Heat survive Thunder rally

OKLAHOMA CITY—LeBron James has seen his share of great starts turn into faulty finishes.
So with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh providing the help he needed, he wasn’t letting another one get away last night.

James scored 32 points, and got a disputed big stop on Kevin Durant, as the Miami Heat held off a furious fourth-quarter rally behind their three all-stars to beat the Oklahoma City Thunder 100-96 and tie the NBA Finals at one game apiece.
“We had played too well in the first 36 minutes to try to let this one slip away from us,” James said.
“We just wanted to make one more, two more plays than they made and come out with a victory, and we were able to do that.”
Wade rebounded from a poor opener to add 24 points while Bosh had 16 points and 15 rebounds in his return to the starting lineup for the Heat, who snapped a four-game finals losing streak with their first victory since Game 3 against Dallas last year.
“It’s been so long since we’ve had them all together,” noted Heat forward Shane Battier.
“They played like the all-stars that they are and that’s the effort that we need,” he stressed.
Now they go home to host Game 3 on Sunday and the next two after that, knowing they don’t have to hear the noisy Thunder fans again—not to mention all their critics—if they win all three.
Miami blew a 13-point lead in Game 1 and seemed headed toward a repeat of the second game of the finals last year, when it blew a 15-point edge on its home floor.
Not this time.
“This is a good team and we didn’t want to be down 2-0,” Bosh said. “We know in order to accomplish our goal, we have to win on the road.
“We’re a good road team. We’ve done it before,” he added. “They posed a great challenge because they haven’t lost up until today.
“But we felt that we let one get away and we felt that we could play a much, much better game in Game 2.”
Durant scored 32 points for the Thunder, but missed a short jumper with 9.9 seconds left after appearing to be bumped by James.
The basket would have tied a game the Thunder had trailed the entire way.
Oklahoma City’s explosive point guard Russell Westbrook finished with 27 points, eight rebounds, and seven assists, but shot just 10-of-25 from the field.
James Harden tried to keep the Thunder in it early and finished with 21 points, but this time the Thunder couldn’t come back from a double-digit deficit after spotting Miami a 17-point advantage during their worst first half of the season.
“That was the game. We can’t start off down 18-2,” Durant noted. “We can’t go down that much, especially at home.
“We’ve got to correct it,” he stressed.
It was the first home loss in 10 post-season games for the Thunder, who had overcome a 13-point deficit in Game 1.
The Thunder missed 11 of their first 12 shots, and when James capped a run of 13-straight Miami points with a basket, it was 18-2 with 4:51 to go in the first quarter.
Coach Scott Brooks had talked to his team about its poor starts—this was three-straight games with a double-digit deficit—and told the Thunder during a first-quarter time-out that the Heat were playing harder than they were.
The Heat kept it up, pushing it to 25-8 on Wade’s jumper with 2:39 left.
“We kept missing good shots,” said forward Serge Ibaka. “We can do better.”