San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Spurs fans can remember these
Robert Horry hits the winning 3-pointer during overtime in Game 5 of the NBA Finals at the Palace of Auburn Hills on June 19, 2005.
The 2018 NBA Finals began last week with a Golden State victory over Cleveland many basketball fans will always remember.
J.R. Smith, meanwhile, would rather forget it.
Game 2 of the series is Sunday, the fourth consecutive season the Warriors and Cavaliers have met on the NBA’s biggest stage.
The last time neither team appeared in the Finals was in 2014, when the Spurs passed circles around the Miami Heat to claim their fifth championship.
Indeed, for nearly two decades, June used to belong to the Spurs. As another championship series without them rolls on, we take a look at the top 10 Finals moments in
Spurs’ history.
1. Little General, big shot
It might be difficult to remember now, but up until 1999 the Spurs had long been the team of “close but no cigar.”
They had been a playoff team almost every season of their existence, and one of the NBA’s best teams with the arrival of David Robinson in 1989-90, but could never win the big one.
That all changed on the afternoon of June 25, 1999, when Avery Johnson lined up an 18-foot baseline jumper on the fabled court at Madison Square Garden and drilled it.
The go-ahead shot gave the Spurs a 78-77 lead with 47 seconds left, paving the way for a clinching Game 5 victory over the New York Knicks.
Johnson — aka “The Little
General” — wasn’t known as much known for his jump shot. A lack of one was a big reason the Spurs had twice cut him earlier in his career.
Yet, he buried what still might be the most important jumper in franchise history.
With it, the Spurs went from lovable losers to winners. There would be more of it to come.
2. Manu Ginobili posterizes Chris Bosh
Ginobili’s emphatic dunk atop Miami’s Chris Bosh in the 2014 Finals was not as dramatic as Johnson’s jumper 15 years earlier.
Still, it became the literal poster of arguably the Spurs’ most unexpected championship.
A year after suffering one of the most deflating defeats in Finals history against Miami — more on that later — Ginobili and the Spurs crushed the Heat in a 2014 rematch.
Ginobili’s driving slam on Bosh in the first half — which included a bit of bullying against an old nemesis in Ray Allen on the way to the rim — was the hallmark moment in a series the Spurs dominated from start to finish.
The Spurs won the five-game series by a combined 70 points, making it the most lopsided Finals in history.
Kawhi Leonard became the youngest Finals MVP since Magic Johnson, a coming-out-party that would soon launch him into the discussion of the league’s best players.
A few weeks later, it was revealed the 36-yearold Ginobili completed his slam dunk while playing with a stress fracture in his leg.
3. Big Shot Rob does it again
Larry Brown dismissed his Detroit Pistons team from a timeout late in Game 5 of the 2005 Finals with one last bit of instruction: Whatever you do, don’t leave Robert Horry open.
One of the most renowned clutch shooters in league annals, dating to his days in Houston and Los Angeles, Horry came by his “Big Shot Rob” nickname honestly.
Rasheed Wallace left him open anyway.
With Wallace wandering away to double-team Ginobili, Horry found himself all alone at the 3-point stripe after inbounding the ball.
Ginobili gave it back, and Horry swished the biggest shot of his Spurs tenure with 5.8 seconds remaining in overtime to produce a 96-95 seriesswinging win.
Between the fourth quarter and overtime, Horry scored 21 points.
The series moved back to San Antonio with the Spurs ahead 3-2. They ultimately claimed their third NBA title in seven games.
It was the sixth championship for Horry, who would add No. 7 two years later.
4. Tim Duncan almost goes quadrupledouble
As one might imagine, Tim Duncan’s legendary career is littered with spectacular Finals moments.
None compare to the game he unleashed to finish off the New Jersey Nets in 2003.
Then 26, Duncan punished the Nets with a line for the ages in Game 6: 21 points, 20 rebounds, 10 assists and eight blocks to almost single-handedly end the Spurs’ three-year NBA title drought.
Only four players in NBA history have recorded a quadruple double. None have come in a Finals setting.
There is a chance Duncan was robbed that bit of history. A replay of the game suggests scorekeepers might have been shorted the pair of blocks necessary to complete the feat.
5. Ray Allen channels Jesus Shuttlesworth
Not all Spurs Finals memories are good ones.
When Spurs fans close their eyes at night, they still have nightmares of Allen rushing to the corner of AmericanAirlines Arena in 2013 and knocking down the improbable 3-pointer that ruined the Spurs’ 2013 Finals.
