Holding Court – A big bounce back for the Miami Heat

Like tennis great Rafael Nadal, who bounced back from an opening-set defeat to beat top rival Novak Djokovic and win a fifth straight and ninth French Open title overall the previous day, there also was a bounce-back victory for the Miami Heat after a Game 1 loss in the NBA finals that had more focus on what transpired on the sidelines than what happened inside the court.

The Heat beat the San Antonio Spurs 98-96 in Game 2 to tie their matchup at one game apiece going into Game 3 in Miami on Tuesday (Wednesday in Manila), stretching a winning streak following a playoff loss to 13 games.  And they did it with airtight defense that deprived the Spurs of open looks particularly from beyond the arc where they were murder down the stretch of Game 1, a determination born out of their opening-game meltdown, and LeBron James.

James, who suffered debilitating cramps that decommissioned him for the last 3:59 of Miami’s 110-95 opening-game loss, bounced back from that frustrating experience by carrying the Heat on his shoulders in this one. He scored a game-high 35 points, including eight straight in less than a minute to put the Heat on top 64-62 after San Antonio threatened to pull away at 62-56 midway through the third quarter.  

Then, he scored on a three-pointer and two free throws to bring the Heat back after the Spurs took the initiative late in the fourth period. James also put in 11 points in the second quarter to help erase a 30-19 deficit after Miami endured a combined two-point output from him and Dwyane Wade in the first period, the worst one-quarter total by both stars in the Big Three era.  

As a testimony to James’ indispensability to the Heat, a truism that was proven in that Game 1 defeat, his entry into the game every time Heat coach Erik Spoelstra has given him a breather in an effort to prevent a recurrence of his cramping always signaled a Miami surge. In this game, the Heat outscored San Antonio by 11 and shot 60.4 percent from the field with James inside. With him on the bench, the Heat were outscored by nine and shot just 29.4 percent.

“LeBron with the ball did a pretty good job at his end and we had to be really perfect at the other end and we didn’t,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. “We didn’t take advantage of things. We made bad decisions.”

Popovich was visibly miffed with the Spurs’ missing several opportunities.  After leading 26-17 with 1:49 left in the first period, they committed three straight turnovers. Then, they failed to get their shots, or missed them on numerous occasions down the stretch when they did, even while committing just a couple of turnovers in the second half.  

None of the Spurs’ blown opportunities, however, could be bigger than a sequence that happened with 6:43 left in the fourth quarter. While nursing an 87-85 lead, the Spurs had a chance to move up six and build some distance from Miami when Mario Chalmers was called for a flagrant foul after elbowing Tony Parker in the solar plexus as he tried to drive around the Spurs’ guard.  But Parker, a 75 percent career free-throw shooter but visibly still hurting from the hit that he took, missed both free shots, and Tim Duncan also missed two more after having been fouled in the extra possession awarded San Antonio because of the flagrant call. James then took over from there.

James acted as the Heat’s de facto floor leader as starting point guard Mario Chalmers continued to slump with a drastically deteriorated play, but it was Chris Bosh who made the winning plays for Miami in the end. The 6-foot-11 Bosh made the go-ahead basket by canning a three-pointer to put Miami up 93-90 with 1:18 to go. He then issued a big assist to Wade for the basket that sealed it.

While Game 2 was full of heroics, it didn’t quite match the drama and controversy that attended the first contest, when the air-conditioning at the AT&T Center, the Spurs’ homecourt, bogged down because of a broken circuit breaker, sending temperatures inside the arena to 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Because of the heat and steamy conditions, James, who has a history of cramping like the one he suffered in the 2012 finals against Oklahoma City, suffered debilitating cramps in his legs. Already feeling the aggravation in the second half, making him shoot mostly jumpers instead of attacking the lanes, he had to be taken out for treatment midway through the fourth quarter with the Heat up 88-84. Then, after being sent back and whittling down the Spurs’ four-point lead with a basket for 94-92, he had to leave for good, unable to even walk on his own going back to the Miami bench.

James reportedly asked Spoelstra to get him back into the ballgame with three minutes to go and the Spurs in the middle of a 16-3 run, but the Heat’s mentor would have none of it, unwilling to risk a more serious injury that could potentially take James out of the rest of the series.

“After I came out of the game, they (the Spurs) kind of took off,” James noted in frustration. “And it was frustrating sitting out and not be able to help our team. It sucks not being out there for your team, especially at this point in the season.”

“I think it felt like a punch in the gut when you see your leader limping like that back to the bench,” Spoelstra said.

Even then, James was roundly criticized by certain quarters for supposedly not being tough enough – or at least circumspect enough – to do what he was supposed to do to in order to prevent cramping given his history. They alluded to the fact that he, along with present-day stars, have never known harsh playing conditions all their life, having been pampered from their Amateur Athletic Union days as youngsters into playing in air-conditioned gyms as part of the deal they get as schoolboy stars.

