Heat know what to expect from Thunder in Game 3
MIAMI — At this point a year ago, LeBron James and Dwyane Wade were using words like urgency and desperation.
And that’s exactly what the Miami Heat expect the Oklahoma City Thunder to bring into Game 3 of this year’s NBA Finals.
So far, this championship series has followed the same script as a year ago, with the home team winning the opening matchup, then falling in Game 2 to lose the home- court edge. Miami took the sting of that into Dallas last year and used it as fuel to win Game 3 — and the Heat will look to ensure that trend doesn’t repeat itself when the title matchup resumes on their home floor tonight.
“You’ve got the two best teams in the league right now going against each other,” Wade said Saturday, when practices re- sumed after a day off for both clubs. “So it’s going to be a very tough game, but we have to find a way to win it. And it’s about taking, like I said, one possession at a time, one second, one minute at a time to make sure we reach our goal — and that’s to win the game.”
A Game 3 victory assures nothing, a lesson the Heat learned the hard way last year. That win in Dallas was Miami’s final victory of the season.
But there are certain truths that will come from the outcome tonight. The winner will have home- court advantage. The winner will be two games away from a championship. And the losing club will see what appears to be an already razor- thin margin for error in this series become even more precarious.
“We have no other choice,” said Thunder star Kevin Durant, the league’s scoring champion. “We lost at home. Tough loss. We’ve got to get over it, get ready for a tough Game 3. You know, the series is going to be tough. We know that. We know that. You’ve just got to be ready. It’s going to be a fun one.”
By now, the Heat aren’t shy to say they’re completely exhausted about dissecting what went wrong in last year’s finals. Still, they know the importance of not letting one loss turn into another — because when that happened against the Mavericks a year ago, there was a parade in Dallas not long afterward.
“I don’t know if we were any more motivated in Game 2,” Erik Spoelstra said. “What we were was angry about our performance in Game 1. ... You want to throw your best punches out there, and may the best team win. We didn’t throw our best punches in Game 1.”
Add up the numbers from the first two
pionship game at 7: 30.
A portion of the tournament proceeds will fund a Ryan White Scholarship, to be given annually to a graduating Lakeside senior beginning in 2013.
White, the son of Lakeside boys basketball coach Tommy White, played for the 2001 Class AA Rams’ state- championship team and coached Lakeside to consecutive titles in 2007- 08. After his first season as head coach at Senatobia, Miss., High School, Ryan White died in an automobile accident in February 2010.
“Ryan was such an inspiration to our young kids,” Lakeside Baseball Association president Reggie Ritter said in an email. “Our LBA team wanted to try and get this started and hopefully ( continue it) for years to come.”