Revisiting the 2013 Finals: the 3 Heard 'Round the World
By: Wayne
"BANG!!! TIE GAME WITH 5 SECONDS REMAINING!!!" It's hard to believe it's been 7 years since one of my favorite Mike Breen calls of all time. San Antonio led in the NBA Finals over the Miami Heat three games to two, and in Game 6 they had a 95-92 lead with 19.4 seconds remaining. Dwyane Wade brought the ball ahead and kicked it to LeBron James on the perimeter. James hit back iron on the would-be game-tying three.
You could hear the hearts of Heat fans drop in their stomachs as they felt the series slipping away. Chris Bosh grabbed the rebound without much of a contest from Boris Diaw as the Spurs forward attempted to close on the three-point attempt. Bosh found his sharp-shooting teammate Ray Allen in the corner, and despite a solid contest from Tony Parker, Allen drained the three like it was just another shot in his money rack in the All-Star three-point contest. "BANG!!!"
Check out the legendary shot here: https://youtu.be/tr6XsZVb-ZE
The collective sway of emotions inside the American Airlines Arena in Miami could be felt around the world. A matter of 4 seconds separated LeBron's miss that should have ended his team's season and Allen's 3 that kept the Heat alive. I believe it's the most clutch shot in NBA Finals history - certainly, the most clutch Finals shot I have ever seen live. It was the kind of shot that you remember watching for the first time for the rest of your life. You remember where you were, who you were with, and that roller-coaster stomach-lurching feeling of a massive momentum shift.
Ray Allen wasn't phased. It was the biggest shot of his career - the biggest shot of his life. He absolutely HAD to make it - and he did. Allen had no points before the 4th quarter. It didn't matter. He calmly stepped back to make sure he had both feet behind the 3-point line and drained it from the corner. "BANG!!!" Allen tied the game up and sent it to overtime, where the Heat would prevail 103-100. It was a massive moment and it's hard to say that Allen wasn't the perfect man to deliver.
In the words of the Talking Heads, "you may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?" Well, let me break it down for you. That Game 6 featured some legendary NBA talent. Of course, we have to start with the king himself, LeBron. James went 3-9 in the first half and didn't seem quite right for the entirety of the contest. Still, he delivered when he needed to. LeBron scored 16 points in the 4th quarter to give him 32 for the entire game. He put up 10 rebounds and 11 assists to round out his triple-double. LeBron's shooting may not have been there (42.3% overall), but he contributed across the board to make sure the Heat stayed in it.
27 seconds left in the contest. LeBron forced a three - a brutal miss wide right. With 20 seconds remaining, Miami found themselves down 5. The shot clock was turned off, and for the umpteenth time that night, it felt like the Spurs were moments from being crowned champions. LeBron wouldn't have it. Mike Miller fought off a crowd of black jerseys and clutched the ball off the backboard. Miller found James on the perimeter once again, and LeBron did what legends do after a devastating miss - step back up and try again. This time, money. The Heat cut the lead to 3 points with 20 seconds left, hanging on by a thread to their championship dreams.
Let's rewind a little bit. The Spurs had their way with the Heat early, leading by 6 at halftime after holding Miami to just 17 points in the second quarter. Future Hall-of-Famer Tim Duncan put up 25 points in that first half on 11-13 shooting, and Mario Chalmers somehow led the Heat in scoring with 14 points of his own. The Big 3 (James, Wade, and Bosh) combined for 21 points. Miami was lucky to be within single digits. Heading into the second half, they had to find a way to score more points. LeBron's 0 field goals in the 3rd quarter weren't going to cut it. The Spurs led by 10 after the first 3 quarters, and it was starting to feel like yet another win sizable margin in this series.
Game 1 in Miami had been a nail-biting, stomach-lurching 4-point win by the Spurs. After that, every game was decided by double digits - a 19-point Heat win in Game 2, a 36-point (!!) Spurs win in Game 3, a 16-point Heat win in Game 4, and a 10-point Spurs win in Game 5. Game 6 was starting to follow the trend set forth by the previous 4 games - but the Heat were resilient, they were desperate to keep the series alive. 3s from Mario Chalmers and Mike Miller, along with a layup from LeBron, cut the margin to 4 points. LeBron finished a few more times at the rim before a Ray Allen layup finally gave the Heat the lead they were longing for with 6 minutes remaining.
The second half was not going well for the Spurs, particularly in the fourth quarter. Tim Duncan was a shell of his first-half self, going just 2-7 in the second. Tony Parker didn't fare much better, shooting 4-13 in the second half, but the French point guard was not about to roll over and let the Heat take the game. His step-back 3-pointer with a minute and thirty seconds remaining tied the game up and his spinning floater gave the Spurs a 2-point lead with 58 seconds remaining. Manu Ginobli would step to the line and drain two shots to give San Antonio a seemingly safe 4-point lead with 37 seconds remaining.
The Heat weren't done. LeBron made that clutch 3-pointer off the Mike Miller rebound I mentioned earlier, cutting it to within 2 points. A quick foul on Kawhi Leonard sent the 21-year-old forward to the line, where he would make one-of-two free throws. The Heat are lucky the Claw hadn't quite figured out the whole shooting thing yet - he's making 89% of his freebies this year and would surely drain both shots in his current Finals form. Kawhi missed one though, setting up Ray Allen to hit the 3 heard round the world.
How much did that 3-pointer mean? I'm convinced no play in NBA history has shifted momentum as massively as that 3-pointer did. Plenty of 3-pointers were made in that series - Danny Green broke Allen's own record for most 3-pointers in a Finals series earlier on in Game 5 when he hit his 25th shot from long-range. Plenty more 3s have been made in the Finals since, and plenty more will be hit going forward. I'm not sure any have or will mean as much as Ray's shot though. We can't forget the impact Chris Bosh made on that play, as well, securing the rebound and finding his open teammate in the corner. Man, I miss watching Bosh play. He would have been a perfect player for the modern NBA.
The Heat had definitively captured momentum in the series as Game 7 was set to take place in Miami. The Finals were still operating under the 2-3-2 rules in which both Games 6 and 7 were home matches for the Heat. The Spurs just didn't have enough left in the tank as they shot 37.8% in Game 7. LeBron put up 37 points and 12 rebounds, Dwyane Wade scored 23 points of his own, and Shane Battier chipped in an unpredictable 18 points off the bench (all from 3-point range). Ray Allen didn't score in Game 7. He didn't have to.
Allen's Game 6 shot meant everything. Take LeBron's legacy, for instance. His current 3-5 Finals record would look a lot worse at 2-6 if he had lost that series against the Spurs. In 2014, James made the decision to return to the Cavaliers in a quest to bring a championship to Cleveland. Would he have made that call if he had only won one championship in Miami? It's impossible to know for sure, but Allen made a Cleveland championship a possibility when he helped LeBron win 2 chips in 4 Heat seasons. Ray Allen was later inducted to the Professional Basketball Hall of Fame in 2018, and LeBron will surely join him in due time.
The NBA season has been put on hiatus for the foreseeable future as we all deal with the fallout from COVID-19. So I'm looking to the past and breaking down some of the best NBA moments of all time. Stay safe everyone, it's a crazy time right now. Beyond that, let me know in the comments if you remember where you were when Ray Allen hit that 3-pointer. And let me know if there's a specific game from NBA history you want me to break down. Thanks so much for the support, and check out my new Instagram page @waynesworldsports. Until next time.