LMAO Spursfan running around like this didn't happen

[ElNono]

http://cdn.bleacherreport.net/images_root/article/media_slots/photos/000/924/211/RayThreeTie_original.gif

http://a.espncdn.com/photo/2013/0618/nba_u_allenshot_gb1_576.jpg

http://gamedayr.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/jesus-shuttlesworth-ray-allen-three-pointer-570x423.jpg

6

[Katherine Robinson]

What the heck was Ginobili doing flopping all the way back there?

[Slobodan Milosevic]

Why is Turnobili looking up at the action instead of influencing said action?

[ElNono]

Looks like he lost his cane and fell to the ground, IMO

[POPownsJackson]

is no worry Nono, it better to goto final and lose to fluke team and shot than get butfuck like other team such like laker

[irishock]

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/si/dam/assets/131217231131-spurs-timeout-single-image-cut.jpg
The Spurs appeared to have Game 6 in hand after taking a 94-89 lead with 28.2 seconds remaining.
Noah Graham/NBAE/Getty Images

:28Losing the Finals, players will tell you, is a little like being in a car accident. "Everything slows down," says Miami center Chris Bosh (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/3707/index.html), "and you see things you don't usually see, hear things you don't usually hear. It's kind of terrifying." Trailing 94-89, the Heat huddled around coach Erik Spoelstra during a timeout. "I thought it was over," Bosh says. "I was having flashbacks."
AmericanAirlines Arena looked the same to him as it did late in Game 6 of the 2011 Finals against the Mavericks. Security guards surrounding the floor, bent at the waist, holding yellow ropes in anticipation of another team's celebration. Staffers waiting in the tunnel, carrying duffel bags stuffed with another team's championship hats and T-shirts. Fans rising from their seats, stomping into the aisles toward the parking lots. Only one image was different. Bosh's wife, Adrienne, so forlorn that night two years earlier, stood and applauded from her courtside seat across from the Heat bench. How sweet, Bosh thought, she doesn't know we're going to lose. "I figured if she was still clapping, I could still do my job," he says. "It was improbable, but I guess it wasn't impossible."
He looked at Spoelstra, scribbling a play. "Just focus on the clipboard," the coach said.
:27Spoelstra sent out a lineup with five three-point shooters, leaving Bosh on the bench. Popovich countered by removing center Tim Duncan (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/3173/index.html). As forward Mike Miller (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/3404/index.html) prepared to inbound near the Heat bench, Allen ran across the key, screening Manu Ginóbili and Danny Green (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/4651/index.html) to free LeBron James (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/3704/index.html) at the top of the circle. James caught the inbounds pass, but Green recovered and contested James's three-point attempt with an outstretched right hand. The shot, as hard and straight as a four-seam fastball, smacked off the bottom right corner of the backboard square. My God, Popovich thought to himself. We're up five and he just shot an air ball. The game might be over.
:26Danielle Calixto, manager of a children's boutique in downtown Miami, sat among season-ticket holders in row 26, section 124. She had purchased two tickets on Stubhub for $287 apiece and brought her boss's eight-year-old daughter, Diandra. "The season-ticket holders were all getting up, shaking hands, telling each other, 'I'll see you next season,' " Calixto says. "I told them, 'You're going to regret this,' and they said, 'Yeah, you're funny.' Diandra started crying because everybody was leaving, and she didn't understand why we weren't leaving too. We were surrounded by empty seats. She wanted to call her mom. I told her, 'You just have to sit here right now and believe with me.' "
:25If James had shot a standard brick, San Antonio forward Kawhi Leonard (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/4896/index.html) would have grabbed the rebound in his colossal 9.8-inch mitts and sealed the game at the free throw line. But the shot was so wild Leonard couldn't corral it, and the ball rocketed off his hand and straight in the air. The closest Heat player was guard Dwyane Wade (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/3708/index.html), stuck behind Leonard, giving up three inches and nine years. Wade jumped off his right leg, the one with the bone bruises in the knee that require daily treatment and occasional prayer. "Kawhi has those claws -- his hands are claws -- and you're just doing anything you can to get a fingertip on the ball," Wade says. "I got just enough."
MAHONEY: Ginobili putting poor Finals performance behind him (http://nba.si.com/2013/12/16/manu-ginobili-spurs-san-antonio/)
:24Green was the Finals' breakout star, but here he made a costly mistake. Instead of shadowing James on the left wing, he assumed San Antonio would come away with the loose ball and drifted downcourt. "Most important rebound of the game and we have a player who's backing up," Popovich says. "All he had to do was pick up LeBron."
:23Royce Young, a reporter for CBSSports.com (https://twitter.com/royceyoung), was packing up his laptop. Young was sitting at a press table in section 102 and wanted to beat the crowd to the Spurs' locker room. He already had his story. He was going to write about Tracy McGrady (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/3179/index.html), San Antonio's 12th man, finally winning a championship in his 16th season. "I don't blame the Miami fans for leaving," Young says. "I think 29 other teams' fans would have left too. The game was over." Wade's rebound tip bounced off Allen to Miller, who shoveled it back to James.
:22Andre Wade was five in 2003, when Miami drafted Dwyane Wade. "Daddy," Andre told his father, Ricky, a Jamaican expat who owns 14 McDonald's franchises in Palm Beach County. "That's D-Wade and I'm A-Wade. We have to get season tickets." Andre and Ricky have spent the past decade in row 19. "With 20-something seconds left, I blew a gasket," Ricky says. "I told my son, 'I'm busted and disgusted. We're leaving.' " Andre protested, to no avail.
"I was angry at the fans who left," Allen says. "This is it. This is Game 6. We don't win and it's summer." He saw the ropes, encircling the floor, as a metaphor for his rage. "When you get to the end of your rope," Allen says, "tie a knot."
:21http://i2.cdn.turner.com/si/dam/assets/131217231932-lebron-three-single-image-cut.jpg
A headband-less LeBron James drilled an open three-pointer to cut the Spurs' lead to two points.
Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE/Getty Images

With Green scrambling back, James elevated on the left wing and buried an open three. "Suddenly the energy in the building totally changed," says Heat general manager Andy Elisburg. Young pulled his laptop back out of the bag. "Let me sit down just a second," he thought.
:20Popovich used his final timeout. Spoelstra told his players which Spurs to foul and what play he would likely call after the ensuing free throws. James nibbled his right thumbnail. Allen swigged a bottle of water. "There was a play we'd worked on all season, but we didn't use more than once or twice," Spoelstra says. The mere mention of it induces an eye roll from Bosh. "We practiced it a million times," he says. "We never ran it."
:19Duncan extricated his feet from the ropes along the sideline and inbounded to Leonard, who was promptly fouled. Allen waved his arms up and down, begging the crowd for noise, for life. Leonard missed the first free throw. Behind the San Antonio bench a woman in a white tank top and sunglasses waved a red foam finger over the players, like bunny ears. McGrady bowed his head. Leonard made the second: 95-92.
GOLLIVER: Winners, losers from early All-Star returns (http://nba.si.com/2013/12/12/nba-all-star-returns-kobe-bryant-roy-hibbert-winners-losers/)
:18All season the Spurs had taken Duncan out when leading by three late in games because they switch defenders on every pick-and-roll to blanket the three-point line. At 37, he is the slowest of the starters -- and therefore the likeliest to be late on a switch. Duncan, who had 30 points and 16 rebounds, was replaced by Boris Diaw (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/3724/index.html). Bosh, however, was back in for the Heat.
:17Spoelstra called the play, the one the Heat never run. Point guard Mario Chalmers (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/4496/index.html), who made the buzzer beater that forced overtime for Kansas in the 2008 national championship game, dribbled down the left side.
:16Allen, like most snipers, didn't grow up shooting corner threes. He only discovered their value once he reached the NBA. The corners yield the highest percentage three-pointers, not only because they're closest to the basket, but also because teams swing the ball around the perimeter, forcing the defense to rotate. The last swing pass, and the last rotation, is to the corner. "I always go to the corner first," Allen says. He jogged down the right side. But he was nothing more than a decoy to space the floor for James.
:15http://i2.cdn.turner.com/si/dam/assets/131217232626-greg-tim-single-image-cut.jpg
Gregg Popovich on Ray Allen's three-pointer: "It's gone through my mind every day since the game."
Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE/Getty Images

