After three quarters the San Antonio Spurs seemed to pwn the Miami Heat. But forget Tim Duncan’s magisterial performance and Boris Diaw’s tough defense and LeBron James’s 3-12 from the field.

And forget the Heat’s meltdown of the Spurs in the fourth quarter.

It all came down to this non-call on a Manu Ginobili drive with three seconds left in overtime:

That’s a foul – except in Miami in Game 6 of the NBA Finals.

(Your conspiracy theory goes here.)

See you Thursday, when the Spurs will have a very tough row to hoe to win Game 7.

But previous to that, there was this (via Radar Online):

Kim Kardashian has put on a brave face during her pregnancy, even during a miscarriage scare, but in a new sneak peek of the upcoming season of Keeping Up With the Kardashians she is actually sobbing while at the doctor’s office and her baby daddy Kanye West isn’t by her side.

According to the New York Daily News, he was at this side:

Did Kanye West cheat on Kim Kardashian? Model claims rapper was unfaithful

Did Kanye West cheat on Kim Kardashian? In a shocking report by Star Magazine, gorgeous Kim Kardashian lookalike Leyla Ghobadi claimed she slept with West while he was dating the pregnant reality star — but now it looks like she’s backtracking on her tale.

Don’t they all.

Who knows if any of that is true. But this is: Jon Caramanica’s Sunday New York Times interview with West, which falls somewhere between deferential and fawning.

Behind Kanye’s Mask

Malibu, Calif. — From Shangri-la Studio here you can see the Pacific Ocean just over the fence lapping calmly at Zuma Beach. And this compound is just as Zen, with recording equipment set up in various locations, including an old bus and a spotless white house with all the mirrors removed.

But there is no rest at Shangri-la, at least for Kanye West. For several days in late May and early June, he and a rotating group of intimates, collaborators and hangers-on were holed up in service of finishing “Yeezus” (Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam), Mr. West’s sixth solo album, out Tuesday, and one that marks a turn away from his reliable maximalism to something more urgent and visceral.

And yack yack yack . . .

Nut graf(s):

I am so credible and so influential and so relevant that I will change things. So when the next little girl that wants to be, you know, a musician and give up her anonymity and her voice to express her talent and bring something special to the world, and it’s time for us to roll out and say, “Did this person have the biggest thing of the year?” — that thing is more fair because I was there.

But has that instinct led you astray? Like the Taylor Swift interruption at the MTV Video Music Awards, things like that.

It’s only led me to complete awesomeness at all times. It’s only led me to awesome truth and awesomeness. Beauty, truth, awesomeness. That’s all it is.

But wait – that’s not all it is. Because Kanye says he’s “in the lineage of Gil Scott-Heron, great activist-type artists. But I’m also in the lineage of a Miles Davis — you know, that liked nice things also.”

Miles Davis liked nice things. That’s his legacy?

But wait – there’s more of the awesomeness that is Kanye, in which we get the requisite third-person reference to himself.

I think what Kanye West is going to mean is something similar to what Steve Jobs means. I am undoubtedly, you know, Steve of Internet, downtown, fashion, culture. Period. By a long jump. I honestly feel that because Steve has passed, you know, it’s like when Biggie passed and Jay-Z was allowed to become Jay-Z.

I’ve been connected to the most culturally important albums of the past four years, the most influential artists of the past ten years. You have like, Steve Jobs, Walt Disney, Henry Ford, Howard Hughes, Nicolas Ghesquière, Anna Wintour, David Stern.

Nicolas Ghesquière? David Stern?

Huh?

Also name-droppy is The Barbershop segment about West from NPR’s Tell Me More last Friday, which compared him to Andy Warhol.

[GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY LAW PROFESSOR PAUL] BUTLER: So this is the Andy Warhol of hip-hop.

[CULTURE CRITIC JIMI] IZRAEL: Nice.

BUTLER: He’s super commercial. He’s a marketer – it’s no coincidence that we’re talking about him on NPR the week before his album comes out. But he bridges, in the same way that Andy Warhol did, high art and pop culture. I mean, he said crazy stuff in this interview, but he also referenced making his album by going to the Louvre five times. He talked about architecture and design. When was the last time you read that in a hip-hop interview? You know, he’s just – he’s a genius.

IZRAEL: I agree. He’s the Andy Warhol – but he could fall flat, any moment he’ll be the Mark Castabi. Yo, Mike Skolnik.

The hardworking staff doesn’t know who Mark Castabi or Mike Skolnik are.

Then again, that’s probably the point, yeah?

P.S. It’s actually Mark Kostabi, subject of the documentary Con Artist, that the headscratching staff didn’t know.  Yo, Mike Skolnik we’re still working on.

