MIAMI – They all waited and waited on LeBron James to call for his dislodged headband, retrieving it for the inevitable request that it be given to him. Here was James sent to his back after absorbing an elbow from Manu Ginobili, and a Miami Heat player, Norris Cole, sensed this was the opportunity to send the headband. From Cole to a ballboy, it had been delivered to James – and he refused.

Maybe teammates were so accustomed to James needing his headband, whether it’s for comfort or appearance. Fighting for his life in these NBA Finals, fighting for his basketball stature, this accessory was the last thing he had on his mind. Still, Cole threw the headband to the ballboy who held it in front of James late Tuesday, and LeBron knew it had come from the bench, shook his head, and it was tossed back to the sideline.

“We got a game to win,” James hollered toward the bench.

“The headband was the least of my worries,” James would say later, and he spoke honestly. All around him, the measure to which everyone counted out his team baffled him: The championship trophy descending upon the Finals, a yellow tape surrounding the court and fans swiftly filing out of American Airlines Arena. All this premature celebration for the San Antonio Spurs struck the Heat, and James admitted they were irked seeing it.

The Spurs were brilliant for so long in Game 6 on Tuesday night, with double-digit leads throughout the second half and Tim Duncan carrying them in a vintage performance of 30 points and 17 rebounds, of post curls and turnaround jumpers, endless cuts and even a dunk. They took a 75-65 lead into the fourth quarter and soon had the Heat appearing defeated, dejected in their walks back to huddles.

Except James put forth a magnificent finish to turn a game the Spurs had been poised to steal into an epic end, and, as Erik Spoelstra marveled, LeBron “gave us that life when we were down.” Down five with 28 seconds left, first came a three-pointer out of James, a crucial free throw missed by Kawhi Leonard, and then a game-tying shot in the left corner from Ray Allen.

When it was over, James had accounted for 28 of the Heat’s 38 points in the fourth quarter and overtime, capping a triple-double of 32 points, 11 assists and 10 rebounds. As the yellow tape and title board left before overtime, the Heat closed out a 103-100 win that had the Spurs questioning themselves, questioning how they’ll duplicate such a well-rounded effort on Thursday.

“I have no clue how we’re going to be re-energized,” Ginobili said. “I’m devastated. … We’re going to have to play our best game, even better than [Game 6].”

Yet, Ginobili understood the truth: For now, the Spurs very well might have squandered their best chance to seal this championship. For them, the challenge of restoring mentally and physically is daunting – never mind the fleeting long-range shooting left stranded in San Antonio. Ginobili, for his part, also missed a critical free throw late, and he had one less turnover (eight) than points (nine).

Before James placed his imprint on the game, Mario Chalmers was masterful in hitting floaters out of the pick and roll, four three-pointers punctuating his 20 points. There were moments in the regular season when Chalmers showed regression, but the Heat know: He’s proven himself on this enormous stage over and over. “We all know Mario’s a clutch player, and he’s always been that way,” Spoelstra says.

As close as James is with Wade, Allen has been the teammate constantly pushing him and staying in his ear about how much the Heat need him to stay aggressive. Our aura changes when you’re assertive, carefree of missing shots and decimating people in your path, Allen tells him. James lost that belief at times Thursday, but these aren’t the 2011 Finals.

James can fully grasp the magnitude of these moments now with resilience, and when everyone panics around him, when the momentum swings rattle some, he’s had calmness.

“It was by far the best game I’ve been a part of: Ups and downs, the roller coaster, the emotions – good and bad – throughout the game,” James said. “This is something you would never be able to recreate once you’re done playing the game.”

Cole never was able to get that headband back to James late Tuesday, late in the game after LeBron had it knocked off his head. The ballboy held the white headband out for James to put on, and LeBron sniffed there are more pressing worries than an accessory. He had ferociously lifted Miami to a Game 7 and everywhere, people wanted to anoint this James’ no-headband game. “The headband’s gone forever now,” one Heat staffer joked in the locker room.

Whatever, LeBron James had been too battered, too exhausted to consume himself over a headband. Out of Game 6 early Wednesday, James and Tim Duncan limped. Nine years separate them, and Duncan labored from the podium to the loading dock to the quiet of the team bus, as James was carted off comfortably into the night. Here comes Game 7, with Duncan figuring out how the Spurs slipped away a title and James still with a game, a second championship, to capture.

