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Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Sayson: Wade: Half man, half lethal weapon
By Homer Sayson
Secondovertime
MIAMI – Dwayne Wade missed 17 of his 28 field goals, while Miami made only 31-of-69 shots. The Heat also flubbed 17 free throws, were out-rebounded, 42-33, and they trailed by as many as 11 points.
Despite their fractured play and inability to control the boards, the Heat somehow found a way to steal Game 5 of these NBA Finals, giving them a 3-2 series lead and shoving them just a tad closer to the Larry O’Brien trophy.
The 101-100 come-from-behind overtime win over Dallas was shocking, amazing and unbelievable. But it wasn’t mysteriously inexplicable. In fact, there are only two reasons why Miami completed a 3-0 sweep of their Finals home games, two reasons why the Mavericks, up 2-0 just a week ago, are suddenly in the brink of elimination.
Dwyane and Wade.
Heart. Courage. Desire. That’s what the 6-foot-4 guard personifies in this series. He had 42 points in Game 3, 36 in Game 4, and last night, when hope seemed to have left the American Airlines Arena in a cold and dry second quarter, Wade lifted his team with 43 points, including a nifty bank shot that sent Game 5 into overtime.
There were four lead changes and three ties in overtime, and when the going got awful tough, Wade came shining through. He started the extra session with a 15-foot jumper off the glass, and fittingly, he ended it with a pair of pressure-packed free throws that sealed Dallas’ doom. The Mavericks shot 37-of-81 from the field, and led by Jason Terry’s 35 points, they appeared to have triumph in their grasp. But they let it slip away. With the score tied at 91 and time down to 2.8 seconds, Terry had the chance to give Dallas the win, but under duress against three Heat defenders, his Hail Mary veered heavily toward the right before bouncing harmlessly off the rim.
With 54 seconds left in overtime, Josh Howard stepped to the free-throw line with a chance to give the Mavs a three-point lead.
Howard has normed 80 percent from the 15-foot line in 22 playoffs games. He missed both.
Wade, on the other hand, calmly sank two free throws with 1.9 seconds left in overtime. All told, he made 21-of-25 free throws, an NBA Finals record and the most since 1958.
“There was no doubt in my mind that I was gonna make them,” said Wade of his game-winning freebies. And his coach Pat Riley told reporters during the post-game interview, “Believe it or not, we didn’t have a second option.” They decided to sink or swim with Wade.
The playoffs, especially these Finals, are about execution and handling the pressure. The Mavs wilted, and so they head home needing to win Games 6 and 7, their 2-0 lead a very distant memory. The playoffs are also about presence of mind. And in an instant, the Mavs appeared to have suffered from brain freeze.
When Wade stepped to the line, the Mavericks still had a time out to burn, one that they could have used to set up their last play on their own halfcourt. Unfortunately, Howard prematurely called for timeout.
The Mavs insisted that they would use the timeout only after the second free throw, but referee Joe De Rosa insisted that Howard approached him twice and signaled timeout. Howard could have been right. The ref could have misinterpreted his signal. But in a crucial stage of a pivotal game, Howard should have approached the referee and mouthed when he wanted the timeout. That way, things never get lost in translation. And so after Wade dropped the second free throw, the Mavs had to inbound the ball beneath the Heat’s basket. Covering 94 feet of hardwood simply wasn’t enough in 1.9 seconds. Devin Harris did manage a halfcourt heave, but the ball wasn’t anywhere near Miami’s area code.
With the ease they conquered Miami in Games 1 and 2 at the American Airlines Center, the Mavs have reason to feel good being back in Dallas. But you have to wonder about their state of mind, how much losing Game 3, which they led by 13 with 6:34 left, continue to haunt them. Antoine Walker shot just 2-of-7 shots. Udonis Haslem went 0-for-3 and played just 29 minutes due to foul trouble. Shaq, meanwhile, missed 10-of-12 free throws, and the Heat missed 10-of-17 treys.Still, they won Game 5.
Amazing. Shocking. Unbelievable.
But then again, the Heat have Dwayne Wade. And apparently, when a team has that kind of lethal weapon, it can get away with so much bad stuff.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (June 20, 2006 issue)
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(homsay@hotmail.com) |
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