You can have LeBron James. You can have Kobe Bryant. You can have any pick on the playground . . . anybody from here to China. Just let me have Dwyane Wade. When the Los Angeles Lakers began talking trade with the Heat two years ago about sending Shaq to Miami, there was one player Pat Riley wouldn't part with in any deal: D. Wade. And when Riley called Shaq with the news that the Big Fella would be headed to South Beach, Shaq held his breath for a second and asked, "Pat, who did you have to give up?"
As much as Shaq liked the idea of coming to Miami, the thought of not being able to play with Wade made him hold his breath.
Yes, Wade is that good. He's good enough to change the direction of the NBA Finals when the whole board was tilted toward Texas. He's humble enough to tell everybody the Heat is Shaq's team, even though it's his. He's smart enough to become Shaq's Little Brother, something Kobe wouldn't do. Wade is tough enough to play through the pain of a bruised left knee in a critical championship game Tuesday night, and talented enough to dominate it. Is there anything else?
Wade picked up his fifth foul with 10:56 to play? So what? Leave him in there. Of course, Riley had to leave Wade on the floor one foul from disqualification. Wade's his best player. Wade's his only hope in this series, no matter how desperate that hope is. After Dallas nearly ran Miami off the court with a 34-16 third quarter explosion, Miami turned to Wade, no matter his foul trouble or injured knee.
The Dallas lead reached 13 before Wade went to work again. He hit a three-pointer when he doesn't even shoot threes. Wade down the left baseline, Wade down the right baseline, Wade out of the corner. Wade out of the corner again. Wade down the lane for a dunk off the throbbing left leg. Wade, Wade, Wade.
There's no need of talking about Shaq or Riley or anything else that happened here in Miami Tuesday night. Gary Payton might have given Miami the lead with 9.3 seconds left on his clutch jumper, his only shot of the night and just maybe the biggest shot of his long career. But that was secondary.
Primarily, Wade happened. He happened the same way Jordan did and Isiah did and Bird before that and Magic before that. Wade put his name up there in the bright, bright lights with this one because he won a game virtually by himself. If Payton hadn't hit the shot, Wade would have. He resuscitated his teammates, propped them up to clear their foggy heads, then demanded they come with him for the ride. They were dead, Shaq and all the rest of them were dead. Season over. See you on South Beach.
"It didn't look good," Riley said afterward. "It didn't feel good. We were stuck in mud."
It looked like quicksand, they were sinking so badly.
Shaq called Wade "big."
Avery Johnson called Wade "persistent."
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.