SAN ANTONIO — When the air conditioning went out in San Antonio, many of the Spurs felt right at home — their native homelands.
They are a roster loaded with foreign players, accustomed to playing in places where air conditioning not only isn’t optional, it’s not even available.
“It gets crazy sometimes,” forward Boris Diaw from France said Friday. “It goes to 95, 96.”
It wasn’t quite that bad inside the AT&T Center during Game 1 of the NBA Finals, where the temperature hovered around 90 degrees and the thermometer got as much attention as the scoreboard in the Spurs’ 110-95 victory.
The Spurs weren’t immune to the steamy arena, they just handled it better.
They have nine players born outside of the United States, representing an NBA-record seven countries, and even Danny Green, one of their few Americans, played internationally earlier in his career when he couldn’t stick in the NBA. And while Diaw said it was the hottest NBA game he could remember, all the Spurs said they had faced worse.
They probably won’t have to endure it again, at least not in this series.
The teams were already scheduled to work out Friday and Saturday at the Spurs’ training facility, and Spurs officials announced just before practice began that the air conditioning system was “fully operational.”
Commissioner Adam Silver said a breaker about the size of a car battery failed and workers couldn’t replace it because they didn’t know what effect that would have on the rest of the power to arena. Silver said workers from the facility and league, along with an outside expert, checked it out and are confident everything is repaired and will be fine for Game 2 on Sunday night.
And even if it isn’t, the Spurs would probably handle it.
They have developed a mental toughness, the kind it will take to bounce back from last year’s gut-wrenching NBA Finals loss to the Heat and get it done this year.
“Being a champion is not easy,” Green said. “It’s not going to come easy.”
So no, the Spurs won’t be rattled by something like the conditions. The two-time defending champion Heat will have to do that themselves.
“Anybody can be rattled, but this team is more difficult to rattle than others,” Heat forward Chris Bosh said. “They have great poise, they’re always a step ahead a little bit.”
They were way ahead down the stretch, particularly after the demoralized Heat realized LeBron James — sidelined with cramps — had been lost for good with about 4 minutes remaining. And, as is often the case for the Spurs, this game was won just as much with their minds.
“I feel part of our downfall in that game was mental and physical fatigue down the stretch. You know, rotations and things that we normally do wasn’t done last night,” Heat guard Dwyane Wade said. “It wasn’t from not having the will or the want to do it.”
Gatorade sorry over LeBron tweets
SAN ANTONIO — Gatorade has apologized for tweets posted from the company’s account after Heat star LeBron James was forced to leave Game 1.
James was forced out of the game because of cramps, a sign of dehydration. Temperatures in the arena in San Antonio soared during the game because of an air conditioning outage, and the Spurs pulled away after James departed for a 110-95 win.
Gatorade tweeted “With a game this hot, we’re right at home” late in the game. Several other now-deleted tweets followed from the account, including one saying “The person cramping wasn’t our client. Our athletes can take the heat.”
James is a paid endorser of Powerade, a rival of Gatorade. The Heat have Gatorade products on their sideline during games.
By wire sources