O.K., that probably did not happen Tuesday night because LeBron James is completely unacquainted with fouling out and Dwyane Wade is unacquainted with traveling, since the N.B.A. stopped considering it a violation in 1981. But it might be as good an explanation as any for the Heat’s 99-92 loss in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals, which evened their series with the Pacers at two games apiece. Because as much as everyone wants to blame the adventures in refereeing that broke out in Indianapolis, it was not that simple.

As Greg Cote writes in The Miami Herald, even with the puzzling calls the Big Three looked more like the Medium Three when it counted most. Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com credits Indiana for leveraging the one true advantage it has — rebounding — and Dan Wetzel writes on Yahoo.com that the Pacers used the embarrassment that was Game 3 to stiffen their resolve. They did play rather fearlessly in this one, writes Bob Kravitz in The Indianapolis Star, led by Roy Hibbert and Lance Stephenson.

The Heat do enjoy a challenge like the one Indiana has managed to provide in this series, Ian Thomsen writes on SI.com, but maybe they are taking it a bit far. It was perhaps karma that James fouled out after his recent expositions that flopping is an acceptable competitive tactic. It is why, as Ken Berger writes on CBSSports.com, he cannot expend any energy complaining about the referees he is trying so hard to bamboozle into calls. But you do get the feeling the Heat will become totally serious again, the way your brother does when he loses while shooting left-handed, and the Pacers will again find themselves along for the ride. As they say in the TV drama business, stay tuned.

Perhaps, the Heat are just envious of the N.H.L., where the playoff series would all go longer than seven games if the league let them. They are often decided by tiny margins, too, sometimes the width of a puck. The Los Angeles-San Jose series was like that, and the Kings won in seven Tuesday night mostly because goalie Jonathan Quick is just a tiny bit better than everyone else, Pierre LeBrun writes on ESPN.com. This season, the defending champions have found the road much tougher than last year, as Helene Elliott writes in The Los Angeles Times, but they also have the motivation of knowing just how sweet the prize is at the end, Jay Hart writes on Yahoo.com.

That is something the Sharks can only guess at, no matter how close they came to upsetting the order of things, Tim Kawakami writes in The San Jose Mercury News.

The usual order of things in baseball requires that the Yankees be the toast of New York and the Mets stage the mismanaged sideshow, which is what made the Mets taking the first two games of their current subway series so head-turning. This was particularly true Tuesday night, the Mets snatching one off closer Mariano Rivera after honoring him by having him throw the ceremonial first pitch, as Ian O’Connor writes on ESPN.com. As it turned out, the pitching highlights came from the Mets’ Matt Harvey, the homegrown ace the Yankees have failed to develop, Danny Knobler writes on CBSSports.com.

A more emotional first pitch happened Tuesday in Boston, where the Red Sox reunited a Boston Marathon bombing victim and the man who saved him. And there were emotions that rippled through the sport with the news that Dr. Lewis Yocum had died, because he was one of the sport’s medical superstars, Bill Shaikin writes in The Los Angeles Times.

College sports’ news continued down a much more prosaic path Tuesday, with new developments in the Rutgers mismanagement festival including a new wrinkle in the career of Athletic Director Julie Hermann. This particular lawsuit might not be notable on its own, but it is adding to the impression that Rutgers could not manage its way out of a three-car traffic jam, as Michael Rosenberg writes on SI.com. It all serves as another reminder — as if we needed any — that the balance of power is seriously out of whack in college sports, writes Reid Forgrave on Foxsports.com.

There is something at least mildly out of whack in the N.B.A. playoffs, but it seems like time — and the Miami Heat snapping back to reality — will be the cure for that.

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