2013 NBA Finals Game 1
Date: June 6, 2013
Time: 9:00 p.m.
Location: AmericanAirlines Arena (Miami, FL)
TV: ABC
The NBA Finals will tip off on Thursday with the Miami Heat battling the San Antonio Spurs. The league is sometimes dealt a bad hand with uninteresting championship series’, but that’s not the case this year.
On one hand, you’ve got the Miami Heat. The Heat are in their third consecutive finals and are looking to win back-to-back titles for the first time. Meanwhile, the Spurs’ trio of stars, Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili, are in pursuit of their fourth championship in only nine seasons. San Antonio hasn’t always produced high ratings numbers, but a Heat-Spurs finals should be a solid draw for the NBA.
Duncan, in particular, has a chance to really accomplish something special. He’s the only one of the three San Antonio veterans that has been there for all four titles and with a fifth, he has a chance to make his legacy even greater. Five titles will put him into very select category and the fact that he’s had a leading role on all five means it’s even more impressive. Duncan is already considered by some as the best power forward in the history of the league and with a fifth championship, that talk will gain even more traction. With all due respect to the Spurs, though, the bigger storylines are Heat-related.
For one, LeBron James hopes to enact a measure of revenge against San Antonio, who swept James’ Cleveland Cavaliers back in 2007. To be fair, James is a much better player than he was then and has proven his ability to win a title last year. But be sure that someone as competitive as him surely wants to give the Spurs a little payback.
Miami is also looking for a second straight championship. And not to get too far ahead of ourselves, but if they manage to win, all talk immediately moves to them as the favorite to win a three-peat next year – one of the latest barometers of all-time greatness. With a third straight championship, perhaps James gets intrigued enough to stay in Miami beyond 2014 when his contract expires to see just how many more they can win.
Focusing on the series itself, as I said in my keys to victory on Wednesday, one huge factor will be how the rebounding battle goes down. The Heat don’t need to outrebound San Antonio – they proved in the Indiana series that even while losing the battle of the boards, they can still come out on top. But if it’s not even close as it wasn’t in some of their games to date, Miami will have their hands full. The Heat aren’t playing an inexperienced squad here and when the Spurs are on their game, they’re incredibly efficient. With a huge edge on the boards, it’s difficult to see them losing.
One area of concern for the Heat? They haven’t come out and taken control in Game 1s this postseason. After an easy series-opening victory against the Milwaukee Bucks in the first round of the playoffs, they dropped Game 1 against the Chicago Bulls in the conference semifinals. They won the first game against Indiana in the last series, but only on a last-second layup by James in overtime. For whatever reason, the team has had their struggles in those opening contests.
Meanwhile the Spurs have been perfect in Game 1s against their opposition, winning by an average margin of 12 points a game. Not only that, but San Antonio is also a perfect 3-0 in their first road game of every series. If the Spurs can find a way to win on Thursday night, Miami will start feeling the pressure.
