Every now and then, we will attempt to write the worst sports column on earth. Today: Let's talk about LeBron James and the NBA Finals and history.

Rudy Tomjanovich was sweaty. His voice was hoarse, and his bones were tired. It had been a long, tough series. But the world was listening, and when Coach grabbed the microphone, his words rang through loud and clear.

"I have one thing to say to those non-believers," Rudy told the world. "Don't ever underestimate the heart of a champion."

Those eight words are etched into NBA Finals lore forever.

We will never, ever underestimate the heart of a champion.

But what about the other guys? What about the guys who just don't want it bad enough? What about the guys who would rather be famous than great?

You know, the guys who want all the credit but can't cash the checks.

The NBA Finals are upon us, and the Spurs are putting together another June masterpiece. But as I look at all these champions, I can't help but wonder.

What about LeBron James?

So much amazing is happening, and the Shootaround crew is here to help you keep track of it all. You'll find takes on moments you might've missed from the previous night, along with ones you will remember forever.

GINOBBBBBBBIILLIIIIII

Robert Mays: We’re likely to hear that last night’s Manu Ginobili performance was a return to form, but that’s not really true. What Manu did last night — at least 24 points and double-digit assists — is something he’d done only once in 155 playoff games. In fact, Ginobili’s had at least 10 assists only six times in his playoff career; half of those games have come this postseason. The scoring Ginobili isn’t new, but the level at which this Spurs machine runs, the array of guys capable of hammering home the Ginobili passes that few others would even try? That part is.

Of those 10 assists, I don’t think any better encapsulates the Spurs’ night than the one above — Green running from one corner to the other, Ginobili letting the pass go before he’d even gotten there. I don’t think Ginobili’s eyes ever moved that way, and as a result, neither did any of the three Heat players on that side of the floor. Ginobili was fantastic last night (and so was Tony Parker, who will still likely determine the Spurs’ fate), but what we saw last night once again was San Antonio operating at its fullest offensive capacity, a level at which no other team can operate.

The Heat have talked openly about how facing three of the league’s top five defenses over the last three rounds has taken the fast-paced style out of their offense. Great defenses, with weeks to scout a single opponent, don’t fall for the whirring decoy actions all over the floor, or scramble themselves out of position, or forget for a second which shooters demand constant attention and which do not. Miami’s high-flying motion bogs down into stasis, both because the shot clock is dying, and because the Heat simply abandon it for simpler things in the face of a defense that renders the complex ineffective. Great defenses, the Heat will tell you, just take you out of your game for long stretches.

This Finals series is reminding us that the same is true on the other end — that a great offense, a relentlessly great offense, can take a defense out of its game. It can get in a defense’s head, forcing painful adjustments, lineup changes, fatal overthinking, and mental fatigue. The Spurs’ offense has imposed its will on this series, and they have the Heat reeling in ways no team has managed since the 2011 Mavericks. “Our defense tonight,” Shane Battier said after the game, “was unacceptable.”

And he’s right, in a way. Miami made mistakes we’d associate with an out-of-sorts team battling fatigue, frustration, and total bewilderment. In the second quarter, Mario Chalmers just stopped paying attention to his man, Danny Green, as Green trotted along the baseline and popped out the other side for a wide-open 3-pointer — at least the third or fourth such triple Green has hit in this series via that simple cut. About a minute later, Chris Bosh, worried about a possible pick-and-roll that hadn’t actually happened yet, just abandoned Tim Duncan to double-team Tony Parker — leaving a shocked Mike Miller to foul Duncan under the basket:

Only Game 1 of these NBA Finals has unfolded the way many of us expected the series would — with two teams leveraging their very different strengths in a tight battle of possession-by-possession tradeoffs. Miami’s ultra-aggressive defense, with traps and very early rotations at the rim, would bottle up and confuse San Antonio’s pinpoint passing attack on some possessions. And on others, the Spurs would skip the ball around the court ahead of those rotations, netting themselves open corner 3-pointers or Tony Parker rim runs. With two teams that are so damn good, neither could hope to win these battles in a landslide; whoever won them 55 percent of the time would win each game, and a legacy-changing title.

But only Game 1 has really played out that way. In Game 2, the Spurs took advantage of puzzling Miami breakdowns and appeared ready to steal another road game until we all blacked out and the Heat went up 30. In Game 3, the inexcusable Miami breakdowns continued, and the brilliant Spurs offense sliced up the Heat as a bewildered LeBron James and a sad Dwyane Wade tossed up bricks against San Antonio’s pack-the-paint defense.

And then, Game 4. Holy hell, Game 4. The Heat, save for some early hiccups, played perhaps their cleanest defensive game of the postseason, considering the stakes, location, and opponent. They corralled Parker up top on pick-and-rolls without scrambling themselves out of position, and their rotations along the back line were terrifying both in their ferocity and their precise timing.

So much amazing is happening, and the Shootaround crew is here to help you keep track of it all. You'll find takes on moments you might've missed from the previous night, along with ones you will remember forever.

