The 2014 Spurs and the best basketball ever played

2013 nba finals game six the san antonio spurs lead the miami heat three games to two it is the end of the game and the spurs hold a three-point lead if the clock hit zero and the heat haven't converted a three-point shot san antonio will win the championship what happens next will be remembered [Applause] forever back out to allen history unprecedented ray allen's three forced overtime which the miami heat won which forced a winner-take-all game seven which the miami heat it's one of the great collapses one of the most devastating heartbreaks ever it's one of those things that just never happens and it's even more curious because of all the teams it could have happened to the last one you would ever expect would be the spurs we're talking about the model organization of basketball since drafting tim duncan in 1997 the spurs hadn't missed the playoffs once had it won at less than a 50 win rate and had claimed four championships they defined culture whether or not your team could play like the spurs you wanted your team in your organization to behave like the spurs no ego extreme accountability and a level of buy-in and belief that was self-fulfilling as head coach greg popovich liked to say not everyone could play for the spurs they wanted guys who had gotten over themselves guys who either had nothing to prove or who had everything to prove that buy-in and accountability made possible by tim duncan's sublime example and enforced by pop's brutal honesty and competitive fire made the spurs perhaps the most disciplined consistent institution in all of sports yet they were the ones who came as close to winning a championship as anyone has ever come without actually winning how do you come back from that if you're the spurs how do you come back from that you still had a chance to win in overtime of game six you still had a chance to win in game seven even more this could have been the last run for the spurs their big three of tim duncan manu ginobili and tony parker were going to turn 37 36 and 31 years old respectively during the following season well past their physical primes in a league with young stars like lebron james kevin durant chris paul and the like despite their success the spurs had never made back-to-back finals appearances with those kind of obstacles staring at you in the face how do you find it in yourself to sit through an entire off-season gruel through an 82-game regular season and fight through a whole post season just to get another chance at the ring you almost had then again if there was ever a team that could look at those obstacles and think to themselves yeah we can get it done it would be the spurs that journey started in the off season where popovich convened the spurs in colorado springs at the air force academy his alma mater nearly every major contributor from the year prior had returned to the team and now possessed a powerful unifying force shared trauma pop harnessed that potential from day one the first day of training camp at the air force academy the spurs did little beside dissect in painful detail every possession of game six for hours they relived their nightmare and saw all the mistakes they'd each made no one was blameless genobly and kawhi leonard had missed free throws that would have iced the game every spur on the floor failed to secure lebron's missed three popovich opted not to have duncan on the floor at that moment so he could have better perimeter defense and they all failed to recollect themselves and rally for game seven the point in all this of course was that it was not a single failure or an individual who would cost them there were moments all throughout game six and all throughout game seven mistakes by everyone that could have changed things they had lost but they understood that they lost as a team and if that was true if they were to win they would have to win as a team it was a testament to the kind of character that popovich was convinced these players had that they could confront this nightmare and reckon with it rather than avoid it downplay it or run from it to find that the best way out is through stare at the sun and let that feeling of failure motivate them to win for themselves and for each other and that's all great but seriously how many times has a team lost a championship and said that kind of stuff every team that loses on the highest stage thinks that they're just one step away but more often than not the reality of making that arduous climb again is just too much did these spurs really have what it would take but first i'd like to thank the sponsor of today's video hair loss it's something that most guys spend their lives in fear of you look at your dad you look at your grandfathers all your uncles and you start to see your shiny hairless future reflected in those scalps and did you know that two out of three guys will experience hair loss by the time they're 35 luckily there's keeps keeps is a subscription service that offers 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the franchise's best since 2006. they led the league in assists per game three-point field goal percentage and plus minus popp was named coach of the year tony parker was a second team all-nba selection and kawhi a second team all defensive selection and that's kind of it this team did not thrive on star power sure they had the best power forward ever but he's not a