The San Antonio Spurs have their work cut out for them Thursday when they attempt to rebound from an historic Game 6 collapse against the Miami Heat and win their fifth NBA Championship in a winner-take-all Game 7.
Tuesday, the Heat became just the second team in NBA history to ward off elimination in an NBA Finals game by overcoming a double-digit deficit entering the fourth quarter -- they trailed 75-65, not to mention 94-89 with 28 seconds left -- before ultimately earning a 103-100 overtime victory.
History wasn't on Miami's side Tuesday, and it's not on San Antonio's Thursday. It has been 35 years since a road team won a Game 7 in the NBA Finals. The last team to do so happens to be the Washington Bullets, who won their lone championship in 1978 by defeating the Seattle SuperSonics 105-99. Since then, road teams are 0-5 in Game 7s and 3-14 all-time.
(The Washington Post's Michael Lee has a great story about that game, which you can and should read here.)
Coincidentally, the Spurs and Heat have also done something in this series that hasn't been done since the Bullets/SuperSonics series: They have alternated victories in Games 1-6. Washington broke that pattern in Game 7.
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