Miami and San Antonio both advanced to the NBA conference finals in contrasting fashion on Wednesday, with the Heat storming over the top of Brooklyn to pinch a narrow victory, while the Spurs cruised past Portland.
Miami trailed almost the entire game and were eight points down with less than five minutes left, but found a way to pull out a 96-94 win that clinched a 4-1 series victory and a place in the Eastern Conference finals for the fourth straight year.
The Heat are to face either Indiana or Washington.
Photo: AFP
San Antonio did not require any such dramatics and again won comfortably against Portland, with the 104-82 victory also clinching a 4-1 win which put the Spurs in the Western Conference decider for a third successive season. Their opponents are to be Oklahoma City or the Los Angeles Clippers.
Miami’s Ray Allen scored a three-pointer with 32 seconds left to cap the memorable comeback, aided by 29 points from LeBron James and 28 from Dwyane Wade.
James made one of two free-throws with 9.5 seconds left to put the Heat up by two and the Nets almost failed to get a potentially game-tying shot off after Paul Pierce lost it out of bounds, but it stayed with Brooklyn after replay.
However, the Nets still could not get a shot away: Allen knocked the ball away from Joe Johnson as he made his move and time expired.
Johnson had 34 points, while Pierce scored 19 and Deron Williams had 17 for the Nets.
Miami are bidding for a fourth straight trip to the NBA finals — something only the Lakers and Celtics have accomplished.
James is heading there for the sixth time in eight seasons, the first two of those trips coming with Cleveland in 2007 and 2009.
San Antonio had a more relaxed time of it, with Danny Green and Kawhi Leonard each scoring 22 points in the 104-82 win.
Patty Mills scored 18 points, and Tim Duncan had 16 points and eight rebounds for San Antonio, who had four blowout victories in the five-game series.
San Antonio remain on track for another NBA Finals showdown against Miami, who won a hard-fought seven-game series the previous season.
LaMarcus Aldridge had 21 points for Portland, while Damian Lillard added 17 points and 10 assists.
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