Miami Heat: 10 best moments of Chris Bosh’s Heat career

7. Bosh soars on Christmas Day

To the casual basketball fan, the NBA season doesn’t start until the Christmas Day games. I’m not condoning that thought process, it’s simply the truth.

So for a lot of people, their first time watching the Big Three was on everyone’s favorite holiday, in a much-hyped showdown against the Los Angeles Lakers. Kobe Bryant‘s squad was the two-time reigning-champion, and still the cream of the crop in the NBA, boasting a 21-8 record heading into the matchup with Miami.

The Heat, meanwhile, after a slow start to the season (9-8 through 17 games), were finally rounding into form, having won 13 of their prior 14 contests.

Most expected a tight bout between two powerhouses. Sadly (for Lakers fans, at least), that wasn’t the case.

Miami would blow Los Angeles out by a final score of 96-80, in what was a game not as intriguing as advertised. (Maybe that’s untrue, as the James/Bryant trash talk from late in the fourth quarter was pretty damn fun. The actual basketball, though? Not that interesting.)

Setting the tone early was a Bosh dunk that, to me, is still the best of his Heat career.

The magnitude, the stage they were playing on, the fact that it was a game between the two favorites to reach the Finals, for Bosh to throw it down like that was an empowering moment for Heat fans.

To see the soft-spoken big man let loose so violently, destroy a rim and silence a crowd in one fell swoop was simply amazing. He would finish the night with 24 points and 13 rebounds to go with his one very memorable dunk.