It occurs to me that we never posted anything on the 2014 NBA Finals. You will recall that I had decided not to watch any NBA playoff game until the Heat had lost three times. So here's how the NBA Finals went:
6/5/14 (in San Antonio): San Antonio 110, Miami 95
6/8/14 (in San Antonio): Miami 98, San Antonio 96
Well, I thought, LeBron and company got a split in San Antonio, so they're in really good shape, especially with the next two games in Miami. There's no reason to tune in yet. Then this happened:
6/10/14 (in Miami): San Antonio 111, Miami 92
6/12/14 (in Miami): San Antonio 107, Miami 86
Whoa! I said to myself, what is going on here? Miami doesn't usually get blown out at home, and they certainly don't get blown out at home twice in a row. Anyway, now they've lost three times, so I should tune in for Game 5:
6/15/14 (in San Antonio): San Antonio 104, Miami 87
The Heat, making their last stand, jumped out to a brave 22-6 lead -- and then San Antonio just killed them. By halftime the Spurs were up 47-40, and it got really ugly after that.
I didn't see much of this series -- or the whole season, for that matter -- but it turned out to be an important one. It was the last hurrah for the Miami Heat, as LeBron left after the season to go back to Cleveland. And it stamped the Spurs as one of the all-time great franchises. The Spurs had won in 1999 (strike year), 2003, 2005, and 2007 (years that were after the Shaq/Kobe years but before LeBron had really gotten great). None of their titles, in other words, had come from beating a great player on a great team in his prime. This year was different. Miami had the greatest player in the world, and they were two-time defending champions who had just beaten San Antonio the year before. You don't get much more lordly than that -- and the Spurs just smoked them. Now the list of NBA titles by Coach looks like this:
Phil Jackson -- 11
Red Auerbach -- 9
Gregg Popovich, Pat Riley, and John Kundla (of the old Minneapolis Lakers) -- 5
No one else has more than two. That's history, no matter how you slice it.
I'm finding myself looking over the boxscores already this new NBA season. The Wizards are 2-1, even with Bradley Beal sidelined. Also, there are so many UK guys scattered around the rosters now that it's fun to see how everyone did (I am very concerned about Darius Miller's future in New Orleans, however). And WKU's Courtney Lee, Murray State's Isaiah Canaan and Morehead State's Kenneth Faried are starters in Memphis, Houston and Denver, respectively.
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