Chalmers continued all the way to the left elbow. "Some people thought we should foul," Popovich says, though Chalmers shot 79.5% from the line last season. "O.K., so you're three points up and you foul, now it's a one-point game and a free throw shooting contest. And we're one of the worst free throw shooting teams in the league. All we need is a rebound and it's over. I wouldn't give that up for a free throw contest."
:14A panel of 11 voters, spread around the arena, chose the Finals MVP. NBA staffers radioed the picks to Tim Frank, the league's senior vice president of communications. Frank feverishly tallied the votes on press row so he could relay the result to commissioner David Stern for the trophy presentation.
:13Bosh screened point guard Tony Parker (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/3527/index.html) on the left wing to clear James at the three-point line, and since San Antonio was switching everything, Diaw picked up James. But San Antonio committed another uncharacteristic error. Instead of switching back onto Bosh, Parker joined Diaw and lunged at James. "It was my job to screen Tony," Bosh says. "When he went under me, I was like, Oh, s---. I thought about screening him again, but I didn't want to pick up the foul." Bosh didn't yet recognize the opportunity Parker had handed him.
The Point Forward blog: Latest NBA news, analysis and more (http://nba.si.com/)
:12"In 2011, the first year this group was together, we had so many failures in late-game situations," Spoelstra says. "We spent an inordinate amount of time fixing them. In 2013, during the 27-game winning streak, we had games where we were down in the fourth quarter and had to storm back. We realized we've been here before."
:11James fired, Diaw in his face, Parker in his shorts. Bosh had nowhere to go but the rim. "He was all by himself at the top of the key," Popovich says. "He walked right into the lane."
:10http://i2.cdn.turner.com/si/dam/assets/131218091725-chris-bosh-single-image-cut.jpg
Chris Bosh had a team-high 11 rebounds in Game 6, none bigger than the one late in the fourth.
Noah Graham/NBAE/Getty Images

Bosh is no bruiser, but the Heat used him at center in the Finals to keep more shooters on the court. "He was making sacrifices that whole series," says former Miami center Alonzo Mourning (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/845/index.html), now a member of the team's front office. "He didn't score much, but people don't realize how much he focused on clogging that middle and getting those rebounds."
:09James missed -- albeit with a lighter touch this time -- and the ball caromed off the left side of the rim. Ginóbili, guarding Allen in the right corner, abandoned him to track the rebound. He got one hand on the ball. Bosh got two. Ideally, the Spurs would have fouled immediately, but Bosh held the ball only for a second, and in that second he noticed something. Ginóbili, the man assigned to the best three-point shooter in NBA history, was falling down.
:08As a young player in Milwaukee, Allen invented a drill in which he lies in the key, springs to his feet and backpedals to the corner. A coach throws him a pass. He has to catch and shoot without stepping on the three-point line or the sideline. In Allen's first training session with the Heat, just after Labor Day 2012, he performed the drill. "It was the first time I ever saw anybody do that," Spoelstra says. "He told me he does it for offensive rebounding purposes. He said, 'You never know when you'll be in a situation where you have to find the three-point line without looking down.' "
GALLERY: SI's best photos from Game 6 of Finals (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/nba/photos/1306/game-6-of-2013-nba-finals/)
:07Allen had followed Ginóbili into the key, even though Bosh was in a far better rebounding position. "Get where you need to be!" he told himself. He took five furious steps backward. "CB!" he shouted. "CB!"
"I used to have nightmares about Ray," Elisburg says. "The ball works around the three-point line, and there's Ray, and he's wide open in the corner, and you see it coming in slow motion. Now he plays for us, and it was in slow motion again. You see Chris looking at Ray and Ray running back. It's make or miss, win or lose, live or die. But isn't that the beauty of sports?" Bosh backhanded the ball to Allen. "I wish I'd waited a little bit longer," Bosh says, but John Stockton (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/326/index.html) couldn't have made a better pass. Allen caught it at his rib cage with his right hand, and as he gathered, he took two final steps back over the three-point line. He didn't look down. The next day Frank asked Allen if he knew his size-15s were over the line. "I hoped," he said.
:06Mike Breen and his friends at Fordham used to follow the basketball team wherever it played. They sat in the stands, and when a Ram hit an outside shot, Breen yelled "Bang!" He incorporated the catchphrase into his broadcasts first as play-by-plan man for the school radio station and later as lead NBA announcer for ESPN. Breen arrives at arenas around three hours before tip-off. In Miami, and before that in Boston, and before that in Seattle, and before that in Milwaukee, one person was sure to greet him. "Ray was always on the court," Breen says. "He was always shooting."
Allen's game-day routine never changes. He naps after shootaround. He eats chicken and white rice for lunch. He arrives three hours before the tip. Game 6 was no different, but for the first 47 minutes and 54 seconds, he made just one basket, a layup. He was concerned enough about his rhythm, or lack thereof, that he retreated to the practice court at halftime for extra shooting.
:05http://i2.cdn.turner.com/si/dam/assets/131217233015-ray-1-single-image-cut.jpg
In the closing seconds, Chris Bosh found Ray Allen, a career 40.3 percent three-point shooter in the playoffs.
Greg Nelson/SI

With Ginóbili down, a cavalry of four Spurs charged at Allen, led by Parker. But he wasn't rushing. According to an ESPN Sport Science segment, Allen's average shot release takes .73 of a second. This time he waited a leisurely .83. "If you didn't know the context -- if you took a picture of my positioning, my body, and erased the backdrop -- you'd just say, 'Oh, that's Ray shooting a three-pointer,' " Allen says. "It looked exactly the same."
Norris Cole (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/4910/index.html) knew first. "I was on the bench, in the opposite corner, so I had the best view of it," says Miami's backup point guard. "That's why I jumped so high." He tracked the flight of the ball, traveling at a 40-degree angle, and leaped three feet in the air. "Rebound Bosh!" Breen said. "Back out to Allen! His three-pointer! Bang!"
A viewing party at the AT&T Center in San Antonio fell silent. "Oh s---!" Heat forward Shane Battier (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/3516/index.html) yelled on the bench. "We're in it! We're here! We're here!" Even a security guard, holding the yellow rope behind Allen, pumped a fist. "There was a collective violence in the building," Elisburg says. "It was like an explosion."
At the scorers' table Frank stopped tallying MVP votes. In row 26 little Diandra bawled again, and Calixto tried to comfort her. "Someday you will understand all this," she said. "You will be glad you were here." And in section 102, Young thought about his wife, Keri, whom he called after Game 5 in San Antonio. He wanted to fly home to Oklahoma City and leave Game 6 to another reporter. "What if something amazing happens that you'll remember for the rest of your life?" Keri said. "You don't want to miss that."
Ricky and Andre Wade were walking through the parking lot when they heard the eruption. "I think the Heat came back," Andre said. "No," Ricky replied. "That's just the Spurs winning the bloody championship." They flipped on 790 AM, the Heat's flagship station, in their car. "The announcer was screaming, 'Ray Allen did it! Ray Allen did it!' " Ricky recalls. "My son was so pissed at me. He said, 'I told you. We got Ray Allen for a reason. Ray Allen is clutch.' "
Bosh heard Popovich's voice cut through the din: "Run! Run!" Popovich wanted the Spurs to inbound the ball, while the Heat were celebrating, and drive straight to the rim. "We've won games just like that before," Popovich says. But referee Joey Crawford stopped play to confirm that Allen was behind the three-point line. "He was clearly behind the line -- that's why I was so livid," Popovich says. "But I talked to the league about it later, and I understand it intellectually. They wanted to make sure they got it right."
:04As Crawford reviewed the replay, Spoelstra put James on Parker, to take advantage of his size as well as his adrenaline. James gathered the Heat, urging them to harness their emotions. "We need to commit together to finish this game," he said. "That shot is for nothing if we don't focus here."
:03In 20 years, Spoelstra believes, people will forget that there were another five seconds left, plus overtime, plus Game 7. Fans outside the arena who learned of Allen's shot on their smartphones tried to force their way back in. But the doors, marked no re-entry allowed, were locked. "I asked one of the ushers what it was like, and she said people were banging on the doors, jerking the handles, trying to get them open," Young says. "She was nervous that if they did open one, she'd get trampled." The marooned fans watched through the windows on a television in the Heat souvenir store.
:02Parker took the inbounds pass and drove down the left side, but he couldn't turn the corner on James, who wore him like a second sleeve. Bosh raced over to contest, and Parker unleashed a one-legged fade-away as he fell across the baseline. It didn't reach the rim.
:01Royce Young was not going to write about McGrady. Little Diandra would have to hang in there for five minutes of overtime. The real fans poured down from the 300-level into the expensive seats. "We needed a historic 30 seconds," Battier says. "And we got it."
:00http://i2.cdn.turner.com/si/dam/assets/131217233330-lebron-ray-single-image-cut.jpg
Ray Allen's decision to leave Boston and join LeBron James and Co. in Miami was rewarded with a title.
Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE/Getty Images

"Get those mother------- ropes out of here," Allen hollered as the buzzer sounded, and off went the security guards, off went the duffel bags, off went the Spurs' championship shirts and hats eventually to impoverished regions of Africa as donations from the NBA.

