Improbable Becomes the Possible

On behalf of all the long-suffering Mavericks fans who waited all of those years before I got there for this trophy, I’d like to ... oh, darn.

Dallas owner Mark Cuban, who vowed to attend the championship celebration in Speedos, was measuring the Larry O’Brien trophy for his living room Tuesday night as the boos wafted down and white-clad Miami Heat fans filed up the aisles but a funny thing happened on the way to the inevitable.

Trailing, 2-0, in the series and, 89-76, with 6:34 left in Tuesday night’s game, the outclassed Heat staged one of the greatest and most improbable rallies in NBA Finals history, coming back to beat the Mavericks, who were about to take a 3-0 lead and now merely lead, 2-1 after the Heat’s 98-96 victory.

“You know, it didn’t look good, it didn’t feel good” said Heat Coach Pat Riley afterward, breaking up the interview room.

” ... I’m absolutely without doubt a true believer. You know, that’s it. I know players. I’ve been around players 40 years and I know when they look around and look up and they say, ‘This doesn’t look very good.’

“But you’ve just got to keep trying to get them to dig, to dig, to dig.... We got lucky a little bit. Playoffs are about that too.”

Dwyane Wade, jut getting over flu and limping on a sore knee, scored 12 of his 42 points in the 22-7 run that ended the game but it gets more improbable than that.

With 1:48 left, Shaquille O’Neal, who was four for 20 from the free-throw line in the series and had just shot one that bounced over the backboard, made two to cut the Dallas lead to 93-90.

“I just went back to the way I used to shoot when I was a youngster,” said O’Neal, “when I was a good player.”

And Gary Payton, who hadn’t taken a shot all game and was one for eight from the floor in the series, made a 21-footer to put the Heat ahead, 97-95, with nine seconds left.

And Dirk Nowitzki, the Mavericks star and a 90% free throw shooter this postseason, missed the second of two with three seconds left and a chance to tie it. “I don’t know what happened,” said Nowitzki. “I just shot it a little strong.”

He really doesn’t know what happened, having shot it a little weak so that it bounced off the front rim.

To that point, the Heat had been completely overwhelmed by the Mavericks, having lost two games to them this season and the first two in this series by margins of 37, 13, 10 and 14. In the last game, the Mavericks led by 27 points before coasting in, which made it two long days for the Heat waiting for Game 3 while becoming a nationwide object of scorn.

ABC’s Dan Patrick suggested the mysterious covered bowl in the Heat locker room might contain the “ashes of Stan Van Gundy’s coaching career.”

In Tuesday night’s ABC telecast, comedian Jimmy Kimmel did a bit at halftime on O’Neal’s free-throw problems, with a skit in which the Shaq miss that breaks the old record for misses bounces into the stands and is caught by a fan with a glove.

“Well, you know, let’s be realistic about what the world is about, OK, what the media is about,” said Riley before the game in a bristling defense of O’Neal. “Guys are looking to blame, maybe even before blame should be passed out. Shaquille O’Neal is one of the most worthy athletes that have ever walked on the face of this planet and he has one bad game ... “

The really bad news for the Heat was that Shaq came ready Tuesday night, scoring 10 points in the first half as the Heat went ahead by 10, and it still wasn’t good enough.

The Mavericks trailed, 52-43, at halftime but then went on a 46-24 run.

The Mavericks started the fourth quarter with a nine-point lead and increased it to 13 when Wade made a 14-foot bank shot ... and a driving layup on which he was fouled for a three-point play ... and a 17-foot jumper ... and a driving layup ... and a three-point basket.

That was 12 points in a row for the Heat, cutting it to 93-88 and setting the stage for all the wonders to come.

“Coach was calling the plays to get the ball in my hand,” said Wade. “At that moment, looking up at the score thinking, ‘No, I ain’t going out like this.’ ”

That’s a determined young man, who gets to play on.