Collapse represents major setback for Heat

MIAMI — It all came back.

The stunning letdowns. The spreading doubt. The fourth-quarter collapses. The utter fragility and ill-conceived arrogance of LeBron James and his band of South Beach brothers.

This was supposed to be behind the Chosen One, behind the Miami Heat, all of their early-season weakness and frailty buried in the destruction of the Boston Celtics and the dismantling of the Chicago Bulls.

We were in a world where Heat fans chirped and purred because The King's coronation was at hand and no one thought it too early to say so. A world where even staunch LeBron-haters talked about the burgeoning fortitude of LeBron James. A world where Cleveland turned its eyes away from the NBA because there was nothing but misery waiting there.

And then, up 15 points with 7:14 left in Thursday's Game 2 of the NBA Finals, the basketball world changed.

The Miami Heat, whether for those 434 seconds or for what will turn out to be much longer, regressed.

Badly.

This was more than the Dallas Mavericks executing a stunning comeback to claim a 95-93 win, more than just pushing the reset button on the Finals by knotting the series at 1-1.
    
This was a complete reversion to the Heat as we knew them before the playoffs — a reset button, for at least one game, on their very makeup and morale. It was as if a burst of Dirk Nowitzki's greatness, capped by a driving left-handed layup for the win, transported Miami back to darker days, to the time when such moments of misery lingered too long and powerfully to be discounted as a bad night.

You could almost close your eyes, hear the Heat's post-game answers and swear it was November all over again.

"I don't really know what happened," Chris Bosh said, after scoring 12 points on 4-of-16 shooting.

"When it started to slide, it just kept on going," Coach Erik Spoelstra said.

"We didn't play the way we normally play," said Wade, whose 36-point night was wasted.

Not the way they had lately. Not with the sure confidence of champions, the fortitude of a team burnished by a grueling regular season, and the certainty of a group of guys who had found through hardship the best parts of themselves.

Instead, this was LeBron the Frail One, scoring 20 points but going 0 for 4 in a fourth quarter in which a single basket may have made all the difference. It was Wade the talent turned mostly hapless observer, not scoring again after the Heat took a15-point lead in the fourth quarter.

It was certainly Bosh the butt of the Big Three — so-called half a man, getting beat on the last play as Nowitizki won it.

"I just tried to stay between him and the basket," Bosh said, neglecting to answer why he hadn't fouled Nowitzki with the score tied and Miami with a foul to give.

This was Spoelstra again accused of being an overmatched coach, his team jacking up 30 shots from 3-point range (making just 9) and running an offense that looked like it was designed by the same guys who thought up "The Decision."

"Offensively, that's just uncharacteristic for us," Spolestra said. "To shoot 30 threes in a game, that's not our style of basketball."

Nor was allowing Dallas to close on a 22-5 run over the last seven minutes. Miami is a legitimate defensive force. Its fourth quarter, then, was an utter and complete letdown both offensively and defensively.

To be sure, some thought there was a good amount of arrogance mixed into the Heat melting in the moment. All year, Miami has walked the line between feeding off and growing from the world's hate and mockery, often losing a sense of perspective and focus because of it.

Some Mavericks seemed to think Wade and James' celebration after Wade hit the three to give Miami its 15-point lead was both not cool and, in the end, key to Dallas' recovery.

Wade and LeBron pointed out, also with some merit, that every team gets excited by big shots in big games.

"A celebration is confetti, champagne bottles," Wade said. "There was no celebration. Every team does something (in big moments). That's the game."

The Mavs' reaction may have simply reflected their dislike of the Heat rather than anything Wade and LeBron did wrong. Anyway, mockery — or what seems like it — is fine. As long as you know who you're mocking.

But this isn't the 2006 Dallas Mavericks. The squad Wade torched for his first and, so far, only championship is long gone. So, it seems, is the version of Nowitzki that led them then.

No, this was not the Mavericks team that blew a 2-0 series lead in the Finals, but the one that willed itself away from such a deficit Thursday against another championship-worthy challenger.

The same team that came back from 15 down in the final five minutes of Game 4 against the Oklahoma City Thunder in the conference finals. Just as they came back from 16 down in the third quarter of Game 1 against the Los Angeles Lakers in the conference semis.

Just as they did against a Miami Heat team that had been playing its best ball of the year.

"It's going to be a difficult challenge for us, but we're looking forward to it," LeBron said. "We're a confident bunch. We play great on the road."

So now we know: They are again a team capable of being fragile and timid as well as commanding and dominant. They have been both in a matter of days.

So now we learn which version of the Heat is its truest: The team that brushes off bouts of utter disappointment like what happened Thursday night, or the team that simply cannot.

We'll learn which version of James has emerged from this turbulent season: The player who so many (myself included) did not believe could handle the big moments, or the player who can do just that with utter greatness, as he has so often in these playoffs.

We'll learn about Dallas, and whether its heartache and frustration from 2006 and beyond was a better training ground for greatness than the Heat's struggles this season.

We'll learn about Dirk and just how capable he is of willing himself and his team past LeBron and Miami.

I've written that between LeBron and Wade, LeBron is the lesser of the two when too much hangs in the balance. I've written that LeBron's fragility can impact his whole team. I've written that when either LeBron or his Heat team gets knocked down, they struggle to get back up.

I also thought, over the past few weeks, that LeBron and this Heat team had changed. That LeBron has emerged stronger in the face of such moments, that the Miami Heat had followed his lead.

I still think that. I still think they'll win this series.

There is tons of time left, lots of basketball to be played, and several great stars still able to spin their magic and cement their legacies.

Perhaps LeBron will do just that. Or perhaps it'll be Dirk.

Perhaps Miami regressed only for Thursday night's fourth quarter, and perhaps what happened is a step backward that will last longer — perhaps too long.

The answer will begin to be unveiled Sunday, when the series moves to Dallas for three games and we see how Miami responds to what it allowed to happen at home Thursday.

"We're going to have to live up to the challenge, the hole we dug for ourselves," Wade said. "And we're going to see what we're made of as a team."

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