[irishock]

"Get those mother------- ropes out of here," Allen hollered as the buzzer sounded


:lol...

[Katherine Robinson]

Thread still can't believe it happened, he is afraid it was all a dream until he logs in.

[Budkin]

Pure agony reading that... just the worst moment in Spurs history that's all.

[whitemamba]

:lol

[TDMVPDPOY]

i still dont know why enrique didnt bother to jump or hard foul and send ray to the line to shoot 3...6-24 lmao

if he went to the line, popabitch wouldve sub in duncan, and pull down that ft rebound like mutombo game 7 93/94 1st round series against the top seeded sonics...end it in style

[ElNono]

i still dont know why enrique didnt bother to jump or hard foul and send ray to the line to shoot 3...6-24 lmao

if he went to the line, popabitch wouldve sub in duncan, and pull down that ft rebound like mutombo game 7 93/94 1st round series against the top seeded sonics...end it in style

:cry pls TDM, still hurts :cry

[Sean Cagney]

Pure agony reading that... just the worst moment in Spurs history that's all.
Yep it sucks and they had it, but time comes when you accept it and move the fuck on. This year you might.

[Budkin]

Yep it sucks and they had it, but time comes when you accept it and move the fuck on. This year you might.

I've already accepted it many times over but the truth still hurts. We have just as good a shot this year though. If we win, 6 will be a distant memory.

[TDMVPDPOY]

I've already accepted it many times over but the truth still hurts. We have just as good a shot this year though. If we win, 6 will be a distant memory.

if we win, that means u missed out on a repeat cause of a wankers selfish play

[TE]

Pure agony reading that... just the worst moment in Spurs history that's all.
Yeah I agree. I don't understand how Spurs fans don't acknowledge this as the worst. It's worse than .4 and manu's foul on Dirk.

I still remember the last 28 seconds. One just doesn't simply forget tbh.

[Sean Cagney]

I've already accepted it many times over but the truth still hurts. We have just as good a shot this year though. If we win, 6 will be a distant memory.

Yep it will be, lets just wait and see if GOD amends that loss for us! We need it.
Yeah I agree. I don't understand how Spurs fans don't acknowledge this as the worst. It's worse than .4 and manu's foul on Dirk.

I still remember the last 28 seconds. One just doesn't simply forget tbh.

We all remember it fully.

[TE]

Damn...that was a bad time. So disappointing. Thank god I was inebriated. Helped me go to sleep quickly.

[TDMVPDPOY]

what the wankers upstairs dont get is, they still havnt accept responsibility whose to blame, while still protecting that wanker like nothing happen

[Sean Cagney]

Damn...that was a bad time. So disappointing. Thank god I was inebriated. Helped me go to sleep quickly.

I was buzzed when it ended, no lie after that game I had a few more that night to get to sleep. I was so furious I nearly lost it and then gave myself the delusion of a game 7 after a few more 24 oz beers and then went to sleep. Sometimes delusion helps you sleep.

[ElNono]

That's 6 talkin'

[Budkin]

Damn...that was a bad time. So disappointing. Thank god I was inebriated. Helped me go to sleep quickly.

I was stoned out of my mind and pretty drunk and it took me about 5 full hours to fall asleep... the scene just kept playing out over and over in my head.

[Spurs 4 The Win]

i still dont know why enrique didnt bother to jump or hard foul and send ray to the line to shoot 3...6-24 lmao

if he went to the line, popabitch wouldve sub in duncan, and pull down that ft rebound like mutombo game 7 93/94 1st round series against the top seeded sonics...end it in style

If Parker fouled him, we wouldnt have known that 3 wouldve gone down... and if ray made the shots, parker wouldve made the dumbest play in NBA history and you wouldve killed him for it. You are whiny bitch either way, screw off troll

[spurraider21]

ginobili was the only guy that went for the rebound lol, and people are like

:cry why wus he on the flor

[ezau]

Spurs will win Game 7.

[TE]

I was buzzed when it ended, no lie after that game I had a few more that night to get to sleep. I was so furious I nearly lost it and then gave myself the delusion of a game 7 after a few more 24 oz beers and then went to sleep. Sometimes delusion helps you sleep.
tbh I went to sleep like 20 mins after the game. I was pretty fucked up. I remember going outside my house just to cool off (with a corona in hand). I woke up the next day with that pain in my chest...it was like a bad breakup lol.

I was stoned out of my mind and pretty drunk and it took me about 5 full hours to fall asleep... the scene just kept playing out over and over in my head.
I remember that thread you made after the game. I saw it the next day and posted in it. I didn't want anything to do with basketball the next day. I was fucking pissed tbh.

[Gummi Clutch]

i still dont know why enrique didnt bother to jump or hard foul and send ray to the line to shoot 3...6-24 lmao

if he went to the line, popabitch wouldve sub in duncan, and pull down that ft rebound like mutombo game 7 93/94 1st round series against the top seeded sonics...end it in style
No you fucking idiot, fouling him would have sent the best FT shooter in the league to the FT line.


If Parker fouled him, we wouldnt have known that 3 wouldve gone down... and if ray made the shots, parker wouldve made the dumbest play in NBA history and you wouldve killed him for it. You are whiny bitch either way, screw off troll
He has moments where I think he has basketball analytical skills, and then he turns it around with retard shit.

[Thebesteva]

Honestly, I would have been so happy if Spurs won. Would have made me much happier to see Lebron's legacy prematurely exposed than debating Duncan v Kobe... a debate that means jack shit outside this forum considering the argument has always been Kobe V Jordan\Lebron\Wade\Iverson\Carter\McGrady

[HI-FI]

I was stoned out of my mind and pretty drunk and it took me about 5 full hours to fall asleep... the scene just kept playing out over and over in my head.
I was pretty stoned during 2012 WCF. I needed it as that series in a lot of ways pisses me off more than 6, real talk.
I had a surgery as 2013 Finals started, so I was high on painkillers for awhile. I actually watched 6 sober, dealt with pain all day, thinking I wanted to be clear in the head when I watched this one. After 6, I resumed my painkillers with extra gusto.


People will shit on the SPurs on here because the board has a lot of trolling fags, but Spurs were the underdogs. No one else had a shot against this Heat team, which I think will be seen as their peak. Spurs had a chance to pull off something amazing but too many things went wrong at the end. I've accepted it, except Pop pulling Duncan. I like reading the various reasons for it, I just haven't reached an understanding on that one.

[look_at_g_shred]

It's called moving on..

[Kool Bob Love]

Wtf? When did this happen?

[Spur-Addict]

DidNotRead.Gif

[baseline bum]

What the heck was Ginobili doing flopping all the way back there?

Nigga was taking siesta; it's a Mexican thing. Ask ElNono's bean-eating ass.

[Katherine Robinson]

If Spurs get that close again, Dale might not even be up for a prostate milking. There's just so much an old man can take and 6 was the limit.

