Spurs center Tiago Splitter took off his jersey because of sweltering conditions during Game 1 of the NBA Finals.(Photo: Bob Donnan, USA TODAY Sports)
SAN ANTONIO — If you didn't know any better, you may have thought that R.C. Buford was guilty of a premature celebration Thursday night.
But that wasn't champagne soaking through the blue shirt of the San Antonio Spurs general manager as he walked so briskly through the humid AT&T Center halls. It was sweat.
No one wanted to give the broken air conditioning an official assist in San Antonio's 110-95 vs. the Miami Heat in Game 1 of the NBA Finals, but there's simply no denying that all this perspiration may ultimately lead to a Spurs parade. Yes, they all had to play through it, that near-90-degree temperature on the floor that had all the fans, well, fanning and left the place feeling like your local sauna.
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But only one superstar went down amid all this mechanical madness, and LeBron James sitting out late because of leg cramps meant the home-court edge was the Spurs' to be had even more than before.
It's never a good sign for the NBA when league officials have to be added to the postgame news conference lineup, yet there was Rod Thorn, the league's president of basketball operations, explaining it all afterward on this most surreal of nights.
"Once the game starts, it's in the hands of the referees," Thorn said. "Had the referees felt at any time or had I felt at any time — I was sitting the second row midcourt — were such that the game shouldn't be continued, then they would have come over and said something to me. Never did, I never said anything to them regarding the fact that the game should be cancelled. You know, again, in live sporting events, sometimes things transpire that you don't expect."
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He fully expects to building to be cool again by Sunday's Game 2, but that does nothing to help a Heat team that was without its best player in the most crucial of moments. James only played 34 of the final 451 seconds, and the Heat found themselves undermanned and overwhelmed as they were outscored 26-9 in the final 7 minutes, 31 seconds of play.
The Heat refused to take the conspiracy theory route, but guard Dwyane Wade wasn't afraid to offer a metaphorical eye roll about the sheer absursity of this freon faux pas. It's one thing to play in these kinds of conditions when you're a youngster running on the nearest black top, yet quite another when it's the world's biggest basketball stage.
"Yeah, a little bit," Wade told USA TODAY Sports when asked if he was frustrated by the technical difficulties. "It's the NBA Finals. You don't want to deal with nothing like that. You already have a tough job ahead of you, trying to beat this team on their home floor. It is what it is, man.
"Obviously when it's that hot, cramping is an issue. It could be a big issue. Guys get lightheaded as well. Obviously LeBron went down, but we're lucky more guys didn't go down. The conditions weren't what you would like to play in. But like you said, both teams did it. Both teams played in it. ... We had a chance to win, and we just didn't."
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James had spoken more candidly in the heat of the moment. With ABC's microphones picking his voice up on the sideline, he said, "They're trying to smoke us out of here." For Wade's part, it took him back to his Marquette days.
"I've been in a few (hot games like this)," Wade continued. "At Marquette, we'd practice in our gym, they called it 'The Old Gym," and it had no AC. You had fans at each end of the court. It was that hot. That's what you do growing up. You get to the NBA, and everything is taken care of."
Not the sort of nostalgia either team was looking for.
"You didn't know what was going on," Spurs guard Manu Ginobili said. "At a point, we would go to the bench and I would see cold towels everywhere and I didn't realize back then. Then when we went to the locker room at halftime, whew, we were sweating more in the locker room than on the court and when we came back it was tough.
"But, you know, it happens. It's the same heat for both, and we did OK. We moved the ball and I don't think we turned the ball over because of the temperature or the heat, so I don't think it was a big factor. I don't know if LeBron's situation was — this was the reason for that. I don't think we suffered as much."
Spurs coach Gregg Popovich took the whole situation in stride just like the rest of them. He paid even closer attention than normal to the level of his players' proverbial gas tanks, shuttling them in and out in a way that somehow avoided a James-like disaster for his side.
"It was probably tough on both teams," Popovich said. "Players were pretty dead. So we tried to get guys in and out a little bit more than we usually do. Kind of screws up the rhythm a little bit but it was mighty hot out there."
Jokes ensued, of course. From Buford on down, the Spurs had every reason to celebrate with a smile.
"I think everybody got a little tired or dehydrated for sure," he continued. "I'm sure that both teams are going to be happy that we have a couple of days before the next game and hopefully we can pay our bills."
Sam Amick is an NBA insider for USA TODAY Sports. Send him your thoughts on Twitter at @sam_amick.
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