Memorable Sports Moments of 2014: The NBA Finals

Real basketball fans appreciate good basketball. It should not matter who is playing. If plays are ran to perfection, ball movement is crisp, a team functions as one unit, regardless of which players are on the court, then that team is worth watching, and learning from.

Time and again, it has been said, individual talent can take teams far, but a total team effort can always overcome the tremendous skills of a few. In the NBA landscape, there has not been a consistently better team in the past fifteen years than the San Antonio Spurs. Winning championships spread out through the past decade and a half, always competing for the Western Conference crown, sending players to the All-Star game every February, recruiting at times not the most talented but the most “willing-to-play-in-a-team-concept-and-smart-enough-to-understand-how” players, has allowed the Spurs to stay in the upper echelon of the greatest hoops league on earth for an extended period of time.

Yes, the talent is obvious. The court smarts are as well. The greatness of the maestro, Coach Greg Popovich, is unquestionable. The three men at the helm of the ever-charging San Antonio battleship, The Big Three of Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili, are stories not just of God-given talent, but also of hard work, perseverance, fortitude, and resiliency. It took all of that for the journey the team had in the 2013-2014 NBA season on the way to triumph and redemption.

The Spurs had not won a championship since 2007, when they dismantled the Lebron James-led Cleveland Cavaliers in a sweep. Six years since then, in 2013, we all know the story, the Spurs were one defensive rebound away from winning yet another championship, but Chris Bosh of the Miami Heat got an offensive rebound, kicked to Ray Allen, who stepped back to hit another big shot in his storied career, sending Game 6 of the Finals into overtime, where the Heat eventually won to force a Game 7. It was a close match, but the Spurs fell short and Miami won back-to-back. And it hurt the Spurs. It hurt them so much that they did not forget it. They used it as motivation, as fuel, throughout the offseason, during the regular season, and into the playoffs. Fast forward to one year later, in 2014, the Spurs got their chance.

It is very hard to reach the NBA Finals. Some teams have never even been there. To make it once is an achievement, twice in a row, amazing. To keep returning there over a span of many years is phenomenal. To make it back a year after suffering heartbreak is just short of a miracle. The focus of the Spurs had perhaps never been seen in the NBA. Many teams claim they are playing for a championship. Not many actually show it on the court every game. These Spurs did.

It helped that the other Spurs players stepped up and did not just come along for the ride. Popovich and The Big Three infused the rest of the team with their powers, making them feel the hurt of the previous season’s almost-there-but-not-quite, and setting all their eyes on one prize, which, with their collective effort, would not be denied them. Kawhi Leonard, Tiago Splitter, Boris Diaw, Marco Belinelli, Patty Mills, Matt Bonner, Danny Green – by no means were any of these players household names, but they were perfect pieces in a puzzle that lacked just one piece: a championship trophy.

There was so much talk about the Heat and their quest for three championships in a row. Miami finished the regular season with the East’s second-best record, looked like it was cruising at times, but turned it on during the playoffs where it raced to a 12-3 record, disposing of the Bobcats, the Nets and Pacers, with relative ease, before entering the Finals.

It seemed a little more difficult for the slow-starting Spurs, who had finished with the best record in the league. The Dallas Mavericks gave them all they could handle in seven games, and after losing a game to the Blazers and two to the Thunder, the Spurs had a 12-6 record, but, as they envisioned, made a return to the NBA Finals stage.

They would not let the opportunity pass them by. The Spurs were ready from the get-go. Nobody could have predicted how they would thoroughly dominate the series. They began by demolishing the Heat in Game 1 by fifteen points, 110-95, running away in the fourth quarter. They experienced a temporary hiccup, losing by two in Game 2 (96-98), but won the next three games by an average of nineteen points (111-92, 107-86, 104-87). The Spurs won easily, 4-1. The Heat did not know what hit them.

The Spurs had played gorgeous basketball all season long, but in the Finals series, they played the most beautiful, cover-girl worthy style of basketball that fans had seen in a very long time. There had been dominant teams in recent years, including the Heat themselves, but none of them played so seamlessly, so in-tune, that the weaving and criss-cross cuts all had a purpose. There were no wasted movements. There was also effort, a relentless effort to get to loose balls first, jump higher for rebounds, challenge every shot, and just flat-out overwork the competition, such that the god-like characters of Miami’s supposed super veteran trio looked like confused youngsters.

With trophy in hand, the splendor and magnificence of what the Spurs achieved, i.e., basketball execution at its highest level, go beyond statistics. So much of what they did is not reflected in the box scores. Someone should add a musical score to all the great plays the Spurs had in the five games played, because truly, they played beautiful music together.

For the anti-Heat, the Finals series was surely fun to watch. For Spurs fans, it was pure ecstasy. For those whose teams had made earlier exits, it was a surgical procedure illustrating how to dismantle a back-to-back champ with ease. What made the Spurs’ accomplishment of a fifth championship in fifteen years the most memorable sports event for this blogger was how unexpected it was, and the manner in which the Spurs won it. Showing utmost poise, character, and class, the silver and black brutalized their enemy within the bounds of what is legal in NBA basketball. That’s how good they were.  Truly, the Spurs, especially the 2013-2014 edition, are a team to emulate.

(Other memorable sports moments for this blogger are each and every medal earned by Filipino athletes in the 2014 Incheon Asian Games, especially the gold medal of BMX cyclist Daniel Caluag, which was the only gold medal the Philippines earned. In sum, the Philippines earned one gold, three silvers, and eleven bronze medals. Mabuhay ang atletang Pilipino!)

You can follow Charlie on Twitter @CharlieC.