. The demoralizing defeat sent the Heat to Dallas for Game 3 Sunday and Games 4 and 5 next week with a 1-1 split.
“Obviously, this one hurts,” Wade said. “We got two days to think about our mistakes and blowing a 15-point lead. We made it a lot harder on ourselves . . . [but] I wouldn’t want to be in this position with any other team.”
Wade left the building knowing that his final field goal — the one that put Miami up 88-73 with 7 minutes 14 seconds remaining — might have served to inspire the Mavericks’ stunning comeback. Dallas’s players said the Heat’s exuberant celebration after the shot helped fuel the 22-5 run that followed.
Wade posed with his hand in the air after he hit the three in front of the Dallas bench. Then he and LeBron James danced and celebrated gleefully as the Mavericks looked on. The Mavericks stewed — and regrouped — during the timeout Dallas Coach Rick Carlisle called immediately.
“It was a turning point in the game, obviously,” Mavericks guard Jason Terry said. “We come out after that timeout and we don’t score, we’re pretty much dead. . . . For us to go out in a blowout type fashion with them dunking on us and shooting threes on us, it would have been very disheartening. . . . I can’t even say what was going through my mind seeing them celebrating like that.”
James and Wade both objected when reporters characterized the display as a “celebration,” saying they reacted as any players would in that circumstance.
“A celebration is confetti, it’s champagne bottles,” Wade said. “It was a shot made going into a timeout; every team does something. . . . Don’t make nothing out of that celebration. . . . It’s just being excited about a moment. It had nothing to do with the outcome of the game.”
It was, however, immediately followed by Dallas’s wild comeback, which was capped by Dirk Nowitzki’s successful left-handed drive and lay-in with 3.6 seconds remaining. Nowitzki’s move around Chris Bosh wiped out what had been a dominant – not to mention theatrical – performance by Wade. Wade scored 36 points on 13-of-20 shooting (65 percent) from the field, but but hit just 2 of 5 in the fourth quarter as Miami converted only 5 of 18 field goals (27.8 percent).
Wade didn’t take a shot after his inflammatory three until he launched the desperation running shot as Miami scrambled up the court, out of timeouts. In the waning minutes, as the Mavericks made shot after shot, the Heat got a couple free throws from James, who scored 20 points, and a huge three-pointer from Mario Chalmers that tied the game at 93 with 24 seconds left.
But Chris Bosh had dribbled another ball out of bounds. Udonis Haslem threw a bad pass. Dallas took advantage of every missed shot and mistake and it was Nowitzki – not Wade or James – hitting the game-winner.
Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra could not offer a specific reason why the ball didn’t get in Wade’s hands late.
“We went to our normal package of late-game sets,” Spoelstra said. “We just didn’t have the necessary execution.”
Wade has scored 21 first-half points, many coming on the slithering drives that he seemed unable to muster throughout the Eastern Conference finals against the Chicago Bulls. During that five-game series, he helped Miami pull out games in the fourth quarter after struggling early in every contest.
Wade scored on one dunk in the second quarter after going behind-the-back as Nowitzki tried to give chase on a fast break, leaving Nowitzki looking slow, confused and silly.
By the end of the night, the roles had been reversed.
After Wade’s three “we didn’t have to score another point to win the game,” Wade said. “Our defense, which we lay our heads on, we didn’t play the way we normally play. They deserved [the win]. We didn’t.”