James’ triple-double leads Heat to 2nd NBA title in 7 years
MIAMI – Best player in the game. Best team in the league.
LeBron James has found it all since taking his talents to South Beach two summers ago.
Add NBA champion to the list.
“Happiest day of my life,” he said.
James had 26 points, 11 rebounds and 13 assists, leading the Heat in a 121-106 rout of the Oklahoma City Thunder on Thursday night to win the NBA Finals in five games.
All that was left was a celebration nine years in the making.
“It means everything,” James said moments after the win, moments before being named the playoffs MVP to go along with his regular-season award. “I made a difficult decision to leave Cleveland but I understood what my future was about … I knew we had a bright future (in Miami). This is a dream come true for me. This is definitely when it pays off.”
James left the game along with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh for good with 3:01 remaining for a round of hugs and the start for a celebration he’s been waiting for since arriving in the NBA out of high school as the No. 1 pick of the 2003 draft. James hopped up and down in the final minutes, shared a long hug with opponent Kevin Durant, and then smiled as he watched the confetti rain down from the rafters.
“It’s about time. It’s about time,” James said.
The Heat took control in the second quarter, briefly lost it and blew the game open again in the third behind their role players, James content to pass to wide-open 3-point shooters while the Thunder focused all their attention on him.
The disappointment of losing to Dallas in six games a year ago vanished in a blowout of the demoralized Thunder, who got 32 points and 11 rebounds from Durant.
Bosh and Wade, the other members of the Big Three who sat alongside James as he promised titles at his Miami welcoming party two summers ago, both had strong games. Bosh finished with 24 points and Wade scored 20. The Heat also got a huge boost from Mike Miller, who made seven 3-pointers and scored 23 points.
The Thunder were making a remarkably early trip to the Finals just three years after starting 3-29. With Durant, Russell Westbrook, Serge Ibaka and James Harden all 23 or younger, the Thunder have the pieces in place for a lengthy stay atop the Western Conference.
But their inexperience showed in this series, a few questionable decisions, possessions and outright mistakes costing them in their franchise’s first finals appearance since Seattle lost to Chicago in 1996. Westbrook scored 19 but made only 4 of 20 shots, unable to come up with anything close to his 43-point outing in Game 4, and Harden finished a miserable series with 19.
Nothing they did could have stopped James, anyway.
Appearing fully over the leg cramps that forced him to sit out the end of Game 4, he was dominant again, a combination of strength and speed that is practically unmatched in the game and rarely seen in its history.
Gone was the tentative player who was mocked for shrinking on the big stage last year, too willing to defer to others who didn’t possess half his talents. This time, he was at peace off the court and on attack on it, vowing to have no regrets and playing in such a way they wouldn’t be necessary.
Notes
The Heat became the third team to sweep the middle three games at home in the 2-3-2 format. The Detroit Pistons took all three from the Los Angeles Lakers in 2004 before the Heat did it against Dallas in 2006. … The four-game losing streak that Oklahoma City finished the season with was its longest of the season. The Thunder had dropped three straight games to Memphis, Miami and Indiana from April 2-6.