Last night’s match between the Heat and the Mavericks has sports fans talking about the surprise ending, where the Mavs rallied from a 15-point deficit to win 95-93, resulting in a 1-1 match ahead of the upcoming three games in Dallas.
With seven minutes remaining, Dwyane Wade sunk a three pointer to stretch Miami’s lead to its biggest margin of the night, and then he did the unthinkable. He joined LeBron James in a premature and unsportsmanlike victory party –in front of the Mavericks bench as a timeout was called. Apparently, that in-your-face attitude ignited the Mavericks’ fighting spirit. As Dallas center Tyson Chandler explains, “He celebrated in front of our bench and I think it angered a lot of us.” “We came out there and we responded. It is upsetting when you are out there playing hard and someone celebrates right in front of your bench. We just wanted to come out and respond to it, continue to play and walk them down,” he said.
Mavericks’ guard Jason Terry added that it was a defining moment for the team. “Right at that moment, it was a turning point in the game. Obviously we come out of that timeout, and if we don’t score, then we’re pretty much dead,” he said. “We looked at each guy in the huddle to a man. Me, I, specifically looked at Dirk (Nowitzki) and said, ‘there’s no way we’re going out like this.’
In response to the criticism, Wade said there was nothing out of the ordinary about how LeBron and he reacted to his three-pointer. “Every team in the league, when they go on a run they do something. Whether it’s a signal or a chest bump, it’s part of the game of basketball,” he said. “A celebration is confetti, champagne bottles. There was no celebration. It was a shot made going into a timeout.” Wade acknowledges, however, that his antic may have had an influence on Dallas. “It pumped them up? They won the game, obviously it did something, that’s not the first time and it won’t be the last if we do a great play, that we do something with our team mates.”