The Turning Point: Game 3

How important is Game 3 of the NBA Finals?

In NBA Finals history, the series has been tied 1-1 on 33 occasions. The Game 3 winner has gone on to win 29 of those 33 series (87.8 percent).  Why is it so important?  In the first 3 rounds of the playoffs, which feature a 2-2-1-1-1 format in which teams each have two home games in a row, then alternate home games with each other.  But in the Finals, it's still the old 2-3-2 format.  That means that Dallas, following a remarkable comeback win in Game 2, has the next 3 games on its home floor, where they are 7-1 during the post season thus far.  Soooo....the winner of this game is going to be sitting pretty for the rest of the series.

Will it be Dallas or Miami?

Despite Dirk Nowitzki's brilliant performance in the 4th quarter of game 2, and a much more involved Shawn Marion & Jason Terry, I still have to go with Miami on this one.  At the 7:15 mark in the 4th, Miami led by 15 points and was dominating the painted area against the Mavs.  Dwyane Wade scored 36 points, and was 10-11 shooting inside 15 feet.  The Heat overall shot 17-26 from inside 15 feet, as Dallas had no answer for the strong drives of Lebron James and Wade.  But during the final push in the 4th, the Heat went ice cold and started settling for long pull up jumpers.  They seemed content to work the clock more than work their offense for good shots.  In the final stanza, they attempted 18 shots, but only 4 were inside of 15 feet, and in the final 6:19 of the quarter they only took one shot in that range.  That is an atrocious numbers, and it's not likely to be repeated by the Heat tomorrow night.

James & Wade won't be denied in Game 3

So often we hear players and coaches make statements like "we gave this game away" or "they didn't beat us, we beat ourselves", and most of the time things like that are just ego saving sound bites to try and downplay that you just lost a game.  But in this instance, I'd have to say that's exactly what happened.  The mistakes the Heat made can be corrected.  They just stopped running their offense and became much too concerned with running the clock down.  Last time I checked, the team that scores the most points wins.  This isn't something like the situation that the OKC Thunder or the Chicago Bulls encountered during the conference finals against these teams.  The Bulls couldn't all of a sudden just crap out another star to go along with Derrick Rose and give Chicago a chance in the series.  And the Thunder couldn't just gain playoff experience and maturity over night after having never been truly battle tested by a great team. Those problems couldn't have been fixed, and they ended both teams' seasons. Not gonna be the case with Miami.  Miami will make the adjustments and win Game 3. 

And we know what that means.