The NBA Finals, Legacies, and Tournament Berths

Basketball's biggest stage gets lit up tonight, as the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors begin their grudge match for an NBA Championship. Over the next two or three weeks, there's a lot on the line.

I haven't talked a ton about the NBA this season, other than preparing for the upcoming NBA Tournament of Champions, which I'll have more on later. For now, I want to actually look at the ramifications of this upcoming series.

On one side, you have a Cleveland team led by the best player of his generation. This time though, LeBron James actually has his full supporting cast in the form of Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving. James and company romped through the East to bring Cleveland to its second straight Finals, while LeBron is playing in his sixth in a row... a mind boggling stat.

On the other side, you have rewritten history. As early as November and December, I thought it was blasphemy for anyone to be uttering this Warriors team in the same breath as the 1996 Chicago Bulls. But Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green have carried this team forward and, after a major scare against Oklahoma City in the Western Conference Finals, are back to finish their title defense.

I have no idea who is going to win this series, and I'm not making a prediction because I haven't seen enough basketball to really make an educated guess. What I do know is that multiple legacies are up in the air at this point.

If the Warriors complete the season, they absolutely enter the conversation for greatest team of all time with the '96 Bulls and the 1986 Boston Celtics, who a lot of people forget about when talking all time great teams. 73 wins broke the Bulls' 20 year old record that I never thought would get toppled, but I saw an interesting stat earlier this week.

Even if GS sweeps CLE, they'd finish 89-14 (.864), their season win % would not be as good as the 95-96 Bulls' 87-13 record (.870)

— Mike & Mike (@MikeAndMike) May 31, 2016

The biased kid who watched that '96 Bulls team wants to scream this stat from a mountaintop, combined with the fact that Golden State got taken to the limit by Oklahoma City, while the Bulls didn't run into nearly this many problems in the playoffs as Golden State has. But the Warriors had to deal with Steph Curry missing a few games and getting back to himself, and Oklahoma City was no slouch of an opponent. As much as I hate to admit it, the '16 Warriors just might be a better team.

That brings us to the flip side of this argument. Given the Warriors' historic success, LeBron has a lot riding on the outcome of this series as well. If you've read Confessions of a Sportscaster since the beginning, you'll note that I am not a fan of LeBron James. I've moved past the debacle that was The Decision, but I do still think LeBron flops and whines too much. The former point is a bigger sticking point, since Jordan whined to a degree too in his day. One thing I won't critique LeBron for on the whole is his Finals record.

Don't get me wrong, 2-4 is not good, and in my opinion based on that he will never be better than Jordan. At the same time, his Finals record isn't really his fault. Of the four Finals losses, you can only blame him for 2011 against Dallas. You could also argue he got bailed out in 2013 by Chris Bosh and Ray Allen, but they still had to play Game 7 that year. Otherwise, LeBron has done pretty much all he could and even willed some pretty mediocre teams to the Finals. Look back at the '07 Cavs; I'm not sure MJ could have willed them to the Finals.

That said, if the Cavs are able to pull this out, LeBron skyrockets up the all time player chart for me. He's fairly high up as it is, but a title against the most successful regular season team of all time pushes him up another level entirely. Even if they don't win, if LeBron plays incredibly well and/or pushes this series to the brink, he still goes up quite a bit. I still don't particularly care for him, but damn it if I don't respect his place in history.

And all of this doesn't even take into account the NBA Tournament of Champions! The winner gets an entry into this summer's field of 72, which includes some hellish matchups. The field is almost entirely set, with the Play In Round currently in progress. When both the Finals and the Play In Round conclude, I will unveil the groupings for this tournament.

We Have a Finals!

It can be a little tiring, but I've been able to catch 2nd halves of several NBA playoff games, including both games of the Finals so far. When you take officiating out of the equation (overall, a sham in these playoffs), the games have been fantastic. So it comes as no surprise to me that the Finals shifts to Miami that we're tied at one game apiece.

Game 1 could have been something of a classic with the way Oklahoma City came back to win and in how they closed out the win. Game 2 saw Miami jump out to an early lead and made it a big lead. That's been the biggest problem for the Thunder: they start really slow and have to come back. Durant and Westbrook epitomize this the most; both guys have started really slow shooting in both games so far. And Miami has brought it in both games. The scary part is that it's not just LeBron and to a lesser extent Wade going off. Yesterday Bosh has a monster game (16-15) and Shane Battier looks like North Central's offense when they were putting Wheaton away in the CCIW title game. I thought he wouldn't be able to replicate his outside shooting from Game 1, but he's looking like what Bulls fans wanted from Keith Bogans last year. It's been incredible.

The best part about this series is that both games have been decided in the 4th quarter. Kevin Durant has been saving his best for the final few minutes of each game. He's got 34 points in the 4th quarters of the 2 games combined. It's been incredible. When he's needed to hit a big shot, he's hit it with the exception of that last shot with about 10 seconds left (more on this later).

On the other side of the coin, LeBron hasn't been daunting in the final frame still, shooting 3-9 in both 4th quarters with some turnovers. He's had 30 and 32 in these games, a drastic change from previous Finals. But last night LeBron had the 4 most crucial points for the Heat. His banker late extended Miami's lead to 5 (and it was a tough shot). He also had those icing free throws at the end that, the argument could be made, he shouldn't have taken.