By now it’s clear to the hardreading staff – as it should be to everyone – that the trial of mobster James “Whitey” Bulger is about one thing and one thing only:

Howie Carr.

The Boston Herald columnist previously milked his presence on Bulger’s witness list for some bulk-mail pieces. Now it’s John Martorano’s turn to get a Carr ride.

From today’s piece . . .

Read the rest at It’s Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town.

The B’s out-shot, out-hit, out-faceoffed, out-penaltykilled, and downright outed the ‘Hawks last night.

Highlights, starting with the first- second-period goal by Daniel Paille (splendid reader Mike Barry: “possibly the hardest-working athlete in Boston sports.”).

Period Two: Say hello to Jaromir Jagr (can’t score, but really can pass).

In the end, the Bruins didn’t just ground the Hawks. They ground the ‘Hawks down.

Game 4 is gut-check time for Chicago. The hardguessing staff says they win on Wednesday.

That’s nothing. Here’s what the New York Post reported about the same event, as the hardworking staff has previously noted:

Kraft: Putin stole Bowl ring

New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft revealed the real story behind a 2005 meeting with Vladimir Putin, during which the Russian president pocketed his Super Bowl ring, worth more than $25,000. Kraft, at the time, claimed the diamond-encrusted bauble was a gift, but he now admits Putin stole it, and the White House intervened when he demanded it back.

Kraft explained the incident happened while Sandy Weill and other business execs were in St. Petersburg. “I took out the ring and showed it to [Putin], and he put it on and he goes, ‘I can kill someone with this ring,’ ” Kraft told the crowd at Carnegie Hall’s Medal of Excellence gala at the Waldorf-Astoria.“I put my hand out and he put it in his pocket, and three KGB guys got around him and walked out.”

Subsequently, a Bush administration official told Kraft that, as the Post relates it, “‘It would really be in the best interest of US-Soviet relations if you meant to give the ring as a present.’ (In fact the Soviet Union had collapsed 14 years earlier.)”

But not a word of it appeared in the Sunday Globe, apparently because it’s old news. From today’s Names column:

Vladimir Putin is denying Robert Kraft’s oft-told claim that the Russian president pocketed a prized Super Bowl ring during the Patriots owner’s visit to St. Petersburg, Russia, in 2005. Kraft has long alleged that Putin kept the diamond-studded Super Bowl ring but didn’t make a fuss at the request of then-President George W. Bush who wanted to avoid trouble with Russia. Kraft repeated the story at an awards event in New York the other night.

The hardworking staff then checked out the Globe archive and sure enough, we found this from 2005:

Even so, sometimes old news in the Post is more interesting than new news in the Globe.

Putin just took it, which is fitting behavior for the head of a kleptocracy.

From yesterday’s New York Post (via Mediaite):

Kraft explained the incident happened while Sandy Weill and other business execs were in St. Petersburg. “I took out the ring and showed it to [Putin], and he put it on and he goes, ‘I can kill someone with this ring,’ ” Kraft told the crowd at Carnegie Hall’s Medal of Excellence gala at the Waldorf-Astoria.“I put my hand out and he put it in his pocket, and three KGB guys got around him and walked out.”

According to the Post piece, someone from the George W. Bush administration called Kraft and said, ‘It would really be in the best interest of US-Soviet relations if you meant to give the ring as a present.” (As the Post points out, the Soviet Union had collapsed 14 years earlier.)

So Kraft acquiesced.  Damn good thing he wasn’t traveling with Ricki Noel Lander at the time, eh?

Always Relevant? Seriously?

Here’s Page One of the sports section Herald home subscribers received this morning . . .

Read the rest at It’s Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town.

And this time Somethin’ Bruin was on the winning side of poetic justice.

First, a minute and a half into overtime Jaromir Jagr rang one off the crossbar – only to see the puck fly into the netting.

Twelve minutes later Daniel Paille rang one off the post, only to see the puck fly into the net.

Assist to Tyler Seguin, who awoke Saturday morning to this Boston Herald back page:

Well, last night was Tyler’s time.

And two games in, this is already one helluva series.

Boston Herald Press Party rundown.

WGBH’s Beat the Press had a different agenda: the Whitey Bulger trial coverage, a WCVB/Nstar partnership, modernizing PBS’s NewsHour, and Rants and Raves.

Two questions:

#1 Hey, Press Partyniks: No Whitey Bulger trial coverage? Seriously?

#2 Hey, Beat the Pressniks: No reliable video?

Seriously?

Your rants and raves go here.

The, er, money quote . . .

Read the rest at It’s Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town.