The cHeat lost. And the universe is celebrating.


I don't even have much to say about this one. The Mavs played like a real team and the cHeat played like a bunch of pickup ballers who handpicked their squad to steamroll everybody and couldn't understand why they weren't.

That's the way it was all series.

I wonder how Miami fans feel about LeBron James right now. He checked out last night. Totally checked out. Anybody who watched the game knows it's true. The reality is, he seemed to check out a couple games ago, about the time things stopped going his team's way.

James was all celebration and swagger during the early rounds. The cHeat beat up on a flawed Celtics team and a Bulls team that still has some growing up to do...and nobody was more in-our-faces about it than LeBron. Dancing and air-punching and screaming after big plays. The closer Miami got to clinching a series, the better he got. He was at his absolute best when his team was on top.

When they stopped being on top...he faded slowly into the backdrop.

This is why I bristle every time LeBron starts getting compared to Michael Jordan. It happened again when the cHeat eliminated the Bulls. I couldn't believe it. I really thought that, at the very least, people should have waited until he owned the Finals and finally won a championship. His stats and abilities are so amazing that people want to crown him King before he's ready for the throne.

He's not. That much is obvious. Last night's game was ugly. He was passive. He played scared. He avoided contact and passed the ball like a hot potato.

This isn't meant to be a dogpile on LeBron. Not exactly. Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade weren't perfect. Bosh had a good offensive game but gave up some key offensive rebounds in the fourth quarter, and Wade shot poorly and was generally ineffective. But although those guys didn't play well, I never got the sense they stopped trying. Especially Wade. Dude looked locked in, even if he spent a little too much time looking to the refs to bail him out.

LeBron, the so-called best basketball player in the world and possibly the greatest physical specimen the league has ever seen, played like a roleplayer.

That cost Miami a championship. Or at least a Game 7.

And King Crab, as has been the case ever since The Decision, simply couldn't go down with class and dignity.

Said LeBron: "At the end of the day, all the people that was rooting on me to fail, at the end of the day they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today. They have the same personal problems they had today. I'm going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things that I want to do with me and my family and be happy with that. They can get a few days or a few months or whatever the case may be on being happy about not only myself, but the Miami Heat not accomplishing their goal, but they have to get back to the real world at some point."

That lone statement speaks volumes about who and what LeBron is at this point in his life. Things didn't go his way in Cleveland and so he fled to Miami. Now there's nowhere to run and he wants us lesser mortals to remember he lives a better life than we do. Totally douchebaggery.

But you know what's great about sports? There's always a chance for redemption. Just as Dirk Nowtizki. Over the course of this year's playoffs, and especially in the Finals, Dirk destroyed all conventional thinking about his toughness and ability to come through when it matters. Words like "soft" and "choker" can't be used on him any more. He's a champion and a Finals MVP. One of the all-time greats.

The same thing can happen for LeBron. The story isn't over. But he has a lot of work to do -- both in terms of his game and his mindset. He could stand a large dose of humility for starters.

So, on behalf of myself, AnacondaHL, chris and Dan B., I want to thank everybody for another fun season of bawful. Tomorrow begins our summer reading program. Until then, enjoy all the press about LeBron's failures.

Chris's Slightly Belated, But Still Elated, Ewok Cheer Lacktion Report:

Labels: 2011 NBA Finals, Dallas Mavericks, Lebron James, Miami Heat

I wonder if Scottie Pippen is starting to have second thoughts...
The mockery of Dwyane Wade and LeBron James: They...they wouldn't make fun of Dirk being sick during Game 4 right before Game 5 would they? Or at the very least not on camera.


Okay. Never mind, then.

The Miami cHeat: They shot the ball exceptionally well (52.9 percent), hit 40 percent of their threes (8-for-20), knocked down most of their free throws (21-for-26) and got a huge boost off the bench from a red-hot Mario Chalmers (15 points in 23 minutes on 4-for-6 from downtown and 3-for-3 from the line). And, once again, they had the lead with under five minutes to go in the fourth quarter.

And, once again, they lost. The Mavs closed the game on a 17-4 run.

There were circumstances. D-Wade injured his hip running into the brick wall known as Brian Cardinal. And the Mavericks were just on fire: 56.5 percent from the field and an absolutely blistering 68.4 percent from beyond the arc. Dallas banged home 13 three-pointers. Several of them were wide open, but a handful of them were bad shots, Jason Terry's trey with 33 seconds left seemed to go in by divine providence.

Teams can win games based on disproportionately hot long-distance shooting. It's happened all season. Heck, Miami did it during these playoffs against the Celtics and Bulls. And the Mavs did it last night.

