Dragic’s bruising game
With black eyes and missing teeth, Miami’s contact point guard comes through at a critical time for the Heat
TORONTO— The price to be Goran Dragic? He taps his front teeth. “I’ve lost five teeth,” he says. He pushes his nose to the left. “It was way over here— four bones broken in it,” he says. “I was 16. Even now, when you look at me straight on, my nose goes to the side.”
Stitches? “It’s funny, I’ve got a lot but only on the left side ofmy face,” he says. “Four, five, six stitches at a time. Only one really bad one. I bumped heads with Mo Williams in Portland …”
He runs a finger down a faded scar above his left eye.
“… and needed13 stitches outside and eight inside.”
So the black eye Dragic received Tuesday night in the Game 1 win against Toronto? Dragic didn’t even knowwhen he got it. Nor does he really care.
“If I don’t have a black eye, I’m not really playing,” he said.
He has an unusual NBA game. He’s a contact point guard, one who wades inside against the tallest timber and doesn’t score with speed or athleticism so much as a quirky blend of toughness and old-fashioned shot-making.
Here’s the good news: He finally has his game going. Finally looks the big-contract player the Heat made him. Finally, these past couple playoff games, Dragic has found hisway to not just help the Heat but carry them in important stretches.
That’s the blueprint for this team to succeed, of course.
“Everyone can be ‘the guy’ for stretches in the game,” Dwyane Wade said. “Everyone has to be if we’re going to do anything.”
For so much of his time with the Heat, Dragic was the forgotten name, or the neglected one, or
“If I don’t have a black eye, I’m not really playing.” Goran Dragic,
Heat point guard
maybe more accurately an average point guard expected to be something more when signed by the Heat.
Even in the opening series against Charlotte, Dragic was being exposed by Hornets point guard Kemba Walker for most of the first six games. He couldn’t move defensively with Walker’s quickness. He had trouble scoring on offense.
“Theywere packing the paint so much on defense, Iwas having problems finding any room in there,” Dragic said. “I just couldn’t play like Iwanted.”
That always has been his game, going back to the neighborhood baskets in Slovenia. He always had such ease slicing through defenses and creating shots that he didn’t spend enough time developing an outside shot.
Charlotte pulled off him, daring him to shoot, and only at the end of that sixth game did he start to score consistently. He then poured in a game-high 25 points in Game 7.
That, by extension, rose his confidence to where the point guard was the notable difference for much of Tuesday’s Game1 in Toronto. The Raptors’ Kyle Lowry struggled, as he has all playoffs, to the point his three-of-13 shooting and seven points became an area to attack.
Dragic hasn’t scored more this season than the 26 points he had in Game1. He carried the Heat in the third quarter with 10 points and outplayed Lowry through the end.
“We’ll see where it goes,” Dragic said. “One game. That doesn’t mean too much. We know we can play a better game. We had 20 turnovers [Dragic had three]. That’s way toomany.
“And they knowthey can play better. I think everyone’s going to expect a better game next time.”
There are so many touchstones to this Heat team. Dwyane Wade closing. Hassan Whiteside’s defensive presence. Luol Deng filling in every gap. Dragic, of late, also has shown what his good play means to this team.
His toughness is a given. Another black eye on Tuesday? He didn’t even knowuntil he looked in the mirror afterward. That’s the cost of playing his game. It’s the production that’s needed amid the transparent toughness.
He stands at the Heat practice court, finally feeling his game under him. “I know what I can do,” he says. “I’m doing it now.”