[Kool Bob Love]

6
Did you ask manu about 8?

[td4mvp2k]

I was pretty stoned during 2012 WCF. I needed it as that series in a lot of ways pisses me off more than 6, real talk.
I had a surgery as 2013 Finals started, so I was high on painkillers for awhile. I actually watched 6 sober, dealt with pain all day, thinking I wanted to be clear in the head when I watched this one. After 6, I resumed my painkillers with extra gusto.


People will shit on the SPurs on here because the board has a lot of trolling fags, but Spurs were the underdogs.dayum

[Captivus]

Nice photoshop...that didnt happen.

[Killakobe81]

Bosh goes on to say if the play that scenario out a million times ... the Spurs were THAT close.


After the Heat had won to force Game 7, Spoelstra retreated to his office and watched the last half-minute of regulation. "It crumbled me in my chair," he says. Breen went back to the Mandarin Oriental hotel and barely slept. Bosh went out to dinner and barely ate. "What's wrong with you?" friends asked. "What happened tonight," he replied, "never happens."

"But it happened!" they said.

"I know," Bosh explained. "We could play out that scenario a million times and maybe we win twice."



Read More: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/nba/news/20131218/ray-allen-miami-heat-29-seconds-nba-finals-game-6/#ixzz2vrcRGyfF

[DPG21920]

What's funny is Laker "fan" on a Spurs forum loves to pull the "obsessed with the Lakers :cry" card every day, but never hesitates to re-has and parrot the same game 6 stuff at any opportunity. Laker fans on a Spurs forum continually posting about the Spurs finals runs. Obsessed

[benefactor]

:wakeup

[Killakobe81]

What's funny is Laker "fan" on a Spurs forum loves to pull the "obsessed with the Lakers :cry" card every day, but never hesitates to re-has and parrot the same game 6 stuff at any opportunity. Laker fans on a Spurs forum continually posting about the Spurs finals runs. Obsessed

Come on, you know this is a response to what is going on in the other threads. There is deflecting all over this forum, tbh.

[FYM]

Did ElNono forget to log in his troll or something ?

[Horse]

A great example of sometimes its better to be lucky than good. But reading that shit was like it just happened, lets be done with this.

[Clipper Nation]

Come on, you know this is a response to what is going on in the other threads. There is deflecting all over this forum, tbh.
Only deflecting here is Lakerfan hiding behind 6 to deflect from Kirby's latest Quit :lol

[DPG21920]

Yup. Also response to what? Kool starting more Kobe-centric threads than all Spur fan combined?

[Seventyniner]

Green was the Finals' breakout star, but here he made a costly mistake. Instead of shadowing James on the left wing, he assumed San Antonio would come away with the loose ball and drifted downcourt. "Most important rebound of the game and we have a player who's backing up," Popovich says. "All he had to do was pick up LeBron."

Funny how I have never seen this mentioned either upstairs or down here. Plenty of posters shit on Pop for sitting Tim, Manu for the turnovers and missed FT, Kawhi for his missed FT and not getting the first rebound (how do you prepare to rebound such a terrible shot?), Parker for going 6-23, Tiago for being useless against the Heat, etc.

[Kobe_5_Duncan_4]

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/si/dam/assets/131217231131-spurs-timeout-single-image-cut.jpg
The Spurs appeared to have Game 6 in hand after taking a 94-89 lead with 28.2 seconds remaining.
Noah Graham/NBAE/Getty Images

:28

Losing the Finals, players will tell you, is a little like being in a car accident. "Everything slows down," says Miami center Chris Bosh (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/3707/index.html), "and you see things you don't usually see, hear things you don't usually hear. It's kind of terrifying." Trailing 94-89, the Heat huddled around coach Erik Spoelstra during a timeout. "I thought it was over," Bosh says. "I was having flashbacks."
AmericanAirlines Arena looked the same to him as it did late in Game 6 of the 2011 Finals against the Mavericks. Security guards surrounding the floor, bent at the waist, holding yellow ropes in anticipation of another team's celebration. Staffers waiting in the tunnel, carrying duffel bags stuffed with another team's championship hats and T-shirts. Fans rising from their seats, stomping into the aisles toward the parking lots. Only one image was different. Bosh's wife, Adrienne, so forlorn that night two years earlier, stood and applauded from her courtside seat across from the Heat bench. How sweet, Bosh thought, she doesn't know we're going to lose. "I figured if she was still clapping, I could still do my job," he says. "It was improbable, but I guess it wasn't impossible."
He looked at Spoelstra, scribbling a play. "Just focus on the clipboard," the coach said.
:27

Spoelstra sent out a lineup with five three-point shooters, leaving Bosh on the bench. Popovich countered by removing center Tim Duncan (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/3173/index.html). As forward Mike Miller (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/3404/index.html) prepared to inbound near the Heat bench, Allen ran across the key, screening Manu Ginóbili and Danny Green (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/4651/index.html) to free LeBron James (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/3704/index.html) at the top of the circle. James caught the inbounds pass, but Green recovered and contested James's three-point attempt with an outstretched right hand. The shot, as hard and straight as a four-seam fastball, smacked off the bottom right corner of the backboard square. My God, Popovich thought to himself. We're up five and he just shot an air ball. The game might be over.
:26

Danielle Calixto, manager of a children's boutique in downtown Miami, sat among season-ticket holders in row 26, section 124. She had purchased two tickets on Stubhub for $287 apiece and brought her boss's eight-year-old daughter, Diandra. "The season-ticket holders were all getting up, shaking hands, telling each other, 'I'll see you next season,' " Calixto says. "I told them, 'You're going to regret this,' and they said, 'Yeah, you're funny.' Diandra started crying because everybody was leaving, and she didn't understand why we weren't leaving too. We were surrounded by empty seats. She wanted to call her mom. I told her, 'You just have to sit here right now and believe with me.' "
:25

If James had shot a standard brick, San Antonio forward Kawhi Leonard (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/4896/index.html) would have grabbed the rebound in his colossal 9.8-inch mitts and sealed the game at the free throw line. But the shot was so wild Leonard couldn't corral it, and the ball rocketed off his hand and straight in the air. The closest Heat player was guard Dwyane Wade (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/3708/index.html), stuck behind Leonard, giving up three inches and nine years. Wade jumped off his right leg, the one with the bone bruises in the knee that require daily treatment and occasional prayer. "Kawhi has those claws -- his hands are claws -- and you're just doing anything you can to get a fingertip on the ball," Wade says. "I got just enough."
MAHONEY: Ginobili putting poor Finals performance behind him (http://nba.si.com/2013/12/16/manu-ginobili-spurs-san-antonio/)
:24

Green was the Finals' breakout star, but here he made a costly mistake. Instead of shadowing James on the left wing, he assumed San Antonio would come away with the loose ball and drifted downcourt. "Most important rebound of the game and we have a player who's backing up," Popovich says. "All he had to do was pick up LeBron."
:23

Royce Young, a reporter for CBSSports.com (https://twitter.com/royceyoung), was packing up his laptop. Young was sitting at a press table in section 102 and wanted to beat the crowd to the Spurs' locker room. He already had his story. He was going to write about Tracy McGrady (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/3179/index.html), San Antonio's 12th man, finally winning a championship in his 16th season. "I don't blame the Miami fans for leaving," Young says. "I think 29 other teams' fans would have left too. The game was over." Wade's rebound tip bounced off Allen to Miller, who shoveled it back to James.
:22

Andre Wade was five in 2003, when Miami drafted Dwyane Wade. "Daddy," Andre told his father, Ricky, a Jamaican expat who owns 14 McDonald's franchises in Palm Beach County. "That's D-Wade and I'm A-Wade. We have to get season tickets." Andre and Ricky have spent the past decade in row 19. "With 20-something seconds left, I blew a gasket," Ricky says. "I told my son, 'I'm busted and disgusted. We're leaving.' " Andre protested, to no avail.
"I was angry at the fans who left," Allen says. "This is it. This is Game 6. We don't win and it's summer." He saw the ropes, encircling the floor, as a metaphor for his rage. "When you get to the end of your rope," Allen says, "tie a knot."
:21

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/si/dam/assets/131217231932-lebron-three-single-image-cut.jpg
A headband-less LeBron James drilled an open three-pointer to cut the Spurs' lead to two points.
Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE/Getty Images