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MIAMI – This was the transcendent NBA Finals moment everyone will always remember out of LeBron James, a fatal four-part sequence encapsulating the magnitude with which he controls everything on the court. Just over 22 years ago, Michael Jordan had charted his memorable tale in The Finals with a twisting, up and under layup in Game 2 of the Chicago Bulls’ first title. It was an immortalizing, peerless play.

These were different circumstances, different periods in the careers, but James captured his own memory to live on with the Jordans and Magic Johnsons. Everywhere inside the American Airlines Arena, people wondered where James’ aggression had gone on Sunday night, a game spiraling out of his hands as if it were 2011 all over again, and then LeBron did something he knows he failed to do in that Finals series: Make a play of significance, of impact when it matters most.

And then he did it again and again and again in the midst of a 33-5 run that lifted the Miami Heat from down one point to a 103-84 blowout win in Game 2 over the San Antonio Spurs.

To begin four plays summoned out of his all around brilliance, James stuffed Tiago Splitter – listed three inches taller – at the rim in the best block of this postseason. Tony Parker made a beautiful pass to Splitter, and the big man brought the ball way behind his head only for James to size him up and pack it with assault. Three seconds went by with his teammates running up court, and James simply stood in place, mesmerized about a block certain to live on and on.

“We’ll be seeing that over and over and over and over,” Chris Bosh said late Sunday. “It was an awesome block.”

After the rejection of a center, James slowly made his way back to the other end and accelerated once he noticed Mario Chalmers needed help creating space. James ran to set Chalmers a screen, received a pass and examined the floor as he always does. This time, Ray Allen was open in the corner and the ball was delivered to him in an instant, giving the Heat an insurmountable lead, 89-66.

People wanted to judge James on his scoring across Game 1 of The Finals, and still, he showed the vastness of his talent on those consecutive plays. From Parker to Splitter, James guards them all and covers so much ground. No matter the coverage on defense, he’ll destroy you by pounding the ball to the rim or finding his shooters. After the block and assist, James stole a pass thrown by Parker to Danny Green, Mike Miller lunged a pass ahead, and LeBron sprinted for the ball and dunked it with two hands.

His stat line – 17 points, eight rebounds, seven assists – reflected a star getting trapped, yet garnering attention that gave Chalmers (19 points), Allen (13) and Mike Miller (nine) a combined eight three-pointers.

Two seasons ago, James wasn’t this trusting of his shooters, and Miller recalled needing to let him know: We’re here for you, LeBron. We want to help. They’re proving it now and Sunday night was reminiscent of James’ supporting cast draining three-pointers, flying all over the court in that Game 5 Finals clincher a season ago.

“He understands now that we’re here to help him, here to make his job easier,” Miller said. “That’s the big difference, the growth from the first season together to now.”

Beyond James’ greatness, the contribution of Chalmers was unmistakable and he bailed out the Heat on plenty of dead possessions, plays lacking cohesion, with uncanny floaters. Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh were ordinary offensively, but Miami needed every one of Bosh’s 10 rebounds, the most he’s had in a month. Eventually, the savvy dominance of LeBron blankets all the Heat’s issues, all underperformances.

The Spurs have made clear so far that they won’t let James put up those soaring outputs in points, and Kawhi Leonard’s had a textbook effort against him. James is bound to put forth a breakout scoring game at some point in this series, but until he does, the Heat understand they can’t stagnate and allow San Antonio to limit his passing outlets.

“We can’t stand around, because this is the kind of series that the [Spurs] won’t let LeBron get going,” Bosh said. “We have to play our part.”

For the Heat, the play that broke them out of a lack of flow on offense Sunday was the pick and roll between Chalmers and James on the left elbow, a pick-your-poison finisher engraved in every opposing team’s scouting report. They ran it over and over, and why not? If the Spurs couldn’t stop it, keep going to it.

Gregg Popovich will make adjustments into Game 3, beginning three straight on the Spurs’ home court. Parker, Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili combined to miss 23 of 33 from the field, a pedestrian night out of a team that knows its big three is just as critical as the Heat’s.

Nothing was stopping James, but there had been a scare that he suffered a right knee injury. Instead, it was just a floor burn. Even so, James was irritated with the band-aid continuing to fall off the knee and used a timeout within the first few minutes of the first quarter to ask the Heat’s training staff to replace it with a wrap. Problem solved.

