"It's about damn time"

During the pregame show I heard Mike Wilbon make the first prediction for tonight's game. He said that he was picking the Heat to win it and clinch the title. I was a little bit surprised to hear Chris Broussard ask him if he thought it would be a blowout. A blowout? But then I thought about it a little bit. Yeah, this might be a blowout. The thought hadn't even entered my mind before then, but afterwards, for some reason, a blowout seemed probable.

Then the 3's started raining.

Mike Miller looked like Uncle Wade out there, running down the court like a hobbled old man, draining 3's left and right. The only thing that was missing were some street ball moves and an off-the-backboard throw down. Mario Chalmers drained a couple. Norris Cole came in off the bench, took a charge, and drained a 3-pointer of his own. Shane Battier continued his hot streak in the Finals. Even Chris "The Raptor" Bosh hit one from the corner.

Miami's "Big Three" are all grown up now and have started winning championships. Lebron has figured it out. Tonight's game saw him calming Mario Chalmers down when Mario was starting a premature celebration. "Not yet," James said. That alone showed how much he's matured. He's still a kid at heart, though. Did you see him jumping up and down on the bench when the game was in hand? Even Eddy Curry looked young over there jumping around (that exercise probably did him good). The look on Lebron's face as he held the championship trophy can only be described as the "little kid on Christmas morning" look, and he gave it a big hug.

Thinking back to the actual game, it just seemed like it was decided from early on. The basketball Gods were smiling on Miami. The Thunder never really looked like they were in it. They just didn't have that spring in their step that they usually have. It was Miami's night. Make no mistake, though, this Thunder team will have their night. I have no doubt about that. This one will hurt for a while, just like last year's Finals loss hurt Miami. It was touching to see Kevin Durant hugging his family in the tunnel after the game, tears flowing. He'll be back on that stage again very soon.

Russell Westbrook played a heck of a series. Check out Bill Simmons's column about him.

I picked Miami to win, and I was rooting for them. I was rooting for Lebron. I was ready for all the crap to end. The haters were getting ridiculous. There will still be haters, but Lebron is finally starting to shut them up. And I'm happy for him. In his own words: "It's about damn time."

As much as it pains me to say this as a Bulls fan, the rest of the NBA should be very worried at this point. Happy Gilmore said it best: "Happy learned how to putt...Uh-oh." Lebron has figured it out. Lebron learned how to win........Uh-oh.

Lebron vs Durant

Awwwwwww yeah! We've got the top two MVP candidates from this year facing off in the finals. I really hope they guard each other so we can just watch them duke it out. There are gonna be some other great match-ups as well. Battier will probably be guarding the Beard and we'll probably see a showdown between Russell Westbrook and Dwyane Wade. I give the edge to Westbrook because Wade has knees comparable to Greg Oden's. It's a good thing he doesn't play for Portland. It's becoming an epidemic over there.

As for the Lebron/Durant match-up, I give the edge to Lebron. I know I said in my last post that I thought the Thunder would win the Finals, but I'm changing my mind. I think this is Lebron's year to get that first ring. I say Miami will win it in 7. Yes, in OKC. You heard it here first. And let's hope that the Heat have one of those don't-shave-until-we-win-the-title things going so they can shave all those nasty beards they have.

The Finals

I was trying to figure out how to describe the look on Lebron's face last night when he was completely dominating that game. He was in his own world - a world that very few people can journey to. It's the world that Michael Jordan would go to when he would simply refuse to lose. Lebron was not going to lose last night. It didn't matter what the circumstances were. Bill Simmons said put it really well in the last part of his column from today; last night's game was a defining moment in Lebron's career. There was tons of talk about what the Heat would do in the offseason. Should they break up the big 3? Should Spoelstra go? There would inevitably be another tidal wave of criticism directed at Lebron if Miami lost. He decided he had to just take this game into his own hands. He decided that he was going to make it clear that even if his team did lose, there was no way he could be the one to blame.

Now that last night's game happened, I'm not so sure about picking the Thunder to win the Finals. If Lebron can play like that then there might not be much that OKC can do. This is assuming that Miami beats Boston in game 7 tomorrow night, of course, which I think they will.

