Heat's top two get toughest test

Miami had the two best players on the court against Chicago, New Jersey and Detroit. That is not up for dispute. And nine times out of 10, that simple math wins in basketball more than in the other major sports, no matter how much we try to overcomplicate these things with overanalysis.

Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant won three championships with the Lakers surrounded by a bunch of pedestrian players who vanished the moment Shaq and Kobe broke up. That's why all the wailing and booing of Heat fans about Antoine Walker this season was so silly and overdone. The Two Best Pieces are usually enough in the salary-cap age, no matter the irrelevant teammates. Broken and limping Miami was two minutes from here last season with Eddie and Damon Jones, for the love of Michael Jordan.

But now, as the Miami Heat prepares to play Dallas for the NBA championship beginning Thursday, things get more complicated, more muddied, more interesting.

Let's say, hypothetically, that you had to win a championship in the next seven games. And let's say you had your pick of any two players on the Dallas or Miami rosters. Which two would you take first? There are plenty of NBA general managers who would take the Mavs' Dirk Nowitzki over either Dwyane Wade or Shaquille O'Neal.

O'Neal has to be the guy you pick first, always. He changes everything, always. There's a reason, no matter his teammates, that he always gets to at least the second round of the playoffs.

Let that marinate for a second. Tracy McGrady has never been out of the first round and Kevin Garnett has only gotten beyond it once in a decade. Vince Carter and LeBron James haven't been past the second round. Shaq-less Kobe hasn't gotten beyond the first round. It's hard, obviously. And this is the third different franchise Shaq has taken all the way to The Finals. You think that's a coincidence?

Wade, exceptional as he is, understands and appreciates that. It's why, on ESPN the other day, he called O'Neal everything from his marriage counselor to his father figure to his best friend. And it's why he says now, ``I don't want to be LeBron James. I don't want to be Kobe Bryant. I want to be right where I am now, next to Shaq.''

Wade knows that Gilbert Arenas and Paul Pierce and McGrady and James do a lot of the same things he does. And they, too, might get to be Wade -- top-selling jersey in the NBA, one of People magazine's Most Beautiful, covers of magazines and video games -- if they had the luxury of playing next to Shaq. It isn't coincidence that Shaq's every sidekick promptly gets elevated to The Next Big Thing. There isn't anyone else in the league who does that, and it's why Wade is always so publicly and profoundly grateful. He understands.

Those easy layups previously invisible Jason Williams got against Detroit with Wade diminished by the flu?

It's because the world's best defender, Ben Wallace, kept getting caught under Shaq's armpits in a way that made Wallace's Afro look like Shaq needed to start grooming under there. It's why Udonis Haslem shoots such a high percentage and is always wide open for 10-footers. The opponent has to keep Shaq from getting to the rim for an offensive rebound or a lob or the highest-percentage shot in the sport. And keeping Shaq from the rim is only the most difficult assignment in the sport. Wade couldn't and wouldn't have shot 70 percent in the first five Detroit games without the giant's help.

O'Neal can be very sensitive, though. And Wade, in a genuine way, not a calculated one, has handled him perfectly, always genuflecting. It is why O'Neal, in talking about sidekicks Penny Hardaway and Kobe and Wade, produced perhaps the greatest analogy in the history of Shaq-ese when he said, ``The difference between those three is The Godfather trilogy. One is Fredo, who was never ready for me to hand it over to him. One is Sonny, who will do whatever it takes to be the man. And one is Michael. The Godfather hands it over to Michael. So I have no problem handing it over to Dwyane.''

Of course, Kobe wasn't corrupted at first, either. And Michael Corleone, the mature one, got plenty polluted by power and ego later. So it will be interesting to watch the Wade-Shaq relationship over the next few years, especially if you've read Pat Riley's The Winner Within and believe his warnings on how much intoxicants corrupt once fame and glory have been achieved. But if there is a personality immune to the insanity that comes with fame at these heights, it is Wade. National interviewers still walk away from talking to him with the words, ``God, I hope he doesn't change.''

All that said, you can see why some GMs would prefer the seven-foot Nowitzki to the 6-4 Wade. Nowitzki, it can be argued numerically, was better than any player in the league this season. He not only knocked off defending champ Tim Duncan, but did it in Duncan's building in a Game 7 with Duncan having the best playoff game of his life. And he did it with the league's best perimeter defender, Bruce Bowen, stapled to his forehead.

So Miami is about to meet the single greatest player it has seen in these playoffs, though Nowitzki's greatness ought to be diminished if not stripped entirely by revelations that he sings David Hasselhoff songs to himself at the free-throw line to relax. No one would question David Stern if he suspended Nowitzki for two games for this. It would be just.

We still can't be sure how much Miami's most recent ouster of Detroit had to do with Miami's rising or Detroit's falling. The Pistons were limping and shooting crooked in five games against Cleveland before they got to Miami's doorstep.

Dallas, meanwhile, has had the most impressive run of any team in the postseason. The Mavericks produced the only sweep in the first round, then beat San Antonio and Phoenix at their best. It is staggering to beat the Spurs when they get 20-plus from their three stars, but Nowitzki did that.