# 2nd Round: #1 Pacers vs. #4 Heat



## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

Articles, thoughts, comments, etc.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/sfl-heat06may06,0,6123504.story?coll=sfla-sports-front


The Indiana Pacers, the Heat's next challenge in these NBA playoffs, have been idle since completing a dominating four-game sweep of the Boston Celtics on April 25.

"It could be them coming out with fresh legs, or it could be them coming out very rusty," Heat guard Dwyane Wade said Wednesday. "Or it could be us coming out fatigued, or it could be us coming out and playing in the groove we've been in."

Yet time hardly stands as the overriding difference between these teams as they converge at Conseco Fieldhouse in downtown Indianapolis.

Then again, perhaps it does.

In terms of talent, goals and expectations, these teams are light years apart.

"They won 19 more games than we did," Heat coach Stan Van Gundy said. "There's a reason for that. The bottom line is in the regular season there can't be any question they were the best team in NBA."


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/sfl-hyde06may06,0,5135871.column?coll=sfla-sports-front


Here's a word you might want to keep handy for the next four or five Heat games:

Yet.

As in: This Heat team isn't quite there yet. It isn't at Indiana's level yet. It doesn't have its roster completely aligned, or its young kids with enough basketball scars, to match up evenly with this tested and rested Pacers team.

Yet.

You see, it's a wonderful word. It allows you to be realistic about the Heat's chances in this Eastern Conference semifinal series that starts tonight in Indianapolis. But at the same time it allows you to be wholly optimistic about what even making this series means to this franchise's brightening future.

Let's make this simple: No one can realistically expect the Heat to win this best-of-7 series. The Pacers are that good. They had the best record in the NBA's regular season. And, no, all that's not simply because they were best in the East.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/sfl-skolnick06xmay06,0,1608598.column?coll=sfla-sports-front


You know that character. He's the one who missed 12 games in 2002-03 due to league or team-imposed suspensions, unable to go a week without a technical foul, flagrant foul or five-figure fine. He's the one who, in a January 2003 game, kneed Caron Butler out of bounds, forcing Butler to get an MRI on his foot; got in a shouting match with Heat assistant Keith Askins; twice sauntered over to taunt Pat Riley, who was forced to shove the intruder away; gave the Heat crowd his middle finger; and flexed for effect.

"It was a pretty big bicep, too," a smiling Riley said. "He let us know he's a man."

No, Artest actually did that this season, by staying out of trouble, and letting his play speak for him, until his appreciative coach, Rick Carlisle, spoke on his behalf for Defensive Player of the Year, distributing stats showing Artest's assignments scored just 8.1 per game. No one ever questioned Artest's ability. Lamar Odom saw it on the AAU teams the two New Yorkers shared with Elton Brand: "You can imagine. We didn't lose much. We kind of kicked the whole country's butt."

Even Riley said, after last season's incident: "I'd like to have two or three Ron Artests myself."


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/sfl-htshoot06may06,0,3809229.story?coll=sfla-sports-front


The one thing the Heat has been consistent about in the draft lottery the past two years has been finding wonderfully athletic players who can't shoot straight.

When listing the most appealing qualities of Caron Butler at UConn and Dwyane Wade at Marquette, shooting was not even a talking point.

"No," Wade said, "I didn't shoot a lot in college. I attacked the basket."

Butler said, "At UConn, I was more of a transition guy. I'd get out on the break and make things happen."

Now, flash forward to these past two weeks.

There, at the end of Game 5 of the Heat's playoff series against New Orleans, was Wade draining a game-winning 3-pointer with the prettiest release this side of Peja Stojakovic.

And there, at the start of Wednesday's Game 7, was Butler draining jumper after jumper after jumper.

The reason why the Heat suddenly has a shot? Because it has a shot.

"Now," Butler said, "we're getting looks, like, `Whoa!'"


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/basketball/8590714.htm

With 20,286 pleading for a Heat win in a winner-take-all Game 7, out walked Dwyane Wade, a rookie; Caron Butler, a second-year player with no previous playoff experience; Lamar Odom, also experiencing his first postseason; Eddie Jones, who has never played in a Game 7; and Brian Grant, who lost the only Game 7 in which he has participated.

How was this group supposed to answer a deafening crowd's plea, shake off all the pressure that comes with every Game 7 and beat a New Orleans team that has not only been here before but had won three of the past four games in this series?

By taking all the drama out of the game early, that's how.

A relatively inexperienced Heat team jumped on the Hornets from the opening tip of its 85-77 win Tuesday, building confidence as the lead grew and en route to winning the series 4-3 advancing to the second round against Indiana, starting Thursday in Indianapolis.

''The energy we came out with was incredible,'' Heat coach Stan Van Gundy said. ``The one thing you couldn't question at the start of that game, you could not question whether our guys were afraid or not.''


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/columnists/dan_le_batard/8591139.htm


Welcome to the NBA playoffs, Miami.

Congratulations on the biggest basketball victory we've seen around here in years. You know your reward?

Now you get to do it against the team with the NBA's best record, the Indiana Pacers. Miami is the worst of the eight remaining playoff teams, by far, but they have a chance, which is all you can ask for this time of year. Unfortunately, that chance has to go through a team that won more this season than Shaquille O'Neal's, Tim Duncan's, Kevin Garnett's or anybody else's team.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves here. The Heat have, oh, about six minutes to enjoy this. Indiana has been resting for 10 days after dismissing the Boston Celtics without breaking a sweat. But concentrating on the Pacers today is like worrying about the hangover before you've even opened the bottle of champagne.

''There's a lot more work to do,'' said the Heat's Udonis Haslem. ``Let's enjoy the moment, but we've got to get ready to make more moments.''

They made a pretty magical one Tuesday. It helped that New Orleans star Baron Davis was injured in the first half, and that the Hornets had to use players who hadn't gotten much time this series or even this season, but that doesn't diminish or default this. You don't return a winning lottery ticket just because you accidentally won by picking unintentional numbers.

Wade, for one, stared up into the jubilant crowd after this one was done and let this feeling wash over him.

''That's the feeling we envisioned,'' he said. ``Got the Miami Heat back to that position when a lot of people didn't expect it. I saw a lot of happy faces, a lot of smiling. It was joyful. We're one of the last teams standing. What an unbelievable feeling.''


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/columnists/greg_cote/8590712.htm


The Heat and Caron Butler were midseason castaways, adrift, forgotten. The NBA playoffs were a speck on the horizon then, surely unreachable. And the promise Butler had shown as a rookie the year before seemed just as remote. Far, far away.

Wasn't that hard to fathom on a Tuesday night that saw a season refuse to sink at the rollicking bayside arena?

Watching Miami win a Game 7 series to become the unlikeliest team -- by far -- to survive the playoffs' first round?

And watching Butler lead the whole thing as unmistakably as a grand marshal does a parade?

''A lot of people were counting us out in the beginning and for a long time,'' Butler said after the 85-77 elimination of New Orleans. ``And it seemed like everybody was counting me out, too. It was motivation.''

Butler was the rookie who struggled his second year. Hurt his knee. Came back too soon. Came back to find an offense that once worked through him now running its plays through the team's new stars, Lamar Odom and hot rookie Dwyane Wade, along with veteran Eddie Jones.

Suddenly No. 4, Butler, was option No. 4 on offense. Ego and pride took a hit.

And so you can imagine how sweet Tuesday was for Butler. One of the biggest stages in sports, Butler commanded the spotlight. Took over the biggest game of his life. He ended with a team-high 23 points, but it was his early blitzkrieg that defined the game, lit a fuse to the crowd, set the Hornets back on their heels -- where they stayed.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/basketball/8591706.htm



Thugs? Goons? Bullies? Bad boys?

You won't find those labels on the Miami Heat.

But there they were Tuesday night, the younger, smaller team from Miami going up and over, around and through New Orleans in Game 7 the NBA first-round series.

That's right, the Heat went inside in Game 7, and came out looking right at Indiana after a 85-77 victory that sends Miami into the second round of the playoffs.

And it never felt better.

''A lot of people were talking about how they beat us up down there, how they took it to us,'' said Lamar Odom, who was ripped around the country for letting P.J. Brown outplay him in Game 6.

''The hell with Game 6,'' said Odom with a nasty look on his face


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.indystar.com/articles/4/143768-3384-179.html


The Indiana Pacers conducted their last practice in the dark Tuesday.

Today, they'll have the luxury of knowing they will play the Miami Heat when they open the second round of the NBA playoffs Thursday.

Their opponents in the seven workouts they've conducted since eliminating Boston on April 25 were boredom and procrastination. They're giving themselves high marks, however, for maintaining a high energy level and focusing on improvement.

"This has been a challenge, but it's given us a chance to work on what we need to work on," coach Rick Carlisle said. "We've had a chance to address some things we've needed to address."


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.indystar.com/articles/3/144041-2023-179.html


Ron Artest wants to be known as the poor man's Michael Jordan. To do it, he knows he has to overcome his label as Indiana's equipment-tossing heir to Bobby Knight.

The Pacers' forward, who will again draw the toughest defensive assignment Thursday night in Indiana's second-round NBA playoff series against the Miami Heat (9 ET, TNT), is almost there on both counts.



Defensively, the 6-7 forward has become a force, and he'll draw his typical assignment against the Miami Heat. "Whoever is on fire," Artest says, providing no advance notice if he'll open on Caron Butler, Dwyane Wade or Lamar Odom.

"He's 250 pounds and can guard any one of four positions," says Indiana's Reggie Miller, citing Artest's quick hands, feet and uncanny anticipation. "His dad is a boxer and he takes that adage to keep pounding and pounding away. Like wearing a fighter down."


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.indystar.com/articles/7/143915-4787-179.html


Indiana Pacers forward Jermaine O'Neal couldn't help but smile while watching the Miami Heat prevail over New Orleans in a grueling first-round series.

"They're looking tired," O'Neal said today. "They had a tough, physical series with New Orleans and that's kind of what we wanted. We wanted those guys to beat up on each other and when they see us, we throw 10 or 12 guys at you that can really play."

The Heat finally finished off the Hornets with a Game 7 win on Tuesday, giving them just one day to prepare for the top-seeded Pacers. Game 1 of the second-round series is Thursday night.

The Pacers, on the other hand, have had an 11-day layoff since wrapping up their first-round sweep of Boston way back on April 25.

"Coming off an 11-day break, I'm not worried as much as I am curious as to how we'll respond," Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said. "I know we'll be anxious and I know we'll be ready to play hard. I just have never been through a situation like this, so we'll have to wait and see."

Indiana will be well-rested, but could be rusty as well.

"We got rest, that's for sure," O'Neal said. "But the plus that they have is they've been playing. They have a rhythm."


