Sports are a second guesser's delight.Would Miami have won the title if Shaq and Wade were healthy? Did fatigue from the Miami series cause Detroit's slow start in the Finals? (the Pistons took three of four from the Spurs in the middle of the series and might have won four straight games if not for Horry's shot) Why on Earth did Rasheed Wallace leave open the guy who had been killing the Pistons the whole second half of game five--the guy whose nickname is "Big Shot Rob"-to shoot a three pointer when Detroit was up two with less than 10 seconds left? How good would the Lakers have been if Shaq had lost weight and willingly deferred to Kobe the way that he lost weight and willingly deferred to Wade? The first two questions are unanswerable, the third will cause Larry Brown, 'Sheed and Pistons' fans sleepless nights for years and the fourth sounds like the basis for a future Basketball Spotlight article.
While second guessing is entertaining, sometimes it is important to stick to cold, hard facts-just the stats, ma'am, to paraphrase a famous line. The Finals stats make for some interesting reading. One team outscored the other by nearly 2 ppg, had more assists, more steals, more blocks, many more field goals made (248-216), a better field goal percentage, a better free throw percentage, fewer turnovers and was only outrebounded by .7 rpg. That same team had six players average 10+ ppg, compared to four for the other team. If you think the team with the gaudy stats was San Antonio-you were not paying attention to the Finals. So how did the Spurs win? They dominated Detroit from behind the three point arc, punctuated and symbolized by the one moment that will always be remembered from this series-Horry's game five dagger. San Antonio made 51 threes and shot .398 from that distance, compared to 18 and .240 by Detroit. San Antonio won so convincingly in this category that the Spurs could lose almost every other statistical category and still emerge victorious. Despite his roots as an ABA player and coach, Larry Brown is not a big fan of the three point shot that was made famous by that league and after looking at the 2005 Finals stats he probably likes it even less.
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