It was a most innocuous setting for so decisive a change, a black line painted onto the blond wood that truly turned into a charity stripe for Miami on Thursday night.
No, Miami didn’t win Thursday’s night’s game against Detroit entirely at the free-throw line. But the Heat took control of the contest by hitting 10 of 11 foul shots in an otherwise evenly matched second quarter, and then built on the advantage from there, coasting to a 88-76 victory at American Airlines Arena and taking a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven Eastern Conference finals.
“We didn’t maybe match their energy,” Pistons coach Larry Brown said. “Our guys tried.”
Now the Pistons will have to try even harder.
Miami can close out the series Saturday night at Auburn Hills, Mich. If the Heat flames out there, it will still have the advantage of playing a potential Game 7 at home Monday night.
Miami may be without leading scorer Dwyane Wade, however.
With 5 minutes 8 seconds left in the third quarter, Wade went flying backward on an offensive foul by the Pistons’ Rasheed Wallace. He clutched his right side before getting to his feet and being helped into the locker room.
He actually strained the rib muscle 24 seconds earlier, on a crossover dribble just before hitting a 19-foot jumper that put the Heat up 67-47.
In the two minutes after Wade went out, the Pistons, on the strength of a 12-2 run, cut the lead to 69-59. But they couldn’t whittle the advantage to single digits.
Wade returned but played only two minutes in the fourth quarter before leaving for good.
“It’s . . . very, very painful, feels like he’s getting stabbed when he tries to breathe,” Heat coach Stan Van Gundy said. “He tried to go. He just couldn’t go.”
Heat center Shaquille O’Neal added: “He’s a tough kid, so he must have been hurting. But other guys stepped up. We did what we’re supposed to do.”
Wade sat out four games earlier this season with a similar injury. His status for Saturday is unclear.
“As you see when I came back, I couldn’t continue because . . . I couldn’t move either direction really, only go straight,” Wade said. “It’s just pain right now.”
Pain is something the Pistons could identify with Thursday night.
“Hopefully, we’ll learn from this game,” Brown said. “There’s a lot we can all learn.”
If the past is precedent, the Heat claimed a huge advantage with the victory.
Of the 126 previous NBA series that have been knotted at 2-2, the winner of Game 5 has gone on to win the series 106 times.
Thursday’s game didn’t begin as a blowout.
After Miami went ahead 26-22 on Damon Jones’ 21-foot jumper with 2:34 left in the first quarter, Detroit clamped down on defense, reeling off four straight points on two fast-break dunks.
It was only on the strength of Alonzo Mourning’s dunk with 18.2 seconds remaining that the Heat exited the first quarter with a 28-26 advantage.
“I thought right from the get-go, even though we were only down 28-26, their energy was a lot greater than ours,” Brown said.
The Heat made that advantage stick, not ceding the lead the rest of the way.
By the end of the game, Miami’s free-throw advantage had flattened out–the Heat hit 13 of 23 for the game, the Pistons 13 of 20.
Miami’s efficiency advantage, though, was sizable.
Although the Heat took nine fewer shots than Detroit, it connected on six more, shooting 52.2 percent from the floor to the Pistons’ 38.5 percent.
Richard Hamilton led the Pistons with 21 points. Chauncey Billups added 19 and Tayshaun Prince had 11.
But Rasheed Wallace had just two points on 1-for-3 shooting. Ben Wallace had nine points.
O’Neal paced the Heat with 20 points. Damon Jones and Wade–who played only nine minutes in the second half–added 15 apiece.
Udonis Haslem added a series-high 14.
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apatel@tribune.com
