MIAMI (AP) — He is the best player in the game and this is the best moment in his sport.

Game 7, NBA title on the line.

“The moment is going to be grand,” said LeBron James.

And it might redefine someone’s legacy.

James has the most at stake in the game, and when it’s over he’ll be either be a two-time NBA Finals MVP or a two-time loser in a Heat uniform.

“I want to go down as one of the greatest. I want our team to go down as one of the greatest teams. And we have an opportunity to do that,” James said.

“Hasn’t been many teams to win back-to-back championships. It’s so hard. It’s the hardest thing. I said last year it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, winning my first. Last year don’t even come close to what we’ve gone through in this postseason and in these finals.

No matter what happens tonight, he and the Miami Heat, and Tim Duncan’s San Antonio Spurs have already won titles and secured a place in NBA history.

Now is their opportunity to elevate it.

It’s either a Heat repeat, possible only after James led them back from what seemed certain elimination in the closing seconds of Game 6, or the Spurs shaking off as gut-wrenching a loss as a team can have to become just the fourth club to win Game 7 of the NBA Finals on the road.

“As a competitor you love it, because you know you have an opportunity and it’s up to you,” Heat guard Ray Allen said. “We have a chance in our building to make something great. All of our legacies are tied to this moment, this game. It’s something our kids will be able to talk about that they were a part of. Forever will remember these moments, so we want to not live and have any regrets.”

Allen was on the court the last time the NBA’s season went down to the very last day, his Boston Celtics fading at the finish and falling 83-79 to the Los Angeles Lakers in 2010. That improved the hosts to 14-3 in Game 7 of the Finals — and no road team has won that decisive game since Washington beat Seattle in 1978.

Overcoming those odds, not to mention the NBA’s winningest team, would make this more memorable than the Spurs’ previous four titles, though this is a franchise that never dwells too much on the past or looks too far into the future.

All that matters is now.

“You know what, it’s all about just winning the title. It’s not about situation or what has led up to it,” Duncan said. “It’s a great story for everybody else, but we’re here for one reason, one reason only: It’s to try to win this game (Thursday). We have had a very good season thus far, and I think we just want to get to the game more than anything. We just want to see what happens and be able to leave everything out there.”

The teams trudged back to the arena Wednesday, some 12 hours after the Heat pulled out a 103-100 overtime victory in Game 6 to even the series. The Spurs, five points ahead with 28 seconds left in regulation, had to fight off fatigue and heartbreak, insisting neither would linger into Thursday night.

The Heat could become the NBA’s first repeat champions since the Lakers in 2010. James and Chris Bosh moved to Miami to join Wade a few weeks later and they are in the finals for the third time in three chances.

But playing for titles is more expected than celebrated now in Miami, and a 66-win season that included a 27-game winning streak – and perhaps the whole Big Three era – goes down as a failure if the Heat fall tonight. Yet James said he doesn’t need the victory to validate his decision to take his talents to South Beach.

“I mean, I need it because I want it and I only came here – my only goal is to win championships,” he said. “I said it, this is what I came here for. This is what I wanted to be a part of this team for.”