Column: RICK SOLEM
ricks@mwfbroadcasting.com
Game 7: This is all I wanted, one game for the championship.
It makes you kind of wish every sport had a one-game playoff like the two most popular postseasons – the NFL and the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
But, here we go, one game between two teams that are so unalike.
There’s the homegrown San Antonio Spurs who’ve been at this since 1999 with Tim Duncan and then a year later with Tony Parker and Manu Ginobli – all players drafted by the Spurs.
And then there’s the Miami Heat with Dwayne Wade, LeBron James … and I guess I have to add Chris Bosh, but only because he makes a ridiculous salary, the three players who teamed up to dominate the NBA.
Clearly, they’ve done so, but I say they don’t repeat tonight.
Had Danny Green gone off last game, like he’s done all series, I would say the Spurs don’t repeat, because nobody can shoot that well from beyond the arc for that many games in a row. The Heat did let him go off for a ridiculously long time, though.
But the fact that he didn’t and the Spurs kind of threw away Game 6 down the stretch, solidifies the fact that they’re the better team and will win tonight on the road.
They should have won last game, but didn’t, blew out the Heat in Game 5 and could have had Game 4 had Tony Parker not hampered by his hamstring in the second half. And they’ve already won at Miami in Game 1, so they’ve shown it can be done.
Plus, it’s just karma that they win tonight with the homegrown guys about ready to retire rather than the Big 2 and Bosh who teamed up because they couldn’t win on their own.
That said, they don’t have the best player on the court. And LeBron James is known to go off in certain situations, like he did in the fourth quarter last game. He was 8-for-14 in the fourth and 3-for-12 in the first three quarters.
Sometimes James is that monster that nobody can guard and he makes everything. Will he be tonight? I have a funny feeling he just might.