Former Patriots player Aaron Hernandez is probed in two more murders, law enforcement officials say

By Maria Cramer, Globe Staff

Former New England Patriots player Aaron Hernandez, already facing charges in a murder last week in North Attleborough, is also being investigated in connection with a July 2012 double murder in Boston, according to two law enforcement officials briefed on the investigation.

The two officials, who asked for anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the investigation, said investigators now believe that Odin Lloyd, the man Hernandez is charged with killing in a North Attleborough industrial park June 17, may have had information about Hernandez’s role in the slayings of Daniel Abreu and Safiro Furtado.
“The motive might have been that the victim knew [Hernandez] might have been involved,” one of the officials said.

The new revelations raised the disturbing prospect that Hernandez might have been playing football games last season with the Patriots after he had participated in a double murder.

Investigators believe a fight broke out at Cure, a club in the Theater District, between two men and a group that included Hernandez. Abreu and Furtado, friends who had grown up in Cape Verde, left the club with three other men in a BMW sedan in the early morning hours of July 16, 2012.

Abreu, who was driving, stopped at a traffic light on Shawmut Avenue, about to make a left onto Herald Street, when a silver or gray SUV with Rhode Island license plates pulled alongside the sedan. Someone from the SUV opened fire, killing Abreu, 29, and Furtado, 28.

The men who were with them survived the attack and the killings were left unsolved.

Hernandez pleaded not guilty Wednesday to murder and firearms charges in Attleboro District Court in the killing of Lloyd, who was shot to death June 17 in an industrial park near Hernandez’s North Attleborough home. He was denied bail and failed in his second bid for release on bail at a hearing today in Bristol Superior Court.

Investigators probing the 2012 homicides had heard that Hernandez was at Cure the night of the double killings, but he was not a suspect at the time, one of the officials who spoke to the Globe said.
Detectives decided to look more closely at Hernandez in connection with the deaths of Abreu and Furtado after State Police began investigating him for the shooting of Lloyd, the official said.

Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley declined to comment on whether detectives are investigating Hernandez in the 2012 case. But he said that the case, once cold, has become more “robust” recently.

“We are following every lead as we always do in these cases,” he said. “We believe we are making progress, but at this moment in time it’s too premature to name any one individual as a suspect.” 

Boston Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis also said that in the past week, police had received more information on the case.

Police said the shooter fired numerous times into the car, striking Abreu and Furtado, who was in the passenger seat.

One of the back-seat passengers was shot three times in the arm but survived. He was rushed to Tufts Medical Center and was treated and released. The other two occupants fled the car and were unharmed.

The two men’s deaths at the time were a mystery to their families and police, who said they had no ties to criminal activity.

Furtado was a tour guide on the idyllic island of Boa Vista in Cape Verde, where he led a mostly European clientele on jaunts along silky sand dunes, whispering palm trees, and world-class beaches, his family said. He arrived in Dorchester five months before he was killed to reconnect with his mother and sister, whom he had not seen in a decade.

Abreu grew up in Cape Verde, where he worked as a police officer there. He arrived in Dorchester around 2008 and became friends with Furtado. The two men were working together for a cleaning company based on Hamilton Street in Dorchester at the time of their deaths.

Authorities never found the SUV tied to the shooting.

Also today, a prosecutor revealed that police had found .45-caliber bullets in a condo rented by Hernandez and in a car linked to him. In related news today, and authorities said a second man had been arrested in connection with the case. Carlos Ortiz, 27, of Bristol, Conn., Hernandez’s hometown faces charges of carrying a firearm without a license.

Hernandez’s arraignment Wednesday in the killing of Lloyd came after a week of suspense in which media had camped out in front of Hernandez’s home and followed his car by helicopter, in a futile search for details from tight-lipped law enforcement officials. Residents in Massachusetts and beyond have been riveted by the story of a young, highly paid professional athlete who may have squandered a bright future.

