For the second game in a row, the San Antonio Spurs absolutely blew up on the Miami Heat, won the game 107-86, and are now a win away from having all of America hold the world's largest circle-jerk party to celebrate their unified irrational and stupid hatred for a professional basketball team.
After the giant mound of ostrich turds that was Game 3 for the Heat, Game 4 was all about bouncing back and evening things out for Miami.
It failed miserably.
1. It's a Broken Record But... LEBRON IS PLAYING BY HIMSELF
Even with the 15-headed hydra that the Spurs have been, a key problem for the Heat persists: LeBron James is carrying this team by himself.
LeBron scored 28 points on 10-for-17 shooting in Game 4, while the rest of the Heat scored a combined 29 points on 10-for-36 shooting.
That's a hardy bowl of hot dick soup right there.
Yes, the Spurs are a well-oiled machine -- at one point, the Heat managed to cut the lead to 13 only to have San Antonio answer with scoring on 11 of their next 13 possessions -- but it doesn't help when LeBron is playing one-on-five.
In the third quarter, James scored 19 of the Heat's 21 points. He's the greatest player on the planet. But no one can withstand this kind of onslaught by himself and expect to win a series.
At the end of the 3rd, non LeBron Heat players were shooting 27.7%
— Ethan Strauss (@SherwoodStrauss) June 13, 20142. We Were Right About Dwyane Wade and We Hate Ourselves for This
It's difficult to watch an icon deteriorate before our very eyes, but that's what we're seeing with Dwyane Wade, three-time champion, one-time Finals MVP, and all-time Miami Heat hero. But as we wrote about earlier this week, Wade has been a detriment to the Heat on both ends of the floor. He has no lift in his legs. He can't jump, he can't shoot, and he's running in mud on defense. When Boris Diaw is scoring at will on you, you know it's bad.
Wade went 3-for-13 overall and 4-for-8 from the free-throw line. More alarmingly, he was just 1-of-8 near the rim and couldn't get off the ground to finish, as we've grown used to seeing from him.
Wade has earned the benefit of the doubt. But, as he was in last year's Finals, he's been atrocious in this year's. Fewer minutes for Wade might give the Heat a shot in the arm. Though it would be a tough call for Erik Spoelstra.
Still, we think he has at least one great game in him in these Finals.
That might be nostalgia talking, but if there's one guy who can prove us wrong...
3. The Spurs Are More Machine Than Men, Twisted and Evil
With the Heat having to go back to San Antonio on Sunday, Game 4 was a "must win" game. A better description would probably be "the ass taco" game, thanks mainly to the Heat being completely overwhelmed by a Spurs team that is not a team but more like a diabolical mechanism that eats souls.
The Heat did what it never does -- it lost back-to-back playoff games, at home. The Spurs' near-perfect basketball did this.
It's easy to blame the Heat players for a lackluster performance. And certainly many fans are saying they "just didn't want it enough." That's nonsense. This Spurs team would make even Michael Jordan's Bulls look abysmal.
Heat fans waited for Miami to come out in Game 4 and serve the Spurs a can filled with ass whoopin' and vengeance. Instead, Heat fans got served a can filled with some old lady's queef.
That's more on the Spurs perfection than on the Heat's supposed lackluster performance.
4. Weirdly, We Still See This Thing Going Seven
Yes, no NBA team has ever come back from a 3-1 deficit to win the Finals. Yes, this is going back to San Antonio. Yes, the Spurs look like The Perfect Team right now. Yes, it's been LeBron playing by himself. But it's tough to dismiss this thing as over for a couple of reasons. Mainly, this is a very, very great Miami Heat team. And it's no stranger to pulling off the impossible.
It made it to the Finals four straight years, which is nearly impossible.
It came back and won Game 6 of last year's Finals when it was 28 seconds away from being eliminated.
It has the best player in the world.
One of the hardest things to do is beat the Miami Heat -- let alone beat it four out of seven times. And while the Spurs seem like the team that can do it, it's still a tall order.
San Antonio might very well be the better team right now. But it just played two straight games of near-perfect basketball. The Heat needs to play better, but the Spurs do, at some point, need to come back down to Earth.
The Heat has already proven it can win at San Antonio. It won Game 2 and was on its way to winning Game 1 before LeBron cramped up.
Miami wins on Sunday -- which is not impossible -- and it comes back for Game 6 to Miami, where the team has been very good.
It wins Game 6, and suddenly it's back to San Antonio for that final game, where anything can happen.
Can it be done? It's going to be hard.
But it's not impossible.
This Heat team is capable of pulling off the impossible.
So, why not?
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