It was a miracle that they pulled that one off! Shaq needs to step it up a few! Glad he made his last free throws!
Now that's what I'm talking about! I cannot believe that it's a tie ball game! I don't know if a team that has lost the first 2 have come back and won the next 3! Let's see what happens Sunday! The Heat really need this last win at home! If they can pull it off, we still might have a shot at this!
I think that the 2004 Pistons are the only team ever to have won games 3-4-and-5 all at home in a series.
So, what do you think? Any predictions? You were quiet about this one! What's up with that? Didn't want to go out on a limb?
• Since the 2-3-2 format was put in place in 1985, only one team, the 2004 Detroit Pistons, has won all three middle games at home.
• Game 5 winner has won 18 of 24 NBA Finals when the series is tied 2-2.
Dwyane Wade cannot be stopped. Especially by that little boy Devin Harris. Dallas may have been crushed by last night's loss. Miami will prevail in Dallas, and it could very well be in six games.
Now the Heat share the same wins for games 3-4-5! What will happen? Only time will tell, but I think it will go to game 7! Controversy after Controversy!
Game 6 tonight! I think I will give this one to Dallas! They are pissed and they are pumped up about losing the last game because of their "stupidity".
I think Dallas has been smacked down. They are crushed. They have lost their confidence. They cannot stop Wade. I could see Miami finishing them off tonight.
However, if I am wrong about tonight's game, and Dallas wins it, they will probably go on to win game 7 also.
I'm curious to see how this is going to play out tonight!
DALLAS -- The fruitless Miami trip is behind them. And now the Dallas Mavericks, having lost three road games, have the chance to bring home their first NBA title by winning Games 6 and 7.
They have a great chance to do it. I expect the Mavericks to come out in Game 6 at home and play a great game. You're going to see a much quicker Dallas team out there. Jerry Stackhouse is coming back after missing Game 5 with a one-game Sack-A-Shaq suspension. Overall, you're going to see Mavs players who are prepared to take care of business.
You saw him kick the ball in the stands after a tough Game 5 loss, and he was later caught on tape, taking out his postgame frustration on an unsuspecting exercise bicycle.
Take it as a good sign. I applaud his passion, and the will he has to win. Dirk wants to be the best, which frankly not everybody wants to be. I think he was frustrated in his own performance, and how the game went. I think he will feel very comfortable back at home for Game 6.
But what about Miami's chances? Winning in Dallas has proven to be a tall order for them.
Dwyane Wade has yet to play a great game in Dallas. Shaquille O'Neal's foul-shooting troubles have resurfaced. Still, if those two can excel, and the Heat get one other standout performance, I see a window of opportunity for the visitors.
Climbing through the window could be none other than Antoine Walker.
It is now just a question of which 'Toine we see. He took seven shots in a Game 5 win and 19 in a Game 1 loss. Ideally for the Heat, he should be taking between 13-14 shots. What happens with those shots could be the difference between winning and losing.
But if things don't go very well for Shaq-Wade-Walker, we'll probably be seeing a Game 7 in Dallas.
After Wade's 43-point heroics Sunday, a team might want somebody else to beat them. But I don't think Dallas will use as much doubling on Wade as some would think. Down the stretch in Game 5, I think a player like Wade can sense when a team is confident in defending him; Dallas was not. That feeds him even more.
However, it's a different game in Dallas. This series may prove definitively why the home court means so much. Miami joins the 2004 Detroit Pistons as the only team to win the middle three home games of a series.
That's why you work so hard to get it -- I think the home-court advantage in basketball means more than in any other major sport. And it's also why Dallas deserves so much credit for taking down the defending champs on the road in Game 7 of the Western Conference semifinals.
Dallas has played well for many stretches in Miami, and only really completely unraveled in the Game 4 loss. Miami had a spectacular effort from Wade in Game 5. When LeBron goes for 45 and Nowitzki hits for 50, it's always going to be hard to beat a team like that.
Dallas almost did. Now, Game 6 awaits.
DALLAS (AP) - Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban was fined $250,000 by the NBA on Tuesday for his outbursts following Game 5 of the NBA finals.
Cuban was cited for ``several acts of misconduct'' committed after Dallas lost 101-100 in overtime to the Heat in Miami on Sunday night.