NBA Finals Game 7: Second Highest-Rated NBA Game in ABC History

Written By Amanda Kondolojy

June 21st, 2013

NBA Finals Game 7: Second Highest-Rated NBA Game in ABC History 

NBA Finals Game 7 on ABC – the Miami Heat defeated the San Antonio Spurs in a thriller to repeat as NBA Champions – delivered a 17.7 overnight rating, according to Nielsen. This is the second highest-rated NBA Game in ABC history. The telecast peaked at a 22.6 from 11:30 p.m. – 11:45 p.m. ET.

Game 7 is also expected to mark the 37thconsecutive time an NBA Finals telecast has won the night for all of television and is the 25th straight time it has delivered double-digit overnight ratings.

The Game generated a 44.2 metered market rating in Miami, making it the highest-rated NBA Game ever in the market. Additionally, Game 7 scored big in San Antonio with a 46.4.
The 2013 NBA Finals averaged a 12.4 metered market rating, up five percent from an 11.8 for the 2012 NBA Finals.

In addition, the Kia NBA Countdown pre-game show scored a strong 5.4 overnight rating.
 
Digital records
Game 7 of The Finals on ABC live through special simulcasts on ESPN3 logged its largest NBA Game ever with more than 32 million total minutes and an average minute audience of 189,000 across computers, smartphones, tablets, Xbox and Apple TV (source: Adobe SiteCatalyst).  Additionally, NBA content across ESPN digital platforms generated over 115 million total minutes, the largest single day of the NBA Playoffs and nearly half of which were consumed on mobile properties.  NBA content on ESPN.com also logged an average minute audience of 25,000 (up 64 percent compared to Games 1-6).
 
ESPN will televise the 2013 NBA Draft presented by State Farm on Thursday, June 27, at 7:30 p.m. The Draft is also available via WatchESPN.

Expert: Michael Jackson went 60 days without real sleep

By Alan Duke, CNN updated 3:04 PM EDT, Fri June 21, 2013

Doctor: Jackson had no REM sleep

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: Expert says Jackson could've died within days even without overdose
• Jackson may be the only human ever to go two months without REM sleep, expert says
• Lab rats die after five weeks of no REM sleep, expert says
• Propofol deprives patient of vital REM sleep, Dr. Charles Czeisler testifies

Los Angeles (CNN) -- Michael Jackson died while preparing to set a world record for the most successful concert run, but he unknowingly set another record that led to his death.

Jackson may be the only human ever to go two months without REM -- rapid eye movement -- sleep, which is vital to keep the brain and body alive. The 60 nights of propofol infusions Dr. Conrad Murray said he gave Jackson to treat his insomnia is something a sleep expert says no one had ever undergone.

"The symptoms that Mr. Jackson was exhibiting were consistent with what someone might expect to see of someone suffering from total sleep deprivation over a chronic period," Dr. Charles Czeisler, a Harvard Medical School sleep expert, testified Friday at the wrongful-death trial of concert promoter AEG LIve.

The symptoms documented by e-mails among show producers and testimony from his chef, hairstylist and choreographers included his inability to do standard dances or remember words to songs he sang for decades, paranoia, talking to himself and hearing voices, and severe weight loss, Czeisler said.

"I believe that that constellation of symptoms was more probably than not induced by total sleep deprivation over a chronic period," he testified.

 

Propofol disrupts the normal sleep cycle and offers no REM sleep, yet it leaves a patient feeling refreshed as if they had experienced genuine sleep, according to Czeisler.

If the singer had not died on June 25, 2009, of an overdose of the surgical anesthetic, the lack of REM sleep may have taken his life within days anyway, according Czeisler's testimony Friday.

Lab rats die after five weeks of getting no REM sleep, he said. It was never tried on a human until Murray gave Jackson nightly propofol infusions for two months.

