Speaker 1: I mean, well, that song was the last song on
Speaker 1: the album I was working on at that time. That
Speaker 1: was the last song that got recorded, and it was
Speaker 1: just something that came.
Speaker 2: Together very beautifully.
Speaker 1: To make a long story short, as soon as I
Speaker 1: heard my whole album, I was listening to it, I'll
Speaker 1: never forget, and I was like, we're missing this one
Speaker 1: thing and got with T Pain and T Pain is
Speaker 1: he's such a genius, you know when he came up
Speaker 1: with the food. All I do is win, hook and
Speaker 1: this our energy bouncing off each other. We always made
Speaker 1: great music. And as soon as that was done, I
Speaker 1: immediately went to Ross's house and Ross did that verse
Speaker 1: for me in five minutes. I immediately said that Ludacris,
Speaker 1: I'm letting everybody know this is gonna.
Speaker 2: Be the biggest one.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. Ludacrous says his verse back
Speaker 1: immediately and he goes crazy.
Speaker 2: Y know.
Speaker 1: I always wanted to work with Soup Doll and I
Speaker 1: just wanted to make sure I found the right record,
Speaker 1: and I sent him All I do is win. He
Speaker 1: knocked that out and sent it back and we end
Speaker 1: up making a classic, a winner's anthem, an anthem for everybody,
Speaker 1: because that's what I represent is love for everybody, and
Speaker 1: it's just a.
Speaker 2: National anthem for all winners.
Speaker 1: So to be able to be a city that wins
Speaker 1: big and to have an anthem call I do his
Speaker 1: win that plays worldwide is a blessing from God.
Speaker 3: One of DJ Khaled's signature hits had been blaring inside
Speaker 3: NBA Arena since it was released in early twenty ten,
Speaker 3: and up until that devastating finals lost against the Mavericks,
Speaker 3: it felt like it was an anthem made strictly for
Speaker 3: Lebron James and the Miami Heat until it determined Dirk
Speaker 3: Noovinsky and then a post finals press conference made everyone
Speaker 3: realize how not ready they were to be ultimate winners.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to four years of Heat. I'm your host,
Speaker 3: Israel Gutierres and this is episode four or Game six.
Speaker 4: Lebron.
Speaker 3: The Mavericks had just disposed of the Heat on Miami's
Speaker 3: home court, winning the last three games of the finals,
Speaker 3: including one where James scored a career postseason low at
Speaker 3: the time of eight points. Not even an hour later,
Speaker 3: James appeared with Wade on the postgame podium together after
Speaker 3: a few questions about the failures on the court, James
Speaker 3: was asked to respond to those who might have wanted
Speaker 3: to see him fail.
Speaker 5: Does it bother you that so many people are happy
Speaker 5: to see you fail?
Speaker 6: Absolutely not, because at the end of the day, all
Speaker 6: the people that is rooting on me to fail, you know,
Speaker 6: at the end of day, they gotta wake up tomorrow
Speaker 6: have the same life that they had before they woke
Speaker 6: up today. You know, they got the same personal problems
Speaker 6: that they had today, you know, and I'm gonna continue
Speaker 6: to live the way I want to live and continue
Speaker 6: to do the things that I want to do well
Speaker 6: me and my family and be happy with that. So
Speaker 6: you know, they can get a few days, a few months,
Speaker 6: or whatever the case may be, on being happy about
Speaker 6: not only myself but to Miami Heat not accomplishing the goal.
Speaker 6: But you know, they got to get back to the
Speaker 6: real world at some point.
Speaker 3: It was a response that gave his critics the ultimate
Speaker 3: proof that Lebron had completed the villainous turn. Not only
Speaker 3: had he abandoned Cleveland, but after failing on the biggest stage,
Speaker 3: he would aim at their hearts again by reminding them
Speaker 3: that he lives a different lifestyle. It was so unlike
Speaker 3: James to lash out in that manner. It was apparent
Speaker 3: to some that the year of absorbing the manufactured hatred
Speaker 3: from across the country had finally caught up to him.
Speaker 3: Dan Lebtard of Meadow Lark Media watched it all from
Speaker 3: up close.
Speaker 7: It makes sense that someone that vulnerable in the postgame
Speaker 7: press conference would try to cover himself with defensive barbed
Speaker 7: wire and camouflage so that you couldn't see just how
Speaker 7: hurt and.
Speaker 2: Scared he was.
Speaker 7: But the truth, the truth was around that press conference
Speaker 7: where he told all we had to go back to
Speaker 7: our broke lives. The truth was before it when he
Speaker 7: wouldn't post up JJ Burrea and was passing the ball scared,
Speaker 7: and after it when he went into total hiding in
Speaker 7: his home because he was ashamed of what it is
Speaker 7: that we all just saw.
Speaker 3: When Lebron James's career is finally over, assuming that day
Speaker 3: ever arrives, there'll be a few moments people will point
Speaker 3: to that helped fine tune him into an ultimate winner.
Speaker 3: This will likely be considered the most pivotal. Despite telling
Speaker 3: the listening world that he was on top of it,
Speaker 3: this would actually be Lebron's rock bottom when people hated
Speaker 3: on the decision or said he'd be moving on to
Speaker 3: a secondary role on a new team. James had a
Speaker 3: season of basketball with which to argue back, but now
Speaker 3: the defense had rested and Lebron's closing arguments were less
Speaker 3: than stirring. He could only internalize to examine what went wrong.
Speaker 3: Rachel Nichols spoke with Lebron at the finals against Dallas,
Speaker 3: off camera at one of James's charity events that offseason,
Speaker 3: and also back on camera for an interview before the
Speaker 3: lockout short in twenty eleven. Twelve season began that December.
Speaker 3: In that stretch, she noticed a person making some notable adjustments.
Speaker 8: He was clearly in just such a terrible place, he
Speaker 8: would later say they he spent a couple of weeks
Speaker 8: just locked in his house when go anywhere with to
Speaker 8: see any one. It's certainly what we were hearing from
Speaker 8: the people around him. And then he and Dwayne actually
Speaker 8: went on vacation together, a vacation that they had planned
Speaker 8: with the idea of, Hey, We're going to win the
Speaker 8: NBA Finals and then take this trip to the Bomas
Speaker 8: and celebrate. And they got to the house and it
Speaker 8: has been recounted to me by multiple parties, including Lebron,
Speaker 8: that when Lebron and Savannah got into the house, he
Speaker 8: was looking over the balcony on the second floor and
Speaker 8: jumped over the balcony.
Speaker 2: Into the pool below.
Speaker 8: And I want you to think about that, Lebron James,
Speaker 8: whose body is his life's work, who if he had
Speaker 8: broken several bones, would have been a huge story and
Speaker 8: a huge setback and certainly a risk, and sort of
Speaker 8: that he thought about. The temperature around him at the
Speaker 8: time was just so out of sight of himself that
Speaker 8: he jumped off the balcony into a pool.
