2014 NBA Finals

• 1. Introduction

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  The 2014 NBA Finals ended with a margin that left no room for debate. San Antonio outscored Miami by an average of 14.0 points per game across five games, the largest differential in Finals history at the time. A franchise that had already won four championships over nine seasons added a fifth, doing so with a kind of surgical precision that surprised even observers familiar with the Spurs' reputation. The series ran from the 5th of June to the 15th of June, 2014, and when it was over, two franchises would not return to the Finals for years. What happened inside those ten days, and why did a rematch of the previous year's thrilling seven-game battle end so differently this time? The answers lie in a 22-year-old forward who barely scored in the first two games, a French center who changed the series from the bench, and a moment when an arena's air-conditioning gave out at precisely the wrong time.

• 2. The Teams Arrive

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  Miami arrived at the Finals having made four straight appearances, the first team to do so since the 1987 Boston Celtics. Their Big Three of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh had driven back-to-back championships in 2012 and 2013, and the Heat were seeking to become the first team to win three consecutive titles since the 2002 Los Angeles Lakers. Their road through the playoffs was not entirely smooth; they had gone 11-14 in their final 25 regular-season games. Still, they swept the Charlotte Bobcats in the first round, beat the Brooklyn Nets 4-1 in the second round despite having been swept by Brooklyn in the regular season, and dispatched the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference finals for the third straight year.

  San Antonio came in as the team with the best record in the entire NBA, capping the regular season with a 19-game winning streak and a 22-4 run in their last 26 games. USA Today described their offense as "one of the most beautiful-to-watch teams in the NBA," built on constant ball movement rather than individual brilliance. No Spurs player averaged 30 minutes during the regular season, a measure of how deep the roster was. Their path to the Finals included a tense seven-game opening-round battle with the Dallas Mavericks, a team San Antonio had swept in the regular season for two consecutive years. They then beat Portland 4-1 and eliminated Oklahoma City 4-2 in the Western Conference finals, qualifying for back-to-back Finals appearances for the first time in franchise history.

• 3. The Heat and the Cramps

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  Tim Duncan scored 21 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in Game 1 as San Antonio won 110-95, but the game became famous for something that had nothing to do with the final score. The AT&T Center's air-conditioning system malfunctioned, and temperatures inside the arena exceeded 90 degrees Fahrenheit in the second half. LeBron James, who had also experienced cramps in the Finals two years earlier, dehydrated and cramped up so severely that he was limited to just five minutes of fourth-quarter play. With James on the bench, San Antonio went on a 16-3 run in the final four minutes and outscored Miami 36-17 in the fourth quarter alone.

  James still finished with 25 points in 33 minutes, but the image of him unable to continue defined the night's coverage. The Spurs shot 59 percent for the game despite committing 23 turnovers. Their fourth-quarter efficiency was extraordinary: they converted 14 of 16 field goal attempts, an 87.5 percent rate that stood as the most efficient shooting in any quarter in NBA Finals history. Manu Ginobili added 16 points and 11 assists, and Tony Parker contributed 19 points and eight assists.

  Game 2 brought a repaired circuit breaker and a different James. He responded with 35 points and 10 rebounds, finishing 14-for-22 while playing 38 minutes. Chris Bosh made the go-ahead three-pointer on a pass from James with 1:18 remaining, and Miami won 98-96. Tony Parker and Tim Duncan combined to miss four straight free throws in the fourth quarter during a stretch that let the Heat back in. Parker left the game after Mario Chalmers drew a flagrant foul call. Parker passed Michael Jordan for eighth place on the NBA's all-time playoff assist list during that game, a milestone that received little attention given the drama of the final minutes.

• 4. Kawhi and Boris Change Everything

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  Kawhi Leonard had scored only nine points in each of the first two games. In Game 3 in Miami, he made his first six shots and finished 10-of-13 for a career-high 29 points. San Antonio set a Finals record with 75.8 percent shooting in the first half, the first time any team had reached 70 points in a Finals first half since the Los Angeles Lakers scored 75 in Game 2 of the 1987 Finals against the Boston Celtics. The Spurs led 71-50 at halftime, the largest halftime lead by a road team in Finals play since the 1996 Chicago Bulls. Miami, which had been 8-0 at home in the playoffs, never got closer than seven points after the break.