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/sfl-heatnotes10may10,0,2334074.story?coll=sfla-sports-front


Heat coach Stan Van Gundy said he isn't concerned about individual matchups, but there's obvious frustration over guard Eddie Jones' offensive output the first two games -- 13 points combined.

While counterpart Reggie Miller scored 19 points in Game 2, the Heat's leading scorer the past four regular seasons scored nine and took just six shots even though the Heat ran 16 plays for him.

We didn't end up with a lot from it," Van Gundy said.

On those plays, the Heat either didn't get the ball in his hands, the Pacers played great defense or Jones committed one of his four turnovers, Van Gundy said. Late in the second quarter, the Heat set up Jones to shoot a few times and he passed. The same happened in the second half, Van Gundy said.

"I went back and made sure that we were running stuff in his direction," he said. "Again, I can't call more than 16 plays for one guy."


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/sfl-pacernotes10may10,0,3169987.story?coll=sfla-sports-front


"A couple of years ago, I was there for a Miami and New York Knick series," backup point guard Anthony Johnson said. "And it was deafening down there. Now that they have a winning organization again, they are looking forward to playing at home, they won 16 in a row, I know the crowd's going to be into it and try to get them pumped."

"I've seen basketball in Miami where they were playing the Knicks and all the other teams when it was sold out and crazy there," Fred Jones said.

Ron Artest, who grew up a Knicks fan, also recalled those matchups at the Heat's house, which he sometimes visited as a fan.

"So I know how that building is going to get," Artest said.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/sfl-hyde11may11,0,3431927.column?coll=sfla-sports-front


"I think it's incredible how this arena has been transformed into one of the best atmospheres in the league right now," Van Gundy said.

The Heat got the perfect game it needed to beat Indiana. It got 10 second-quarter points from Allen -- more than he scored in all but two of the Heat's previous 91 games. It got 16 rebounds from Grant -- more than he has in any playoff game.

It got 25 points from Wade, double digits from four other players, outrebounded the Pacers by eight, shot nine percentage points better than Indiana and even outscored the Pacers bench.

And it came down to the final seconds.

This is what the Heat is up against. This is how much bigger, stronger and more talented the Pacers are. This is why this win resounds so nicely with Heat fans -- it verifies exactly what they have been seeing the past few months.

"I've got to believe the problem is we're getting outworked," Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/sfl-mikeb11may11,0,3111186.column?coll=sfla-sports-front


The lasting image of the night, besides Grant's gushing lip, was Dwyane Wade's fourth-quarter throwdown over a man seven inches taller. That was O'Neal, who isn't used to getting posterized, much less by pseudo point guards.

"That," Heat swingman Caron Butler said with a devilish grin, "was crazy."

So is this matchup between O'Neal and Grant, his close friend and former mentor for three seasons on Portland. It's sort of awkward battling in the blocks against someone who has probably had a more profound effect on your development than any opposing player in the league.

Neither man is entirely comfortable with the arrangement. But in professional sports, sentiment and friendship must take a number while intensity and cutthroat competition push their way to the forefront.

"Obviously, being friends has taken a toll on the way the game is played," O'Neal said of his dinner partner last Friday at an Indianapolis steakhouse. "With me and him, we understand. I've hit him in the head with elbows. He's hit me in the neck with elbows. We don't take it personally. At the end of the day, there's so much respect there for each other."

Grant echoed that sentiment even as he dabbed at his still fresh wound.

"I've got a lot of respect for Jermaine," Grant said. "I'm proud of Jermaine and how far he's come. He has a lot of respect for everything Rasheed [Wallace] and I did for him, but at the same time we're both warriors. We're going to go out there and battle."


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/basketball/8637419.htm


It can turn a once one-dimensional Heat offense into an efficient machine.

It can turn Malik Allen into a major playoff factor.

It can give Brian Grant the legs of a 20-year-old.

And it can turn the mighty Indiana Pacers into just another victim.

The Heat does what it always does in the playoffs -- this season, at least -- and held home court, winning 94-87 to narrow the Pacers' advantage in the series to 2-1.

''I was telling someone, I don't care how many five-star hotels you've been to, nothing is like your own bed,'' Lamar Odom said. ``I don't care what restaurants you've been to, nothing's like mama's home cooking. That's what we need.''


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/columnists/dan_le_batard/8637197.htm


Wade, the baby-faced assassin Dwyane Wade, decided now would be a really good time to do some climbing.

And he was going right to the top.

Wade took this game, this team, this entire season into his huge grip. The rookie, born in 1982, has been growing up right before our eyes all season, but what was coming now -- what was about to shake this bayside arena at its very core -- was his loud announcement that he was prepared to take his place among the very best.

He took off with the basketball, going right up at 6-11 Jermaine O'Neal, who is only one of the NBA's best shot-blockers and was recently voted the third-most valuable player in this league. Wade, 6-4, was giving up seven inches to this lanky prodigy, more if you count the ridiculous length of O'Neal's impossibly long arms. They jumped at about the same time, but gravity tugged O'Neal down before it did Wade, who kept rising to reach his moment.

The cameramen along the baseline clicked and whirred, freeze-framing this, capturing for posterity the moment when Miami rose right to the top, at and over the best. When Michael Jordan used to do this to athletes, dunking on them, it was known in the industry as ''posterizing,'' and every player in the sport feared it. You didn't want to be the guy hanging over some kid's bed, forever frozen with Jordan dunking on your head.

Once Wade finally came down, the arena rose up around him. It was like he had landed on a volume switch, the way these 20,115 Heat fans screamed upon the completion of his descent. Miami never trailed after that. It found a way to make this series and this season interesting again, even though it remained down two games to one.

''They were just simply better,'' Indiana Coach Rick Carlisle said. ``They were inspired. It was a sound beating.''


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/columnists/linda_robertson/8636796.htm


The Pacers have more talent, size and experience.

But the Heat has more ingenuity.

Like the Marlins, the Heat depends on its wits and guts to get out of jams.

Just when you expect this group of young players to get flummoxed or fold, they find a way.

On Monday, the magic that seems to drift in off Biscayne Bay and fill AAA with a passion that doesn't exist very often in our languid city helped lift the Heat to its 17th straight home win.

''We are grateful for the fans coming out like they did,'' Odom said. ``I also think that no matter how many five-star hotels you stay at, nothing is like your own bed, and no matter how many restaurants you go to, nothing is like Mama's cooking.''

The fearlessness that Wade demonstrated was infectious. The Heat, a team without a center or much depth, somehow came up with both. Five Heat players scored in double figures. The Heat again outworked the Pacers on the boards, outrebounding its taller opponent 43-34. Defense won the game as the Heat stifled the Pacers. Somewhere backstage, Pat Riley was smiling.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/...11may11,0,1442124.story?coll=sfla-sports-heat


Rookies are simply not supposed to be this calm under pressure, knocking down free throw after free throw.

Second-year forwards aren't supposed to lock down All-Stars who outweigh them by 30 pounds.

And a forgotten ex-starter isn't expected to carry his team on both ends of the court while leading the Heat to a 39-35 halftime lead.

Tell that to Dwyane Wade, Caron Butler and Malik Allen, who respectively played vital roles in the Heat's 94-87 victory at AmericanAirlines Arena on Monday to cut the Pacers' series lead to 2-1 with Game 4 back here Wednesday.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/...11may11,0,4462526.story?coll=sfla-sports-heat

Indiana moved ahead 71-70 with 6:20 to play, when O'Neal scored inside for the Pacers' first basket of the final period -- and final lead.

From there, the Heat regrouped to move ahead 76-72 on Wade's dunk, arguably as bold a statement as the Heat has made all season.

"That's my strength," he said, "driving to the hole. I always feel I can beat the first defender."

The Heat won despite Indiana consistently earning its way to the foul line in key situations.

"They now have built a reputation," Van Gundy said. "They're going to get a lot of calls. That's the way it is, and I don't even say that as sour grapes."

The loss ended Indiana's NBA-record streak of six consecutive playoff victories by 10 or more points.

The Heat entered well aware no team ever has come back from 0-3 deficit to win an NBA playoff series.

"Without this one, the percentages wouldn't have been in our favor to come back from 3-0," Odom said. "Dwyane made some big plays in the clutch to get us over the hump."


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/...13may13,0,6488406.story?coll=sfla-sports-heat


So while Indiana Pacers forwards Jermaine O'Neal and Ron Artest dominated the scoring column, the Heat's team concept put it back on even footing in this Eastern Conference playoff series with a 100-88 victory at AmericanAirlines Arena.

"We've allowed them to catch a real wave of momentum," said Pacers coach Rick Carlisle, whose team had dominated the first two games of the series on its home court. "Our challenge is to take that away. It's not going to be easy. They're a strong-willed team."

At 2-2 in this best-of-7 series, the Heat now faces the daunting challenge of Saturday's Game 5 in Indianapolis, with two of the final three to be played at Conseco Fieldhouse.

"A lot of people think we can't win on the road," said Heat forward Caron Butler, with his team 6-0 at home this postseason and 0-5 on the road. "But a lot of people didn't think we could tie the series up, either."


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/...3may13,0,4392401.column?coll=sfla-sports-heat


There they stood Wednesday night, face-to-face, nose-to-nose, curse-to-curse, under a basket in the final minutes of this already-decided Game 4. Indiana's Jamaal Tinsley had tackled the Heat's Eddie Jones. Now they were screaming at each other.

These two players quickly became four pushing ones. Then six.

Then there were 10.

Then both coaches and all three referees were in the middle of this emotional scrum, pulsating series and full-volume arena. Jones was now motioning to Indiana center Jermaine O'Neal and saying, "Let's go! You and me!"

"Come on," O'Neal said.

"Right now," Jones shouted.

Pointing. Screaming. Taunting each other. Isn't that right where this series is this morning? And aren't you surprised? And isn't it lovely?

On a night that kept growing, in a season that keeps giving, the Heat's 100-88 win evened this series at two games apiece and once again verified this is no fluke.

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*
Indiana, meanwhile, looked a mess at game's end. The bad defense. The guards who can't score. The flagrant fouls. And the excuses.

"The only issue I have with what went on out there was the differential in fouls. We had 28 fouls and they had 23," Carlisle said.

Come on, a five-foul differential?

"I've said we're not an `excuse' team. But when things aren't right they aren't right."
*:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/...k051304,0,918872.column?coll=sfla-sports-heat


Jason Taylor shot free throws at halftime, even jumped out of his courtside seat late in the third quarter to argue a call. But the Dolphins defensive end shouldn't have stopped there if he really wanted to help the Heat. He should have raced back onto the court and sought out the guy wearing No. 7, as he often does during Sundays in the fall. He should have pretended that guy was still playing quarterback, like Jermaine O'Neal used to back in South Carolina, 6 feet and 10 inches of skin-and-growing bones slinging downfield.

