When last season’s NBA Finals ended, San Antonio head coach Gregg Popovich was all smiles.
For a few minutes, that is.
Popovich’s first order of business after the season’s final buzzer sounded in Miami was to go and embrace LeBron James, Erik Spoelstra and Dwyane Wade, giving everyone hearty hugs and offering genuine words of congratulations after the Heat topped his Spurs in Game 7 of one of the most dramatic, thrilling championship series in league history.
The pain of losing started setting in later and lasted for months. But now, the dream scenario for San Antonio has arrived.
Starting Thursday, the Spurs get a rematch in the NBA Finals against the only team to ever beat them in a championship series. San Antonio will be holding home-court advantage, so if another Game 7 awaits, the Spurs will have the decided edge this time around. If that wasn’t enough, the Spurs even got basically five full days between games to get healthy and prepare.
It is, without question, everything the Spurs could have wanted.
“We know what we’re going against,” said Spurs guard Tony Parker, who added that he has great respect for what the Heat have done in this four-year run. “It’s a great challenge.”
There are so many things that would seem like a distinct San Antonio advantage right now.
First, while everyone’s better at home, the Spurs dominate in San Antonio, winning 103 times in their last 123 games there. Over the past four seasons, the Spurs are also 25-5 when having three or more days between games.
Maybe most importantly, having nearly a week between the end of the Western Conference finals and the start of the NBA Finals gives Parker plenty of time to get his ailing left ankle ready to go for Game 1.
“I’ll do my best,” said Parker, who didn’t practice Tuesday but is hoping to play in the series opener, as the Heat expect he will.
And while there were plenty of teams that looked like contenders this season, neither club was surprised that the end result is the first NBA Finals rematch since 1998.
“We got wined and dined with some of the other teams that kind of popped up and showed greatness throughout the year,” Miami’s Ray Allen said. “The Clippers looked great. OKC, they had their issues and then they popped up. Memphis looked good at the end of the year. Indiana was always hovering. But if you go back to the beginning of the year, most people said the same thing. Pop knew how to manage his team to get to this point. Same thing with us.”
In other words, maybe Spurs-Heat II was meant to be.
“It was,” Allen said.
Associated Press Writer Raul Dominguez in San Antonio contributed to this story