Pagan Rituals

netw3rk: In the Heat’s pregame hype-huddle, Dwyane Wade, ringed by his teammates, screamed “How will we respond?!” To which I tweeted:

“HOW WE GONNA RESPOND?” - The guy whose fault it is.

— netw3rk (@netw3rk) June 14, 2013

For most of these playoffs, various pundits, tastemakers, and members of the roundball intelligentsia have been vigorously shoveling dirt onto Wade’s head, face, neck, and chest area and tamping it down with some hard stomps of the loafer. And for good reason. He’s averaging 15.1 points per game this playoffs, down nearly eight points from last year’s 22.8; before Game 4, his PER for these playoffs was down to 17 from last year’s 22; and he’s shooting the second-lowest eFG of his playoff career, behind his injury-hit 2006-07 playoff campaign. The fall-down-seven-times-stand-up-eight Flash of the past was reduced to nothing more than the faint throb of a raver's day-old glow stick. People who get paid to be smart about basketball, and who are much smarter than I about basketball, have wondered aloud if it was time to bring Wade off the bench, à la one-shining-bald-spot Manu Ginobili. My contribution to this discussion was to make a Dwyane Wade Oregon Trail dysentery meme.

So, where the hell did this come from? Wade erupted last night in Krakatoa-ian fashion, scoring 32 points on 14-of-25 shooting. It’s his first time ALL PLAYOFFS scoring more than 30 points and only the third time he’s scored more than 20 (he scored 20 points or more 17 times last playoffs). And it’s not just that he got hot from long range, as players will sometimes do, and just started randomly splashing jumpers like a gambler catching hot cards. He was driving HARD, like the Wade of a million YouTube mixes with his Euro-step set to “Ibiza,” taking 12 shots in the paint, converting 10. It’s even more startling considering Wade tweaked some portion of his lower extremities in the first quarter, causing him to need a trainer to stretch him in a manner usually befitting a safe word. Somewhere, Tim Grover is chanting ancient Aramaic demon spells while sacrificing a rare eagle and burning a human foot in a bonfire.

Through three games, LeBron James is definitely not the MVP of these Finals. He’s struggling from the floor, and he’s struggling to get to the free throw line. He is the focus of the Spurs' defensive scheme, which has effectively turned down the Heat in two of the first three games.

In this series, James is shooting 21-for-54 from the floor, or 39 percent. During the regular season, James shot 57 percent. It’s common for these kinds of big drops in FG percentage to be caused by decreased opportunities close to the basket and an increased reliance on jump shooting, but that’s not what’s going on with James.

Over the 82-game regular season, James took 51 percent of his shots inside the paint; he made 70 percent of them. He led the NBA in scoring close to the basket. So far in the Finals, 43 percent of LeBron’s shots are in the paint and he’s converted on 61 percent of them. Although both of these figures are slightly below his averages, this is not James’s problem, either.

During the first three games of the Finals, James has made only 7 of 30 shot attempts outside the paint. This is the problem. Of his 21 made field goals so far, 14 are in the paint. Of his missed 33 field goals so far, 23 are outside the paint.

Bill Simmons calls Grantland's Zach Lowe to talk about Game 4 of the NBA Finals, then dials up his buddy Joe House to break down what LeBron needs to do to win tonight.

To listen to these podcasts, download them on iTunes here, or to listen at the ESPN.com Podcenter, click here.

Game 4 of a series in any 2-1 state has always been my favorite playoff game. If the trailing team wins and ties things at 2-2, each of the following games obviously takes on its own sort of hyper-drama. But for this moment, at 2-1, a single game determines the entire feel of a series, with a giant perception gap between outcomes. If the Spurs win tonight, the series begins to feel like a blowout. The city will have a full 48 hours of downtime to drink, eat, reflect, and prepare for a potential championship celebration on Sunday. And if that win comes with another subpar LeBron James effort, the hysteria level around Miami will reach 2011 Finals volume levels again.

And if Miami wins, it’s 2-2 — dead even, guaranteed to return to DOS MINUTOS territory, with the Heat likely having “found themselves again.” This is what we get to ponder for the next 12 hours or so. What fun.

Halfway through the NBA Finals, and 36 hours after a blowout Spurs win, you may have heard that LeBron James is not playing well.

You don't have to look far for reminders:

So much amazing is happening, and the Shootaround crew is here to help you keep track of it all. You'll find takes on moments you might've missed from the previous night, along with ones you will remember forever.

Hustle Hard

(All GIFs by @HeyBelinda)

Danny Chau: One hard-fought game that went down to the wire, two remarkable blowouts; two unreal 3-point barrages from Danny Green, three confounding performances from LeBron James, each with a different slant on his ever-changing narrative. The series has been all over the place, and while the Spurs obviously have the advantage at this point, back-to-back blowouts don’t tell us too much about the course this series is about to take. Between these two great teams, the series will likely go to whichever is more consistently aggressive. At this point, that favors San Antonio because there hasn’t been anything more consistent in this series than the hustle and effort from Tim Duncan and Kawhi Leonard.

