Steven Mercado
By Steven Mercado
Who ever thought Danny Green would be breaking records?
On Sunday night, the four-year man out of North Carolina broke the record for the most three-pointers made in NBA Finals series. His record currently sits at 25 and the man who held the previous record sat on the Heat bench as he watched it unfold. When Green hit number 23, Allen cringed as he rubbed his head as if he were thinking, man, how do we stop this kid?
Surprisingly, the kid’s 24-point performance (18 of those points coming from long range) was not the best of the night. In fact, it would be more appropriate to say the Spurs’ starting lineup was the best performance of the night. Tony Parker scored 26 points and dished out five assists. Tim Duncan scored 17 points and grabbed 12 boards. Kawhi Leonard put up 16 points and grabbed eight boards. The bench only scored a total of seven points.
The most performance came from the normal Spurs sixth man, Manu Ginobili. Coach Gregg Popovich decided to give Ginobili the start at shooting guard, bumping Green up to small forward, Leonard up to power forward, and Duncan up to center. With Manu playing Casper for the duration of the series, this proved to be the change of scenery he needed to get back to being Manu. He went eight-of-14 from the field, put up 24 points and dished out 10 assists.
When your starters produce in the way they did for the Spurs on Sunday night, who needs a bench?
As for the Miami Heat, LeBron James surprisingly had 25 points, eight dimes, and six boards. I say “surprisingly” because his performance was a quiet one, being drowned out by all of the Spurs’ starters. He made eight-of-22 field goals and was not able to get into the paint like the freight train normally does.
The Heat were down for a good amount of the game. This resulted in LeBron trying too hard to be the hero and shooting 36% from the field.
Dwyane Wade put up another impressive performance with 25 points, 10 assists, and four rebounds. Aside from Chris Bosh and Ray Allen, the Heat did not find a significant amount of production from their role players. Coach Erik Spoelstra seems to have played the wrong card with starting Mike Miller. He played 24 minutes, missed his only attempt from the field, and scored zero points.
Now the Heat are down 3-2 with their backs against the wall. It’s win or go home…even though the last two Finals games will be at Miami. You get the clichés.
The Heat need to attempt to cool off the Spurs. This will be difficult now that Ginobili had the game he needed to return to his old ways. If Miller starts and Ginobili has another big game, the Heat will continue to have match-up problems all over the court and the Spurs will take the title tonight.
In more simple terms, the Heat need to play hard and produce. Not just LeBron, not just the Flash, not just Bosh, but everyone needs to play hard and have a good game in order to force a Game 7. However, after seeing Game 5 and how the Spurs fed off of Ginobili’s big game, I think having him in the starting lineup will be too much for the Heat to handle. The Spurs will be raising that Larry O’Brien trophy tonight.
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