Can Miami turn up the heat on
Dallas?
By: Larry Fitzgerald
Minnesota
Spokesman-Recorder
Originally posted 6/8/2006
Thursday, June 8, game one of
the NBA Finals will start what promises to be an
intriguing best-of-seven series for the NBA World
Championship between the Dallas Mavericks vs. the Miami
Heat, a match-up of two organizations in the finals for
the very first time.
Dallas was one of three teams that won 60 or more
games during the regular season; the other two, Detroit
(64) and San Antonio (63), played for the championship
last year. This marks the fourth straight year that the
team that led the NBA in wins during the regular season
has failed to win the title; those teams were Indiana,
Dallas, Phoenix and Detroit.
It was Dallas taking out their hated cross-state
rival, the defending champion Spurs, in an epic
best-of-seven series with six games decided on the final
possession, while Miami avenged their loss to the
Pistons in last year¹s Eastern Final, winning four
games to two. Dallas, for the first time in the
franchise¹s 26 years, will open the finals at home and
will have the home-court advantage.
It will be a showdown of finals first-timers ‹
that¹s the first time this has happened in the NBA
since 1971.That year, Baltimore played Milwaukee with
the great Lew Alcindor and Oscar Robertson and lost 4-0.
The Mavericks are superbly coached by the little general
2006 NBA Coach of the Year Avery Johnson.
The Heat are coached by the legendary Pat Riley.
Riley is taking his third team to the finals, after the
³Showtime² Lakers of the ¹80s and the blue-collar
Knicks of the mid-¹90s. He has won four NBA titles.
If Johnson can lead the Mavericks past the Heat, he
will become only the fifth Black coach in history and
the first since 1986 to win the NBA Championship,
joining Bill Russell, Al Attles, K.C. Jones and Lenny
Wilkens.
Both Riley and Johnson have won titles before;
Johnson as a player was the point guard and helped the
Spurs win their first NBA title in 1999 with David
Robinson and Tim Duncan.
The NBA playoffs this year may go down as one of the
best ever when you consider the drama and thrills that
came along the road to these finals. I told you about
the Spurs vs. Mavericks going seven games, two games
decided in overtime. LeBron James was sensational,
leading Cleveland past Washington and Gilbert Arenas in
a seven-game thriller.
Then James and the Cavaliers took the Pistons to the
brink before losing game seven, the Phoenix Suns with
league-MVP Steve Nash coming back from a
3-1 deficit to beat the Los Angeles Lakers and Kobe
Bryant in seven games.
They then took out the Los Angeles Clippers in a
tough seven-game series before losing to Dallas in six
in the Western Finals.
NBA Commissioner David Stern deserves much credit for
some decisions that have worked out like the dress code
for players imposed this season. Both Dallas and Miami
are 12-5. Dallas swept Memphis 4-0, survived the Spurs
4-3, and beat Phoenix 4-2. Miami beat Chicago 4-2,
dominated New Jersey 4-1, and wore down the tired
Pistons 4-2.
Both teams have first-team All-NBA players that have
led the way: Dirk Nowitzki of Dallas and Shaquille
O¹Neal of Miami.
This is the third team that O¹Neal has carried to
the finals: the Los Angeles Lakers, the Orlando Magic,
and now the Heat. He is 3-2 in the finals, but so far he
is 0 for Florida. When he was with the Magic, they were
swept 4-0 by Houston. Can Shaq help bring a parade to
South Beach and Biscayne Boulevard?
Dallas was 2-0 vs. Miami during the regular season,
but the Heat are peaking at the right time. Dwyane Wade
has been a breath of fresh air for the league and the
Heat ‹ he is on the
brink of greatness.
Shaquille has already promised Miami a title, and
both teams are deep with excellent role players like
Josh Howard of Dallas and James Posey and Gary Payton of
Miami. Dallas dethroned the champs and took out the
league MVP Nash and the Suns, while the Heat beat the
Nets, who won an NBA-high 15 straight games, and this
year¹s favorite, Detroit. Call it a hunch ‹
I¹m taking the Heat.
