Thursday night, the NBA finals opened with the San Antonio Spurs beating the Miami Heat 92-88 at Miami. The focus at the end of the game was on the Spurs’ Tony Parker’s shot that ended the scoring in the game. The question was whether he got the shot off before the 24 second clock ran out. The shot was ruled initially as good, and after extensive review, you could see that it was just barely out of Parker’s hand as the shot clock ran out. The Heat didn’t score with their last chance, and the Spurs came away with a big win on the road.
The Spurs outscored the Heat 23-16 in the fourth quarter. It seemed as if the 9 day rest that the Spurs had between the conference finals and the NBA Finals helped in the long run. The Spurs swept the Memphis Grizzlies in the Western Conference Finals, while the Heat had to go 7 games, to finish off the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals. The Spurs are looking for their 5th NBA Championship in the last 15 years, as the Heat is striving for their 3rd championship in the last 8 years, and second consecutive.
Tim Duncan, the Spurs’ power forward, who has been in San Antonio for all of those previous four titles, started slow, going 0 for 5, but finished with 20 points, 14 rebounds, and 3 blocks. Parker had 21 points to lead the Spurs, along with 6 assists. While reigning NBA MVP LeBron James had a triple double in the game, with 18 points, 18 rebounds, and 10 assists, he scored 10 points less than his career playoff average. Dwyane Wade added 17 points for the Heat, but did not score in the 4th quarter.
Game 2 isn’t until Sunday night. By then the Spurs will have played 1 game in the last 2 weeks. I don’t know if the NBA is trying to stretch the postseason until Christmas, but this is ridiculous. There is no travel involved between games 1 and 2, because they are both in Miami. Games 3, 4 and 5 will be in San Antonio. Since the Spurs already won game 1, even if they lose game 2, they just need to win their home games, and they will win another NBA Championship. However, if they don’t close out the series within 5 games, then the Heat have games 6 and 7 back in Miami.
The Heat have to be frustrated with the results from game 1, not only because they lost, but because they won many of the statistical battles. They had a better shooting percentage (43.6% to 41.7%), more assists (20-16), and even outrebounded the Spurs 46-37. Grabbing more rebounds than the Spurs is surprising, because in their conference finals, the Pacers had an average of 10 rebounds per game more than the Heat. The Spurs did tie the NBA Finals record with only 4 turnovers though.
This NBA Finals is very difficult to pick a winner, mainly because of LeBron James. If the Spurs’ Kawhi Leonard can continue to hold James under 20, then San Antonio should win the series in 5 games. However, keeping James’ point total down is much easier said than done. If Wade, Chris Bosh and Ray Allen continue to contribute like they did in game 1, and they get a little more help from the rest of the team, then Miami should win the series. But James can’t beat the Spurs by himself. The Spurs have a well rounded team, with their key players, Duncan, Parker and Manu Ginobili, having won multiple championships already.
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