For one night, the At&T Center in San Antonio doubled as C+C Music Factory because, if you were within it, the building was gonna make you sweat. The air conditioning was out of service and, as a result, so was LeBron James during the decisive fourth quarter. It was a capacity crowd, but everyone would agree the venue could've used more fans.
The arena kept getting hotter and the Spurs shooting followed suit, basically burning up the basket by swishing a scorching 14 of 16 from the floor in the fourth, including a flawless and flaming 6-6 on three-pointers. That wasn't even the most impressive (thermo)stat of the night: Tim Duncan's field goal percentage, 90, was equal to that of the temperature inside the gym.
The increase in degrees increased the degree of difficulty in playing for LeBron, who had to be carried off with cramps with 3:59 remaining, after exiting earlier in the final frame at the 7:31 mark. He could only watch and wince while the game was on the line, which brought a new meaning to the phrase "warming the bench." James, who finished with 25 points, was hot and bothered by the climate conditions, leaving for the locker room with time left in the game. 15-4 and 16-3 Spurs spurts stemmed from James sitting on the sidelines. An electrical problem revealed an inconvenient truth: The Heat were done-in by the heat.
Perhaps speaking to a trend of global warming, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobil pointed out that plenty of parquets in Europe are absent of AC. As usual, Gregg Popovich had the best (power) line, "Hopefully we can pay our bills [by Game 2 on Sunday]," coach cracked. Preferably in cold, hard cash.
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