Suddenly, the road back to the Eastern Conference finals no longer looks daunting for Miami.
Not after the Heat left the Pacers beat up and banged up.
LeBron James scored 30 points, Dwyane Wade added 28, and the Heat moved a win away from the NBA's final four with a 115-83 victory over the hurting Pacers on Tuesday night, a game where three flagrant fouls added more chapters to an already-physical series and Indiana watched starting forwards Danny Granger and David West leave with injuries.
''This is our challenge right now, to leave it behind us,'' Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. ''A lot of good things tonight, but we have to focus on the next one.''
That would be Game 6 in Indiana on Thursday night. The Heat lead the best-of-seven East semifinals 3-2.
James added 10 rebounds and eight assists. Shane Battier scored 13 points, Mario Chalmers had eight points and 11 rebounds, and Udonis Haslem finished with 10 points for Miami, which never trailed, held a 22-2 edge in fast-break points and shot a franchise playoff-record 61 percent - best of any team in the playoffs this season.
Paul George scored 11 points for Indiana, with Granger and West adding 10 points apiece. Granger left with a sprained left ankle in the third quarter and departed the arena in a walking boot, while West departed with what the Pacers called a left knee sprain at the end of that period - something that West thought was born of a
A series marked by ugly moments had perhaps its worst with 19.4 seconds remaining when Miami reserve center Dexter Pittman went across the lane to send a forearm into the chin area of Indiana's Lance Stephenson - who was caught on camera making a choke sign toward James during the Pacers' Game 3 win, drawing the ire of the Miami locker room.
Pittman was caught on camera winking after the foul.
''I don't know if that was retaliation. ... I'm sure the NBA will and do what they have to do,''
Granger said, adding that Stephenson was getting X-rays for a possible collarbone problem.
Physicians were examining Stephenson after the game.
Miami, which had gotten into quick deficits in each of the first four games, was the team that started hot in Game 5, running out to a 19-8 lead on the strength of three 3-pointers from Battier - who had been 2 for 19 from the field in the first four games of the series. Battier left his mark in many ways, even stopping a 3-on-1 Indiana break to set up a score by Wade at the other end.
Even after facing the big deficit, Indiana even had two shots to tie or take the lead late in the first half, the second of those a 3-point try from Granger with 3:03 remaining.
It didn't go down. He did.
Granger landed on James' foot after the shot, spraining his left ankle and leaving the game. The Heat outscored Indiana 8-2 the rest of the half, with James - who had been guarded by Granger for much of the series - scoring seven of them.
He opened the burst with a 3-pointer, stole the ball from West and dunked for a seven-point lead with 26 seconds left, then capped the half by coming up with a defensive rebound, passing to Wade, getting the ball back just before the halftime horn sounded and laying it in to send Miami into the break with a 49-40 edge.
''They played at their tempo,'' West said. ''We weren't able to get enough stops. You can't allow a team to shoot 60, 60-plus, whatever from the field.''
So now the Heat are one win from the East finals, after a series filled with twists and turns.
There was Vogel's accusation before the series started that the Heat were floppers, Chris Bosh's lower abdominal strain that sidelined him midway through Game 1, James and Wade missing key chances late in the Game 2 loss, Stephenson's gesture toward James and the 40-point, 18-rebound, nine-assist effort from James in Game 4.
And now a blowout - followed by a chance for a Heat close out on Thursday.
''When we defend and we rebound, we're a very good team,'' James said.
