San Antonio Has Become an Unstoppable Killing Machine

Nothing's shocking. Not for this San Antonio Spurs team. Not Boris Diaw casually putting up the most-shocking "almost" triple-double in Finals history. Not Kawhi Leonard following up his quinceañera performance with another, even more complete box score-stuffing 20, 14, 3, 3, and 3 while also containing LeBron James (again.) Not Tim Duncan clocking in at the office (passing Kareem as the all-time leader in playoff minutes) and setting a new NBA record for double-doubles in playoff history. Nope, nothing's shocking. The whirring and humming whiz-bang offense that is the Spurs just kept on rolling along in Game Four and now San Antonio is on the cusp of another championship with two chances to clinch on their home hardwood.

The Miami Heat, on the other hand, for the first time since the 2011 Finals against Dallas, must surely be feeling stifling anxiety and possibly even doubt. Their vaunted pressure-heavy defensive isn't working against this oh-so-focused Spurs offense. Every shot the Spurs are taking is with a white-hot focus, as if even their moms wanted to win every game by fifty. The Spurs are executing, with silent ferocity, every extra pass, every screen, and every other mundane fundamental that your fifth-grade coach told you to "stick to." For LeBron James it has become this: bringing a cannon to a gunfight. Sure, you have a really neat and very powerful machine that shoots cannonballs through walls, but then Mario Chalmers spills all of the gunpowder and Dwyane Wade can't light the fuse to save his life and Gregg Popovich, whilst chuckling to himself, drinks Eric Spoelstra's milkshake. Last season's Finals saw the zenith of Miami's Frankenstein offense, LeBron, Wade, and Chris Bosh had evolved into Cerberus, a perfectly in-sync beast just as happy to kick it out to Ray Allen (or the sorely missed Mike Miller) as it was to take it to the rim or drill a mid-range jumper. Now we are seeing the Spurs with an even more evolved offense shred Miami like so many stacks of 8.5 x 11, corporate pabulum. As surprised as any NBA fan has been by the demolition derby that has been the last eight quarters of basketball, Miami seems the most surprised, the most shell-shocked, and really, though, can you blame them? They're certainly not trying to lose by double digits, there are just SO MANY Spurs and SO MANY baskets that they keep making.

In fact, the only one not surprised, not shocked by all of this is Mr. Nonchalant: Kawhi Leonard. Coached up on the tactics of never showing emotion by grandmaster of masked demeanor, Tim Duncan, Leonard has exhibited all the passion of a lab tech taking cultures out of a protein bath. His threes and breakaway dunks all punctuated with blankness, as if the only verse of Shakespeare he knows is MacDuff's: "I have no words, my voice is in my sword." Leonard stole so many of our hearts last postseason and had been so steady, but overlooked, until Games 3 and 4 that he was practically an afterthought. A funny and contradictory notion to be certain, Leonard is now so good, but so faceless that he feels almost as if he's been here forever. Like Jack Torrance showing up in that old photograph in the Overlook Hotel's grand ballroom, Leonard has always been a ghost, a shadow we've known. Yet, he is not a ghost, he is the future that arrived early. A future that is already here and happy to not carry Tim Duncan across the finish line, but to cross it with Tim Duncan, et al.

Tim Duncan my boo, but Kawhi my bae

— Kate Perkins (@shharkey) June 13, 2014

Before this series started, like any other one, many predictions and prognostications were made. Debates hummed on ESPN alongside World Cup hype about San Antonio's Big Three versus Miami's Big Three. We've yet to see a truly transcendent game from any of the Spurs trio of Parker, Ginobili, or Duncan and we may not need to. Prior to Game Four rumors began bubbling up about Carmelo Anthony contemplating a move to South Beach, but with this depth on San Antonio and with this greased machine that is their offense would a Big Four even matter?