Seven-time NBA Champion Robert Horry recently appeared on Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson’s podcast, “All The Smoke,” where he gave fans an inside look at how the San Antonio Spurs dominated the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2007 NBA Finals.
One of the first things Horry pointed out was a major coaching misstep. Cleveland’s head coach at the time, Mike Brown, had previously been an assistant under Spurs coach Gregg Popovich. According to Robert Horry, Brown ran many of the same offensive sets in Cleveland that he had learned in San Antonio. That made it easy for the Spurs to defend—they already knew what was coming.
Horry also criticized Cavs big man Zydrunas Ilgauskas, a 7-foot-2 center who, instead of dominating the paint, chose to drift outside and shoot jumpers. “He became a three-point shooter,” Horry said, which allowed the Spurs to clog the lane and focus their defense elsewhere.
And then there was LeBron James, who was in just his fourth NBA season. Horry admitted that LeBron was already a phenomenal talent, but noted that at the time, LeBron wasn’t an intense jump shooter. His game relied heavily on driving to the rim and overpowering defenders. Knowing this, the Spurs made it a point to double-team him every time he attacked the basket, forcing the rest of the Cavs to beat them, which they couldn’t.
Despite the sweep, and Horry’s assessment of what happened. We have to admit that Lebron taking a lottery-bound team to the NBA Finals in just four years in the league is fantastic.
The Spurs may have dominated the series, but Horry’s breakdown shows that it wasn’t just talent—it was strategy, familiarity, and execution that sealed the sweep.