NBA Finals

Last night the Miami Heat defeated the Chicago Bulls to punch their ticket to the NBA finals. In this series you were able to see several different things that were unable to see during the regular season or even in seasons past. Although they are the focal point the key to this series was not the "Big 3" of Miami, but it was Udonis Haslem, and Mike Miller. Both of whom spent the majority of the season not in the rotation or injured in the case of Haslem. Yet after the Bulls won convincingly in Chicago in game 1, Coach Spoelstra elected to increase Haslem and Miller's minutes dramatically. This was key because the main factor in the blowout in game 1 was rebounding and toughness, and Mike Miller being one of the best rebounding guards in the NBA and Haslem being one of the toughest players in the NBA helped provide a more even playing field that said "we are not going to be pushed around". There is 1 other thing that happened in this series though that had not been seen in years past. That is the emergence of LeBron James. One could say how could a former 2 time MVP and arguably the best player in the game today emerge? It's simple, he performed, even in the Boston series, like he had never performed before in the fourth quarter and late in games. For the first time in his career he had the "killer instinct" to close out games and opponents. He also didn't just do it on the offensive end of the floor, he closed out games on the defensive end of the floor by switching in the fourth quarter of every game to guard current MVP Derrick Rose. Running the risk of making everyone in Cleveland cringe, I must say that it finally "clicked" for LeBron James. Now Miami is on to play a Dallas team in the finals, a DEEP Dallas team at that with a ton of veteran leadership on their sideline and Dirk Nowitzki playing great basketball right now, and will have the majority of fan support outside of Florida in their corner. With that being said Miami has finally come together as the team Pat Riley visioned when he put it all together, and two things are certain. First Miami is going to be a heavy favorite going into the series with LeBron being as hungry as he is for a title, and secondly with all of the dislike for the Heat, and people rooting against them because of all of their shenanigans through out the past 11 months, Dallas will once again be the "home of America's team".


Richard Rodawalt
AB3 Sports