Lebron James' triple-double lifts Heat to NBA title

  MIAMI -- Music blared and confetti fell, the only celebration LeBron James really wanted in Miami.

Not that one two summers ago, the welcoming rally where he boasted of multiple titles, perhaps without realizing how hard it would be to win just one.

He dreamed of this moment, with teammates surrounding him and the NBA championship trophy beside him.

"You know, my dream has become a reality now, and it's the best feeling I ever had," James said.

James had 26 points, 11 rebounds and 13 assists, leading the Miami Heat in a 121-106 rout of the Oklahoma City Thunder on Thursday night to win the NBA Finals in five games.

Ripped and ridiculed for the way he announced he was leaving Cleveland and taking his talents to South Beach, it's all worth it now for James.

Best player in the game. Best team in the league.

And now, NBA champion.

"I'm happy now that eight years later, nine years later since I've been drafted, that I can finally say that I'm a champion, and I did it the right way," James said. "I didn't shortcut anything. You know, I put a lot of hard work and dedication in it, and hard work pays off. It's a great moment for myself."

And for his teammates, who watched the Dallas Mavericks celebrate on their floor last year.

James left the game along with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh for good with 3:01 remaining for a round of hugs and the start for a party he's been waiting for since arriving in the NBA out of high school as the No. 1 pick of the 2003 draft. James hopped up and down in the final minutes, shared a long hug with opponent Kevin Durant, and then soaked in the "MVP! MVP! chants during the raucous postgame.

"I wanted to become a champion someday," James said. "I didn't know exactly when it would happen, but I put in a lot of hard work."

He was a choker last year, the guy who came up small in the fourth quarter, mocked for "shrinking" in the moment while playing with what he called "hatred" in trying to prove his critics wrong.

He came to Miami seeking an easier road to the finals but found it tougher than he expected, the Heat coming up empty last year and nearly getting knocked out in the Eastern Conference finals this time by Boston. Facing elimination there, James poured in 45 points on the road to force a Game 7 and the Heat won it at home.

"It was the hardest thing I've ever done as a basketball player," James said. "You just put a lot of hard work into it and you hope that one day it will pay off for you."

This time, with a chance to clinch, the Heat took control in the second quarter, briefly lost it and blew the game open again in the third behind their role players, James content to pass to wide-open 3-point shooters while the Thunder focused all their attention on him.

The disappointment of losing to Dallas in six games a year ago vanished in a blowout of the demoralized Thunder, who got 32 points and 11 rebounds from Durant.

Bosh and Wade, the other members of the Big Three who sat alongside James as he promised titles at his Miami welcoming party, both had strong games. Bosh, who wept as the Heat left their own court after losing Game 6 last year, finished with 24 points and Wade scored 20. The Heat also got a huge boost from Mike Miller, who made seven 3-pointers and scored 23 points.

That all made it easier for James, the most heavily scrutinized player in the league since his departure from Cleveland, when he announced he was "taking his talents to South Beach" on a TV special called "The Decision" that was criticized everywhere from water coolers to the commissioner's office. James has said he wishes he handled things differently, but few who watched the Cavs fail to assemble championship talent around him could have argued with his desire to depart.

In Miami he found a team that didn't need him to do it alone, though he reminded everyone during this sensational postseason run that he still could when necessary. He got support whenever he needed it in this series, from Shane Battier's 17 points in Game 2 to Mario Chalmers' 25 in Game 4.

In the clincher it was Miller, banged up from so many injuries that he limped from the bench to scorer's table when he checked in. He made his fourth 3-pointer of the half right before James' fast-break basket capped a 15-2 run that extended Miami's lead to 53-36 with 4:42 remaining in the first half.

The Thunder were making a remarkably early trip to the finals just three years after starting 3-29, beating the Mavericks, Lakers and Spurs along the way. With Durant, Russell Westbrook, Serge Ibaka and James Harden all 23 or younger, the Thunder have the pieces in place for a lengthy stay atop the Western Conference.

