MIAMI -- The Miami Heat were at it again, celebrating before they had accomplished anything.

There were no fireworks or smoke machines or hydraulic lifts this time. This was a much simpler, two-man production. It consisted of Dwyane Wade extending his right hand up like a swan's neck, pausing to savor the 3-pointer he made in front of the Dallas Mavericks' bench that put Miami ahead by 15 points with 7:44 left in Thursday's Game 2 of the NBA Finals.

When the Mavericks called timeout and Wade finally started heading toward his own bench LeBron James joined him, the two rejoicing in the moment.

Jason Terry wasn't going to have that. He stomped forward, but he never quite reached them and, according to Terry, no words were exchanged before they all returned to their respective huddles.

"I know what I wanted to say," Terry said.

Which was ... ?

"It's not over."

The Heat could have checked with the Los Angeles Lakers, who led the Mavericks by 16 in the third quarter in the first game of the second round yet wound up getting swept.

They could have asked the Oklahoma City Thunder, who had a 15-point lead over Dallas in the fourth quarter of the fourth game of the Western Conference finals yet lost that one and the next.

Instead the Heat got a lesson of their own from the Mavericks, who delivered Miami its first home loss of the playoffs, 95-93, in stunning fashion.

"If there's time on that clock, there's still time for us," Terry said.

Time enough for Terry to pull himself out of a dreadful performance to score eight points in the game's final six-plus minutes.

And time enough for Dirk Nowitzki to work his way to 24 points, in the process shoveling a little dirt over the painful memories from the 2006 NBA Finals while keeping talk about the torn tendon in his left middle finger to a minimum for the next two days.

He lofted a 3-pointer that gave the Mavericks their first lead of the second half with 26.7 seconds remaining.

And after the Mavericks let Mario Chalmers (Terry's defensive assignment) float by himself to the far right corner for a wide-open 3 to tie the game, Nowitzki delivered the victory by spinning past Chris Bosh for the game-winning layup with, yes, his left hand.

"It felt great," Nowitzki said. "I thought it wasn't going to bother me before the game, and it didn't."

And now Nowitzki doesn't have to be bothered by every ghost from the Mavericks' 2006 Finals collapse that began here in American Airlines Arena. He finally got a postseason win in this building. And wherever this series goes from here, at least it won't involve those familiar numbers: 2-0.

This just got real good, real quick.

First offense returned to the series. Both teams made more than 50 percent of their shots in the first quarter, both teams scored more than 50 points in the first half after scoring a combined 33 points in the first quarter and shooting less than 40 percent in Game 1.

The Mavs' victory ensures that the rest of the NBA Finals will be a contest and not a celebratory lap for the Heat, who find themselves tied instead of holding a 2-0 lead.

The Heat converted 20 Dallas turnovers for 31 points and Wade was spectacular up until that 3-point pose, scoring 36 points to go with five assists, three steals and two blocks. James had an array of highlight dunks and jumpers to beat the shot clock.

The Mavericks extended their defense to create Miami turnovers and earned some fast-break chances of their own, speeding up the game up to a tempo that makes the Heat comfortable. They cut Miami's offensive rebounds from 16 to six and on the overall board battle, 41-30.

Shawn Marion kept the Mavs in the game when the barrage of big plays by the Heat made it feel as though the celebration should have started in the fourth quarter, not the third. He had 20 points and eight rebounds and also played defense well enough to hold James to eight points in the second half.

The postgame news conference broke down into a matter of semantics, debating what does and doesn't constitute a celebration.

"There was no celebration at all," James said.

Wade added: "A celebration is confetti, champagne bottles."

Wade had a point when he said every team in the league does something to commemorate a hot run, and he would have been within bounds to say that the guy who took the greatest offense, Terry, can be one of the primary offenders when he does his "jet" move after hitting a shot, sometimes even his first shot of the game.

But the Heat should know by now that they're held to a different standard, viewed differently, liable to be criticized for every move they make.

Where the Heat have gone wrong since the moment -- and method by which -- James joined them was to fail to comprehend the way their actions would be interpreted. What might have seemed like a good way to raise funds for charity, or a rallying opportunity for an excited fan base have come across as an insensitive breakup on national TV, followed by a self-indulgent party.

What Wade didn't take into account during those few seconds of celebration in the corner in the fourth quarter wound up preventing him from celebrating in the locker room after the game.

"It's definitely frustrating when a guy does that and celebrates in front of your bench," Mavs center Tyson Chandler said. "When you've got a guy showboating like that in front of your bench and you're down 15 with seven minutes to go, you're like, 'The game ain't over.' That's all we said on the bench: 'Listen, I don't care what they're saying over there on the other bench. The game ain't over.'"

This was like a synopsis of everything bad that was said about the Heat this season:

• Chris Bosh doesn't deserve superstar status:

After quieting that talk with a string of solid playoff performances he boosted the volume again when he missed 12 of 16 shots, failed to step up and challenge Nowitzki when he came off the screen to hit the game-tying 3 and then got taken to the hoop for the winning layup.

• They can't finish close games:

At the 90-second mark their next three shots consisted of contested 3-pointers with the shot clock running down. No crisp passing, no attacking the basket ... seemingly no clue how to close.

• Erik Spoelstra doesn't get the nuances of coaching on this stage.

We all remember how his revelation of crying in the locker room blew up on him. Thursday, when he said, "We went to our normal package of late-game sets, we just didn't have the necessary execution," he has to understand that it can come across as laying all the blame on the players. "Strategy" is a synonym for coaching failures, "Execution" is code for player failures.

That said, there were no signs of a player-coach fissure developing. Wade said the Heat's failure to foul when they had one to give on Dallas' last possession was "a mental breakdown on us" because the coaches had reminded them in the huddle. Bosh twice said the team didn't execute and said the final play was "all bad defense by me."

Next time, Spoelstra should let the players say it.

And next time the Heat should wait until the game actually ends to exhale. They could have been halfway toward wrapping up the best-of-seven series. Instead they aren't even guaranteed another appearance in American Airlines Arena to either party or play.

"We made it a lot harder on ourself," Wade said.

That's been the theme of their season. They accelerated the timetable for a championship and erased the allowances for finding roles and learning chemistry when they strutted on stage last summer.

And maybe this was a referendum on these Mavericks, the comeback kings of these playoffs.

"We have shown that we have the ability to come back and the guys believe that if we get stops, we'll always give ourselves a chance," Rick Carlisle said.

Just like the Heat have shown that they never think it's too soon to party ... even if they're far from sharing a confetti-covered stage with David Stern.

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