NBA Finals: Miami Heat vs. Dallas Mavericks

[C-A-T-S]

Isn't there some kind of stat that says in the ESPN's 2-3-2 system, the team that wins game 3 wins the Championship 100% of the time?

Under the 2-3-2 format in the NBA Finals, when a series is tied 1-1, the Game 3 victor has won the series 100% of the time (11-0).

[theyhateme45]

LeBron is a hell of a player and is a phenomenal athlete. However, right now Wade is by far the more clutch player. He is just plain nasty with the ball in his hands.

Quite frankly, if you forced me to take one of the two on my team....I would take Wade.

What is this based off of??? 1 or 2 games in the entire playoffs??? What about the entire Bulls and celtics series.... even philly.

Let's not forget that this series Wade has a great matchup against old man J. Kidd!

[theyhateme45]

Not to add that he is averaging 20 points per game… his assist are leading to another 15 points per game,,, and LBJ is holding the person he is defending to 7 points per game this finals. LBJ is an all around player….

What has JT done against LBJ 0!!! What did rose do against him??? Little!! Both sides of the ball, closing games in various ways… scoring, assisting, and defending,

[TheRealDeal]

"Bitch if I have to tell you one more time to drive the lane....You can't shoot, drive the lane or pass me the ball, I'll show you the chosen one"

[DaCityKats]

you forgot who closed the other 3 series before this one.

[TheRealDeal]

you forgot who closed the other 3 series before this one.

SO what you are saying is that when the moment is at it's biggest, LeBron is at his worst?

Regular Season? Beast mode

First Round? I got that

Second Round? No big deal

Conference Finals? Bitch please

Finals? WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADE!

[King Taharqa]

That's Kobe fans for you, their worship of everything he does leads you to believe that the "leader" should always take the last shot, even if he is triple teamed. He never gets blamed when he misses though (which historically has been frequent). Even #23 didn't always shoot the last shot during his 6 title runs, one of the most famous shots was MJ hitting John Paxon for the wide open 3 against the Suns.

To Kobe fans, jacking up low percentage shots, throwing your teammates under the bus, and giving up when youre down 2 games or more is a sign of "killer instinct" and clutch leadership.

[Hawk]

haters gonna hate...just remember, 5 is better than....oh....zero!

even if Leprick does get carried into a win this season, it will have that * by it....doesn't take much talent to leave the team you were supposedly building to go to a contender and then try to take the King title!!! King...hahahahahahahhahaha...what a laugh!

[TheRealDeal]

To Kobe fans, jacking up low percentage shots, throwing your teammates under the bus, and giving up when youre down 2 games or more is a sign of "killer instinct" and clutch leadership.

What did LeBron do at the end of game 2? Every jumpshot he takes is low percentage

If you want to be the best player ever, you should at least be the best player on the court in the finals.

Right now, he's not even in the top 3 just in this series.

[theyhateme45]

haters gonna hate...just remember, 5 is better than....oh....zero!

even if Leprick does get carried into a win this season, it will have that * by it....doesn't take much talent to leave the team you were supposedly building to go to a contender and then try to take the King title!!! King...hahahahahahahhahaha...what a laugh!

How much talent does it take to win with a a top 50 hall of famer then??? Some people with multiple hall of fame players.

[TheRealDeal]

How much talent does it take to win with a a top 50 hall of famer then??? Some people with multiple hall of fame players.

???

You have a sentence that reads:

"Some people with multiple hall of fame players."

What does that mean? I'm trying to find the verb I just can't seem to do it.

[DaCityKats]

SO what you are saying is that when the moment is at it's biggest, LeBron is at his worst?

Regular Season? Beast mode

First Round? I got that

Second Round? No big deal

Conference Finals? Bitch please

Finals? WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADE!

right take it for what it's worth, you get whatever you want out of anything someone says. if thats the case lets look at Kobe, who havent closed a game outside of sacramento in 2 years. hell he couldnt even step up in game 7 during the 4th quarter in last year finals.....

[King Taharqa]

DALLAS -- Dirk Nowitzki needs scoring help and he knows teammate Jason Terry has yet to deliver in the NBA Finals.

Terry, the Dallas Mavericks' charismatic sixth man who likes to bust out his arms like airplane wings after he makes 3-pointers and prides himself on cold-blooded shooting in the clutch, has found little breathing room with Miami Heat forward LeBron James shutting him out of the late-game offense.