That wasn't the whole story, though. The cHeat were handling the rock like it was coated in creamy butter. They committed 18 turnovers for 21 points going the other way. The Nazgul combined for 12 of those 18 miscues.

Speaking of the Terrible Trio, they did some statistical damage. LeBron had a triple-double (17 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists), Wade scored 23 points and went 10-for-12 from the line. And the Boshtrich finished with a double-double (19 points, 10 boards). And yet those three guys finished with plus-minus scores of -11, 13 and -13, respectively. They all committed damaging fourth quarter turnovers, and Wade and Bosh both missed foul shots in the final 12 minutes.

And then there was...

LeBron James: Basketbawful reader dwade posted the following comment:

I asked Lebron for change for a dollar. He gave me 75 cents and said, "Sorry, I don't have a 4th quarter."

Heading into last night's game, James posted "Now or Never!!" on his Twitter page. When asked about that Tweet, LeBron said: "It was a personal message to myself. That's just how I was feeling at that time, honestly. It was just a personal message to myself and had nothing to do with anyone else besides myself. I was just in a zone at that point … this is a big game, probably the biggest game of my life, well, not probably, it is. And I'm approaching it that way."

Really?

Look, it's not like LeBron didn't play well. He had a triple-double in an NBA Finals game. He made several smart basketball plays. But he didn't take over. Didn't transcend. Didn't prove what everybody loves to say about him: That he's the best basketball player in the world with a chance to be the greatest ever.

I mean...two fourth quarter points? Two?! And they came with 29 seconds left in a three score game on a layup the Mavs basically conceded. He wasn't just outscored down the stretch by Nowitzki (8 points in the fourth) and Jason Terry (also 8 points). He was outscored by J.J. Barea (6 points in the fourth).

Even ESPN's John Hollinger was left scratching his head:

Overall, he scored 17 points but needed 46 minutes to do it. The average NBA player this season, per 46 minutes, scored 18.9 points.

He shot 8-of-19 without a single 3-pointer. That's not good for anybody, let alone a player of this talent.

He had two free throw attempts. TWO. This continued a series-long trend of James being either unable or unwilling to attack the rim -- he has only 16 free throw attempts for the series.

He has 11 fourth-quarter points in five games, despite playing every minute of every fourth quarter. Eleven points in 60 minutes. That’s a wee bit south of superstar territory. Actually, it's a wee bit south of Juwan Howard territory -- he averaged 14 points per 60 minutes this season. Every Miami player except Joel Anthony scored at a higher rate.

Again, this isn't just any random guy. This is a two-time MVP who was the most coveted free agent in NBA history. This is one of the best players of all time, regardless of what happens in the next few days. This is the reason the Heat had a championship parade last July ... because when they got LeBron, they got the promise of dominating games like this one.

Or so they thought.

Boy, I bet Gregg Doyal is feeling pretty smug right about now. And...yep. He sure is.

Some more fodder from ESPN Stats and Information:

LeBron James has now scored just 2 points combined in the 4th quarter of the last 2 games. He is Miami's 5TH leading scorer over that span, despite playing all 24 minutes... He does however have 5 of the team's 10 assists...

From Elias: LeBron James is averaging 2.2 PPG during the 4th quarter of the NBA Finals. That is the fourth-lowest by a former MVP in any NBA Finals series over the last 25 seasons. The difference between James and the other guys on this list? His most recent MVP award came just one season ago whereas the others were well past their MVP-winning seasons.

Needless to say, LeBron James' scoring has been non-existent in the 4th quarter of this series... James is averaging just 2.2 PPG in the 4th quarter of these finals after averaging 8.2 in the Eastern Conference Finals over the Bulls. LeBron has yet to score more than five points in the 4th quarter of any game in the NBA Finals and has scored 2 or fewer points each of the last four games.

Mike Bibby and Joel Anthony: Turrible. Just turrible.

Shawn Marion's masturbatory celebratory gesture: Basketbawful reader Ash posted this animated gif of Shawn Marion air jerking. Speaking of animated gifs, Apocalypse34 posted this one of official Bill Kennedy apparently doing the Time Warp.

Anyway, here's some (admittedly bad) video of Marion's air wank:


Can you imagine the outrage if LeBron had done that? Speaking of which, TrueHoop's Henry Abbott makes a fair point about the Mavs' celebration late in last night's game versus the cHeat's back in Game 2. Let's face it: Everything the cHeat do is so much more hateable.

Tyson Chandler, quote machine: On a late (and slightly iffy) charge he drew on LeBron: "I felt like it was a charge. I [had] seen him drive baseline a couple of times in the course of this game and actually in a couple of games now. I’ve been thinking, 'You know if I could get there and set and make him think I’m going to jump I can get a charge.' [It] just so happened to be at a key time."

