The 2013 NBA Finals were really good ... just not classic. Game 6 was a classic and Games 1 and 7 were very competitive, but there were four big-time blowouts in this series and that makes me hesitant to call this one of the great Finals.
Two main reasons why I cannot call this a classic series:
BLOWOUTS: The middle four games were blowouts with two of the games just embarrassingly bad. The Miami Heat had a 27-point lead at one point in Game 2 before winning by 19. In Game 3, the San Antonio Spurs beat Miami by 36 points ... one of the worst Finals beatdowns in history. In Game 4, Miami took control of the game in the second half and won by 16. Game 5 saw a reversal, with the Spurs taking the game over with a huge lead before winning by 'only' ten.
Sure, Game 6 was a classic and Game 7 was close. Those two games ... plus the fact that the series didn't see one team win consecutive games until those final two games ... make people believe the series was great. The series was close, but the games weren't.
REALLY, REALLY BAD PLAY: Look, guys have bad series and games within series. It has happened in every Finals. But this one was very odd in how bad these superstars had looked.
Just look at Game 7 for example. Chris Bosh finished with ZERO points. Miami starters Bosh and Mike Miller, along with super sub Ray Allen combined for 0 points on 0-14 shooting in Game 7. Tony Parker, who was the leading candidate for Finals MVP if the Spurs won, shot 3-for-12 in this one. Danny Green went 1-for-12.
Manu Ginobili was horrible in nearly every game (Game 5 was the obvious exception). Dwyane Wade had some very subpar games. Aside from Parker early, Duncan late and LeBron James' performance, the star power had a lot of blackouts.
1 comment:
Greatest in my lifetime by far. There were plotlines within plotlines; strategies within strategies. Those blowouts were just one team capitalizing on the weakness of the other team and the other team finding ways to exploit the other team. Both were evenly matched game by game. You see war of attrition in its finest.
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