San Antonio, June 14 (IANS) Miami ‘Big 3’ collected as many as 85 points to help the Heat go past San Antonio Spurs 109-93 for a Game 4 victory, drawing the series 2-2 and getting back the home court advantage for the defending champions.
LeBron James, four-time NBA MVP who spoiled the last game by just scoring four in the first half, snatched a game-high 33 points from his aggressive offence Thursday, reports Xinhua.
Dwyane Wade finished at 32 points and six steals. Chris Bosh contributed 20 points and 13 rebounds.
“It’s a little bit of everything, that they’ve provided for us,” said Heat coach Eric Spoelstra about the ‘Big 3’.
“All of them provided us great energy defensively and that got us off to a decent start. Quite obviously they are big components to what we do offensively. We run almost every trigger through them.”
The solid Heat defence forced 18 turnovers out of the Spurs and they converted them to 23 points.
“The turnovers obviously hurt us. We can’t give them over 20 points off turnovers. They are too good,” said Spurs coach Gregg Popovich.
Spurs leader Duncan had a team high 20 points. Tony Parker scored 15 all of which came from the first half.
“That’s one of the keys of the series. We have to cut out turnovers. They played great defence tonight,” said Parker.
Parker had the hamstring hurt two days ago and the second half seemed too big a burden for the unhealthy version of him.
“It was just fatigue. I just missed the easy shots and hopefully I’ll get more healthy and I’ll be better by Sunday,” said Parker.
The host team had a wonderful start of the game outscoring Heat 15-5 to force a timeout. Heat strengthened their defence after the timeout, finishing a couple of fastbreaks to pull the score back.
James and Wade kept attacking the rim and Heat extended the lead to nine points into second quarter. However, the experienced Spurs took the chance in the last three minutes in the first half, delivering an 11-2 spurt to level the score 49-49.
Second half saw the struggle of the Spurs, both offensively and defensively. The four-time NBA champions didn’t do enough to stop the ‘Big 3’ and they allowed an 11-point away team lead with less than seven minutes left.
Heat was nothing but cautious in the finals minutes, keeping pace to take home the 16-point victory.
Game 5 would take place Sunday on the same court.
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