Watch Dwyane Wade Swoop in for Soaring Putback Dunk Against Bucks

The defending champion Miami Heat are the best team in the league, and they know it.

That certainly has its perks (see: 27-game winning streak, 43-4 record since Jan. 16), but it has some potential pitfalls, too. Miami knows it's always a run away from breaking a game wide open, so coach Erik Spoelstra sometimes struggles to get his players to commit to a full 48-minute effort against inferior competition.

And despite what Brandon Jennings might think (via Bob Wolfley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel), the eighth-seeded Bucks are just that: inferior competition.

So it came as little surprise that Miami relatively stumbled out of the gate in Game 2 against the Bucks, relative in the sense that they largely controlled the game but needed a spark to put the contest safely away.

And, as he's been known to do every now and then during his illustrious 10-year career, Dwyane Wade gave his club that spark.

When Mario Chalmers squared up for an uncontested elbow jumper midway through the third quarter, Wade crashed the glass from somewhere near AmericanAirlines Arena's main concourse for a vicious putback slam over a leaping Monta Ellis.

And just like he's been doing all season long, Wade immediately conjured up images of some vintage "Flash" highlights, via Shandel Richardson of the South Florida Sun Sentinel:

"

Dwyane Wade just flashed back to 2009

— Shandel Richardson(@ShandelRich) April 24, 2013"

But the ferocity of the finish had others thinking perhaps this was a trick learned from one of Wade's newest teammates, Chris Andersen (via Chris Tomasson of Fox Sports Florida):

"

Dwyane Wade making like The Birdman with that follow dunk.

— Chris Tomasson (@christomasson) April 24, 2013"

Wade's slam gave Miami a three-point lead at the time. It has since ballooned to 18 (94-76, 3:10 left in the fourth quarter) and could be more by the time you're reading this.