Speaker 9: So it speaks to his state.
Speaker 3: Of mind that his future wife, Savannah Brinston was with
Speaker 3: him in the Bahamas was no small note. Non basketball
Speaker 3: family as part of what James was missing in his
Speaker 3: first season in Miami. It had become such a vital
Speaker 3: business trip he didn't bring family with him, so when
Speaker 3: he needed relief from basketball stress, James didn't have the
Speaker 3: usual comforts around him to provide daily perspective. Brian Windhorst
Speaker 3: witnessed the Lebron he'd never seen before, and a decade
Speaker 3: of following him.
Speaker 10: What he needed was home and not just physically home.
Speaker 10: He went back home for the lockout and spent the
Speaker 10: entire lockout in Akron virtually and more importantly, spent the
Speaker 10: lockout with his girlfriend, Savannah and his two sons, who
Speaker 10: who did not travel with him to Miami the first year.
Speaker 10: And it was basically him realizing that he had gotten
Speaker 10: away from who he was.
Speaker 3: Lebron James was currently misunderstood. He wanted to help a
Speaker 3: charity for children with his free agent announcement, not create
Speaker 3: a sense of abandonment. He wanted folks to marvel at
Speaker 3: what could be in the NBA, not hate him for
Speaker 3: reshaping it. And with an extended offseason to consider all
Speaker 3: of this because of a work stoppage that didn't allow
Speaker 3: the season to begin until Christmas Day, Lebron had a
Speaker 3: plan just lay the cards out on the table, including
Speaker 3: a delayed apology to the people of Cleveland, whose sports
Speaker 3: world was rocked. Nichols conducted the interview with James that
Speaker 3: would effectively attempt to reset his image heading into his
Speaker 3: second season with Miami.
Speaker 8: There had been a lockout and so everything got delayed.
Speaker 8: But then we sat down before it was time for
Speaker 8: him to report to camp to do the interview after.
Speaker 6: The finals, I said, in my room for two weeks,
Speaker 6: did absolutely nothing, talked to absolutely nobody.
Speaker 8: And I do think that was a really important turning
Speaker 8: point for him because it is the first time he
Speaker 8: acknowledged that he would have done something differently with the decision.
Speaker 8: It's first time he acknowledged what it must have felt
Speaker 8: like for people in Cleveland. So I think that.
Speaker 2: Was an important part of that interview.
Speaker 8: And another important part of that was, as you referenced
Speaker 8: him saying, I don't want to be the villain anymore.
Speaker 8: It's not why I play the game of basketball.
Speaker 11: I played a game.
Speaker 6: Fun, joyful, you know, and I let my game do
Speaker 6: all the talking, you know. And you know, I got
Speaker 6: away from that. Going through my first seven years in
Speaker 6: the NBA. I was always the you know, the liked one,
Speaker 6: and to be on the other side, you know, they
Speaker 6: called it the dark side or the villain, whatever they
Speaker 6: called it.
Speaker 11: It was. It was definitely challenging for myself.
Speaker 2: It was a.
Speaker 11: Situation I'd never been in before and took a long
Speaker 11: time to adjust to it. It basically turned me into
Speaker 11: somebody I wasn't.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 11: You started to hear the villain, you know, now you
Speaker 11: have to be.
Speaker 6: The villain you you know, and I started to buy
Speaker 6: into it.
Speaker 11: I started to play.
Speaker 6: Played a game of basketball at a at a level
Speaker 6: or at a mistate that never played that before.
Speaker 8: Being angry, and I think saying it out loud was
Speaker 8: important for him, and he certainly played that way in
Speaker 8: the following year.
Speaker 3: Thanks to ESPN for that sound from Rachel's interview. It
Speaker 3: wasn't just Lebron manifesting that into reality, however. He couldn't
Speaker 3: simply say he's happy and then suddenly rediscover his joy
Speaker 3: for the game. He knew he had to eliminate some
Speaker 3: weaknesses in his game, weaknesses the Mavericks exposed with his
Speaker 3: own defense and some undersized defenders. People weren't going to
Speaker 3: suddenly let Lebron forget about his unwillingness to post up
Speaker 3: Mavericks defenders, so he'd only have one option. Mario Chalmers
Speaker 3: would be the Heat starting point guard in the twenty
Speaker 3: eleven twelve season. He saw a sneak preview of a
Speaker 3: different Lebron that offseason.
Speaker 12: Last summer, Lebron called me and we worked out at
Speaker 12: th Other Trong where he was on Miami, and like
Speaker 12: that's all he did with Dave post work, and so
Speaker 12: I knew in the back of his mind that was
Speaker 12: something that he knew that he would acted he wanted
Speaker 12: to get better at. So when he did see that again,
Speaker 12: he's fully prepared for that moment.
Speaker 3: You Donnis Haslam entered the league the same season as Lebron, Wade,
Speaker 3: and Bosh. He didn't believe a player of James's caliber
Speaker 3: had that much room left to improve at this point
Speaker 3: in his career.
Speaker 13: He'd be wrong, and to take nothing away from Dallas,
Speaker 13: but I mean we pretty much dominated until they started
Speaker 13: running his own and as NBA basketball players, I think
Speaker 13: at that time.
Speaker 2: We were just shocked. You know, it kind of made
Speaker 2: us stack.
Speaker 13: It kind of took away from athleticism and the skill
Speaker 13: set that we had, and we just didn't know how
Speaker 13: to attack it and still be ourselves within the game,
Speaker 13: and it created some confusion. And I think, you know,
Speaker 13: Bron took that personally upon himself, being the best player
Speaker 13: on the team and the leader of that team, that
Speaker 13: we didn't get it done. And I mean the transformation
Speaker 13: that he made that summer was amazing.
Speaker 2: Man. He never wanted to play in the post. He
Speaker 2: never wanted to be inside.
Speaker 13: He always wanted to be seen as a guard from
Speaker 13: all the things that he didn't want to do.
Speaker 2: Matter when he came to winning, you know, he got
Speaker 2: out of his comfort zone.
Speaker 13: He got in the lab, and he came back a
Speaker 13: completely different basketball player, which was crazy because you already
Speaker 13: thought he had reached a pinnacle of who he could
Speaker 13: be and what he could be, you know, came going
Speaker 13: down to that block and you know, putting in that
Speaker 13: work down there on that post was crazy because you know,
Speaker 13: we had never seen anything like that.
Speaker 3: The lockout extended offseason felt like an excruciating delay to
Speaker 3: the start of Lebron's redemption story, but in reality, it's
Speaker 3: possible he needed the extra time. He was about to
Speaker 3: attack his personal Mount Everest again. This time he'd make
Speaker 3: sure he had everything he needed.
Speaker 14: I looked around, and I hadn't felt like this edge
Speaker 14: ever in the NBA. You know, reminded me of my
Speaker 14: day's a duke, Like, oh, but we're what of this.
Speaker 4: Is this?
Speaker 15: You're right there where what is this?
