Miami Herald Logo

Greg Cote: Miami Heat’s Game 1 thriller signals real start of playoffs | Miami Herald

×
  • E-edition
  • Home
    • Site Information
    • Contact Us
    • About Us
    • Herald Store
    • RSS Feeds
    • Special Sections
    • Advertise
    • Advertise with Us
    • Media Kit
    • Mobile
    • Mobile Apps & eReaders
    • Newsletters
    • Social
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Google+
    • Instagram
    • YouTube

    • Sections
    • News
    • South Florida
    • Miami-Dade
    • Broward
    • Florida Keys
    • Florida
    • Politics
    • Weird News
    • Weather
    • National & World
    • Colombia
    • National
    • World
    • Americas
    • Cuba
    • Guantánamo
    • Haiti
    • Venezuela
    • Local Issues
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Health Care
    • In Depth
    • Issues & Ideas
    • Traffic
    • Sections
    • Sports
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Pro & College
    • Miami Dolphins
    • Miami Heat
    • Miami Marlins
    • Florida Panthers
    • College Sports
    • University of Miami
    • Florida International
    • University of Florida
    • Florida State University
    • More Sports
    • High School Sports
    • Auto Racing
    • Fighting
    • Golf
    • Horse Racing
    • Outdoors
    • Soccer
    • Tennis
    • Youth Sports
    • Other Sports
    • Politics
    • Elections
    • The Florida Influencer Series
    • Sections
    • Business
    • Business Monday
    • Banking
    • International Business
    • National Business
    • Personal Finance
    • Real Estate News
    • Small Business
    • Technology
    • Tourism & Cruises
    • Workplace
    • Business Plan Challenge
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Cindy Krischer Goodman
    • The Starting Gate
    • Work/Life Balancing Act
    • Movers
    • Sections
    • Living
    • Advice
    • Fashion
    • Food & Drink
    • Health & Fitness
    • Home & Garden
    • Pets
    • Recipes
    • Travel
    • Wine
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Dave Barry
    • Ana Veciana-Suarez
    • Flashback Miami
    • More Living
    • LGBTQ South Florida
    • Palette Magazine
    • Indulge Magazine
    • South Florida Album
    • Broward Album
    • Sections
    • Entertainment
    • Books
    • Comics
    • Games & Puzzles
    • Horoscopes
    • Movies
    • Music & Nightlife
    • People
    • Performing Arts
    • Restaurants
    • TV
    • Visual Arts
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Jose Lambiet
    • Lesley Abravanel
    • More Entertainment
    • Events Calendar
    • Miami.com
    • Contests & Promotions
    • Sections
    • All Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Op-Ed
    • Editorial Cartoons
    • Jim Morin
    • Letters to the Editor
    • From Our Inbox
    • Speak Up
    • Submit a Letter
    • Meet the Editorial Board
    • Influencers Opinion
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Blog Directory
    • Columnist Directory
    • Andres Oppenheimer
    • Carl Hiaasen
    • Leonard Pitts Jr.
    • Fabiola Santiago
    • Obituaries
    • Obituaries in the News
    • Place an Obituary

    • Place an ad
    • All Classifieds
    • Announcements
    • Apartments
    • Auctions/Sales
    • Automotive
    • Commercial Real Estate
    • Employment
    • Garage Sales
    • Legals
    • Merchandise
    • Obituaries
    • Pets
    • Public Notices
    • Real Estate
    • Services
  • Public Notices
  • Cars
  • Jobs
  • Moonlighting
  • Real Estate
  • Mobile & Apps

  • el Nuevo Herald
  • Miami.com
  • Indulge

Greg Cote

Greg Cote: Miami Heat’s Game 1 thriller signals real start of playoffs

By Greg Cote

    ORDER REPRINT →

May 23, 2013 12:01 AM

This was more like it. Ten games in, the playoffs felt like they started for real for the Heat here Wednesday night. Welcome back, tension and doubt. Good to see you again, major challenge. We missed you, edge of seat.

Miami has itself a series — seriously.

Finally.