Jordan had his enduring up and under in ’91 late in the rout of Game 2 after a Bulls’ opening loss to Magic's Lakers, and there was James with a sequence of four plays that succinctly encapsulated his acumen on both ends, in a way no one ever has. In a league that has players shying away from block attempts in fear of ridicule, James went straight up to stuff Splitter, ready to live with celebration or humiliation. “That’s LeBron, though. He’s different, more athletic,” Allen said.

This was a transcendent memory for James in these Finals, a remembrance forever. It will be repeated over and over and over and over, Bosh said. As clutch as that shot with cramps was a year ago, this block, to assist, to steal, to dunk moment was a four-part masterpiece. As everyone wondered where the aggressiveness had gone, LeBron James reminded again the essence of his game: His dominating influence from one basket to the other.

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MIAMI – As a 19-year-old thrust into the Toronto Raptors, Chris Bosh would carry himself with such inspiring confidence and an elevated sense of self. He had grown up idolizing Tim Duncan and arrived into his early pro workouts imagining the feeling of draining jumpers on Kevin Garnett. While finishing practice workouts as a rookie under the guidance of an assistant coach, Bosh would snap: “That’s over KG.”

Bosh faced up again, and another shot would fall. “Over KG,” he repeated. In his mind, Bosh was simply readying himself for the competitive lust needed in the NBA, needed against an enforcer like Garnett. Only now, his Miami Heat teammates have been left desperately wanting resemblance of that dogged Bosh, someone who once looked for ways to manipulate opponents inside using his versatility.

Across Game 1 of these NBA Finals on Thursday night, Bosh missed 10 of 16 shots and all four three-point attempts. He’s been searching for rhythm on his jumper for well over a week now, hitting just 16 of 50 shots over the past five playoff games, and yet Bosh made clear Friday afternoon that he’ll keep hoisting outside shots as long as he’s open.

“I’m trying to evolve, but it’s not easy, it’s difficult,” Bosh said. “Most big men are in different areas than I am, in a different offensive system than I am.

That’s a reasoned answer, and still the Heat’s message – LeBron James’ message – to Bosh all along has been to use his agile frame, his footwork and graceful touch to establish himself in the paint. Over and over, Bosh has tired out this explanation of how much he’s sacrificed with the Heat, how he has lost shots next to James and Dwyane Wade.

Everyone understands: Ten shots a game out of a perennial All-Star, who is perhaps the Heat’s second best player now, isn’t sufficient. Yet, people who have scouted the Heat this season believe Bosh has received ample touches to provide a stabilizing presence, opportunities dependent on the aggressiveness with which he pursues scoring.

“If he accepts the challenge to want to put pressure in the paint, he’ll have it,” James said. “We run our offense through CB mostly. We need that paint attack from him.”

The Heat need it largely because these San Antonio Spurs aren’t the Indiana Pacers; because Tim Duncan and Tiago Splitter aren’t as physically taxing as Roy Hibbert and David West. Whenever James had the ball in Game 1, Kawhi Leonard wasn’t alone in his defense. Gregg Popovich had “triple-teamed me in the post,” LeBron said, and the cutters never came. There was too much standing around, praying for James to save them from ceding control of the Finals.

As Duncan went for post-up seals and pulled down 14 rebounds, Bosh kept hoisting flat jumpers. And remember, he hasn’t grabbed more than eight boards since May 10.

Near the end of the Eastern Conference Finals, Bosh broached memories of having Duncan’s posters as a child, as if he were emitting pride in that fact. When someone told Duncan about Bosh’s admission that came before the Heat had even reached The Finals, it surprised him. It shocked Duncan that Bosh revealed such admiration leading up to a championship series, that he had been entrenched in Bosh’s mind all this time later.

“It’s really odd to hear that, especially playing against someone like that,” Duncan said on Friday.

As James and Wade led a group of perimeter players in shooting halfcourt heaves before practice Friday inside AmericanAirlines Arena, Bosh was on the other end, staying to himself throughout workouts with Miami big men. A self-starter who gathers his thoughts in quiet, Bosh started off slow in these shooting drills: Jumpers rattling out, bouncing off the back rim.

“God damn it, God damn it,” he mumbled after missing several in a row. Soon, though, Bosh moved to the top of the key and pure swishes followed.

For all the theories about Wade’s struggles at times, Bosh is the member of the Big 3 who could have the most to lose in a potential Finals collapse: His place as an untouchable on the roster. He had grown up idolizing Duncan, imagining he was hitting jumpers atop Garnett in early workouts in Toronto, and the Heat must believe now that somewhere within Chris Bosh still exists that self-action to match the burden.

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