by Don
published 6/7/07
So after the seemingly endless playoff period, the NBA finals have finally rolled around. As I write this the score of Game 1 is 37-33 Spurs with just half a minute left in the first half. I moved to Cleveland a month and a half ago and the town is pretty excited just to be here. When I came out of the gym downtown after my workout today, folks were already drifting into the Gund Arena for the big watch party. The game is in Texas, but they're showing it up here on a big screen so the fans can gather and scream, yell and spend money on overpriced sports arena food.
San Antonio has been here plenty. If they win this one, I have a feeling they will be receive the "dynasty" tag. Of course, to many who live down in Texas, they already are. Oh how I long for the days of Da Bulls in the 90's or even further back when the Lakers and the Celtics were duking it out and it always go billed as Magic vs. Bird. (40-35 Spurs at the half).
Now there are those out there, especially a two and a half drive around the west side of lake Erie, who will more than intimate that there was some sort of conspiracy to put Cleveland into the finals because the NBA want to turn LeBron into the next Michael Jordan - like their marketing is hurting right now; baseball hasn't even reached the all-star break yet so it's not interesting and the Ducks just buried the Sens 4-1 to take home the oldest active trophy in professional sports and very few south of the Canadian border even took notice. There's no need to pump up the finals; it's the only show in town right now.
Neither team seems to be playing all that well offensively in the first half and the Cavs are still very much in the game. They did beat the Spurs both times they met in the regular season.
Lebron didn't score any points in the first half and I would say Cleveland is very fortunate to be in the game at this point (wow, it just occurred to me that by the time anyone reads this, the game will be waaaay over).
Tim Duncan is definitely going to be leaving his mark on the game after making it to the finals yet again. As much as we've heard about LeBron around here this week, they sure seem to be talking a lot about Duncan and his humble roots in St. Croix. Look for some other veterans out there to make a mark or two before it's all over with - Michael Finley is in his first NBA finals and Robert Horry has been here and I'm sure he'll make his mark . . .well probably by tattooing a key player for the Cavs and knocking him into the third row.
One last note (because I'm such an antagonist of the NO PLAYOFFS for NCAA division 1A football), if the BCS were in charge of the NBA playoffs, the finals would have been between Phoenix (eliminated in the 2nd round) and Dallas (eliminated in the 1st round by the 8th seed out of the west). Who is going to say that neither San Antonio or Cleveland in the champs after this series?
