Champagne is dreading his next tinkle
Heat 108, Nets 105 2OT
Round 1, Game 3 File
The Heat endure the Nets' best effort, wearing them down over the course of 58 minutes of play. Kidd gets a triple double, Carter hits a couple of buzzer-beaters, and Jefferson plays his best comeback game so far, but too many long-range misses dooms them to an 0-3 series hole.
• Box
Score
Series Record: 0-3
Nets High Men:
• Points: Vince Carter, 36
• Assists: Jason Kidd, 13
• Rebounds: Jason Kidd, 16
• Steals: Kidd and Carter each had 3
• Turnovers:
Vince Carter, 7
• Blocks: Brian
Scalabrine, 1
• FG Percentage:
Nenad Krstic, 64.3% (9 - 14)
Nets Team Stats:
• FG Percentage: 39.3%
• FT Percentage: 66.7 %
• Rebounds: 57
• Rebound Differential: +6
• Turnovers: 14
• Opposing Team's Turnovers: 18
• Bench points:
30
• Bench points Differential:
+15
•
Steals: 10
• Blocks: 1
• Points in the Paint: 44
• Double-Doubles: 1 (Vince Carter: 36 points, 10 assists)
• Triple-Doubles:
1 (Jason Kidd: 16 points, 16 rebounds, 13 assists)
The Kidd Effect:
• Nets Players in Double Digit Scoring:
4
• Nets Fast Break Points:
12
• Kidd's FG Percentage: 31.6%
(6-19)
• Scoring Differential Kidd in the game:
-10
• Scoring Differential Kidd
out: +7 (Best at PG)
• Double-Doubles
this Season: 16
• Triple
Doubles this Season: 9
• Career
Triple Doubles: 68
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Kidney Punch
Maybe if Hated Alonzo Mourning hadn't have grabbed the rebound of Udonis Haslem's missed freethrow and called timeout with 20.6 seconds left in the second OT, the Nets still wouldn't have had anything left in their deep, aching tissues three-and-a-half hours after the start of this game to send them all to a third OT. But you never know — and things nearly as strange had happened. For instance, 5 game-minutes ago, when Vince Carter took an inbounds pass from Kidd and hit a jumper that bobbled around like a lottery ping-pong ball before falling through the hoop at the first OT's buzzer.
But the Nets were exhausted, and it showed in their shooting: a gouge-your-eyes-out demonstration of outside pops that missed, and missed again. The Heat endured what may have been the Nets' best punches and took title to one of their franchise's greatest playoff wins.
Much Pain For No Gain
Do Call It A Comeback Part I - Jersey took the hardwood sporting red socks, a karma-grabbing gesture that I can't really blame them for – I mean, I'm happy they believe in themselves – but that left copper-flavored ickiness on the tongue, owing to the fact that it was the Boston Red Sox' miracle they were trying to glom onto. Does anybody in the Nets Organization care that they play in a metropolitan area that would tend to include more Bronx Bomber and Mets fan than Sox creeps? Either this was an innocent fashion choice on the teams' part and I'm reading too much into it, or this just points up the fact that major league players don't have an iota of local loyalty or roots anymore. I mean, I guess this fact is obvious by now, and New Jersey itself a place without much of an identity (New York's teams are our teams, which is very unsatisfying – ask a football Giants fan), and sports rivalries are a sham and a marketing tool that the players themselves don't really buy into, and maybe other people don't hate Boston as much as I do (shouldn't the current Nets, owing to their recent playoff history against the Celtics?). And I don't even like baseball, either. Anyway – the Nets aren't the Sox, but if they do win this series, yep, it will be some kinda historical comeback, that's for sure. And we'll never get to "own" it anyway, New Jerseyans. It'll be Jay Z's and Brooklyn's to strut about.
Do Call It A Comeback Part II - Game 1 wasn't Richard Jefferson's true comeback. Game 2 wasn't either. This was it. RJ treated us to a series of calamitous slams, playing an astonished 45 minutes, grabbing 8 rebounds, and scoring 23 points. But did you see him just die down the stretch...into the 2nd OT? He was part of a winded pack that couldn't complete a fastbreak here, and he blew an absolutely heart-breaking lay-up with the Nets down by 2. We could only think "what could have been" had RJ been able to come back sooner: better seed in the East? A couple of wins against the Heat? Who knows. Jefferson had 8 points in the first quarter, as did the currently hot Nenad Krstic. Nets led by 7 at the end of the first, and it was looking like Jersey was gonna make this series at least slightly interesting.
