NBA Finals Preview

Oklahoma City.  Miami

The two cities couldn't be more different, with one being a laid back mid-western town and the other a warm weather hot spot thriving with exotic night life.  Let's just say that only one of those cities is considered to be a popular vacation destination.  The culture and lifestyle of the two cities are vastly different.

Their basketball teams?  In some ways they are similar, but in other ways they couldn't be any more different.  Kind of like the cities they reside in.

Let's get the obvious similarity out of the way first.  Both teams are built around the star power of their top three players.  Miami boasts a trio headlined by arguably two of the top five players in the league, including the reigning MVP, to go along with a third perennial All-Star.  OKC has a star that has led the league in scoring in each of the past three seasons, despite the emergence of his star sidekick and the league's best sixth man.  LeBron, Wade and Bosh vs. Durant, Westbrook and Harden.  That's how the NBA Finals is being marketed, and with good reason.  This is a league that loves star power.

After that, the differences become more noticeable.  You can start by looking at how the teams were built.  The Heat gutted their roster to free up the necessary cap space to sign their three stars and filled in the rest of their roster with little financial flexibility for a quick fix rise to the top.  The Thunder took a slower, more methodical model for building themselves into a contender.  It started with bottoming out for a high lottery pick, which luckily turned out to be an elite player in Durant, that they could build around.  It took a few more losing years that netted them a couple more high lottery picks to build their core with the additions of Westbrook and Harden.  While it was a slower, more painful rebuilding process than what the Heat went through and required a bit of luck along the way (they can thank at least a few teams that picked ahead of them in those recent drafts for allowing those three stars to fall to them), this model is likely more sustainable.  They are built around young players on cheaper contracts, which along with some shrewed team building by GM Sam Presti, has allowed the Thunder to fill out their roster with other young, reasonably priced talent.  While both teams may be top heavy with their trio of stars at the top, the drop off in talent after their star players isn't nearly as drastic as it is for Miami. 

The Heat are led by LeBron, who has been vilified for his decision to bolt his hometown franchise to take his talents to South Beach.  The Thunder have Durant, who is praised for committing long term to a small market team rather than chase the bright lights of a big city, as so many other players of his caliber have done.  LeBron is all about building his brand.  Durant is more laid back and tends to shy away from the spotlight when possible.  Durant is the league's best pure scorer, but LeBron is the best all around player.

The teams took very different paths to get to their place in the Finals.  Miami took advantage of an Eastern Conference crippled by injuries.  The loss of Derrick Rose and Dwight Howard helped the Heat avoid match ups against teams that could potentially have derailed their path.  A severely banged up Boston team came within minutes of doing just that.  Miami may be the conference's best team and could very well have advanced this far anyway, as they did last year, but there's no question that circumstances made their path easier.  As for the Thunder, they had the challenge of going through the Mavericks, Lakers and Spurs - the only three teams that have represented the West in the Finals since 1998, until now.  It's also worth noting that each team saw their playoff hopes come to an end last year at the hand of the champion Mavericks, who were swiftly swept by the Thunder this time around.

Ok, so we've established how these two teams differ from one another, but which team is better?  Miami's Big Three might have the slightest edge over the Thunder's (although that gap is quickly narrowing), but OKC has better role players.  OKC was a better offensive team (107.1 offensive efficiency) while Miami was the better defensive squad (104.3 defensive efficiency), but both teams ranked in the top 10 in each.  OKC had the worst Turnover Ratio in the league, but Miami wasn't far behind when it came to not taking care of the ball.  Statistically, these two teams are about as even as you are likely to find in a Finals match up.

The LeBron vs. Durant match up will be fun to watch, as they are currently the league's top players.  If there is any wing player capable of slowing down Durant, it may be LeBron.  Durant still has a length advantage that should allow him to shoot over him, so he can still be deadly from mid-long range, but LeBron's strength should keep him from getting the easy baskets in the paint.  On the other end, LeBron can muscle his way past Durant to get to the basket, but the rim will be protected by Serge Ibaka - the league's leading shot blocker by a mile - and the tough as nails Kendrick Perkins.  Miami has no such shot blocking threat in their undersized front court, so it will be up to LeBron to stay in front of Durant and hope he misses some jump shots. 

A wild card in this series could be the off the bench production of James Harden.  Make no mistake, despite his label as the 6th man, Harden is easily the team's third most important player behind Durant and Westbrook.  Presumably, the Thunder will at least start the series with Thabo Sefolosha as the starter to match up defensively against Dwyane Wade, but expect Harden to get the majority of the minutes at the two guard spot, including the crunch time minutes down the stretch.  Miami isn't likely to sit any of their stars for extended periods, but Harden is still likely to see a decent amount of time against Miami's thin bench.  While the other stars are getting a breather, Harden should be able to take over the game for short stretches at a time.  His impact could be slightly negated if Miami continues to bring Chris Bosh off the bench, but once he's fully healthy we should assume Bosh will reclaim his starting spot at some point in this series, if not from the start.  If Bosh does continue to lead the second unit, OKC can bring in Nick Collison, their best pick and role defender, to cover him.  Miami has no such answer on their bench for Harden, which means they may be forced to push LeBron and Wade with heavier workloads to help hide their flawed bench.  The same thing happened in last year's Finals when the Heat ran up against a deeper Dallas team and the Heat stars noticeably ran out of gas toward the end.

Overall, these teams are very even.  They both finished the regular season second in their respective conferences and even split their regular season meetings.  It should be a closely contested series that could very well go the full seven games.  With OKC having home court advantage, that should give them the edge they need to beat the Heat.

Prediction: OKC Thunder in 7