Translating that to a human, Czeisler estimated, Jackson would have died before his 80th day of propofol infusions. Murray told police he had given it to him for 60 nights before trying to wean him off it on June 22, 2009 -- three days before his death.

Czeisler -- who serves as a sleep consultant to NASA, the CIA and the Rolling Stones -- testified Thursday that the "drug-induced coma" induced by propofol leaves a patient with the same refreshed feeling of a good sleep but without the benefits that genuine sleep delivers in repairing brain cells and the body.

"It would be like eating some sort of cellulose pellets instead of dinner," he said. "Your stomach would be full, and you would not be hungry, but it would be zero calories and not fulfill any of your nutrition needs."

Depriving someone of REM sleep for a long period of time makes them paranoid, anxiety-filled, depressed, unable to learn, distracted and sloppy, Czeisler testified. They lose their balance and appetite while their physical reflexes get 10 times slower and their emotional responses 10 times stronger, he said.

Those symptoms are strikingly similar to descriptions of Jackson in his last weeks, as described in e-mails from show producers and testimony by witnesses in the trial.

Jackson's mother and children are suing AEG Live, contending that the company is liable in his death because it hired, retained or supervised Murray, who was convicted of involuntary manslaughter. They argue that the promoter pressured Murray to get Jackson to rehearsals while failing to get Jackson help despite numerous red flags warning that he was in trouble.

AEG Live lawyers contend that it was Jackson who chose, hired and supervised Murray, and their executives had no way of knowing about the dangerous propofol treatments administered in the privacy of Jackson's rented mansion.

A very long question

Czeisler was back on the witness stand Friday to answer a question that was asked just as court ended Thursday. Jackson lawyer Michael Koskoff asked his expert what may also be a record-breaker in a trial: a 15-minute-long hypothetical question.

He was asked to render an opinion based on a long list of circumstances presented so far in the trial about Jackson's condition and behavior, including:

• That Murray administered propofol to Jackson 60 consecutive nights before June 22, 2009.

• That Murray began to wean Jackson from propofol on June 22, 2009, and gave him none of the drug on June 23.

• That a paramedic who tried to revive him the day he died initially assumed he was a hospice patient.

• That show producers reported Jackson became progressively thinner and paranoid and was talking to himself in his final weeks.

• That the production manager warned that Jackson had deteriorated over eight weeks, was "a basket case" who he feared might hurt himself on stage and could not do the multiple 360-degree spins that he was known for.

• That show director Kenny Ortega wrote that Jackson was having trouble "grasping the work" at rehearsals and needed psychiatric help.

• That Jackson needed a teleprompter to remember the words to songs he had sung many times before over several decades.

• That show workers reported the singer was talking to himself and repeatedly saying that "God is talking to me."

• That Jackson was suffering severe chills on a summer day in Los Angeles and his skin was cold as ice to the touch.

Lawsuit evidence: Michael Jackson lost dance moves in last days

Jackson lawyers revised the question Friday morning after AEG Live lawyers objected to the information about Murray's nightly propofol treatments, since it was derived only from the doctor's statement to police after Jackson's death. The judge previously ruled that statement inadmissible.

Instead, they brought up evidence that Murray ordered more than four gallons of propofol between April and June, which Czeisler said equaled 155,000 milliliters of the drug. An anesthesiologist uses between 20 and 30 milliliters to induce a coma for surgery, he said.

The expert testified that his review of Jackson's medical records convinced him that the singer suffered a chronic sleep disorder that "was greatly exaggerated" while he was on tour or preparing for a tour.

Jackson died just two weeks before he would have traveled to London for the premiere of his "This Is It" comeback concerts, produced and promoted by AEG Live.

A lecture on sleep

Jurors appeared quite interested as Czeisler lectured them Thursday on his sleep research, including an explanation of circadian rhythm: the internal clock in the brain that controls the timing of when we sleep and wake and the timing of the release of hormones

"That's why we sleep at night and are awake in the day," he said.