He should have blindsided O'Neal, knocked him silly.

He should have taken O'Neal out of the game, because the Heat couldn't. Since he didn't, it's a good thing the Pacers did it for him.

It's a good thing they stopped going to O'Neal in the third quarter the same way they had in the first two, when he had a half better than any post player has in the previous 61 Heat playoff games. Better than Patrick Ewing against the Heat. Better than Alonzo Mourning for the Heat.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/...13may13,0,4118789.story?coll=sfla-sports-heat


With 2:09 left, Tinsley grabbed Heat guard Eddie Jones high around the neck from behind on a breakway. Jones angrily came back at Tinsley and soon a pack of players had to be separated. Tinsley received his second technical of the game and was ejected.

Jones also received a technical on the play.

"It was a hard foul," said Tinsley. "I'm not surprised about anything. We want to win. We know they're physical. We're physical.

"It's not intentional out there. We're not trying to hurt anybody. There are going to be hard fouls."

Jones said Tinsley went too far.

"If you're going to foul me, foul me, don't go into all that other stuff," Jones said. "I just thought it was way too much. I wanted to let him know about it."

Jones also called Artest's foul on Dwyane Wade with 1:04 left unnecessarily rough.

"I don't think you should be taking cheap shots at people like that," Jones said. "We've been through it with New Orleans. We just have to keep fighting through that."

Artest said Wade lost his footing and that he was trying to hold him up.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/basketball/8653393.htm


Two superstars took on one team Wednesday.

The team won.

Now that team has new life.

The Indiana Pacers got 37 points from Jermaine O'Neal and 28 from Ron Artest, but the Heat had six players in double figures and three with 20 or more to win 100-88 and even the best-of-7 Eastern Conference semifinal series at two games each.

The series most thought would be a Pacers runaway has remarkably become a best-of-3, starting with Game 5 on Saturday in Indianapolis.

''The series is even and we couldn't be happier,'' Heat coach Stan Van Gundy said. ``The difference is, we can't win this series without winning on the road, and we know that.''


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/columnists/dan_le_batard/8653396.htm


Game 3, for example, had four free throws in the first half and 66 in the second. That's not a typo. That was the disparity in the calls, even though it is a physical impossibility for a game's contact to change that much from one half to the next. The only way you should have a 4-to-66 disparity is if the referees are officiating a completely different sport in the first half, like football or boxing. But Miami didn't shoot 51 percent Wednesday because the refs helped them.

Rick, buddy, the officiating has been bad both ways in this series. There was one play in the first half when Miami's Malik Allen planted himself completely in a spot near the key, rooting himself there without moving, and O'Neal came over and practically picked him up and moved him as the flabbergasted Allen was whistled for a foul. It was like seeing shock come over a statue's face, that's how still Allen had been. O'Neal could have used a dump truck to remove Allen, and O'Neal would have gotten the call.

''Let us play, man!'' an angry Caron Butler shouted at the refs at one point. ``Come on!''

This wasn't Indiana choking, coming out flat or being soft. No, Indiana players left the building with heads either shaking or hung because they had given Miami their best.

And, remarkably, it still wasn't nearly good enough.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/columnists/greg_cote/8653392.htm


And suggest the miracle already has happened.

Miami's 100-88 heartbeat-thumping of the Indiana Pacers assured that. No matter what happens from here in this suddenly-a-series knotted 2-2 -- a playoff round plenty of supposed experts figured for a four-game Pacers sweep -- this Heat season has earned its place among the most remarkably surprising in South Florida sports history.

How do you quantify magic?

The Dolphins' Perfect Season of 1972, though unique, doesn't even fit the category here, since Miami was a Super Bowl team the previous season and surprised nobody.

Think Hurricanes and 1983, in a national championship shocker over mighty Nebraska -- UM football announcing itself to America.

Think Panthers hockey in 1996, when a third-year expansion franchise built on scrap, with a rubber rat for a mascot, got all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals.

Think Marlins, just last season, when a disregarded team fired its manager, somehow caught fire, stormed through the postseason and raised a World Series trophy in a stunned-silent Yankee Stadium.

The order doesn't much matter. What does is that this Heat team has earned its place in the conversation whenever local sporting miracles are fathomed.

Pat Riley stepping down as head coach on the doorstep of this NBA season and then an 0-7 start and a slog to 5-15 . . . to this?


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/basketball/8654054.htm


After signing forward Lamar Odom last summer, Heat president Pat Riley often used his former Lakers player, Magic Johnson, as a point of reference when trying to describe the uniqueness of Odom's game.

He never said Odom is Magic Johnson, just that he evokes memories of him.

But for a minute Wednesday night, when Odom was firing from the outside, driving around helpless, dizzied defenders and single-handedly taking control of this critical game, you could almost swear Johnson had donned a Heat uniform, grown an inch or two, slimmed down and turned the clock back a couple decades.

''He was out there making plays for guys, creating shots for himself, and that's what Magic used to do,'' Heat guard Eddie Jones said.

``He set the table for other people and also got involved himself.''

Odom added dimension and flair to his game Wednesday, making nifty drives to the basket and displaying a rarely used outside shot, and that allowed him to take control for the Heat when it mattered most.

The Pacers looked incapable of stopping Odom at some moments, much like defenders looked after being stymied by a young Magic.

''He's impossible to guard,'' Heat coach Stan Van Gundy said.

``There's no way you can get out on him and not get beat off the dribble.''


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/basketball/8653390.htm


How about that track-meet start by the Heat in the second half Wednesday night?

And the lead sprinter?

That was Caron Butler -- the man whose defense on Ron Artest in Game 3 turned that game around for the Heat -- who jump-started the Heat on Wednesday in the critical start of the second half. The same Caron Butler who ignited the Heat in Game 7 vs. New Orleans to keep the season alive.

There was Butler, who finished with 21 points, sprinting out to lead an 8-0 run that may be remembered as the moment the Heat took over this series.

The Heat was down 56-53 at halftime, mere spectators of a Jermaine O'Neal Show that had taken center stage and dominated the game. O'Neal had 26 first-half points, and it appeared Indiana would be heading home up 3-1 with every chance to end the Heat's season Saturday night.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/basketball/8653409.htm


The Pacers are talking tough, but the Heat isn't firing back.

Indiana's Al Harrington and Jamaal Tinsley said Tuesday they need to get more physical with Dwyane Wade, with Harrington saying: ``We have to put him on the floor.''

Heat coach Stan Van Gundy didn't care much for the comments.

''That's the dumbest talk in the world,'' Van Gundy said. ``You get tired of hearing all that crap. We don't even talk about it. You go out and play games to win them. All that other stuff is macho B.S.''

Van Gundy said there is still a standing rule, as most teams do, to never give up layups.

But just knocking players down for the sake of doing so is not sound basketball.

''I think there's not a team in this league that wants to give up layups,'' Van Gundy said. ``We left some people open for layups the other night, but we didn't get out of the way and give anybody layups. They're not going to do that, and that's good, solid basketball.

``But just to say you're going to knock somebody down, I guess that's supposed to intimidate Dwyane.''

Wade said the talk didn't bother him, especially since he has been knocked down several times before.

''New Orleans did it,'' Wade said before Game 4. ``They knocked me down but I'm still standing.

Wade was floored again late in the game Wednesday night by the Pacers' Ron Artest, who drew a flagrant foul.

Wade got up again.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/basketball/8654055.htm


With 1:04 left in the game, Pacers forward Ron Artest practically tackled Heat guard Dwyane Wade to the ground on a drive with a little more than a minute remaining.

''I don't think you should be taking cheap shots like that,'' Jones said. ``[Wade's] just starting his career, going down like that could be a career-ending injury. There's no room for that in this game. We've been through it in New Orleans and we just have to keep fighting through that.''

Added Wade: ``I just know somebody got me from the back. At the time I think [Artest] was frustrated, but I didn't get hurt.''

Artest said he tried to hold Wade up after the play but the Heat guard lost his footing.

So is this bad blood, or is this just another intense playoff game?

''They're frustrated,'' Heat guard Rafter Alston said. ``They probably wanted to run away with this thing. I don't know if they have bad blood against us. I know guys on our team don't have bad blood against them.''

Heat center Brian Grant said he's ready for anything in the next couple of games.

''Right now, there are just two tough teams battling,'' he said.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.indystar.com/articles/0/146095-6530-179.html

Having lost their edge, their balance and their poise, the Indiana Pacers now have a clear challenge.

Namely, keeping last season's collapse in the past and regaining the characteristics and character that got them 61 wins and a No. 1 seed.

Their 100-88 loss to Miami at AmericanAirlines Arena Wednesday not only reduced their season to a best-of-three scenario, it brought back a few haunting memories.

Flagrant fouls.

Lack of focus.

And -- most relevant in a game that allowed the Heat to tie the Eastern Conference semifinal series at 2-2 and steal the momentum -- defensive breakdowns.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.indystar.com/articles/1/146094-4461-179.html


The Pacers now return to Indianapolis in the throes of a series that already must go one game longer than necessary. And it's no longer simply a question of how long it will take Indiana to dispatch these Heat.

Now, it's a question of whether they will knock out the Heat.

At two games apiece, the Pacers are one cold shooting night, one bad call, one funny bounce of the ball away from throwing away their season. The numbers say the Heat can't win in Indy, but who could have imagined this series would have come to this?

For four games now, they have been performing like they're waiting for the Heat to fall down and genuflect.

Sorry.

Isn't going to happen.

What happened?

The Pacers have three days now to figure it out.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.indystar.com/articles/8/146110-6968-179.html


Ron Artest leaned forward in a chair in a corner of the visitors' locker room, shrugging off his best playoff performance.

"Career highs don't mean nothing," he said after the Pacers fell 100-88 Wednesday in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference semifinals. "It's more about the wins. It's just frustrating to lose."

The Pacers put the blame for their second consecutive playoff loss on their defense, which allowed the Miami Heat to shoot 51 percent.

The loss that tied the series at 2-2 certainly wasn't the fault of Artest or Jermaine O'Neal. The Pacers' frontcourt stars came up with their best offensive postseason performances, each scoring a playoff career high.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.indystar.com/articles/2/146104-5472-179.html


"There's no intention of hurting anybody, but there ain't nothing easy," Tinsley said after the Pacers' 100-88 loss at AmericanAirlines Arena. "We're going to put guys on the line, and they've got to hit their foul shots. In a stretch of ball games, there's going to be hard fouls."

Jones grabbed Tinsley after the foul and players and coaches from both teams rushed to separate them.

"If you want to foul me, foul me, but I thought that was way too much," Jones said. "I don't think you should be taking cheap shots at people.

"That could have been a career threatening injury. There is no room for that in this game."

