Miami Heat: LeBron and Co. Need to Remember This Happened to the Thunder in WCF

Hey, Miami Heat, let's take a trip down memory lane for a minute.

It's Game 1 of the Western Conference finals.

The Oklahoma City Thunder are facing off against the dominant San Antonio Spurs on the road, and at halftime, they find themselves up by one point.

Behind an impressive third quarter by Kevin Durant and his eight points, the Thunder found themselves up by nine points heading into the fourth quarter.

That's when the Spurs, inspired by Gregg Popovich's "get nasty" speech, went on a 19-point run and outscored the Thunder 12 points in the fourth quarter en route to an impressive come-from-behind Game 1 win.

Sound familiar?

While the Heat's lead was bigger in the first half and the Thunder began their comeback in the third, this is almost a mirror image of how the Thunder came back to beat the Heat in Game 1 of the 2012 NBA Finals.

Sure, the Heat were handed their first Game 1 loss in the NBA playoffs since last season's Eastern Conference finals, but in all reality, it's not all that important.

It's not uncommon for the losing team of Game 1 of the NBA Finals to come back and win the NBA title. It's happened 18 times in the history of the NBA Finals.

Sure, there's quite a bit the Heat need to work on heading into the next few games of the finals.

They need to work on not letting the Thunder run in transition, and they need to focus on letting LeBron James facilitate their offense. They need to somehow help Dwyane Wade actually show up in the first half of a 2012 playoff game, and they need to ensure LeBron covers Durant for every minute he's on the court.

While the Heat have a lot to work on, it's certainly not time to panic for the mighty Miami Heat.

The Heat need to just take a deep breath, focus on improving as a cohesive unit and have fun as they head into a pivotal Game 2 matchup on Thursday night in Oklahoma City.

Even if the Heat lose Game 2, all will not be lost. I mean, the same thing happened to the Thunder in the Western Conference finals, and look where they're at.