Members of our #NBArank panel are recounting the greatest NBA Finals games. First we asked five NBA writers to share their favorites. Then, Kevin Pelton started ranking his top 25 Finals games of all time, unveiling five per day.
Spurs Reach Perfection: 2014 NBA Finals, Games 3 & 4, Spurs vs. Heat
Kevin Arnovitz: The player aspires for perfection, but even a perfectionist knows it's impossible to come by in the NBA. Defenders close hard. Passes veer off-course. The brain can play tricks. And that's before you take into account the quality of the competition.
The Miami Heat of the Big Three Era are constructed to thwart perfection, and as the scene moves to American Airlines Arena in Miami, they are at Peak Heat. They had cruised through the Eastern Conference and stolen Game 2 on the San Antonio Spurs' home court after melting in mysterious, ventilation-free Game 1.
Gregg Popovich is looking to renovate in Miami. He wants to create one of those airy living spaces with fewer walls, more party flow, a cleaner feel. Boris Diaw in place of Tiago Splitter in the starting lineup would provide that space.
Neither Game 3 nor 4 will go down in the annals of NBA history for their drama, individual exploits or defining moments. The outcome of each game is all but a foregone conclusion well before halftime. It's difficult to find a postcard moment. No single player would be immortalized for a game-winning shot or a momentous quarter.
But over 53 hours, perfect basketball is more than just an abstract objective, because the Spurs make it a reality. Seventy-one points on 42 possessions in the first half of Game 3. Fifteen assists. A slow dance of layups and 3s. The rock pinging from side to side like a pinball, never sticking to a black jersey. San Antonio does anything but 'pound the rock,' as their mantra goes. They swing it with ease.
Toward the end of the first quarter in Game 3, all five Spurs touch the ball in four seconds. Four seconds after that, Ginobili streaks from the top of the circle through the gut of the lane to collect a little drop pass from Patty Mills for a layup. The Heat defense could never catch up to the music, and the scorers table in Miami doesn't need a game clock -- it needs a metronome.
Finals games are rarely facsimiles of each other, as rhythms reset, adjustments are made, tectonic plates shift underfoot. But continuity is the Spurs' thing, and their flow would be uninterrupted for Game 4. Though the Spurs managed a mere 55 points in the first half, Game 4 was even more artful.
And there's Boris Diaw midway through the second quarter lording over Dwyane Wade in the post, holding the ball overhead with his right arm, playing keepaway. After backing Wade in with three dribbles, he spots Chris Bosh heading his way to help, and it's then that he slings a no-look behind-the-back pass to Splitter underneath.
This goes on for what seems like hours -- interior and high-low passes, weak-side back cuts, motion offense that purrs like a German engine. And for one week in June 2014, the box score and its catalogue of individual performances becomes irrelevant.
This is perfect basketball orchestrated by a collection of players from four continents, none with transcendent athleticism. But none of what the Spurs are doing is stodgy or a rejection of the thrill-seeking of the modern NBA game we know and love. This isn't "Hoosiers" and its precious interpretation of basketball purity, because the 2014 Spurs are modern, are thrilling.
Over the next two seasons, almost every team in the league incorporates elements of the Spurs' patented "Motion" into their offenses. Though its origins predate that week in June 2014, never has it been exhibited more perfectly.
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