But their inexperience showed in this series, a few questionable decisions, possessions and outright mistakes costing them in their franchise's first finals appearance since Seattle lost to Chicago in 1996. Westbrook scored 19 but made only four of his 20 shots, unable to come up with anything close to his 43-point outing in Game 4, and Harden finished a miserable series with 19.

"It hurts, man," Durant said. "We're all brothers on this team and it just hurts to go out like this. We made it to the finals, which was cool for us, but we didn't want to just make it there. Unfortunately we lost, so it's tough."

Nothing they did could have stopped James, anyway.

Appearing fully recovered from the leg cramps that forced him to sit out the end of Game 4, he was dominant again, a combination of strength and speed that is practically unmatched in the game and rarely seen in its history.

Wade skipped to each side of the court before the opening tip with arms up to pump up the fans, then James showed them nothing wrong with his legs, throwing down an emphatic fast-break dunk to open the scoring. He made consecutive baskets while being fouled, showing no expression after the second, as if he'd hardly even known he was hit. Drawing so much attention from the Thunder, he started finding his wide-open shooters, and the Heat built a nine-point lead before going to the second up 31-26.

Oklahoma City got back within five early in the third before consecutive 3-pointers by Chalmers and Battier triggered a 27-7 burst that made it 88-63 on another 3-pointer by Miller. James didn't even score in the run until it was almost over, hitting a pair of free throws after he was flagrantly fouled by Derek Fisher while powering toward the basket.

Gone was the tentative player who was mocked for shrinking on the big stage last year, too willing to defer to others who didn't possess half his talents. This time, he was at peace off the court and attacking on it, vowing to have no regrets and playing in such a way they wouldn't be necessary.

Miami had outscored Oklahoma City by just 389-384 over the first four games, but the Thunder were buried under a barrage of 14 3-pointers, tying the NBA record.

"They just hit 3s after 3s. They got it going and we couldn't stop them," Thunder center Kendrick Perkins said. "Things just didn't go our way."

Notes: Miami became the third team to sweep the middle three games at home in the 2-3-2 format. The Detroit Pistons took all three from the Los Angeles Lakers in 2004 before the Heat did it against Dallas in 2006. ... Coach Erik Spoelstra tied Pat Riley for the Heat franchise record with his 34th postseason win. He is 34-22, while Riley was just 34-36. ... The four-game losing streak that Oklahoma City finished the season with was its longest of the season. The Thunder had dropped three straight games to Memphis, Miami and Indiana from April 2-6.

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James Franco's grade did not get professor fired, NYU reps say

New York University representatives say Jose Angel Santana was not dismissed because of a grade he had given to James Franco, despite claims the former professor made in a lawsuit against the school.

Santana had last week sued NYU for wrongful termination, racial discrimination and harassment. He said that he was fired after he gave the actor a D for failing to attend 12 out of 14 directing classes he had taught in 2010. Franco earned a master's degree in film production from the university in May and taught a graduate class himself this past fall.

Santana said his supervisor, John Tintori, Chair of the Graduate Film Program at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, "immediately sided with Franco" and used the incident as an opportunity to "further isolate" him and treat him "disparately" based on his race and color. The former professor, who is of African and Cuban descent, said he was later relieved of his teaching duties.

"The most prominent allegation - that Jose Angel Santana was fired because of a grade he gave a student - is false," Tintori said in a statement on Thursday, December 22. "Professor Santana has not been fired; like other assistant arts professors, he had a three-year contract - which is still in force, and under which he is still being paid - and Tisch chose not to renew that contract."

"The non-renewal of his contract had nothing to do with any grade he assigned to any student, nor did it have anything to do with his ethnicity, which he also claims," Tintori added.

An NYU spokesperson also issued a statement about Santana's lawsuit, calling his claims "false and ridiculous."

Santana began working as an assistant visiting arts professor and as Head of Acting at NYU in September 2008. The New Jersey resident says in his lawsuit that he believes he was "the only full-time professor of color" in his department. He is suing for monetary, compensatory and punitive damages and other fees.

He says he was "afforded less favorable conditions of employment in relation to his predominantly Caucasian colleagues." Santana earned an annual salary of $70,000, which he said was lower than what his peers earned. He said he was later demoted, given a pay cut, barred from faculty meetings and eventually denied reappointment. (See more details about Jose Angel Santana's lawsuit against NYU, filed at Manhattan's Supreme Court on December 16.)

