With full team, Heat are full steam ahead

MIAMI — It might be time to retire the term "The Big Three."

After a 101-93 overtime win in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals Tuesday night, "The Miami Heat" will do just fine.

Miami smothered the Bulls with defensive efforts from LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Joel Anthony.

The Heat shot past Chicago with bursts of big moments from Udonis Haslem (9 rebounds) and Mike Miller (12 mostly-clutch points, 9 rebounds), two players who had been non-factors until this series.

Mario Chalmers hit huge shots. Chris Bosh's 22 points filled a void left by Wade's 5-of-16, 14-point outing.

This is a true team now, one suddenly forged in the image Pat Riley imagined all along.

"These are some of the things we anticipated coming into the season," Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. "Now when it counts, (Haslem and Miller) have both been able to contribute."

Playing with the intensity and resolve of a great team facing its end, the Chicago Bulls threw all they had at the Heat. Carlos Boozer had another big night with 20 points and 11 rebounds. Derrick Rose threw down two massive dunks despite an awful 8-of-27 shooting night and another massive letdown in the final minutes of the game, as he failed to score in overtime.

The Bulls had a shot to win with 8 seconds left in regulation, a testament to their grit and fight and unwillingness to go down easily. But Rose missed the moment, and the shot, and the window closed. And so the Miami Heat — and not simply the Big Three — seized this series. Barring a brutal collapse, Miami will move on to the NBA Finals.

Only this time, it won't be because LeBron and Wade had to ride to the rescue.

It will be because an eight-man effort, in which every player contributed, has emerged from the cult of personality that's persisted with this team all season.

And that means Miami will present a daunting challenge in the Finals, most likely for the Dallas Mavericks.

Because it's one thing to face LeBron and Wade. It's another to face them surrounded by an array of contributors forged in the same fires and able to do damage as a unit.

To drive home that fact Tuesday, four Heat players scored in double figures, led by LeBron's 35. Six players had at least five rebounds.

"It's extremely hard where a 6-8 guy can easily defend you," Rose lamented afterward.

Yes, indeed. But it's even harder when the team led by that 6-8 player (LeBron) and his fellow future Hall-of-Fame friend (Wade) suddenly finds itself, and rises up around them.

Make no mistake. Much of this season was a struggle for two great players and one very good but ill-fitting player (Bosh) to drag a group of sub-par talent to the levels expected of them.

If not 72 wins, the expectations — their own and others — meant attaining a No. 1 seed, home-court advantage, a real shot of excellence and that championship LeBron so craves to cement his still-growing legacy.

To get to the catalyst of the transformation, start with Haslem.

"UD, none of us expected this," Spoelstra said. "Six weeks ago the staff was tempering my expectations, saying it probably wasn't going to happen this year. But UD was so stubborn that he kept on moving forward and put together a target date."

That date came in the Boston series. But it was Haslem's performance in Game 2 of this Eastern Conference finals series that flipped a switch on this Heat team. On that night in Chicago, he scored 13 points, pulled down five rebounds and somehow took a Heat team for whom he hadn't played since November and turned it into something new. Something deeper. Something stronger.

Something formidable in a way few had imagined since before that dreadful 9-8 November start.

"Most players wouldn't be able to play, one, and find a way to contribute," Spoelstra said. "It's all about the championship intangibles and heart that he has. He has something different that most people don't have inside of him."

He must. Because his teammates are playing with more confidence and swagger since his return. It's as if Haslem's toughness and heart — those intangibles the Heat often lacked this season — have seeped into those around him.

Miller has since come on, as have Chalmers and Anthony.

There was a moment early in Game 2, with the Bulls up in the series 1-0, when things seemed to be rapidly getting away from the Heat. The crowd at the United Center felt it. I felt it. The writers around me felt. The Big Three felt it.

Then Haslem entered the game. And nothing has been the same since.

Tuesday night was, at least so far, the high point of that change.

The LeBron-Wade-Bosh-Miller-Haslem lineup played the final 5:27 of regulation and all of overtime except for two defensive possessions when Anthony replaced Bosh.

"That lineup that we talked about this summer is something we always envisioned, and it's coming together at the right time," LeBron said.

Miller, who'd scored seven points in Miami's first 13 playoff games, dropped two three-pointers and two key baskets down the stretch.

And while the Big Three scored all of Miami's points in overtime, Miller and Haslem did the little things so often missing this season: Haslem set a crucial pick for Bosh off an inbounds pass early in overtime that allowed Bosh to drill a 17-footer that put Miami up by four. All the while, the Bulls had to respect Miller, meaning they couldn't provide as much help when LeBron and Wade drove to the basket.

Perhaps most striking was the Heat's 23-19 advantage in bench points.

So universal was this Miami Heat win that when Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau was asked about LeBron's performance his answer veered, instead, toward the entire Heat team.

"Hey, they're a great team," he said. "They compete. They play hard. They play great defense. They made some tough shots down the stretch. It was a hard-fought game and they made plays at the end."

The series now sits at 3-1 in Miami's favor. But even more promising for the Heat is the fact that when they fly to Chicago to try to finish off the Bulls, they will do so as a vastly different squad than the one that headed there a week ago for Game 1.
    
Forget the Big Three.

It's the Miami Heat who are heading to Chicago to keep up their march toward greatness.

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