Speaker 3: Lebron James's checklist before the start of the twenty eleven
Speaker 3: twelve season seemed complete. Partially repaired relationship with the people
Speaker 3: of Cleveland Check a rediscovered joy for the game check.
Speaker 3: Moving Savannah and their sons to Miami check newly minted
Speaker 3: post up game check. New teammates check there as well.
Speaker 3: The most notable move that off season was the signing
Speaker 3: of free agent Shane Battier. He'd be entering his eleventh
Speaker 3: NBA season that year and had connections to Heat ownership
Speaker 3: from his college days at Duke. After admittedly rolling his
Speaker 3: eyes at Lebron's initial choice to create a super team
Speaker 3: in Miami, Battier recognized a place for him after the
Speaker 3: Heat came up short in year one. Early on in
Speaker 3: his Heat tenure, Battier was suffering from some nagging injuries
Speaker 3: that allowed him to sit back and absorb some of
Speaker 3: what his Heat team was experiencing. As early as opening
Speaker 3: day in Dallas. On Christmas, Battier noticed this felt different.
Speaker 15: I'll never forget the ring night for the Maps.
Speaker 14: We played them Christmas Day two thousand and eleven, and
Speaker 14: you know, obviously none of the guys wanted to watch
Speaker 14: Dirk and those guys get their rings, and like the
Speaker 14: intensity of that moment back in the locker room waiting
Speaker 14: to go out, they just wanted to kill these guys,
Speaker 14: and just like you could feel the edge. And I'm like,
Speaker 14: I looked around and I hadn't felt like this edge
Speaker 14: ever in the NBA.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 15: Reminded me of my days a duke, Like, oh, but
Speaker 15: we're winning.
Speaker 14: This this You're right, then, we're winning this, and we'd
Speaker 14: go out. We destroyed Dallas, I think by thirty and
Speaker 14: I'm just like, oh, man, you know we're gonna it's
Speaker 14: gonna be a different year.
Speaker 3: The final score would end up being an eleven point differential,
Speaker 3: but the decisive win would set the tone for a
Speaker 3: truncated sixty six game season. Starts of eight and one
Speaker 3: and twenty eight and seven would have Miami confident throughout.
Speaker 3: The games were happening so fast there was almost not
Speaker 3: enough time to remember the heat were disliked figures. All
Speaker 3: you could do was marvel at this somehow improved version
Speaker 3: of Lebron James, his new found chemistry with Dwayne Wade,
Speaker 3: and the expanding all around game of Chris bosh operating forces.
Speaker 16: It blocked by Wade, the defense continues to impress James.
Speaker 16: Tabash I had to finish, well, that's a nice looking
Speaker 16: fast break.
Speaker 17: To block it.
Speaker 18: Bust out on the dribble, find James who touches it
Speaker 18: to bosh tre mendous fast break.
Speaker 3: Basketball, and while you were watching, the hatred was almost
Speaker 3: unknowingly melting away.
Speaker 4: Here's battier.
Speaker 15: It was a blur. It was a really weird season.
Speaker 15: It was crazy.
Speaker 14: I mean, we sold out every arena we played that,
Speaker 14: and so everyone wanted to see us. Everyone wanted to
Speaker 14: come and do us. But I noticed early on that
Speaker 14: the heat and maybe Lebron became much more of a
Speaker 14: sympathetic character, the sympathetic hero, if you will, just knowing
Speaker 14: the vitriol he went through the year before and the
Speaker 14: scene in Cleveland, and it was pretty like negative there.
Speaker 14: It was much more positive than I thought when I
Speaker 14: went on the road, and I think that was born
Speaker 14: out of the way they lost sort of the humility
Speaker 14: they had, the sort of stomach from losing to Dallas,
Speaker 14: and so the tenor of how people viewed us, especially
Speaker 14: on the road, it did change. It did change, but
Speaker 14: it was always a scene, always a scene. There are
Speaker 14: always people at our hotel rooms. You know, we get
Speaker 14: into San Antonio two three in the morning, there were
Speaker 14: people there, and there was always people who just wanted
Speaker 14: to see this team. Want to see the bron want
Speaker 14: to see d Wade, want to see CB, just want
Speaker 14: to see us, And it was it was like like crazy,
Speaker 14: I'm not compared us to the Beatles, but it was.
Speaker 15: It was like a hysteria that I had never been
Speaker 15: a part of my ten years in the league.
Speaker 3: There might still have been a hysteria around the team,
Speaker 3: but there was certainly a growing sense of calm on it.
Speaker 3: Even if it looked chaotic at times. Now that was
Speaker 3: a planned chaos. It was a heat team on a
Speaker 3: string at all times, creating having on the defensive end
Speaker 3: and an offense you couldn't take your eyes off for
Speaker 3: a moment. Dare you miss an all time iconic play?
Speaker 16: Wayne Wade with another steal three on one Jae, Holy smokes.
Speaker 17: You shit me.
Speaker 19: The way they get out in transition from defense to offense,
Speaker 19: it's probably the best, no question, of any team currently
Speaker 19: in the NBA.
Speaker 3: The sense of order that allowed for said chaos came
Speaker 3: in the form of a gesture from Wade that offseason,
Speaker 3: while Lebron was fighting through that dark place and making
Speaker 3: risky leaps from second floor balconies, Wade had a conversation
Speaker 3: with James that unlocked one last feeling of home. Wade
Speaker 3: told Lebron to treat the Heat as if it was
Speaker 3: his team. Sure, it might say Wade County on a
Speaker 3: bunch of the T shirts in Miami Dade County, but
Speaker 3: on the hardwood, James should treat it as his own territory.
Speaker 3: Waite talk to me about it at length for a
Speaker 3: story I wrote for ESPN dot com in twenty twelve,
Speaker 3: and while I don't have the original audio of an
Speaker 3: interview that was likely recorded on an iPhone four, I
Speaker 3: can't read to you Dwayne's comments. He said, quote, Lebron
Speaker 3: is probably the most talented player we've seen in a while.
Speaker 4: But how good can we be?
Speaker 3: Are we going to be good if me and him
Speaker 3: are both scoring twenty seven a night?
Speaker 4: Yeah, we're going to be good. But it would be
Speaker 4: too much.
Speaker 3: Okay, it's your turn. Now, it's your turn. I wanted
Speaker 3: to give him the opportunity where he didn't have to.
Speaker 4: Think about that.
Speaker 3: It's kind of like I told him, listen, I'll find
Speaker 3: a way. Don't worry about me. I'll be there, but
Speaker 3: you go out and be the player that we want
Speaker 3: you to be. It was considered an extremely selfless move
Speaker 3: from a player who was going shot for shot with
Speaker 3: Lebron just two years earlier. The clarity of thought for
Speaker 3: James allowed him to win his third MVP Trophy that season,
Speaker 3: announcing himself back to his top of the league's self.