  A key change drove the ball movement that produced those numbers: head coach Gregg Popovich inserted Boris Diaw into the starting lineup for Game 3. Diaw, who had come off the bench through the playoffs, brought a fluid passing game that stretched defenses and created open looks for everyone around him. He ended the series as the leader in assists among all players, with 29 total.

  Game 4 saw Leonard again control both ends, putting up 20 points and 14 rebounds in a 107-86 Spurs win. Tim Duncan recorded his 158th double-double in postseason play, surpassing Magic Johnson for the most in NBA Playoffs history. Duncan also broke Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's record for most postseason minutes played. San Antonio led 55-33 midway through the second quarter. No team had ever come back from a 3-1 deficit in the Finals, and as Game 5 approached, the Heat faced exactly that situation.

• 5. The Fifth Championship

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  Miami came out fast in Game 5 on the 15th of June. James scored 17 points in the first quarter alone, and the Heat built a 22-6 lead. San Antonio absorbed it. From the start of the second quarter through the middle of the third, the Spurs outscored Miami 37-13 to take control and never released it. The final score was 104-87.

  Ginobili finished with 19 points and four assists. Patty Mills came off the bench to score 17 points. James ended with 31 points and 10 rebounds, but Wade shot only 4-for-12 from the field. Leonard had 22 points and 10 rebounds, and received 10 of 11 votes to become the Finals MVP. At 22 years and 351 days old, he was the third-youngest recipient of the award since its inception in 1969, and the youngest since Magic Johnson won it in 1982.

  Across the five games, Leonard averaged 17.8 points on 61.2 percent shooting, the highest field goal percentage of any Finals MVP in the award's history. He shot 65 percent when guarded directly by LeBron James. Tim Duncan led all players in the series with 50 rebounds. The Spurs' 12 postseason wins by 15 points or more set a new record for a single playoff run. Miami had entered the series having won 11 straight playoff series, the fifth-longest such streak in league history.

• 6. What Came After

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  The 2014 Finals closed a chapter for both franchises in ways that were not obvious at the time. LeBron James left Miami for Cleveland that summer, ending the Heatles era. Ray Allen never played another NBA game after the series, though he did not formally announce his retirement for years. Chris Bosh's career ended abruptly in 2016 due to a blood clotting condition. Dwyane Wade left Miami after a contract dispute with team president Pat Riley and signed with the Chicago Bulls, though he later reconciled with Riley and finished his career with the Heat. By the time Miami next reached the Finals, in the shortened 2020 season, the only remaining player from 2014 on the roster was Udonis Haslem.

  For San Antonio, the 2014 title was the fifth in 15 seasons, but the roster that built the dynasty slowly scattered. Kawhi Leonard was traded to the Toronto Raptors just before the 2018-2019 season, alongside Danny Green, following a reported clash with the team's medical staff. With Toronto, Leonard led the Raptors to their first franchise championship and won a second Finals MVP award. The Spurs, who had won a team-record 67 games in the 2015-16 season, would not make the Finals again until 2026.

  The series also marked the last time a Finals court featured special on-court decals painted into the playing surface. Beginning with the 2015 Finals, the NBA removed them over player safety concerns, and the Finals logo only returned in front of the player benches starting in 2018.

• 7. A Format Restored

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  One detail about the 2014 NBA Finals rarely receives attention: it was the first to use the 2-2-1-1-1 home-court format since 1984. From 1985 through 2013, the Finals had used a 2-3-2 arrangement, meaning one team played the middle three games entirely on the road. The NBA's Board of Governors agreed to restore the older format because the 2-3-2 structure gave a competitive disadvantage to the team with home-court advantage, forcing them to travel to their opponent's arena for three consecutive games. The increasing use of chartered flights over commercial flights also made the older back-and-forth format more practical for both franchises and their traveling parties.

  The Spurs' ability to build large road leads in Games 3 and 4 in Miami may have looked different under the old format. Under 2-3-2, those games would not have been played in Miami at all, with the Heat hosting three straight from Game 3 through Game 5. The Board's decision to return to 2-2-1-1-1, made before the series began, was also only the 12th rematch in Finals history and just the fifth since the ABA-NBA merger in 1976, a reminder of how rarely the same two teams meet in consecutive championship rounds.