LeBron James took the first step toward winning a first championship by leading the Miami Heat to a 92-84 victory over the Dallas Mavericks in the Game One of the NBA Finals on Tuesday.
James scored 24 points, added nine rebounds and five assists to lead the Heat to the victory before a raucous crowd, hungry to see the Heat’s first title since 2006.
The two-time NBA most valuable player hit nine of 16 shots but was at his best from long range, connecting on four-of-five from beyond the arc.
Dwyane Wade added 22 for the Heat, while collecting a team-leading 10 rebounds. Chris Bosh scored 19 for Miami, giving the so-called “Big Three” 65 of the team’s 92 points.
James scored nine points in the third quarter, including a 25-foot, three-pointer at the buzzer with the Mavericks’ Shawn Marion in his face, as Miami recovered from an eight-point deficit to take a 65-61 lead into the final period.
“It’s kind of the way we have been winning games — you have got to stick with it, you can’t get frustrated because the ball’s not going in,” said Wade.
“There are other ways you can dominate the game and we were able to do that tonight. I thought we did a great job in the second half.”
Miami led 77-73 with just under four minutes left but two foul shots by Chris Bosh and a 24-foot, three-point jumper by Wade hiked the advantage to nine points with 3:06 on the clock.
THREE-POINT PLAY
Two free throws by Dallas forward Dirk Nowitzki sliced the lead to 82-75 but James responded with a three-point play on the next possession to end any thoughts of a Dallas comeback.
Nowitzki scored 27 points hitting seven-of-18 shots from the floor and all 12 of his free throw attempts.
Game Two is in Miami on Thursday before the best-of-seven series shifts to Dallas for the next three games, if necessary.
Dallas lost to Miami in the title series five years ago, the Mavericks winning the first two games of the best-of-seven series before losing the next four.
The Heat were 47-35 last season but became one of the NBA’s elite teams when James and Bosh took the free agent route last summer to join fellow All-Star Wade in Miami.
Wade admitted the Mavericks had trouble guarding both him and James.
“We are two playmakers, who can not only take shots and make plays ourselves, we can do it for our team mates,” he said. “This was a total team win though. And we got one.”
