Spurs 107, Heat 86: Spurs dominate in Miami again to move within 1 win of championship
What Happened?
Much like they did in Game 3, the Spurs jumped on the Heat early in Game 4, took a commanding lead into the half, and rarely looked back en route to a 107-86 win and a 3-1 series lead. In the process, they handed the Heat their first set of back-to-back playoff losses in 49 games (since the 2012 East Final) - the third-longest such streak in NBA history.
Along the way, Tim Duncan became the NBA’s all-time postseason leader in minutes played and double-doubles, surpassing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson, respectively.
For the Spurs, it was their NBA record 11th win by 15 points or more in one postseason.
The Scoring
Two first-half scores underline how well the Spurs continue to move the ball around in a beautifully dizzying array. First, Danny Green curls off a Tiago Splitter pin-down screen, receives a pass from Patty Mills, then hits Splitter in the post before the big Brazilian relays it to a cutting Boris Diaw for the dunk:
[Courtesy: FanSided]
Then there was Diaw’s sublime, behind-the-back assist to Splitter:
This Kawhi Leonard putback jam exemplified the kind of consistent effort the Spurs brought Thursday compared to the Heat:
Spurs MVP: Kawhi Leonard
On one hand, it’s tough to single out a single Spur on a night when all 13 players who touched the floor scored at least two points, and when the ball was being shared as much as it was. On the other hand, watching Leonard's effort on both ends of the court and taking a look at the boxscore makes it easy to give the honor to Kawhi for the second straight game.
Leonard finished with a team-high 20 points on 7-of-12 shooting, a game-high 14 rebounds, a game-high three blocks, three assists, and three steals in over 38 minutes of action, while racking up a plus/minus of +23.
Heat MVP: LeBron James
LeBron James, once again, was not at his best (another reason to credit Leonard) by his standards, but he was still by far the best player on the floor for Miami. James scored 28 points on 10-of-17 shooting to go with eight rebounds, and his third quarter explosion - he scored 19 of the Heat's 21 points in the quarter - was the only thing that made this look anything like a competitive game for brief stretches of the second half.
No other Heat player scored more than 12 points, and Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh combined for only 22 points on 8-of-24 shooting, with Wade especially struggling to make any kind of impact.
The Controversy
The closest thing to controversy we had in Game 4 was LeBron James darting to the locker room right before tip-off and again midway through the first quarter, prompting some social media talk of Crampgate, injury or illness. There was nothing to it, though, as James said postgame that he went back once to get re-taped and once to use the restroom.
Then again, perhaps the most controversial part of the night was Chris Bosh quieting talk of Carmelo Anthony potentially joining the Heat.
How Did the Spurs Win?
As evidenced above, the Spurs’ ball movement and overall offensive execution was as on point as ever, even if they weren’t converting baskets at the same historical rate they did in Game 3. Heck, Boris Diaw had as many assists through three quarters tonight - seven - as the entire Heat team did. But the real story Thursday was San Antonio’s first-half defense being every bit as good as their Game 3 offense was.
After the Spurs’ offense set shooting and efficiency records in the first half of Game 3, the Spurs’ defense held the Heat to just 36 first-half points on 35 percent shooting in Game 4. Remember, this is a Heat offense that ranked second in the NBA at 109 points per 100 possessions during the regular season and an offense that had shot 49.8 percent from the field in the postseason coming into Thursday.
The Takeaway
The Heat looked good with LeBron on the floor in Game 1 and obviously looked capable in beating the Spurs in San Antonio in Game 2, but the takeaway at this point has to be that the Spurs are simply the far superior team after beating down and demoralizing the Heat in Miami almost wire-to-wire in two straight games.
It probably shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. The Spurs won a league-best 62 games in the vastly superior Western Conference, while the Heat won 54 in the lesser East, and the Spurs boasted both a top-six offense and a top-four defense over the course of the regular season, while Miami’s defense slipped. But, still, watching the two-time defending champions get eviscerated at home in such fashion was jarring.
The cold reality for the Heat is that they have to beat a Spurs team that hasn’t dropped three straight since late January, and a Spurs team that outscored them by 53 points over four games, three times in a row, including twice in San Antonio.
The other cold reality: While I still find it difficult to imagine James, Wade, and Bosh breaking up this summer while the East remains theirs for the taking, this could have been the final home game of Miami’s Big Three Era.
Stray thoughts
1. While no one wants to count out LeBron and the Heat just yet, we do have to prepare for the fact that the Spurs can win the championship and end the 2013-14 season on Sunday night in San Antonio. With that realization, it's also time to start considering who should be Finals MVP if the Spurs do seal it up in Game 5.
Duncan has been solid throughout the series, Diaw's passing and overall presence in the lineup has been a game changer, and one of Tony Parker or Manu Ginobili probably still has an outside chance with a huge Game 5. But with the last two games so fresh in our minds and his impact on both ends of the floor, I'd have to make Leonard the slight favorite right now.
2. I fully support fans booing the home team if they, the paying customers, feel that the effort isn't there night to night. But Miami fans booing their team in the first half of a Finals game? Booing their two-time defending champions and four-time defending Eastern Conference champions because it finally looks as though they've met their match, and maybe they were outworked on this night? Talk about being spoiled by the last few years of ultimate success.
Then again, we shouldn't expect any better from an underwhelming fanbase that prematurely cleared out an arena in an elimination game of The Finals just last year. Kudos to the Heat fans that stuck around tonight and chanted "Let's go Heat" for the final few seconds. You're probably the small group of Heat fans who were Heat fans before 2010. It's a shame that the foolish bandwagoners have tainted the reputation of your fanbase at large.
3. I know I've praised Chris Bosh's game a couple of times already over the course of this series, and he didn't exactly stand out in Game 4 (12 points, 4 rebounds), but there was still a play early in the game that I thought deserved mention. Bosh caught the ball on the perimeter, used his quick first step to put the ball on the floor and blow by Duncan, and then adjusted his shot mid-air as the help came, opting for a soft finger roll rather than a dunk he realized he couldn't pull off. How many near seven-footers can pull off that sequence?
If The Big Three do split up, it would be fascinating to see what kind of offensive numbers Bosh could produce as a No. 1 option again at this stage of his career, although seeing him in that position again seems unlikely.
4. You can usually tell a game has gotten out of hand when the announcing team drifts off into random discussions and tangents, and Thursday night was no different. There was perhaps no greater indication of what the Spurs had done to the Heat as Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy debating whether leftover dessert belongs under the general 'leftovers' umbrella. Who could blame them? What else was really left to analyze at that point?