San Antonio Spurs win fifth NBA title!
The San Antonio Spurs crushed the Miami Heat 104-87 in Game 5 of the 2014 NBA Finals to win the franchise’s fifth championship. Kawhi Leonard was named the Finals Most Valuable Player. He averaged 17.8 ppg and 6.4 rpg in this series. At only 22 years of age, Leonard is the third youngest player to ever win the award. He is behind Magic Johnson and co-player Tim Duncan.
This is the third game in a row that the Spurs dominated the Heat and indeed the better team, the hungrier team won this series. They were able to redeem their loss to Miami in the 2012-13 finals and to a certain degree last season’s heartbreak makes this win that much sweeter.
The Spurs overcame an early deficit in the first quarter. Led by Tim Duncan’s solid play, San Antonio found themselves ahead by seven points going at the end of the first half. Australian guard Patty Mills sparked San Antonio’s third-quarter run and they just could not be stopped from there. Coach Popovich’s excellent game plan and his players’ good execution just came together perfectly for most of the game and the series as a whole.
[embedplusvideo height=”310″ width=”480″ editlink=”http://bit.ly/1kXtb2r” standard=”http://www.youtube.com/v/HktzWhkXRrE?fs=1″ vars=”ytid=HktzWhkXRrE&width=480&height=310&start=&stop=&rs=w&hd=0&autoplay=0&react=1&chapters=¬es=” id=”ep3081″ /]
Miami’s “Big Three” were practically the “only three” productive players for the Heat. LeBron James scored 31 points, grabbed 10 rebounds and handed out five assists in his attempt to lead his team to victory. Unfortunately, outside of Chris Bosh’s 13 points and Dwyane Wade’s 11, there wasn’t much more support from his other teammates. With Shane Battier gone next season and Ray Allen contemplating retirement as well, Miami will need to seriously need to figure things out if they want to bring back that trophy to South Beach.
Kawhi Leonard once again led his team with 22 points and 10 boards. He knocked down 3 three-pointers and also collected one steal and one block for the night. Duncan finished with 14 points 8 rebounds and two blocks. Tony Parker added 16 points. Manu Ginobili, who says he still might have one more season in him, contributed 19 points off the bench and the on-fire Patty Mills contributed 17 (5 triples) off the bench.