Speaker 3: But it wasn't just the Wade gesture that suddenly put
Speaker 3: him back into that space. Eric Spolster also drew from
Speaker 3: his first season coaching James, Wade and Bosh. He and
Speaker 3: assistant coach David Fizdale decided to flex their basketball knowledge
Speaker 3: and change up the predictable offense that doomed Miami, most
Speaker 3: notably against the Mavericks.
Speaker 4: Here's battier and I.
Speaker 14: Give Eric Spolsor a ton of credit. I don't think
Speaker 14: he gets enough credit for that run we had. He
Speaker 14: really changed the way that we played. And you know,
Speaker 14: we ran a lot of sets, or they ran a
Speaker 14: lot of sets when they lost to Dallas, and it's
Speaker 14: just a lot of like, isoball my turn?
Speaker 2: Your turn?
Speaker 15: And there wasn't a.
Speaker 14: Lot of I guess you could say creativity to the offense,
Speaker 14: and that you know, that's what Lebron do. Way and
Speaker 14: CB needed to just have a little more creativity, a
Speaker 14: little more flow a little more to really take their
Speaker 14: talents to the max, to their highest potential. And the
Speaker 14: next year it was a much different offense, much more
Speaker 14: I wouldn't say democratic offense, but it allowed these guys
Speaker 14: to utilize their skills better. And that was just a
Speaker 14: process changed by Fizdale and Eric Spoltra, and so they
Speaker 14: really left their mark on by our play style. His
Speaker 14: biggest regret from the year before, he said, was he
Speaker 14: was too afraid to make a drastic move and do
Speaker 14: what's right, and so I think he kept trying to,
Speaker 14: you know, just bludgeon the MAVs to death with the
Speaker 14: plays that they had run in the last ten years
Speaker 14: of the Miami Heat, and there wasn't a lot of innovation.
Speaker 3: The Heat played with more pace, which was a bit
Speaker 3: easier with the year of chemistry under their belts and
Speaker 3: a system with Lebron now clearly at the head.
Speaker 4: The result was a.
Speaker 3: Forty six and twenty final record and a number two
Speaker 3: seed in the Eastern Conference.
Speaker 4: The rushed tempo of.
Speaker 3: The regular season and the Heat success throughout it would
Speaker 3: never really allow for the pressure of the previous season
Speaker 3: to show itself. The playoffs would more than make up
Speaker 3: for that. It actually started with a pressure free, gentlemanly
Speaker 3: game defeat of good buddy Carmelo Anthony and the New
Speaker 3: York Knicks. Here's Lebron James with David Aldridge talking about
Speaker 3: the first round win and the Heat's next opponent.
Speaker 20: You are obviously very close with Carmelo Anthony, Olympic teammates together.
Speaker 20: You embraced them after this, after this game was over.
Speaker 17: What did you say to him?
Speaker 6: Man, it's some brotherhood that goes beyond basketball. It's my
Speaker 6: first opportunity to go up against him in the playoff
Speaker 6: series and it was It was fun man too. He's
Speaker 6: one of the most competitive players I ever played against
Speaker 6: in the series, so it was fun.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 6: Wish them the best of the time. I see him
Speaker 6: this summer and as we go for go.
Speaker 20: You have some other obligations right now. You got the
Speaker 20: Indiana Pacers in the second round preview of that series.
Speaker 20: Quickly you took three or four from him in the
Speaker 20: regular season.
Speaker 6: Uh, they're very well coached team. You know, they play
Speaker 6: inside and out. You know, with David West and Roy Hibbert, No,
Speaker 6: guys do a great job controlling the pain and then
Speaker 6: they have some perimeter play in George Hill, Danny Granger.
Speaker 6: I mean, they do an unbelievable job. Paul George and
Speaker 6: those guys off the bench as well, give him a big,
Speaker 6: big boost. So, uh, you know we will savored us
Speaker 6: way tonight. But then we get to work tomorrow and
Speaker 6: get ready for En dawn Ron.
Speaker 20: Congratulations, we'll see in the second round game.
Speaker 3: Miami had been preparing mentally for their other East rival,
Speaker 3: the top seed a Chicago Bulls, but those thoughts were
Speaker 3: dashed when Derreck Rose tore his ACL in his left
Speaker 3: knee in the first game of Chicago's playoffs that season
Speaker 3: against Philadelphia. When the Pacers settled in as Miami's second
Speaker 3: round matchup, they didn't realize the group led by David West,
Speaker 3: Paul George, Danny Granger, and Roy Hibbert would create the
Speaker 3: kinds of problems Miami didn't have great answers for. And
Speaker 3: when Bosh injured his hip flexer in Game one after
Speaker 3: being fouled by Hibbert on a made basket, the Pacers
Speaker 3: suddenly seemed more formidable than anyone could have imagined.
Speaker 6: Oh out of the basket took a hard hitt as
Speaker 6: he finished.
Speaker 17: That three point play.
Speaker 5: Now that was an explosion and Boss going strong to
Speaker 5: that left hand guy Hibbert, who picks.
Speaker 17: Up his third.
Speaker 3: A Heat team that wasn't rich with size, had just
Speaker 3: lost its starting power forward and was about to face
Speaker 3: the Pacers for potentially six more games without him. That
Speaker 3: meant a six foot eight, two hundred and twenty pound
Speaker 3: battier would have to get.
Speaker 14: Big after you know, CB gets hurt, Spoke comes me
Speaker 14: after the game and says, hey, we need to play small.
Speaker 14: You know, will you will you be the power forward?
Speaker 14: I said, hell, yeah, let's go. You know, it takes
Speaker 14: me back to my Dukee days. So I knew I
Speaker 14: had to bang with David West and he was a
Speaker 14: big bully, and bangal with Roy Hibbert. I'm like, hey,
Speaker 14: let's let's go, man, let's do it.
Speaker 3: Fortunately the Heat still had a healthy big man it
Speaker 3: could throw into the mix, the reliable you, Donnis Hasli.
Speaker 13: If there's one team that I could give too is Indiana.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, let's get out in front of that right away.
Speaker 3: Haslam was not a fan of these Pacers, but it
Speaker 3: was this series that actually reinforced that distaste.
Speaker 4: It wasn't just Bosh that was injured in this series.
Speaker 3: Wade was playing through soreness and the left knee that
Speaker 3: would need to be drained before the start of Game
Speaker 3: three in Indianapolis. The Pacers had already won Game two
Speaker 3: by holding Miami to just seventy five points at home,
Speaker 3: and in Game three, after that procedure that was supposed
Speaker 3: to provide relief for Wade, he had the worst playoff
Speaker 3: game of his career, with five points on two of
Speaker 3: thirteen shooting, as the Heat were held to seventy five
Speaker 3: points again and suddenly trailed the series two games to one.
Speaker 4: Game four in.
Speaker 3: Indianapolis would become the first test of the resolve built
Speaker 3: in those previous finals, except this time it was Wade
Speaker 3: who seemed to be carrying the weight of the franchise.
