Tonight is Game 1 of the NBA Finals, and the buzz is palpable. Can the Heat draw on last year’s disappointment as motivation? Is the stage too big and bright for the youth of the Thunder? Which team will get its vaunted transition game going? And if it is a one-possession game in the final minute, will LeBron James again become a shrinking violet or impose his newly indomitable will? We all want to see a competitive series with no shortage of spectacular
OKLAHOMA CITY — There is an age-old truism pertaining to the NBA Finals that pertains to the question of old age. Young teams rarely, and we mean very rarely, win NBA championships. If the Oklahoma City Thunder somehow manage to emerge from the NBA Finals victorious, they’d be the first team with such a young nucleus to win the title since the Portland Trail Blazers in 1977 — a topic that our Hall of Fame columnist, Mark Heisler, addressed in his column
// Watch the above video for my reasoning. And by the way, I am the only person on the SheridanHoops staff to pick Thunder in 5. For all of our staff’s picks, click here. (Disclaimer: The prediction business is a tricky one. I had Heat in 7 last round, but I also had Spurs in 5.) And back in the day when I was with ESPN, I was the only guy who said there was only a 10 percent chance that LeBron
Now to let the Young Guns shoot it out. … If you’re going to hear that a lot the next week or two, some of these guns are a lot younger than others. By 2007, when LeBron James and Dwyane Wade had both been in NBA Finals, Kevin Durant had yet to be drafted; Russell Westbrook was an unheralded UCLA freshman who had played nine minutes a game; and James Harden was even less heralded as a high school sophomore. Durant, Westbrook and
At the beginning of the season, Chris Sheridan polled our writers and asked for their predictions on a number of things, including the NBA Finals matchup and eventual winner. Chris Perkins, Chris Silva, and I picked the Thunder and the Heat to represent their respective conferences, and all three of us picked the Heat to win the whole thing. See for yourself. In the interest of full disclosure, though, I’ll point out that along the way, I changed my East pick to
It is Chris Bosh’s lot in life to be the third member of the “Big Three.” In the Heat heirarchy, he always is placed behind LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, whose games are more captivating and awe-inspiring. He was mocked last season for crying after a string of tough losses. In this postseason, his nine-game absence due to an abdominal strain was somewhat minimized when James and Wade snapped out of their doldrums and put together an awesome two-pronged attack that obliterated
MIAMI – Crown him again. LeBron James, the most scrutinized athlete on the planet, is, indeed, The King. King of the Miami Heat, that is. He proved it again Saturday while leading his Miami Heat (yes, His Miami Heat) to a 101-88 Game 7 victory against Boston in the Eastern Conference finals. Step aside, Dwyane Wade. This is now LeBron’s team, and that’s not a bad thing. “He’s the best basketball player in the world,” Heat forward Chris Bosh said. James finished Game 7 with 31
There is no basketball game on Friday night, which means you can take some time to read about what’s going on around the league, from LeBron James’ epic performance, David Stern’s thoughts on the draft lottery, Indiana’s next move, and much more. Did you see how many shots LeBron James missed in Game 6? You can see every single one of them in this video. Really, though, was James’ performance on Thursday night the best he has ever put on? Statistically, no.