NBA Tournament of Champions: Tim Duncan Bracket Finals

Looking at each of the eight brackets in this tournament, this one had a lot of recent title teams, and it just kind of happened that way since I built the tournament with a random number generator. Ultimately though, we come down to a couple of recent champions from Texas to fight for the right to advance to the final eight. Two of the best forwards of this generation lead the way. Who will win?

To find out, we're doing a best of seven series (2-2-1-1-1 format), with home court going to the team with the better overall record (regular season plus playoffs). All simulations are provided by WhatIfSports.com. If you want to refer back to how these Texas giants got here, first and second round results are at the corresponding links. Let's get this party started.

'05 San Antonio Spurs (75-30) vs '11 Dallas Mavericks (73-30)

Game 1: @ '05 Spurs 108, '11 Mavericks 93 (SA leads 1-0)

Game 2: @ '05 Spurs 96, '11 Mavericks 86 (SA leads 2-0)
Game 3: @ '11 Mavericks 107, '05 Spurs 104 (SA leads 2-1)
Game 4: '05 Spurs 106, @ '11 Mavericks 90 (SA leads 3-1)
Game 5: '11 Mavericks 91, @ '05 Spurs 86 (SA leads 3-2)
Game 6: '05 Spurs 95, @ '11 Mavericks 86 (SA wins 4-2)
Pretty good series overall. The opening games saw Duncan, Manu and Parker do their usual thing as Dirk was all right, but Jason Kidd struggled to get going for the Mavs. Caron Butler had a big Game 3 to help Dirk out to cut the lead in half, but a bit of an off night from Dirk and Kidd again put San Antonio on the doorstep. Dallas' duo was able to get one more win in San Antonio, but Tim Duncan wasn't going to let the series go the distance, putting up a 22-22 to send the Mavs home.

To see the updated bracket, click here.

Looking at the whole bracket, this one was probably one of the more competitive ones overall with every series going at least 6 games except one (sorry, '78 Bullets). That might make the decision making process of finding the best 5 guys to assemble a team a little more difficult. But we've done it before, and it can be done again. Each of the 5 guys below is accompanied by their per game averages and shooting splits (field goals/threes/free throws). So without further ado, here's the Tim Duncan All Bracket Team:

• PG: Tony Parker ('05 SA, 19 G): 15.1 PPG, 4.2 RPG, 7.4 APG, 0.1 BPG, 1/4 SPG; 47/34/79
• SG: Kobe Bryant ('10 LAL, 10 G): 23.4 PPG, 6.7 RPG, 5.3 APG, 0.8 BPG, 1.5 SPG; 43/32/85
• SF: Scottie Pippen ('98 CHI, 7 G): 21.6 PPG, 5.4 RPG, 5.7 APG, 1.3 BPG, 3.3 SPG; 46/30/78
• PF: Dirk Nowitzki ('11 DAL, 18 G): 22.1 PPG, 7.6 RPG, 2.7 APG, 0.9 SPG, 0.3 BPG; 51/38/87
• C: Tim Duncan ('05 SA, 19 G): 22.2 PPG, 14.3 RPG, 3.1 APG, 2.` BPG, 0.7 SPG; 48/20/70

Tim Duncan Bracket MVP: Tim Duncan ('05 SA). Deciding an All Bracket Team was hard. Deciding MVP was really hard too. Ultimately I decided to go with the namesake based on his having more monster games than Tony Parker did. Those couple 30+ point games against the Lakers helped, as did the 22-22 in Game 6 in this round.

We have three more brackets to go, and all three involve teams I grew up watching win titles. Tomorrow is a rivalry matchup; can an older, wiser MJ knock of the first of two Bad Boys title teams? We'll find out in the morning.