Admittedly I am a huge Dwyane Wade fan. Notice I even spelled his name the weird way he spells it. Since his time at Marquette I really liked him. He is a great player that has a lot of character, in other words he had all the makings of a great one. After this finals he is well on his way to the upper echelon of greatness. Flash will be no flash in the pan, but a superstar, but more than that he is a winner and that really is what separates the great ones from the really good ones. It is the difference between Kevin Garnet and Tim Duncan, along with a long list of other comparisons. So needless to say I was pleased when the Heat won. And as long as the Jazz are out I don't really have any allegiance to any team.
So here is my second guessing. What happened to Dirk driving to the hoop and getting to the line? The same thing that Wade did to win and Dirk had done all year and throughout the playoffs up until Games 4-6. Dirk would have got the same calls Wade did, he would have been money at the line like Wade, so where did he go? My own theory is when Miami ratcheted up the "heat" he didn't like the physicality and stopped going to the hoop. It was oh so reminiscent of Karl against the Bulls. Since Game 3, 5, and 6 were so close had he played like he did all year that may have been enough to make the difference. For without Dirk going to the basket, all Dallas is, is a team of jumpshooters that can shoot you right out of a game, see games 4 and 6.
Next point, Hack-A-Shaq was working this playoffs like no other time I remember. O'Neal was so bad from the line that he had to be pulled at the end of games. Here is one of the all time greats being pulled in the most important part of the game, crunchtime, because of a fatal flaw. Dallas exploited this in games 1 and 2, yet the rest of the series they got away from putting the big fella on the line. A fatal mistake. Game 6 down the stretch O'Neal should have been on the line everytime down the court, not Wade. Another fatal mistake. Shaq may be Superman, but the foul line is his kryptonite and may have killed the heat if the mavs had exploited it more.
Moral of the story is if a team has a fatal flaw you should exploit it like a good papparazzi, attack and attack and then attack some more. Also, if Dirk doesn't want to be the next Karl he should take the ball to the rack, it worked for his opponent. Also, jumpshooting teams need another way to score when they're off, driving to the hoop and getting to the free throw line made up the difference until the series went to Miami. Also, the difference in this series may have been killer instinct or lack of it. Had Dallas won game 3 like they should have this would have been over in 4 maybe 5, but Dallas relented and Dwyane Wade showed he has desire and is relentless. Finally, just like in Hoosiers at the end of the game when the coach calls for the ball to go to someone other than Jimmy Chitwood the star, the team looked around and they all knew it had to be Chitwood. They looked shocked the coach would even suggest someone other than their star should have the ball. Such is real life. All of the heat knew for them to win Wade would have to be the man, and he was. The key fact here is Wade KNEW it too, and that is why they won. It was like the revelation point in the Matrix when Neo realizes he is the one, potential is just a nice word for see ya next year until a player believes it too. Who knows what the future holds for Dwyane Wade, all I know is I would never bet against him, mainly cause he knows, I know, everyone knows what he can do, and that he will DO IT.
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