With Bosh out and Wade off, Heat crumble 94-75 in Indiana

INDIANAPOLIS—

The faces told the story.

Owner Micky Arison and team president Pat Riley with blank stares four rows behind the bench.

Power forward Udonis Haslem imploring Dwyane Wade with a passion otherwise unseen on that end of the court on this night.

Wade and coach Erik Spoelstra going at it during a third-quarter timeout.

The Miami Heat are broken.

The Indiana Pacers are two strokes from the finishing touches in this best-of-seven Eastern Conference playoff series after Thursday night’s 94-75 victory at Bankers Life Fieldhouse, now up 2-1.

“We definitely feel that we can win this series,” Pacers coach Frank Vogel said.

He offered a few reasons, then cautioned, “In any playoff series, momentum shifts dramatically every single game.”

The Heat can only hope.

“Sunday is a must win for us, obviously,” Heat forward LeBron James said of Game 4.

Picking up the pieces on the Pacers’ home court, even with two days off won’t be easy.

Chris Bosh won’t be coming back, still out with the lower-abdominal strain that has him listed as sidelined “indefinitely.”

Wade has to come back, after his first-ever scoreless first half in a playoff game, closing 2 of 13 for five points, humbled late by a brutal blocked-shot rejection from Pacers center Roy Hibbert.

“Obviously I’ll go back to the film and look at it,” Wade said of his performance. “I missed some shots early, then missed some shots later. I’ve got to be a little more aggressive. Give them some credit. They did a good job when I got to the basket.”

As for James? The heavy lifting of the series’ first two games and then the first half of this one seemingly exacted too much of a toll. He scored 11 of his 22 points in the first quarter.

“We’re not scoring the ball,” James said after the Heat shot .372 from the field and 4 of 20 on 3-pointers. “This is the result of us not making as much shots as we’re accustomed to make.”

In other words, there is plenty of reason for Vogel’s optimism.

“I’ve seen it coming from the first day of training camp,” he said. “This is who we’ve been all year. We’re a balanced team . . . not two guys trying to create all the time.”

It wasn’t intended as a shot at James and Wade, and in this case wasn’t necessarily accurate, with Heat point guard Mario Chalmers scoring a career playoff-high 25 points.