MIAMI - That spot in the corner, so full of magic Tuesday night, was where Ray Allen walked again early Wednesday afternoon, roughly 15 hours after his miracle shot from there resuscitated the Heat season.
This was in a loose moment before a loose practice, not in the final seconds of Tuesday’s Game 6. Allen dribbled the basketball. He eyed the basket. He put up the shot.
“Will it go?” teammate Mike Miller said, laughing.
As it goes through the air again, as South Florida wears this game’s wonderful hangover like a crown, let’s understand something as the seconds tick down to tonight’s Game 7.
The burning question now about Tuesday’s classic Game 6 is - to me, anyhow - not about Allen’s shot, LeBron James’ lost headband or Heat fans leaving early expecting a loss, then banging on the arena doors trying to get back in for the win.
“Can’t leave the game,” Chris “Birdman” Andersen said about those fans.
No, the question from this unforgettable game is simply who emotionally forgets it first. And recovers physically from it best. What did Mr. Phelps say in Mission: Impossible? The tape will self-destruct in five seconds? Can they destroy this?
“Winning Game 6 isn’t the dream,” Bosh said. “Winning Game 7 is.”
These are two teams, the Heat and San Antonio, full of pro’s pros with years of experience and hardened lessons behind them. They know the meaning of one game, even if San Antonio’s Manu Ginobili talked in the moment afterward, saying, “I’m devastated.”
It was that spectacular for the Heat, that painful for the Spurs. Coach Gregg Popovich, who looks and sounds like a tightly-screwed football coach, didn’t wait for the team bus to leave the arena afterward. He wanted out immediately.
He wanted a taxi. Anything. The head of the arena’s bomb-squad unit offered a ride. Popovich hopped in the waiting SUV. That’s how he left the arena. That’s what this loss did to him in the immediate aftermath.
But a therapeutic team dinner was called by the Spurs after the game. They didn’t just re-live their pain deep through the night, their trophy being wheeled out, their leadbeing five points with 25 seconds left.
They ranked that pain. Tony Parker recalled how his French National team lost a seven-point lead in the final 35 seconds to miss the gold-medal game of the European Championships. They played for the bronze medal against Spain the next day.
“We won that,” he said.
Who has the advantage in Game 7? Who really knows? The idea changes from game to game, just like the victor. After San Antonio’s Game 3 win, the relevant statistic was 92.3 percent of the teams winning that game in a tied series win the title. So it was the Spurs’ series.
By Wednesday, it was how no home team has lost a Game 7 in 35 years. So now it’s the Heat’s title.
“We can’t worry about what the history books say,” LeBron said. “That’s why it’s history. We have to live in the moment. And we have to do whatever it takes to keep that trophy here in Miami.”
Sports is full of hard lessons, and strange things, inexplicable things, have happened in this series. The Heat haven’t won a consecutive game in their previous 13 games. Watching them play through this is like expecting orange juice and drinking chocolate milk.
“Game 7 is an opportunity, that’s all it is,” Heat forward Shane Battier said. ‘In the words of Yoda, ‘You do or do not. There is no trying.’ “
Emotionally, physically, psychically, two teams spent Wednesday recovering from Game 6 and preparing for the season’s final game. Therapy for Dwyane Wade’s sore knee. Massages all around.
“I’ll watch Spongebob with my sons,” LeBron said.
“I’ll have a Bud Light, talk to my wife, go to bed,” Battier said.
What does a classic Game 6 mean? It means there’s one more game to play, one more night to sweat, one final moment waiting to happen.
“I said last year it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, winning my first [title],” LeBron said. “Last year doesn’t even come close to what we’ve gone through in the postseason and in these Finals.”
That Allen shot in practice? When it came down Wednesday afternoon, it came down just like it did Tuesday night. Swish. Now a day to remember becomes one to forget.
Sports, Pages 20 on 06/20/2013