Spurs need big game from slumping Ginobili

SAN ANTONIO - As the Heat basked in the afterglow of a vintage performance by the founding member of their Big 3 in Thursday night's 109-93 Game 4 victory over San Antonio, the Spurs can only hope that an all-points bulletin put out for one of their Big 3 gets answered like Miami's did regarding Dwyane Wade.

Wade, playing all season "on a bum knee," as LeBron James called it, was dominant with 32 points, six steals and six rebounds, asserting himself early and often — something he'll try to do again when the teams meet in Game 5 at AT&T Center on Sunday night.

"Look, he's proven his toughness, and he doesn't want to talk about his health," Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. "He would be disappointed if I talked about it … But hey, he's willing to go out there and compete for his teammates and open himself up for criticism with expectations of something bigger, and he's giving us everything he has.

"Last night, he was able to dig deeper and go to another place that we needed. But he understood he had to have a major impact on the game [Wednesday] night in a lot of different ways and he did it. That was pretty impressive"

Wade averaged only 14.3 points in the first three games of the Finals and had topped 20 points only once in his previous 18 games this postseason. Talk of Wade no longer being the slashing, high-flying, hard-nosed superstar had grown to a crescendo.

But Spurs guard Gary Neal saw that wasn't true when Wade jetted down the court on a fast break and maneuvered past him for a righthanded dunk, causing every member of the Heat to rise off the bench in excitement.

In a sense, Wade knows precisely what Ginobili is going through. The Spurs shooting guard has been a virtual no-show, not just in the Finals but during San Antonio's entire postseason run. Ginobili is averaging 7.5 points, shooting 34.5 percent from the floor and 18.8 percent from three-point range in this series.

"Well, of course I am," Popovich said. "He's having a tough playoffs, and he hasn't really found a rhythm or found his game yet. I think that he's obviously not as confident as usual, and he knows full well that he hasn't performed the way he would like and the way he's used to. But it's simplistic to say, what are we going to do to get him going?"