Game 1 of the 2014 NBA Finals added a new chapter to the lore of the AT&T center. As if going into the Spurs arena where they had won their past 8 (now 9) games by at least 15 points wasn't challenging enough, visitors to San Antonio are probably now left to wonder: what's next?
This time, it wasn't rats, or bats, or water cannons, or escalator fires (OK, that was Mexico's bad). It wasn't cold showers. It wasn't a snake in the locker room.
In a truly ironic twist that begs the pun, the Spurs turned up the heat on the Heat. In a bizarre display that harkened back to the NBA of the 70s and will give conspiracy theorists plenty of food for thought, an electrical outage caused the AT&T Center's air conditioning to bite the dust, turning the entire arena into a sauna. San Antonio's depth helped them to weather the heat, while Lebron was unable to perform at his peak level under the sweltering conditions, and attempting to do so left his teammates dumping him in a heap on the bench.
The debates will rage over whether Game 1 was a brilliant CIA Pop ploy, or a deliciously ironic act of God. The Spurs, however, have no time to be concerned about that. They are up 1-0 again in the Finals against this Heat team, and this time their focus must be to take a 2-0 lead into Miami. Lebron is going to come out like a locomotive after listening to the criticism of the past few days, and the Spurs must be prepared to withstand that barrage and fire back.
Now is the time to establish control of the series and show the Heat that this year will be different.
FTH.
5.
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