Dan McCarney of the San Antonio Express-News: How painfully close were the Spurs to their fifth championship? Scores of Heat fans - admittedly, not exactly a die-hard bunch - were already streaming for the exits at American Airlines Arena as the final seconds of Game 6 wound down.
The Miami Heat staved off elimination with a thrilling 103-100 overtime win over the San Antonio Spurs, behind a clutch 3-pointer from Ray Allen and an all-around masterpiece from LeBron James. Let’s take a look at how this went down.
Justin Rao and David Rothschild of Microsoft Research looked at what betting markets and our expert panel at ESPN Forecast were telling us ahead of Game 6 and found an interesting disparity: Are the Heat still favorites?
How could the Los Angeles Clippers possibly walk away from a negotiation that would’ve yielded them Kevin Garnett and Doc Rivers for a relatively unproven young center, a couple of first-round draft picks and the relatively small burden of taking on one or two mid-level contracts?
Historical storylines abound going into Tuesday's Game 6. Can the San Antonio Spurs continue their road closeout dominance? Will LeBron James have another big scoring game to stave off elimination? Here's a look at the numbers in support of each team.
Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News: During the postseason, Miami has won each of its six games following a loss by an average of 20.7 points. The Heat’s victories in this schizophrenic series have come by 19 and 16.
You're going to hear a lot about what it's going to take to win this championship, which will be deliciously -- for NBA fans -- decided on the court in the days to come. You know the storylines: LeBron James needs to be aggressive, Dwyane Wade must not take possessions off, Manu Ginobili and Tim Duncan must play like they're five years younger.
Dan McCarney of the San Antonio Express-News: It has been a Finals marked by wild swings of fortunes, so why should Game 5 have been any different? For the third straight contest, the team blown out by double-digits bounced back to return the favor in kind.
It turns out that all Manu Ginobili needed to get his game going was a chance to start. Ginobili’s 24 points and plenty of 3-pointers from Danny Green were the keys to supporting another big game from Tony Parker on the offensive end, and a different look for LeBron James was huge on the defensive end and pivotal to the Spurs taking a 3-2 advantage in this series.
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