Continuum-scale battery models, such as the Doyle-Fuller-Newman model, rely on the volume averaging of the underlying microscale differential equations in order to obtain a macroscale model. However, experimental characterizations of commercial electrodes show that active material particles are not necessarily microscopic in relation to electrode thickness. In this contribution, we introduce the concept of optimal spatial distribution: the idea that the number of spatial nodes considered in a cross-section of the electrode is not an arbitrary value, but rather a key parameter that determines the value and slope of cell voltage at increasing C-rates. A significant consequence of this approach is that the ohmic resistance observed in impedance spectra is interpreted as the distributed ionic resistance between neighboring particles, instead of a lumped element. This concept is applied to the physically motivated transmission line model (TLM), and validated experimentally against galvanostatic charges and discharges from C/2 to 2C with a single set of parameters for a commercial NMC/Si-Gr cell. Simulation results show that higher currents result in increasingly sequential operation, whereas a particle size distribution is essential to reproduce relaxation profiles after full discharges. Finally, the employed TLM allows for an explicit computation of heat generation, and the discrete spatial distribution is identified as an additional cause of asymmetric heat generation in discharge with respect to charge. In conclusion, we highlight the importance of a suitable representation of electrode spatial structure for the high-fidelity modeling of commercial battery cells with a unique and consistent parameter set.