SAN ANTONIO — The Spurs emphatically took control of the NBA Finals with a 113-77 rout of the Heat Tuesday night, but may have lost Tony Parker in the process.
The star point guard, who finished with just six points and eight assists in 27:28, injured his right hamstring during the win, and will have an MRI exam on it today to see how badly he injured it.
“We’ll see,” Parker said afterward. “I felt something in my hamstring. … I don’t know.
“Hopefully it’s nothing big and it’s just cramping or got tight on me. … It was just a weird feeling. I just wanted to make sure the doctor said I was OK. Then I played two minutes in the fourth quarter, and we were up big, so [Spurs coach Gregg Popovich] didn’t want to take a risk.”
Parker said he wasn’t in pain, and that he would ice it all night before seeing how it felt in the morning.
“It was just weird,” he said, adding that he didn’t feel a pop or pull of the muscle. “I can’t really remember one play. Hopefully it just got tight, and hopefully I will be fine.”
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Though the Spurs deservedly were applauded for their NBA Finals record-setting 3-point shooting performance of 16 makes from behind the arc — most notably Danny Green and Gary Neal, who combined to make 13 of their 19 3-pointers — the way Miami lost overshadowed another sensational shooting performance from Heat guard Mike Miller.
After spending almost the entire season on the bench for Miami, Miller — long considered one of the league’s best 3-point shooters — has shown why in these Finals. He made all five of his attempts in Game 3, with his 15 points helping keep Miami temporarily in the game, and is now 9-for-10 through the first three games of the series.
“He’s one of the best shooters I’ve ever seen,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “He proved it on a big stage. But, collectively, we didn’t do enough to make those matter.”
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San Antonio’s final 36-point margin of victory was the third-biggest in NBA Finals history. Only Chicago’s 96-54 victory over Utah in Game 3 in 1998 and Boston’s 131-92 in the series-clinching Game 6 win over the Lakers in 2008 were bigger.