{"id":871,"date":"2013-06-20T17:54:11","date_gmt":"2013-06-20T21:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bigredsportsmachine.com\/?p=871"},"modified":"2013-06-20T17:54:11","modified_gmt":"2013-06-20T21:54:11","slug":"game-7-all-or-nothing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/?p=871","title":{"rendered":"Game 7 – All or Nothing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Yes<\/a>

Yes it’s true, the NBA Playoffs will end tonight!<\/p><\/div>\n

Yes, exactly two months to the day, the NBA playoffs will finally come to an end tonight, as the Heat take on the Spurs in Game 7.\u00a0 There are no better words in sport than \u201cGame 7\u201d (\u201cyou are not the father\u201d comes in as a close second).\u00a0 The Machine doesn\u2019t care what sport it is, we\u2019ll watch any Game 7.\u00a0 There simply is nothing better in sports.<\/p>\n

Loyal readers of The Machine know that we wisely picked this matchup in April.\u00a0 Point: \u00a0Machine.\u00a0 They\u2019ll also be quick to note that we likened the Heat to the \u201996 Bulls.\u00a0 Point:\u00a0 \u201996 Bulls.\u00a0 The Heat, while (at times) displaying flashes of overpowering dominance and confidence similar to the \u201996 Bulls, have not coasted through the playoffs.\u00a0 They are not perfect, and they are not the \u201996 Bulls.\u00a0 The Machine has learned its lesson:\u00a0 no more comparisons to Jordan-led teams (we disavow his tenure with Washington).\u00a0 No one will ever match the brilliance of the \u201996 Bulls.<\/p>\n

Ok, back to tonight\u2019s game.\u00a0 Who\u2019s going to win?\u00a0 Is The Machine going to back pedal\u00a0from its (over)hyping of the Heat?\u00a0 The Spurs have exposed the Heat in this series, Danny Green continues to drain threes, Boris Diaw is the most underrated player in the NBA, and Tim Duncan has shown he\u2019s got enough left in the tank for one more epic performance.\u00a0 So the Spurs have a chance, right?<\/p>\n

Sorry kiddos, as much as we love an underdog, we simply cannot pick against the Heat.\u00a0 As the fickle Miami crowd was leaving Tuesday night (Christ people, they were only down 5 with 28 seconds left) a flip switched with this team.\u00a0 They realized they were about to lose the NBA Finals, and suddenly remembered that they were the most dominant team since the \u201996 Bulls (dammit, we just broke our own rule).\u00a0 From that moment, the Heat went into Champion mode (a\/k\/a Beastmode), and the Spurs were instantly outmatched and shell-shocked.\u00a0 LeBron nailed a three, the Spurs missed a free through that would\u2019ve put them up 4, and Ray Allen reminded everyone that he\u2019s the best 3 point shooter on the court (suck it, Danny Green).\u00a0 Simply put, the Heat got pissed.\u00a0 At themselves and their own fans.\u00a0 And it\u2019s that motivation that will propel them to Game 7 victory.<\/p>\n

The Spurs had their chance to win.\u00a0 They were 28 seconds away from the title and shocking the world.\u00a0 If they could make free throws, we wouldn\u2019t be here.\u00a0 Their window of opportunity has closed, and, much like the one time you made out with the prom queen, it ain\u2019t opening up again.<\/p>\n

Despite Chris Bosh and his alternating personalities of dominant center\/confused velociraptor, Bron Bron\u00a0will not let the Heat lose.\u00a0 Look for LeBron\u00a0to up the aggressiveness on offense and dribble drive to the hole, getting fouled along the way and picking up easy buckets at the line.\u00a0 The only answer to that is to double on the drive, which then LeBron\u00a0(who doesn\u2019t get enough credit for his passing skills) will find the open shooter (Battier, Allen) or cutter (Birdman\/Bosh).\u00a0 And let\u2019s not forget about Wade.\u00a0 D-Wade will drain the knee one last time and will play with the same intensity and poise as he showed in Game 6.<\/p>\n

But the Spurs won\u2019t go without a fight.\u00a0 They\u2019ve proven they can hang with the Heat.\u00a0 Timmy and Co. will keep this game entertaining.\u00a0 For all the double-digit snooze fests that we\u2019ve witnessed in this series and the playoffs in general, The Machine thinks this one will be close.\u00a0 We\u2019re hoping for a down to the wire finish, but our money\u2019s on the Heat to cover (garbage free throws) and the under.<\/p>\n

The NBA Playoffs might be (read: are) painfully long and difficult to watch but it all ends tonight.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Book it, friends.\u00a0 The Heat will be repeat NBA Champions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yes, exactly two months to the day, the NBA playoffs will finally come to an end tonight, as the Heat take on the Spurs in Game 7.\u00a0 There are no better words in sport than \u201cGame 7\u201d (\u201cyou are not … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nba"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Bp3y-e3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=871"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":874,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871\/revisions\/874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}