An Amazing Comeback or Astonishing Meltdown

Dave Pruitt, Sports Emerge
http://sportsemerge.com/

Did I see what I thought I saw?  That was an amazing comeback put on display by the Dallas Mavericks or amazing how the Miami Heat had a complete & utter meltdown, depending on which team you’re a fan of.  It was impressive or disgusting, exciting or painful, it was ”WOW!”  or “WHAT THE HELL!”   But overall it was a historical game, biggest comeback in NBA Finals history since the ’92 Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls against Clyde Drexler’s Trail Blazers.

Surely the guys who claimed they could win not 1, not 2, not 3, not 4, not 5…( Wait on it,) not 6, not 7, blah, blah blah, championships; did NOT just give up a 15 point lead with 7 minutes left in the 4th?  The man owning that statement went 8 of 15 from the field, 2 of 7 from behind the arch & 2 of 4 from the foul line scoring a mere 20 pts.  “Prince James“, definitely not  King,  certainly didn’t dictate a winning outcome, didn’t  lead his team to victory, isn’t that what Kings do?


It literally looked like someone PAID the Heat to lose Game 2, just as a boxer would take a dive in the boxing ring.  It seemed like they want to play a full 7 game series for ratings or something.  I seriously thought that ABC Network paid them off, but now that I think about it they can’t afford to fix the blurriness on HD broadcast, so.   That’s how unbelievable it was though, to see the Big 3 & company have a complete mental lapse, literally stopped doing what they were doing the first 3 Qtrs. & 5 minutes of the 4th.  They stopped attacking the basket start taking 20 foot jumpers, gunning from the 3 point line like they were in a 3 point contest during All-Star weekend.


Dwyane Wade was balling out of control the entire 2nd & 3rd Qtrs. with the rest chipping in.  When Bibby start knocking down his 3 pointers I got a strange premonition, told my wife, “now that he’s finally hitting his 3′s, they’ll lose.”  I was joking around when I mentioned that midway through the 1st Qtr. but in hindsight, it’s now hard to describe & a little stange.  Cockiness is definitely something not to admire & it was luminating on the faces of the Heat players throughout the game until that expression turned into shock & concern when Dirk Nowitzki tied the game with his non-shooting hand, yep, the left hand everybody was talking about was apparently injured.  The Heat really thought they had it in the bag, like all they had to do was throw the ball at the basket & it’ll go in. Wade in the post game news conference was asked about them celebrating infront of the Mavs bench after he hit a big 3 & he replied “there was no confetti, no champagne, we wasn’t celebrating.”  Playing as astonishingly horrible down the stretch as the Heat did, they’ll certainly won’t see confetti fall or POP champagne in the locker room.   Maybe they already accomplished their goal by beating the Boston Celtics in round 2, hence their big celebration afterwards.

Chris Bosh was ice cold the entire game going 4-16 from the field & LeBron made it extremely hard for them to win their 1st NBA title by jacking up 3′s & deep shots with the Heat scoring only 5 points in last 7 minutes.  LeBron was 4-6 from the foul line in 2 games played, a damn shame.  What a meltdown, hilarious in a way how the tide can change in NBA basketball.  A disappointed Dwyane Wade showed up to play scoring 36 pts. grabbing 5 rebounds & tossing 6 assist in a losing effort.  He stated it best,” defense is what got us the lead & our (lack of) defense is how we lost.”

All the credit in the basketball world goes out to the Dallas Mavericks for sustaining through what every sports fan including the Mavs fans thought was going to be a shellacking, a beat down of mass proportion.  Dirk Nowitzki struggled throughout the game, bad left hand & all finishing with 24 points & 10 of 22 shooting but the hit shots when it mattered.  Proved he was the closer on the floor last night.  With one of his Snipers showing up late in the 4th Qtr. in Jason Terry who finally got free of LeBron’s D enough to knock down some key shots during the miraculous comeback.  They stayed to their offensive game plan running alot of Pick N Roll & going through Dirk on the block letting him create & find open shooters out of double teams.

When the Mavs got a chance to breath as the Heat slowly lifted their hands away from the Mavs’ juggler, they saw their oportunity & didn’t look back.  With a 17 to 2 run Dallas tied the game 90 to 90 with 57.6 seconds left after Udonis Haslem tried to save a live ball back in bounds but to the wrong team, Dirk finished with an uncontested lay-up.  My jaw dropped, even at that point I still thought  the Heat would slap themselves & wake up, I was mistaken.  The ensuing play Wade took a hand off from LeBron dribbled past Shawn Marion just enough to get a shot off from 3 point land with Marion’s hand in his face & :06 on the shot clock, still enough time to drive to the paint but he settled for a 20+ footer.   And  Then It Was He as in Dirk who smacked the Heat right in there grins with a big 3 point shot giving Dallas the lead 93-90 with 26.7 seconds left 30 seconds after he had tied the game.  My face fell off, I was shocked as I think anybody who loves the game of basketball might be because it just doesn’t happen in the Finals not since I was 12 years old.  The following play  Mario Chalmers  was found by LeBron on an in bounds play sneaking into the corner for a wide open 3 on a blown assignment by Jason terry & as Mike Breen would shout “BANG!!!”  Chalmers ties it at 93-93 we had another tie game but Dirk had the last word & a pitiful Chris Bosh was caught on an island with the “7 foot German Shooting Guard” & then taken to school via bad finger left hand lay up to win the game, followed by a D Wade prayer nearly from halfcourt.


Dirk would not have had a chance to demonstrate his toughness & shooting elegance to close out the astonished Heat without the aggresiveness of Shawn Marion.  He brought his A+ game from the fountain of youth as he chimed in & found the scorer he used to be early in his career.  He kept the Mavs in striking distance up until the start of the 4th Qtr. when Miami had their run that looked to be the beginning of the end until Dirk put his hot sauce on it.  Shawn Marion had some key shots which helped them grab the Heat by the shirt tails & hang on like tackling a NFL running back.  Pulling theirselves up the Heat’s back until the got high enough to bring them down utimately preventing a touchdown in this case preventing a 2-0 lead, now they’re going back home instead with the series 1-1.

Now the momentum has shifted entirely to the Dallas Mavericks as they head back the the Big D for 3 games infront of that relentless crowd. I’m hardpressed to think that this series now belongs to the Mavs & the Miami Heat are actually playing from behind.  Eventhough, LeBron James in is pastel colored suit after the game says “we’re looking forward to the challenge.”  We’ll see if they’re looking forward to the challange, as Wade metioned, “only time will tell.” 

Hell of a game, the playoffs are still impressing me.

Game 3 of the NBA Finals Sunday June 5th @ 8pm ET on ABC

It is what is…