Jason Terry, quote machine: "We are getting the same looks we knew we would get. After Games 1 and 2, you watch it on film, you see it and then you realize where you're going to have the opportunities. I said to myself, I said to my teammates, 'We're not going to continue to miss those open shots that we're getting.' And so, again, being confident, preparing, getting extra shots in, in those spots is what allow you to go out in the game. And when you get those opportunities, knock them down."

Erik Spoelstra, quote machine: "They made their shots. This is a shot-making team. We were aware of that before we came into the series. They can really extend your defense and you have to be active and athletic, all of these things."

Jason Kidd, quote machine: "You're never too young or too old to always improve your game. At 38, I've always felt that I had to improve my shooting if I want to be on the floor and help my teammates out. As I've gotten older, it's just about timing and not so much scoring 20 points or having 15 assists or 10 rebounds. It's just being at the right place at the right time."

DeShawn Stevenson: On Brian Cardinal's surprisingly effective 10 minutes: "Brian hit a big 3, took a key charge and tried to take a charge on Dwyane and [Wade] hurt his hip. We have guys that have been in the league for a long time and are ready. It says a lot about our team with Brian coming in there having not played a lot of minutes in the playoffs and he's in the Finals giving his all. We just have guys in here that are very confident. We're a family."

LeBron James, quote machine: "I could have made a couple of more plays for my team. But at the end of the day, all it's about is a win or a loss. Triple-double means absolutely nothing in a loss. So we will be better in Game 6 on Sunday."

Dwyane Wade, quote machine: "I don't talk about injuries -- it was unfortunate I had to leave the game, but I came back and finished. Once you're on the court, you're on the court. I don't have no excuses. I'm smart enough to play the game without obviously being 100 percent. That's all I did when I came back. I'll be fine Sunday,” Wade said. “The good thing about life, good thing about this game, we get another opportunity, another crack at it. We'll do whatever it takes to win [Game 6]. We're confident."

Chris Bosh, quote machine: "We fought hard all season for home-court advantage. We're down 3-2. We protect home court, we win the series, so we just have to keep that in mind."

Chris' NBA Finals Lacktion Ledger: Joel Anthony went 100% from the field (on one attempt) in 16:12 as starting center, but fouled thricely for a 3:2 Voskuhl.

Labels: 2011 NBA Finals, Dallas Mavericks, Lebron James, Miami Heat

The Miami cHeat: In the BAD comments, AnacondaHL said: "Tomorrow's post could just be an in-depth play-by-play of the last 5 minutes." We'll start with a basic play-by-play of Miami's offensive possessions over the final six minutes and 50 seconds:

6:50: Chris Bosh missed 18-footer
6:05: Bosh missed 18-footer
5:15: Bosh turnover
4:48: Dwyane Wade turnover
4:18: Mike Miller turnover
3:33: Miller missed three-pointer
2:59: Wade missed three-pointer
2:25: LeBron James missed 17-footer
2:25: Miller offensive rebound
2:17: Miller missed layup
2:16: Wade loose ball foul
1:53: Bosh 2-for-2 from the line
1:09: Haslem misses jumper
0:30: Wade 1-for-2 from the line (missed tying free throw)
0:09: Wade dunk
0:01: Miller airballed desperation three-pointer

To sum up: missed jumper, missed jumper, turnover, turnover, turnover, missed jumper, missed jumper, missed jumper, missed layup, two made free throws, missed jumper, one made free throw, dunk, missed jumper.

Remember: Miami's offense feature two of the top five players on the planet. And another All-Star to boot.

Also remember: LeBron James is either the Next Michael Jordan or destined to be even greater. Speaking of which...

LeBron James: Remember how Jason Terry's trash talk was supposed to "fuel the Heat's fire"? And how, when Terry questioned whether LeBron could consistently shut him down in the fourth quarter over seven games, Bosh said:

"You have to let sleeping dogs lie sometimes. It's motivation. For us, it is an opportunity to not let up. Guys are talking and it fuels you.

"If he wants LeBron to turn it up then that's great motivation for LeBron," Bosh said. "Guys remember that when we're out on the floor. LeBron is going to remember that late in the game when it is close and Terry is going to try to get going. LeBron is going to guard him and we'll see who comes out on top."

Well then.

From ESPN Stats and Information:

One of the big storylines heading into Game 4 was the comments made by Jason Terry and how LeBron James would guard him in the fourth quarter. Terry backed up his talk and nearly outscored the Heat's Big Three by himself down the stretch. Terry had eight points in the final quarter and didn't turn the ball over while Wade, James and Bosh combined for nine points and five turnovers.

