The Spurs' Game 3 and Nearly Attaining Perfection

The treachery of images and what our eyes tell us. Yes, the team last night in black road unis that read "Spurs" across the front technically was the San Antonio Spurs, but what my theory presupposes is: "Maybe it wasn't?" What all of us saw last night was less basketball and more the culmination of Western civilization; less sport and more the convergence of sport and applied game theory. A singularity somewhere between listening to "Dark Side" after a huge bong rip and still being conscious enough to sail above NBA 2K14 in god-mode. The Spurs offense in that first half was otherworldly. A gliding, grooved, 71-track LP showing us the way to basketball enlightenment—all while 'Sweet Georgia Brown' plays softly in the background, nestled behind the patter of the Spurs' ever-moving rotations, screens and cuts. The only pauses and skips being when a clumsy 'hu-man operator' was forced to flip the record to side two.

Humorously enough, the Spurs offensive Shangri-La nearly wasn't enough. Yes, everything worked out fine in the end; but somewhere in the third quarter the Heat were right there, seven points back and poised to fire their LeBron warhead and sit back and take a 2-1 advantage into Game Four. But, nope, Kawhi Leonard wasn't having any of it. Continually countering the King's drives into the paint by funneling him away from the rim. Denying LeBron's passing lanes with his ballyhooed oven-mitt hands. Limiting James' explosiveness with his own aquiline speed and agility. Leonard, like a debate team's logic-driven anchor, was there, intently listening to LeBron's every prompt and argument, armed with the patience of a monk and the thirst of a wolf, Kawhi routinely shut down LeBron. Was Leonard finally sick and tired of the media telling him to show up? Did Gregg Popovich kidnap a loved one as an "enhanced motivational technique" he picked up somewhere?

Leonard rightly deserves the credit for making this game a laugher and for turning the world's most dangerous basketball player into an afterthought (or, more accurately, as much of an afterthought as LeBron James ever can be). Scoring a career-high 29 points on your sport's biggest, brightest stage tends to get the media-types all in a tizzy. Still, let's give credit to the other Spurs who kept the gas pedal pressed down. Danny Green, please come down to the hospitality tent and redeem your prize for dropping 15 points in 21 minutes and for neutralizing whomever you had to guard. Green with his five steals and 88% shooting from the field kept the Heat off-balance on both ends of the court throughout the evening's festivities. Throw in the 11 points from Manu, the 14 from Tim Duncan, and Boris Diaw's nine? Suddenly we're all talking about the Spurs seamless offensive system/machine all over again and that's without even bringing up the quiet brilliance of Tony Parker. Parker delivered sublime (and, if you're into it, even "timely") baskets throughout the game. All of the Spurs were humming along on all cylinders last night, Leonard is just the one who went 'nova. Next game, it could be anyone else. That's the beauty of the Spurs, isn't it? There are players and there are superstars, but it is always about the best shots and becoming entranced by their precision.