Ricky in the House

Birthday boil: Dirk's down time By Marc Stein, ESPN.com

MIAMI -- It stretched into a fifth period. It strayed well past midnight. It spilled all the way into Dirk Nowitzki's 28th birthday.
It was a sequence of developments that, with one more defensive stop, would have framed Nowitzki's first triumphant moment in these NBA Finals.

Problem was, after No. 41 rang in No. 28 with his clutchest jumper of the series, Miami still had enough time to get the ball to Dwyane Wade one last time.

And ...

"He's the best right now," Shaquille O'Neal insisted, "and that's all you can say."

The Mavs had a lot more to say, actually, believing (a) that Wade committed a backcourt violation before his final winding drive to the hoop, (b) that Wade "pushed off, like, three guys," by Nowitzki's count, on his way to the rim, and (c) that Nowitzki never fouled him. Of course, Wade still had to sink the free throws for the win and coolly dropped them, finishing with 43 points and clinching a 101-100 overtime triumph that gave the Heat a 3-2 lead to take back to Dallas.

Nowitzki and his Dallas Mavericks thus find themselves closer to elimination than celebration after one of the worst Miami excursions on record. In Game 3, they blew a 13-point lead and a chance at a sweep in the final six-plus minutes. In Game 4, they no-showed and saw Jerry Stackhouse suspended for a much-debated takedown of Shaq. In Game 5, they endured an ending that might prove tougher to digest than the sum of those outcomes.

Depends on what anger does for them from here.

"There's no tomorrow," Mavs coach Avery Johnson said, "and I like that 'no tomorrow' feeling for our team."

Johnson's faith stems from Dallas surviving a Game 7 in San Antonio, but it's not like he has much choice. The Mavs' 0-for-3 tour of South Florida, after they won at least two road games in each of the previous three rounds, left them clinging to the May memories.

Yet mad as they are about the Josh Howard timeout hubbub between Wade's clinching free throws and Wade's 25 trips to the line -- matching the Mavs' team total -- Dallas did plenty to be fumed about long before Nowitzki punted the ball into the stands in frustration at the final horn.

Nowitzki's unhappy Finals finally seemed poised for an upturn in the closing seconds of OT, when he sank a baseline jumper over two defenders for a 100-99 lead that at last prompted Nowitzki to remove his mouthpiece and resurrect his you-can't-guard-me sneer. He also delivered a couple of telling penetrations in regulation, one to set up a silky jumper and the other creating an uncontested dunk for Erick Dampier.

Nowitzki, though, will probably hear more about his missed free throw with 1:26 remaining, especially after the crunch-time free throw he failed to convert in the Game 3 unraveling.

This was not a night Dallas could afford squandered chances from the line, not with Wade getting there so frequently and then smooching a few jumpers in off the glass, Tim Duncan-style, once he shook a 5-for-17 start. But Howard missed two more freebies in overtime with 54 ticks left to cap another untimely fizzle from the Mavs' No. 2 option. Howard had 23 points and eight boards through three quarters but only two points and two boards thereafter.

The Mavs also paid for a general lack of aggression in the second half. They needed more than nine minutes of the third quarter to finally draw a foul on the Heat and didn't attempt a single free throw in the period ... compared to Miami's 18. Nowitzki, meanwhile, still seems reluctant to drive like he did throughout the West playoffs, as if he's convinced no one but Wade will be rewarded with whistles. The big German didn't attack the bucket in this one until after his missed free throw and didn't score a point in the extra period until that jumper with 9.1 seconds left, even though Miami's Udonis Haslem was saddled with five fouls all that time.

"I think we had enough opportunities to win this game," Nowitzki said after scuffling for his 20 points. "We know we can beat this team. We showed it in Game 1 and Game 2. This is a tough one to swallow for a night, but starting tomorrow, we should feel a lot better about ourselves again."

The Heat, naturally, are already there.

They survived some Hack-a-Shaq and O'Neal's fifth successive game under 20 points to give themselves two shots at the road win they need to complete one of the most storied comebacks in league history. They just became only the second home team in two decades of the 2-3-2 Finals format to win the middle three games at home. They are also now 2-0 against the Mavs when Howard scores at least 20 points, after Dallas went 25-0 with Howard in the 20s before this series.

They haven't won the title yet, but the Heat have achieved a lot, with Wade responsible for most of it. Since his struggles in the first two games -- even Heat coach Pat Riley termed them "difficult" for Wade -- he's gotten progressively better.

Example: Riley put Wade on Jason Terry early on the fourth quarter, on top of everything else he was asking Wade to do, which briefly slowed Dallas' 35-point top scorer.

"We did not have a second option, believe me," Riley said of Wade's decisive drive.

Believe this, too: Nowitzki won't remember this birthday fondly, barring another stunning Finals turnaround in the next four days.