Scribbler's Highlights of the Week: The NBA Finals Triple Play

Huge congratulations to the Miami Heat for winning their second straight NBA championship.  Truth be told, I was cheering for the San Antonio Spurs because I am a Tim Duncan fan and wanted to see "The Big Fundamental" get another ring before leaving the game.  However, I knew from the beginning that the Heat would win this series.  Although the Spurs came in healthy, rested and with momentum off of a sweep of the Memphis Grizzlies, I knew the defending champs would need every bit of seven games to beat the four-time champion Spurs and could beat them because they had LeBron James.  It is clear that he has vowed not to disappear from an NBA Finals like he did against Dallas in 2011 and to carry the team on his back if it means winning as many Larry O'Brien trophies as possible.  It took more than just James to win this series because, as we saw in 2007, even he couldn't topple the Spurs by himself as he and his "team" in the Cleveland Cavaliers were swept.  However, as Finals MVP for the second consecutive year, he was the major contributor for four out of the seven games--three of those being victories.  Thus, that's why I am giving you not one...not two...but THREE (see what I did there) of the greatest highlights of the week because they were three of the deciding factors in the franchise's third NBA championship and second in Miami's "Big 3" Era.

Scribbler's Highlight of the Week: LeBron Says, "Not In My House"

In Game 2 of the 2013 NBA Finals between the San Antonio Spurs and the Miami Heat at American Airlines Arena, LeBron James wasn't having the most impressive game of his career.  He ended the first half with only four points, four assists, one rebound and was well under 50% shooting from the field.  However, after the Spurs had a 62-61 lead in the third quarter, the Heat just kept scoring...and scoring...and scoring...and never looked back on the way to a 103-84 trouncing of the Western Conference Champs.  Their defense turned up and forced 16 turnovers--which quadrupled the Spurs' impressively low turnover rate in Game 1.  LeBron ended up with 17 points, eight rebounds, seven assists, but shot 7-17 from the field.  Still not his most impressive stat line ever, but there were certain things that don't show up on a stat sheet such as the above play...

Scribbler's Highlight of the Week: Tony Parker's Improbable Dagger

In Game 1 of the NBA Finals between the San Antonio Spurs and the Miami Heat at American Airlines Arena, the Heat were starting to get some momentum back after the San Antonio Spurs reclaimed the lead in the middle of the fourth quarter for the first time since the first quarter.  After Manu Ginobili's ill-advised three-ball attempt from Jupiter and Danny Green's foul of Ray Allen beyond the three-point arc, Allen made three straight clutch free throws.  Although he took a few errant jump shots in the waning minutes of the game, LeBron James took the ball to the rim a few times to inch even closer.  In the last minute, they made sure that the Spurs couldn't get off any easy shots with swarming defense.  However, that didn't stop Tony Parker from exemplifying the age-old saying "nothing beats a failure but a try"...

Scribbler's Highlight of the Week: Manu Ginobili's Big Time Shot

Up to this point, Manu Ginobili was not having his best game ever.  In fact, Tony Parker was a huge amount of the reason why the San Antonio Spurs erased a 16-point deficit in the fourth quarter and sent Game 1 of the Western Conference Semifinals against the Golden State Warriors, led by Stephen Curry's amazing 44-point performance with 11 assists, to two overtime periods.  Ginobili not only badly missed a shot that could've ended the game in the first overtime, but he took an errant three pointer when the score was 126-123 with about 48 seconds to go, which led to Curry scoring another one of his signature floaters and a later assist to Ken Bazemore after Parker missed a layup to give the Warriors a 127-126 lead with only 3.9 seconds.  Ahhh, but redemption can be so sweet...