MIAMI — When it was finally over, when the clock spun to zeros for good this time, Dwyane Wade and Udonis Haslem didn't hug so much as they leaned on each other, propping up each other, exhausted as they were.

"You were one assist short of a triple-double," Haslem said of the Heat guard's 50-point, 10-rebound, nine-assist afternoon.

"I know," Wade said.

So he wasn't oblivious to the obvious, just as you couldn't be watching Saturday afternoon's 140-129 win against Utah in triple overtime. It was this week's latest entry into the Heat's all-time thrilling games (regular-season edition).

It also was Wade's latest attempt to show what greatness looks like on a basketball court: It's 27 and slowed by hip and ankle pain and now wearing a black Band-Aid under his left eye.

Wade might not match the detail work of LeBron James' five fiftysomething games, and so he might not win the league's Most Valuable Player award. He doesn't have the great teams to help that James does in Cleveland or Kobe Bryant does in Los Angeles, so it's possible he might finish third in voting.

But through three overtimes Saturday against the league's hottest team, Wade played basketball again the way anyone ever would want to play their sport, including Tiger Woods, at his best. Which Tiger isn't right now.

So there was just one Tiger in town Saturday, and it wasn't the one at the CA Championship. Wade wasn't counting his numbers along with the rest of the crowd, shot by his climactic shot, assist by attention-drawing assist, rebound by rebound.

Someone on the bench, in fact, told him in the final seconds he needed another assist. He then motioned Haslem to make a run for the basket. Utah's Carlos Boozer went up and swatted the ball before Haslem could get it, though.

"I was this close to getting it for him," Haslem said, holding his thumb and forefinger an inch apart.

This was the Heat's best win of the season for reasons more than Wade, more than just the second triple-overtime game in Heat history. If Wade's steal and running 3-point shot to beat Chicago was a showstopper on Monday, it was still against Chicago.

Utah had won 12 of 13 games entering Saturday. It led by seven points late in regulation. It led by eight early in the first overtime. It also brought out the best game of the Pips as Jermaine O'Neal scored 28 points, James Jones hit a crucial 3-point shot, Mario Chalmers had two steals near the end of the third overtime and Haslem contributed his pedestrian 12 points, 12 rebounds.

But in the Utah locker room, up to his ankles in ice, All-Star guard Deron Williams made no pretense over who drove this game.

"Man, you saw him," Williams said. "I went and watched video of their recent games. In, like, their last 10 games he's had one game scoring in the 20s. Everything else is in the 30s and 40s."

He hit 50 against Utah, Williams was told.

"Yeah, and 50s," he said.

Actually, Wade had two games in the past 10 where he scored a merely mortal 21 and 25 points. But the point holds. The arena chants of "M-V-P" echo. There hasn't been a regular-season buzz like this for a player in South Florida since Dan Marino was in his prime.

Wade, for his past, watched James score 51 points in overtime against Sacramento on Friday night, as if to finish off a week started by Wade's game against Chicago.

"That inspired me," Wade said.

That's how their friendly rivalry plays out. But what drove him in scoring 14 points in the overtime sessions wasn't James so much as what always does. Even in the third overtime when, "I was so tired I couldn't get more tired," he said, he had four points, an assist, a rebound, a steal.

"Nothing beats winning," he said.

He moved to the door then, in the hobbled gait that many NBA players exhibit by March. He was asked if he could enjoy this moment, just a little.

"Got a plane to catch," he said.

Heat vs. Philadelphia. Sunday afternoon. What'll he do next?