Five Things I'm Looking for in the NBA Finals

Quick update: I know it's been a while since my last post, and that's on me. I've been busy with work and busy working on my offseason college football preview. I've finished my All-Conference teams for the ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Pac-12, and SEC and completed most of my summer Top 25. All that's left is for me to finish my conference previews and predictions. In the meantime, I decided to write a quick post about the upcoming NBA Finals. Here are a few of the storylines and matchups I'll be looking at closely in this series.

5. Small ball versus big ball
Both Oklahoma City and Miami have enjoyed success in the playoffs brought about by moving their superstar small forward to the power forward position and playing small ball. Miami's move was necessitated by the injury to Chris Bosh and their lack of depth along the front line. Strictly speaking, Oklahoma City didn't have to move Durant to win the Western Conference finals. They did it for matchups against the Spurs.
In this series, it's clear that OKC's biggest advantage is along the front line, where they can trot out Kendrick Perkins, Serge Ibaka, and Nick Collison to do battle with Chris Bosh, Joel Anthony, Udonis Haslem, and Ronny Turiaf. With San Antonio off the schedule, Oklahoma City can go back to playing big- but that may change if the Heat stay with their Haslem/Bosh-LeBron-Shane Battier-Dwyane Wade-Mario Chalmers lineup. I really don't know what to expect. Foul trouble on a guy like Ibaka, Bosh, or Perkins could swing entire halves of games. Which brings me to my next point...

4. Refereeing
I know, I know. You hate refs. I hate refs. We all hate NBA refs and we would all enjoy our lives a little bit more if we never had to learn any of their names. Sadly, that's just not the case and they'll be out there with the Heat and Thunder for game one on Tuesday. Historically, referees tend to favor home teams. You'd think, then, that I'm about to say "Matchup: OKC." I suppose I could simply count the number of home games and make that assertion, but I won't. The NBA Finals' 2-3-2 format is an extremely interesting alignment. Suppose Miami wins one or both of the first two games in Oklahoma. Then they get to go back to South Beach with a chance at winning two or three of the next three games in their home arena. Assuming they win one of the first two games, the series could be over before it returns to Oklahoma City and Miami will have played three games at home to the Thunder's two. Some may argue that's not fair, but them's the breaks, I guess.

3. James Harden's Beard
Truthfully, this should just read, "Who the hell is going to guard Harden for the Heat in this series?" I just love that beard too much not to make a ton of passing references to it. Anyway, it's pretty obvious to see what the matchups look like in the Finals. I'm assuming that Miami will resume starting Chris Bosh, move LeBron back to SF where he belongs, move Shane Battier to the bench and make Udonis Haslem or Joel Anthony a starter again. The only matchups we can guarantee are that Anthony or Haslem will guard Perkins, Bosh will guard Ibaka, and LeBron will guard Durant. How the backcourt matchup between Dwyane Wade and Mario Chalmers and Russell Westbrook and James Harden lines up will be very interesting. To start, I expect Miami will slide Chalmers onto Harden and make Wade cover Westbrook. If Harden starts destroying Chalmers, don't be shocked if Chalmers gets benched and Shane Battier makes an appearance in a weird Wade-James-Battier-Bosh-Anthony lineup now and then.

2. Will the real Dwyane Wade please stand up?
In a span of a few weeks, Wade went from reminding us why he won the Finals MVP in 2006 to "he's hurt again." I'll keep this brief. Wade needs to bring his A game for this Finals. He'll be covering Westbrook and Harden for the overwhelming majority of the series, so he'll need to stay out of foul trouble while also getting his off of OKC's young perimeter players and drawing fouls on their bigs. The Thunder aren't as good defensively as the Pacers or Celtics, so Wade will find getting his points a lot easier. He just needs to stay on the court and play good defense. That means he should quit squawking at the refs and get back on defense more often. You know Westbrook and Harden won't stop and wait for him.

1. The LeBron James-Kevin Durant Matchup
Of course this is number one. It seems like everyone and their dog is hyperinterested in this particular matchup, and I'm no different. To me, it kind of hearkens back to the 1992 Finals between Portland and Chicago, where one of the top stories was Michael Jordan against Clyde Drexler for the title of best shooting guard in the NBA. Of course, we all remember what happened. Jordan went nuts and out-played Drexler basically the whole series. Drexler was never the same player afterwards.
Fast forward to 2012, and a similar debate over who the better player between LeBron and Durant rages. On a national level, this series will choose for the public who the best player in the NBA is now. It's a stupid premise, but it exists. Personally, I'd need to see Durant become one of the NBA's five best on-ball defenders, assist men, and start rebounding at a higher level. Basketball is such a multifaceted and complex sport to analyze (just look at the last 10 NBA drafts) with so many different skills within its framework that I have a hard time saying a guy who is better at more different elements isn't as good as a player who's not. Durant is comfortably a top-3 NBA player, and that's an absolute worst-case scenario.

Here's a look at how LeBron and Durant have fared against each other (Courtesy of basketball-reference.com)

Player         G W L GS   MP  FG  FGA  FG%  3P 3PA  3P%  FT FTA  FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV  PF  PTS
LeBron James   9 7 2  9 37.4 9.7 19.4 .497 2.0 4.9 .409 5.4 7.2 .754 0.6 5.3 5.9 7.1 2.4 1.2 2.8 1.4 26.8
Kevin Durant   9 2 7  9 39.7 9.4 19.9 .475 2.0 4.0 .500 6.4 7.7 .841 0.9 5.4 6.3 2.9 1.7 0.7 3.7 1.8 27.3

Pretty similar.
I will say this for Durant- this will be the most difficult series of his entire life. He's never faced a player with the defensive capability of LeBron in a playoff series and this is his first go-round in the NBA Finals. As stated earlier, Miami has a humongous advantage over the Thunder in Finals experience. LeBron knows the stakes a heck of a lot more than Durant and will be extra motivated to win this series. When LeBron isn't guarding Durant, Shane Battier will. Durant's work is cut out for him.


The prediction:

Everyone likes Oklahoma City in this matchup and they probably should be favored. I disagree, and will stick with my preseason prediction of Miami over Oklahoma City in 6. LeBron wins his first ring and Skip Bayless immolates himself on national television. And there was much rejoicing.