Sheridan: The Heat are a Beauty and a Beast

“We understood this game was a survival game,” said coach Erik Spoelstra, whose team will take the day off Friday, as will the Spurs. It’ll be a reset day, a day of rest, a day to think back and to think ahead.

We have seen the Spurs at close to their very best in Game 3 when they set an NBA Finals record with 16 3-pointers, we have seen Tony Parker at his best in Game 1 when his 23.99-second possession locked up the series opener.

And we have now seen something we had not seen in 100 days – a 30-point game from Wade, whose biggest distinction previously in this postseason was going 13 consecutive games without scoring 20 points. He had actually become an afterthought, a guy who wasn’t even talked about all that much when the discussion turned to what the Heat needed to save their season and get back in this series.

All the talk was about LeBron James, but do you know where he was when this one was decided in from the 9:34 mark of the fourth quarter until the 6:05 mark? On the bench, watching Wade turn back the clock and take over like it was 2006 all over again.

Three steals, two jumpers, a dunk and an assist.

The lead grew from 7 to 13 with LeBron watching in his warmups.

“That dude was amazing. He was ’06 Flash tonight, and we needed every bit of him,” James said. “The 25 shots (the same number as James attempted) let me know that he was very aggressive, every shot that he took. He wasn’t passive. If they went under (a screen), he shot his jumper. In transition he attacked the rim. He continued to attack throughout the game.

“And no matter how great you are, no matter what your resume is, to have a game like this, it lets you know that you are still one bad … you know the next two words. I can’t say them, my kids may be watching,” James said.

The effort play that put a signature on this one came not from Wade or James, but from Bosh with 3:55 remaining and the lead up to 15 points. Cory Joseph was in the game at that point, having subbed in for a strangely ineffective Tony Parker (zero second-half points). The backup point guard attempted an entry pass inside to Duncan on the low block, and Bosh dived to intercept the ball and call timeout as he rolled toward the sideline in front of the Miami bench.

Floor burns for Bosh with a 15-point lead?

Just a monumental effort play, the type he and the other members of the Big Three had been making all night.

Bosh’s steal represented the 19th and final turnover of the night for a Spurs team that came out of the gate blazing in the first quarter but lost their mojo when Popovich curiously substituted Parker out of the game just 6 minutes in with the Spurs ahead by 8 (which would be their largest lead of the night) as Parker scored eight of their first 15 points.

San Antonio was never the same afterward, losing all of their lead and falling behind by three at the end of the first quarter, then watching their fans head for the exits with more than 3 minutes left.

The Spurs got a mere 5 points from Manu Ginobili, who is a shell of his former self. They were forced to match Miami’s small-ball lineup, they didn’t get anything special out of anybody (Danny Green and Gary Neal were a combined 6-for-9 on 3s, but perhaps they set the bar a little too high in Game 3), and they were helpless in finding a way to stop any of Miami’s Big Three.

“When those guys are playing like that, you’d better be playing a more perfect game,” Popovich said.

A more perfect game is not possible from the Heat, is it?

But what about another perfect game, maybe two?

Do they have it in them?

We know that they do, because we just saw it. But the bigger question remains: Will we see it again?

We know they have it in them, but we also understand that nobody is capable of perfection every night.

And so it goes to Game 5 tied 2-2, and we’ll see from here whose resilience is greater. Of the 27 Finals that have been tied 2-2, the winner of Game 5 has gone on to win the series 20 times.

In less than a week, we’ll know who was the better team. And if the basketball gods smile on us all, we’ll get a Game 7 for the ages next Thursday night. For now, we have two days to ponder perfection — and to wonder if we shall see it again.

Chris Sheridan is publisher and editor-in-chief of SheridanHoops.com. Follow him on Twitter.