Spurs 110, Heat 95: Spurs smoke the Heat out of the building

What Happened?

You don’t usually associate climate conditions with the outcome of basketball games and other indoor sporting events, but a broken air conditioner at AT&T Center in San Antonio helped sweat LeBron James and the Heat out of the building, as the Spurs won Game 1 of the NBA Finals, 110-95.

The Scoring

There were plenty of highlights and noteworthy buckets in Game 1, many of which you can check out in Blake Murphy’s instant recap, but there were three or four that stuck out to me over the last quarter and a bit.

• Tiago Splitter’s off-balance layup at the end of the third quarter, after a beautiful thread pass from Tony Parker, was a big one. The Heat were on a 10-3 run in the final minutes of the third, and took a 78-72 lead. Splitter’s unlikely basket to end the quarter stopped the bleeding somewhat heading into the final frame:

• The Heat's biggest basket of the night came with 9:37 remaining in the game, as Chris Bosh drew contact from Tim Duncan on a 3-point attempt. Bosh splashed the three and made the ensuing free throw, giving Miami a seven point lead (86-79). It was the 76th time a three-point shooter has been fouled in these playoffs.

• The Spurs' biggest buckets of the night were a couple of back-to-back 3-pointers from Danny Green late in the fourth quarter. San Antonio had begun to make their run, and with Miami up 88-84, Green made two threes - both coming off Boris Diaw assists - around a missed Ray Allen layup to put the Spurs ahead 90-88. They wouldn’t trail again.

• The last score to highlight from Game 1 was the official dagger, courtesy of Tony Parker. Duncan found Parker in the corner for a 3-pointer that gave the Spurs a 105-95 lead with 1:14 remaining, while a hobbled James watched in disgust from the bench.

Spurs MVP: Manu Ginobili

Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, and even Boris Diaw were all notable for the Spurs, but no player changed Game 1 for San Antonio the way Ginobili did. Manu provided an instant spark for the Spurs, scoring six points in his first two minutes off the bench early in the first quarter - after the Heat had opened strong - and finishing with 16 points (on 5-of-10 shooting), 11 assists, five rebounds, three steals, and a block in 32 minutes.

The best stat of the night might be Ginobili making as many threes in his first seven minutes on Game 1 - three - as he did over the course of last year's entire seven-game Finals.

Heat MVP: LeBron James

While some fools took to Twitter to lament LeBron James’ "decision" to come out of the game, and while Mark Jackson asserted that "The great ones find a way to tell their body 'not now,'" few took the time to realize that perhaps the reason James was affected by the 90-degree heat more than any other player is because no other player puts in as much work on both ends of the floor. James finished with 25 points, six rebounds, three assists, and three steals in 33 minutes.

If Miami’s complete collapse after James left the game wasn’t enough of an indicator of his value to the champs, consider that James had an even plus/minus while no other Heat player who played at least 20 minutes was better than -11.

Controversies

• The obvious controversy to discuss after Game 1 was the fact the air conditioner went out in the arena during the first half, causing fans, broadcasters, coaches, and especially players great duress, with temperatures in AT&T Center reaching 90 degrees. The Spurs deserve full credit for their win and their fourth quarter excellence, especially, outscoring the Heat 36-17, but James missing the majority of the fourth quarter obviously played a factor, and the poor playing conditions obviously played a factor in LeBron cramping up.

• James was feeling the effects of the heat before he was forced from the game in the fourth quarter, asking to be subbed out early in the third. After asking for cold water, he exclaimed, "They're tryna smoke us outta here." 

• If the game was close and the air conditioning wasn't a factor, a seemingly good James basket being waved off for offensive basket interference late in the third quarter might have been a bigger story.

How did the Spurs win?

San Antonio finished the game on a 31-9 run over the final 9:30 after the aforementioned Bosh four-point play, blowing the doors off what had been a tightly contested game up to that point. And they did it in typical Spurs fashion: ball movement, passing up good shots for great shots, finding open shooters, and burying threes.

