June 16, 2013
The 2011-12 season marked the new-look Heat finally hitting their stride.
Miami performed well in the lockout season; James earned his third league MVP (first with Miami) while pushing the Heat past an Oklahoma City Thunder team still in gestation.
Defeating Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and James Harden 4-1 in the 2012 NBA Finals sealed the league’s fate. The Heat followed up the shortened season with another blowout year by adding on 20 wins, and a 27-game win-streak, in 2012-13.
Despite breezing through the regular season and the first two rounds of the NBA playoffs, the conference and NBA Finals hit the Miami hard. The Indiana Pacers nearly upended Miami’s title dreams in the Conference Finals, taking the series to a seven-game slobberknocker.
But where every team thus far had failed to dethrone the Heat, the Spurs waited for Miami’s arrival to the NBA Finals, sporting a recipe that few teams could replicate: rest.
San Antonio took just 13 games to reach the Finals, where Miami took 16. They finished off the Memphis Grizzlies in the Western Conference Finals in four contests, which allotted them nine days off before the winner-take-all series.
Having just three days off between the Eastern Conference Finals ending and the start of the Finals, Miami’s overexertion showed. The Heat traded games with the Spurs – lose at home, win at home, lose on the road, win on the road – which made for another long-winded series.
For Miami, Game 5 was special. The winner would tilt the series in their favor, 3-2.
At the time, the Finals followed the 2-3-2 format. An added bonus to the potential victory was that a Miami win in Game 5 meant the Heat needed to win just one of two remaining home contests in Games 6 and 7.
Ginobili, of course, had other plans.
San Antonio’s Game 4, which was a 16-point home loss, saw Duncan as the only Spur to crack the 20-point threshold. Ginobili fell flat with five points and four fouls, in 25 minutes off the bench.
In a change of pace, Popovich swapped Ginobili into the starting five, putting Tiago Splitter, best known for James’ vertebrae-crunching rejection, on the bench.
"“Of course, I am [concerned],” Popovich told Sports Illustrated. “He’s having a tough playoffs, and he hasn’t really found a rhythm or found his game yet. I think that he’s obviously not as confident as usual, and he knows full well that he hasn’t performed the way he would like and the way he’s used to. But it’s simplistic to say, what are we going to do to get him going? He’s going to get himself going or he won’t. He knows that he’s got to play better for us to be successful.”"
The move was controversial, if only because Ginobili had essentially been playing at half speed all series. He managed just 30 total points through the first four games, and Game 5 would be his first start all season.
Needless to say, Ginobili came out swinging. His first bucket came 17 seconds into the game over Chris Bosh and his Laffy Taffy arms.
Though that was his only triple, Ginobili generated offense through 10 assists that complemented his hard-fought 24 points.
Inevitably, the Spurs lost the series 4-3, but Ginobili’s instant transition from sixth man to starter was the ultimate character swap.
At 35-years-old, Ginobili continued to lean into his role as the Spurs’ shapeshifter as amicably as ever.