Back in 2014, the Miami Heat were pursuing their third straight NBA championship. Unfortunately for the likes of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, the San Antonio Spurs got the better of them and won the 2014 NBA Finals in a five-game series.
Former Spurs star Manu Ginobili recently took to social media to post about the “beautiful and powerful moment” of winning an NBA championship.
Ginobili was fantastic in the 2014 NBA Finals while coming off the bench in every game of the series. Even as a reserve, he managed to have a major impact, averaging 14.4 points, 4.4 assists, 3.0 rebounds and 1.0 steal per game.
What likely made that Finals victory all the more sweet for Ginobili and the rest of the Spurs was that they lost to the Heat in an epic seven-game championship series the season before.
The Spurs very nearly won the 2013 NBA Finals over the Heat as well. It took one of the most memorable moments in recent Finals history to keep the Heat’s championship dreams alive in that series.
Facing elimination in Game 6 of the series, the Heat were trailing by three points with just seconds left on the clock. James put up a 3-pointer, but he missed. Luckily for the Heat, Bosh crashed the boards and grabbed the ball before passing it out to Ray Allen.
With just over five seconds on the game clock, Allen unloaded and nailed the deep ball. The Heat forced overtime and won.
They then closed out the series days later to win their second straight championship.
For the Spurs, the 2014 NBA Finals win was a moment of revenge. For the Heat, the loss in 2014 marked the end of an era.
That summer, James announced that he would be returning to the Cleveland Cavaliers to try to make good on his promise to bring a championship to his hometown team.
He achieved that task in 2016 when he and the Cavs came back from a 3-1 deficit against the Golden State Warriors in one of the most memorable NBA Finals matchups in league history.
Since 2014, the Spurs have yet to make it back to the NBA Finals. The Heat, on the other hand, have been back twice, but they failed the bring home the hardware both times.