LeBron James may not have been happy after the Miami Heat lost Game 1 of the NBA Finals to the San Antonio Spurs 92-88 on Thursday, but he still was able to keep it somewhat loose in his postgame news conference.
While appearing before the media after the game, James began scanning the stat sheet to analyze where the Heat went wrong in Game 1. That’s when he noticed what appeared to be an error when it came to the Spurs’ second-chance points.
“I was looking at the stat sheet, and it says that they had 21 second-chance points,” a puzzled James noted. “I don’t really understand how that is possible with only six offensive rebounds. I’m very good in math.
“The only way you can get a second-chance point is if you can get an offensive rebounds, right? Am I correct? So even if you hit a three off of six offensive rebounds, that’s still only 18 points. So I don’t understand how that works. But we had chances.”
Even as the next question was being asked, James was still stuck on the second-chance points puzzle.
“Yeah, that’s kind of weird. I don’t understand. Am I right or am I wrong? That’s crazy.”
Based on the way James was describing the stat sheet, he was right. But forget all that. The only stats that matter are 1-0 — as in the Spurs are up 1-0; 0-4 as in Chris Bosh’s 3-pointer stats; and 8-25 as in the Heat’s 3-point stats.
San Antonio played great defense, filled the paint, and discouraged James from going inside. They forced the Heat to take a bunch of threes, and the plan worked. Miami needs to worry about correcting that.