With Green scrambling back, James elevated on the left wing and buried an open three. "Suddenly the energy in the building totally changed," says Heat general manager Andy Elisburg. Young pulled his laptop back out of the bag. "Let me sit down just a second," he thought.
:20

Popovich used his final timeout. Spoelstra told his players which Spurs to foul and what play he would likely call after the ensuing free throws. James nibbled his right thumbnail. Allen swigged a bottle of water. "There was a play we'd worked on all season, but we didn't use more than once or twice," Spoelstra says. The mere mention of it induces an eye roll from Bosh. "We practiced it a million times," he says. "We never ran it."
:19

Duncan extricated his feet from the ropes along the sideline and inbounded to Leonard, who was promptly fouled. Allen waved his arms up and down, begging the crowd for noise, for life. Leonard missed the first free throw. Behind the San Antonio bench a woman in a white tank top and sunglasses waved a red foam finger over the players, like bunny ears. McGrady bowed his head. Leonard made the second: 95-92.
GOLLIVER: Winners, losers from early All-Star returns (http://nba.si.com/2013/12/12/nba-all-star-returns-kobe-bryant-roy-hibbert-winners-losers/)
:18

All season the Spurs had taken Duncan out when leading by three late in games because they switch defenders on every pick-and-roll to blanket the three-point line. At 37, he is the slowest of the starters -- and therefore the likeliest to be late on a switch. Duncan, who had 30 points and 16 rebounds, was replaced by Boris Diaw (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/3724/index.html). Bosh, however, was back in for the Heat.
:17

Spoelstra called the play, the one the Heat never run. Point guard Mario Chalmers (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/4496/index.html), who made the buzzer beater that forced overtime for Kansas in the 2008 national championship game, dribbled down the left side.
:16

Allen, like most snipers, didn't grow up shooting corner threes. He only discovered their value once he reached the NBA. The corners yield the highest percentage three-pointers, not only because they're closest to the basket, but also because teams swing the ball around the perimeter, forcing the defense to rotate. The last swing pass, and the last rotation, is to the corner. "I always go to the corner first," Allen says. He jogged down the right side. But he was nothing more than a decoy to space the floor for James.
:15

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/si/dam/assets/131217232626-greg-tim-single-image-cut.jpg
Gregg Popovich on Ray Allen's three-pointer: "It's gone through my mind every day since the game."
Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE/Getty Images

Chalmers continued all the way to the left elbow. "Some people thought we should foul," Popovich says, though Chalmers shot 79.5% from the line last season. "O.K., so you're three points up and you foul, now it's a one-point game and a free throw shooting contest. And we're one of the worst free throw shooting teams in the league. All we need is a rebound and it's over. I wouldn't give that up for a free throw contest."
:14

A panel of 11 voters, spread around the arena, chose the Finals MVP. NBA staffers radioed the picks to Tim Frank, the league's senior vice president of communications. Frank feverishly tallied the votes on press row so he could relay the result to commissioner David Stern for the trophy presentation.
:13

Bosh screened point guard Tony Parker (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/3527/index.html) on the left wing to clear James at the three-point line, and since San Antonio was switching everything, Diaw picked up James. But San Antonio committed another uncharacteristic error. Instead of switching back onto Bosh, Parker joined Diaw and lunged at James. "It was my job to screen Tony," Bosh says. "When he went under me, I was like, Oh, s---. I thought about screening him again, but I didn't want to pick up the foul." Bosh didn't yet recognize the opportunity Parker had handed him.
The Point Forward blog: Latest NBA news, analysis and more (http://nba.si.com/)
:12

"In 2011, the first year this group was together, we had so many failures in late-game situations," Spoelstra says. "We spent an inordinate amount of time fixing them. In 2013, during the 27-game winning streak, we had games where we were down in the fourth quarter and had to storm back. We realized we've been here before."
:11

James fired, Diaw in his face, Parker in his shorts. Bosh had nowhere to go but the rim. "He was all by himself at the top of the key," Popovich says. "He walked right into the lane."
:10

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/si/dam/assets/131218091725-chris-bosh-single-image-cut.jpg
Chris Bosh had a team-high 11 rebounds in Game 6, none bigger than the one late in the fourth.
Noah Graham/NBAE/Getty Images

Bosh is no bruiser, but the Heat used him at center in the Finals to keep more shooters on the court. "He was making sacrifices that whole series," says former Miami center Alonzo Mourning (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/845/index.html), now a member of the team's front office. "He didn't score much, but people don't realize how much he focused on clogging that middle and getting those rebounds."
:09

James missed -- albeit with a lighter touch this time -- and the ball caromed off the left side of the rim. Ginóbili, guarding Allen in the right corner, abandoned him to track the rebound. He got one hand on the ball. Bosh got two. Ideally, the Spurs would have fouled immediately, but Bosh held the ball only for a second, and in that second he noticed something. Ginóbili, the man assigned to the best three-point shooter in NBA history, was falling down.
:08

As a young player in Milwaukee, Allen invented a drill in which he lies in the key, springs to his feet and backpedals to the corner. A coach throws him a pass. He has to catch and shoot without stepping on the three-point line or the sideline. In Allen's first training session with the Heat, just after Labor Day 2012, he performed the drill. "It was the first time I ever saw anybody do that," Spoelstra says. "He told me he does it for offensive rebounding purposes. He said, 'You never know when you'll be in a situation where you have to find the three-point line without looking down.' "
GALLERY: SI's best photos from Game 6 of Finals (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/nba/photos/1306/game-6-of-2013-nba-finals/)
:07

Allen had followed Ginóbili into the key, even though Bosh was in a far better rebounding position. "Get where you need to be!" he told himself. He took five furious steps backward. "CB!" he shouted. "CB!"
"I used to have nightmares about Ray," Elisburg says. "The ball works around the three-point line, and there's Ray, and he's wide open in the corner, and you see it coming in slow motion. Now he plays for us, and it was in slow motion again. You see Chris looking at Ray and Ray running back. It's make or miss, win or lose, live or die. But isn't that the beauty of sports?" Bosh backhanded the ball to Allen. "I wish I'd waited a little bit longer," Bosh says, but John Stockton (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/326/index.html) couldn't have made a better pass. Allen caught it at his rib cage with his right hand, and as he gathered, he took two final steps back over the three-point line. He didn't look down. The next day Frank asked Allen if he knew his size-15s were over the line. "I hoped," he said.
:06

Mike Breen and his friends at Fordham used to follow the basketball team wherever it played. They sat in the stands, and when a Ram hit an outside shot, Breen yelled "Bang!" He incorporated the catchphrase into his broadcasts first as play-by-plan man for the school radio station and later as lead NBA announcer for ESPN. Breen arrives at arenas around three hours before tip-off. In Miami, and before that in Boston, and before that in Seattle, and before that in Milwaukee, one person was sure to greet him. "Ray was always on the court," Breen says. "He was always shooting."
Allen's game-day routine never changes. He naps after shootaround. He eats chicken and white rice for lunch. He arrives three hours before the tip. Game 6 was no different, but for the first 47 minutes and 54 seconds, he made just one basket, a layup. He was concerned enough about his rhythm, or lack thereof, that he retreated to the practice court at halftime for extra shooting.
:05

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/si/dam/assets/131217233015-ray-1-single-image-cut.jpg
In the closing seconds, Chris Bosh found Ray Allen, a career 40.3 percent three-point shooter in the playoffs.
Greg Nelson/SI