Speaker 3: He had just come off his worst career playoff game
Speaker 3: on a sore knee, and the idea that he could
Speaker 3: be Lebron's partner in winning multiple championships suddenly seemed bleak.
Speaker 3: Wade even visited with his Marquette coach, Tom Crean, who
Speaker 3: was coaching Indiana at the time.
Speaker 4: Here's battier, and.
Speaker 14: We felt horrible for him because he was obviously in pain.
Speaker 14: His knee was swollen, so it wasn't like you. And
Speaker 14: D's a warrior, so you know when he's when he's
Speaker 14: banged up and say he's banged up, you know he's
Speaker 14: really banged up.
Speaker 15: But that's what makes Hall of Famers.
Speaker 14: That's why d Wade, you know, behind Kobe and Mike's
Speaker 14: probably the third greatest shooting guard of all time, with
Speaker 14: respects to Jerry West.
Speaker 15: You show up.
Speaker 14: You show up when you're when the pressure is on
Speaker 14: the line the most. And that's why I argue that
Speaker 14: you need to go to the NBA Finals, win championships
Speaker 14: to be considered one of the greatest because of their consequences.
Speaker 14: And if you never put yourself in that position where
Speaker 14: your legacy is in the line and people are gonna
Speaker 14: talk about you and downgrade your entire career, you can't
Speaker 14: be in that conversation. And that's why ultimate respect for
Speaker 14: d Wade and Lebron and Chris and Ray Allen, all
Speaker 14: these guys. They show up when legacy is on the line.
Speaker 14: And that was that that game four against in Indiana.
Speaker 3: Wade was vintage and scoring thirty points with nine rebounds
Speaker 3: and six assists in this legacy marker of a game.
Speaker 17: Wade coming to the basket, so he's got a three
Speaker 17: ended up. Get a couple of field goals here for
Speaker 17: Dwayne in the last nie and that was beautiful Lebron.
Speaker 5: James yelled up battye a cleared out and then they
Speaker 5: ran a back door move with Wade running on the baseline.
Speaker 17: Beautiful bass and look by Lebron.
Speaker 3: Lebron scored forty of his own with eighteen rebounds and
Speaker 3: nine assists in what was one of his best statistical
Speaker 3: playoff games of his heat tenure, showing he'd had more
Speaker 3: than Wade's back games.
Speaker 5: Attacking Barbosa, bang and a fucking for Lebron thirty seven.
Speaker 5: Now that's a sheer upper body strength and then acrobatic
Speaker 5: ability to take the contact.
Speaker 3: Fittingly, Wade got some additional help from his most familiar
Speaker 3: of teammates in this crucial clash. Haslam was coming off
Speaker 3: the bench at this point, but he knew he'd find
Speaker 3: enough opportunities to support Wade, his teammate of nine seasons.
Speaker 3: Miami had tried second year center Dexter Pittman in the
Speaker 3: middle in Game three, and in Game four it was
Speaker 3: Ronnie Torioff getting the starting knot in the middle, but
Speaker 3: it was Haslam that gave Miami twenty five critical minutes.
Speaker 3: With the Heat leading by just a point in the
Speaker 3: fourth quarter, Haslm followed a way bucket by drawing an
Speaker 3: offensive foul in Indiana's lou Adminson. The collision left Haslm
Speaker 3: bleeding from above his right eye, but he wouldn't allow
Speaker 3: Heat trainer Jay Sable to take him to the locker
Speaker 3: room for the necessary stitches.
Speaker 13: I I remember get hit the eye when I got
Speaker 13: hit my damn, I you know what I'm saying. I
Speaker 13: was pissed, and I think Jay tried to take me.
Speaker 2: To the locker room.
Speaker 13: But I knew if I went to the locker room
Speaker 13: to get stitches that I probably missed too much of
Speaker 13: the game to be able to help win, right.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
Speaker 13: By the time I go get stitched up and try
Speaker 13: to come back, who knows. So I was like that,
Speaker 13: tap it up, we don't have time.
Speaker 2: I gotta go.
Speaker 13: And it was also around the time where they thought
Speaker 13: that the game plan was to leave me open. I
Speaker 13: don't know what they were smoking, but their game plan
Speaker 13: was to make me beat them. I understand Lebron and
Speaker 13: Dwayne is great, but don't disrespect the work that I
Speaker 13: put in. Don't disrespect my craft, don't disrespect who I am.
Speaker 13: And I felt like that was disrespectful.
Speaker 17: Heats the dribble alive. It's Haslam prospect, way go, you've done.
Speaker 17: It's Haslam. What a quarter he's had.
Speaker 3: Wade, James and Haslam scored eighty four of the Heat's
Speaker 3: one hundred and one points in the series evening win,
Speaker 3: and yet he'd save his most memorable moment for the
Speaker 3: next game. It was the second quarter of Game five
Speaker 3: in Miami, with the series tied at two games apiece
Speaker 3: and the Heat leading by only seven points at the moment,
Speaker 3: and Bosh was still not healthy enough to play. Just
Speaker 3: about ninety seconds earlier in the game, Tyler Hansbrough committed
Speaker 3: a flagrant foul on Wade, drawing some blood and the
Speaker 3: ire of Haslim.
Speaker 5: The previous a couple of games as he goes, so
Speaker 5: whoever gets fouled, But it's so difficult, and Wade looks
Speaker 5: like you got hit pretty hard.
Speaker 17: But Hansbrough came.
Speaker 18: Over his back and they contact with him theck and
Speaker 18: Lebron James is appealing to the.
Speaker 17: Officials looking for the flavored called I think the officials
Speaker 17: are discussing that right down on the class.
Speaker 13: That handshake is what pissed me off, because I get it,
Speaker 13: it's a physical game. At last game, the lou Munskin
Speaker 13: gout hit me, he was the guy hit me. See,
Speaker 13: I don't forget that stuff. Musen hit me and gave
Speaker 13: me stitches. Hansburg hit d Wayne and gave him stitches. Now,
Speaker 13: right after Hansburg hits the Wayne, I watched Hansboro, who
Speaker 13: hit d Wayne, and Munson who hit me, go slap
Speaker 13: each other five like good job. At that point, the
Speaker 13: decision was made. That decision is made, you know what
Speaker 13: I'm saying. And at that supposed set and I say,
Speaker 13: supposed toy out of this. As soon as the time out,
Speaker 13: I walked to the timeout and I said, I'm somebody up.
Speaker 2: Spoe looked at me and he said whatever he said.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I couldn't hear him. I had already went.
Speaker 13: To that dark place, and I said, supposed to stay
Speaker 13: out of this, stay out of it.
Speaker 2: That's it, you know what I'm saying, That's it.
Speaker 13: And I made my and it was crazy because the
Speaker 13: very next play I couldn't have drew it up any better.
Speaker 2: I couldn't have drew it up any better.
Speaker 13: I'm the low man on the rotation of a pick
Speaker 13: and roll, hands burros coming right at me.
Speaker 2: I literally thought in my head.
