Heat Take Commanding 3-0 Lead After Wade’s Near Triple-Double Performance

Photo Credit: WikiKenny on Flickr

Well, he did it again. Dwyane Wade came through big in a playoff game, as he has done frequently throughout his career. Wade lead his team to a 100-94 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers in Game 3 on Thursday night. After two mediocre games - due to migraines - to begin the series in Miami, he came alive with 32 points, 10 rebounds, and 8 assists, a near triple-double. He did so by relentlessly getting into the paint and finishing with ease, as Heat fans are used to seeing. In his first two games in this series, Wade only had 31 points total on 42% shooting. In Thursday night’s contest, he had 32 points on 53% shooting.

Chris Bosh couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn in the beginning of the game. So the Heat definitely needed Wade to be Wade in this one because LeBron James couldn’t do it all alone. LeBron had a good game, finishing with 24 points, 15 rebounds, and 6 assists. Bosh despite his struggles early on, had 19 points and 6 rebounds.

The 76ers started off hot like they did in game one of this series racing out to a 24-14 lead, but in the end just couldn’t compete with the clearly superior Heat team. Elton Brand led the team with 21 points and 11 rebounds and Jrue Holiday hit big 3’s throughout the game. Holiday finished with 20 points and 8 assists on 4-5 shooting from beyond the arc. The76ers were not going away easy in this one being up 29-21 after one, and 75-73 going into the fourth quarter after a few lead changes. In the fourth quarter, Wade kept attacking and drawing fouls scoring 8 in the quarter. Lou Williams made it a 4 point game with 43 seconds remaining and after that Miami clamped down on D and Philadelphia didn’t score after that.

This game had a few for the highlight reel. LeBron did his best Wade impression with a full court pass to Wade for the hoop plus the foul. Wade also had an excellent put back dunk after a LeBron miss. The one play that was shown the most on ESPN, though, was when LeBron crossed over Jrue Holiday in transition, almost fell over and shovel passed the ball to Wade for the slam.

LeBron after the game said, “D-Wade had an unbelievable game ... and we're ready to close it out.” Perhaps he is right, the 76ers are (0-10) when down 2-0 in a playoff series, and another series loss looks to be on the horizon.