MARY LOUISE KELLY, Host:
In the NBA finals the Dallas Mavericks pulled off a stunning, come from behind victory, 95-93, that evens the best of seven series with the Miami Heat at one game each. NPR's Mike Pesca reports that the improbably fourth quarter comeback dramatically changes the tenor of the series.
MIKE PESCA: Unidentified Man: Takes it inside, two handed jam, Wade.
PESCA: Unidentified Man: Right side opens up, right down the gut with a right hand jam, LeBron.
PESCA: Unidentified Man: We've seen James. We've seen Wade. And now Bosch with a thunderous follow.
PESCA: With a little over seven minutes left, Wade scored his 34th through 36th points with a flick of the wrist from 23 feet from the basket. But Wade also happened to be two feet from the Mavericks bench, and a few of those players, Tyson Chandler among them, didn't like watching Wade and James celebrating that shot so cheerfully with so much time left.
TYSON CHANDLER: It's just frustrating when you're out there and you're fighting and not only are they kicking your butt, but, you know, they're celebrating in front of you. So, you know, we didn't want to end the night like that.
PESCA: Chandler's teammates Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Kidd said they took no notice of any celebration. But Jason Terry did.
JASON TERRY: We come out of that time out, and if we don't score then we're pretty much dead. We looked at each guy in the huddle to a man, me specifically looked at Dirk, and said there's no way we're going out like this.
PESCA: Afterwards, LeBron James asserted, and then reasserted, quote, "It was no celebration at all." So it was put to James and Wade once more. There was indeed chest thumping and a kind of a dance, and the Mavericks players took note. What did they have to say? Wade answered.
DWAYNE WADE: A celebration is confetti. A celebration is champagne bottles. There was no celebration. It was a shot made going into a timeout. Every team does something. That's the game. So if it pumped them up - they won the game. So obviously it did something.
PESCA: In any case, the Mavericks grabbed either that .4 or .02 percent life line and pulled. They went on a 20 to 2 run, culminating in a Dirk Nowitzki three- pointer. Then, after the Heat finally put some points on the board to tie the score with seconds left, the Mavericks took over, which means Nowitzki took over...
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PESCA: Mike Pesca, NPR News, Miami.
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LOUISE KELLY: This is NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