Speaker 13: Like if I don't take this opportunity, I might not
Speaker 13: get a better one.
Speaker 2: And I just did. I handled my business.
Speaker 13: It's more so like, you know what I'm saying, like,
Speaker 13: just understand, we're here to play basketball, but we ain't finna,
Speaker 13: you know, just turn the other cheek to certain things
Speaker 13: that are going on. You know what I'm saying. My stitches,
Speaker 13: the Wayne stitches, the handshake. It's starting to seem a
Speaker 13: little intention here, you know what I'm saying. So we're
Speaker 13: just gonna let you know we with all that too.
Speaker 13: I had no intentions on blocking the ball.
Speaker 18: Oh hauck, I may flayrant turn it off. I was
Speaker 18: hands woman, play thing out some of the fuck Gray
Speaker 18: that he paced off Cup that was shuffer the other
Speaker 18: night and things.
Speaker 17: They're getting very threaten though.
Speaker 5: First well they've been physical throughout this series, but now
Speaker 5: it's getting ugly. Mark, and for Eudanna's has them, this
Speaker 5: is clearly paidback. He just clubs with two hands hands
Speaker 5: bull The problem here, Mark, the crowd loves it. But
Speaker 5: if this is a flagrant too. Remember Haslem is their
Speaker 5: best post shooter with Bosh out, He's the one that
Speaker 5: provided that.
Speaker 17: Spacing the other day in Game four.
Speaker 5: If he's kicked out, no Bosh, no Haslm, that.
Speaker 17: Is a major blow for Miami. Well, they're saying there's
Speaker 17: a flagrant in one. I think that's a flagrant too.
Speaker 13: Yeah, like I say, is I made my mind it
Speaker 13: once I went to the huddle, it's going to happen.
Speaker 13: I didn't know it's gonna happen in very nice play,
Speaker 13: but the lower working mysterious waves. I mean, everybody just
Speaker 13: like laughing and talking about it. But most so it
Speaker 13: was like the reaction of their players. Nobody approached me
Speaker 13: after I did that, for all the tough guys in
Speaker 13: this locker room, for everybody who's supposed to.
Speaker 2: Be big and bad.
Speaker 13: Nobody approached me from your team when I did that,
Speaker 13: and Matt let me know we had your heart. Nobody
Speaker 13: from your team came and did nothing to me, not
Speaker 13: even come my weight, not even looked my weight.
Speaker 2: We got your heart.
Speaker 3: Haslam would be suspended for Game six, as with Pittman,
Speaker 3: who got suspended for three games following a flagrant two
Speaker 3: he took on Lance Stevenson seconds before the Heats blowout
Speaker 3: in Game five was complete with an even thinner front court.
Speaker 3: The Heat went to Indiana and bludgeoned the Pacers in
Speaker 3: Game six to clinch the series. Wade turned Banker's life
Speaker 3: Fieldhouse into his personal playground again, scoring forty one with
Speaker 3: ten rebounds in the clincher.
Speaker 16: Now the Pacers need to stop something they have not
Speaker 16: been very successful on with this man. Wait to the basket,
Speaker 16: pound it out a foul, want to.
Speaker 17: Play from weighing on a chance for a three point per.
Speaker 21: We got a lot of them basketball left, you know.
Speaker 21: I think when you talk about three games, you know,
Speaker 21: two guys, you know, being dominated at the same time.
Speaker 21: I think this is probably the most that we have
Speaker 21: been when it talk about playoffs. I don't know regular
Speaker 21: season we've had some good games, but I think the
Speaker 21: way that we've played off each other, we've played very well,
Speaker 21: and you know, obviously we envisioned this at times, you know,
Speaker 21: So it just happened that we needed more than a
Speaker 21: series because we was missing a very big piece with
Speaker 21: Chris Bosh being out.
Speaker 3: It couldn't possibly get more intense than that. Right, Wade's
Speaker 3: legacy on the line, and by extension, Lebron's brothers bloodied,
Speaker 3: and the team's depth tested to its capacity because of
Speaker 3: an injury and suspensions, Well it could. All it required
Speaker 3: was two words. Boston Celtics weren't the two thousand and
Speaker 3: eight Celtics. That team won a championship with instant chemistry
Speaker 3: around a trio of Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce.
Speaker 3: This team, four seasons later, had a lot more Rajon
Speaker 3: Rondo in its formula, and while on court chemistry was
Speaker 3: still strong, off court issues were arising. Allen had been
Speaker 3: a part of trade rumors, and the future Hall of
Speaker 3: Famer was effectively being told Rondo would be Boston's future
Speaker 3: and it's quite possible to move to the bench would
Speaker 3: be an Allen's near future. KG wasn't his two thousand
Speaker 3: and eight self, the depth wasn't great, and even Pierce's
Speaker 3: production would suffer some from Rondo's emergence. This four seed
Speaker 3: wasn't the team that was supposed to take out the Heat.
Speaker 3: Yet there were the Celtics, having eked out a series
Speaker 3: tying Game four in Boston in overtime by outscoring the
Speaker 3: Heat four to two in the extra five minutes.
Speaker 16: Wait picked up by Daniel's final seconds looks up Head's fake.
Speaker 17: Puts up a three for the win. Look good Celtics winning.
Speaker 16: Then the conference final is tied at two games apiece.
Speaker 3: Surely Game five in Miami would settle the Heat. It
Speaker 3: did quite the opposite. Bosh would return and play off
Speaker 3: the bench, but the Heat offense was miserable, shooting under
Speaker 3: forty percent from the field, and the Celtics stunned the
Speaker 3: Heat despite a combined fifty seven from James and Wade
Speaker 3: Down a five.
Speaker 16: Seconds wave puts up a three, won't go rebound Garnett Crowson.
Speaker 17: Ahead to two.
Speaker 5: It the Pufficks win Game five, take a three two lead,
Speaker 5: a huge win on the road.
Speaker 16: Is Miami now one loss away from elimination? A stunning
Speaker 16: result here at the American Airlines a Raider.
Speaker 3: The narrative shifted mightily for the Miami Heat. In a
Speaker 3: span of just two games. The Heat went from a
Speaker 3: team looking like it would coast to another finals appearance
Speaker 3: to a team that had everything on the line in
Speaker 3: just one game, and that game would be played in Boston.
Speaker 4: Here's Levitard.
Speaker 7: I don't believe that there has ever been a game
Speaker 7: in South Florida that had more pressure on it, not
Speaker 7: a Game seven in the World Series, because a Game
Speaker 7: seven in the World Series wasn't for the blueprint of
Speaker 7: the franchise, wasn't for the architecture of this thing is
Speaker 7: going to break down in laughter if you lose Game six,
Speaker 7: the America is going to celebrate your epic echoing failure
Speaker 7: four years because things will change if you lose this game.
Speaker 4: I don't believe that there has ever in.
