In this corner…
The San Antonio Spurs are heavily favored because of their experience. They have an experienced coach, an experienced front office, an experienced superstar in Tim Duncan, an experienced but young point guard in Tony Parker, and experienced role-players such as Manu Ginobili, Brent Barry, Robert Horry, and Michael Finley.
They are the oldest team in the NBA. Of course, they have experience, but these guys take experience to a new level.
In the other corner…
They are matched up against young Lebron James and his group of fellow young ‘uns.
The Cleveland Cavaliers had not really been very good for a long time. The last good team I can remember is when Price, Nance, Daugherty, and other notables were playing Michael Jordan and the Bulls. They dropped to an exceptional low when they got the first pick in the draft and chose the much hyped Lebron James.
He has a few teammates who have stepped up at various times in these playoffs (e.g. rookie Daniel Gibson’s heroics in game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals can’t be forgotten), so it hasn’t entirely been a one man show, but the bulk of the playmaking can be attributed to Lebron James.
Their coach is young and inexperienced. Their front office has made a few major errors, most notably allowing Carlos Boozer to escape to Utah. Even the older players on the team have not played in many post-season games, with the possible exception of Eric Snow who made a good run with the Philadelphia 76ers.
The Matchups
The regular season saw the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the San Antonio Spurs twice, once at Cleveland and once at San Antonio. It has been a long time since the San Antonio Spurs have beaten the Cavaliers.
Detroit didn’t have an answer for Lebron James, and even when Lebron had a sub-par game, Detroit still lost to the rest of the Cavaliers.
Cleveland had to beat an experienced New Jersey Nets team and an even better Detroit Pistons team to get here. Going against experienced teams has not seemed to be much of an issue. Chauncey Billups and Jason Kidd are among the best point guards in the business. Cleveland beat them both.
San Antonio had to beat a very good Denver Nuggets team, a very good Phoenix Suns team, and a very good Utah Jazz team to get through the Western Conference. They did not have an easy road. In fact, it could be argued that they had the hardest road of any team in the playoffs. And no team in the playoffs have beaten them three times, let alone the four required to win the series.
And the Spurs play of late has been stellar.
The Series
It seems to me that one cannot overlook the fact that Cleveland won both games in the regular season, although most people have tended to overlook that. That’s why Golden State could beat the Dallas Mavericks. The matchup problems that showed up in the regular season were still there in the post-season.
San Antonio has the home-court advantage, although the Spurs have lost at home and won on the road in the post-season so this may not make much of a difference.
The NBA Finals format changes to a 2-3-2 format, rather than the 2-2-1-1-1 format that we have seen in the previous rounds. People have various theories on this, including pointing out how difficult it is to win the middle three home games for the team with the worse record. I can’t say that this will make much of a difference in this series, although I think it would bode very well for Cleveland to steal one of the first two games at San Antonio.
I’ll be rooting for Lebron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers the whole way, but for my prediction I’m going to pick the Spurs in a very tough fought battle. Prediction: Spurs in 7.
I hope I’m wrong.
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