Deliciously.

Sign Up and Save

Get six months of free digital access to the Miami Herald

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

#ReadLocal

Unqualified Milwaukee wasn’t any of that in a first-round Miami sweep.

Wounded, depleted Chicago really wasn’t in a five-game second round.

The Indiana Pacers look like a different story, like a team capable of standing up to the reigning NBA champions.

Not beating them, perhaps — not quite — but standing up to them and making this a tenacious series, an antidote to the anticlimax of the first two.

The NBA’s Eastern Conference finals began with a thriller won by Miami 103-102 in overtime on a LeBron James driving layup at the final buzzer Wednesday night.

He touched the ball with 2.2 seconds left.

“I knew I had time,” LeBron said calmly.

Indiana has two effective big men in David West and Roy Hibbert.

But Indiana doesn’t have LeBron, who finished with 30 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists. Nor does Indy have anybody off the bench like Chris “Birdman” Andersen, who had 16 points on 7-for-7 shooting.

“It just came down to finding a way,” coach Erik Spoelstra said.

New nickname for LeBron, an alternate to King:

The Way.

“He has an all-everything role for us,” Spoelstra said.

Miami had trailed by six at the half with a 37-point effort that tied a club record for a postseason low. It seems this was the game Miami would lose, if it was to lose a game at all.

“The way to beat the Miami Heat is to beat them physically,” TV analyst Charles Barkley raved then. “This was the perfect half for Indiana.”

And this is why they play second halves, Chuck.

Miami appeared to rally for a narrow victory until the Pacers’ Paul George prayered in a long three-point basket with .7 seconds left to force overtime, sucking the party from the building in an instant.

LeBron would soon reignite it — thanks in part to a weird coaching decision by Indiana’s Frank Vogel that did not work.

Vogel removed 7-2 center Hibbert from the game in the closing seconds, removing the team’s rim defender.

LeBron went to work.

He drove to the less-guarded rim for a 101-99 lead with 10.8 seconds left, then his driving layup at the buzzer finished it.

You wonder which way Indiana will go now.

Will the Pacers be demoralized from having let slip a grand chance for a Game 1 upset?

Or did this convince them they can stand and play with Miami?

This was a different kind of test for the Heat, too, after the ease of the first two rounds.

Miami’s victories in the first two rounds had been by an average of 16 points, a parade of walkovers and waltzes.

This was closer to the kind of heavyweight bout that slugs its way into the late rounds with both fighters exhausted but still punching.

Somebody is going to fall.

Somebody is going to raise his glove in triumph.

The Bulls won Game 1 in Miami, but that was different. The Heat was rusty coming off a long break.

The Pacers, bigger and healthier than the Bulls and a better defensive team, didn’t quite win Game 1 but emerged from it as a bigger threat.

Chicago winning the series opener felt like an aberration, like nothing to really worry a Heat fan.

Indiana looms as more worrisome even in defeat.

This series, now, feels more like the kind of challenge Miami endured, and overcame, in the playoffs a year ago en route to that championship parade.

Last year, the Heat was surrounded by defeat and doubt, and overcame both.

Wednesday night almost brought a feeling of déjà vu.

In 2012, the Heat trailed these same Pacers two games to one in the second round, with Game 4 back in Indianapolis. Miami did not lose again.

Then the Heat trailed Boston three games to two in the Eastern finals. Miami did not lose again.

Then Oklahoma City won Game 1 of the NBA Finals. And Miami did not lose again.

The Heat kept rising to the challenge last postseason, rising, rising and rising.

It looked for the longest time Wednesday night that Miami would face a similar challenge, another deficit.

Chris Bosh was looking for a metaphor for what these playoffs are like. When you’re that tall, I guess you tend to think vertically.

“We’re trying to climb that mountain again,” he’d said in the buildup to this latest playoff series.

The Heat reached the summit a year ago but the climb was treacherous, buffeted by swirling winds and falling rocks.

This year’s climb was smooth. It might as well have been on an escalator.

That could still change. It almost did in a heart-stopping Game 1.