Artest was called for a Flagrant 1 when he wrapped up Dwyane Wade with 1:04 to play while Wade drove to the basket.

"I was just trying to hold him up, that was pretty much it," Artest said. "I was trying to hold him. He lost his footing a little bit. I would have held him up, but he lost his footing and went down."

Artest chalked up the hard fouls to a part of playoff basketball.

"Playing basketball in the playoffs, you got friends you don't even speak to until it's over," he said. "Maybe it's not bad blood, just competing and everybody wanting to win."


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.indystar.com/articles/0/146080-5370-179.html


Miami Heat forward Lamar Odom has every intention of joining the NBA's short list of elite power forwards before his pro career is over.

A few more performances like he had here Wednesday night, and he won't have to wait long for a formal invite.

Odom took over the AmericanAirlines Arena floor in the third quarter as the Heat won their 18th consecutive home game 100-88 and tied this Eastern Conference semifinal series against the Indiana Pacers at 2-2.

All five Miami starters, plus sixth man Rafer Alston, scored in double figures in the runaway win. But they were led by Odom, a smooth-shooting 6-11, 232-pound lefty, who carved the Pacers up for 22 points on 9-of-13 shooting from the floor.

"He's impossible to guard," Miami coach Stan Van Gundy said. "If he's going to shoot the ball like he did tonight, there is no way to get out on him and not get beaten off the dribble."


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

NFL stars Warren Sapp, formerly of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Jason Taylor of the Miami Dolphins took part in a free-throw contest at halftime.

Each had 20 seconds to make as many free throws as possible. Taylor made two to win a trip to Cancun, Mexico, for a fan. Sapp made one.

Former Miami Hurricanes tight end Kellen Winslow Jr. was in attendance Wednesday. The loudest applause for a celebrity came when former Heat player and current television broadcast Dan Majerle was shown on the video screen.


http://www.indystar.com/articles/5/145992-2765-179.html


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.indystar.com/articles/6/146018-6906-179.html

Dave Benz, the WXIN-59 sportscaster who helped the Miami Heat marketing department get access to Indianapolis sports locales for a pro-Heat promotion, said Wednesday he has been suspended indefinitely.

Benz also issued an apology through The Indianapolis Star on Wednesday, one day after his work was used as part of two video skits played at AmericanAirlines Arena during Game 3 of the Pacers-Heat Eastern Conference semifinal series.

Benz, who previously worked in Miami, helped the Heat marketing department gain access to the Colts' locker room for video of "Go Heat" signs inside the facility.

"Contrary to what many may believe, I am, in fact, pulling strongly for the Pacers and hope to see them hoisting the NBA title come June," Benz stated in the apology. "In no way, shape or form was I looking to denigrate this city, its athletes, its institutions or its fans."

Heat chief marketing officer Michael McCullough faxed a letter to WXIN on Benz's behalf, stating that Benz ". . . agreed to help out a friend by placing Miami Heat identification in the Indianapolis Colts' locker room and having the images recorded for use by the Heat. While Dave did agree to assist in this way, he was not aware of the overall scope of the videotape feature."

Pacers president Donnie Walsh said Wednesday the Pacers did not complain about the video.

"I didn't think anything about the video," Walsh said. "My feeling was it wasn't malicious."


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## PacersguyUSA (Sep 1, 2002)

> "Contrary to what many may believe, I am, in fact, pulling strongly for the Pacers and hope to see them hoisting the NBA title come June," Benz stated in the apology. "In no way, shape or form was I looking to denigrate this city, its athletes, its institutions or its fans."


Yeah, right. Get this guy out of the city.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/sfl-nyhoops14may14,0,1707481.story?coll=sfla-sports-front


"New York," said Anderson, one of six active players in this series with the concrete burns to show for NYC roots. "Ain't no other competition like it, growing up, being in the playgrounds, high school basketball, junior high school, all that, competition getting you ready."

Rough and ready for times like these. The guy collaring Eddie Jones from behind on the break late in Game 4? Jamaal Tinsley. Straight out of Brooklyn. The guy getting called for a flagrant foul for yanking down Dwyane Wade? Ron Artest. St. John's, via Queensbridge.

There's also Lamar Odom, who played at Christ the King in Queens before winning national Prep Player of the Year while at Redemption Christian Academy in Troy, N.Y. There's Rafer Alston of Cardozo in Queens, and of ``Skip to My Lou'' fame in those Rucker Park tournaments. There's Al Harrington, star at St. Patrick's in Elizabeth, N.J., just a shout outside the city, where he says, "All we do is hoop." There's Anderson, a legend among city legends.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/sfl-hyde14may14,0,4808189.column?coll=sfla-sports-front


This is a success story. A young basketball coach arrived at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell in 1988, full of ideas and energy. This was his fifth coaching stop. He was 28. His clothes never seemed to fit right. He drank Diet Cokes at 7 a.m. His office was a mess.

The young coach had a $5,000 recruiting budget, though when that was gone, everyone knew he dug into his pocket for what was needed, even if he and his wife didn't have much to spare. They had met at an earlier coaching stop in Castleton (Vermont) State College, where she had been the admissions director and joked about allowing the players he needed into school.

In four years at Lowell, he worked and worked, and won and won, and soon everyone was saying goodbye as the coach moved up the ladder to a better job, at a bigger stop, just as they figured he would.

All these years and so many moves later, what makes this such a success story isn't so much that Heat coach Stan Van Gundy has gone from these lower rungs to leading the NBA's surprise team, or from driving a late-model Chevette that died on the Massachusetts Turnpike one Lowell recruiting trip to having a luxury car supplied by the Heat.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/sfl-heatnote14may14,0,4381743.story?coll=sfla-sports-front


"He'll still be able to shoot the ball. We'll see how well," said Van Gundy, who gave his players Thursday off, with the best-of-7 Eastern Conference semifinal series tied at 2. "The bottom line is we need Brian in there, from the defensive standpoint, anyway.

"He's going to play regardless, and you hope he's going to be effective shooting. But Brian's game isn't totally based on that. Brian can be very effective and have a big impact on the game even if he's not making shots."

Grant was injured on an inadvertent hit by Pacers forward Ron Artest. ESPN analyst Sean Elliott described the resulting distorted hand as if Grant was "holding a bunch of pencils."

"It was a quick swipe," Grant said. "It popped out and rotated up. It's the first time I've ever had a dislocation or anything like that. It was nasty looking, but I got it popped back in and everything should be cool."

Grant needed 12 stitches in his upper lip, the result of an inadvertent elbow from teammate Lamar Odom in Game 3. He began this series wearing a back brace because of pain from the first-round series against New Orleans.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/...14may14,0,5838788.story?coll=sfla-sports-heat


It had been an NBA-record 38 consecutive postseason games since the Heat scored 100 points in the playoffs. The date was May 18, 1997. The score in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals was Heat 101, Knicks 90.

Further, only six times over those 38 double-digit games had the Heat even scored 90 or more.

So why now? Why Wednesday in Game 4 but never over the previous seven years?

``Because we played the game at a very high energy level,'' coach Stan Van Gundy said Thursday, after he gave his team its first day off in two weeks. ``We were moving all the time. There was very little standing still. That's when we play well, when our shots are distributed, when the ball is moving. We got a lot of people involved.''

Apparently, the kids have grown up.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/basketball/8662770.htm


Whether or not the Heat gets knocked down, Van Gundy believes his team is good enough to win in Indiana.

''I think what it's going to come down to -- and I've said it since the start of the series -- is whether or not we're good enough,'' he said. ``It's not going to be psychology. It's not going to be intimidation. It's none of that. Our guys will not be intimidated or anything else. We've just got to be good enough to win.''

Are they?

''Heck yeah, we're good enough,'' Van Gundy said. ``It's 2-2. It's a three-game series, but the big difference is -- and our guys know this -- we can't win this series just winning at home, and that's the big difference.

``So the major challenge is still ahead. We're good enough to do it. But we have to bring the game we brought [Wednesday] on the road with us to Indiana.''


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/columnists/dan_le_batard/8662769.htm











3. You've made some brave changes when a lot of coaches would have been rigid in the playoffs, the most recent being playing Malik Allen and sitting Udonis Haslem. You are very human. How bad do you feel for Haslem when doing something like that?

'These guys wouldn't believe it, but I got in the car after the big win [Wednesday] and the first thing I said to my wife is, `I really feel bad for Udonis.' All he's done, all that work, to have his minutes cut. Same thing with Samaki [Walker]. It bothers me every day. It hurts. But you can't coach on feelings. I'd like to play all 15 guys, get them all their moments, cheers and adulation because I love this team, but you have to do what's best for the group.''

4. Indiana coach Rick Carlisle is trying to influence the refs. Isn't it written in the book of coaching laws that you are now obligated to fire a counter measure?

``I guess it is, but I don't like that part of it. It seems to me that Jermaine O'Neal has spent this entire series standing at the free-throw line, but it's unfair now because there's a difference of five free throws? The coaching and whining this time of year is ridiculous. I'm not going that route, at least not publicly. Miami is beating up the poor, defenseless Pacers? Come on.''

9. Describe yourself in four words?

``Tall. Handsome. Dashing. Elegant. And I could describe myself that way if it weren't for the existence of mirrors.''

19. Best decision you've made this year?

``Some people thought we had to add someone to the coaching staff, an experienced head coach. I'm so glad I didn't. I stuck with my guys, the three I've been with for eight years. They're honest with me. They tell me when I'm screwing up. I knew what I had here, and I'm glad I didn't add anyone.''


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/basketball/8662795.htm


The same thought can only dance around a frustrated player's head so many times.

Soon I'll play again. Soon I'll become a fan-favorite, when everybody's watching, on the perfect stage.

The lack of playing time got to Heat forward Malik Allen eventually, causing him to approach coach Stan Van Gundy.

''I'm not going to say it was easy,'' said Allen of his role as a third-string power forward this season. ``I just told him how I felt, and he told me I just have to be ready.''

Fast-forward to the Heat's biggest series of the season, against perhaps the best team in the NBA -- the Indiana Pacers.

Allen and Van Gundy needed each other more than ever, and Allen was ready.

Allen has sizzled off the bench in four games against Indiana, averaging 7.8 points, five rebounds and 1.5 blocks. His biggest spark came in Game 3, with a 13-point performance (eight coming in a 15-4 Heat run in the second quarter) on 6-of-9 shooting.

Between Allen and guard Rafer Alston, the Heat bench has overshadowed Pacers sixth-man Al Harrington and the rest of Indiana's bench in the past two games.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/basketball/8662812.htm


But it might have been necessary to play that way because that's what the Heat gave the Pacers. Miami seemed to subscribe to a theory that two interior players couldn't do the job alone.

