Miami shakes off pesky Sixers

MIAMI - During their meeting with the media after the Miami Heat shootaround yesterday morning, forward LeBron James sat at a table and while teammate Dwyane Wade answered questions, James paid close attention to his cuticles and continuously brushed aside pieces of lint of his clothes and brushed whatever remnants were on the tablecloth in front of him.

You had to wonder if the thought of brushing away the 76ers in last night's Game 5 at AmericanAirlines Arena as easily was going through James' mind.

Pulling his own teeth with no numbing medication might be easier for James than it was for his team to finally oust the Sixers, which he and his teammates did with a hard-fought 97-91 win. The Heat will now face the Boston Celtics in an Eastern Conference best-of-seven semifinal series starting Sunday.

Though they heaped praise upon the Sixers at every opportunity while the series progressed, the Heat was certainly glad to rid themselves of the young team that, except for a 21-point loss in Game 2, played pretty much evenly with Miami the other four games that were decided by 24 total points.

For anyone who questioned why the Sixers wanted to make a push to get into the playoffs this season, all that was needed was to witness any of this five-game experience.

"One of the reasons I wanted so badly for this team to get into the playoffs, and obviously Miami was an incredibly tough opponent for us, but at the end of the day probably the best opponent we could have drawn just from the standpoint of what we were going to be facing - the star value that these players have," said Sixers coach Doug Collins. "I don't know of any team that has three guys that can cause the problems that those three can cause. For us to be able to do this, this year, our guys are going to grow exponentially from that and just the feeling of preparing, of seeing me make adjustments between games. For such a young team we had 20 assists and only seven turnovers."

Last night, it wasn't the Big Three of James, Wade and Chris Bosh that only hurt the Sixers (though they did combine for 64 points and 32 rebounds), it was the three-pointers by Miami, which drained 12 of 30, that sent the Sixers to their final plane ride of the season. Sub Mario Chalmers came off the bench and scored 20, including six threes.

"My biggest fear was that they were going to make threes and they did," said Collins. "They beat us by 30 at the three-point line."

If the 76ers appeared to have an edge over the heralded Heat going into their first round, best-of-seven series, it would have been in the area of bench play.

Mainly due to Thaddeus Young and Lou Williams, the Sixers had that advantage for much of the season. But Williams entered the series with a sore right hamstring that cost him the final five games of the regular season. And, after a spectacular performance in the first game, Young pretty much got swallowed up for much the remainder of the series as the Heat swarmed him each time he touched the ball, making his patented quick, lefthanded drives to the basket impossible.

And Miami got serious production from Chalmers and strong defense and two clutch foul shots down the end from sub center Joel Anthony.

Andre Iguodala and Elton Brand each scored 22 for the Sixers, while Young added 13. Jodie Meeks scored 12 and Jrue Holiday collected 10 points and eight assists.

Wade paced the Heat with 26 points to go with 11 rebounds and seven assists. Bosh scored 22 and grabbed 11 boards and James went for 16 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists.

"I think when you're dealing with a team like that you have to give up something," said Iguodala of the Heat's three-point success. "You play by percentages, we had been beaten up in the paint before, they had scored in the paint and offensive rebounds had hurt us. So we figured, keep them outside the paint but not give them good looks from three-point shots and see how that would work for us. They made some shots, but at the same time I felt we did a good job."

After five games, four of them highly competitive, there really are no more surprises one team can spring on the other. Plays and tendencies are known, habits formed, matchups matched. The Sixers had a habit all series, save Game 2, of jumping out to torrid starts. Miami usually countered with a big spurt of its own to get back in the game, and from there, it was game on.

Last night was no different. The Sixers converted all but one of their first nine shots and forged an 11-point lead. Miami finished the quarter on a 17-3 run. Game on.

Just as Miami appeared to be putting the finishing touches on the series, growing their lead to 10 at 81-71 on a three-pointer by Wade, with 8:34 left in the game, the Sixers again clawed to within striking distance, cutting the lead to one with 36.7 seconds left when Iguodala hit a 20-foot fadeaway jumper after Wade was called for a technical foul.

But Anthony made two foul shots with 16.8 seconds left, and Wade converted one of two after an Iguodala miss, then deposited a game-ending dunk. Immediately after, he made his way over to Collins for a heartfelt hug.

In defeat the Sixers earned a ton of respect from a team that probably expected this series to be over as quickly as a wave of a hand.

"To say we weren't ready is a discredit to the Sixers," said Miami coach Erik Spoelstra. "We competed, we had to play at a high level at a high energy, high level of speed to compete and to win. We had to grind it out. That team is extreme. We had to make adjustments the whole series. We put our best athletes out there at times and it wasn't enough. Doug has done a tremendous job with that team."

For more Sixers coverage, read the

Daily News' Sixers blog, Sixerville, at

www.philly.com/Sixerville.

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