LeBron had eight points and it was the first time in his 90 career playoff games that he was held to single-digit points. His teams are now 0-7 when he scores 15 points or fewer in a postseason game. James attempted just one shot in the fourth quarter and failed to score despite playing all 12 minutes. This is just the second time he's failed to score in the final period of any playoff game.

Dirk's dominating performance and LeBron's disappearing act in the fourth quarter this game continues a trend from the entire series. Nowitzki has now outscored James 44-9 in the final period while making as many field goals as James has attempted while making six times as many free throws.

LeBron's final line: 46 minutes, 3-for-11, 8 points, 9 rebouns, 7 assists, 2 steals, 4 turnovers, 4 fouls, -6. And, of course, that big old goose egg in the fourth quarter.

Said Bosh: "He struggled. Point blank, period."

Continued LeBron: "I've got to do a better job of being more assertive offensively. I'm confident in my ability. It's just about going out there and knocking them down."

Added cHeat coach Erik Spoelstra: "We'll have to look at the film. Obviously we would like to get him involved. He's a very important piece to what we do. So we'll work to help make it easier for him next game."

Wait, what? Miami's coaching staff needs to look at the film to get LeBron James more involved in the team's offense?

Anyway, back to...

The Miami cHeat: I highlighted the final 6:50, but check out Miami's fourth quarter totals: 14 points on 5-for-15 shooting (33 percente) with 6 turnovers. LeBron went scoreless. Bosh went 8-for-12 in the first half but only 1-for-7 over the final 24 minutes, and he clanked consecutive jump shots down the stretch. Wade missed a freebie that would have tied the game with half a minute to go.

Then, after Terry knocked down two free throws with 6.7 seconds left to put Dallas up 86-83, Spoelstra called a 20-second timeout to get possession in the frontcourt. Miller inbounded to D-Wade, but Wade (who was curling around a screen) took his eyes off the ball and it bobbled off his hands. Pookie barely managed to recover the ball and fling it to Miller for what may have been the crappiest and most hopeless last second shot attempt I've ever seen in a Finals game: A 30-footer over Tyson Chandler while falling out of bounds.


Said Wade: "I saw an opening. Mike threw the ball and I was trying to get to the opening, probably before I caught it. That's how I lost it. Obviously I would love to have that play back. We would love to have a lot of plays back."

Another fourth quarter collapse. And this is a trend, folks.

Jeff Fogle of Hoopdata writes:

Let's take a look at the final six minutes from each of the four games played so far. That will give us a 24-minute "half" of basketball we can use for a crunch time comparison.

FINAL 6 MINUTE "SCORES" IN EACH GAME:
Game One: Miami 17, Dallas 15
Game Two: Dallas 20, Miami 5
Game Three: Dallas 12, Miami 7
Game Four: Dallas 11, Miami 7

Total: Dallas 58, Miami 36

How's that for a "halftime score?!" Let that register for a minute. Dallas is up 22 points IN CRUNCH TIME, putting points on the board consistently against a defense that now, suddenly, isn't looking so scary. And, Miami should be pretty humiliated that they just popped 5, 7, and 7 points in the final six minutes of the last three games. It took a huge first game just to get them to 36! Dallas is up 43-19 in the final six minutes of action during the last three games.

Some people are citing fatigue, which sounds reasonable considering the Nazgul keep logging 40+ minutes a game. But then how do you explain Dirk's 44 fourth quarter points over four games? Nowitzki's logging epic minutes, too, and he scored 10 points down the stretch last night despite a sinus infection and a reported fever of 101 degrees.

By the way, during these Finals, Dallas is now +30 when Dirk is on the floor and -35 when he's not. With all due respect to Henry Abbott and Rick Reilly, in my humble opinion, the MVP of the playoffs so far is seven feet tall and blond.


Dwyane Wade: Pookie was Miami's player of the game (32 points, 13-for-20, 6 rebounds) but he bricked three freebies -- including one that would have tied the game -- and blew the final play of the game to hell. As stephanie g pointed out: "LeBron looked like a big armless Rondo out there and Marion is arguably outplaying him for the series, or at least playing him to a draw. All the same, imagine if LeBron missed a critical freethrow and had butter fingers on the inbound pass like Wade did."

Three-point shooting: Clink. Clank. Clunk. Dallas went 4-for-19 from downtown and Miami was 2-for-14. The two starting lineups combined to go 0-for-13. Is fatigue setting in on both sides? Sure looks like it.

Peja Stojakovic: His NBA Finals minutes were stolen by...Brian Cardinal.

Wow.