''Those two guys [O'Neal and Artest] really had it going, so we just kept feeding them and feeding them,'' Pacers guard Anthony Johnson said. ``But the other guys . . . no one really got an opportunity to make some plays, and that's the sign of [the Heat] taking away some of our options.''

Whatever the Heat did, the Pacers were still puzzled afterward.

''They were switching off Jermaine and Ron,'' Tinsley said. ``You didn't know what they were doing.''

This much is for sure: The Pacers had better figure it out in a hurry.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/basketball/8662806.htm


Heat coach Stan Van Gundy said Thursday he anticipates center Brian Grant will shrug off his injuries and play.

Grant, who held Pacers All-Star forward Jermaine O'Neal to 19-of-53 shooting in the series' first three games, dislocated his right pinkie in the fourth quarter Wednesday night after an accidental clash with Pacers forward Ron Artest.

Team doctors told Van Gundy his center most likely will have to wear a splint and a protective coating around his pinkie, which could hinder his shooting. Van Gundy, however, doesn't need Reggie Miller-type shooting from Grant.

''Bottom line is we need Brian out there from a defensive standpoint,'' Van Gundy said. ``He's going to play regardless. You hope he's going to be effective shooting the ball, but he can have a big impact on the game without hitting shots.''

Grant must feel as though he has been put through a blender after his recent knocks. Teammate Lamar Odom accidentally busted open the right side of Grant's mouth with an elbow in Game 3, requiring 12 stitches. Grant suffered back spasms in the first-round series against the New Orleans Hornets, forcing him to support his back with a brace.

''Bad back, bad knees, face -- he has it all,'' Heat forward Samaki Walker said. ``With him, it seems the more he's injured, the more he puts pressure on himself to play.''


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/basketball/8662813.htm


Rick Carlisle doesn't say much, but he knows how to make himself clear when necessary.

After losing Game 4 to the Heat on Wednesday, Carlisle ripped the officials, calling attention to the many blows forward Jermaine O'Neal took that were not called as fouls.

''The only issue I had with what went on out there is the differential in fouls,'' Carlisle said. ``I thought we were playing just as hard as [the Heat], but we had 28 fouls and they had 23. Jermaine O'Neal has been getting beat up all year long, and he doesn't go to the free-throw line as much as he deserves to.''

``. . . It is frustrating when you are getting hit and not going to foul line. We are not an excuse team, but when things are not right, they are not right. That was my issue with the game.''

O'Neal was awarded 12 free throws Wednesday, more than his playoff average of 8.3. For the series, the Heat has shot 288 free throws to Indiana's 219.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/basketball/8662810.htm


Sure, the Heat started at 0-7, and no one gave this team a chance in the playoffs, but isn't it about time someone -- anyone -- admit that these guys are a pretty good basketball team?

That's what puzzles Heat coach Stan Van Gundy, whose team has pushed Indiana, the team with the best record in the NBA, to a 2-2 draw in the best-of-7 Eastern Conference semifinals.

''People have talked about a lot of things with our team,'' Van Gundy said. ``They have talked about what's going on with the home court, and the great energy here.

``They talk about the how the team plays real hard and they have a lot of heart. But even the teams we play against, you just don't hear anybody say, `You know what? That's a good team.'

``What has been underestimated is probably that we're pretty good. It's not some magical thing going on. It's not destiny. It's not anything else. Maybe we're just pretty good and people haven't come to that conclusion yet.''

At least people outside Miami.

''The people in our locker room have the confidence that they're good, and I think our 21,000 fans think they're good,'' Van Gundy said. ``And I think people who have watched us all year and watched us improve think we're better. I don't think [the local media] many of you probably predicted we would beat the Pacers -- but you think that we've gotten better.''


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/...15may15,0,6297542.story?coll=sfla-sports-heat


It's funny," reserve point guard Rafer Alston said Friday, before catching himself. "OK, it's not funny, but we start the games, and all of a sudden, we're down 10, 12.

"And then, we turn it around, and we're close with four minutes to go. We've got to find a way to give ourselves a chance earlier."

As the Heat enters tonight's Game 5 of this Eastern Conference semifinal against the Indiana Pacers in a 2-2 tie, it knows it must win at least once at Conseco Fieldhouse to advance from the best-of-7 series. Also, of the previous 115 NBA best-of-7 series tied 2-2, 96 have been won by the winner of Game 5.

But before the Heat concerns itself with the final result, it has to address first things first.

In each of its postseason road losses, the Heat has followed a disturbing pattern of falling behind by a large margin, battling back, then coming up short.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/...5may15,0,5309909.column?coll=sfla-sports-heat


It takes a talent to stay relaxed in big games, too -- or is that just a byproduct of having fun with each other? Or a combination of both? Here's a little story: The Heat's seldom-used center Wang Zhi-Zhi (pronounced Zhee-Zhee) asked to be called "Da Zhi," which means The Big Zhi in Chinese. You think these teammates would allow that?

"He's Dodger to us," Lamar Odom said.

Say "Da-Zhee" a few times. Fast. See?

If you don't get the humor, understand where you're coming from: *This is a team that travels en masse to Steak 'n Shake in Indianapolis to eat. Not your conventional pro-athlete millionaires on the town, in other words.* But team chemistry? And is developing that a talent -- or just a product of winning?

Finally, there's a work ethic this team has, and a toughness that Grant symbolizes. These are more intangibles considered attributes and not talents. But Grant has played out of position again this year, against oversized centers, without complaint. Now he plays with this ailing body without excuse.

The finger will get hit tonight in Game 5. "Maybe it'll get pulled, too," he said. "It's not really a question of if I'll play with it. It's how I'll play with it."


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/...5bmay15,0,1159344.story?coll=sfla-sports-heat


Heat coach Stan Van Gundy endured a few scares watching three starters hobble away from Friday's practice but happily reported none of the new injuries is serious.

Point guard Dwyane Wade left the workout after reserve center Wang Zhi-Zhi accidentally cracked him in the head with a flying elbow

Forward Caron Butler limped off the floor with a sore right hip after colliding with center Brian Grant, who managed to avoid further injuring his dislocated right pinkie. Still, Grant left the court as a precaution.

Reserve forward Samaki Walker didn't practice because of the flu.

"Nothing major," Van Gundy said before his team left AmericanAirlines Arena to board a flight for Indianapolis for tonight's Game 5 showdown with the Pacers. "We didn't end up with a full complement [of players in practice]. You would like to have everybody, especially after a day off, but you can't make excuses at this point in the season. If they don't know what we are trying to do now, we haven't done our jobs."


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/...002488.story?coll=sns-ap-basketball-headlines


"There was one rookie, it was like 1980," Odom said. "The championship game, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar went out, and Magic Johnson put up (42) points, (15) rebounds and so on and so on. But Dwyane Wade is Dwyane Wade." 

After toiling in the shadows of his more celebrated classmates -- LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony -- all season, Wade has snatched the spotlight with a sparkling playoffs. 

Wade is one of just four rookies -- joining Michael Jordan, Stephon Marbury and Billy Ray Bates -- to lead his team in scoring and assists in the postseason since the shot clock inception in 1954-55


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

With the Heat playing at the level it has the past three months, how many games would it win if the season began today instead of Oct. 28, 2003?

''Man,'' guard Rafer Alston said, mulling the possibilities. ``We would probably have won about 52 games.''

And that's why the Heat enters tonight's Game 5 against the Indiana Pacers with utmost confidence. This isn't a 42-win team trying to get past a 61-win Goliath using gimmicks and riding sheer momentum. It's a team that recognizes how good it is even if nobody else has.

The Heat believes not only that it belongs, but that it has the talent and coaching to advance even further. This isn't a false sense of security the Heat is carrying into the most critical game of this Eastern Conference semifinal. It's the real thing.

''We have to think of ourselves that way,'' guard Eddie Jones said. ``We're right there with everybody else. I don't think it's luck that we're here. I think we're here because we worked our butts off and we've learned how to play with each other.''

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/8672248.htm


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/columnists/greg_cote/8672251.htm


Pat Riley speaking:

``Sometimes you have a feeling that you're about to embark on the most important trip of your life. When this feeling hits you, all of a sudden you understand your purpose. The clarity of what you must achieve is overwhelming, and you have the first confident inklings of what must be done and, maybe, even how to do it.''

That passage begins a chapter entitled ''The Breakthrough'' in Riley's book, The Winner Within.

It could, verbatim, serve as the challenge to the Heat entering tonight's Game 5 in its NBA playoff series against the Indiana Pacers.

This trip might not be life-altering, but it could be season-changing. Win tonight -- on the dreaded road! -- and Miami suddenly is in charge of this series and knowing (more than just believing) it is capable of . . . anything.

The Heat invites a psychological prism when viewing its season and unexpected postseason run. You wonder how a team so strong at home (18 straight wins by the Bay, including all six in the playoffs) can be the same team that is 13-33 on the road, including 0-5 in the playoffs.

The Heat trying to win tonight feels like a team trying to unburden itself from some psychological shackle.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/8672275.htm


Teammates loudly kept score in unison after Friday's Heat practice as 6-10 forward Lamar Odom and assistant coach Keith Askins launched three-pointers in a friendly competition.

Askins is sixth all-time in Heat history in three-pointers made, but he was still stuck on two threes as the buzz of one, two, Three, FOUR, FIVE in a row pumped from Odom's camp.

The lanky Odom has parlored every versatile asset he has in the second-round series against the Indiana Pacers, shooting included. The Heat found a spark from Odom's 9-of-13 performance from the field for 22 points in a 100-88 win in Game 4.

It always seems to be a mismatch when a 6-10 player can handle the ball and make moves to the rim, but he's shooting well, and his threat to the Pacers is amplified. Pacers forward Jermaine O'Neal is the biggest problem for the Heat, but Odom might be the Pacers' equivalent problem.










''He's one of the hardest guys in the league to guard when his jumper is on,'' Heat center Brian Grant said. ``If you're trying to guard him, he's going to shoot the jumper on you. If you get too close to him, he's going to go around you.

``He can shoot the mid-range, pull up, or he's going to take it and dunk on you.''

Added guard Rafer Alston: ``They don't know how to guard him right now.''


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/8672277.htm


''I was at some of those games in New York where he was hitting all those shots and making fun of Spike while he was at it,'' Alston said with a sigh, a hint of the crushed Knicks fan within.

Miller -- who will attempt to summon some of his postseason mojo when his Pacers play the Heat tonight in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference semifinals -- has not played this postseason like the player who will go down as one of the greatest playoff performers of all time. It's unlikely the 38-year-old Miller of today will find a way to reel off an astonishing eight points in 8.9 seconds the way he did in 1995 at stunned and silent Madison Square Garden.

But even though Miller is averaging only 9.5 points in the four games of this series, the sight of him with the ball in his hands late in games is still a downright frightening proposition.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/8672280.htm


Rafer Alston had a scare on Friday, and it had nothing to do with his own health.

