MidValleySports.Com

Steven Mercado

By Steven Mercado

On Tuesday night, the San Antonio Spurs blew the roof off the AT&T Center, overcoming the Miami Heat with an astronomical 113-77 victory.

You can thank Spurs guards Danny Green and Gary Neal for leading the team in scoring, combining to sink 13-of-19 three-point attempts.

Yes, you read that correctly. 13-of-19 from three-point land.

The two guards have proved they are great shooters, but no one saw this performance coming. On a night where Tim Duncan only shot five-of-11 from the field, despite his 14 rebounds, 12 points is not necessarily as good as Duncan gets.

Spurs star Tony Parker was obviously limited by his hamstring injury, thus assuming the role of facilitator, going two-of-five from the field for six points and eight assists.

It seems that Green and Neal could not have picked a better time to have the shooting night of their lives. The crazy part about their performance is they were not only hitting the normal spot-up three-pointer. These guys were pulling up from a few feet away from the three-point line to find nothing but the bottom of the net.

The Heat, on the other hand, were abysmal. Mike Miller scored as many points as LeBron James and did not miss a shot while LeBron missed twice as many shots as he made. If I am LeBron, those thoughts are making it tough to sleep at night.

I am, by no means, a LeBron James hater. I respect him as a player and I know he is an amazing athlete and talent. However, I am noticing that LeBron does not know when to show up. It is almost like he decides when he wants to show up. He hit all areas of the stat sheet with 15 points, 11 rebounds, five assists and two steals, but this is the league’s MVP. He needs to be leading this team at all times and not be shy about it.

In Game 2 when the Heat blew the Spurs out, LeBron only scored 17 points from seven-of-17 shooting. He only had four points at halftime and showed the most signs of comfort when the Heat when on monster run at the end of the game. Why can’t he show that comfort when the game is close?

As for the Heat role players, I will say it again: they are far too inconsistent. Mario Chalmers scored 19 points in Game 2, which will not happen again in this series. Ray Allen only went two-of-two from the field in Game 3. The role players need to step up if the Heat are going to stand any chance against the Spurs. Otherwise, my predictions will be wrong and the Spurs will win all three games in San Antonio.

The Spurs are simply too good for the Heat at the AT&T Center. The injury to Parker may be a big deciding factor in this next game, depending on how bad it is. The key for the Heat tonight is to try and stop the Spurs from getting hot. If they close out on the Spurs shooters and give legitimate efforts on help defense, they may be able to stop the Spurs from blowing the roof off the arena, which is something they do quite often.

As long as the Spurs stick to the gameplan that has brought them to where they currently are, they will take Game 4 and take a commanding 3-1 lead in this series.