by David Zizmor

Miami vs. San Antonio: This first game on Thursday night was an interesting game and the Spurs won this one pretty handily 110-95 over the Miami Heat. There is kind of a nice side story that goes with this one. If you were watching this game you had to know that something was screwy and it turns out this game which was played at the AT&T Center in San Antonio with no air conditioning.

The air conditioning was just broke and there is nothing like being indoors with no air conditioning in San Antonio in June. It was sweltering and it got to be up to 90 degrees inside the arena. For anyone playing championship level basketball that’s really difficult.

Those are very unusual conditions and the last time we saw anything like it was back in 1985 between the Lakers and the Celtics when Boston Garden famously lost air conditioning and it was a complete swamp in the place. It was just hot, humid, and damp with all sorts of condensation on the floor.

Not quite as slippery in San Antonio but just as hot, just as sweltering and it just didn’t favor the Heat this time around. You got to figure both of these teams are used to hot and muggy weather in the summertime. The Spurs had the home court advantage and at the very minimum knew about the air conditioning so the Spurs were a little better prepared for it.

The trainers had extra Gatorade for the players on the benches and they were making sure that everybody was hydrated, on the flip side the Heat’s LeBron James was doing everything he could to keep in the game. LeBron left the game on a couple of occasions in the fourth quarter because he was so hot and so dehydrated he was cramping up.

LeBron literally had to come out of the game to get himself a rest and get some water in him and get himself on the court. So when San Antonio is in a situation where they can get LeBron off the court it’s very easy to take advantage of the Heat. If you look at the box score you would see that the Spurs took advantage of this one.

The Spurs took advantage of the situation when LeBron had to sit twice during the fourth quarter. They outscored Miami 36-17 to end the game. When you do that your just going to win everytime. The Spurs won by 15 and the game was reasonably close until that last fourth quarter. Next game is on Sunday night at San Antonio for game two, the Spurs say they have assured everyone the air conditioning should be ready for that one.

David Zizmor is covering the NBA Finals for http://www.sportsradioservice.com