Sports Wrap: Has Miami & The Big Three Already Beaten Dallas?

Six months ago when LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh united in South Beach, it was for one common goal. Now, already a game up in their championship series against the Dallas Mavs, could their common goal be accomplished so quickly?

“You know, we’ve got a lot of flack this year, mostly because of myself. And we’ve tried to use that as motivation every day we get on the basketball court,” James said earlier this week. “But just play the game of basketball. That’s all we can do is play the game of basketball at a high level. Play Miami Heat basketball.”

Magic Johnson and other analysts are, now calling a team that was criticized and attacked throughout the year for the incapableness to close out a game and to play as a team with the game on the line, the best closing team in the league.

While Dallas did everything in the first half that was done to help them get to this position, Miami came out faster, poised, and more determined in the 2nd half. The alley-oop from Dwayne Wade to Lebron was the nail in the coffin to a Dallas team that just realized they have a lot to work on.

If we look at the statistics from the game, Dallas held the Heat to 39 percent shooting, Miami's second-worst showing of the playoffs. So how in the world did Dallas lose? Well by shooting worst.
In fact, Dallas shot only 37 percent from the field marking their worst shooting performance from the playoffs. Dallas Forward Shawn Marion took notice of the statistics, "You hold a team to 38 percent shooting and 92 points, for us, that's usually a victory.”

However, shooting isn’t the only woes for Dallas, have you ever heard of boxing out? While it makes sense that Miami would out rebound Dallas because Dallas missed more shots, what doesn’t make sense is despite the bigger bodies for Dallas, Miami had SIXTEEEN offensive rebounds.

For Miami, James has elevated his game down the stretch this post-season, repeatedly lifting Miami to victories in close games by knocking down huge shots, and also doing it on the defensive end of the floor.

While at the time not as crucial, Lebron’s fade-a-way three at the buzzer of the 3rd quarter may have been the most important shot of the game. Though Jason Terry missing an open three pointer down by 6 with three minutes to go is a close 2nd, it seems like the attitude and body language changed after Lebron made that incredible shot. It wasn’t just Lebron though, the Marquette Alumni Dwayne Wade also had a huge 2nd half, as two of the big three put up some significant numbers in the 2nd half.

With a combined 29 points, 11 rebounds, and 4 three pointers, Wade and Bron Bron played a 2nd half that the whole NBA was concerned about since the joining of the All-Stars.

But it hasn’t just been the ‘big-three.’ Like Dallas, the role players for Miami have come up big in important instances, providing much-needed sparks at times these playoffs. That was none more proved in Game 2 of the Chicago series when Udonis Haslim ignited his Heat teammates on both ends of the floor, despite having just played 13 games in the regular season due to injury. He came back this post-season and will now play try and play a big role to take down the Mavericks.

As we know, Dallas is a jump shooting teams and all jump shooting teams go through their shooting woes. While Terry came out hot in the 1st half scoring 12 points, he was completely shut down in the 2nd half, and missed golden opportunities with open shots.

While Dirk’s 27 points was not as flashy as his past heroics, if Dallas continues to hold Miami to a low shooting percentage, don’t expect this series to be a blow out. If Jason, Peja, and JJ can take advantage of the space given to them by Dirk, this series will be a lot closer going into the final stretch.

I truly do want to see Kidd and Drik get a ring they deserve, but if Miami continues to play with the passion and strong bench play they got in Game 1, look for Miami to win in 6.

Side note: Miami obviously has the best audio engineers as they played Cee Lo’s “F*ck You” for the Dallas introductions, and C- Murder’s “Down for my N*ggas.” STRAIGHT CLASSIC!