The Spurs were up 3-2 in the series, and led what could have been a clinching Game 6 by five points with 30 seconds left. NBA staff had already brought out yellow rope to cordon off the court for the Larry O’Brien Trophy presentation sure to come.
Then came utter disaster
Ginobili and Leonard each missed foul shots that could have sealed the game down the stretch. Twice, the Spurs missed defensive rebounds that led to Miami 3-pointers.
The second of them — after Bosh snagged a LeBron James miss — will forever haunt the Spurs.
Bosh found a backpedaling Allen in the corner. He swished a difficult jumper to tie the score and force overtime. Left for dead only a few moments earlier, Miami won 103-100 in the extra period.
Two days later, the
Heat won a white-knuckle 95-88 decision in Game 7 to send the Spurs to the only series defeat in their Finals history.
6. Wild-haired Manu gets robbed?
Manu Ginobili was already an international superstar by the time he arrived at the 2005 Finals, having led Argentina to an improbable gold medal at the Athens Olympics less than 12 months before.
His NBA coming-out party occurred at the expense of the Detroit Pistons.
Ginobili saved his best for last in a rugged Game 7.
His shoulder-length hair whipping with every crossover dribble, Ginobili scored 11 of his 23 points in the fourth quarter of the do-or-die final contest, willing the Spurs past the defending champion Pistons at the finish line.
Ginobili averaged 18.7 points in the series, and hit some of its most indelible shots.
In the end, Duncan won his third Finals MVP.trophy, but the vote was close. According to an unofficial straw poll of the media members who voted, Ginobili came within one vote of matching Duncan as a co-MVP.
7. Spurs delay the era of LeBron
This year’s series marks the ninth Finals appearance for LeBron James.
His first Finals trip, in 2007, was also his shortest.
James was not quite King of the league when he took on a seasoned and championship-tested Spurs squad at age 22. The Spurs made short work of him, with defensive ace Bruce Bowen helping limit James to
35.6 percent shooting in the series.
The Spurs ran away with the series in a sweep, with Tony Parker becoming the first Spur not named Duncan to earn Finals MVP honors.
In an emotional embrace after Game 4, Duncan left James with words that would prove prophetic: “This is gonna be your league in a little while.”
8. Spurs beat Heat, heat
Game 1 of any Finals series is enough to make even the most hardened player break out in a sweat.
Throw in a busted air conditioner, and conditions can become downright steamy.
That’s what happened at the opening of the 2014 rematch between the Spurs and Miami.
An electrical malfunction led to an A/C failure at the AT&T Center that resulted in the game being played at a temperature that reached 90 degrees.
“They’re trying to smoke us out of here,” James was overheard telling teammates at one break.
James eventually left the game with leg cramps in the fourth quarter, and the Spurs won 110-95 to win a bizarre Game 1 that set the stage for their fifth championship.
9. Speedy saves the day
In 2003, the Spurs already had Tony Parker on the roster and were expecting to make an offseason run at New Jersey’s Jason Kidd.
Yet, the Finals series between Parker’s Spurs and Kidd’s Nets turned largely on a point guard who will never make the Hall of Fame without purchasing a ticket.
Parker was 20 years old and still erratic with the Spurs fighting for control of the series. When Parker missed three shots and committed three turnovers to start the third quarter of a decisive Game 6, coach Gregg Popovich turned to little-known backup Speedy Claxton.
Claxton finished the game, helping the Spurs transform a 10-point deficit into an 11-point victory that gave them their second championship.
For his efforts, Claxton became something of a hot commodity on the free-agent market that summer. He signed with Golden State, and went on to play for four teams in his final five nondescript seasons.
10. Pop, Brown hug it out.
If Popovich had to rank his six Finals experiences, 2005 might be among his least enjoyable — and the Spurs won.
That series against Detroit pitted Popovich against friend and mentor Larry Brown. In 1988, Brown brought the thenunknown Popovich to the NBA, making him an assistant on his staff in San Antonio.
Popovich has long said he dislikes coaching against friends. That feeling was only amplified in the high-stakes environment of a Finals series.
When the Spurs finished off a dramatic seven-game series victory, Popovich and Brown hugged at midcourt at the AT&T Center.
For Popovich, the hug was not quite celebratory. He was simply relieved the ordeal of coaching against Brown was over.