MIAMI – The Miami Heat went small, and came up big.
With that, another Game 7 awaits.
Goran Dragic scored a postseason career-high 30 points, Dwyane Wade added 22 and the Heat rode a small lineup to a 103-91 victory over the Toronto Raptors on Friday night, tying their Eastern Conference semifinal series 3-3.
“Last year at this time we were all on vacation,” Miami coach Erik Spoelstra said. “So often in this business people tend to want to search for the easy route. There’s usually not an easy way in a seven-game series, certainly not with a second and third seed going against each other. This is the path ... and now we’ve pushed it to a Game 7.”
It comes Sunday in Toronto. The winner will head to Cleveland for Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals on Tuesday night. Both the Heat and the Raptors won a Game 7 in the first round.
Kyle Lowry scored 36 points for Toronto, on 12-for-27 shooting. DeMar DeRozan added 23 for the Raptors, but their teammates combined to shoot 14 of 34 from the floor and manage 32 points.
“We came here to try to win the game,” Raptors coach Dwane Casey said. “We didn’t come here with a seven-game series in mind. It’s been a great series, they’re a championship-caliber team, well-coached team, but we came in here to try to win the game. We didn’t come in here wanting a Game 7.”
Joe Johnson had 13 points, Justise Winslow added 12, and Josh McRoberts scored 10 for the Heat.
Dragic shot 12 of 21, Wade blocked a game-high three shots and the Heat – despite some serious size deficiencies with injured starting center Hassan Whiteside still out – only lost the rebounding battle 43-41.
“I knew this guy to my left was going to have an amazing performance tonight,” Wade said, sitting alongside Dragic postgame. “You could tell he was on the brink of one.”
Neither team divulged its starting lineup until warmups were under way. The Heat had reason for subterfuge, after choosing a super-small starting five of Dragic, Wade, Johnson, Luol Deng and Winslow.
Desperation? Maybe.
The results? Splendid.
The Heat used eight players – the tallest being McRoberts, at 6-foot-10. The average height of the others was just under 6-6.
Deng jumped center and Winslow got his first playoff start, three games after sitting out Game 3 entirely. The Heat like using the term “positionless basketball” and Winslow epitomized it early – in a 60-second span, the rookie guarded Raptors center Bismack Biyombo, brought the ball up like a point guard and made a corner 3.
“Justise did an amazing job,” Dragic said.
Whiteside, watching from the locker room, was thrilled.
“The guys played really well,” said Whiteside, who will fly with the Heat to Toronto but said he will not play Sunday. “Goran got in the paint a lot and made it tough on their guys and D-Wade did D-Wade stuff.”
Dragic scored 14 in the second quarter, helping Miami take a 53-44 lead at the half. The lead got to 13 in the third, Dragic again coming up big with a three-point play followed by a jumper. And when Toronto got within six early in the fourth, Dragic and Wade scored the next six points to keep Miami in control.
“I didn’t want to go home to Europe,” Dragic said. “Still want to be here.”
Europe can wait. Canada comes next. And then, he hopes, Cleveland.
Wade passed Hakeem Olajuwon for No. 12 on the NBA’s career playoff scoring list. Next up is No. 11 John Havlicek – who Wade passed for 20th place by playing in his 102nd playoff victory.
Miami is 6-3 all-time in Game 7s, having won four straight ultimate games (0-1 on the road). Toronto is 1-2 in Game 7s, 1-1 at home.
There’s cash at stake Sunday.
The NBA playoff pool this season is $15 million, and teams get various pieces of that pie depending on where they finish in the regular season and how deep they go in the playoffs. The Raptors are already assured to split $794,496; the Heat have assured themselves a pot of $654,187.50.
Sunday’s winner will add $440,173 to their respective total.