The Spurs shot 58 percent from the field and 52 percent (13-of-25) from behind the arc against a Heat defense that struggled somewhat against teams (the Bobcats, Nets, and Pacers) that boast vastly inferior offenses in comparison to San Antonio. In their dominant fourth quarter, the Spurs shot an absurd 14-of-16 from the field and were a perfect 6-for-6 from three-point territory.

Gregg Popovich also found success again with the smaller lineup that gave Oklahoma City fits - Parker, Ginobili, Leonard, Diaw, and Duncan. Tiago Splitter started both halves in a traditional two-bigs lineup, but he and Duncan only shared the floor for eight minutes, with the Spurs boasting an atrocious net rating (offensive rating minus defensive rating) of -27.8 during that time. With Duncan and Diaw sharing the floor, however, the Spurs’ net rating shot up to +50.3. Absolutely bananas.

Again, though, while the Spurs do deserve credit, it’s hard to explain how they won the game without including "LeBron James didn’t play much in the fourth" in the explanation.

The Takeaway

As long as the air conditioning is fixed ahead of Sunday’s Game 2, the Heat shouldn’t be overly concerned right now. They were looking great until James began to break down, and with two days off before Game 2, there’s no reason to believe LeBron won’t be back to his usual self.

As for the Spurs, they survived a game in which they committed 22 turnovers against the two-time defending champions, who just so happen to thrive in transition, so they’ll be loving their chances if they can take care of the ball.

Stray Thoughts

• Anyone who thinks LeBron should have played through the crippling cramps, Mark Jackson included, is delusional. This is the NBA Finals, and this is LeBron freaking James. You honestly believe he could have gone back in and simply decided not to? (By the way, he claims he wanted to attempt playing again but was turned down by Erik Spoelstra).
  
  The same goes for those pointing out that the Spurs played through the same conditions. The conditions may have been the same, but no one on the Spurs was affected by intense cramping, or they wouldn’t have continued either. The only thing worse than not having LeBron on the floor in crunch time of a Finals game will be having to listen to the foolishness pundits spew about it over the next few days.
   
• While the LeBron hate is ridiculous, kudos to Gatorade for turning this into a golden marketing opportunity. James is with Powerade, and when some uninformed fans tweeted at Gatorade about James' dehydration, the G-powered account responded brilliantly. Again and again.
   
• The Spurs seemed to be playing James more aggressively tonight than they did last year. If you recall in last season's Finals, the Spurs sagged off of James and were content to let him be a jump-shooter a lot of the times. They looked to be putting more pressure on him on Thursday, however, which is understandable given how deadly LeBron has become as a shooter and how he overcame them last year.

• Boris Diaw scored only two points on 1-of-5 shooting, but his playmaking ability from a big position proved huge for the Spurs, as Diaw racked up six assists and 58 total passes in the game - second only to Tony Parker's 75. Diaw also had two passes that led directly to made Spurs free throws, according to NBA.com's player tracking page, and added 10 rebounds for good measure. The Frenchmen had his fingerprints all over this game without being much of an individual offensive presence himself.

• The Duncan/Bosh matchup is so interesting because both present challenges to the other and both can have huge series. Duncan had 21 points and 10 rebounds while Bosh and other Heat "bigs" struggled to contain him inside. Bosh had 18 and nine himself, while drilling three threes (would have been four if not for his heel being on the sideline on one of them) as Duncan and other Spurs bigs had trouble staying with him on the perimeter.

• One of the under the radar storylines from Game 1 was Mario Chalmers’ foul trouble. The Heat’s starting point guard played only 17 minutes thanks to his five fouls.

• Tiago Splitter played a solid 23 minutes, but nothing he did will be as memorable as this brilliant flop:

• On an off-court note, I loved the decision to use Bastille’s "Pompei" during the ABC intro. Footage of last year’s Spurs/Heat Finals set to the lyrics of "Does it almost feel like nothing changed at all?" was a great combination, and certainly a heck of a lot better than any Pitbull-related number (Playoffs!). The actual opening montage later on - the one that features classic finals moments and calls - was stellar as always. The only thing better was LeBron asking Tim Duncan during the pregame, “You and me again, huh?” Awesome stuff.