NBA Finals 2014: Air conditioning expected to be fixed for Game 2
By Josh Hill
While the San Antonio Spurs won Game 1 of the NBA Finals on Thursday night, the thing that no one can stop talking about is just how hot it got inside the AT&T Center. No one is speaking figuratively either as temperatures rose to around 90 degrees on Thursday night after the air conditioning unit used to cool the arena broke and stopped doing the only job it had to do.
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As a result, the players on the court were effected by the intense heat and the style of the game changed to where both Gregg Popovich and Erik Spoelstra had to keep subbing players in an out so that they could stay hydrated and a cool as possible. Things got so bad that LeBron James was a casualty of the heat and had to leave the game with just minutes left in the fourth quarter.
According to the San Antonio Express, the NBA is vowing that whatever went wrong with the air conditioning system during Game 1 will be fixed in time for Sunday so that Game 2 doesn’t cook everyone inside the building again.
"“We have from now until Sunday to get it fixed,” Thorn said after the game. “We do not foresee any problems at all come Sunday. We think it will be fixed and we will be able to play under normal conditions. They expect everything to be perfect, and that’s what we expect to.”"
It’s hard to say that the broken A/C unit didn’t change the game because it very much did. Once LeBron James left the game, things changed dramatically and we saw that the Spurs were able to gain a confidence that wasn’t overthrown by Miami.
What isn’t hard to say is that was an accident and anyone saying otherwise needs to take the tinfoil hat off and take a nap. LeBron leaving the game changed the outcome of Game 1, but the A/C should be fixed in Game 2 and the Heat will look to get hot in a different way on Sunday.