The San Antonio Spurs got the best of the defending world champion Miami Heat in Game 1 of the NBA Finals Thursday in San Antonio amid sweltering temperatures, and they got help staying cool under pressure thanks to their Hispanic stars heating up on the floor.

It was a big night for fellow Spurs "Big 3" member Manu Ginobili, who torched Miami from downtown, going 3-of-6 from three-point range, and 5-of-10 shooting for 16 points and a sizzling 11 assists, keeping the Heat defenders flustered with his deadly marksmanship and pinpoint passing. As ESPN.com notes, Ginobili's performance off the bench was historic -- the Argentine-born former NBA All-Star became the first bench player ever to net at least 15 points, five rebounds and five assists in the Finals. Furthermore, Ginobili became the first reserve player since the Los Angeles Lakers' legendary sixth man Michael Cooper in 1982 to get at least 15 points, five rebounds and five assists in the Finals.

It hasn't been the first time that Ginobili has performed clutch in a postseason situation. For the playoffs, the three-time NBA world champion has averaged 15.5 points and 4.0 assists with 43.5 percent shooting over 176 playoff games and 11 consecutive postseasons. However, while he's had his shining moments in the postseason, such as his 24-point, 10-assist explosion in Game 5 of the 2013 Finals last year, Ginobili has also had his setbacks. Last season's NBA Finals saw Ginobili make a combined 12 turnovers in Games 6 and 7, the former where he coughed up the ball eight times. But in veteran fashion, Ginobili rebounded from that disastrous performance last June with an emphatic opening game in this year's penultimate postseason round. At age 35, Ginobili has started to cement his legacy in the game as one of the NBA's greatest international players. He's likeable, he's crafty, he's talented and that 1-2 step move that he uses to slice through opponents' defenses to the hole is extremely hard to stop. He's a national hero in Argentina, where he led the national team to a stunning 2004 gold medal win in the Athens summer Olympics, leading the team in scoring (19.3 points) and assists (3.3 per game) throughout the tournament. With another ring, Ginobili would establish himself as the greatest international hoops star of his generation, and perhaps one of the most decorated Hispanic hoops stars in NBA history, if not the most decorated.

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On the other end of the spectrum, Brazilian hoops star Tiago Splitter may not have drawn the kind of praise Ginobili, Tony Parker and Tim Duncan did for their Game 1 dominance, but he stepped up big time in the opening game of the Finals, doing it on both ends of the floor. Splitter was big for the San Antonio, scoring 14 points on 5-of-6 shooting with 4 rebounds and 2 blocks. Splitter was also a key cog in the Spurs' physical defense, so much so that he even made Miami superstar LeBron James lose his cool in the sweltering gym when he shoved Splitter so hard he fell (or flopped, depending on who you ask) to the floor, drawing a foul on James. The Santa Catarina-born center has made a smothering, bruising style of defense a hallmark staple of his game and he's become something of a specialist in that category since he debuted in 2010 for the Spurs. For the 29-year-old former MVP of the Spanish Supercup tournament , a Finals win would make him the first Brazilian ever to win an NBA championship, a major milestone among international players.

The presence of such international personalities and cultures on the San Antonio Spurs roster has always made for not only a one-of-a-kind locker room, but also for a perfectly blended mesh of unique skills and hard work that has yielded San Antonio three world titles and four NBA Finals appearances over the last 11 seasons. And players like Ginobili and Splitter have played a big part in the Spurs' success this season. One thing's for certain: whatever the Spurs' destiny will be during the course of this year's Finals, their Hispanic stars will play a big part in how they got there.

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