The Spurs Take their Place on the Mountaintop

Just look at the box score: The only Heat player not named "LeBron" to shoot over 50% from the field was Michael Beasley. Look at the box score: Miami hit seven threes, Patty Mills hit five on his lonesome for the Spurs. That box score: The Spurs had 25 assists to Miami's 14. Mercifully, the tide of analytics and advanced metrics has hit the NBA's mainstream media (sorta), but sometimes a glance at the box score reveals all that needs to be known.

Following the farce of "A/C-gate" and the pointless chiding of LeBron over his cramps, there was a small but noisy group proclaiming that game one could have gone differently. That the series could go differently. The San Antonio Spurs however care not for hypotheticals. Instead, the Spurs, save for a blip in Game Two, continued their scorched-earth march through the 2013-14 playoffs. Leaving no doubt who was the best team in the NBA this year. Seven losses in four rounds of playoff basketball. Three at the hands of the Mavs in round one; one courtesy of the Trailblazers in round two; two losses courtesy of the team in Oklahoma City in the Western Conference finals; and a single loss in the championship round against the defending champs. There have been more dominant runs through the playoffs: Moses Malone's Sixers, the 2001 Lakers, but this Spurs squad made damn sure that everyone they faced knew their name. Save for the street fight that was their opening series against Dallas, San Antonio so thoroughly dismantled their opponents in their 16 victories. 15, 19, 21, 17 those are the margins of victory the Spurs just compiled against the two-time champs, the team that was the fifth-best defense in points per game during the regular season. All wiped away, grinded to dust by this silver and black locomotive.

All series long it had been the "31 flavors of WE WILL DESTROY YOU" versus LeBron James' will. 60% shooting and a 28 PPG average and his team still lost by, again, 15, 19, 21 and 17. There will be far too much finger pointing from your co-workers and from Twitter and from the Skip Baylesses of the world, but, honestly, what else could LeBron have done aside from make four clones of himself and field a squad dubbed "The LeBrontosaurus Rexes?" So much handwringing and kvetching has gone on over the course of the past three offseasons about the "competitive balance" of a super team and of Pat Riley's "gaming of the system," but here we are: four straight trips to the FInals and a 50% success rate. Other teams, equally as hungry for championships, have done their best to keep up with the Heat, but the Spurs rewrote the rules. "Why have only three, when we can have an entire roster of players I trust?" You can practically hear Popovich snort that to RC Buford between swigs of shiraz.

There are never guarantees that super teams will work. The Brooklyn Nets, the '04 LA Lakers are both perfect examples of limitless expectations and crashing realities. Championships are rare, lightning in a bottle blends of chemistry, desire, and talent. The Heat had that for the past two seasons. Those other hungry teams have a new championship mold to emulate. Or at least try to.