Speaker 7: My lifetime covering sports in this market a more pressurized
Speaker 7: game than that one that Lebron James played in Game
Speaker 7: six in Boston. I doubted that that team would be
Speaker 7: able to do that. I doubted that Lebron would be
Speaker 7: able to do that.
Speaker 2: I did not.
Speaker 7: Trust based on the previous what would it be one
Speaker 7: hundred and sixty some odd games that that team had played,
Speaker 7: that that performance was available to anybody. I did not
Speaker 7: think that that's how that would go when they went
Speaker 7: into Boston. I expected them to lose that basketball game.
Speaker 3: If the Heat don't win Game six and the Game
Speaker 3: seven that would follow, major adjustments would be on the
Speaker 3: way it's possible Chris Bosh would get traded. It's likely
Speaker 3: you Donnis Haslam, the Miami native, doesn't finish his twenty
Speaker 3: year career with the Heat. Lebron James's attempt to win
Speaker 3: a championship with his friends and change the league as
Speaker 3: a result would have been deemed a historic failure, not
Speaker 3: to mention another year.
Speaker 4: Of being the butt of jokes.
Speaker 3: Tim Reynolds of the Associated Press tells a story of
Speaker 3: when Shane Battier watched Lebron deal with those thoughts in
Speaker 3: real time before Game six.
Speaker 9: There was Shane Battier told me a really cool story.
Speaker 9: The night before Game six. They are in Boston, they're
Speaker 9: going to dinner. Car pulls up as they're walking on
Speaker 9: the street. I don't know how big the group of
Speaker 9: Heat guys was. There was a few of them. Shane
Speaker 9: and Lebron were quoted. Car pulls up, rolls down the window, Lebron,
Speaker 9: you suck, and then the guy starts laughing at himself
Speaker 9: and drives away. That's it, Lebron, you suck. And they're
Speaker 9: all sitting there like, well, that just happened. And about
Speaker 9: twenty minutes later, Shane told me that he realized that
Speaker 9: Lebron had not said anything yet, and he's like, and
Speaker 9: that's what I knew.
Speaker 2: We were good.
Speaker 9: And the next night forty five, fifteen to five.
Speaker 3: The butterfly effect from losing Game six would have been
Speaker 3: so massive it's hard to imagine how different the Heat
Speaker 3: franchise and the entire league would have looked. But only
Speaker 3: one look truly mattered. On the evening of June seventh,
Speaker 3: twenty twelve, in Boston's TD Garden, it was the one
Speaker 3: on Lebron's face. Battier certainly noticed.
Speaker 14: We know what that game meant. Everyone who came to that,
Speaker 14: you know, the garden, what are they called? They knew
Speaker 14: if we went today, it's the end of the Big
Speaker 14: three eras everyone came to barry the Heat, everybody, all
Speaker 14: those all those Celtic fans, right, and so we we like,
Speaker 14: we didn't have to like do this big speech.
Speaker 15: We knew what was on the.
Speaker 14: Line, right, But the look, the look on you know,
Speaker 14: Lebron's face, I got this, I got this.
Speaker 3: The last time Lebron had faced this level of championship pressure,
Speaker 3: he looked to be shrinking on his way to an
Speaker 3: eight point finals game and a loss to the Dallas Mavericks.
Speaker 3: So there was some hope for the Celtics, but the
Speaker 3: heat's pregame commute from their hotel to the arena offered
Speaker 3: another source of motivation for Lebron. It was much longer
Speaker 3: than usual, with the team bus fighting heavy Boston traffic.
Speaker 4: Here's e Donnis Haslam.
Speaker 13: I already knew he was gonna go crazy because they
Speaker 13: tried to pull some trickery. You know, we got to
Speaker 13: the game, like sixty business before the game, the bus,
Speaker 13: the traffic.
Speaker 2: I don't know, it's a little skeptic. I'm a little
Speaker 2: skeptical behind that all played out.
Speaker 13: But we literally walked in about with sixty on the
Speaker 13: clock and Bron was pissed and he looked at me and.
Speaker 2: Dwayne, and I don't know Dwayne said something to him.
Speaker 13: He just gave us his face and he said, don't
Speaker 13: worry about it. And we was like, oh, they'd have
Speaker 13: made him mad, they'd have made him mad. We were right, yeah,
Speaker 13: we'll follow, leave, we follow. You know, he made it
Speaker 13: very clear, he made it very clear, don't worry about it.
Speaker 13: I got it, And I think he was a little
Speaker 13: pissed off, just like we were. Man, come on, man,
Speaker 13: at that stage, at that point, there's no way you
Speaker 13: should show up to the arena with sixty.
Speaker 2: On the clock.
Speaker 3: Maybe the shortened pregame experience gave James less time to
Speaker 3: weigh the massive consequences, but this was a version of
Speaker 3: Lebron James no.
Speaker 4: Had seen before.
Speaker 3: Sure, he'd scored twenty five straight in a playoff game
Speaker 3: against the Pistons, but this game was a calculated mission
Speaker 3: from beginning to end, in a place where the distaste
Speaker 3: for him runs thicker than anywhere else in the league.
Speaker 3: Battier could feel it from the bench.
Speaker 14: You know when Lebron in Deed and c he played
Speaker 14: a certain level of force, You're just like, holy crap,
Speaker 14: this is this is why they're generational players, the force
Speaker 14: and just like you just like let's go. And it
Speaker 14: was so inspiring and like it was almost like throwing
Speaker 14: a no hitter. Like you didn't want to talk to Lebron.
Speaker 14: You don't want to like look at him like you're
Speaker 14: doing it. We don't want to, Jake say it. Like
Speaker 14: we knew we were sitting there on the bench going holy,
Speaker 14: like this is this is crazy. But he was in
Speaker 14: such a zone that day and in Boston knew it,
Speaker 14: and Boston knew they had no shot.
Speaker 3: Even Jackie McMullen, who knows Celtic's history and tradition as
Speaker 3: well as anyone else, understood what a series win against
Speaker 3: the Heat would have meant for the franchise, and her
Speaker 3: eyes were fixed on one person only.
Speaker 15: I'm not watching anybody else.
Speaker 9: I don't really care what anybody else does.
Speaker 8: This is this is Lebron's boom er Bus moment.
Speaker 3: And he starts off with six for seven, fourteen points
Speaker 3: in the first quarter and just looks absolutely like he's
Speaker 3: ready to wreck a team. And you know, looking back,
Speaker 3: people say, oh, you're only saying that based on the result,
Speaker 3: but Lebron didn't really look like that very often.
Speaker 16: James for three pucks. It in Lebron, James from Town Town.
Speaker 16: He's got twelve already, and that he could have scored.
Speaker 17: Ten in a row.
Speaker 16: James spin's trying to draw some contact. What a great
Speaker 16: start to Lebron. James six of seven from the field.
Speaker 17: And he's in the paint.
Speaker 3: He maintained that look in the second quarter, going six
Speaker 3: of seven again from the field to score thirty by
Speaker 3: halftime and carry his team to a thirteen point lead
Speaker 3: at the break.