With Ginóbili down, a cavalry of four Spurs charged at Allen, led by Parker. But he wasn't rushing. According to an ESPN Sport Science segment, Allen's average shot release takes .73 of a second. This time he waited a leisurely .83. "If you didn't know the context -- if you took a picture of my positioning, my body, and erased the backdrop -- you'd just say, 'Oh, that's Ray shooting a three-pointer,' " Allen says. "It looked exactly the same."
Norris Cole (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/4910/index.html) knew first. "I was on the bench, in the opposite corner, so I had the best view of it," says Miami's backup point guard. "That's why I jumped so high." He tracked the flight of the ball, traveling at a 40-degree angle, and leaped three feet in the air. "Rebound Bosh!" Breen said. "Back out to Allen! His three-pointer! Bang!"
A viewing party at the AT&T Center in San Antonio fell silent. "Oh s---!" Heat forward Shane Battier (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/3516/index.html) yelled on the bench. "We're in it! We're here! We're here!" Even a security guard, holding the yellow rope behind Allen, pumped a fist. "There was a collective violence in the building," Elisburg says. "It was like an explosion."
At the scorers' table Frank stopped tallying MVP votes. In row 26 little Diandra bawled again, and Calixto tried to comfort her. "Someday you will understand all this," she said. "You will be glad you were here." And in section 102, Young thought about his wife, Keri, whom he called after Game 5 in San Antonio. He wanted to fly home to Oklahoma City and leave Game 6 to another reporter. "What if something amazing happens that you'll remember for the rest of your life?" Keri said. "You don't want to miss that."
Ricky and Andre Wade were walking through the parking lot when they heard the eruption. "I think the Heat came back," Andre said. "No," Ricky replied. "That's just the Spurs winning the bloody championship." They flipped on 790 AM, the Heat's flagship station, in their car. "The announcer was screaming, 'Ray Allen did it! Ray Allen did it!' " Ricky recalls. "My son was so pissed at me. He said, 'I told you. We got Ray Allen for a reason. Ray Allen is clutch.' "
Bosh heard Popovich's voice cut through the din: "Run! Run!" Popovich wanted the Spurs to inbound the ball, while the Heat were celebrating, and drive straight to the rim. "We've won games just like that before," Popovich says. But referee Joey Crawford stopped play to confirm that Allen was behind the three-point line. "He was clearly behind the line -- that's why I was so livid," Popovich says. "But I talked to the league about it later, and I understand it intellectually. They wanted to make sure they got it right."
:04

As Crawford reviewed the replay, Spoelstra put James on Parker, to take advantage of his size as well as his adrenaline. James gathered the Heat, urging them to harness their emotions. "We need to commit together to finish this game," he said. "That shot is for nothing if we don't focus here."
:03

In 20 years, Spoelstra believes, people will forget that there were another five seconds left, plus overtime, plus Game 7. Fans outside the arena who learned of Allen's shot on their smartphones tried to force their way back in. But the doors, marked no re-entry allowed, were locked. "I asked one of the ushers what it was like, and she said people were banging on the doors, jerking the handles, trying to get them open," Young says. "She was nervous that if they did open one, she'd get trampled." The marooned fans watched through the windows on a television in the Heat souvenir store.
:02

Parker took the inbounds pass and drove down the left side, but he couldn't turn the corner on James, who wore him like a second sleeve. Bosh raced over to contest, and Parker unleashed a one-legged fade-away as he fell across the baseline. It didn't reach the rim.
:01

Royce Young was not going to write about McGrady. Little Diandra would have to hang in there for five minutes of overtime. The real fans poured down from the 300-level into the expensive seats. "We needed a historic 30 seconds," Battier says. "And we got it."
:00

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/si/dam/assets/131217233330-lebron-ray-single-image-cut.jpg
Ray Allen's decision to leave Boston and join LeBron James and Co. in Miami was rewarded with a title.
Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE/Getty Images

"Get those mother------- ropes out of here," Allen hollered as the buzzer sounded, and off went the security guards, off went the duffel bags, off went the Spurs' championship shirts and hats eventually to impoverished regions of Africa as donations from the NBA.



:lmao

[ElNono]

Did ElNono forget to log in his troll or something ?

that's 6 talkin

[LkrFan]

http://cdn.bleacherreport.net/images_root/article/media_slots/photos/000/924/211/RayThreeTie_original.gif

http://a.espncdn.com/photo/2013/0618/nba_u_allenshot_gb1_576.jpg

http://gamedayr.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/jesus-shuttlesworth-ray-allen-three-pointer-570x423.jpg

6
Congrats El. You one of the few farmers in The Acceptance! stage. Congrats son. :toast

[ElNono]

Congrats El. You one of the few farmers in The Acceptance! stage. Congrats son. :toast

Allen for 3.... BANG!!!!!

[LkrFan]

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/si/dam/assets/131217231131-spurs-timeout-single-image-cut.jpg
The Spurs appeared to have Game 6 in hand after taking a 94-89 lead with 28.2 seconds remaining.
Noah Graham/NBAE/Getty Images

:28

Losing the Finals, players will tell you, is a little like being in a car accident. "Everything slows down," says Miami center Chris Bosh (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/3707/index.html), "and you see things you don't usually see, hear things you don't usually hear. It's kind of terrifying." Trailing 94-89, the Heat huddled around coach Erik Spoelstra during a timeout. "I thought it was over," Bosh says. "I was having flashbacks."
AmericanAirlines Arena looked the same to him as it did late in Game 6 of the 2011 Finals against the Mavericks. Security guards surrounding the floor, bent at the waist, holding yellow ropes in anticipation of another team's celebration. Staffers waiting in the tunnel, carrying duffel bags stuffed with another team's championship hats and T-shirts. Fans rising from their seats, stomping into the aisles toward the parking lots. Only one image was different. Bosh's wife, Adrienne, so forlorn that night two years earlier, stood and applauded from her courtside seat across from the Heat bench. How sweet, Bosh thought, she doesn't know we're going to lose. "I figured if she was still clapping, I could still do my job," he says. "It was improbable, but I guess it wasn't impossible."
He looked at Spoelstra, scribbling a play. "Just focus on the clipboard," the coach said.
:27

Spoelstra sent out a lineup with five three-point shooters, leaving Bosh on the bench. Popovich countered by removing center Tim Duncan (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/3173/index.html). As forward Mike Miller (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/3404/index.html) prepared to inbound near the Heat bench, Allen ran across the key, screening Manu Ginóbili and Danny Green (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/4651/index.html) to free LeBron James (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/3704/index.html) at the top of the circle. James caught the inbounds pass, but Green recovered and contested James's three-point attempt with an outstretched right hand. The shot, as hard and straight as a four-seam fastball, smacked off the bottom right corner of the backboard square. My God, Popovich thought to himself. We're up five and he just shot an air ball. The game might be over.
:26

Danielle Calixto, manager of a children's boutique in downtown Miami, sat among season-ticket holders in row 26, section 124. She had purchased two tickets on Stubhub for $287 apiece and brought her boss's eight-year-old daughter, Diandra. "The season-ticket holders were all getting up, shaking hands, telling each other, 'I'll see you next season,' " Calixto says. "I told them, 'You're going to regret this,' and they said, 'Yeah, you're funny.' Diandra started crying because everybody was leaving, and she didn't understand why we weren't leaving too. We were surrounded by empty seats. She wanted to call her mom. I told her, 'You just have to sit here right now and believe with me.' "
:25

If James had shot a standard brick, San Antonio forward Kawhi Leonard (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/4896/index.html) would have grabbed the rebound in his colossal 9.8-inch mitts and sealed the game at the free throw line. But the shot was so wild Leonard couldn't corral it, and the ball rocketed off his hand and straight in the air. The closest Heat player was guard Dwyane Wade (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/3708/index.html), stuck behind Leonard, giving up three inches and nine years. Wade jumped off his right leg, the one with the bone bruises in the knee that require daily treatment and occasional prayer. "Kawhi has those claws -- his hands are claws -- and you're just doing anything you can to get a fingertip on the ball," Wade says. "I got just enough."
MAHONEY: Ginobili putting poor Finals performance behind him (http://nba.si.com/2013/12/16/manu-ginobili-spurs-san-antonio/)
:24

Green was the Finals' breakout star, but here he made a costly mistake. Instead of shadowing James on the left wing, he assumed San Antonio would come away with the loose ball and drifted downcourt. "Most important rebound of the game and we have a player who's backing up," Popovich says. "All he had to do was pick up LeBron."
:23

Royce Young, a reporter for CBSSports.com (https://twitter.com/royceyoung), was packing up his laptop. Young was sitting at a press table in section 102 and wanted to beat the crowd to the Spurs' locker room. He already had his story. He was going to write about Tracy McGrady (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/3179/index.html), San Antonio's 12th man, finally winning a championship in his 16th season. "I don't blame the Miami fans for leaving," Young says. "I think 29 other teams' fans would have left too. The game was over." Wade's rebound tip bounced off Allen to Miller, who shoveled it back to James.
:22

