Still On Fire: LeBron, Heat Moving On To NBA Finals

LeBron James brought his basketball talents to South Beach to win championships. Ronny Turiaf brought his dancing pants to South Beach for the dance parties. And dance he did after the Heat beat the Celtics in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals.

Sure, the Miami Heat are evil or something. But just try and hate their “We’re going to the NBA Finals!” locker room discotheque. You can’t. It’s one of the best kinds of dance parties.

It began almost immediately after the Miami Heat closed out the Boston Celtics in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals on Saturday: the 2012 NBA Finals between the Heat and the Oklahoma City Thunder were cast as a battle between good and evil. Lee Jenkins of Sports Illustrated -- an incredible writer and basketball thinker -- fired a highly shared first blow.

In fairness to Lee, he also shared any number of retorts, most of them about the creation story of the Thunder itself, that being a highly controversial flight from Seattle. But this narrative won’t end with Jenkins: expect to hear it repeated again and again as the Finals approach and begin. It’s easy to swallow because the narratives of the Thunder and Heat, and of their stars Kevin Durant and LeBron James, are so ingrained in current sports commentary.

Dwyane Wade is sitting at the start of the fourth quarter. LeBron James is not. That means that, barring a foul-out, an unconventional mid-quarter break or garbage time, LeBron will be playing 48 minutes.

For more updates on Game 7, stick with this StoryStream. For more on the Heat, head over to Peninsula Is Mightier and SB Nation Tampa Bay. For more on the Celtics, check out CelticsBlog and SB Nation Boston.

As Holly McKenzie puts it, Mario Chalmers is everyone’s kid brother. He had a couple of pretty takes in the third quarter as Miami clawed back to take a lead, but missed some defensive assignments and blatantly missed open teammates on the offensive end.

LeBron James let him know about one such infraction.

Things have quickly turned in favor of Miami in the third quarter. Shane Battier hit his third and fourth three-pointers (in seven attempts) in quick succession, and Dwyane Wade nailed a long two to tie the game at 59.

This is playoff basketball at its best, y’all.

Dwyane Wade may be getting some sugar from LeBron James’ mom, but the rims nor the ball are loving him. He is scoring 0.85 points per used possession in this series. That is not good.

This probably wouldn’t be a thing if not for the Internet and a certain rumor that spread around a few years back. You know the one: Gloria James, LeBron’s mom, and Delonte West, and some unspeakable acts that you probably remember. They’re all false, we’re pretty sure, but they have become a long-running joke.

So seeing Dwyane Wade give LeBron’s mom a little love -- a kiss right on the mouth -- just before LeBron did the same is going to be an Internet thing. Of course:

A long, long time ago, Jeff Van Gundy made a remark that started the #JVGIsHipHop hashtag that has been in use since 2009. On Saturday night, while talking about a Brandon Bass dunk, JVG brought up MC Hammer. And thus, #JVGIsHipHop is probably near death.

I mean, you can’t really credibly be hip-hop in 2012 while using Hammer as your reference for dunk highlights, right?

For most of the first half, the Heat struggled to get out in transition and beat the Celtics’ excellent halfcourt defense to the punch. Much of that has been because the Celtics have refused to turn the ball over.

But Boston committed two late turnovers in the second quarter. One them, a live ball steal by LeBron, led to a gorgeous connection between James and Dwyane Wade.

And yes,

Boston leads 23-17.

Udonis Haslem mises a dunk because he hung on the rim, so the referee stirs an invisible bowl of pudding. Sports!

UPDATE: Udonis Haslem does not want the pudding.

As Dwyane Wade learned, it’s always a good idea to keep at least one eye, and probably both, on Rajon Rondo.

Because he’ll just do that. Rondo being Rondo, and all that.

There are, of course, problems with Brandon Bass guarding LeBron James. James is so quick off the ball that Bass can hardly keep up. On one early play, LeBron sprung around a pindown screen to get free space in the lane. It set up a wide open Shane Battier three-pointer as Boston rotated. That can’t happen too much more if Boston is to win.

Battier, by the way, has two early threes.

To open Game 7, Doc Rivers has Celtics power forward Brandon Bass guarding LeBron James to open the game. Bass handled James better than anyone else in Game 6, guarding him in the beginning of the second half. LeBron still led the Heat to a blow-out win in that game, so …

Bass forced LeBron into a tough miss on Miami’s first possession, but James got out into transition to draw a foul on Kevin Garnett the next time.

I like that one can only handle the giant virtual Magic 8-Ball with white gloves.

The other two refs are Mike Callahan and Scott Foster. It’s one of the most veteran sets in the league, and all will work in the NBA Finals. Only one of these teams will make it to meet them again.

Spoelstra took plenty of fire for playing Bosh so sparingly in Game 5, and the power forward saw his minutes double when Miami staved off elimination in Game 6. Bosh played 28 minutes in another bench role. As expected, he’ll be active for the decisive Game 7 but he’ll likely come off the bench again, a role that doesn’t seem to bother him. Via the AP:

For more updates on Game 7, stick with this StoryStream. For more on the Heat, head over to Peninsula Is Mightier and SB Nation Tampa Bay. For more on the Celtics, check out CelticsBlog and SB Nation Boston.

In theory, it could be great. In reality ... half of the games in this series have been foul-heavy disasters, neither offense has been particularly great, and Game 7s tend to be pretty ugly, anyway. So we’re not going to jinx things by getting all dramatic and setting the expectations too high.

Instead, as we get ready for Game 7, here are five guys who could decide the whole thing.