''Guys were just dropping today in practice,'' Alston said. ``I was scared that guys weren't going to make it to the game.''

None of the injuries are considered serious, but Brian Grant, Dwyane Wade, Caron Butler and Samaki Walker all either left practice early Friday or never showed up to begin with.

Walker did not attend practice because of the flu, and Grant, Wade and Butler were involved in collisions during practice that forced them to sit out. Wade was elbowed in the face by Wang Zhi-Zhi and left practice. Grant and Butler collided into each other, leaving Butler with a sore hip and Grant bothered by his already dislocated right pinky finger.

''Dwyane had some headaches anyway and got hit in the head on a drive,'' coach Stan Van Gundy said. ``Caron got hit in the hip and Brian's finger was just starting to bother him a little bit so we didn't have a full complement.''

Van Gundy said the early dismissals shouldn't affect the team much come game time.

''You would like to have everybody, obviously, for what preparation you're doing, but you can't make excuses for stuff like that at this point in the season,'' Van Gundy said. ``If they don't know what we're trying to do by now, then we haven't done our jobs.''


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.indystar.com/articles/1/146409-1561-179.html


Coach Rick Carlisle should have little trouble devising a practice schedule. If he wants, he probably could dust off one from training camp. One that includes work on cutting off dribble penetration, rotating to give help, contesting shots and eliminating second shots.

"Defensively, we're going to have to do some things better, without question," Carlisle said Thursday from his fieldhouse office.

"Miami is a team that can expose you because they're athletic and skilled. They do a great job of driving the ball and moving the ball."

Heading into the series, the logical assessment was that Miami's only hope was to speed up the tempo to negate its disadvantage on the boards. After all, it had been outrebounded by 24 in the three regular-season meetings with the Pacers and outscored them by 19 on fast-break points.

The Pacers must be nostalgic for those days now. Miami has controlled the boards in all four playoff games, by a total of 23. Miami outscored them 14-0 on fast-break points in Game 1 of this series, and the Pacers have scored three transition points since.

The Heat have done what few figured they could do: dominate in the halfcourt. Forward Lamar Odom and rookie point guard Dwyane Wade are beating their defenders off the dribble with regularity, getting to the basket for dunks or drawing fouls.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

And now, from the home office in Gnaw Bone, Ind., the "Top Ten Things the Indiana Pacers Need To Do Saturday Night."

9. Start having fun again.
8. Make sure the fieldhouse provides a home-court advantage.
7. Play the game with five guys, as opposed to two players who take two-thirds of the shots and three who stand around and are either unable or unwilling to shoot.
6. Exhume Reggie.
5. Rediscover Jonathan Bender.
4. If Edgerrin James calls for a seat, give him one. In the top row. In the corner.
3. Give poise a chance.
2. Quit talking like you've won three championships, and start defending.
1. Stop complaining about the officiating, start rebounding.


"I don't think they'll stop talking like that," Miami's Dwyane Wade said. "I think they believe they are a lot better than us."


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/sfl-hyde16may16,0,5725697.column?coll=sfla-sports-front


Lamar Odom sat down on the chair and shook his head. He pulled on his suit and shook his head. All long night long, he had shot the same 17-foot jumper that kept swishing two nights ago -- and missed -- and shot the same half-hook in the lane -- and missed -- and drove the same way for the shot he always did -- and, well, missed that, too.

"If some of those shots go in, we're talking right now about whether we can close out the series," he said, sitting on a chair, in the corner, after a 94-83 loss left everyone asking anything but that.

Instead, everyone was talking what went wrong, and why, and what Indiana's 3-2 series lead means today. Odom shook his head again.

"What can I say?" he asked.

What can anyone say this morning about the Heat except what has been said all season, all series and again all Saturday night?

Lions at home. Lambs on the road


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/sfl-skolnick16xmay16,0,2263960.column?coll=sfla-sports-front


The stars would come to San Antonio, and young Jeff Foster would have to meet and greet them. So the lanky kid would sneak into the visiting locker room at the old HemisFair by telling security he was the son of the white guy on the out-of-town team, whether that was Bill Laimbeer or Kevin McHale or Larry Bird.

Saturday, the 27-year-old sneaked into some other places. He sneaked into the paint, time after time, after his teammates' dribble penetration. He sneaked into the scoresheet, a place his contributions aren't customarily measured. He sneaked into the center of this series.

He sneaked into stardom.

And that sneaked up on everybody, even those who appreciated all the fifth-year player contributed to the Pacers in his first season as a starter. He was the reason they overcame the luxury-tax induced trade of All-Star center Brad Miller. He was the only Indiana player to play all 82 games, leading the team with 3.0 offensive rebounds per game and the entire NBA with 6.1 per 48 minutes.

And yet, naturally, few previews of this series led with his name.

Any recap of Game 5 must.

"Unbelievable," Reggie Miller called his performance.

"He led this team," Jermaine O'Neal said. "He played with no care, and that's the way you want to play. He has so much ability that he hasn't even tapped into yet."


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/columnists/greg_cote/8678501.htm


Once again Saturday night, the Heat hit the road as gracefully as a truck-struck possum splayed out on the interstate.

''Pathetic,'' described coach Stan Van Gundy, looking on the bright side.

Miami got zero first-half points from Lamar Odom, got thoroughly out-rebounded and generally played defense as if the concept were foreign, but, more than any of that, here is all you need to know about how silly things got inside Conseco Fieldhouse:

The Pacers' Jeff Foster dominated.

''Fabulous,'' Van Gundy called his performance.

Fabulous and Foster should never go together. Not under any circumstance.

Foster, a veteran non-factor, a professional space-taker-upper, scored 20 points on 9-for-10 shooting and had 16 rebounds and mostly flummoxed Odom in the 94-83 Indiana victory whose final score made the game seem remotely close when it was not.

You'd call this the game of Foster's dreams, except he's not good enough even to be allowed to dream this big.

The Heat getting dominated by Jeff Foster would be like the Marlins losing on a pair of homers by the opposing batboy, or the hockey Panthers giving up a hat trick to Olympic figure skater Scott Hamilton.

Jeff Foster on fire? He is more likely to be found literally engulfed in flames than to catch the kind of figurative fire he did Saturday night -- and yet he was as big a reason as any that this home-dominated NBA playoff series now swings back to Miami with the Pacers up 3-2 entering Tuesday's rematch down south.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/basketball/8678519.htm


If Odom stepped away from Foster to double-team a more-feared player, Foster got open and got the ball.

''Obviously, they weren't running plays for him,'' Heat coach Stan Van Gundy said.

''It's not a one-on-one matchup,'' Odom said. ``He doesn't score his points in the half-court offense. It wasn't like he was pounding me. I can't take it personal.

``It was a good game for him, a bad game for me. I just have to move on and try to win Game 6 at home.

``They made plays to the hole, I step up, and he gets a dunk. That happens. If Jeff Foster had 30, I'd be more mad that my team lost. It's not about how much Jeff Foster scored.''

Odom seemed to lose focus at times, as if his struggles affected his intensity. But he said he thought he played with great energy achieved what he wanted offensively.

Well, everything except converting his shots.

''I got a lot of shots,'' Odom said. ``I got to where I wanted every time and I shot over [Foster]. I just missed.''

Saturday, those were misses Miami could not afford.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/basketball/8678528.htm


''We made the decision to move Ronnie on Wade after two possessions [in the third quarter] to change and give Wade a different look,'' Carlisle said. ``I thought Ron did a solid job.

''I put [Jamaal] Tinsley on Eddie Jones and Reggie [Miller] on [Caron] Butler,'' he said. ``That made those two matchups a little tougher, but those guys did a solid job. Any move you make like that, you move to strengthen one position, it presents other opportunities for your opponent.''

Wade said Artest wasn't a problem, and that he didn't score in the third quarter because he was playing the role of playmaker. He finished with 16 points and a career-high 10 assists. Did Artest stop Wade?

''Not necessarily,'' Wade said. ``He gets all up in you, and I can go by him. But I didn't want to break the offense. My job was to get guys the ball.''

Artest gave Wade credit.

''He stepped up and had 16 points and 10 assists,'' Artest said. ``Maybe [I slowed him down] for a second, but not too much. He just kept going and taking it in there. He's got a go-to mentality.''

Still, when the Pacers slow down Wade, they slow down the entire Heat offense, which produced just 16 third-quarter points.

''We're just going to throw different bodies at the rookie,'' Miller said. ``They tried to take advantage of it by getting the ball down to [Lamar] Odom and Eddie Jones. I'm sure they will make adjustments and try to take advantage of that situation [by getting the ball inside more when Artest is out guarding Wade].''

The absence of Wade's scoring wasn't the biggest problem in the third -- it was the Heat's inability to stop Indiana, which shot 80 percent, hitting 12 of 15 shots to take over the game.

''We played terrible defense,'' said Jones. ``We played terrible defense as a team, and when you play bad defense together, bad things are going to happen.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/basketball/8678523.htm


The Indiana Pacers have long referred to depth and a multitude of scoring options as their biggest weapons in the NBA playoffs.

For one night against the overmatched Heat, that was every bit the truth.

Four Indiana players scored in double figures and the Pacers outrebounded the Heat for the first time in the Eastern Conference semifinals en route to a 94-83 victory in Game 5 on Saturday night at Conseco Fieldhouse.

''I thought we were a very strong-willed team tonight,'' Indiana coach Rick Carlisle said. ``We did a better a better job of defending . . . and finally broke through and had what we would consider a big rebounding game.''

Just who had a big game for the Pacers? A better question might be, who didn't?


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.indystar.com/articles/9/147010-3509-179.html



Despite their inept performance, which included being outrebounded (47-30) by the Pacers for the first time in the series, the Heat remain confident they'll get another shot to win a game here.

"It'll be a Game 7," Wade said, looking down at a reporter's notepad to make sure his words were recorded. "It'll be a Game 7."

If so, what will the Heat do for an encore?

Six times they've played on the road during these playoffs, and six times they've been hammered.

In the first round against New Orleans, they trailed by 15 points, 11 points and 19 points before losing Games 3, 4 and 6, respectively.

Against the Pacers, the margin grew, as they trailed by 23, 22 and 23 points in Games 1, 2 and 5.

"We just don't have an answer," Heat backup point guard Rafer Alston said while gazing into space in front of his locker after the game. "We play so hard at Triple A (AmericanAirlines Arena). We play great at Triple A. And for some reason we just don't have that same type of play at Conseco. It's mind-boggling.

"We can go back Tuesday and play our behinds off, but we've still got to return here for Game 7."


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/...16may16,0,3730163.story?coll=sfla-sports-heat


The Indiana Pacers went to the boards like hungry lions Saturday, and it paid off big in Game 5 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series.