"After the routine contract review, we chose not to renew his contract," the NYU statement said. "It is not appropriate to go into the details of the review - they are private personnel matters - but it had nothing to do with any grade he gave to any student, nor did this decision have anything to do with the fact that he is a Latino, his other claim."

"We find it deeply unprofessional, regrettable, and disappointing that any faculty member - present or past - would publicly discuss any student's grades for the purpose of his or her lawsuit's publicity," the statement added.

Santana is an actor himself. He played a boutique owner in the 1985 film "Desperate Seeking Susan," which starred Madonna, and appeared in the 1986 movie "Jumpin' Jack Flash." Santana also had small parts on shows such as "Beverly Hills, 90210" and "Miami Vice."

During his time as an NYU student, Franco developed a film called "The Broken Tower" as part of his graduate thesis. He also filmed the movie "Shadows & Lies," which featured Tintori and was directed and written by another one of his professors, Jay Anania.

Franco also holds an M.F.A. in writing from Columbia University and is pursuing a Ph.D. in English at Yale. He also became a college instructor. He began teaching a directing course at NYU this past fall. His 12 students were asked to create a film based on a poem by Pulitzer prize-winning poet, C.K. Williams.

"This class and film was an experiment," student Shruti Ganguly wrote in an article posted on Indiewire.com on December 20. "It was challenging as we were creating something in a way that had never been done before, especially within an academic system."

Meanwhile, Franco continues to act and is in talks to play Playboy founder Hugh Hefner in a cameo role in the new film "Lovelace," a movie about adult film actress Linda Lovelace, who starred in the famous movie "Deep Throat," according to Variety. Amanda Seyfried is set to portray the female star, while Sharon Stone will play her mother, Peter Sarsgaard will star as her husband and Hank Azaria will play a director.

(Copyright ©2011 OnTheRedCarpet.com. All Rights Reserved.)

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James Arness of 'Gunsmoke' fame dies

In this 1967 file photo originally released by CBS, actor James Arness, portraying Marshal Matt Dillon, left, is shown with Richard Evans, in a scene from "Gunsmoke." CBS spokesman Chris Ender says Arness died Friday, June 3, 2011 of natural causes. He was 88. ((AP Photo/CBS-TV, file))

  By LYNN ELBERNEW YORK -- It takes a special kind of lawman to carry on for 20 years in the Wild West of TV.

Matt Dillon, the mythical marshal of Dodge City, stood tall - all 6 feet, 6 inches of him - on "Gunsmoke" from 1955 to 1975. He outlasted dozens of other Western heroes while making history on TV's longest-running dramatic series, a record that held until NBC's "Law & Order" tied the CBS Western's record in 2010.

Through all those gunslinging years, James Arness, who died Friday, kept Marshal Dillon righteous, peace-seeking and, most of all, believable. Fickle viewers can kill a TV hero as surely as a bullet from an outlaw's six-gun. But Arness knew how to maintain order not only in circa-1870s Dodge City, but also among the TV audience, whose itchy fingers on their channel changers he knew how to calm.

In an era when TV actors typically chewed the scenery, Arness had a credible, commanding presence by hardly uttering a word. A typical scene found a dozen cowboys riding up to the town jail intent on busting out a prisoner pal.

Dillon faces them all down.

"The first move anybody makes," he says, with a slight shake of his head, "I cut you in two."

Arness' defiant but rueful delivery is so understated, he makes Clint Eastwood seem like a loudmouth.

No wonder "Gunsmoke" wore so well. And became the last word on a programming craze that some seasons found as many as 30 Westerns on the air. When "Gunsmoke" went off in 1975, it was the only Western left.

By the end of his career, Arness, who was 88 when he died at his home in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles, seemed almost indistinguishable from Matt Dillon in the audience's mind.

Befitting Marshal Dillon's dignity and composure, Arness wrote, and left behind, a simple, straight-from-the-heart farewell which, at his request, was posted posthumously Friday on his official website.

