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Good points
1. And-1's. LeBron thrives on them, and to a lesser extent so does D-Wade. If the Spurs are going to foul LeBron, they need to do it on the floor where he doesn't get to shoot, or else they absolutely must wrap up his arms to be sure he's shooting two. The extra points off of all those and-1's are a big part of Miami's scoring differential.
2. Get the damned ball up the court. The Spurs FG% goes to once the shot clock reaches 20 seconds. The Spurs guards have a habit of moving the ball slowly to the mid-court line. For the Spurs to be consistently effective on offense, they have to get the ball down and find shots with more than 4 seconds left on the clock. (Preferably more than 6 seconds.) And part of that means getting the ball across the time line quicker.
3. No "gimme" passes. The Spurs have a bad habit of being soft on the first pass of a possession. After getting a stop, a turnover, or after a made basket by the other team, that first pass to the player who is going to bring the ball up the court usually goes un-challenged. The Spurs tend to get complacent, and treat it like a "gimme". If they do that, Miami will pick one or two of them off per game, for easy buckets. It seems like a small thing, but it's totally avoidable and those points can't be made up in a Finals game.
Those three things, together, are probably worth an easy 5-6 points per game. That margin will probably be enough to determine the eventual winner of the LOB.
Good points
Danny Green is the worst for those ty cans of corn he throws around.
It was a pretty good game on those three factors. The Spurs could easily have pissed off enough points on them to have lost this game.
The Spurs did a good job of not giving up the and-1's tonight. They challenged LeBron without fouling a lot. Late in the 4th, Tony got locked up on LeBron in the left corner. He fouled him out on the floor, rather than give James the mis-match that so often turns into an and-1 for him. LeBron is going to get more whistles in other games, avoiding the 3-point plays will continue to be big.
The Spurs also got the ball across the time line a lot more quickly than they normally do. I'm sure it's something Pop drilled into them last week. They didn't get forced into late-clock situations nearly as often as they have in some other games. Those extra few seconds are a big deal.
They made several weak first passes tonight, and came very close to getting several of them picked off. But there were a few times where they started to make the "gimme" pass, noticed a Heat player lurking, and held onto it. Pretty good job, but some good luck too. That's one they really have to look out for next game.
I never would have guessed they could hold the turnovers to 4 for a complete game. But then again, I never would have guessed they would miss so many chip shots and layups. They're going to have to finish at the rim better next game, and not look for whistles - because it's going to be a lot more physical, I'm sure.
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