SLAMMED SHUT: LeBron James slams home two of his 32 points between the defense of David West (No. 21), Paul George and Roy Hibbert during Miami’s 99-76 victory over the Pacers in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals last night. The Heat will now take on the Spurs for the NBA title. (
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MIAMI — When these Miami Heat were created back in the summer of 2010, the triumvirate of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh brought their talents — and the promise of multiple championships — with them to South Beach.
And while it hasn’t always been easy, and certainly not as easy as they expected it would be, the Heat are headed back to the NBA Finals for a third straight year with the chance to claim back-to-back titles.
Playing like the team with the benefit of both experience and home court advantage, the Heat overcame a slow start and ran the Pacers right off the floor, capping what has been a wildly entertaining Eastern Conference Finals with an emphatic 99-76 victory in Game 7in front of a sellout crowd inside AmericanAirlines Arena.
Miami’s win sets up an NBA Finals matchup with the Spurs — who know a thing or two about winning championships themselves — that tips off Thursday night.
“This is what it’s all about,” said James, who finished with 32 points, eight rebounds and four assists. “I dreamed about opportunities like this as a kid, to have a Game 7 … and that game allows you to advance to the Finals.”
“To see a dream become a reality, I’m just very blessed. And we’re happy that we are able to represent the Eastern Conference in the Finals.”
It had surprised many that the upstart Pacers had pushed the Heat, who entered the series with wins in 45 of their last 48 games, to a seventh game. But when the moment of truth arrived, James and his teammates delivered. And while he was, as usual, the best player on the floor, he finally received some much-needed help from Dwyane Wade, who finished with 21 points after he had struggled mightily in Games 5 and 6.
Wade, who surpassed 20 points for the first time since Game 2 of Miami’s first round sweep of the Bucks, looked like his old self right from the start, as opposed to the one who had disappeared for large stretches of the last two games.
“I just came out in the game with a different mindset, to just be aggressive,” Wade said. “Physically, you just do everything to the wee hours of the morning to feel as good as you can. That’s all I was able to do.”
After Indiana hung around through the first quarter and into the early parts of the second, the game turned for good midway through the second when Pacers coach Frank Vogel sat down both Paul George and Roy Hibbert at the same time with Miami leading 28-25.
Miami immediately responded with an 11-4 run, putting the Heat up 39-29, and the Pacers were never able to recover.
“That’s what we’ve done the entire playoff run,” Vogel said. “That was the rotation we used. That happened to be the time they made their run.”
While the Heat looked like a team full of players that had been on this kind of stage before, the Pacers looked exactly like what they were — a young team trying to cope with the biggest game it had collectively, and nearly all of them individually, had ever been a part of.
They committed one careless turnover after another in the first half, somehow giving it away nine times in the first quarter alone and 15 times before the break.
“Those guys have been battled tested,” said Pacers center Roy Hibbert, who finished with 18 points and eight rebounds — but had just four points and three boards in the first half after dominating virtually the entire series. “Unfortunately we lost, but they’ve been through it before, and I think all their guys were making the right plays, and making game-winning plays, because they’ve been through it before. So, hopefully we can learn from this.”
But while the Pacers will head home thinking about how close they came to the Finals and wondering what could have been, the Heat will now prepare to face the Spurs, with a chance to begin fulfilling the lofty goals they set forth for themselves three summers ago.