Andre Wade was five in 2003, when Miami drafted Dwyane Wade. "Daddy," Andre told his father, Ricky, a Jamaican expat who owns 14 McDonald's franchises in Palm Beach County. "That's D-Wade and I'm A-Wade. We have to get season tickets." Andre and Ricky have spent the past decade in row 19. "With 20-something seconds left, I blew a gasket," Ricky says. "I told my son, 'I'm busted and disgusted. We're leaving.' " Andre protested, to no avail.
"I was angry at the fans who left," Allen says. "This is it. This is Game 6. We don't win and it's summer." He saw the ropes, encircling the floor, as a metaphor for his rage. "When you get to the end of your rope," Allen says, "tie a knot."
:21

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/si/dam/assets/131217231932-lebron-three-single-image-cut.jpg
A headband-less LeBron James drilled an open three-pointer to cut the Spurs' lead to two points.
Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE/Getty Images

With Green scrambling back, James elevated on the left wing and buried an open three. "Suddenly the energy in the building totally changed," says Heat general manager Andy Elisburg. Young pulled his laptop back out of the bag. "Let me sit down just a second," he thought.
:20

Popovich used his final timeout. Spoelstra told his players which Spurs to foul and what play he would likely call after the ensuing free throws. James nibbled his right thumbnail. Allen swigged a bottle of water. "There was a play we'd worked on all season, but we didn't use more than once or twice," Spoelstra says. The mere mention of it induces an eye roll from Bosh. "We practiced it a million times," he says. "We never ran it."
:19

Duncan extricated his feet from the ropes along the sideline and inbounded to Leonard, who was promptly fouled. Allen waved his arms up and down, begging the crowd for noise, for life. Leonard missed the first free throw. Behind the San Antonio bench a woman in a white tank top and sunglasses waved a red foam finger over the players, like bunny ears. McGrady bowed his head. Leonard made the second: 95-92.
GOLLIVER: Winners, losers from early All-Star returns (http://nba.si.com/2013/12/12/nba-all-star-returns-kobe-bryant-roy-hibbert-winners-losers/)
:18

All season the Spurs had taken Duncan out when leading by three late in games because they switch defenders on every pick-and-roll to blanket the three-point line. At 37, he is the slowest of the starters -- and therefore the likeliest to be late on a switch. Duncan, who had 30 points and 16 rebounds, was replaced by Boris Diaw (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/3724/index.html). Bosh, however, was back in for the Heat.
:17

Spoelstra called the play, the one the Heat never run. Point guard Mario Chalmers (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/4496/index.html), who made the buzzer beater that forced overtime for Kansas in the 2008 national championship game, dribbled down the left side.
:16

Allen, like most snipers, didn't grow up shooting corner threes. He only discovered their value once he reached the NBA. The corners yield the highest percentage three-pointers, not only because they're closest to the basket, but also because teams swing the ball around the perimeter, forcing the defense to rotate. The last swing pass, and the last rotation, is to the corner. "I always go to the corner first," Allen says. He jogged down the right side. But he was nothing more than a decoy to space the floor for James.
:15

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/si/dam/assets/131217232626-greg-tim-single-image-cut.jpg
Gregg Popovich on Ray Allen's three-pointer: "It's gone through my mind every day since the game."
Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE/Getty Images

Chalmers continued all the way to the left elbow. "Some people thought we should foul," Popovich says, though Chalmers shot 79.5% from the line last season. "O.K., so you're three points up and you foul, now it's a one-point game and a free throw shooting contest. And we're one of the worst free throw shooting teams in the league. All we need is a rebound and it's over. I wouldn't give that up for a free throw contest."
:14

A panel of 11 voters, spread around the arena, chose the Finals MVP. NBA staffers radioed the picks to Tim Frank, the league's senior vice president of communications. Frank feverishly tallied the votes on press row so he could relay the result to commissioner David Stern for the trophy presentation.
:13

Bosh screened point guard Tony Parker (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/3527/index.html) on the left wing to clear James at the three-point line, and since San Antonio was switching everything, Diaw picked up James. But San Antonio committed another uncharacteristic error. Instead of switching back onto Bosh, Parker joined Diaw and lunged at James. "It was my job to screen Tony," Bosh says. "When he went under me, I was like, Oh, s---. I thought about screening him again, but I didn't want to pick up the foul." Bosh didn't yet recognize the opportunity Parker had handed him.
The Point Forward blog: Latest NBA news, analysis and more (http://nba.si.com/)
:12

"In 2011, the first year this group was together, we had so many failures in late-game situations," Spoelstra says. "We spent an inordinate amount of time fixing them. In 2013, during the 27-game winning streak, we had games where we were down in the fourth quarter and had to storm back. We realized we've been here before."
:11

James fired, Diaw in his face, Parker in his shorts. Bosh had nowhere to go but the rim. "He was all by himself at the top of the key," Popovich says. "He walked right into the lane."
:10

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/si/dam/assets/131218091725-chris-bosh-single-image-cut.jpg
Chris Bosh had a team-high 11 rebounds in Game 6, none bigger than the one late in the fourth.
Noah Graham/NBAE/Getty Images

Bosh is no bruiser, but the Heat used him at center in the Finals to keep more shooters on the court. "He was making sacrifices that whole series," says former Miami center Alonzo Mourning (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/845/index.html), now a member of the team's front office. "He didn't score much, but people don't realize how much he focused on clogging that middle and getting those rebounds."
:09

James missed -- albeit with a lighter touch this time -- and the ball caromed off the left side of the rim. Ginóbili, guarding Allen in the right corner, abandoned him to track the rebound. He got one hand on the ball. Bosh got two. Ideally, the Spurs would have fouled immediately, but Bosh held the ball only for a second, and in that second he noticed something. Ginóbili, the man assigned to the best three-point shooter in NBA history, was falling down.
:08

As a young player in Milwaukee, Allen invented a drill in which he lies in the key, springs to his feet and backpedals to the corner. A coach throws him a pass. He has to catch and shoot without stepping on the three-point line or the sideline. In Allen's first training session with the Heat, just after Labor Day 2012, he performed the drill. "It was the first time I ever saw anybody do that," Spoelstra says. "He told me he does it for offensive rebounding purposes. He said, 'You never know when you'll be in a situation where you have to find the three-point line without looking down.' "
GALLERY: SI's best photos from Game 6 of Finals (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/nba/photos/1306/game-6-of-2013-nba-finals/)
:07

Allen had followed Ginóbili into the key, even though Bosh was in a far better rebounding position. "Get where you need to be!" he told himself. He took five furious steps backward. "CB!" he shouted. "CB!"
"I used to have nightmares about Ray," Elisburg says. "The ball works around the three-point line, and there's Ray, and he's wide open in the corner, and you see it coming in slow motion. Now he plays for us, and it was in slow motion again. You see Chris looking at Ray and Ray running back. It's make or miss, win or lose, live or die. But isn't that the beauty of sports?" Bosh backhanded the ball to Allen. "I wish I'd waited a little bit longer," Bosh says, but John Stockton (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/326/index.html) couldn't have made a better pass. Allen caught it at his rib cage with his right hand, and as he gathered, he took two final steps back over the three-point line. He didn't look down. The next day Frank asked Allen if he knew his size-15s were over the line. "I hoped," he said.
:06

Mike Breen and his friends at Fordham used to follow the basketball team wherever it played. They sat in the stands, and when a Ram hit an outside shot, Breen yelled "Bang!" He incorporated the catchphrase into his broadcasts first as play-by-plan man for the school radio station and later as lead NBA announcer for ESPN. Breen arrives at arenas around three hours before tip-off. In Miami, and before that in Boston, and before that in Seattle, and before that in Milwaukee, one person was sure to greet him. "Ray was always on the court," Breen says. "He was always shooting."
Allen's game-day routine never changes. He naps after shootaround. He eats chicken and white rice for lunch. He arrives three hours before the tip. Game 6 was no different, but for the first 47 minutes and 54 seconds, he made just one basket, a layup. He was concerned enough about his rhythm, or lack thereof, that he retreated to the practice court at halftime for extra shooting.
:05

