Mike Miller looked much older than his 32 years in Game 5 of the NBA Finals. He also looked like a champion.
The Mitchell, South Dakota, native who had a brief stint with the Timberwolves (averaging 10 points per game in 2008-09) was the huge surprise of the clinching game of the NBA Finals, coming off the bench to score 23 points in 23 minutes during Miami's pounding of Oklahoma City. He got that much playing time only because Dwyane Wade picked up two early fouls and spent more time on the bench in the first half than was expected.
Miller came through with seven three-pointers.
In a postgame interview in the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel, Heat coach Eric Spoelstra said: "I don't know how this guy was playing. I literally only planned on playing him three or four minutes. That's all I thought he could go."
That story also noted that Miller had stopped checking in with the doctors this season "because they always found something else wrong," wrote Shandrel Richardson.
Miller's take: "A lot of us dreamed of these situations. For me, coming from South Dakota and having an opportunity to play in two NBA Finals now is a dream come true. I wasn't going to miss that for anything in the world."
Here's the rest of Richardson's story, which includes the list of physical issues that Miller has battled over the last couple of years.
Now the big question becomes whether Miller can bring the NBA championship trophy to Mitchell. Upload thinks it would attract quite a crowd to the Corn Palace.