Brendan Haywood: How poorly did he play in his three-minute stint? His only stat was one foul committed and the Mavs were outscored by 10 points while he was on the floor, prompting Tyson Chandler to jump up and ask Dallas coach Rick Carlisle to be subbed back in.

Said Chandler: "I told Coach, 'You have to get me back out there, I will play 48 (minutes) if I need to.'"

Speaking of Chandler...

Tyson Chandler: We call this an ego-ectomy:


LeBron James, flop machine: Didn't James Harden get crucified for shenanigans like this? Memo to LeBron: You're too good for theatrics like this.


Dirk Nowitzki, quote machine, Part 1: "Just battle it out. This is the finals. You have to go out there and compete and try your best for your team. So that's what I did."

Dirk Nowtizki, quote machine, Part 2: "There's no long term. I'll be alright on Thursday. ... Hopefully I'll get some sleep tonight, take some meds and be ready to go on Thursday."

Tyson Chandler, quote machine: "The average person, you know, has sick days and battling 100-something (fever), it's just tough to get out of bed. This guy is playing against the best athletes in the world."

Chris Bosh, quote machine: "There is not an illness report before the game or anything. I've never been out there and somebody pointed and said, 'He's got a fever!' "

Erik Spoelstra, quote machine: "This series is a jump ball. These guys live for these type of moments. It's about execution and disposition in the fourth quarter, being able to close out. We have a golden opportunity in the next game."

Jason Terry, quote machine: "The aggression was there for me personally. And I like that, that I was on the attack, which I said I would be. But as far as that relating into baskets, it didn't really happen for me."

Brian Cardinal, quote machine, Part 1: From TrueHoop: "It's The King vs. The Custodian! It's an unbelievable player against ... me."

Brian Cardinal, quote machine, Part 2: Also from TrueHoop: "[The Custodian is] a nickname from back in the day. Now I'm just happy if people call me Brian."

Chris' NBA Finals Lacktion Report: Brendan Haywood hobbled his way to a foul in 185 seconds, earning a +1 suck differential and a 1:0 Madsen-level Voskuhl. Fellow Texan Peja Stojakovic had only two seconds of playing time for a celebratory Super Mario!

Labels: 2011 NBA Finals, Dallas Mavericks, Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Terry, Lebron James, Miami Heat, Worst of the Night

The Dallas Mavericks: Well. The upper hand is on the other foot. Again.

One game after stealing homecourt advantage from the cHeat, the Mavericks gave it right back. Fortunately, Mark Cuban has more than enough money to repair all the holes he probably punched into his walls last night.

Game 3 was an awful lot like Game 2.

Miami built a 14-point advantage. Dallas came back.

The cHeat led 81-74 after Dwyane Wade hit a shot with 6:31 left and 84-78 after Wade drilled a three with 4:31 left.

LeBron "Attack Mode" James didn't play very Next Michael Jordan-y (17 points, 6-for-14, 9 assists, 4 turnovers) while Dirk Nowitzki looked pretty Next Larry Bird-y (game-high 34 points, 11-for-21, 9-for-9 from the line 11 rebounds). This was even more apparent down the stretch: LeBron scored only 2 points in the fourth quarter while Nowitzki had 15...including 12 straight to lead a Dallas rally.

Make that an almost rally.

Because King Crab had help in Pookie (7 of his team-high 29 in the fourth) and the Boshtrich (7 fourth quarter points including the go-ahead jumper with 39 seconds left). Meanwhile, Dirk found out that one really is the loneliest number.

How critical has Nowitzki been in the Finals? According to Jeff Fogle of Hoopdata: "In the 20 minutes that Dirk Nowitzki has been on the bench resting during the NBA Championships, the Dallas Mavericks have been outscored by 31 points. In the 124 minutes that he played, Dallas has outscored the Miami Heat by 23 points. As strong as Miami has looked earning a big riding time advantage through three games, they're WAY down when Dirk is on the floor."

Wow. Dirk has had to do almost everything. And he almost did.

Almost.

Unfortunately for Mavs fans and cHeat haters, Nowitzki's personal 12-point run ended when he dished to Jason Terry for an open jumper with 58 seconds left. Terry missed and the score remained tied. Then, 19 seconds later, James dished to Bosh, and the RuPaul of Big Men hit to put Miami up a deuce.


On Dallas' next possession, Udonis Haslem's defense finally got to Dirk, and Nowitzki threw the ball out of bounds. James bricked a three with four seconds left and Dirk's forced jumper at the buzzer was off the mark.

Game over.

The Dallas players who weren't seven feet and blond went 17-for-49 from the field (36 percent). Shawn Marion (10 points, 4-for-12) was the only starter other than Dirk to reach double figures. Tyson Chandler shot 1-for-4 and finished with 5 points in 40 minutes. Jason Kidd had 9 points on 3-for-8 shooting. DeShawn Stevenson scored 3 points in 14 minutes.

