During the end of the third quarter and into the fourth, the Heat completely took over the game. They went on a 33-5 run during that time and put the Spurs away. I am not sure if I have ever seen the Spurs have this bad of a stretch by a Spurs team in a very long time. They played the Heat very well until around the 3 minute mark in the third quarter. I do not know what happened, but the Heat just seemed to turn it up to another level.
The Miami Heat had key contributions from role players, something they have been lacking throughout the playoffs. Mario Chalmers lead the team in scoring, yes that Mario Chalmers, with 19 points. He even got to the foul line five times. Add that to the fact that Ray Allen and Mike Miller combined for 22 points on 6-8 from the three point line, and you have a recipe for success. Even Bosh finished with a double-double, 12 and 10, on 6-10 shooting. If he can shoot that efficiently, the Heat should be happy with that production. Note that he did not shoot any three pointers. Wade still did not have a good game on the scoring end, but he did dish out 6 assists. The Heat have showed that they can overcome a bad game from him. LeBron was not as dominant as he was in game one, he finished with 17 points on 7-17 shooting and he added 8 boards 7 assists and one great block on Tiagao Splitter when the game was out of reach. He has shown that he does not need to put up amazing scoring stats, in order to lead the Heat to victory, which is something the Spurs should be very weary of heading into the rest of the series.
Nobody in the Spurs played a good game, outside of Danny Green. Tony Parker scored 13 points. on a very ugly 5-14 shooting, and he only dished out 5 assists. Needless to say, he needs to play a lot better if the Spurs want a chance to win the series. Tim Duncan also had a terrible game, scoring 9 points on 3-13 shooting. It is hard to imagine him having back-to-back games like this one, but he needs to go into the post more, rather than shooting contested mid-range jumpers. If Parker and Duncan play well, this is a totally different game. Three pointers were allowing the Spurs to stay neck and neck with the Heat, but when they stopped falling, the Heat turned a tie game into a crazy run to pull away. The Spurs need to not have to rely on the three so much. If they score inside, then kick it out to the shooter, that is when they beat teams.
Game two has a story of two different games. The first was a neck and neck game with each team trading blows with one another. The other was a major Heat blowout. The Spurs do not get blown out a lot so I would not expect that again, but it will be interesting to see how each team prepares for game three.
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