The Miami Heat did not look ecstatic in the way teams that win Game 7s in the Eastern Conference Finals normally do. When the players would have been expected to flex their muscles and pump their fists, they instead seemed to exhale deeply. It was as though they did not see Saturday's victory as a rousing accomplishment, but as a bullet dodged.
Either way, this was going to end uncomfortably for one of the two "Big Threes" taking part. LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh were the subjects of speculation that their triumvirate would be broken up if they failed to oust the Celtics, while Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen have supposedly been on their final team-up for the last three years. No one was going to be traded or announce his retirement at the postgame podium, but the loser's locker room was guaranteed to be ill at ease.
Thanks to James, that uneasiness hung over the Celtics. The un-clutch superstar delivered again, scoring 11 of his 31 points in the fourth quarter and pulling down 12 rebounds to help hand Boston a 101-88 loss at AmericanAirlines Arena. Yet James alone did not defeat the Celtics, unlike in Game 6, when he seemed to be the only player on the court at times for either team. Shane Battier, who posted the lowest 3-point shooting percentage of his career in the regular season, drained four treys and was not even Miami's headlining long-range shooter. That was Chris Bosh, who made three triples and impacted the game in numerous other ways in his third game back from a strained abdominal muscle.
The game included 20 lead changes, 10 ties and eight players who each scored 16 points or more. For the final 8:06 of the third quarter and the first 4:25 of the fourth quarter, there were 13 lead changes and six ties, with neither team ever leading by more than two points.
But the Heat were young, athletic and had the ultimate trump card in Dwyane Wade, who had enough energy left after another struggle-filled first half to come through with 14 points in the decisive second half. The Celtics, who staved off the hazards of time all season just to make it to this point, finally started to front-rim their shots or rotate a split second too late defensively, and the results were disastrous for them.
"I was really proud of our guys, especially early on," Celtics coach Doc Rivers said. "You could just see they had the fight in them. They were going to play the right way. Honestly, I just thought toward the end we had nothing left."
Rivers, his eyes somewhat pink, seemed to have difficulty getting those words out. The coach stuck to his company line about not even thinking about the future of the roster and how there is plenty of time to sort that stuff out this summer, but the cracks in his voice were impossible to ignore. After the Celtics stood pat at the trade deadline, Rivers admitted it was "scary" to think about coaching a team without Pierce, Garnett and Allen. He now faces the very scary possibility that two of the three may have played their final game for the Celtics, with Garnett and Allen due for free agency.
This was far from the ultimate victory for the Heat, of course. When James, Wade and Bosh held their pre-championship party two summers ago, few could have conceived them as underdogs in any situation, yet that is what they will be in the NBA Finals against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Some of the more uncreative among us have even dubbed Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and James Harden as another "Big Three," although that overlooks the crucial roles played by Serge Ibaka, Kendrick Perkins and others. The Thunder are deeper than the Heat, just as talented and free of the exorbitant expectations the Heat face.
But for the time being, at least, the Heat know what awaits them. The Celtics only know that they did not want this all to be over, and now it could be in more ways than one.
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