traditional star and sure they had the winningest trio in basketball history yeah kawhi was slowly developing into one of the most devastating two-way forces in the league but they didn't rely on any one player in fact not one of their players not tony parker not kawhi not even tim duncan averaged over 30 minutes a game this team thrived on its depth and on the strength of that roster as a single cohesive unit you didn't have to worry about stopping one or two guys you had to worry about stopping eight or nine guys the results speak for themselves and beyond just the attitude and culture of the spurs it was their ability and willingness to give chances to and find success in guys that had been discounted that made them the envy of front offices everywhere the spurs were one of the first teams to really start scouting international players exploiting a market inefficiency because of a stigma surrounding those players toughness the fact that some of the best players in the league today are foreign players is an afterthought i certainly pay little mind to the fact that guys like luca doncic joelle embiid nikolay jokic and giannis antentacumpo were born outside of the u.s we know that great players can come from anywhere the spurs deserve credit for reminding us of that that roster consisted of an nba record 10 international players duncan was born in the virgin islands and was a no-brainer with the first pick in 97 but parker was the 28th pick in the draft out of france and went on to become a finals mvp ginobili was a late second rounder out of argentina who would go on to become an olympic gold medalist and one of the greatest six men in basketball history guys like marco belinelli aaron baines patty mills thiago splitter and boris diau were guys who came from all across the globe italy australia france and found places as vital contributors on the best team in basketball they were guys who had nothing to prove or who had everything to prove and to watch those guys play together to see the way they interacted how much they enjoyed each other's company both on and off the court it really does give credence to the culture that pop preached that the spurs were and are a family it's something that was carefully cultivated no egos no squeaky wheels after the games almost all of them the spurs go out to dinner and if you ever played for the spurs for a career or a season and pop knows you're in town you're getting invited to dinner we roll our eyes when people talk about playing the game the right way because we know that most of the time when the chips are down and push comes to shove those words are just words it's easy to do when it's easy it's hard to do when it's hard that's what makes the spurs special they did play the right way they did excel as a team they did sacrifice manu took a 50 pay cut to help make salaries work in fact the salaries for the entire big three duncan parker and manu combined for only two million dollars more than kobe bryant made by himself in a sport where shots mean points and points mean paychecks the spurs over and over again gave up good shots for better shots without imposing athletes or stunning singular talent the spurs adopted a more european style of play perfect for their international roster cutting passing and shooting became paramount spacing screens kickouts and cuts kept the offense in constant motion and was made possible only because the spurs were utterly selfless with the basketball and ruthlessly intelligent in their decision making they got the best shots in the sport all year long because they bought into a higher ideal and they bought in because they were all committed to a single goal they were peaking at the right time too they finished the season having won 22 of their last 26 games including a franchise record 19-game winning streak so what the hell happened in the first round it's the fly in the ointment for the spurs team as a first tier all-time great team taken to seven in the first round by the 8c dallas mavericks now was the west loaded absolutely were the mavs better than your average 8 seed sure was there some cross state rivalry and did vince carter steal a game to extend the series most definitely but still you can't be the greatest team ever if you nearly lost in the first round of the playoffs maybe they were looking ahead so fixated on their pursuit of revenge that they allowed themselves to be removed from the moment and taken to the brink whatever the reason they did ultimately overcome it and beat the mavs to advance to the second round where they throttled the portland trailblazers in five games in the western conference finals they were tested by the oklahoma city thunder a proud group in their own right who believed they were the team of the future the hungrier spurs outlasted okc in six games sending themselves to back-to-back finals for the first time in franchise history and there they were the nba finals again the spurs had pushed themselves to grow and to improve for an entire year over 8 000 hours over 500 000 minutes with this phantom haunting their dreams and now they were here against the very team that had beaten them no less a rematch spurs heat round two this far off goal this illusory motivator was here in the flesh and now they could do something about it the spurs took game one famously remembered as a game when the arena's air conditioning system failed and temperatures reached the 