After a sluggish start that undoubtedly had everyone jumping through plate glass windows and setting their pants on fire, the Miami Heat managed to get their shit together to beat the Philadelphia 76ers 97-89 and take Game One of their first-round series.
The 76ers proved to be a scrappy bunch, mounting a furious fourth quarter comeback that almost ruined everyone's day. But Dwyane Wade was able to do that thing where he kicks everyone's ass in the closing moments of games and prevented the Heat from falling into a giant inferno of suck.
Wade's stat sheet will tell you that he was plagued with foul troubles and that he only managed to score 17 points. But you can't measure the size of a dude's sack on the stat sheet. And, in case anyone forgot, D-Wade leads the league in giant sack. Especially in the playoffs.
Shockingly, the Heat played like a bag of raccoon shit without Wade on the floor. With 4:37 remaining in the game, and D-Wade riding the pine with five fouls, Philadelphia went on a 12-0 run that cut the Heat's double-digit lead down to one.
Wade was eventually called back in and, even with one more penalty to go to foul out of the game, attacked relentlessly on both ends of the floor. Dwyane Wade probably wraps his leftovers in tinfoil before heating them up in the microwave. Dwyane Wade flagrantly flouts convention that way.
With 1:34 remaining, he hit an arching bank shot that extended Miami's lead to 92-87. The 76ers would never really threaten again after that.
The most troubling part of the game was the way Miami came out and played as if they expected the 76ers to just bend over and let the Heat have their way with them. Philadelphia jumped to a 25-11 lead to kick things off, forcing the Heat to have to pull off the big comeback.
Having Chris Bosh helps.
Bosh came out for the second half and found his mojo. He outscored entire 76ers team in the third quarter and screamed a lot after he made some dunks, which got everyone excited.
The naysayers and critics who have labeled him "soft" throughout the course of this season wondered if Bosh would wilt and be an ineffective wet lilly in his first ever playoff appearance. Bosh's 25-point, 12-rebound performance pretty much tells those critics that even though he may have mounds and mounds of laundry bags filled with fucks, he's just not giving any away.
So now that the Heat got that pesky first playoff win out of the way, they can concentrate on getting the other three in this round and move on to the second round. But, because the NBA playoff format has teams resting roughly 4,596 days in between games, we'll have to wait. MOMENTUM KILLING SCHEDULES! HIGH FIVE!
76ers at Heat Game 2 will be this Monday at 7 p.m..
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