Jason Terry chipped in 15 points off the bench, but he went scoreless (0-for-4) in the final 12 minutes. And J.J. Barea (6 points, 2-for-8, 1-for-5 on threes) was outplayed by Mario Chalmers (12 points, 4-for-6 on threes...including one that shouldn't have counted). This is a trend that may be killing he Mavericks.

From TrueHoop:

Through their march to the Finals, the Mavericks have been able to create vast acres of space in their offense by covering the floor with shooters. Few NBA players know how to exploit open space better than Jose Juan Barea, a good shooter who loves nothing more than to juke his man on the perimeter, put the ball on the floor, and sail into the wide open spaces of the Dallas offense.

From there, he has an array of floaters, runners and jumpers that are more than enough to get the job done.

Barea has been pretty bad against Miami, however. That's because when the Miami defense is loaded up with athletes like Chalmers spaces don't last long. Somebody long and strong is always rushing to fill the gap.

Barea has taken 23 shots over the Finals first three games. 18 missed. It's big letdown for a player who had made 51 of 117 playoff shots in the first three rounds. Watching Chalmers fight over picks to stay with Barea it's easy to see why he's finding space at a premium.

Over the course of a season, or a career, Chalmers and Barea are not so different -- decent NBA players who can hit open shots but hurt their teams if they try to do too much. Both players have career production a tick or two below average, with the slightly older Barea generally the more efficient of the two.

But in these Finals, whether by luck or quality of opposing defense, Chalmers has been the much more efficient shot maker. Barea has scored 13 points on 23 shots, while Chalmers has taken one fewer shot, but has scored 20 more points, with 33 points on 22 shots over the first three games.

Chalmers and Barea are bit players in this drama, but bit players who happen to be performing very differently in the final playoff series of the year. In a series that is turning on a point or two here or there -- the Heat have outscored the Mavericks by a total of eight points over the three games -- these are little things that matter.

Getting back to the fourth quarter, it may be worth comparing relative contributions to the Dallas cause. Nowitzki scored 15 points while going 4-for-7 from the field and 6-for-6 from the line. His teammates scored 7 points on 3-for-11 shooting.

After the game, Kidd stated the obvious: "We have to have somebody step up besides Dirk. We have to figure out how to get up front and play up front. The big thing is we've got to be able to make plays late in the game. Game 2 we made the plays, Game 3 we just didn't."

Dallas won the rebounding battle (42-36) but got outscored 40-22 in the paint and gave up 19 points off 14 turnovers.

Miami's two-point win also benefitted from a triple that should not have been.


Naturally, the announcing team got it wrong. As Kelly Dwyer of Ball Don't Lie explains:

The Dallas Mavericks and their fans can point to quite a few reasons for the team's two-point, 88-86 loss to the Miami Heat in Game 3 of the NBA Finals. The team missed five free throws, shot 40 percent, turned the ball over 18 times [14 actually - Bawful], and clanged a series of solid three-point looks down the stretch. But Miami guard Mario Chalmers' buzzer-beating three to end the first quarter, one that should have been disallowed as Chalmers' foot was technically in the back court as he caught the ball, will sting the hardest.

The half court stripe is considered part of the back court, and the referees missed the fact that Chalmers had his heel on the line when he took the pass from Udonis Haslem in the front court. The rule is that you must be considered fully in the front court before you can receive a pass from the front court, and Chalmers' foot was still in the back court when he caught the ball. That's a lot of "courts" to consider, but all Mavs fans will look at is that two-point deficit on the scoreboard as the final buzzer sounded, while ruing the three-points that shouldn't have counted.

That bogus three-bomb capped a nightmare first quarter for the Mavericks. Basketbawful reader Factfinder said: "I bet Dallas wishes they could go back and contest all of those easy buckets they gave to Wade and Bron in the 1st quarter." Make that Wade, Bron and Bosh. Those three guys combined to convert seven dunks/layups in the first 12 minutes. Seven! In the first quarter of a Finals game!

Somewhere Bill Laimbeer is throwing up.

Chris Bosh denied: I'd be more gleeful about this if Dallas had won.


Jason Terry, quote machine: "A lot of my looks are contested, but hey, it’s the NBA Finals and they're going to contest every shot. And hey, we have to be more and more aggressive, and we'll see what happens."

J.J. Barea, quote machine: "I think had some open looks, especially [some] 3s, and they felt great and some were long and some were short. They just didn't go down for me. I'm going to keep shooting them. This team needs me to make shots, and everybody needs to make open shots, and we kinda struggled with that tonight."

