It's All About No. 3

Asked what impressed him the most about his star, Riley said, "He just rises to the occasion. He kept making play after play after play."

When Dirk Nowitzki, with a chance to tie the score with 3.4 seconds to play, choked on his second of two foul shots -- and you have to call it a choke when a 94 percent playoff foul shooter bricks one with the game on the line -- guess who got the rebound and hit the free throw to secure the game?

You only need one guess. Wade. When Dallas lobbed the ball to the rim in an attempt to tie the game and force overtime with one second left, guess who kept Josh Howard from laying the ball in? You need a hint? Wade, baby. Wade.

His line for the night: 42 points and 13 rebounds. He made more baskets than anybody in the game, more free throws, and grabbed more rebounds. Wade didn't just change the game, he probably changed the series. For the first time, the Mavericks are down in the mouth.

The natural tendency is to ask whether Dallas choked. The answer is that Wade choked Dallas, put both hands around the Mavericks' throats and squeezed until they simply weren't conscious anymore.

Wade revealed afterward that Shaq had fallen on his knee early in the second half. "That's a lot of weight," he said.

But Wade carried dead weight all night, the weight of his teammates.

Riley said that he thinks his players are "fatigued mentally. I've got to get their minds right in the next couple of days." But their minds and bodies were dead in Game 3, and Wade carried them for all but the final couple of minutes when it became apparent that they at least ought to pick up a finger to help, lest one of the great playoff performances of all time go to waste.

Instead, Miami responded at the last possible moment. The Heat players should carry Wade to practice Wednesday because he put Miami back into championship contention and put the Mavericks, at least temporarily, on their backs. The numbers say Dallas is still up in this series, 2-1, but it has the feel of dead-even the way the Heat players walked into their locker room with their chests puffed out and their pride intact.

They knew they could have walked out down 0-3, with no chance to come back.

They could have closed the season with Shaq being outplayed by Erick Dampier, a player Shaq last year called "Ericka." They've got one player to thank for bailing them out: Wade. Well, maybe they should thank Riley, too, for leaving Wade in the game once he picked up that fifth foul with nearly the entire fourth quarter to play. Riley might not use his bench. He might not have the most creative offense around. He surely doesn't make adjustments as well as several coaches already ousted from the playoffs. But he has a feel for people, certainly a feel for star players. "I know players," Riley said, "I've been around them for 40 years."

Whatever the instinct, Riley left Wade on the floor, trusted him to not pick up a sixth foul, trusted Wade could deliver the way Magic delivered for Riley in the 1980s. And Wade made Riley's move pay off, justified all that faith from the Hall of Fame coach.

Dallas is the better team, still. But Dallas is in a little bit of trouble now. The Mavericks let a great player off the floor, and may yet live to really, really regret it.