31-07-2025
"We basically destroyed them in 2014 playing the beautiful game" - Tony Parker says the 2014 Spurs aren't talked about enough as a historic team
"We basically destroyed them in 2014 playing the beautiful game" - Tony Parker says the 2014 Spurs aren't talked about enough as a historic team originally appeared on Basketball Network.
The Miami Heat had made yet another trip to the NBA Finals in 2014, their fourth straight in the LeBron James era.
A third consecutive title was on the table, something no franchise had done since Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant's Los Angeles Lakers completed a three-peat in 2002.
The stars were aligned for Miami to rein in the NBA's next dynasty.
But across the court stood the San Antonio Spurs, a team that remembered everything. The missed free throws. The Ray Allen shot. The Game 6 trophy being wheeled off the sideline only to vanish.
The sweet revenge
The 2013 Finals had been brutal.
San Antonio had Miami on the ropes, seconds away from clinching a fifth title. But history turned on a dime when Chris Bosh found Allen in the corner, which led to the greatest clutch shot ever.
The Spurs never recovered. The Heat closed the deal in Game 7 and were crowned back-to-back champions.
"The way we lost in 2013 and the way we came back," former Spurs star Tony Parker recalled. "To come back like that and play the same team — and we basically destroyed them in 2014 playing the beautiful game and we won all the games by 20. That made up for it."
This time, there was no hesitation. No mental errors and no collapse. San Antonio dismantled Miami in a five-game series that was more of a masterclass than a contest.
They erased the Heat and each victory was decisive, with the Spurs outscoring Miami by nearly 70 points over the series. The average margin of victory in their four wins was over 18 points.
Game 1 opened the series with intensity, but it was Game 3 and Game 4 in Miami where the Spurs took a flamethrower to the idea of balance.
They shot 76 percent in the first half of Game 3. Kawhi Leonard, then just 22, emerged from the shadows with back-to-back performances that quieted even the most raucous corners of American Airlines Arena. In a star-studded Finals filled with Hall of Famers, it was Leonard who took home Finals MVP.
It was poetic justice, but also tactical excellence. Gregg Popovich's team moved with the rhythm of no wasted motion, no over-reliance on any one player. The ball movement was relentless, passes crisp and purposeful.
Boris Diaw found cutters before they knew they were open. Patty Mills ignited off the bench. Tim Duncan anchored the post with quiet dominance. Manu Ginobili pierced defenses with unexpected angles.
And Parker, as always, orchestrated the tempo with precision and Spurs legacy
Despite the brilliance on display, the 2014 Spurs don't often get the reverence typically reserved for dominant champions.
They didn't build super-teams through free agency or flood timelines with headlines. Instead, they played ball the old-fashioned way, developed talent, stuck to a system and held each other accountable. That approach worked, even in an era leaning toward glitz and celebrity.
Still, their triumph is sometimes spoken of as a footnote in James' Miami saga rather than a standalone masterpiece.
The 2014 Spurs reminded everyone that dominance didn't require iso-heavy scorers or social media drama. It could be achieved through trust, timing and execution.
Their championship was also the closing of a chapter. James would leave Miami that summer, returning to the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Big Three era in South Beach was effectively over. For Duncan, Ginobili and Parker, it would be their final title together, a culmination of nearly two decades of selfless story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Jul 26, 2025, where it first appeared.
