The well-rested San Antonio Spurs stole home court advantage from the Miami Heat on Thursday with the help of a clutch shot from Tony Parker in the waning seconds of Game One of the NBA Finals.
Parker, who finished with a game-high 21 points, ran the clock down before nailing an off-balance jump shot with just 5.2 seconds left in regulation as the Spurs beat the mistake-prone Heat 92-88 to take a 1-0 lead in the Finals.
Parker held onto the ball for all of the 24 second clock as he bobbed and weaved his way through the Miami defenders before throwing up a desperate jump shot from 16 feet that rattled in to cap the scoring in front of a crowd of 19,775 at the American Airlines arena.
“It felt forever, too,” Parker said. “It was a crazy play. I thought I lost the ball three or four times.
“It didn’t work out like I wanted it to. At the end I was just trying to get a shot up. I was happy it went in.”
Parker seemed to slip past every Heat player at one point in the series but when it came time to shoot he was defended by LeBron James. But the Frenchman still got the shot off just before the 24-second shooting clock expired.
“Tony did everything wrong and did everything right in the same possession,” said James. “He stumbled two or three times, he fell over and when he fell over I was like OK, I am going to have to tie this ball up.
“He got up and went under my arm. I got a great contest ... it barely got off. That was the longest 24 seconds that I’ve been part of.”