The Miami HEAT fell to the San Antonio Spurs 107-86 Thursday night at AmericanAirlines Arena. LeBron James led the way for the HEAT with 28 points and eight rebounds. Miami is now down 3-1 in the NBA Finals.
Impact Performance of the Night: Despite the loss, LeBron James did everything in his power to will the HEAT back. James was aggressive from the start and really started to get going in the third quarter. He mainly attacked the rim for a majority of the quarter, but started to hit some in-rhythm 3-pointers as it progressed. James scored 19 of his 28 points in the third on a red-hot 7-of-8 shooting. The Deciding Run: Behind the stellar play of James, the HEAT opened the second half on a 12-6 run that cut the Spurs’ lead to 13. Miami’s defense started to click and James was the catalyst offensively, scoring 10 of the 12 points. Unfortunately, the Spurs answered with a 14-3 run to go up 75-51 with about three minutes to go in the third quarter. Play of the Game: With 11 minutes to go in the third quarter, Mario Chalmers swiped an errant pass from Danny Green and passed it to Ray Allen. From there, Allen threw it up ahead to Dwyane Wade down court. Wade gave it to a trailing LeBron James who finished the fast-break bucket to cut the Spurs’ lead to 57-38. Another great play for Miami came near the end of the second quarter. As the shot-clock was winding down late in the second, LeBron James hit a tough, step-back 3-pointer from the left wing to cut the Spurs’ lead to 55-36. Efficiency Rating: Offensive Efficiency: 99.1; Defensive Efficiency: 128.9 Trend to Watch: Both Ray Allen and Udonis Haslem had solid games for the HEAT. Allen hit a few timely threes as Miami was trying to make a comeback and finished with two treys on the night. He also attacked off the dribble and kept pressure on the Spurs’ defense. In all, Allen shot 3-of-6 for eight points. When Chris Andersen picked up his fifth foul early on in the fourth quarter, Udonis Haslem checked in and provided a spark. He moved well without the ball on the offensive end and grabbed three boards. He also played solid defense on Tim Duncan and drew a charge on Manu Ginobili. The Takeaway: The HEAT started off Game 4 with a lot of energy and got some good looks, but just couldn’t knock them down. Chris Bosh in particular was very aggressive early on and finished with 12 points and four boards. As usual, the Spurs moved the ball very well throughout the game and found the open man. San Antonio’s offense was very methodical and rather fluid even when the HEAT were rotating quickly and contesting shots. In certain spurts in the second half, Miami started to get out in transition to create some easy buckets. The HEAT forced 14 turnovers on the Spurs which they converted into 21 points. Game Highlights: