The Finals - Miami Heat 2-4 Dallas Mavericks

Sei, sobre isso sei que o teu objectivo desta temporada não era que os heat ganhassem o titulo. Portanto presumo que não estejas a torcer por eles.

Heat-Mavericks notebook


By Dave Ivey, for NBA.com
Posted Wednesday June 8, 2011 1:09AM


THE FACTS: Dirk Nowitzki fought through a 101-degree fever to score 10 of his 21 points in the fourth quarter, including a decisive drive with 14.4 seconds left as Dallas evened the NBA Finals at 2-2 with an 86-83 victory over Miami in Game 4 Tuesday at the American Airlines Center. Dwyane Wade had 32 points, but fumbled away the Heat's final possession.
It was the third consecutive down-to-the-wire thriller, with 15 ties and 12 lead changes. It was also the third straight time Nowitzki figured into the outcome. In Game 2, he drove past Chris Bosh and finished with the left hand for a 95-93 victory. In Game 3, his fadeaway over Udonis Haslem was off the mark in an 88-86 loss. This time, matched up against Haslem again, Nowitzki drove to his right and beat Haslem and Wade to the hoop.
Jason Terry added 17 points (eight in the fourth), Shawn Marion scored 16 and Tyson Chandler had 13 points and 16 rebounds (nine offensive boards) for Dallas, which overcame a nine-point fourth-quarter deficit. Bosh scored 24 for Miami, while LeBron James scored a postseason-low eight points on 3-for-11 shooting.
QUOTABLE: "This is the Finals. You're going to leave it out there. Like I said earlier in the series -- it's June. ... You have to go out there and compete and try your best for your team, so that's what I did."
-- Nowitzki, who added 11 rebounds.
THE STAT: James had scored in double figures in 434 consecutive games. His teams are now 0-8 in the playoffs when he scores fewer than 15 points.
TURNING POINT: After making his first three shots and scoring the Mavericks' first six points of the game, Nowitzki then missed 10 of his next 11 shots. Dallas didn't hesitate to call his number when it mattered, however, and his drive past Haslem gave the Mavericks an 84-81 lead.
QUOTABLE II: "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."
-- Miami head coach Erik Spoelstra on James' performance.
HOT: Bosh scored 16 points on 8-for-12 shooting in the first half. Wade scored 19 points on 8-for-10 shooting in the second half.
NOT: Miami turned the ball over six times and scored only 14 points on 33.3 percent shooting (5-for-15) during the fourth quarter. The Heat led 78-73 on Wade's layup with 7:24 remaining, but didn't score again until Bosh made two free throws at the 1:53 mark. Wade missed a potential tying free throw with 30.1 seconds left.
INSIDE THE ARENA: Kelly Clarkson, winner of the inaugural season of American Idol and a Dallas-area native, sang the national anthem. Dallas Cowboys Tony Romo and Jason Witten, NFL rushing king Emmitt Smith and rapper Lil Wayne attended the game.
GOOD MOVE: Carlisle's decision to start J.J. Barea over DeShawn Stevenson for the first time this postseason didn't have its intended effect of speeding up the tempo, but Stevenson gave Dallas a big spark off the bench in the second quarter. He scored all 11 of his points in that period, going 3-for-4 from 3-point range. Barea finished with eight points and four assists.
BAD MOVE: After Terry hit two free throws with 6.7 seconds left to put Dallas up 86-83, Miami called timeout to get possession in the frontcourt. Mike Miller threw the inbounds pass to Wade, but the ball bounced off his hands and the Heat couldn't recover in time to get a clean look.
NOTABLE: Neither team shot the ball well from 3-point distance, with Miami going 2-for-14 and Dallas 4-for-19 from beyond the arc. ... Miami's opponents have scored fewer than 100 points in 18 of 19 games this postseason. ... Nowitzki made 39 consecutive free throws and was 26-for-26 in the Finals before missing with 3:52 left in the third quarter. ... Joel Anthony has now blocked at least one shot in 15 straight postseason games, one shy of Miami's franchise record held by Alonzo Mourning.
UP NEXT: Game 5 is Thursday at the American Airlines Center in Dallas (9 p.m. ET, ABC).

Nowitzki iguala o mitico "Flu Game" do Jordan e com 38.5 graus de febre volta a pôr a série empatada. O Homem está mesmo on fire, incrivel.