"I had a wonderful life and was blessed with ... (so) many loving people and great friends," he said, then went on to thank his multitude of fans.

In life, Arness was a quiet, intensely private man who preferred the outdoor life to Hollywood's party scene, rarely gave interviews, and refused to discuss his personal tragedies (his daughter and his former wife, Virginia, both died of drug overdoses).

"He's big, impressive and virile," co-star Amanda Blake (Miss Kitty) once said of Arness, adding, "I've worked with him for 16 years, but I don't really know him."

The actor was 32 when friend John Wayne declined the lead role in "Gunsmoke" and recommended Arness instead. Afraid of being typecast, Arness initially rejected it.

"Go ahead and take it, Jim," Wayne urged him. "You're too big for pictures. Guys like Gregory Peck and I don't want a big lug like you towering over us. Make your mark in television."

Then Wayne filmed an introduction for the first episode of "Gunsmoke" to give the largely unknown Arness the proper send-off.

"I predict he'll be a big star," Wayne told viewers. "So you might as well get used to him, like you've had to get used to me."

Arness' 20-year, prime-time run as the marshal was tied only in recent times, by Kelsey Grammer's 20 years as Frasier Crane from 1984 to 2004 on "Cheers" and then on "Frasier."

The years showed on the weathered-looking Arness, but he - and his TV character - wore them well.

"The camera really loved his face, and with good reason," novelist Wallace Markfield wrote in a 1975 "Gunsmoke" appreciation in The New York Times. "It was a face that would age well and that, while aging, would carry intimations of waste, loss and futility."

Born James Aurness in Minneapolis (he dropped the "u" for show business reasons), he and younger brother Peter enjoyed a "real Huckleberry Finn existence," Arness once recalled.

Peter, who changed his last name to Graves, went on to star in the TV series "Mission Impossible." (He died in 2010.) A self-described drifter, Arness left home at age 18, hopping freight trains and Caribbean-bound freighters. He entered Beloit College in Wisconsin, but was drafted into the Army in his 1942-43 freshman year. Wounded in the leg during the 1944 invasion at Anzio, Italy, Arness was hospitalized for a year and left with a slight limp. He returned to Minneapolis to work as a radio announcer and in small theater roles.

He moved to Hollywood in 1946 at a friend's suggestion. After a slow start in which he took jobs as a carpenter and salesman, a role in MGM's "Battleground" (1949) was a career turning point. Parts in more than 20 films followed, including "The Thing," "Hellgate" and "Hondo" with Wayne. Then came "Gunsmoke," which proved a durable hit and a multimillion-dollar boon for Arness, who owned part of the series.

His longtime co-stars were Blake as saloon keeper Miss Kitty, Milburn Stone as Doc Adams, Dennis Weaver as the deputy, Chester Goode, and his replacement, Ken Curtis, as Deputy Festus Haggen.

The cancellation of "Gunsmoke" didn't keep Arness away from TV for long: He returned a few months later, in January 1976, in the TV movie "The Macahans," which led to the 1978-79 ABC series "How the West Was Won."

Arness took on a contemporary role as a police officer in the series "McClain's Law," which aired on NBC from 1981-82.

Despite his desire for privacy, a rocky domestic life landed him in the news more than once.

Arness met future wife Virginia Chapman while both were studying at Southern California's Pasadena Playhouse. They wed in 1948 and had two children, Jenny and Rolf. Chapman's son from her first marriage, Craig, was adopted by Arness.

The marriage foundered and in 1963 Arness sought a divorce and custody of the three children, which he was granted. He tried to guard them from the spotlight.

"The kids don't really have any part of my television life," he once remarked. "Fortunately, there aren't many times when show business intrudes on our family existence."

The emotionally troubled Virginia Arness attempted suicide twice, in 1959 and in 1960. In 1975, Jenny Arness died of an apparently deliberate drug overdose. Two years later, an overdose that police deemed accidental killed her mother.

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AP Television Writer David Bauder and Entertainment Writer Jake Coyle in New York, and Television Writer Lynn Elber in Los Angeles contributed to this story.

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