The Heat had split the first four games in the series, outrebounding the Pacers in every game. It was a vastly different story in Game 5 as the Pacers outrebounded the Heat 47-30 en route to a 94-83 triumph in Conseco Fieldhouse.

"They've absolutely dominated us on the glass," said Jeff Foster, who contributed career highs of 20 points and 16 rebounds to the victory. "If we want to win Tuesday night, that's an area where we've got to continue to do what we did tonight."

Foster, who hit 9 of 10 shots from the field, matched the offensive rebound total of the entire Heat team with seven.

The game wasn't really as close as the final score indicated, and the Pacers enjoyed a 20-4 advantage in points off the glass.

The Heat still in search of its first road playoff victory after six games this year, found itself trailing 44-39 at halftime after being outrebounded 28-16 in the first two quarters. That led to a 13-2 advantage on second-chance points, and the Heat never recovered as Indiana, undefeated after five home playoff games this year, took command in the third quarter 12-2 run and took a 73-55 advantage into the fourth period with the aid of a 11-7 edge on the boards.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/...16may16,0,2203328.story?coll=sfla-sports-heat


Yes, Rick Carlisle sat through some of the three-overtime classic between the Pistons and Nets on Friday night. But he wasn't taking notes.

"I sit on the couch, lay down," Carlisle said.

So he's more fan than coach?

"It's probably a little of both, but I really am just watching mostly," Carlisle said. "And you see things that happen, you look at situations and so forth. But I am really watching like you guys are watching. I watch the games because you can learn a lot by watching both teams play this time of year."

Carlisle doesn't need to brush up much on the Pistons. He coached them for two seasons.

Indiana was 3-1 against both the Pistons and Nets this season.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/...17may17,0,2662082.story?coll=sfla-sports-heat


Rick Carlisle knows the discomfort Fred Jones is in and how his shoulder injury might affect his defense. Carlisle had a similar injury as a player, a dozen years ago.

"It's real painful," Carlisle said

So the Pacers' coach sat Jones for all of Game 5, after the second-year guard had only one point in 35 minutes in the previous two contests at Miami. Austin Croshere and Jonathan Bender got more time with Jones out of the rotation.

Carlisle said he expects Jones to play Tuesday. And Jones, after getting ice and treatment on Sunday, expects the same.

"Warming up before the game, it felt pretty good," Jones said. "It was just a precautionary thing."

The injury is to the capsule that protects the rotator cuff on Jones' non-shooting arm. Carlisle said Jones has it on the posterior side. The coach, in his day, had it on the anterior side.

"It probably gives you more of a problem on the defensive end than the offensive end," Carlisle said, referring to the need to fight off screens.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/...17may17,0,7215050.story?coll=sfla-sports-heat


Considering the first is the Pacers' coach, the second the Pacers' center and the third the Pacers' point guard, this does not bode particularly well for the Heat, unless coach Stan Van Gundy can conjure his own revelations by Tuesday.

That's when this best-of-7 Eastern Conference semifinal resumes, with the Heat down 3-2 but back on its home court at AmericanAirlines Arena.

While much has been made about the mystical and magical nature of a home court that has yielded 18 consecutive home victories for the Heat, the Pacers have gained an edge that extends beyond their comfort of a potential Thursday Game 7 at Conseco Fieldhouse, where Indiana has won 13 in a row.

Tactically, Saturday's 94-83 Game 5 loss at Conseco was torment for the Heat.

From the bench, Carlisle went to the move many expected, forestalling a potential Heat comeback by switching frontcourt defensive specialist Ron Artest to the backcourt and unleashing him on Heat point guard Dwyane Wade.

While Wade was still able to get around Artest, it turned the rookie into a playmaker, a tradeoff the Pacers were more than willing to accept after being burned for 22, 19, 25 and 20 points by Wade in the series' first four games. This time he closed with 16.

Artest took over the assignment with 9:13 left in the third quarter, with Wade already with 12 points to that stage. The rookie did not score again until 8:43 remained in the game.

"Ronnie did a great job of keeping him out of the paint and our team defense was a lot better," said Pacers guard Anthony Johnson, with Wade's boldest move coming after the game, when he guaranteed a return for Game 7.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/...7may17,0,6227417.column?coll=sfla-sports-heat


This is the part you have to understand to appreciate what the Heat have done and to dismiss how this season might fall now because of some lack of mental strength or intestinal fortitude. Maybe it does from lack of size. Maybe it does from lack of scoring or simply because of Indiana.

But mental strength? It won't be from that. And it's not just Butler. It's this team. It's the sometimes rich and often complex fabric these players' lives have been woven with. It's what they've overcome just to get to this point where people are asking if they can overcome a bad night of basketball.

"My mother passed away when I was 12," Lamar Odom said. "After that, I was raised by my grandmother and she passed away just before I signed with the Heat. I found, right from 12, playing basketball is easy. It became a refuge, a release, something I loved to do. And that hasn't changed. Those losses are with me forever. So is this love for the game"

"My uncle, the man who raised me, committed suicide my senior year [in college]," Brian Grant said. "He taught me to be the man I am today and how to play this game. It still hurts knowing he didn't get to enjoy my success -- the biggest part of it. Did it make me play harder? I'm sure it did. But what it did most was hurt."

It's not just death. It's life. It's the normal course of careers that have been molded by downs as much as ups.

Heat coach Stan Van Gundy was fired after failing badly at Wisconsin in the first major coaching job he had.

Malik Allen went undrafted despite being so sure he would be that friends and family had a draft party for him.

Rafer Alston has fought his way through the minor leagues of basketball. But ask what made him so hungry and he takes you back to high school, where he skipped school, got in academic trouble and only played 10 games his junior and senior years of high school.

"To have the basketball ripped from you -- that's a feeling that stays with me," he said. "That was my lowest point. That's the one thing I'd like to change in my life. There are days I get flashbacks to it and, yeah, it drives you."


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/...7may17,0,1100676.column?coll=sfla-sports-heat


You would certainly let Donnie Walsh run your franchise, considering how he refreshed an accomplished but aging Pacers roster so it could contend quickly again.

Heck, you might even let him raise your kids.

Jerry West has nothing on the top Pacers executive other than the logo and a few championships, though Walsh might get one of the latter this June. Still handling day-to-day operations while Larry Bird learns the gig, Walsh deserves the most credit for the Pacers' position: one victory from hosting the Eastern Conference finals.

He deserves credit for stealing Brad Miller and Ron Artest for Jalen Rose and Travis Best in February 2002. For building a deep roster even though his mall-king owners (the Simons) are averse to paying any luxury tax, which forced Miller's trade. But mostly, he deserves credit for his prescience and patience with the three preps-to-pros players on his roster. One (Al Harrington) he drafted himself, 25th in 1998. One (Jonathan Bender) he selected fifth in 1999 after trading a popular player (Antonio Davis). The third (Jermaine O'Neal), Walsh acquired after Portland spent four years nurturing but also sitting and hiding him. Now O'Neal is the Pacers' star, Harrington one of the NBA's top sixth men and Bender a versatile reserve who would start elsewhere.

Instead of bemoaning the trend, Walsh made it work for the Pacers as well as any other NBA team. Now, it seems silly that anyone wondered how elite high school players would eventually do at this level, or that an age limit is still a consideration. Kevin Garnett is the league MVP. Kobe Bryant might be the playoff MVP. Tracy McGrady won a second scoring title. LeBron James won Rookie of the Year, the season after Amare Stoudamire did. Rashard Lewis is a rising star, and Darius Miles finally got going in Portland. Bryant's legal issues aside, all are among the league's most engaging, well-spoken players. Maybe learning in the league served them better.

O'Neal, Harrington and Bender are all similarly well-adjusted, with O'Neal winning the NBA Writers Association's cooperation award. They are 25, 24, 23, respectively, with eight, six and five seasons of experience, and at least six, two and three more with the Pacers. And Indiana hasn't been the worst place for teens with free-flowing dough and a predilection toward distractions to grow up. Here, Steak 'n Shake passes for a happening joint.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/...17may17,0,3983138.story?coll=sfla-sports-heat


The Heat no longer just plays at AmericanAirlines Arena. It wears it, like a comfortable pair of jeans, a warm embrace, a toddler's security blanket.

For five seasons, the Heat has resided at the building on Biscayne. But only now has it truly become a home, with 20,000 regulars with a single rooting interest. No Knicks loyalists. No Jordan worshippers. No LeBron curious.

Just demonstrative, dedicated, devoted fans sitting, standing, screaming.

For what its arena has become, the Heat is thankful. For what it will need to be when Game 6 against Indiana tips off at 8 p.m. Tuesday, the Heat is confident.

The Heat's 3-2 deficit in this best-of-7 Eastern Conference semifinal is daunting, but so is what will greet the Pacers in the series' last go-round along the bay.

And that has kept hope alive, with another sellout assured.

"We know it's 20,000," point guard Rafer Alston said. "But when they're yelling, it feels like 100,000."

The Heat has won 18 in a row at home. Its last loss at Eighth Street and Biscayne was March 2. For as much discouragement as there was with Saturday's 94-83 Game 5 loss in Indiana, the return home figures to revitalize and rejuvenate.

"It's a cool, cool experience," forward Malik Allen said. "When this is over, it's something I'll never forget."

When basketball is a lifestyle, the court becomes more than hardwood, paint and lacquer; it becomes a sanctuary.

In recent days, that had Heat players thinking back to courts that felt this special.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/sfl-heat18may18,0,7630838.story?coll=sfla-sports-front


"We're not going to fold. We haven't folded all year, especially in big games," Odom said of this remarkable ride from an 0-7 start to a place among the final seven survivors in the NBA playoffs. "You're going to have to beat the Miami Heat. You're going to have to beat us down and then we're going to try to get back up. You're going to have to hit us again and again.

"You're going to have to beat us over the head until we just don't have any more life."

Coming out of Saturday's 94-83 loss in Indiana, the Heat appeared to have run out of steam after two months of exceptional basketball that had lifted it from 11 games below .500 to this second-round series.

But now back at AmericanAirlines Arena, where the Heat has won 18 consecutive games, hope seemingly has provided a second wind.

"This group has nothing to lose and everything to gain," Odom said. "It's a great position to be in. Even though we're down, we're at home and we have our fans behind us.

"We've been in this position all year. It's been like this to make the playoffs, to move up and get home court, to beat New Orleans, and now to stay alive. It's just one test after another."


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/sfl-skolnick18may18,0,1357899.column?coll=sfla-sports-front


It can end tonight. The surprise. The noise. The fun.

"This is an elimination game," Stan Van Gundy said. "This is it."