Mavericks overcome James' triple-double, lead 3-2


By BRIAN MAHONEY
Posted Jun 10 2011 4:58AM


DALLAS (AP) Dirk Nowitzki waited five long years for that elusive third victory over Miami, yet there was only a short celebration when it finally came.
He briefly thrust both arms in the air, a sea of blue screaming around him, but then quickly walked off the floor.
To Nowitzki, the real party can't come until next week.
"There's really nothing to celebrate," he said. "We're going in there Sunday swinging, like we did today, from the jump, and hopefully steal one Sunday."
And now it really is "now or never" for LeBron James and the Miami Heat.
Nowitzki scored 29 points, driving for the go-ahead dunk with 2:45 remaining, and the Mavericks beat the Heat 112-103 on Thursday night to take a 3-2 series lead.
The Mavs, who blew a 2-0 lead against the Heat in the 2006 finals, can wrap up their first championship in Game 6 at Miami on Sunday night.
"We didn't want to go to Miami and give them basically two shots to close us out. So we kept plugging there in the fourth. So definitely a big win for us," Nowitzki said. "And now we have to go down there and basically approach Sunday's game as Game 7."
James, who called this game "now or never," responded from his worst playoff performance with 17 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists, and Dwyane Wade battled through a sore left hip after a first-quarter collision to finish with 23 points.
"I could have made a couple of more plays for my team," James said. "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."
Chris Bosh had 19 points and 10 rebounds for the Heat, who get the final two games at home with history against them as they try to win a title in their first season together: In the 26 previous finals that were tied 2-2, the Game 5 winner won 19 of them.
"We fought hard all season for home-court advantage. We're down 3-2," Bosh said. "We protect home court, we win the series, so we just have to keep that in mind."
The Mavs shot 60 percent through three quarters, briefly gave up the lead in the fourth, then outscored Miami 17-4 in the final 4:23, controlling the final few minutes just as they had in thrilling comebacks in Games 2 and 4.
Dallas shot 56.5 percent from the field, including 13 of 19 (68 percent) from 3-point range.
"We made more shots," Dallas coach Rick Carlisle said. "We did a lot of good things defensively, which led to good offense. ... You never know when the games are going to go that way. The thing we've got to do is we've got to make sure our defense is consistent."
Jason Terry scored 21 points and J.J. Barea had 17 for the Mavs, who insisted at some point their shots would start falling even against the Heat's stingy defense. Jason Kidd and Tyson Chandler both finished with 13 points.
"We are getting the same looks we knew we would get," Terry said. "After Games 1 and 2, you watch it on film, you see it and then you realize 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."
James scored eight points in Game 4, going just 3 of 11, the first time in 90 postseason games he didn't hit double figures.
Trying to pump himself during a rough first finals in Miami in which he's been accused of everything from "shrinking" to "checking out" in the fourth quarters, he wrote "Now or Never!!" on his Twitter page early Thursday morning, later calling this the biggest game of his career.
But they feel the same urgency in Dallas, where the slogan "The Time is Now" is printed on those blue T-shirts that surround the court, and where the Mavs are loaded with 30-somethings - late 30s, in Kidd's case - who could be on their last shot at an NBA title.
Nowitzki said early Thursday he felt "great," having shaken the fever that rose to 101 degrees in Game 4.
This time, the health concern was Wade, who banged his hip in the first quarter and appeared to be limping at various points from there.
"I don't talk about injuries," Wade said. "It was unfortunate I had to leave the game, but I came back and finished it."
He remained in the locker room to start the second half, coming back onto the court about the midway point of the period. By then, the Mavs seemed in too good a groove to be cooled off no matter who Miami had out there.
A disgusted Heat coach Erik Spoelstra was already walking onto the court to call time by the time Chandler went up to dunk after catching the ball all alone under the basket, giving Dallas a nine-point lead that matched its largest of the series.
Miami stormed into the lead midway through the fourth with a 9-0 run, all layups, dunks and free throws until Wade's 3-pointer made it 99-95 with 4:38 to play.
The Mavs tied it at 100 on Terry's 3-pointer with 3:23 left, and after James missed, Nowitzki drove for a baseline dunk and a 102-100 lead. James was called for an offensive foul and missed a 3-pointer on Miami's next two possessions before Kidd drilled a 3-pointer to make it 105-100, sending the crowd into a delirious chant of "Beat the Heat! Beat the Heat!"
The teams were at the same point as their 2006 matchup after four games, but that one was already in the midst of a massive swing by then. Miami won the final four games behind Wade, the MVP of that series.
This one has been developing into one of the closest finals the NBA has ever seen. Games 2-4 were decided by three points or fewer. That hadn't happened in the championship round since 1948, according to STATS, LLC, when the Baltimore Bullets and Philadelphia Warriors played Games 2-4 within a three-point margin during the Basketball Association of America finals, a year before that league merged with the National Basketball League to become the NBA.
The first four games were determined by 15 total points, the fewest since a 12-game difference between the Celtics and Lakers in the 1969 finals.
And all eyes were on James, just as they have been since he bolted Cleveland for a better shot at a championship in Miami.
He vowed to be more aggressive after his puzzling Game 4. He caught the ball in the post more frequently, but his jumper was still off for much of the game.
James threw up an airball with his left hand on his first shot, and when he did finally score, the Mavs quickly came back with six straight points for an early 13-6 lead, a promising start for a team that had been playing from behind nearly all series.
Wade walked gingerly to the locker room with a left hip contusion with about 3 minutes left in the period after colliding with Mavs reserve Brian Cardinal on a drive to the basket, and didn't return to the bench until more than 3 minutes into the second.
James had a basket inside that gave Miami a six-point lead with 4:26 left in the half, but Dallas closed with a 14-5 push, taking a 60-57 edge to the locker room after Nowitzki's jumper with 6.1 seconds remaining. The Mavs shot 12 of 17 in the quarter, and after not reaching 30 points in any period through four games, hit that number in each of the first two quarters of Game 5.

Em 30 minutos já reivindicaram os direitos

A forma como é feita a final : 2-3-2 já feito neste formato há muito tempo ?
Acho que era mais justo para as duas equipas o formato das eliminatórias anteriores : 2-2-1-1-1.

Desde 85.

Purito escreveu:A forma como é feita a final : 2-3-2 já feito neste formato há muito tempo ?
Acho que era mais justo para as duas equipas o formato das eliminatórias anteriores : 2-2-1-1-1.

NBA, a roubar as equipas desde 1985