MIAMI —

The earliest fans to show up outside AmericanAirlines Arena for Game 1 of the NBA Finals were the faithful, those who since the season began believed that the Miami Heat would be there when the championship was on the line.
They wore white, in keeping with the team's "White Hot Heat" theme. Some were in costume: fright wigs, basketball caps, rubber suits and face paint. They took pictures of each other, yelled cheers together and predicted victory.

"People said it couldn't be done in the first season, but they showed up, and did what needed to be done," said Shane McKendrick, 21, a University of Central Florida student from Plantation.
The "they" McKendrick spoke of, of course, were the Big Three — LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh — who promised to lead the franchise to its second NBA title.

"One steps up when the others can't," said McKendrick. "So I feel pretty confident about this."
Next to McKendrick was his 13-year-old brother Kyle holding a handmade sign: "Let's Go Heat."
"I just love basketball," said Kyle.
Indeed, all of South Florida seems to love basketball this week, as the Heat squared off against the Dallas Mavericks in a best of seven series that promises to be one of the most-hyped Finals in history.
"We're going to be a really good team," said James when he went on ESPN in July to announce "The Decision."
Later the All-Star forward promised "Not two, not three ... four ... five ... six ... seven," meaning championships. "I'm not up here just blowing smoke."
Smoke or not, the teaming of James and Bosh with Wade has had a huge impact on the sports climate of South Florida, said Alyce Robertson, director of the Downtown Development Authority. "Last week we had 10,000 people here to watch the game outside the arena when the team was in Chicago," she said. "The team has caught fire. They are living up to their name."
Dennis Drucker and his son Daniel left their home in Coral Springs and arrived at the arena three hours before the 9 p.m. tipoff. "We came early just to soak up the atmosphere," said Drucker, 54, director of operations for an Ed Morse auto dealership.
His tickets came from his son as surprise early Father's Day gift.
"To see all this excitement, the media, the satellite trucks — it's just exciting," he said.
Not everyone in the throng gathered outside the arena's doors had tickets for the game. Gelsyn Martinez, 35, a New Jersey resident in town on vacation, said he showed up "just to share in the adventure.
"I'm not even a sports fan," said Martrinez, a native of Brazil. "But this is exciting for me. It's like Carnival."
Tickets were available, at the box office through Tuesday morning, from marketplace sites such as Stub Hub, and from scalpers on the street. Daniel Drucker, 21, a recent graduate of the University of Miami, said he paid $148 each for his two upper level seats on Stub Hub.
Among the more outlandish outfits sported by fans was the handmade suit worn by Christopher Brown, 36, of Coral Springs, a season ticket holder who attracted a bevy of camera-wielding folks who just wanted to snap his picture.
His red-and-white suit was studded with spangles and he wore a silver Heat grill in his mouth. He held a sign that read, "In Miami we smoke Cubans," a wry reference to Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.
"When LeBron said he was coming to South Beach, that was the happiest day of my life," said Brown, a graphic designer. "I'm a native of South Florida and I just love that this is happening here."
There were even some Dallas fans in the house brave enough to wear their colors. "We've been hearing it from the minute we stepped out of the car," said Chad Gray, 31, a Texas native who lives in Parkland, at the game with his brother and two friends.
"But we're true blue," said Gray, wearing a vintage Jamal Mashburn jersey.
Greg Morris, 58, of Fort Lauderdale, said he hoped to be at the arena for the Finals when he bought his season tickets a year ago, but he admitted that the Heat's success was not a sure thing.
"I thought we'd make it to the conference finals for sure, but this is something," said Moirris, there with his 21-year-old niece Jaclyn Morris, an accountant.
"Fortunately," said Greg Morris, "I'm retired. So I'm a full-time Heat fan now."

Fans turn up the Heat as NBA Finals open

Back around the middle of March, it appeared the wheels were coming off for a pair of teams that had entered the year with championship hopes. In Miami, a home loss to Oklahoma City dropped the Heat to just 4-7 over their last 11 games, which included an embarrassing home loss to the Bulls after which coach Erik Spoelstra regrettably told reporters that players were crying in the locker room. In Dallas, the Mavericks had lost five of eight, all five losses coming against playoff teams.
The postseason was a month away, and bad signs were popping up in both cities. As Mavericks guard Jason Terry said, “The rhythm obviously isn't there right now.”

Forward Dirk Nowitzki and the Dallas Mavericks will face the Miami Heat in the NBA Finals. (AP Photo)

The rhythm is back, however, as both teams have made impressive postseason pushes into this year’s Finals. Dallas finished off the Thunder in just five games in the West, and the Heat matched that feat in the East, clinching their series with the Bulls in five games on Thursday. Dallas and Miami each enter the Finals having won 12 of 15 in the postseason.
Had either the Bulls or Thunder advanced out of their respective conferences, the stakes for these Finals wouldn’t seem quite so high—both are young teams that will have chances to get back to this stage for years to come. For the Heat and the Mavericks, there is a lot on the line:

Miami 

One of the more interesting fluctuations in the NBA this year has been the expectations for the Heat in the wake of them bringing together LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade. They entered the season with visions of topping Chicago’s 72-win 1995-96 season, and set the bar absurdly (and to some, obnoxiously) high when, during an introduction that felt more like a championship celebration, James counted out the number of rings the Heat might win—he suggested they might win eight.
But the Heat looked like a flop in the first month of the season, turned dominant in December, flopped again ... and so on. Every winning streak, it seemed, turned Miami into title contenders. Every loss exposed them as overrated.
Now, though, expectations for the Heat are back at a high. They have played at their best over the last month, and are looking at a series that can establish themselves as a championship team for years to come, a chance to validate the controversial decision James made last July to leave Cleveland for South Beach—one that came with extraordinary backlash from fans, the media and even Cavs owner Dan Gilbert, who guaranteed that Cleveland would win a championship before James.
At the time, though, James—as well as Bosh and Wade—claimed winning was the motivation for the move. And a championship remains the best way to truly wipe aside the negative reactions to what happened last July.

Dallas

The Mavericks are simply running out of time. Star power forward Dirk Nowitzki has carried them to this point, and one has to wonder, at age 32, just how many more performances like this he has left. Additionally, his supporting cast is almost universally nearing the end of the line—Jason Kidd is 38, while Shawn Marion, Peja Stojakovic and Jason Terry are all 33.
For both Nowitzki and the Mavericks, there is redemption at stake. This franchise has been to the Finals only once before, and that came in 2006—against Wade’s Heat. Dallas won the first two games, then dropped four straight to lose the series and wind up hung with an oft-repeated label: soft. The following year, the Mavericks won 67 games and earned the No. 1 seed, but were upset by Golden State in the first round. Before this year, they had lost five of their last six playoff series and, whether it is fair or not, Nowitzki has been handed the brunt of the Mavs’ reputation for softness.
In these Finals, though, all of that can change. Nowitzki and the franchise can wipe clear the memory of ’06 and eradicate the word “soft” as the go-to adjective for Mavericks basketball. Nowitzki seems to know it—he didn’t do much celebrating in the wake of the conference finals win. “I was already thinking about the Finals,” he said. “This is nice for a day, but we set our goals in October to win it all. We haven’t done it yet.”

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