Your brain needs sleep to repair and maintain its neurons every night, he said.

Blood cells cycle out every few weeks, but brain cells are for a lifetime, he said.

"Like a computer, the brain has to go offline to maintain cells that we keep for life, since we don't make more," he said. "Sleep is the repair and maintenance of the brain cells."

CNN Health: Sleep

An adult should get seven to eight hours of sleep each night to allow for enough sleep cycles, he said.

You "prune out" unimportant neuron connections and consolidate important ones during your "slow-eyed sleep" each night, he said. Those connections -- which is the information you have acquired during the day -- are consolidated by the REM sleep cycle. Your eyes actually dart back and forth rapidly during REM sleep.

"In REM, we are integrating the memories that we have stored during slow-eyed sleep, integrating memories with previous life experiences," he said. "We are able to make sense of things that we may not have understood while awake."

Learning and memory happen when you are asleep, he said. A laboratory mouse rehearses a path through a maze to get to a piece of cheese while asleep.

The area of a basketball player's brain that is used to shoot a ball will have much greater slow-eyed sleep period since there is more for it to store, he said. Players shoot better after sleep.

The Portland Trailblazers consulted with him after they lost a series of East Coast basketball games, he said. He was able to give their players strategies for being sharper when traveling across time zones.

He's worked with the Rolling Stones on their sleep problems, he said. Musicians are vulnerable since they are often traveling across time zones and usually "all keyed up" to perform at night, he said.

Czeisler developed a program for NASA to help astronauts deal with sleep issues in orbit, where they have a sunrise and sunset every 90 minutes.

Other clients include major industries that are concerned about night shift workers falling asleep on the job, the CIA, the Secret Service and the U.S. Air Force, he said.

Jackson lawyers argue that AEG Live should have consulted a sleep expert like Czeisler for Jackson instead of hiring Murray -- a cardiologist -- for $150,000 to treat the artist.

The trial ends its eighth week in a Los Angeles courtroom Friday. Lawyers estimate that the case will conclude in early August.

Biggest protests in 20 years sweep Brazil

By Todd Benson and Asher Levine

SAO PAULO | Tue Jun 18, 2013 12:58pm EDT

(Reuters) - As many as 200,000 demonstrators marched through the streets of Brazil's biggest cities on Monday in a swelling wave of protest tapping into widespread anger at poor public services, police violence and government corruption.

The marches, organized mostly through snowballing social media campaigns, blocked streets and halted traffic in more than a half-dozen cities, including Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte and Brasilia, where demonstrators climbed onto the roof of Brazil's Congress building and then stormed it.

Monday's demonstrations were the latest in a flurry of protests in the past two weeks that have added to growing unease over Brazil's sluggisheconomy, high inflation and a spurt in violent crime.

While most of the protests unfolded as a festive display of dissent, some demonstrators in Rio threw rocks at police, set fire to a parked car and vandalized the state assembly building. Vandals also destroyed property in the southern city of Porto Alegre.

Around the country, protesters waved Brazilian flags, dancing and chanting slogans such as "The people have awakened" and "Pardon the inconvenience, Brazil is changing."

The epicenter of Monday's march shifted from Sao Paulo, where some 65,000 people took to the streets late in the afternoon, to Rio. There, as protesters gathered throughout the evening, crowds ballooned to 100,000 people, local police said. At least 20,000 more gathered in Belo Horizonte.

The demonstrations are the first time that Brazilians, since a recent decade of steady economic growth, are collectively questioning the status quo.

BIG EVENTS LOOM

The protests have gathered pace as Brazil is hosting the Confederation's Cup, a dry run for next year's World Cup soccer championship. The government hopes these events, along with the 2016 Summer Olympics, will showcase Brazil as an emerging power on the global stage.

Brazil also is gearing up to welcome more than 2 million visitors in July as Pope Francis makes his first foreign trip for a gathering of Catholic youth in Rio.