Furious with several calls, Cuban went onto the floor to vent directly to official Joe DeRosa. He then stared down and screamed toward commissioner David Stern and a group of league officials, from the court, then the stands. He later used profanity during a postgame session with the media.
The fine was announced hours before the Mavericks played host to the Heat in Game 6 of the NBA finals. Miami led the series 3-2.
The NBA said it would have no further comment on the matter.
Mavericks star Dirk Nowitzki was so frustrated with the way Dallas lost Game 5 that he kicked the ball into the stands, knocked over a stationary bicycle and kicked at something else on his way to the locker room. On Monday, he was fined $5,000 for booting the ball.
Cuban has been fined at least $1,455,000 and suspended from three games since buying the team in January 2000. The exact total of his punishment tab isn't known because the league doesn't always publicize action against team owners. Cuban says he matches every dollar with a charitable donation.
This also marks the 10th known time that Cuban has been penalized. The biggest fine was $500,000 - the most ever against one person - in January 2002 for comments that included saying he wouldn't hire the league's head of officiating to manage a Dairy Queen.
Since then, the only other acknowledged fine came last month, when he was assessed $200,000 - $100,000 for going onto the court during a playoff game in San Antonio and another $100,000 for an entry on his blog criticizing the way the league selects officials for the playoffs.
Cuban also has been riled up several times since his last fine.
Last Friday, after Jerry Stackhouse was suspended for a hard foul on Shaquille O'Neal in Game 4, Cuban said, ``It makes no sense at all,'' adding that there were several hard hits against Dallas ``all without response from the league.'' He then wore a Stackhouse jersey to Game 5.
Also Tuesday, Cuban posted a blog entry in response to a column in the Miami Herald that quoted him as saying, ``Your league is rigged'' during his tirade after Game 5.
His solution: Better explanations by the league of what happened and why.
Way to go Miami! It was only done once before where a team came back to win 4 after losing the 1st 2 games! Sorry, upon further reading, I think they are the first to win the next 4 and the 3rd team to win the series after losing the first 2. Is that correct?
Miami Heat center Alonzo Mourning celebrates a 95-92 win over the Dallas Mavericks in Game 6 of the NBA basketball finals in Dallas, Tuesday, June 20, 2006.
DALLAS -- For Pat Riley, it's the first time in 18 years he can say it. For Shaquille O'Neal, it's been four years, and for Alonzo Mourning, Gary Payton and Dwyane Wade -- especially Wade -- it's the first time they can make the claim.
Champions, all of them. All of the Miami Heat.
In a decisive Game 6 that capped one of the most stunning turnarounds in NBA Finals history, the Heat finished off the Dallas Mavericks and showed themselves to be worthy of being crowned champions by riding their young superstar to the first title in franchise history with a 95-92 victory Tuesday night.
Wade didn't quite score 40 this time, as he had twice before in this series, but he came awful close with 36 points and avoided a nightmare finish after blowing a pair of free throws with 9.1 seconds left to give the Mavericks one final chance.
But that chance ended with Jason Terry's 3-point attempt bouncing high and hard off the rim, Wade getting the rebound with a second left and no Mavericks anywhere near him. He tossed the ball high in the air and the Heat players bounded off the bench in celebration, so many years of waiting for so many of them finally having come to an end.
"I don't want to say I put the team on my back. You know, we did it together. Like Coach said, like we've all been saying, it's been 15 strong," Wade said. "They gave me the opportunity by putting the ball in my hands to prove people wrong. When I came [into] the series, it was, I can't shoot. I don't know where they got that from. So I proved to them I can shoot, and then after that, I proved I can play, and that's all I tried to do: prove people wrong."
Miami became just the third team in NBA Finals history to win a series after dropping the first two games, and the first to do it after losing Games 1 and 2 by double-digit margins. This series actually looked lost for the Heat with 6½ minutes left in Game 3 when they trailed by 13 on their home court, but the Mavericks relaxed too soon and never got their groove back, earning the dubious distinction of becoming the first team to lose the NBA Finals in the fourth quarter of Game 3.