"They keep sticking him [James] on Jet in the fourth quarters and he's been doing a good job," Nowitzki said. "Jet hasn't really been a crunch-time, clutch player for us the way we need him to."

Nowitzki scored 34 points in the 88-86 Game 3 loss and he scored the Mavs' final 12 points of the game. Terry, the team's second-leading scorer, was 0-of-4 from the floor in the fourth quarter of the disappointing home loss that put the Mavs in a 2-1 hole with Game 4 on Thursday night at the American Airlines Center.

Terry is a combined 0-of-7 in the fourth quarters of the Mavericks' two losses in the NBA FInals.

"They know to take me out of the fourth quarter, which they didn't do in Game 2," Terry said of the Heat's choice to turn to James defensively, "then they got a good chance."

"Let's see if he can defend me like that for seven games," Terry said of James.

During the regular season, Nowitzki and Terry ranked at the top of the league with James and Dwyane Wade as the best fourth-quarter scoring duo. Nowitzki has held up his end, but the 6-2 Terry has struggled in late-game situations throughout the postseason and mightily so against the 6-8 James.

In the final 4:14 of Game 3, Terry missed a 3-point attempt, botched a driving layup and couldn't hit a go-ahead jumper from the baseline with 58.9 seconds to play.

"I had two opportunities," Terry said. "One in the corner for 3, LeBron closed out. The other one in the right corner, LeBron closed out again, didn't get enough air under it.

"Hey, it happens. If I get those same shots in Game 4, I bet I make them."

But Terry still seems hesitant to give too much credit to the Heat, even going so far as to say the Portland Trail Blazers were better on defense in the first-round series than Miami has been in the Finals.

"Portland, by far, has the best D," said Terry, who added that the Heat has a "great scheme" that is "working for them thus far this series."

Terry is 3-of-12 (25.0 percent) in the fourth quarters against Miami, which is not much worse than his overall fourth quarters in which he's shooting 29.3 percent (17-58) for an average of 3.2 points per fourth quarter.

"It's a call to arms. One man's not going to win it," Terry said. "Obviously, the big-wig [Nowitzki] is going to need to get some help, and I'm going to tell you this -- that we will be there in Game 4."

Terry's shooting woes complicate a growing problem for the Mavs and their heavily relied upon bench. The unit led the league in scoring during the regular season at about 40 points a game, and has been a steady contributor throughout the postseason until going up against the smothering Heat defense.

The bench is averaging 21.6 points in the three Finals games.

Peja Stojakovic is 1-of-5 from the floor and 0-of-4 from 3-point range in the series. He's played just 11 minutes in the past two games and coach Rick Carlisle hasn't gone back to him in the second halves of Games 2 and 3.

J.J. Barea, an effective penetrator against the Los Angeles Lakers and Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference finals, is seven points off his scoring average of the past two series and is shooting 21.7 percent from the floor and 12.5 percent from the 3-point range.

The onus falls on the 33-year-old, Terry, who is shooting below 39 percent since the end of the second round.

"We're going to have to ride our horses. It's just going to have to be something we have to do," Terry said. "They're doing it on their end. Hey, you got eight, seven days, however many days are left in this series. If you can't go out there and play 40-plus minutes as a major cog in the wheel, then you shouldn't be here."

http://sports.espn.go.com/dallas/nba/news/story?id=6632035

Very interesting article and quotes. Dirk Nowitzki admitting that J Terry hasnt been "clutch", and J Terry admitting LeBron's defense has bothered him. Again, to the casual fan, if you're not hoisting 30 shots a game in the Finals you're not contributing or "the man". Defense is undervalued or not valued at all to those folks. Last series it was D Rose, this series LeBron has taken the assignment of shutting down the Mavs 2nd leading scorer (who would normally be checked by D Wade by the way) and it has played a big part in people saying this week "Dirk needs help" when just last week it was the Mavs play "team ball" and the Heat are just 2 superstars. LOL. J Terry in this article even states "one man cant do it alone", but these delusional Laker fans swore Kobe got 5 rings all by himself and that Jordan didnt have help or 2 HOF coaches working with him when he won 6.

[TruCatzFan]

Why do you guys even entertain TRD? You know he's just butt-hurt that Kobe's sitting on the couch. Who cares what he says about LeBron or the Heat!?

The Lakers got a taste of the Heat on Christmas Day, and after that they decided not to be embarrassed by us in the Finals... So they elected to get swept by the Mavs.

End of story. TRD, it's time to take your ball and go home.