Category: NBA Playoffs Blog

NBA playoffs blog

Spurs play amazing first half in NBA Finals Game 3

The Spurs beat the Heat 111-92 Tuesday in Miami to take a 2-1 lead in the 2014 NBA Finals. San Antonio got off to an incredible start, and were able to keep the Heat at bay to secure the victory. Here’s the New York Daily News:

After starting the game by making 19 of their first 21 shots, the Spurs finished the half shooting 25-of-33 (76%), setting a Finals first-half record. Their 41 points in the first quarter were the most in a Finals game since 1967, while their 13-of-15 shooting in the first quarter (87%) also set a Finals record.

The Heat did cut the lead to seven points in the third period and was down only 10 with 8:54 to go in the game. But the Spurs, who are still smarting from their epic Game 6 collapse last June, didn’t come close to buckling this time.

Remember how Gregg Popovich complained after Game 2 on Sunday that the ball stuck to his team’s hands way too much in the critical fourth quarter, when it scored only six points in the final 4:40? For the first 19 minutes of this game, once the ball left the Spurs’ shooters hands, the only thing it stuck to was the nylon nets.

“I don’t think we’ll ever shoot 76% . . . ever . . . in a half . . . again,” Popovich said, looking amazed.

If you watched the Spurs score only 18 points in the fourth quarter of Game 2, you wouldn’t have thought that it was the same team. At the height of their blitz, they led 55-30.

Quiet Kawhi Leonard lets Game 3 play speak for itself

Here’s the South Florida Sun Sentinel reporting on NBA Finals Game 3:

Quiet Kawhi Leonard lets Game 3 play speak for itself

On the night he put together the best playoff performance of his career, Kawhi Leonard opted to pass up the spotlight and the post-game press conference that typically comes on a night like his.

Instead, the soft-spoken Spurs forward stood in San Antonio’s locker room, still in his uniform, and answered questions from a media contingent the likes of which he hasn’t seen all NBA Finals.

“I was just in attack mode trying to be aggressive early and knocking down a couple shots got me going and my teammates found me,” he said simply when describing his career high 29 point-performance that helped the Spurs take a 2-1 series lead with their 111-92 win over the Miami Heat in Tuesday’s Game 3. “We were just running the same offense. I was able to play tonight. I didn’t get in foul trouble early, I got in a rhythm and my teammates got me involved.”

Things didn’t exactly go so well for Leonard through the first two games of the NBA Finals.

The third-year player had a combined 18 points and four rebounds in the first two games of the series and fouled out for the first time in 243 NBA games on Sunday during Miami’s Game 2 win.

Spurs back in Miami as NBA Finals continue

Here’s the Los Angeles Times reporting on the Spurs-Heat NBA Finals. Game 3 is tonight in Miami:

The Spurs are back for Game 3 of the Finals on Tuesday, intent on forgetting as much as they can about the last time they were here on this stage.

“For me personally, I’m definitely not going to think about that the next two games,” San Antonio guard Tony Parker said after the Spurs fell, 98-96, in Game 2 on Sunday night. “I’m going to focus on what I can do to help the team win. Going to be big games coming up.”

The Heat and Spurs are in a similar spot to where they were last year, the series tied after two games. The difference is that the next two games will be in Miami as part of the new 2-2-1-1-1 series format instead of in San Antonio for three games as part of the old 2-3-2 alignment that ended last year.

It seemed pretty clear what fixes the Spurs needed to make after another unhappy ending doomed them in Game 2. They led by a point after Parker made a three-pointer with 2:26 remaining before their final four possessions went like this: missed Manu Ginobili three-pointer, Ginobili turnover, Ginobili missed jumper and meaningless Ginobili three-pointer with 0.3 seconds left.

San Antonio’s demise was not solely a one-man operation, though.

The Spurs missed eight of 20 free throws in the game, including four in a row in the fourth quarter.

Dwyane Wade fined for flopping in NBA Finals Game 2

michael redd

Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade has been fined $5,000 by the NBA for violating the league’s anti-flopping rules during Game 2 of the 2014 NBA Finals.

The flop was easily visible even in real time, and became blatantly obvious when shown repeatedly in slow-motion replay.

The incident occurred with 4:09 remaining in the second quarter of Miami’s 98-96 win over the San Antonio Spurs last night at AT&T Center.

To view the play click on this link.

Spurs say improvement must come from offense

Here’s the Miami Herald reporting on the Spurs vs Heat 2014 NBA Finals, which are currently tied at 1-1.

Spurs say improvement must come from offense

Even after a Game 2 in which LeBron James scored 35 points and the Heat shot 52.9 percent from the field, it was notable that the Spurs pointed to the offensive end as the area of their shortcomings on Sunday.

Guard Danny Green said the Spurs can live with the shots they gave James: “They were contested jumpers. You’re not going to block his jump shot. We didn’t expect him to shoot that well, but he got hot.”

Tim Duncan said he “thought we were pretty decent” defensively.

What wasn’t acceptable, coach Gregg Popovich said, was the lack of ball movement. “The ball stuck,” he said. “We didn’t do it as a group. We tried to do it individually, and we’re not good enough to do that. You move it or you die.”

Heat point guards not doing much in 2014 NBA Finals yet

Here’s the Miami Herald reporting on Heat and Spurs 2014 NBA Finals series:

Heat point guards not doing much in 2014 NBA Finals yet

Nine NBA Finals games between the San Antonio Spurs and Miami Heat over the last two summers have shown us the stars need assistance to win the series, even if you’ve got the best player on the planet on your side.

The defending champs squeezed by the Spurs in a 98-96 Game 2 win on Sunday night, evening the series and avoiding their first two-game playoff losing streak in more than two years. But they did so without much help from two point guards that have been so valuable in years past.

Mario Chalmers scored five points and Norris Cole didn’t dent the scoreboard, but the team’s starting point guard said it hasn’t yet become a concern.

“Game 1, I was in foul trouble the whole time, but today I got into a little bit of a rhythm,” Chalmers said, dismissing the idea that playing the first two games on the road makes a difference. “But our job is really to contain Tony Parker and hit shots when we get shots.”

Manu Ginobili leads Spurs bench brigade in losing cause

Here’s the Miami Herald reporting on the Heat-Spurs NBA Finals:

Manu Ginobili leads Spurs bench brigade in losing cause

The San Antonio Spurs sported the highest-scoring bench in the NBA during the regular season.

Spurs reserves lived up to that billing Sunday night, but it wasn’t enough to save them as LeBron James and the Heat evened their best-of-7 NBA Finals with a 98-96 victory in Game 2 at AT&T Center.

The Spurs’ bench outscored the Heat’s reserves 37-12. On most nights, that would have been enough to guarantee a victory.

But this wasn’t most nights.

James, bouncing back from his Game 1 disappointment — when he was forced to sit out the final four minutes with leg cramps after an air-conditioning failure — erupted for 35 points and 10 rebounds.