Why the 4-1rout? The King had the answer
WHY not us? That was from LeBron James hours before Game 5 was to begin yesterday.
What he meant was why would history not be on the side of Miami? Down 1-3 going to yesterday’s game of the 2014 NBA Finals, Miami was doomed after blowing a 22-6 start.
Before yesterday, there were 31 teams that were down 1-3 in NBA Finals history.
After yesterday’s game at the AT&T Center, Miami became the 32nd team to fall into that hole. Another display of stunning San Antonio teamwork produced another cruel 104-87 victory, ending a Miami reign not only on a bitter note but on a plateau of grisly and ghastly gore as well.
No king has been uncrowned this bad before, the 4-1 dethronement of the Heat administered ridiculously by a bunch of so-called aging warriors:
(1) Tim Duncan, 38, is into his 17th straight season with San Antonio since the 7-foot-1 was drafted from the Virgin Islands.
(2) Tony Parker, going 33, was 19 when he debuted as a budding star from France.
(3) Manu Ginobili has been wearing that bishop’s hole on his balding top for years now but, hey, his cardinal rule all this time has been that hope springs eternal from the day he left Argentina for Texas.
Throw in a mix of under30s like Boris Diaw, Danny Green, Tiago Splitter, Patty Mills and, yes, the 23-year-old Kawhi Leonard, the dead shot with monster muscles that contained to a certain degree LeBron James’s lethal hands – and to the Spurs would rightfully belong the tag team for the ages.
Someone told me San An- tonio has always been the best from the West, that part of America teeming with powerhouse teams like Dallas, Houston and, yes, Oklahoma, to name only a few.
And the East has nothing but average teams and Miami mauled them all simply because it owns the planet’s best in LeBron James.
But after King James? Virtually Miami has nothing. Especially in The Finals, where Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh practically let LeBron do all the fighting.
With a one-man army, and you expect to save the kingdom with that puniest of forces, go deal with the movie “300.”
King James again: Why not us? The king had the answer himself right after the 110-95 Game 1 victory by the Spurs on June 6. Why go far?