Dwyane Wade’s Legacy Born During Game 3 of 2006 Finals

“An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose” — Langston Hughes

Artist.

Champion.

Icon.

Dwyane Wade.

It all began in Game 3 of the 2006 NBA Finals. I remember. I was there. I am a witness.

Under the flame-hot lights of the American Airlines Arena, sweat stained prayers and seared nerves on edge. Moist palms and bloodshot eyes. Do or die. Down two games to none. Drowning in anxiety.

In the thicket of the pre-game introduction anticipation, he emerged. A heroic figure enveloped in an entire city’s hopes who would alter the Miami sports landscape forever.

Unflinching. Eyes set. Muscles tense.

“I ain’t going out that way,” he had told the team.

It was 2006 and the Miami Heat had never known what it was like to truly matter. Sure, there were the Mourning-Hardaway led teams of the 1990s, but we all knew those were futile cat-like swipes at Michael Jordan’s inevitable championship runs, the proverbial hurdle to his immortality. Those Heat teams were fun, but we weren’t getting to the Finals as long as 23 ruled the land. We were just happy to bruise up the eventual champs and maybe taste some New York Knick blood along the way.

But this was 2006. This was different. You could feel it. You could smell it. You could taste it. Down 0-2 to the Dallas Mavericks. Backs to the wall.

A franchise on the brink.

Dwyane Wade, draped in home playoff white, like an Arthurian warrior of old, or the Archangel Michael ready to lay waste the mighty dragon and hurl it into the abyss. Dwyane Wade, the young handsome hero, baby-faced with an iron will. Dwyane Wade, the human lightning bolt, hurdling himself through the Dallas defense at such break-neck speeds, Mavs fans still, to this day, think he was never fouled in that series. How can you foul a wraith? How do you grasp water? How can you contain fire?

Dwyane Wade, the ultimate paragon of badassery. Dwyane Wade, a no-frills franchise alterer with an entire city’s thirst for immortality on his shoulders.

Dwyane Motherfucking Wade.

Dallas, looking for the Darth Vader death-grip 3-0 lead in the series, led by as much as 13 with 6:50 remaining in Game 3. Dirk Nowitzki draining jumpers and creating for his teammates, the Mavs bench erupting with jubilation, waving towels. The home crowd sullen, restless, counting down the minutes ’til doom.

And then, it happened.

Dwyane Wade emerged.

He began to eviscerate the Dallas Mavericks.

Sitting in the crowd that night was surreal. A veritable blurred stew of emotions, fear, joy, trepidation, triumph. Everyone wearing White Hot Heat shirts. A blanket of pearl blending into a blinding white fury of sound and vision. Screaming faces becoming melted distorted living Edvard Munch paintings. The carousel swirl of music and cheering frenzy muffled into a low dull baritone clamor. This was important. You felt it in your chest. You knew it mattered. All at once, the memories of Heat games of days past flashed like old-timey press camera lightbulbs in your mind. The old Miami Arena. Ron Rothstein. Rory Sparrow. The franchise’s first win. A lovable sad-sack team. Two playoff appearances in the first eight years. Pat Riley’s introduction. The Knicks. Jeff Van Gundy swinging on Alonzo Mourning’s leg like a pasty balding monkey. Allan Houston…. Allan Houston… Allan Goddamn FML Houston… heartache. Heart break. Somebody save us.

Somebody did.

Throughout his career — as we have come to learn — Wade has always flourished when the games mattered most and there was something at stake. When adversity reared its repugnant head, when guys in purple shirts screamed obscenities at him from their court side seats with their drunken red-raged faces. This is when Wade arrived, jaw clenched, eyes set, ever the conqueror.

But it was against the Dallas Mavericks, in Game 3 of the 2006 NBA Finals, that this Wade that we have grown to know and love and cherish, was born.

Down 0-2, with a humiliating Finals loss to a ridiculous franchise and their cowboy-hat, rhinestone encrusted shirt-wearing imbecilic fanbase looming. Wade got that look in his eyes. The kind that said it was enough already with all of this “the Heat are being bested by a superior opponent and are just happy to be here” nonsense, and that it was time to club some serious ass and rip Maverick scrotums off their bodies and staple them to Mark Cuban’s forehead.

We had caught glimpses of it prior to this — The Shot against Charlotte in the 2004 playoffs, his ridiculous owning of the Detroit Pistons in the 2005 and 2006 playoffs.

But this was where the artist champion icon was born.

This is where the D-Wade we have fully come to know became D-Wade, Destroyer of Worlds. His career spans the vortex of NBA immortality, a career representing doom for the other team, compared to, say Paul Pierce, which represents a melted cheesy gordita.

So, with Dallas cruising along, and the Heat flailing to find their footing, Dwyane Wade emerged, the perfect amalgam of death and grace, and reached into Dallas’ collective chest and ripped out their heart and their championship aspirations.

Relentlessly attacking the basket in a blur of pure poetry, with an unrivaled prowess of being able to slash through towering bodies like a snaking river of ball-crushing swiftness, Dwyane Wade arrived.

Hitting jumpers, sending up alley-oops, breaking the Mavs’ wills, sapping them of their strength, devouring their souls, making us all believers. Not only would the Heat end up winning this game 98-96 on Wade’s back, but he made us believe — actually truly believe — that this series was over. Even down 1-2, you just knew. The coronation of a new King of Badass Motherfucker had begun.

Wade would go on to finish Game 3 with 42 points on 26 shots, and 13 rebounds. And, of course, we’d see this Wade again and again for the next three games as the Heat would go on to win their first NBA Finals title.

We would also go on to see this Wade time and time again. The “This Is My House” game. All those Detroit, and Chicago playoff series. The dunk that ripped Anderson Varajoe’s soul from his lifeless Sideshow Bob body. All of 2009. The 2010 All Star Game. The playoff battles against Boston. The Alley-Oop to LeBron. The future NBA Finals victories. Purple Shirt Guy. The shot against Golden State.

And we see it every night, even now as our once and future artist champion icon walks away from the game he loves.

Look up into the rafters. Behold the three NBA Finals Champions banners that hang down majestic and true.

Look at that first one.

2006 NBA Finals Champions.

And remember Game 3.

The game where Dwyane Wade, artist, champion, icon, was born. The moment he drew Excalibur from the stone and made us matter.

Chris Joseph’s legacy was born the day he gave LeBron James the nickname that the former Heat superstar would carry forever. It starts with Cobra.