NBA Finals Chronicles, Friday June 13

Photo from hoopshabit.com

The NBA Finals took quite the turn last night, and while I wasn't expecting it, I wasn't shocked at all. The Spurs have the ability to take over a game with their beautiful offense, it's just hard to believe that the Heat allowed it to happen two games in a row.

I was wrong. I thought the Heat would come out with some fire and defend the Spurs well, but that simply didn't happen. The Spurs' success was less predicated on luck this time around, but pure skill. Much like Game 3, their ball movement was impeccable, and despite shooting a lower percentage, were still dominating Miami. Led by Boris Diaw's 9 assists, to go along with 8 points and 9 rebounds, because he's Boris Diaw and he can do such things, San Antonio was whipping the ball around every possession, looking for the best shot opportunity available. And the Heat simply didn't have an answer for them.

Despite not turning the ball over a ridiculous amount, Miami came away with many empty possessions in the first half. From that point, LeBron James tried to take over in the third quarter, scoring 19 of his team's 21, making 7 of 8 field goals, but he was getting no help. It was really hard to watch him put his team on his back and despite playing on a rather loaded team, trucked on as everyone else disappeared. Part of that was because of very good defense by San Antonio. And some of that was lazy off ball offense and poor shooting by the Heat who went 1 for 9 from the field other than James in that quarter.

It will be interesting to see how this series ends, which I'll cover more tomorrow when we have an extra day off between games. For now, I must watch double overtime of Game 5 of the Stanley Cup. I can barely breathe while writing this.