Speaker 16: James tries again and puts it in again. Nine for
Speaker 16: ten from the field right now unstoppable and some of
Speaker 16: these are tough, tough shots games again leave right now
Speaker 16: is on a special zone here on the first half,
Speaker 16: Fosh down low against Ray Allen turns he'll jump football.
Speaker 17: Go James, let's flying in and throws it down. He's
Speaker 17: got twenty seven first half.
Speaker 16: Points extra special passes as change fits another a thirty
Speaker 16: point first half.
Speaker 3: It wasn't the best statistical game of Lebron James's career.
Speaker 3: It would only be the most important and a stat
Speaker 3: line that Lebron and most Heat fans will never forget.
Speaker 3: Forty five points, fifteen rebounds, five assists in a ninety
Speaker 3: eight seventy nine win that saved the Miami Heats championship
Speaker 3: experiment and shifted the narrative around Lebron even faster than
Speaker 3: that game four in Dallas did.
Speaker 16: And this has been one impressive dominal before it's James
Speaker 16: flips it up left handed thanks to then He's got
Speaker 16: forty five. The Heat forced the game seven the Eastern
Speaker 16: Conference Finals, all tied to three games a piece.
Speaker 3: Here's Lebron on the court with Doris Burke after his
Speaker 3: career defining masterpiece Lebron.
Speaker 22: No player has to play under the kind of scrutiny
Speaker 22: and pressure that you do. How do you stand and
Speaker 22: deliver the kind of performance you did tonight.
Speaker 6: I just wanted to try to leave my team the
Speaker 6: best way I could, whatever I needed to do out
Speaker 6: on the floor. I tried to be there for him
Speaker 6: to night, and you know, I'm glad we was able
Speaker 6: to get this win and now you know, force the
Speaker 6: game seven.
Speaker 22: What is it like knowing that regardless of what happens
Speaker 22: with the team, the failure rests on your shoulders.
Speaker 6: Well, you know, I just go out and just do
Speaker 6: what I've been taught, and that's to play at a
Speaker 6: high level and have fun with it. And at the
Speaker 6: end of the day, I won't regret anything. If I
Speaker 6: know I played hard and I gave it to my
Speaker 6: own I won't regret anything, no matter the outcome. And
Speaker 6: you know that's why I've been this whole season.
Speaker 3: James didn't win the Gold Trophy yet, but as LeBatard explains,
Speaker 3: he secured one important item, everyone's respect.
Speaker 7: You rarely get the story arcs that go from your
Speaker 7: mentally frail, your choker, your week. You're someone who can't
Speaker 7: and doesn't know how to win a championship. To oh, Holy,
Speaker 7: against my will, you have begrudgingly made me respect you.
Speaker 7: I have to respect that because what I just saw
Speaker 7: is something that knocked over any doubts I had about you,
Speaker 7: your character, your strength, what you just did. And as
Speaker 7: I recall that stat line, he wouldn't get a lot
Speaker 7: of help in that game. That was just him again
Speaker 7: and again and again with a Dwayne Wade who was,
Speaker 7: you know, a little bit banged up, and I just
Speaker 7: remember that he had what Tom Brady has, which is,
Speaker 7: no matter how much you might hate this guy or
Speaker 7: not want him to win, or think that he's got
Speaker 7: athletic gifts that that are put by a crib in
Speaker 7: a crib, by a holy man, that you have to
Speaker 7: respect what you just saw.
Speaker 3: Coach Spoe, Chris Bosh, and d Wade all saying Lebron's
Speaker 3: praise is after the game, it.
Speaker 11: Was he was absolutely fearless tonight and it was contagious.
Speaker 11: Best I've seen, one of the best this league has
Speaker 11: ever seen. And you know, he he's helped us a
Speaker 11: lot so we can live to play another day. He
Speaker 11: played amazing.
Speaker 21: You know, he was locked in from the beginning of
Speaker 21: the game like I've never seen him before. I Mean,
Speaker 21: the shots he was making was you know, unbelievable. You know,
Speaker 21: some good defense and he just he just made it. So,
Speaker 21: you know, he really put on the MVP performance tonight,
Speaker 21: and not just on not just scoring the ball, but
Speaker 21: rebounding the ball defensively.
Speaker 11: He did it all tonight, you know.
Speaker 17: So it was great.
Speaker 21: It was great to see him come out and lead
Speaker 21: this team the way he did today. We just gave
Speaker 21: him the ball and got out the way.
Speaker 3: After a Game seven in Miami that's still provided more
Speaker 3: tension than expected. The Heat actually trailed in the fourth
Speaker 3: quarter of that game. Lebron in the Heat felt as
Speaker 3: free as ever. They need to feel good about themselves too,
Speaker 3: because the team they were about to meet in the finals,
Speaker 3: the Oklahoma City Thunder team that was playing in Seattle
Speaker 3: when Lebron first entered the league, they looked like they
Speaker 3: could out heeat the Heat, bringing in a trio of
Speaker 3: high end stars they drafted themselves. That team, led by
Speaker 3: a young Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, and James Harden, would
Speaker 3: put an immediate scare into the championship. Ready heat the
Speaker 3: city Feller take came on, still to come on, four
Speaker 3: years of heat.
Speaker 12: Like I always want to leave my Mark in whatever championship,
Speaker 12: whatever series. I mean, just so you could say we
Speaker 12: need to rely on Mark.
Speaker 11: On top of being the baddest man.
Speaker 2: In the world. Now he's a champion, on top of.
Speaker 6: It, you know, today being an NBA champion, you know,
Speaker 6: you know that loss, you know, and that heartbreak was
Speaker 6: the best thing that ever happened to me.
Speaker 4: I'll admit.
Speaker 2: That's the way I mean.
Speaker 15: I'm sitting in Orland.
Speaker 23: I'm saying, well, Lebron couldn't beat it in Cleveland, and
Speaker 23: Chris couldn't beat us in Toronto, So yeah, run on
Speaker 23: down to Miami and get some you know, get some
Speaker 23: help from Dwayne, and now you guys can.
Speaker 12: Be good if I bring that mentality into Miami, like I'm.
Speaker 14: Supposed to play more, I'm supposed to start, I'm supposed
Speaker 14: to do all these things.
Speaker 15: Then I'm setting myself up for failure.
Speaker 13: They was just assumed we were just gonna walk in
Speaker 13: here and beat these people. And people don't understand you
Speaker 13: add gasoline to the fire. We go in here and
Speaker 13: play these teams.
Speaker 14: We have Hall of Famers up and on the line,
Speaker 14: we're defending champs, and we just got into a zone
Speaker 14: and like I said, it was easy. It wasn't, but
Speaker 14: it just felt like, Okay, yeah, we're gonna win every
Speaker 14: single night.
Speaker 15: We stuff on the floor.
Speaker 3: Four years if he dies, A production of iHeartRadio and
Speaker 3: the NBA