It can't end tonight. It can't end on a loss in this magic building, impostors rejoicing on this floor. It can't end before the Pacers struggle for their lives in their fieldhouse Thursday.

It can end tonight if the Heat comes with the same lukewarm effort that miffed Stan Van Gundy in Game 5.

It can't end tonight, because the Heat has put too much effort into this, from 0-7 to fourth seed to second round.

"Everything dates back to way back when, and I think that's the key thing for us right now," Rafer Alston said. "The more we come in here and practice and think about it ending, we always think about, well, it could have ended way back then if we'd have all just said we're terrible. But we didn't. We could have given in. With all that fire inside of us, we don't want to end now."

It can end tonight if it's one of those Reggie Miller playoff nights.

It can't end tonight because, in this league, you never know when it starts again. "When you're not here, it's a humbling thing," Eddie Jones says. "Because every year, early on in my career, I always just felt like, No. 1, I was going to be in the All-Star Game, No. 2, I always felt like I was going to be in the playoffs, playing for a championship. And when it's gone, you look back, and you're like, what happened? It's three years since you've been in this situation. Right now I'm just absorbing it all and enjoying it."

It can end tonight if Dwyane Wade sees a lot of Ron Artest and can't see a way by, through or over him.

Or if Lamar Odom lets the officials fluster him. Or if Jamaal Tinsley's driving and dishing keeps Jeff Foster dunking. Or if Jermaine O'Neal gets 37 again, and Artest gets 28, and any other Pacer gets the slightest bit involved.

Or if the Pacers are indeed the great team they claim to be, because great teams close out.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/...18may18,0,1770962.story?coll=sfla-sports-heat


On the brink of a possible end to his first NBA season, Wade says he hasn't had a moment to reflect on any of it.

Not the winning jumper he made with 1.3 seconds left in Game 1 against New Orleans; the 3-pointer at the shot-clock buzzer in Game 5; his 27-point performance -- most ever by a Heat rookie -- in Game 6; the 14 points in fourth quarter of Game 3 against Indiana; or becoming the first NBA rookie since Tim Duncan in 1997-98 to score 20-plus points three times in the same playoff series.

"If you look at it like that, I have been through a lot. ... It's been a blur, but that's the way I like it," Wade said. "I like it that way instead of sitting back and really thinking because you have too much time on your hands."

The 22-year-old rookie point guard has taken an accelerated path through life, whether it was marrying young and becoming a father or leaving Marquette University early.

"He needs to absorb everything he's getting right now," guard Eddie Jones said. "He's doing great right now, so he's just going to be on a whole another level in years to come."

"This is the best initiation for him, in the game, on the run, learning like this," forward Lamar Odom said. "That kid right there, anything that's put in his way, he can handle his own."

Wade has frenetically gobbled one spoonful after another with enough heaping helpings to make some rookies explode. Now he's at a point where "he's ready for everything," Odom said.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/...18may18,0,6418290.story?coll=sfla-sports-heat


His boss and brother have lived through unfulfilled guarantees in New York. So Heat coach Stan Van Gundy could only smile Monday when reminded that two of his players, guard Dwyane Wade and forward Malik Allen, have guaranteed the Heat would force a Game 7 against Indiana.

With his team down 3-2 entering tonight's Game 6 of this Eastern Conference semifinal, Van Gundy recalled what his brother, Jeff, as well as Heat President Pat Riley had gone through with the Knicks.

"Everybody says that," Van Gundy said. "Patrick Ewing -- wasn't that the rite of spring for a long time in New York? Back page of The New York Post: `Patrick Ewing guarantees a win.' I mean, in every series, when it comes down to this, someone is going to guarantee a win.

"I mean, if it goes to Game 7, it will be Jermaine O'Neal or Reggie Miller. Somebody will guarantee that they win Game 7."

Such silliness, Van Gundy said, is meaningless.

"It's a great thing, because if you win it, everybody says, `Wow, he guaranteed it,' " he said. "And if you lose, they just write that you lost anyway, so nobody goes back at you. It's a freebie.

"Somebody always steps up with the guarantee. Absolutely meaningless. Laughable."


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/...18may18,0,1250166.story?coll=sfla-sports-heat


Heat guard Eddie Jones was sleeping at home after Game 4 when he received a call from the man Jones' family members jokingly refer to as his "stepfather."

"I picked up the phone and I heard this old, grimy voice: `Eddie, what are you doing?'" Jones said Monday. It seems Jones' college coach at Temple University, John Chaney, had some advice for the 10-year veteran like so many others since the start of the playoffs.

"Old coaches I've had, they call me up, really try to rip me apart," Jones said, smiling.

Jones said Chaney's message to him was to be more aggressive and look to score more. Chaney told him he was coming off screens intent on passing. Jones has taken fewer shots than three of the other four Heat starters this postseason and is averaging 13 points a game on 37.9 percent shooting.

"And I'm trying to come across to Coach, but you're not going to get your point across to him," Jones said. "It's like, `Coach, I'm looking at three guys waiting on me to make a move. I see an open guy ...'"

Before Jones could finish, the old, grimy voice broke in.

"No, look at the rim!"


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/columnists/greg_cote/8691056.htm


Twenty-thousand fans screaming and fireballs booming and clackers clacking and plastic bats whapping and rap music thumping and the Indiana Pacers wishing they had learned sign language because they can't hear themselves think, let alone be heard by the teammate standing next to them trying to lip-read.

This is the sonic wave that will carry the Heat onto the court tonight for what could be -- and the odds say will be -- the final home game of a remarkable season.

Miami, never a basketball town, has portrayed one damned convincingly these past several weeks, filling the downtown bayside arena with bodies and bedlam, providing the Heat a home-court advantage as fearsome, as lifting, as any in the NBA.

The team has responded with 18 consecutive home victories, with one more needed tonight to keep the season (that's all) alive.

This is why we love sports. And even if you don't love sports, surely a stage like this can make you smitten for a night.

There is something about an elimination game.

It is that there is everything about an elimination game.

We are numbed by sports' clichés like ''do or die.'' Put off by hearing too many games referred to as ''must win'' even if they are none of the kind.

Tonight is all of that for the Heat.

''The biggest game of my career,'' Lamar Odom called it Monday.

A defining occasion, it is, one that demands the Heat play free and easy -- like this was asphalt and the nets were chain and the loser buys the Nehi Orange -- even though the magnitude of the stage invites you to freeze, whispers ``miss it!''

Is cool desperation an oxymoron?

Miami needs that tonight. Urgency and calm, all at once.

The Heat must ''play like we don't have anything to lose,'' Caron Butler put it well, ``even though we do have a lot to lose.''

Tonight will be a love-in for the Heat, at nearly enough decibels to shatter a backboard.


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

Tucked away from the television cameras, unnoticed by the thousands of Miami Heat fans screaming their lungs out at AmericanAirlines Arena the past few weeks, is perhaps the most compelling story of the team's surprising playoff run. It is the story of a 13-year-old Hialeah boy who lost four siblings -- and eventually his mother -- in a horrific house fire and how he came to find a new family in the Heat locker room.

Robertson Auguste, the lone survivor of the Feb. 15 fire, and his 20-year-old brother Conrad, who was not home that night, will be in prime seats for tonight's game against the Indiana Pacers, as they have been for each of the other six home playoff games. They are guests of Heat forward Lamar Odom, who took a special interest in the brothers' story and scooped them under his wing.

In addition to buying their tickets, Odom invited the Augustes to every pregame shootaround, met with them after games and took them on a shopping spree, where he purchased a few thousand dollars' worth of Heat merchandise and clothing for them. Odom and several of his teammates refer to the brothers as the team's ``lucky charms.''

Odom sheepishly calls the gestures ''really small,'' but they have meant the world to the brothers, whose pain was unbearable even before learning that their mother, Marie Auguste, set the blaze, probably for monetary reasons, according to police. She died March 26 of a heart attack complicated by burns.

After more than a month of wakes and funerals and tears, the Auguste brothers have found some solace from their experiences with the Heat. The day after their mother's funeral, they were in the stands for a playoff game. The day after a difficult Mother's Day, they were in the stands again.

''What the Heat has done for me and my brother has helped us to take our minds off the situation we are faced with, and right now it is exactly what we needed,'' said Conrad Auguste, who is trying to gain custody of his younger brother. ``All the players have been nice, but Lamar really came through. He makes sure we're taken care of. We had never even been to a pro basketball game, so this whole thing is just crazy, amazing.''

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/8690887.htm


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/8691076.htm


It is not all on Caron Butler tonight.

But make no mistake about this: There is no better barometer to measure the Miami Heat than Butler.

In so many ways, Butler's game reflects the Heat's game, and it's not by coincidence, but by design.

That's why if Butler has a big game tonight in Game 6 against Indiana, then you can expect the Heat to play well, too.

''It's not just about Caron having a big game, everybody has to step up now,'' said Heat coach Stan Van Gundy, whose team trails Indiana 3-2 in the best-of-7 Eastern Conference semifinals.

But even Van Gundy will admit that Butler's offensive numbers are a direct result of the Heat's overall play. The Heat -- like every team -- has so many plays, and this team likes to go to Dwyane Wade and Lamar Odom.

The nights when Butler's offensive numbers go up are the very nights the Heat spreads the ball more and creates more opportunities for everyone.

''That's when we play our best,'' said Butler, who scored 11 points in Game 5 in Indiana on Saturday on a night when the Heat's offense struggled and Indiana won easily 94-83


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## -33- (Aug 6, 2002)

http://www.indystar.com/articles/4/147505-3994-036.html


Legitimate contenders, at some point, must prove they can stare down the odds and win a defining playoff game on the road.

Every team still alive in the other series of the NBA playoffs has already done so in the second round, and tonight the Indiana Pacers test their mettle in one of the league's least hospitable environments, AmericanAirlines Arena.

If they beat Miami, they'll win their Eastern Conference semifinal series in six games and afford themselves a few luxuries. If they lose, as they did there in Games 3 and 4, they face the danger of an anything-can-happen Game 7 at Conseco Fieldhouse on Thursday.

"A championship team has to be able to go out on the road and win a game," Pacers forward Jermaine O'Neal said Monday. "It's no different for us. We have to be able to go out there and close this series down."

Actually, they don't have to. They'd still have the mulligan of Game 7. But this is as good a time as any for them to prove they're as tough as the other guys left on the block.

The Pacers are 2-3 in road Game 6s in their NBA playoff history but 2-0 when they have the opportunity to close out the series. They eliminated Philadelphia and New York in such games on their way to the NBA Finals in 2000, but that was with essentially a different group of players, a far more experienced roster.

This team shared the league's best road record (27-14) with Minnesota during the regular season and won two road games in sweeping Boston in the first round of the playoffs. But it hasn't yet faced a circumstance such as the one that awaits it tonight.


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