Finally The Finals

The NBA Finals start tonight, with a rematch of last year's Finals. Miami finished off the Pacers in 6 games, as I predicted. Nice to get one right once in awhile. Second year in a row that Miami ended Indy's season with a blowout. I guess all that talk about the Pacers being built to trouble the Heat is just talk. Miami seems capable of destroying Indy anytime they choose.

Out West, even the return of Serge Ibaka from his "season-ending" injury after only 2 games couldn't help the Thunder, as they fell in 6 games. Which makes my prediction they'd win in 7 look kind of stupid. Ah well, on to the championship.

San Antonio vs. Miami: The consensus seems to be that the Heat are not quite as good overall as they were last year, and the Spurs are a little better than they were last year. Put together with the Spurs having homecourt advantage, I probably ought to pick the Spurs, but I'm going Heat in 7.

The Heat as a team might be weaker, but Lebron doesn't seem to have slipped, Wade is healthier than he was last year, and Bosh seems more comfortable out beyond the arc than last season. I'm not sure it matters that Greg Oden and Michael Beasley were a waste of free agent dollars, or that Udonis Haslem and Shane Battier are running on fumes. The Heat lean on the Big Three (especially Lebron), and count on someone else - Ray Allen, Mario Chalmers, Birdman - having a big game just often enough to swing things. It's worked pretty well the previous two years, and so far in this postseason (not that the East offered much of a challenge).

The Heat are still a good defensive team, with a fair amount of the same athleticism the Thunder use to trouble the Spurs offense. Their offense is considerably better in terms of execution and coaching, which makes the challenge facing the Spurs that much greater. I'd still like to pick the Spurs. They're the deeper team, probably better coached, they can play in a lot of different styles to either match Miami, or try and force the Heat to react to what they do. I'm not sure about Tony Parker's status, and Ginobili always seems to be 5 seconds away from injuring something, but the Spurs seem as capable of dealing with those problems as any team. They survived a tougher road than Miami, though I'm not sure if that's good or bad. I don't think either squad really needed to be battle-tested, but I'm not sure there's a significant difference between 15 playoff games (Miami), and 18 (Spurs). At this point, I just don't think I can pick against Lebron, until somebody actually beats him 4 times in 7 playoff games, which hasn't happened in the last 3 seasons.