Honestly, though, I think I will be rooting for Boston. I think the old Celtics putting it together for one more run at the title is a cooler story. Ever since Chicago's and LA's 3-peats we haven't seen another team do it. I like watching amazing runs like that - dynasties. Lebron was supposed to have given us that at least once by this time in his career, but he hasn't. He still could, but I don't know if he's going to come into game 7 with the same mentality as he had in game 6 and which should be his mentality every time he steps on the court. Every time he steps on the court he should be thinking, I'm the best player on this court and I'm going to prove it. That's what Michael Jordan did. You might hurt some people's feelings, Lebron, but if you want to be on MJ's level you have to bring that game 6 mentality every game. So it will be interesting to see who wins tomorrow night. Lebron can take his team to the Finals if he wants to. Otherwise, Boston will continue their improbable run. It's a win-win situation. My brain says the Heat will win, but my more poetic side hopes Boston pulls it out.

Euro 2012 started today with some awesome games. There were seven goals scored in the two games. Russia dismantled the Czech Republic 4-1 and co-hosts Poland tied Greece 1-1. ESPN is doing some great coverage. Both games were on ESPN today and all of the games can be seen on ESPN 3 as well. I like the crew they've got covering the games. Bob Ley leads a panel with former USA National team member Alexi Lalas and long-time German captain Michael Ballack. It's fun to hear what Ballack has to say from his experiences playing alongside and/or against many of the best players in this tournament. The only thing is that he struggles a little bit with his English. He seems to lack a little bit of confidence with it. It's a little bit awkward and you get a little bit anxious trying to figure out what he's saying. It's kind of like listening to Shaq, only Ballack is somewhat incoherent for more legitimate reasons rather than just being too lazy to open his mouth all the way when he talks.

My beloved Romania didn't make the tournament. *Sigh*. Too bad there are very few Romanians that are proud of their country and want to stay there. They probably lose a lot of young talent because guys go and get dual citizenship and try to play in another country. They can't quite pull a Jurgen Klinsmann and convince foreigners to get dual citizenship to play for their team. Hopefully it starts working out better for the US team than it has so far under Jurgen.

Now that I'm off that tangent I'll go ahead and say that I'll be rooting for Germany. I took German in high school and am currently minoring in German at BYU, so I guess they're the only participant in Euro 2012 that I have any ties to. Hai Germania! (Imi ceri scuze, Romanilor).

Here's to hoping we have some Zinedine Zidane head-butt type of drama in this tournament. Soccer would have more American fans if it became a little bit more like hockey. Why not let them fight a little bit, eh? Just kidding...but seriously.

Amazing

Well I guess I'm finally over the nightmare of a playoffs that the Bulls had. There is some recent good news, though. And there's talk that Chicago's gonna bring in Jason Kidd (or Steve Nash) as a temporary semi-solution for Rose being out. I'd be okay with that, but let's get on to what's happening in the playoffs now.

I just watched one of the best performances in a half in NBA playoff history as Lebron James scored 30 points on 12-14 shooting from the field while playing every second of that half. He was making shot after shot, and everything he threw up was going in (except a few free throws, ironically). After every shot he was just stone-faced, no emotion. You could see in his expression that there's no way he's gonna let his team lose tonight and be eliminated. He looks extremely confident, and you can tell that absolutely nothing else matters to him right now besides winning this game. I have a hard time believing that Miami won't.

Meanwhile, I heard a crazy statistic about what Kevin Garnett is doing in these playoffs. Right now he is averaging 19.9 points and over 10 rebounds per game. If he finishes the playoffs with those numbers, he would be the first player ever to average 20 and 10 (letting him have that missing 0.1 ppg) throughout the playoffs. Surprising, right? I heard that from one of the commentators today but I don't remember which one, so I hope I'm not leading you astray. If it is true, that's pretty amazing coming from 36 year-old Garnett in his 17th season in the NBA.

I have a hard time believing that either the Celtics or the Heat can beat the Thunder in the NBA Finals. After the first two games of the Western Conference Finals, I was thinking (as I'm sure many others were) that the Spurs were simply untouchable. Then something changed. I don't really know what it was exactly, and maybe it was a combination of things, but the Thunder just transformed. I remember thinking that the series was all but over after game 2. How could OKC beat the untouchable Spurs four out of five games to win the series? They not only did that, but they won four straight, including a game five win in San Antonio. Wow. That's amazing. We could be witnessing the start of a dynasty as long as this team stays together. No matter who comes out of the East, I'm picking the Thunder.