Do Or Die Game For The Heat
MIAMI (CBS4) — The Heat face a win-or-else Game 6 of the NBA Finals against Dallas tonight. The Mavericks hold a 3-2 advantage in the best-of-seven showdown thanks to Thursday night's Game 5 victory on their home court.
Fans showed up early to the AmericanAirlines Arena in downtown Miami on Sunday; some hoping to score tickets – others with tickets in hand hoping to for a big win.
"They stand on their heads to win tickets or something, I'll do whatever for them," said Summer Powell who came came from Missouri with her son; the pair were hoping to score tickets.
Melissa Stern, in town from Paris, had her tickets.
"I'm just excited to see it, I've never been to a finals before" said Stern.
"In these playoffs, one win or one loss can switch the whole momentum. You don't ever want a snowball to start. I don't allow myself to sit back all of a sudden and be satisfied. We got one more big win hopefully to get, and then I can be satisfied," the Mavs' Dirk Nowitzki said Saturday.
Nowitzki isn't giving his version of the "one game at a time" cliche. He's been this way the last two months — the last five years, really, ever since the Mavericks went from being on the verge of taking a 3-0 lead in the 2006 finals to losing in six games. The Mavs wound up watching the Miami Heat celebrate their first championship on Dallas' floor.
Nowitzki also talked about a video that showed Dwyane Wade and LeBron James appearing to mock the Mavs star for his recent sinus infection.
Wade said he really did cough and turned it into a generic joke specifically because cameras were rolling. He and James blamed others for trying to make a big deal out of it.
While Nowitzki called it "a little childish, a little ignorant," he also brought up that nothing as silly as that will matter Sunday night.
"We're one win away from my dream, what I've worked on for half of my life," he said. "This is all I'm focusing on."
The Heat's Jason Kidd is 38, probably closer to his Hall of Fame induction than to his prime years. He's already the oldest guard to start in the NBA finals, and it would be a terrific cap to his career for him to be the oldest ever to win it.
Excited, right?
Wrong. His goal on Sunday will be to maintain the shooting touch he had Thursday night.
"It's not about 'if we win we win a championship,'" he said. "It's about doing what we've done all season and having to play hard and find a way to win. Then everything else will fall into place."
A Heat win would force a Game 7 on Tuesday in Miami.
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