Tiago Splitter rose up full-throttle, mean-mugged and toting bad intentions and a handful of basketball, and just then, LeBron James screamed, "You DO NOT collect $200, and you DO NOT PASS TIA-GO!" The play was key in a 30-5 run that made you slap yo mama and helped the Miami Heat even the NBA Finals at one game apiece. The team now heads to San Antonio, making you feeling like you better ask somebody if you had any doubt as to whether this Miami Heat team would be heard from in this series. The Miami Basketball Heat are officially once again a problem out here.
LeBron started out playing like your grandpa drives, hitting just two of his first 12 attempts from the floor. Then he held all of our hands at once, and South Florida collectively had the world's longest synchronized orgasm, as a family, like before Mom and Dad started fighting all the time. He would finish with 17 points, eight rebounds, seven assists, three steals, two blocks, and one 6'11" Brazillian guy's self-esteem and social security number.
Before LeBron James was so mean to the Spurs for the worst six minutes of their lives, the story of the game was Mario Chalmers. Yes, Mario Chalmers. Chalmers was doing that thing where he plays like a 1999 Sisqo beach music video and we all look at each other like someone just released a silent but deadly fart, finishing with 19 points on 6-12 shooting and NO TURNOVERS. Beyond the offense, Chalmers helped hold Tony Parker to just 13 points while committing five turnovers, one more than the entire Spurs team committed in the first game. Once again, Chalmers played his best basketball when it mattered most.
Early in the game, it was Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh keeping the Heat in the game, and even in the lead at times with LeBron having his worst game in recent memory. Wade and Bosh finished a combined 11-23 from the floor, with Bosh pulling down a rare double-double with 12 points and ten rebounds. Wade finished with just ten points, but it felt like a lot more because his shots seemed to come at critical times where the game's momentum was in flux.
This is the moment Tiago Splitter learns he's adopted. Immediately following this sequence, I had a Seven Nation Army in my pants (OK five and a half -- semantics). This play defied everything my eyes have been ever told; I had no idea some people are apparently immune to gravity AND leverage at the same time. LeBron James is so strong he would have been the strongest guy in the Sylvester Stallone classic Over the Top, and those guys had weird, superhuman, steroid-trucker strength and shit. When they get all terroristy with the basketball, Tiago Splitters get shot out of the sky by the Department of LeBron James Defense (DLJD). When LeBron retires, they should just have him sit on a metal folding chair atop the White House, because that would ensure nothing would ever fucking happen to the place.
The 30-5 run that blew this game's tits completely off was truly a thing to see. From time to time, the Miami Heat goes on something that can't be summed up as a "run," because it's more of a "purge." For whatever amount of time they decide to be in Mario Bros. invisible star mode, you just deal with it and wait it out like a loss of electricity in a thunderstorm. By the time this one was over, the stadium grew quiet and Tracy McGrady emerged from under some drywall to survey the damage. He reported back to the Spurs bench that things did not look good and that they better go ahead and take anyone out of the game they really care about. Starting the fourth quarter with a ten-point lead and then scoring 11 straight points is how you put teams away. I guess you could say in the Spurs of a moment, San Antonio was out of this game, right? RIGHT?!
Game Three is Tuesday night at 9 in San Antonio, and it's a series swinger. Win and you steal back home-court advantage and guarantee the fact that you will be heading home before any trophies go getting awarded. Lose and we go right back to that "Good Job, Good Effort" place, a place where everyone was right -- this crazy experiment would never work. A place where every other day there is a block party, but on off days is an empty, haunted town with a tornado siren blaring. A place that exists till it doesn't, until it does again next season. Game Three is pretty huge, but then again, every game the past three years has felt that way.
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