Dirk Nowitzki scored 29 points for Dallas but was barely a factor in the fourth quarter, scoring two points from the line. With Dallas trailing by three and the clock ticking inside 20 seconds, Nowitzki passed the ball off to Erick Dampier, leading to a turnover. The big German never touched the ball again, a disappointing finish to a disappointing quarter and a disappointing series for Dallas' best player.
"Dirk's a warrior," coach Avery Johnson said. "He tried. No excuses, Miami deserved to win."
Aside from Wade's 36, Miami got 17 points from Udonis Haslem, 14 from Antoine Walker and just nine from O'Neal. Still, he's a four-time champion now, and Wade might just be on his way to chasing Shaq's total. He won the Finals MVP Award and proved himself worthy in this series of carrying the superstar label that's bestowed on him now.
"He was very much the heart of an extraordinary team," commissioner David Stern said in awarding Wade the MVP trophy.
"I really believe it was our time," Riley yelled into the microphone in front of the few thousand fans who stuck around for the trophy ceremony.
O'Neal picked up his fifth foul just more than two minutes into the final quarter and went to the bench, but on this night the Most Dominant Ever wasn't even Much Of A Factor, and the Heat kept playing in front for the next few minutes, in large part because of the energy and defensive presence provided by O'Neal's backup, Mourning.
Josh Howard tied it 79-79 with 7:06 left on a pair of free throws, but Haslem made a corner jumper with 5:45 left to put Miami ahead for good. On each successive possession as the clock kept winding down, the Mavs looked tighter and tighter as they kept getting next to nothing from their three best offensive starters.
A 3-pointer from the corner by James Posey off a pass from Wade made it 87-81 with 3:41 left, but Dallas pulled to 89-88 when Stackhouse sank a 3 from the corner with 1:37 remaining. A putback by Haslem made it a 91-88 with 1:21 left, Howard made it a one-point game on a jumper with 42 ticks left, and Wade went to the line after colliding with Nowitzki and knocked down a pair for a three-point lead with 26.2 seconds left.
"He just took it to another level," Riley said. "You all witnessed it. You all watched it. Players like that are very hard to come by, and to watch them grow right in front of you, you know, he's making his legacy in his third year. We're blessed to have him."
In the beginning, the Mavs' long-lost aggression returned, especially when it came to Nowitzki, whose follow dunk in the lane off a missed dunk by Stackhouse put the Mavericks ahead 26-12.
It was looking at that point as though it might just be a rout like the last time these teams played here in Game 2, except for the fact that Wade hadn't even gotten started yet.
Wade's first point didn't come until 1:58 remained in the first quarter, and he had seven by the end of the quarter as part of a 15-4 run that got the Heat right back into contention. The score was 36-31 Mavs midway through the second quarter when Stern was shown on the videoboard, and the fans let him have it with boos. He hasn't been the most popular man in this town ever since Mark Cuban bought the Mavericks, and his league's suspension of Stackhouse for Game 5 and quarter-million dollar fine against Cuban prior to Game 6 fueled this latest booing, which was pretty intense.
Miami went scoreless during the 2½ minutes that Wade rested in the second quarter, and he came off the bench a little rusty. One of his three turnovers in the quarter led to a breakaway dunk by Marquis Daniels to get the Mavs' lead up to 46-36, but Wade led Miami back -- with some help from a highly questionable foul against Daniels that led to a three-point play as part of a 13-0 run that ended with a two-handed slam by Mourning off a behind-the-back pass from Jason Williams -- and ended the half with 19 points as Miami led 49-48 at the break.
Dallas had gone from tenacious to tentative, and it kept up in the third quarter. Howard picked up his fourth foul just more than three minutes into the second half, and Stackhouse joined him with four fouls two minutes later as Walker scored and was fouled off a steal by Wade. Walker did his famous shimmy shake as he lay on the ground after the bucket, which put Miami ahead 59-53.
A strong defensive stretch helped the Heat open a nine-point lead, but the game started to change after Mourning missed a foul shot that would have completed a three-point play, and the Mavericks turned the long rebound into a fast break that Daniels ended with an emphatic dunk. A subsequent three-point play by Daniels brought the Mavs even closer, and they trailed only 71-68 entering the fourth quarter.