When Durant took that shot on the baseline at the end, the entire Chesapeake Energy Arena was up in arms. So was Twitter. In real time I thought nothing of the shot, but watching the replay, LeBron has quite a bit of an arm bar on Durant. In most universes, that's a foul. I don't know if they missed it, wanted to "let the players play", or if the fix is in. I don't think I believe option 3 is true, so I don't know what happened. I think it was a foul. But that didn't decide the game.

I thought OKC made this game closer than they maybe should have in that they had a huge deficit to overcome. They waited too long to assert themselves and try to tie or take the lead. With probably about 4 minutes left I knew Miami was winning. The Thunder just didn't want that and made it a photo finish.

The pressure here is clearly on Oklahoma City. Game 3 is not must-win for them, but they need to grab 2 out of 3 in Miami to have the best shot at winning the title. To do that, they need to get an earlier jump on the Heat. That means attacking the basket, reestablishing the defense, trying to get the ball in transition, and rebounding the ball.

No matter what happens, this has the makings of a great series. And the superstars of each team are the front runners for Finals MVP.

Turn Up the Heat, Crank Up the Thunder

It certainly wasn't how we all thought it would happen. But one of the most expected Finals matchups coming into the playoffs ended up happening.

I had a chance to watch decent chunks of a lot of the conference finals games these past couple weeks. And really, these series were both really entertaining, albeit possibly tainted by officials. That being said, I'm convinced the two best teams will battle it out in the Finals.

Oklahoma City Thunder
These guys have learned well from the years of San Antonio's success. This is a team that knows how to play team basketball, and they have a lot of firepower. We're seeing Kevin Durant grow up before our eyes. This team has run through a veritable gauntlet on its way to the Finals after sweeping through Dallas (who, to be fair, was nowhere near championship level after winning it all last year), taking care of business against the Lakers (with Durant out-clutching Kobe) and surviving those early losses to the Spurs before taking over.

It's hard not to love this team. Kevin Durant reminds me a lot of our own superstar here in Chicago in his humility but dominance on the court. Russell Westbrook can be a little bit of a Teen Wolf at times, which is a problem, but I think he's handled everything well this postseason. And it's hard not to love a guy like James Harden, who is willing to come off the bench because it helps the team. Beyond that, the role players here are going to have to bring it. Kendrick Perkins isn't much on offense, but he needs to figure out how to take advantage of the likes of Joel Anthony down low. And Thabo Sefolosha will have his hands full on defense (most likely on Wade).

I think the Thunder can do it, but that supporting cast needs to continue to step up. Having home court advantage helps too.

Miami Heat
I would probably be in the group of people a lot of folks (read: Heat "fans") who think I'm a "hater". I don't like LeBron James because of his perceived arrogance on the court, and I hate Dwayne Wade for his crybaby antics and dirty play (the regular flopping and I'm still not happy about that flagrant-that-wasn't against Indiana). They play more like individuals sometimes than as a team unit, and throw off the dynamic of what basketball is supposed to be about.

Having said that... Miami has been as resilient a squad as any this postseason, other than Boston, who they just eliminated. They survived the loss of Chris Bosh to hang on and get this far, and they've also survived Wade not playing very well overall. He's had some good games, but he's also had some lousy games. The biggest reason for this? The guy everyone loves to hate: LeBron.

It's seemed like since the Heat went down 2-1 to Indy in the semis, something snapped in LeBron. In the 10 games since, here's his lines (points-rebounds-assists):

• 40-18-9
• 30-10-8
• 28-6-7
• 32-13-3
• 34-10-7
• 34-8-5
• 29-6-3
• 30-13-2
• 45-15-5
• 31-12-2

For those of you scoring at home, that's 33.3 PPG, 11.1 RPG, and 5.1 APG. I've bolded that pair of 40 point games for a reason; the first was his Game 4 against Indy, and the second was Game 6 against Boston. Those games were the only times the Heat have trailed in a series this postseason. When his team has needed him the most, he's been there. You can say what you want about the lack of 4th quarter chops, but I call these numbers clutch and MVP-caliber. He's raised his game to another level. You'll notice his assists are down from the regular season (4.9 to 3.9 total over the whole playoffs), but his points are going up.

Look at his expression from the past couple of games. He's bringing it all. Some people thought that 48 point game against Detroit in 2007 was his coming out party, though since then we've seen some major postseason meltdowns. This year it's different. This year's Miami team scares me. Wade has not been great and Bosh is still recovering a little bit from his strained abdomen, but LeBron has put the team on his back. But the role players are getting it done too. Mario Chalmers is building on his success from last postseason, and Shane Battier is hitting the open shots while playing good defense. That's what you need your team to do: let the superstars do their work, but you need your role players to step up and make a difference. These guys are doing that this year.

Make no mistake: the Finals will not end in Miami. This series will go back to Oklahoma City for at least one extra game, and I wouldn't be surprised it there are two. I think home court advantage (all OKC as they haven't lost at Chesapeake Arena) and the role players (advantage OKC as well) will play a factor. But most importantly: it's the superstars. The Finals make or break a superstar's legacy. Durant is not even in his prime yet, so his legend is not yet written. LeBron is 0-2 in the Finals so far, but he has a chance to raise his game and make a difference and earn himself a ring. He's earned his way this far. Whichever superstar outshines the other will lead his team to victory.

The Bulls fan in me wants it to be Durant and the Thunder. But if LeBron saddles the load and leads the Heat up the mountain, I hope the jokes stop. They will from me. 2012 is either his coming out party or his resignation back to the Barkley-Malone suite of stars who couldn't win it all. Either way, this will be a Finals to remember.