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MIAMI -- A debated block at the buzzer. A season sweep of the NBA champions. Hello, Brooklyn -- the only NBA team this season to go unbeaten against the Miami Heat. Mason Plumlee denied LeBron James dunk attempt at the rim with 2 seconds left, and the Nets finished off a four-game sweep of Miami by beating the Heat 88-87 on Tuesday night. With Miami down by one and time running out, Rashard Lewis somehow got a pass from underneath the basket to James, who rose as Plumlee jumped to contest the play. Replays showed Joe Johnson made some contact with James as he started his move and that Plumlee hit the four-time MVPs hand on the dunk try, but the Heat never got the call they wanted. "My initial thought was to just foul and make him earn it at the free-throw line," Plumlee said. Thats precisely what the Heat thought he did. "He grabbed my right hand," James said. "He didnt do it on purpose, but he got my right hand." Said Heat coach Erik Spoelstra: "It was a foul from my vantage point. But what can you do?" Time expired, and just like that, Miamis lead in the Eastern Conference was down to a half-game -- one in the loss column -- over Indiana. Johnson scored 19 points, reserve Marcus Thornton had 16 and Paul Pierce scored 14 for the Nets. Plumlee had two of his three blocks in the last 2 minutes, the first of them on a short try by Chris Bosh that Miami felt should have been whistled for goaltending. Still, his late work couldnt get Plumlee a one-night respite from rookie duty. "He still got to come in here and carry the bags and get the towels," Pierce said. Final score of the four Brooklyn-Miami games: Nets 389, Heat 377. Brooklyn won three of the games by a single point, becoming the third team in NBA history to have that many narrowest-of-margin wins over an opponent in the same regular season and the first team ever to do so without playing more than four times. And the fourth went to double overtime. All four could have gone Miamis way. None of them did. "Theyre a good team," Spoelstra said. "Theyre one of the hotter teams since All-Star break. Every single one of these games, however you want to slice it, however you get to that point, there are plays to be made in the fourth quarter. And for whatever reason, theyve made more plays." Brooklyn became the first team in the last two years to sweep the Heat. Miami was the only team in the league to beat every team last season and would have repeated that feat with a win Tuesday. James had 29 points, 10 rebounds and six assists for the Heat, who got 12 points from Bosh and 10 from Norris Cole. Up by one, Johnson took a jumper that was way off with 11 seconds left. Miami has been down by one in the final seconds twice in the last couple weeks, with James not getting a chance at the last shot either time. This time he did, and Miami still couldnt break through. Each of the last three Heat losses have come by a single point -- and theyve dropped six in all by that margin this season. "Thats just basketball," Nets coach Jason Kidd said. "You have the best player in the world going against a rookie and we got lucky." Thorntons steal and layup with 3:27 left put the Nets up one, before James answered seconds later with a dunk, part of a final quarter that featured seven lead changes. Deron Williams missed a pair of free throws with 2:17 left and Brooklyn down a point, but Plumlee blocked Boshs layup on the next Miami possession. Thornton hit a 3 from the right corner to put the Nets on top, Johnson followed with a beat-the-shot-clock score from the lane, and Brooklyn was suddenly up four with 1:01 left. A mere 5 1/2 seconds later, the lead was down to one. James drove past Johnson and got fouled by Pierce on the way to a three-point play, getting Miami within 86-85. The teams alternated baskets on their next possessions, but the Nets wouldnt trail again. Miamis Dwyane Wade (hamstring) missed his seventh straight game -- his 26th absence this season for the Heat, who were also without Greg Oden (back) and Udonis Haslem (stomach virus). Brooklyn sat Kevin Garnett, who is expected to play at Orlando on Wednesday. NOTES: Alonzo Mourning, the Heat player-turned-executive whose induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame was announced Monday, received a video tribute and loud ovation during the first half. ... U.S. Olympic speed skater Eddy Alvarez, a Miami native and silver medallist from the Sochi Games, was part of the sellout crowd. Cheap Wholesale Jerseys . Booth picked up 65 caps after making her national team debut in 2002 at the age of 17. She most recently played for Sky Blue FC of the National Womens Soccer League. "It just felt like it was my time to move on," she said in a phone interview from her hometown of Burlington, Ont. NFL Jerseys Cheap . - Young and old. http://www.cheapnflwholesalejerseys.net/ . The international synchronized skating competition takes place from January 31 - February 1, 2014, and features 39 teams from 10 countries, in senior, junior, and novice. Cheap NFL Jerseys China . SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. Wholesale Jerseys China . The commissioners office said Friday that Sears tested positive for metabolites of Methandienone. Sears will be 23 in March. He signed with the Braves in June 2013 out of Arizona Christian, an NAIA school, and is on the roster of the rookie-level Gulf Coast League Braves.One of my favorite days, and best stories, covering the NHL was Dec. 11, 1992, 22 years ago this Thursday as a matter of fact. It was at the elegant, old money Breakers resort in Palm Beach, Fla. My memory is a little fuzzy now, but I seem to recall there was only a handful of media there, not a large gathering by any means. We were standing in an opulent meeting room, awaiting the daily briefing from then NHL president Gil Stein when league employees Gary Meagher and Dave Keon Jr. came into the room carrying a big, green garbage bag. There was just a small table set up at the front with four chairs behind it. Ill always remember Meagher and Keon rather unceremoniously dumping the contents of the bag onto the table. A bunch of empty VHS video cassette boxes spilled out with a clatter as well as two big plush dolls - Mickey and Minnie Mouse. Keon went about setting up a little pyramid of videocassette boxes and Meagher was, with some difficulty, trying to arrange Mickey and Minnie so they were sitting upright on the table, holding Blockbuster videocassettes in their hands. We asked Meagher and Keon, What the %&# are you guys doing? If I remember correctly, Meagher responded, Expanding. Moments later, NHL president Stein strolled into the meeting room, sat down at the table with Los Angeles Kings owner Bruce McNall and introduced Disney chairman Michael Eisner and Blockbuster Video magnate Wayne Huizenga and -- pretty much out of the blue, catching everyone by total surprise -- announced the NHL was officially expanding to Miami (Florida) and Anaheim. To the shock of all, the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim and Florida Panthers became the 25th and 26th NHL franchises that day and began playing games 10 months later. By the way, one day later, Dec. 12, 1992, the NHL introduced Gary Bettman as its first commissioner, though Bettman wouldnt officially take over the post until the following Feb. 1. And so here we are, 22 years later. Bettman is still the commissioner, the NHL board of governors is meeting today and tomorrow, this time in Boca Raton, Fla., but no, theres not going to be a formal expansion vote or announcement. At least that is what Bettman tells us. And if there were, unlike being gobsmacked in 1992, it should come as a surprise to absolutely no one. From the moment the last NHL lockout ended, in January of 2013, expansion has been at the forefront of discussion and anticipation. Bettman hasnt done a single news conference of any consequence since then where he hasnt been asked about expansion. The answer Bettman provided on opening day of this season is typical of whats hes been saying and has continued to say: Were getting lots of expressions of interest. You and your colleagues seem more fascinated by it than I am or the governors are. Were going to continue to listen to expressions of interest, and thats gratifying that were getting them, but were not ready to go through a formal expansion project. As recently as mid-November, Bettman said much the same thing: All Ill do is continue to report on the levels of interest that are being expressed. Theres no effort crying out for immediate expansion. But we are getting expressions of interest. Even if we decided tomorrow were going to do it, it still wouldnt happen for two, three years. Okay, Bettmans caution flag on expansion is duly noted, and I know from first-hand knowledge to be wary on this stuff because the expansion landscape can shift relatively quickly. A year ago right about now, I said it was my belief the NHLs expansion vision included adding three franchises in the coming years, with a preferred priority ranking of Seattle, Las Vegas and Quebec City, to the tune of well over $1 billion in total expansion fees. Last December, Seattle looked like it was primed to take on an NHL team, but both arena aand ownership issues arose in the months that followed, drastically altering that forecast.dddddddddddd No one seems to have a sense now when, or if, Seattle will re-emerge but what seemed so hot a year ago has cooled considerably since then. This fall, all the talk has been focused on Las Vegas as the new frontrunner. After an interview with NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly in early November, Minneapolis Star Tribune hockey writer Mike Russo reported Daly met with a potential ownership group in Las Vegas in early November and toured the construction site for the new arena being built by MGM Resorts. Larry Brooks reported in the New York Post a week after that the NHL had gone so far as to have chosen William Foley and the Maloof family as the designated owners of a Las Vegas expansion franchise when or if the NHL gets around to committing to expansion, and that the franchise fee would be $400 million. Amid the Russo and Brooks reports, I speculated that the NHLs tentative master plan had gone from adding three teams (with a priority ranking of Seattle, Las Vegas and Quebec City) at the same time to perhaps doing a one off to Las Vegas, with a potential start date possible as early as the beginning of the 2016-17 season. In the ensuing weeks, there has been a constant buzz on the NHL grapevine about expansion, suggestions that it is an absolute given the league will in the days, weeks or months ahead announce formal plans to go to Vegas and possibly Seattle and/or Quebec City, although it was also suggested Quebec City may be reserved as a potential relocation site, with a lesser transfer fee instead of an expansion fee. Since then, the talk has only ramped up. As recently as last week, it was suggested to me the NHL will, at some point in the very near future, bestow a conditional expansion franchise to an ownership group in Las Vegas. That is, if certain requirements (including selling a designated number of season tickets) are met, an NHL franchise could be operational in Vegas as early as the fall of 2016. None of these suggestions on the nature or timing of expansion could be ascertained as fact. At least not by me. They most certainly couldnt be reported as hard news. The NHL has continued to stick to the party line about listening to expressions of interest but otherwise remaining non-committal, only going so far as to say expansion may be discussed at todays or tomorrows B of G meetings but that there wont be a vote or an announcement. Fair enough. But we all know its coming at some point in some form. If I were a betting man (see what I did there?), I might wager on Vegas as early as the fall of 2016 or 2017, but whenever and wherever it may be, unlike in 1992, no one should be caught off guard by anything this time around. We may have a better sense of it all in the next 24 to 48 hours. As a postscript to the Mickey-Minnie/Blockbuster green garbage bag expansion announcement of 1992, earlier that day in the Breakers, I saw a guy in the lobby wearing Hush Puppies with orange souls, dress pants, a bizarre, ugly green hockey jersey and a red ball cap with Goofy on it. He was sweating profusely, muttering to himself, pacing back and forth near the front desk. If youve ever been to the Breakers, well, lets just say he didnt fit in with the crowd (neither did I, now that I think of it) and I was curious to see if security might ask him (or me) to leave. As it turned out, it was Disney chairman Michael Eisner and he was wearing that exact same get up when he was introduced as the new owner of the Mighty Ducks later that day. So if any of my media colleagues in Boca for the meetings happen to see Penn and Teller or a tiger or Celine Dion or a Cirque du Soleil troupe in the hotel lobby, just know the green garbage bag, and expansion, may not be far behind. ' ' '