“We never have AC (air-conditioning) in Europe, so it didn’t bother me at all,” Parker scoffed in reference to having been used to playing in non-air-conditioned arenas in the European leagues during his pre-NBA days.

Some critics also pointed to a finals game 30 years ago between the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers, the crucial fifth game often called the “sauna” game because of the punishing heat in which it was played. As the City of Boston was then engulfed by a heat wave, the steamy conditions at the old Boston Garden, which at the time did not have any air-conditioning, were further aggravated, with the temperature rising to 97 and 98 degrees at courtside. The Lakers, particularly 37-year-old center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, had to draw oxygen from an oxygen tank that was brought by the team in the course of the game.

But the Celtics, perhaps more used to such conditions in their homecourt, brushed the heat aside and drubbed the Lakers 121-103 to take a 3-2 lead on the way to a 4-3 victory and the 1984 championship.  Larry Bird masterminded the tough victory with 34 points on 15-of-20 floor shooting, 17 rebounds, two assists and a block. Afterwards, he said, “I play in this stuff all the time back home. It’s like this all summer.”

Even rival health drinks got into the act.  James endorses Powerade, while the Heat and other NBA teams use Gatorade during games for being the official league sponsor. The latter admonished James for not being hydrated enough, drawing the superstar’s ire obviously because he perceived it as a dig against the brand he endorses.

“I really don’t care what people say about me, I don’t care about that drink group… I’m not even going to say their name,” James said. “This is about the Spurs and the Heat, and it’s not about everybody else. I don’t care.”

But James admitted to being angry at his body for letting him down in such a crucial time. “For obvious reasons, I was angry, I was disappointed in myself,” James said the day after the first game. “I did everything that I needed to do to prepare for this game, prepare for this moment and to feel like my body failed me… I was angry in the fact that I couldn’t help my team get over the hump. In a huge Game 1, I wanted to make a statement.”

The four-time MVP knew he had a big problem when the courtside temperature rose. “It was an unusual circumstance,” he said. “I never played in a building like that.” 

James still scored a game-best 25 points in 33 minutes of that contest, which was just four less than he played in Game 2 that obviously felt his presence down the stretch, undeniably making it the single biggest factor in Miami’s tying the series.

This, of course, was helped in a big way, too, by the two days in between games, which enabled the 29-year-old forward to recover while taking two and a half bags of intravenous fluids and extra supplements to boot. 

As the finals move to Miami, James and his teammates are certainly hoping that conditions will be much more favorable and they can thus take extra steps towards a “three-peat.” Will the Heat actually get to do it? It’s a tough call, but don’t bet against this bunch the way it has bounced back, big.

SHORTSHOTS: With Tim Duncan’s 18 points and 15 rebounds in a losing cause in Game 2, the 6-foot-11 frontliner has tied the great Magic Johnson for the most double-doubles in playoff history with 157 each. Duncan, however, would gladly exchange that distinction for those two free shots he flubbed that deprived San Antonio a bigger lead in the fourth period… Other top double-double producers in the playoffs are Wilt Chamberlain with 143, Shaquille O’Neal with 142, and the legendary Bill Russell with 137. Chamberlain and Russell, however, were definitely handicapped by the fact that they had to play less games in the playoffs during the ‘50s and ‘60s.  In those years, there were just three rounds and not all series were best-of-seven affairs… Rashard Lewis has been resuscitated by Miami coach Erik Spoelstra in these playoffs. Hardly getting off the bench at the start of the postseason, Lewis was a major contributor in today’s comeback victory with 14 points and was huge with his three-point shots after being inserted in the starting lineup by Spoelstra in the last two games of the Indiana series… Ray Allen passed Kobe Bryant and Derek Fisher for second place on the career list with 50 three-pointers in the NBA finals.  Robert Horry, a former Lakers and Spurs forward, leads everybody with 56… San Antonio and Miami have far and away the best net efficiency in this year’s playoffs, a number measured based on how much a team outscores or gets outscored by its opponents per 100 possessions. The Spurs are plus 10.1 while the Heat are plus 8.3. No wonder they’re in the league finals – Rappler.com

Bert A. Ramirez has been a freelance sportswriter/columnist since the ’80s, writing mostly about the NBA and once serving as consultant and editor for Tower Sports Magazine, the longest-running locally published NBA magazine, from 1999 to 2008.  He has also written columns and articles for such publications as Malaya, Sports Digest, Winners Sports Weekly, Pro Guide, Sports Weekly, Sports Flash, Sports World, Basketball Weekly and the FIBA’s International Basketball, and currently writes a fortnightly column for QC Life and a weekly blog for BostonSports Desk.  A former corporate manager, Bert has breathed, drunk and slept sports most of his life.