90s in the summer texas heat the heat nearly won game two evening the series and stealing home court advantage [Music] and then in game three the floodgates opened boris dio was inserted into the starting lineup and seemed to unlock something in the san antonio offense he was a maestro and he raised their level of play the passes the movement and the shots that the spurs had been getting all year long the best in basketball somehow became even better they operated in perfect concert with each other reacting to passes almost before they'd happened anticipating movement before it had even begun they buried the heat offensively and smothered them on defense kawhi who had done an incredible job guarding lebron the year prior was just as effective earning him nicknames like kryptonite and kingslayer he was named the finals mvp after san antonio prevailed in five games it was startling to watch the spurs striking it was incredible poetic it's remembered as the beautiful game when they were clicking it was the best basketball anyone's ever seen you almost literally can't play better the stats back it up in the fourth quarter of game one the spurs shot 87 percent a finals record in game three they shot 75 percent in the first half a finals record they led 71-50 going into halftime of that game the first 70 point half in the finals since the 87 lakers they shot 52 percent from the field in the series a finals record kawhi shot 61 percent from the field a record for a finals mvp they averaged 120.8 points per 100 possessions in the series the most since data began in 1985. in over 293 games the heat had not once lost three games in a row with lebron james in their lineup the spurs won games three four and five by an average of 19 points in those three games they made 157 more passes than the heat per game those games also just so happen to add up to the best offensive rating over three games since that data became available over 30 years ago they won the finals with a point differential of 70. over five games they outscored the heat by 70 points and they lost one of those games it remains the highest point differential in nba finals history the stats back it up but honestly whatever those are afterthoughts we didn't need to look at the stats to know what we were watching it was perfect like someone had turned the sliders up on a video game like the spurs had turned the difficulty down for themselves but my god they were playing against the heat the heedles lebron james dwyane wade chris bosh it was like watching all this energy all this angst and anger and heartache radiate out of them and materialize into perfect basketball people talk about this first team as deserving to be in the best team ever conversation purely because of how dominant they were in the finals because we all saw that when the spurs were at their best they were capable of transcendence they found success in the same vein as isaiah's pistons and bill russell's celtics tapping into the core concept of basketball the platonic idea of basketball the fact that the spurs were echoing the sentiments of teams from as far back as the 60s means they weren't breaking any new ground by emphasizing team play but as the nba continues to become a more star-driven league their style was anything but they're my favorite team ever i love tim duncan i love that he exists as proof that success doesn't have to be this michael jordan kobe bryant in your face screaming it can also be him or bill russell who led by example with encouragement and sympathy and humility i love the relationship that he and pop have it's unlike anything else in sports they've been described as everything from an old married couple to soul mates they love each other tim's referred to pop as a father figure to him i love the fact that the spurs were made up of international guys who teams had either overlooked or given up on that the locker room was a collage of national flags i loved that this team really seemed to be friends that they enjoyed each other's company that they sacrificed and wanted to see each other succeed and i loved watching their wounds heal in real time shot after shot i've talked before about bill russell and when i did i talked about the platonic idea of basketball the idea of the sport that transcends just the shooting and the scoring and gets to the spirit of the thing itself it's impossible to pin down or define what exactly that idea is but its effects and results are impossible to miss we see it here in the 2014 spurs we see the same things we saw in those celtics teams of old things like compassion selflessness solidarity resiliency and triumph it was important for their catharsis that the spurs played the heat they had brought out the best in each other and the spurs were able to get the last laugh and avenge their loss but by the end of the series the spurs hadn't just got revenge over the heat they'd achieved redemption for themselves and they did it in a special aesthetic beautiful way i love this team because in the wake of the most devastating loss in basketball history the san antonio spurs responded together and together they played the best basketball that's ever been played [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Clayton Crowley

Views: 1,792,732

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Id: -DN78PRomhw

Length: 19min 56sec (1196 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 15 2022