Contrasting the billions in taxpayer money spent on new stadiums with the shoddy state of Brazil's public services, protesters are using the Confederation's Cup as a counterpoint to amplify their concerns. The tournament got off to shaky start this weekend when police clashed with demonstrators outside stadiums at the opening matches in Brasilia and Rio.

"For many years the government has been feeding corruption. People are demonstrating against the system," said Graciela Caçador, a 28-year-old saleswoman protesting in Sao Paulo. "They spent billions of dollars building stadiums and nothing on education and health."

More protests are being organized for the coming days. It is unclear what specific response from authorities - such as a reduction in the hike of transport fares - would lead the loose collection of organizers across Brazil to consider stopping them.

For President Dilma Rousseff, the demonstrations come at a delicate time, as price increases and lackluster growth begin to loom over an expected run for re-election next year.

Polls show Rousseff still is widely popular, especially among poor and working-class voters, but her approval ratings began to slip in recent weeks for the first time since taking office in 2011. Rousseff was booed at Saturday's Confederations Cup opener as protesters gathered outside.

Through a spokeswoman, Rousseff called the protests "legitimate" and said peaceful demonstrations are "part of democracy." The president, a leftist guerrilla as a young woman, also said that it was "befitting of youth to protest."

WIDE ARRAY OF GRIEVANCES

Some were baffled by the protests in a country where unemployment remains near record lows, even after more than two years of tepid economic growth.

"What are they going to do - march every day?" asked Cristina, a 43-year-old cashier, who declined to give her surname, peeking out at the demonstration from behind the curtain of a closed Sao Paulo butcher shop. She said corruption and other age-old ills in Brazil are unlikely to change soon.

The marches began this month with an isolated protest in Sao Paulo against a small increase in bus and subway fares. The demonstrations initially drew the scorn of many middle-class Brazilians after protesters vandalized storefronts, subway stations and buses on one of the city's main avenues.

The movement quickly gained support and spread to other cities as police used heavy-handed tactics to quell the demonstrations. The biggest crackdown happened on Thursday in Sao Paulo when police fired rubber bullets and tear gas in clashes that injured more than 100 people, including 15 journalists, some of whom said they were deliberately targeted.

Other common grievances at Monday's marches included corruption and the inadequate and overcrowded public transportation networks that Brazilians cope with daily.

POLICE SHOW RESTRAINT

The harsh police reaction to last week's protests touched a nerve in Brazil, which endured two decades of political repression under a military dictatorship that ended in 1985. It also added to doubts about whether Brazil's police forces would be ready for next year's World Cup.

The uproar following last week's crackdown prompted Sao Paulo state Governor Geraldo Alckmin, who first described the protesters as "troublemakers" and "vandals," to order police to allow Monday's march to proceed and not to use rubber bullets.

The protests are shaping up as a major political challenge for Alckmin, a former presidential candidate, and Sao Paulo's new mayor, Fernando Haddad, a rising star in the left-leaning Workers' Party that has governed Brazil for the past decade. Haddad invited protest leaders to meet Tuesday morning, but has so far balked at talk of a bus fare reduction.

The resonance of the demonstrations underscores what economists say will be a challenge for Rousseff and other Brazilian leaders in the years ahead: providing public services to meet the demands of the growing middle class.

"Voters are likely to be increasingly disgruntled on a range of public services in a lower growth environment," Christopher Garman, a political analyst at the Eurasia Group, wrote in a report.

(Additional reporting by Esteban Israel and Eduardo Simões; Editing by Paulo Prada)

Surprise 91-year-old breaks world bench-press record

Sy Perlis


 Perlis broke a World Association of Benchers and Deadlifters record in the 90-and-over age division on Saturday at the National Push-Pull  

Bench Press and Dead Lift Championships, which were held at the Embassy Suites Hotel in north Phoenix. The final lift broke an association record of 135 pounds that had been in place since 2005.