Dwyane Wade, quote machine: "My teammates saw it. They can tell I wanted this game. ... I'm just trying to lead. My guys did a great job of following that lead."

Chris Bosh, quote machine, Part 1: "Open your eye like this. I'll poke you in it."

Chris Bosh, quote machine, Part 2: "I think [getting poked in the eye was] just symbolic of our season, everything. You just have to keep overcoming. If you lose Game 2 at home, blow a 15-point lead and you're out on the road and everything is against you, you have to get it done. I thought it was quite fitting that I got poked in the eye early."

Erik Spoelstra, quote machine: "There's so many storylines out there right now, the Game 3, all these trends and statistics. To simplify it for all of you, the game is not played in a statistical world. It is played between those four lines and 94 feet. Whoever plays the best and more consistent to their identity likely has the best chance to win."

LeBron James, quote machine: Total smackdown.


Chris' Finals Lacktion Ledger: Ian Mahinmi made two free throws in exactly eight minutes along with one board, only to foul five times for a 5:3 Voskuhl. Meanwhile, when your uber-short-stint-of-the-night is noted by the ABC commentating staff, it's clear lacktion has gone mainstream, in the case of Brian Cardinal -- whose 7 seconds of plugging in a DS to its charger at the end of the 2nd quarter garnered a Super Mario.

Labels: 2011 NBA Finals, Worst of the Night

Thanks to stephanie g. for the pic.

The _allas interior _efense: Okay, so the Mavs actually outscored the Heat 40-36 in the paint. I know. But Miami had nine dunks last night. Nine. In a Finals game. I'm pretty sure I've never seen nine dunks by one team in a Finals game before. At least not since the Showtime Lakers of the 1980s...and maybe not even then. Eight of those jams were hammered down by Dwyane Wade (five dunks) and LeBron James (three dunks). It's like they were playing on a Jordan Jammer.


Giving up dunks can be deadly to road teams. They get the crowd and the home team totally pumped. Every throwdown by James and Wade felt like it actually subtracted points from the Mavs' score, NBA Jam-style.

Fortunately for Mark Cuban's remaining sanity, the Heat got caught up in...

Premature celebrations: D-Wade knocked down a cold-blooded triple to give the Heat an 88-73 lead with 7:14 left in the fourth quarter...and LeBron reacted like Pookie had just nailed a buzzer beater in Game 7. Or cured cancer. Or brought about world peace. Or defeated the recently discovered and totally not made up Worms from Hell.

The celebration began in front of the Dallas bench. Not the best location for it.


Said LeBron: "It was no celebration at all. I was excited about the fact [Wade] hit a big shot and we went up 15. We knew we had seven minutes to go still. As far as 'celebrations,' that word has been used with us all year."

Uh huh.

After the game, Wade was questioned about it:


"A celebration is confetti. A celebration is champagne bottles."

Yeah. Right. Tell that to the Mavericks.

Said Tyson Chandler: "Hitting shots, posing on us, it's upsetting. I think it angered a lot of us. You see all the celebrations, and they're throwing towels, and you say ... 'Is the game over?'"

And, as it happened, the game wasn't over.

Jennifer Floyd Engel of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram wrote:

Of course, they over-celebrated.

And, of course, it was premature as well.

This is The Heat and this is what They and The Big Three and mostly LeBron do best, prematurely crowning themselves champions of nothing that actually matters.

So nobody should have been too surprised when Dwyane Wade capped his 3-pointer to give Miami a seemingly insurmountable lead with 7:14 remaining in Game 2 of the NBA Finals with a couple of poses. He preened a little for the crowd, nothing too awful, kind of like what DeShawn Stevenson does.

And then LeBron came over and pushed the celebration over the top by fake punching DWade in the chest like "you the man, we the men, we did it." The move looked choreographed by LeBron's mom it was so cheesy.

And all of this went down right in front of the Mavs' bench as coach Rick Carlisle and his players watched absolutely gutted which turned to looking punching angry which morphed into steely resolve.

All of them had that look.

"We noticed," Mavs big man Tyson Chandler said from the locker room as he iced his weary ankles. "It was definitely frustrating."

So I asked: Did it motivate y'all?

"When you got a guy showboating in front of your bench with seven minutes remaining, you say 'The game is not over. I don't care what they say, the game is not over,'" Chandler said.

And Carlisle made that point to them before sending them back out.

Look, maybe Wade is right. Maybe he and LeBron were doing what players on every team do after big shots. But it's pretty clear they lit a fire under their opponents.

