June 22, 2012
LeBron James won his first National Basketball Association championship, scoring 26 points as the Miami Heat won the title with a 121-106 victory tonight against the visiting Oklahoma City Thunder.
June 22, 2012
LeBron James won his first National Basketball Association championship, scoring 26 points as the Miami Heat won the title with a 121-106 victory tonight against the visiting Oklahoma City Thunder.
James also had 13 assists and 12 rebounds. Mike Miller added 23 points, including seven 3-pointers, as Miami won the best-of-seven NBA Finals four games to one. The Heat tied an NBA Finals record with 14 3-pointers.
The title provides vindication for James, 27, who vowed when he signed a six-year, $110 million deal with the Heat in 2010 that he’d help create a dynasty in Miami.
“It means everything,” James said in a televised interview. “I made a difficult decision to leave Cleveland but I understood what my future was about. This is a dream come true.”
It comes one year after James withered as the Heat lost the last three games of the NBA Finals to the Dallas Mavericks. James was held to eight points on 3-of-11 shooting in the pivotal Game 4 of that series, his lowest scoring output in more than five years.
It has been almost two years since James walked away from his home-state team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, in a made-for- television announcement that was ridiculed by Cavs owner Dan Gilbert. James then celebrated his arrival in Miami by promising 13,000 fans at AmericanAirlines Arena that the Heat would win multiple championships.
Heat President Pat Riley, 67, won his sixth NBA title. He coached the 1980s “Showtime” Los Angeles Lakers to four titles and added another in 2006 as Miami’s coach.
Miami rallied after falling behind in each of its last three series in this year’s playoffs. After eliminating the New York Knicks by four games to one in the first round, the Heat had to come back from deficits in best-of-seven series against the Indiana Pacers, Boston Celtics and Oklahoma City.
Heat Comebacks
Against Indiana, the Heat trailed two games to one before James had 40 points, 18 rebounds and nine assists in a Game 4 win. Miami won the following two games as well.
In the Eastern Conference finals, Miami trailed 3-2 against the Celtics before winning at Boston to force a decisive seventh game that the Heat won at home.
The Thunder won the first game of the NBA Finals before the Heat captured four straight for the championship. In Game 4 two nights ago, James hit a tie-breaking 3-pointer with less than three minutes remaining despite being hobbled by leg cramps.
James, who shares a Dec. 30 birthday with Tiger Woods, is a three-time league Most Valuable Player. He also led the Cavaliers in 2007 to the NBA Finals, where they were swept in four games by the San Antonio Spurs.
The Heat built a 10-point halftime margin into a 95-71 lead entering the fourth period tonight. Miller came off the bench to hit all four of his 3-point attempts in the opening two periods and Miami used a 19-4 run to take a 59-49 halftime lead at AmericanAirlines Arena in Miami.
Kevin Durant led the Thunder with 32 points and Russell Westbrook added 19.
Courtesy: BW