Diesel and Dooling Double Team - Shaq went missing in the first twelve minutes, but showed up big and strong in the second. He and Keyon Dooling combined to score 26 of the Heat's 32 points in this quarter. Miami's best frame, until the final OT. Although NJ was on a Jeffersonian tear that bled into the start of the second (when RJ went out with 10:06 left in the quarter, they'd gone on an 18-3 run with him in the game and were up by 10 points), Nets went into halftime down by 4.
Third and Out? - Often a decisive quarter, and one the Nets have owned in years past. Tonight it looked grim for them here...until the very last second. Damon Jones hit three 3-pointers in the third and the Heat had gone up by 10 late in it, before a 5-point Nets run, capped by Vince Carter's first buzzer-beater of the game, kept the deficit leading into the 4th down to a managable 5. Carter now had 18 points, but his shooting percentage was ominously low (he'd end the game having hit 15 of 37).
Carter Giveth, Eddie Jones Taketh - Shandon Anderson supposedly scored 2 points in the entire game, but guess what? The ball actually was deflected off Vince before it fell in. Score one for Vince...and the Heat! But Jersey crept back into this, before the second of two explosive slams by RJ (self-created, off a steal) gave them a 1-point lead. With 1:45 left, Vince Carter hit an long, long bomb for three points and a 4-point advantage. When O'Neal hit one out of two free throws, the Nets would not score again this quarter. Eddie Jones knocked down a 3-pointer to tie, and Jersey thought "I'll try that too!" But Carter and Kidd missed consecutive 3-ball attempts to win this.
Eddie Jones Giveth, Carter Taketh - The first OT was Carter's 5 minutes to shine...and shoot, and shoot, and shoot again, until he got it right. Vince got the Nets off to a good start, scoring their first 4 points. Then it was Shaq's turn to bruise the Nets, by hitting 3 out of 4 of his free-throws, and tossing in a hook shot that gave Miami a 2-point lead. Things looked dire when Carter threw the ball away and kept missing three-balls, and with 11 seconds to go they were forced to foul Eddie Jones. How could Eddie Jones fail at the stripe? Fail he did, missing both tosses. Again, Carter launches a 3-ball and misses. But the ball goes out of bounds off the Heat. With 2.3 seconds left, Kidd inbounded to Carter who launched one from the corner, a few steps in from the 3-point stripe. It bounced off the rim. It hit the backboard. It bounced back down on the rim. I got up, went into the kitchen to feed my turtles Cuff and Link and fortifiy myself with 6 raw eggs. Sated, I returned to my seat, just in time to watch the ball drop through, like, 10 minutes after the buzzer sounded. Adrian! Tie game! Off to OT #2.
Long Bloody Fadeout - Carter and Jefferson got the Nets a slim 1 point lead early in the last OT, just before the legs gave out completely and the only other points from the Nets this game was a freak 3-point hit by Carter in the waning seconds, with his team now down by 6, and a win out of reach. Hey, what if you threw a fastbreak and nobody came? That's what happened to RJ after he tracked down an O'Neal miss: nobody followed him up the court. He shot it himself, and he missed. And the misses just kept coming: the Nets would toss 1 more 3-ball attempt than the Heat this game – 23 of them! – and hit only 3. Here is where RJ missed that lay-up that would have tied it. Here is where NJ sent Dwyane Wade to the line, which extended the agony for what felt like 1/2 an hour. Here is where the chest-thumping, Shaq-hugging, God-pointing, roundly-booed Alonzo Mourning grabbed that free-throw rebound and helped lock it up for the Heat.
Die By the Three
What weapons: the Heat shot 45.5% from beyond the three-point line and 45.2% overall. O'Neal overcame his slow start to finish with 25 points; Wade and Eddie Jones scored 22 and 20 respectively, and Udonis Haslem added 14 and a pretty incredible 19 rebounds. The Heat were miserable from the foul line, shooting 57.9% there. That's where the Nets could have overcome the them, but failed, going only 66.7% themselves. And from the field, the three-ball addicted Nets hit 39.3% and a measley 13% from beyond the arc. Carter, Kidd and Jefferson combined for a 3 - 19 attempt to outdo Miami at their own game. Bad idea – Jersey is not a team of long-range punchers. Despite O'Neal, the Nets actually bested the Heat in the paint, and if they'd stuck to a regime of inside attempts they'd have been better off. Jason Kidd got his 9th triple double of the season and 68th of his career (16 points, 16 rebounds, and 13 assists), but you know the song about his shooting: it's not good. A triple-double by Kidd spoiled, Jefferson's third and best game back negated, and Game Three – and this series, barring a miracle even Johnny Damon wouldn't believe – goes to Miami.
- Champagne
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