Lumber and gifts key to Miami taking Game 3
[SCENE THREE, South Florida, Miami area. We see a montage of flashbacks to start with, covering what's happened already to bring the audience up to speed. Then the camera shifts to the star, LeBron, cutting to TV announcers who hype him up even higher on a pedestal, cutting again to Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, then cut to announcers talking pititfully about the young upstarts from Oklahoma.]
The thind installment of the best-of-seven series that is the 2011-12 NBA Finals opened about like that, if you were to look at the script, and from there, it was the frustrating, has-promise-of-being-interesting, familiar plotline. In Miami now, the National Anthem was sung by an eleven year old girl named Julia Day, although understandably nervous, she did a pretty good job.
Also doing their task well was Oklahoma City, the Heat shot off to a 10-2 start, but the Thunder reeled off eight straight to tie the game at 12-all, the score held close all throughout the first quarter, Miami led after twelve minutes 26-20. A balanced offensive attack and good interior defense kept the game close in the second quarter, Oklahoma CIty grabbed a 39-38 lead with 2:44 left in the frame, but the Heat came back to be up by one at halftime, 47-46.
Oklahoma City picked up the reins early in the second half, running off on a 14-2 run to start the quarter, and Leading by ten, 64-54, on a four-point play by wily veteran Derek Fisher, fouled by Mario Chalmers on a shot from behind the arc. That lead had dipped to 65-58 with 3:35 to play in the quarter, the Thunder got good rebounds, but had a hard time capitalizing on those advantages, constantly shooting themselves in the foot with bad fouls, giving Miami free points, and then missing six of their own eleven tries from the stripe. The Heat came back into it little by little, and going into the fourth quarter the home side was ahead by a nose, 69-67. The same problems followed the Thunder, a complete lack of rebounding and more fouls(some legal, some given) were what doomed OKC, down 84-77 with 3:44 to go, they clawed back to 86-85 with 96 seconds left, but a foul-ridden Durant, Westbrook and ice-cold James Harden weren't enough to stop LeBton James and Dwayne Wade, who benefitted time after time from whistles that were missed calls, leading to a 91-85 Heat victory.
Durant's statement postgame was that "This was a tough loss. Frustrating, but we just have to go play the next game and take it instead." Game 4 will also be in Miami at the American Airlines Arena, tipoff will be at 8 p.m. on Tuesday night, Miami has a 2-1 series lead.
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