CLEVELAND — Just before a night of exorcism and heartache began, the security guard's walkie-talkie buzzed.
"The Miami traitor is coming out," a voice on the other end said.
All night, Quicken Loans Arena oozed with hatred. Below the stands near the Cleveland Cavaliers locker room, where employees are expected to be more circumspect, let's-get-'ems and hollers echoed in anticipation of what was to come.
Fans chanted swear words. Waved flags. Felt the justice of the moment.
This, Cleveland knew, would be a night of revenge powered by pure human emotion.
Except the city LeBron made suffer learned another painful lesson Thursday night: Some dreams die more slowly than others.
First was the dream that LeBron would stay in their city and deliver glory. Then was the dream that, for at least one night in this city of heartache, Cleveland would make him pay for his departure.
Wrong on both counts.
The Heat turned The King's sour homecoming into a brutal takedown of the Cavaliers with a 118-90 rout, one powered not by Cleveland's emotion but by LeBron's best game of the season.
He scored a season-high 38 points, had eight assists and pulled down five rebounds — without playing in the fourth quarter.
For the superstar whose return became the day's biggest story in America, it was Catharsis in Cleveland.
For Cleveland, it was just more of the curse.
"My fear was we'd be out there going too fast, turning the ball over
and things like that," said Cleveland head coach Byron Scott. "That's exactly what we did."
Leading up to the game, Heat coach Erik Spoelstra had talked about his team as a family that must rally around two of its own.
They did so with heart, passion, effort and maybe even love. LeBron may still be hated in all directions, but his teammates in Miami played like they do, indeed, have his back.
Center stage in that effort was Dwyane Wade, who all week spoke with a steely edge of loyalty that translated on the court Thursday.
He just missed a triple-double with a line of 22 points, nine assists and nine rebounds. It was clear from beginning to end he wanted to do everything in his power to make LeBron's night easier.
That is how great teams are made: By great players coming together.
"The one thing we preach in Miami is family," Wade said. "This is our brother coming back into a very emotional situation. We knew it was going to be a very hostile environment. So we had each other's back and it all took place on the basketball court."
Don't kid yourself: The Heat needed this. They hadn't won a road game since Oct. 31, and LeBron's sinking Q-rating has been an albatross around the Heat's neck all season.
So facing their demons without a hitch means something, even if they haven't yet shown they can consistently beat teams with winning records.
"I can't say I sensed this coming," Spoelstra said. "We've had an adverse week. The world was ready to come down on Heat Nation."
If a season can turn on a single night in which a team bonds and battles together, perhaps LeBron's emotional return was just what his team needed.
"For us to have that bunker mentality to focus on the game like we did was great," LeBron said.
For the Cavs' part, they seemed to get a feel for — and buckle under — the grinding pressure that's accompanied Miami all season.
On their night with the weight of what LeBron put into motion on their shoulders — the weight of making right what this city believes LeBron James made wrong — they simply weren't up to the task.
They shot 35.5 percent from the field. They looked overmatched. They could not turn an incredible crowd's energy into points on the floor.
"Emotional overload?" Scott said. "We have a young team. This is still a process for us."
The question going forward is what this means for Miami. Surely, some of the demons LeBron created were exorcised against his former team.
On a night where he talked smack to the Cleveland bench and gave a postgame television interview in which he talked about taking his greatness back to Miami, he was able to shake off the worry he wouldn't be man enough to face the team he scorned.
He faced them, beat them, gave a few not-so-genuine sounding answers, and then scooted back to Miami with a quip about how he wished he could stay and talk but a Heat employee had already said no more questions.
That's one problem shed. The bigger one — and this will remain unanswered for at least a few games — is whether LeBron also left behind in Cleveland the parts of himself that uproot teams, sow discord and convince an unhappy public he is not a good guy. That remains to be seen.
On the one hand, he was unwilling to apologize for The Decision, talked about never having regrets, threw chalk up to start the game despite knowing it would roil his former fans and remained afterward in too many ways a person who just doesn't seem to get it.
On the other hand, maybe it doesn't make a darn bit of difference.
Maybe being the bad guy with most of the country is fine as long as he's the good guy in that Heat locker room.
Maybe his team rallying around him — and LeBron stepping up — is the biggest step of all.
You can follow Bill Reiter on Twitter.
