If you want to talk about the most successful team in the 10s, it is naturally the Warriors with 3 championship trophies, and in addition to them, only the Heat of that year have had a consecutive championship experience in the entire 10s. In the 2012 Heat Finals 4-1 elimination of the Thunder, James was successfully elected FMVP with an average of 28.6 points, 10.2 rebounds, 7.4 assists and 1.6 steals per game, and in the 2013 Heat Finals 4-3 eliminated the Spurs, James defended the FMVP title with an average of 25.3 points, 10.9 rebounds, 7 assists and 2.3 steals per game.
In addition to James, the Heat can play at a dominant level, and of course, it is inseparable from the concerted efforts of powerful players such as Wade, Bosh, Chalmers, and Battier. So why did the Heat, with such a luxurious lineup, get revenge on the aging Spurs in the 2014 Finals, and were swept by the gentlemen, you must know that many of the Spurs' core players were close to retirement at that time, especially Duncan in the GDP combination is 37 years old, and Ginobili is also 36 years old.
Leonard's outburst
In 2013, the Spurs were one step away from winning the championship, and in the sixth crucial game, Van Leonard hit two free throws, and they could have beaten the Heat 4-2. However, this mistake gave Leonard more reasons to work hard, so after the two sides met again in the finals in 2014, Leonard also showed a much better performance than in 2013.
Throughout the series, Leonard averaged 17.8 points, 6.4 rebounds, 2 assists, 1.6 steals and 1.2 blocks per game, shooting 61.2% from the field and 57.9% from three-point range, and in the last three games, Leonard scored 29 points, 4 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals and 2 blocks, 20 points, 14 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 steals and 3 blocks, and 22 points, 10 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal and 1 block.
In addition to Leonard's outburst on the offensive end, he is undoubtedly the best candidate for the Spurs to lead James on the defensive end, his body can match James' confrontation, and his long arms and big hands can always cause James or other players to make passing errors. Although it depends on team effort to defend a star of James' level, the quality of the defender will definitely affect the defensive effect, and Leonard, who is only 22 years old at this time, can be said to have perfectly completed the task assigned to him by the team.
Spurs' advanced and comprehensive offensive and defensive system.
Under Popovich's coaching, the Spurs' style of play in the 2013-2014 season was quite advanced, and the 0.5-second offensive tactics he created mainly required every player to be able to handle the ball quickly after coming on the court, either attacking by himself, or quickly passing to teammates to find another opportunity, and striving not to appear on the court where a person is crazy to stick to the ball. This style of play requires a very high level of discipline for the team, and once the players do not listen to the command or do not have enough tacit understanding with each other, it is easy to make mistakes, or even take them away in waves.
As mentioned on the defensive end, Leonard's progress as a leader is very beneficial to the whole team, and he is young and has good physical strength, as long as he is on the court, he can keep running and helping defense. In addition, the Spurs also have Duncan, Ginobili, Green, Dio and other defensive players, especially Duncan, although he is old, but the static talent is there, plus he has a high ball quotient and knows how to defend and distribute physical strength.
When the Spurs faced the Heat, they very smartly chose the strategy of "betting on the middle and forcing the opponent to go to the bottom line", and they will boldly empty the Heat's non-space points on the court, such as Wade, who shot 33.3% from the field in that round of the series, and only made 0.4 three-pointers per game. There are also players such as Chalmers and Kerr, who are also unable to respond to the sometimes deliberate strategies of opponents, both of whom only shoot 14.3 percent from three-point range.
James has done his best, Wade has been seriously injured
In the face of the Spurs' strict defense, James can be said to have tried his best, averaging 28.2 points, 7.8 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 steals per game in 5 games, shooting 57.1% from the field, and averaging 2.8 three-pointers per game with a 51.9% shooting rate. It can be seen that although the Spurs' defense is very good, James still plays at a very high level, but the Spurs also know that they can't let James lead his teammates, so they judge his passing line very well, so he averages 3.8 turnovers per game.
As the second leader of the Heat, Wade did not perform well in this series, averaging only 15.2 points, 3.8 rebounds, 2.6 assists and 1.6 steals per game, shooting 43.8% from the field. On the offensive end, Wade couldn't support the scoring output because he didn't have three points, and his injuries were already serious at that time, so his famous stunt breakthrough was far less sharp than before. Although Wade is still a very good player on the defensive end, because the Spurs mainly play team basketball, there is no obvious key person with the ball, so even if Wade leads the defense, it is useless.
In addition to these two big players, the three-leader Bosh averaged 14 points, 5.2 rebounds and 1 assist per game, and his annual salary of 19.07 million at the time was tied with James for the first place on the team, but obviously his performance did not meet the team's requirements. Facing the 37-year-old Duncan, Bosh still has no advantage on the inside, especially in defense and rebounding, which can be said to be "blown up" again.
A number of role players have played out of order, and the team is not motivated
In addition to the poor performance of Chalmers and Kerr, the Heat also had a number of role players who played far below expectations, especially the previous two-time champion Battier, who was on the verge of retirement due to his age, so he was basically on the verge of being DNP in the Finals, and he failed to score 1 point in 5 games combined.
After all, for role players, their dream of winning a big contract by winning the championship has basically been realized, so whether or not there is a triple championship does not have such a big impact on them, and they are not like those supergiants who will pursue any historical status, although everyone will say that they want to hit the triple championship, but they will inevitably slack off in their daily training and games.
Final summary
In the end, although the Heat team does not look weak on paper, it is actually "full of holes", on the other hand, the opposite Spurs are not only a better team, and because of the loss to the Heat in 2013, when they met again in 2014, they were full of revenge, and players like Leonard, Green and other players played unexpected performances, their shooters were too accurate, and the Spurs did both strength and heart, so they could finally end the Heat's dream of three consecutive championships.