This was always supposed to be a partnership between Wade and James, a shared burden, but that’s not quite how it worked out until right now. The expiration date has arrived on this lopsided deal where Wade gets all of the glory and James gets all the blame. At 3:30 p.m. Sunday in Indiana, Wade no longer gets to live off what he did in 2006. That feels like a long time ago. LeBron came here for you, Dwyane. Left behind his hometown and his image. You going to help your friend get out of this unholy mess or not?

And he’s coming off the worst game anyone in Miami has ever seen him play, as incompetent a game as anyone has ever seen from a superstar in this sport. It wasn’t just the microscopic five points, though that was certainly bad enough. It was the bad judgment and lazy defense and an inability to do the most basic basketball things. He stepped out of bounds without being pressured and dribbled off his foot and couldn’t execute the easiest of passes to James, once on an entry and once on a fast break. And then things got bad.

“It seems like Dwyane Wade is the first one to crack under the pressure,” said Sam Mitchell, a former NBA Coach of the Year. “Total meltdown. Total disrespect for his coach. Out of line. Out of character.”

There is still time to silence the noise. But the clock starts ticking at 3:30 p.m. Sunday — on this series, on the Heat’s season, on the Heat’s blueprint, possibly even on Wade’s career here because trade talk is going to engulf this team the moment another season ends in failure.