That mountain almost got steeper fast. The wind seemed to pick up. Rocks started falling.

Then came LeBron, the ultimate answer. The Way.

The final buzzer sounded, but you couldn’t even hear it.

The bedlam in the building drowned out the sound.

Related stories from Miami Herald

latest-news

LeBron James hits game-winner to give Miami Heat 1-0 series lead over Indiana Pacers

May 23, 2013 12:01 AM

linda-robertson

Linda Robertson: Chris Bosh needs to be more than an X-factor for Miami Heat

May 23, 2013 12:01 AM

HOMEPAGE

Game stats | Heat 103, Pacers 102 (OT)

May 23, 2013 02:38 AM

HOMEPAGE

Blog | Heat Check

May 25, 2012 06:07 AM

  Comments  

Videos

Behind the scenes with Dan Le Batard

Greg Cote's Back in My Day: Halloween!

View More Video

Trending Stories

Patriots owner Robert Kraft is among the hundreds charged in Florida sex traffic sting

February 22, 2019 12:23 PM

Trump threatens to deport Venezuelan military officials’ families that have fled to Miami

February 22, 2019 07:21 PM

It’s about to get easier for legal immigrants in Miami to get their papers. Faster, too.

February 22, 2019 03:14 PM

Judge in Acosta/Epstein case gets it right. Now what?

February 21, 2019 10:39 PM

Florida mayor accused of playing doctor without a license fired shots at SWAT, cops say

February 21, 2019 10:40 AM

Read Next

Anyone in Zion Williamson’s shoes would be wise to shut it down and await NBA riches
Video media Created with Sketch.

Greg Cote

Anyone in Zion Williamson’s shoes would be wise to shut it down and await NBA riches

By Greg Cote

    ORDER REPRINT →

February 21, 2019 12:33 PM

Duke Blue Devils forward Zion Williamson — expected to be the No. 1 pick in the 2019 NBA Draft — went down with a knee sprain in a game against North Carolina when his Nike sneaker suffered a blowout.

KEEP READING

Sign Up and Save

#ReadLocal

Get six months of free digital access to the Miami Herald

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

MORE GREG COTE

No matter how this season ends for the Heat, Dwyane Wade is going out a winner

Greg Cote

No matter how this season ends for the Heat, Dwyane Wade is going out a winner

February 20, 2019 01:24 PM
Marlins open spring in full rebuild mode, but here are 6 reasons fans should feel good

Greg Cote

Marlins open spring in full rebuild mode, but here are 6 reasons fans should feel good

February 18, 2019 04:57 PM
Kaepernick, NFL reach collusion settlement, but stain on league stays until he’s signed

Greg Cote

Kaepernick, NFL reach collusion settlement, but stain on league stays until he’s signed

February 15, 2019 04:25 PM
PGA Tour star was wrong to stiff caddie, but vilification of Matt Kuchar is wrong, too

Greg Cote

PGA Tour star was wrong to stiff caddie, but vilification of Matt Kuchar is wrong, too

February 14, 2019 01:48 PM
Big decision on a small QB, but here’s why Kyler Murray is perfect for Miami Dolphins

Greg Cote

Big decision on a small QB, but here’s why Kyler Murray is perfect for Miami Dolphins

February 13, 2019 12:23 PM
Costas spoke out about the dangers of the NFL. It cost him his job — but not his integrity

Greg Cote

Costas spoke out about the dangers of the NFL. It cost him his job — but not his integrity

February 11, 2019 02:03 PM
Take Us With You

Real-time updates and all local stories you want right in the palm of your hand.

Icon for mobile apps

Miami Herald App

View Newsletters

Subscriptions
  • Start a Subscription
  • Customer Service
  • eEdition
  • Vacation Hold
  • Pay Your Bill
  • Rewards
Learn More
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletters
  • News in Education
  • Public Insight Network
  • Reader Panel
Advertising
  • Place a Classified
  • Media Kit
  • Commercial Printing
  • Public Notices
Copyright
Commenting Policy
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service


Back to Story