The Miami cHeat: Here's a rundown of Miami's offensive possessions after building that seemingly insurmountable lead:

Wade missed three-pointer (heat check); Mario Chalmers missed three-pointer; LeBron missed layup (he totally left it short and then hacked his own arm to the refs trying to indicate a foul that never happened); Chris Bosh missed 21-footer; LeBron 2-for-2 from the line; LeBron missed 16-footer; Bosh turnover; Udonis Haslem missed 15-footer; LeBron missed three-pointer; Wade offensive rebound; Lebron missed three-pointer; Haslem offensive rebound; Haslem turnover; Wade missed three-pointer; Mario Chalmers made three-pointer (more on this below); Wade missed three-pointer.

What does all this prove?

Well, first of all, players shouldn't get too excited about 15-point leads when there are over seven minutes left to play against an elite and experienced team.

Second, you'd really rather have James and Wade chucking threes -- they were a combined 2-for-14 from downtown -- than dunking the ball.

And finally, I really don't think we should start comparing LeBron (0-for-4 and only 2 points in the fourth quarter) to Michael Jordan. Now or ever. Those comparisons never help. They only hurt.

While the cHeat offense was devolving into (or continuing to be) a lot of clock-eating one-on-one garbage, the Mavs dutifully ran their sets and got open lanes or open looks. And, to their credit, they got hot at the right time. Especially Herr Dirk, who served up a plate of ice cold revenge for the 2006 Finals.

According to ESPN Stats and Information: "Dirk Nowitzki scored the Mavericks' last nine points, going 4-for-5 from the floor, and scored or assisted on 12 of their last 14 points. ... The Mavs shot 54.3 percent (19-for-35) when Nowitzki had a touch on the possession, including 77.8 percent (7-for-9) in the fourth."

Jason Terry's clutch defense: Wha...what was he doing?


Terry hit some big shots during the comeback, but his defensive brain fart could have cost his team the game.

Miami's last possession defense: Don't get me wrong. Dirk made a great move and hit a tough left-handed shot. But the cHeat let him go one-on-one without any help. This is Dirk freaking Nowitzki. And Miami had a foul to give and didn't take it. Whoops.


Dave Hyde of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel wrote:

In its time-out huddle, Dallas coaches expected the Heat to use its one foul to give. In its time-out huddle, Heat coaches talked about the foul to give without Dallas going into the bonus.

As Dirk Nowitzki made his move, Heat coach Ron Rothstein shouted, "Foul! Foul! Foul!"

Chris Bosh didn't foul him. No one did. So with 3.6 seconds left in the game Nowitzki made a nice drive for a lay-in basket that gave Dallas the unlikely win and evened the NBA Finals series at 1-1.

Bosh, asked about it, simply said he made a "mental mistake." A costly mental mistake, to be sure. And an unfortunately strange one for as smart a player as Bosh is and as solid a playoffs as he's had.

Sometimes you get beat by a shot in the NBA. But you shouldn't get beat because you didn't give the foul you were supposed to give.

And sometimes you take a lot of crappy threes in the final seven minutes.

D-Wade's last second flop: Love the delayed grabbing of the eye and reaching out toward the officials. "Why hast thou forsaken me?"


Joel Anthony: Wonder how the Heat lost the rebounding battle 41-30? It starts with the fact that Anthony (1 board in 27 minutes) was outrebounded by J.J. Barea (3 rebounds in 14 minutes). Anthony added zero points to his rebound total, providing what had to be one of the worst games by a starting center in NBA Finals history.

The Heat might have won this game if they could have replaced Anthony with the Greg Ostertag from the 1997 Finals.

The Mavs' butterfingers: Don't let it be said that Dallas played the perfect game. They gave up 31 points off 21 turnovers. Jason Kidd and Nowitzki combined for 10 of those TOs.

Chris Bosh's tongue: An anonymous commenter left this link. Brain bleach, anybody?


Non-technicals: In Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals, Taj Gibson was hit with a quick technical foul for turning away from the officials and screaming "No!" after getting called for a personal. Yet, somehow, D-Wade evades a technical despite jumping around and going off on referee Ken Mauer. Just sayin'.


Chris' NBA Finals Lacktion Report: Peja Stojakovic lost the rock once in 4:57 for a +1, Brendan Haywood hacked one field goal in 8:11 with two fouls and a turnover for a 3:2 Voskuhl Brendan Haywood was hurt and therefore had his lacktion nullified (thanks AK Dave), and Brian Cardinal fouled once in 60 seconds for a +1. Meanwhile, South Beach's starting big man Joel Anthony countered one board in 26:49 with three fouls for a 3:1 Voskuhl!

Labels: 2011 NBA Finals, Dallas Mavericks, Miami Heat