For the NBA Finals, I have stolen two quotes. The first is from a piece with a quote which great SI writer Joe Posnanski himself stole from the original Hustler, with Jackie Gleason and Paul Newman. This is Newman talking, and what he says applies to any athlete who has had "that feeling" at some point in his life. Joe put this in his piece after Lebron's Game 6.
"Why’d I do it Sarah? Why’d I do it? I coulda beat that guy. I coulda beat him cold. He never woulda known. But I just had to show him. I just had to show those creeps and those punks what the game is like when it’s great, when it’s really great. You know, like anything can be great. Anything can be great. I don’t care: Bricklaying can be great … if a guy knows. If he knows what he’s doing and why, and if he can make it come off.
I mean when it’s going, when I’m really going, I feel like … like a jockey must feel. He’s sitting on his horse, he’s got all that speed and that power underneath him. He’s coming into the stretch, the pressure’s on him -- and he knows, just feels, when to let it go, and how much. ‘Cause he’s got everything working for him -- timing, touch. It’s a great feeling, boy. It’s a great feeling when you’re right, and you know you’re right. It’s like all of a sudden I got oil in my arm. Pool cue’s part of me. You know it’s … pool cue’s got nerves in it. It’s a piece of wood, but it’s got nerves in it. You feel the roll of those balls, boy, you don’t have to look. You just know. … You make shots that nobody’s made before you. And you play that game the way nobody’s ever played it before.”
In much fewer words, my brother and uber-skier Mark said the same thing with some fake haiku which fits well into this fake blog;
Wouldn't life be sweet
Living in the rareified air
Elbows
Living in the rareified air
Elbows
above the rim
More than in years past, this Finals is likely to have much "Wow, did you just see that?" -- perhaps more than any other Finals in terms of sheer wow-factor. Reminiscent perhaps of Houston-Louisville from the 1983 Final Four: http://www.youtube.com/watch?
We are guaranteed to see highlight reel dunks from Lebron, "and one" drives from the Dictator and Wade, silky "nothing but net" jumpers and floaters from Durant and Bosh, incredible athleticism from Westbrook, and out of nowhere blocks from Ibaka. Unfortunately, we will also see illegal screens from Perkins -- but with no one on Miami for Perkins to cover, we shouldn't see him on the floor much. Which makes it easier for everyone in LA to root for the Tsunami over the Heat.
Trivia point of the day, which I haven't seen mentioned anywhere else: This is first NBA Finals in which both team names are in the singular. Certainly makes it difficult for all bloggers to know whether to use "is" or "are" when talking about the teams. The Thunder is going to win, the Heat are going to lose, or vice versa
In my Sunday morning game, I ran a contest to pick the winner of the series. Predicting with our hearts, not our minds, we have 12 picks for OKC, 2 for Miami. In truth, with the addition of Bosh to the Heat line-up, the series is as close to a coin flip as one could imagine. As a result, more than any other recent series, it will likely be decided not by the highlight plays listed above, but by the little things, like free throw percentages, getting loose balls and close calls, "live" turnovers that lead to immediate hoops at the other end -- and which team will have a non-Big 3 player step up and win a game or two. OKC was able to prevail over the Spurs because of unexpected contributions from Ibaka, Sefalosha and DFish, and Miami beat Boston with surprising contributions from Battier and Chalmers -- and an unexpected game from Bosh in Game 7. His three 3s were more than he had ever made in any game ever. The fact that he had not made that many in a game is not surprising since he is a career 29% 3-point shooter. Don't expect him to do it again, and don't expect Ibaka to go 11 for 11 in a game either.
The Finals are here. Last year was the first time in a while that one of my teams (Lakers and Spurs) was not in the Finals. That definitely reduced the stress, and had the added advantage of making it easier to sit back and enjoy the show. With these Finals, that will be great -- these Finals should be an absolute blast.
