Manu Ginobili
MIAMI — Manu Ginobili walked to the podium and took a look around the room before he sat down. His shoulders slouched a bit, but he tried to remain upbeat. He sighed before he spoke.
“After having played a great Game 1, you don’t want to come back and feel like this and perform this like,” he said.
“In the second half, they ran us over.”
LeBron James—despite a relatively poor showing through the game’s first three quarters—left tire tracks on the San Antonio Spurs in the fourth period.
But this race—the one for the Larry O’Brien Trophy—is not for the swift.
Despite a 103-84 victory in Game 2, the Heat still need to win three more games. Just like the Spurs. And if you are wondering what new information you can take away from Sunday night’s Game 2, the answer is simple.
The Heat have learned their lesson.
In the race for the NBA’s crown, swiftness helps, but endurance is imperative. So as we head to San Antonio with the 2013 NBA Finals knotted at one game, that is the message that Gregg Popovich will have for his team on their flight home.
Amongst other things, Ginobili was asked whether or not, deep down inside, the Spurs succumbing to the Heat in crushing fashion in Game 2 may have had something to do with the fact that they managed to win Game 1.
It is, after all, somewhat typical for a road team who wins Game 1 of a playoff series to relax a bit and not match the urgency of their counterparts.
“No,” he said. According to Manu, the Spurs, even after winning Game 1, wanted to win Game 2.
“Once you win the first one, you forget about that,” he said. “You face a new game as if it’s a Game 7 and you want to win it, too.”
Win it, and then forget was Manu’s mantra.
But after coughing up their precious homecourt advantage in Game 1 of these Finals, forget is one thing the Heat proved they do not do.
And if Game 2 was a test, they passed it with flying colors.
Dirk Nowitzki
The last time the Heat lost two consecutive home games was in the 2011 NBA Finals, where they lost Game 2 and Game 6 to Dirk Nowitzki and his Dallas Mavericks.
Obviously, the Heat lost that series in six games.
Determined to not let history repeat itself, in Game 2, when the game was hanging in the balance, the Heat played with the pride and urgency befitting a champion.
It has been two long years, too long an ascent to the mountaintop of the NBA. More seasoned, wiser, and perhaps sensing that the end is closer than the beginning, the Heat will not go meekly into the night.
After losing Game 6 to the Mavericks what seems so long ago, their heartbreak hardened them. The desperation that engulfed the team’s collective spirit manifested itself in an impressive five-game dismantling of the Oklahoma City Thunder. It overflowed in a Game 5 performance that saw five members of the Heat score over 20 points—none more improbable than Mike Miller and his seven 3-pointers.
And we saw a flash of the same brilliance from an evidently limited LeBron James. James single-handedly ended the game with eight minutes remaining Sunday when he denied Tiago Splitter at the rim on one end and assisted Ray Allen on a 3-pointer at the other. The Heat opened up a 22-point lead and never looked back.
Led by James, this Heat team has grown before our very eyes. And led by Dwyane Wade—who dubbed Game 2 a “must win”—the Heat have risen and have tied this NBA Finals at one game each.
Does that surprise you?
It shouldn’t. And if it does, shame on you.
Had the Heat lost, there was a very real possibility that this series would not have returned to Miami for a Game 6, and that is exactly what a member of the San Antonio Spurs told me in a one-on-one conversation we had Friday.
“I’m not making the trip to San Antonio,” I told him. “But, I think I’ll see you guys back here in 10 days, because I think this series is going at least six.”
He squinted and raised his eyebrows.
“Well, let’s see what happens on Sunday,” he responded coyly.