LeBron James and Chris Bosh Motivated By Title Preparations for the Spurs

With time running out in the fourth quarter, and the San Antonio Spurs holding a four point lead in Game 6, arena workers in Miami last night were quite reasonably preparing for the Spurs’ NBA title celebration. Chris Bosh and LeBron James say they both got fired up once they saw that, and that helped drive the Heat’s stunning 103-100 comeback win. Per Yahoo! Sports: “The yellow tape started to surround the Miami Heat, the security cordoning the court for the San Antonio Spurs’ championship celebration. All around, thousands of fans had fled for the exits. There were 28 seconds left, the Heat on the cusp of history remembering them for NBA Finals failures, a champion of hype and hubris. ‘They brought out the yellow tape,’ Chris Bosh said, ‘and it was getting me pissed off. It brought me back to 2011.’ The Spurs had become the Dallas Mavericks, and Texas threatened to celebrate on South Beach for the second time in three years. Twenty-eight seconds left in Game 6, the Spurs clutched a five-point edge and that yellow tape could’ve represented the cops marking a crime scene. In all the chaos of these final minutes, something else captured LeBron James’ eye for a moment: the championship ceremony platform had started to be moved into the tunnel at American Airlines Arena. For all these slights – real and imagined – the Heat changed the course of NBA history. Here was San Antonio, on the brink of another Tim Duncan era championship and these strong, sure Spurs crumpled to the court. They had the Heat, had them done, and let it all slip away. As the Spurs collapsed, missing free throws and box outs, James made a 3-pointer with 20 seconds left, and finally, in the far corner, Ray Allen drilled another with five seconds left to force overtime.”