MIAMI – A pair of sub-plots took center stage Thursday night during the Miami Heat’s 105-99 victory over the Dallas Mavericks at AmericanAirlines Arena.
First, this was the last time two NBA icons – the Mavs’ Dirk Nowitzki and the Heat’s Dwyane Wade – would meet on the basketball court. Wade, by the way, factored heavily in Miami’s victory.
Second, some 2,000 folks from Slovenia flew to South Florida to watch two of their favorite native sons – the Mavs’ Luka Doncic and the Heat’s Goran Dragic – compete in this knock-down drag-out donnybrook. Dragic won that battle as he collected his second career triple-double (23 points, 12 rebounds, 11 assists) and the Mavs fell to 29-46 on the season.
Afterwards, Doncic and Dragic exchanged jerseys, and so did Devin Harris and Wade, who has announced that he’s retiring after this season.
“Let’s get both of these guys to come back next year,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said, referring to Nowitzki and Wade. “There is too much fun, too much history, too much class.
“These are fun moments. It transcends the game. Two iconic players of their generation with a worldwide following and fan base. They are not just basketball players. They are first-class people.”
As he has numerous times during his 16-year career, Wade took over the game when it was still hanging in the balance. After a free throw by Doncic (19 points, eight rebounds, seven assists) gave Dallas a 97-96 lead with 3:20 left, the Heat finished the game on a 9-2 run, and six of those points came from Wade.
A jumper by Wade and a pump-fake and underhand scoop shot by Dragic bolted the Heat ahead, 100-97. Nowitzki and Wade then each misfired on a 3-pointer, followed by a missed baseline shot from Doncic.
Later, following a pair of free throws from Dwight Powell that inched the Mavs within 101-99 of Miami with 21.9 seconds remaining, Wade continued to put his imprint on this game. First, he nailed a pair of free throws, then striped Ryan Broekhoff and scampered down the floor for a layup and a six-point Miami lead that sealed the game with just 7.9 seconds to go.
“He made big plays,” coach Rick Carlisle said of Wade. “His stat line is deceptive because he made two or three of the biggest plays of the game.
“Look, that’s what great players do. They needed him to step up.”
Nowitzki finished with 13 points in 28 minutes, while Wade notched 11 points in 28 minutes. Wade, who exchanged jerseys with Nowitzki when the two teams played in Dallas last month, said Thursday was the most that he’d ever guarded Nowitzki in a game.
“He hit a big (3-pointer) over me when I closed out on him in the fourth quarter,” Wade said. “I just tried to get to him and tried to make the shot tough.
“Obviously, he could see right over the top.”
The Mavs only shot 39.6 percent from the field, including just 30.8 percent in the second half.
“They got the best of us at the end,” Nowitzki said. “It was a back-n-forth game. (Wade) had some big baskets down the stretch.
“It was a fun game, a great crowd there. I don’t know how many Slovenians were here, but they made this a fun atmosphere to play in and we just fell a little short.”
The Mavs led, 29-26, after the first quarter and stretched it to 59-49 at the half and to 60-49 early in the third quarter before Miami turned up the heat. Overall, the Heat outscored the Mavs 56-40 in the second half, including 30-17 in the fourth quarter.
“We played a great first half,” Carlisle said. “The second half we didn’t hit as many shots, but we had chances.”
Meanwhile, Doncic admitted he had a taste of the jitters before playing in front of the large contingent of Slovenians and before playing against Dragic. After all, Doncic and Dragic were teammates and roommates when leading Slovenia to the European Basketball Championship in 2017.
“Maybe for the first time in my career I was nervous before the game,” Doncic said.
And why was Doncic so nervous?
“Because a lot of people were here,” he said. “A lot of Slovenians, playing against Goran for the first time, it was just different.”
On numerous occasions, the Slovenians made it sound like this was a soccer match. That’s the impact they had on this game, as the made their voices heard among the sellout crowd of 19,851.
“They’re very energetic,” Carlisle said. “You can’t question their enthusiasm. This was loud.
“Having Dragic and Doncic out there, it was like a feeding frenzy for them, which is great. It speaks to the word-wide stretch of the NBA game, and it was really pretty cool.”
NOTES: Several dozen members of the Mavs’ front office staff will make the trip to San Antonio on Apr. 10 to see possibly Dirk Nowitzki’s final NBA game. But the Mavs’ last home game against Phoenix on Apr. 9, according to proprietor Mark Cuban, will take the cake. “It’s going to be crazy,” Cuban said. “The last home game, obviously we’re going to do a lot of special things for Dirk. And so I think that’s going to be so emotional that the last game in San Antonio will just be, no way it’s going to be nearly as impactful.”. . Coach Rick Carlisle can sympathize with the fact the rookie Luka Doncic is experiencing losing for the very first time. “He has always won and we’ve been a winning franchise, but we’re going through a rebuild where we have a lot of change with young players, and just part of the process is that you have to go through some tough periods,” Carlisle said. “But the tough periods got to make everybody stronger, and we’ve got to get better and we have to prepare ourselves to be much better next year.”. . In the first quarter of Thursday’s game, the Heat showed a tribute to Dirk Nowitzki and Dwyane Wade on the Jumbotron. It included Nowitzki hoisting the championship trophy on the Heat’s court after the Mavs clinched the 2011 NBA title. . .Last week the Mavs announced that guard Tim Hardaway Jr. would be sidelined for the rest of this season with a left tibia stress reaction. Proprietor Mark Cuban said of Hardaway: “He’s going to have to probably get a rod in his leg.”. . Cuban said he’s thinking about starting a Ring of Honor to honor some of the retired members of the Mavs. He said it will be different than retiring a player’s jersey, and that a player’s jersey retirement will take precedent over the Ring of Honor. . .Justin Jackson (14 points), Jalen Brunson (13 points) and Dwight Powell (11 point, nine rebounds) were big factors in Thursday’s game for the Mavs. So too were Maxi Kleber with 10 rebounds, and Salah Mejri, who collected nine boards in only 13 minutes.
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