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/si/dam/assets/131217233015-ray-1-single-image-cut.jpg
In the closing seconds, Chris Bosh found Ray Allen, a career 40.3 percent three-point shooter in the playoffs.
Greg Nelson/SI

With Ginóbili down, a cavalry of four Spurs charged at Allen, led by Parker. But he wasn't rushing. According to an ESPN Sport Science segment, Allen's average shot release takes .73 of a second. This time he waited a leisurely .83. "If you didn't know the context -- if you took a picture of my positioning, my body, and erased the backdrop -- you'd just say, 'Oh, that's Ray shooting a three-pointer,' " Allen says. "It looked exactly the same."
Norris Cole (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/4910/index.html) knew first. "I was on the bench, in the opposite corner, so I had the best view of it," says Miami's backup point guard. "That's why I jumped so high." He tracked the flight of the ball, traveling at a 40-degree angle, and leaped three feet in the air. "Rebound Bosh!" Breen said. "Back out to Allen! His three-pointer! Bang!"
A viewing party at the AT&T Center in San Antonio fell silent. "Oh s---!" Heat forward Shane Battier (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/players/3516/index.html) yelled on the bench. "We're in it! We're here! We're here!" Even a security guard, holding the yellow rope behind Allen, pumped a fist. "There was a collective violence in the building," Elisburg says. "It was like an explosion."
At the scorers' table Frank stopped tallying MVP votes. In row 26 little Diandra bawled again, and Calixto tried to comfort her. "Someday you will understand all this," she said. "You will be glad you were here." And in section 102, Young thought about his wife, Keri, whom he called after Game 5 in San Antonio. He wanted to fly home to Oklahoma City and leave Game 6 to another reporter. "What if something amazing happens that you'll remember for the rest of your life?" Keri said. "You don't want to miss that."
Ricky and Andre Wade were walking through the parking lot when they heard the eruption. "I think the Heat came back," Andre said. "No," Ricky replied. "That's just the Spurs winning the bloody championship." They flipped on 790 AM, the Heat's flagship station, in their car. "The announcer was screaming, 'Ray Allen did it! Ray Allen did it!' " Ricky recalls. "My son was so pissed at me. He said, 'I told you. We got Ray Allen for a reason. Ray Allen is clutch.' "
Bosh heard Popovich's voice cut through the din: "Run! Run!" Popovich wanted the Spurs to inbound the ball, while the Heat were celebrating, and drive straight to the rim. "We've won games just like that before," Popovich says. But referee Joey Crawford stopped play to confirm that Allen was behind the three-point line. "He was clearly behind the line -- that's why I was so livid," Popovich says. "But I talked to the league about it later, and I understand it intellectually. They wanted to make sure they got it right."
:04

As Crawford reviewed the replay, Spoelstra put James on Parker, to take advantage of his size as well as his adrenaline. James gathered the Heat, urging them to harness their emotions. "We need to commit together to finish this game," he said. "That shot is for nothing if we don't focus here."
:03

In 20 years, Spoelstra believes, people will forget that there were another five seconds left, plus overtime, plus Game 7. Fans outside the arena who learned of Allen's shot on their smartphones tried to force their way back in. But the doors, marked no re-entry allowed, were locked. "I asked one of the ushers what it was like, and she said people were banging on the doors, jerking the handles, trying to get them open," Young says. "She was nervous that if they did open one, she'd get trampled." The marooned fans watched through the windows on a television in the Heat souvenir store.
:02

Parker took the inbounds pass and drove down the left side, but he couldn't turn the corner on James, who wore him like a second sleeve. Bosh raced over to contest, and Parker unleashed a one-legged fade-away as he fell across the baseline. It didn't reach the rim.
:01

Royce Young was not going to write about McGrady. Little Diandra would have to hang in there for five minutes of overtime. The real fans poured down from the 300-level into the expensive seats. "We needed a historic 30 seconds," Battier says. "And we got it."
:00

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/si/dam/assets/131217233330-lebron-ray-single-image-cut.jpg
Ray Allen's decision to leave Boston and join LeBron James and Co. in Miami was rewarded with a title.
Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE/Getty Images

"Get those mother------- ropes out of here," Allen hollered as the buzzer sounded, and off went the security guards, off went the duffel bags, off went the Spurs' championship shirts and hats eventually to impoverished regions of Africa as donations from the NBA.

:wow :lmao :wow

[LkrFan]

Looks like he lost his cane and fell to the ground, IMO
:lol

[LkrFan]

"Get those mother------- ropes out of here," Allen hollered as the buzzer sounded

:rollin :lmao :rollin

[LkrFan]

That's 6 talkin'
6ers are prohibited from making such statements. -1:lol points son. :lmao

[DMC]

What's funny is how close the world beater Heat came to losing at home to the old boring ass Spurs. Spurs had nothing to lose, they were playing on OKC money.

[sook]

What's funny is how close the world beater Heat came to losing at home to the old boring ass Spurs. Spurs had nothing to lose, they were playing on OKC money.

It was a great series though...probably top 3 finals stretch over the past decade

[KobeOwnsDuncan]

What's funny is how close the world beater Heat came to losing at home to the old boring ass Spurs. Spurs had nothing to lose, they were playing on OKC money.
Spurs matched up well with Miami. Just like Dallas did in '11. The excuse that the Spurs were playing with house money like they had no chance is lame. OKC did not match up well with them at all, the Spurs did. The trophy was yours.

[Clipper Nation]

Spurs matched up well with Miami. Just like Dallas did in '11. The excuse that the Spurs were playing with house money like they had no chance is lame. OKC did not match up well with them at all, the Spurs did. The trophy was yours.

^ The goods, tbh...

:lol Spurfan talking shit about their own team to try to make 6 more palatable

[poeticism707]

i still dont know why enrique didnt bother to jump or hard foul and send ray to the line to shoot 3...6-24 lmao

if he went to the line, popabitch wouldve sub in duncan, and pull down that ft rebound like mutombo game 7 93/94 1st round series against the top seeded sonics...end it in style

:bang

[irishock]

Expectations change when you're up 5 with 28 to go in a series clincher :lol...

[DMC]

Spurs matched up well with Miami. Just like Dallas did in '11. The excuse that the Spurs were playing with house money like they had no chance is lame. OKC did not match up well with them at all, the Spurs did. The trophy was yours.

Match up is a lame excuse. Getting your ass waxed is far worse than playing above your head and losing by a nose. OKC would have been in the Finals again had RW not gone down. Spurs didn't do a lot to get better since the 2012 playoffs, even though they were playing better ball.

There are moments in many games when crucial possessions are blown, calls are blown, free throws are missed. This one just happened to be a very important game against the defending champs. Manu was playing shitty all throughout the playoffs, he had once decent game in game 5, but the Spurs were bailed out by improbable efficiency and production from the 3 by Gary Neal and Danny Green. Sorry, but you don't see Finals records broken by nobody players very often, and when you cannot get production from 2 of your big 3, and one of them actually hurts you with 8 turnovers, you're not supposed to win. Miami played pretty shitty most of the series, but they played well enough to beat SA.

[DMC]

Expectations change when you're up 5 with 28 to go in a series clincher :lol...

Are you saying the Spurs never gave up 5 points in 28 seconds before? It's two shots. there's time for two possessions if you currently have the ball. All you need is a stop.

[Rogue]

Match up is a lame excuse. Getting your ass waxed is far worse than playing above your head and losing by a nose. OKC would have been in the Finals again had RW not gone down. Spurs didn't do a lot to get better since the 2012 playoffs, even though they were playing better ball.

There are moments in many games when crucial possessions are blown, calls are blown, free throws are missed. This one just happened to be a very important game against the defending champs. Manu was playing shitty all throughout the playoffs, he had once decent game in game 5, but the Spurs were bailed out by improbable efficiency and production from the 3 by Gary Neal and Danny Green. Sorry, but you don't see Finals records broken by nobody players very often, and when you cannot get production from 2 of your big 3, and one of them actually hurts you with 8 turnovers, you're not supposed to win. Miami played pretty shitty most of the series, but they played well enough to beat SA.
what's up, DMC? Where you been the past a few days, tbh?

The Heat played just as shitty against San Antonio in last year's finals as they did in previous series, but sadly the Spurs choked even worse than the Great Satan.