INDIANAPOLIS — The coveted NBA championship, the one LeBron James needs to validate everything, was vanishing. INDIANAPOLIS — The coveted NBA championship, the one LeBron James needs to validate everything, was vanishing. ADVERTISING With 18,000 towel-waving fans roaring like the
INDIANAPOLIS — The coveted NBA championship, the one LeBron James needs to validate everything, was vanishing.
With 18,000 towel-waving fans roaring like the engines at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the Indiana Pacers had knocked the Miami Heat to the floor and to the edge of elimination.
James didn’t panic. He simply picked up his teammates and carried them to a win.
And this time, Dwyane Wade helped.
James scored 40 points with 19 rebounds and nine assists, and Wade added 30 points — 22 in the second half — as Miami rallied to even its semifinal series against Indiana with a 101-93 win on Sunday over the Pacers, who had the defending Eastern Conference champions down but couldn’t keep them there.
“I felt like I had to do whatever it took to win,” said James, who played all but 4 minutes.
With All-Star forward Chris Bosh injured and back in Florida, the James-Wade tag team saved the Heat, who will host Game 5 on Tuesday night at AmericanAirlines Arena.
“Me and ’Bron had it going,” said Wade, who bounced back from the worst playoff game of his career — five points on 2-of-13 shooting — with one of his best. “We played off of each other very well. We both were aggressive at the same time. That’s beautiful basketball for the Miami Heat when we play that way.”
The Heat now head home back in control of the best-of-seven series, which is down to a best-of-three with two of the games on Miami’s home floor.
“It’s still going to be a dogfight,” James said.
Udonis Haslem, playing with a large bandage covering a nasty cut over his right eye that required nine stitches, added 14 points for Miami.
For a while, the Heat’s season was slipping away.
The underrated Pacers had built a 10-point lead in the third quarter and were threatening to run away as they did in Game 3, when James and Wade took over. They scored 38 consecutive points in one stretch bridging the second and third quarters and combined to score 28 of Miami’s 30 in the third when the Heat seemed to be playing with two to Indiana’s five.
“LeBron had that look,” Heat forward Shane Battier said. “And when he has that look and Dwyane has that look, you want to run through a wall.”
Wade finished with nine rebounds and six assists, erasing the ugly memory of Game 3 when he also had a confrontation with Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, a public dispute that turned into a bigger deal than it probably was because of a two-day break between games. The next day, Wade, who has refused to blame injuries for his recent struggles, visited his former Marquette coach Tom Crean, who is now at Indiana.
Wade said Crean had film for him to watch.
“I was able to be a student of the game,” Wade said. “Just figuring out what I needed to do differently to help our team get this win. I just wanted to come out today and affect the game somehow. Obviously, I knew I was struggling a little bit on my offensive game. I wasn’t going to let that affect my overall game.”
James dismissed the idea the Heat were a desperate team.
“That’s a strong word,” he said. “It’s a team with a lot of veterans and a lot of fighters.”
Danny Granger scored 20, and Paul George had 13 to lead the Pacers. Center Roy Hibbert, so dominant at both ends in Game 3, had just 10 points and was in foul trouble in the second half.
Indiana coach Frank Vogel second-guessed his decision to keep Hibbert and David West on the bench for a long stretch after halftime. But it was the Pacers’ inability to stop Wade and James that was the difference.
“You get the ball out of one of those guy’s hands and it gets to the other guy’s,” he said. “It’s not like one superhero and a bunch of role guys.”
Granger’s 3-pointer had given Indiana a 61-51 lead, and the Pacers, outhustling the Heat to loose balls, appeared poised to take a commanding lead in the series.
But that’s when James and Wade put on a jaw-dropping spectacle, combining for all but two points in a 25-5 run that put Miami up 76-66.
During one sequence, Wade lost his balance and fell and was lucky to push the ball toward James near the top of the key. As Wade scrambled to his feet, James alertly passed him the ball, and he calmly knocked down a 3-pointer to give the Heat a 64-63 lead. The pair made easy shots, tough ones and did everything in their power to steer Miami away from a 3-1 hole.
Only eight teams in league history have overcome a 3-1 deficit to win a best-of-seven series. That’s what the Heat were staring at with a loss in Game 4.
Heat 101, Pacers 93
MIAMI (101)
Battier 1-7 0-0 3, James 14-27 12-16 40, Turiaf 0-0 0-0 0, Chalmers 3-9 0-0 8, Wade 13-23 2-6 30, Anthony 1-2 2-2 4, Cole 0-1 0-0 0, Haslem 5-6 4-4 14, Miller 1-3 0-0 2, J.Jones 0-2 0-0 0. Totals 38-80 20-28 101.
INDIANA (93)
Granger 8-18 0-0 20, West 3-8 2-2 8, Hibbert 4-9 2-4 10, Hill 2-9 2-2 8, George 4-11 4-4 13, Hansbrough 2-5 4-4 8, Barbosa 3-10 2-2 8, Collison 6-7 4-6 16, D.Jones 0-0 0-0 0, Amundson 1-2 0-0 2. Totals 33-79 20-24 93.
Miami 18 28 30 25 — 101
Indiana 25 29 16 23 — 93
3-Point Goals—Miami 5-12 (Wade 2-2, Chalmers 2-5, Battier 1-3, Miller 0-1, J.Jones 0-1), Indiana 7-22 (Granger 4-9, Hill 2-4, George 1-5, Collison 0-1, Barbosa 0-3). Fouled Out—None. Rebounds—Miami 55 (James 18), Indiana 45 (Hibbert 9). Assists—Miami 20 (James 9), Indiana 17 (George 5). Total Fouls—Miami 24, Indiana 28. Technicals—Granger. A—18,165 (18,165).