At an age when some avoid exercise, Perlis has become an athlete, said association president and event organizer Gus Rethwisch.

“We’ve had a lot of lifters in their middle 80s, late 80s and occasionally we get one 90 and over, but they’ve never inspired people (like Perlis has),” Rethwisch said.

Perlis began weightlifting when he was 60 but entered his first championship competition five years ago at the suggestion of his trainer.

Now, he is a seasoned champion.

When he competed in the division for 85- to 89-year-olds, Perlis won the state title in 2009 and world title in 2010 and 2011 in the 181-pound weight category.

“It gave me the opportunity to do something to test myself for one thing, and I didn’t have to run around to do it, as you would in some other sports,” Perlis said of his hobby.

“I got a lot of satisfaction out of it, and it made me feel good, and it was good for me.”
It is a common misconception that exercise is unsafe for older people, said Chhanda Dutta, chief of the Clinical Gerontology Branch of the National Institute on Aging.

Research shows that exercise reduces the likelihood a person will develop a chronic disease.
For those who already have such diseases, it can improve symptoms, she added.

“The risk of leading a sedentary lifestyle is much greater than anything related to exercise,” Dutta said. “I think it’s important for people to realize that age alone doesn’t determine the intensity of your workout.”

People like Perlis are good examples of how staying fit helps seniors live longer, Dutta said.

“While these people are unusual and exceptional, they illustrate the fact that there can still be people, even in their 90s, who age very successfully,” she said.

Seniors are being studied as part of ongoing research about how genetics and physiology help people such as Perlis live long, healthy lives, Dutta said.

While Perlis and experts agree weightlifting is beneficial, it hasn’t been easy for Perlis to train for such a demanding sport.

He has had some injuries but says they are not related to his weightlifting hobby.

His trainer, Reid Solar, says Perlis’ involvement with weightlifting might be a factor, but it’s difficult to pinpoint the cause of health issues for older athletes.

Perlis had surgery to fix a hernia and get a pacemaker. He might have also fractured his wrist, but when he visited the doctor five weeks after receiving the injury, he was diagnosed with acute arthritis.
Because of the pacemaker surgery, Solar did not allow him to compete in 2012.

“His health comes first,” Solar said. “I do that with my younger guys, too. Age doesn’t matter in that case.”

Perlis said his doctor is aware he participates in the sport and has told him, “If you can do it, do it.”

Perlis trains five days a week. His routine includes cardiovascular exercise and weightlifting, in addition to the bench-pressing sessions Solar offers every Saturday for Sun City Grand residents.
Perlis’ wife, Joan, 69, said he encourages her to stay active.

“I always say if it weren’t for my husband, I’d be at home watching TV and eating bonbons,” she said. “He’s my motivator. He makes me work out, too.”

He is one of three active lifters in the 90-and-older age category in the association and the only one to compete Saturday, Rethwisch said.

At the championship, Perlis was a crowd favorite. They cheered and shouted words of encouragement when he was ready to lift.

“You got this, Sy! Come on, Sy!” they shouted.

The air was chalky from the magnesium carbonate powder that lifters used to tighten their grip, and the room reeked of sweat.

For each lift, Solar positioned Perlis’ fingers, adjusted his shoulders and gave him a pat on the chest. Each time Perlis exhaled, let the bar down to his chest and without hesitation lifted it back up.

Usually, competitors are allowed only a total of three lifts, four if they are trying to break a world record.

On Saturday, Rethwisch allowed Perlis to do five.

It’s not often that a 91-year-old participates in his championship event.

“He was on a roll and ... I consulted with people ... and they said, ‘Why not?’ ” Rethwisch said.

Perlis’ record lifts this past weekend qualify him for the world championship in Reno in November.
After the competition, many other competitors came backstage to congratulate Perlis. Some asked to take a photo with him.

