NBA Finals Preview

This NBA Finals Matchup is one of those rare years where I don’t like either of the teams, but at the same time I don’t hate one of them bad enough to automatically root for their opponent. It’s not quite as bad as the ultimate worst championship matchup ever – the 2001 NY Giants-Baltimore Ravens Super Bowl – but it’s up there. What’s wrong with these teams you ask? Well let’s start with the team I’ll be routing for:

MIAMI HEAT

#1 The NY Knicks-Miami Heat rivalry circa 1996-2000.

These hated rivals went head to head for the Altantic Division title every year during this era and battled through 3 grueling playoff series. I couldn’t stand guys like Tim Hardaway, Alonzo Mourning, Bruce Bowen, and of course PJ Brown, whose gutless flip of Charlie Ward led to 4 Knick suspensions and a resulting 3-1 come-from-behind-series victory in the 2nd Round of the 1997 Playoffs. I’m not saying the Knicks would have knocked of Chicago in the Conference Finals, but that team was playing some great basketball and featured a still dominant Patrick Ewing as well as Allan Houston, LJ, John Starks, Charles Oakley, and Chris Childs. At the very least the series would have gone 6 games and given us another chapter of Knicks-Bulls from the 90s.

#2 Miami Heat fans and their gay white shirts

Do I even need to add commentary?

#3 Antoine Walker, Alonzo Mourning, and Gary Payton

All 3 of these guys were at one time in my good graces, but through team changes, annoying antics, and generally just doing prickish things, they’ve fallen into my most despised players category in the NBA. I liked Walker at Kentucky and even briefly in Boston, but his unnecessary taunting of Larry Brown in Boston’s Game 5 series clinching victory over the Sixers back in 2002 was the final straw. Not only did I have to witness his ridiculous Mark Jackson style “Shimmy” when he made routine shots, but now he directed it at Larry Brown after making a 3-pointer in the 4th Quarter of a blowout against my boys. Mourning is from VA and went to Georgetown so that makes him a favorite in the DC area for the most part. But just watching him posture after making an “And One” shot, or getting a block annoys the hell out of me. If I saw him flex his bicep one more time in the series against the Wizards in 2005 after a block…well I wouldn’t have done anything other than yell at the TV, but it pissed me off. That, along with the aforementioned Knicks-Heat battles, the LJ-Zo-Van Gundy Brawl, I just don’t like the guy as a player. Payton, he just comes off as someone who I would never want on my team.

#4 Dwayne Wade’s Posturing

I love Wade’s game, he’s an absolute beast, no doubt about it. I just wish he’d cut out the tough guy-I’m sooo good-looks he gives after making a tough shot, and his preening and posturing to the crowd in those situations. He doesn’t need to do that.

DALLAS MAVERICKS

#1 Dirk Nowitzki.

I had a tough time answering the question of why I don’t like Dirk when B-Real asked me last night. I can’t really point to one reason but I guess it is a combination of things. I guess I’ve always viewed certain types of players as having the indefinable quality of being Championship-Worthy and Dirk doesn’t fit the bill. I don’t know if it’s because he’s ridiculously ugly and has a mullet, or that I’ve always thought of him as a soft European, but the thought of him having a ring while AI doesn’t just bothers me. And that, above all else, is why I don’t want to see Dallas win.

#2 Mark Cuban.

In all fairness, he’s not that bad sometimes. Other times he just reminds me of that smart, nerdy kid in your algebra class who after college makes a ton of money and comes out of his shell and tries to be cool. But to the people who went to middle school or high school with him he’ll always be that Russ from your algebra class.

#3 The City of Dallas.

It’s not enough that I had to suffer through the 3 titles that the Cowboys won in the early to mid-nineties, but now I have to watch former Eagle and self-serving ninny Terrell Owens wear one of those hideous blue, white, and silver uniforms and play against the Eagles twice a year. I hate Dallas.

As far as the series goes, I don’t think the Heat match-up well with the Mavs. They don’t have anyone capable of guarding Dirk over a 7-game series. There’s no one that Antoine Walker can guard between Howard and Dirk. Aside from Wade and Shaq, the Heat offense consists of perimeter players whose only skill is the ability to spot up for a 3 and wait for the ball. Between Posey, GP, Williams, Mourning, Haslem, and Walker you don’t have much in terms of creating offense. Add to that the fact that Dallas has 2 big bodies in Diop and Dampier to throw at Shaq and it has the feel of a 4-2 Series victory for the Mavericks. Get worse.

Movie Quote Trivia:

I can't believe you brought my daughter to this place.

Woah. Why don't you just back the fuck up, man? "To this place"? What is that shit? Ok, right now, all over this great nation of ours, 'hundred thousand white people from the suburbs are cruisin' around downtown asking every black person they see "You got any drugs? You know where I can score some drugs?" *Think* about the effect that that has on the psyche of a black person, on their possibilities. I... God I guarantee you bring a hundred thousand black people into your neighborhood, into fuckin' Indian Hills, and they're asking every white person they see "You got any drugs? You know where I can score some drugs?", within a *day* everyone would be selling. Your friends. Their kids. Here's why: it's an unbeatable market force man. It's a three-hundred percent markup value. You can go out on the street and make five-hundred dollars in two hours, come back and do whatever you want to do with the rest of your day and, I'm sorry, you're telling me that... you're telling me that white people would still be going to law school?

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