SAN ANTONIO — LeBron James won four of the last five MVP awards, carried the Miami Heat to a near-historic 27-game winning streak and shot a sublime 57% this season.
Now he's one loss away from another humbling failure, the San Antonio Spurs sticking it to Miami, 114-104, Sunday to take a 3-2 edge in the NBA Finals.
James had another ragged game, Manu Ginobili completely stole the stage and Miami never led in Game 5 at AT&T Center.
BOX SCORE: San Antonio 114, Miami 104
Game 6 is Tuesday in Miami, but Game 7 carries the daunting if-necessary asterisk next to it.
"I have to come up big for sure in Game 6," said James, who is 8-12 in Finals games.
It was San Antonio's turn to plunder in this utterly unpredictable series, the Spurs rediscovering plenty of energy after a 109-93 home loss Thursday.
Part of the credit goes to cantankerous Coach Gregg Popovich, who started Ginobili instead of recently timid center Tiago Splitter.
The Spurs went small but lived large, Ginobili finishing with a season-high 24 points and also 10 assists after stumbling into Sunday with a 7.5-point average and 34.5% accuracy in the first four games.
Ginobili, who made eight of 14 shots, easily offset James' 25 points on eight-for-22 shooting.
Or as the understated Popovich said, the lineup change worked out "fairly well."
Miami had enough firepower to knock a 17-point deficit down to one late in the third quarter, and no one would have dared to predict Spurs fans' chanting "Ma-nu, Ma-nu" minutes later.
Of course it happened.
Ginobili converted a three-point play after drawing a baseline foul on Ray Allen. He buried a hang-in-the-air floater over Norris Cole. He found Splitter for a reverse layup.
Finally, he scored on a six-foot bank shot, blowing past Cole and beating Udonis Haslem's block attempt.
The score through three? Spurs 87, Heat 75, after a 12-1 run to close the quarter.
Ginobili could finally forgive himself.
"I was angry, disappointed. We are playing in the NBA Finals, we were 2-2 and I felt I still wasn't really helping the team that much," he said.
Tony Parker kept showing faith in his longtime teammate, practically promising everybody Ginobili would uncork a slump-buster soon enough.
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