“I’ll be happy if I’m still walking when I’m 91,” said Tanner Cook, 20, of east Mesa.

After he asked Perlis his age, Donald Judd, 75, of St. David, shook his head.

“You put me to shame,” Judd said. “I’ll be lucky if I get 121 (pounds) today.”
Gene Lawrence, 73, of Scottsdale, called Perlis his “new hero,” adding, “I thought I was old.”
Perlis chuckled.

By Taylor Goldenstein The Republic | azcentral.com Fri Jun 14, 2013 9:15 AMIt was time for Surprise resident Sy Perlis to break another world record.The 91-year-old weightlifting champ stepped up to the firetruck-red bench at the front of the room. With a light push, Perlis rolled onto his back, reached for the metal bar above his head and hoisted the 187.2-pound weight over his chest.

HEAT OFF TO FINALS, BEAT PACERS 99-76 IN GAME 7

Miami Heat shooting guard Dwyane Wade (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

BY TIM REYNOLDS 
AP BASKETBALL WRITER

MIAMI (AP) -- Their season, their legacy, their reign atop the NBA was all at stake, and the Miami Heat responded in a manner befitting defending champions - with a blowout.

LeBron James scored 32 points and grabbed eight rebounds, ailing Dwyane Wade matched his postseason high with 21 points, and the Heat ran away from the Indiana Pacers 99-76 in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference series on Monday night.

In the NBA Finals for the third straight year, the Heat will play the San Antonio Spurs in Game 1 on Thursday in Miami.

"They're just an amazing group of guys," Heat managing general partner Micky Arison said after handing the East trophy to Chris Andersen. "They've given us an incredible season so far, but it's a long way from over."

It could have ended on Monday, of course. The Heat had alternated wins and losses with the Pacers in the first six games of the series, and were coming off their worst offensive outing of the year in Game 6.

They responded with a rout, despite shooting just under 40 percent, well below their norm.

"By any means necessary ... we took care of business," James said.

Miami led by as many as 28 points, a shocking amount for a series that had an aggregate score of Heat 569, Pacers 564 entering Monday night. The Heat actually trailed by six in the early going, were still down 21-19 after the first quarter and it was starting to look like it was starting to look like one of those down-to-the-wire nights.

Not even close.

"You never want to take anything for granted," Wade said. "Being here three straight years in a row, going back to the finals, is an amazing feat. I'm just glad we were able to do it. Everything that happened in the first six games didn't mean anything to us. It was about tonight. It was about Game 7. It was about finding a way to win here at home."

James exited with 5:08 left, shaking retired soccer star David Beckham's hand as he made his way to the Heat bench for a relatively subdued celebration. Not long afterward, security personnel started what's become a familiar task in Miami - surrounding the court and stretching out a yellow rope, preparing to hold people at bay for the looming on-court trophy presentation.

More than a few people didn't stick around to see the East title formally presented. After all, it's an all-or-nothing season for the Heat - and this trophy isn't the one that will satisfy them.

Ray Allen added 10 points for Miami, which earned its 78th victory of the season, matching the 11th-best, single-season total in NBA history.

"It's just a privilege to be with this great team, great teammates, and we have another opportunity to go back to where we are," Heat forward Chris Bosh said. "You never really want to get it out of the way too much. Game 7's don't happen too often. We enjoyed it and now we have to move on."

Roy Hibbert scored 18 points for the Pacers, who got 14 from David West, 13 from George Hill and 10 from Lance Stephenson. All-Star Paul George was held to seven points on 2-for-9 shooting and fouled out early in the fourth quarter.

George was the last Indiana player on the floor as Miami prepped for its postgame celebration, shaking any hand he could find before being walked toward the visiting locker room by Pacers coach Frank Vogel, who slung an arm over his star's shoulder.

His time will likely come - someday.