We forgot about it because of the scary things LeBron James did in the second half of Game 2 on Sunday, but Miami’s defense was strangely off for much of that win. They lost track of Danny Green on two 3-pointers, errors of miscommunication that resulted in shrugged shoulders, the kind of stuff championship teams leave behind in April. Kawhi Leonard took advantage of lazy or nonexistent boxouts on two offensive rebounds, and he back-cut a ball-watching LeBron late in the first quarter.

It recalled the listless Heat that allowed an offensively challenged Celtics team to ring up Spurs-level scoring numbers through the first five games of last season’s Eastern Conference finals. That team mostly cleaned things up after getting Chris Bosh back. This Heat team cleaned things up in Game 2 with one of the most devastating 15 minutes of basketball the league has ever seen.

Last night, they were awful defensively for the entire game. They can be bad defensively and get away with it against some teams. But this is the NBA Finals, against a brilliant and unselfish San Antonio team, and the Heat will lose just like this if they continue to make very basic NBA mistakes.

So much amazing is happening, and the Shootaround crew is here to help you keep track of it all. You'll find takes on moments you might've missed from the previous night, along with ones you will remember forever.

Wrath of the Titan

Andrew Sharp: Thoughts during the first three quarters last night:

• LeBron's gotta come out killing everyone. This is going to be awesome.

• Wait, why isn't LeBron killing everyone?

• Wow, maybe the Spurs defense is just that good.

• Put him in the post, put him in the post.

• Is Danny Green really outplaying LeBron right now?

• [LeBron barely hits rim on fast-break layup.]

• What the hell is happening? Is this 2011?

• He's got a wrap on his knee now. Is he hurt?

• He looks sluggish. Is he tired?

• Is he just psyched out by the Spurs? Were the COLUMNISTS right?

• Oh god. Everyone's going to spend the next 48 hours arguing about what's wrong with LeBron, half the sports world calling him a coward who can't measure up to the Spurs, the other half defending him and wondering why everyone's making such a big deal about the best player in the world suddenly crashing back to earth. Both sides will be equally insufferable and this is so awful. I want to move to Antarctica.

Then the fourth quarter started, and LeBron happened. It started with a jumper falling, then he found Mike Miller for 3 with an outrageous pass, got himself a layup, hit Birdman with another outrageous no-look, nearly destroyed the earth with that Splitter block, and turned the two possessions after that into a Ray Allen 3 and a middle-finger fast-break dunk for himself. All part of a 33-5 run, and then the game was over. LeBron happened.

It's probably unfair to watch basketball like this, obsessing over one player on both sides of the court. But when he explodes like that, you see why we do it.

In case you were busy accidentally watching a performance art piece in which the notion of sports was approached from many perspectives without any sports actually happening, here's what you missed in sports last weekend:

• The Miami Heat bounced back from their Game 1 defeat to even the NBA Finals with a 103-84 win over the San Antonio Spurs. Despite the win, questions must be asked of LeBron James, who was held to only 17 points, and I'm not afraid to be the one to take it right to James and throw it down, to split this whole issue wide open, so …

   
  OH ARE THERE QUESTIONS? LOOK AT THE RING ON MY FINGER AND ASK ME A QUESTION. HUH? WHAT QUESTION DO YOU HAVE TO ASK THE KING? IS IT "WHO BROKE INTO YOUR HOUSE AND ANSWERED ALL YOUR QUESTIONS?" BECAUSE I THINK THAT'S THE QUESTION YOU SHOULD BE ASKING.

  Holy crap guys. I'm not positive, but based on the welt on my forehead and the above text, I think LeBron James just came out of nowhere, broke into my house, knocked me out, and typed up a vicious and unexpected rejection to my question. Well, um, asked and answered. I'm going to go lock my door. Moving on.

A look at the two most important shots from last night's Game 1.

It Was the Best of Shots

In their biggest possession of the year, the Spurs were surely going to come up empty. A sequence that began with a pair of screens designed to free Tony Parker from LeBron James had badly broken down. Parker was 16 feet away from the rim, down on his left knee doing some desperate circus dribble. He was harmless, and LeBron James, the world’s best perimeter defender, loomed above him. The game clock read 9.2, the shot clock read 2.0, and this critical possession was on life support.

Parker got up, but his back was to the basket and James was in optimal defensive position, vertically spooning Parker deep in the midrange. Parker picked up his dribble, then pivoted on his left foot as means to at least face the basket and maybe create some separation from James. There was no way this was going to end well.

If there’s a possession that neatly tied together every major story line, real and fabricated, emanating from San Antonio’s stirring Game 1 win in Miami, it was this one with about 6:30 left:

Look at all the interesting stuff going on here, just in this freeze-frame:

1. The Heat are running a boring old high pick-and-roll, the most predictable play in basketball. Gone are all the decoy plays and whirring misdirection that made Miami so hard to defend this season. That stuff dotted the game, but as has been the case since the Milwaukee walkover in the first round, Miami for whatever reason — injuries, fatigue, elite opposing defenses — hasn’t been able to find its happy spot for more than a few minutes at a time.