John Riordan, New York
DWAYNE Wade and player-of-the-game LeBron James inspired the Miami Heat to take a 1-0 series lead over the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA Finals on Tuesday night.
And the Mavs' loss may prove even more costly after it emerged that Dallas star Dirk Nowitzki tore a tendon in his left middle finger, an injury which will force the German forward to wear a splint throughout the rest of the series.
James scored 24 points and Wade added 22 points along with 10 rebounds as the Heat beat the Mavs 92-84 in Game One in Miami. Chris Bosh also popped up at key moments on his way to a final tally of 19 points during a clash that was most notable for the powerful defensive display of the home side.
The Heat trailed by eight points early in the third quarter before pulling away, remaining unbeaten at home in this year’s playoffs.
Nowitzki scored 27 points and grabbed eight rebounds for Dallas who had been aiming to secure their fifth straight win on the road.
"By and large, we've got to play better, just overall," said Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle. "We'll play better. I'm very certain of that. We had some opportunities. Shots we normally make, they didn't go down. Look, it's a long series. We'll adjust."
"We understand that this is the kind of game we wanted to play,” said Wade. “We had them where we wanted them in the sense of points. You know they weren't scoring a lot on us and offensively we just executed and guys made plays.
"You can't get frustrated because the ball's not going in. There's 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 of rebounding the ball, limiting them to one shot as much as possible."
Game Two take places Thursday night in Miami.
Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/iesportsblog/~3/cbzyNqRB-zc/post.aspx
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