"It's about damn time." That says it all. These were some of the first words uttered from LeBron after officially being crowned King James. Just take a moment to look at the picture above. This is a picture of pure relief. The Heat have finally broken through and won a Championship in the second year of the Big Three era, giving LeBron his first Championship after nine years in the league. The part that amazes me the most is how James, and the rest of the Heat, did this while being the most scrutinized player/team of all time. And yes I meant to say of ALL TIME. LeBron James was on the cover of SLAM magazine at the age of 16, along with the caption "The Chosen One"...16 years old. From that moment on, it was either greatness or bust for LeBron. Micheal Jordan, the greatest NBA player of all time, came into the league with almost no pressure. The great MJ was cut from his high school basketball team, not celebrated as a prodigy.
When LeBron made it to his first NBA Finals back in 2007 against the Spurs (with a team that had no right making it past the Pistons in the Eastern Conference Finals), the man was Twenty-three years old. Twenty-three! Yet to this day he still was being chastised for how he played in that series. For his entire career if it didn't result in a ring then it was simply failure. Now I'm not sitting here saying LeBron hasn't deserved any criticism or that he hasn't made any mistakes. He has on both counts. But I'd much prefer it if athletes biggest mistakes were televising free agency decisions and being a little arrogant, as opposed to many the alternatives: dog fighting, DUI manslaughter, rape, etc.
Once LeBron took his talents to South Beach, his teammates also became subjected to all the hate as the Miami Heat were held up to a standard never before seen in sports. The most perfect example I can think of is two images from the past two finals that were essentially the same, but resulted in extremely different reactions. After losing to the Dallas Mavericks last year, while walking back to the locker room, Chris Bosh became overwhelmed by the disappointment and broke down in tears. As a Miami fan I liked that because it showed how much he cared, and more importantly, how motivated he would be to never let that happen again. However, for this show of emotion, he was absolutely torched. People in the media were calling him Bosh Spice (a not so clever comparison to Posh Spice, a member of the Spice Girls). I personally received many texts and comments from people about how one of my favorite players was "such a girl" or a "pansy".
But none of that bothered me, quite frankly. People have their opinion and that's fine. What truly frustrates me is when people are inconsistent with their criticism. And that is where the second image comes in. Last night, while walking to the locker room after the game, Kevin Durant hugged his parents and just started crying. And today? Nothing. No one is hating on Durant. No one is calling him a girl. No one is disrespecting him. This perfectly portrays the pressure and the added difficulty of being a member of the Miami Heat over the last two seasons.
Now, I'd like to point out that this isn't me trying to complain about how the Heat have been treated. I hate teams for various reasons and have no problems with others doing the same thing. Plus I'm a Steelers fan at the University of Maryland, so I'm no stranger to having my favorite team hated on. I simply want to point out what the Heat have overcome to become Champions so all of us fans can truly appreciate the greatness that we saw this season.
But I digress.
Now onto the main purpose of the article I intended to write, which is a to provide a review of the Finals and give my opinion on why it turned out the way it did. And for those of you still reading (thank you), I will keep it brief.
The biggest weakness going into this series for the Heat was their lack of a supporting cast surrounding the Big Three. Seemingly out of nowhere, this was no longer the case. Shane Battier scored 17 points in each of the first two games of the series. Then Mario Chalmers decided to have one of the best games of his career in the critical Game 4 victory, scoring 25 points. To finish off the Thunder, Mike Miller went off for 23 points in Game 5, hitting 7 of 8 three-pointers. This all happened while OKC seemed to be missing a member of their "Big Three", as Harden scored under 13 points per game on less than 38% shooting.
I'm not going to sit here and blame the 22 year old Harden though. In fact, I won't blame a single member of the Thunder. The Heat were just a better, more desperate, and more experienced team that could not be stopped. Over the past two years I have watched at least a hundred Heat games, and never had I seen them play the way the did in Games 2-5. Everyone was moving without the ball. There were almost no isolation plays. LeBron was posting up or attacking the basket, settling for far fewer jumpers. Bosh was constantly fighting for offensive rebounds. Wade lived off backdoor cuts and constant motion as opposed to the isolation heavy offense that he's used to. With the way the Heat played there was not a team in the NBA that could have hoped to stop them.
The one thing I will be critical of the Thunder for is their defense on LeBron James. They continued to put smaller guys like Sefolosha and Harden on LeBron, and he just continued to overpower them and take them to the hoop. The only type of defense that has historically given James trouble is length, which is exactly what Kevin Durant has. I understand that you want to stay out of foul trouble, but Durant should have manned up on James to try to throw off his rhythm. That being said, I don't believe it would have really changed the outcome of the series. LeBron and the Heat were going to find a way to win no matter what, and they did just that.
I look forward to what I believe will become one of the most historic rivalries of all time between the Thunder and the Heat in the upcoming years.
Let us finish with a moment of silence mourning the fact that this will be my final article about the Miami Heat for a while.....and now you can celebrate.
No comments:
Post a Comment