Not yet, though. Not with this Miami team built for titles. It's the fourth trip to the finals for the Heat, who won the title in 2006 and have now been there all three years of the "Big Three" era, falling to Dallas in 2011 and then topping Oklahoma City in five games last year.

"The great thing is we're a young team and we are past the building stage," George said. "This is really our first year tasting success. The rate we are going, we see championships soon."

They're getting closer. A second-round loss to Miami in six games last year was followed by a seven-game, conference-finals exit this time around.

Still, they'll be watching the title round.

"Everybody in this country knows who the Indiana Pacers are now," Vogel said. "And we represent all the right things - class, character, hard work, old-school basketball, playing the game the right way. We represented our franchise, our city and our state extremely, extremely well, and we have a lot to be proud of."

Miami went 2-0 against San Antonio this season, though neither of those games should be considered harbingers of what's ahead. The Spurs rested four regulars in the first meeting, the Heat were without three injured starters in the second matchup.

"It's crazy that it worked out this way," Wade said.

James delivered an inspirational address of sorts to his team Monday morning, publicly revealing no details of what he said afterward other than insisting that the Heat would be ready.

He was right. After 5 minutes, it was 12-6 Indiana. After that, the rest of the half was pretty much all Miami.

Once the Pacers cooled off a bit, the Heat immediately went into pull-away mode. Over the final 19 minutes of the half, Miami's edge was 46-25. Over the final 11 minutes, it was 33-14, as James and Allen outscored the Pacers by themselves.

Allen did less pregame shooting than usual on Monday. He was at the arena several hours before game time - as is his custom - and got in a pregame workout, but once he found a groove, he decided that was enough. And after going 13 for 46 in the first six games of the series, the NBA's career leader in 3-pointers had to believe that he was simply overdue to get going.

His first shot on Monday was a 3-pointer that connected, giving the Heat a 26-23 lead.

The Heat never trailed again.

"We just focused on every possession, trying to get stops, play Miami Heat defense, create havoc," James said. "I thought we did that tonight."

By halftime, it was 52-37, with James scoring 18 points, Bosh and Wade combining for 17 and Allen adding 10 more. And what had to be most troubling to the Pacers at halftime was their 15 turnovers, a number Vogel said earlier Monday would spell trouble if his team committed that many in the entire game.

And in the third, the run the Pacers so desperately needed never arrived.

Indiana was still within 13 with 3:37 left in the period when Hibbert picked up his fourth foul. Ordinarily, that would mean someone goes to the bench, though Game 7 on the road for a trip to the finals hardly could be classified as an ordinary occasion.

So Vogel - who was second-guessed for not having Hibbert on the floor for the final moments in overtime of Game 1, when James got to the rim easily for a game-winning layup - left his center out there with four fouls.

Barely a minute later, it backfired. Hibbert picked up his fifth late in the third, and George got to five fouls by getting whistled twice in the final 46.1 seconds of the quarter.

By then, the outcome was obvious.

It was Miami's night.

"We'll enjoy this," Spoelstra said, "for a short period of time."

NOTES: Miami's Norris Cole and Indiana's Jeff Pendergraph were ejected with 2:17 left after exchanging some heated words. ... The Heat kept struggling Shane Battier on the bench, with Mike Miller getting his minutes. ... .Andersen's streak of 18 straight field goals made (he had been 15 for 15 in the series) was snapped in the first half. ... Beckham, who is deciding whether he wants to bring a Major League Soccer team to Miami, was seated next to the Heat bench for the second straight game. Justin Bieber and Flo Rida were also in the crowd, as was reigning American League MVP Miguel Cabrera. ... The Pacers fell to 2-4 all-time in Game 7s, including 0-4 in road editions of winner-take-all games to decide the Eastern Conference title. ... Hibbert did not elaborate Monday about his comments that drew a $75,000 fine after Game 6, saying he wanted to focus on basketball instead.

© 2013 THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED. Learn more about our PRIVACY POLICY and TERMS OF USE.